Latest / Radio Davos / The green revolution is unstoppable: Adam Tooze on "the single most dramatic story in the history of energy"

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The green revolution is unstoppable: Adam Tooze on "the single most dramatic story in the history of energy" · Radio Davos

0:07
Welcome to Pick of the Pods, the
0:08
podcast, this is the audio companion
0:10
to the Pick of the Pods newsletter,
0:12
which delivers your weekly
0:13
recommendation of the one podcast
0:16
you should be listening to right
0:17
now. Find it on Substack or
0:19
LinkedIn.
0:20
On this, the Podcast version, we
0:21
hear from the people who make some
0:22
of those great podcasts to find out
0:24
how they do what they do and to hear
0:26
about what they're listening to.
0:27
On this episode we're talking to
0:29
the host...
0:31
Decoder ring, the much loved
0:33
podcast from Slate.
0:34
It's Willa Paskin.
0:35
Hi Willa, how are you?
0:36
Hey, Robin.
0:37
How are you.
0:38
Very well, thank you.
0:40
You are a, it would appear
0:42
like a podcast veteran.
0:44
I consider myself a relative newbie.
0:46
I've been doing it about six
0:48
years.
0:49
I think of myself as a newbie too.
0:51
Okay. We're both newbies there, but
0:53
we've both done hundreds of
0:54
episodes.
0:55
Why don't let you describe
0:58
what decode because it's one of
0:59
those podcasts.
1:01
It can be about pretty much
1:02
anything, but you have a very
1:04
particular take.
1:05
What is decoder ring?
1:06
Our tagline, which we don't use
1:07
anymore, we used to as like a
1:09
show about cracking cultural
1:10
mysteries like
1:12
we take on a question, have an idea,
1:14
try to figure out what it means and
1:16
why it matters.
1:17
So our ambit like sort of is really
1:19
almost everything kind of in the
1:20
cultural sphere. We don't, it
1:22
can be weird to do like hard news
1:24
stories or really grim stories,
1:26
but other than that, sort of
1:27
anything. And yeah, I think we're
1:29
trying to
1:31
tell it in detail,
1:33
in depth, by talking to tonnes of
1:35
people and making like a proper
1:36
narrative audio production of it.
1:39
And also trying to, there's always
1:41
a question, like every episode,
1:43
orients around a question.
1:44
And sometimes that question is one
1:45
that you have considered,
1:48
like, when I say you, I mean, like
1:49
lots of people have thought about,
1:50
like, oh, why is everybody obsessed
1:51
with hydration?
1:52
Why do people carry on water bottles
1:53
now they didn't used to, or like.
1:55
Um, why am I so worried about
1:57
getting a sunburn or why is everyone
1:58
telling me to put suntan lotion on
1:59
all the time? Like things that are
2:00
sort of around or protein, you know?
2:02
And then sometimes there are things
2:03
you've really never thought about
2:04
before at all, but we're going to
2:06
make you be interested in it.
2:07
Like we just did an episode about,
2:09
um, this line dance from Australia
2:10
called the nut bush.
2:11
If you're Australian, you totally
2:13
know it. If you are not, you'll be
2:14
like, what is that? And we're gonna
2:15
make you care. We have an episode
2:16
that just came out this week
2:18
that's about, uh, a woman
2:20
who appeared and this very
2:22
popular in the 1970s sort of
2:24
line of gag gift product
2:26
she was she's fat and
2:28
was naked and she was a young woman
2:30
and it's like who was she why'd
2:32
she do all this stuff but you're not
2:33
it's not like you remember it's not
2:34
like most people remember that even
2:35
though they were a big deal in the
2:36
70s so we take
2:38
a topic known unknown
2:40
and then really just try to like it
2:41
all the way and we're sort of sort
2:42
of subtly also try and like make an
2:43
argument about why it's interesting
2:45
why it matters what
2:47
people can you know make a history i
2:49
think the show is really a history
2:51
show, but we sort of disguise it.
2:53
And I think people are sort of
2:54
gullible about whether history has
2:56
an argument, like they think if you
2:58
tell a story in order, you listen
2:59
and you're like, oh, that's how it
3:00
happened. But obviously, historians
3:01
are making an argument when they...
3:02
That's interesting you're
3:05
a stealth history show which is
3:06
really interesting because history
3:08
is possibly the biggest maybe
3:10
true crime might come first i'm not
3:12
sure but when it comes to podcast
3:13
categories history shows are
3:15
massive do you ever thought of
3:16
putting history
3:19
Decoder Ringas your Like.
3:20
Well weirdly I think it almost keeps
3:21
people out sometimes.
3:22
Like if you want a history show, you
3:23
want to history show. If you don't,
3:24
you don't t. I mean it's true crime
3:26
shows are often history shows,
3:27
right? Like they're telling you it happened.
3:29
So we
3:31
usually like the reason if you're
3:33
trying to explain why anything is
3:35
like it's very unusual for you
3:37
not to have to be like well it's
3:38
because of something that happened before
3:39
that like made it a big deal.
3:41
So some of them more or less than
3:42
that but they sort of always have
3:44
that part like why Why is this a
3:45
thing?
3:46
And I read a really nice
3:48
article where the questions
3:50
you were interviewed it was
3:52
where do you get your ideas from
3:54
which is one of the laziest
3:55
questions you can ask in any
3:56
interview about a creative person
3:58
right where do get your crazy ideas
4:00
but in your case I think it's
4:02
very pertinent because the
4:05
things you're dealing with are so
4:07
diverse it's like where on earth
4:09
do you get these ideas from
4:11
so I mean I kind of
4:13
I think I know because I've already
4:14
read But why don't you tell me
4:16
for the sake of our listeners here?
4:18
Sure. So we get our ideas from all
4:20
over the place. I mean, I do
4:21
genuinely think that like anything
4:23
I've ever had a thought about,
4:25
I'm like, I probably turned into an
4:26
episode at this point.
4:27
Like, I watched soap operas
4:29
religiously as a kid.
4:30
Like, we did an episode about how
4:32
soap operas get made that was like
4:33
based on a crazy storyline
4:35
that I remember for when I was like
4:37
literally in fifth grade.
4:38
We did an episodes about prunes and
4:40
it was because I had like once
4:41
noticed in a Costco
4:43
that they were called like dried
4:45
plums and I was like that's so funny
4:46
Why are they pretending not to be
4:48
prunes, you know? So there's there's
4:49
things like that or there's more
4:50
germane things like the water bottle
4:51
thing like my kids I pack them
4:53
water bottles. It's like I didn't
4:55
have a water bottle when I went to
4:56
school Like what were we just all
4:58
dehydrated all the time?
4:59
Like what went on there?
4:59
Like how did hydration become a
5:00
thing? But we also obviously I have
5:02
colleagues There's other there's
5:04
currently three of us, but there's
5:06
usually four of us that work on the
5:07
show. They have ideas We
5:08
get a lot of listener suggestions
5:10
for ideas.
5:11
Sometimes we're like looking at
5:12
books that are coming out to think
5:14
about how they might work for us.
5:15
Like we sort of are trying to find
5:16
ideas every place that we
5:18
can. But it is, I would say
5:20
that like we do,
5:22
like we sort want to have like an
5:24
angle, like you don't want to.
5:25
Sometimes you start with a topic and
5:26
you're like, oh, this is going to be
5:27
fine, or it's a story.
5:28
Like it's, you know that it's
5:30
propulsive and there's characters
5:31
and you like, I can just tell the
5:32
story and then we'll back into a
5:33
question. But if it's a big topic or
5:35
sort of a nebulous topic, like you
5:36
kind of want to have a way in that's
5:38
unusual.
5:40
Sometimes, yeah, what's
5:42
so nice about some of those topics
5:43
is you or
5:45
these are phenomena,
5:49
objects or TV shows
5:51
or just things that
5:53
are kind of banal and you would look
5:54
past them. You see them every day
5:56
and you're like a water bottle.
5:58
You see dozens of those every day,
6:00
but then to actually stop and think,
6:01
well, they weren't around then.
6:02
And it's great to hear that you're
6:04
getting listeners sending
6:06
suggestions.
6:07
So pick up the pods, the podcast is
6:09
relatively new.
6:10
This is episode, I've lost count,
6:11
six or seven now, and it's only
6:13
monthly.
6:14
But I'm starting to get listener
6:16
comments and thank you to anyone who
6:17
is thinking of, please do send in
6:18
your comments. I got a comment,
6:20
actually it wasn't on a podcast, but
6:21
on my newsletter on the
6:23
episode I wrote about yours and
6:25
someone said, oh yeah,
6:27
Sunblock.
6:28
Now that's a polarising issue.
6:31
And I said- Is it?
6:33
I had no idea,
6:35
but it turns out it is.
6:36
It's kind of in the manosphere.
6:38
You touch on it to some extent in
6:40
your episode, but do
6:42
you stumble across things like that
6:43
when suddenly you open a kind of a
6:45
hornet's nest that you didn't
6:47
realise? Oh my god, this is
6:48
political. I didn't know.
6:49
No, we did sort of know that was
6:51
sort of part was interesting about
6:52
it. But I would say like we did an
6:53
episode of protein.
6:54
And when we were doing stuff with
6:55
our protein, like basically why is
6:56
protein? Like everyone obsessed with
6:58
protein. And we talked to these
6:59
people who these academics who just
7:01
had a book come out sort of
7:03
tracing like the previous
7:05
protein crazes of the past.
7:07
It's not the first time we've been
7:08
obsessed with protein and
7:10
that one I was happy to do.
7:12
And obviously, it's still ongoing.
7:14
But like there was no sense in which
7:15
we were like on time to that
7:17
conversation. Like, protein.
7:19
Is really like everybody knows
7:21
protein is happening and that means
7:22
in a way we're sort of late.
7:23
Like it's not that we couldn't add
7:24
anything but it's like been going on
7:25
for years.
