In January, my Cinema Sugar compadre Kevin and I went on the Baby’s First Watchlist podcast to talk all things WALL-E as a tie-in with Animation Month. It was my first time as a podcast guest and was a lot of fun.
They pulled out a few clips to share on social media that included thoughts from yours truly:
Raffi. His greatest hits have been on heavy rotation as it seems to be the only music that calms down our 8 month old when he’s upset, which is often.
Hamster maze videos on YouTube. The 4 year old is delighted by these. Random but could be a lot worse.
Who Smarted? A fun and educational podcast for kids about all kinds of topics.
Toniebox. As audio players for kids go, we’ve hitherto been a hardcore Yoto family. But several characters the 4 year old loves are only available as Tonies (Wild Kratts among them), so he got several for Christmas. It’s nice to have more variety for listening, even if the overall experience is less ideal than Yoto.
Mr. Men and Little Miss. The 4 year old has been on a kick with this book series. We own an old copy of Little Miss Scatterbrain but we got more of them from the library and he just loves them. He especially loves looking at the grid of characters on the back covers and asking us what each of their names are.
It’s been over two years since my last podcast lineup check-in, and as usual some things have changed while some things remain.
Changes: Many of the shows in my last update have either stopped publishing or lost my interest, and I’ve stepped away from the political ones. I’m also thrilled I was finally able to ditch Spotify once Armchair Expert went back to being non-exclusive, so I’m back in Apple Podcasts full time (along with Google Podcasts when listening on desktop).
The Same: I still listen at 1.5x speed. And I still greatly enjoy the parasocial pleasures and intellectual stimulation of podcast listening, even if it does severely reduce my audiobook reading.
At one point they talk about having an aesthetic mindset, which isn’t some kind of highfalutin theory but instead just the concept of taking things in through your senses. Their four key aspects of that mindset: curiosity, playfulness, sense experiences, and making/beholding.
I’m definitely now intrigued by the book, not that I need to be convinced of its thesis…
My recent experience with the Band of Brothers podcast made me realized I’m very much a fan of the modern trend of “official” companion podcasts released alongside limited series by the show’s creators—Watchmen and Station Eleven being two recent examples I enjoyed and appreciated.
These are slightly different beasts from the popular post hoc recap podcasts of long-running sitcoms like Office Ladies and Parks and Recollection (two other favorites). Such pods return to their shows years after they ended and usually require a much bigger time investment, given the protracted length of traditional TV shows.
A notable and early hybrid of these approaches: the Official LOST Podcast, hosted by LOST showrunners Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse. It ran concurrently with the show from 2005-2010 and was probably the first podcast I and many others ever followed. Listening to it meant subscribing via iTunes and then syncing new episodes to my good ol’ click-wheel iPod.
Regardless of the structure, all of these podcasts have the benefit of access to cast, crew, and behind-the-scenes insights you can’t get elsewhere. But you really have to love the original show and the podcast hosts to make them worth your while.
(In that way they’re like modern iterations of DVD commentaries. Which, though eclipsed by the rise of streaming and decline of physical media, are still alive. And long may they live.)
Band of Brothers, the 2001 Tom Hanks-produced HBO miniseries that dramatized the history of Easy Company paratroopers throughout World War II, was a formative viewing experience for me, especially on the heels of Saving Private Ryan.
That was as a youngster interested in history and World War II, and as the grandson of a veteran who lived through similar combat experiences as Easy Company. But I’ve remained a fan of it due to its earned status as an exemplar of history come to life.
Pod of Brothers
Recently I listened to the official HBO podcast series released last fall in honor of the 20th anniversary of the show. With one episode dedicated to each of the original 10 Band of Brothers episodes, the podcast features interviews with crew—like military consultant Dale Dye—and cast, including Donnie Wahlberg (Lt. Carwood Lipton), Frank John Hughes (Sgt. Bill Guarnere), Damien Lewis (Maj. Dick Winters), Scott Grimes (Sgt. Don Malarkey), and Ron Livingston (Capt. Lewis Nixon).
Two themes emerged among all of the performers who were interviewed:
They commiserated about the 10-day military boot camp they endured during pre-production, which, though not the equivalent of true military training, helped forge real camaraderie and ensured an authenticity that’s hard to find in Hollywood versions of warfare.
