I’m thrilled to announced that I’m now a contributing writer at the Bello Collective, where I just published my first piece: 18 Episodes About Gender Transitions. Check it out and subscribe to Bello’s newsletter for more.
Six Podcasts That Dive Deep Into Current Issues
A deep dive into the current state of the US welfare system and how a 1996 bill made it what it is today. This first, six-episode season explores the many ways that states use welfare money—including on relationship advice and crisis pregnancy centers—and the people who benefit from the system, whether they know it or not.
A deep dive into raising a transgender daughter, from picking the right elementary school to meeting Laverne Cox. Often devastating and always impactful, this is the anonymous story of a mother who’s struggling to raise a strong, proud young girl in a world where many don’t accept her, and of a young girl who’s navigating which friends can be trusted and whether it’s safe for her to be herself.
3. More Perfect
A deep dive into the Supreme Court from the magicians who brought us Radiolab. The show’s first season explores the Court’s role in U.S. history through six landmark cases you may never have heard of, from the loopholes in jury selection to the harrowing decision to redistrict.
4. There Goes the Neighborhood
A deep dive into gentrification in New York City, from the thoroughly gentrified Williamsburg to the recently rezoned East New York. Each of the nine episodes focuses on one of gentrification’s issues, examining what a changing neighborhood means for business owners, developers, recent transplants, and longtime residents—both those who are forced to move and those who decide to stay.
5. Us & Them
A deep dive into controversies that divide Americans, from the war on Christmas to the war on drugs. Host Trey Kay interviews folks on both sides of the issues to explore how deeply held beliefs shape our country, making the show one of the few places where both right-wing Republicans and leftist liberals get a voice.
6. Science Vs.
A deep dive into what science says about the things we have strong, scientifically unfounded feelings about. Is fracking really so bad? Is attachment parenting the answer? And what about guns? While host Wendy Zukerman’s jokes can be goofy, the issues are serious and the explanations thorough.
Six Episodes About “The Talk”
After the success of my crime show list, I’ve decided to continue the trend with another playlist. This time: the sex talk.
1. “Mom, It’s Time We Had the Talk”, The Longest Shortest Time
In which a mom talks to her eight-year-old son about sex—or rather, he talks to her. All. The. Time. And she answers him openly and honestly (up to a point). This is a great primer on how to have a transparent, but still mostly comfortable, conversation about sex with an elementary schooler.
2. “The Sex Talk”, Out in the Open
In which families from various cultural backgrounds navigate the sex talk—from Christian parents who preach abstinence until marriage to the head of the Native Women’s Association of Canada who talks to her daughters about the risk of being trafficked. Also, host Piya Chattopadhyay belatedly discusses sex with her own parents and realizes that they have a very different idea of what The Talk is all about.
3. “How Do I Talk to My Kid About Molestation?” How to Get Away With Parenting
In which host Malaika Dower talks to sex and family therapist Courtney Watson about how to talk to her kid about sex, bodies, and staying safe. As I wrote before, it’s also about how to deal with your own issues so that you can raise your kids to respect their bodies and others’.
4. “Birds & Bees”, This American Life
In which we learn where kids get their information about sex and how colleges work to correct that information. (Also in which adults speak to kids frankly about death and in which parents grapple with how to teach their kids about racism.)
5. “The Talk” and “Sex Ed for Grown Ups”, Us and Them
A two episode series in which host Trey Kay talks to an education historian and a specialist in Sex Health Ed about how and when Americans learn what they learn about sex. In “The Talk”, we learn how the history of sex education in the United States was shaped, and how it has changed. In “Sex Ed for Grown Ups”, doctors learn to talk to their patients about sex—because for many Americans, nobody else does.
6. “Talking to My Kids About Sex in the Internet Age”, The Moth
In which writer Adam Savage talks about talking to his kids about porn. This is an oldie but a goodie—funny, awkward, realistic, and a story I still remember after three years.
Four Serialized Crime Shows That Aren’t Serial (Updated)
In 1972, a five-year-old Canadian boy went missing during a fishing trip with his dad, brother, and dad’s friend, and no trace of him was ever seen again. What happened?
2. Bowraville
In 1990-1991, three Aboriginal kids who lived on the same street of the same small, Australian town were murdered. Who did it? Was it…Jay? (Yes, actually. No, not that Jay.) [CW: Sexual assault]
3. Charles Manson’s Hollywood (You Must Remember This, episodes 44-55)
First Charles Manson was a child, then he started a cult, and then, in 1969, he and his followers murdered a bunch of people in Hollywood. What happened? Also, what does this have to do with the Beach Boys?
