I’ve got this medical field trip I do every few weeks where I drive two hours each way to a place and then sit around on my butt receiving treatment, which is very boring. So I listen to music or podcasts before, during and after. I’ve discovered a couple of new podcasts I thought I’d mention.
But first, if you’re in the market for a podcast, check out Rose’s “Books of All Time” if you haven’t already and also John’s “Personality Crisis” (co-produced with Mix and DougJ), which is fascinating.* John’s podcast’s most recent episode on broligarchs will confirm your worst fears about those weirdos and provide insights you probably don’t know.
Also, Amy Poehler now has a podcast called “Good Hang” that’s a lot of fun. She interviews interesting people, including friends like Tina Fey and Rashida Jones. The most recent episode features Michelle Obama, and through that, I learned that the former first lady does a podcast with her brother Craig Robinson.
After listening to Poehler’s interview with Michelle Obama, I checked out an episode of the Obama-Robinson podcast (the Mother’s Day episode), and it was good too! Michelle Obama didn’t talk about politics in either episode, and I don’t think I’ve ever really heard her just talking about life for an extended period of time. She’s funny and wise, so it’s worth checking out.
Open thread.
*Now I’m feeling pressure to start a podcast! (I kid — not gonna happen.)
The Gifts That Keep on Giving
bystander
Love that Betty!
rekoob
Also, I’ll note that Wil Wheaton has “It’s Storytime With Wil Wheaton”, where he’s reading stories of all sorts. Here’s a link:
https://wilwheaton.net/podcast/
Jay
Notes from the Swamp?
Birds I have met?
Alligator sounds?
These F’n Florida Rethugs?
Betty Crackerisms?
suzanne
Love podcasts. I listen while I drive, walk the dog, draw, etc.
raven
Bigass bluefish.
I know they don’t eat them much down south but they are good right out of the water.
Jackie
@raven: NICE Catch!
It looks like a gorgeous fishing day!
raven
@Jackie: It was! Yesterday was incredibly stormy but the inshore trip today was great and we’re headed into the great wide-open of the Atlantic tomorrow and hoping for yellowfin!
sab
@suzanne: I like to think I hate podcasts (too much listening) but I have noticed that I schedule a lot of my retired time around prerecorded cable news ( spousal unit is boycotting news) so I am listening while doing other stuff and wasting time fast-forwarding through the same collection of commercials.
Maybe it’s time I hang up my luddite clogs and get with the program.
They Call Me Noni
@raven: big fish! Love your shirt too.
raven
@sab: I googled “best podcasts” for the drive to the Outer Banks and the #1 was “What We Spend” and the episode we turned on was AWFUL. A Boston area retired social worker who had her head for far up her ass that she couldn’t see daylight! Ridiculous thigh-high boots and a hundred pair of shoes. We turned it off and went to “The Band”!
Bupalos
Interesting vignette from a recent Timothy Snyder talk on his latest book “on freedom” – part of his process with the book was to go teach in the U.S. prison system, where apparently he found the best overall student class he’s had, though it does sounds like there was an extremely competitive selection process that meant he had an elite on order of Yale. There were laughs at this which obviously caused him real discomfort, because he definitely meant it. He almost stopped to insult the audience but thought better of it.
Anyway as a pregnant aside (which he specializes in) he mentioned that one inmate who he taught was at the end of a very long sentence, and after getting out that guy related to Snyder that he was shocked upon release by a lot of things, but mostly how a world with everyone staring down into their phones (he was incarcerated before smartphones or social media existed) felt a lot like the atmosphere of prison. Radically different than the world he knew before incarceration in the 1980’s.
I guess I’ve fleshed that out, I think it was 3 sentences in Snyder’s talk. But I think that was the gist.
Sure Lurkalot
I have a few podcasts to recommend:
I know some people are really podcast adverse…I really like to listen when driving, walking and biking and the weekly house clean, IOW, good for multitasking.
Jay
@raven:
Did you get into a school,
and yes, that is a biggun.
Gretchen
There are a lot of good history podcasts: History Chicks, Betwixt the Sheets, History Teatime…
They Call Me Noni
Can we clone Pete B and send him everywhere? Watching MSNBC showing a clip of him on Flagrant on April 23rd explaining things and the bros are listening and actually getting it.
raven
@They Call Me Noni: I remember when I posted a quick vid of my blue one with a mask and people here lost it!
raven
@Jay: We were in about a foot of water and hit a few but not really a school. My BIL got a real nice redfish too!
