Colin Marshall

Two years of ideational marketeering

Well, that went by pretty fast. The Marketplace of Ideas saw many changes in its second year, including but not limited to improved sound quality (amazing what happens when you stick a windscreen on your mic), widened guest variety (welcome, musicians, broadcasters and filmmakers), a greater number of interview-conduction methods (love those tape-syncs) and some more formal creativity (love those thematically-linked multi-segment specials). In the name of tradition, I'll once again highlight my five favorite conversations from the past year, though with one restriction: they can only be with first-time guests, not returning ones. Why? 'Cause I feel like it.

So, off the top of my head:


The opportunity to converse with one's childhood heroes comes rarely, if ever. I thus siezed/carved out the chance to interview Thomas Lopez, president of the ZBS foundation and creator of the finest modern audio dramas. Hearing one of ZBS' productions at age nine — specifically, the Jack Flanders adventure Dreams of the Amazon — revealed the vast world of audio experience to me. Were I to write my autobiography, you could easily trace the threads from my discovery of ZBS straight to my current pursuits in radio, podcasting, field recording, music, etc. Not without prompting did sound become so important to me.



Lawrence Osborne has, in recent years, become one of my favorite travel essayists. (As distinct from the "IF YOU GO" sidebar-writing "travel writers.") Given his dual interests in Asia and in wine, I suppose it's no surprise that I've latched onto his stuff. I thus naturally rushed down the opportunity to book an interview when Bangkok Days, his impressionistic collection of pieces on his long, colorful relationship with Bangkok, got a U.S. release date. He turned out to be even more articulate, thoughtful and funny than his writing had prepared me to expect. Pieces of our conversation have floated to the forefront of my mind on a near-daily basis since we had it: how, in contrast to Asia where life is really going on, London and Paris have become "bureaucratic museums"; how Bangkok's never-colonizedness has lead to its remaining a truly foreign culture on the deepest level; how, when thinking of old Blighty and its boiled dinners, he says, "To hell with that!"; how European publishers disregard subtitles but American publishers insisting on slapping them on at all times, even if badly misrepresentative.



Longer-time readers no doubt know that I spend quite a lot of time thinking about how to do stuff. In fact, the practice probably cuts into the time I should spend, y'know, doing stuff, but never mind. Though he puts out a bunch of admirable net stuff (and is currently writing a book) about the workings of the creative mind and how to actually accomplish accomplishments, Merlin Mann could win me over with his relatively newfound loathing of clicky distractions, unhelpful "tips" and "user-generated" content alone. I could go over all the helpful, hilarious, digressive stuff he had to say in our conversation, but perhaps I'll just excerpt my favorite writing of his, the essay "Better":

What makes you feel less bored soon makes you into an addict. What makes you feel less vulnerable can easily turn you into a dick. And the things that are meant to make you feel more connected today often turn out to be insubstantial time sinks — empty, programmatic encouragements to groom and refine your personality while sitting alone at a screen.


Don’t get me wrong. Gumming the edges of popular culture and occasionally rolling the results into a wicked spitball has a noble tradition that includes the best work of of Voltaire, Dorothy Parker, Oscar Wilde, and a handful of people I count as good friends and brilliant editors. There’s nothing wrong with fucking shit up every single day. But you have to bring some art to it. Not just typing.

Ah, the conversation that — I suspect — landed The Marketplace of Ideas on the front page of iTunes' podcast directory. I've long admired Michael Silverblatt's KCRW program Bookworm for its unusual brand of intimacy, lighthearted seriousness and earnest appreciation of text and reading. As it is not unusual for a disciple to climb Mount Everest to seek pearls of wisdom from the master who resides, still and cross-legged, on its peak, I figured I would take a flier and see if Silverblatt was interested in coming on my program. The result, if I can be bold, is an interview that's something of a hybrid of the Bookworm and Marketplace of Ideas aesthetics. I've listened to it many times, and in each I pick up on something new — plus, I always enjoy reliving the experience.



Years ago, I read Patrick Humphries' groundbreaking biography of Nick Drake. When I began interviewing, I regretted that I came a decade too late to credibly invite him on my program to promote the book. However, it dawned on me that the 40th anniversary of Drake's first album, the pretty-much-perfect Five Leaves Left, loomed on the horizon, so maybe I could find a tie-in. My production sensibility grew more ambitious as the far-flung year of 2009 approached, so by the time Five Leaves Left neared the big 4-0, I felt comfortable challenging myself to bring not just one but all of Drake's biographers on board. Though my conversation with Humphries constitutes, I believe, the bulk of the show, both Trevor Dann, author of 2006's Darker Than the Deepest Sea: The Search for Nick Drake and Peter Hogan, author of 2008's Nick Drake: The Complete Guide to His Music, were happy to talk and shared plenty of wisdom about both the man and his music. I very much enjoy the effect of three different perspectives on the album sometimes coinciding and sometimes colliding; it paints such a full picture of the work discussed.

