The Pod Piper: August 9 2023
It's becoming a trope to note how long it's been since this newsletter has graced your inbox. So...instead I'll plug the survey one last time! Click here to reveal your suppressed rage at my sporadic publishing schedule share a couple thoughts about the Pod Piper. And now, on to the shows.
THE LIST
I listened to the whole first season of Wild since we last convened, which means this list of episodes could well just be my favorite installments of that show. It’s really that good. But this one stands above the rest for its intimate and gripping portrait of a pandemic love story. I don’t know that I’ve found something that touches on a serious subject in quite this way - with lightness that doesn’t extend to parody while also giving proper respect for the gravity of the situation. I still find myself thinking about this weeks after listening.
Maybe it's the familiarity of that beige-orange pod art, maybe it's the heavy use of historical audio, maybe it's just something about Ben Naddaff-Hafrey's voice (Jill Lepore, you’re on notice!). Whatever the reason, listening to this season of the Last Archive feels like burrowing into an old recliner and slowly sinking into the warmth of the past. This episode delivers some very on-brand Last Archive-y content, focusing on the father of famed author Ursula K. Leguin. He was an anthropologist who had a rather problematic part of his career, despite some seemingly earnest intentions.
Much of this season’s 6-episode arc is rather somber in tone and subject matter (no small wonder for a show that's tagline is "searching for an answer to the question 'who killed truth?' “). But this final episode brings a zanier flavor - complete with time travel and hyping up a party in hopes it will attract guests from the future.
I’ll forgive you if your first reaction to hearing about the ‘All Iowa Tennis Club’ would be to assume it’s a joke. And while this episode definitely contains some levity and quirkiness, be warned that it also contains some darkness and heartbreak. Still, overall, quite whimsical.
Having the producer jump in and frame the episode about trauma with her own trauma was a really novel angle. It overlaid two different lenses on the same theme via different mediums - the interview and scripted first-person narration. This could be a hard listen depending on one’s lived experience, but it was quite well done.
An excellent companion piece to the 99PI episode below, which also features author Andrew Leland narrating a piece for that show that aired a couple years back. But PJ’s conversation with him goes a little deeper and veers into surprising territory - like Leland voicing uncomfortable truths about what he’ll miss when his vision is completely gone.
HONORABLE MENTION
SOMETHINGS NEW
Wild
I have a confession to make: I may have been sleeping on LAist Studios. A quick scroll of their slate of shows provides a hint of what’s on offer - pods with a west coast aesthetic that have a heart for telling untold stories. (I mean I guess no one is setting out to tell a story everyone has heard before, but there are shows that are clearly like ‘yeah, we know this is what people are going to eat up, and we’re not ashamed to pander’). Admittedly, to date I’ve only checked out Servant of Pod and Wild in any depth, so maybe we’ll return to this larger admission/sweeping claim of brilliance at a later date. What I’m trying to say is that I have recently finished the first season of Wild and it blew me away. The show purports to tell the story of what it’s like to grow up during the pandemic, propelled by themes of immigration, family, and romantic relationships. I could tell you that the intros are gripping (which is true), that the interviews are somehow nonfictional magical realism (which somehow they are), but the kicker is that the show manages to craft a tone of intimate transgression I haven’t found since Love + Radio. Other elements make it feel like a variety show, ala Al Letson’s Errthang Show - poetry, audio clips overlaid in a story, a producer jumping in to create a meta narrative lens through which to hear the interview, and blurring the line between the comedic and the sincere. The show is so moving and had me at the edge of my seat, simultaneously leading me to want to binge every episode while also desiring to allow each distinct chapter meander its way through my thoughts before getting to the next one. Each episode can be heard a la carte, but I’d definitely recommend taking in the whole season. Treat yourself to narrator Erick Galindo’s larger arc as he unfolds tidbits of his own biography through vulnerable conversations with guests. (Note: I’ve not yet ventured into season 2, which is purportedly a fictionalized drama based on Erick’s life. Hmmm…)
Can ChatGPT write a podcast episode? Can AI take our jobs? (Planet Money miniseries)
Planet Money has a knack for producing shows that are deeply experiential and tailor made to the current moment. It’s the rare pod that is both newsy and narrative driven, reporting via first hand experience and fitting in commentary on how issues affect people. The latest project follows the team as they endeavor to create an episode of the show using as much AI as possible. While they acknowledge that some of the barriers to entry are cost-prohibitive (not everyone has $40K to drop on a voice clone), this really drove home the point that a couple of reasonably curious and technically adept people can use AI to pull off something that would have seemed impossible just a couple years ago. And I think that’s mostly cool. But it did dredge up some preemptive nostalgia for the days that are about to pass us by (i.e. the ones in which I wouldn’t hesitate a bit to think whether I was listening to the real Robert Smith or just some…thing…that sounds eerily similar to Robert Smith). This three-part series was equal parts meta, informative, and mildly alarming.
