Podcast Roundup June 2020

There's a general theme going around that it's harder to put your attention to media these days. I am struggling to find energy to read new books, watch new shows, or listen to new podcasts. I'm finding myself having little patience for even some of my much-loved podcasts if their new episodes don't strike the exact balance of light and serious that I'm looking for. I recognize that I'm being ridiculous, but it doesn't stop me from deleting episodes right in the middle or just not downloading them in the first place.

So I've basically taken up doing jigsaw puzzles in my spare time.

That's why this list is a bit light.

Last September, I wrote about Patient Zero, a podcast out of New Hampshire Public Radio, that walks through the story of Lyme Disease, focusing specifically on a subset of people who claim to have something called chronic Lyme. It was a limited series with only seven episodes, but it was well-done and I kept subscribed to the podcast in case the fine folks at NHPR worked on another project.  The  creators of the podcast have recently put out several interesting bonus episodes. I thought that the "Patient Otzi" episode was intriguing because it looked at a historical case of Lyme in a mummy found in 1991 that dates back to between 3100 and 3400 BCE.  It's crazy, in light of what's happening with COVID-19, to think about how long-lived viruses can be.  I also thought the AMA bonus episode was interesting because it was less about reporting and more about the take-home points that the host, Taylor Quimby, took away from what he learned.

I've been impressed with Ear Hustle this season. I've written about this podcast before - it's produced with men imprisoned at San Quentin, a prison in California.  The team lucked out that one of the original hosts, Earlonne Woods, had been released in 2018 after his sentence had been commuted because the team doesn't really have access to the prison right now since it's locked down because of the pandemic.  Meanwhile, Woods and his Nigel Poor, his podcasting partner, have been putting out some interesting episodes talking to people who are related to prison stories, but outside of prison, like released prisoners, their families, members of law enforcement, and policy makers.  Consider "Tired of Running," an episode that does include some voices from behind bars, but most of the episode was told from the perspective of a woman who follows her husband as he runs from federal agents in a tale of international intrigue. It was riveting and I desperately want someone else to listen to it so I can talk about my impressions.

Nick Quah is a Vulture contributor who also writes a newsletter called Hot Pod. He's a frequent guest on the Canadian podcast Front Burner (he was on last month to talk about a bit deal Joe Rogan made with Spotify) and that is how he came to my attention.  Quah takes the business of podcasts and podcasting seriously.  He's aware that the majority of people don't listen to podcasts, but the majority of podcast listeners are heavy listeners (like me).  There's room in the industry for growth and interesting experiments and Quah is here for it.  He started his own podcast, Servant of Pod, and, while it's not 100% what I wanted it to be, I'm certain that eventually Quah will figure out exactly what his audience wants and cater to us. 

For example, in the second episode, he interviews the podcast host behind The Hilarious World of Depression, John Moe. However, before this episode was released on Servant of Pod, The Hilarious World of Depression lost its sponsor and the podcast was cancelled and Moe was laid off. I wanted Quah to dig into the economics of podcasting and why this happened to a very popular podcast and give a bit more detail about what the coronavirus pandemic is doing to the industry, but that's not what actually happened.  

But he did do an interview with my beloved Death, Sex & Money host, Anna Sale, in the episode called "Where are We Now."  Anyone who recognizes that Anna Sale is a genius will eventually come around to an awesome podcast.  

I've written about Imaginary Worlds here before.  Host Eric Molinsky talks about a variety of topics related to science fiction and fantasy. He has this whole series about larping (live action role play) and he makes it sound like so much fun. One of his recent episodes is called "Larping in Place" and it's all about how people are trying to continue the tradition of larping in the digital space since we're all supposed to be physical distancing and the "live action" part of things is hard to do when you can't really be in the same geographic location. So some organizations are doing things through digital media like Zoom, texting, or phone calls. If you like hearing people talk passionately about something you're not particularly passionate about, this might be the episode for you.  

C. Brandon Ogbunu originally told his story of being black in America and having to face the police, called "The Liberation of RNA" in a Story Collider story. Radiolab did a sort of remix of the story recently, interspersing the story with interviews from Ogbunu. It's really interesting. I think it's worth a listen if you're tired of huge, depressing stories of police brutality (and, frankly, who isn't?  I think it sucks that we're all tired of it, but I think it sucks even more for the people who can't avoid the threat when they walk outside) because it's a series of terrible events, but Ogbunu made it comical.  It's absolutely not humorous, but it is illustrative without being deadly.