Thread by @collopy

I spend more time listening to podcasts than experiencing any other medium. Here’s what I’ve been listening to this year, in no particular order.

@thelapod is a witty, astute weekly discussion of LA politics. It’s engaged with the city’s transformational social movements as well as with our elected officials’ approaches to transit, homelessness, and police brutality—and their bribery scandals.

This year, the hosts have started two more shows: Thirty Mile Zone revisits movies set in LA with particular attention to their geography and how they represent specific places. The Ten interviews local figures about their experiences of the city in ten questions.

And LA Podcast’s Zoom-based holiday party was a delight, showing the city’s activist and creative energy in a December I’m otherwise finding very dark and sad.

@ripcorpdotbiz is a new show about business failures from the great @lifewinning. So far: @blockbuster and Enron’s 2000 internet video-on-demand effort, and the fall and rise of “It’s a Wonderful Life.”

@atpfm is the one podcast I listen to in the “ludicrously long, all dudes talking about computers” genre. It’s comfort food for me, but also a big part of how I understand the—mostly Apple—machines I spend a lot of my time thinking with.

On the same topic, we’re one episode from the end of @bleedsixcolors’ 20 Macs for 2020, an episode each on the most interesting Mac models of the past 36 years. It’s been a really well-produced review of the history of the platform and the design space of personal computing.

Untitled @kondabolubros Podcast is the one podcast I listen to the “hanging out with hilarious brothers” genre. It’s had 31 occasional episodes in eight years (and four tweets?), but each is worth the wait.

@harikondabolu’s more regularly scheduled podcast is @PoliticReActive, with @wkamaubell. It’s mostly interviews with left-liberal politicians, organizers, and fellow performers. The recent @DaveedDiggs episode was especially wonderful for its “advanced-level Oakland shit.”

I’ve listened to all of @fakedansavage’s Savage Lovecast over 14 years, so part of it now is guessing Dan’s advice & whether I’ll agree. About a month ago, I meant to call in to disagree with his guest’s advice for a Jewish woman observing niddah, but I didn’t actually do it.…

@fakedansavage In that call, I would have recommended @TJOT_Podcast, The Joy of Text, which features progressive Orthodox discussions of sex and sexuality. For me, outside but sometimes near that world, it’s a way to think Jewishly with some generous and observant (in both senses) hosts.

The other advice podcast I listen to is @daniel_m_lavery’s Dear Prudence. This year has seen more questions about trans experiences from both trans and cis people, so while the show is, like life, “a rich tapestry,” it has become more of a space for thinking about gender for me.

@daniel_m_lavery Speaking of which, I’ve only listened to a few episodes of @tuckwoodstock’s Gender Reveal, but their interview with Daniel Lavery about transition and the roles of trans memoir was fantastic: gender.libsyn.com/episode-71-dan…

It’s appearing on plenty of more prominent lists, but, after a massive movement to end white supremacy, @yourewrongabout has been my second favorite thing about this year. I listened to 90 episodes in a couple months over the summer.

@yourewrongabout The effort to actually understand recent history and not just experience it flowing past us or look back with nostalgia, and doing that with wit and humor and a search for justice, is really enjoyable and edifying.

@yourewrongabout Both hosts started new podcasts this year. I haven’t listened to all of @whyaredads because I feel like I have to have seen the movies, but @MaintenancePod is a great You’re Wrong About for health and nutrition.

@yourewrongabout @whyaredads @MaintenancePod One theme of this emerging podcast empire is that both public understanding and expert knowledge are often bullshit which collapses under scrutiny.

@yourewrongabout @whyaredads @MaintenancePod Most debunking, even and especially under the banner of “skepticism,” props up scientific expertise; You’re Wrong About and Maintenance Phase are genuinely skeptical, honoring the hard work of research but not the mere labeling of something as science.

@yourewrongabout @whyaredads @MaintenancePod The Maintenance Phase episode on the President’s Physical Fitness Test and the (latest!) You’re Wrong About episode on the Stanford Prison Experiment are good examples of this genuine skepticism, as are any episodes involving police, like the DC Snipers ones.

@yourewrongabout @whyaredads @MaintenancePod Another key theme, which is right on the surface, is feminism, and particularly at attention to and affection for women who have been judged much more harshly in the public imagination than the men around them who often did more harm.