* * *
I've come to grasp one thing over the past year, however tenuously: when it comes to self-marketing and self-promotion, I am the suckiest man who has ever lived. I have some friends who are absolute self-promotional aces, but they have not, as yet, lent me their mad skills. I'd worked backward from the astute saying that "marketing is the tax you pay for unremarkability," assuming that I could simply create a remarkable product and thus let the rest take care of itself by word of mouth and what have you. I must conclude, at this point, that I am not making a remarkable product. Perhaps that's not the real problem, but a good chunk of me still believes that the most effective, long-lived form of self-promotion is simply to create good stuff. The case of Nick Drake, I realize, continues to insist otherwise.

Whatever the barrier, though, I grow more obsessed by the day with finding a way to break it. If I don't, the mantra of "Man, I gotta quit x; man, I gotta quit x; man, I gotta quit x," where x is any of my endeavors that don't get little response — radio, blogging, writing of any kind, etc. — will continue to haunt my dreams, louder and more insistent by the night. If you guys have any suggestions, I'm more than open to 'em.

The Bat Segundo Show (Edward Champion, 2004 - )

First, three overarching questions: why isn't this show huge? Why isn't it in the pantheon of podcasts to which everyone insists you must listen? Why isn't its creator a big star?

The Bat Segundo Show [iTunes link] is an interview program where "young roving correspondent" Ed Champion, creator of the litblog whose current iteration is called Reluctant Habits, roams New York with a portable recording studio and converses with authors of all stripes. He talks to them in diners, in lobbies, in apartments, wherever. Champion's pure hustling ability impresses me; he not only keeps tabs on where authors will turn up in the city, but also goes to them, lugging recording gear all the way, which on the subway must be no mean logistical feat.

A focus on literary fiction means that the show's guests tend to be writers of it. Some favorites include Cynthia Ozick (who seems like such a delightful old lady) [MP3], Nam Le (whose sheer coolness convinced me to read his work) [MP3], William T. Vollman (the intensity of whose writing and life is matched only by the laid-backness of his demeanor) [MP3, first appearance] [MP3, second appearance], and John Updike (who probably needs no parenthetical detail) [MP3].

And since it's the Max Funsters I serve, I'd be remiss in not highlighting a few of the Maximum Fun-y ("Maximum Funny"?) Segundo guests as well: you've got your Amy Sedaris [MP3], your Neal Pollack [MP3], your Austin Grossman [MP3], your George Saunders [MP3], your David Hajdu [MP3], and your Grandmaster Flash [MP3].

Plus, there are the wild cards: eccentric filmmaker David Lynch [MP3], world's best documentarian Errol Morris [MP3], semi-relevant but entertainingly outspoken Senator Mike Gravel [MP3], and crackpots like Naomi Klein [MP3] and Nicholson Baker (who became one so gradually, I didn't even notice) [MP3].

But enough with the linking; how's the podcast itself? When introducing The Bat Segundo Show to friends, I always find myself using the construction "As soon as you get used to x, you'll like it", where x is almost any element of the program. The host, for instance. Champion asks detailed, probing, observation-laden questions — that, unlike those of certain very-long-time public radio interviewers who shall remain nameless, indicate he's actually read the book in question — and sometimes takes his guests to the mat when he disagrees — which indicates that he, unlike some very-long-time public radio interviewers who shall remain nameless, knows that conversation is a two-player game. But he does this sincere questioning with oddly insincere-sounding inflection, the kind you usually only use while nudging your interlocutor in the ribs; he's a cross between Bookworm's Michael Silverblatt and a deep-cable game show host.

For another instance, well, you're probably wondering why it's called The Bat Segundo Show. Until recently, almost every interview was introduced by the titular character, a washed-up, tequila-swilling radio DJ played by none other than Champion himself, doing a voice simultaneously sleazy, bombastic, and somewhat effete. He'd introduce the "young roving correspondent" only after first being introduced himself (in what one iTunes reviewer called a "Spanish shouting theme tune that almost defies the listener to keep listening despite its glass-shards-in-the-eardrums assault") and giving a short monologue about his recent activities, such as being arrested for masturbating in a video store or desperately trying to arrange a tryst with his ex-wife. Yeah.

