🥇ICYMI: My 30 favorite podcast episodes of 2022 💎

🍭 👂 You're in for a treat! 🌈 🤸‍♀️

Bonjour!

Today is Monday, December 26. I have spent the past few days with my family in Ohio, and they think it’s rude if I listen to podcasts while they are talking to me. Instead of sharing what I listened to this week I’m re-sharing (in no particular order) some of the best stuff I wrote about throughout the year that might have slipped through the cracks. If you missed them before, here’s your chance to try again. Don’t make me tell you a third time!

More new stuff in 2023, I promise.

xoxo lp

ps If you are pleased with Podcast The Newsletter, please spread the word.

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oh hey

✨ Tink Media’s Audio Delicacies…A delicious selection of podcast treats from 2022

✨ This week my friends at Hark Audio are counting down the most popular podcast clips of the year in each day’s Hark Daily. This week it’s hosted by Jody Avirgan! 

✨ The 13 Best New Podcasts of 2022 [Lifehacker]

✨ I was surprised to hear that nobody had ever asked Zak to give his own advice on The Best Advice Show, so I asked if he’d let me interview him and he said yes listen here.

✨ Arielle Nissenblatt spotlighted Undetermined in her newsletter and podcast.

✨ This week I’ll be sending out a post thread asking you to comment with a podcast recommendation. Three of the commenters will win a prize package of podcast swag!

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🎙️This two-parter from This Is Uncomfortable is like a fairytale that starts with a princess who gives up everything (her voice, her dreams) to marry her prince who ends up being the founder of Oath Keepers. It ends in a resurrection. Tasha Adams married Stewart Rhodes, who controlled every inch of her life and kept the entire family impoverished, fearful, and in real danger for years. Tasha was always too afraid to leave, and when Stewart started organizing a far-right anti-government militia, she worried but kept on being a supportive wife. There were big things in this story: Tasha stripping to support Stewart go to school though she had given her own college fund to him, bearing him children he almost starved, being completely abusive and isolating her and her family. (Oh, and a resurrection.) And small things: Tasha buying a throw pillow with a bicycle that said “Life Is an Adventure” that inspired her to make a big move—leave Stewart. The night of their escape, narrated in part by Tasha, her oldest child Dakota, and host Reema Khrais, is so well-told I could hear Stewart’s Iron Maiden music thumping through the house, his grunting as he frantically worked on his Oath Keepers campaigns, all while Tasha and her kids were sneaking out of the house with Stewart’s beloved guns, in a plan that took months to make, one they called “The Don’t Die Plan.” I think I could hear my heart beating through my chest. This story is about money—they money that Stewart stole and spent wildly and Tasha gaining her own financial independence, but also about love and what is required of us to receive it. Listen here and here.

🎙️Mortified allows people to read from their childhood diaries, and episodes are often funny, but never as heart-breaking as this one told by Jessica. Jessica had a challenging childhood, more challenging than mine. Her parents were divorced and she was tasked to help her with her house cleaning business, which included cleaning the home of her school bully. And yes, she was bullied mercilessly, for being fat. And she always felt like the dud of the family. But this wasn’t a sob fest. Little Jessica seems have an admirable awareness that awkward adolescence is funny and isn’t everything. Her reading is full of laughter and compassion for herself. Listening gave me more compassion for myself and everyone in the world. I want a YA novel based on this diary. Listen here.