The Retrievals
There was a time when a Serial Productions joint would drop and I would push it to the top of my listening queue. But recently I haven’t been moved in quite the same way. The Coldest Case In Laramie was experientially decent but didn’t leave me wanting more. We Were Three was deeply listenable and so sad, and also the best post-S-Town podcast from the studio. I couldn’t make it through The Improvement Association and didn’t even attempt to start The Trojan Horse Affair. Nice White Parents was fine. Maybe that’s karma, since no one can rightfully expect to have produced the podcast that catalyzed a medium AND THEN dropped a show crafted unlike anything I’d heard before or since. Maybe it’s the influence of being a Times-owned property (though I get the sense the team has been allowed to operate with little editorial influence from the paper). Regardless, here we are again with another new pod and another very tragic story of suffering with The Retrievals. The show centers on a group of women who were victims of a drug-abusing nurse at a fertility clinic. This is hard to listen to - I’d definitely steer clear if you are currently undergoing IVF or even if you're pregnant or postpartum at all. Nevertheless, it is very well done. Most of the victims interviewed here were, by the very nature of being able to afford IVF, well-educated and well-spoken with perspective and a willingness to share openly that is fairly rare for this sort of thing. They display the spectrum of emotions from anger to empathy for the perpetrator who caused so much pain, and that felt quite novel. I kept thinking over and over as I worked my way through: Why tell this story? Why listen? I’m still not sure I landed on anything definitive, but here are some: To bear witness to the brokenness in the world, to deepen my sense of empathy, to somehow dignify the experience of these women, to acknowledge the suffering before the world passes this by, if it hasn’t already. Host Susan Burton sort of arrives at that last one at the end of the series-capping fifth episode, and it makes sense to me.
I have a confession to make: I may have been sleeping on LAist Studios. A quick scroll of their slate of shows provides a hint of what’s on offer - pods with a west coast aesthetic that have a heart for telling untold stories. (I mean I guess no one is setting out to tell a story everyone has heard before, but there are shows that are clearly like ‘yeah, we know this is what people are going to eat up, and we’re not ashamed to pander’). Admittedly, to date I’ve only checked out Servant of Pod and Wild in any depth, so maybe we’ll return to this larger admission/sweeping claim of brilliance at a later date. What I’m trying to say is that I have recently finished the first season of Wild and it blew me away. The show purports to tell the story of what it’s like to grow up during the pandemic, propelled by themes of immigration, family, and romantic relationships. I could tell you that the intros are gripping (which is true), that the interviews are somehow nonfictional magical realism (which somehow they are), but the kicker is that the show manages to craft a tone of intimate transgression I haven’t found since Love + Radio. Other elements make it feel like a variety show, ala Al Letson’s Errthang Show - poetry, audio clips overlaid in a story, a producer jumping in to create a meta narrative lens through which to hear the interview, and blurring the line between the comedic and the sincere. The show is so moving and had me at the edge of my seat, simultaneously leading me to want to binge every episode while also desiring to allow each distinct chapter meander its way through my thoughts before getting to the next one. Each episode can be heard a la carte, but I’d definitely recommend taking in the whole season. Treat yourself to narrator Erick Galindo’s larger arc as he unfolds tidbits of his own biography through vulnerable conversations with guests. (Note: I’ve not yet ventured into season 2, which is purportedly a fictionalized drama based on Erick’s life. Hmmm…)
Can ChatGPT write a podcast episode? Can AI take our jobs? (Planet Money miniseries)
Planet Money has a knack for producing shows that are deeply experiential and tailor made to the current moment. It’s the rare pod that is both newsy and narrative driven, reporting via first hand experience and fitting in commentary on how issues affect people. The latest project follows the team as they endeavor to create an episode of the show using as much AI as possible. While they acknowledge that some of the barriers to entry are cost-prohibitive (not everyone has $40K to drop on a voice clone), this really drove home the point that a couple of reasonably curious and technically adept people can use AI to pull off something that would have seemed impossible just a couple years ago. And I think that’s mostly cool. But it did dredge up some preemptive nostalgia for the days that are about to pass us by (i.e. the ones in which I wouldn’t hesitate a bit to think whether I was listening to the real Robert Smith or just some…thing…that sounds eerily similar to Robert Smith). This three-part series was equal parts meta, informative, and mildly alarming.
The Retrievals
There was a time when a Serial Productions joint would drop and I would push it to the top of my listening queue. But recently I haven’t been moved in quite the same way. The Coldest Case In Laramie was experientially decent but didn’t leave me wanting more. We Were Three was deeply listenable and so sad, and also the best post-S-Town podcast from the studio. I couldn’t make it through The Improvement Association and didn’t even attempt to start The Trojan Horse Affair. Nice White Parents was fine. Maybe that’s karma, since no one can rightfully expect to have produced the podcast that catalyzed a medium AND THEN dropped a show crafted unlike anything I’d heard before or since. Maybe it’s the influence of being a Times-owned property (though I get the sense the team has been allowed to operate with little editorial influence from the paper). Regardless, here we are again with another new pod and another very tragic story of suffering with The Retrievals. The show centers on a group of women who were victims of a drug-abusing nurse at a fertility clinic. This is hard to listen to - I’d definitely steer clear if you are currently undergoing IVF or even if you're pregnant or postpartum at all. Nevertheless, it is very well done. Most of the victims interviewed here were, by the very nature of being able to afford IVF, well-educated and well-spoken with perspective and a willingness to share openly that is fairly rare for this sort of thing. They display the spectrum of emotions from anger to empathy for the perpetrator who caused so much pain, and that felt quite novel. I kept thinking over and over as I worked my way through: Why tell this story? Why listen? I’m still not sure I landed on anything definitive, but here are some: To bear witness to the brokenness in the world, to deepen my sense of empathy, to somehow dignify the experience of these women, to acknowledge the suffering before the world passes this by, if it hasn’t already. Host Susan Burton sort of arrives at that last one at the end of the series-capping fifth episode, and it makes sense to me.
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