I Like to Listen
I like to listen to people talk. When radio became podcasts I was delighted.
One of the first podcasts that I listened to was Reply All. I have loved it ever since.
Yes, for the bro banter of Alex and PJ (Why oh why do I love bro-banter? Maybe because I always wished I had a lot of actual bros…?), but more for the expansive nature of the content, that was equally interested in a mysterious call centre in India, and the problem of America’s feral pigs.
And the show was one of those rare programs that could expand its cast of voices and seem more satisfying, more itself. Recently, it added a third host, Emmanuel Dzotsi, and it was like someone great was marrying into the family.
Anyway, I’m using past tense here, because if you are a podcast person, you likely know that Reply All is currently suspended, after hitting that all-too familiar snag of pointing fingers at problems outside its ranks, when it was having the same problems inside them. Problems of race and power. This is a vast over-simplification about something no one outside can know the depths of (definitively and yet), and my feelings of sadness about all of it are also complex.
I wrote 1000 words on it, and then decided I’d save it for therapy. (No really. If anyone wants to form a support group, let me know.)
For now I’m going to drown my sorrows in a celebration of other things to listen to and love. Maybe you can join me.
Finding Cleo—and all things Connie Walker
Hands down, Finding Cleo is the best podcast I’ve ever heard.
It’s the second season of two in the “Missing and Murdered” series examining violence against Indigenous women in Canada and the lack of investigation into their loss. The series was reported for the CBC by Connie Walker, a journalist from the Okanese First Nation in Saskatchewan. Season 1 of Missing and Murdered is Who Killed Alberta Williams, which looks at the unsolved murder of one woman who was killed along on the Highway of Tears near Prince Rupert, BC. It’s excellent. But Finding Cleo—which takes place against the backdrop of the Sixties Scoop (when governments and social service agencies took Indigenous children from their families in Canada and adopted the kids into white homes in Canada and the US)—is even more resonant. No, it’s not light entertainment, but it’s incredible and resonant and if you haven’t listened, you should.
Walker tells a very particular story about one Cree family’s quest to find out what happened to the sister they last saw when they were children, but in it you can hear the echo of all the other similarly devastating stories that have yet to be told.
Already heard it? Good news. Walker has a new podcast. I like to binge, so I’m going to let a few episodes build up, but the first episode of Stolen: The Search for Jermain is available now on Spotify.
(And because everything’s always complicated, it’s from Gimlet, the production company that makes Reply All, and therefore is part of the larger question about race and power in the workplace. May I posit here that this is also a conversation for any workplace, which is why the conversation is relevant and necessary, and…oh yeah. Therapy. Right. Anyway, Walker went from CBC to Gimlet, which is also the current home for former CBC storyteller Jonathan Goldstein. His Gimlet show Heavyweight is also worth a listen.)
Media Girlfriends
Nana aba Duncan started Media Girlfriends as a way to hone and highlight her interview skills, when she felt she wasn’t getting the professional development she needed at her CBC day job.
The podcast does what the best conversations do: make you feel like you’re sitting right there, drinking whatever they’re drinking.
But for a straight, pasty-white girl like me, Media Girlfriends was also an opportunity to listen to a lot of voices that I wasn’t coming across in other places and that I wasn’t always hearing in my own circles (What circles? I’m practically a hermit! But I guess we all are now).
The podcast is currently on hiatus—as a fan I refuse to accept that this is permanent—but Media Girlfriends has morphed into something bigger and more fabulous: a production company and a series of scholarships helmed by Duncan and some of those very girlfriends that she interviewed on the show. The podcast that started as an experiment in self-directed learning has turned into a springboard. Duncan became the host of two shows on CBC Radio One (Fresh Air—a decent slot, but in my opinion one that’s too restrictive for her talents—and Podcast Playlist), a William Southam Journalism Fellow at Massey College, and joined the Poynter Institute’s Leadership Academy for Women in Media.
Here’s to sisters doin’ it for themselves—and each other.
Shedunnit
The Shedunnit show explores the Golden Age of Detective Fiction, with a focus on the women writing it. Yes, Agatha Christie is here, but also many others, and host and creator Caroline Crampton considers the genre, and the times, and women’s place in both. The Observer called each episode “A small but perfectly formed little gem” and I agree.
It’s a pure and nerdy pleasure, whether or not you’re familiar with any of the books.
You can jump in anywhere, but a particular favourite is Queer Clues which considers the coded messages beneath the publicly acceptable order of the British murder mystery.
Criminal
Yes, Criminal is show about crime, but not in the way you might think.
It’s fascinating without ever being salacious, billing itself as “stories of people who’ve done wrong, been wrong, or gotten caught somewhere in the middle.” Which takes in a very wide range of subjects and experiences, from an interview with a mother and daughter who are both coroners, to profiling death row prisoners’ advocate Sister Helen Prejean, to quirky stories such as what guests at a bed and breakfast found on their camera when they got home.
I’ll never forget the episode about a grocery store clerk and her dog who travelled the back roads of the American midwest for years, searching for the remains of a stranger’s children.
Without Fail
Lots of podcasts that are supposedly about failure just skate along the surface (like the way they used to tell you to turn that stupid interview question “What’s your worst quality?” into an opportunity to describe a superpower. Ugh. I know, I know. I did it too).
But the Without Fail podcast from Alex Blumberg, the man behind Gimlet (yup, again) has been a go-to for me, partly because the guests on this show dive pretty deep into their defeats.
Three episodes to begin with: Hollywood Producer Nina Jacobson, and Nashville country music star Shane McNally on coming out, and early YouTube beauty influencer Michelle Phan.
The Happiness Lab
In The Happiness Lab, Yale professor Dr. Laurie Santos considers the latest psychological research to uncover what our brains tell us will make us happy, versus what really does.
Short, easy listens with immediate takeaways to better your days. Who can’t use a little of that?
Two episodes that seem particularly resonant in Covid times: The Power of a Made Up Ritual shows the profound effects of marking a change or a loss—even if there’s no existing mechanism to do so, and Beat Your Isolation Loneliness (no explanation necessary).
My particular favourite is For Whom the Alarm Clock Tolls, which offers several ideas for finding bits of time to reclaim for ourselves and the things that we care about.
Hey, I feel better already.
Look at that! I whole list of podcasts and not a writing show among them.
Because that’s another post…