The Pod Piper: September 13th, 2021
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
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?
Amazing, unbelievably sad story. I was at turns incredulous and on the brink of tears throughout this story of disorienting loss and exuberant love.
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 to the first installment, I definitely felt like I needed to listen to the series in full.
This podcast is a fascinating investigation of a megachurch that seeks to be somewhat of a cautionary tale. The show launched earlier this summer and continues to release episodes, and I hope to get to it in more depth at some point.
This pod about the rise and fall of Theranos picks back up as Elizabeth Holmes goes to trial. Following along with a trial in real time with a narrative podcast sounds compelling even if the story at the center wasn’t anything groundbreaking, so I’m excited to see how this develops.
Very good bio-pod about a relatively unknown artist who once made a splash and now struggles to reconcile her early success with a career that has largely lived far from the spotlight.
HONORABLE MENTION
70 Over 70 - " 'They Don't Call Those Years Formative for Nothing' with Raffi"
Revisionist History- "Project Dillard"
SOMETHING NEW
Long Shadow
The terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001 are a landmark event from my childhood that I never truly grappled with. I remember that I learned the news from my mom that morning as she woke me up for school. I also remember our junior high principal thanking everyone for responding so reverently as various teachers decided the class time was best spent glued to the news coverage. (Which, for the record, was not exactly the response I witnessed or even gave; my cousin and I laughed about it nervously, probably more in disbelief that out of a lack of empathy for the loss of human life).
My most salient processing was contained to watching the 2001 World Series, when my beloved Diamondbacks defeated the Yankees in what I now recognize would have been a symbolic moral victory of NYC’s resolve in the face of tragedy. Which is to say it took a while for the gravity of the day and it’s far reaching ripples to really register with me. In 2006 on my inaugural trip to New York as a junior in high school, when my family stayed in Tribeca, I poignantly listened to Hundred Year Storm's "Yesterday We Had It All" with some perhaps misplaced solemnity while walking by the still vacant ground zero...for whatever that’s worth. Every year since, or at least every 5-year milestone increment, I give the events of the day a passing glance of my attention before moving on. This year, to be honest, it has been much of the same, with perhaps an increased amount of time spent consuming pieces of retrospective media.
Despite these annual check-ins, I struggle to remember much more beyond the surface level of the attack, the timeline or the various backstories that lead to that day. That’s where Long Shadow steps in to help. (Did you guess that this overlong intro was building to reveal there is a new podcast about 9/11? Good for you!) Drawing on nearly 20 years of reporting on this story (including publishing an extensive oral history), journalist Garrett Grath dissects the events of the day from every angle. Episodes flesh out the backstory that reveals botched intel reconciliation between federal agencies, key actions/in-actions in the heat of the moment that saved lives, and even tragedy that may have been successfully averted.
The show's audio production is an intriguing mix of real clips pulled from news coverage alongside an audio soundscape of manufactured effects as banal as opening an envelope. This has the potential to sound kitschy or cheap, but it straddles the line between being overly produced and being too bland. The accompanying instrumental soundtrack is also well done, fitting the tone while avoiding “gotcha” moments that seek to prey on emotions. One of the high points of compelling journalism (or really any type of nonfiction) is the ability to paint characters who are complex but realistic. I had never heard the name John O'Neill, and the tragically poetic turn his story took made me audibly gasp. There are also more well known names (Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld) who get an equally fair treatment - neither overly sympathetic nor lambasting when an easy case could be made in either direction. Through the first several episodes the narrative does not delve too far into the aftermath of the attacks and the war waged in it's wake, and the show admittedly takes a harsher tone towards acknowledging failures on the part of various government agencies that might have prevented the attacks altogether. Still, the neutral editorial voice and journalistic integrity remains in tact, and I felt the treatment was both honest and fair given what we have learned in the last 20 years.
