Neil Armstrong Sets Straight an Internet Truther Who Accused Him of Faking the Moon Landing (2000)
Image via Wikimedia Commons
People have been graduating from college this year who are as old as the role of internet truther. It is a venerable hobby (some might call it a cult) leading increasing numbers of people to bizarre conclusions drawn from dubious evidence proffered by spurious sources; people convinced that some wild allegation or other must be true because they saw it on the Internet, shared by people they knew and liked.
Twenty years ago, one pioneering truther wrote Mr. Neil Armstrong to put him in his place about that bugbear, the faked moon landing. The author of the letter, a Mr. Whitman, identifies himself as a “teacher of young children” charged with “a duty to tell them history as it truly happened, and not a pack of lies and deceit.” His letter shows some difficulty with grammar, and even more with critical thinking and standards of evidence.
Mr. Whitman makes his accusations with certainty and smugness. “Perhaps you are totally unaware,” he writes, “of all the evidence circulating the globe via the Internet,” which he then summarizes.
He also sends Neil Armstrong—an astronaut who either walked on the Moon or engaged in perhaps the greatest conspiracy in history—a URL, “to see for yourself how ridiculous the Moon landing claim looks 30 years on.” Whitman sent Armstrong the letter on the astronaut’s 70th birthday.
Armstrong’s response, via Letters of Note, can be read in full above. Perhaps Mr. Whitman learned something from the exchange—or had a moment of clarity about his methods of investigation. One can hope. In any case, Armstrong’s unsparing reply serves as a template for responding—should someone be so inclined—to internet truthers armed with wild conspiracy theories 20 years later. These letters have been collected in A Reluctant Icon: Letters to Neil Armstrong.
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Josh Jones is a writer and musician based in Durham, NC. Follow him at @jdmagness
Read More...When John Maynard Keynes Predicted a 15-Hour Workweek “in a Hundred Year’s Time” (1930)
Image by IMF, via Wikimedia Commons
That which stands first, and is most to be desired by all happy, honest and healthy-minded men, is ease with dignity.
—Cicero, Pro Sestio, XLV., 98
There is much to admire in Roman ideas about the use of leisure time, what Michel Foucault referred to as “the care of the self.” The Latin words for work and leisure themselves give us a sense of what should have priority in life. Negotium, or business, is a negation, with the literal meaning of “the nonexistence of leisure” (otium). The English word—considered in its parts as “busy-ness”—doesn’t really sound much more appealing.
The notion that everyone, not just a propertied elite, however, should be entitled to leisure time came about only relatively recently—mostly advocated by radicals and trade unionists. In the U.S., anarchists and striking workers in Chicago fought against police in 1886 during the Haymarket Affair to achieve “Eight Hours for Work, Eight Hours for Rest, Eight Hours for What We Will.” In 1912, women-led immigrant strikers chanted “Bread and Roses” in Lawrence, Massachusetts, proclaiming their right to more than bare survival.
After the achievement of the 40-hour workweek, paid vacations, and other labor concessions, many influential figures believed that egalitarian access to leisure would only increase in the 20th century. Among them was economist John Maynard Keynes, who forecast in 1930 that labor-saving technologies might lead to a 15-hour workweek when his grandchildren came of age. Indeed, he titles his essay, “Economic Possibility for our Grandchildren.”
Writing at the start of the Great Depression, Keynes finds reason for optimism. “We are suffering,” he writes, “not from the rheumatics of old age, but from the growing-pains of over-rapid changes, from the painfulness of readjustment between one economic period and another.” Keynes’ essay concerns what he calls the “economic problem,” which is not only the problem of mass unemployment but also, in his estimation, the ability of capitalism to provide a decent standard of living for everyone. He did not see its failure to do so as evidence of a more fundamental dysfunction:
[T]his is only a temporary phase of maladjustment. All this means in the long run that mankind is solving its economic problem. I would predict that the standard of life in progressive countries one hundred years hence will be between four and eight times as high as it is to-day. There would be nothing surprising in this even in the light of our present knowledge. It would not be foolish to contemplate the possibility of afar greater progress still.
Many economists shared Keynes’ optimism through the 1970s, “a time when revolutionary change still seemed like an imminent possibility,” writes John Quiggan, professor of economics at the University of Queensland.” Utopian ideas were everywhere, exemplified by the Situationist slogan of 1968: ‘Be realistic. Demand the impossible.’” Cult figures like Buckminster Fuller explained, as had Keynes decades earlier, how technology could free everyone from the tyranny of the labor market and the scourge of “useless jobs.”
Keynes and others made a “case for leisure, in the sense of free time to use as we please, as opposed to idleness”—a distinction that draws from the ancient philosophers. “But Keynes offered something quite new: the idea that leisure could be an option for all, not merely for an aristocratic minority.” He was, obviously, mistaken. “At least in the English-speaking world,” Quiggan writes, “the seemingly inevitable progress towards shorter working hours has halted. For many workers it has gone into reverse.”
That has certainly been the case for the majority of workers in the U.S., at least before the novel coronavirus led to mass layoffs and reduced hours. What happened? For one thing, the ascension of neoliberal economics in the late 1970s, and the elections of Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher, began a long slow decline of organized labor. “Employers have had increasing desire for workers to work long hours,” says Juliet Schor, professor of sociology at Boston College. “And workers haven’t had the power to resist that upward pressure.”
Keynes’ predictions resonated with NPR’s David Kestenbaum, who interviewed some of Keynes’ descendants, the closest thing he had to grandchildren, in a short segment on Planet Money in 2015. One Keynes relation points out the irony that the man himself “died from working too hard.” How can those of us who aren’t globally famous economists help end the tyranny of overwork? Maybe a lot more striking workers making demands; maybe a universal basic income or something like Bhutan’s “gross domestic happiness” index?
Keynes may have erred in his predictions of the future (though he seems to have understood the needs of his moment well enough), but he may not have been wrong to view the economic turmoil of his time as a radical opportunity for utopian change and better living for everyone. Overturning the dire conditions of the present for our own grandchildren will require not only hard work, but the leisure to do some visionary futurist thinking. Read Keynes’ full essay here.
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Josh Jones is a writer and musician based in Durham, NC. Follow him at @jdmagness
Read More...After MLK’s Assassination, a Schoolteacher Conducted a Famous Experiment–“Blue Eyes/Brown Eyes”–to Teach Kids About Discrimination
Getting history across to young students is challenging enough, but what should a teacher do when actual history-making events happen on their watch? They have to be acknowledged, but to what extent do they have to be explained, even “taught”? Of the teachers who have turned history-in-the-making into a lesson, perhaps the most famous is Jane Elliott of Riceville, Iowa. On April 5, 1968, the day after Martin Luther King Jr.‘s assassination, she divided her classroom of third-graders along color lines: blue-eyed and brown-eyed. On the first day she granted the brown-eyed students such special privileges as desks in the front rows, second helpings at lunch, and five extra minutes of recess. The next day she reversed the situation, and the blue-eyed kids had the perks.
What brought serious attention to Elliott’s small-town classroom experiment was the resulting article in the Riceville Recorder, which reported some of what her students wrote in their assignments responding to the experience. The Associated Press picked up the article and soon Elliott received a call from The Tonight Show inviting her to come chat with Johnny Carson about her “Blue Eyes/Brown Eyes” exercise on national television.
“I didn’t know how this exercise would work,” Elliott tells Jimmy Fallon on the clip from the current Tonight Show at the top of the post. “If I had known how it would work, I probably wouldn’t have done it. If I had known that, after I did that exercise, I lost all my friends, no teacher would speak to me where they could be seen speaking to me, because it wasn’t good politics to be seen talking to the town’s only ‘N‑word lover.’ ”
Elliott’s family also experienced severe blowback from her sudden fame, but it didn’t stop her from furthering the clearly resonant idea she had devised. She continued to perform Blue Eyes/Brown Eyes in class: the third time, it was filmed and became the 1970 television documentary The Eye of the Storm. (Some of the language used by her students surely wouldn’t make it to the air today.) Fifteen years later, PBS’ Frontline reunited Elliott’s third-grade class of 1970 for its Emmy Award-winning episode A Class Divided, and a decade thereafter German filmmaker Bertram Verhaag would again film Elliott performing her signature exercise for the documentary Blue Eyed. In a variety of settings across America and the world, Elliott continues, in her late eighties, to make her point. It isn’t always well received, as she reveals in this Frontline follow-up interview, and at times has even drawn threats of violence. “I can be scared, but I won’t be scared to death,” she says. “Or, at my age, of death.”
via Boing Boing
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Based in Seoul, Colin Marshall writes and broadcasts on cities, language, and culture. His projects include the book The Stateless City: a Walk through 21st-Century Los Angeles and the video series The City in Cinema. Follow him on Twitter at @colinmarshall, on Facebook, or on Instagram.
Read More...An Anti-Racist Reading List: 20 Books Recommended by Open Culture Readers
You may have received an email from your favorite online retailer, your boss, university president, or the CEO of your bank: “It has come to our attention that racism is real, and it is really, really bad.” Opportunism is real too, but a significant number of individuals seem to have finally drawn the same conclusion and feel morally compelled to do something about an epidemic that has—very discriminately—killed tens of thousands of black, indigenous, and people of color in the U.S. through the unequal distribution of medical resources, and dozens more at the hands of the police and racist vigilantes. That’s only in the past three months.
But racism isn’t new; the current conflict has been on its way for a very long time. How long? Anti-racist scholar and activist Ibram X. Kendi, author of the National Book Award-Winning Stamped from the Beginning, would say from the country’s earliest settlement and enslavement of African people. “For nearly six centuries,” he writes, “antiracist ideas have been pitted against two kinds of racist ideas: segregationist and assimilationist,” Kendi wrote during the protests in Ferguson and other U.S. cities. At the time, antiracists were largely characterized in mainstream media as fringe agitators, naïve Gen‑Z neophytes, and possible foreign agents, not “real Americans.”
How things have changed in six years. Antiracism has become a default position, all of a sudden, for perhaps the first time in U.S. history, so much so that every company and institution has issued some sort of statement in support of Black Lives Matter, and everyone is collecting and sharing Anti-Racist Reading Lists, nearly all of which contain Kendi’s follow-up book, last year’s How to Be an Anti-Racist (which he discusses above with Brené Brown). How long this will last is anyone’s guess, but it is without a doubt a cultural sea change a long time in the making.
