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May 20, 2024

Bonjour.

Today is Monday, May 20. In case this newsletter is too long…this is my #1 pick of the week, an old favorite of mine has returned, the most beautiful parenting / motherhood (human!) podcast I’ve heard is here.

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xoxo lp

👋q & a & q & a & q & a👋

Talia Augustidis

Talia Augustidis is a freelance audio producer, artist and community organizer based in London.

Okay so we have you bio, but how do you really describe what you do?
A lot of the work I do nowadays is in support of audio, the community organising part of my bio — I run listening events with In The Dark, I write the All Hear newsletter with Transom, and I work with The Roundhouse, a London arts charity, supporting their young creatives to make podcasts.

If I can help it, I try to save my audio-making energy for pieces and series that I really care about, so I’ve structured my life to allow for that. And in terms of things I care about at the moment, I’m working on a fiction piece for iHeart Radio and I’m producing a new series of my podcast UnReality.

How did you make your way to the audio world?
I loved podcasts and found out my university offered a module in Audio Storytelling but, for bureaucratic reasons, I wasn’t allowed to take it. After several long, pleading emails to administration, I weaselled my way into Nina Garthwaite’s course on audio storytelling (a pre-cursor to her In The Dark School). It completely changed my life.

Was there one audio experience that made you fall in love with audio?
I’ve had several “woah” moments with audio, each with progressively more experimental and strange pieces. The first was discovering This American Life because it was the first time I had heard brilliant audio stories, then it was Radio Lab because I had never heard anything as experimental, then it was The Heart because I had never heard anything as experimental, then it was Peyk Malinovski’s Everything, Nothing, Harvey Keitel because — you guessed it — I had never heard anything as experimental.

I loved your Lights Out piece. It seemed to be a lifetime in the making. What does it feel like to have it out in the world. Are you like…second guessing things? Have you listened a million times? Have people’s reactions made you think differently about it?
It’s interesting, before release I thought I would feel really empty once it was done, because that often comes with finishing a big piece of work, especially one years in the making. But actually when it came to it I remember feeling really free. Immediately after it was out there I started having all of these exciting creative ideas that I didn’t have space for before, because there was a story that I really needed to tell working itself out.

What work are you most proud of?
That’s a difficult one. I think probably Sleep Talks, which is maybe a lesser known piece but it holds a special place in my heart.

Can you tell me the history of In the Dark?
In The Dark was founded in London in 2010 by Nina Garthwaite. It was before the podcast boom but there was a feeling that exciting things were happening in art radio, but there was no space for creative radio in its own right, and there was a feeling in the older generation that shows needed celebrity presenters to draw in audiences. Nina knew that wasn’t right, she loved creative radio and could feel that her generation was interested in it, so she started In The Dark as a statement that creative radio mattered.

She looked to film and film festivals, where you can access international work easily from past and present, She wanted to bring that culture into audio — a space where audio from all these places could coexist and cross-pollinate: old and new, English and non-English language, fringe and mainstream, art and factual, radio and podcast and a place where people who liked that kind of work could meet, talk and maybe even forge collaborative relationships.

It began with Nina inviting radio makers who inspired her to play work by people who inspired them, and it grew from there. Branches popped up in Bristol, Manchester, Portugal and Spain, and they have done pop-ups around the world. I took over in 2022 and have been running the London branch ever since.

How are you bringing it to Tribeca? Tell me about the event!
So the event on the surface is a celebration of short audio pieces, anything up to 10 minutes. I think a good short audio piece is pure magic — something that can make you feel something big in such a short space of time, or transports you somewhere, or addresses big, weighty topics. It’s inspired by this concept of “small can be big” which Julie Shapiro has been bringing into her work with Short Docs and Audio Flux.

But beyond just the length of the pieces, I’m also using it as a space to celebrate independent audio more broadly. There are so many wonderful things happening in this space, beyond commercialisation and IP and ROI and all of that stuff. I’ll feature student radio, pieces made for fun in bedrooms, on a budget, just to experiment and play. It’s an ode to the industry really, with a selection of the kind of great work that made people get into audio in the first place.

