What are you listening to: PodCast Edition!

Culture
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I rotate podcasts a lot, but this is what I’m currently listening to:

The Hidden Almanac - Thrice weekly, approximately four minutes an episode. Rev. Mord recounts an event from that day in history, the feast of the saints, and gardening advice from a world that is quite a few degrees askew from our own. Except for the zucchini. Zucchini is the same everywhere.

Kevin and Ursula Eat Cheap - Weekly-ish, approximately 90 to 120 minutes an episode. From the creators of The Hidden Almanac, author/illustrator Ursula Vernon and her husband Kevin Sonney. They have a couple of drink, review pre-packaged foods, and generally chat about a variety of topics.

Jay & Miles X-Plain the X-Men - Weekly, approximately 60 minutes or less per episode. Hosts Jay Edidin and Miles Stokes cover the history of Marvel’s Merry Mutants starting at the very beginning in 1963. Each episode usually covers a few issues, or maybe a complete storyline, with in-depth analysis. Currently on hiatus while Jay moves cross-country so it’s a great time to get caught up.

Thor: The Lightning and the Storm - Weekly, approximately 60 to 90 minutes per episode. While Jay Edidin moves cross-county Miles Stokes is presenting a limited podcast in a similar vein exploring Walter Simonson’s mid-80’s run on Marvel Comic’s Thor.

The Thrilling Adventure Hour - Complete, most episodes run less than 30 minutes. A stage show in Los Angeles that completed it’s run back in 2015, each show was presented and styled in the manner of old-time radio (so that the actors had an excuse to hold the scripts.) Most podcast episodes rotate between the adventures of Sparks Nevada, Marshall on Mars; Beyond Belief (the Thin Man with ghosts) or a rotating middle segment.

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42

Now that I’m back at my desktop computer, I can get a list of what I’m listening to … although, @fiddlingfrog has already listed two of mine! I strongly endorse both the Hidden Almanac and KUEC. Kevin and Ursula are great! (We can promote materials by friends and actually mean it, right? Because I do mean it!)

Some of these have also already been mentioned, but I didn’t see link, so I’ll include them.

First, stories and people talking …

Escapepod - Short (usually) format Science Fiction stories.

Podcastle - Similar, but Fantasy stories.

Polyamory Weekly - Discussions, interviews, and news about polyamory. Very long running podcast (Over 10 years) with a great host.

This American Life - Do I really need to describe this to anyone here?

Radiolab - Similar to This American Life, but more focused on intersections of science, philosophy, and human experience.

Music … these get played in no particular order as background while I’m working, or other activities around the house. I usually end up keeping the episodes and queuing them up in the same way I might an old Doctor Demento show.

The Clockwork Cabaret - The Davenport Sisters and others host this take on the Steampunk genre. Some of the music is quite recognizable as Steampunk (e.g., Abney Park) while other music is just what the hosts want to play (Tom Waits), but it’s usually a fun ride … except when the koalas take over the airship …

Irish and Celtic Music Podcast - Marc Gunn hosts.

Hmm. OK, so I only have two of those right now, mostly because the others I was listening to are no longer active.

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43

MBMBAM
WTF
Poprocket
You Must Remember This
Doug Loves Movies
Las Culturistas
S-Town (limited series)
RuPaul: What’s the Tee? With Michelle Visage
Fresh Air
This American Life
Unfictional
Risk!
The Smartest Man in the World

I like storytelling and pop culture. MBMBAM & Doug Loves Movies are just funny.

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44

I’ve been broadening my podcast range, lately; the constant cluelessness of the centre-right Slate/HuffPo/NPR approach is giving me the shits. They lifted their game a bit immediately post election, but now most of the mainstream podcasters have returned to their old normalising-the-indefensible habits.

Fortunately, there are other things out there. In order of increasing radicalism…

https://www.politicallyreactive.com

W. Kamau Bell and Hari Kondabolu, talking politics from an intersectionally woke POV. Good stuff, presented in a cheerful, positive way.

The audio version of The Intercept. A slight tendency to be excessively hyper-skeptical of critique of Russia (that’s more of a Greenwald than Scahill thing, though), but that is reducing over time. Very good in-depth reporting on subjects of global importance.

http://thetrap.fm

The “dirtbag left” that is the subject of the latest episode of Intercepted. Funny, honest, accurate; they don’t pull any punches, but they aim them in the right direction. Not afraid to call a fascist a fascist,

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45

If you like storytelling, you might enjoy Snap Judgement. It’s a bit like This American Life, in the vein of telling different stories on a theme, but it does have a different feel.

