💌Podcast The Newsletter💌
Bonjour.
I'm going to assume we are all on the same page regarding a few things: 1) Most of us don't need, or want, more things to own in our homes. 2) Most of us can't afford to spend thousands of dollars on gifts. 3) Most of us don't have time or the emotional strength to go shopping. 4) Podcasts are one of god's greatest creations.
Right? Gretchen Rubin thinks so. Gretchen (of Happier with Gretchen Rubin) created The Gift of a Podcast, a simple, smart idea that lets you easily gift people your favorite podcast. The site offers a certificate that you can print out and write about why you think your recommendation is valid. There are even download instructions for people new to podcasts. I know it seems WILD to you and me, but there are people who have no idea how the fuck to download them, and that's the only thing stopping them from joining us in podcast utopia. This is a tangible way to get parents or grandparents (or, if you were reading my last issue, college students who watch podcasts on YouTube) to listen to their very first podcast episode. That's exciting. Which episode will you choose to gift? If someone hasn't listened to podcasts before, it's a very important question! If you fuck this up, they'll never listen to another podcast again and I don't want you to have to live with that guilt.
Gretchen even gave me a list of shows she would gift people;
So Merry Christmas, give the gift of a podcast. I would love it if you sent me one. :)
A few other suggestions:
🎁A Stitcher Premium account, support to NPR or get a Slate Plus membership.
🎁Patreon support for a great show like The Bechdel Cast, Lady To Lady, Punch Up The Jam, Long Distance Radio, Public Intellectual, Kerning Cultures, We Love Trash, Doughboys, or Ologies, just to name a few. (These are a few that I support.)
🎁A subscription to one of their favorite podcast networks, if they don't already have one.
🎁You could also search for their favorite show on Tee Public or Pod Swag. (I own so many shirts from The Daily Zeitgeist, The Bechdel Cast, and Ethnically Ambiguous.)
🎁I would recommend a phone lasso, so your podcast-loving friend can strap their device around their neck and listen to shows on the go.
🎁Or an Urban Ears Wonderboom speaker so they can listen to their podcasts in the shower or on vacation.
🎁If your friend has a podcast or even their own product to sell (or even if they don't!) you can buy them an ad spot on one of their favorite shows. I bought my mom a Max Fun Jumbotron one year, for her blog I Love Italian Movies.
🎁See if your loved one's favorite show has merch. (Max Fun has a store, you can buy Lady To Lady pins, pillows, and more!)
🎁Contribute to Radiotopia Forever in your friend's name.
🎁Buy your friend a subscription to Nick Quah's Hot Pod.
🎁What am I forgetting? Let me know, I'll share it next week.
xoxo lp
ps If you are pleased with Podcast The Newsletter, please spread the word!
👋q & a & q & a & q & a👋
Radio Public's Ma'ayan Plaut
Ma’ayan Plaut is RadioPublic’s Podcast Librarian and Content Strategist. Follow her on Twitter here.
What is a podcast librarian? How did this happen?
A podcast librarian helps people find things they will love listening to. What that looks like in practice has taken on many forms since I started at RadioPublic in 2016, but it always boils down to that essence. I found my way to RadioPublic after a connection-driven crowdsourced metadata listening project called The Pod Party, where I curated episodes for a small group of avid listeners in order to connect episodes across shows with more information than initially provided by the creator. The proposed role of Podcast Librarian was a timely expression of how both RadioPublic and I were thinking about listeners and podcast content, so of course I said yes to this never-yet-seen-before job. My librarian father was thrilled, as was I, a long-time library kid.
Quickfire! Give a quick podcast rec based on the following words...
Horse! Oh no my brain went in two directions at once! The first was HORSE, the basketball podcast about everything that isn't the numbers. The other was the long-standing Horse Radio Network, which is lots and lots of equine podcasts, like Heels Down Happy Hour and Horses in the Morning.
Daily! See, I love the daily podcasts that aren't just current events, like poetry (The Slowdown), history (Retropod), and feel good (The Good News Podcast.)
Travel! Greater Boston. Since I moved to Somerville, I'm on the Red Line a lot, a mode of regular travel that is well accompanied by this podcast.
Before it’s time! Codebreaker. I think it was perfectly of its time, and yet, I want to think that there's even more interactive awesomeness that could exist with a show like this in the future.
Beautiful! Hope Chest. To quote its creator, it's an audio quilt. In short, it's gorgeous.
Strange! Clearing the Air. It's a comedy podcast about an ad quality control manager. It's weird and I love it.
