🧼 Shower belly, We're Going to Mars, the sea peoples, butts 🍑 teikirisi's Fryda and Carmen 🇨🇺
💌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 Marika Ball-Damberg, podcast marketing manager for the Vox Media Podcast Network.
App I use: I’m not always loyal to one but right now Apple is where I’m listening most.
Listening time per week: Hmm this definitely varies but I’d say usually around 2 hours a day so 15+ hours.
When you listen: I began listening to podcasts regularly in 2016 and by the time I got to Vox Media in 2019, I was obsessively listening all day long. I used to fit in a solid 3-4 episodes on my commute to and from work. Nowadays, I like to listen while I’m eating breakfast in the morning or taking my pre-work walk. Mornings are when I like to listen to my shorter daily shows like Vox Quick Hits or lighter shows like Smartless (Home Cooking was a favorite morning listen - RIP). During the workday, I try to make time to fit in at least one more episode from one of our shows like The Weeds or Vox Conversations. After work, I always listen while making dinner, cleaning, and showering. This is when I like to fit in some longer episodes that I can really take the time to work my way through. Throughout the week, I keep a running list of shows I get pitched or come across in newsletters or on social that I think sound cool and I like to take those for a test run on weekends (recents have included Greetings from Somewhere and Far Flung.)
How I Discover: I would say I discover through three main avenues: podcast newsletters, promo swaps, and Twitter. Part of my job involves setting up external promo swaps for Vox podcasts with other podcasts which means I’m in pretty constant contact with a whole network of podcast marketers that tell me about a lot of really great content. I also prepare for new show launches by researching others in the space for potential swaps and I often end up finding a few that sound too good to pass up and they make their way into my weekly listening (like Anything For Selena or Science Vs). I try to keep on top of all the excellent podcast newsletters each week and make note of those recs as well. I’m constantly overwhelmed with finding the right balance between continuing to listen to my favorites and branching out to listen to the endless new content out there. Not a terrible problem to have.
xoxo lp
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👋q & a & q & a & q & a👋
Fryda and Carmen of teikirisi
Fryda and Carmen are BFFS and co-hosts of teikirisi. Follow teikirisi on Twitter here, Fryda on Twitter here, and Carmen on Twitter here.
Can you tell us about the name of the show?
teikirisi is the accented way many Cubans (and spanish-speakers) say “Take it Easy.” We wanted something very unmistakably Cuban/Latinx, but still easy for gringos to say. I know that without the spanish language background, you would read it and pronounce it more like “tai-ker-ee-see” but once you listen to the show it clicks! So phonetically we liked that play, and then also we knew we’d be talking about tough subjects alongside more fun ones, so we felt it was the most fitting.
I LOVE hearing your friendship explode throughout the show. How did the two of you meet? How did you know you would be a great podcasting duo?
Ah! Thank you! We met in middle school, went to the same high school, and have always remained close. When we found ourselves both living in New York we decided to move in together. People around us kept commenting on our combined energy, we share a very big sense of humor and many interests. We’d always wanted to create something together, but it wasn’t until we really landed on the subject of what it means to be Cuban-American that the idea really took off. We knew it would be a great podcast because nobody else is doing it this way.
Fryda, you got your parents to share some shocking stories about el periodo especial. Had these stories been part of your upbringing or did you learn anything new while making that episode?
Fryda: These stories definitely came up throughout my childhood, especially when I was picky about eating my food growing up. You can imagine how that went! My parents also shared these stories in jest with old college friends in Miami, so any time I overheard their conversations, I’d learn about some new ridiculous story. Honestly, I’ve heard enough accounts of their life to fill volumes. It was actually tough to get my parents to stick to one period of time and one aspect of life during our interview. One story that I had never heard before was the one my dad shared of biking through fields and evading guards. He’s far more reserved about his life than my mom is, and I have a feeling there’s a lot of things he’s never shared with me and would rather forget.