Bupalos
@They Call Me Noni: Pete has such communication skills (and maybe personal history) that he’s simply comfortable everywhere.
I hate to even make this comparison…. but… this “being comfortable everywhere” is also Trump’s political superpower. With Trump it comes from an extremely toxic place. But it’s what you need for next level politics, and especially right now.
sab
@Bupalos: Wow. That is interesting and disturbing.
Bupalos
@raven: where is that?
sab
@Sure Lurkalot: See my comment #8. I need to rethink my attitude.
raven
@Bupalos: Outer Banks inshore on Pamlico Sound. Tomorrow we go offshore in search of yellowfin.
They Call Me Noni
@Bupalos: And that is exactly the point Tim Miller was making.
raven
@Bupalos: Have you. seen O.G. with Jeffery Wright?
“The film follows the story of a man preparing to reenter civilian life after 26 years in prison. He must choose between his own freedom and the opportunity to protect a younger fellow inmate.”
narya
I listen to music when I run, but I listen to podcasts when I walk. In addition to Maintenance Phase and If Books Could Kill, I also like Andrew Weissman/Mary McCord’s “Main Justice,” Melissa Murray/Leah Litman/Kate Shaw’s “Strict Scrutiny,” and Popehat’s “Serious Trouble” for my legal stuff, and I’ve contemplated Dahlia Lithwick’s podcast but haven’t listened a lot. I occasionally listen to “Pod Save America” and “Talking Feds” (yeah, I know; I am very picky about episodes for both of those). GastroPod does deep dives on food stuff. America Dissected tackles public health topics. Chris Hayes has some good interviews on “Why Is This Happening?” I like “Pack Your Knives,” but, since it’s a recap, I can’t listen if I’m behind on my Top Chef watching (like I am right now). I VERY much liked John’s Personality Crisis–the latest episode was extremely interesting. I’ve dabbled with Opening Arguments and will likely do more. And, for comfort listening, I re-re-re-listen to episodes of the “The Good Place” podcast: one of the best things about it is that they talk to all kinds of people, including lots of behind the scenes folks, so it’s just fascinating to get that window on how a show is made.
Melancholy Jaques
@Bupalos:
Pretty sure I disagree. People who are comfortable don’t become a fountain of cruel & stupid lies. He doesn’t have a superpower other than a complete lack of morals. His success is a product of the white supremacist revanche that has characterized 21st century America, especially but not only since Obama’s election.
raven
Has anyone listened to ”
WaterGirl
@raven: Holy cow!
sab
Took a while for this thread to take off, but a lot of useful info here.
Thanks, Ms Cracker.
SiubhanDuinne
@raven:
That is a fantastic photo of you!
ETA: Fish looks super tasty!
suzanne
My favorite podcasts right now are “Past Present Future” (and its predecessor “History of Ideas”), “Philosophize This”, “Know Your Enemy”, and I must admit I love Tom & Lorenzo, and Cody Rigsby’s podcast.
SiubhanDuinne
@WaterGirl:
‘Tisn’t a cow. ‘Tis a fishy.
raven
@SiubhanDuinne: Aw shucks! I’ve decided to stop worrying about posting pictures of myself here.
Bupalos
I’m definitely going to pursue that it sounds fascinating. Interestingly the idea of this kind of choice is central to the idea of freedom that Snyder is expounding and exploring. Where maybe deciding to protect his friend would be a deeper expression of freedom than deciding to remove the walls around him.
There are echos of that question in his analysis of Zelenskyy, who told him the reason it was essentially impossible for him to run was because of his values, a state of development that Snyder equates to real freedom.
raven
@Bupalos: It was well done.
suzanne
@sab: I hate TV news. I watch CNN when I’m in a hotel room, and I can watch for about half an hour before I’m incredibly annoyed. Podcasts work better for me because I can do all the other things I have to do while I listen.
