All this month, I’ve heard about the campaign to spread the news of podcasts called TryPod. As I am a voracious listener of podcasts (you can see the complete list of my current subscriptions and other recommendations on my podcast page), I figured I ought to participate while I can. So I will post about one of my favorite podcasts every day for the last 9 days of March.
Maeve in America stars Irish-born comedian Maeve Higgins who interviews a different immigrant to the United States learning their stories and struggles in the anti-immigrant mood of present-day America.
All this month, I’ve heard about the campaign to spread the news of podcasts called TryPod. As I am a voracious listener of podcasts (you can see the complete list of my current subscriptions and other recommendations on my podcast page), I figured I ought to participate while I can. So I will post about one of my favorite podcasts every day for the last 9 days of March.
99% Invisible is one of my absolute favorite podcasts. It’s a podcast about design, which is kind of vague and misleading, because this podcast encompass a wide variety of topics. Each episode, host Roman Mars leads the listener through the unoticed architecture and design that shape our world.
Some of my favorite episodes:
“Frozen assets” – The story of Frederic Tudor, the Ice King.
“Project Cybersyn” – Fascinating story of a futuristic room designed to be the place where the economy of Chile would be controlled under the Salvador Allende government. It would be destroyed by the Pinochet dictatorship with only one photograph surviving.
“On Average” – It’s a cliché to say that no one is average, but the science bears it out. Not only that but it’s actually dangerous to assume that an average can define a human characteristic. And who knew that the military was behind the sizing of everything?
“Photo Credit” – This episode is about the photographer Lucia Moholy who documented the architecture and designs of the Bauhaus movement basically keeping the style alive when World War II and the Eastern Bloc prevented access to the original works, but she received little credit for her art and contributions.
“A Sea Worth It’s Salt” – The unlikely story of California’s largest body of water, created by accident in the early 1900s, turned into a tourist resort in the 50s and 60s, and today scorned for it’s unaturalness even within the environmental movement, despite being home to scores of unique species of birds.
“Structural Integrity” – The story of how a New York City skyscraper almost fell over.
“The Shift” – dissecting baseball’s defensive strategy.
All this month, I’ve heard about the campaign to spread the news of podcasts called TryPod. As I am a voracious listener of podcasts (you can see the complete list of my current subscriptions and other recommendations on my podcast page), I figured I ought to participate while I can. So I will post about one of my favorite podcasts every day for the last 9 days of March.
The first podcast I think you should try is one I’ve been listening to for quite some time. Host Nate DiMeo tells stories of little known historical events in United State’s history in a soothing tone of voice. DiMeo’s strength is providing vivid descriptions of the sights, sounds, and smells of an event, allowing the listener to experience events as they unfold rather than from hindsight.
It’s a short podcast, so if you don’t want to commit much time to listening to podcasts it’s a good place to start. Here are some of my favorite episodes:
“Haunting” – The story of Washington Phillip’s mysterious gospel and blues music
“Numbers” – This podcast dramatizes the first nationally televised Draft Lottery on December 1, 1969.
“Oil, Water” – Whenever Cleveland is mentioned, one hears about the Cuyahoga River catching fire, but until listening to this podcast I was unaware that there were multiple fires over decades and the considerable damage that they caused.
“Dreamland” – Coney Island’s great early 20th-century amusement park.
“Victory” – The story of a an untalented baseball player taken on as a good luck charm by the 1911 New York Giants.
Better late than never, here is the report of what I was listening to in February, a short month punctuated by a delightful vacation where I mostly listened to the laughter of my children.
A discussion of the United States involvement with the rest of the world from isolationism to the world’s police to the more sinister activities of imperialism and corporate hegemony.
The divide between urban and rural populations is one of the major causes of political disagreement in the US today, and one that goes back throughout the history of the United States.
Movies have a track of audio description intended to help the visually impaired and this podcast describes the art of narration and how audio descriptions can benefit all viewers.
The chilling law of civil asset forfeiture that allows police to take property from suspects even if they’re not convicted or even charged with crimes.
All about why school turnarounds – a theory of fixing low-performing schools by firing the teachers and staff that has widespread, bipartisan support – is an idea that doesn’t work, and what actually does.
Song of the Month
Chicago singer-songwriter Zeshan Bagewadi (aka Zeshan B) provides a powerful interpretation of the 1970 protest anthem “Cryin’ in the Streets” by George Perkins that ties together generations of protest for justice and equality in the United States. Learn more about the song The World interview.