How have your families reacted to the show?
Our families have been very supportive! Fryda’s parents came on for a hefty interview that yielded two whole episodes, sharing recipes and more! Carmen’s parents contribute more behind the scenes with background information. We’re constantly on the phone asking them questions, to send us pictures, or stuff in the mail for reference. We think they really love being involved, even when they criticize!
I don’t think most Americans have any idea how unique the Cuban-American experience is, or all that Cuban-Americans have been through. Is that one of the reasons you wanted to create the show? Are you ever frustrated that not more people know about the hardships your families have been through?
Carmen: Yes! Absolutely that is part of it. More than frustrating, I think it’s just really important to understand communities as unique entities. This year was very challenging in our community politically. Historically, Cubans are super conservative, it’s very difficult to mobilize on any other rhetoric there. It’s impossible to separate politics from this narrative, but it is not a story that is a monolith. At least when talking about the struggles we can begin to lay down the foundation for understanding viewpoints like the Cuban vote, the wide range of beliefs and values, and what pull the US/American culture has when influencing the Cuban-American experience. There are moments when we hear tone-deaf statements like “I want to go to Cuba before it changes,” or the glorification of the communist revolution because of its promoted ideas such as universal healthcare and education that we do get a little frustrated. But we hope to engage in conversation and expand an understanding in a thoughtful and relatable manner.
What have you learned about yourselves and each other making the show?
We have learned so much about our families, I believe we have a deeper understanding of them now. We’ve learned a lot about our strengths in the production, distribution and promotion machine. I think though, that the most fulfilling thing we've learned has been that people are eager to learn and connect.
What’s something listeners don’t understand about podcasts and what goes into making them?
It’s a lot of work! Especially if you are going for tight story-telling rather than free-form banter. We spend a few days researching, writing up a skeleton or script for the episode, we sit down and record for nearly 2 hours.
Then we have several rounds of edits. Fryda does a first go of editing, then Carmen cuts some more, does some pretty intense audio editing, adds sound effects & our intro and outro music (which Fryda composed #humblebrag!) We work with our graphic artist, Jesse Pales, to create content for the episode cover, the cubanismo, and more! And we schedule posts or stories to go out almost every day, including our biweekly instagram live “cafecito.” We also make sure to engage with people in the space and set up meetings to learn how we can expand & be better. It’s kind of a part time job… we love it though!
Women in podcasting are constantly being criticized for their voices. What is your relationship with yours? How would you describe your voice?
Women are taught to be highly critical of the “shrillness” of our voices, we are also encouraged to silence and censor ourselves. This project is supposed to do the opposite of that for us!
Still, the first time Fryda heard the unedited pilot episode, she cried because she hated hearing herself. Carmen regularly breaks down while editing because she “can’t stand her voice.” It’s just a very vulnerable experience, putting our voices at the forefront. What has kept us going is believing in the power of the stories we are sharing.
It’s a little crazy because we often get compliments on our voices despite this internal battle. We’ve learned to appreciate our voices as a dynamic, yet soothing and expressive vehicle for the stories we tell.
Should podcasters read their Apple Podcast reviews?
We are relatively new to the space, and apple podcast reviews were the first somewhat official place where we learned that people were EXCITED and relating to our work!! It motivated us further, but so do the texts we get from friends, DMs we get on social media, and articles we’ve read (like yours!) We weren’t exaggerating when we said we both needed to go and cry after reading your review. Carmen & Fryda cry a lot, okay?
What shows do you love?
Fryda: I’m a huge fan of Invisibilia, Ologies, Life Kit for inspo, learning about things, and life affirmation; The Daily & Up First for news; and IVFML, a one-off autobiographical podcast that is highly entertaining and informative.
