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🍭 👂It's Maze Time 🌈 🤸‍♀️

Bonjour.

Today is Monday, October 21. In case this newsletter is too long, here’s a great true-crime that completely surprised me, it took me forever to find this new show (and episode #2 has the best Sept 11 story you’ll ever hear,) at least two people have called this “spine tingling.”

xoxo

lauren

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👋q & a & q & a & q & a👋

Lauren Ober is a journalist and longtime podcast creator and host of shows such as The Loudest Girl In The World (Pushkin Industries/iHeart), Fine Gorilla Person (Topic Studios/Audible) and Spectacular Failures (AMPStudios). Hanna Rosin is the host of Radio Atlantic, the flagship weekly podcast of The Atlantic. She also serves as a senior editor at the magazine. Previously, Hanna was co-host of NPR’s Invisibilia. 

Most recently, Ober and Rosin created and hosted We Live Here Now for The Atlantic. The podcast is the first (and likely last project) they’ve worked on together. Lol, but like furreal.

Explain We Live Here Now in 10 words or less.
Mr. & Mrs. Smith Go To Washington, but January 6 MAGA-style.

How would you describe the sound / vibe of the show?
LO: We had a nasty run-in with a new neighbor, which is very uncharacteristic for us. We love our neighborhood and have always had great neighbor relations. So this encounter was unsettling and we told some friends about it. Before we knew it, we had Scooby-Doo’d our way to learning who our new neighbor was — a very prominent figure in the January 6 community. So we pulled some string and realized that there was a whole house full of Jan. 6 apologists including (spoiler alert!) the mother of Ashli Babbitt, who was shot and killed at the U.S. Capitol. So obviously it’s a light podcast. 😩

How do you both play into the podcast? Are you a united team? What are your characters / roles in the story?
HR: Lauren was the one who forged a relationship with our neighbors first. And in the show, I am deeply skeptical of this. Or at least I want to push back. At one point in the show, I ask Lauren “Are you guys like, friends now?” Lauren’s answer is kind of cagey because she’s still not sure where she’s landed with them. She wants to say no, but she has deep affection for Ashli Babbitt’s mother Micki. 

Yes, Lauren Ober is a super professional responsible hard-hitting journalist and all that. But I feel the duty to constantly remind her that these guys are saying and doing dangerous things. I wouldn’t say it’s quite good cop/bad cop, but there’s a little bit of that in the show. And at one point, in the end of episode 3, we play a hot mic moment — which happened for real  — when we got into it in the studio. 

What’s it like working together on an audio project?
LO: Ask our couples therapist. 

HR: Pass.

So this show is about a neighbor, but what’s it really about?
LO: It’s really about the “other” and how to transcend massive cultural, political, economic, etc. differences and just see some humanity in the person sitting across from you. It’s about being able to hold two or more contradictory ideas about a person. And it’s about interrogating your own belief system. 

HR:  But then it’s also about the grotesque revisionist history of January 6 worming its way through the MAGA right. And how regular people have gotten swept up in it. And how dangerous a Lost Cause-style narrative of a national tragedy can be for democracy. Please see: post-Reconstruction Era, Jim Crow South.

How is your relationship with your neighbor now? Does she know about the podcast?
LO: She most definitely knows about it (and the companion print piece that Hanna wrote) and has listened to the episodes. We have been fully transparent with Micki throughout and have gotten her consent at every step. We’ve had a lot of difficult conversations and we have told her over and over that there will be material in the show that she won’t like. But it will be honest and fair reporting. And so far she’s seemed to be ok with that. Which is shocking given her rank disdain for “mainstream” media. Also, as I write this, Micki literally just texted me that she was listening to episode 4 when I was walking the dogs past her house!

Can you tease one great moment of the show?
HR: I will give you one word: Dildo

What’s a podcast you love that everyone already knows about?
LO: Heavyweight

HR: In the Dark

What’s a podcast you love that not enough people know about?
LO: I have a tie: Straightio Lab and The Curious History of Your Home

HR: The Blindboy Podcast

What didn’t I ask you that I should have?
The handles for our very anemic social media!