🎙️I have heard that the story of John Nuttall and Amanda Korody reads a little like a John le Carré novel if it was written by the Trailer Park Boys. I think it’s more like if Kevin McCallister tried to pull off a terrorist attack. John and Amanda’s story, from homelessness and addiction to trying to place a bomb at British Columbia’s legislature, had them at the center of a lengthy RCMP (Royal Canadian Mounted Police) terror investigation. It’d be wild enough if the story ended there. They were completely ill-equipped (non-equipped) to pull of any of their terrorist dreams. But were they really their dreams? They are suing several members of the investigation team, calling their work a "travesty of justice.” The B.C. Supreme Court found that the police had indeed entrapped John and Amanda. So it’s nuts. And also sad. John and Amanda were depressed, lost, alone, and ripe for manipulation. Pressure Cooker is a tight piece that puts you immediately into the action, catching you up on John and Amanda’s background and letting you in on all the footage pulled from the RCMP. You’re a fly on the wall, with all the knowledge we have now about how both sides botched their missions, and it’s up to you to decide just how far out of line the RCMP went. How exactly do two people go from just trying to get by to plotting a terrorist plot? Find out for yourself.

🎙️Snap Judgment tells the heroic story of a man and Rooty, his a 300 lb pot-bellied pig trapped in a house during Hurricane Katrina. Jim stayed behind despite all warnings to flee, in order to care for Rudy, who was depressed and unresponsive as Jim held down the fort. This would have been an incredible story of survival were it not for the fact that a pig was involved. Jim is a loveable protagonist. (“Rudy was freaking out, so I gave her a large bowl of Chardonnay.”) Listen here.

🎙️Philly Fighting Covid seemed like an admirable organization, its mission was to get the city of Philadelphia vaccinated. But at the helm was a 22-year-old with no health care experience who was hoping to make millions, and schmoozed his way into aligning his company with the city, only to have Philly Fighting Covid implode as thousands of people awaited vaccinations. We don’t know what was in his heart, but on Half Vaxxed, his story screams grifter vibes. It’s totally Elizabeth Holmes-esque, and a wild story of a young kid got too much power and how his mission spun terribly out of control. Just when you’re sitting there thinking about how much you hate this kid (you will) the zinger comes in the last episode, when you find out a legit Black woman doctor was trying to do the same thing, but denied by the city. It’s rage-inducing. This is a quick listen and the whole thing is solid—there’s no sagginess. Listen here.

🎙️Since August 2021, on the 11th of every month, Pineapple Street released an episode of The 11th, an isolated audio project that can be anything—a small series, narrative nonfiction, or something totally made up. (They’ve since ended the series.) There were no rules and you never knew what you were going to get. March’s episode, The Happiness Project, was a glorious tour of a Toronto neighborhood via Charles Spearin, a long-time member of the band Broken Social Scene. Charles interviewed his neighbors and imagined them as instruments, then created music based on what they sound like. It’s one of the most imaginative things I’ve heard, each neighbor springs off the episode into a colorful world of music and sound. It’s a cool way to imagine humans, and will make you listen to the world in a new way. Mrs. Morris sounded like a saxophone. Listen here.

🎙️I heard that Oatly had a podcast on American Hysteria and I am interested in branded podcasts, so I listened. Did I go in with low expectations? Yes. Was I completely amused? Yes. Do I recommend you listen to this? Yes. Oatly Lake is poking fun at true crime/murder investigation podcasts by sounding exactly like them. The episode (there is only one, and there will only be one) sounds like an episode of Serial, with plucky music and serious tone. But in this case, it’s mid-2021 and Oatly, the Swedish dairy alternative company, found a lake in Michigan with the same name as their brand. (Or so they thought—we learn that nobody on the Oatly team googled it and there is a difference in spelling.) They send out Schuyler Swenson to interview the lake’s proprietor Justin Hausler about who owns the lake and whether or not there is a connection with the milk. (Spoiler alert: there’s not.) It’s a completely meta experience—Schuyler waits for an ad break and then is reminded by a producer that there are none because this entire episode is an ad for Oatly. I would love to know the budget for this thing, if it wasn’t so funny it would be considered a well-done true-crime shows. Oatly Lake is one of the most fun marketing campaigns I’ve ever encountered. Listen here.