So that's hugely divisive, which might explain the character's recent "disappearance". I've heard that Champion has pitched the show not-quite-successfully to radio stations, and while I'm not totally against Bat Segundo himself — hell, I just friended his Facebook page the other day — I wouldn't be surprised if he's what's been holding the program back. In his absence, other goofy (though, admittedly, well-produced) introductions have occupied his stead, but they still feel a tad out of place. This might be a case where less is more; some people get by just fine with "Welcome to the broadcast."

But my point is this: Ed Champion should be on public radio. He finds stellar guests, and his interviewing skills are on the top tier of the podcasting world. For me The Bat Segundo Show comes second only to The Sound when I've got the interview podcast jones. And since the show has been in a spot of trouble lately, it needs your fandom. That is, if it's the sort of thing of which you're a fan.

I will now do the program the ultimate honor of making it a drinking game:

• When Bat Segundo references a sexual misadventure, drink
• When Champion starts an interview with the word "okay", drink
• When a guest breaks down and admits they "don't understand the question", drink
• When Champion bases a question on an assumption about the author's intention and the author flatly denies having that intention, drink
• When you hear a cement truck, a cop car, gunfire, or a Top 40 song in the background, drink
• When Champion bases an entire question on a single written word, drink
• When a waiter comes to the table and diverts the guest from the interview, drink
• When a guest shows surprise at the fact that Champion has done, like, research, drink

[Originally published at Maximumfun.org.]

Slate's Culture Gabfest (Slate, 2008 - )

I have a friend who believes there's no point in political discussion, because it's merely the playacting of fixed psychological biases. While I'm not quite to that point — I'm still pretty sure all political discussion is psychological playacting except mine — I find myself inching toward his position with each passing day, which is why I haven't made a habit of Slate's Political Gabfest. Fortunately for me, the web magazine of web magazines has started a sister podcast to that ultra-popular offering: the Culture Gabfest [iTunes link]. Sure, cultural discourse may be the circular, brain-dead expression of ossified unreason too — I should know, since I blog about it — but at least you don't have to hear about caucuses.

Mirroring its political relative, this gabfest has a panel chat about the implications of recent events and developments in culture from, as the description says, "highbrow to pop." The panel has varied a bit since the podcast's inception early in the year, but it now seems to have settled on erstwhile "Dilettante" (and my favorite member of the Slate Audio Book Club, about which more in a future column) Stephen Metcalf, film critic Dana Stevens and social (and fashion) commentator Julia Turner. For half an hour every two weeks, they trade opinions on what's goin' down in film, art, music, television, the news, mixed martial arts, and Miley Cyrus. They then cap it off with their "endorsements," recommendations from each panelist about what cultural artifact they're currently experiencing.

Penciling pros and cons onto the ledger, I find that I should by all rights dislike the Culture Gabfest. I prefer bold statements to hedged, mealy-mouthed equivocations, and boy, do these panelists ever make with the hedging; one iTunes reviewer comments that Stevens used the phrase "sort of" 36 times in the process of evaluating one film. This gives the listener next to nothing to latch on to, little to agree with, little to disagree with. I don't care if you're right or wrong, guys; just, please, make statements that can potentially be right or wrong, rather than ones nebulous and untestable against the cultural facts before us.

Discussing Barack Obama — arguably more a cultural phenom than a political one — the crew, who sound like they've thrown up in their mouths whenever a Republican is mentioned, wearily moan about how, sure, they would vote for a literate, thoughtful, candidate who admits to reading Philip Roth, but the flyover certainly wouldn't. Alas, even my iPod, a cutting-edge new model, doesn't come equipped with a "Shut. Up. Just. Shut. The. Hell. Up." button. (Disclosure: I'm from the coast too, though west rather than the east.) Also, this podcast provided my unwelcome introduction to the hideous term "booshie", as in, "to tend to one's booshie rooftop garden after reading the works of Michael Pollan."

The problem may be the lack of a deflater. As another iTunes reviewer put it, the show "needs a co-host with a functioning B.S. detector." That it does, and considering the deflationary role that Metcalf sometimes plays on the Audio Book Club — I clenched my fist victoriously when he stated, albeit in a roundabout way, that Eat, Pray, Love sucks — I'm surprised he can't bring himself to do the same here. One episode [MP3] begins with the question of whether that LeBron-James-and-Giselle-Bundchen Vogue cover was racist. The correct answer is "Who cares?" Without someone to straight-up declare that right away, the panelists only get halfway there, and they do it in a meandering fashion.