They spoke in reverent terms about the real-life men they portrayed, and felt an immense responsibility to honor their true experiences within the larger story of Easy Company. Several of them got choked up when talking about the relationships they developed with their real-life counterparts, and all of them said they’d been personally changed for the better.
Getting the Band back together
Inspired by this listening experience, I did a Band of Brothers rewatch thanks to HBO Max.
Of its many marvels, I’m in awe of just how much is squeezed into 10 hours. Such a runtime sounds quite long, but not when you consider everything Easy Company went through on their journey from Georgia’s Camp Toccoa in 1942 to Germany’s Berchtesgaden in May 1945.
Written by a handful of writers—including Tom Hanks and future Boomtown creator Graham Yost (who used Band of Brothers as inspiration)—the series wisely modulates its storytelling pace within and between episodes, which allow for a dynamic range of experiences and perspectives.
So a single episode can span one day (Episode 2, “Day of Days”) or several months (Episode 5, “Crossroads”), and follow one primary perspective (Episode 6, “Bastogne”) or many (Episode 10, “Points”)—all without sacrificing clarity or emotional investment.
Indeed, our investment only grows as we get to know and grow attached to the huge and hugely talented ensemble cast. Winters and Nixon serve as the emotional core, but it’s the literally dozens of other actors who make the show sing.
(Not for nothing, four of the core cast went on to star or feature in my beloved Boomtown: the aforementioned Donnie Wahlberg and Frank John Hughes, plus Neal McDonough [Lt. Buck Compton] and Rick Gomez [Sgt. George Luz].)
Courage over combat
In the podcast interview with Richard Loncraine, director of Episode 2 (“Day of Days”), he reflected on the show’s legacy:
Band of Brothers should be shown to schoolkids, and they might realize [warfare] is not a glamorous, exciting world—it’s where you die. Hopefully when they watch it, what they’re not thinking is ‘Wow, I’d like to have been there.’ If they do, then we all failed.
In this they definitely succeeded, because the series manages to pull off the tricky tightrope act of valorizing the courage of the soldiers without glorifying combat itself.
The combat we do see is rightfully hellish: gruesome wounds, slain comrades, and haunting horrors no one deserves to witness. The nitty-gritty of the front lines in all its awful agony.
How did these men get through it? In Episode 3 (“Carentan”), Lt. Ronald Speirs, played with icy assurance by Matthew Settle, delivers to a frightened private what I imagine to be an essential insight into the psychology of warfare:
We’re all scared. You hid in that ditch because you think there’s still hope. But Blithe, the only hope you have is to accept the fact that you’re already dead.
I’m not sure if all soldiers would agree with this perspective. It’s certainly as fatalistic as you can get.
But when I watch even the dramatized versions of Speirs and Blithe and so many other brave GIs run through machine-gun fire and artillery and other horrible weaponry, when every single move they make could mean a sudden and grisly demise, I can only stand in awe before their resolve in the face of death—however they find it.
Company of heroes
But what ultimately makes Band of Brothers successful, I think, isn’t the verisimilitude of its battle scenes. It’s the emphasis on the titular brotherhood and their everyday heroism, both in and out of combat.
Sometimes that heroism looks like what Hollywood has conditioned us to expect from war movies: carrying a fallen comrade, charging through a storm of gunfire, capturing enemy fortifications.
But sometimes it looks different: caring for someone suffering a shell-shocked breakdown, risking execution to protest a superior’s professional malpractice, offering to take the place of a rundown veteran on a risky nighttime raid.
Though not as sensational as battle, these moments are just as important. And they validate what Tom Hanks said of the show: “This is not a celebration of nostalgia. This is an examination of the human condition.”
When you examine Band of Brothers closely, you’ll see talented craftsmen doing their best to honor the ordinary, real-life humans who were thrust into inhuman, extraordinary conditions. For that, it stands alone.
Among the podcasts in my regular rotation, there are two others I’m listening to that are both limited series, airing concurrently, and happen to share a surprising thematic overlap.
One is Gene and Roger, an eight-part Spotify-exclusive series from The Ringer that serves as an oral history of Gene Siskel, Roger Ebert, and their movie criticism legacy. The other is The Rise and Fall of Mars Hill from Christianity Today, which charts the story of Mars Hill Church and its controversial pastor Mark Driscoll.
