🐎 Horse racing, haunted mansions, Friday, Goodnight Moon 👻 Colored Girl Beautiful's Aseloka Smith 👸🏾
💌Podcast The Newsletter is your weekly love letter to podcasts and the people who make them.💌
Bonjour!
This week we’re getting to peek into the podcast app and listening life of Galen Beebe, Co-editor of The Bello Collective.
App: I currently (mostly) use Pocketcasts, but I’m not entirely app loyal. I have 18 podcast apps on my phone.
Listening Time per Week: I would guess I spend 7-14 hours listening per week, but it really depends. If there are a lot of great new series out, or I’m relistening to an old favorite, I’ll skew toward the 14+ side of things, but sometimes I need a break.
When I Listen: This month, I’ve been primary parent to my infant, who is home with us all day, so we’ve been listening to lots of shows together while she’s playing or eating. I love to listen on walks or spend an evening sewing and listen to three or four episodes in a row. But I don’t need a big chunk of time to listen; I’ll put in my headphones for the time it takes me to pour coffee. It’s not necessarily the best habit.
How I Discover: My main discovery tool is Twitter. I look at the pages of every show that follows me or the Bello Collective, and I like to follow the rabbit hole of accounts Twitter suggests I follow. I also pay attention to which shows people are tweeting about to see what’s in the zeitgeist. Outside of twitter, I look at the Pocket Casts discover page, subscribe to lots of podcast newsletters to see which shows they’re recommending, and get recommendations in the Bello Slack.
xoxo lp
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The Colored Girl Beautiful’s Aseloka Smith
Aseloka Smith is the creator of The Colored Girl Beautiful, which was selected among thousands of applications for the Google Podcasts creators program. Follow The Colored Girl Beautiful on Twitter here, on IG here.
Kindly introduce yourself and tell us what you do!
My name is Aseloka Smith and I'm the creator and host of The Colored Girl Beautiful podcast. It a narrative podcast that explores Black womanhood.
How did you stumble across the book The Colored Girl Beautiful, and what made you come up with this fascinating idea for the show?
I learned about the book The Colored Girl Beautiful back in grad school. A classmate used it in one of her projects and when she shared about what the book was I intrigued. It's the first etiqutte book ever written for Black women and it was published in 1916. I looked it up that same day and have pretty much been obsessed with it ever since. I didn't realize how many thoughts I had about Black womanhood until I started reading the author, Emma Azalia Hackley's thoughts about it. It's been a journey for me just in creating the show. I'm learning more and more about myself and womanhood and Blackness every day.
What has making the show taught you about other people?
This show has reminded me over and over that we are all complex and layered beings. No one's story is simple or easy or cut and dry. I believe deeply that we must keep that in mind order to allow both ourselves and one another grace.
Can you tease us with anything exciting coming up in the next season?
I'm super excited about season 2! We've got some amazing stories lined up from some phenomenal Black women including a New York Times Best selling author that I've been officially geeking out over. No spoilers but, it's going to be pretty amazing for sure!
What do you hope the show does for people?
One of the really frustrating and beautiful things about the original book is that it's a set of instructions. There are so many things in it that are beautiful and encouraging and so many others that are oppressive and sexist. It's both of and ahead of its time. But what I hope through the discussion in the podcast, that we as Black women can take what is good about the book and apply that to our lives. There's a quote in the book that says that our lives are what we make it. I want us to live up to that. I want us as Black women to have the courage to be our whole selves flaws, independent of the external expectations that are often placed on us. I believe we can all use a little nudge in that direction.
🚨If u only have time for 1 thing🚨
Those Happy Places is one of my favorite shows—I am so overly cautious to relish every single episode, which analyzes theme park attractions like literature. Because I love Disney, and Disney is kind of the king of storytelling via attractions, it takes up the lion’s share of Those Happy Places content. So this show is *my* happy place. The Haunted Mansion episode was a careful inspection of the ride and the significance of every creepy creak and grim grinning ghost inside. It presents The Haunted Mansion in a way I can’t imagine that any of us have thought about before, and takes the listener through it in such great detail it’s like you’re on the ride. But the moment that made my jaw drop was a fan theory that suggests that if The Haunted Mansion is a story, it not only takes you through a haunted house, but makes you a character in the story—a character who is flung from the top of the attic, to your death, turning you into a ghost that’s forever part of the ride. Buddy and Alice are skeptical, but I am convinced that this fan theory is true. And I will never river visit the Haunted Mansion without thinking about it.