LO: @oberandout

HR: @hannarosin

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🚨If u only have time for 1 thing🚨

Last year John Hodgman and Janet Varney promised their fans that if they reached a goal in that year’s MaxFunDrive fundraiser, they’d create a podcast about the mottos for all 50 states, and they kept their word. E Pluribus Motto is here! (I LOVE a goal-driven podcast.) To tell the stories of these state mottos, Janet and John are going state by state in the order the states decided to have a motto in the first place. So far we have Connecticut and Rhode Island. It’s a study of America we’ve never had before. Listening to the first two episodes I was like, I know I’m learning something but I don’t quite know what it is yet. Sure, I’m learning that Connecticut was an early ship-building capital because of its long shoreline, and that its state mammal is the sperm whale. But what takeaways will we have once this mission is over? Will we finally understand Trump voters? Janet and John do not promise that but we might, we might! They also share call-ins from listeners sharing love for their home state, and interviews with people who have fascinating ties to the places. (Mystic Pizza screenwriter Amy Holden Jones, Julian Fellows, who created The Gilded Age.) The ads are all local. At the end of the Rhode Island episode John “toilet papers our ears” with Blossom Dearie’s Rhode Island Is Famous For You. Everything about this show is thoughtful, unique, silly, genuine, and just really sweet.

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notes

✨My latest piece in Lifehacker is: 10 Scary Podcasts to Listen to in the Dark

✨Read 🛡️How to market yourself despite being terrified in Podcast Marketing Magic.

✨Arielle Nissenblatt spotlighted The Sam Sanders Show on EarBuds.

✨TINK IS HEADED TO RESONATE in just a few days. If you’re going, say hi to me, Wil Williams, Ilana Nevins, and Arielle Nissenblatt. We’ll be handing out these BINGO cards to encourage everyone to meet a new friend, discover a new podcast, and make the most of the whole festival. Stay tuned next week for a total recap of what happened.

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💎podcasts i texted to friends💎

🎙️Dylan Tupper Rupert (Bandsplain, The 33 1⁄3 Podcast) is leading Groupies, the new season of Lost Notes and I just want to hug it and live in it, I’m so glad it exists. Groupies is painting pictures of the everyday lives of Lori Lightning, Sable Starr, Pamela Des Barres, and Jaan Uhlhelski—absolutely music-obsessed young, young girls fearlessly figuring themselves out and making bold footsteps on the 1970s LA Sunset Strip strip alongside Mick Jagger and Frank Zappa. It’s as glitzy and star-studded as you’d imagine the groupie-life would be after absorbing pieces of these stories in pop culture, but unsurprisingly much more nuanced and complex. With history, storytelling, and interviews, this show is fleshing out these girls so well I thought I could see them in my kitchen. I am jealous of them, not for fucking Mick Jagger, but for living so freely and loving something so, so much. Groupies is a dishy, wild ride and a celebration of young girls and their impact on music, which is something that usually gets left on the cutting room floor when we tell stories about rock and roll. Start here.

How I discovered it: I subscribe and I got an email about it.

🎙️When I saw that Hot and Bothered was covering Dirty Dancing my head almost exploded, it is truly my ultimate dream crossover. I could probably listen to anyone talk about this movie (or an entire podcast about this movie, which I do.) I couldn’t get tired of hearing about it, I can’t get enough, I am not picky. But this was an exceptionally good conversation that made me, someone who has spent way too much time thinking about Dirty Dancing, think about Dirty Dancing in a new way. Vanessa Zoltan and guest Lauren Sandler talk about how Jewish men are portrayed on screen (um badly) and whether this is a love or a lust story. At the end of part one there is a great interview with sociologist Phil Brown about the history of Jews in the Catskills, why The Catskills were a destination for Jews in the 1900s, and whether or not Dirty Dancing portrayed it correctly. In Part Two, they focus solely on that final scene, the good things (it’s a story of collective liberation—if everyone is up and dancing, then nobody cares who is dancing with who,) the stuff that makes less biased Dirty Dancing fans go “huh?” (Dr. Houseman does not apologize!,) the stuff that makes us want to watch the movie again and again and again. No moment or facial expression or nuance goes unturned. For 27 minutes I felt like I was sitting at a table in the scene with the characters. They even talk about how they’d rewrite the ending, which is a thought exercise that has been taking up space in my daydreams. Later on the feed they put an episode from Hannah McGregor’s other show, Material Girls. It’s a mind-bogglingly academic conversation about Dirty Dancing, a conversation about how the movie is actually about the hopefulness that comes in times of political transition, that I think about all the time. (I have written about it in these here pages.) Listen to part one here and part two here.

How I discovered it: I subscribe and would listen to anything about Dirty Dancing.

