👄 The pettiest girl in the world 🥜 nuts behind wheels 🚗 Instagram role playing 🤳 The Gospel of Nikki 👸🏾
🍭 👂 You're in for a treat! 🌈 🤸♀️
Bonjour!
Today is Monday, February 21. There are 106 days until I go on my next Disney cruise?????????? In case this email is too long, my gossip story made Normal Gossip and you can hear Josh Gondelman read it here, here’s a true story that is reading like fiction, Amy Westervelt’s amazing true-crime/climate crisis show is here.
This week we’re getting to peek into the listening life of Marcelle Hutchins, an audio journalist based in LA. With experience in audio editing, scripting, digital media, and writing, she’s landed jobs at NPR, PRI, GBH-TV, The Huffington Post, and The Boston Globe. Her background in the field helped her get an Emmy-nomination in 2018 for the mini documentary, “Vietnam Vet Ervin L. Tootsie Russell”. At the time Ken Burns, who wanted to collaborate on the project for a 10-part film series, approached her production team.
The app I use: I use Apple Podcasts for all my go-to shows. Whether it’s tuning in to Our America with Julian Castro, or On Being with Krista Tippett, I have found that the app offers a catalogue of podcasts; I can share direct links to episodes I’m listening to with friends; it’s clean and organized. I have used Spotify, but it has really limited podcast selection. I recently started using Pockets Casts and so far it’s easy to navigate, you get an instant refresh of episodes, and you can set the number of podcasts you’d like at any one point.
Listening time per week: I listen anywhere from 12-15 hours. I have a rotation of podcasts, and oftentimes I will spend time going through new episodes. For example, Even The Rich, Story Corps, Add to Cart, and Allure The Science of Beauty each have new episodes this week. So what I will do is set time aside during my lunch break, gym, and after work to catch-up on all new episodes.
When I listen: Some days I listen in the afternoon when I’m at LA Fitness. I’ll put on Even The Rich or Small Doses with Amanda Seales when I’m doing a stairmaster workout or cycling. Around midday I like to tune to The Daily and The Breakfast Club to see what I might have missed in the world that day. Right around bedtime I listen to a guided meditation podcast to help calm my mind. It’s very soothing and a great way to reconnect after a busy day.
How I discover? Some of the shows in my library like, The Turning, Pretty Big Deal, and This Land, were recommended by friends. But not only do I get podcast suggestions from friends, hosts will also suggest their favorite show to listeners. I’m also a member of several pod communities and as a result I receive newsletters and posts about new and upcoming episodes that grab my attention.
Anything else? I’m open for collaborations and always looking for advice on New In Town, a podcast I co-host with Danielle and Chelsea. The idea came to us while we were making the transition from Boston to LA in August. We’re officially Cali residents and want to share our experience with others.
xoxo lp
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Tara Roberts
Tara Roberts is the host of National Geographic’s Into the Depths, where Tara sets off on the journey of a lifetime to meet the divers, marine archaeologists, descendants of those brought over on ships, and historians investigating the lost stories of the slave trade. Tara's featured on the cover of National Geographic's March magazine. Follow her on Instagram here.
When was the idea for this podcast born?
The vision for this project came to me a few years ago when I was visiting the National Museum of African American History and Culture. Tucked within the second floor is a photograph of Black women scuba divers, all smiling radiantly on a boat. There are moments in life when an undeniable spark comes alive within, and seeing this photo was one of them—who were they? Why were they diving? What was their mission? I was determined to know more. Upon further research, I discovered they were members of the group, ‘Diving With A Purpose.’ DWP is a phenomenal organization dedicated to the finding and documenting of slave shipwrecks, predominantly pertaining to the transatlantic slave trade. Their work was so inspiring, I knew that their story needed to be heard, and I needed to help tell it—from there, I decided to embark on the journey of a lifetime; I quit my job, got certified in diving, and Into the Depths was born.
What do you hope people get from this show?
For all who listen, I hope the podcast awakens a sense of curiosity and agency within. So often, history is told from a singular advantage point—it’s largely communicated from a perspective that is unique to the one telling it. Working on this project has shown me that we all possess the power to ensure such history is reflective of the multiple perspectives involved in it. I hope that in listening to the stories touched on in ‘Into The Depths,’ people feel inclined to take part in the discovery and telling of this untouched portion of our history.
