April 24 - 30, 2016
1. Startup - Pirate Needs Pirate
Startup fascinates me because it delves into a world I don't understand and do not intersect on a daily basis. Usually this is a world where big money is at stake or when a company explodes to become wildly popular and valuable by whatever combination of hard work and folly constitutes our modern business environment. This episode, however, takes us inside the semi-criminal operation of a transnational grocery re-seller, the story of a man named Mike who has struggled a great deal to make his business succeed. But Mike's drive to press on is not motivated by a desire for money, fame or to change a given industry, but rather his own competitive stubbornness and desire not to fail. Life is sometimes shaped around the traditional structure of a story, yet we neglect to revel in the complex truth of absurd stagnation that can just as easily define our sense of self. In Mike, we see that all-too-common struggle of an ambitious every-man whose unexamined trajectory is as frustrating as it is understandable.
2. The Memory Palace - Victory (#87)
For the second week in a row, The Memory Palace comes through with another impeccable episode. It's rare we get the chance to revisit history with nuance, particularly those pockets of the past that are lesser known. No doubt that it would be easy enough to pick out a handful of biographies on Nixon at your local library that would each cast the president in a somewhat different light, but how often does one take the time for a fresh look at an obscure sports story? That just so happens to be Nate DiMeo's angle this week as he delicately recounts the tale of Charles "Victory" Faust. This episode does have a very slightly more obvious editorial bent, though from my perspective the tone is on the right side of forgotten history.
3. This American Life - In Defense of Ignorance (#585)
Stories about rituals from other cultures can seem both intrusively voyeuristic and somewhat questionable in accuracy. This American Life, however, nearly always rises to the proper level of tact and nuance, and that track record holds steady on this episode's story about producer Lulu Wang's grandmother. People discount the power of denial, and while it certainly can play out in disaster I appreciated the lengths to which this family went in order to shield their matriarch from an impending medical reality. Act III of this show details the unique trials of having a memory that cannot fail. There is certainly merit in getting lost to get found, and I was touched by the individuals in this story who do not have that available as a means of self discovery. We forget that forgetting can be a feature and not a bug of the human psyche, and this episode caused me to ruminate on the power of memory as a tool to shape our conception of the past as well as the future.
Startup fascinates me because it delves into a world I don't understand and do not intersect on a daily basis. Usually this is a world where big money is at stake or when a company explodes to become wildly popular and valuable by whatever combination of hard work and folly constitutes our modern business environment. This episode, however, takes us inside the semi-criminal operation of a transnational grocery re-seller, the story of a man named Mike who has struggled a great deal to make his business succeed. But Mike's drive to press on is not motivated by a desire for money, fame or to change a given industry, but rather his own competitive stubbornness and desire not to fail. Life is sometimes shaped around the traditional structure of a story, yet we neglect to revel in the complex truth of absurd stagnation that can just as easily define our sense of self. In Mike, we see that all-too-common struggle of an ambitious every-man whose unexamined trajectory is as frustrating as it is understandable.
2. The Memory Palace - Victory (#87)
For the second week in a row, The Memory Palace comes through with another impeccable episode. It's rare we get the chance to revisit history with nuance, particularly those pockets of the past that are lesser known. No doubt that it would be easy enough to pick out a handful of biographies on Nixon at your local library that would each cast the president in a somewhat different light, but how often does one take the time for a fresh look at an obscure sports story? That just so happens to be Nate DiMeo's angle this week as he delicately recounts the tale of Charles "Victory" Faust. This episode does have a very slightly more obvious editorial bent, though from my perspective the tone is on the right side of forgotten history.
3. This American Life - In Defense of Ignorance (#585)
Stories about rituals from other cultures can seem both intrusively voyeuristic and somewhat questionable in accuracy. This American Life, however, nearly always rises to the proper level of tact and nuance, and that track record holds steady on this episode's story about producer Lulu Wang's grandmother. People discount the power of denial, and while it certainly can play out in disaster I appreciated the lengths to which this family went in order to shield their matriarch from an impending medical reality. Act III of this show details the unique trials of having a memory that cannot fail. There is certainly merit in getting lost to get found, and I was touched by the individuals in this story who do not have that available as a means of self discovery. We forget that forgetting can be a feature and not a bug of the human psyche, and this episode caused me to ruminate on the power of memory as a tool to shape our conception of the past as well as the future.
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