But I enjoy the Culture Gabfest nonetheless, especially when glimpses of what it might one day become shine through the haze. One example relevant to Max Funsters is their death-of-George-Carlin segment [MP3]. I'm pro-Carlin, but Metcalf admits to always having disliked him. Rather than simply attacking, though, he explains with clarity and intelligence why one might not like Carlin's stuff; he made me understand a perspective different from my own. In culture as in anything else, that's valuable. (Though, staying with that episode for a moment, Metcalf et al utterly failed to get across to me the appeal of Liz Phair.)

I've focused on negative points here only because, when they're corrected, this'll be one damn fine podcast. It's still early in the game, and, like any enterprise, it improves a little with each iteration. The idea at its core, articulate three-way conversation across the cultural spectrum, is a sound one, and I'm confident that, in time, it'll realize a good deal more of its potential. Until then, brace yourself for the occasional lapse into hand-wringing weenieism.

[Originally published at Maximumfun.org.]

Zen is Stupid (Gwen Bell and Patrick Reynolds, 2007 - )

I'm not a Buddhist. Let's get that out of the way right now. I'm not even an aspiring Buddhist. I've never even considered becoming a Buddhist. Buddhism isn't among my top hundred interests — hell, it's probably not among my top thousand. Thus, I suppose I'm a totally unsuitable reviewer for a Buddhist podcast.

But wait. Gwen Bell and Patrick Reynolds, co-hosts of Zen is Stupid [iTunes link] aren't Buddhists either. At least that's what they say in the episode about Buddhism [link]. They prefer to call themselves, say, "students of Buddhism" or "people who practice Buddhism." That's a good sign; it contraindicates my least-loved quality of the young American Buddhist. You know the type: superciliously strutting around in that more-enlightened-than-thou way, constantly mentioning how Buddhist they are. Insufferable.

Gwen and Patrick aren't like that. Though they operate on a different Weltanschauung than I do, their podcast allows me to examine and consider that Weltanschauung without being buried under monstrous heaps of 'tude. Each week, Gwen and Patrick take on a topic of modern relevance, be it diversity [link], driving [link], nostalgia [link], hipsters [link] or h8erz [link], and spend ten to twenty minutes approaching it from whatever Zen Buddhist perspective they can muster. (And it's always Zen — they sometimes give the nod to other branches of Buddhism, but remain loyal to the Zen game.) For example, after a one-night stand, a Zen Buddhist might not wake up feeling like the bottom of an ashtray; they might wake up and cheerfully launch into a session of zazen, which, I gather, is this practice where you sit still for a long time. The duo's attitude has drawn no small amount of scorn on iTunes from self-proclaimed Zen old-schoolers, which shows they're on the right track: in any field, if you're pissing off the old guard, you're doing something right.

So what, for the non-Buddhist, is appealing about all this? First and foremost, learning about someone else's take on the world never fails to fascinate me, especially if that someone else adheres to a system of thought that I don't. (And, as the most a-religious, a-spiritual — as distinct from unreligious and unspiritual — person I know, they almost always do.) Second, unlike some religions I shall refrain from naming, Zen Buddhism has elements that can be genuinely thought-provoking even for the outsider, such as the concept of mindfulness, keeping maximally aware of the present moment, or the concept of beginner's mind, disregarding biases and preconceptions when entering new informational territory. I wouldn't be surprised if this sort of thing one day maps to new discoveries in neuroscience.

I must admit, however, to an inability to get with certain other elements of Buddhism which, in many hands, seem to generate a kind of irritating nihilism. "Everything is everything," intones the garden-variety lazy Buddhist I talk to, "so it wouldn't be right for me to have an opinion on anything." Then they mumble something about the limits of language. I was thus happy find that Gwen and Patrick take on this sort of nonsense without giving in to it; they are indeed opinionated, and they seem to have no problem taking action. That's not to say that their discourse is completely devoid of muddled thinking — they've more than once fallen into go-nowhere discussions about how one should practice Zen, but they shouldn't expect to gain anything from it, but they do gain from it, but wait, no they don't, because you're not supposed to want to improve in Zen, but maybe they do, or don't — but for the most part, they mix Buddhism with pragmatism, which is precisely what most ancient beliefs sorely need.

[Originally published at Maximumfun.org.]

I, Cringely (Robert X. Cringely, 2007 - )

Not long ago, amidst research for an interview with a big Silicon Valley guy, I Netflix'd a copy of the 1996 PBS series Triumph of the Nerds. Re-watching the program, a brief history of the early adventures of such personal computer pioneers as Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak, Bill Gates and Paul Allen, I came away with two impressions: surprise at how nineties everything looked — boy, I never thought I'd say that — and approval of the hosting skills of that guy in the glasses, khakis and tucked-in polo shirts. (That's how we dressed in the nineties, you see.) He not only knew his stuff, but his skills at what us Max Funsters might call "dad humor" were honed to a fine edge.