Silence! All I can remember is that comedian's podcast 25 Minutes of Silence.
Old! Radio Diaries has this series called Last Witness, which are interviews with the last people to witness a specific historical event, like Olivia Hooker, the last surviving witness of the Tulsa Race Riot. (Also, The Kitchen Sisters are similarly brilliant with their archival audio.)
Baby! Oh, the truly wonderful Pregnant Pause!
Everyone sane agrees that POC and women and non-cis people are underrepresented in podcasting but I bet you can give me a more specific answer. What do you think there needs to be more of?
I'll get super specific: the thing we need more of is RESOURCE ALLOCATION for underrepped voices and stories. That's money (in the form of paying people for their work, creating more financial stable podcast endeavours, investment in creators...), that's time (in the form of training and mentorship and meetings that move things forward), that's people (networking, mentoring, and advocacy in all parts of the creative process)... all of it. With more and more podcasts coming out all the time, it takes that much more work to get the good things heard. And there are things being made we don't know about yet, or things that we can't even imagine being made yet because it requires significant investments (of all the sorts I mentioned above) to get them up and out into the world.
I have heard you say you listen to podcasts at 1.3 speed. I am at 1.5 and I know I need to go down. Can you please make an argument for 1.3 and talk me (and other 1.5-ers) down to 1.3?
1.3 still sounds natural to me, but it also might be because I think and talk at about 1.5 in my daily life. Music might be the only thing that it's noticeable on while listening, and I tend to go back to 1x when a podcast has a lot of music/is about music/has a lot of really intentional sound design. Laughter is usually my biggest indicator that something is at 1.5x, and sometimes I can deal with that and sometimes I can't. Interviews are the only style of show I listen to at 1.5x consistently, and interviews are few and far between for me at the moment.
What app do you use and what is your listening strategy?
I use RadioPublic's app. I can organize things to my heart's content and I HearMark stuff all the time. Listening strategy is... varied all the time. I'm going through a semi-permanent feed hiatus, which also means looking at my followed shows for new episodes. At the moment, the only way something gets into my queue is if I think, "Oh, I want to listen to this show" or I see or hear a reference or recommendation for something specific. It's helping a lot with media overwhelm and overall enjoyment of what I end up selecting and hearing.
When do you listen? Do you save different shows for different activities?
My favorite time to listen is on a walk (either to or from a place or just out to wander/get some air). The biggest dip in my podcast listening in the last few years was the first winter I worked remotely for RadioPublic. No walk to work + no desire to leave my warm house = minimal podcast listening for a few months there. I also take pretty long solo roadtrips and I tear through my queue during those. My only real activity time that has podcasts attached is usually knitting. I had an Instagram account for a while where I documented what I was making and what I was listening to, but the feed hiatus is strongest around social feeds so it's on hold for now. In general: I don't usually have specific shows for specific times at the moment, though I did have a good month or two where I was listening to Death, Sex & Money while showering and getting ready for bed and that was a nice routine. (I moved and there's no longer a good place for my speaker in the bathroom where I can hear over the shower.)
Are there kinds of shows you don’t love listening to but you are like “I am a podcast librarian I must do this.”
Well, yes and no. I think I'm in a pretty unique position given who I surround myself with—the big secret of podcast librarianing is that you don't listen to all the podcasts, you know people/sources that can give you enough information so that you don't have to listen. And similarly, I'm actually in a spot where I can help bring ears to shows that would otherwise not be heard, so I tend to listen to a lot of new, independent, solo/small team podcasts. Some of these are hits, some are misses, and yes, I do skip things I'm not digging. At this point I don't know that I'm listening to things I don't want to listen to. My listening time is at a premium, so I don't force myself to listen to things that aren't holding me.
What are 3 shows you have listened to in entirety? Are there any you have listened to in entirety twice? 3x? 4?
The only one I know I've listened to at least some of the episodes more than once is Millennial (RIP). There are a few other series that have ended that I've loved so: Heat & Light, Dream Diary, Buick City 1AM, A Piece of Work, and The Fridge Light.
And there's a slew of podcasts I have listened to everything that's come out so far and I keep up with very regularly: ZigZag, An Arm and A Leg, Personal Best, Copper & Heat, Ear Hustle, Love Letters, Other Men Need Help, The Carlötta Beautox Chronicles, The Cut on Tuesdays, Decoder Ring... And that's just me thinking "Oh, what am I excited to listen to right now?!"