Kendi and White Fragility author Robin DiAngelo are the “mac daddies of the bunch” of recent antiracist authors, Lauren Michele Jackson writes at Vulture, and it’s become a crowded field as more and more Americans attempt to come to grips with a national history many of them are learning for the first time. As Kendi and Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones, creator of the 1619 project, discuss on Chris Hayes’ podcast at the top, the country’s past as it is taught to us and as it happened are two entirely different things. Antiracism has always recognized the vicious, ceaseless murder, disenfranchisement, and ransacking of black and brown people, and has pushed against the narratives that deny or excuse these acts.
Carol Anderson, author of White Rage, has given us one of the most raw, compelling, and exhaustively researched accounts of the violence of Reconstruction and the lynchings of the early 20th century. Above, she links the murder of 25-year-old Ahmaud Arbery and recent police killings to the shockingly brutal racism that followed the Civil War. Anderson’s book also routinely appears on suggested reading lists, and well it should. All of these scholars and authors have produced accessible work full of histories one might previously have only encountered in graduate-level college and university courses. It is essential information for people committed to overturning racist systems, which is exactly why it has been left out of the textbooks.
For all the urgency of education, the anti-racist booklist is an ambiguous kind of currency. Jackson wonders what function it serves, exactly. Reading lists can be an erudite brush-off, a polite way of saying, “go away and read a book.” They can be a way to signal mastery and work for online merit badges rather than real beneficial action. They can “feel good to solicit, good to mete out, but someone at some point has to get down to the business of reading. And there, between giving and receiving, lies a great gulf. No one can quite account for what happens. Reading, hopefully, but you never can be sure.”
Jackson’s critique of the anti-racist reading list is worth reading before engaging with lists of books, recent and historical, that oppose racist ideas, policies, and systems. What are we looking for in such lists? And can we really make good use of them? She makes a case for why fiction, poetry, and drama should not appear, since they deserve the status of art, not as instrumental works of social change. “It is unfair,” Jackson writes, “to beg other literature and other authors, many of them dead, to do this sort of work for someone,” when the work they set out to do is primarily creative. Ignoring genre “reinforces an already pernicious literary divide that books written by or about minorities are for educational purposes” only.
Despite many potential blind spots, despite the fact that “our customarily wan attention spans have been decimated” by pandemic and protest, the reading “has to get done,” Jackson wearily admits. Anti-racist booklists must circulate. And readers must make critical judgments about which books to read and what to take away from them, since we’re given the equivalent of a syllabus without a class or an instructor. We trust that our readers can find their way and will make a good faith effort to do the reading. There won’t be a graded exam; the test is far more consequential than that.
We solicited an anti-racist reading list on Twitter and chose the books below submitted by our readers. Since there’s no such thing as a definitive list, and different kinds of readers have different needs, we include other collections of readings lists here, including “41 Children’s Books to Support Conversations on Race, Racism, and Resistance.” You’ll find an anti-racist reading list on Twitter, here, compiled by doctoral researcher Victoria Alexander, and a list on LinkedIn entitled “Why White People Stay Silent on Racism, and What to Read First,” from organizational psychologist Adam Grant.
If this is overwhelming but you feel you must start to engage with the history and theory of anti-racism, don’t despair or buy a pile of books you know you can’t read right now. All of the most prominent anti-racist authors have been in high demand for interviews. “There are snappier places to glean the long-story-short of America, like podcasts, if it took someone this long to care,” writes Jackson, or if, like so many millions of other stressed out, angry, grieving, out-of-work Americans, you’re simply too burned out to crack another book. But if you’re willing and able to dig in, see our reader-submitted list below and suggest other titles you’d recommend in the comments. If you prefer audiobooks, many of these texts also exist as audiobooks on Audible. Get details on Audible’s free trial here.
Between the World and Me—Ta-Nehisi Coates: Hailed by Toni Morrison as “required reading,” a bold and personal literary exploration of America’s racial history by “the most important essayist in a generation and a writer who changed the national political conversation about race” (Rolling Stone)
Biased: Uncovering the Hidden Prejudice That Shapes What We See, Think, and Do—Jennifer L. Eberhardt PhD: How do we talk about bias? How do we address racial disparities and inequities? What role do our institutions play in creating, maintaining, and magnifying those inequities? What role do we play? With a perspective that is at once scientific, investigative, and informed by personal experience, Dr. Jennifer Eberhardt offers us the language and courage we need to face one of the biggest and most troubling issues of our time. She exposes racial bias at all levels of society—in our neighborhoods, schools, workplaces, and criminal justice system. Yet she also offers us tools to address it.
Black Like Me—John Howard Griffin: The history-making classic about crossing the line in America’s segregated south. The Atlanta Journal & Constitution calls it “One of the deepest, most penetrating documents yet set down on the racial question.”
How To Be An Antiracist — Ibram X. Kendi: “What do you do after you have written Stamped From the Beginning, an award-winning history of racist ideas? … If you’re Ibram X. Kendi, you craft another stunner of a book.… What emerges from these insights is the most courageous book to date on the problem of race in the Western mind, a confessional of self-examination that may, in fact, be our best chance to free ourselves from our national nightmare.”—The New York Times
I Can’t Breathe: A Killing on Bay Street—Matt Tiabbi: A work of riveting literary journalism that explores the roots and repercussions of the infamous killing of Eric Garner by the New York City police.
Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption—Bryan Stevenson: “Every bit as moving as To Kill a Mockingbird, and in some ways more so … a searing indictment of American criminal justice and a stirring testament to the salvation that fighting for the vulnerable sometimes yields.”—David Cole, The New York Review of Books
On the Courthouse Lawn: Confronting the Legacy of Lynching in the Twenty-First Century—Sherrilyn A. Ifill: “This pathbreaking book by Sherrilyn Ifill shows how the ugliest messages from our racial history and politics can hide openly in the public square. Her unflinching memory restores hope for the common good.”—Taylor Branch, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Parting the Waters
So You Want to Talk About Race—Ijeoma Oluo: “Ijeoma Oluo’s [book] is a welcome gift to us all — a critical offering during a moment when the hard work of social transformation is hampered by the inability of anyone who benefits from systemic racism to reckon with its costs. Oluo’s mandate is clear and powerful: change will not come unless we are brave enough to name and remove the many forces at work strangling freedom. Racial supremacy is but one of those forces.” ―Darnell L. Moore, author of No Ashes in the Fire
Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America—Ibram X. Kendi: The National Book Award winning history of how racist ideas were created, spread, and deeply rooted in American society. In this deeply researched and fast-moving narrative, Kendi chronicles the entire story of anti-black racist ideas and their staggering power over the course of American history. He uses the life stories of five major American intellectuals to drive this history: Puritan minister Cotton Mather, Thomas Jefferson, abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison, W.E.B. Du Bois, and legendary activist Angela Davis.
Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You—Jason Reynolds and Ibram X. Kendi: “Readers who want to truly understand how deeply embedded racism is in the very fabric of the U.S., its history, and its systems will come away educated and enlightened. Worthy of inclusion in every home and in curricula and libraries everywhere. Impressive and much needed.” ―Kirkus
Sundown Towns—James Loewen: In this groundbreaking work, sociologist James W. Loewen brings to light decades of hidden racial exclusion in America. In a sweeping analysis of American residential patterns, Loewen uncovers the thousands of “sundown towns”—almost exclusively white towns where it was an unspoken rule that blacks weren’t welcome—that cropped up throughout the twentieth century, most of them located outside of the South.
The Autobiography of Malcolm X: As Told to Alex Haley: In the searing pages of this classic 1964 autobiography, Malcolm X outlines the lies and limitations of the American Dream, along with the inherent racism in a society that denies its nonwhite citizens the opportunity to dream.
The Color of Law—Richard Rothstein: Rothstein argues with exacting precision and fascinating insight how segregation in America—the incessant kind that continues to dog our major cities and has contributed to so much recent social strife—is the byproduct of explicit government policies at the local, state, and federal levels.
The Fire Next Time—James Baldwin: “Baldwin’s bestseller from 1963, which commemorated the centennial of the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation, still resonates powerfully today. The late author’s book consists of two essays that examine racial injustice in America, including his own experience growing up as a black teenager in Harlem.”
The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness —Michelle Alexander: The New Jim Crow “took the academy and the streets by storm, and forced the nation to reconsider the systems that allowed for blatant discrimination.”—The Chronicle of Higher Education
The Other by Wes Moore: “This is a fascinating book about two young men from Baltimore with the same name. One, the author, became a Rhodes Scholar while the other landed in jail. It’s as much a meditation on circumstance and luck as it is a commentary on how successful our society is in managing those who are on the precipice, both socially and economically.”
The Person You Mean to Be: How Good People Fight Bias—Dolly Chugh: An inspiring guide from Dolly Chugh, an award-winning social psychologist at the New York University Stern School of Business, on how to confront difficult issues including sexism, racism, inequality, and injustice so that you can make the world (and yourself) better.
The Warmth of Other Suns—Isabel Wilkerson: In this epic, beautifully written masterwork, Pulitzer Prize–winning author Isabel Wilkerson chronicles one of the great untold stories of American history: the decades-long migration of black citizens who fled the South for northern and western cities, in search of a better life.
White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism—Robin DiAngelo: The New York Times best-selling book exploring the counterproductive reactions white people have when their assumptions about race are challenged, and how these reactions maintain racial inequality.
White Rage—Carol Anderson: “White Rage is a riveting and disturbing history that begins with Reconstruction and lays bare the efforts of whites in the South and North alike to prevent emancipated black people from achieving economic independence, civil and political rights, personal safety, and economic opportunity.” — The Nation
Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria?—Beverly Daniel Tatum: Walk into any racially mixed high school and you will see Black, White, and Latino youth clustered in their own groups. Is this self-segregation a problem to address or a coping strategy? Beverly Daniel Tatum, a renowned authority on the psychology of racism, argues that straight talk about our racial identities is essential if we are serious about enabling communication across racial and ethnic divides. This fully revised edition is essential reading for anyone seeking to understand the dynamics of race in America.
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Josh Jones is a writer and musician based in Durham, NC. Follow him at @jdmagness
Read More...Sir Isaac Newton’s Cure for the Plague: Powdered Toad Vomit Lozenges (1669)
Nearly 300 years after his death, Isaac Newton lives on as a byword for genius. As a polymath whose domain encompassed astronomy, physics, and mathematics, he mastered and expanded the domain of scientific knowledge available to 17th-century Europe. But if we remember him as a one-man engine of the scientific revolution, we should also bear in mind his contrasting intellectual frailties: Newton was no financial genius, as evidenced by his loss of $3 million in the South Sea Bubble of 1720, and though his inquiries into alchemy may be fun to re-enact today, we wonder now why he didn’t see them as a dead end even then. And then we have his forays into medicine, one of which involves toad vomit.