🎙️Fan Theory Queries is a show where pop culture nerds Lara Williams, Spencer Williams, and Michael Sewell track down both brilliant and unfounded fan theories from all over the internet about things like Peter Parker, Scooby Doo, and Beauty and the Beast. The thing about ridiculous fan theories, I’ve learned after listening to several episodes, is that they often sound beyond ridiculous but are argued by an obsessive person who has done their homework, and sometimes they aren’t as nuts as they first appear. You might not end up convinced that Toy Story’s Sid became a garbage man to save toys, but it’s an interesting world to live in for just a little while, and it’s fun to consider the worlds that pop culture creates, and allows us, if we’re loyal fans, to let our imaginations run wild about what could be. It’s a podcast about logic, canon, fandom, and the interesting way people are taking their thoughts to the internet. Listen here.

🎙️The inventive Imaginary Advice’s Ross Sutherland released You Are Ant, an episode that’s part talking tape (complete with the chime noise you’ll remember from your childhood) and choose your own adventure novel, which sounds impossible, but Ross Sutherland is able to bring to life storytelling structure that has never been tested before, and it works. He makes you the main character, a child with a journal that contains disturbing stories heading home, and takes you on a whirlwind of an adventure that finishes in a masterful twist that I won’t give away. This is one of my favorite Imaginary Advice stories in a long time, and that’s saying a lot. If you haven’t picked up this show yet, here’s a good place to start. Or listen to my favorite episode on my podcast Feed the Queue, where it was featured.

🎙️I listened to the first three episodes of Mother Country Radicals at 1x speed (a rarity for me) because it’s so rich and detailed and I didn’t want to miss a nuanced breath or small detail. That’s several hours of listening and not a second was wasted. Zayd Ayers Dohrn, son of radical left wing Weather Underground leaders Bernardine Dohrn and Bill Ayers, is giving a very personal account about what it was like to be born underground in the 70s with his parents on the run from the FBI for pursuing radical change through any means necessary, and how The Weather Underground evolved. This story could be a mess—there are so many timelines and pivotal moments but this show is perfectly pieced together—we learn about Bernardine in episode one, and Bill in episode two. All the while we get to understand how unusual (and at some points absolutely normal) Zayd’s childhood was. There’s so much instructional information about starting a revolution I feel like I could do it myself. This is an unusual, important story well-told, and gives a voice to radical politics and the strategic extremes people will go take to change the world. Listen here.

🎙️Wesley Lowery hosted the new season of Unfinished—Ernie’s Secret, which tells the story of Ernest C. Withers, a Black journalist who lived a double life as the "original civil rights photographer" and FBI informant. He first photographed Martin Luther King Jr. in Montgomery in 1956, and is best known for his photograph taken on the day of King’s last march, a shot of hundreds of strikers holding signs bearing the words “I Am a Man.” Ernest passed in 2007, but due to an FBI fuck up (hilarious) in 2010, a journalist named Marc Perrusquia got a lead that there was a lot more to Ernest’s story. These first two episodes of Ernie’s Secret are absolutely packed with intrigue, secrets, and questions like…should Marc have exposed Ernest’s past? Was Ernest coerced and simply caught up in FBI surveillance during the Civil Rights Movement? Would King have cared? And why aren’t our heroes perfect? Listen here.

🎙️I saw that there were three new episodes of the movie podcast MUBI, hosted by Rico Gagliano, and thought I’d listen to one, but it kind of derailed my whole morning and I ended up listening to all three. The new season is a celebration of movie theaters and the notable moments that have happened in them. It’s an academic, emotional, historic look at these special places that aren’t just nostalgic but the origins of explosive moments in history. The first episode takes us to France in the 40s to visit Henri Langlois’ Cinémathèque Française, an underground, experimental 38-seat theater that played “dangerous” movies in Nazi occupied France. Henri hid movies from the Nazis, risking his life to save cinema. And when he was fired (basically for being a bit strange and protective of his films, as far as I can tell) it launched protests all over the world. Episode two focuses on New York City’s The Elgin, where a midnight showing of a strange film called El Topo kicked off the idea of the “Midnite Madness” movie craze. Episode three is in suburban Minneapolis, where a neighborhood theater called The Westgate turned Harold and Maude it into one of the biggest cult hits of all time. This show is for history people, movie people, people who want to travel with their ears, and people who love listening to beautifully made things. Listen here.