@yourewrongabout @whyaredads @MaintenancePod One thing I’m saying here, then, is that these are really great public humanities projects and those of us doing that kind of work should learn from them.

@TheWarOnCars is partly about bike and other mobility advocacy, and partly about how dangerous and destructive cars actually are—one of those key truths at the center of our society which we pretend isn’t in order to get through our days.

@TheWarOnCars They’ve often focused this year on the car as a political weapon, but they also have room for other truths, usually also about cars; their interview with historian Gretchen Sorin about the car as a tool for Black liberation is particularly worth a listen: thewaroncars.org/2020/05/08/dri…

@kristianiaclark’s The Uncertain Hour is about the contingent world in which public policy is made and remakes the world. The first seasons were on welfare, regulation, & the War on Drugs. This year’s was on work, quarantine, unemployment, housing, & homelessness in a pandemic.

@kristianiaclark I think the first three seasons were stronger for being produced more deliberately rather than in a moment of crisis, and would recommend them first, particularly season 3, which traces the roles of government in drug policy from crack to opioids.

This weekend, I listened to @jamieloftusHELP’s Lolita Podcast. It’s great cultural history, exploring how Nabokov’s novel has been interpreted in adaptations to film, stage, and other media, & what these rather drastic deviations tell us about cultural acceptance of pedophilia.

@jamieloftusHELP I listened to Loftus’ My Year in Mensa earlier this year, & it was funny & insightful about the white supremacy of many self-congratulatory “smart people.” Lolita Podcast is tighter, & it might just be my preference for history over ethnography, but I’m more excited about it.

I don’t find @allinwithchris or any TV news appealing, but @chrislhayes’ interview podcast Why Is This Happening? is exactly the kind of deliberative, thoughtful conversation which daily media aren’t. #WITHPod

@chrislhayes Hayes takes both liberal and radical ideas seriously, and seems to enjoy that he has listeners across that spectrum. He’s both a tough and friendly interviewer, and occasionally brings in his knowledge of philosophy of science in unexpected ways. #WITHPod

It’s also on plenty of more prominent best podcast lists, but @NPRCodeSwitch is really great “view from somewhere” journalism, documenting what race and racism are now in America from distinct and clear perspectives.

One recent development is official TV show podcasts. @MarcEvanJackson hosts those for @nbcthegoodplace (RIP) & @nbcbrooklyn99. They’re mostly interviews with those who make the show, from writers & cast to locations & effects, & worth listening to if you’re watching the shows.

I’ve also listened to official podcasts for @watchmen and @LovecraftHBO this year, which have been more about close readings of individual episodes than making-of conversations. They’re blurring the line with fan podcasts, doing the same sort of thing but with greater access.

On @LovecraftHBO, I also listened to R & R in Lovecraft Country, which is also episode-by-episodes. It’s great at contextualizing the show in the weird and horror traditions, as well as in its historical settings.

Slow Burn has revisited Nixon & Clinton’s presidential scandals & the murders of Tupac Shakur & the Notorious B.I.G., with details that are little remembered or weren’t known then. This season, @josh_levin used David Duke’s career to explore the evolution of white supremacy.

@josh_levin It’s timely recent history, in the era of alt-right figures embodying variants of David Duke’s image as KKK grand wizard turned besuited politician.

I also listened to the first few episodes of @idsgpod, about the current fascist right. Their research and analysis is good, but the limited editing makes it a difficult listen, with a looseness about quoting fascist speech which often feels uncomfortable and unnecessary to me.

The investigative @InTheDarkAPM covered the repeated Mississippi murder trials of Curtis Flowers in 2018 & 2019, bringing attention to the case which recently resulted in charges being dismissed. It consistently shows how policing and prosecution fails to produce justice.

@InTheDarkAPM This year, they also covered “Coronavirus in the Delta,” Mississippi churches, prisons, hospitals, and college football during a pandemic.

@intercepted brings the better, antiauthoritarian side of @theintercept’s journalism to weekly podcast format. It’s mostly interviews, with commentary by @jeremyscahill. Each episode sets the tone by starting with a gonzo sound collage sketch.

@pchh has gone from weekly to biweekly (in 2017) to daily (this year). For me these have been negative changes, making the discussions feel brisker and less connected to each other. But they remain often insightful collective reviews of film, television, music, and literature.