“Two unpublished pages of Newton’s notes on Jan Baptist van Helmont’s 1667 book on plague, De Peste, are to be auctioned online by Bonham’s this week,” reported The Guardian’s Alison Flood earlier this month. “Newton had been a student at Trinity College, Cambridge, when the university closed as a precaution against the bubonic plague, which killed 100,000 people in London in 1665 and 1666. When the polymath returned to Cambridge in 1667, he began to study the work of Van Helmont,” a famous Belgian physician. While some of the conclusions Newton drew from his study of Van Helmont’s work remain practical today — “places infected with the plague are to be avoided,” for instance — his suggested cures may not hold up to scrutiny.
In the “best” plague treatment observed by Newton, “a toad suspended by the legs in a chimney for three days, which at last vomited up earth with various insects in it, on to a dish of yellow wax, and shortly after died. Combining powdered toad with the excretions and serum made into lozenges and worn about the affected area drove away the contagion and drew out the poison.” Learning how, exactly, Newton found his way to such a procedure will inspire enthusiastic collectors to bid on these papers, which remain on the Bonham’s online auction block until June 10th. Newton may, as we recently noted here on Open Culture, have had some of his most groundbreaking ideas during the era of the plague, but even a mind as formidable as his by its very nature missed a few times, sometimes wildly, for every hit. Yet as the world’s scientific-industrial complex races to develop a vaccine for COVID-19, we might consider what unorthodox solutions have gone overlooked in our Newton-less era.
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Based in Seoul, Colin Marshall writes and broadcasts on cities, language, and culture. His projects include the book The Stateless City: a Walk through 21st-Century Los Angeles and the video series The City in Cinema. Follow him on Twitter at @colinmarshall, on Facebook, or on Instagram.
Read More...Watch Free Films by African American Filmmakers in the Criterion Collection … and the New Civil Rights Film, Just Mercy
The Michael B. Jordan- and Jaime Foxx-starring Just Mercy had “the misfortune of hitting theaters at the same time as Clemency, a more daring and better film set on a prison’s Death Row,” wrote Odie Henderson in a December 2019 review at RogerEbert.com. Reading the statement now feels like looking through the wrong end of a telescope (“hitting theaters?”). None of the movie’s middling reviews could have predicted the kinds of misfortunes that lay just around the corner.
If Just Mercy is your kind of distraction, you can watch it free of charge through June. Henderson’s review gives me the impression it may not be equal to the moment.
Since the days of ’50s-era message pictures, the majority of films about African-American suffering have always been calibrated the way “Just Mercy” is, with an eye to not offending White viewers with anything remotely resembling Black anger. We can be beaten, raped, enslaved, shot for no reason by police, victimized by a justice system rigged to disfavor us or any other number of real-world things that can befall us, yet God help us if a character is pissed off about this. Instead, we get to be noble, to hold on to His unchanging hand while that tireless Black lady goes “hmmm-HMMMMM!” on the soundtrack to symbolize our suffering. There’s a lot of “hmmm-HMMMMM”-ing in this movie, so much so that I had to resist laughing.
Only one critic’s opinion, but if such pious, boilerplate films haven’t changed anything since the 50s they probably aren’t about to now.
The Criterion Collection offers a refreshing alternative for representations of the black experience on film, as envisioned by black filmmakers, writers, actors, producers, etc. “This has been a powerfully emotional time,” the Collection writes, citing a string of high-profile, well-documented racist threats and murders that lead up to the breaking point:
Black Lives Matter. The anguish and fury unleashed all across the country are rooted in centuries of dehumanization and death. This pattern must stop. We support the protesters who have taken to the streets to demand justice, and we share their hopes. We are committed to fighting systemic racism.
The Collection has established an “employee-guided fund with a $25,000 initial contribution and an ongoing $5000 monthly commitment to support organizations fighting racism in America.”
More to the point of their central mission, they’re allowing visitors to the Criterion Channel to stream “works by early pioneers of African American Cinema” as well as those by current filmmakers. These are films that can be difficult to find outside of arthouse cinemas and college screening rooms. “Titles streaming for free,” notes IndieWire, “include Julie Dash’s Daughters of the Dust, Maya Angelou’s Down in the Delta, Shirley Clarke’s Portrait of Jason, Agnès Varda’s Black Panthers, Kathleen Collins’ Losing Ground, and many more.”
Also streaming free on the site is “contemporary work by Khalik Allah and Leilah Weinraub; and documentary portraits of the black experience by white filmmakers Les Blank and Shierley Clarke,” Criterion writes, noting that they’ve “taken down the paywall on as many of these titles as we can.”
This announcement will have little effect on people committed to a particularly vicious way of seeing things, but it offers a rare opportunity to watch a diverse collection of enlightening, often bracing, often deeply moving films, stretching over a century, for free. This body of work offers new perspectives on the past and wider understanding of film history. They may just be what you need to get through June. Check out the Criterion Channel collections here.
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Josh Jones is a writer and musician based in Durham, NC. Follow him at @jdmagness
Read More...When Afrobeat Legend Fela Kuti Collaborated with Cream Drummer Ginger Baker
At the end of the 60s, superstar drummer and angriest man in rock Ginger Baker was on the verge of collapse. Strung out on heroin, deeply grieving Jimi Hendrix’s death, and alienated from his former Cream and Blind Faith bandmates, he needed a new direction. He found it in Nigeria, where he decamped after driving a Range Rover from Algeria across the Sahara Desert. (A madcap adventure captured in the 1971 documentary Ginger Baker in Africa). Once in Lagos, Baker started jamming with Afrobeat legend Fela Kuti.
The meeting of these two musical forces of nature produced a suite of recordings. “Baker’s drumming appeared on several albums alongside the Nigerian king of afrobeat,” writes Okay Africa, “including Why Black Man Dey Suffer (1971), Live! (1972) and Stratavarious (1972).”
Kuti’s longtime drummer and arranger—and inventor of the “afrobeat”—Tony Allen was highly impressed with Baker’s range, and Nigerians, as Jay Bulger writes at Rolling Stone, loved him.
Arriving in Lagos, Nigeria, Baker set up west Africa’s first 16-track recording studio and formed a lifelong friendship with Afrobeat star Fela Kuti. Performing with the musical icon for crowds of 150,000, Baker became famous throughout Nigeria as the “Oyinbo” (White) Drummer. “If Ginger wants to play jazz, he plays jazz,” says the Nigerian drummer Tony Allen. “If he wants to play rock, he starts Cream. If he wants to play Afrobeat, he moves to Nigeria. Whatever he plays, he brings his own pulse and sound. He understands the African beat more than any other Westerner.”
High praise, but Baker didn’t seek the spotlight, his enormous ego offstage notwithstanding. He trained and he learned. Always a collaborative player, by his own description, Baker adapted himself to the needs of the music. In Kuti’s band, he found a well-drilled ensemble and in Fela himself, a kindred spirit with a personality as grandiose and captivating as his own, though Baker’s particular charms were maybe best appreciated at a distance. Hear the loose, sprawling Live! above, with annotations telling the story of the two legends in brief.
Baker and Kuti first met in the early 60s in London when Fela studied at Trinity College of Music. Once they finally connected musically, the sound was explosive, thanks to Baker’s recording studio and Fela’s New Afrika Shrine, the performance space where the live magic happened night after night. Then there are the war stories—not only sex, drugs, and rock and roll, but also the actual Nigerian Army trying to shut down Fela’s compound, which he called the Kalakuta Republic, and which housed his 27 backup singers and his studio. The bandleader was beaten and jailed over and over, and the commune was finally burned to the ground in 1977.
The video above from YouTuber Bandsplaining gives an entertaining synopsis of the Baker/Fela story, though beware, as several commenters have pointed out, it contains several inaccuracies, including at the outset the suggestion that Fela has only recently received widespread recognition. This, of course, is totally false—Latin American musicians have celebrated his fusion of African polyrhythms, big band funk, and psychedelic rock for decades; in Nigeria and elsewhere in Africa, Fela was as big a musical god as Clapton in England, as well as a powerful spiritual and political symbol of Pan-African socialism; and in the US and UK, New Wave bands like Talking Heads made entire albums building on Fela’s inspiration.
One might think of Baker’s collaboration with Fela Kuti and the Afrika ‘70 as an early international supergroup, of the kind that would become commonplace in later decades. But Baker didn’t use Fela’s music as a backdrop for his own brand. He was thrilled just to be there in the band.
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Josh Jones is a writer and musician based in Durham, NC. Follow him at @jdmagness.
Read More...This Is What an 1869 MIT Entrance Exam Looks Like: Could You Have Passed the Test?
The late 19th Century was the time of Charles Darwin and James Clerk Maxwell, of Thomas Edison and Alexander Graham Bell. It was a golden age of science and technology. So you might wonder how hard it was to get into one of the top technical universities in that era.
The answer, according to this video? Not very hard.
At least that was the case in 1869 at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, or MIT, as the young Australian science and math teacher Toby Hendy explains on her excellent YouTube channel, Tibees. MIT was brand new and desperate for tuition revenue in 1869, so the object of the test wasn’t to whittle a massive field of applicants down to a manageable size. It was simply to make sure that incoming students could handle the work.
MIT opened in 1865, just after the end of the Civil War. The idea was to create a European-style polytechnic university to meet the demands of an increasingly industrial economy. The original campus was in Boston, across the Charles River from its current location in Cambridge. Only 15 students signed up in 1865. Tuition was $100 for the whole year. There was no formal entrance test. According to an article from the school’s Archives and Special Collections,
The “conditions for admission” section of MIT’s catalogue for 1865–66 indicates that candidates for admission as first year students must be at least sixteen years old and must give satisfactory evidence “by examination or otherwise” of a competent training in arithmetic, geometry, English grammar, geography, and the “rudiments of French.” Rapid and legible handwriting was also stressed as being “particularly important.” By 1869 the handwriting requirement and French had been dropped, but algebra had been added and students needed to pass a qualifying exam in the required subject areas. An ancillary effect was to protect unqualified students from disappointment and professors from wasting their time.
A couple of years earlier, in 1867, the MIT Executive Committee reported that faculty members had felt it necessary to ask parents of “some incompetent and inattentive students to withdraw them from the school, wishing to spare them the mortification of an examination which it was certain they could not pass.”
Nowadays, the students who make it into MIT have average SAT and ACT scores in the 99th percentile. Of 21,312 first-year applicants hoping to join the Class of 2023, only 1,427 made it. That’s an admission rate of 6.7 percent. What a difference 150 years can make!
To take the 1869 entrance examination in English, Algebra, Geometry and Arithmetic, and to see the correct answers, visit this cached article from the MIT website.