7:26
With suntan again I'm not saying
7:28
that we're early but I did feel like
7:29
I'm like oh we're like at the
7:31
earlier part or for a
7:33
mainstream outlet like the earlier
7:34
part of this debate that I think
7:35
actually is only going to get more
7:37
pronounced about and more heated
7:39
and more polarised about like if
7:41
sunscreen is bad or not which on the
7:42
one hand sounds totally crazy that
7:43
people are fighting about this on
7:44
the other And it actually.
7:46
Isn't as crazy as it sounds.
7:47
And so it was, I would
7:49
prefer to be on
7:51
the earlier side, you know, you want
7:53
it is it's nice when something is
7:56
nice when everybody knows something,
7:58
but it's not like they're exhausted
7:59
with it. Yeah, right.
8:00
So
8:01
Do you happen to know, I'm going to
8:03
ask some kind of nerdy podcasting
8:05
questions. I'm hoping some of the
8:06
listeners to this are people who
8:09
either make podcasts or are
8:10
interested in making podcasts and
8:11
they want to know about the craft of
8:12
podcasting.
8:13
I'll try not to make it too much
8:14
about that, but there are one or two
8:16
questions.
8:16
Do you find that
8:19
people stumble across your
8:21
podcast? Like I say, I have no idea
8:23
how I stumbled across this, I must
8:24
have seen it recommended somewhere.
8:25
Do they, do they, do they search?
8:27
Because I might, I wonder if
8:28
someone's thinking- Oh, I've noticed
8:30
that protein's a thing, or
8:32
everyone's talking about water
8:33
bottles, or I'll tell you a thing.
8:35
I was getting a glass of water
8:36
before I started this interview, and
8:38
I thought, oh, I should get a
8:40
plastic cup with iced coffee in.
8:42
Have you noticed, this is a meme
8:43
right now, the people going into
8:45
job interviews with their iced
8:46
coffee. Have you, have you noticed
8:47
this one? I...
8:48
Now that you say it, I've
8:50
seen some of the trickle
8:52
down, but I didn't understand where
8:53
it was coming from.
8:54
It's but it's one of those things.
8:56
So I wonder whether if you
8:58
are someone who likes this podcast
8:59
on a family, I bet someone's done
9:01
a podcast about iced coffee,
9:04
or so do you happen to know from
9:06
your metrics if people find
9:07
you because they want to listen to a
9:09
thing about that thing.
9:10
Sure. So I think firstly,
9:13
this just gets at the thing, which
9:13
is that podcast metrics are
9:15
bad. Right.
9:17
None of us really.
9:18
I'm hoping for some tips, that's all
9:20
there is.
9:20
You know, people don't have a lot of
9:22
insight.
9:23
There's just like, it's actually
9:24
quite surprising how sort of not
9:26
granular they are, even though
9:28
presumably they could be much more
9:30
granular.
9:31
So I don't, the answer, the real
9:33
answer to your question is I don't
9:34
know. My sense is probably, it
9:36
is very little of that.
9:38
Like search, so that's like you're
9:39
saying, it's like search traffic.
9:41
And I think search traffic,
9:43
audio is probably scratching the
9:45
itch on search traffic so rarely.
9:47
I mean, it not to say that like,
9:48
I've never searched up a topic about
9:50
like looked in a podcast app
9:52
for a topic and listened to it.
9:53
Sometimes even to prep for shows,
9:55
like I have, and I imagine
9:57
that people have done that
9:58
occasionally or do that
9:59
occasionally, but that's
10:01
really not how podcasts work.
10:03
Like when you're searching for
10:04
information that you want to know
10:05
urgently, like you're gonna read
10:06
something, you're going to
10:08
type it into Google or now AI and
10:10
get some piece back and that's
10:12
what you're to read. So I think...
10:15
It's just podcast is like a much
10:16
more like usually a committed
10:17
relationship that people already
10:19
listen to you. Or you know, someone
10:20
passed it on to them because they
10:21
thought they would be interested but
10:22
they knew them, right?
10:23
I don't think it's coming from
10:25
search from the listener itself.
10:26
You have brought us in three clips
10:28
from Decoder Ring.
10:30
I'm gonna ask you this first clip,
10:32
I'll get to ask you why you call it
10:33
Decoder ring. I had to look up what
10:34
a Decoderring is.
10:36
But anyway, we'll get that after we
10:37
hear this first. Should we start
10:39
with Jane Fonda?
10:41
Yeah, sure, that sounds great.
10:43
Okay, Jane Fonder,
10:45
you know, I'm a certain age and
10:47
when Jane Fonders workout
10:49
video tape came out,
10:51
which you'll know which year that
10:52
was, 98
10:55
One ish, yeah.
10:56
One ishe.
10:57
80, 81, 82.
10:58
I was talking to a friend about this
11:00
episode. It was a simulation to me
11:02
and she said, yeah, I'd never heard
11:03
of Jane Fonda because I was a small
11:05
child, but she was
11:06
the workout lady.
11:08
And people today, maybe young people
11:09
today probably know Jane Fond.
11:11
I mean, she's still a big
11:13
movie star, but they may have
11:15
forgotten what a
11:17
massive thing the workout video
11:19
was. And so how did you decide
11:21
to tackle that cultural
11:23
issue.
11:24
Um, so I was born in 1981.
11:26
So, um, one of the fun
11:28
years older, or, and so,
11:30
than you.
11:31
So one of the first records I
11:33
remember seeing in my
11:35
parents' record collection was
11:36
actually The Jane Fonda Workout,
11:37
which was probably like by then the
11:38
late 80s. It was a thing.
11:40
But I really had a very...
11:41
A vinyl record.
11:43
Yes, a very vivid sense of the
11:44
record, um, which had the
11:47
workout on it.
11:48
And at that time that I was
11:50
growing up in the nineties,
11:52
Jane Fonda actually was not
11:54
working quite much, very much as
11:56
an actress. She was still an
11:57
activist and she was married to Ted
11:58
Turner.
11:59
Um, but she was sort of, I think
12:00
really was still quite well
12:02
known for the exercise stuff.
12:03
I think it is true that, um.
12:06
In the last decade or so, because
12:07
she's been acting more and actually
12:08
because she was on social media and
12:09
she's doing more political, like,
12:11
uh, her political work has sort of
12:12
resurfaced.
12:13
People probably actually know her
12:14
less for the exercise stuff, which
12:16
is also now 40 years old.
12:19
That was all a caveat to the answer.
12:21
The answer is I was listening to Jad
12:23
Abumrad's series about Dolly
12:25
Parton, which
12:27
is a great
12:28
What a podcast.
12:30
I've only just discovered it after
12:32
Dolly Parton died, and I recommended
12:33
it on Pick of the Pods.
12:36
That's one of the best podcasts I've
12:37
ever heard, I have to say.
12:39
Totally, it's great.
12:40
And in it, not at the beginning,
12:42
but in one of the episodes, it talks
12:43
about Dolly Parton working on Nine
12:45
to Five, which was a Jane Fonda also
12:47
co-starred in, but also sort of
12:48
produced and shepherded.
12:49
And it was part of a group of movies
12:50
that she was making in the 80s that
12:52
did extraordinarily well, including
12:54
like the China Syndrome that
12:56
were political.
12:57
They had sort of like
12:59
explicitly political ideas
13:01
in Nine to five's case about
13:02
feminism and women in the workplace
13:04
and they were hits.
13:05
And it like...
13:07
I was just listening to this and
13:09
thinking about how I sort of think
13:11
about her a lot as an exercise
13:13
person and knowing her history of
13:14
protest against Vietnam and knowing
13:16
that she's sort of this controversial
13:17
figure on the right because they
13:19
hate her because she's Hanoi Jane
13:20
because she was against the war and
13:22
thinking like, oh, someone should do
13:24
Dolly Parton for Jane Fonda.
13:25
Like, she's such a crazy
13:27
person, such an interesting
13:28
character who's had so many acts and
13:30
how could she be so many people?
13:33
And sort of the outlier thing in
13:35
that is the workout stuff.
13:36
Like She's an activist,
13:38
she's an actress. Those are serious,
13:40
can be serious things. She's been
13:41
serious about it. They seemed even
13:42
sort of connected. And then she'd
13:43
had this sort of interlude where
13:44
she'd been like the workout queen of
13:45
America. And so that was sort
13:47
of- Of the world. Yes, of the world,
13:48
so I was like, oh, that's
13:50
interesting. Like that's in and of
13:51
itself curious and-
13:55
There were some other things that
13:56
very quickly I was like, oh, there's
13:57
like a different story here because
13:59
it turns out also that though she
14:00
was controversial in
14:02
the sixties and seventies because of
14:03
her protesting of Vietnam, she
14:05
really became controversial in the
14:06
eighties actually when she was the
14:08
workout queen sort of in the Reagan
14:09
era. That's when Vietnam veterans
14:11
really got very mad at her.
14:13
It's not, so it's like, it's not
14:15
it doesn't, there's a weirder
14:17
history there than one might
14:18
believe.
14:19
But as I was looking into the
14:21
exercise tape, just like trying to
14:22
report it out, sort of like how it
14:23
had been, this other story
14:25
became revealed, which is
14:26
essentially that there's this woman,
14:28
Leni Cazden, who actually made
14:30
the actual workout like Jane Fonda
14:31
was her student. And that's the
14:32
person who really created the Jane
14:34
Funda workout and her name is
14:35
obviously not on it. And she hasn't
14:37
gotten a tonne of credit for it.
14:38
And we were able to sort of talk
14:40
to her. So basically just like this
14:41
whole other story opened up that was
14:43
so great and fun and not the story
14:45
that I knew that we were gonna tell
14:47
or that we weren't even gonna get.
14:49
And that was like a real pleasure.
14:50
And I love that.
14:51
I love that story.
14:52
It sounds like, from listening to
14:53
that episode, it sounds like
14:56
it was Jane Fonda who really
14:57
wanted you to get this story of,
15:00
she's called Leni, right?
15:02
Yeah, I mean, that's, we
15:04
had been in touch with Leni.
15:06
We had like, I would have been able
15:07
to talk to Leni no matter what I had
15:09
spoken with her. Then when we
15:10
reached out to Jane Fonda to see if
15:11
we can have access to her, like talk
15:13
to her that our timing turned
15:15
out to be sort of impeccable because
15:17
she was sort of ready to make amends
15:18
or make good with Lennie.
