✨ Glitter bomb 💀 gravestone grudge 🐎 ride like the wind 🌬️ space cadets 🚀
🍭 👂I didn’t want to die but I'm stupidly competitive 🌈 🤸♀️
Bonjour.
Today is Monday, September 30. HAPPY INTERNATIONAL PODCAST DAY. In case this newsletter is too long…Tink’s rebuttal to the Hear Me Out episode about podcasting being dead on Feed the Queue is here, this is one of the best celebrity podcasts I’ve ever heard, and I was on two podcasts I love talking about growing a Taylor Swift podcast and losing my crush, who was wearing a bear costume, in New York City on Halloween. (It’s a glitter-covered story.)
Have a nice weekend.
xoxo lp
p.s. Want to advertise here? Fill out this form or let me know.
A few weeks ago Hear Me Out posted their last episode, called Podcasting Is Dead. We at Tink disagree, though it gave us a lot to think about. Listen to a special episode of Feed the Queue where we discuss, here.
👋q & a & q & a & q & a👋
Ari Perez
Ari Perez is the host of ¿What Are Taylor Swift Studies Anyways? Originally from Honduras, he is an Associate Professor of Civil Engineering at Quinnipiac University in Hamden, CT. It was there where he discovered Taylor Swift’s work and became a Fearless Stan.
Describe ¿What Are Taylor Swift Studies Anyways? In 10 words or less.
An academic discussion about Taylor Swift’s interdisciplinary impact on society.
Tell us about the show’s origin story.
I was preparing to teach a course on Taylor at my institution and my friend (Prof. Kim O’Neill) who has helping me design the course mentioned doing a series of recorded lectures with our colleagues as a way to use multiple academic disciplinary lenses to look at Taylor’s work and impact. As soon as she said that, I knew I had found a great idea for a podcast!
Now tell us about the title.
It’s a reference to both a lyric from Taylor (in “22” she has a spoken interjected line “Who is Taylor Swift anyways?”) as well as a nod to the fact that we are applying a lot of different academic viewpoints to study Taylor Swift in order to find the ones best suited for assessing her work and impact.I also added an upside down question mark as a nod to my mother tongue, Spanish.
Why are you the perfect host for this show?
I’ve been a Swiftie since 2009, and throughout the last 15 years I have followed Taylor’s work through multiple eras so I have a trove of subject content knowledge both from scholarship and from lived experience. My own academic background is strongly interdisciplinary so I am used to both interacting with fields different than mine and new to me.
Fill in the blank: You will like ¿What Are Taylor Swift Studies Anyways? If you like _____________.
Taylor Swift // Quinnipiac University // Slate’s Culture Gabfest
Who is the podcast for? Taylor swift fans? Academics? Do you have to be both?
It’s for both people interested in Taylor Swift’s work on any level and folks who want to learn about how multiple academic fields can intersect to produce scholarship on one subject! White Taylor is the subject I picked, I think anyone wanting to listen to casual discussions of academic work will be interested! The show is meant to be accessible to everyone, so you don’t need any particular academic background for it - just an open mind and a desire to learn!
If people haven’t listened, where should they start?
Either with the first episode (Women and Gender’s Studies with Prof. O’Neill) or with whichever one that grabs their attention based on the field and/or guest. The episodes have a loose chronology, but can be listened to in any order - I tried to make them like a thematically linked set of short stories that when taken together tell a larger story - kinda like the Jennifer Egan book A Visit From the Goon Squad.
How did making the podcast change you as a person?
It allowed me to explore a side of my personality, as well as some skills, that I hadn’t really had a serious chance to develop - my creative side. As a professor I do a lot of writing, but since its about engineering, I wouldn’t really call it a creative endeavour. I really enjoyed the creative (or sub-creative) experience of making something I really cared about and putting it out there in the world.
How did making the podcast change you as a podcast listener?
I am so much more aware of the work that goes behind making a podcast and I am so much more appreciative of it. I am now much more attentive to the growth and evolution of a podcast through its first episodes as it finds its sound.
What do you wish you had known about making a podcast before you started?
How difficult it is to schedule guests! The format of my podcast has me bring on a guest every episode, and because it is a commitment for their time before and during the taping, the scheduling can be tough. I was incredibly lucky to get the wonderful colleagues I did to come, but there were some stressful times!
What do your students think of the podcast?
They seemed to like it! The feedback was positive, with about half of them expressing they had liked it and the other half staying silent. The ones that liked it both liked it by itself but also much preferred it to a video lecture.
Do your students…listen to podcasts? (This is me desperately wanting to know if young people are podcast listeners.)
Not as many as I would like - about 3/19 mentioned they like podcasts, though they tended to be different than the ones I consume. They really like the unscripted, people hanging around a table for a couple of hours ones rather than more high brow scripted ones like I typically do.