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Read More...Stream 15 Audio Drama Podcasts & Get Through COVID-19: Features Rami Malek, Catherine Keener, Tim Robbins & More
At my home now, we constantly tell stories: to distract, soothe, entertain—telling and retelling, collaboratively authoring over meals, listening to a ton of story podcasts. These activities took up a good part of the day before all hell broke loose and schools shut down. Now they guide us from morning to night as we try to imagine other worlds, better worlds, than the one we’re living in at present. We are painting on the walls of our cave, so to speak, with brave and fearful images, while outside, confusion sets in.
Lest anyone think this is kid stuff, it most assuredly is not. Narrative coherence seems particularly important for healthy human functioning. We may grow to appreciate greater levels of complexity and moral ambiguity, it’s true. But the desire to experience reality as something with arcs, rather than erratic and disturbing non-sequiturs, remains strong. Experimental fiction proves so unsettling because it defies acceptable notions of cause and consequence.
From the tales told by plague-displaced aristocrats in Boccaccio’s Decameron to the radio dramas that entertained families sheltering in place during the Blitz to our own podcast-saturated coronavirus media landscape…. Stories told well and often have a healing effect on the distressed psyches of those trapped in world-historical dramas. “While stories might not protect you from a virus,” writes Andre Spicer at New Statesman, “they can protect you from the ill feelings which epidemics generate.”
In addition to advice offered throughout history—by many of Boccaccio’s contemporaries, for example, who urged story and song to lift plague-weary spirits—“dozens of studies” by psychologists have shown “the impact storytelling has on our health.” Telling and hearing stories gives us language we may lack to describe experience. We can communicate and analyze painful emotions through metaphors and characterization, rather than too-personal confession. We can experience a sense of kinship with those who have felt similarly.
Perhaps this last function is most important in the midst of catastrophes that isolate people from each other. As reality refuses to conform to a sense of appropriate scope, as cartoonish villains destroy all proportion and probability, empathy fatigue can start to set in. Through the art of storytelling, we might learn we don’t have to share other people’s backgrounds, beliefs, and interests to understand their motivations and care about what happens to them.
We can also learn to start small, with just a few people, instead of the whole world. Short fiction brings unthinkable abstractions—the death tolls in wars and plagues—to a manageable emotional scale. Rather than showing us how we might defeat, avoid, or escape invisible antagonists like viral pandemics, stories illustrate how people can behave well or badly in extreme, inhuman circumstances.
Below, find a series of audio dramas, both fiction and non, in podcast form—many featuring celebrity voices, including Rami Malek, Catherine Keener, Tim Robbins & more—to help you in your journey through our narratively exhausting times. Parents and caregivers likely already find themselves immersed in stories much of the day. Yet adults, whether they’re raising kids or not, need storytime too—maybe especially when the stories we believed about the world stop making sense.
Alice Isn’t Dead — Apple — Spotify — Google — Web Site — A truck driver searches across America for the wife she had long assumed was dead. In the course of her search, she will encounter not-quite-human serial murderers, towns literally lost in time, and a conspiracy that goes way beyond one missing woman.
Blackout — Apple — Spotify — Google — Academy Award winner Rami Malek stars in this apocalyptic thriller as a small-town radio DJ fighting to protect his family and community after the power grid goes down nationwide, upending modern civilization.
LifeAfter/The Message — Apple — Spotify — Google — The Message and its sequel, LifeAfter, take listeners on journeys to the limits of technology. n The Message, an alien transmission from decades ago becomes an urgent puzzle with life or death consequences. In LifeAfter, Ross, a low level employee at the FBI, spends his days conversing online with his wife Charlie – who died eight months ago. But the technology behind this digital resurrection leads Ross down a dangerous path that threatens his job, his own life, and maybe even the world. Winner of the Cannes Gold Lion.
Homecoming — Apple — Spotify — Google — Homecoming centers on a caseworker at an experimental facility, her ambitious supervisor, and a soldier eager to rejoin civilian life — presented in an enigmatic collage of telephone calls, therapy sessions, and overheard conversations. Starring Catherine Keener, Oscar Isaac, David Schwimmer, David Cross, Amy Sedaris, Michael Cera, Mercedes Ruehl, Alia Shawkat, Chris Gethard, and Spike Jonze.
Limetown — Apple — Spotify — Google — Web Site — The premise: Ten years ago, over three hundred men, women and children disappeared from a small town in Tennessee, never to be heard from again. In this podcast, American Public Radio reporter Lia Haddock asks the question once more, “What happened to the people of Limetown?”
Motherhacker — Apple — Spotify — Google — Web Site — The plot: Bridget’s life is a series of dropped calls. With a gift for gab, an ex-husband in rehab, and down to her last dollar, Bridget’s life takes a desperate turn when she starts vishing over the phone for a shady identity theft ring in order to support her family.
Passenger List — Apple — Spotify — Google — Web Site — Atlantic Flight 702 has disappeared mid-flight between London and New York with 256 passengers on board. Kaitlin Le (Kelly Marie Tran), a college student whose twin brother vanished with the flight, is determined to uncover the truth.
Sandra — Apple — Spotify — Web Site — Co-stars Kristen Wiig, Alia Shawkat, and Ethan Hawke. Here’s the plot: Helen’s always dreamed of ditching her hometown, so when she lands a job at the company that makes Sandra, everyone’s favorite A.I., she figures it’s the next-best thing. But working behind the curtain isn’t quite the escape from reality that Helen expected.
The Angel of Vine — Apple — Spotify — Google — Web Site — A present day journalist uncovers the audio tapes of a 1950s private eye who cracked the greatest unsolved murder mystery Hollywood has ever known… and didn’t tell a soul. Starring Joe Manganiello, Alfred Molina, Constance Zimmer, Alan Tudyk, Camilla Luddington, and more.
The Bright Sessions — Apple — Spotify — Google — Web Site — A science fiction podcast that follows a group of therapy patients. But these are not your typical patients — each has a unique supernatural ability. The show documents their struggles and discoveries as well as the motivations of their mysterious therapist, Dr. Bright.
The Orbiting Human Circus — Apple — Spotify — Google — Discover a wondrously surreal world of magic, music, and mystery. This immersive, cinematic audio spectacle follows the adventures of a lonely, stage-struck janitor who is drawn into the larger-than-life universe of the Orbiting Human Circus, a fantastical, wildly popular radio show broadcast from the top of the Eiffel Tower. WNYC Studios presents a special director’s cut of this joyous, moving break from reality. Starring John Cameron Mitchell, Julian Koster, Tim Robbins, Drew Callander, Susannah Flood, and featuring Mandy Patinkin and Charlie Day.
The Truth — Apple — Spotify — Google — Web Site — The Truth makes movies for your ears. They’re short stories that are sometimes dark, sometimes funny, and always intriguing. Every story is different, but they all take you to unexpected places using only sound. If you’re new, some good starting places are: Silvia’s Blood, That’s Democracy, Moon Graffiti, Tape Delay, or whatever’s most recent. Listening with headphones is encouraged!
The Walk — Apple — Spotify — “Dystopian thriller, The Walk, is a tale of mistaken identity, terrorism, and a life-or-death mission to walk across Scotland. But the format of this story is — unusual. The Walk is an immersive fiction podcast, and the creators want you to listen to it while walking. It begins with a terrorist attack at a train station; you are the protagonist, known only as Walker, and the police think you’re a member of a shadowy terror group called The Burn.” “Author Naomi Alderman, whose latest novel was a bestseller called The Power, is the creator of The Walk.”
We’re Alive — Apple — Spotify — Google — An award-wining audio drama, originally released in podcast form. Its story follows a large group of survivors of a zombie apocalypse in downtown Los Angeles, California.
Wolf 359 — Apple — Spotify — Google — A science fiction podcast created by Gabriel Urbina. Following in the tradition of Golden Age radio dramas, Wolf 359 tells the story of a dysfunctional space station crew orbiting the star Wolf 359 on a deep space survey mission.
These podcasts can be found in the new collection, The 150 Best Podcasts to Enrich Your Mind.
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Josh Jones is a writer and musician based in Durham, NC. Follow him at @jdmagness
Read More...The 150 Best Podcasts to Enrich Your Mind
Feed your brain with great podcasts on art, music, history, philosophy, plus captivating true and imagined stories. This is a soft launch of a new page. If we’re missing important podcasts, please let us know here.
Art, Design & Fashion
99 Percent Invisible — Apple — Spotify — Google — Web Site — RSS — Design is everywhere in our lives, perhaps most importantly in the places where we’ve just stopped noticing. 99% Invisible is a weekly exploration of the process and power of design and architecture. From award winning producer Roman Mars.
A History of the World in 100 Objects — Apple — Spotify — Google — Web Site — This podcast uses the British Museum’s collection to tell an epic history of humanity spanning over two million years. This 100-part series is narrated by Neil MacGregor, Director of the British Museum, and was originally broadcast on BBC Radio 4.
Articles of Interest — Apple — Spotify — Google — Web Site — A show about what we wear. It’s a six-part series from 99% Invisible, looking at clothing.
ArtCurious — Apple — Spotify — Google — Web Site — Think art history is boring? Think again. It’s weird, funny, mysterious, enthralling, and liberating. Join us as we cover the strangest stories in art. Is the Mona Lisa fake? Did Van Gogh actually kill himself? And why were the Impressionists so great?
Art Detective — Apple — Spotify — Understanding art allows us to understand history: to pin it with images, and pepper it with the faces, colors, drama and expression of its time. This series is designed to give bite-sized insights into the world of Art History, bringing one image to life across 20 minutes through discussion with experts.
Art History for All — Apple — Spotify — Google — Web Site — From art lovers to art haters to art-is-just-okay-ers, Art History for All aims to get all kinds of people thinking about art and what it means to them. Each episode, Allyson Healey tackles a single work of art and its history and larger significance, always asking the question: so what? Art History for All takes you beyond the art historical canon and helps you find the way in which art speaks to you (even if it’s never spoken to you before).
Design Matters — Apple — Google — Web Site — Hosted by Debbie Millman, Design Matters is the world’s first podcast about design and an inquiry into the broader world of creative culture through wide-ranging conversations with designers, writers, artists, curators, musicians, and other luminaries of contemporary thought.
Dressed: The History of Fashion — Apple — Spotify — Google — Web Site — With over 7 billion people in the world, we all have one thing in common. Every day we all get dressed. Join Dressed as they explore the social and cultural histories behind the who, what, when of why we wear.
Last Seen — Apple — Spotify — Google — Web Site — RSS — It remains the most valuable — and confounding — art heist in history: 13 artworks stolen from Boston’s Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. Twenty-eight years later, not a single piece in a haul worth half a billion dollars has surfaced. The art, and the thieves who made off with it, remain at large. With first-ever interviews, unprecedented access, and more than a year of investigative reporting, “Last Seen” takes us into the biggest unsolved art heist in history. A joint production from WBUR and The Boston Globe. Read more here.