What did making Into the Depths teach you about yourself?
For most of my adult life, I felt a sense of trepidation when it came to engaging with the way Black stories are often told. So often, the recanting of our history is rooted in the trauma and the pain of all that we’ve endured—for me, there was a hesitation with this mode of storytelling, as I feared re-traumatization. When I began working with ‘Diving With A Purpose’, however, I realized there was a story to be told that had the power to honor the souls lost during the Transatlantic Slave Trade in an entirely unique way. In being able to help tell such a story, I awakened a healing within that I didn’t realize I needed. There’s an incredible sense of closure in being able to acknowledge this portion of our history that has so often been treated as a footnote. An estimated 1.8 million Africans died in the middle passage crossing, and yet, as we look around today, who’s honoring them? What’s being done to ensure that their passing is remembered? For me, being able to say, “I’ve found you, I will remember you, and I will honor you” granted me a sense of peace.
Is Into the Depths the story you set out to tell or did it change?
When I first became aware of ‘Diving With A Purpose,’ I had envisioned my role as one of support—I thought perhaps I could help them raise money, or something of a similar nature. However, as I learned more about the magnitude of their work, I realized that my role could transform into one of a story-teller. I wanted to ensure that work as transformative as this, was fully appreciated and told in its fullness. As I began to tell this story, I found that there were three distinct stories that needed to be told under the umbrella of one: the story of “Diving With A Purpose,” the story of the shipwrecks and my own personal story that was developing through this project. I had always set out to tell the world about “Diving With A Purpose,” but in doing so, I was taken on a new, beautiful path: one of self-discovery that felt important to explore.
How did it feel to get the story out into the world?
From the moment I saw the photo of the Black women divers in the Smithsonian, I knew that I had a role to play in getting these incredible stories out in the world. Now that those stories are available for all to hear, I feel an immense pride to have been able to work with such a transformative organization and truly incredible people. I feel inspired to have heard and seen the work being done, and I am hopeful that the work that still needs to be done will be properly resourced and widely supported.
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Someone recently called me and Arielle Nissenblatt the Call-In Girls, and it’s extremely true. We love to call into podcasts. I recently called into the Normal Gossip hotline with a little story of my own, and my story not only got read, but the guest was Josh Gondelman (who has some hilarious takes on gossip and why nobody shares it with him.) They changed some details (I don’t have a dog and I don’t try to make friends with my neighbors) but the running stuff is real. Kelsey McKinney is collecting stories for season two. Call the hotline at 2679-GOSSIP.
⚡️News from Sounds Profitable⚡️
On Sounds Profitable (check out the newsletter and podcast,) data whiz Caila Litman looks at the numbers that tell us what types of podcasts audiences will want, advertisers will buy, and editorial leaders should prioritize when building new programming. (A taste of the answer: it’s all in the host, wellness, aligning with Target, the fact that women control or influence 85% of all consumer purchases, and more.) Read/subscribe here.
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🎙️From August 19-21, 1991, a race riot took place in Crown Heights, Brooklyn that pitted Black residents against their Orthodox Jewish neighbors, resulting in damaged homes and cars, looted businesses, and two dead kids It all began when two children of Guyanese immigrants were accidentally struck by a car running a red or yellow light while following the motorcade of the leader of a Jewish religious movement, then spiraled from there. On Love Thy Neighbor, Collier Meyerson, who is both Black and Jewish and was raised by a white, social justice lawyer of a father, are looking back at the riot (and whether or not that’s what we should be calling it) and how it impacted both Collier and the city in general. At one point, Collier’s dad asks her if what happened in Crown Heights is a reflection of the war going inside her as she grapples with her identity as a Black Jew. She rolls her eyes before realizing that he’s right. That’s what this story is about, as well as this 3-day period in history that is burned in the memories of some, and completely unknown by many others. Listen here.
🎙️Amy Westervelt has released the first episode of her new show Damages, which is part court-room drama part climate crisis investigation that digs into some of the more than 200 climate lawsuits currently active in courtrooms all over the world. If environmental cases are crimes against humanity, this podcast is about the quest for justice. The first episode looks at the Ojibwe community, and the staple that is sacred to them, wild rice. (Or manoomin in Ojibwe.) In 2021, in an effort to stop Enbridge Energy’s Line 3 pipeline, which is a threat to the manoomin, the White Earth band of Ojibwe sued the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources for violating the rights of manoomin. Amy covers the case and asks the question: does wild rice have rights? The implications in this case are huge. Listen here.