UncleEbeneezer
@raven: I used to listen all the time for their coverage of the indictments against Trump. Always enjoyed it. They are all rooted in reality and don’t sugar-coat things. And Barb and Joyce especially, with their first-hand experience as US Attorneys had a lot of great insights into how things really work in the real world of building and trying big felony cases against powerful people (hint: it’s a very slow and complex process, for very good reasons). They also countered the frequent assumption that everyone who goes into Law Enforcement (including prosecutors) are right-wing jerks. A lot of good and liberal people work in those fields too and are trying to make our justice system better.
raven
@UncleEbeneezer: Thanks!
UncleEbeneezer
@suzanne: Tom and Lorenzo are great. They are so much fun and very knowledgeable on fashion (obviously), but also on LGBTQ issues and their tv/movie analysis is also usually great (even when I disagree with them.)
Bupalos
@Melancholy Jaques: I’ll take that redirection. My initial statement wasn’t very well considered.
Trump isn’t really “comfortable” anywhere in terms relative to others, because he’s an abused child that is now a tortured narcissist. But he’s effectively the same person wherever he goes, and he’s actually somewhat more comfortable in settings where he’s deriving narcissistic supply. He can take that act anywhere and is essentially never “thrown off” and never appears to be “someone that he is not.” That’s the key to people perceiving him as a more real person than for instance a much better and much healthier person like Kamala Harris. Trump can tell egregious and obvious lies and still have many people sense a kind of genuineness. Most people. In ways, he’s being more genuine. In very toxic ways.
That’s I guess what I meant by the shorthand that his apparent confidence comes from a very toxic place.
That was a good objection IMO.
Melancholy Jaques
@raven:
I’ve never seen Jeffrey Wright give a bad performance. American Fiction is my favorite movie of the post COVID era.
UncleEbeneezer
@raven: The only reason I stopped listening is because since we moved to Taos my commute is pretty fast (15 minutes) and that’s where I used to spend several hours each week listening to podcasts. I also finally decided to get a Spotify Premium membership so I could listen to music in the car again. So I’ve rediscovered my love of great music while driving. And I think it has helped my mental health, whereas podcasts usually got me riled up (usually about politics). But I still heartily recommend SistersInLaw. Some really smart women, and they make it fun too.
Melancholy Jaques
@Bupalos:
That’s true & the political media just loves to supply it.
Gretchen
@Sure Lurkalot: Thanks for the Maintenance Phase recommendation. My podcast app has been trying to get me to listen and I ignored it. I didn’t realize that it has one of the same hosts as If Books Could Kill, one of my favorites.
sab
@suzanne: I prefer MSNBC but only at certain times. Weekday nights and early weekends are excellent. Otherwise they are as bad as CNN.
Which is why I record them. Anytime I am available to view their programming is nearly toxic.
Bupalos
@Melancholy Jaques: It goes well beyond the political media. That is a fairly small slice. Trump is oddly addicted to the NYT for historical reasons, but for the most part he can’t read and isn’t that interested in a lot of the media we spend our days here criticizing as enablers who shape opinion.
The main marginal difference for Trump is that in public he comes off as a more ‘real person’ than the vast majority of politicos. He doesn’t worry about mistakes. He just inhabits his own (incredibly toxic) space, which happens to have a lot of overlap with toxicities that infect a great deal of the modern public. We need to counter that with someone that can do the same thing from a healthy place.
BigJimSlade
@Jay: For the alligator sounds: Boom time with Betty
Bupalos
@sab: I highly recommend never spending any time with cable news, period.
Bupalos
@raven: Wow. And here I am trying to game a day or two out at the Lake Erie islands.
BTW smoked bluefish pate
BigJimSlade
@raven: Cool eyespot on its tail!
sab
@Bupalos: You are wrong on that.
They Call Me Noni
@Bupalos: I cannot give up Rachel on Monday nights.
geg6
@suzanne:
Same. My library is insane.
suzanne
@UncleEbeneezer: Tom and Lorenzo gave a seminar at my company on trans representation, and it was awesome. They were engaging and the seminar was full of great history, and they seem like such kind people.
Bupalos
@sab: Well I don’t think I am, but it’s not like I’m not an addict too.
[hits “post comment,” confirms validity of comment.]
sab
@sab: Daytime yes. Nightime and before noon weekends no.
sab
@suzanne: I love them. Glad to hear about them from an audience.
Baud
@sab:
I’m not judging other people’s decisions, but I gave up on cable news years ago. I don’t miss it.
Bupalos
I appreciate you staying in the frame of language I’m thinking of here.