He of the shirts and the specs is one Robert X. Cringely, a veteran observer of and commentator on the computing scene. He's done a handful of other PBS series, including one nobody but me has heard of where he builds an airplane by himself. More to the point, he writes a weekly column called I, Cringely and, still more to the point, it's available in podcast form [iTunes link].

Robert X. Cringely is many things: "sex symbol, airplane enthusiast and adventurer," his about page modestly proclaims. "A dirty old man," he calls himself in one podcast. Googlism says the following:

• robert x. cringely is well known throughout the computer industry
  
• robert x. cringely is simply the net's best commentator
  
• robert x. cringely is in fact a real person
  
• robert x. cringely is full of shit
  
• robert x. cringely is really getting on my nerves; i'm trying to remember why i signed up to get his column in the first place
  
• robert x. cringely is a fun

(I like that last one the best.)

Clearly there's some controversy here. Are we talking about a titan of tech journalism, or some gossipy hack? As anything about which opinions so widely vary interests me, I couldn't help but catch up on his body of work. Agree or disagree with his pronouncements — I considered using the word "opinions," but no, they're pronouncements — you have to admit that he's the most reliably entertaining computer pundit in existence.

I, Cringely tackles the critical technology questions of our time, including, recently: What do information technology consultants actually do? [MP3] Why isn't Apple getting on board with Blu-Ray? [MP3] What's going on in Steve Jobs' head? (That one's sort of a Cringely leitmotif, actually.) [MP3]

Cringely regularly exhibits two tendencies: a fixation on Moore's Law, and a penchant for bold predictions. He's not always on target — his current official batting average is .571, which still beats pure chance — but at least he's not one of those of mealy-mouthed, ass-covering equivocators who play it safe but don't play it with guts. Plus — and this is the most important part — he admits when he's wrong. Bob's predictions for 2008 [MP3] include the personal computer's giving of ground to smaller devices that are already morphing — to use a nineties term — into something more PC-like themselves, venture capitalists' turn away from ad-revenue-only firms like Facebook, and Apple's replacement of the mouse with something more happenin'.

(He also predicts that his program NerdTV — billed as "essentially Charlie Rose for geeks" — which gets my blood moving, as I am the biggest Charlie Rose fanboy who has ever lived, and also something of a geek — will return for a second season. You can download the first one now as podcasts and vidcasts.)

Do note that not every I, Cringely column is of general interest: good luck understanding, for example, his piece on Azul Systems' new mainfraime [MP3] if by quirk of fate you don't happen to do a lot of mainframe computing yourself. And hey, isn't this just Robert X. Cringely reading his column out loud? Yes, but he's hell of good at reading. Besides, reading it yourself would be so Web 1.0.

[Originally published at Maximumfun.org.]

The Reduced Shakespeare Company Podcast (The Reduced Shakespeare Company, 2007 - )

Let's be clear: this is not a podcast meant to spoon-feed The Bard's words in puréed, sugar coated globules to shiftless, slack-jawed, grafted-to-their-white-earphones members of Generation Y. It's not the audio book of the Sparknotes to the Cliffs Notes. It's not even strictly about Shakespeare. "But surely," you stammer, flummoxed, "the very title... ?" Permit me an explanation.

The Reduced Shakespeare Company is a bunch of guys — and sometimes gals — who have been around, in one form or another, for upwards of 25 years, all the while re-interpreting — dare I say "remixing" — Mankind's Important Works^TM live on stage all around the world, even in the countries that don't speak Middle English. They take their name from their bread-and-butter flagship show, The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (abridged), but they also do Western Civilization: The Complete Musical (abridged), The Bible: The Complete Word of God (abridged), The Complete History of America (abridged) — godless Euro-Max-Funsters, you are now free to snark about how the previous two can't be that different — All the Great Books (abridged) and Completely Hollywood (abridged).

To do all those shows, you'd have to be both well-cultured and quick of foot and brain. Fortunately for them and for us, the players of the RSC all pack foot, brain and culture with no room in their luggage to spare. I think the costumes are shipped separately, but I don't know because they haven't put out a podcast about that yet. They have, however, released 78 episodes so far [iTunes link], many of which get into the nuts and bolts of what it's like to be a Reduced Shakespearean: how to play to a tiny crowd riddled with decrepitude [MP3], how to improv your way through flubs [MP3] and how to react to laughs that don't come [MP3]. If you're keen on joining the troupe, they even tell you how to audition [MP3]. (Don't get your hopes up.)