I was (and still am) a completionist, and it's hard to maintain that approach when there are all the podcasts all the time. In the past few years I have really gravitated toward podcasts that take a seasonal or limited run approach for this reason alone.
💎BTW:💎
🎙️Written and directed by Mitra Jouhari, Fuck Hut Music School for Teens is a five-episode psychodrama about hot, hot sexy teens trying to break into the music industry. You'll hear the voices of Whitmer Thomas, Patti Harrison, Matt Rogers, Greta Titelman, Catherine Cohen, Ayo Edebiri, and more. Wow wow wow! Original Music by Henry Koperski. The writing is so sharp, it's like a well-produced table read of the funniest, most original script you've seen. And bonus: it is incredibly easy to FIND in your podcast app. Just search "fuck hut!" There are no other competing fuck hut shows. I never in a million years thought I would get to type "fuck hut" into my search bar. It's quickly become something my husband and I scream at one another across the apartment to mean anything from "have a good day" to "I'm feeding the cat." [This is a reminder to check out Mitra's show with Joel Kim Booster, Urgent Care, where the two answer questions from listeners who have literally nowhere else to turn. Mitra and Joel's chemistry is electric, the back-and-forths are so quick and unexpected. Their commentary is so hilarious I want to underline all of it. You know?]
🎙️I went on two roller coaster rides this morning. The first was an episode of Strangers called The Truth. It's a very dark story about a woman, Ashley, whose husband is accused of the worst thing imaginable. There are so many twists and turns and I felt absolutely gutted in the end. This is not a feel-good podcast episode. Another episode with twists and turns (in a totally different way) was Gotcha! from Love + Radio. A radio show in Australia pranks a listener, and the pranks end up being turned back on them, ten-fold.
🎙️First came the piece The Jungle Prince of Delhi in the New York Times, then came The Jungle Prince three-part audio series from the producers of The Daily, a story 40 years in the making about the eccentric royal family of Oudh, deposed aristocrats who lived in a ruined palace in the Indian capital. It's a mythological tragedy about ego and self-sabotage, that starts with a mysterious phone call and feels like a fairy-tale. I love to see how this podcast sprouted out from the piece, I hope to see more of this. The journalist, Ellen Barry, brings us in, so closely, that it feels like we are there with her. But speaking of discoverability, please note that this is in The Daily's feed! If you search for "The Jungle Prince" in Pocket Casts, it will not come up! (This speaks to the poor search functionality of Pocket Casts, although I do love Pocket Casts.) If you search for it in Stitcher under shows, it will not show up! So search for The Daily and scroll down through the feed until you find it on November 27th.
🎙️I have read both ANIMAL LIBERATION and THE LIFE YOU CAN SAVE, but I still had to listen to Ezra Klein's interview with Peter Singer (the author of those books, plus one of the most influential public intellects of our time) twice. Peter talks about why we don't give to those less fortunate and how *exactly* we should, and I especially loved what he had to say about sensible vegetarianism. He's not judgmental at all and makes living a good life feel a little more tangible. Peter's book THE LIFE YOU CAN SAVE, which he wrote ten years ago, has been updated and you can read it or listen to it FOR FREE. (The audiobook is read by Kristen Bell and many stars of THE GOOD PLACE.) I promise you that this book will change your life. Why would you not read it?
🎙️Because #PublishingSoooooWhite, there are hardly any books on Harriet Tubman. Literally more than 15K books have been written about Abraham Lincoln, but there are only a few on one of the most heroic people the world has ever seen. (My very favorite publishing house Little, Brown has one.) So I'm so glad that Harriet is getting her story told on a podcast, and a very, very good one at that. Following Harriet kind of gives Harriet Tubman the "you're wrong about" treatment. (Have Sarah Marshall and Michael Hobbes trademarked this phrase yet?) Surprising details emerge, like the number of slaves Harriet freed, the...how do I say this...out-of-the-box thinking and risk-taking Harriet underwent, and the emotional and personal struggles she was enduring on the Underground Railroad. (Curious when this string of gerund-leading podcasts will end...Missing Richard Simmons, Knowing: Robin Williams, Making Beyoncé, Finding Fred...)
🎙️The Kitchen Sisters have the most creative fundraising idea I've ever heard! They're starting a line of lipstick and will chronicle the process with a mini-podcast series called Lipstick Traces. (Think a StartUp for Makeup.) They'll be partnering with a makeup company to fund these "stories coming from new and exciting lips." The line is sound and story themed, they have offered names like Sonic Boom, Phantom Power, The Truth, Room Tone, and The Allusionist. This sounds too good to be true, is it fake? How could I love this idea more?
