The Pod Piper

Like a tulip emerges from a long winter, The Pod Piper returns! Perhaps also like a tulip (if you’re me), you forgot that The Pod Piper existed and only noticed because a neighbor complimented you on the newsletter that beautifully frames your inbox. OK fine, it’s not a perfect comparison, but at any rate I hope you’ll find something here to love. Oh, and the survey is still open if you’ve not had the pleasure. THE LIST 1. This Is Love  - " 'The show is coming back!' " You might think this pick as my number one episode is a credit to me having a small child, but I’m pretty confident my daughter has never heard of Blues Clues. This is just a delightful look into the actors behind the children’s show rooted in my own youth, and I’m not afraid to admit it. I just missed the age at which I might’ve had an earnest appreciation for the program, and so the biggest association I have with Blue is my summer camp counselors singing the Mail Time jingle at lunch when the

  Well it’s been what, five months or so? I suppose I could blame this lapse of a newsletter on the arrival of my second child, but truthfully I owe it more to my own lack of discipline and poor sleep habits. Which, to be fair, have ramped up considerably since August, but all things considered it's been a relatively easy go of it. I’ve changed the name of the google doc that held my attempts at crafting this newsletter from ‘September 2022?’ to ‘October 2022?’ to ‘November 2022?’ and didn’t even manage to ever name it ‘December 2022?’ I can honestly claim to have been distracted in the past month or so by my annual year-end music list , so I guess that's something. In the spirit of starting fresh (albeit 3 weeks into 2023), I’ve decided to empty my draft document of pods to review and deliver this to you in one epic edition of The Pod Piper. This is the sort of thing that would be ***exclusive bonus content*** if I followed any kind of paid subscription model. But that would r

What’s a fortnight in months instead of weeks? It’s been that long again since my last transmission, and with the imminent arrival of my second child I wouldn’t be surprised if this soon becomes The Pod Piper Quarterly. Per usual, though, my listening habits have held steady even as my writing has tapered off. The music I’ve been digging since May includes Regina Spektor, Tennyson, and more Regina Spektor. Listen and you will learn that “Spacetime Fairytale” is legit. And the podcast listening has kept up as well. Here’s a quick digest of some stuff that didn’t quite make the top 3: MusicalSplaining for Sondheim fans with Company and Sunday in the Park With George   | the  Normal Gossip episode about a possibly ill-advised tale of fan fiction crossing over into real life | The 11th ’s “Walking Tours For Your Home” excerpted from an audio edition of McSweeney’s | This American Life ’s “The Possum Experiment” - specifically act 2 about a life altering gift from a stranger | and

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'

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 1. Slate's Working  - "How Does the Director of Operations at a Soup Kitchen Do His Job?" 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

I'd like to believe I'd eventually find the space in my life to sit down and write a proper review of Station Eleven , but since it's been nearly two months between podcast newsletters let's put that idea to rest and just satisfy my urge to say thank you right here (because truly, that's more my style as a reviewer anyway - to express gratitude publically). No spoilers - it's just an excellently produced story with a lot of dark spots which still allows for hope and humanity. It's a pandemic story and a post-apocalyptic story, but it's really a story's story and the experience of watching feels like reading a well-written novel (which makes sense, because it was adapted from one!). I felt respected as a viewer and both fulfilled by the ending while simultaneously wanting to experience more of these characters and the often very messed up world they were forced to navigate. I could talk about it at length but can't find more words to write at the