I like podcasts, squiders, at least in theory. The biggest issue is finding time to listen to them (or remembering to listen to them).
I don’t commute, so I don’t have transportation time. Sometimes I’ll remember to turn one on if I’m mowing the lawn or mopping the floor, but that goes back to the whole remembering thing again. And I can’t think and listen, so I can’t listen to them while I’m working (and am in awe that anyone can).
I had some marketing/writing ones that I used to listen to, but the issue was that invariably I would be doing something else while listening, so I’d have to stop both the podcast and whatever it was if I wanted to write down notes on the podcast content.
So, they’re not the greatest fit for me, or at least, I haven’t figured out how to fit them in. But I’m trying again. Not sure why. It’s like…I was standing there one day, and I thought, “Wow, I haven’t listened to Night Vale in forever,” and opened my podcast app on my phone (apparently never before opened on this particular phone, so I had to remember passwords and sundry), and here we are.
(I was over three years behind on Night Vale, so, wow, it has been forever.)
But for the last three weeks or so I’ve been listening again. When I was working on the consignment sale stuff, it was easy to listen to a few episodes here and there while pricing stuff, so I made some good mileage there. And the podcasts autoplay whenever the car and the phone pair, which is a little annoying (for example, if it’s a five-minute car ride and the small, mobile ones want to talk to me, and I’ve got to figure out how to dig my phone out of my pocket and pause the podcast, or if I don’t have the sound on, so it just autoplays itself with no one listening) but does mean that I’m not forgetting them.
So here’s what I’m (for the moment) listening to:
Welcome to Night Vale
Everyone knows Night Vale at this point, I suspect. On the off-chance you don’t (really?), it’s the community radio for a town somewhere in the American Southwest where every conspiracy theory is real.
I can see why I stopped listening–it’s a bit formulaic, which makes sense, so it gets a little old after a bit–but it is nice to see what I missed. I mean, I’m still 50 episodes behind, but I’m catching up. Also, every now and then there is a truly great episode. Episode 79 (Lost in the Mail) may have made me cry.
Myths and Legends
My spouse recommended this to me, because he knows I love mythology (and also he’s caught up on Night Vale and several other stories he’s listening to, and has time to poke around), and so far, so good. Every week the host tells all or part of a myth/legend and includes a creature of the week. I’m about six episodes in, I think, and so far we’ve covered one of King Arthur’s knights (Yvaine), Aladdin, and are part of the way into the Volsung saga of Norse mythology (apparently a major influence for Tolkien).
Tanis
My podcast app very quickly caught on to my particular brand of madness, and so keeps recommending me horror/mystery/supernatural docudramas and stories. Now, going back to the fact that I am bad at podcasts, I’ve mostly ignored said recommendations, but I did listen to the first episode of Tanis, which is a mystery horror podcast that presents itself as a journalist searching for this ancient idea of “tanis,” of which there are hints throughout history (Wikipedia tells me it’s “deep fiction” since nowhere does the show or its creators acknowledge it’s fictitious).
The first episode does a good job of dragging you in, so I’m going to give a few more episodes a try. They’ve also got a sister show, The Black Tapes, which is also mystery horror presented as reality, except having to do with ghosts, I think.
Listening to any good podcasts, squiders? Thoughts on these ones? Thoughts on how I can stick to/make time for listening in a way that doesn’t eat sections of my day?