Raw Material — Apple — Spotify — Google — Web Site — RSS — Raw Material is an arts and culture podcast from the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA). Each season focuses on a different topic, featuring voices of artists working in all media and exploring the inspiration and stories behind modern and contemporary art.
Recording Artists — Apple — Spotify — Google — Web Site — What was it like to be a woman making art as the feminist and civil rights movements were transforming American society? In this first season of Recording Artists, from the Getty, this podcast uses archival interviews to explore the lives of six women artists—Alice Neel, Lee Krasner, Betye Saar, Helen Frankenthaler, Yoko Ono, and Eva Hesse. Read more here.
The Lonely Palette — Apple — Spotify — Google — Web Site — The Lonely Palette returns art history to the masses, one painting at a time. Each episode, host Tamar Avishai picks a painting du jour, interviews unsuspecting museum visitors in front of it, and then dives deeply into the object, the movement, the social context, and anything and everything else that will make it as neat to you as it is to her.
The Modern Art Notes Podcast — Apple — Spotify — Google — Web Site — RSS — A weekly, hour-long interview program featuring artists, historians, authors, curators and conservators. Pulitzer Prize-winning art critic Sebastian Smee called The MAN Podcast “one of the great archives of the art of our time.”
Audio Dramas
Alice Isn’t Dead — Apple — Spotify — Google — Web Site — A truck driver searches across America for the wife she had long assumed was dead. In the course of her search, she will encounter not-quite-human serial murderers, towns literally lost in time, and a conspiracy that goes way beyond one missing woman.
Asking for It — Apple — Spotify — Google — Web Site — A queer contemporary take of the Goldilocks tale: about love, music, and breaking the cycle of abuse. Goldie escapes a chaotic childhood only to go from a partner who starves her of love to a partner who nearly drowns her in it, before learning to be just right on her own. From CBC Podcasts and Mermaid Palace.
Blackout — Apple — Spotify — Google — Academy Award winner Rami Malek stars in this apocalyptic thriller as a small-town radio DJ fighting to protect his family and community after the power grid goes down nationwide, upending modern civilization.
LifeAfter/The Message — Apple — Spotify — Google — The Message and its sequel, LifeAfter, take listeners on journeys to the limits of technology. n The Message, an alien transmission from decades ago becomes an urgent puzzle with life or death consequences. In LifeAfter, Ross, a low level employee at the FBI, spends his days conversing online with his wife Charlie – who died eight months ago. But the technology behind this digital resurrection leads Ross down a dangerous path that threatens his job, his own life, and maybe even the world. Winner of the Cannes Gold Lion.
Homecoming — Apple — Spotify — Google — Homecoming centers on a caseworker at an experimental facility, her ambitious supervisor, and a soldier eager to rejoin civilian life — presented in an enigmatic collage of telephone calls, therapy sessions, and overheard conversations. Starring Catherine Keener, Oscar Isaac, David Schwimmer, David Cross, Amy Sedaris, Michael Cera, Mercedes Ruehl, Alia Shawkat, Chris Gethard, and Spike Jonze.
Limetown — Apple — Spotify — Google — Web Site — The premise: Ten years ago, over three hundred men, women and children disappeared from a small town in Tennessee, never to be heard from again. In this podcast, American Public Radio reporter Lia Haddock asks the question once more, “What happened to the people of Limetown?”
Motherhacker — Apple — Spotify — Google — Web Site — The plot: Bridget’s life is a series of dropped calls. With a gift for gab, an ex-husband in rehab, and down to her last dollar, Bridget’s life takes a desperate turn when she starts vishing over the phone for a shady identity theft ring in order to support her family.
Passenger List — Apple — Spotify — Google — Web Site — Atlantic Flight 702 has disappeared mid-flight between London and New York with 256 passengers on board. Kaitlin Le (Kelly Marie Tran), a college student whose twin brother vanished with the flight, is determined to uncover the truth.
Sandra — Apple — Spotify — Web Site — Co-stars Kristen Wiig, Alia Shawkat, and Ethan Hawke. Here’s the plot: Helen’s always dreamed of ditching her hometown, so when she lands a job at the company that makes Sandra, everyone’s favorite A.I., she figures it’s the next-best thing. But working behind the curtain isn’t quite the escape from reality that Helen expected.
The Angel of Vine — Apple — Spotify — Google — Web Site — A present day journalist uncovers the audio tapes of a 1950s private eye who cracked the greatest unsolved murder mystery Hollywood has ever known… and didn’t tell a soul. Starring Joe Manganiello, Alfred Molina, Constance Zimmer, Alan Tudyk, Camilla Luddington, and more.
The Bright Sessions — Apple — Spotify — Google — Web Site — A science fiction podcast that follows a group of therapy patients. But these are not your typical patients — each has a unique supernatural ability. The show documents their struggles and discoveries as well as the motivations of their mysterious therapist, Dr. Bright.
The Orbiting Human Circus — Apple — Spotify — Google — Discover a wondrously surreal world of magic, music, and mystery. This immersive, cinematic audio spectacle follows the adventures of a lonely, stage-struck janitor who is drawn into the larger-than-life universe of the Orbiting Human Circus, a fantastical, wildly popular radio show broadcast from the top of the Eiffel Tower. WNYC Studios presents a special director’s cut of this joyous, moving break from reality. Starring John Cameron Mitchell, Julian Koster, Tim Robbins, Drew Callander, Susannah Flood, and featuring Mandy Patinkin and Charlie Day.
The Truth — Apple — Spotify — Google — Web Site — The Truth makes movies for your ears. They’re short stories that are sometimes dark, sometimes funny, and always intriguing. Every story is different, but they all take you to unexpected places using only sound. If you’re new, some good starting places are: Silvia’s Blood, That’s Democracy, Moon Graffiti, Tape Delay, or whatever’s most recent. Listening with headphones is encouraged!
The Walk — Apple — Spotify — “Dystopian thriller, The Walk, is a tale of mistaken identity, terrorism, and a life-or-death mission to walk across Scotland. But the format of this story is — unusual. The Walk is an immersive fiction podcast, and the creators want you to listen to it while walking. It begins with a terrorist attack at a train station; you are the protagonist, known only as Walker, and the police think you’re a member of a shadowy terror group called The Burn.” “Author Naomi Alderman, whose latest novel was a bestseller called The Power, is the creator of The Walk.”
We’re Alive — Apple — Spotify — Google — An award-wining audio drama, originally released in podcast form. Its story follows a large group of survivors of a zombie apocalypse in downtown Los Angeles, California.
Welcome to Night Vale — Apple — Spotify — Google — Web Site — Twice-monthly community updates for the small desert town of Night Vale, where every conspiracy theory is true. Turn on your radio and hide. Never listened before? It’s an ongoing radio show. Start with the current episode, and you’ll catch on in no time.
Wolf 359 — Apple — Spotify — Google — A science fiction podcast created by Gabriel Urbina. Following in the tradition of Golden Age radio dramas, Wolf 359 tells the story of a dysfunctional space station crew orbiting the star Wolf 359 on a deep space survey mission.
Audio Reads: Fiction & Non-Fiction
LeVar Burton Reads — Apple — Spotify — Google — Web Site — The best short fiction, handpicked by the best voice in podcasting. In every episode, host LeVar Burton (Roots, Reading Rainbow, Star Trek) invites you to take a break from your daily life, and dive into a great story. LeVar’s narration blends with gorgeous soundscapes to bring stories by Neil Gaiman, Haruki Murakami, Octavia Butler, Ray Bradbury and more to life. So, if you’re ready, let’s take a deep breath.
New Yorker Fiction Podcast — Apple — Web Site — This podcast features readings of classic fiction published in The New Yorker.
Selected Shorts — Apple — Spotify — Google — Web Site — RSS — Great actors read great fiction in front of a live audience.
Books & Language
A Way with Words — Apple — Spotify — Google — Web Site — A fun and funny radio show and podcast about language. Co-hosts Martha Barnette and Grant Barrett talk with callers from around the world about linguistics, slang, new words, jokes, riddles, word games, grammar, old sayings, word origins, regional dialects, family expressions, books, literature, folklore, and speaking and writing well.
Lexicon Valley - Apple — Spotify — RSS — A show about language, from pet peeves, syntax, and etymology to neurolinguistics and the death of languages. Hosted by linguist John McWhorter.
Literature and History — Apple — Spotify — Google — Web Site — A podcast covering Anglophone literature and its roots, from ancient times to the present! Each episode covers an influential work of world literature, featuring summaries of the texts, historical analysis of the cultures that produced them, and some original music and goofiness thrown in to keep you entertained.
The Allusionist — Apple — Spotify — Google — Web Site — The Allusionist scratches the surface of why we say the things we say. English is a big messy mutt of a language, formed by military invasion after military invasion, plus countless tiny idiosyncratic decisions made by its users along the way. The Allusionist is the latest from award-winning host Helen Zaltzman. Based in London, UK.
The History of English Podcast — Apple — Spotify — Google — A chronological history of the English language examined through the lens of historical events that shaped the development and spread of the language from the Eurasian steppe to the entire world.
The Penguin Podcast — Apple — Spotify — Google — The Penguin Podcast features conversations with some our of leading authors and creative thinkers, as we seek to understand how they write and where their ideas come from. Guests bring to the interview a handful of objects that have inspired their work. Recent guests include Noam Chomsky, Paul McCartney, William Gibson, Arundhati Roy and more.
Ideas
Against the Rules with Michael Lewis — Apple — Spotify — Google — Web Site — Journalist and bestselling author Michael Lewis (Liar’s Poker, Moneyball) takes a searing look at what’s happened to fairness. It feels like there’s less of it every day—whether it comes to lending practices, college admissions, professional sports, or psychological well-being. Who are the people trying to level the playing field, and are they making an impact? Lewis interviews referees (Season 1) and coaches (Season 2) from many walks of life, bringing his trademark insight and wry humor to their stories of (in)equality today.
Akimbo — Apple — Spotify — Google — Akimbo is an ancient word, from the bend in the river or the bend in an archer’s bow. It’s become a symbol for strength, a posture of possibility, the idea that when we stand tall, arms bent, looking right at it, we can make a difference. Seth Godin’s Akimbo is a podcast about our culture and about how we can change it. About seeing what’s happening and choosing to do something. The culture is real, but it can be changed. You can bend it.