🎙️Crumbs is an audio memoir hosted by Emmy Olea about who we pretend to be and how that makes up who we are. Emmy, who is trans, shares the story of her tumultuous upbringing, which is so wild that I literally emailed Sonoro’s Jasmine Romero and asked “is this really all true?” It is. The show explores the intersection of identity, family trauma, addiction and the pursuit of love, and Emmy is so open, and the episode is so wonderfully produced, it feels like fiction. As remarkable as Emmy’s story is, it’s rooted in universal themes. Yet Emmy really bares it all and lets us inside her unique experiences. Listen here.
🎙️Truth Be Told season one was a beautiful little collection of conversations about race, disability, mental illness, and more, hosted by Tonya Mosley, that has been living in my feed inactive for awhile. I would listen back to old episodes occasionally, but worried that Tonya was done. She’s now back with season two—totally fun new artwork and a great first episode with Nikki Giovanni. In the episode, Nikki gives advice to someone on the Truth Be Told team who has questions about masculinity, but my favorite part was hearing Nikki talk about Jesus’ misinterpreted messages. Nikki is a Jesus fan, a space fan, a poet, she is admirable in the way she only gives a fuck about really important things, and she’s one of the most fascinating people alive. This episode will make you want to sign up for The Gospel of Nikki Giovanni. Listen here.
🎙️The Sex and the City reboot And Just Like That might seem frivolous, but it’s sparking some of the most nuanced conversations about women and aging I’ve seen in pop culture. I have heard podcasts unpack each episode scene-by-scene, all with eye-opening takes on how the characters are being represented and whether or not those actions match up with our own expectations for the cast. And Just Like That…The Writer’s Room is the official podcast about the HBO Max series And Just Like That, and it hosts interviews with the shows writers (like Samantha Irby, who I had no idea was a writer, and even admits she’s had to unsubscribe from podcasts who are trashing her work.) Each episode blasts open the relationships and storylines of the show, offering answers to the questions we might have while watching it, and illustrating the hurdles these writers had to clear to bring these women back to life in 2022. Listen here.
🎙️I got behind on Endless Thread so was treated to two great episodes last week. First, the story of Chinese YouTuber Li Ziqi, who became popular for making videos that romanticized domesticity, farming, and China’s beautiful countryside, during a time when people were being forced to move into urban areas to work themselves to the bone. The videos were a way for them—and the rest of the world—to connect to that part of themselves that wanted to get outside. Li Zigi disappeared off the internet but then reappeared, with a much different message. Ben explains to Amory what Li Zigi’s disappearance and reappearance tells us about the internet in China and its politics, and perhaps the end of an era in social media influencers. Listen here. The second story is about two scientists who discovered a dwarf planet, and the fight over who made the discovery first. Some internet detective work proves that the sighting by the Spanish astronomers might have been stolen from the ones in America. But this war, pitting us against each other in the face of scientific discovery, asks us to think about why we need credit for these things in the first place, and when you need to reveal what you’ve been studying. Is it selfish or ethical to hold onto information, when you’re still in your research phase? Listen here.
🎙️Deeply Human, the show that pokes at our motivations for doing what we do, is back with a new season, the first episode about language, and why we talk the way we talk. Dessa talks to language experts about the way our accents serve us and how early we start to develop them, and finds that we speak like the person we’d like to be. She even offers a little language forecast, giving us an idea of where we are going when it comes to how we sound. Listen here.
🎙️I listened to the opening story of the latest Into the Depths several times because it was something I did not want to get out of my head: African free divers, who became known for their water skills, being hired to excavate ships all over the world as far back as the 16th century. (There’s also this: white people didn’t want to do it themselves for superstitious/religious/non-scientific reasons.) While delivering the history lesson, she takes us along to her ancestral homeland in Africa, walking the slave trail in Benin. The world kind of stopped for me as I listened to Tara have a break-through about her own identity, her Blackness, and where home is for African Americans. This huge, huge, moment is kind of hidden in this episode, which is unlike the rest of the show. It’s an episode that perfectly captures what this show is trying to do. Listen here.