What’s the connection between these two disparate stories? The epiphany came after listening to recent episodes of both shows, released on the same day.
For the brand
“Top Guns” finds Siskel and Ebert reaching new heights of exposure, popularity, and power through their TV show and “two thumbs up” brand. Meanwhile, “The Brand” follows Driscoll as he and Mars Hill’s burgeoning marketing team harness technology and internet to build his personal brand and rocket the church’s growth.
Both subjects became celebrities within their domains despite their unlikely origins, unorthodox approaches, and often prickly demeanor. Whatever criticism that came their way—like for the reductive sloganeering of Siskel and Ebert’s “two thumbs up” and for Driscoll’s macho masculinity and objectification of women—was overshadowed by their surprising success and cultural ubiquity.
Movies and machismo
Though I was too young to watch Siskel and Ebert together on TV at the time, I was a regular viewer of the post-Siskel iteration with Richard Roeper and even the post-Ebert version with Michael Phillips and A.O. Scott. Before podcasts and social media, this was the only time I could see intelligent people arguing about movies. You also couldn’t be a film lover and understand what it means to write and think about movies without Ebert’s influence specifically. (His Great Movies anthologies are an essential resource, and the documentary Life Itself is a great primer on his life and work.)
Driscoll had a similar influence within American Christianity. I listened to his sermon podcasts through iTunes in the early 2010s, back when they were usually topping the Religion charts (and back when I was still listening to sermons). Driscoll’s tough-guy personality and the reported toxic culture of Mars Hill eventually turned me off, but his cultural cache lived on—probably peaking with his infamous trolling of Obama for his second Inauguration—until Mars Hill’s demise less than two years later on account of Driscoll’s bullying and “patterns of persistent sinful behavior”.
The beauty of synchronicity
The comparisons do fade at some point. The end of Siskel and Ebert—as a show and as individuals—was caused by untimely illness, while it was Driscoll’s behavior that led to his disgrace.
Still, it was a synchronistic delight to catch both of these excellent podcasts at the right moment to hear how seemingly unrelated stories can inform each other. One of the benefits of subscribing to (probably) too many podcasts…
I won’t do this quite as often as Media of the Moment, but I think it’s interesting to check in every once in a while with my podcast lineup and habits, since they do change over time for various reasons.
What hasn’t changed since my last dispatch: I listen to too many podcasts, and/but I’m still quick to skip episodes as desired.
What has changed: I’ve transitioned to Spotify (free version), and I listen at 1.5x speed.
I’m not super happy about the first one, but once four of my regular listens went Spotify-exclusive I decided to bite the bullet for the sake of a unified podcast listening experience, however frustrating it can be. There’s still one holdout stranded in Apple Podcasts because Spotify doesn’t allow for adding podcasts by custom URL, but otherwise that’s where I live.
Listening to the latest episode of the On Being podcast, with evolutionary anthropologist Agustín Fuentes, and I heard the host Krista Tippett say something while quoting Fuentes that gave me pause. From the transcript:
And even filling out the picture — this is from your Gifford Lectures — “meaning, imagination, and hope are essential to the human story, as are bones, genes, and ecologies.” And that’s kind of what we’ve looked at when we’ve told this human story of who we are, who we deeply are.
When I first heard that last part, I thought Tippett said “we are who we deeply are.” When I jumped back to listen to it again, I realized that wasn’t what she meant exactly. But I think that mondegreen is an intriguing idea to ponder. We are who we deeply are.
Which then begs the question: who am I—who are you—deeply?
Since becoming a patron of Filmspotting on Patreon, I’ve really enjoyed getting ad-free episodes and participating in the production-related chatter.
Recently they were looking for a clever title for a new segment that would be a chronological retrospective of a filmmaker’s work, in anticipation of revisiting Christopher Nolan’s work before Tenet debuts in July. (Assuming, I guess, that we all won’t still be quarantined.)
A few suggestions popped up: Filmography-spotting, Grand Tour, Box Set. Then I added my own: The Oeuvre-view.
I thought that name would have several merits: it’d be fun to listen to Adam and Josh try to pronounce it each time, ‘view’ is related to ‘spotting’, and its double entendre covers the purpose of the project, which is to provide an overview of a filmmaker’s oeuvre.
Cut to yesterday as I listened to the latest episode and heard my name mentioned, along with the fact that Oeuvre-view was the chosen one!