But it's not all stage geekery; there's also plenty of specifically Shakespeare geekery: note the humor-leavened discussion of the "authorship question" [MP3] that has dogged Shakespeare's plays for so long and has caused so much ivory-tower hand-wringing, or the one about the difficulties of teaching Shakespeare to middle- and high-schoolers [MP3]. (Solution: let the kids use modern-day swearing.)

And let's not forget the internet geekery. Unlike so many staid theater groups that look down their noses at the whole of technology culture, the RSC is on the vanguard as internet presences go. There's the podcast, sure, but they've got a MySpace page and a Facebook group as well. In one podcast, they even discuss, in detail, the relative merits of MySpace versus those of Facebook [MP3]. (My understanding was that MySpace was for poor people, but apparently it's more complicated than that.) And while we're on the subject of geekery, in another podcast they discuss the difference between a "nerd" and a "geek" with The Word Nerds [MP3].

The podcast hits the tubes every Monday, with an average of twenty minutes of content per week. It's quick, and it's slick: they seem to pay as much attention to the music as they do in their live shows — and if you haven't seen one, they're on DVD — and they'll often go the extra mile with conference calls including even more members of the group or segments recorded on location at whatever theater they're playing at the time. And if you're really lucky, they sometimes send an original, Dickens-based audio production your way [MP3].

Humanities scholars say that "reductive" is the worst slur with which you can be tagged. But with their podcast, as with their other ventures, the Reduced Shakespeare Company has proven once again the detachment of humanities scholars from reality. If reduction is wrong, I don't want to be right.

[Originally published at Maximumfun.org.]

60-Second Science and 60-Second Psych (Scientific American, 2008 - )

It's a modern problem: I'm a busy guy, but I also loves me some science. These two conditions were completely irreconcilable until the advent of the medium known as "podcasting", by which compressed audio files containing spoken information can be distributed to one's portable audio devices. (Or in my case, just to my computer — yeah, I'm one of those guys.) Scientific American, the science magazine whose surprisingly well-crafted articles belie its tacky covers, has come to the salvation of those who have just enough time for a couple daily bites of science, but not enough time to live a normal life: 60-Second Science [iTunes link] and 60-Second Psych [iTunes link].

The conceit is obvious: you give us a minute plus time for an intro and sponsorship announcements, and we give you a fascinating discovery. (They've only broken from the form once, when Ben Stein angried up their blood. [MP3.]) I'd have ensured maximum information density by hiring the guy from the Micro Machines commercials, but the producers have instead opted for a series of friendly-sounding hosts who deliver their knowledge payload in a more relaxed manner, supplying corny jokes when time allows.

60-Second Science tells you the kind of geeky stuff geeky fifth-graders might geek out about. For example:

• Lasers can generate lightning [MP3]
• Students forced to learn math via word problems do worse on tests (hatred of those problems about Farmer Brown's pasture: validated!) [MP3]
• A computer can learn to play the clarinet [MP3]
• Scientists are being trained to run for political office (shyeah, good luck with that) [MP3]
• The duck-billed platypus has an odd genome (no surprise there, I suppose) [MP3]

And I, for one, believe that there's a geeky fifth-grader inside us all. If yours has felt a little beaten-down lately, there are worse ways to revitalize it (such as hanging out with geeky fifth-graders).

More relevant but also more speculative — and yes, those of you in the natural sciences, feel free to enjoy a hearty chortle about the fact that "science" and "psych" are distinct podcasts — 60-Second Psych concentrates on the behavioral side of things, showcasing all sorts of discoveries about humans and how we got this way. Revelations include:

• When we really want something, we're biased toward believing it's rare and vice versa (which elegantly explains the "WOW!" "L@@K!" "RARE!" arms race on eBay) [MP3]
• Even the meanest among us have enough neuroplasticity to learn to be kind [MP3]
• The desperate search for evidence of ESP continues to disappoint (well, doi) [MP3]
• Us FaceSpace-addicted Gen-Yers are no more self absorbed than previous generations (but who's gonna top the Boomers, amiright?) [MP3]
• The real motivator for exercise? Fear [MP3]

What with all the exciting work being done in a bewildering variety of fields, subfields, and sub-subfields and its implications for the way we live, it's never been more important to be scientifically informed. (Insert rant here about, oh, I don't know, stem cells or something.) 60-Second Science and 60-Second Psych do not by any means constitute all the scientific knowledge you need, and indeed, without a decent grounding in their subjects it's tough to make them stick in your mental latticework. But they are excellent supplements to a steady diet of books, magazines, newspapers and critically-acclaimed television specials.