🎙️Euphomet has some of the best spooky stories I’ve been able to find on the audio space—the quality of the production is so, so high. Each story is a bit more specific, and a bit more strange, than stories you’ll hear on other spooky shows. The editing is done so that you hear the story straight from the storyteller, there is no interference from Jim Perry, who is piecing everything together. A story called Sleepover reminded me of some of the best episodes of Radio Rental. It’s about man’s encounter with a ghost, and how he is unable to forget what he saw and felt, and unable to come up with an explanation for it. Chilling. Listen here.
🎙️Jo Piazza’s exploration of women’s power on the internet continues with an episode of Under the Influence that feels a little Black Mirror-y. The larger an influencer gets, the more danger they are exposing themselves, and Jo points out a horrifying Instagram trend that’s new to me—Instagram Role Playing, where people grab photos of children and families and use them to tell fictional stories on their own accounts. One ex-influencer, who is off of Instagram now, remember the moment she noticed there was an account run by a stranger that had named her kids and everyone in her family, giving them their own stories, using the pictures she had posted. Instagram initially said it wasn’t against their guidelines but then changed their tune when they came under pressure. When you put your photos up on Instagram, even if it’s in a private account, even if you don’t have thousands of followers, you’re creating digital content for other people to play with. I think a lot of childless people have been saying for a long time “please stop posting all those photos of your kids!” because it’s too much kid content. But there’s a big safety reason to actually stop doing it. Listen here.
🎙️Short Cuts (shot audio documentaries) is back and my life and it feeeeels so good. Josie kicks off the new season with spooky stories—the last one quite possibly the most terrifying, about the threat a woman online (scary) experiences when she is perceived to be someone she is not. Listen now.
🎙️Did you know that you should probably be dipping persimmons in soy sauce? I learned so much on this episode of Fruit Love Stories about persimmons, the sexy fruit that always confuses and pleases my senses, and their unique. makeup and history. As always, Jessamine Starr opens up the episode with a poem that is a beautiful ode to the fruit. Listen here.
🎙️After a two-year hiatus, Dylan Marron’s Conversations with People Who Hate Me is back, and it’s back with real gravity. Cody is a trans man whose mother wasn’t accepting of who he is, and as a teen, he tried to take his own life. Dylan talks to Cody and his mom about what it was like during that time, their hatred and misunderstanding of each other, and Cody’s mom tearfully shares how she grew to love her son and the regrets she had for taking so long to get there. It’s a lesson for all parents of trans kids, and a beautiful moment of mother and son who are surely still healing, but have made incredible progress. Listen here.
🎙️I listen to The War on Cars like it’s a song on my favorite playlist—it reinforces what I already believe, that cars are dangerous weapons and nobody should be trusted to drive them! But a recent episode with There Are No Accidents author Jessie Singer opened the discussion up to the idea of accidents, and what is meant when we use them to describe vehicular manslaughter. Defined as both random and dangerous, accidents seem inconsequential but they’re not. They’re a rug we sweep tragedy underneath. This episode gets into the idea of “the nut behind the wheel” and the problem with placing blame on humans or highway design, not cars (which the car industry loves.) The blame narrative is way off, and listening to this episode will change the way you consume any story about someone being killed by a car. Listen here.
🎙️One of Canada’s most respected and fearless/hard-hitting journalists Anna Maria Tremonti has reported from some of the world’s most dangerous conflict zones, all the while living with intense conflict herself, and she’s opening up on a new podcast from CBC Podcasts—Welcome To Paradise. Unbeknownst to everyone, she fell in love with a violent man, and in the year they were married Anna Maria endured trauma that she hasn’t been able to shake. You can almost feel her take a big sigh before she lets us into conversations with her therapist and adorable father (who was told by a priest he would not marry Anna Maria and her ex—this is news to Anna Maria.) This is an in-depths portrait of domestic violence from a woman with a knack for storytelling. The array of formats the show uses to get closer to the story gets us a very intimate version of the events—inside Anna Maria’s memories, her regrets, her pain, and her courage to let her 23-year-old self off the hook. It’s super well done and hard to listen to but also hard not to. Listen here.