I’ve only listened to a couple episodes of @caltechletters’ Biosphere so far. Its conversations among biology grade students offer a fly-on-the-wall experience which is great if you, like me, study biology from the outside and are curious how researchers talk to each other.

Like many organizations, @datasociety releases lectures as a podcast. I’ve only listened to a few, but it’s a good way to hear from scholars about their new contributions in the area.

Jill Lepore’s The Last Archive uses a frame of historicizing “our current fake news, post-truth moment” to tell intriguing, lushly produced stories from Lepore’s research. It’s fantastic, even if I’m not really convinced our current relationship with truth is that exceptional.

I Only Listen to the @mountain_goats is track-by-track conversations between @PlanetofFinks and John Darnielle, as much about ethics and aesthetics as songwriting and creativity. I started listening to it because I thought I should be a Mountain Goats fan, and it made me one.

I just finished @DollyParton’s America by @JadAbumrad about a week ago. Highlights include visits to Parton’s childhood home—preserved in a parallel private Dollywood—and to the brilliant students in @lynn_sacco_’s course after which the podcast is named.

@DollyParton @JadAbumrad @lynn_sacco_ I’m not sure what to make of Parton’s apparent surprise at @nadinehubbs’ (beautiful!) interpretation of “Jolene” as a queer song, since I’ve found that a pretty common reading. Whether Parton wrote it as queer or not, I suppose the question is whether she’s being disingenuous.

@DollyParton @JadAbumrad @lynn_sacco_ @nadinehubbs As further reading, I recommend @Dr_JessieW’s “Living with Dolly Parton,” which comes to more critical conclusions on whiteness in Parton’s work, and also explores the labor relations of Dollywood: longreads.com/2018/10/16/liv…

@praddenkeefe’s Wind of Change follows the lead that some CIA staff say their agency wrote the eponymous 1990 Scorpions power ballad into an exploration of cultural diplomacy, espionage, and drug trafficking. It’s gripping if somewhat frustrating historical journalism.

I’ve built up quite a backlog of @thedigradio episodes, but can nonetheless recommend them as deep, artful interviews, from an unapologetically socialist perspective, with a wide range of left scholars, journalists, artists, politicians, and organizers.

I only listen to occasional episodes of pop culture interview show @Bullseye, but I really recommend skimming through the list and listening to the interviewees you’re interested in; my enjoyment usually depends on how much I care about the individual’s work.

@Bullseye I didn’t listen to it this year, but I’ll still recommend The Turnaround, Bullseye host @JesseThorn’s 2017 series of interviews with interviewers about interviewing. It’s full of insights about narrative and dialogue, all the good stuff about so many of the shows on this list.

Similarly, I only listen to selected episodes of (competing?) pop culture interview show @WTFpod, but those episodes are often pretty great—including another opportunity to listen to @harikondabolu.

@GoodOnePodcast focuses each interview with a comedian on a single joke, providing a sort of behind the scenes perspective on how they’re made and how they work. I only listen to the comedians I already like, but one could use it to learn about comedy as a whole.

I started listening to a couple of literary podcasts, @mobydickenergy and @zunguzungu and @gerrycanavan’s Grad School Vonnegut. I loved the first episodes of each, but felt like I should be reading along (rereading for Moby Dick), so I haven’t gone beyond those yet.

The beginning of @mobydickenergy was particularly compelling for its sense of the bizarreness and illegibility of the book, its violations of the norms of bookness then and now.

https://twitter.com/collopy/status/1328955903589175303

Grad School Vonnegut is similarly attuned to this question of why we (who?) judge some books to be good, and how Vonnegut is both an author who one doesn’t read or discuss in grad school in English and one whose work yields a lot when analyzed academically.

@jennydeluxe & @Wesley_Morris’ Still Processing is Black, queer, sometimes very online, sometimes Afrofuturist cultural criticism. I learn a lot from them.

I listen to many of these podcasts in order to hear people talk through experiences different from mine. For the (similarly named) @Stillbuff, conversations about teenagedom between three sisters across an age gap, that difference is being or having been a teenage girl.