If you were going to start another podcast, don’t worry about the logistics or whether or not anyone would listen to it, what would it be? Your budget is $1M.
It would be a podcast interviewing 13 different Swifties around the world about how Taylor impacts their life. Kind if a mix of biographical and slice of life, but set in 13 very different locations around the globe so that while all the stories are different (and I would look for people with interesting life stories) there would be one common thread that unites them and shows how universal the Swifite experience can be. I would mix interviews with following them around for a day or two to get footage of living in Sao Paulo, Manila, or MIlan. I would envision it as a mix of This American Life and Beautiful Stories From Anonymous People.
Are there too many podcasts?
I don’t think so! I think it feels like the space is saturated, but I also feel like I’ve listened to enough shows that finding a new one can be difficult. That might be my overconsumption though.
What’s a show you love that not enough people know about?
Mystery Show from This American Life alum Starkee Kine. It only ran for one 6 episode season, but they were all amazing and magical. Case #3 Belt Buckle might be my favourite hour of audio ever, I have not stopped repping it for almost a decade.
What’s a show you love that everyone already knows about?
The History of Rome, probably the genesis of popular historical podcasts. I am obsessed with Ancient Rome, and the way MIke Duncan creates a long running, accessible, and engaging narrative blew my mind the first time I heard it.
What didn’t I ask you about that I should have?
What’s my favorite Taylor Swift song? To which I would say that Taylor Swift songs are like Pokemon, books, or Real Madrid players: favorite is the descriptor of a category, not of an individual. In that category for me are I Heart ?, Fearless, You Belong With Me, The Story of Us, New Romantics, Delicate, Invisible String, The Lakes, Champagne Problems, You're Losing Me, and So Long, London.
🚨If u only have time for 1 thing🚨
Lupita Nyong'o’s On Mind Your Own, personal stories of Africans who have expanded throughout the world, is one of the best celebrity podcasts I’ve ever heard. First of all, Lupita is a good host for something like this because she was born in Mexico, grew up in Kenya, and has lived in the US for 20 years. But she’s also a good host for something like this because she is a dazzling storyteller. Time kind of stopped when I started listening. Lupita cracks open this show with a story from her childhood about injuring a boy in her class that had me holding my breath and contorting my facial expressions around in pain. Not everyone can make you do that with a story. I think it’s her pacing that is perfect, her control of language, and you get the sense that as she is telling you she is really tapping into something, reliving the story in her own head. The production is great, too. It made me feel like I was sitting next to Lupita and her storytellers in a room with nothing else in it. When I finished two episodes I started listening to another storytelling podcast I really love and it felt scrawny in comparison. Listening to Mind Your Own has shifted my expectations for a storytelling show. I was so lost in the style of the storytelling that I listened again so I could really focus on the action of each episode. There’s a really powerful story Lupita tells about learning to accept the way she talks, and we hear stories both exciting and nuanced about a grave robber and what it means to get away with something. And more.
notes
✨Redditors on the podcast the changed their life. (This is incredible.)
✨Read How to End Your Year in Podcasting in Podcast Marketing Magic.
✨Arielle Nissenblatt spotlighted Talks with Dr Shafer in her newsletter and podcast.
✨My episode of Feed the Queue is here!
✨Devin Andrade of Podstack was able to remember why the first episode of Hyperfixed sounded familiar: Snooze did an episode, “Help Me Drive a Car.”
✨More Devin news! We were on Inside Wink together.
🎙️I can remember, five years ago, where I was when I first heard How To! (Then it was hosted by Charles Duhigg.) I was walking back from a part time job I had taken around the time I launched Tink. That week in one of the first issues of Podcast the Newsletter I wrote that it was “unlike any advice show I've seen before, like if Dear Abby were an investigative reporter.” Also in that issue, I interviewed Kristen Meinzer and recommended Who? Weekly, The Truth, Call Your Girlfriend, Doughboys, the very first episode of Scam Goddess, and made an enormous list of everything Jackie Johnson had guested on. (That’s a good idea, should I bring it back?) How To! is now hosted by Courtney Martin and Carvell Wallace and when the team emailed me to ask me to be on it to talk about podcast growth I almost lost my mind. I would have talked about anything, let alone my favorite subject! It was a big deal because I have been a listener for so long, but also because I speak about this so often on industry podcasts. It felt good to think that a wider audience might want to hear this. I was on with Ari Perez, creator of ¿What Are Taylor Swift Studies Anyways?, to help Ari grow his show. (I also interviewed Ari for this issue, see above.) The How To! team made me sound waaaay better than I am. You can love a show but not truly appreciate how good the editing and production is until you’re on it. They turned this conversation into a really well-constructed piece. Go listen to it, then go listen to Ari’s show.