Albums of the Month
Artist: Tinariwen Album: Elwan Release Date: 10 February 2017 Favorite Tracks: “Sastanàqqàm,” Ténéré Tàqqàl,” “Assàwt,” and “Nànnuflày” Thoughts: The Northern Africa Desert Blues band from Mali’s most recent release includes guest appearances by indie artists like Kurt Vile, but the band itself is the stand out performer of this collection of melodic, resonant, and politically-charged tunes. Rating: ***1/2
Artist: Clap! Clap! Album: A Thousand Skies Release Date: 17 February 2017 Favorite Tracks: “Ar-Raqis” and “Elephant Seranade” Thoughts: Clap! Clap! is a project of Italian producer Cristiano Crisci, who creates instrumental dance tracks relying heavily on indigenous percussion. An earlier Clap! Clap! recording, Tayi Bebba, made my 2014 favorite albums list. While not as strong as its predecessor, A Thousand Skies is equally enjoyable as festive ambient music for a party or for getting through a gray day at work Rating: ***1/2
Artist: Visible Cloaks Album: Reassemblage Release Date: 17 February 2017 Favorite Tracks: “Bloodstream”, “Place,” “Valve (Revisited)” Thoughts: Somewhere between Phillip Glass, a church organist, and a lullaby lies this lovely collection of ambient tunes. Rating: ***
Artist: Molly Burch Album: Please Be Mine Release Date: 17 February 2017 Favorite Tracks: “Fool” Thoughts: A collection of retro, country-tinged tracks sung sweetly by a barroom singer. It’s pretty and well-produced, and while there’s nothing wrong with Burch’s album it’s nothing we haven’t heard before from Patsy Cline and singers produced by Phil Spector among others, so it’s just a tad bit dull. Rating: **
Okay, it’s been several weeks since the last Podcast of the Week, and I’ve decided this will be the last installment of this feature. In the future I may do a monthly roundup or an irregular schedule of posts.
To start of this final post, here are three new podcasts feeds I’m subscribing to:
Maeve in America – Irish comedian Maeve Higgins interviews a different immigrant to America in each episode
Hub History – a new podcast on one of my favorite topics, Boston history, which has already covered topics ranging from Cotton Mather’s smallpox innoculation and the Great Molasses Flood
Stranglers – a 12-part documentary focusing a particularly notorious time in Boston history, the strangler murders of 1962-64
And here are some good episodes from the past motnth or so:
Planet Money – Bad Form, Wells Fargo – Career destroying practices for employees involved in the Wells Fargo scandal
99 Percent Invisible – The Shift – the history of baseball’s revolutionary defensive strategy
Politically Re-Active – W. Kamau Bell and Hari Kondabolu with guest Roxane Gay on Anger After the Election
Sounds in My Head – Special Post-Election Episode with a playlist of very sad songs
I added another podcast subscription to my stable for this new production from The Smithsonian Institution. The debut episode explores various aspects of the human relationship with technology.
Did you know that there’s a job for someone to make fake wounds on volunteers participating in first responder training? Learn all about them in this podcast.
An eerie story of a woman’s experience waking up in a hospital with a head injury and no memory of how she got there. It’s well-told with details revealed in the order she learned them.
An exploration into the first type of residential architecture designed with the idea of immediately selling it to someone else and thus creating a style that no one likes.
Mike Pesca interviews the Green Party candidate for President. While Pesca is critical of Stein, nevertheless it’s good to hear her get a chance to speak and bring up some issues not being addressed by the major party candidates.
Despite being a hot button issue, voter fraud is exceedingly rare in the United States today and especially difficult to carry out on a large scale to effect national elections.
A short history of how the District of Columbia has been denied Congressional representation and how non-voting Representative Eleanor Holmes Norton is trying to change that.
I’m once again recommending 99PI, because while it’s a cliche to say that no one is average, the science bears it out. Not only that but it’s actually dangerous to assume that an average can define a human characteristic. And who knew that the military was behind the sizing of everything?
I always thought the frantic cross-country travel by Presidential candidates to appear in as many states as possible was a waste of time in the era of mass media, and science bears it out.
The story of the ethics of triage revisits Hurricane Katrina and the difficult choices faced in a hospital of who to save and who to let die. It’s the most heart-wrenching podcast I’ve ever listened to.
This podcast dramatizes an incident I’d not been aware of, a nationally televised Draft Lottery on December 1, 1969. Still not clear on how this was different from conscription that occured before that date.
All about defining Americans by our work ethic, or lack thereof. The concept that colonial Americans defined liberty by being able to have other people do their work is a fascinating one.
The interview with Jane Ziegelman and Andy Coe, authors of A Square Meal, discusses culinary history of the Great Depression when food choices were informed by the science of nutrition and new food production technologies, but not by taste or cooking traditions. A fascinating topic.
Robin Lloyd and Steve Mirsky discuss their boat trip on the Colorado rapids through the Grand Canyon, and now I want to pack up and go to Arizona right now!
