The Pod Piper

1. Revisionist History - "The King of Tears" Gladwell's premise this week is both reductive and cavernously complex.  Essentially: America is divided into two camps, those drawn to the overtly dramatic and everyone else.  The thesis is manifest in a characterization of the traits that make up country music tropes, put up against the less uniform mass of popular rock music. Those who are inclined to stories where tragedy takes center stage tend to be fans of country music.  Country artists tend to hail from an exclusive collection of southern states, which enforces the homogeneity of the genre.  This sets the tone for a story about a songwriter who capitalized on the distinct sensibilities of the country fan base. It also proved provocative for a long road trip in which my wife played and dissected some of her favorite country songs!  Though I fall pretty squarely on the "not country" side of things, approaching the music with fresh ideology made for a pleasant...

1. Homecoming -   "TERMINATED" The hit serialized audio drama podcast is back with a bang with it's second season.  "TERMINATED" draws listeners in from the start, introducing a new character and unraveling a new problem to be solved.  The same rich audio production accompanies this season, and it looks like Gimlet is rolling out a companion piece of short stories in collaboration with iBooks from Apple.  It's hard to say too much without giving a lot away or delving extensively into the story that has transpired so far, but if you haven't gotten around to catching this show, take the opportunity to binge the first six episodes and then jump into season 2.  "I like the podcast better" is primed to become the new "the book is better" retort for snarky critics everywhere - you're going to want to get in now before the impending TV adaptation with Julia Roberts  hits Amazon. 2. Revisionist History -   "The Prime Minister and ...

1. 99% Invisible - "The Pool and the Stream" Skateboarding does not enjoy a breadth of support as either a sport or as an art form. This unique fusion of design, athleticism, gall and urban exploring tends to be couched as a dubious activity for troublemakers or slackers.  But 99% Invisible , as an eternally cool and prescient fount of insight, manages to reveal how the evolution of skating is interwoven with the history of landscape architecture.  I'll admit that, like the episode of Startup detailing the rise and fall and rebirth of Slamball , this appealed to me on a nostalgic level not likely to resonate with all listeners, but ahead of the sport's first appearance in the Olympics in 2020, this should have an increasingly broad appeal. "The Pool and the Stream" deserves special props for not attempting to tidy up the culture, meaning that this may be the most profanity riddled edition of  99PI  to date. 2. Slate's Culture Gabfest - "Summer Stru...

1. Radiolab - "Revising the Fault Line" Blame and responsibility are a huge part of human culture, or at least Western culture, or at least American culture (maybe just my own personal perception of culture?!).  If there is some injustice, of any degree, some portion of the population is going to demand a guilty party.  It can be difficult to forgive an acquaintance of some petty mishap, so we have a deep hunger for clear-cut rules to dictate right and wrong when something of more import comes to pass.  But what if that all changed?  Could science explain away culpability? How could we live if forced to be complacent with adjudicating moral failure?   Radiolab provokes these and other difficult questions with "Revising the Fault Line." As always I would encourage listening with a critical ear, but try to imagine a world where biology dictates morality as you listen to this one. 2. Revisionist History - "Miss Buchanan's Period of Adjustment" Racia...

1. Startup - "How To Invent A New Sport" Basketball has long been my favorite sport.  It flows elegantly, lacks a major doping scandal at the professional level (knock on wood) and is relatively free of brutality.  But with football being the dominant sport in American culture, one might make a case that the last virtue is more of a turn off. How to fill the void of violence while still enjoying dazzling passes and high flying dunks from preternaturally gifted athletes? Slamball! The sport integrates trampolines, pads and a pretty lenient set of rules lightening the penalty for contact.  This results in a catnip of a sport for teenage boys everywhere.  I thought the fantastic collision of grace and grit died after a too-brief stint in the limelight in the mid 2000s, but in reality the sport simply receded in the US as it began to blossom in China.   Startup takes a look at this still-developing venture and details how founder Mason Gordon is continuing to ushe...

1. Invisibilia - "Future Self" Everyone has had a moment where actualizing the potential of life has been tantalizing real.  The idea of "the future" is so great at engendering optimism because it seems completely unknown.  But can it ever be dangerous to dream of what your life might one day become?  Can it even be deadly? Invisibilia takes on the question of aspiring to be something more, and the various pitfalls that could snag us along the way.  A must for any educator or mentor who seeks to influence the life of another human. 2. Hidden Brain  - "Rap On Trial" Freedom of speech is one of those topics that seems to have been in the public conscious for ages.  America likes the idea that people have the power to use words in whatever way we see fit.  Of course, as is the case with many things, general privilege becomes subconsciously fragmented.   My words are not dangerous, but that's because I'm a good person.  You may speak your mi...

1. Hidden Brain - "In The Air We Breathe" The concept of unconscious/implicit bias has been permeating the news cycle for the past several months.  From being invoked as a topic of debate in the 2016 US presidential election, to surfacing in the discussion surrounding each new incident of police violence against people of color (most recently in the acquittal of the officer responsible for the death of Philando Castile), the psychological has become the political. Cultural forces are entranced with propagating and/or decimating the idea that physical actions are driven by a little understood mental process.  "In The Air We Breathe" reminded me a lot of the politicized science around climate change (see the excellent show from  Only Human,  featured on the blog a month ago ), but with the caveat that the psychological community does seem to be divided over the facts.  Implicit bias has a much shorter history of being in the public eye, and it is fascinating to s...