Benjamen Walker’s Theory of Everything — Apple — Spotify — Google — Web Site — Theory of Everything plunges listeners into a whirl of journalism, fiction, art, interviews, and the occasional exploding pipe dream. Host Benjamen Walker connects the dots in a hyper-connected world, featuring conversations with philosophers, friends, and the occasional too-good-to-be-real guest.
Complexity — Apple — Google — Spotify — Web Site — RSS — Far-reaching conversations with a worldwide network of scientists and mathematicians, philosophers and artists developing new frameworks to explain our universe’s deepest mysteries. Created by the Santa Fe Institute.
Entitled Opinions — Apple — Google — Web Site — Entitled Opinions is a literary talk show on Stanford University Radio, KZSU, in which Professor Robert Harrison interviews guests about issues that range from literature and philosophy to politics and sports. Read more here.
Flash Forward — Apple — Spotify — Google — Web Site — RSS — A show about possible (and not so possible) future scenarios. What would the warranty on a sex robot look like? How would diplomacy work if we couldn’t lie? Hosted and produced by award winning science journalist Rose Eveleth, each episode combines audio drama and journalism to go deep on potential tomorrows, and uncovers what those futures might really be like.
Freakonomics Radio — Apple — Spotify — Google — Web Site — RSS — Discover the hidden side of everything with Stephen J. Dubner, co-author of the Freakonomics books. Each week, Freakonomics Radio tells you things you always thought you knew (but didn’t) and things you never thought you wanted to know (but do) — from the economics of sleep to how to become great at just about anything. Dubner speaks with Nobel laureates and provocateurs, intellectuals and entrepreneurs, and various other underachievers.
Fresh Air — Apple — Spotify — Google — Web Site — RSS — Fresh Air from WHYY, the Peabody Award-winning weekday magazine of contemporary arts and issues, is one of public radio’s most popular programs. Hosted by Terry Gross, the show features intimate conversations with today’s biggest luminaries.
Here’s the Thing — Apple — Spotify — Google — Web Site — Alec Baldwin takes listeners into the lives of artists, policy makers and performers. Alec sidesteps the predictable by going inside the dressing rooms, apartments, and offices of people we want to understand better: Ira Glass, Patti Smith, David Brooks, Roz Chast, Chris Rock and others.
Hidden Brain — Apple — Spotify — Google — Web Site — RSS — NPR’s Shankar Vedantam uses science and storytelling to reveal the unconscious patterns that drive human behavior, shape our choices and direct our relationships.
Imaginary Worlds — Apple — Spotify — Google — Web Site — SoundCloud — A bi-weekly podcast about science fiction and other fantasy genres. Host Eric Molinsky talks with novelists, screenwriters, comic book artists, filmmakers, and game designers about their craft of creating fictional worlds. The show also looks at the fan experience, exploring what makes us suspend our disbelief, and what happens when that spell is broken.
In Our Time - Apple — Spotify — Web Site — In Our Time is a live BBC radio discussion series exploring the history of ideas, presented by Melvyn Bragg since October 1998. It is one of BBC Radio 4’s most successful discussion programs, acknowledged to have “transformed the landscape for serious ideas at peak listening time.’” Read more here.
Intelligence Squared — Apple — Spotify — Web Site — The world’s leading forum for debate and intelligent discussion. Live and online we take you to the heart of the issues that matter, in the company of some of the world’s sharpest minds and most exciting orators.
Longform — Apple — Spotify — Google — Web Site — Interviews with writers, journalists, filmmakers, and podcasters about how they do their work. Hosted by Aaron Lammer, Max Linsky, and Evan Ratliff.
Making Sense Podcast — Apple — Spotify — Web Site — Join Sam Harris—neuroscientist, philosopher, and best-selling author—as he explores some of the most important questions about the human mind, society, and current events.
On Being — Apple — Spotify — Google — Web Site — Groundbreaking Peabody Award-winning conversation about the big questions of meaning — spiritual inquiry, science, social healing, and the arts. Each week a new discovery about the immensity of our lives. Hosted by Krista Tippett.
Revisionist History — Apple — Spotify — Web Site — RSS — Malcolm Gladwell’s journey through the overlooked and the misunderstood. Every episode re-examines something from the past—an event, a person, an idea, even a song—and asks whether we got it right the first time.
Radiolab — Apple — Spotify — Web Site — RSS — A two-time Peabody Award-winner, Radiolab is an investigation told through sounds and stories, and centered around one big idea. In the Radiolab world, information sounds like music and science and culture collide. Hosted by Jad Abumrad and Robert Krulwich, the show is designed for listeners who demand skepticism, but appreciate wonder.
Sean Carroll’s Mindscape — Apple — Spotify — Web Site — RSS — Ever wanted to know how music affects your brain, what quantum mechanics really is, or how black holes work? Do you wonder why you get emotional each time you see a certain movie, or how on earth video games are designed? Then you’ve come to the right place. Each week, Sean Carroll will host conversations with some of the most interesting thinkers in the world. From neuroscientists and engineers to authors and television producers, Sean and his guests talk about the biggest ideas in science, philosophy, culture and much more.
Solvable — Apple — Spotify — Google — RSS — Solvable showcases the world’s most innovative thinkers and their proposed solutions to the world’s most daunting problems. The interviews, conducted by journalists like Malcolm Gladwell and Jacob Weisberg, will launch a dialogue that both acknowledges the complexity of the issues while inspiring hope that the problems are, in fact, solvable
TED Radio Hour — Apple — Spotify — Web Site — TED Radio Hour investigates the biggest questions of our time with the help of the world’s greatest thinkers. Can we preserve our humanity in the digital age? Where does creativity come from? And what’s the secret to living longer? In each episode, host Manoush Zomorodi explores a big idea through a series of TED Talks and original interviews, inspiring us to learn more about the world, our communities, and most importantly, ourselves.
The Joy of X — Apple — Spotify — Web Site — Hosted by Steven Strogatz, The Joy of X podcast opens a window into the inner worlds of top-tier scientists and mathematicians while shining light on universal themes like creativity, collaboration or navigating professional challenges.
The New Yorker Radio Hour — Apple — Spotify — Web Site — David Remnick is joined by The New Yorker’s award-winning writers, editors and artists to present a weekly mix of profiles, storytelling, and insightful conversations about the issues that matter.
The Wild — Apple — Spotify — Google — Web Site — Chris Morgan takes listeners around the world to Italy, Germany and his own backyard of the Pacific Northwest to explore the beauty and wonder of the outdoors and its inhabitants. From beavers to wolves to grizzly bears we experience up close the resilient power of nature and our relationship with it.
WTF — Apple — Spotify — Web Site — RSS — Marc Maron welcomes comedians, actors, directors, writers, authors, musicians and folks from all walks of life to his home for amazingly revealing conversations. Marc’s probing, comprehensive interview style allows guests to express themselves in ways listeners have never heard.
History
1619 — Apple — Spotify — Web Site — In August of 1619, a ship carrying more than 20 enslaved Africans arrived in the English colony of Virginia. America was not yet America, but this was the moment it began. No aspect of the country that would be formed here has been untouched by the 250 years of slavery that followed. On the 400th anniversary of this fateful moment, it is time to tell the story.
BackStory — Apple — Spotify — Google — Web Site — There’s the history you had to learn, and the history you want to learn — that’s where BackStory comes in. Each week BackStory takes a topic that people are talking about and explores it through the lens of American history. Through stories, interviews, and conversations with our listeners, BackStory makes history engaging and fun. Based at the University of Virginia, it’s created by U.S. historians Ed Ayers, Brian Balogh, Nathan Connolly and Joanne Freeman.
Hope, Through History — Apple — Spotify — Hosted by Pulitzer Prize winning historian Jon Meacham, this podcast explores some of the most historic and trying times in American history, and how this nation dealt with these moments, the impact of these moments and how we came through these moments a unified nation. Season One takes a look at critical moments around the 1918 Flu Pandemic, the Great Depression, World War II, the polio epidemic and the Cuban Missile Crisis.
Revolutions — Apple — Spotify — Web Site — RSS — A weekly podcast exploring great political revolutions. It’s created by the New York Times best selling author Mike Duncan.
The Dollop — Apple — Spotify — RSS — Comedians Dave Anthony and Gareth Reynolds pick a subject from history and examine it.
The History of Byzantium — Apple — Spotify — Web Site — RSS — A podcast telling the story of the Roman (Byzantine) Empire from 476 AD to 1453.
The History of Rome — Apple — Spotify — 192 episodes tracing the history of the Roman Empire, beginning with Aeneas’s arrival in Italy and ending with the exile of Romulus Augustulus, last Emperor of the Western Roman Empire. Now complete!
The Bowery Boys — Apple — Spotify — Web Site — RSS — New York City history is America’s history. It’s the hometown of the world, and most people know the city’s familiar landmarks, buildings and streets. Why not look a little closer and have fun while doing it? Now has 300+ episodes.
The Last Archive — Apple — Spotify — Web Site — A podcast about history and epistemology by New Yorker contributor and Harvard historian Jill Lepore. It’s is a show about the history of truth, and the historical context for our current fake news, post-truth moment. It’s a show about how we know what we know, and why it seems, these days, as if we don’t know anything at all anymore.
This Day in Esoteric Political History — Apple — Spotify — Web Site — From a global pandemic upending society to an especially intense U.S. presidential election cycle, we’re living in an unprecedented time. Maybe. In this show, Jody Avirgan, political historian Nicole Hemmer, and special guests rescue stories from the entirety of U.S. political history to map our journey through this era. Each episode takes one moment, big or small, from that day in the past and explores how it might inform our present –– and it does so in under ten minutes.
Throughline — Apple — Spotify — Google — Web Site — RSS — The past is never past. Every headline has a history. Join NPR’s Throughline every week as they go back in time to understand the present. These are stories you can feel and sounds you can see from the moments that shaped our world.
Uncivil — Apple — Spotify — Web Site — America is divided, and it always has been. We’re going back to the moment when that split turned into war. This is Uncivil: Gimlet Media’s new history podcast, hosted by journalists Jack Hitt and Chenjerai Kumanyika. We ransack the official version of the Civil War, and take on the history you grew up with. We bring you untold stories about covert operations, corruption, resistance, mutiny, counterfeiting, antebellum drones, and so much more. And we connect these forgotten struggles to the political battlefield we’re living on right now.
You’re Dead To Me — Apple — Spotify — Web Site — From the BBC. The history podcast for people who don’t like history… and those who do. Greg Jenner brings together the best names in comedy and history to learn and laugh about the past.
