Indecision in the queue

Ballet shoes, Taylor Swift's girlhood, musical family history, soft life, overhyped AI, conforming coffee shops.

You know when you’re hungry but you can’t decide what you want to eat? Does that ever happen to you in your queue? You’ve got episodes saved and the latest releases from your ongoing favourites, but you just can’t decide what to listen to. It has to match the moment and what you’re doing while listening, but it also has to match your mood. I find this happens to me when I’m craving something more specific than usual. Like I want a really compelling narrative story to suck me in. Or I want something with a unique sound that’s going to get me excited about the creativity of this medium. Thankfully, this week I found shows to fit both of those cravings.

More memes from Tink Media.

This week’s podstack

Made For Us - ‘The door is opening for us’: Cira Robinson on ballet’s turning pointe

I don’t know much about the world of ballet, so I had never heard of “pancaking” until I saw a dancer doing it on TikTok. This is the work of covering pointe shoes with foundation makeup to make sure they match the dancer’s skin tone. Since historically there weren’t options for dancers of colour, they had to do a lot of pancaking. On the low end, they can go through at least 12 pairs a month and it can easily take 45 minutes to prepare one pair of shoes. All of this extra knowledge is what I learned from Cira Robinson in this episode. She worked with a company to make more colours available for dancers of colour after getting tired of not having options. Even though the process was kind of like a meditative ritual for her, it can still damage the shoes and shorten their lifespan. This show is such a fascinating look at the many areas of life where things need to change or adjust to accommodate more people. From video games to ballet, I love how much variety there is in the stories.

Code Switch - Taylor Swift and the unbearable whiteness of girlhood

Even though Taylor Swift has always had girlhood at the forefront of her brand and messaging, the actual experience of girlhood isn’t always the one she shows us. This conversation between B.A. Parker and Leah Donnella analyzes who does and doesn’t get to experience girlhood. Leah attended a whole conference dedicated to academic discussions about different Taylor Swift themed topics. But she was there to give the closing presentation about "Taylor Swift And The Politics Of Growing Up". At a time when Taylor is ever-present in pop culture and media and basically talked about everywhere, this analysis helps us see the ways that obsession further fuels who gets to experience girlhood and how all of this is falling short. This category of “pure innocent protected good girl” might actually be a trap for all women. (transcript)

The Nightingale of Iran - Episode 1 - The Time Machine

When you blend music and family history together, you’re bound to get a captivating documentary, but this show takes it a step further with the careful and compelling way it pulls back the layers of the story. Danielle and Galeet’s family have always been musical, especially since both their grandfather and father were famous singers. But through this series, Danielle and Galeet are learning all the things they never knew before about their grandfather’s music and why their family left Iran. Why did their family abandoned their Iranian identity? Why recordings of their grandfather on the radio were destroyed? There’s a part in this first episode where they find a collection of audio tapes that their Dad would send back to his family when he moved to the U.S. Their Dad’s family was still living in Iran but long distance phone calls were too expensive so they would send these lively voice recordings full of music and the people they loved. These forgotten recordings are just one piece of the puzzle that reveals the bigger story these sisters never knew about their family’s history, but it’s such a strong scene for getting you invested in their search. That was the moment I knew I needed to keep listening.

Somerset House Podcast - Soft Life: Work

Soft life is a term and trend started by Black women as a way of resisting the hustle, production-based culture that seems to rule society these days. I actually started this series because the episode about time was recommended by Eleanor McDowall in Tink’s Audio Delicacies and I was so hooked after that episode that I listened to the whole series in one afternoon. That’s actually pretty rare for me to do! If it’s not already obvious from other Podstack lists, I’m listening to a lot about time, work-life balance, and how we can take better care of ourselves. This series touches on all of those things and more, but with such strong sound design, pieces of audio art, and experts from across disciplines. Each episode examines what it means to live a soft life and how we could rethink things to acheive it. How do we measure time? How do we treat our bodies and their recovery? Can a soft life help our planet? If you find yourself thinking “why are we living our lives this way?”, this series has discussions that will fuel those thoughts even more.

The Good Robot - Emily M. Bender and Alex Hanna on Why You Shouldn't Believe the AI Hype

This collab episode between The Good Robot and Mystery AI Hype Theatre 3000 podcast is such a genius match-up! Everyone in this discussion is thinking about technology from a critical perspective and wants us to better understand how to do that too. If we understand how things really work and what improvements or problems exist, we’ll know better about how to interact with different technologies. In this episode, some of that refers to AI and if it’s overhyped, the issues with large language models, and why we might be too trusting of technologies that promise us safety in exchange for surveillance. If any of these things feel like overwhelming concepts to wrap your head around, like they did to me, this episode is like a good introduction. Then you might have direction for which episodes to listen to next to go a little deeper. It felt like a nice balance of intro knowledge and advanced analysis.

Decoder Ring - Why Do So Many Coffee Shops Look the Same?

It always fascinates me when two podcasts tackle the same topic but do so in their own unique style. A few weeks ago I wrote about an episode of The Ezra Klein Show that discussed how algorithms are making our taste all the same. This week, we got the Decoder Ring spin on that and it’s just as interesting! Through the study of coffee shops, who somehow all began to follow the same design aesthetic across the world, Willa and Kyle analyze the internet’s role in making that happen. Algorithms push us towards bland things as much as they can because they don’t inspire any extreme reactions and keep us scrolling. We used to think that the internet made us more cultured because you can see so many different things than ever before, but their conversation proves the way we are actually leaning more and more towards sameness. (transcript)

More sweet treats

Since Valentine’s Day happened this past week, I found myself fascinated by the topics and discussions that different podcasts were having about love, relationships, friendships, and intimacy. This is a mini round-up of the episodes that featured some important and unique perspectives in that subject area.

• Indecent with Kiki Andersen - "There Be Dick Monsters Here" with Dan Savage (Savage Love)

• Unladylike - More Than Best Friends

• Well, Now - What We Get Wrong About Love

• Private Parts Unknown - A Brief History of Sex Toys with Hallie Lieberman, Author of "Buzz: The Stimulating History of the Sex Toy" (Redux)

• The Ezra Klein Show - What Relationships Would You Want, if You Believed They Were Possible?

Thank you for reading! If you listened to something this week that made your heart sing, your imagination wander, or your brain ponder, I’d love to hear about it!