So, 99% Invisible is basically a POTW recommendation every week. This episode is about the photographer Lucia Moholy who documented the architecture and designs of the Bauhaus movement basically keeping the style alive when World War II and the Eastern Bloc prevented access to the original works, but she received little credit for her art and contributions.
Another myth of the meritoricracy busted. Attending college actually creates debt rather than raising people out of poverty, especially if they’re unable to graduate
I’ve always been a fan of ska music, especially the first and second waves, the third wave less so. Here’s a great historical background of this music, great for parties and political messaging alike.
The unlikeley story of California’s largest body of water, created by accident in the early 1900s, turned into a tourist resort in the 50s and 60s, and today scorned for it’s unaturalness even within the environmental movement, despite being home to scores of unique species of birds.
Since I have some very basic instruction in being a mobility guide for a visually-impaired friend, I was interested in this story about a person who helps visually-impaired people to live independently by learning to use a cane.
There’s a fungus among us and it supports the Wood Wide Web. Some startling discoveries of the interconnectedness of species believed to be non-sapient in a forest.
Completely fascinated by the story of Rwanda where gender equality in the public sphere has been forced into being by a political strongmen as a result of the loss of men in the 1990s genocide. Also the sad truth that women’s subservience to men is still the expectation in the private sphere.
An illuminating but sad history of when computer science moved from being woman-dominated to a “men’s only club.”
Politically Re-Active – “Democracy Now’s Amy Goodman Gives Us the Election Unfiltered”
A podcast I just started listening to that is hosted by W. Kamau Bell and Hari Kondabolu features an interview with the noted alternative media host who manages to keep a straight face amidst their goofiness.
This podcast is worth listening primarily for Mike Pesca ordering a salad as if he were delivering a convention speech, but the stuff on nerds is good too.
Whenever Cleveland is mentioned, one hears about the Cuyahoga River catching fire, but until listening to this podcast I was unaware that there were multiple fires over decades and the considerable damage that they caused.
Not a typical Planet Money episode as it focuses on people tortured and forced to confess by the Chicago police, and the thorny issue of deciding on how much to pay in reparations.
Interviews with people affected by violence, both people harmed by police and officers harmed by suspects. Particularly interesting is the black man who served as a police officer and participated in protests to reform the police, sometimes on both sides on the same day.
“There really are two systems of justice. There’s one for people who can make bail, and one for people who can’t.” So begins another story of how the incarceral state is rigged against the least privileged in America.
Revolutions broke out across North and South America in the late 1700s and early 1800s. These are their stories, and how the United States – itself a revolutionary republic – responded or didn’t to their fellow seekers of independence.
This week’s To the Best of Our Knowledge asks Do Protests Still Matter. I grew up inspired by the history of mass movements to use protest for Civil Rights, women’s equality, labor rights, and anti-war to bring about great change. In the 80s and 90s, I visited Washington, DC often and every time would see a protest of dozens, hundreds, sometimes thousands of people marching from some cause. It seemed that protests were so routine that they no longer received media coverage and certainly did not seem to be influencing elected representatives in the government. In 2007, as part of the ALA Conference in Washington, I went to the US Capitol and visited the offices of my representative and senators to advocate for libraries. I noticed that there were other groups working for other causes wearing matching t-shirts and carrying their own petitions. I never met any elected representatives, just their administrative assistants who politely asked me to drop my petition in an inbox. Again, I really wondered if protest was so commonplace as to have any affect at all.
In recent years, first with Occupy Wall Street and then Black Lives Matters, I’ve been inspired by mass movements innovating to get attention to their causes through long-term encampments, blocking streets, and other more “in-your-face” tactics. They seem to have helped stir conversation about inequality in our nation, but they’ve also met with police repression and a widespread commendation of “extremism” in tactics that ignores the severity of the problems they’re trying to address. It makes me worry about how in the future the people’s voices if protest is no longer an effective means of expression and resistance. I remain optimistic though, and if you read this blog you know I’ve participated in demonstrations and rallies for Boston Public Schools and plan to remain active in the future.
What do you think? Do protests still matter? In what ways can people express their voices and opinions to make change for the better?
I was impressed listening to former big league catcher and current MLB manager Mike Matheny discuss the culture of youth sports, the subject of his new book The Matheny Manifesto. He also had some fascinating stories of his major league experience and concussions. It actually made me like a St. Louis Cardinal!
I just started following a new podcast bringing my total number of subscription up to 60! (Yes, I know I have a problem, but I don’t listen to every single episode).
Code Switch is an NPR project featuring discussions about race and identity, an interesting and important, albeit challenging topic.
So far there are two episodes: #1 discusses whiteness and #2 is about black and brown people being outdoorsy.
The Story Collider is a storytelling podcast for scientists to tell their stories – a great idea both for getting scientists to communicate and for the general public to learn about science. In this episode, Rochelle Williams tells the story of her experience studying engineering as a young, black woman.