Music, TV & Film
All Songs Considered - Apple — Spotify — Google — Web Site — Hosts/nerds Bob Boilen and Robin Hilton are your friendly music buddies with the week’s best new music discoveries, including conversations with emerging artists, icons and more. Hear songs that can completely change your day, with humor, heart and (sometimes) a whole lot of noise. Directions for use: Morning commute, the gym, or alone time. (If rash persists, discontinue use.)
Broken Record — Apple — Spotify — Web Site — Broken Record is hosted by producer Rick Rubin, the writer Malcolm Gladwell, and New York Times former editor Bruce Headlam. It features musicians you love talking about their life, inspiration, and craft.
Hit Parade — Apple — Spotify — Web Site — What makes a song a smash? Talent? Luck? Timing? All that—and more. Chris Molanphy, pop-chart analyst and author of Slate’s “Why Is This Song No. 1?” series, tells tales from a half-century of chart history. Through storytelling, trivia and song snippets, Chris dissects how that song you love—or hate—dominated the airwaves, made its way to the top of the charts and shaped your memories forever.
Mogul - Apple — Spotify — Web Site- An engaging show about hip hop’s most iconic moments, told by the people who lived them.
Nakedly Examined Music — Apple — Web Site — Why do musicians create what they do? Why do they create in that particular way? Mark Linsenmayer (aka songwriter Mark Lint, and host of The Partially Examined Life) talks to songwriters and composers about specific recordings, which are played in full. They cover lyric meanings, writing and recording techniques, arrangements, band dynamics, the stories behind the songs, and even music theory.
Office Ladies — Apple — Spotify — Web Site — The Office co-stars and best friends, Jenna Fischer and Angela Kinsey, are doing the ultimate The Office re-watch podcast for you. Each week Jenna and Angela will break down an episode of The Office and give exclusive behind-the-scenes stories that only two people who were there, can tell you.
Pop Culture Happy Hour — Apple — Spotify — Web Site — RSS — A fun and freewheeling chat about the latest movies, television, books, and music.
Pretty Much Pop — Apple — Web Site — RSS — A philosopher, an actor/musician, and a sci-fi writer (often with entertainment industry guests) talk about media and how we consume it: TV, film, music, novels, games, comics, comedy, theater, podcasts, online video, and more. Most of what (other) people like is pretty weird when you think about it, so thinking about it is what they do.
Settling the Score — Apple — Spotify — Web Site — Join Jon and Andy as they explore the world of film music, one score at a time. Each episode is an in-depth discussion of a classic film score: what makes it tick, how it serves the movie, and whether it’s, you know, any good. It’s a freewheeling, opinionated conversation with an analytical bent, richly illustrated with musical examples. No expertise required.
Slash Film — Apple — Spotify — Web Site — In the Slashfilmcast, hardcore geeks David Chen, Devindra Hardawar, and Jeff Cannata debate, pontificate, and delve into the latest films, TV shows, and other entertainment-related items from the past week. Weekly guests include everyday bloggers, webmaster luminaries, film directors, and movie stars from all walks of life
Sodajerker on Songwriting — Apple — Spotify — Web Site — A program devoted to the art and craft of songwriting. The show, created and hosted by the UK songwriting team Sodajerker, features interviews with some of the most successful songwriters and musicians in the world.
Song Exploder — Apple — Spotify — Web Site — RSS — A podcast where musicians take apart their songs, and piece by piece, tell the story of how they were made.
Sound Opinions — Apple — Spotify — Web Site — RSS — The world’s only rock and roll talk show, hosted by Jim DeRogatis and Greg Kot.
Soundtracking with Edith Bowman — Apple — Spotify — Google — Web Site — In a unique weekly podcast, Edith Bowman sits down with a variety of film directors, actors, producers and composers to talk about the music that inspired them and how they use music in their films, from their current release to key moments in their career.
Stay Free: The Story of the Clash — Spotify — The rise and fall of the punk band, The Clash, narrated by Public Enemy’s Chuck D. Read more here.
Switched on Pop — Apple — Spotify — Web Site — RSS — A Vox podcast that reveals the secret formulas that make pop songs so infectious. Every Tuesday, musicologist Nate Sloan and songwriter Charlie Harding pull back the curtain on how pop hits work their magic. You’ll fall in love with songs you didn’t even know you liked.
Talking Sopranos — Apple — Spotify — Google — Web Site — Sopranos co-stars Michael Imperioli and Steve Schirripa host the definitive Sopranos re-watch podcast. Michael and Steve follow the Sopranos series episode by episode giving fans all the inside info, behind the scenes stories and little-known facts that could only come from someone on the inside.
‘The Wire: Way Down in the Hole’ — Apple — Spotify — Jemele Hill and Van Lathan recap, breakdown, and analyze every episode of the iconic HBO hit series, The Wire, starting from the beginning with season one.
Philosophy
Hi-Phi Nation - Apple — Spotify — Google Play — Web Site — A philosophy podcast that turns stories into ideas. It begins with a story, from ordinary life, law, science, or culture, and then transforms it into an examination of philosophical ideas. The show is created by Barry Lam, a PhD in philosophy at Princeton University, and Associate Professor of Philosophy at Vassar College. Read more here.
History of Philosophy Without Any Gaps — Apple – Spotify — RSS Feed — Peter Adamson, Professor of Philosophy at King’s College London, takes listeners through the history of philosophy, “without any gaps.” The series looks at the ideas, lives and historical context of the major philosophers as well as the lesser-known figures of the tradition. With more than 300+ episodes, it covers both western and eastern traditions. Read more here.
In Our Time: Philosophy — Apple — Spotify — Downloads — The storied BBC show covers everything from Altruism to Wittgenstein, philosophers, theories and key themes.
Partially Examined Life - Apple — Spotify — Web Site — Philosophy, philosophers and philosophical texts. This podcast features an informal roundtable discussion, with each episode loosely focused on a short reading that introduces at least one “big” philosophical question, concern, or idea. Recent episodes have focused on Nietzsche, Sartre and Aldous Huxley, and featured Francis Fukuyama as a guest.
Philosophy Bites — Apple — Spotify — Web Site — RSS — David Edmonds (Uehiro Centre, Oxford University) and Nigel Warburton (freelance philosopher/writer) interview top philosophers on a wide range of topics. Two books based on the series have been published by Oxford University Press. There are over 400 podcasts in this collection. Read more here.
Philosophize This! — Apple — Spotify — Web — RSS — Libsyn — Beginner friendly if listened to in order! For anyone interested in an educational podcast about philosophy where you don’t need to be a graduate-level philosopher to understand it. In chronological order, the thinkers and ideas that forged the world we live in are broken down and explained. Read more here.
Very Bad Wizards — Apple — Spotify — Google — Web Site — Very Bad Wizards is a podcast featuring a philosopher (Tamler Sommers) and a psychologist (David Pizarro), who share a love for ethics, pop culture, and cognitive science, and who have a marked inability to distinguish sacred from profane. Each podcast includes discussions of moral philosophy, recent work on moral psychology and neuroscience, and the overlap between the two.
True Stories & Storytelling
13 Minutes to the Moon — Apple — Spotify — Web Site — Epic stories of Nasa’s missions to the Moon. Season 1: the first Moon landing, Apollo 11. Season 2: the near disaster of Apollo 13. Presenter: Kevin Fong. Theme music: Hans Zimmer.
Cautionary Tales — Apple — Spotify — Google — Web Site — We tell our children unsettling fairy tales to teach them valuable life lessons, but these Cautionary Tales are for the education of the grown ups – and they are all true. Tim Harford (Financial Times, BBC, author of “Messy” and “The Undercover Economist”) brings you stories of awful human error, tragic catastrophes, daring heists and hilarious fiascos. They’ll delight you, scare you, but also make you wiser.
Crimetown — Apple — Spotify — Web Site — RSS — A serial documentary podcast looks at how organized crime has shaped particular American cities.
Criminal — Apple — Spotify — Web Site — RSS — A podcast about crime. Not so much the “if it bleeds, it leads,” kind of crime. Something a little more complex. Stories of people who’ve done wrong, been wronged, and/or gotten caught somewhere in the middle.
Ear Hustle — Apple — Spotify — Google — Web Site — Ear Hustle brings you the daily realities of life inside prison shared by those living it, and stories from the outside, post-incarceration. The podcast is a partnership between Nigel Poor, a Bay Area visual artist, and Earlonne Woods, formerly incarcerated at San Quentin State Prison, and was co-founded with former San Quentin resident Antwan Williams.
Futility Closet — Apple — Spotify — Web Site — RSS — Forgotten stories from the pages of history. Join us for surprising and curious tales from the past and challenge yourself with our lateral thinking puzzles.
Heavyweight — Apple — Spotify — Web Site — RSS — A podcast created and produced by humorist Jonathan Goldstein where he helps people try to resolve a moment from their past that they wish they could change.
HumaNature — Apple — Spotify — Web Site — RSS — HumaNature is the podcast that explores where humans and our habitat meet. The show tells real stories about human experiences in nature. Along the way, we’ll meet people whose encounters help us reflect on our own place in the natural world.
Invisibilia — Apple — Spotify — Web Site — RSS — Unseeable forces control human behavior and shape our ideas, beliefs, and assumptions. Invisibilia—Latin for invisible things—fuses narrative storytelling with science that will make you see your own life differently.
Modern Love — Apple — Spotify — Google — Web Site — RSS — Modern Love features top actors performing true stories of love, loss, and redemption. It has included performances by Kate Winslet, Uma Thurman, Angela Bassett, Jake Gyllenhaal, Sterling K. Brown, and more. A collaboration between WBUR and The New York Times.
Mystery Show — Apple — Spotify — Google — Web Site — Voted the top podcast of the year, this podcast features Starlee Kine solving mysteries.
Myths and Legends — Apple — Spotify — Google — Web Site — Jason Weiser tells stories from myths, legends, and folklore that have shaped cultures throughout history. Some, like the stories of Aladdin, King Arthur, and Hercules are stories you think you know, but with surprising origins. Others are stories you might not have heard, but really should. All the stories are sourced from world folklore, but retold for modern ears.
Outside — Apple — Spotify — Web Site — RSS — Outside’s longstanding literary storytelling tradition comes to life in audio with features that will both entertain and inform listeners. The podcast offers a range of story formats, including interviews with the biggest figures in sports, adventure, and politics, as well as reports from our correspondents in the field.
S‑Town — Apple — Spotify — Web Site — RSS — From Serial and This American Life, this podcast tells you about a man named John who despises his Alabama town and decides to do something about it. He asks Brian to investigate the son of a wealthy family who’s allegedly been bragging that he got away with murder. But when someone else ends up dead, the search for the truth leads to a nasty feud, a hunt for hidden treasure, and an unearthing of the mysteries of one man’s life.