💎BTW💎
🎙️Dear God this episode of Latino USA shredded me to pieces. It introduces us to Estrella, an undocumented trans woman who was detained by ICE in 2017. She was sentenced to a nine year sentence for check fraud, and her arrest made national headlines—until then courtrooms had been respected as off limit sanctuaries for undocumented people. Estrella developed a friendship with my podcast crush and Latino USA’s Maria Hinojosa and told Maria about many of the injustices she was experiencing in prison, something that gets her into deep trouble (a year in solitary) and Maria in trouble, too. This story is a heartbreaking and terrifying look at what it’s like to be trans and in prison, and the terrible, impossible situation Estrella finds herself in. Due to COVID she was up for parole, but because she is undocumented in Trump’s America (and because her hometown is a particularly hostile place to trans people) she would rather stay imprisoned than be freed, which would likely lead to her deportation. So she’s considering sabotaging her parole, which would tack time onto her sentence, but possibly save her life. Through conversations with Estrella and Maria, you get a great sense of what a beautiful and loving Estrella is. I’m going to have a hard time going to sleep tonight thinking of her in prison, where she is constantly worried about her safety. Estrella is not the kind of person who should be sitting in jail.
🎙️On Transcripts, we get to hear a letter from Jennifer Rose, another incarcerated trans woman. Jennifer is an anarchist who has been organizing inside of prison since the late 1990’s.
🎙️Last week I interviewed Sharon Mashihi, and now her project, Appearances, an Iranian family mind trip, is here. In a prologue and the first two episodes, Sharon explains the ambitious nature of Appearances, why it blurs lines between fact and fiction, and the history of the story itself. We bounce back and forth between Melanie, the protagonist (who is not Sharon, but is) as a child growing up in New Jersey, and as an adult in an unstable relationship with a man she wants to have a baby with. The sound is graphic and bursting with life and character, themes swing from honesty to abortion to parental relationships (and sexual ones, too,) and the first episode sets the stage for a textured family story I’m dying to wrap my brain around.
🎙️Last weekend I watched Swiss Skydiver win the Preakness and I listened to an absorbing 3-part 30 For 30 series, Bloodlines, about the fucked up past and shaky future of horse racing. Host Wright Thompson posits that what’s happening in the sport paints a portrait of what is happening in America. So what does it mean when racehorses start dying at a seemingly alarming rate in Santa Anita between 2018 and 2020? There are ties to eugenics, family dynasties, and a murder that ushered in enormous change in the sport.
🎙️On Refinery 29’s Come On, Come Out, real LGBTQIA+ women are interviewed by the fictional, narcissistic Angela Rosserman, who can’t get over her ex. These episodes are short, awkward, and perfectly funny. You Need to Get in the Closet was the best episode yet, with fashion-filmmaker Diane Russo. Angela instantly turns the interview in a chance to pick Angela’s brain about how to stalk her ex.
🎙️Season 3 of Future Perfect is covering meat and environmental justice. So far we have episodes on pig poop and racism, chicken farming, and my favorite argument, that pigs are as smart as dogs, so why do we eat one and love the other? (I loved this episode, and don’t know how you could hear it and continue to eat pork.) I’ve been a vegetarian since I was nine, so I am listening to these episodes thinking, HELL YES. But I would love to hear feedback from people who eat meat, if these stories changed their feelings about meat, or even had an impact on their eating choices.
🎙️Why Are Dads, a new show from Sarah Marshall and Alex Steed talk about what fatherhood means through sharp, hilarious pop culture reviews. This episode on Friday, the 1995 cult classic written by (and starring) Ice Cube, seems to be the review that Friday always deserved but has never received. Friday is typically seen as a stoner movie, but Sarah and Alex argue it’s really about a dad who de-escalates chaos for his son. They also argue that Friday is a snapshot of a neighborhood—the people who come and go and how these people spend their days. A beautiful way to get to know characters and places. (Kind of like one of my favorite books as a child, What Do People Do All Day?) I’m now convinced this movie has been completely misunderstood as one that follows its characters around in search of weed and trouble, when in reality, it’s a family story and much more nuanced and with higher stakes than a typical stoner film.
🎙️Citations Needed has a thoughtful episode about the toxicity of those “30 under 30” lists we see on Forbes and Fortune Magazine and all across the media. The people who make it on the list are almost always people who have worked for big companies to make a bigger mark, whether for good or bad. And it often ends up being bad. (Notable recipients: Adam Newman, Elizabeth Holmes.) These people are corrupt, often grew up with a silver spoon in their mouths, and calling them “accomplished” is way up for debate–it depends on who we’re asking. Who are we asking? Who are these lists for?