🚨If u only have time for 1 thing🚨
I am so excited about The Experiment, a new series from The Atlantic and WNYC Studios. (The Atlantic produced Floodlines, one of the most widely beloved shows of last year.) This new show claims The United States was an experiment with certain ideals, and checks in on that experiment to see how far we’ve strayed. The first episode, The Loophole, starts out with a bang. A hunter shoots down an elk outside of hunting season in Yellowstone, which is illegal, but because it takes place in a place known as the “Zone of Death,” he’s able to literally get away with murder. And anyone can. It’s an interesting story and then scholar Brian Kalt joins to explain the loophole while attempting to close it. If you read further down, you will see there is an episode (I loved) from Throughline, which talks about crumbling civilizations, which makes it seem like this whole planet is an experiment that can all be wiped out in a second. (Or to be more accurate, a very long time that makes the collapse so gradual we don’t even notice that it’s happening.)
💎BTW💎
🎙️Arielle Nissenblatt is a true queen of podcasting and a great person to follow on Twitter. (I think that is how we became friends and I’m so glad we are!) She recently released a newsletter called Podcast Plunge. Each issue is anchored by a podcast episode, and then she does a deep dive to find other pieces of internet that touch on that episode’s main topic. It’s a great way to expand your podcast universe even farther. Subscribe!
🎙️I was having one of those days where I couldn’t stop thinking about OJ Simpson’s crappy reality TV show, Juiced, which was sort of like his version of Candid Camera. The show is completely pointless—OJ sets up scenarios where he basically just appears, shocking people that he is indeed OJ Simpson, and then says “you’ve been JUICED!” I just kind of wanted to listen to someone talking about how shitty it was, but fortunately I found an episode of Comedy History 101 that not only gives the Juiced’s history, but offers the perspective of host Harmon Leon, who was hired off an ad on Craigslist to be OJ's funny little sidekick on the show. He has some stories that prove that things were even more nonsensical behind the scenes. But oh man, I think I have stumbled upon a treasure trove. I have added to my playlist The History of SCTV, The History of Where’s the Beef, The History of Richard Pryor, and entire episode about people slipping on banana peels.
🎙️I was so into Throughline’s What Happened After Civilization Collapsed that I felt like it was tapping into something deep inside me, in my bones, in my DNA. It focuses on the end of The Bronze Age, a time when ancient civilizations were collapsing left and right. And we still don’t really know how or why. One theory can be pegged to the Sea Peoples, a mysterious band of maritime warriors that wreaked havoc on the Mediterranean. I was completely unaware of them before, but I feel kind of like a 3-year-old who just discovered trains and suddenly wants a train-themed bedroom and birthday party. I am obsessed. Someone who believes in past lives might think that I was once a Sea Person, or that my ancestors were. That’s how chilled I was to hear about them. This episode checks another one of my boxes, a mention of the Phoenecians, who took advantage of the collapse by capitalizing on trade and language. The guest is such an entertaining expert, with tons of enthusiasm, humor, and knowledge about ancient civilizations. He reminds us that ancient people were exactly like us, that the ones able to adapt were also able to survive, and that for most of them, their collapse crept up on them slowly. We could be in the midst of a collapse right now and have no idea, and also be far too weak to fight it.
🎙️I always feel like I’m too dumb to appreciate poetry but I think I felt what poetry-lovers always feel when I heard Nikki Giovani read her poem ‘We’re Going to Mars’ on Politically Reactive with W. Kamau Bell and Hari Kondabolu. The poem compares the journey to Mars to the journey that brought slaves to America. Basically, if astronauts are curious about what it’s like to be launched into space, they should talk to Black people. Mars and space is, apparently, something Nikki writes about a lot, which makes me think of Missy Elliot and Sun Ra and Lovecraft Country all of the exciting afrofuturism I’ve started appreciating. Nikki holds it all together in her hand, with this poem. We should specifically be listening to Black women, Nikki says. And what are the Black women saying now? Black Lives Matter. Hearing this poem is an experience in itself, but getting to hear Nikki explain it is even better. Please, please do not miss this. You can hear a clip here.