🎙️I assumed Who Shat On the Floor at My Wedding? was a comedy drama, but the second you start listening you realize it’s an investigative non-fiction series, set on solving a mystery that occurred on August 11, 2018 at the wedding of Karen Whitehouse and Helen McLaughlin. (Someone shat on the floor.) Someone barfed under a dinner table at my wedding, and I considered taking the vomit to a lab for testing. But this is next level. If you weren’t listening to any of the hilarious details and one-liners, you’d think you were listening to a podcast from a newsroom. With hints of American Vandal, Who Shat? has the right feel but I would have loved to hear Keith Morrison narrating it. You guys I’m on pins and needles. Who shat? Listen here.

🎙️When I first read Catcher in the Rye (probably too young) and Calvin and Hobbes, I remember being psyched because I thought I didn’t know books could be like this. They both contained fresh voices that felt too much fun to be real. I feel that way about Shameless Acquisition Target, “the podcast that sells itself!” Longtime podcast executive Laura Mayer has created a show about acquisitions in the podcast biz, in hopes that it will one day be acquired. Talking to podcasting, entertainment, and business pros about what is valued in media, she’s trying to wrap her brain around acquisitions, and will sell the show to the highest bidder. Laura is doing this all with the hopes of someday buying her dream home. With lots of humor and spice, Laura is pulling the curtain back on acquisitions, letting us in on her journey and the media landscape on the whole. She’s saying the stuff nobody is saying and totally putting herself out there for our enjoyment. (And for someone, a possible investment.) I have been waiting for this podcast for what seems like forever. Listen here.

🎙️Emily Reeves sent me a pitch for an episode she produced for Queens Memory: Our Major Minor Voices that’s a look into the process of podcast composing. Queens Memory has a ten-episode season, Our Major Minor Voices, that shares stories from eight of Queens' diverse Asian American communities, each with its own producer and released in both English and the native language of that community. I listened to so many of the episodes, they are all wonderful windows into different worlds, but the one I recommend is I Thought I’d Won, about two Nepalis who now call Queens home—one domestic worker, and one who became a barber. The one about the barber really got me (my Grandpa was an immigrant from Italy who started a barbershop) and the pride he had for his work made me feel mushy inside, but it’s also heartbreaking to hear about the hard lives some of these people have left behind, their families still in Nepal, and the backbreaking work they’re doing to live in a place that undervalues them. Each of these pieces is its own treasure, Emily’s included. She interviewed Elias Ravin, the podcast's composer, and they talk about a lot of stuff like: why are podcasts so obsessed with marimbas? There’s a pretty good answer. Listen here.

🎙️I think I have been waiting for Missing Pages my entire life. Each week, Bethanne Patrick brings us intriguing, DISHY stories that are pulled from the wacky publishing world and lean heavily on true crime. Ever since I left publishing I have relied on my friends still there to keep me updated on this stuff. Publishing, like podcasting, is a tiny insular world with enough drama for a bottomless bowl of popcorn. The difference is that it’s been around forever. These cuts are deep. The first episode explores the darkness of the book The Woman in the Window (a book I read in an acquisitions meeting before it was published) and the second is even more compelling—a young woman is the pawn in a plagiarism scandal that sparks a conversation about book packaging. Listen here.