🎙️The Dream is back for season two. This time they're unpacking the world of wellness, "a world just as shady and mysterious as MLMs." The first episode talks about why women are often the ones to succumb to it (their pain isn't taken seriously by doctors.) They're asking: What is wellness? Who sells it? And will it bring you eternal happiness…and, perhaps, eternal life?
🎙️Cryptids is a 7-part, sci-fi scripted podcast about Eve, a nurse who deals with a lot of dying people and is trying to define her own belief system, and Trevor, who has a radio show "Eyes To The Skies." The two join forces to find out what happens when we die, and they end up stumbling upon a huge conspiracy. The show is beautiful, it sort of reminds me of The X-Files, and is one of the best sci-fi shows I've listened to, but I enjoyed it more because the content asks much bigger questions than most sci-fi shows.
🎙️Podcasters, my friend Suchandrika interviewed the host of The Beef and Dairy Network (and others) for a conversation I think you'll find interesting—they discuss what makes a great LIVE podcast. Can any podcast be a live show? Is it easier if there are two hosts? Do certain types of podcasts lend themselves better to the format? Can the live show be just the podcast episode, live? I'm not telling you! Listen for yourself!
🎙️I don't work in an office anymore, but I'm still enjoying What's Working?, a show that tells personal stories about common fucked up situations that happen at work. (The office bathroom, crying at work, miscommunication...) What was the question?... talks about the strange things interviewers ask interviewees when they get a little too creative. The stories are always funny and actually helpful. If you've ever worked in an office, you'll relate.
🎙️From the creators of Mockery Manor comes another show that feels like it's just for me—Adults Do Disney. I am always looking for Disney podcasts, but find that many of them are just a little too focused on park hours or a menu change at Cosmic Ray's Starlight Café or whatever. Adults Do Disney is just plain fun. On the most recent episode, hosts Lindsay and Laurence play a game of Disney Trivia, but turn it into a drinking / hot sauce game. THE STAKES ARE HIGH. And it's fun to play along.
🎙️And if you love Disney like I do, and if you love Jackie Johnson like I do, you shouldn't miss the Natch Beaut episode about Club 33 with Katie Molinaro. Jackie went to Disneyland (on drugs...oh my god what I would give to have joined her) where she finally got to enter Club 33, the private, secret club inside of the park. I will never get to know what happens at Club 33, so hearing about it is fun, especially from someone I love as much as Jackie Johnson.
🎙️Just a reminder that if you're not listening to The Complete Christmas, you should be. It's a version of A Christmas Carol, starring a 60's housewife who is slowly going insane from holiday stress. It's hysterical and there are many famous voices you will recognize. (Amanda Lund, Matt Gourley, Paul F. Tompkins, Stephanie Allyne, Carl Tart, and more.)
🎙️I love Forever Dog because they are constantly putting out totally off-the-wall shows, and A Woman's Smile is one of them. I laughed so hard I spit and snorted listening to part one of their call-in show. It reminded me of Urgent Care, because the advice is absolutely horrible. The show is so weird and I'm so grateful it exists.
🎙️On Julie: The Unwinding of the Miracle from Pineapple Street Media, Julie Yip-Williams documents the end of her life as she dies from Stage IV colon cancer. She examines the dying process in a way we don't usually get to hear, she is very philosophical and academic about it. (You don't get to witness the miracle of birth, she points out, but you do get to witness the miracle of death.) Julie talks about her family's immigration story, explaining her death to her daughters. Her family even shares anecdotes about friendly-ly being haunted by Julie's ghost after Julie dies. Every episode ends with the words: "Julie, if you're listening, thanks for sharing your story." Which makes me wonder: do we get to listen to podcasts after we die? I fucking hope so.
🎙️Slate had a podcast about masculinity, and I listened to the whole thing but TBH kept thinking, "who is this for?" The topics would seem interesting but then not dive deep enough. The host didn't admit enough of his own shortcomings, so it felt inauthentic. But this type of show is one screaming to be done. And I found a show that's doing it! Other Men Need Help (yes, I discovered this by immediately listening to all of the podcasts that Ma'ayan suggested above) is about "the emblems, habits, and struts in the male performance." The host, Mark Pagán, is open, hilarious, and loveable, and the topics are very personal and interesting. It's so funny it feels like a comedy show, but it's saying something so much more.
🎙️What does it say about me that my favorite episode of Invisibilia (The Fifth Vital Sign) did not make this list? Did anyone else absolutely LOVE that episode? I listened to it ten times and think about it often. Every time I listen I look at pain in a new way.
