Hi friends! A lot of the time when I am working on things or stuck in the car I like to listen to podcasts. Below is a compilation of some stories that I have heard and grown attached to. Fair warning, I am a glutton for misery so most of these are sad and revolve around either tragedy or death... generally the darker side of the human condition. If you listen to them and they make you cry - sorry 'bout it! (Another little disclaimer - though I wrote the initial summaries for each series, the episode summaries were snatched directly from their makers.)
BBC WORLD SERVICE DOCUMENTARIES
There are a lot of really fascinating episodes in this series, but unfortunately I have not been listening to it very long so these are just a few that I really love of all those I've heard thus far. Most are an easy half hour, with the exception of the boat episode, which is a full hour of heart-stuttering trepidation.
Chasing China's Doomsday Cult, 8/14/14, Link
Almighty God vs the Red Dragon: It sounds like a fantasy action film, but it is in fact a real and disturbing struggle in China. The most vivid case involves a group of people who beat a stranger to death in a fast food restaurant. They said they had no choice because the victim was a 'demon'. The killers are fanatical followers of the Church of the Almighty God, a Christian doomsday cult which claims millions of members across China and pledges to overthrow the Chinese Communist Party - which it calls the Great Red Dragon. Gracie uses her fluent Chinese to gain access to families of those caught up in the cult, including a man who infiltrated it to save his wife.
The Man Who Fell To Earth, 1/7/14, Link
Last September, a man in his twenties was found dead in Portman Avenue, a suburban street in west London. He had suffered horrendous injuries to his head and face. He had no identity papers on him and no one had reported him missing. Rob Walker follows the Metropolitan police investigation into who he was and how he arrived in Portman Avenue. It is a story that spans two continents and eight countries.
When Assisted Death Is Legal: Part One, 02/24/13 , Link
In part one, Carr travels to Switzerland, where she visits the rooms where volunteers help people die, and finds out why the Swiss law on assisted suicide goes back to the 19th Century. In Belgium she meets a doctor who admits to performing euthanasia before it was legal; and in Luxembourg, she finds out why the law on assisted suicide nearly caused a constitutional crisis. Carr questions whether it is possible to balance the right of the individual who wants to die with the responsibility of society to protect those who don't.
When Assisted Death Is Legal: Part Two, 02/24/13, Link
In part two, Carr visits the Netherlands, where she meets the group behind the 'mobile euthanasia units' which hit the headlines last year, and asks whether a law on voluntary life-ending procedures might open the door to involuntary ones. She also visits Oregon and Washington State in the US, where she finds out who is most likely to use the Death with Dignity law, and hears about the cancer patient whose health-care plan refused to pay for chemotherapy – but offered assisted suicide instead.
The Left To Die Boat, 10/28/12, Link
In March last year, 72 African migrants were forced onto an inflatable boat by Libyan soldiers in Tripoli. They were desperate to escape the fighting in Libya and hoping for a new life in Europe. Their boat headed for the small Italian island of Lampedusa, only 18 hours away across the Mediterranean.
THIS AMERICAN LIFE
This American Life is hands down my favorite podcast. Ira Glass and his team assemble and deftly relay such interesting stories of (mostly) regular people that I often get sucked into blocks of listening to episode after episode. These are all usually an hour long. 'What Doesn't Kill You' and 'Out Friend David' are particularly depressing; 'The Middle Of Nowhere' has one of my favorite stories about the shady Pacific island of Nauru.
#502: This Call May Be Recorded To Save Your Life, Link
A journalist named Meron Estefanos gets a disturbing tip. She's given a phone number that supposedly belongs to a group of refugees being held hostage in the Sinai desert. She dials the number, and soon dozens of strangers are begging her to rescue them. How can she ignore them?
#492: Dr. Gilmer and Mr. Hyde, Link
Dr. Benjamin Gilmer gets a job at a rural clinic. He finds out he’s replaced someone — also named Dr. Gilmer — who went to prison after killing his own father. But the more Benjamin’s patients talk about the other Dr. Gilmer, the more confused he becomes. Everyone loved the old Dr. Gilmer. So Benjamin starts digging around, trying to understand how a good man can seemingly turn bad.
#487: Harper High School, Part One, Link
We spent five months at Harper High School in Chicago, where last year alone 29 current and recent students were shot. 29. We went to get a sense of what it means to live in the midst of all this gun violence, how teens and adults navigate a world of funerals and Homecoming dances.
#488: Harper High School, Part Two , Link
We pick up where we left off last week in our second hour from Harper High School in Chicago. We find out if a shooting in the neighborhood will derail the school's Homecoming game and dance. We hear the origin story of one of Harper's gangs. And we ask a group of teenagers: where do you get your guns?
#476: What Doesn't Kill You , Link
Stories of how people cope after brushes with death. Sometimes death comes as a disease. Sometimes it swims up and bites you. And sometimes it's a pen or pencil, sitting there, just waiting for you to ingest it.
#472: Our Friend David , Link
Favorite stories by our longtime contributor and friend David Rakoff.
