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Latif Nasser Profile picture
@latifnasser
Sep 26, 2020 • 9 tweets • 4 min read • Read on X
This year has been unrelentingly bleak, so I want to tell you a real-life Cinderella story that started almost exactly ten years ago today. (A THREAD)
In the summer of 2010, I was a lowly graduate student studying the history of science. I loved it, but I knew I didn't have a future as an academic. Not least because every paper I submitted to scholarly journals got rejected.
So one day, I cold-emailed my favorite podcast, @Radiolab. I had no experience in radio or podcasting or documentary or music or journalism. But I figured, what the heck, I'm gonna tell them how much I love them. And also maybe ... pitch them some history of science stories??
Surprisingly, then-Executive Producer @ramenshopradio answered my email and agreed to get on the phone to hear out my story ideas. On the first phone call, I rapid-fired about six different ideas at her. "Nah, none of those work," she said, "but keep pitching us."
So I did. I pitched Radiolab a lot. Dozens of story pitches. All rejected, one by one. Until finally, FINALLY, one story got through. It was about a praying robot monk. wnycstudios.org/podcasts/radio…
Cut to 2014. I finished grad school and took a full-time staff job at Radiolab. My dream job. Working with an A-team of brilliant weirdos. 🤩 Achievement unlocked. I couldn't imagine anything better until ...
This morning, when they announced that I'm the new co-host of @Radiolab. It's surreal. In one decade, I went from being a random fan with ZERO experience, to being a professional journalist and one of the three lead voices of one of the biggest podcasts in the world. 🤯
My takeaway from all of this? Dream dreams. Email the people you admire. And don't let rejection get to you, because if you love something, you'll put up with initially sucking at it before you get good.
A profound thank you to my podcast fairy-godmothers - @ramenshopradio, @SorenWheeler, @JadAbumrad, @rkrulwich, @radiosuzie, & @jamisonjyork. I'm as excited as the day I wrote that cold email. I'll do my best not to disappoint. And hopefully do some fairygodmothering of my own.

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More from @latifnasser

Latif Nasser Profile picture
Oct 30
The US election is nigh. If you RAGE that it’s down to a few votes in a few swing states, I've got a story for you.

A political drama about just how close we came to abolishing the Electoral College. And BONUS, it’ll explain why we still use this old relic to pick Presidents.🧵 A black and white cropped photo of Senator Birch Bayh standing on a vertical version of the Radiolab logo with an electoral college map projected on the back. A more standard Radiolab logo in the top left.
Story starts with a US Senator named Birch Bayh (rhymes with Guy).

When he started his term in 1963, he was young, dashing, ambitious, “the Kennedy of the Midwest.” His only problem was … Senator Birch Bayh closeup photo, clean shaven, short black hair, blue eyes, looks like he is listening attentively
Senator Birch Bayh in short sleeve white dress shirt with a tie and black pants, standing with one foot perched up on a crate, speaking into a megaphone to a crowd of protesters.
No one took him seriously. At a time when everything was based on seniority, Bayh had no power at all.

Until one day, longtime Senator Estes Kefauver had a fatal heart attack on the floor of the Senate. Now Kefauver happened to be … newspaper headline: Kefauver Dies of Ruptured Artery with a black and white photo of Kefauver in a tux
Read 33 tweets
Latif Nasser Profile picture
Jan 26
Last January, I noticed something peculiar in my 2yo’s bedroom that - after a year of obsessive reporting - led me to a profound cosmic revelation about what’s even possible in our universe. A 🧵. The moon with a rocket landed in its eye. The most iconic shot of 1902 sci-fi film Le Voyage Dans La Lune.
So about a year ago, I was putting my little guy to bed in his crib and I noticed a strange detail on the solar system poster up on his wall … A solar system poster. The Sun in the middle as an orange ball. All the planets orbiting with their respective moons. At the bottom the planets arranged in order of distance from the sun. And the title of the poster THE SOLAR SYSTEM in all caps.
Venus had a moon called Zoozve. Huh, I thought. Never heard of that. Close up of the poster. You see a bit of the sun on the right. Mercury going around the sun. Venus going around the sun behind it. Next to Venus a dot with a label: ZOOZVE.
Read 34 tweets
Latif Nasser Profile picture
Apr 15, 2023
Last year, a coworker randomly asked me to hand-deliver an antique violin across the country. I said yes, because why not. I had no idea what I was getting into, and now I need your help. A 🧵
Last May, I went to a work retreat in upstate NY and a sound designer on our show @Jeremy_s_Bloom pulled me aside and asked me to do him a favor. Bearded, red-hatted sound d...Latif and Jeremy standing, ...
@Jeremy_s_Bloom He had heard through a friend (@DerekBeckvold) about an Afghan violinist who had just escaped from Kabul and settled in LA (where I live). Problem was the guy had to leave his violin behind.

Jeremy had a beautiful 110-year-old violin in his closet he used to play. A beautiful old violin in a...
Read 24 tweets
Latif Nasser Profile picture
Jan 11, 2022
2022 is off to a rocky start. Will it be worse than 2021? And was that one worse than 2020? If you, like me, are sick of comparing and complaining about the last few years, here’s a fun exercise: name the worst year ever. As in, THE worst year to be a human on earth. A 🧵.
Some obvious contenders: 1347 (Black Death). 1918 (Spanish Flu). 1929 (Great Depression). But the one that convinced me was a year I had NEVER EVEN HEARD OF BEFORE.
The year? 536 AD. The catastrophe that took place then goes by many names: The Mystery Cloud. The Dust Veil. Or my personal favorite: The Fimbulwinter. (I’ll explain that last one, I promise.)
Read 37 tweets
Latif Nasser Profile picture
Jan 11, 2022
Today is 20 years since the first prisoners landed at Guantanamo Bay. The US government chose the site bc they thought neither American nor international law applied. They built it quickly and in a rudimentary way because it was meant to be temporary. /1
On the flight to Guantanamo from Kandahar Airport, the prisoners wore shackles, blindfolds, ear muffs, many were even tranquilized, because military folks were afraid they would get loose and "chew through a hydraulics cable" and take the plane down. /2
Turns out the vast majority of the 780 people who were ultimately held there were "innocent of any substantial wrongdoing," and that the "US leadership became aware of this ... very early on." (That's not me saying that, that's the former Chief of Staff to Colin Powell.) /3
Read 5 tweets
Latif Nasser Profile picture
May 4, 2021
A tiny story about how tragedy ripples thru culture and history. /1
#OTD: May 4, 1970. Ohio National Guard fires on unarmed Kent State student protestors, killing four.  Among the crowd: art student Jerry Casale. He knew two of the students who got killed. /2
Over the next few months, the campus is locked down. Casale and fellow student protester Bob Lewis channel their anguish into a weird new style of art. The central idea: everything is going to hell. People and society seem to be getting worse, to be devolving. /3
Read 6 tweets

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