🎙️I don’t know if I’ve changed, or the podcast has changed, or if the year 1986 was just exceptionally dramatic (I was two years old,) but I was glued to the 1986 season of Slate’s One Year. From Detroit’s No Crime Day to the Space Shuttle Challenger Disaster to Herschel the very hungry sea lion, the episodes are devastating in various ways, but they also activate that pop-culture obsessed part of our brains that crave truly compelling stories. They’re the right amount of political, which is not very much, but extremely human and telling of the year. The episode The Miracle of Cokeville tells about the story of a school hostage situation that took place in the Morman town of Cokeville, it’s a heart-racing story (all the children and teachers survived…miraculous) that in the past, had been mostly reported without one of the most important details—that many of the students and staff can remember seeing angels or ancestors that helped guide them to safety. One of the teachers (it’s amazing that One Year got interviews with so many people) admits that media didn’t want to mention anything paranormal about the day’s events. But ignoring that detail is ignoring an equally interesting part of the story—how imaginative children could invent ghost stories or how a religious community could look to their faith to make sense of a tragic event. Listen here.

🎙️A hundred and fifty years ago, the Osage Nation bought a block of oil-rich land in what's now Oklahoma, but today, much of the land is owned by white people with no Osage ties. This can be blamed on the Reign of Terror, a period in which Osage people were forced to sign away their land. They were married for their head rights then murdered, they were poisoned, their cars were run off the road, and one of their houses was blown up. Even without the violence, the Osage have been losing out to generational wealth for decades. On In Trust, Bloomberg’s Rachel Adams-Heard is doing fabulous reporting—I picture her laser focused on unearthing that have gone overlooked for years, going through files in abandoned buildings, calling people with tough questions and not taking no for an answer, like a superhero. (Rachel, I don’t know if you actually looted an abandoned building but please don’t crush my dreams.) I’m no longer surprised that this stuff happened but I am surprised I didn’t know about it. Listen here.

🎙️Did Titanic Sink? is a comedy conspiracy podcast, but there’s earnestness in it, too. Tim Batt is making an argument that ship we believe to be the The Titanic did not sink, and is extending his case throughout a series where he tries to convince his friend Carlo Ritchie that he’s right, and gets feedback from friends about how the argument is going. The banter between Tim and Carlo feels like a funny chat show, but Tim’s mission is both hilarious and compelling…it’s actually a conspiracy theory I’ve heard before. Conspiracy theories are fun and best when treated with a mix of research and levity, and even if you are still convinced that Titanic sunk, you have to appreciate Tim’s dedication to proving you wrong. (Though I get closer and closer to the fence the more I listen.) Listen here.

🎙️I started listening to Cancelled because Chelsey Weber-Smith told me to and could not stop. On the surface it appears to be a straight-forward show about people who have been cancelled but it’s bursting with humor and insight. Jessie & Clare Stephens are twin sisters whose chemistry is energetic and quick. I think it’s a twin thing, and I don’t know too many podcasts hosted by twins. They have discussions on Andrew Tate, Chris Pratt, and Elon Musk…all topics I have heard before. But it still felt fresh and funny coming from these two. At the end they give a judgment, what the cancelled person should do to redeem themselves. The judgements are always funny and actually sort of make sense. Listen here.

🎙️For my favorite episode of Media Circus, Kim Goldman talked to Lora, the daughter of Rodney King, about who her father really was and what it was like to grow up with her family at the center of one of the most monumental moments of American history. Lora brings a perspective to the story we’ve never heard, but it is her dynamic with Kim that makes this one of the best interviews I’ve heard in a long time. The two have a lot to talk about—their relatives were both involuntarily brought to the front of a racially-fueled media storm. Though their stories are different (ICYMI Kim is the sister of Ron Goldman, who was murdered by OJ Simpson) the things they share reveals so much about what it’s like to be at the center of a story like this, to have someone you love and their lives blasted across the country for all to speculate on and reinterpret. In each story, it’s a fight to keep control of the narrative and grieve with all that noise, and it’s a reminder that we don’t actually know the real story. Maybe only Kim and Lora do—it’s like they’re sisters sharing a secret. This interview gets us a little closer to the truth. Listen here.

