The Pod Piper

I've been listening to Sondheim all week; some of my favorite scores - the 2007 Company revival, the 2004 Assassins revival, the original Sunday In The Park With George - along with Sondheim Sings Volume I. And of course, as I'm wont to do with anything, I sought out Sondheim pods. None of them made The List, but this one and this one stood out. Sometimes you don't know what you've got until it's gone, and while that can hardly be said of Sondheim, widely recognized during his life as quite possibly the the musical theater GOAT, I'm not sure I fully appreciated his influence on my life until he passed. All that said, and with the impending END OF YEAR MUSIC LIST EXTRAVAGANZA I guess I've been in more of music listening mood lately. But don't worry, there are pods a plenty for which to give thanks (dang, that would have worked a bit better a week ago). THE LIST 1. How I Built This with Guy Raz  - "Audible: Don Katz" Don Katz has led the

The leaves are starting to change, the rain falls in droves, the temperatures are still regularly in the 80s in October in northern Indiana...ah, fall. What a perfect time for podcasts about the weirder aspects of post-9/11 culture, breaking up with friends, and speculative journalism! THE LIST 1. 9/12  - "A Failure of Imagination" Can Osama Bin Laden be a protagonist? This entry from the newest Dan Taberksi joint is beautifully provocative, and offers a compelling alternative take on the typically more somber and patriotic/conspiratorial remembrances of September 11th. As does the rest of the series - it’s all really great. 2. Long Shadow  - "How do we move on from 9/11?" And on the other hand, there are a lot of truly incredible stories from that fateful day. This episode contains one such tale, which I found inspirational in a way that didn't feel cheesy or insincere. 3. Invisibilia  - "Nun of Us Are Friends" Invisibilia dropped a se

This is the 9/11 20 year retrospective you've been waiting for. From someone who was in 7th grade when it happened and had/has no extra-meaningful connection to the day. This is The Pod Piper. THE LIST 1. Revisionist History  - "Little Mermaid Part 1: The Golden Contract" Malcolm Gladwell deconstructs the Little Mermaid and rebuilds it in a mold that makes a lot more sense to children and adults looking for moral consistency in their animated movies. Need I say more?  2. This Is Love  - "My Penny" Amazing, unbelievably sad story. I was at turns incredulous and on the brink of tears throughout this story of disorienting loss and exuberant love. 3. Long Shadow  - "Why weren't more people rescued from the Twin Towers?" The inaugural episode from the featured show this week is a good entry point episode for folks who haven't thought about 9/11 in a while (and, I imagine, for someone who didn't live through it). After listening t

Summer, we hardly knew ye. You gave our family vacation (a road trip to New York and Illinois, a weekend with friends in northern Michigan, a wedding weekend in Ohio) multiple rendezvouses [rendezvise? rendezesvous?!] with far flung family members, a wild march to the NBA Finals with the Phoenix Suns, multiple hospital visits for our daughter who remains resilient if a bit more particular about everything than she used to be, a very expensive but so far effective fortnight of obedience training for the dog, a seemingly never ending chain of free coffee offers from a certain fast-casual bakery cafe chain restaurant, and a wealth of PTO days coming due after holding back on travel for most of the last year. Oh, and still, as ever, so much podcast listening. My ears are slowly weaning themselves from a firehose of NBA content, but even in that stream I managed to land on a slew of (mostly) non-basketball content to promote. THE LIST 1. 99% Invisible  - "Mine!" This pod tac

We’re getting deep into the NBA playoffs, and with my Suns still alive I’ve been overwhelmed with the amount of national pod content that has necessarily followed the action. (I mean can you blame them with insanity like the Valley Oop ?!) But I’ve also fallen deep down the rabbit hole of searching out pods discussing the new film adaptation of perhaps my very favorite musical of all time, In the Heights . There’s such a range of discussions: the films colorism issues , differences between the stage version and the film , takes from a huge theater fan who hasn’t seen a live production , interviews with an actor , the director , video production pro , a local public radio theater critic and people who absolutely hated it ...and I’m loving every minute! It’s sort of like my own personal movie club in podcast form - I’d recommend it for ITH or really any widely released movie. Even with all of that, I managed to cram a (borderline) healthy amount of pods not related to sports or musical

We’re on the verge of playoff basketball season, and for the first time in a long time I have a rooting interest. My team, the Phoenix Suns, has clinched a playoff spot for the first time since 2010, and I couldn’t be more anxious about it. Thankfully there are TONS of podcasts that allow me to stew in my existential fan angst, several of which are noted here. I neglected to touch on staples such as HORSE , The Bill Simmons Podcast (particularly the weekly Sunday night playoff pop-up pods he started with Ryen Rusillo last week), and the entire Ringer NBA Show family, all of which are required listening around these parts. But I’m guessing you are not really here to read about my long-dormant-but-always-present basketball fandom. You are here to read about my always-present-but-never-dormant-even-when-it-maybe-should-be podcast fandom. It’s just a matter of time before my daughter does irreparable ear damage when trying to imitate my near constant state of earbudness. Until then... TH

THE LIST 1. Still Processing  - "The N-Word" I’d love to hear a Still Processing episode on the cultural significance of any word, but after starting with this word I’m not sure anything could top it. Jenna and Wesley are so thoughtful, always, but this one gets pretty personal in a way I am sure I don’t fully understand. I’d also love to hear Wesley in conversation with Mike Pesca about the reasons behind Pesca’s (seemingly open-ended?) dismissal , though with each passing day of silence it feel like some sort of NDA may prevent such a thing from ever happening.  2. Time Sensitive  - "Peter Sarsgaard" For years I confused Peter Sarsgaard for Alan Tudyk. I’m not sure exactly why, but I remember it having something to do with Tudyk’s iconic turn as Steve the Pirate in Dodgeball. None of that has anything to do with this episode, though, which paints Sarsgaard as a contemplative polymath who vacillates seamlessly between acting in movies and experiencing al

THE LIST 1. Richard's Famous Food Podcast  - "The Last Mojo" RFFP has skewered conventions in podcasting (and food journalism, and just general culture) since episode one, but this episode takes it to the next level. Not only is it a fantastic sendup of both true crime and the inconsequential quest * narrative type that is popping up on a lot of pods, but also manages to be an effective iteration of both. Like, the story is really compelling even if the stakes are laughably low.  2. Factually with Adam Conover  - "Four Lost Cities with Annalee Newitz" I tend to equate urban with modern, but it turns out that cities have been around for a long time. This episode features author Annalee Newitz on her new book about “lost” cities - really just metropolises that are no longer populated. I loved the idea of a city being an organism, one of humanity’s greatest achievements in collective action to build something at times wonderful and fairly illogical. It g