Bonjour. Today is Monday, August 17, 2026. There are 214 days until my next Disney Cruise. If you are reading this, I consider you a friend so I would love to meet you in person in NYC, if you’re down to hang tomorrow, August 18, at The Ripple Room. I’ll be there at 5pm. Let me know if you want to come.
xoxo lauren
🚨the one thing🚨
Our Town is a limited-series from The Big Take hosted by Meribah Knight and Susan Berfield about a seemingly small story in Gainesboro, Tennessee, a small town at the foothills of Appalachia, that turns into something much, much bigger. It’s extremely unsettling (you’ll see why) but I got this cozy feeling listening to it because Meribah and Susan are doing original reporting and on-the-ground documenting in a way that lets them get to know the locals and the space, and I felt ready to settle into Gainesboro with them. (It kind of reminded me of one of my favorite limited-series of all time, something I think about on a weekly basis, Cement City. You might also get We Live Here Now vibes.) Anyway, back to Gainesboro. The locals there started getting suspicious to see some newcomers lurking around who called themselves pioneers but in reality were Christian Nationalists who wanted to turn Gainesboro into a place based around their vision of a Christian way of life. They’d been secretly buying up land with a total takeover in mind, and the local were not happy. The first episode of this show is a weird entry point that involves metal detecting and two Christian Nationalist podcasters in a diner. As things get more sinister, you find yourself rooting for this town as the locals work together, doing what they can to sabotage the plan. A diner owner scrawls “if you’re a person who promotes oppression towards others, please don’t eat here” on the “Specials” board. Someone distributes information sheets about Christian Nationalism to neighbors. Another buys a huge billboard that says: “ ‘Just love everyone, I’ll sort them out later.’ -God.” There is something very funny about this podcast, too. Maybe it’s picturing all of this happening like we’re playing a game of The Sims. The same day that billboard went up, there was an open house for the Christian Nationalists in town. During the event, a set of muddy, half-naked fugitives got arrested outside the woods nearby. Wonder what the Christian Nationalists thought of that. Comedy is everywhere if you look hard enough.
notes
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💎podcasts i texted to friends💎
✨This American Life re-ran “Amusement Park,” which is probably my favorite TAL piece of all time, all because of the protagonist of the first story Cole Lindbergh, a 25-year-old who has been managing teenagers in the games department at a park called Worlds of Fun for eleven years. Let’s get to the fun stuff part: Cole is wildly endearing. He is more passionate about his job than most people are about anything. He inspires his team of teenagers to have so much fun working they blow through 16-hour shifts without a break. (Is this legal?) I recommend watching the nerdy-adorable training videos Cole made for his team. He is just so unafraid to be a total dork that it’s actually incredibly cool. His joy is contagious, and hearing him talk and about all the out-of-the-box things he’s done to get people playing games will make your day and maybe even inspire you. But the sad part is the ending, because while Cole is happy at his job, how long can one be running games at amusement park? How will anything compare? This piece aired years ago and in the follow up we learn he has moved on to a normal job, and I cannot tell you how many times I have been at my computer, wondering, “is Cole sitting at a desk right now? He would hate that!” Has he found something that makes him nearly as happy as Worlds of Fun? I feel like I need to call Hyperfixed and ask Alex Goldman to check in on Cole for me. The rest of the episode is equally delightful—Jane Marie shares amusement park-based listener letters that seem mythological, and Jonathan Goldstein tells a story about working at Wildwood in New Jersey that is so sharply written I was underlining some of the sentences in my head. Listen to “Amusement Park” here.
How I discovered it: TAL? Uh, listening to the radio in my dad’s truck when I was 12.
✨I love stories of lost media (one of my favorite podcasts about this is Everyone Knows That: The Search For Ulterior Motives) and Hyperfixed just ran a really sweet episode about my favorite KIND of lost media stories. It’s a story about a podcast that is not yet-lost but in danger of disappearing. Alex talks to Amber, a pharmacist who fell in love with a niche podcast for pharmacists called ReTell Pharmacy Podcast. It became a much-needed outlet for pharmacists who are often basically abused by long grueling days with no bathroom / lunch breaks. It seemed to be thriving, from Amber’s perspective in 2022, but it ended super abruptly. Amber was devastated and would still relisten to old episodes, but its archive of episodes started disappearing from the internet. She wanted Alex help her save the episodes for her, but she also wanted to know if ReTell’s host, Mitch, was OK. Alex gets the files and connects Amber to Mitch, which confirmed that Amber was right to be worried. Mitch was burnt out. He seems like the kind of person who really loves helping people, whether it be at the pharmacy or behind the mic, and he couldn’t mentally do the podcast anymore. This episode is humanity-affirming and emotional, there are tears. Alex even addresses the ending of Reply All, kind of, something that has shattered podcast listeners in ways I have never seen. (There is a lamentation on Reddit approximately 1/week.) This is what podcasts do to us, you guys. This is what our favorite hosts do for us. Advertisers, are you listening? Listen to “ReTell All” here.
How I discovered it: Subscriber.