🎙️I can’t tell you how good the true crime season of Spectacle was, where Mariah Smith uncovered the uncomfortable truths about true-crime—the feminist fantasy of Law & Order, citizen sleuthing gone bad, hot Ted Bundy, and all the white women who “true crime, glass of wine, in bed by nine” HARD. Plus, an interview with Keith Morrison. This season should be required listening for anyone who consumes true crime. Each episode has a perfectly specific angle that allows Mariah to really dig into, but as a whole, the series exposes true crime as a fantasy without ruining it for us, just helping us understand what we’re taking in. Listen here.

🎙️For more than 20 years, Laurie Stern has been recording audio of her journey adopting her son, Diego, and Defining Diego is the diary of Laurie’s travels to Guatemala, the hurdles she had to clear to bring Diego home, and the story from Diego’s adult vantage point: how he felt growing up in St. Paul, Minnesota, playing hockey and growing up as a Guatemalan, American, Indigenous and adoptee raised by white parents, with a full understanding of where he came from. Laurie doesn’t hide anything, from the awkwardness of meeting Diego’s birth mom and wondering if he wouldn’t feel more at home in Guatemala. It’s also a critical look at international adoption as a business that boomed and busted, and what it means for the families involved. Laurie’s recordings are decades of storytelling which tee up Diego to tell his story, and by taking it in, we’re allowed to rethink our assumptions about identity, race, family, community, and home, and what it means to live in two worlds. Listen here.

🎙️If you’ve been waking up every day wondering what is Rose Eveleth up to?, your prayers have been answered—she dropped 27 episodes in one day that is part of a choose-your-own-adventure project, Welcome to Vanguard Estates, in the Flash Forward feed. It’s a beautifully-crafted piece full of immersive sound and talented actors that sets you as the main character of the story with a decision to make—your father has Dementia and your sister has him staying at this care center in beta that seems like a bargain, but there’s a catch—it’s run by robots. Would you leave your father there? And if you did, what would you do when things start to get strange? And if you didn’t, would you let him live with you? There are 14 different endings, so the story you get is all your own. This week, Rose will be dropping follow-up interviews with experts for conversations about what inspired this story. It’s a fun audio game that gets you thinking about weighty matters—aging and family, and how that intersects with tech. By placing you at the center of the story, you’re forced to empathize with this topic in a completely unique way. Don’t feel overwhelmed, episodes are short. I bet you’ll blow through your first story and want to start all over again and again. Listen here.

🎙️Art intimidates (and often bores!) me, so I was late to Death of an Artist. But once I started I didn’t stop. It’s the story of Ana Mendieta, an artist who played with blood and fire, chainsaws and gunpowder, to create bold, feminist work, and her (probable) murder by the famous sculptor and partner Carl Andre. (Ana was [probably] defenestrated.) Host Helen Molesworth revisits covers Mendieta’s life, death, and the trial that followed, but wades into lots of other interesting places. She interrogates her own feelings about appreciating Andre’s work knowing that he is (maybe) a murderer, the plight of women who dare to make men feel threatened, how the art world was impacted by the #MeToo movement, disparity in the art world, and the dynamics and political vectors surrounding art acquisition. This podcast is a sprawling lesson into a woman, a (possible) murder, a movement, and a very sexist industry, but it feels focused and fluffless. Listen here.

🎙️On Alabama Astronaut, Alabama songwriter Abe Partridge and podcast producer Ferrill Gibbs are telling a spell-binding story about the deadly practice of preachers and serpent handling, but the show is about music, and the search for “outlawed” songs of the Appalachians, which are as wild and unchained as the handling of snakes themselves. The storytelling here follows no playbook. It’s packed with the history, science, philosophy, and religion of serpent handling, plus travel, interviews, and audio of serpent handling services that seems so intimate it’s like we shouldn’t be allowed to hear it. It’s Abe’s journey to better understand the music and the people and places it came from, covering a taboo subject (Abe does not judge these believers) with a story that will surprise you every minute and some music (maybe the most punk rock music of all time) that has never been heard before. It’s not about religion, but about the services that birthed this genre and the belief it springs from, and how it was passed down church to church over the years, documented by the people making the music in the purest form. This belief that drinking strychnine and handling snakes brings you closer to God is rooted in Mark 3:16 and scoffed at by many Christians. But it is crazier than the other stuff in the Bible? Have you read Revelations? Listen here.