15:20
And so she also wanted to talk
15:21
about Leni and the Jane Fond of
15:23
workout, which was just really a
15:24
fluke.
15:25
But I think so, like, so we did
15:27
speak to Jane found her for that
15:28
episode. But we would have been able
15:30
to speak with Leni and tell that her
15:32
part of the story anyway,
15:34
whether or not Jane had participated.
15:36
So for anyone who's not followed
15:38
the story, Jane Fonda
15:40
made this.
15:41
I'm amazed you had it on a final
15:43
record. It was very famous
15:45
as a VHS, which
15:47
as you say in the podcast, that's a
15:48
very new things then people could
15:50
do their workouts.
15:52
Did workouts even really exist much
15:53
before then?
15:54
Will you get into that?
15:56
It was super, super famous and
15:57
she did sequels and it must've sold
15:59
millions around the world.
16:01
But her workout was based on
16:03
the work of a work of fitness
16:05
instructor.
16:06
Um, and you interviewed
16:08
them both together initially, um,
16:11
and there's a lot of history there
16:13
and Leni, it turns out if you
16:15
think Jane Fonda has an amazing
16:16
story and my God, doesn't she?
16:18
So does Leni.
16:20
It's an extraordinary, extraordinary
16:21
sounding woman with extraordinary
16:23
history.
16:24
And that's what in part one
16:26
of your two-parter, you decide to
16:28
go down that rabbit hole and
16:30
tell that story.
16:32
So let's hear a clip from the
16:34
episode of decoder in call.
16:36
Jane Fonda's workout, part one,
16:38
Jane and Leni.
16:41
Me.
16:43
It was Leni Cazden.
16:45
Jane has written and spoken about
16:47
Leni, but they had never done an
16:49
interview together before this.
16:51
She was doing it now to try to
16:52
credit Leni and to make amends for a
16:54
wrong she'd done her back in the
16:55
1970s.
16:56
I did not really understand
16:59
who Leni was
17:01
and what the workout meant
17:03
to her.
17:05
And it was like, it was,
17:08
this is her Sistine Chapel.
17:10
She put it together deliberately
17:12
and it was her life.
17:13
And I am sorry to say that
17:15
I didn't really realise that.
17:17
Leni, for her part, appreciated what
17:19
Jane was doing.
17:20
She wants the credit that she
17:22
deserves.
17:23
But she also wanted to make it
17:24
really clear that she's fine,
17:26
she's good, she's not fixated on
17:28
any of this
17:33
. I'm loving my life and I'm happy and I am so glad. In today's world,
17:33
you better be healthy.
17:35
This dynamic happened all
17:37
call long.
17:38
Jane wanted to bring it back to
17:39
Leni. Leni wanted to bringing it
17:40
back to how she's fine.
17:42
Meanwhile, I just wanted to talk
17:43
about the exercise tape and how it
17:45
was made, even though the tape
17:46
itself was made years after Jane
17:48
and Leni had fallen out.
17:51
I got off the call thinking, I can
17:52
make this work.
17:53
I can do the episode that I've been
17:55
imagining and reporting about
17:57
how the 1982 exercise
17:59
tape came to be.
18:01
But that's not really the episode
18:03
they want me to do.
18:04
They want me do an episode about
18:06
Leni.
18:07
I'm not gonna do that though.
18:09
But I had always been planning to
18:11
follow up with Leni to take a
18:12
detailed personal history, which
18:14
would have taken up too much time on
18:15
our call with Jane.
18:17
And it was during the second call
18:18
that I began to wonder if the
18:20
conversation I'd had with Jane and
18:22
Leni, which had seemed so sweet and
18:24
lovey as to be almost cloying,
18:27
might not have been a lot more
18:28
complicated than I'd first thought.
18:30
Um, was it okay for you that last
18:31
call? Uh, I thought it was good.
18:34
What do you mean with Jane?
18:35
Yeah, with Jane. Yeah.
18:36
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
18:36
Yeah. Well, that's the first time
18:38
we've talked about it actually in
18:40
our life.
18:41
Really?
18:42
Yeah. So there's a lot going
18:44
on.
18:45
Yeah, I could tell.
18:46
I mean, I was like, I shouldn't even
18:48
be here.
18:49
Yeah, we made an
18:51
appointment about, I don't know, 20
18:53
years ago to meet
18:55
with our therapist and I was going
18:57
to lay out all the pain and agony
18:59
and everything.
19:00
And that was a nine o'clock
19:02
appointment at 630, the biggest
19:04
earthquake happened.
19:06
And I just said, Wow, I knew she was
19:07
powerful, but God, that's
19:09
really powerful.
19:12
We never had the meeting until
19:14
you
19:16
That was a clip from decoder ring,
19:18
if I'm pronouncing that correctly.
19:20
We'll get onto that in a second.
19:21
It was called Jane Fonda's workout.
19:22
Part one, Jane and Leni
19:24
found fantastic, fascinating history
19:27
of famous woman.
19:29
And then a not famous woman,
19:30
but with an amazing story really
19:32
enjoyed that.
19:33
I'm speaking to Willa who
19:35
created a decoder,
19:37
ring is decoding a
19:39
phrase. I've looked it up.
19:41
It's a ring you would use to decode.
19:43
A code,
19:45
a written code or numeric code.
19:47
Yeah it's kind of like a kitschy
19:49
cereal box like
19:52
toy from like sort of the 50s I mean
19:54
the truth is that the whole look
19:56
and sort of sonic landscape and
19:58
name of the show are sort of weirdly
20:00
maybe overly kind
20:03
of misleadingly but it's okay
20:05
we're stuck with it now it's
20:06
charming in its way tied to the very
20:08
first episode that we ever did the
20:10
very first episode we ever did was
20:11
about the laugh track which is
20:13
like this the people who laugh in
20:15
coms. You know, not a live audience,
20:17
but this taped track of laughter
20:19
and what used to be in every
20:22
sitcom TV show that there was and
20:24
is now sort of is in some
20:25
but had sort of fallen out of favour
20:27
and now they're they're called
20:29
multi-camera sitcoms and you
20:31
know it's like 30 Rock or thing or
20:33
the office, you know, there's no,
20:35
there is no laughter.
20:37
Watch it, and you don't hear fake
20:39
people laughing.
20:41
But that history of
20:43
the laugh track is very 1950s,
20:45
very I Love Lucy, very the origins
20:46
of the sitcom.
20:48
And so a lot like our theme song,
20:50
we were sort of like in this sort
20:52
of, like, kitschy 50s
20:54
mode.
20:55
And then we just kept all the stuff.
20:57
So like, that's what, but you know,
20:58
like we are trying to decode things.
21:00
Yeah, it's hard to come up with a
21:02
name. I don't have a better one.
21:03
I haven't thought of a better one
21:04
since then.
21:05
Will Americans know what a
21:07
Decoder Ringis, then? It's something you
21:08
used to get in your cereal packet.
21:08
Yeah, no, I think older, it's like,
21:10
it definitely is old. It's like
21:11
before my time too.
21:12
But it, you know, it has also it's
21:14
actually funny because obviously I
21:15
searched Decoder Ringlike on
21:18
like Twitter or X
21:20
or, you know blue sky, like these
21:21
things. And it is true since
21:25
Donald Trump's election and sort of
21:27
as time has gone on, the
21:29
amount of crazy, crazy
21:31
posts that involve the phrase
21:33
decodering have skyrocketed.
21:35
Like it used to be that it rarely
21:37
came up.
21:38
And would be reliably like about the
21:40
show. And now it's like, just so,
21:42
it's a word about, it's sort of
21:43
it's, it is a very conspiratorial
21:45
word. Like people are like, oh, we
21:46
need a decoder ring.
21:48
Decoder Ringfor this like insane
21:50
political brouhaha.
21:51
So it's really,
21:53
yeah, it, it it's much more common
21:55
than it was when we started the
21:56
show, but in a totally different way
21:58
than, you know.
21:58
Are you aware are you aware
22:00
decodering is also an Australian
22:02
experimental electronic rock
22:04
crossover band?
22:05
Thank You Wikipedia
22:06
I'm not, but you know, there's
22:07
another podcast called Decoder Ring.
22:09
There's a podcast called decoder.
22:10
They all do different things, or
22:12
Decoder Ringtheatre is one.
22:13
Um, and then there's like a decoder,
22:14
which the tech podcast, like it's,
22:16
yeah.
22:17
Okay, did you get there first?
22:20
I think Decoder RingTheatre was
22:21
before us, but I think they were
22:22
before Decoder.
22:26
Okay, um, how did you get into it?
22:27
How did you enter podcasting?
22:29
I was a print journalist.
22:32
I was TV critic and a culture
22:34
critic and writer.
22:36
And I'd worked at a bunch of places,
22:38
including like New York Magazine and
22:39
Vulture.
22:40
And I had come to Slate
22:42
to be the TV critic and I had been
22:43
the TV Critic at that point for, a
22:45
TV critic for a long
22:47
time, not a long time in the lands
22:49
of critics, but you know, years,
22:51
something close to 10 years.
22:52
And I was pretty sick
22:54
of television.
22:57
Was sort of the time of peak TV and
22:59
there was just so much more and I
23:00
was having to watch so much more of
23:02
it and I had little kids
23:03
and I found that onerous instead of
23:05
thrilling and at
23:08
the same time this is like
23:10
2017-ish
23:12
podcasts where there's a lot of
23:14
energy and excitement around it and
23:16
I thought that'd be cool
23:18
to try to do and
23:20
I sort of able to convince Slate
23:22
where I work to let me try to
23:24
make something.
23:25
And they sort of were like, you what
23:26
do you want to do? And I was like, I
23:27
think I would like to do a show like
23:29
this.
23:30
And that's how it started.
23:33
Do you find, because I came
23:35
from print journalism as well,
23:38
how do you find the similarities and
23:40
differences between writing
23:41
and audio?
23:46
Um, I think they're very connected
23:48
and a lot of the skills are
23:49
transferable. And then there's
23:50
obviously some other stuff.
