May 30, 2022
You'd think after almost two months, I'd be overflowing with podcast recommendations. Well, after my favorite sports team suffered perhaps the most embarrassing defeat of all time, my time was devoted to consuming basketball related media to try and understand what happened. After that I mostly kept busy staying current on the old standbys (i.e. The Gist, The Bill Simmons Podcast, and The Slate Culture Gabfest) and listening to some new music (i.e. ROSALIA, Bastille, Anaïs Mitchell). I did also really dig the latest season of Against the Rules (flipping the idea of the expert on it's head) and Still Processing (in which Wesley Morris brings on a different guest host each which to aid in parsing out some pretty specific culture-related wonderings). But other than that - which, OK, is kind of a lot -there was time for one show in particular that sound-tracked my dog walks and semi-futile late-spring attempts at landscaping, and that's the main focus of this week's/this month's/this season's edition of The Pod Piper.
SOMETHING NEW
Cabin (from The Relentless Picnic)
The team from the Relentless Picnic podcast happened into producing the right thing at the right time - in this case a series called “Cabin” which is mainly about isolation and it’s outcomes - that started to release just before the Covid-19 pandemic pushed people into lock downs and forced couplings with roommates or one's own inner thoughts. The 11 episode arc was initially couched as a meditation on societal remove using the writing of Henry David Thoreau (of Walden fame) and Ted Kaczynski (of unabomber infamy) as the source material, and it did indeed start out that way in recordings dated in 2019 and 2020. As compelling as those early installments were, the timing of the show’s release and it’s ongoing production sort of nudged the creators into a more personal - and, incredibly - even darker direction than a show that originally placed a terrorist as one of it’s centering narrative tentpoles.
From the start, the format’s novelty draws you in. It's equal parts book club, chat cast, memoir, and history lesson, all formed in a cynical mold and delivered with a winning combination of earnestness and erudition. The show feels weighty even though from a less charitable angle it could be discarded as some random dudes waxing philosophic on comparative lit vis a vis Thoreau and Kaczynski. The early series excitement drops off a bit - as happens with any show - but I grew comfortable with the meandering nature and found it to be a formula that consistently proved to generate space for my own musings on the subject matter. This familiarity is partially a byproduct of the show being presented without ad breaks, which would undoubtedly clash with the subject’s anticapitalistic overtones. One of the more difficult bits was tracking the time differences as various audio clips are identified with a specific date and are not presented linearly. This mostly meant that I decided early on that the particular details of the hosts and their life stories didn’t matter too much, and I think the composite sense of identity I cobbled together for each person was sufficient for exploring the themes of the work.
In addition to the memoirs of polarizing cult figures and exasperated lives of relative nobodies (aka the hosts),”Cabin” uses the experiences of other guests to form expository inroads into exploring the depths of solitude in light of a society that continues to persist. We get insight into hiking the Appalachian trail in the third episode via one man’s attempt to find rugged wilderness in a world where there increasingly is none. An entire chapter is dedicated to the abolitionist John Brown In episode 9, a letter from a listener creates a discussion about how happiness is perceived. This was really fascinating - sort of like a character from Fight Club seeking the advice of a countercultural Dear Abby. It's the peak of the series, really - nothing else builds as well around a singular unifying experience that the hosts can all riff on together.
That said, the thing that makes “Cabin” worthwhile is the extent to which it is animated by the personal details of the three hosts. The later missives in particular draw on biographical experiences of modern life and its shortcomings, but the best bits of reflecting on Thoreau and Kaczynski are also colored by the host’s struggle to find meaning in their own lives. Episode 8 features a meditation on how the trio is compelled to save especially relevant conversations until they are recording, which is both natural and mildly problematic for people creating a show that is ostensibly shaped by an examination of two people fixated on authenticity.