In case that’s not explicit enough…. cable news is about addiction. Which doesn’t particularly distinguish it from most of modern internet-soaked life.
sab
@Bupalos: I got tined out. See #56
Baud
I can give up Balloon Juice anytime I want.
I just don’t want to.
Bupalos
I love how much this sounds like we’re talking about something else.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
Reading is good. Reading in depth stuff is really good.
I’m currently in San Diego, last stop for me on a 3-park baseball trip with two cousins (went to Dodger Stadium last night. Awesome place except for the extreme cat pee smell where we were sitting, really bizarre).
One cousin listens to podcasts and was recommending “Daily Zeitgeist” and “Stuff You Should Know”. I have no idea if they’re any good, maybe not because every person that says “this is a ‘must-listen-to’ podcast” inevitably is wrong.
Bupalos
@sab: It’s always NOT 5’o’clock somewhere!
Bupalos
@Baud: Sas Zackly ZACKLY what I’m sayin… Love you man!!! Iz alwayz loved em. you. like. ZACKLY you know what it is!!! YES
Mai Naem mobile
When i have the time, I like going through older BBC Witness History episodes. The show has been around forever so chances are you’ll find something that sounds interesting and educational. The BBC also has another one Lives Less Ordinary that I’ve just started listening to. It reminds me that there are just some extraordinary people out there. The last one I listened to was a blind Holocaust survivor who was the one who first got onto Adolf Eichmann’s trail. The one before was about a blind paralympian medalist who also swam the English Channel.
sab
Fifth train today. Economy in Ohio must be okay for now.
Bupalos
@Mai Naem mobile: The things that are available to us are amazing.
I have some hope, as much as we’re all addicted to the semi-dark side of this expansion of communication, that things will gradually come around and the old promise of the IT revolution will at least pay for itself.
Tall order at this point though.
If you think about it, radio on the whole made people more miserable. An avalanche of death and destruction.
Books…. that was a win. After an avalanche of death and destruction.
Internet… no idea. Could come out either way I guess…. although to this point it’s massively negative. And it feels more like radio than books.
Bupalos
@sab: What does that mean? OH…. I forgot I saw, you’ve been counting rail traffic.
Bupalos
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: I’m always interested.. how did you travel and did you have the reality of climate change in mind when you did?
Could the cats have been trying to send you a message?
So many voices saying so many things these days.
oldster
Josh Marshall calling the Qatari bribe to Trump the “pimpmobile plane.”
Yup.
cope
@raven: My mildly dyslexic and cataract frosted eyes (surgery this month) read that as “Bigass bluegill”. Imagine my shock when I saw the pic.
Also, good luck with the yellow fin hunt. On my first offshore fishing trip with a fellow teacher when we moved to Florida, I caught the first fish of the day, a yellow fin. I could not believe how strong it was. My buddy cleaned and filleted it for me and it was on the grill at home that evening. As I was cutting it up, I couldn’t resist some primeval compulsion and sliced a chunk off and ate it raw. Then, another and another and…I had to stop myself so I could cook the rest for the family.
sab
@Bupalos:Train traffic.
Zero to three is weak. Three to five is faint but okay. Six plus is healthy, seven or eight is we are booming.
Train traffic from Wheeling to the Great Lakes and possibly into Canada.
I live in the real world, not Acadamia. Commerce is life in my world.
cope
An open question: why cannot I not listen to podcasts? I have tried and tried and tried but after a few short minutes, always give up. Politics, science, sports, humor…I’ve tried them all to no avail.
I have always been a voracious reader, do not – cannot watch TV news and just learn what I can from online sources and a few dead tree periodicals.
I am truly curious why I am like this.
Bupalos
@Bupalos: I have a version of this. I live 15 or so miles from the Ravenna Arsenal (I guess now the James A. Garfield Army Whatever… (such named until and unless the wingers figure out that JAG was essentially woke as fuck and dedicated his life and the life of everyone he knew to killing Slaver-Rebs dead)
And the giant cargo planes from there have some route that goes like 6 feet over my house… which is something to experience. And I swear to god I know when Ukraine is getting another load of stuff we were going to dismantle and bury. And I feel like know when they aren’t.
A month ago…. some stuff flowing. Lately…. I don’t think so. I’ve come to like the sound of those planes.
eclare
@raven:
Gorgeous photo!