23:52
Um, you know,
23:54
the show that we make, Dakota Ring
23:56
is written, like it is
23:58
a scripted show, so
24:00
I still write all the
24:02
time, like, you know, we make like
24:04
20 feature magazine features
24:06
a year. Like we're, we're writing
24:08
a tonne, like we do a lot of
24:10
reporting and then we have to turn
24:11
it into something. I find that
24:14
obviously there's sort of like this
24:16
other element which like you write
24:17
it and then you have to hear it and
24:18
you have to move all, there's all
24:20
these clips. I find it, I've
24:21
described it this way before, but I
24:22
find, it more almost like
24:24
sculptural like it's in more
24:25
multi-dimensions and I really love
24:27
like, you know, when you write
24:28
something you, you, ideally you
24:30
could put it in a drawer and come
24:31
back in a month but no one ever has
24:32
that time. But I find that like when
24:34
you are writing something and the
24:36
step from like being on paper to
24:38
being a cut that you can hear, it's
24:40
like, it as if you were in that
24:43
you're just suddenly able to hear
24:44
totally different things and start
24:46
to fix it.
24:47
Like the editing process is so fun
24:48
in audio because it's just like
24:50
you're making it better and it's
24:52
like a different kind of
24:54
tactility to it.
24:56
I do think that there's
24:58
also really a different way that you
24:59
write for podcasts.
25:01
Like when you write for the ear you
25:03
honestly are being pretty basic
25:05
in a different and I think there's
25:08
just like
25:09
a slew of podcasting.
25:13
Cliches that you can be less
25:15
cliched about but just
25:17
sort of you have to sign post
25:18
structural stuff for the listener
25:20
and it's kind of hard to avoid even
25:22
if you can do them more elegantly
25:23
than others but just like the things
25:24
were like to understand why this
25:26
happened we have to go back or like
25:27
the thing you really need to
25:29
understand and like on the what I
25:30
really and you wouldn't you know if
25:31
you were to do that in a
25:33
written piece it would just it would
25:35
be so hacky.
25:36
I mean, it's pretty hacky in a
25:37
podcast, but there's some way that
25:39
you can't get around like taking the
25:41
listener by the hand, like you just
25:42
sort of more, or much more
25:43
aggressively grab them.
25:45
And so that's interesting.
25:47
And sometimes we've had this thing
25:49
where sometimes we have tried to
25:51
turn our episodes into print pieces
25:53
because Slate is also a print and an
25:55
audio outlet. And it's just never as
25:57
easy as you think it's gonna be
25:57
because you actually really have to
25:59
rewrite it much more comprehensively
26:00
for it sort of not to sound like
26:02
pretty basic.
26:03
Um, and also there's just so much
26:04
more dense, syntactical sentence
26:06
level information you can impart in
26:08
writing, but you can't impart in a
26:10
podcast. Like you're always taking
26:11
out fun details of a podcast
26:13
script that like, if you're writing
26:14
the piece, it would just be no big,
26:15
you could keep, you could get it in
26:17
a parenthetical, you get it and it's
26:18
just like, people would be able to
26:19
absorb that information. It would be
26:20
fun.
26:21
Um, so yeah, so they're, they're
26:23
like, they are different, but I
26:24
think there's lots of things
26:26
that they're connected and I do
26:27
think podcasting actually.
26:30
Like the structure of it, like
26:31
having to just be like, when do I
26:33
tell people information so they will
26:35
keep listening is extraordinarily
26:37
useful for writing.
26:38
Like that part is
26:40
really connected and actually makes
26:41
you kind of better as a writer at
26:43
structuring for print.
26:45
But yeah, I mean, they're
26:47
both fun in different ways and
26:48
they're interesting to think about
26:50
how they're connected. But I
26:52
think audio people can be like very
26:54
like, oh, print people, they don't
26:55
know anything. And it's like, no,
26:56
there's quite a lot of
26:58
overlap. Do they think that?
27:01
Not all of them.
27:02
Yes. I know, I mean, to be fair,
27:04
there is tonnes of stuff that
27:06
audio first or audio
27:08
primarily people know how to do
27:10
that I think people don't think
27:11
about. Like, it's not like it's a
27:12
one-to-one. You do need to learn
27:13
something. There's different things.
27:14
But I think everyone's just sort of
27:16
protective of their turf. So you can
27:19
audio people that are a little
27:20
like...
27:20
Did you did you train?
27:22
So I'm British.
27:24
I've spent a career in journalism.
27:27
But I you know, I've I
27:29
did a Knight Wallace fellowship
27:31
at the University of Michigan.
27:33
And so I was very exposed to
27:34
American journalism and American
27:36
journalists as a very culturally
27:37
very, very different.
27:38
Yeah, yeah, because you guys are all
27:40
like sharks and scoundrels and we're
27:41
all
27:41
We are sharks and scarecrow, I mean,
27:43
we are the lowest form.
27:44
Stream.
27:45
Yeah, yeah.
27:46
You can't be sued!
27:47
You can't be sued! Oh no, you can be
27:49
sued.
27:49
Oh no, we can be sued.
27:50
You guys can't be sued!
27:51
Way more than us. Yeah, that's
27:52
right. Yeah. Yeah but just right.
27:53
That's right
27:53
But there's
27:55
very little notion.
27:56
I think it's just changing slightly.
27:58
It's not a profession in
28:00
the UK.
28:01
It's a trade.
28:03
Yeah.
28:03
Selling your wares on the market
28:05
kind of thing, whereas in America,
28:07
Germanism is taking...
28:08
We also have a much stronger
28:11
existing tabloid culture than we do.
28:13
Exactly we were we were social media
28:15
nastiness before before the
28:17
internet was created so um
28:20
so i wonder you know you
28:22
wouldn't dream really of going into
28:23
journalism in america
28:25
without studying journalism
28:27
at j school at journalism
28:29
No, no, that isn't true.
28:30
I did, I did in fact
28:32
go to J school, but I think it's
28:34
really weird. I think, I take your
28:36
point, I think they are really
28:36
different.
28:38
I think there are people that go to
28:40
j school and I'm one of them, but
28:41
it's, it is very,
28:43
it's not like being a doctor or a
28:45
lawyer, right? Like you do not have
28:46
to go to day school to be a
28:47
journalist and in fact, some
28:49
of the things about going to
28:51
journalism school, which is like, I
28:52
want to know that I know how to do
28:53
these things where I want have the
28:55
credential or I want to have people
28:57
help me are actually sort of like
28:58
anathema to certain kinds
29:00
of reporting.
29:01
I mean, specifically reporting,
29:02
actually, like sort of nosiness and
29:04
not having to be told what to do and
29:06
making your own way.
29:08
So I think I think journalism school
29:09
is very fraught for people because
29:10
they're like, Oh, it costs a tonne.
29:12
You're going to not make any money
29:14
because you're a journalist.
29:15
You know, it's not like going to law
29:16
school and you're like I want this
29:18
to teach me something really
29:19
concrete and it kind of can't that.
29:21
I mean, I did find journalism school
29:22
helpful and, um, my husband
29:24
and I made a lot of friends and it
29:26
was useful, but I don't,
29:29
I think tonnes of, I would say most
29:31
journalists I know did not go to
29:33
journalism school.
29:34
And so what about getting into
29:35
audio? Did you just pick up the
29:37
skills you needed for that along the
29:38
way or?
29:39
Did you really have to study that?
29:40
If you listen to the early episodes
29:42
of Dakota Ring, I
29:44
think you will be able to tell that
29:46
I have learned a tonne.
29:48
I think there was always really good
29:50
stuff in them.
29:51
We've always had a lot of really
29:53
good reporting. I think we've
29:56
had good ideas.
29:57
I think I sound pretty okay on mic,
29:58
even though I sound different at the
29:59
beginning.
30:00
But the structure of these pieces
30:02
is like.
30:03
Really bananas.
30:04
Like, I really wish I could and like
30:06
just and just also some like, sort
30:07
of good hand, you know, like, you
30:09
want to feel like you're in good
30:10
hands. And there's like,
30:11
things where you're like, I'm not
30:12
sure I'm in good hands, like you
30:13
know people come in and out for
30:15
really short periods of time.
30:17
There's too much narrate, like
30:18
there's too many dense ideas, like
30:19
there's just tonnes of stuff.
30:20
When I listened to the old episodes,
30:22
I was like, Oh, God, I wish I can
30:23
like crack this open again, because
30:24
there's really like so much good
30:25
stuff here. So I would say yes, 100%
30:27
I learned on the job.
30:27
But that was like a real Virtue,
30:29
I mean, for maybe the first two
30:31
years, I was still being the TV
30:32
critic and we were only coming out
30:33
about 10 times a year, coming out
30:35
monthly. So it was like,
30:37
it was kind of like a, it was pretty
30:39
low-key safe space to sort of like
30:41
get better.
30:42
I mean, you jumped in kind of at the
30:44
deep end because a lot of people,
30:46
you know, make podcasts.
30:48
It's just either them just talking
30:49
or like this one,
30:51
an interview.
30:52
This isn't scripted.
30:55
This is quite easy.
30:56
There's no real editing your time.
30:58
It's a bit like going straight in
31:00
and doing an epic novel, you
31:02
know, having never written a short
31:03
story.
31:07
I'll take the compliment, but I
31:09
think it's actually I I would just
31:11
say it's almost not that
31:12
because it's like at the time
31:16
It was like there's only two
31:18
kinds of shows. There's like this
31:19
American life. So there's like, this
31:20
complicated version or there's a
31:22
chat show. There's no in-between.
31:24
I mean, this continues to be a
31:25
problem. It's like they call it high
31:27
touch in the business, like the high
31:28
touch podcast, the low touch.
31:30
And everyone's always trying to find
31:31
the mythical mid touch,
31:32
which is very difficult.
31:34
The light lift, you know, it's not
31:35
like a no lift.
31:36
So I think actually, truly the fact
31:38
that we ended up doing something
31:39
sort of.