🎙️Feed the Queue is Tink’s podcast discovery podcast, and on this season everyone at Tink is bringing an episode they love with a little intro about why they love it and some other fun stuff. Aakshi Sinha was one of my first hires and I’d say she’s the love of my life but that feels selfish because everyone feels that way about Aakshi. She had to leave Tink for a bit to attend school, which is exciting and sad for the people she left behind. But we never stop thinking about her and she kind of haunts us in the best way. She is the one who wrote and sang the song for Feed the Queue, she also wrote and recorded a song for my daughter, and don’t get me started on all the amazing things she’s done because I’ll never stop. Anyway, she came back for an episode of Feed the Queue to recommend Folk On Foot, a multi-award-winning podcast in which Matthew Bannister goes walking with top folk musicians in the landscapes that have inspired them. It’s such an Aakshi recommendation. It’s completely atmospheric and detail driven and peaceful and ambient and musical and thoughtful. Aakshi chose an episode that features trans pipe and fiddle player Malin Lewis. White listening to Malin play I wrote in my notes “chills on my spine, chills on my spine” and not 20 seconds later Matthew said, “that is really spine tingling.” So Jeez what else do you want from me? Go listen to it and get your spine tingled. If that doesn’t happen there’s probably something wrong with you. Also, on these Feed the Queue episodes (and often in this newsletter) we always ask, “what podcast would you make with $1M” and I love hearing people’s answers. My favorite used to be Bridger Winegar’s, who said “It would be a podcast where I buy a $1M home in Palm Springs and then record from there. I would recommend songs and talk about tweaks I've made to cookie recipes. It would be absolutely excruciating. And again, I also have a podcast idea for Garth Brooks.” (That was a very funny interview.) But Aakshi’s is my new favorite. She said she would give it to creators already making beautiful things so they could make more beautiful things to put out in this world. And that is the Aakshi-est answer I’ve ever heard. Don’t you want to go listen to her podcast recommendation now? I love you, Aakshi. Listen to Aakshi’s episode of Feed the Queue here. Listen to Folk on Foot here.

How I discovered it: We produce Feed the Queue, Feed the Queue introduced me to Folk on Foot.

🎙️48 Hours launched Candyman, a deep-dive into the 1987 murder of 52-year-old Chicagoan Ruthie Mae McCoy, also known as the Candyman murder. (That inspired both horror films.) Before she was shot four times in her home in Chicago's housing projects, Ruthie Mae called 911 to say that intruders had entered her apartment through her bathroom medicine cabinet. Get this—Ruthie Mae wasn’t the only person in that building who reported having someone come through the mirror. Unsurprisingly, the cops didn’t take this call seriously. It took days for Ruthie Mae’s body to be discovered. This podcast is called Candyman, I thought it would be about the murderer. It isn’t. It’s better. Host Dometi Pongo is telling a horror story about the reality of living in the housing projects and every fiber that goes into making them dangerous places to live, down to the actual design of them. (People could through the medicine cabinets?!) Candyman is also a story about the story, and about exactly how for the film, John Malkovich creepily lifted from the journalist who had sensitively reported Ruthie Mae’s murder in real-life story, exploiting the real-life people involved. Steve Bogira, the journalist, is on the podcast with the real story. Candyman is disturbing on so many levels and is tackling the murder of Ruthie Mae McCoy in a surprising way. Listen here.

How I discovered it: It was trending on Pocket Casts.

NOT TO BE CONFUSED WITH THIS COMPLETE BONUS TANGENT: Listen to the audio-drama Candyman. (In 1971, five children were given a tour of a chocolate factory in upper Munich. Four left the factory maimed, and one never left at all. The Candyman is a scripted podcast series investigating the harrowing events of Roald Dahl’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. As the hosts and tech search for justice, they are derailed by old characters, new foes, and their own ineptitude.)

🎙️Do you how much trouble I had to go to to find the new Ringer podcast Truthless? I heard a promo for it on The Ringer’s Prestige TV Podcast and searched everywhere, couldn’t find it in my podcast player or any others, Googled it, stumbled upon some Instagram reels that mentioned it, I was losing my mind. I am a podcast marketer and was actively trying to find this podcast and could not. Eventually I Googled the right thing and found it on Spotify only, and I’m able to locate it now, but Jesus christ. Anyway, it’s a podcast where liars tell stories about the lies they told. It’s fun and seems to have been started for an interesting reason. Host Brian Phillips was reading about a study about how many people tell a lie in the day, but the study was pretty self-regulated. Participants would write down how many times they lied in a dishonesty journal at the end of the day, which is essentially saying the scientific method for counting lies is an honor system for deception. So, he realized, you had to believe that someone who admitted to lying all the time was a bigger liar than someone who claimed to have never lied at all. Think about that. Getting people to get on mic and talk about lies they’ve told isn’t scientific but it’s definitely entertaining. In episode one, Katie Baker tells a story about the early internet that is so relatable and terrifying I was sweating SWEATING and in episode two, The Kid Mero tells the most entertaining September 11th story you will ever hear. Every story is framed with something from lying-themed folklore myths or fables to help us reimagine what lying actually means, how it serves us, and why we do it. Listen here.

How I discovered it: See the long and boring story above.