The ending isn't as bleak as a majority of the series may portend, but that kind of means it isn't earned. I'm sure some people will find this exponentially more grading as the episodes roll on, and the show definitely doesn't tie everything together in some satisfying way. Still, I was happy and rather surprised to hear these dudes seemingly finding some respite and optimism for life even as darkness lingers. Organized society has many benefits, but it is always intriguing and sometimes even helpful to take a step back and analyze the immobility of things we may unquestionably accept. It was a good listen for long, pensive walks at night and/or in the rain (dog optional but suggested), and I sense it would lend itself well for discussion if you can convince a friend to listen as well. Who knows, forming a communal bond through mutual listening might just be the thing to deliver the best of both worlds!
The team from the Relentless Picnic podcast happened into producing the right thing at the right time - in this case a series called “Cabin” which is mainly about isolation and it’s outcomes - that started to release just before the Covid-19 pandemic pushed people into lock downs and forced couplings with roommates or one's own inner thoughts. The 11 episode arc was initially couched as a meditation on societal remove using the writing of Henry David Thoreau (of Walden fame) and Ted Kaczynski (of unabomber infamy) as the source material, and it did indeed start out that way in recordings dated in 2019 and 2020. As compelling as those early installments were, the timing of the show’s release and it’s ongoing production sort of nudged the creators into a more personal - and, incredibly - even darker direction than a show that originally placed a terrorist as one of it’s centering narrative tentpoles.
From the start, the format’s novelty draws you in. It's equal parts book club, chat cast, memoir, and history lesson, all formed in a cynical mold and delivered with a winning combination of earnestness and erudition. The show feels weighty even though from a less charitable angle it could be discarded as some random dudes waxing philosophic on comparative lit vis a vis Thoreau and Kaczynski. The early series excitement drops off a bit - as happens with any show - but I grew comfortable with the meandering nature and found it to be a formula that consistently proved to generate space for my own musings on the subject matter. This familiarity is partially a byproduct of the show being presented without ad breaks, which would undoubtedly clash with the subject’s anticapitalistic overtones. One of the more difficult bits was tracking the time differences as various audio clips are identified with a specific date and are not presented linearly. This mostly meant that I decided early on that the particular details of the hosts and their life stories didn’t matter too much, and I think the composite sense of identity I cobbled together for each person was sufficient for exploring the themes of the work.
In addition to the memoirs of polarizing cult figures and exasperated lives of relative nobodies (aka the hosts),”Cabin” uses the experiences of other guests to form expository inroads into exploring the depths of solitude in light of a society that continues to persist. We get insight into hiking the Appalachian trail in the third episode via one man’s attempt to find rugged wilderness in a world where there increasingly is none. An entire chapter is dedicated to the abolitionist John Brown In episode 9, a letter from a listener creates a discussion about how happiness is perceived. This was really fascinating - sort of like a character from Fight Club seeking the advice of a countercultural Dear Abby. It's the peak of the series, really - nothing else builds as well around a singular unifying experience that the hosts can all riff on together.
That said, the thing that makes “Cabin” worthwhile is the extent to which it is animated by the personal details of the three hosts. The later missives in particular draw on biographical experiences of modern life and its shortcomings, but the best bits of reflecting on Thoreau and Kaczynski are also colored by the host’s struggle to find meaning in their own lives. Episode 8 features a meditation on how the trio is compelled to save especially relevant conversations until they are recording, which is both natural and mildly problematic for people creating a show that is ostensibly shaped by an examination of two people fixated on authenticity.
The ending isn't as bleak as a majority of the series may portend, but that kind of means it isn't earned. I'm sure some people will find this exponentially more grading as the episodes roll on, and the show definitely doesn't tie everything together in some satisfying way. Still, I was happy and rather surprised to hear these dudes seemingly finding some respite and optimism for life even as darkness lingers. Organized society has many benefits, but it is always intriguing and sometimes even helpful to take a step back and analyze the immobility of things we may unquestionably accept. It was a good listen for long, pensive walks at night and/or in the rain (dog optional but suggested), and I sense it would lend itself well for discussion if you can convince a friend to listen as well. Who knows, forming a communal bond through mutual listening might just be the thing to deliver the best of both worlds!
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