Plus I will be performing a piece of my own! It’s an audio essay about an embarrassing mishap from my teenage years. I can’t say much else about it because it will give it away, but expect laughs and groans…

When is it? I really want people to come. (I am going.)
Thursday 13th June, 3pm at the Tribeca Film Center.

When you listen to podcasts or other audio, what is your ideal situation? Are you walking, lying down, in nature, etc?
Ooh I love this question. I find I’m most engaged when I’m doing a jigsaw puzzle. It’s a repetitive, tactile activity that perfectly silences some part of my brain that is easily distracted, and so I find it easiest to focus. There are pieces I really love which I remember the exact puzzle I was doing when I heard them.

What’s a podcast you love that everybody knows about?
Heavyweight. Especially the early seasons. Whenever I meet someone who hasn’t heard it I feel jealous that they get to listen with fresh ears.

What’s a podcast you love that not enough people know about?
Not a podcast necessarily but all of Chris Attaway’s work. I think he’s so talented — his work can make me cackle and cry and I don’t know why everyone doesn’t know his name.

Read the whole thing

🚨If u only have time for 1 thing🚨

But We Loved is a beautiful love letter to queer elders from host Jordan Gonsalves, who interviews them about their stories of coming out decades before he did. Two episodes came out on day one. First, an interview with Martin Boyce who remembers in crystal clear detail the day of the Stonewall Riots, June 27 1969. The storytelling is so vivid it’s almost like it happened yesterday. “We were used to licking our wounds and taking our losses. But not that night. We always listened, but not that time.” To Jordan this is a story of liberation, to Martin, it’s a story of frustration. This conversation had me holding my breath, I felt like I was observing something so important, and I was. A multi-generational conversation about a moment in history that inspired both Jordan and Martin. “I can go to gay bars because of you,” Jordan says. “I’m married because of what your generation did,” says Martin. The other episode is an interview with Eric Marcus of Making Gay History, one of the most important archives of LGBTQ history in existence. But Jordan is the one being interviewed. This series is building something beautiful to add to the archive. Someone (blackbirdbastard) on reddit called But We Loved “heavy history with lightness and a victorious feel and *chefs kiss* vibes.”

Listen now

hell yeah

✨NYC! I’m leading a Podcast Marketing Meetup (The Power of Podcast Promo Swaps) on Wed, May 22 at 6pm at the Standard! RSVP here.

✨Read Using Tumblr -- Yes for Real -- for Podcast Marketing [via Podcast Marketing Magic.]

✨The Tribeca lineup has been announced. Get your tickets here. Don’t miss the Audio Flux event or In the Dark Live.

✨Arielle Nissenblatt spotlighted Byte Sized Biographies in her newsletter and podcast.

💎BTW💎

🎙️Mother is a Question is like no other motherhood podcast I’ve ever heard. Instead of telling you things and tips and rules, hosts (and best friends) Julia Metzger-Traber and Tasha Haverty are asking you things, about what being a mom means for all sorts of people, about “the unteachable heart of mothering.” The difference between motherhood and fatherhood, working through pain, searching for the motherhood we all need and want. Listening to these moms reflect had me taking feverish notes (that make no sense to me now.) But as a new mom (my daughter turned 4 months yesterday) it got me thinking about my own new momhood, and how the mothering moments I’m most proud of are the ones I recognize in my own mom, the ones where I realize I am turning even more into her. These stories are told with beauty and honesty (fear comes up a lot, and every word associated with it) and give more questions than answers, so much to think about that you might just have to read your notes, realize they make no sense, and listen to everything again. Which is something I did. Mother is a Question just started a new season with a gripping two-parter about a mother who felt it was absolutely necessary to abandon her kids, who are also interviewed for the piece. I was so angry at her (I get angry at men who abandon their kids too) but this podcast isn’t here to make me feel better. Send to a mom or someone who might be a mom or someone who has a mom or a dad or wait just send to everyone. Wait I just realized this isn’t a beautiful parenting podcast it’s just a beautiful people podcast. Listen here.