Adam wondered if the title was meant as a joke, but let me reassure you that I consider thinking up punny titles for things my solemn duty. Regardless, I’m honored it was selected and excited for the segment in general.
If you don’t already listen to Filmspotting, get on that. It’s great for both hardcore cinephiles and casual viewers looking for a deeper appreciation of movies old and new.
Hosted by Tara Bennett and Maureen Ryan—two television writers who covered the show’s original run—the podcast consists of six episodes that examine Lost from different perspectives, including how it revolutionized fan engagement, viral marketing, the phenomenon of showrunners, and television in general.
The final episode features Lost showrunners Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse, who were game as always. Their own podcast that they ran while making the show was the first one I ever followed. Before social media was a thing, they made interaction with fans a vital part of the show’s development and marketing.
As an avowed fan of the series finale (fight me), I couldn’t help but relish Damon’s harsh but true words for George R. R. Martin, who was critical of the finale at the time but has now very publicly run into his own issues ending Game of Thrones. Even if his ending matches or exceeds the now crazy high expectations, he will have done it with far more time and creative control than the Lost guys were afforded for theirs.
And yet, despite my appreciation for the series, I haven’t felt compelled to rewatch it since the original airing. Perhaps because of the time commitment, or the foreknowledge of having to wade through some of the weaker episodes.
But this podcast makes me want to revisit it. You all everybody want to join me?
After examining my current newsletter situation, I thought it would be a good time to look at the podcasts I’m into right now.
I say “right now” because since my September purging, I’m constantly looking for reasons not to follow a podcast. (For the record: I use Apple Podcasts, and I never increase the audio speed.) There have never been more to choose from. It’s a good problem to have, but the need for discernment has never been higher. Even with the ones I do follow, I don’t feel obligated to listen to every episode.
So these are the ones I’ve stuck with, that bring me joy or enrich my soul or challenge my mind or lighten my mood:
One podcast that survived my recent purge is The Keepers, a series from The Kitchen Sisters and NPR. The series features:
“stories of activist archivists, rogue librarians, curators, collectors and historians. Keepers of the culture and the cultures and collections they keep. Guardians of history, large and small, protectors of the free flow of information and ideas, eccentric individuals who take it upon themselves to preserve some part of our cultural heritage.”
The latest episode is about the “Pack Horse Librarians,” a group of women in 1930s rural Kentucky who brought books to isolated areas. The Depression-era WPA paid their salary of $1 per day; everything else was their responsibility, including renting the horses and collecting donated books and magazines to distribute.
It’s an inspiring, well-told story that shows the value of preserving local history.
“If your mind is forever filled with the voices of others, how do you know what you think about anything? Pulling attention apart is pulling a mind apart.”
After watching this video by CGP Grey about attention (h/t C.J. Chilvers), I deleted over half of my podcast subscriptions. I’ve culled the list before, but like Don Corleone:
(I happen to be in the middle of rewatching the Godfather trilogy.)
Podcasts are perfect for my input-seeking brain. I have liked them for a while. Every morning, first thing, I check for new episodes and fire them up. Though I’m very liberal with skipping ones that don’t interest me, the ones I do listen to can still flood my brain for hours.
But like any habit, what starts as a fun diversion can easily turn into a compulsion. Social media I can regulate easily. Podcasts, I’m realizing, not so much. They are good during chores and driving, but not during time at home with my wife or when I want to be creative. Scaling back will help, I think, but so will prioritizing those other more enriching and lasting activities.
A few months ago I submitted this case to Judge John Hodgman, one of my favorite podcasts:
I seek an injunction against my wife, Jenny. When I am cooking any kind of meat, I use a plastic spatula throughout the cooking process. Jenny insists on rinsing the spatula after the meat is no longer raw, but before it’s fully cooked. She says this avoids mixing any residual raw meat on the spatula with the cooked meat. I think this is excessive and unnecessary, and it degrades my autonomy as the cook. I have been cooking for years without the “mid-wash” without a problem. I ask the Judge order Jenny to cease and desist this behavior and let me cook in peace.
Who’s right? Who’s wrong? Only one man can decide, and he did!
We were driving from Colorado Springs to Denver and listening to last week’s docket-clearing episode, “Into the Teal”, when I heard Bailiff Jesse Thorn say my name, then my wife’s name, then the case I submitted.