[Originally published at Maximumfun.org.]

The Moth Podcast (The Moth, 2007 - )

Who holds the title of greatest living monologist? Many readers would nominate Mike Daisey, who appeared at The Sound Live in NYC, and who Jesse recently named "the official monologist of Maximumfun.org." But why is he so compelling? How can one guy, alone, just talking about the lives of himself and others draw us in like a tractor beam?

The very same friend who introduced me to The Sound wrote this about Daisey's act:

We call this a monologue, but it's storytelling. Respectable theaters don't get urban elites to shell out $25 a head for storytelling. If they advertised "Mike Daisey Telling Stories" you might expect animal crackers and milk, and possibly even a nap. "Honey, where are my footie pajamas? You know, the dressy ones?" So they call it a monologue and Mike Daisey tells his stories, and the audience sits rapt. Even after eighty or ninety minutes — with no intermission — none of the rustling, none of the coughing, none of the shifting in seats you hear in a theater or concert hall as the end draws near and attentions wander.

Storytelling: that's the skill Daisey has mastered, and I would submit there ain't a man, woman or child alive who doesn't enjoy a good story.

The Moth understands this. You might expect it to be an insect, but no, it's an organization that promotes the art of storytelling. Founded in some guy's living room a decade ago, The Moth has grown enormously: it now holds all sorts of events featuring tales told by fascinating personalities both known and unknown, all over the country. In this case, "all over the country" tends to mean, well, both coasts, but if you're out of the 212 or the 310, you're not out of luck. The Moth, you see, has a podcast. [iTunes link]

Each installment adheres to the same rules: one storyteller, one story, ten to fifteen minutes, live on stage, no notes. This sounds like a tightrope act where to bomb is just as likely as to draw rapturous applause, but as much fun as that would be, we're dealing with story professionals here. There's the New Yorker's Malcolm Gladwell, recounting how he entertained himself early in his journalism career by wedging the phrase "perverse and often baffling" into as many articles as possible. [MP3] There's the same organ's Adam Gopnik telling of his inability to properly use the term "LOL." [MP3] There's screenwriter Cindy Chupack describing how the prospect of signing a 30-year-mortgage may well have turned her husband gay. [MP3] And yes, there's good old Mike Daisey taking us to a very dark psychological place indeed, one where he's made to endure a seven-hour death march of an audition at the hands of worshiped indie filmmaker Todd Solondz. [MP3]

Vulnerable as The Moth's subject matter may be to the same jab The Onion made about This American Life — I guarantee you'll hear plenty about therapy, the foibles of professional life and what it's like to look for love in all the wrong places — they're two of the best games in Podcast Town when it comes to storytelling. And hey, The Moth has Jonathan Ames talking about his Christmas spent doing freebase with a transsexual [MP3], so it's not like they don't spice it up.

[Originally published at Maximumfun.org.]

Experts and Intermediates (Jason Eaken and B.J. Gailey, 2007 - )

The best thing about writing Podthoughts isn't just having justification for listening to homemade radio when I should be working, it's holding the title of Podcast Kingmaker: I wield the awesome power to anoint certain ventures with a slight audience boost, and to cruelly withhold a slight audience boost from others. This week I crown Experts and Intermediates [iTunes link], an arts-and-culture gabfest for which I've got high hopes. High-apple-pie-in-the-sky hopes. Why "high hopes" rather than straight-up "high praise"? Because, while I already enjoy the program, I think it's got big untapped potential. Before getting into what the podcast could be, however, let's talk about what it is.

Of all the new kinds of shows the Podcast Revolution^TM has loosed upon our unprepared society, perhaps the most visible format — or, I guess, audible one — is the Two Twentysomething White Guys. I am forever in the debt of erstwhile Podthinker Ian Brill for introducing me to Battleship Pretension, an excellent weekly film discussion that might also be titled Two Twentysomething White Guys on Movies. There's another swell show called Jordan, Jesse, Go! — perhaps you've heard of it — whose alternate title could easily be Two Twentysomething White Guys on Being Two Twentysomething White Guys... Hilariously!