How to Survive the End of the World by sisters Autumn Brown and @adriennemaree is as complex and heavy as the brilliant title suggests. Conversations inspired by Afrofuturism, Octavia Butler, and magic about survival, diaspora, apocalypse, science fiction, and liberation.

In my Caltech capacity, I’ve been listening to everything about rocket builder and occultist Jack Parsons. That has pulled me into another thread of @erik_davis’ work on magic and technology, including his podcast Expanding Mind, which had a Parsons episode on October 18, 2018.

@erik_davis Expanding Mind is another interview podcast for which I recommend skimming the back catalog and listening to people and topics of interest.

@erik_davis Davis has also appeared on a couple episodes of Occulture, including 1 of its 2 about Parsons. The show’s interview subjects range from practitioners of magic to analysts of occult imagery in popular culture. For many, these are the same thing: mass culture is a form of magic.

On media and magic, I particularly recommend the Occulture interviews with @rushkoff, whose graphic novel Aleister & Adolf is a semi-fictional exploration of the occult origins of propaganda which he glosses provocatively in a February 22, 2017 episode.

@rushkoff Rushkoff’s own interview podcast, @teamhumanshow, is another where I recommend skimming through the back catalog & listening to people of interest: scholars, authors, & organizers who are challenging the centralizing systems of corporation & computer in favor of messy humanity.

@rushkoff @teamhumanshow The topics really range across Rushkoff’s interests, from counterculture and psychedelia to the internet and cooperative economics.

@psymposia’s Plus Three is discussions of the current “psychedelic renaissance” among four participants critical of the tightening grip of capitalism. It’s a really lucid window into conferences and discussions which are otherwise pretty opaque.

@trustissuespod was over before I ever learned of it from @yourewrongabout, but I’ve been enjoying its playful discussion of contemporary conspiracy theories, recorded in 2017 and 2018.

The worst-sounding podcast on this list is from one of the biggest companies: @maro254 literally records the @wizards_magic Magic: The Gathering Drive to Work Podcast while driving, which I do not condone.

@maro254 @wizards_magic I expect the audience willing to get past the audio quality is mostly people obsessed with the game, but Rosewater, its head designer, also talks about how it applies more general patterns of game design, about how he builds narrative into games, and about the business of Magic.

@maro254 @wizards_magic He’s done, um, 796 episodes, so I recommend that even the obsessed be selective. I’ve found topics like color philosophy and the rise and fall of different game mechanics most interesting, and commentary on tournaments and champions least interesting.

Although I have quite a backlog now, @longformpodcast has long been one of my favorites. Interviews with journalists about their work, from the stories they tell to how much they get paid.

@RonanFarrow’s Catch and Kill Podcast is similarly a journalistic behind-the-scenes story, but it’s the story of Farrow’s own reporting on Harvey Weinstein.

@blowbackpod revisits the forgotten and unknown developments of the US’ 2003 invasion of Iraq with both a sense of historical contingency and a searing anger at the hubris and violence of American leaders.

My favorite podcast discovery of the last few months is the beautiful, provocative, and sadly shortlived @DiasporaPodcast, about what Zionism is, what it means to Jews who reject it, and what it means to live in diaspora. It’s compassionate and has wonderful music.

Finally, 2020 was the last year of the great, wide-ranging, personal and political queer @NancyPodcast. I miss it, and if you listen to all of it then you can too.

That’s my 2020 in podcasts. 58 titles with 88 hosts. 31 are women and 57 are men—so my podcast listening is more male than my Twitter reading, for example. At least 17 are people of color, so up to 80% are white. Things to be aware of in ones media consumption.

My order wasn’t exactly arbitrary. For ongoing podcasts on which I’m caught up, I have @OvercastFM maintain a prioritized playlist. I started with those podcasts in the order I listen to them, which is something like ranking by dopamine levels.

As I mentioned, I don’t listen to every episode of all of these, but I do listen to a lot of podcasts. How? Partly by putting headphones in pretty much whenever I’m not reading, writing, talking, or watching: while cooking, cleaning, biking—just one earbud so I can hear traffic!

I also listen with playback sped up to 1.5×, and with @OvercastFM’s smart speed feature, which drops pauses—so it’s usually actually at about 1.7×. This has its pros and cons—I slow back down to 1× for podcasts about music—but if you love as many podcasts as I do, I recommend it.