How I discovered it: I don’t remember how I found it so many years ago but I wish I did!
🎙️On They Had Fun, Rachel Josar talks to New Yorkers about their very best New York City day, and I’ve been listening pretty religiously ever since I found it. I did stop listening for a few weeks when I moved to Philly, it was too painful. But now that I’m in love with my new place I’m enjoying going back and also thinking Rachel should start other chapters around the world. It was such a treat to be a GUEST on this show, it felt like a New York City milestone. I told a Halloween story about a night Justin disappeared and I ended up walking around the New York City marathon finish line in a Tinker Bell costume. Rachel has great energy, exudes fun, knows all the ins an outs of the city (she gives great recommendations) and has the best sign-off line of all time: “Thanks New York, They Had Fun.” I am really grateful that I have this little audio souvenir of one of my best New York nights. I’ve already played it for Stella 3,000 times. (In case your numbers are a little higher, Rachel, that’s why.) Listen here.
How I discovered it: Arielle told me about it?? I think?
🎙️I must confess that when I saw the title of the new series from 30 for 30, Girl V Horse, I was excited because I thought it said “Horse Girls” and would be about why there is this natural connection between girls and horses, what makes a girl a horse girl, and is it sexual somehow because I think it might be? (I am not in the mood to google this.) It’s not about that. It’s about running, the sport I have dedicated a huge portion of my life to. And horses. (I spent a lot of time with them, too! I showed horses for years.) Nicole Teeny is a documentarian and a long-distance runner with epilepsy, which is very scary. After reading Born to Run she developed this new relationship with her body and a dream to outrun a horse. It’s can actually be done, it’s not just something from a freak show or a tall tale. Nicole talks to experts about how she can prepare herself. And she finds that distance running in hotter weather will give her an okay shot. (Horses tend to go fast and tire, so we can keep up with them by not giving up, must like the masked man chasing after Drew Barrymore in Scream, or…fill in the blank any horror scene in a movie. This is something, Nicole tells us, called persistence hunting.) This is a personal journey where we get to hear about Nicole and her upbringing and family, I love hearing about her sweet as fuck relationship. I bet you didn’t know you’d be getting a story about epilepsy, too. But you are! And when those seizures rumble in her body, she pictures the animal spirits inside her stampeding. At one point Nicole says, “I just want to run alone.” I feel that so hard. I haven’t been sick, but I’ve been badly injured, and I think once you’ve enjoyed the freedom of distance running, the idea that it could be taken away from you feels inhumane. I very much get how this powerful image of running next to a horse appealed to her as a goal. So then Nicole races a horse and I’ll leave it up to you to find out what happens. This entire series was an athletic event, full of so many of my favorite elements in storytelling. I almost cannot believe what Nicole was able to accomplish, how many storylines were elegantly blended together. I’m holding up a “10” sign. I still want that series on horse girls, though. (Does it exist? Let me know.) Start here.
How I discovered it: I subscribe.
🎙️The Deserter from the New York Times has its very own RSS feed, so I’ll call it a podcast, but it didn’t feel like one. (A press release called it an “audio feature.”) It’s real, but it felt like an audiobook, a radio drama, it felt like I was the kid in The Princess Bride but Liev Schreiber was my grandfather instead of Peter Falk, and the story was about a soldier who served as a captain in the Russian army, fought in Ukraine and then ultimately fled the war and his country. The stripped down style of this audio feature gives the aura of a fairytale. The way it starts, introducing us to Ivan, you would have no idea if it’s taking place months ago or centuries ago. It just feels like a love story. How Ivan met his wife, Anna. But it doesn’t take long to realize that we are talking about the war in Ukraine. The details we get, from Ivan becoming disillusioned by the work he was doing in the army to the meticulous and obsessive preparation he did to leave, makes every moment feel like a vivid scene. I keep going back to a description of a bomb explosion and I could see the sand popping in the air. The phrase “couldn’t stop listening” gets overused, in this newsletter, even. But I had other things to do, other things lined up to listen to, but I was pretty glued to this story. It’s a thriller. By focusing on Ivan, journalist Sarah A. Topol is able to tell the story of one soldier but also the Russian war operation and its corruption, chaos and brutality, and how Putin’s decision to invade Ukraine has impacted Russia’s citizens, and the desperate choices some of them have made to survive. (She spoke to 18 deserters while reporting in eight countries across four continents over the last year and a half to tell this story.) Listen here.
How I discovered it: Press release.
🎙️Split Screen’s first season about Kid Nation, hosted by Josh Gwynn, was one of my favorite things made this year, and this week Josh passed the baton to, drumroll please, Nick van der Kolk (Love + Radio,) for season two, called Thrill Seekers. It’s a look into another television show that shouldn’t have happened, this one called Space Cadets. Don’t google Space Cadets until you listen, it is best to go in with fresh ears, as I did. Instead of spoiling the content, I’ll spoil the style: it’s Nick van derk Kolk, it’s very good. Nick opts to tell the story of Space Cadets in a non-narrative way, which offers a more beautiful, sweeping listening experience and it’s hard to do. Listen here.
