ReCOWmendations -- March 2023: The Podcast Issue!

Podcasts have been inspiring and expanding my mind this month. Here's 3 that I highly reCOWmend

Welcome back for a new month of pop culture picks!

I haven’t been very diverse the past month in terms of experiencing great media. Meaning, TV and movies have taken a backseat to music and podcasts. So I thought I’d keep this month’s ReCOWmendations to the realm of podcasts.

I apologize for appearing to only include Spotify links to the episodes I discuss below. But I will also hyperlink to a website where you can stream these shows directly as well.

I actually listen to my podcasts on the Pocket Casts App, which is free and which I will gladly promote right here. I haven’t been able to figure out how to get a cool playable button to add to these posts from Pocket Casts though, hence the evil Spotify button.

My disclaimer:

I know most of us don’t lack for options for media that we can be entertained and inspired by. But I do love sharing the things I discover that make me incredibly happy, so maybe one of them will peak your interest and add more happiness into your life.

One of the top reasons I love podcasts is that I get to listen to smart, wise and talented people talk about a plethora of subject matter. It often doesn’t matter what the topic is, I’m going to learn something and perhaps see the world in a new way. From an angle I hadn’t considered before.

Ezra Klein is one of those smart people. He can be provocative (though decidedly liberal, Ezra will often turn the table on the Democrats or invite a conservative to guest host). He can be overly erudite (and use words like erudite when they aren’t necessary). He sometimes has incorrect preconceived notions.

But he does his homework, knows how to listen to his guests and asks excellent follow up questions of his guests.

The topics covered on The Ezra Klein Show can range from the Silicon Valley Bank collapse, to the A.I. revolution, to alternative concepts of time, to the art of noticing.

The last one in particular was profoundly inspiring to me. Ezra interviews poet Jane Hirshfield and the conversation opened my eyes to the power of poetry in a way I hadn’t quite felt before.

Here’s an excerpt from the episode’s show notes:

Hirshfield is the award-winning author of many books of poetry and two illuminating essay collections about what poetry does to us and in the world: “Nine Gates: Entering the Mind of Poetry” and “Ten Windows: How Great Poems Transform the World.” Her book “Ledger” is one I gift to people most often. Hirshfield’s true talent as a poet is her singular ability to imbue the ordinary, the invisible, the forgotten with a sense of majesty and wonder. Her work is littered with lines that force you to stop, to slow down, to notice what you might have missed or overlooked.

Hirshfield’s work also raises some profound questions: What does it mean to grapple with our complicity in the climate crisis? Where does the self end and the rest of the world begin? How do we learn to desire what we previously dreaded or despised?

I’ve been addicted to Hidden Brain for the past six months. As each episode averages around 45-50 minutes, I can usually get one in each morning while I walk my dog Bernie.

The shows explores the way our brains work, not just from a hard science perspective but also through social science, psychological, historical and societal lenses. Really, the show, hosted by Shankar Vedantam, doesn’t close its “mind” to any methodology that has a sound basis.

Choosing an episode to feature was tough. I could have thrown a dart at a board listing the most recent 25 episodes and been happy with the choice. But the one on how our beliefs shape our reality was especially illuminating.

Here’s a sample of other topics that were recently explored:

• How to Complain Productively

• Persuasion

• Happiness 2.0: Cultivating Your Purpose

• Revealing Your Unconscious

Host and Producer Shankar Vendantam is about as good as it gets in terms of narrating and guiding the conversations in each episode. His knowledge base is only surpassed by his curiosity. He never lectures or panders, and explains often complex concepts in accessible and relatable ways. I learn so much from the show and it has truly made me think deeply about my own tendencies and habits.

I’d be curious what Shankar would say about my obsession with his podcast. I imagine there’s already an episode on our tendency to want to binge media. Or if not, that episode will be coming any day now.

I couldn’t do a podcast post without a music-themed podcast, could I?

I listen to a lot of music podcasts. But the one I’ve been jazzed by most recently is Broken Record.

I will admit right off the bat that the show can be hit and miss. Part of this is that the show is co-hosted. Not “hosted at the same time” co-hosted (though that does occur on occasion), but separately. One episode will be led by Rick Rubin, the next by Malcolm Gladwell, the next by Bruce Headlam and then others by Justin Richmond. I probably don’t need to explain who Rubin and Gladwell are but I’ve wiki-linked all their names if you wanna know more about them. Headlam was the media editor for the NY Times (among many other titles), and Richmond is a producer and journalist who worked on several shows on NPR including Tavis Smiley and Morning Edition.

They all have different strengths as interviewers and hosts, but if you can get past some oddities of delivery (Gladwell in particular stands out), the content of the episodes is strong.

Rick Rubin in particular is a unique host and I enjoyed his recent two-part interview with Iggy Pop.

Other guests on Broken Record include:

• Neil Young

• Usher

• Nilüfer Yanya

• Sharon Van Etten

• Tom Jones

And so many more. I listened to a two-part interview with Jacob Collier recently and it really blew me away. I knew nothing about this young British musical prodigy.

I wrote about another Pushkin Industries podcast a few months ago: Talk Easy with Sam Fragoso. Click the hyperlink to read that post and learn why the show deserved its own newsletter. Spoiler: I still listen to every single Talk Easy episode. I have converted a few friends to becoming Fragoso-heads, and if you haven’t followed suit yet, what are you waiting for?

Are there any podcasts you’d like to recommend to your fellow worm-heads? Something off the beaten path that has especially pleased your brain?

Have you listened to the ones I’ve mentioned above?

Leave your picks in the comments! Let’s dialogue!

And happy spring to you in the northern hemisphere and happy fall for you southern hemisphericals.

-Steve