✨Julie Piñero (“Delejos,” Who Killed JFK?) just launched a new podcast, Solita, about women traveling alone. Episode one brings her to Ireland where she’s on a mission: to become a regular at a pub in Ireland. I love a gal with a mic and a goal. When it comes to goals, Julie has two: her other is to reclaim the word “Solita,” the Spanish word for alone that is “drenched in pity.” When I lived alone in Italy and went anywhere by myself, I don’t know if people pitied me but they were concerned. Why was I not with my family or boyfriend? They would invite me to sit with them, always, and sometimes I didn’t want to. I often did. Which actually led to some kind of dangerous situations!!! Because travel is like that. And those are the stories we are going to hear, Julie promises, “not the eat pray love ones.” Although, this first episode does sound kind of eat pray love-y. Julie dances salsa with strangers on the street, hitchhikes, sings Chappel Roan in a pub after closing time, dives into freezing water, and goes on a date with this flakey guy who ghosts her multiple times. But who cares, this is a great, original, high-quality episode, I HUNGER for people taking me into bars with people who speak in Irish accents. My two concerns are: 1) we are not going to get stories about people being frightened/having diarrhea 2) Julie will not be able to keep the quality up on the hamster wheel many podcasters find themselves on, esp when they sign with iHeart. But man, listen to this episode and stay subscribed. Someone HAS to get diarrhea at some point, right? Listen to “Can Julie Become a ‘Regular’ at a Pub in Ireland?” here.
How I discovered it: A potential client mentioned she is going to be a guest on it, then I saw a post from Julie in a listserv about it.
✨Black Box was up in my podcast queue and started playing without me clocking what it was, and it stopped me in my tracks. I was like ‘what is this?’ I was grabbed from the very beginning. You’re hearing from Jonathan and Shelby Aultman, who lost their 35-year-old daughter, Chelsea, to a fatal opioid overdose in May 2025. But the podcast is a story about Mississippi and $400 million that was supposed to be spent on opioid settlements but went missing instead. Reporter Allen Siegler follows the (missing) money to find more confusing but interesting things and extremely human stories that also make you really sad and angry. We hear detailed accounts about people we’ve lost to opioids from families, and then to find out that money that was supposed to go to them is instead being spent on shit like fiber optic cables and shelving systems. This podcast is an emotional ride, a frustrating one, and a sharp look into how city spending works or doesn’t, and why it’s actually easier to convince people to fix a pothole than the opioid crisis. This podcast is exciting because real journalism is exciting, and I even laughed listening in on some of the calls we get to hear between Allen and sources. (At one point he tells a cop who keeps saying to him “no worries,” “No, it’s not ‘no worries.’ You’re breaking the law.”) Start “Black Box: Chapter One” here.
How I discovered it: Friendly email blast from Ian of Goat Rodeo.
✨I have followed everything Molly Lambert has done since Girls in Hoodies. She’s funny and curious and a great storyteller and just seems so cool. I do not think I am not cool enough to be friends with her. I love listening to her on other podcasts but I also love following her down the rabbit holes she’s going down. If something interests her I find it will interest me, too, and she is always able to connect those issues to bigger things going on in society and culture. She has come to be, for me, someone who I like enough to listen to no matter what she’s discussing because I know it will be good. Last week she turned the HeidiWorld / JennaWorld feed into Mollyworld, a weekly chat show documenting Hollywood Boulevard that turns comedians into tour guides for classic LA spots. The first episode was about Hollywood Boulevard’s Scum & Villainy, a bar inspired by the cantina from Star Wars, with Jamie Loftus. I am not a Star Wars person at all and the only reason I know what the cantina is is because there is a version in Disney World that doesn’t seem as cool as this one. But even I, a Star Wars moron, found a lot to love about this episode, which uses Scum & Villainy as an excuse to talk about the minions, why there is no sex in Steven Spielberg movies, and why Jamie thinks podcasting went from being a loser hobby to a way to be a wealthy fascist influencer so fast that most real podcasters didn’t really get to benefit from the title. The whole time I was listening to this episode I thought “this is cool but if they do not bring me into Scum & Villainy with them I am going to cry.” And they did. So this is a travel guide with Molly and her funny friends about anything they feel like talking about while flying down Hollywood Boulevard, laughing all the way. Lots of shows pivot from research/production-heavy narrative to chat/always-on, but few make the pivot with such creativity. Listen to “Scum & Villainy Cantina with Jamie Loftus” here.
How I discovered it: Subscriber to HeidiWorld and JennaWorld.