The body of a Jane Doe was found in a cornfield in upstate New York in 1979. She was a teenager from a warmer climate who was dressed in a unique-looking jacket—but other than that, officials know nothing. Who is she? What happened? Can the internet solve this mystery?
UPDATE:
5. In the Dark
A new serialized murder mystery you can actually listen to week by week!
Jacob Wetterling was kidnapped in 1989. For 27 years, his disappearance remained a mystery, and then—right before this podcast was set to release—his killer was arrested, and the story came out. Why did it take 27 years to find a man who lived so close? And how did this case change the way Americans police and parent? [CW: Sexual assault of a child]
6. Unsolved: A Murdered Teen, a 40-Year Mystery
A high school sophomore disappeared from school in 1976. Eight days later, his body was found in a park. What happened? Who did it? And why has this case gone unsolved for so long? [CW: Sexual assault of a child]
7. Accused: The Unsolved Murder of Elizabeth Andes
Another new serialized murder mystery you can actually listen to week by week!
In 1978, 23-year-old Elizabeth Andes was murdered in her apartment in Oxford, Ohio. Her boyfriend was charged with the crime. Under police pressure, he confessed, but then recanted. After two juries found him not guilty, police stopped searching for other suspects. What happened? And why didn’t police follow more leads?
HTGAWP: “How Do I Talk to My Kid About Molestation?”
A few weeks ago, the podcast How to Get Away With Parenting released an episode called “How Do I Talk to My Kid About Molestation?” That question, which host Malaika Dower puts to her guest—sex and family therapist Courtney Watson—is quickly overtaken by a bigger issue: How do I talk to my kid about sex? And yet another struggle overtakes that: How do I talk to my kid about sex when I am still working through my own sexual issues?
The root of Malaika and Courtney’s conversation is that yes, a parent can help their child develop a healthy, shame-free attitude toward their body and sexuality, but the parent also needs to process the impact that rape culture has had on them. After all, we can’t teach healthy attitudes if we can’t model them, and we can’t model them if we don’t deal with our own problems. In order to raise a child in a culture we didn’t grow up in—a culture we’re working to create—we have to deal with the trauma of growing up with the cultural norms we’re trying to dismantle.
Courtney emphasizes one strategy in particular: establish a support network for the caregiver as well as the child. Parents can combat secrecy and shame by building a network of safe people that a child can go to if they’re having an issue, but parents also need a community to lean on. “If you have an issue with sex—definitely if there’s some sort of sexual trauma in your past and you feel yourself being triggered in raising your child—get help,” Courtney says. “You don’t have to do this alone.” Courtney stresses this point a few times, including when Malaika asks about helping a child to heal from sexual trauma. She speaks specifically about going to therapy, but the larger point is that raising a child doesn’t happen in a vacuum and that caregivers come to caregiving with all of the cultural baggage they had before they were in charge of a kid.
Malaika enters the conversation asking, “how do I make sure my kid isn’t molested?” And Courtney replies, basically, you can’t. “Rape culture tells us that there’s something we can do to stop someone else from perpetrating against our children,” she says. Here it is, folks: our old friend rape culture. Or, rather, here’s victim blaming, one of rape culture’s favorite henchmen. Victim blaming tells us that if we had worn a different outfit, gone home earlier, or not drunk as much, we could have avoided our own assault. And rape culture tells parents that they’re responsible for protecting their kids at all times. If something happens, victim blaming rushes in to remind parents that it’s their fault. Here’s the cycle in action: the parent must keep their daughter covered/watched/inside because otherwise the daughter may be assaulted. If the daughter doesn’t internalize this message and subject herself to its rules, and someone assaults her, then she was asking for it. Courtney won’t stand for this: “The only person that is responsible for sexually assaulting your child is the person that does it,” she says. “Not your child, not you—it’s them.