🎙️Jamie Loftus wrapped up Lolita Podcast with an episode about that returns to the legacy of Dolores Haze and how we move on after all that has happened to her, and to us collectively. How do we heal and education ourselves from the damage Lolita has done? Is it possible to reimagine the text? Lolita Podcast was completely original, well-researched, and somehow funny. (My dad pointed out that Jamie has become such a Lolita expert that she sort of buries the other experts she has on her own show. Jamie is the expert now.) But it was also heavy and the episodes could feel dense. For maybe the first time ever, I felt like I couldn’t keep up with a show I was enjoying. One episode a week both thrilled me and exhausted me. But it was truly a triumph! It reached every tiny corner of the Lolita universe, including the unpopular corners that nobody is ever brave enough to explore.
🎙️Reply All started an investigative series, The Test Kitchen, that promises to shine light on “the story you didn’t hear” concerning the turmoil that came to a head in the Bon Appetite offices over the summer. Reply All is famous for exploring weird, underreported things on the internet, but none of the previous episodes seem as important as this. It’s kind of “the story you didn’t hear,” if you weren’t following alone closely as it was unfolding. But I imagine this is stuff that not all Reply All listeners are aware of. Listening to stories of the chefs that were wronged isn’t easy—there is a moment in this episode with an Asian woman talks about being denied the chance to write about soup dumplings because they were too ?exotic,? only to find that after she had left BA, the assignment was given to a white woman. To host, Reply All has passed the mic to Sruthi Pinnamaneni, who is the perfect person to be leading this report. She’s a great listener who doesn’t over insert herself and lets everybody else speak to their painful experiences—painful experiences that, from the sound of it, they are still working out in their hearts and heads.
🎙️I promise you the Passell infestation on The Best Advice Show is over, but Zak had me on to talk about my favorite and most important advice, Shower Belly. (I lather a layer of bar soap onto my stomach each morning and draw pictures of pizza and Mary Poppins in it.) If this doesn’t make sense, listen to the episode! You may still be confused but I do my darndest to explain why it’s important to me.
🎙️On January 6th, 2021, Congresswoman Rep. Barbara Lee wore tennis shoes to work. Isn’t that kind of chilling? Picturing her tying the laces, perhaps imagining herself sprinting through the Capitol for her life? I want to know how many other people wore sneakers that day. Lee’s story, told on Things That Go Boom, is kind of a metaphor for what happened, or at least a metaphor for the fact Black women are often the smartest people in the room that nobody is listening to.
🎙️It seems hard to believe that it was more than six years ago that Serial came into our lives (and forever changed mine.) I really enjoyed Nick Quah’s Servant of Pod episode with the New Yorker’s Sarah Larson on the groundbreaking show and how it paved the way for everything else we listen to today. Even if you didn’t like Serial, you can’t deny the importance it has had on not just the podcasting world, but the whole world. And listening to old clips of it with Nick, I had an even stronger appreciation for what it did. Shows have been copying it for six years, now, but still, it sounds like nothing else out there. The way that Sarah Koenig interacts with the audience and the people she’s interviewing and the people whose stories she is telling is revolutionary. I have no idea if other podcasts were doing this at the time, I don’t think they were. But if they were, what was it about this damn show that got people so desperate to listen to it that they would…gulp!…open themselves up to a new weird technology, podcasting, at a time when they couldn’t have any idea how explosive this medium would become?
🎙️Resistance, “stories from the front lines of the movement for Black lives,” released a powerful story, My Somebody, from a woman named Kelly Davis who has been standing by her husband, Keith Davis Jr., who is behind bars for a murder he says he did not commit. Kelly goes into great detail to explain what it’s really like to get married in jail and be in love with someone who she can’t be with. Kelly and Keith weren’t married before Keith got locked up…so what makes this love story survive? An underlying theme is Black love, and how the United States has a history of trying to squelch it out—from separating slaves to separating incarcerated people from their loved ones.