🎙️The most recent episode of Podcast But Outside was such a fun listening experience and an example of what a podcast doesn’t have to and can be. Usually Cole Hersch and Andrew Michaan set up a booth in a random place and interview people passing by (in return they get a dollar and a sticker.) I went to a live recording of this show at The Bell House in Brooklyn and it was tricky—there aren’t a lot of people loitering around Gowanus, and show requires loiterers in order to happen. But the wedding was packed with fans of the show and people eager to get on the mic. I can’t think of another podcast that offers us this kind of experience—it’s a little like Beautiful/Anonymous, but Beautiful/Anonymous is a concert and Podcast But Outside is a music festival. You get to let your ears wander throughout various conversations and you get just a taste of what these people are like. It’s much wackier. The wedding couple was religious, so you end up feeling like you’re getting churched at just a tad. (And there is a very long ghost story at the end with someone named Grandpa Dick.) But that’s not a bad thing, it twists the episode into something even more unexpected. Listen here.
🎙️GodDAMN. Jay Ellis (of Insecure) has brought back The Untold Story with a new season on criminal injustice (season one was about policing) that was depressing and brilliant. Jay looks at what it takes in certain states, thanks to Felony Theft Thresholds, for someone to shoplift and receive a felony conviction. (It can be as little as $200.) Not everyone who steals is trying to score some Gucci bags—some of them do it because our system is broken and they are trying to survive. (They’re stealing food or clothes for their kids.) When we throw them in jail, we ruin their chances of climbing out of the cycle of poverty and take away the focus on people who actually should be behind bars. A fascinating conversation with the State Attorney for Cook County in Illinois, Kimberly M. Foxx, reveals the thinking behind a $1000 Felony Theft Threshold that doesn’t criminalize people who need help buying things to survive. Listen here.
🎙️A new season of American Prodigies, hosted by Amira Rose Davis (a co-host of the hell-yeah podcast Burn It All Down,) launched today. Amira will be telling the story of how Black girls moved from the margins of gymnastics to the core and what it means to be a Black girl in gymnastics. Episode one has a conversation with Jordan Chiles, who tells Amira about losing her love for gymnastics and how she discovered who she wanted to become – just in time to win a silver medal in Tokyo in 2021. Hear a moment from that episode here. Hear the episode here.
🎙️On an episode of Family Secrets, we hear the story of a woman named Zoe who secretly gave birth to a daughter when she was 15 and gave her up to adoption, kind of against her will. As often with these stories, we see how one secret leads to another and another, and Dani pulls the thread on Zoe, who reveals how living these hidden truths shaped her life, and what it was like to put an end to the secret-telling at her father’s funeral. Zoe’s story is an example of a young girl who had nobody to help her when she needed help them most, she didn’t have the tools she needed to navigate through a teen pregnancy, and how she was able to, after years and years of building an artificial life, break it all down and open up to her family about her truth, ultimately becoming the hero of her own story. This season went out with a bang. Listen here. I was also thrilled to see how Dani turned a Harklist she made into an entire mixtape episode for the show. Listen here.
🎙️Last December, in an unbelievable episode of Terrible, Thanks for Asking, Nora McInerny told the story of Isaiah Goodman, who was sentenced to 7 years in prison for defrauding clients out of more than $2.3 million dollars. She talked to two of Goodman’s victims, Celisia Stanton and Rev. Michael Gonzales. Last week, she dropped an interview with Goodman, and it was fascinating to listen to these episodes back-to-back—hearing from the scammer and the scammed. Nora admits she is a gullible interviewer, who is a bit too gentle with Goodman. Fortunately her producer is there to fact check Goodman’s story and remind Nora that “the court’s version of the truth” is actually the truth. The stories of Celisia and Rev. Michael are devastating, and in his interview with Nora, Goodman shows no remorse. It is unbelievable to see him do the impressive gymnastics it takes to rationalize what he’s done. I’m hoping enough people listen and donate to the GoFundMe set up for the Gonzales family. Hear the interview with Celisia and Rev. Michael here, the interview with Goodman here.
🎙️Arielle Nissenblatt spotlighted the podcast Birthright, a podcast about stories of joy and healing in Black birth, in her newsletter and podcast.
🎙️I love you!