I couldn’t believe it. They’d released many episodes since I submitted my case, so I assumed it was already passed over. Instead, to our shock and delight, we were listening to it for the first time together, breathlessly awaiting how the Judge would adjudicate our petty dispute.
Listen to the episode to judge for yourself and learn who won. Our case starts at 20:48.
For the record:
I do regret the line about autonomy, as I know well the Judge’s bias against dudes trying to impose their own system for things on others. Yet in this case it was my wife trying to impose a system on me.
I don’t regret “mid-wash”.
I should have clarified that I was cooking meat in a stainless steel pan.
About a year ago I got into the habit of listening to new episodes of the 99% Invisible podcast on Tuesday nights, on my way home from my late night at work. Most episodes are about the length of my drive home. Cruising through dark and empty streets, weary from the day, I revel in the soft baritone of Roman Mars’ narration and delightful diversity of stories—“Dollhouses of St. Louis” and “Oyster-tecture” being recent gems. It’s a ritual I didn’t intentionally create but has nevertheless become an indispensable part of my week.
What about you? Do you have any accidental routines you’d suffer without?
Loved the first episode of “Raising Kings”, a three-part series from NPR’s Code Switch podcast on a new boys-only public school in Washington, D.C., filled only with freshmen students of color:
All are determined to change the narrative. In Washington, and the rest of the country, that narrative says too many young black men are below-average readers. They’re suspended from school at above-average rates and less likely to graduate than any other group. Ron Brown College Prep is a radical effort to change that.
NPR and Education Week have been reporting on this school for over a year. The first episode reminded me of This American Life’s Peabody-winning series on Harper High School. I’m rooting for the school and the boys to succeed, and am eager to see how this series turns out.
Yesterday I managed to mainline all seven episodes of S-Town, the new podcast from This American Life and Serial that were released all at once. It’s a fascinating blend of those two shows: at once an extended version of a TAL episode, complete with idiosyncratic characters and a vivid setting, and a Serial-esque mystery, with room to explore the unexpected narrative turns.
John B. McLemore, the central figure of S-town, gives incredible tape. The first episode features reporter Brian Reed’s first phone call with him, and immediately you get a sense of McLemore: sardonic, crass, hyper-articulate and smart, obsessive, and very Southern. Even when he’s not directly in the story, McLemore hovers over everything. The final episode (no spoilers) also manages to close his narrative loop with a link back to something in the first one, which I thought was a brilliant choice.
Here at the end of all things 2016, let’s look back on the resolutions I made last year at this time, shall we?
Podcast less. I started the year with 21 podcasts in my feed, and currently have… 32. In my defense, I was much quicker to delete episodes this year, many of the podcasts publish infrequently, and some of them I’m on a trial run with. I also have been listening to more audiobooks. But the spirit of the goal was to have more time when I’m not listening to anything. So this one’s a work in progress, and probably a goal for 2017.
Reflect more. Though I have the free time to continue to plow through books and movies, I think I’ve done a better job writing about the ones that spark thoughts in me and allowing myself to not read or watch something.
Write more. My goal was to write 52 posts for the year, one for each week. Though I didn’t have at least one a week, I ended 2016 with 67 posts. I probably could have done more, but as this is a strictly At Whim enterprise, I’m not too concerned about quotas.
Overall I think I actually did pretty good! Keeping the goals simple, attainable, and somewhat measurable certainly helped.
2017 Goals
Complete a woodworking project. This is something I’ve been pondering for a while. I’ve yet to find the plans for something I want to make, but this is a big one for this year: to put my hands to use on a tangible and practical project. We need a new bookshelf, so I was thinking about that. Any suggestions?
Run a race. Like woodworking, running in an official race is something I’ve thought would be a nice thing to do but have never pulled the trigger. But I’ve come to realize if I ever plan on completing things, I need concrete deadlines to make them happen. A specific race of a specific length will help me in this, I hope.
Improve my Spanish. I’ve had a decent grasp of it at various points in my life—in high school when I was in classes, during a summer stay in Guatemala, during a post-college stay in Colombia—but I’ve never gotten close to fluent. Short of an immersion program or living in a Latin American country, don’t know if I’ll ever be, but I’d like to get closer. And since it’ll only get harder as I get older, there’s no day but today.