31:41
Intricate and hard was just because
31:42
I actually was I didn't know enough
31:44
about podcasts to be like, oh no We
31:46
should be trying to find this thing
31:47
in the middle that you know I was
31:49
like, I don't know we but if you
31:50
want to make a podcast That's not a
31:51
conversation which had never even
31:53
occurred to me Like it's not what
31:54
sleep and he's late does have chat
31:55
shows But slow burn had already
31:57
started that sort of flagship feel
31:58
like it was just not the kind of
32:00
Narrative show slate was making or
32:01
that really anybody was making so
32:03
it's just like oh, we'll just do
32:05
That like we'll try to do a version
32:07
of the thing that the people who do
32:08
this are already are doing so
32:10
Um, if it was the deep end, it was
32:12
just because like, I literally
32:13
didn't know there was a shallow end
32:14
or a middle end.
32:15
It was just like, this is the end
32:17
that we have to jump in.
32:17
Like it was, it just, um,
32:19
yeah, it was ignorance.
32:21
Okay, there's a tip
32:24
It was a little ambition.
32:25
We were like, we would like to do a
32:26
show like this, but it was, it
32:27
wasn't like
32:27
It wasn't like it. So you were
32:28
listening to This American Life
32:30
thinking, oh that sounds easy, I'll
32:31
knock out the film.
32:32
No, I was not
32:33
thinking that and I still don't
32:35
think that but I was but I was like
32:36
oh that's what podcasts sound like
32:38
like it wasn't like I was like I
32:39
have in my mind a Rolodex of
32:41
options for like what a podcast
32:43
can be it was like oh a podcast has
32:44
to be like that unless it's
32:46
gonna be just a conversation or
32:48
something
32:48
And you did a very interesting
32:50
episode on what I think the title
32:52
of is what actually is a podcast.
32:53
Yeah. Where you look back on the
32:56
history of that, which is,
32:58
which is pretty interesting.
33:00
Yeah. I'll put a link to that in
33:02
the show notes to this, but let's go
33:03
to the second clip that you
33:05
recommended to me.
33:06
This show, this episode is called
33:09
The Sign Painter.
33:12
Tell to anyone who's not heard it,
33:13
what is The Sign Painter about?
33:14
I feel like it's funny, these are my
33:16
favourite episodes that we've
33:17
picked, but I don't know they're
33:18
always like totally illustrative.
33:20
I mean, Jane and Leni is a really
33:22
good example of a show where we like
33:23
pick something lots of people know
33:24
about, found a really cool,
33:25
interesting story in it, told the
33:27
hell of it.
33:27
Cool.
33:28
Uh, this one is, is
33:30
regular. It's like just, it's sort
33:32
of like a mystery from my own life,
33:34
which is, um, my mother
33:36
and has a good friend that she's
33:38
had my whole life, so like an auntie
33:39
of mine, um who is an artist
33:41
and who has never quite succeeded.
33:44
Um, has not as,
33:46
as she seemed to, as much as she had
33:48
wanted to, and as at certain moments
33:49
it seemed that she would.
33:51
Um, and I sort of
33:53
wanted to do an episode about her,
33:55
like, why do some people succeed?
33:57
Why do some not succeed?
33:58
Like what's going on?
34:00
And so, um,
34:02
it's like a profile of her and her
34:04
story and her art and
34:05
how she sort of, you
34:08
know, her whole thing and our
34:09
whole thing. And my mom's in it.
34:11
And.
34:12
You know, we had encounters
34:13
when I was a kid, they're in it,
34:16
but yeah.
34:18
The encounter when you were a kid
34:20
seems to be very personal
34:22
and something that
34:24
has bothered you for years.
34:27
What? Tell us about that.
34:28
I mean, I told her
34:30
when I was probably like 9 or 10 to
34:31
get a life. She was like,
34:34
I don't know, she was probably, I
34:35
think her dog was like
34:38
chewing my blankie.
34:40
And I was like I want my blanky.
34:42
I was little.
34:42
And she was like wanting, she
34:44
gave me a hard time, who knows,
34:45
because it was her dog.
34:46
Whatever. And I really was rude.
34:47
And I like, get a live.
34:48
And she burst into tears.
34:50
And obviously like I didn't say it
34:51
to her intending for her to burst
34:52
into tear. I was being a snotty kid,
34:54
but it didn't occur to me I could
34:55
like touch a grown in that way.
34:57
And so that did, so we sort of had
34:59
like tension, but I think also it
35:00
was like, oh, like this is a person
35:01
who has all this stuff going on.
35:02
And I became aware of that at a very
35:04
young age. And so, and then
35:06
only more aware of that as I got
35:07
older.
35:09
But so that was like...
35:10
Yeah, so I had been chewing on it
35:11
for a long time.
35:13
That's right.
35:14
Let's hear a clip from it,
35:16
The Sign Painter.
35:17
But most of Alona's work is
35:19
not paintings on canvas,
35:22
it's signs, graphic images
35:24
painted onto metal.
35:25
But this one is from a series
35:27
of men who were acting poorly
35:29
towards women.
35:31
So they were actually about sexual
35:33
harassment.
35:33
Right now, she's showing us a
35:35
light pink square street sign
35:37
with black trim and black letters
35:39
and three figures on it.
35:41
First on the left is an incredibly
35:43
strong silhouette of
35:45
a very powerful man and
35:47
he is pulling back as hard as
35:49
he can on a leash.
35:51
The leash is restraining a humanoid
35:53
wild animal.
35:54
And he's got like
35:56
wild hair coming out.
35:58
He's got enormous like Dracula
35:59
hands.
36:01
And his tongue is sort of like
36:03
drooling out.
36:04
He is grabbing for a
36:06
very happy, sexy,
36:08
beautiful woman.
36:10
So basically he's like the id
36:12
and the man holding it back is
36:14
the super id and she's the
36:16
prey.
36:17
Above and below these three figures,
36:19
in English and Spanish, is the
36:21
text Curb Your Animal
36:23
Instinct.
36:24
The sign is made of baked enamel
36:26
aluminium, exactly the
36:28
material and thickness of a New
36:30
York City street sign.
36:31
And that's because in 1988,
36:34
it was a New York City street sign.
36:37
There are signs everywhere in New
36:38
York City, most of them warning you
36:40
not to do things like parking
36:42
and littering and horn blowing and
36:43
so on.
36:44
Now artist Alona Granite is going
36:46
to add some new signs warning men
36:48
not to be wolves or various
36:50
other species of animal and in
36:52
general to stop bothering women on
36:54
the streets.
36:55
The Curb Your Animal Instinct sign
36:56
and another darker pink sign reading
36:58
No Cat Calls were hung by
37:00
the Department of Transportation all
37:02
over lower Manhattan, by
37:04
the Brooklyn Bridge and Staten
37:05
Island Ferry, the World Trade Centre
37:07
and City Hall.
37:08
Good morning.
37:09
Why did you decide to do this?
37:11
Well, I thought that it
37:13
was it was time for for
37:15
a men to start thinking of
37:16
themselves as part of the human race
37:18
instead of part of the animal race
37:19
and And treating
37:21
women with a sense of dignity
37:23
The signs were highly visible public
37:25
art about the street harassment of
37:26
women, and that made them
37:28
provocative, especially 35
37:30
years ago.
37:31
As you just heard, they made the
37:32
local news, but they also made CNN
37:34
and the international news.
37:36
They were written up in mainstream
37:37
publications and art world journals,
37:39
in New York Magazine and the AP,
37:41
in Australia and Italy, Germany and
37:43
Japan.
37:44
I had this moment of unbelievable
37:46
success in getting an
37:48
image out into the world, images.
37:50
Up to that point.
37:50
At one point, Alona had been a
37:51
performance artist, a feminist
37:53
artist, and a part of various
37:55
artist-run collectives and bands.
37:57
She'd performed and shown her work
37:59
at galleries, squats, artist-
38:01
run spaces, and art centres like
38:02
PS1.
38:03
Her career had accrued an organic
38:05
momentum.
38:07
One piece of work had led to another
38:08
and another, and now the
38:10
signs had really struck a
38:12
nerve.
38:13
It seemed like Alona was on her
38:15
way, not necessarily to
38:17
fame and fortune.
38:18
But to a kind of art world
38:20
stability, involving recognition,
38:23
public engagement, the ability to
38:25
show her work, to make a
38:26
living.
38:28
But that kind of upward trajectory,
38:30
that's not what this episode is
38:31
about.
38:33
Sometimes you have a moment,
38:35
and then there are all the moments
38:36
after.
38:40
I mean the only thing we could talk
38:41
about the elephant in my
38:43
horror room is like...
38:47
I can't even say the elephant
38:49
in your horror room is...
38:52
I have a lot to do and I'm
38:54
getting up there in the years.
38:56
I have all the stuff that I want to
38:58
show.
38:59
Wait, so what's the elephant in the
39:00
room?
39:01
Well, the elephant is ...
39:02
Is it death or success?
39:03
It's... Success.
39:05
Success.
39:33
Should be a kind of a distance.
39:34
Interesting to make a
39:36
story. I don't think I've really
39:38
done it about someone you
39:40
know, particularly someone who
39:42
her story is a bit sad
39:45
in some ways.
39:47
Yeah, I mean, so that was difficult
39:49
for you.
39:50
I mean, I think this is like people
39:51
who write memoirs or do anything
39:53
about their life.
39:54
They encounter questions like this,
39:55
and I think you also encounter
39:56
questions like this.
40:00
Just in doing this work in
40:02
general. I mean,
40:04
to your point, when you
40:06
are a news reporter or you're like
40:08
covering the breaking news of the
40:09
day, it's like, this is, it's,
40:11
what you're covering is apparently
40:13
and obviously
40:15
important. And it's you want to
40:17
have an appropriate scepticism about
40:18
the people you're cover who have a
40:19
lot of power and are in
40:21
your job is to like inform people
40:22
what they're doing.
40:23
But with something like our show,
40:25
where we're sort of like.
40:26
We're picking topics and none of
40:28
it's like, is it necessary
40:30
strictly? It's like hopefully
40:32
they feel necessary or they feel
40:33
like they've learned something from
40:35
them. They're not necessarily like,
40:36
it's not like current events are
40:37
happening and I need to like, it's a
40:38
draught of history or it's, like not
40:40
getting information that otherwise
40:41
won't get out to people.
