Podcasts: The New Fireside Chats

The 1940’s was a Golden Era for radio: from FDR’s fireside chats to Ralphie and Randy listening to Little Orphan Annie and the Lone Ranger in A Christmas Story. It was a new way of storytelling, a new way of communicating news. Instead of the communal fire of our ancestors, the radio became the centerpiece. Children were presented a story aurally and had to create mental motion pictures. Like an American Sign Language interpreter, your brain is always lagging one sentence behind of your ears; therefore proving that listening and comprehending stories rather than seeing them (in film) makes better brains.

In the past one or two years, we have entered into a new Golden Era for radio. We’ve entered the Podcast Zone.

Podcasts are pre-recorded audio files that can be downloaded at any time and in any order. They typically are released serially, like the old-fashioned radio shows used to be. Think of podcasts as Netflix for your ears, except that they require more imagination. Podcasts really are portable – the most “low-tech as high-tech gets,” says Lance Ulanoff of Mashable. All you need is your phone and earbuds. No wi-fi necessary. Completely hands-free. Just press play and enter a new world through your ears.

A particularly fruitful app for podcast exploration is Podbay, which can be downloaded on both Apple and Android products. It’s easy for just about anyone with any particular interest to find a podcast that suits them. Health, books, psychology, politics, comedy, spirituality – you name the subject and I promise there will be a podcast out there for you.

What am I listening to right now? (Except for Cabin Pressure, all available via Podbay).

1. Ask Me Another – Everything you ever wanted from an NPR trivia game show. Quick: name a famous jazz artist whose first name rhymes with ‘precipitation’ and sing about the origins of Subway to the tune of Blink 1-82’s “All the Small Things.”
2. Serial – The groundbreaker series for podcasts. Loved the first season.
3. Welcome to Night Vale – A twice-monthly radio show in the style of community updates for a small desert fictional town called Night Vale. Features include a weather report, news, announcements from the Sheriff’s Secret Police, mysterious lights in the night sky, dark hooded figures with unknowable powers, and cultural events.
4. The Dead Authors Podcast – In support of 826LA, this podcast is hosted by H.G. Wells who has rigged his time-traveling machine to transport dead authors and poets to the 21st century and what follows is an hour long conversation about their lives, their writings, their loves, and their sometimes (mostly) strange idiosyncrasies.
5. Invisibilia – For psychology nerds out there, this ones for you! Explore the “invisible things” of our world, like why we have thoughts, emotions, dreams, and beliefs.
6. Cabin Pressure – Want to hear Benedict Cumberbatch before he was famous? This comedic BBC radio show (which is sadly no longer produced) takes place on a fictional airplane and drama ensues between the oddball crew.

Tune in next time for my last Arts Ink blog ever!

P.S. I’d love to find out which podcasts you’re all listening to! Over and out …