Sure Lurkalot
@Gretchen: Michael Hobbes is the BOMB. He does the work and brings it. He’s on BlueSky too.
geg6
@UncleEbeneezer:
Don’t give up podcasts! Give up political podcasts. The only ones in my library are Josh Marshall’s and now John’s. I vowed in November to avoid any media that makes me angry or anxious. I have subscribed to almost two dozen podcasts on various subjects. The newest ones I put into my library are Dear Movies, I Love You; Talking Pictures; You Had to Be There (host is challenged to find someone in attendance at major social events like the 1984 US/USSR Miracle on Ice) and the CBC’s Uncover (true crime).
Geminid
@oldster: Someone talked about a new McDonald’s sandwich, the “Qatar Pounder.”
sab
@geg6: I know you won’t be there, but I plan to bring a notebook to the meetup and collect podcast and bluesky addresses.
Sure Lurkalot
@sab: The podcast field is enormous which is both good and bad. But I have really learned a lot from many of them. Unlike streaming series on TV, a lot of podcasts are not serial so you can pick and choose which episodes are of interest to you. And they really make house chores more entertaining.
sab
@Geminid: Spousal unit snorted a laugh at that.
Baud
@Geminid:
That’s good.
sab
@cope: If only Jasmine Crockett had a regular podcast.
She talks faster than I read, and with a Southern accent. Not many people can do that.
She actually talks faster than I can think, which is a problem communicating with us average cows.
geg6
@sab:
Wish I could be there! Just not possible with my John the way he is.
Baud
@cope:
I’m the same. The ones I’ve tried, I don’t like the way they talk. And they seem excessively wordy. Very small sample size.
Trapped Lurker
Long-form history podcasts are keeping me sane. My absolute favorite is David Crowther’s “History of England” and “the Anglo-saxons”. Also love ‘Mike Duncan’s “History of Rome” and “Revolutions.” Medieval and ancient history help me remember that things have a lot worse in the past and help me stave off despair.
Eta: I tend to dislike interviews and chatty back-and-forth conversations. A couple of others that I find absorbing are “the History of the Germans” (Dirk somebody or other) and Mike Corradi’s “History of Italy.” Medieval Europe was a real mess
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: Same here. I used to live in a town where we could not get cable TV. So now I can get cable but I am just not interested.
schrodingers_cat
@Baud: I prefer video podcasts and shorter podcasts, 1/2 hour maximum. I can’t focus longer than that.
What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?
@Trapped Lurker: Loved The History of Rome. First podcast I listened to.
A couple I like that I didn’t see mentioned:
A History of Rock Music in 500 Songs by Andrew Hickey.
Also Hit Parade (also a music podcast), hosted by Chris Molanphy.
cmorenc
@Melancholy Jaques: Trump does have a superpower – that of a PT-Barnum type promoter – skilled at selling people validation of their worst inclinations about other people.
Dr Daniel Price (Saint Vincent)
I experienced the joy of monthly IV infusion a few years ago. I always brought plenty to do (to write and read) but the treatment made me feel increasingly bad throughout, so after hour one of four I was invariably reduced to a miserable stupor. One of the infusions was much faster than the others–I was released after two hours–but provoked a transient meningitis. Not transient enough; I somehow drove almost all of the way home (forty minutes of fifty) but ultimately had to call for backup. Migraine headache–something I had never before experienced–then occurred. Unreal pain, and newfound sympathy for those who routinely suffer from migraine. The nurse supervising that infusion was in error: the medication is not meant to be introduced that fast, and her mistake made for a bad few days.
sab
@geg6: Someday you will have a Pittsburgh meetup.
Last time we went to Pittsburgh we wanted to see the giant rubber duck. We failed.
Pittsburgh is extremely hostile to outside visitors. I assume it is just the geography. Whatever. We decided we would never even try to go back.
Bupalos
@geg6: LOVE THIS
Another Scott
@cope: @Baud:
I’ve not been a fan of them either, but my sample size is very, very small. I did think Cole’s recent one was worthwhile.
Why? I think Baud is on to something with his comment.
