Podcasts

Someone here is ... Buzz Aldrin?

 

Revisionist History (Malcolm Gladwell) is back with a new season. First two episodes were about how law schools, and higher education, are probably placing far too much emphasis on standardized tests - Not because the LSAT is necessarily bad, but because it is only accounting for "hares" - people who can do stellar work on a time limit - vs. "tortoises," the people who can do stellar work with no time limit. They had a quant on who studies what lawyers earn the most, and there's no correlation between the law school you attend and future earnings, suggesting that the LSAT - which is the #1 factor on where you end up - shouldn't be the end all, be all.

Like most Gladwell stuff, I'm interested to see the backlash / more critical analysis of the piece. But it was an interesting listen for 90 minutes or so.

 

Just discovered "The Rewatchables". JR and I listened to a couple in the car over the weekend .. "The Godfather", "Jaws" and "The Big Lebowski" .. and loved them all. Really fun.

 

No outing Smallpotatoes.

 

Really enjoyed it - also enjoyed the interview with Gladwell about how some stories "fit" the podcast mode better than print or a documentary. Particularly enjoyed the brief interview with Rob Neyer about his experience as commissioner of the West Coast league, a summer league for college players. I can't believe the owners or coaches take it as seriously as the segment says they do. It's an amateur league, but then again - with no money to be made, I'm guessing "winning" is the entire point of their involvement.PS - Neyer is STILL the commissioner despite his distaste for gig.
PS - anyone have any recs for more multi-cultural pods? I'd like to make my list a bit less white dude-centric. I really enjoy Throughline, and my tastes run to politics, sports and pop culture - and interesting ideas and history.

 

On the flip side of that is a Podcast called "How Did This Get Made" which talks about some truly AWFUL movies.

 

And if one prefers their movies to be God Awful, there's a podcast for that, too.

 

If it means references to Roger Ebert zero-star reviews, I’m in.

 

Some podcasts drive me nuts - good content, good structure and production values, terrible voices; interesting topic, no structure; or maybe just one terribly weak link among the presenters (who generally thinks he's a hell of a lot funnier than he really is). I think generally, anything with Gladwell's fingerprints on it or coming from NPR or the New Yorker is going to be solid (though The Daily irritates me a bit because it isn't just Michael Barbaro's voice that is overly ingratiating and empathetic, it's everybody he has on.

 

Definitely agree with this, and your earlier post about how interesting the Gladwell and Lewis conversation was about how some stories "fit" the podcasting model better. Basically, if you have some fantastic audio, or someone with a great voice. You can hear examples on both of their pods - Gladwell's episode this week features Randy Newman and the former governor of Georgia, and Lewis has an episode with the guy who's done every major court settlement after a disaster for the past 40 years.

 

I like Gladwell a lot but sometimes his podcasts build up to a dramatic crescendo which I simply don’t get. For example, I thought the recent one with Randy Newman and Lester Maddox was interesting but the larger point was lost on me. Same thing with the one with Elvis last year.

 

Starting to get into music podcasts. Popcast and Your Hit Parade talking about current and past hits are interesting. Popcast did a two-part reappraisal of Hootie and the Blowfish, YHP did one on the simultaneous careers and success of Peter Gabriel, Phil Collins, Genesis and Mike and the Mechanics, who at various times all shared the top 10 with each other.