Podcasts give permission to explore curiosities

Personal documentaries, oil spills, motorized cycling, podcast trailers, underrated TV, nightwalking.

How often do you stop to appreciate how many niche podcasts there are? People love to say ‘there are soooo many podcasts’ (negatively), but why? Isn’t it just wonderful that there are soooo many podcasts?! A recent quote from Kelly Corrigan reminded me of how that wonder exists for both the creators and the listeners. She talked about how starting a podcast gives you permission to pursue your curiosities, but I think listening to them does, too. I could never watch or read things fast enough to learn the variety of things I have from podcasts. I get to hear other people explore their curiosities and venture down rabbit holes. And I get to explore my own curiosities or even discover new ones!

This quote is from Kelly’s interview on Sound Judgment and I love listening to her explore her curiosities on Kelly Corrigan Wonders.

This week’s podstack

Radiotopia Presents: Shocking, Heartbreaking, Transformative - Just a Girl with a Microphone

If this new series from Radiotopia Presents is any indication of the audio treats we’re in for this year, it’s going to be a great year! It may be a bit meta, but in the most fascinating way. Seasoned narrative documentary producer Jess Shane is taking a step back to critically analyze the work that she and her industry do. It’s not from a technical or business perspective, it’s about the people and the stories that get told. It’s about the impact that telling those stories has on the people who do and how the process can help and hurt them. To really understand how this kind of personal storytelling could be done differently or better, Jess is embarking on an experiment to create documentaries about people and include those people in the process so they have more say in how it’s done. There’s a lot of honesty needed to do this and I’m so eager to hear how the process goes.

Ripple - 1. Company Canal

How much do you remember about the BP oil spill disaster in 2010? As host Dan Leone discovered, a lot of us remember the same limited details about what happened and the impact it had. This series is an exploration of why we don’t know the full story and just how bad the damage still is, 14 years later. The first two episodes revisit the day it happen, talking to people who were there and people who are still experiencing the impacts. It tells you a bit about some of the solutions that were attempted to stop oil from leaking or sometimes just hide it. It’s shocking and frustrating, but extremely captivating. (transcript)

Ghost in the Machine - Episode 1 - The end of blood doping; the rise of the motor

I’ll be honest, I don’t know much about the sport of professional cycling, but I do know about the doping scandal that was Lance Armstrong’s career. And because that’s most of what I know, I didn’t realize there was a whole other way that athletes have attempted unfair advantages during races. It turns out there may be a long-running practice of hiding secret motors in the bikes. From what you learn from host Chris Marshall-Bell, it seems as though only one athlete’s career has ended because of a motor being found, but there is a lot of speculation throughout the sport that many more bikes have hidden motors. What is going on with this sport? Chris is too curious not to try to find out.

Trailer Park: The Podcast Trailer Podcast - "American Songbag" with Dan Gutstein and Emily Cohen

The second season of podcast trailer analysis from Arielle and Tim is here and I’m really appreciate its dual purposes. If you’re a podcaster, you can learn so much about what makes a good trailer and why it’s so important to have one. If you’re a listener, you get to learn about some fascinating shows and the creative decisions that go into them. It’s part educational, part podcast discovery tool. As people who think about and listen to podcasts a lot, Arielle and Tim make you appreciate the craft of podcasting even more. Plus, I’m just so intrigued to see which trailers got selected for this season!

TV, I Say w/ Ashley Ray - Underrated TV w/ Jason Mantzoukas Part 1

I had so much fun listening to Ashley and Jason Mantzoukas talk about their favourite underrated TV shows last year that I was thrilled to see they were doing it again this year! They have so much enthusiasm for TV that they had to split their review into two episodes and this is only part one. They share a lot of the same favourites, but they also get to tell each other about shows they may or may not like. It’s almost more interesting to hear the shows that Jason struggles to be able to watch, mostly because they make him a bit sad about humanity. Ashley and Jason are to TV what foodies are to…well food! That’s the level of excitement and analysis they bring. After how much they covered in the first part, I can’t believe there’s still more to come, but so far I’m most intrigued by some of the animated shows they shared.

The Atlas Obscura Podcast - Nightwalking with Bianca Giaever

If you enjoyed Bianca Giaever’s series last year on night walking, this interview with her is a perfect follow up. It’s like a behind-the-scenes discussion about the practice of night walking, her thoughts on the series, and what can be learned from creative challenges like this. Bianca talks about how she started out trying to experience things the same way that her counterpart in the series Terry Tempest Williams was, but eventually had to learn her own way of doing it. I listened to this after Shocking, Heartbreaking, Transformative, and in this Bianca talks about how she didn’t always want to bring her personal life into her work but it just kept happening that way. It was interesting to hear both Bianca and Jess grappling with the personal nature of their work.

More sweet treats

• If AI had a podcast.

• My Roman Empire is the imagination spectrum.

• The creativity of this commercial.

• Hurkle-durkle is my new favourite phrase.

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!