🎙️On Never Seen It, Kyle Ayers gets comedians to rewrite sections of famous movies and TV shows who have never seen those movies and TV shows. I love the concept, but it’s only a teensy part of each episode. There are movie-themed games and segments (for one, Kyle shows his dad a trailer of a movie his dad has never seen, and his dad has to describe it.) And there’s great conversation at the beginning. Comedians chatting is something I don’t exactly seek out, but Kyle is funny and a sweeeeeet host so everything about this show works perfectly. Episodes are long but don’t feel like it. I loved the episode with Pete Holmes, who describes Euphoria. For the script, Pete crams the script with Gen Z lingo that is terribly off but also eerily believable. (“Are you a Blart?” “Stop being so pec.” “Classic bistro.”) Kyle, Pete, and Bailey Norton also rip on this season of Serial, if that interests you. Like, a lot. Listen here.

🎙️Tig Notaro, Fortune Feimster, and Mae Martin’s Handsome has been popping off lately, and I completely get why. It’s a silly, happy place to hang out. I worry that some people don’t know that years ago before some of you were listening to podcasts (episode one, Multiple Personality Disorder, was published in 2011) Tig co-hosted Professor Blastoff, the non-lesbian version of Handsome that used to get me CACKLING. Tig, Kyle Dunnigan, and David Huntsberger would focus on specific topics like loneliness, aliens, voice, renewable energy, or optogenetics with a guest, but I would really tune in for the pure silliness. You know how there are certain podcast listening moments you can remember with perfect clarity? I don’t remember what episode it was, but I do remember being at the gym in like 2013 and almost injuring myself with a kettlebell because Kyle, David and Tig were singing Copacabana for an annoying long amount of time at high volume and I was laughing so hard. The show ended years ago but the trio is now rereleasing episodes on Patreon. Listen here.

🎙️Poetry Unbound’s Pádraig Ó Tuama just finished a mini season Poems as Teachers, which shows the things poems can teach us about conflict and humanity. It opens with Wisława Szymborska’s “A Word on Statistics,” a poem I never wanted to end. It offers the number of people, out of one hundred, who are “able to admire without envy” (eighteen,) “not to be messed with” (forty and four,) “living in constant fear
of someone or something” (seventy-seven,) and “cruel when forced by circumstances,” (it’s better not to know.) Joy Harjo gives ground rules in “Conflict Resolution for Holy Beings,” Yehuda Amichai reflects on the human price we pay to feel right. It’s a beautiful thing. Start here.

🎙️If you, like me, will listen to anything about Dirty Dancing because it’s one of your favorite movies, I recommend to you the Material Girls episode about it. But I’m going to recommend it to you even if you haven’t seen it (one of the hosts hasn’t) or even if you think you don’t like it. Because it’s not just an episode about the movie, it’s a really *fascinating* reflection about nostalgia. Hosts Hannah McGregor and Marcelle Kosman, along with guest Andrea Warner (author of The Time of My Life) give an overarching view of how in pop culture nostalgia can be either a whitewashing of history or a look into the possibilities of the future, usually something that examines huge crossroads. It’s not an accident Dirty Dancing takes place in 1963 (so much upheaval.) Nothing about this movie is an accident. Think about the white washing scene of Baby and Johnny singing “Love is Strange,” a song sung by Black artists Mickey and Sylvia at the beginning of the film, vs the end scene, where they dance to the non-nostalgic hit “I’ve Had the Time of My Life.” There were so many things Andrea pointed out I was thinking about how I thought I felt chills, and moments later, Marcelle actually says “Andrea, I just got chills.” Listen here.

🎙️Canadaland’s Pretendians is a true-crime, sort of, but the theft is identity, and the criminals are people who claim to be Indigenous but aren’t really. Co-hosts Robert Jago (Kwantlen First Nation and Nooksack Indian Tribe) and Angel Ellis (Muscogee (Creek) Nation) kick things off with a doozie. They don’t just tell a wild scam story, they get a real pretendian on mic, "Grand Chief" Guillaume Carle, a French Canadian / sex criminal who created his own fake First Nation and issued phony Indian Status Cards to people, and even a dog. (It’s a long story.) He hasn’t done an interview in years. Robert stays calm as a cucumber in this respectful but heated (and insane) interview, which reveals to us that Guillaume is a scamming weirdo who doesn’t understand what a reservation is. To quote Robert, he’s more like a Sasquatch than an Indian. Listen here.