How I discovered it: I subscribe.
🎙️Modern Love is back and the episode with Gillian Anderson was unsurprisingly the perfect episode. First of all, Gillian is plugging this book about sexual fantasies that I ordered right away. She collected stories from women about their fantasies, all of the stories are anonymous. Even Gillian’s, which is in there somewhere, we can only imagine. But we kick off the episode with Anna Martin reading Gillian some fan fiction about her character in The X Files. And really, I could listen to a whole podcast of Anna Martin reading Gillian fan fic about Scully. So this whole episode is about fantasy and desire and I know it should be, but I think that’s pretty revolutionary. Then Gillian reads the Modern Love essay “On Tinder, Off Sex,” which follows a woman who becomes unintentionally celibate after a painful breakup. It’s so much better than it sounds, and beautifully written. Spoiler alert! Two really fun things we learn about Gillian in her reading: a) Gillian thinks by just doing yoga she is more sexually attractive floating around in the world because it gives her confidence in her own body and b) Gillian Anderson bought herself a fride magnet that says “love like you’ve never been hurt.” I had no idea Gillian Anderson was, too, a basic bitch at heart and I love it. I want a fridge magnet that says, “Gillian Anderson has a fridget magnet that says “love like you’ve never been hurt.” Listen here.
How I discovered it: I subscribe.
🎙️The Broadside tells Southern stories, the kind “that might not be on a front page, but deserve a closer look.” It’s a good storytelling show, I’m always surprised and delighted by it. A recent episode took us to a tombstone in North Carolina that had a false murder accusation on it and to the history of the names on the tombstone, the little girl who lied to get two innocent men in jail, and one innocent man, Hamp Kendall, who was physically and mentally scarred from the time he spent in jail for a murder he did not commit. It sounds like the plot to a novel I want to read. It’s shocking and sad. A slice of a portrait of a man whose life was ruined, this story has been haunting me. I want more info about the little girl who lied to get Hamp in jail. I’m picturing Rhoda Penmark from The Bad Seed. As host Anisa Khalifa explains, this is also a story that changed cemetery law. Listen here.
How I discovered it: Got a press release for it awhile ago, I clicked on the episode because of the snappy title.
🎙️Basket Case is a mental health podcast that isn’t like any mental health podcast I’ve listened to before. It’s not offering hacks or tips. It’s looking at the mental health system as a whole, and how it systematically keeps us sick, using storytelling to do it. It’s taking a step back. In the first episode the host, Nicole NK Kelly (The Heart, TransLash) takes perfectionism, which is linked to (not to be hyperbolic) like, everything, to try to understand our collective mental health crisis. She takls to a somatic therapist who gives anecdotes to perfectionism I would never have considered. Feel your longings, feel your feet in the ground, feel dignity. I wrote in my notes, in all caps, LET US FEEL OUR FEELINGS and I felt like I was screaming. The second episode is about when ordinary feelings like grieving are considered mental disorders. And that could be an entire podcast. I don’t think I’ll be listening to these episodes only once. Listen here.
How I discovered it: Read about it in a listserve
🎙️Paul Eastwick and Eli Finkel, two friends and psychology professors who study relationship science, have launched Love Factually, a podcast that analyzes rom-coms and dramas from the perspective of relationship science. If you’ve seen a lot of these movies you know how they’ve fucked with your brain, in ways bad and good, and Paul and Eli are looking at the messages we’re getting and kind of fact checking them, awarding each film up to five Rusbults, named after Eli’s advisor Caryl Rusbult. The first episode was about one of my favorite movies of all time, When Harry Met Sally. They spend a lot of time pointing out small things I never considered, which happens any time I listen to anyone talk about When Harry Met Sally. They’re the experts, not me, and so I’m not going to argue with their scores. (Eli gave it a three, Paul a four.) They say they like things more thought-provoking and I say, more thought provoking than When Harry Met Sally?! But I’ll allow it, I’ll be fascinated to see what they do find thought-provoking. (Some upcoming films are: Before Sunrise, Clueless, Ten Things I Hate About You, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, (500) Days of Summer, and more.) In Paul’s email to me about this show he apologized for not having a Disney movie planned for the first season and I’m not sure if I absolutely do not want to know what messages we’re really getting from Disney movies or if I probably should. (I mean, I have been injecting Disney movies into my veins since I was two, and I’m alright. Right?) Listen here.
How I discovered it: Paul and Eli signed up for Podcast Therapy and I genuinely loved the show!
🎙️I love you!
Yay for Love Factually!