40:43
So it's necessary.
40:45
Like we're always picking.
40:46
And so I
40:48
often, you often are
40:50
like, Oh, I don't want to just be
40:51
mean to this. Like we just did a
40:53
dry, like we just randomly picked
40:54
this topic. Like, why would we?
40:56
Then uncover this person and this
40:58
history than just to be
41:01
shitty to them. I mean, it
41:02
doesn't usually happen.
41:05
People are, you would be shitty
41:07
for no reason or whatever.
41:09
But it's like this general question
41:10
of not wanting to be overly, it
41:12
comes up often, not wanting be cruel
41:14
or critical or upset people because
41:15
there is just an element of
41:17
choice in it.
41:20
And also, what I find is that
41:21
sometimes you go into something and
41:22
you are feeling sceptical
41:25
of someone or critical,
41:27
and then usually they explain
41:28
themselves to you and you feel very
41:30
sympathetic or you want to present
41:31
their viewpoint in all its fullness.
41:33
I mean, there's honestly only, we
41:34
did this one episode about this
41:36
early video game called Custer's
41:38
Revenge, which is like this
41:39
abhorrently racist against
41:41
Native Americans video game,
41:44
really terrible.
41:46
And like the guy who made that was
41:48
just like such a villain.
41:49
Like he was just so
41:51
unrepentantly like, yeah.
41:53
Like just, and so that was like, you
41:55
just like could play his tape and
41:56
you didn't, you're like, all right,
41:57
sure, whatever.
41:58
Like, you know, hang yourself on
41:59
your own words.
42:01
But often you have people
42:02
who are more complicated and they're
42:04
opening themselves up to you and you
42:05
have like asked them to, and it's
42:07
not like you're inviting people into
42:08
their, to them and
42:10
like, to.
42:12
To sort of present them badly.
42:13
You just have to, it's not like you
42:14
want to present, overly present them
42:16
well either, but this question of
42:17
like how to frame someone so
42:19
people can have both critique and
42:21
sympathy, it comes up a lot
42:23
because yeah,
42:25
like we're knocking on the door,
42:27
you know? It's not they were asking
42:28
for people to pay attention to them.
42:30
Right.
42:31
You're not speaking
42:34
truth to power, which is the cliché.
42:36
Yeah, exactly.
42:37
You're analysing or digging into the
42:39
history of sun tans.
42:41
You know, like things people have
42:42
forgotten. It's like, yeah, we mean,
42:44
we did, particularly I'm thinking
42:46
of, we did this episode about, um,
42:48
this very popular joke book series
42:50
from the 1980s called truly
42:51
tasteless jokes.
42:52
And they're full, they were hugely
42:53
successful. So millions of copies,
42:55
many, many versions, and they're of
42:57
just tasteless jokes, which is say
42:58
not just dirty jokes, but racist
43:00
jokes. Like sections will be like
43:01
black people, Asian people,
43:04
Jews, you know, and just like, then
43:05
it's like women, like, you notice
43:06
that gay people, like just a litany
43:08
of like completely inappropriate.
43:10
Racist, offensive jokes.
43:13
And we talked to the woman and it
43:15
was interesting to us as a way sort
43:16
of to think about how the politics,
43:20
like the political leanings of
43:22
free speech have changed.
43:23
It used to be sort of like a liberal
43:24
value, a progressive value.
43:25
It's become a conservative one.
43:27
And also just were interested in
43:29
this and the woman who wrote
43:31
them and the woman who and so we
43:32
spoke with the woman, who wrote the
43:33
at length who
43:36
you know, is progressive,
43:38
but regrets them, but sort of, but
43:40
not really, you know like hasn't,
43:41
and that was just like an
43:42
interesting thing. It's like, we
43:43
have shown up at this lady's door.
43:45
She has totally agreed to talk to
43:46
us, but like we're
43:49
gonna just, we can't just character.
43:51
Like that would be, it would be not
43:52
only not correct to the story to
43:54
character assassinate her, she's
43:55
much more complicated than that, but
43:56
it's just like morally, or it's like
43:58
this is so,
44:00
she's not in the news, you now?
44:01
Like we're shining a light on her.
44:03
Like, why are we doing that just to
44:04
be?
44:05
Jerks. So it's not, it doesn't only
44:07
come up in personal situations, but
44:08
I think it's, I think, it's a sort
44:09
of side. It's a, it a sidebar
44:11
of, or like a side effect of like
44:13
sort of not being on the news and
44:15
also trying to like really see
44:16
people.
44:18
Did you do news before?
44:20
I was never, I've never been a news
44:21
journalist. I've always been a
44:22
culture journalist.
44:23
You can make a story out
44:25
of literally anything
44:27
if you're prepared to look for the
44:29
story, and which is what you do at
44:30
Decoder Ring, is like suntan,
44:33
sunblock, suntan cream.
44:34
Not interesting, but is
44:36
it? This is a whole history of
44:39
racism and identity politics
44:41
and fitness and
44:43
class and all these
44:45
things that you uncovered, but you
44:47
could literally do that about
44:48
anything. And then even once you've
44:49
decided you've selected
44:52
your story.
44:54
Even within that there are
44:56
infinite rabbit holes
44:58
to go down and
45:00
the reason I told that anecdote is
45:02
that must be a massive challenge for
45:04
you not just picking the story
45:06
but also deciding which
45:08
rabbit hole how far to go I'm sorry
45:10
I could spend three three three
45:12
hours doing this sidebar
45:14
I remember for example on the
45:16
the Dolly Parton series
45:20
you mentioned he could
45:21
have done the whole series.
45:23
Where he looked at why those
45:25
murder ballads were
45:27
actually went back. He traced them
45:29
back to 17th
45:31
century or 16th century England.
45:33
And it was so interesting.
45:35
But he managed to do that in about
45:36
10 minutes sidebar of
45:38
an eight part series.
45:40
He must have been tempted to say,
45:41
well, I'll do a whole series on
45:42
that. You must as well be
45:44
tempted to say, wow, I've uncovered
45:45
this one little niche thing.
45:47
How do you stop yourself and pull
45:49
yourself out of a rabbit hole?
45:50
The truth is you can't do everything
45:52
though,
45:55
like everything has a history, not
45:56
all those histories are actually
45:57
interesting, lots of those histories
45:59
are googleable, like there
46:01
still needs to be a story, like,
46:03
there needs to a character, it's not
46:04
just like fun facts, you know, like
46:06
it has to sustain an episode, and
46:07
there's tonnes of stuff that isn't
46:09
that. I would say like our problem
46:10
is not that we're like, oh my god,
46:12
everything's a story.
46:13
It's like.
46:14
We need a story, you know, like it's
46:15
hard to find stories.
46:17
I do take your point that says when
46:19
you're on a beat, right, like,
46:22
it's narrowing in a productive way,
46:24
like you
46:26
know where
46:27
to look and you sort of get more
46:29
expertise so you sort know where the
46:30
rabbit holes are and I think
46:32
that, but no, it really
46:34
can't be everything.
46:35
It isn't, not everything can sustain
46:37
an episode. You need lots of pieces.
46:39
And also it needs to be something
46:40
surprising.
46:41
I don't mean like
46:44
holy shit surprising but like it
46:46
the story has to move it can't
46:48
like you can't when i tell you
46:49
this the topic you
46:51
can imagine in your mind the whole
46:53
episode if you can then that's not
46:54
right right like if you if you're
46:56
like oh i think the history of this
46:57
involves like it got popular after
46:59
world war two and then like
47:00
something something you know like no
47:02
it can be that
47:04
Yeah, and the kind of
47:05
counterintuitive thing is I get
47:07
the impression you're trying to get
47:08
to as well.
47:09
I just realised I did listen to
47:11
another episode, the cuddly
47:13
coal one.
47:14
Yeah. That was you, right?
47:15
Yeah, that was us.
47:16
And I'd never seen that before, but
47:18
it started off with
47:20
a cartoon picture of
47:22
a chunk of coal and it was making
47:24
coal cute again.
47:26
Going around social media that was
47:27
going on social media right seemed
47:29
to be like a meme from the Trump
47:31
like the Trump camp to
47:33
sort of
47:33
like they'd call adorable.
47:35
But that story, that wasn't the
47:36
story at all.
47:37
Maybe it had been. Well it was a story.
47:38
Well, it was a story a little bit,
47:39
but yes.
47:40
Yeah, exactly.
47:41
But it certainly wasn't the origin
47:42
story.
47:42
And it wasn't the complete story,
47:44
right? Totally. Yes, right Like if
47:46
if that's a perfect example of
47:48
like if it had just been what
47:49
it seemed to be Coley
47:51
this adorable animated
47:53
lump of coal appeared on the
47:55
internet from the Secretary of
47:58
Energy Sort of being like dig
48:00
drill bit like dig baby dig.
48:02
We're making coal cute again This is
48:04
part of the Trump camps,
48:06
you know move to like
48:08
reinvest in coal and
48:10
screw solar and screw, you
48:12
know, uh, like less, um,
48:15
like things that are better for the
48:16
environment, essentially.
48:17
Um, if it had just been that, we
48:19
couldn't have done an episode about
48:20
it. There's nothing, there's no
48:21
there there.
48:23
I wanna play a third clip,
48:25
Willa. I mean, we could play a clip
48:27
from that, or do you wanna play
48:28
one from a recent episode?
48:30
So we have an episode that just
48:31
came out that
48:33
I is actually gonna we
48:35
don't only tell stories about
48:38
older women from the 1970s
48:41
Basically the three that we've
48:43
picked but they're all really
48:44
different and this one
48:46
So this one is also I said I'd
48:48
mentioned it before it's not about
48:49
something that most people would
48:50
remember so in the 1970 There
48:52
was an extremely popular like it
48:54
sold millions of copies and made a
48:55
lot of money and was all over the
48:57
world in the UK as well,
48:58
like I've seen the magazine or the
49:00
newspaper clippings,
49:02
uh, puzzles,
49:04
calendars, playing cards,
49:07
dart boards, tonnes of ridiculous
49:09
books like cookbooks and
49:11
sex advice books and all these
49:13
things all around this character
49:14
called Bridget, who is a
49:16
explicitly a fat,
49:19
not like hardcore pornographic, but
49:20
like topless nude behind model
49:23
who appeared in all these and they
49:24
sold a bunch, and we got a listener
49:26
question about her.