I can listen to olde timey radio dramas and even things like “Throughline” and “Snap Judgment” on public radio while I’m doing other things. But when ads pop in, or especially when multiple ads pop-in screaming at me to buy stuff, well, I’ve got other things I need to do, thanks. Similarly with most longer-form stuff on YouTube.
I did greatly enjoy Folding Ideas – Line Goes Up – The Problem with NFTs (2:18:22 – yes, over 2 hours). It’s a great show.
But I haven’t watched another episode – just too much other stuff to do, and I haven’t made time for it.
FWIW.
Best wishes,
Scott.
Percysowner
I’ve given up on political podcasts, but I have several others I enjoy
You Must Remember This “The Podcast dedicated to the secrets and/or forgotten secrets of Hollywood) well investigated, interesting, and she has a soothing voice, so I relisten to episodes when I need to fall asleep
I know we have a few Babylon 5 fans here and I have some fun podcasts on that
Grey Sector, They snark, because they love the show and boy do they snark, but it’s all in great fun.
Babylon 5 for the First Time A couple of Star Trek fans who finally decided to watch B5, well, for the first time. They loved it so much that they are now doing B5 for the second time to see what they missed first go through.
The Babylon Podject 3 hosts 2 of whom have seen the show, one of whom hasn’t. Another slightly snarky, look, but all in good fun. They finished B5 quite a while ago and moved on first to Person of Interest, and now are doing Deep Space Nine.
Yep, I’m a SciFi girl through and through
Bupalos
@sab: Did the bridges feel aggressive? Because that’s really NOT THEIR FAULT. It is a little disorienting though. It’s like “here comes Pittsburgh, everyone in the car LOCK DOWN AND TRY TO GET US THROUGH THIS!!!”
I’m on the downside of 50 now so I can say this…. “Pittsburgh and Cleveland are the same city, desperate to deny this!!!”
Bupalos
@sab: Maybe this will seem odd, but if I rank the Dem’s in terms of populist potential….
Buttigieg #1
Crockett # 2
AOC #3
But Crockett and AOC have a lot of blue sky in front of them, Pete is maxed out.
Barbara
@Bupalos: I think Governor Pritzker is pretty awesome, especially for a rich guy. He doesn’t pull punches. Newsom is looking increasingly silly.
Bupalos
@cope: yeah, I feel this sometimes despite the fact that I am pretty fucking stringent on insisting these sources keep delivering to me.
I mean, I’m going to just lock down and turn the next :50:00 over to you??! Better bring it. Better make me think! And make me forget you’re inserting :05:22 of ads into that!!!
Barbara
@Bupalos: I long ago realized that there is a spectrum, and on one side are cities that are much nicer to live in than to visit, and on the other, cities that are much nicer to visit than to live in, at least for an average person (because of commute, or expense, etc.)
Pittsburgh is in my view undeniably the former. There are things to see and do but I really feel like you have to live there to be able to take advantage of its positive qualities. My sister lives at the top of a hill on the last street before the hill falls off down to Carson Street along the river — And many times I have stood on her porch and looked at the horizon that stretched over the river for many miles and thought, “If Pittsburgh were San Francisco this house would be worth a million dollars!” But no, yeah, it’s kind of a rundown house in a rundown neighborhood that you would never visit as a tourist. And you might have a heart attack when you drive your car on the hill.
zhena gogolia
@bystander: I hate podcasts, but I would listen to Betty!
zhena gogolia
@cope: I’m exactly like you.
Glory b
@Bupalos: Not sure what you mean by “blue sky.”
Bupalos
@Barbara: Yeah, I feel like I heard this fully.
Same thing in Cleveland Metro. There are places on Erie where in July you’d be hard pressed to say whether you’re in NEO or a cliff on the Agean. I’ve sat in those spaces and thought “where would I rather be if I had billions…?”
It does help attune you to the way people assign value without experiencing value.
Bupalos
@Glory b: I forgot it was internetified.
“Blue sky” used to mean just “open unlimited potential.”
It used to be a physical reality. Not something on a screen. It came from people literally looking up. over the screen in front of them.
They named the internet thing of looking at a screen for this idea, of looking past a screen.
Glory b
@Bupalos: I see.
Barbara
@cope: I get sick and tired of them, for sure. My husband is several years into Revolutions, and I acknowledge that I learned a lot about the 1848 uprisings in Europe, a period that I had never really understood. I also learned about the English Civil War — but I just can’t get into the French Revolution or others that I actually knew something about already. I would never listen at all if I weren’t in a vehicle.