🎙️"It's time for us all to be Mister Rogers." The latest episode of Finding Fred asks again, the tough question: can we all be as good as Mister Rogers? Did Fred do enough? In this episode Fred is treated almost like a Christ-like figure. It's a comparison I can get behind! How do we take the lessons and stories from Fred's life and use them to form ourselves into better people? How do we separate the man from the myth, without romanticizing him?
🎙️On Disorganized Crime, Rainbow Valentine shares the story of her childhood, which was interesting because unbeknownst to Rainbow (not her real name,) her dad was in the business of drug smuggling. Episode one, which included phone calls with her adorable parents, was great. Rainbow has a lot of questions, and the show seems to be asking: how on earth could one man get away with smuggling and dealing tons and tons and millions and millions of dollars without getting caught? (This is where I start wondering if Rainbow's father is white, because that would explain a bit of the mystery away.)
🎙️I was very excited to see What I Wore When, a weekly show where Glamour digital director Perrie Samotin interviews women about what they wore during a pivotal moment in their life, and why it mattered. I obsess over this topic, I want to know the decisions behind what everyone chooses to wear, all the time. I remember what I wore on so many important days in my life. So this is exciting. So far guests have been Amanda Seales, Alison Roman, Bellamy Young, Erin Andrews, and Sheinelle Jones, and I find that somewhat disappointing. I prefer stories over celebrities, and actors are often very good at acting but not at telling interesting stories! I usually skip podcast episodes that feature celebs. I think I'd like this show more if it was with regular people who know how to crush a story. But the first episode with Zoey Deutch was a bit unexpected—she didn't talk about what she wore to an audition or on a TV show. (Though the show's trailer makes it sound like many of the guests do.) Zoey chose the dress she wore during her bat mitzvah. And it was a good conversation. So perhaps I have a lot more to be excited about.
🎙️My friend Steph (founder of Call Me Ishmael, check it out) was on Your Own Words, where Allison and Becky speak with guests about a book they've loved and why. Steph chose THE IMMORTALISTS, by Chloe Benjamin. I haven't read THE IMMORTALISTS, and now I want to. (So, Allison and Becky...mission accomplished?) And they have a great conversation about whether or not you can say you read a book if you only listened to the audiobook.
🎙️Short & Curly is a show from ABC Audio Studios supposedly just for kids, with focus on ethics. It's so cute and I enjoy it so much, too! And I see a huge gap in content geared toward children. Each episode is made to be listened to with family, offering questions to think about and time to discuss it together. Start with the "Should You GIve Up Your Teddy Bear?" episode, which I think you could easily talk about with your adult-ass friends and family. I love so much about this! More of this!
🎙️My Christmastime goal this year is to grab the holidays by the balls so hard, to embrace Christmas with my ever particle, that by the time we get to December 25 I am totally sick of it and ready to move on with my regular life. One of my projects in this effort is my podcast advent calendar—I'm sharing a holiday-ish podcast episode every day until JC's bday. This week, I wrote about one of my favorite Judge John Hodgman episodes, but gosh there are so many. On Lodging a Complaint, Katie brings the case against her husband, Briton, who doesn’t like spending the night at Katie’s parents’ house when they visit for Christmas. Often this show is very silly, but this episode is a bit more complicated. Briton has terrible associations with family and holidays, but does that mean he can't spend one night a year in Katie's childhood bedroom? (Unfortunately, the room is QUITE SAD...you can see it on the site...and that doesn't help Katie's case.) Judge John Hodgman gives great advice, I hope Briton took it. Can we get an update?
🎙️Other episodes in the podcast advent calendar: BackStory Radio's interview with a black santa, Minority Korner's episode on Kwanzaa, 99% Invisible's episode (with The Allusionist's Helen Zaltman) on Winterval and the language of Charles Dickens, The Mash-Up Americans about how to be the best non-Jew at a Hannukah party, and Bad Science's scientific analysis of Home Alone.
🎙️Two of my clients, Patrick Schmitt and Jenny Xia, were on Nonprofit Vision to talk about the company they founded, Freewill, a social venture that makes estate planning easy and free, and also turns it into a charitable act. They talk to Greg Nielsen about enhancing accessibility and effectiveness of a nonprofit's planned giving program and talk about Freewill, which has raised more than $914 million in bequests, qualified charitable distributions, and stock gifts. It's a fascinating nonprofit, Patrick and Jenny are great, and I urge you to listen!
🎙️I love you!