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46

I added a ton of these recommended podcasts to my list. A ton of them! Thank you all.

Here’s a couple I like that haven’t been mentioned yet:

Invisibilia: this is an NPR podcast in the This American Life format, but with a focus on human psychology.

One From the Vaults by Morgan M Page: colorful stories from trans & gender non-conforming history as told and researched by a first nations, Canadian trans woman.

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47

i used to listen to Snap Judgement – great stories. super diverse. i only stopped listening because they come out so frequently that i couldn’t keep up when added to my other podcast load.

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48

Yeah, my backlog is hundreds. Sometimes I feel like I need to be up to date on the events of the world, and sometimes I need to be insulated from the events of the world, so they kind of stack up on me. But, when I am ready, there is always stuff in my phone for the sort of words I need to hear.

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49

There’s tons of D&D / Fantasy podcasts out there and most of them are just kind of… gamer-y. Lots of Monty Python jokes and geek humor. But I recently heard one that’s far better than I expected: Hello From the Magic Tavern. The premise is that the host, Arnie, is an average guy who fell into a magic portal behind a Burger King and found himself in the land of Foon. His podcasts take the form of round-table discussions in a tavern with an insane wizard named Usidore, Chunt the badger, and a rotating cast of weirdos. Everyone in the cast is a top notch improv performer and it’s a lot of fun.

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50

I’m not sure anyone’s mentioned “Missing Richard Simmons,” a man’s quest to find out what’s going on with this celebrity who hasn’t been seen in public for three years. There’s a lot to love even if your only Simmons touchpoint is vaguely remembering him on talk shows and exercise programs when you were a kid. I especially liked the concept brought up that he was a kind of cross between drag queen and prosperity preacher. It seems so obvious in retrospect, but I’d never realized before that Simmons shtick was in a lot of ways a nontraditional drag performance.

This sounds like a really good setup.

Is there any background for understanding this show? I think I like the concept, and I’ve enjoyed some of Ursula Vernon’s stuff in the past, but I’m having a bit of trouble getting past the silly voices.

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51

i mentioned it a ways up thread, but yeah, i really enjoy it. it tends to be juvenile humor, but then again isn’t that some of the best kind? i love how they are all constantly trying to trip each other up.

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52

It depends where you start listening. If the episodes you’re listening to now have multiple silly voices then you’re probably in the midst of one of the more plot-heavy stretches. The first year of the podcast is fairly episodic, mostly world-building. The first real storyline doesn’t get started until September of '14, then after that there’s a stretch of serious plot episodes every six to nine months. If you can, it’s worth going back to the beginning and starting there.

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53

Oh, cool, I tried to search to see if it’d been mentioned, but didn’t find your post. Cheers.

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54

how far along are you in it? i came in about a year after it started, and then plowed through everything i had missed and eventually got caught up. i think the current season is pretty uneven, like they have lost their way a little, but every so often they bring back an older character and it’s hilarious and worthwhile again. i’m too invested now to quit, haha – i roll my eyes at some things and grin with glee for other things, so i guess i’m with it until they end it.

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55

Ah, I just started with the current ones cuz that’s easier with my podcast software. Hmm… looks like a lot to catch up on then.

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56

oh, i don’t think you HAVE to listen to everything before to get it. but there are some older characters i really love, like Flower, and the Elf, and some others that haven’t been back (yet). i feel older episodes with them are worth listening to.

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57

Honestly just started, maybe 4 episodes in, but it was a nice surprise after getting a bit burnt out on various podcasts that were recommended to me; there’s a genre of ‘geek humor’ podcast that’s content to recycle movie quotes and say random things like “kittens of doom!” which some folks find hilarious but I’m not a fan of. The improv and writing in Magic Tavern is definitely a step up from those. And yes, I loved Flower.

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58

Thats the family guy school of humour right?

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Sort of; Family Guy is more “say something random and pop culture related!” like making a Dukes of Hazard reference in the middle of a conversation about eggplant or something. Geek humor tends lazily recycle jokes that everyone knows, repeating well known catchphrases from Monty Python, Simpsons, etc, and falling back on references to pirates or adding “…of doooom!” to everything.

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60

Even though I’m not a manly man, I’ve been enjoying listening to a lot of episodes of the “Art of Manliness” recently.

http://www.artofmanliness.com/podcast/

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