49:27
Like, this woman wrote
49:29
to us of being like, I know
49:31
about this Bridget, but she's really
49:33
hard to find anything about her
49:34
online.
49:35
She really mattered to me.
49:36
She sort of made me, as a bad person
49:38
myself, like think you could be
49:40
different. You could be confident
49:41
and happy with yourself.
49:43
And I need your help.
49:44
Like, I wanna know more.
49:46
And so,
49:48
we found her.
49:51
We were floundering around with so
49:53
many products, trying anything.
49:56
And he said, hey, let's do
49:58
a jigsaw puzzle of
50:00
a fat nude instead of a
50:02
beautiful nude.
50:03
Is the idea like these will be
50:05
a joke, like it will be like a
50:07
riff on the Playboy puzzles.
50:09
I guess it was like a
50:11
joke, just a gag, a gift,
50:14
so desperately trying to have
50:16
a similar product without being
50:18
involved with Playboy,
50:20
I put an ad in the newspaper.
50:22
Do you remember what the ad said?
50:24
I remember
50:26
it exactly, fat
50:28
nude model, preferably ugly.
50:33
When Herb told me this, I instantly
50:35
thought, I hope he's
50:37
remembering wrong.
50:38
It's so different than the gentle ad
50:40
Dawn and her friends recall, asking
50:42
for a plus-size model.
50:45
But with the help of an archivist,
50:46
we tracked the ad down, and
50:48
Herb's not misremembering.
50:50
It's in the classifieds of the
50:52
January 26th, 1971
50:54
issue of Boston After Dark,
50:57
and the title says, Fat Nude
50:59
Model.
51:00
And then the ad itself reads,
51:01
Well-known publishing company needs
51:03
incredibly fat and preferably
51:05
ugly model for promotional
51:07
nude illustration.
51:09
$100 fee for less than
51:11
three hours.
51:13
And we had three responses.
51:15
One was not very fat, she was just
51:17
a heavy woman.
51:19
And I remember her walking into
51:21
the office and I said, well,
51:23
thank you very much for coming.
51:25
You know, you just really knocked
51:26
out enough of what we're looking
51:27
for.
51:28
And then in walked Dawn.
51:31
Once I got there, the intro
51:33
to the whole conversation was,
51:35
okay, well, we were really thinking
51:37
that maybe we could do
51:39
something different.
51:40
And then they explained what the gig
51:42
would be.
51:43
Not posing for an illustration,
51:45
as the ad had said, but being
51:47
photographed in the nude for a
51:49
jigsaw puzzle.
51:50
And it was like, oh,
51:53
all right, well, that would be
51:54
different.
51:57
She was absolutely perfect.
51:59
She was just a college girl,
52:02
not very attractive, she's
52:03
cute. She was a lovely
52:05
person, she was a delight.
52:09
How'd you find out you got the job?
52:10
They called me and just said, you
52:12
know, we've determined that, you
52:14
know, you'd work and
52:16
we'll pay you $125.
52:18
I remember that specifically.
52:21
Were you excited?
52:22
Like, what did you feel then?
52:23
Nervous?
52:23
Of course I was, you know, $125 back
52:26
in 1971 was a
52:28
lot of money or 70, whenever it was,
52:30
you know.
52:30
So, and of course, I
52:32
was doing something out of the
52:34
norm, you know.
52:36
I definitely was doing something out
52:38
of the norm. How exciting is
52:40
that?
52:43
That was a clip from
52:46
Bridget in the buff a
52:48
an episode of
52:50
Decoder RingBy Willa Paskin my guest
52:51
on Pick of the Pods-The Podcast
52:53
Okay. Well, we've heard three clips
52:55
as you said it will
52:57
All about life story very
52:59
interesting women
53:02
No, it's very eclectic we
53:04
need to make the point if anyone's
53:05
listening to this has not heard any
53:06
decoder in It's very very
53:08
eclectric and it's one of those
53:11
You could shuffle through the back
53:12
catalogue and just pick out the
53:14
weirdest story,
53:16
something that grabs your attention.
53:18
I think there's just a lot of fun
53:20
stories in there.
53:21
Yeah, totally. And also, I mean, I
53:22
would say, right, like, we try to do
53:23
a mix of things where you're like, I
53:24
really have never thought about
53:25
that, like Bridget and the buff, for
53:26
example, like all the things, you
53:28
know, my family friend, I
53:29
did a story, like you've never
53:30
wondered about that in your life,
53:31
probably, you know, someone may
53:33
have, but not you.
53:34
But then there are things, like I
53:35
said, like protein, we did a whole
53:37
episode about the mullet, the
53:39
hairstyle of the mullah, which was
53:40
not actually called the mullah until
53:42
the 90s, like well after the 80s.
53:44
And it's, it's actually a fun twisty
53:46
story, like the OED trying to figure
53:47
out When the mullet became
53:49
the mullah it's very
53:50
counterintuitive like, you know, but
53:51
everyone knows what the mulla it is
53:53
It's not like a secret thing.
53:55
Your face looks confused
53:56
Well, I'm just yeah, that's
53:58
interesting. Why is it called a
53:59
mullet? I mean, obviously it's a
54:00
fish a kind of fish tail At
54:02
the back, but it could have been any
54:04
fish. Why a mulleet?
54:06
Fish have a tail like that
54:07
The Beastie Boys are actually
54:08
responsible for it being called the
54:10
mullet and it
54:12
wasn't named that until 1994,
54:14
even though people had mullets.
54:16
There we go.
54:18
That's the stuff you can learn on
54:19
decodering.
54:20
And also that was cool because
54:22
there's a whole other, just
54:24
like a weird or really weird story
54:26
where people started to sort of
54:28
like, someone tried to
54:30
create false evidence that the
54:33
term the mullet was actually older
54:34
than that.
54:36
And it's like, it took a lot of
54:38
twists and turns, but I mean, yes,
54:38
there's tonnes of stories that
54:41
we do that are right about
54:43
things you have, hopefully,
54:45
been thinking about.
54:46
Okay, well if
54:48
it didn't have a name did it really
54:50
exist we get into
54:51
Well I think people in
54:53
the 80s and 70s were like, they
54:55
called it hockey hair sometimes or
54:56
they were just like, I want David
54:58
Bowie's haircut or Jean-Claude
55:00
Van Damme's, but yeah they didn't.
55:01
It wasn't called the mullet.
55:03
Okay fantastic all
55:05
right um let's come to
55:06
the part of the episode where i ask
55:08
you for your
55:10
picks of the pods pick
55:12
up i'm not sure how to make that
55:13
plural
55:14
Yeah
55:14
What I ask every
55:16
guest on this show to give us a
55:18
couple of recommendations, if they
55:20
can, what have you got for
55:21
us?
55:22
Sure, I've been really enjoying this
55:24
very beautiful, non-narrated
55:27
show from Leon
55:29
Neyfakh, my former colleague who
55:31
is the host of Slowbird
55:33
on Slate originally and then a show
55:34
called Fiasco and a show about
55:36
Michael Jackson's done a tonne of
55:37
stuff, most of which is on
55:39
Audible. This one's everywhere.
55:41
And he and his wife, Alice Gregory,
55:42
who is a writer who writes for the
55:44
New Yorker and a bunch of other
55:45
places, very accomplished, beautiful
55:47
feature writer.
55:48
And they together did
55:50
a story.
55:54
It's called, it's in the Pushkin
55:55
series, Death of an Artist, it is
55:56
the third season.
55:57
And it's about a
55:59
couple, a couple in their 70s,
56:01
early 70s.
56:03
She's a German illustrator, he's
56:05
a photographer,
56:07
and they decided
56:09
that they didn't really want
56:11
to get sick and old and they sent a
56:13
bunch of their friends letters and
56:15
killed themselves.
56:17
And so, and Alice and Leon read
56:19
this in the obituary and basically
56:20
then, sort of.
56:23
Reached out to everyone who had the
56:24
letters, found out all about
56:26
Petra and Michael are the
56:29
illustrator and the photographer who
56:30
have died.
56:31
And it's quite beautiful and
56:34
it's really interesting about what
56:36
people make of that choice and the
56:38
things that went into that choice,
56:39
whether they know it or not.
56:41
And it really gets a good show.
56:43
Sounds like a heavy listen though.
56:45
You know, it is about
56:47
heavy themes.
56:48
It can be a heavy, it's not always a
56:50
heavy lesson.
56:51
It's quite lovely, quite
56:52
interesting.
56:53
It's really good. It's also just
56:54
like, it sort of technically
56:56
interesting to sort of hear how they
56:58
get you all the information that you
56:59
need without narrating.
57:02
Yeah. Oh, right.
57:03
Yeah, that is interesting. I mean,
57:04
you hear their voices, and they've
57:07
staged some set pieces with
57:09
which to impart you that
57:10
information, but there is no
57:11
narration explicitly.
57:12
So they avoid those cliches of, that
57:14
got me thinking, and I went back
57:16
to who?
57:17
It makes it much more beautiful,
57:18
honestly.
57:20
Okay, Death of an Artist, we'll look
57:21
for that one. Do you have another?
57:22
Um, yeah, totally.
57:24
So then I also just a couple,
57:26
I don't just listen to narrative
57:27
podcasts anymore, but I'm going to
57:29
rep for narrative podcasts and for
57:30
the moment, uh, which is I also
57:33
over the summer, just listened to
57:35
Dan Taberski is manifesto
57:37
series and Dan Taber Ski is like,
57:40
you know, uh.
57:42
You know Dan Tversky?
57:43
You know his work?
