Podcasts

I spend a lot of time alone every day, especially in my car as I commute to and from work and driving around town during the workday getting stuff done.  Spending that much time in a vehicle gets boring and I get really tired of the radio.  Enter my saving grace: the podcast!  As quoted by our good friend Wikipedia, a podcast (for those of you who only use the internet for rereading junk email, checking Facebook, and looking at this blog) "is a digital audio or video file that is episodic; downloadable; program-driven, mainly with a host and/or theme; and convenient, usually via an automated feed with computer software."

I download podcasts to my iTunes then put them on my iPod to listen to through my speakers at work or home or in the car.  I now get profoundly sad when I don't update my iPod and am doomed to listen to music or NPR's All Things Considered on my way home from work.  Not that ATC is a bad show.  I've learned more about Middle Eastern politics than I ever wanted to know, but they seem to only talk about ME politics and that can get boring. 

The following are my favorite podcasts:

TAL is a weekly radio show (and now triple-Emmy-winning  television series on Current TV) hosted by Ira Glass where they typically choose a theme then tell stories on the theme.  Sometimes a story is so engrossing they do the whole show on one story, but it's rare.  The show isn't just about telling a good story though.  Each hour-long show seeks to reveal something about the theme, something deeper and provoking about our American life and culture.  Since that kind of activity is what I've been trained to do in virtually every anthropology class I've ever taken, I am understandably in love.

The show hires a couple of interns a year and before I got the job in Colorado I considered applying for it.  I still think it would be rad.  For a list of some favorite shows you can stream from your computer, go here.

This podcast is associated with the website HowStuffWorks.com.  The site sponsors other podcasts too, but SYSK is the best one mainly because their topics are cooler and the podcasters are more entertaining to listen to.  I've heard epidsodes ranging from riots, to red heads, to house flies, to kissing, to Amelia Earhart.  I found this podcast on iTunes under their free stuff and subscribed.  They are usually 20-30 minutes long and new ones come out a couple times a week.  They also have a blog where they post the article they write in conjunction with each podcast as well as other interesting articles on a myriad of subjects.  Listen. Love. Learn.

 A podcast that I subscribed to just yesterday upon the recommendation from a friend is The Moth.  Sounds cryptic, but it's just people storytelling.  I don't know where the name comes from.  I've only listened to 2 stories so far so I don't know much about it yet, but it seems to be more geared towards storytelling for storytelling's sake, and who doesn't love a good story?  The Moth definitely has potential to become another favorite.