I imagine some of this listening could be really traumatic for adults who lived through that day and the following months and years, even if they weren’t closely linked. I also wonder how younger listeners (say, under 25) would react. Is this akin to a true crime pod, just on a larger scale? Or does it feel a bit like Hardcore History, with a sort of mythic fascination that distance provides? For me, a 7th grader in 2001 who is a 32 year old in 2021, the show hit the right tone - a good mix of sincerity and analysis. At no point during the series run have I felt the reportage was overly salacious or nationalistic, nor has it taken on a conspiratorial flavor. This may also be credited to the fact that little time is spent investigating how that day changed the trajectory of America (and I’ll be seeking out Dan Taberski/Pineapple Street’s 9/12 which promises to deliver more on that front). I’m sure my reaction is indicative of my age, and perhaps also my multiculturalism and lack of patriotic impulses. Nevertheless, people of various ages and political persuasions will find much worth in Long Shadow as a lens through which to view these historic events 20 years on.
The terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001 are a landmark event from my childhood that I never truly grappled with. I remember that I learned the news from my mom that morning as she woke me up for school. I also remember our junior high principal thanking everyone for responding so reverently as various teachers decided the class time was best spent glued to the news coverage. (Which, for the record, was not exactly the response I witnessed or even gave; my cousin and I laughed about it nervously, probably more in disbelief that out of a lack of empathy for the loss of human life).
My most salient processing was contained to watching the 2001 World Series, when my beloved Diamondbacks defeated the Yankees in what I now recognize would have been a symbolic moral victory of NYC’s resolve in the face of tragedy. Which is to say it took a while for the gravity of the day and it’s far reaching ripples to really register with me. In 2006 on my inaugural trip to New York as a junior in high school, when my family stayed in Tribeca, I poignantly listened to Hundred Year Storm's "Yesterday We Had It All" with some perhaps misplaced solemnity while walking by the still vacant ground zero...for whatever that’s worth. Every year since, or at least every 5-year milestone increment, I give the events of the day a passing glance of my attention before moving on. This year, to be honest, it has been much of the same, with perhaps an increased amount of time spent consuming pieces of retrospective media.
Despite these annual check-ins, I struggle to remember much more beyond the surface level of the attack, the timeline or the various backstories that lead to that day. That’s where Long Shadow steps in to help. (Did you guess that this overlong intro was building to reveal there is a new podcast about 9/11? Good for you!) Drawing on nearly 20 years of reporting on this story (including publishing an extensive oral history), journalist Garrett Grath dissects the events of the day from every angle. Episodes flesh out the backstory that reveals botched intel reconciliation between federal agencies, key actions/in-actions in the heat of the moment that saved lives, and even tragedy that may have been successfully averted.
The show's audio production is an intriguing mix of real clips pulled from news coverage alongside an audio soundscape of manufactured effects as banal as opening an envelope. This has the potential to sound kitschy or cheap, but it straddles the line between being overly produced and being too bland. The accompanying instrumental soundtrack is also well done, fitting the tone while avoiding “gotcha” moments that seek to prey on emotions. One of the high points of compelling journalism (or really any type of nonfiction) is the ability to paint characters who are complex but realistic. I had never heard the name John O'Neill, and the tragically poetic turn his story took made me audibly gasp. There are also more well known names (Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld) who get an equally fair treatment - neither overly sympathetic nor lambasting when an easy case could be made in either direction. Through the first several episodes the narrative does not delve too far into the aftermath of the attacks and the war waged in it's wake, and the show admittedly takes a harsher tone towards acknowledging failures on the part of various government agencies that might have prevented the attacks altogether. Still, the neutral editorial voice and journalistic integrity remains in tact, and I felt the treatment was both honest and fair given what we have learned in the last 20 years.
I imagine some of this listening could be really traumatic for adults who lived through that day and the following months and years, even if they weren’t closely linked. I also wonder how younger listeners (say, under 25) would react. Is this akin to a true crime pod, just on a larger scale? Or does it feel a bit like Hardcore History, with a sort of mythic fascination that distance provides? For me, a 7th grader in 2001 who is a 32 year old in 2021, the show hit the right tone - a good mix of sincerity and analysis. At no point during the series run have I felt the reportage was overly salacious or nationalistic, nor has it taken on a conspiratorial flavor. This may also be credited to the fact that little time is spent investigating how that day changed the trajectory of America (and I’ll be seeking out Dan Taberski/Pineapple Street’s 9/12 which promises to deliver more on that front). I’m sure my reaction is indicative of my age, and perhaps also my multiculturalism and lack of patriotic impulses. Nevertheless, people of various ages and political persuasions will find much worth in Long Shadow as a lens through which to view these historic events 20 years on.
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