I do like a podcast called “Emperors of Rome,” which is basically just a dialog on an ongoing, not always chronologic history of Rome, between an Australian professor of classics and her graduate student, as well as various guests. It only comes out every few weeks, and sometimes not that often, but it’s wry, often funny, along with being scholarly.
I will give my little endorsement for a classical music program I listen to, which is mostly music, built around weekly themes, called Exploring Music, sponsored by WFMT in Chicago. You can listen live or to past episodes (warning — you can’t pause an episode). It’s just enough explanation to be interesting, and I feel like I am listening with a bit more direction.
Ruckus
@cope:
They likely don’t go at your speed.
A podcast is somewhat like a live book or magazine review and to get and keep much of an audience they have to go, not at maximum speed but slower, so that everyone is heard and everyone hearing has the opportunity to fully hear it.
I read rather fast as well so when I’m listening to something that is going a boring speed – I get bored. I tried some podcasts quite a while back and had the same problem as you. They have to operate at least at a speed that doesn’t overwhelm a major portion of their audience. I read the basis of the podcast or whatever at my own speed. Otherwise I lose interest. And way too soon.
Bupalos
@Ruckus: This is an interesting comment. Podcasts are like reading a book at the economically optimal common denominator.
Not the lowest, mind you.
geg6
@What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?:
I love Hit Parade!
Ruckus
@Dr Daniel Price (Saint Vincent):
I used to get massive migraines and found out that part of the cause was doing everything at warp speed. An example I believe I’ve given here before – I used to walk rather fast. At the VA my doc had me walk down the hall and after about 10-15 feet he said, loudly, “Slow the fuck down!” I stopped, turned to look at him, laughing, and the two nurses walking down the hall looked like maybe the end of the earth was happening. I have since learned to walk a big tad slower. It’s actually better.
Manyakitty
@geg6: I’ve been a giant fan of WTF with Marc Maron for longer than I can remember. I think he started in 2009 and I found him like a year later.
Matt McIrvin
@Another Scott: Dan Olson’s videos are all worth watching, and incredibly long. My favorite is “The Search for Flat Earth,” which starts out being about flat-Earthers and has a nice episode of debunking, in which he does a physical experiment directly sighting the curve of the Earth over a long lake… but then Olson points out that the oddball crank cosmology is generally motivated by an emotional need for conspiracy theory rather than the reverse, and in the second half, he traces a general decline in flat-Earthism (that was happening at the time) to them moving to QAnon. Out of the frying pan, into the fire.
geg6
@sab:
WHAT? No way are Pittsburgh people hostile. Unless it was during a football game and you were wearing Browns gear (or Ravens for our southern neighbors).
Otherwise, we’re very friendly people.
geg6
@Bupalos:
I can never speak to you again after that remark. Pittsburgh is nothing like Cleveland. I know both well and can comment with full authority.
geg6
@Manyakitty:
I’m subscribed to WTF, but I only listen when I’m really interested in his guest. And I have to fast forward through the first 10-15 minutes because he goes on and on and on before bringing in the guest.
Suzanne
@sab:
Pittsburgh people have all lived here forever and forget that other people….. have not! They don’t mean to be mean!
Don’t ask anyone for directions. “Go dahn this street, and turn left where the 7-11 used to be.”
I remember one of my colleagues, a lifetime western PA lady, telling someone from one of our other offices that she worked on a project “in Indiana”. I had to cut in and say, “She means Indiana, PA.”
pieceofpeace
@raven: Good luck tomorrow….
Dr Daniel Price (excruciverbiage)
@Ruckus: Twice was enough. All due to the infusions, which failed.
Gretchen
@cope: I couldn’t sit and just listen to a podcast. I listen to them while I am doing something else: walking, exercising, driving, cleaning, gardening.
sab
@geg6: I didn’t mean tje people. I meant just trying to navogate around the place. I think Barbara summed it up pretty well about cities to live in v cities to visit.
sab
@sab: Typing with thumbs only is hard.
sab
@sab: Akron has a small neighboring city, Barberton, which is like that. Or the opposite of that. Easy to enter, easy to navigate in, almost impossible to leave. You never come out where you went in, so then you have to figure out how to get home.