#399: Contents Unknown, Link
A man named David Maclean finds himself in a train station in India, with no idea how he got there or who he is. His memory gone, he has no choice but to let other people—police, doctors, friends, family—create an identity for him. David's book about this incident is called The Answer to the Riddle Is Me. Plus other stories of filling in the blank.
#361: Fear Of Sleep , Link
Mike Birbiglia got used to strange things happening to him when he slept—until something happened that almost killed him. This and other reasons to fear sleep, including bedbugs, "The Shining," and mild-mannered husbands who turn into maniacs while asleep.
#352: The Ghost Of Bobby Dunbar , Link
In 1912 a four year-old boy named Bobby Dunbar went missing in a swamp in Louisiana. Eight months later, he was found in the hands of a wandering handyman in Mississippi.
#253: The Middle Of Nowhere, Link
Stories from faraway, hard-to-get-to places, where all rules are off, nefarious things happen because no one's looking, and there's no one to appeal to.
#207: Special Ed , Link
Stories about people who were told that they're different. Some of them were comfortable with it. Some didn't understand it. And some understood, but didn't like it .
#149: Bedside Diplomacy, Link
In the hospital, we give up our normal schedule and sleep patterns; we give up our normal food and clothing; we're in a place that has its own rules and its own language and its own customs.
#52: Edge Of Sanity, Link
Stories about the border between mental health and mental illness.
THE MOTH
I don't regularly listen to The Moth, but I am a huge fan of Edgar Oliver partly because his stories are great, and partly due to his tone and diction being so uniquely perfect. A few years ago I was able to attend a live Moth show at Manny's in ATL and got to see him live - also got a signed/dedicated copy of one of his poetry books!
04/30/11, Edgar Oliver: Courting Paul Bowles In Tangier, Link
Three literary pilgrims search for a beloved author.
01/25/06, Edgar Oliver: The Apron Strings Of Savannah , Link
The genesis story of a true bohemian: two children, one spectacularly eccentric mother and Savannah, Georgia.
04/26/07, Edgar Oliver: Savannah Revisited, Link
A playwright and his sister take a trip home to bury their mother.
HERE BE MONSTERS
Here Be Monsters describes itself as a podcast centered around its producers, contributors, and listeners "pursuing their fears and facing the unknown." The episodes, each usually ranging from 10 to 30 minutes, are a smoothly sewn amalgamation of soothing orations whose topics fluctuate from sometimes strange, to sometimes scary, to sometimes sad experiences set adrift upon a sea of chilling ambiance, experimental sounds and shuddersome tones and lingering turns of tongue that are perfectly timed to trigger oft spine-tingling results. It is a moody, surreal landscape that the meat of these episodes exist in, but there's comfort in the creepiness; there's primordial understanding in the pitches left resonant in the mind after listening.
HBM038: Do Crows Mourn Their Dead? Link
On this episode of Here Be Monsters, We look at and listen to the strange behaviors of crows and how they might be able to teach humanity about the origins of funerals and emotions.
HBM036: Throw It In The Ocean, Link
Eric Chase's memory of April 19th, 1989 is largely a blur. On that day, he was aboard the USS Iowa, a World War 2 era battleship, equipped with some of the world's biggest cannons, capable of leveling a city block with a single hit.
But April 19th, 1989 was the day when one of the 16 inch guns aboard the ship malfunctioned and caused a huge internal explosion that claimed the lives of 47 sailors and caused a huge fire on the ship.
Eric Chase was one of the responders who ventured into the turret to recover bodies, or, well, in this case, parts of bodies. In this episode of Here Be Monsters, Eric describes his experience inside the turret, putting organic material into garbage bags, wading through the destruction. He describes how it awakened a contradiction between his sense of duty and his sense of dissatisfaction with the Naval chain of command and policy. Needless to say, if you're easily offended by descriptions of dead bodies, then you should not listen to this episode.
HBM015: Jacob Visits Saturn, Link
An aspiring sophisticate drinks liquid MDMA during a therapy session and experiences a roller-coaster of self esteem and significance. This episode looks at what it means to live a meaningful life through the eyes of Jacob on a journey took him through our solar system.
SERIAL
Serial is made by a handful of the same people that make This American Life. It's new, only 8 episodes so far, and is meant to be heard in order - if you do try it out, start on episode 1. Currently, they're getting to the bottom of a tale of a boy who was convicted of murdering his ex-girlfriend back in 1999, in Maryland. Link.
FRESH AIR
I used to listen to Fresh Air more frequently when I lived in Orlando. Now that I am in Atlanta, I don't really know when it comes on, and always forget to look it up. A few (maybe) years or so ago, I caught a snippet of this interview and went back to look it up. Oliver Sacks (who also possesses a lovely voice) is plainly brilliant and his interview extremely engrossing.
Oliver Sacks, Exploring How Hallucinations Happen, Link
The famed neurologist talks to Fresh Air about how grief, trauma, brain injury, medications, and neurological disorders can trigger hallucinations - and about his personal experimentation with hallucinogenic drugs in the 1960s.