✨I think Blindboy was in a rather jaunty mood when he recorded the “Facts that I avoided telling my Barber during a recent Haircut” episode. It is reflective and breezy but also felt more like a comedy routine than normal, and we even get a rare chuckle from Blindboy when he talks about how stupid it is that he would care about his haircut when he wears a bag over his head, anyway. This episode is just a wonderful example of Blindboy’s flowy yet sharp storytelling, which he uses to explain how he functions as a neurodivergent person. It’s almost like a science communicator trying to tell a non-sciencey person how black holes capture light. The episode is bookended by two stories, one about when Blindboy was five and the other when he was recently getting his haircut. Both stories are about communication issues between non-neurodivergent and neurodivergent people. To Blindboy, the point of a conversation is to exchange information and facts, it’s not relational. People who don’t understand this don’t know how to talk to him. He has learned how to code switch. The exchange with his barber is funny and awkward and, neurodivergent or not, personally relatable in many ways: the barber talks about “Barber’s Hand,” which makes Blindboy want to talk about chimney sweep scrotum, it does not go well. This story might have happened in his head more than it did in real life, but it doesn’t matter. It’s an amusing examination of an exchange that gets Blindboy talking about shitty Airbnbs, how we’re all being tricked by Aperol Spritz, occupational hazards, and a lot of other stuff. Listen to “Facts that I avoided telling my Barber during a recent Haircut” here.
How I discovered it: People love this show and I resisted for awhile until Hanna Rosin recommended it when I interviewed her, so I caved and now I like it too.
✨On Consider This for Comfort, “raised by MTV and Nigerian immigrants” Eteng Ettah sits down with guests about the TV that brings them comfort. It’s a pop culture show, it’s an interview show, it has chat show vibes, but it is also a podcast that literally brings my blood pressure dowwwwwn. Eteng herself is a comfort, her voice is lulling. Listen to two seconds of this show and tell me I’m wrong. But these episodes are reminders about why we find comfort in things in the first place, and will make you think about comfort in a new way. In the Hacks episode with Steph Colbourn (which I’m going to recommend although I also love the Abbott Elementary episode) Steph says something like, “I’ve never really thought about why Hacks brings me comfort.” These guests are thinking about something they might not have thought too hard about before, so the conversations feel unique. And having to put into words WHY you literally can’t fall asleep to Friends because it makes you laugh too hard is a good exercise. I mean, what is your comfort watch and why? There are episodes on Sex and the City, Degrassi, Traitors, and more. I saw this recommended in a review of the show: start with a show you actually do not like and discover a new way to think about it. Listen to Consider [Hacks] for Comfort here.
How I discovered it: Met Eteng at a bar!
✨The Sporkful ran an episode about something I knew nothing about, a rare genetic condition called Prader-Willi Syndrome that causes extreme, insatiable hunger. If you have it, you are literally unable to stop yourself from eating and you cannot live a normal life. Stomachs rupture! Food needs to be locked away. My favorite episodes of The Sporkful are usually about wonderful relationships with food. This is about a terrifying one. Dan spends some time with a young girl who has it named Ayoni Rao and her family to learn not just what this does to Ayoni, but how it impacts her family, which makes you wonder what it does to Ayoni knowing what it does to them. If you have it, your whole family kind of has it, too. Ayoni has a sister, what will her relationship with food be like? And Ayoni can’t just not eat. You get to hear sweet moments of Dan making food with the Raos and talking to Ayoni about brownies, and you get to hear some fascinating things about this disease. I cannot be the only one wondering, and this is not a joke (not trying to make light of PWS…) can cats get it, too? That would explain a lot. Listen to “This Rare Condition Causes Extreme, Insatiable Hunger” here.
How I discovered it: Subscriber.
✨I have been following Amanda Knox’s podcast Hard Knox (which started out as “Labyrynths,” a show she co-hosted with her husband) since day one but I haven’t listened in years. To be honest I’m not even sure I register the episodes anymore. I don’t look for it like I do some podcasts. I flipped open my app randomly and the episode “Why Unreasonable Women Go to Prison” with guest Justine van der Leun was open, staring me in the face and kind of spontaneously I pressed play. Justine, as you might remember, was the host of the dynamite podcast about the Nikki Addimando case, Believe Her. The word “unreasonable” is pulled from the title of Justine’s new book Unreasonable Women, which investigates “criminalized survival” and the “reasonable man standard” a legal rule that is based on nonsense, and how in the criminal justice system, the only victim is a dead one. Surviving makes you culpable. This was a great episode and interview. We’re hearing a conversation between someone who has been studying this for years and an innocent woman once falsely accused of murder whose life mission has been to use her story as a launching pad to discuss the problems in the criminal justice system. I wrote in my notes: “these women are pouring open” which I don’t think, looking back, makes any sense but do you know what I mean? Justine tells a lot of crazy stories (she talks a lot about the Nikki Addimando case) and stats and stories that had me absolutely furious. I wanted to chuck my phone in front of a moving trolley. It sometimes sucks when people pull the “as a mother of a daughter” card but Amanda and Justine are mothers of girls and are having to figure out what to tell their daughters to do when a man inevitably hurts them. Inevitably she will be asked “what did you do to deserve this?” I also write this down: “the lie is that we tell women that if they are good nothing bad will happen to them.” So now I’m thinking about it too, because of my daughter, who is not white. And the stories Justine shares about women of color are just so much worse. There are a lot of really good men in my life who still don’t quite get how much the world hates women. Looking at the criminal justice system is inarguable misogyny to the max, on full display. Time to stop typing, my fingers hurt because I am SLAMMING the keys and writing this blurb is making me grind my teeth, also I am now sweating. Listen to “Why Unreasonable Women Go to Prison” here.
How I discovered it: Subscriber.