There are, of course, things we can do to try to keep children safe, and there are things we can do to support them if anything does happen. Malaika’s kid is just over a year old, so Courtney focuses on developing an open and honest atmosphere that’s free of shame. To start with, she says, call body parts by their proper names. When diapering, when bathing, when playing the “where’s your ____” game. “Society, or we, or whoever, puts that shame on those body parts,” Courtney explains. “At the end of the day they’re still just body parts.” By honestly and openly identifying body parts that we usually shroud in euphemisms, we can show kids that a vulva is no more shameful than a fingernail. (As an added pro, a kid who can accurately name their body parts will be able to communicate what happened if anyone does touch them in a way that they don’t like.) Courtney offers many more strategies for talking to older as well as younger kids, and for talking about sex explicitly as well as bodies and consent. She has included most of these in an article on how to talk to young kids about sexual assault that she posted on her website soon after the episode aired.
The roots of rape culture start in our conversations, expectations, and attitudes toward our own bodies and the bodies of others, and we develop those attitudes from infancy. Anyone who interacts with kids—which most if not all of us do at some point, in some way—has the capacity to help them develop healthy attitudes toward their bodies and sexuality. Today’s kids will grow into tomorrow’s adults, who will respect or blame victims, will ask for or disregard consent, and will treat their partners and themselves with love or contempt. Today’s conversations lay the framework for tomorrow’s actions and attitudes. But to help our kids develop healthy sexual relationships, we have to have a healthy relationship toward sex ourselves. We owe it to our children to take care of ourselves. This is how we combat rape culture. This is how we change the conversation.
TAL: “Tell Me I’m Fat”
Once or twice a year, This American Life, a consistent favorite of mine, hits home with a punch-to-the-gut episode, and I remember just how great their work can be. This week’s episode, “Tell Me I’m Fat,” hit home hard.
The show starts with Lindy West, whose book, Shrill, sparked the episode. The book, and this segment, are about her journey from a hyper-ashamed fat person to a fat person whose advice includes, “At a certain point you just have to be like [jack-off motion] and do you.”* The segment’s underlying conflict is the feud between Lindy and her boss, writer Dan Savage. Dan wrote insulting, disparaging things about fat people, and Lindy wrote back—all while they remained friends and colleagues at the Stranger. Dan, here, speaks in the Voice of Society at Large, a voice that claims to care about things like fat people’s health. But, as Lindy says, “You’re not concerned about my health—because if you were concerned about my health, you’d also be concerned about my mental health.”** And there we have, more or less, the thesis of this episode.
The second segment is told by one of my favorites, Elna Baker, whose story is based, in part, on an essay she wrote for Refinery29. Unlike Lindy, she dealt with her weight by losing it, rather than by accepting it. In the segment, she comes out as a person who struggles with her body image, and who uses questionable methods to keep herself looking how she feels she must. New Elna also struggles with Old Elna. Old Elna was fat but happy (although I wonder how happy she was, given that she lost 110 pounds for the expressed reasons of getting a job and a boyfriend). New Elna is thin, and has a job and a partner, but she’s not as good a person. And here, too, we have the Voice of Society, which gives New Elna everything that Old Elna wanted: “[Old Elna] tried so hard for everything that [New Elna] now got so easily. New Elna didn’t have to be a good person. I just had to be thin.”
In the next segment, Ira Glass talks to Roxane Gay, who wrote about weight in Bad Feminist and whose forthcoming book, Hunger, delves deeper into the topic. She puts fat people into three categories: “20 pounds overweight,” or a Slim Fast diet away from not-fat; “Lane Bryant fat,” or able to fit into a typical plus-size clothing brand; and “super morbidly obese,” like Roxane herself. She talks, mostly, about what it’s like to constantly think about and navigate her size. Here, the Voice of Society appears through physical structures. At a certain size, one’s body is prohibitively large, so that, as Roxane says, “This whole nonstop anxiety conversation happens in my head all the time for just basic life functions…Before I will go out to eat, I research a restaurant extensively on Google…And if I don’t think I’m going to be comfortable, I simply won’t go.” Roxane is talking, here, about the size of chairs, the spaces between tables, the presence or lack of armrests. But this sentence could so easily apply to any number of issues. Wheelchair accessibility, for example, or the amount of light, or noise, or any other physical navigations one must make when spaces do not generally cater to one’s body. Will this space accommodate me? the anxiety asks. Am I welcome here?