🎙️Monsters Among Us is a call-in show about the unexplained and paranormal—a great show to binge to make sure your October is extra spooky. Host Derek Hayes delivers every time with stories that will tingle your spine and leave you wondering how these unexplained stories could possibly be true. The latest episode, UFOs, USOs, hunting bigfoot and a crying baby, was the best yet, because my mom was featured, telling her own scary story which Derek calls “odd but touching.” (It starts around the 35-minute mark.) This is my favorite ghost story, partially because I am in it.
🎙️This episode of 99% Invisible starts out with an anecdote: the New York Public Library celebrated its 125th anniversary with a list of the ten books that had been checked out the most in the history of the library. The fact that Goodnight Moon wasn’t on the list raised some eyebrows, but there was a reason. A children’s librarian who passionately (randomly?) hated it kept it off the shelves from the 1940s to the 1970s. This episode paints a portrait of this complicated librarian, and is also an ode to Margaret Wise Brown, who broke all the rules when she wrote Goodnight Moon by writing books with less emphasis on fantasy and imagination, and more on everyday experiences.
🎙️Place-based stories are often my favorites—I’m thinking of The Intersection, specifically. Where It Hurts reports from St. Louis to reveal the cracks in the American health system that leave people frustrated and without the care they need. After St. Louis’ Mercy Hospital Fort Scott closed, residents with already hard lives got worse. This episode drives home the fact that it’s crucial it is for anyone, especially poor people, to live in proximity of a hospital, and what is lost when they don’t. See also: this episode of Made to Fail about how hospitals in North Carolina are being battered by closures, thin cash flow, COVID, poor residents, and the entire medical system.
🎙️Radiolab introduced two new co-hosts, names that will be familiar to you if you’re a fan of the show, Lulu Miller and Latif Nasser. For Insomnia Line, Lulu set up a hotline for insomniacs and opened up the lines to hear from people up in the middle of the night. The result is a tapestry of insomniacs, pacing around their homes, painting murals on the street, and all of them feeling alone. I wonder if they felt less alone hearing, on the episode, that so many people feel the same loneliness. (I am an insomniac, and when I’m up in the middle of the night I relish the loneliness that feels like a secret freedom.) At the end of the episode, Lulu calls up a mini insomniac, 5-year-old Fletcher, who talks about being afraid of monsters, his glow-in-the-dark pajamas, and treats us all to his own nighttime meditation that we can all use when we’re too anxious to go to sleep. It’s pretty adorable.
🎙️Dani Shapiro’s Family Secrets is back with season four, with a rich episode full of tragedy and self-discovery. Ruthie Lindsey tells Dani about an accident that almost killed her, a painkiller addiction, loss, and discovering a shocking family secret. At each turn in this story I grasped my heart, thinking that Ruthie’s life story could not possibly be more challenging. But the plot keeps thickening, until Ruthie finds her (spoil alert) happy ending. This story is about what happens when we let our secrets set us free.
🎙️Season 3 of Motive examines the origins of the youth white supremacist movement in America, and much of the storytelling focuses on Christian Picciolini, who for eight years was an active white supremacist dedicated to growing the movement. The most interesting thing I’ve learned so far is that skinheads weren’t always neo-nazis, but neo-nazis coopted skinheads to spread their message. Christian has since stepped away from the movement, but not without having to face the damage that he has caused. It is reported that Dylan Roof was searching for lyrics from Christian’s neo-nazi band online weeks before he massacred more than 30 people at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in South Carolina. Christian is touring the country, trying to turn other white supremacists around, he is trying to use his voice for good. But is he equipped to do this? How can he possibly walk away or atone? Why should we trust him now?
🎙️I feel like my Princess Di knowledge is all over the place, from tabloid news to things I’ve made up in my head to weird anecdotes I’ve read online. You’re Wrong About released a two- part series about Princess Diana, and it’s the most thorough, entertaining deep dive I’ve experienced on the subject. It’s a mix of Di anecdotes, very weird facts about the Royal family, and laugh-out-loud commentary from Sarah and Michael as they pull you along for the ride.
🎙️If These Ovaries Could Talk is a show where two lesbians chat about non-traditional families. I love these conversations, stories from LGBTQ couples getting having kids in a variety of ways. It’s very funny, extremely informative, and the guests get totally open about their struggles, fears, and the nitty-gritty of building their families. When Your Husband Has a Baby introduces us to Shay and Morgan, two gay men, one of whom is trans, who decide to have a biological child. But not without a few miscarriages, gender dysmorphia, confusion from people who couldn’t wrap their brains around a trans man having a baby, and a litany of ridiculously frustrating insurance rejections.
