#78: The Queuedown
Bello Collective newsletter — January 30, 2019
Hello Bello,
This month has me thinking a lot about value, and about labor. The U.S. federal shutdown deprived families who were still working hard to keep our country running, and deprived them for no real good reason. Their work matters. The same day as the temporary end to the shutdown, incredibly talented journalists & production teams at successful companies were laid off in a particularly dramatic & cruel fashion. Their work matters. Their labor is valuable.
Smarter people than I have written excellent pieces on the future of journalism, the state of podcasting, and the value of our labor, and how little it seems to be valued by shareholders wanting bigger profits for their pockets. If you’re a creator in this industry feeling pretty unsure of your value, we can’t offer you a salary, with all the benefits and health insurance and PTO you undoubtedly fully deserve. We can offer you our support and hope that this little slice of the Internet that celebrates your labor makes the effort and hardship worth it.
(Thanks to our patrons’ valuing this little slice of the Internet, we’re paying writers for their articles. We want to publish really good stuff. Pitch us.)
Love and solidarity,
Dana
1. Last weekend, I undertook the queuedown: listen straight through my queue, heavy with episodes as far back as early 2018, without rearranging or adding, and see how far I got. 75 episodes later…I heard a lot. Standouts included Tape’s interview with Articles of Interest’s Avery Trufelman (honest, vulnerable, and super relatable if you make any kind of creative work)… (Ma’ayan)
2. …Five Things’s “School librarian Lindsy Serrano isn’t judging you” (❤ ❤ ❤ librarians)… (Ma’ayan)
3. …and an oldie but goodie from my early days of podcast listening: the ever-ridiculous Spilled Milk on multi cookers (which inspired me to make dal makhani in my Instant Pot this week). (Ma’ayan)
4. There is usually about a year between seasons of First Day Back, but the wait is always worth it. In S1, we met a mother returning to work following a years-long maternity leave. In S2, we followed a recently released convicted murderer as she tries to resume life on the outside. This season follows Jason Weems, a Baltimore comedian whose life changed when his heart stopped and he technically died — just minutes after taking the stage. (Ashley)
5. The Land of Desire is consistently historically wonderful and great storytelling, and the latest episode, “The Mysterious Life of Jeanne Calment”, is no different. While chronicling the life of the oldest human to live and the various controversies surrounding her life and age, the host, Diana, also gives us an excellent lesson on types of sources you can trust for information. (Calen)
6. I do not know much about The Wars of the Roses, so this overview in two parts by Tides of History was a great place for me to start. Patrick Wyman is a really good lecturer and has explained the early modern period very well in this series. (Calen)
7. The Walter Kane Broken Pieces Podcast is an audio fiction which features Irish and international actors performing the work of writer Walter Kane. Stories range from the practical issues of suddenly becoming a giant, to the dangers of futuristic sex robots, to hordes of marauding Vikings in modern-day Ireland. Highly recommend. (Conor)
8. I may not be the target demo for The Bustle Huddle, but I found the start of their third season to be excellent nonetheless. “Braving BRCA” features an interview with a young woman who decides to get a prophylactic double mastectomy after testing positive for the BRCA 2 gene mutation. She lets us into her honest feelings and thought processes before and after the surgery. This episode had the facts and the narrative to help me more fully understand this topic that has touched so many of us. (Erik)
9. Beach Too Sandy, Water Too Wet has been my go-to pick-me-up podcast, where hosts Christine and Alex read terrible reviews of locations set to a theme as dramatically as possible (and end up laughing all the time). If you have ever enjoyed reading improbably ridiculous one-star reviews on the internet, you’ll love the sibling dynamic in this podcast. (Elena)
10. I listened to some challenging episodes over these past few weeks. First, there was the last episode of 16 Shots, the podcast about the trial of the Chicago police officer who killed teenager Laquan McDonald in 2014. The whole series is a challenging but importnat listen, but this episode is particularly impactful. It includes three minutes of responses from young people who gathered after the sentence was handed down. There is no narration. There is no editorializing. There is no music. It is simply three minutes of anger and pain. Listening is a vital act. (Galen)
11. The latest episode of Reckonings is a master class in how to educate through narrative — in this case, the narrative of a sexual assault and the path the survivor and perpetrator took to heal the harm. I wish every adult I interacted with as a teen had heard this episode, and I wish that more sexual assault survivors had the opportunity these two young people had to find justice. (Galen)
12. And now for something light: If you’re ever short an episode idea, find a way to talk about voice acting. (& if you have an episode about voice acting, please send it to me!) My latest favorite episode on the subject is Meet Your Maker’s interview with The Muppet Show’s Louise Gold. It’s a font of colorful clips; a cartoon for your ears. (Galen)
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