The last segment explores Oral Roberts University’s weight-loss policy. Our guiding voice here is not the victim of fat-shaming, but its perpetrator. ORU, a Christian college founded in 1963, twisted the idea of holistic education—educating the mind, body, and soul—and used it to justify sizeist discrimination, as what started as an exercise requirement turned into a weight-determined suspension policy. Too fat? Get out. Lose five pounds and pray and maybe you can come back next semester. The ORU approach—and the approach of the Christian weight-loss movement in general—was, basically, as Lindy West would say, “Eeeewwwww.” It’s this approach of institutional fat-shaming that makes up the current backbone of America’s attitude toward weight. Luckily, the story ends happily, with the physical education director realizing that kicking a student out for being four pounds over the university-sanctioned goal weight can either drive the student to action, or drive them into the ground—and deciding that that isn’t a risk worth taking.
I am not fat. I have never been more than maybe ten pounds overweight. But I am a woman, and I have struggled with my weight, and I found all of these segments very relatable. As much as they’re about being fat, they’re also about being a person in a body—a person who does and does not want to be seen; a person who cares more about maintaining her size than about maintaining her health; a person who kills a part of herself to get what she thinks she can only have if she’s thin. The anxiety that Roxane references, the lengths to which Elna goes to alter her body, the emphasis on physical health (or looks) at the expense of mental well-being that Lindy describes—these are not only fat people issues. Because, as Lindy says, the idea of overweight only works if there is a correct weight. And anybody who has an idea of their correct weight can come to build their life around it, and to value their body in relation to others.
While “Tell Me I’m Fat” has the format and scope of a typical TAL episode, it has the impact of “Three Miles” or “Abdi and the Golden Ticket,” two other examples of the show at its finest. It’s episodes like this that remind me of the effect that personal stories can have. A society that decenters and dehumanizes people—particularly women—it deems too big must hear their stories. It is, as Lindy says in Shrill, “like medicine” to see fat women “wearing outfits and doing things and smiling”.† It’s medicine to hear and see fat people loving themselves. And it’s an antidote to self-ridicule to hear other people—both still-fat and now-thin—struggling with their bodies. Log this under required listening.
*Shrill, page 48
**This and all future quotes are from “Tell Me I’m Fat”
†Page 78
New Additions
In the five-ish months since I last wrote, I’ve repeatedly exhausted my podcast list and gone searching for more, and have deleted most of the photos on my phone to make space for the new additions. Among these additions are:
Us & Them: Stories from America’s Cultural Divides
This show goes deep into polarizing issues: Democrats vs. Republicans, whistling Dixie vs. banning Dixie, sex ed vs. abstinence-only ed, Merry Christmas vs. Happy Holidays—that kind of polarizing. It’s kind of like Embedded means Scene on Radio, and is quickly becoming one of my favorite shows.
Breakdown
If you like Undisclosed: The State vs. Adnan Syed or other very technical accounts of murder cases, you will probably like Breakdown, which, each season, follows a single case through the court system. Season One is about a possible arson that killed the accused’s neighbor, and Season Two, “Death in a Hot car: Mistake or Murder”, covers the trial of a man accused of killing his toddler son. It definitely gets gruesome, and it’s more court reporting than the narrative journalism of Serial, but I keep wanting to know what happens next.
Awful Grace
This is the only show I’ve finished listening to and said, “Wait…what?” As in, what was that? It’s non-narrated—or, like, the opposite of narrated—nonfiction. Perhaps I would call it documentary audio collage, or experimental storytelling through sound. Whatever you call it, it alters and remixes the tape itself as well as adding music on top. More atmospheric than plot-driven, it nontheless conveys stories that stick with you.
How to Get Away with Parenting
This is a conversation-style parenting podcast by a black mom of a mixed-race baby in Brooklyn. If you’ve complained that The Longest Shortest Time isn’t diverse enough, try this.
Speaking of diversity, I found this great site called Podcasts in Color that lists hundreds of podcasts, in every category, by podcasters of color. It’s an awesome resource that has led me to many new shows. However I’m still looking for more documentary/nonfiction podcasts by diverse hosts. If you have any suggestions, please comment below or let me know @galenbeebe.
The Bests of 2015
Happy New Year!
This was a big year for podcasts, and for my own listening. I added a lot of shows to my docket, and, more importantly, I continued to develop/determine my podcast preferences. So without further ado, here are my favorites.
BEST NEW SHOWS (in alphabetical order)
1. Anxious Machine
I have consistently referred to Anxious Machine as my favorite show of the moment since I learned of it last summer. Hosted by Rob McGinley Myers, it tells stories about how humans relate to technology—considering everything from email to hearing aids to camping out.