🎙️When little Lee Hawkins asked his dad what his nightmares were about—why he was screaming in the middle of the night—his dad said, ‘Alabama, son. Alabama.’ Now Lee is a grown ass journalist and What Happened in Alabama? is his attempt to find out the root of these nightmares, which go back centuries—centuries—into the past, through slavery and Jim Crow, all the way to Lee’s present reality. He has nightmares, too. In episode one we hear about the abuse Lee endured as a kid, and the love, to try to understand where it all came from, and where it’s all going. He’s interviewing his family and other elders and going to newspaper and government archives and DNA testing to find out. It reminds me of a book I loved, Morgan Jerkins’ Wandering in Strange Lands. What Happened in Alabama? is a beautiful story but I also think it will help people do their own digging. Listen here.

🎙️I just came back from the TED conference, where many of the speakers seemed convinced that AI would solve world hunger, world peace, etc. The latest episode of The Pitch is about PodcastAI, which promises to solve podcasting, seemingly every aspect of it, for $99/month. You all are going to just love it if it doesn’t eliminate your jobs! Or maybe you’ll find your own glaring problems with it, based on whatever you do in the industry, even if you’re just a listener. There are many. I almost died when I heard someone say it could replace podcast marketing. The panelist weren’t interested in investing but they did want to use it as podcasters. But then again, maybe I’m wrong and PodcastAI is the answer to your prayers. This is a good episode for anyone in podcasting, let me know what you think. Listen here.

🎙️Longform interviewed Normal Gossip’s Kelsey McKinney, where we learn that in order to keep herself writing on deadline, Kelsey forces herself to shove sour candies into her mouth every time she stops typing. (The kind of sour candies that have a sugar coating on it that fuck up your mouth.) Other notable facts: she doesn’t really like podcasts or know much about them, and doesn’t introduce herself as a podcaster. I would pass this episode along to a senior in high school or anyone in college. Kelsey is smart and was strategic about her career. She didn’t get where she was by accident or because she had help. It’s an inspiring story of how someone got to do exactly what they were born to do and what they love for a living. (Even if they are podcasting but don’t love podcasts. Kelsey I forgive you but can I make you a playlist????) Listen here.

🎙️I often skip the episodes of Without about dystopian futures where we don’t have coral reefs or blueberries or whatever, and that’s pretty on brand for me. I’m an avoider. But I love the episodes that picture a world that will be better. Like the one imagining a world without advertising. After admitting that he’s making less money hosting the show because he refuses to do host-read ads, Omar talks to a happiness expert who says ads for anything more than $20 should be illegal (those are the things that aren’t necessary) and said something that stopped me in my tracks: To raise your happiness, diminish envy. That’s the opposite of what ads are doing. Advertisements are complicated. I often love them, sometimes they’re helpful. I make them, kind of. But ever since I listened to this episode I have been really dreaming of what my life would be like without them, monitoring my own reactions to them day to day. I won’t get to live in a world without ads, but maybe listening to this episode will help me become a little happier. Listen here.

🎙️I love you!

📦 From the Archives 📦

[From August 10, 2020] The latest episode of My Gothic Dissertation (a literal podcast dissertation comparing the PhD program to gothic novels) once again tackles villains in gothic literature, but this time it’s not the PhD program that’s sinister, it’s the students. Host Anna Williams talks about the perils of teacher evaluations, and what teachers should do when students rebel against their leadership, comparing it all to Lucy Snowe in Charlotte Bronte’s Villette. This show is so fucking cool, please listen. This episode in particular gives us a new look at academia, blurring the lines of power, and turning the process of entering a PhD program into a horrifying adventure that can be dark as fiction.