🎙️The If Books Could Kill release schedule seems to be pretty random, and I like to think it’s because Michael and Peter aren’t releasing episodes because they have to, they’re releasing episodes because they have a really good one to release. Because they’re all pretty good. For what I think has been one of the funniest, Michael recently brought to the table Who Moved My Cheese, the mass-selling business book (or as Peter called it, a “novella-length business allegory”) released in 1998. It’s a book that a lot of bosses made their employees read to give them fraudulent coping mechanisms for massive layoffs. Layoff propaganda if you will. Michael says Who Moved My Cheese is “the most demonic thing” they’ve ever read for the show, which is quite an explosive claim. It’s only 94 pages, could have been three, and Michael actually reads about 30% of it for the podcast, which would have been difficult if it weren’t so funny to hear Michael and Peter voice acting as mice called Sniff and Scurry. This led to a really smart conversation about the context that this book was written—the mass layoffs and downsizing happening in the 80s and 90s that were made to boost stock prices, plus the rise of the motivation industry. Michael and Peter were having fun making this episode and it was fun to listen to. Listen here.

How I discovered it: I subscribe.

🎙️I have written about The Best One Yet, the “pop biz” podcast hosted by Nick Martell and Jack Crivici-Kramer that kind of cartoonifies and simplifies business news enough to make me really care about it. They use a mix of storytelling and enthusiasm to do it, and they are really good at it. Their voices sound like they are smiling really, painfully hard, if that makes any sense. They have launched The Best Idea Yet, untold stories behind the products you’re obsessed with and the bold risk-takers who made them go viral. It feels like a perfect offshoot of The Best One Yet. These episodes aren’t daily, which allows them to go in depth with the stories, something they don’t have time to do on The Best One Yet. The writing is playful, the production is lively, the guys are bringing their whole bodies and souls into the storytelling. The first episode is about the origins of The Happy Meal. There is a bit of a debate surrounding who came up with it but I am not surprised it was franchise-owning mom of five in Guatemala. Listen here.

How I discovered it: I heard a promo on The Best One Yet but then really wanted to check it out when I saw on LinkedIn that my friend Adam Skuse had been working on it.

Shreya Sharma of Shreya’s Audio Affairs asked if she could write something about a podcast we both love, Strangers on a Bench. So I’m passing the mic to her:

🎙️Every once in a while, you'll hear something that will remind you why you fell in love with podcasts in the first place. A podcast that gives you the delicious thrill of being part of truly intimate conversation–a conversation you'd never have heard otherwise. Strangers on a Bench is that podcast. It's hosted by singer, songwriter, and interviewer extraordinaire Tom Rosenthal. Over the pond in London, Tom chats with strangers on a park bench. They are strangers to him and to us. We get to hear him getting to know someone, intimately and vulnerably, for the first time. The anonymity afforded by audio results into something beautiful; secrets being revealed in a progressively intimate manner. They start by telling us what day of the week is their favorite and it magically ends with us learning so much about their life philosophy. Each episode ends in an ORIGINAL song written for the stranger in the episode. Just goes to affirm the beauty of audio–you don't need a name to intimately get to know someone, if only you do it with time and intention. You can start anywhere but I personally loved Michael's Tree. Listen here.

How I discovered it: I saw it on Pocket Casts and then Shreya mentioned it in the Tink Slack channel.

🎙️The Verge is going back 20 years for a package of stories called “2004 week,” the year Google went public, the year Gmail and the Firefox Browser became a thing, the year Facebook and Dig launched, and the year of Janet Jackson’s wardrobe malfunction (which changed the streaming world forever.) It was also the year “podcast” became a word. So an episode of The Vergecast looked at the past, present, and future of podcasting, and host David Pierce (who was recording from his car ala the style of many early podcasters) talked to James Cridland about what a podcast even is and what on earth we should do about YouTube. I really liked James’ definition (“on demand audio-first content, something you can enjoy with your ears while you are busy” though he also admitted that it’s “anything the audience thinks it is”)  more than Steve Jobs’ (“Wayne’s World for radio, something he said in 2005 when there were 8,000 podcast in total. (Also in 2005: the word of the year was “podcast.”) We get to hear the first thing that was ever distributed via podcast in 2003, even though the dudes speaking called it an “audio blog.” Listen here.

How I discovered it: I subscribe and will listen to any podcast that talks about podcasts.

🎙️I love you!

📦 From the desk of Tink 📦

Beyond+ is a new podcast from the leading Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation (EPGAF). Launched on October 1st, this podcast highlights the stories of youth living HIV positive. More than 40 years after the start of the HIV pandemic, Beyond+ asks the question: What is beyond the diagnosis? From adolescence to adulthood, loss to love, graduation to thriving beyond the clinic, the stories shared on Beyond+ push the conversation beyond an HIV diagnosis, offering a broader perspective on what it means to live and grow in today’s world with HIV. Listen here.