2. First Day Back
This is probably the show I’ve recommended most this year. The first season consists of nine episodes that follow the host, Tally Abecassis, as she goes back to work as a documentary filmmaker after six years as a stay-at-home mom. It’s great for anyone in a creative field, and, I imagine, for any parent. In short, it’s a great listen for anyone trying to figure out how to balance “work” and “life”.
3. Invisibilia
NPR’s newest science show, in which Alix Spiegel and Lulu Miller explore invisible, human-making themes (fear, thoughts, categories) through means both scientific and exploratory.
4. Scene on Radio
Created and hosted by John Biewen out of Duke University, this documentary show leaves the studio and explores whatever it finds. The first seven episodes considered sports in American culture (but in a way this non-sports fan could get into).
5. Mystery Show
A funny show in which Starlee Kine solves seemingly-unsolvable, and seemingly-too-personal-to-be-interesting-but-still-interesting, mysteries.
HONORABLE MENTIONS
1. ARRVLS
A non-narrated storytelling podcast hosted by Jonathan Hirsch. about “transformation, migration, and change.” One could argue this is what every story is about, but these stories are good, so let’s not quibble.
2. Home of the Brave
In which Scott Carrier lulls us into calm with his soft voice and interesting storytelling. HotB went on a four-episode “Tour of Burned Churches” and later followed the refugee trail backwards from Lesbos, Greece.
4. Out on the Wire
I have mixed feelings about this show. I stopped listening after episode 3.5 and then dipped back in for part of episode 7 before leaving it again. However, I read the eponymous book (a long-form graphic narrative by host Jessica Abel about podcasts that sparked the making of this one) and loved it. And I think this podcast is doing something interesting, new, and important in its audience-inclusion. It’s about how to make a story—in any genre or media—and works with listeners from its Google-driven community.
5. UnFictional
A non-narrated storytelling show from KCRW hosted by Bob Carlson. Each episodes features a story or group of true stories on the same theme, à la The Moth or Re:Sound or Risk (but less risky). If you like those shows, you’ll like this.
BEST EPISODES
1. “695BGK”, Criminal
The story of an unarmed Black man who was shot by the police and survived.
2. “A Red Dot”, Love + Radio
A registered sex offender talks with the L+R hosts about why the sex offender registry is a problem, and they push back.
3. “Cops See It Differently”, Parts 1 and 2, This American Life
Stories about cops and civilians, from cops and civilians.
4. “Didn’t Want to be Conscious”, Anxious Machine
One woman’s history with intoxication.
5. “Fearless”, Invisibilia
What is fear? Do we need it?
6. “Last Chance to Evacuate Earth”, Here Be Monsters
The story behind the Heaven’s Gate cult, as told by two who joined it.
7. “Shipped to Timbuktu”, Reply All
A mistaken identity online leads Reply All to a woman whose Girl Scout troop helped her survive a concentration camp in China during World War II.
8. “The Accidental Gay Parents”, Parts 1 and 2, The Longest Shortest Time
Trystan and John, a gay couple in their 20s, make a quick decision to adopt John’s sister’s kids, and then have to convince the legal system to make it official.
9. “The Problem We All Live With”, Parts 1 and 2, This American Life
How segregation holds us back, and why we aren’t integrating.
10. “Three Miles”, This American Life
How life differs for kids attending high schools a mere three miles apart.
HONORABLE MENTIONS
1. “Abdi and the Golden Ticket”, This American Life
2. “Birthstory”, Radiolab
3. “Britney”, Mystery Show
4. “Fresh Out”, ARRVLS
5. “Najibullah in America”, Home of the Brave
6. “The Facts (About Transgender Kids)”, How to Be a Girl
End Notes
My Best Episodes list is pretty This American Life-heavy. This isn’t always true, but I think they did a great job this year when it comes to telling stories that matter. It helps that education is in my wheelhouse, but it seems they’re focusing more energy on the hard-hitting, history-of-our-country episodes—and these are the ones that truly matter.
As so many spew hate at Muslims and refugees, some podcasts have used the medium to let these populations speak for themselves. Home of the Brave did a series that followed the refugee trail back from Lesbos, Greece, and listened to the stories of those he met along the way. Scene on Radio did an episode on hijabis, and the decision Muslim American women make to wear or not wear the headscarf.