Serial — Apple — Google — Web Site — Hosted by Sarah Koenig, Serial unfolds one story — a true story — over the course of a whole season. The show follows the plot and characters wherever they lead, through many surprising twists and turns. Sarah won’t know what happens at the end of the story until she gets there, not long before you get there with her.
Snap Judgment — Apple — Spotify — Google — Web Site — This podcast mixes real stories with killer beats to produce cinematic, dramatic, kick-ass radio. Snap’s raw, musical brand of storytelling dares listeners to see the world through the eyes of another. Also see their spinoff podcast, Spooked.
StoryCorps — Apple — Spotify — Web Site — RSS — Stories of the human heart. A candid, unscripted conversation between two people about what’s really important in life: love, loss, family, friendship. When the world seems out of hand, tune in to StoryCorps and be reminded of the things that matter most.
The Ballad of Billy Balls — Apple — Spotify — Web Site — It’s 1982, and a man bursts into an East Village storefront apartment and shoots punk musician Billy Balls. Author and activist iO Tillett Wright and Crimetown Producer Austin Mitchell unravel a mystery of love and loss, the tender binds of family, and the stories we tell ourselves just to survive.
The Clearing — Apple — Spotify — When April Balascio was 40 years old, something she’d feared for decades was finally proven true. Her father, Edward Wayne Edwards, really was a murderer. The Clearing is about what came after April called a detective in 2009 to tell him about her suspicions — a call that led to her father’s arrest and eventual conviction on multiple murders.
The Kitchen Sisters Present — Apple — Spotify — Web Site — RSS — The Kitchen Sisters Present… Stories from the b‑side of history. Lost recordings, hidden worlds, people possessed by a sound, a vision, a mission. The episodes tell deeply layered stories, lush with interviews, field recordings and music.
The Leap — Apple — Spotify — Google — Web Site — RSS — From a doctor’s controversial LSD treatments to a mother’s high-risk efforts to recover her abducted child to a punk rock pioneer’s radical career reinvention, these are stories of people making dramatic, risky changes—and the big and small decisions that change the course of lives. Hosted by award-winning journalist Judy Campbell.
The Memory Palace — Apple — Spotify — Web Site — RSS — Short, surprising stories of the past, sometimes heartbreaking, sometimes hysterical, often a little bit of both.
The Moth — Apple — Spotify — Web Site — RSS — Since its launch in 1997, The Moth has presented thousands of true stories, told live and without notes, to standing-room-only crowds worldwide. Moth storytellers stand alone, under a spotlight, with only a microphone and a roomful of strangers. The storyteller and the audience embark on a high-wire act of shared experience which is both terrifying and exhilarating. Since 2008, The Moth podcast has featured many of our favorite stories told live on Moth stages around the country.
This American Life — Apple — Spotify — Web Site — RSS — A famous weekly public radio program and podcast. Each week they choose a theme and put together different kinds of stories on that theme.
This is Love — Apple — Spotify — Web Site — RSS — From the makers of the award-winning podcast Criminal, This is Love investigates life’s most persistent mystery. Stories of sacrifice, obsession, and the ways in which we bet everything on each other.
White Lies — Apple — Spotify — Google — Web Site — RSS — In 1965, Rev. James Reeb was murdered in Selma, Alabama. Three men were tried and acquitted, but no one was ever held to account. Fifty years later, two journalists from Alabama return to the city where it happened, expose the lies that kept the murder from being solved and uncover a story about guilt and memory that says as much about America today as it does about the past.
You Must Remember This — Apple — Spotify — Web Site — This is a storytelling podcast exploring the secret and/or forgotten histories of Hollywood’s first century. It’s the brainchild and passion project of Karina Longworth (founder of Cinematical.com, former film critic for LA Weekly), who writes, narrates, records and edits each episode. It is a heavily-researched work of creative nonfiction: navigating through conflicting reports, mythology, and institutionalized spin, Karina tries to sort out what really happened behind the films, stars and scandals of the 20th century.
Business & Economy
a16z — Apple — Spotify — Google — Web Site — The a16z Podcast discusses tech and culture trends, news, and the future – especially as ‘software eats the world’. It features industry experts, business leaders, and other interesting thinkers and voices from around the world. This podcast is produced by Andreessen Horowitz (aka “a16z”), a Silicon Valley-based venture capital firm.
Harvard Business Review IdeaCast — Apple — Spotify — Google — Web Site — RSS — A weekly podcast featuring the leaders in business and management.
How I Built This — Apple — Spotify — Google — Web Site — RSS — From NPR. Guy Raz dives into the stories behind some of the world’s best known companies. The podcast weaves a narrative journey about innovators, entrepreneurs and idealists—and the movements they built.
Marketplace — Apple — Spotify — Web Site — RSS — Hosted by Kai Ryssdal, NPR’s flagship program is all about providing context on the economic news of the day. Through stories, conversations and newsworthy numbers, we help listeners understand the economic world around them.
Masters of Scale — Apple — Spotify — Web Site — The best startup advice from Silicon Valley & beyond in a podcast hosted by host Reid Hoffman — LinkedIn cofounder, Greylock partner and legendary Silicon Valley investor. The show features iconic CEOs — from Nike to Netflix, Starbucks to Slack — sharing the stories & strategies that helped them grow from startups into global brands.
Pivot — Apple — Spotify — Web Site — Kara Swisher and NYU Professor Scott Galloway offer sharp, unfiltered insights into the biggest stories in tech, business, and politics.
Planet Money — Apple — Spotify — Google — Web Site — RSS — The economy explained by NPR. Imagine you could call up a friend and say, “Meet me at the bar and tell me what’s going on with the economy.” Now imagine that’s actually a fun evening.
The Journal — Apple — Spotify — Web Site — A Wall Street Journal podcast on the most important stories, explained through the lens of business. A podcast about money, business and power.
WorkLife with Adam Grant — Apple — Spotify — Web Site — Organizational psychologist Adam Grant takes you inside the minds of some of the world’s most unusual professionals to explore the science of making work not suck. From learning how to love criticism to harnessing the power of frustration, one thing’s for sure: You’ll never see your job the same way again.
Personal Development (Including creativity)
Finding Mastery — Apple — Spotify — Web Site — RSS — Michael Gervais is a high performance psychologist. His podcast is built around a central goal: unpacking and decoding how the greatest performers in the world use their minds to create amazing journeys while they pursue the boundaries of human potential.
Magic Lessons- Apple — Google — Web Site — Writer Elizabeth Gilbert’s creativity podcast “features her interviewing people about how they overcome the fears that are inherent in the creative process, and calling up famous creatives to get their input.”
The Happiness Lab with Dr. Laurie Santos — Apple — Spotify — Google — Web Site — You might think you know what it takes to lead a happier life… more money, a better job, or Instagram-worthy vacations. You’re dead wrong. Yale professor Dr. Laurie Santos has studied the science of happiness and found that many of us do the exact opposite of what will truly make our lives better. Based on the psychology course she teaches at Yale–the most popular class in the university’s 300-year history–Laurie will take you through the latest scientific research and share some surprising and inspiring stories that will change the way you think about happiness.
The Jordan Harbinger Show — Apple — Spotify — Google — The Jordan Harbinger Show (Apple’s Best of 2018) is where self-motivated people, just like you, dig deep into the untapped wisdom of the world’s sharpest minds- from legendary creators to intelligence operatives, iconoclastic writers to visionary change-makers. They bring amazing stories and brilliant personalities to the table, and help you demystify what they do and how they do it.
The Moment with Brian Koppelman — Apple — Spotify — Google — Interviews about the pivotal moments that fueled fascinating creative careers. Hosted by Brian Koppelman.
The Tim Ferriss Show — Apple — Spotify — Web Site — YouTube — RSS — This popular podcast covers topics ranging from personal and character development, to morning routines and meditation habits of celebrities, CEOs and cultural figures like Neil Gaiman, Brene Brown, Michael Lewis, Amanda Palmer, Alain de Botton and more.
Unlocking Us with Brené Brown — Apple — Spotify — Web Site — RSS — Join researcher and #1 New York Times best-selling author Brené Brown as she unpacks and explores the ideas, stories, experiences, books, films, and music that reflect the universal experiences of being human, from the bravest moments to the most brokenhearted.
Sports
30 for 30 — Apple — Spotify — Web Site — Original audio documentaries from the makers of the acclaimed 30 for 30 film series, featuring stories from the world of sports and beyond. 30 for 30 offers captivating storytelling for sports fans and general interest listeners alike, going beyond the field to explore how sports, competition, athleticism and adventure affect our lives and our world. Sports stories like you’ve never heard before.
The Bill Simmons Podcast — Apple — Spotify — Web Site — HBO and The Ringer’s Bill Simmons hosts the most downloaded sports podcast of all time, with a rotating crew of celebrities, athletes, and media staples.
We Came to Win — Apple — Spotify — Every four years, people all over the world turn their eyes, ears, and hearts toward the most exciting sports competition on the planet: The World Cup. We Came to Win tells the stories behind the tournament’s most memorable moments.
News & Current Events
538 — Apple — Spotify — Web Site — Nate Silver and the FiveThirtyEight team cover the latest in politics, tracking the issues and “game-changers” every week.
Deep Background with Noah Feldman — Apple — Spotify — Google — Web Site — Every story has a backstory, even in today’s 24-hour news cycle. In Deep Background, Harvard Law School professor and Bloomberg View columnist Noah Feldman will bring together a cross-section of expert guests to explore the historical, scientific, legal, and cultural context that help us understand what’s really going on behind the biggest stories in the news.
Embedded — Apple — Spotify — Google — Web Site — RSS — NPR host Kelly McEvers takes a story from the news and goes deep. Whether that means digging into the Trump administration’s past, the stories behind police shootings caught on video, or visiting a town ravaged by the opioid epidemic, Embedded takes you where the news is happening.
Reveal — Apple — Spotify — Google — Web Site — From prisons to protests, immigration to the environment, Peabody Award-winning Reveal goes deep into the pressing issues of our times. The Atlantic says “the experience of each episode is akin to a spoonful of sugar, even when it’s telling a story about Richard Spencer’s cotton farms or a man’s final days as a heroin addict.” Reveal is a project of The Center for Investigative Reporting.
Stay Tuned with Preet — Apple — Google — Spotify — Web Site — Join former U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara as he breaks down legal topics in the news and engages thought leaders in a podcast about power, policy, and justice.
The City — Apple — Spotify — The City is an investigative podcast from USA TODAY that tells true stories about how power works in urban America.
The Daily — Apple — Spotify — Google — RSS — From The New York Times, this is what the news should sound like. The biggest stories of our time, told by the best journalists in the world. Hosted by Michael Barbaro.
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