Here are some new podcasts I've been listening to that I really recommend:
Lolita Podcast by @jamieloftusHELP is absolutely my podcast of 2020. Just doing something new and exciting with the podcast form. Part literary criticism, part personal narrative, part comedy, all really really smart and listenable.
It looks at the undeniable literary masterpiece of Lolita, the history and thought process behind Nabakov's writing. But more importantly, it looks at the undeniably toxic way that our culture has absorbed Lolita, in every era since its publishing.
whether you think Lolita is brilliant or you've always avoided it because it seemed gross, you should listen to Lolita Podcast
Next up is another literary criticism podcast. Just King Things is two guys reading every Stephen King work in order. And honestly I was skeptical of that premise. But the two hosts are extremely good at parsing text, and are unafraid to call out King's shortcomings.
I found it refreshing to hear someone talk through these texts both as foundational reads for many people of my generation, but also willing to really dive into why the writing works the way it does and also where it completely fails or is offensive.
finally I really enjoyed @atypicalartists's In Strange Woods. It's a fiction podcast about a teen who has disappeared into the woods, and his sister who he left behind. Part of me doesn't want to say the format it takes, because the reveal is so surprising & fun.
If you trust me, I encourage you to just start listening to In Strange Woods without reading the rest of this thread.
But if you want to know more before listening, here's what: it's a full on musical. Much of the story is told in song, and the songs are for the most part really really good. A traditional musical in a podcast can be really tricky, but I think they pulled it off very well
So that's: Lolita Podcast, Just King Things, and In Strange Woods. My new podcast recommendations. Enjoy!
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I am so proud to announce this new memoir co-written by @LadyBash and I called The First Ten Years: Two Sides of the Same Love Story. Out on May 11. It is available for pre-order right now, so please consider doing that.
In it, we take each of the ten years of our relationship and write about them without consulting the other person. The result is a single love story full of differently remembered moments and different feelings about the moments we do agree on.
It's also the story of ten very wild years, that saw us go from young and underemployed theater makers in the East Village, to touring stages all over the world and seeing places we never thought we'd see, to living in the woods and wondering what comes next.
The policy of the US government is that rich gamblers are not allowed to lose. If they win, they get 100% of the winnings, but if they lose, the US government always steps in to cover their losses (but not the losses of any regular people who get caught up in it)
A really radicalizing fact for my generation is that Obama could have done the exact same stimulus in 2009 but just called the cash given to the banks payment on underwater mortgages. Just that change in label would have prevent so much suffering, and his admin just...didn't.
Because the cash was a strings-free gift and not accounted against mortgages, the banks got to pocket that money AND foreclose on untold numbers of Americans. A completely preventable tragedy that the Obama admin actively chose not to prevent.
it's not so much that what the redditors did is good (playing casino games with people's jobs sucks), it's that they exposed that this is all the stock market is. the stock market is a casino and we are the chips that rich people play. they bet on our lives to get worse.
and the economic decisions that our government make overwhelmingly prioritizes these gamblers and their casino over any worker or small business in this country. they gave us $600 and injected literally trillions into the casino.
A thing that no one told me about being an author and that I've never seen brought up, but is very useful to know, is how the copy-editing process works.
Copy editors are wonderful people who save authors from looking stupid in a 1000 different ways. Be very thankful for them. BUT: they apply the same standards to every book, and they just don't know your book the way you do.
So it is very important, if you ever find yourself going through a copy editing process, to know your own voice. You have to know what you want the language of the book to sound like very confidently.
This is advice for artists that want to make a living with their art in our current society. If you just make art for you, or you're happy to work a day job until the socialist revolution, that's great, and this doesn't apply.
Learn the basics of business. Learn how to make a spreadsheet. Learn how to make a budget. Learn how your taxes work. You're not above understanding the business you're in, which is selling your art.
Learn the basics of sales, or other similar face to face professional interaction. Learn how to do small talk, and match people's energy. You don't have to become smooth, but you do have to become professional and polite.