Experts and Intermediates could fly under Two Twentysomething White Guys on Convergences in Cultural Opinion, which is marginally less catchy but could probably land a public radio grant. B.J., Jason and sometimes a designated "expert" take on different works of popular culture each time, including:

• Shakespeare, especially the problematic nature of The Merchant of Venice
• The best Spider Man and Batman story arcs
• Hip-hop duo Atmosphere
• High School Musical
• 20th-century dystopian literature
• Night of the Hunter
• Christian rock

Looking at that list, you'd think the guys make their selections at random. But while the show is informed by a hearty spirit of randomness, there's actually something of a throughline, at least to the best episodes. I would submit that B.J. and Jason are primarily interested in works about which (a) one's experience or opinion differs sharply from the other's or (b) both of their experiences or opinions differ sharply from those of the work's fan base.

This is borne out by two of the show's regular features. The second-best, "Will We Be Infected?", has the guys pick out something popular yet, to them, unsavory — the aforementioned Disney franchise, or some thrashing for Jesus — and mainline it to see if they, too, will get on the bandwagon. The best is when the hosts give each other assignments. Typically, the item assigned is something the assigner believes the assignee hasn't consumed enough of; for example, B.J. assigns the comic-bereft Jason a Spider Man series. I love hearing and experiencing reactions to something out of one's own cultural sphere. If the podcast consisted entirely of assignments, that'd be fine by me. It might solve the show's slight focus problem, too.

What else does Experts and Intermediates need before taking the podcasting world by storm? First, regularity; a month between episodes isn't unheard of. (In all fairness, B.J. and Jason acknowledge the inconsistency, not that that makes it any easier for the fans.) And the guys shouldn't even bother talking about music without including clips for the audience; I won't utter that old "dancing about architecture" line, but come on, we gotta hear the stuff before you dissect it. These, however, are mere issues of polish, ones that a deserved kingship should provide the impetus to address.

[Originally published at Maximumfun.org.]

Crap from the Past (Ron "Boogiemonster" Gerber, 1992 - )

At the tender age of eleven, Ron "Boogiemonster" Gerber began laboriously copying the chart positions of every single on the American Top 40 into a binder, genuflecting before the divine word of Casey Kasem. At the same time, he began regularly purchasing 45s of every top single he didn't already own. His enthusiasm for pop music has, in the ensuing three decades, evolved into Crap from the Past, where he's been behind the mic passing the love on to us for sixteen years now.

Gerber currently broadcasts out of KFAI in Minneapolis, with syndication in England and New Zealand. (Luckily for everyone who isn't a Kiwi, a Brit or Prince, there's a podcast feed.) If he were simply slapping a hodgepodge of pop tunes onto the turntables every week, his program would be no worse — and, let's admit it, probably better — than most of that which spews forth from community radio. But Crap from the Past is so much more; the Boogiemonster bills it as, in effect, "a graduate-level course in pop music," but it's even better than that, because he rarely if ever resorts to critical post-structuralist gender theory.

See, when Ron Gerber lays down a show on Tears for Fears, he doesn't spin "Everybody Wants to Rule the World" and call it a night. He spins "Everybody Wants to Run the World", which the band re-recorded from scratch as a charity single for some kind of benefit run, changing only one word. He spins "Victims of Fact", a single recorded by Neon, an early group comprising the members of what would become Tears for Fears and the members of what would become Naked Eyes. He spins a cut recorded for The Karate Kid Part II by Mancrab, a one-off outfit helmed by Tears for Fears' lead singer. And he digs out his 1980s issues of Billboard to read out the original reviews of these songs.

Similarly, a New-Kids-on-the-Block-themed program features Biscuit, the boy band's bodyguard-turned-rapper, the Perfect Gentlemen, an even younger boy band created by the New Kids' producer Maurice Starr, and the James Brown records off of which Starr bit to formulate that irresistible New Kids sound. Interwoven are interview excerpts from a New Kids concert VHS tape. (Imagine how full this guy's house is, and of what else.)

Gerber also conducts the occasional interview of his own: electronic pop pioneer Thomas Dolby, forgotten — and much Boogiemonster-championed — power-popper D.L. Byron and mayor of Funkytown Stephen Greenberg, to name only three.

Though Gerber introduces certain songs as, say, "atrocities," don't take the Crap in Crap from the Past too literally: the show's not some sort of kitschfest, but if it's necessary to play some kitsch, the Boogiemonster won't back down. (He may, however, talk over said kitsch or yank it off early.) As a man unashamed of his pop habits, I adore Crap from the Past. If you don't deign to enjoy pop yourself, prepare to be converted. It's a bit of a cliché to put it this way, but were you to give his show a listen, you'd almost certainly be infected with his near-obsessive — okay, obsessive — passion for well-crafted pop and all information relating to it.

[Originally published at Maximumfun.org.]