April 6, 2022
It's April and I missed March and I'm mixing it up - just three episodes and one show this time around. Because, you know, variety is spicy Life. If you're really jonesin' you can always check out the archives, ye olde archives, ye olde spreadsheet or ye olde spreadsheet archives if you're really feeling it. But if brevity be the food of love, skip the links and just read on.
THE LIST
If you are wondering how this seemingly random 2018 episode landed in your inbox this week, I’ll let you in on a little secret: I do not commit my listening capital exclusively to the production whims of modern podcast producers. There are a handful of shows - including Slate’s Working - that I’m dedicated to listening through from the beginning. (More to come on that front, someday, maybe) And let me tell you, this episode is a gem! Feeding people at scale sounds like it would be a logistical nightmare, but Michael Ottley of Holy Apostles Soup Kitchen makes it sound like an incredibly rewarding undertaking on multiple levels.
Come for the punny episode name, stay for the origin story of a thing-that-makes-me-feel-fancy-while-flying: the duty free store. I’d never considered that this weird, globally ubiquitous industry might not have evolved at the same time as commercial flight, and I certainly never imagined what kind of ramifications this had for economic development. I guess I was too busy feeling fancy/not buying anything because dang it’s still not that cheap even without taxes.
Has the pandemic ruined school? It would be hard to find someone who wouldn’t agree to that for at least some stretch of the mask/-less/e-learning/misplaced-public-outrage/ZoomSchool era. But TAL dares to ask: what if it’s bigger than that? What if some kids are permanently scarred from the formal, organized, brick and mortar model of education? It’s more anecdotal than study-based (that comes years from now when graduation rates and standardized test scores take a nosedive), but I found it especially enlightening as someone didn’t have to worry about having a kid in school the past two years.
SOMETHING NEW
Monocle 24:The Urbanist
Monocle registers in my mind as a fancy jetsetting travel magazine (geeze, do we have a surprise half-theme going here?!) - just look at one of their covers and tell me you don’t absent-mindedly slip into a voyeuristic stupor! It’s a magazine that wants to be a book but also wants to have pictures, and that kind of split personality really speaks to me. I haven’t been to a very exciting new place in a very long time, and this show makes me long to travel while also simultaneously scratching that itch in a way. All that said, Monocle 24: The Urbanist is much more focused on cities and how they work (if you didn’t know Monocle was a $140/year lifestyle and culture magazine, you wouldn’t guess based on its affiliation with The Urbanist podcast imprint). It’s very well made, and speaks to my interests across a vast expanse of urbanism and urban issues. From a city planning perspective and a wealth of features on architecture and neighborhoods, there is something for anyone who is interested in cities.
Host Andrew Tuck frames the show with a proper amount of stuffy professor energy, with just enough wry self-awareness to make listeners wonder what his deal is. One of each episode’s joys is waiting until the end to hear what song Tuck announces to ride out on - it’s a surprisingly wide variety of tunes given the buttoned up performance throughout the rest of the show. There are 30 minute episodes that function as a sort of news magazine (a more reported version of The New Yorker Radio Hour), but the bite-sized missives offered up between shows - ‘tall stories,’ often no more than 6 or 7 minutes - are some of the most well produced short form audio I’ve heard.
It doesn’t exactly rival the thrill of discovering a new far off place, but Monocle 24: The Urbanist injects some novelty into my small-city settled-down multi-hyphenate lifestyle. And it’s so well done that I’d wager even a very happy globe trotting coastal elite might even find it charming!
Monocle registers in my mind as a fancy jetsetting travel magazine (geeze, do we have a surprise half-theme going here?!) - just look at one of their covers and tell me you don’t absent-mindedly slip into a voyeuristic stupor! It’s a magazine that wants to be a book but also wants to have pictures, and that kind of split personality really speaks to me. I haven’t been to a very exciting new place in a very long time, and this show makes me long to travel while also simultaneously scratching that itch in a way. All that said, Monocle 24: The Urbanist is much more focused on cities and how they work (if you didn’t know Monocle was a $140/year lifestyle and culture magazine, you wouldn’t guess based on its affiliation with The Urbanist podcast imprint). It’s very well made, and speaks to my interests across a vast expanse of urbanism and urban issues. From a city planning perspective and a wealth of features on architecture and neighborhoods, there is something for anyone who is interested in cities.
Host Andrew Tuck frames the show with a proper amount of stuffy professor energy, with just enough wry self-awareness to make listeners wonder what his deal is. One of each episode’s joys is waiting until the end to hear what song Tuck announces to ride out on - it’s a surprisingly wide variety of tunes given the buttoned up performance throughout the rest of the show. There are 30 minute episodes that function as a sort of news magazine (a more reported version of The New Yorker Radio Hour), but the bite-sized missives offered up between shows - ‘tall stories,’ often no more than 6 or 7 minutes - are some of the most well produced short form audio I’ve heard.
It doesn’t exactly rival the thrill of discovering a new far off place, but Monocle 24: The Urbanist injects some novelty into my small-city settled-down multi-hyphenate lifestyle. And it’s so well done that I’d wager even a very happy globe trotting coastal elite might even find it charming!
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