🎙️I was so grateful The Cut published a piece on sobriety during the pandemic. I went from drinking almost every night in the week in my 20s, to a few times a week in my early 30s, and during the pandemic I almost completely stopped. I have felt very alone in this, I always feel like such an odd ball admitting it. You’re supposed to want to drink yourself to oblivion during a pandemic/insurrection/Trump presidency, right? In some of my circles, sobriety is seen as pretty uncool. I’m not sober, but as someone in the episode says, sober-curious. Just sick of drinking culture and the lazy jokes and excuses that surround it. It was really nice to hear this sentiment from someone outside my own head. It’s not something I hear a lot about.
🎙️The last two episodes of Anything for Selena were completely different, but they also both illuminate the context of Selena, how she was being viewed, and the state of Tejano music at the time. I got so excited to see there was an entire episode on butts (Big Butt Politics) I nearly cried, and it’s fun, as any podcast episode about butts would be, but also introduces host Maria’s theory about how for white women, big butts went form taboo to desired. This takes us back to the 90s, when Jennifer Lopez starred in the Selena biopic, and the Latin explosion that ensued. (Both episodes truly take you back to the 90s.) Maria shares her theory about how large butts went from a white girl taboo into a mainstream obsession. So it starts out talking about butts, but ends up talking about race, culture, and…I dunno, can you call it butt appropriation? On Tejano Tension, Maria provides a history of Tejano music in America, and the uncomfortable reason Tejano music faded away.
🎙️Canadaland did a great job fleshing out the Caliphate story, interviewing a variety of people about exactly went wrong, what this says about podcasting and the future of The Times, and Rukmini Callimachi’s reporting style and her involvement in the debacle and also its aftermath. A Canadaland reporter called up Callimachi to set a few things straight, and in the episode, you hear her hang up on him. Which is understandable, but a reminder that this story is long from over.
🎙️On The Pod Spotter, Zack Robidas interviews podcasters about their podcasts and plays the best moments from the shows. I listened to his episode with Allison Behringer about Bodies, and the one about Relative Unknown. I love the questions Zack asks—they’re questions that offer so much insight into the shows, the people behind them, and the work that went into making them. On the Relative Unknown episode, we get to hear from Jackee Taylor, who was the subject and host of Relative Unknown. Zack quizzes producer Zak Levitt on how well he knows the show. It’s so nice to hear these podcasters get hit with questions from someone who has done their research and really cares. And Zack is both helping with podcast discoverability with his show, and that needs a lot of help, but also giving podcast nerds like me good stuff that helps me dive even deeper into the shows I already love. There are so many other episodes I can’t wait to hear.
🎙️Nate Dern was on High and Mighty talking about trying new things (listen to it! It’s fun, as all High and Mighty episodes are.) Nate has an entire show based on trying new things. On Try! he talks to verrrrry funny people about something they’re trying to do. I was thinking about this over the weekend, listening to Lovett or Leave It, which has a segment that interviews guests on their failed quarantine projects (learning to play the guitar, drying fruit, knitting.) It’s just as interesting when what we set out to do fails. The topic of trying is a rich one. If you love Gabrus like I do, listen to him talk about trying to read more, or Will Hines talk about trying to play video games, or Jo Firestone talk about trying to drink water.
🎙️On The Sporkful, Dan Pashman talks about what it feels like when we celebrate other people’s holidays—for us and for the people whose holidays we are stealing. The episode centers around a Chinese New Year party he attended, that was attended by zero Chinese people. Fun was had…sushi was served. How big of a problem is this? There is a powerful moment at the end, when two Chinese women, who host an annual Passover party, tell Dan how that they were so yucked out to hear about Dan’s Chinese New Year party (the sushi!) that they decided to stop having their Passover party. It didn’t sit right with them anymore. It’s tricky, especially as we continue to become mash-up Americans.
🎙️I love you!