Podcast Roundup August 2020

Aminatou Sow and Ann Friedman were guests on the Longform podcast. They are co-hosts of the popular podcast, Call Your Girlfriend.  I listened to CYG for a brief period many years ago, but the sound quality was pretty terrible and I didn't enjoy their takes on people who didn't agree with them 100% of the time. But I always admired their openness about their friendship and how difficult forming and maintaining adult friendship is, especially cross-cultural friendships.  Sow and Friedman have recently released a book about this very topic and that is what the focus of the Longform interview was.  I thought that the interview was absolutely fascinating - how does a writing partnership work? what are the nuts and bolts of their process?  how much money did they get paid for the book? what were the costs associated with writing it?  

So even if you're not a fangirl of the CYG women, you might find this interview to be useful, particularly if you're interested in what it's like to do projects with people when you can't always be with them in person, which is a lot of people right now, you might find this interview useful.

The podcast Verified came out in early 2020, but I'm just now getting to listening to it.  This is an utterly befuddling case in which women use an app called "Couchsurfing" to find places to stay for free while traveling.  We listen as woman after woman uses the app to find someplace to stay near Venice and they get put into touch with a man who claims to be an Italian police officer with room to spare.  These women later report being drugged and sexually assaulted.  Who's to blame?  How do these women manage to find one another and begin an international investigation?  It's all in here.

It does have explicit discussions of sexual assault and rape exams, so it might not be for everyone.  On the other hand, maybe it should be for everyone so we can discuss the ins and outs of technology and how much faith we put in it and how people are the biggest weakness in technological security.  Or maybe we should all listen because we need to know that men like Dino Maglio exist and have a discussion on how best to punish someone like that.  Or maybe we should all listen to this because the victims have a real voice in this podcast and it's important to listen to their stories so that we'll all know what impact sexual violence has on women.  

LBJ became president after Kennedy's assassination. He immediately passed the Civil Rights Act and started his War on Poverty. Despite these massive federal projects, the summer of 1967 was a violent summer filled with race riots in over 150 American cities.  The folks at Planet Money walk us through the federal response - "The Kerner Commission" was convened and its report became a bestseller.  That report suggested, among other things, a complete overhaul of policing in the United States. More than fifty years later, that report still speaks some important truths.

The Slate Culture Gabfest has been one of my go-to podcasts for years. I've only mentioned it here a couple of times, but I listen to every episode and generally find it to be a comfort listen. Julia Turner, Dana Stevens, and Stephen Metcalf are not my friends, but I feel like I know them and would absolutely be starstruck if I ever saw them.  Every year since 2011, they put together a "Summer Strut" edition of the show, in which they ask listeners to send them songs that put a little zip in their steps while they are walking the dog, walking to the train, or just walking anywhere.  

This year their Strut episode was a bit different because the world is so different. The songs sent in were less strut-y and more contemplative.  But I still liked it because, as someone who rarely listens to music, I am always amazed at what people will voluntarily listen to.  I believe Dana, Stephen, and Julia when they say that the songs they pick are songs they listen to repeatedly, but I find myself constantly amazed that any of the songs are actually songs that stick.  I always tell myself that I'll listen to the Spotify playlist of the songs sent in, but it rarely never happens.  BUT! What a great way to try to understand what's going in the world.  

I also like that in the last few years, they've had Chris Molanthy on to talk about the song of the summer. Molanty hosts Hit Parade, which is a great podcast on the history of the music charts. I have a great deal of affection for Hit Parade and Molanthy, despite the fact that he doesn't enjoy the music of Bon Jovi. I was a bit bummed out earlier this year when Hit Parade became an exclusive Slate Plus podcast, so I can no longer listen.  The Culture Gabfest also went from weekly to bi-weekly, so I'm a bit concerned for the long-term health of my beloved Slate shows.  Regardless, my favorite part of the song of the summer bit is how the four of them talk about how certain songs are UBIQUITOUS and EVERYWHERE and it is exceedingly rare that I have heard any of them.  It's just really indicative of how easy it is to become so enmeshed in your own cultural bubble and never leave it.

Kathy Kenzora used to call her podcast The History of 1995, but within the last year renamed it History of the 90's (or History of the '90s - the apostrophe is in different locations).  She's a Canadian reporter and many of her episodes deal with issues that were quite big in Canada, but that didn't trickle down to me as a teenager in the 90s.  She had a recent episode called "L.A. Riots" that covered the buildup to the riots (protests?) after the acquittal of police officers who were accused of beating Rodney King. It was the best synthesis of the conditions that led to the event. If I were still teaching, I would replace all of my Rodney King material with this (although I'm super partial to the fourth segment of the Reveal episode called "Law and Disorder 2: Citizens, Cameras, and Cops" that tells the story from the perspective of George Holliday, who was the man who caught the King beating using his fancy new video camera).  Anyway, Kathy Kenzora should be applauded for this episode that just was so concise and yet engrossing.  Huge thumbs up.