57:44
Oh, Dan Taberski is
57:46
a great, he's
57:48
a great great great
57:51
podcaster, but also like just a
57:52
great producer and writer and
57:54
makes a tonne of
57:56
really good shows. If you don't know
57:57
his shows, you should get after it.
57:59
Now years ago, probably in the mid
58:01
2010s, he made a
58:02
show called Missing Richard Simmons,
58:04
which had a huge audience.
58:05
It was basically about the exercise
58:08
guy in America,
58:10
Richard Simmons.
58:11
Who sort of had like receded from
58:12
the public eye and he was
58:14
about him and finding him.
58:16
And he's since done, like every
58:17
single one is so good.
58:18
They're so good, they're all fully
58:19
reported, narrated and he's so
58:21
good at like,
58:24
growing and sustaining an idea
58:26
over a series
58:28
that each episode sort of stands
58:30
alone and has its own story, but
58:32
like the ideas in them are getting
58:33
enriched.
58:34
He did, He did an incredible
58:36
series about Y2K.
58:38
He did a series about the show Cops.
58:40
He did show for Apple about this
58:42
military trial called The Line.
58:44
There's nothing that he does that
58:46
isn't extremely good.
58:48
He did his show about hysteria.
58:51
That was based on this story in
58:52
upstate New York where these
58:54
women, young girls, like these
58:56
teenage girls all came down with the
58:58
same physical symptoms.
59:00
He's really, he's like a master, he
59:02
is so good. Anyway, his new one is
59:03
called Manifesto when it's about.
59:04
All the making the argument that we
59:06
need manifestos, um,
59:09
which have been sort of taken in
59:10
this sort of like dark in, in this
59:11
moment, sort of, like, been taken
59:13
over by cranks and crazy people
59:15
and scary people.
59:16
And, uh, each episode is sort of
59:17
about different manifestos.
59:19
But it's sort of part of a larger
59:20
argument about why we need them.
59:21
I mean, he just really is always
59:23
like, he's really so
59:25
good. You just listen and you're
59:26
like, ah, I mean his old team is
59:27
great. It's not just him.
59:28
They're great. They are so reported
59:30
and they're really, really...
59:32
Really ffff...
59:33
They're really well written.
59:35
They write to his voice, so they're
59:36
funny, and
59:38
he's making jokes, and it's really
59:40
his personality.
59:41
But they also, they pull
59:43
the idea through in a way that is
59:45
so, as someone who's
59:47
trying to pull ideas through
59:48
episodes, let alone seasons,
59:50
I'm very impressed with it often,
59:52
and I love to listen to stuff.
1:00:00
Oh, you know what else I've been
1:00:01
listening to?
1:00:02
So this, I'm on pause, but I
1:00:05
read Hilary
1:00:07
Mantel's A Place of Greater Safety a
1:00:09
couple years ago, which is her,
1:00:12
it's like before Wolf Hall
1:00:14
and all of those, but it was sort of
1:00:15
similar. It's one of her first like
1:00:17
historical novels about the French
1:00:18
Revolution. She like learned
1:00:19
everything she could about the
1:00:20
French Revolution and then like as
1:00:22
with Wolf Hall like did a fiction, a
1:00:24
novel about Robespierre and
1:00:26
Danton, the whole saying.
1:00:28
And it's kind of incredible, it goes
1:00:29
on too long, but it's, it's kind of
1:00:31
incredibly. And I read it and I was
1:00:32
like, I would actually, I now need
1:00:34
to know more about the French
1:00:34
Revolution.
1:00:35
And I was, like, Oh, I'll read a
1:00:37
book. And then the books were so big
1:00:38
and there were so many and I
1:00:39
couldn't figure it out. And then I
1:00:40
just remembered this literally
1:00:41
because I was listening to something
1:00:43
else and I, I was wait, this,
1:00:45
I want a podcast about the French
1:00:46
Revolution, I bet
1:00:48
The Rest Is History guys have done the
1:00:49
French Revolution and lo and behold,
1:00:51
they have, they've done it.
1:00:52
Like they start, they tried to do it
1:00:53
in one episode. They couldn't, they
1:00:54
came back and did it too.
1:00:55
There's like 12 episodes about the
1:00:57
French Revolution, so I'm in the
1:00:57
middle of that, delightful.
1:01:00
The Rest Is History. On the French
1:01:01
revolution specifically.
1:01:03
Two historians being
1:01:05
goofy, but smart about the french
1:01:06
revolution.
1:01:07
Yeah well on my bingo card
1:01:09
we almost got through an episode of
1:01:11
Pick of the Pods without anyone
1:01:12
recommending The Rest Is History
1:01:13
Oh, yeah, I figured that out.
1:01:15
There you go.
1:01:16
And I think every single episode
1:01:18
so far so I'm glad you got to
1:01:20
in there before The Rest Is History
1:01:23
Which is- and at least that is like
1:01:24
actually is a chat show.
1:01:25
I mean, obviously the guy's sort of
1:01:27
very, very informed.
1:01:28
Well they found maybe that's the
1:01:30
middle. What was the thing?
1:01:31
The high and the low touches?
1:01:33
The mid-toucher is like right, we're
1:01:35
like fully researched, but then it's
1:01:36
just beautiful.
1:01:36
They found the mid-touch because
1:01:38
they've had to do years of
1:01:40
study to be historians, right?
1:01:43
Yeah, but they could just throw
1:01:45
it. It's probably not as easy as
1:01:46
they make it sound, but it sounds
1:01:48
like two very smart people chatting
1:01:50
about the thing.
1:01:51
So, okay.
1:01:52
Well, I'll put links in the show
1:01:53
notes to all three of those,
1:01:55
although everyone knows
1:01:56
The Rest Is History from
1:01:57
the previous episodes of this.
1:01:59
My final question to you then,
1:02:01
Willa, is what would be your
1:02:03
dream fantasy episode?
1:02:04
You can make it anything.
1:02:05
No idea, no idea.
1:02:06
No idea
1:02:09
There's things that
1:02:11
I've been working on, like there's
1:02:12
this, this story of
1:02:14
like another personal story from
1:02:15
summer camp that I like, that's
1:02:17
on my, like maybe one day bucket
1:02:19
list. I kind of want to do,
1:02:23
I think there's something to do
1:02:24
about like taste and
1:02:26
coolness, like what's happened to
1:02:28
cool and how sort of like cool
1:02:30
has become destabilised
1:02:33
and that sort of explaining some of
1:02:34
the weird, like cause of the
1:02:35
internet a little bit, Bye.
1:02:36
Some of the weird behaviour that you
1:02:38
see where it's like everyone wants
1:02:39
to be like everybody else instead of
1:02:41
do their own thing.
1:02:42
But that needs a story to attach to.
1:02:43
But I think there might be like a
1:02:44
Dan Taberski kind of thing to do
1:02:46
about, about coolness.
1:02:48
I was really interested in Graham
1:02:50
Plattner's, this guy was
1:02:52
running for Senate in
1:02:54
Maine and it blew up into a
1:02:56
spectacular catastrophe.
1:02:58
And I think that would make a great
1:03:00
narrative podcast if someone wanted
1:03:01
to do it. It's not quite our beat,
1:03:03
but I was thinking about that.
1:03:06
But yeah, you know, there's always
1:03:08
things to do but none of them
1:03:09
there's not there's not one where
1:03:10
I'm like I'm itching for it right
1:03:12
this second
1:03:13
Okay, so a coolness podcast
1:03:15
you can interview anyone
1:03:16
in history fiction or non-fiction
1:03:18
or who's the epitome of
1:03:20
cool Who might who would that
1:03:22
be? So you've got it, right?
1:03:23
I was a TV critic
1:03:25
and people would be like, what
1:03:26
should I watch on TV?
1:03:27
And I'm like, I'm gonna be bad at
1:03:28
this. I can't tell you I can
1:03:30
generate.
1:03:31
Whatever the thing is, whenever the
1:03:33
thing is when like you can carve the
1:03:35
witty comeback like right away, like
1:03:37
it's not I don't have it in
1:03:39
me. So I have no idea I want to talk
1:03:41
to about coolness.
1:03:42
Okay, what TV show should I watch
1:03:44
then?
1:03:44
Oh my god, please!
1:03:45
I just told you I can't answer it!
1:03:47
You've had time enough you've not
1:03:48
been a tv critic for years you've
1:03:50
I actually barely
1:03:52
watch television. I did just watch
1:03:53
some. Oh, I'm watching Slow Horses,
1:03:55
but I
1:03:55
Oh, that was the one that was in my
1:03:56
mind. So there we are.
1:03:58
Yes. Willip Haskin, thanks very
1:03:59
much.
1:04:01
If you or anyone you know
1:04:03
is looking to discover a great new
1:04:04
podcast every week, you could please
1:04:06
ask them to find Pick of the Pods,
1:04:08
the newsletter, which is available
1:04:10
on
1:04:12
substackpickofthepods.substack.com
1:04:13
or on my LinkedIn page.
1:04:15
I've just passed a thousand
1:04:17
subscribers on LinkedIn.
1:04:19
Very happy about that.
1:04:20
Here's to the next 10,000.
1:04:21
You'll get a recommendation every
1:04:23
week of one podcast you should be
1:04:24
listening to right
1:04:26
now.
1:04:27
If you enjoyed this show, please
1:04:29
give it a rating wherever you're
1:04:30
listening to this.
1:04:31
Leave a comment. I'd love to hear
1:04:32
from you. And maybe I'll include any
1:04:34
comments on future episodes
1:04:36
and please let me know what you're
1:04:38
listening to, why you love whatever
1:04:40
podcast it is.
1:04:41
Pick up the pods.
1:04:42
The podcast is written, produced and
1:04:43
edited by me, Robin Pomeroy.
1:04:45
It's a Spinny Hill production.
1:04:47
The theme music is by far.
1:04:49
We'll be back next month.
1:04:50
Speaking to another great podcaster,
1:04:53
but for now, thanks very much
1:04:55
to decoderings.
1:04:57
Willa Paskin, thanks Willa.
1:04:58
Thank you.
1:05:00
And thanks to you for watching and
1:05:01
listening to Pick of the Pods-The
1:05:02
Podcast, and I'll see you next time.