🎙️No Compromise, a show about a pro-gun community more extreme than the NRA, uses the stories of the Dorr family to paint a picture of how social media accelerates extremist communities. I feel like the theme of taking advantage of vulnerable individuals has been strong in my podcast listening, lately. Scammers, predators, murderers, terrible people of all kinds. And that is exactly how the Dorr brothers are able to succeed. Hearing the Dorr brothers, I started to get strong Tiger King / Donald Trump vibes. If I was going to write a manual on how to run a successful scam, I’d point them toward these people. They’re the villains of our time!
🎙️Pretend has an immersive episode about a scammer, Mair Smyth (also known as Marianne Smyth, or Marianne Andle, or Marianne Welch, she has 23 known aliases.) Jonathan Walton, who is interviewed for the episode, was her friend, and fell for all of Mair’s tricks, ones he says are powerful enough to take advantage of intelligent people because they capitalize on our emotions. It’s a How-To in how to strategically trick someone into giving you hundreds of thousands of dollars. (And a How-To for not falling victim to this type of scam.)
🎙️This episode of How To with Charles Duhigg warns that it is not an instructional episode about how to get away with murder, but that is what the episode is called, and that’s what it kind of is. Jen, a true crime fanatic and first-time podcaster, calls in to say she has been fascinated by the murder of a girl who grew up in her hometown, and asks Charles how she can best investigate the murderer. Jessica Garrison, a BuzzFeed News senior editor of investigations and author of the book The Devil’s Harvest, joins to talk about what is unique about the murderers who get away with it, which will help anyone writing their own true-crime story, or anyone interested in true-crime. Or anyone hoping to get away with murder. We are exposed to so much true-crime, but this is looking at it from a different perspective, thinking about how it is made the thought that should be going into it.
🎙️1) Most people say they don’t know a trans person, and 2) even more people don’t take any trans issues into consideration when thinking about the world. That’s why I wish wish wish everyone would listen to Translash, which uses journalism and personal narratives to illustrate what it’s really like to be trans in America today, and is like one tiny thing we can do to start fixing the two problems. This episode has an interesting look at the debate, how you would have watched it through a trans lens, and an interview with Ian Alexander, who is the first trans actor to be cast in Star Trek’s upcoming season.
🎙️On this episode of Rough Translation, Indian Americans share personal stories that prove that caste privilege is a powerful force in the United States, coded in their careers, last names, religions and dietary restrictions. It’s an ancient form of dehumanization that has permeated every aspect of thinking in Indian culture, but I think it’s one that goes on pretty undetected here, and I had no idea it has its claws in the United States. There’s a reference to some cooking segment Mindy Kaling and Kamala Harris did for TV, one that seemed completely innocuous to me, but their conversation was laced with a superiority many Indian-Americans know to look for. Since non-Indian Americans aren’t even recognizing it, we still haven’t figured out what to do about it.
🎙️What’s so amazing about Driving The Green Book is how Alvin Hall is able to drop us into an America during the height of segregation with powerful and immersive audio storytelling, and then time travel us to the present, where we hear the stories of people who can remember living The Green Book. By bouncing back and forth, you get a sense of how the impact of The Green Book has stretched to present time. In Little Harlem, MS, a historic Black business district comes to life with sound and story so vibrant I could see it.
🎙️My ears always perk up when I hear the voice of Marcia Chatelain on a podcast. She used to be a regular on The Waves, and I miss her. She popped up on this episode of Side Door, Dress Coded, to talk about the dress codes. The specifics of dress codes have changed, but the racism and sexism have not. It’s an easy way for white people (men) to police bodies that don’t look like theirs, that they know nothing about, and that they are possibly afraid of, and drive a wedge between people based on how they appear.
🎙️The latest episode of Unfinished continues the story of Short Creek but also could work as a standalone, with a thorough history lesson of the Mormon faith and a focus on the 1953 massacre, when the Arizona National Guard raided Short Creek for the largest mass arrest of polygamists in American History. (And at the time was described as "the largest mass arrest of men and women in modern American history.") The great storytelling in this episode makes us able to imagine how scary it must have been—families were torn apart, mothers and children were sent away to terrible conditions in other towns and treated as prisoners. This is complicated because the fundamentalists were abusing children and breaking the law (and basically moving across America to take over small towns) but Mormans say this is a case of religious persecution. It’s so easy to villainize Morman fundamentalists, but the damaging effects of being ripped from your home and separated from your family for decades is real.
🎙️I love you!