In this way, podcasts are like articles in a magazine with a wide circulation. Like a magazine, they arrive in your mailbox (app). You’re not quite sure what you’re going to get, but you like the author, so you start reading. Sometimes they’re lighthearted, but they can also speak to current events, comment on what’s happening right now, and, even more importantly, give a voice to those we don’t otherwise hear. They take an Issue and make it a story, giving us the chance to listen to and empathize with those we might not otherwise meet.
First Day Back
I found out about First Day Back from How to Be a Girl (which I discussed on an earlier post, and which just started posting episodes again. Yay!). Both podcasts are part of a collective called The Heard. The two podcasts are similar—both documentary-style narratives by and about a mother and her child(ren). First Day Back focuses more on the mother, Tally Abecassis, a documentary filmmaker who is returning to work after a six year maternity leave. Much of the show features Abecassis speaking into the microphone about her feelings—totally my style—but she also brings her tape recorder to work meetings and occasionally interviews her kids. These interviews are my favorite parts of the show, both because kids say the darndest things and because they often contradict Abecassis’s ideas of how a mother should be. Abecassis uses her own life to explore the question of what it means to have a career and kids, especially for a woman. For all of her concerns, her kids are remarkably unphased by her shift away from full-time parenting.
I am not (yet) a parent, but I am a woman who anticipates having a family and a career that will likely be in a creative field, and I enjoy hearing a person tell her story of balancing a life and feeling, at times, like her work is useless. It’s comforting to hear someone whose work I think matters worry that maybe it doesn’t.
Style: Narrative, Serial
If You Like: First Day Back, Strangers, The Longest Shortest Time, Love + Radio
Favorite Episode: Episode 7, “Good News, Bad News”
Cast Party
Last Monday I went to Cast Party, the one-night “podcast festival” broadcast to movie theaters across the US and Canada. It featured Radiolab, Reply All, Invisibilia, The Truth, and Lauren Lapkus. I have listened to 4/5 of those shows (all but Lauren Lapkus’s) and actively listen to 3/5 (excluding The Truth), and it was exciting to see these people whose voices I hear every week in person. However, the show left me wanting more.
Reply All basically performed an episode, with PJ Vogt and Alex Blumberg sitting at a table, talking from a script, and playing pre-recorded audio from an interview with the episode’s subject. The episode was okay, but it certainly wasn’t their best, and it didn’t feel particularly tailored to a live audience. There were some nice, authentic moments, however, like when Alex lost his place in the script, and PJ’s sincere embarrassment at hearing a clip of him responding to someone who complimented the show.
Lulu Miller, of Invisibilia, also used pre-recorded sound—including clips of the show’s other host, Elise Speigel, which she had a fake but also believable conversation with—but she stood alone at a microphone and spoke her lines from memory. Her segment was more tailored to the audience, with a “challenge” from Elise to perform the story, which was about a man running a 4 minute mile, in under 4 minutes. Her segment was my favorite, and I was disappointed that it was, or at least seemed to be, the shortest.
The Truth did a roast of the US with Canada officiating and China, Russia, Cuba, Mexico, France, and Great Britain doing the roasting, and a guest appearance from God. It wasn’t my type of comedy, as The Truth often isn’t, but it went over okay with the audience. It was certainly indicative of what they thought the audience would tolerate when it comes to insulting our own country.
Lauren Lapkus, who I wasn’t familiar with before that night, was hilarious. Her podcast, With Special Guest Lauren Lapkus, has a guest host every week who interviews Lauren for a fake show. This one was had John Early as the host of a gossip TV show and Lauren playing a 19 year old movie star. The whole thing was great, but I particularly enjoyed the fact that they couldn’t keep it together for more than 15 seconds at a time.
I was very disappointed with Radiolab. They repeated an episode they’ve already done, and while they were great performers and I was glad to finally see them live, I, and probably most everyone else in the audience, had heard the episode before. I would gladly listen to them all day long, but I couldn’t help but tune out, given both the repetition and my annoyance.
The musical guest was the horn quartet The Westerlies. It’s hard to make four horns sound good by themselves, and I applaud them for doing it, but I thought they were a strange choice. The dance troupe, Cocoon Central Dance Team, was also strange but definitely enjoyable. There were some videos between segments that were nothing to write home about. Seth Lind emceed (and produced) the event, and while he came off as nervous and once forgot his script backstage, that worked great for an audience full of public radio nerds.
All in all, while I have no regrets about going to Cast Party and would go to the next one, it definitely lacked the flair I was anticipating.
About Media, Etc. 