🎙️Former TV stars across America have been launching re-watch shows for The Office, Parks & Rec, New Girl, Always Sunny, Saved By the Bell more and more, where they take a look at their old television shows, share behind the scenes stories, secrets, and memories episode-by-episode, and reunite with old cast members. Ian Chillag and Mike Danforth (Ian’s the guy behind Everything Is Alive, and they are the co-creators of How to Do Everything) are joining the club for the show that they didn’t star in and also didn’t exist, Behind Plain Sight, which followed a man in hiding at a nudist colony in Florida. In the Scenes Behind Plain Sight is the show that spoofs those other TV rewatch shows, and is way better. They’re absolutely aware how tired this genre can be and by leaning into podcast format tropes they bring their very own weird spin. “That’s what people want to hear right now,” Ian says in episode one. “Two men, unedited, talking to each other for a long time.” Mike jumps in: “When do they go to the bathroom? That’s what we want the people to ask.” I can confirm that in this case, this is absolutely the kind of content we need right now, and I’d love to know when they find time to go to the bathroom in the midst of talking to each other for a long time. Listen here.

🎙️Mangesh Hattikudur knows how to make a podcast. (Before founding Kaleidoscope, he headed up podcast development as SVP for iHeartMedia, where he launched Somebody, Hit Man, Forgotten: Women of Juarez, ran creative for Mental Floss, and a BUNCH of other wonderful things.) Now he’s brought us Skyline Drive, a skeptic’s personal and curious exploration of the impact that astrology has on people’s lives and decisions all around the world. It starts out with an audio slide show, explaining why Mangesh has been drawn to astrology throughout his life, and moves on to his personal investigation into how and why astrology has had such a hold over our culture. Whether you believe in astrology or not (Mangesh doesn’t think it’s a science, he believes it is true in the way poetry is true) you can’t deny that it has mystified people for centuries—from Columbus, who believed in an astrological prophesy that led him to the New World, to Richard Nixon, who used Jeane Dixon's advice to set up a counter terrorism initiative, to the Indian Prime Minister, who still uses astrology to consult on important dates. This podcast is bursting with curiosity and joy, Mangesh interviews his mom and Pete Bauer from The Walkmen, tries to get his kid to invest in his horoscope app, gets tips from A.J. Jacobs, and consults an astrologist about the fate of his own podcast. All in the first episode. Oh, and we get to hear from Channing Tatum. Episode ends on an ominous cliffhanger that suggests what’s to come, a journey more personal than Mangesh ever could have imagined. The music rules. Listen here.

🎙️If you don’t always tune in for Podcast But Outside, tune in for this one. On every episode, Cole Hersch and Andrew Michaan set up shop in a random location with a table and chair with a sign that says “Be on our podcast. We will pay you $1.” (And they mean it.) Last week, Cole and Andrew were stationed in front of Koontz Hardware in West Hollywood and were approached by a rotation of colorful characters, one of them a podcaster whose voice I recognized right away, and you might, too. Cole and Andrew did not, which made the conversation hilarious. They also had the best advertisement for furniture I’ve ever heard, it was totally part of the bit. Listen here.

🎙️I stumbled upon Black People Love Paramore in my promo swap database (use it! and reach out to Sequoia if you want to swap with this show!) and was intrigued by the name…I love it when people commit to a take. I listened to two episodes—the first, which explains the show’s premise, and an episode with Yassir Lester because I knew it’d be hilarious and I was right. Yassir talked about Chirp Phones & Sidekicks, and randomly both episodes went into great depth about chitlins, which I truly appreciated and think could be a spin-off show. (“You’ll never fully experience being Black in this country unless you’ve eaten them,” Yassir says.) This episode felt like a quirky comedy set. Listen here.

🎙️I love you!