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Podcasts, videos, and links to make you think
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Welcome to the Hurt Your Brain newsletter, the place to get podcasts and links that will make you think.

I'm excited to share a visual ode to badass audio producers and field reporters I put together for Timber.fm. Since writing this I am constantly thinking of the field producers anytime I hear audio recorded outside of a studio. 

Also, so many podcast recommendations, some Dune love, and lots of links.
 

PODCAST RECOMMENDATIONS

Radiolab: Mixtape—Dakou 
  • This history of the cassette tape is far from a dry point A to point B biography.
  • It explores its impact in ways you would never think and probably have never heard of.
  • Like how absolutely revolutionary it was to have recordable, rewritable, editable, and portable audio. Even an old millennial like me takes this for granted growing up in the golden age of the CD. 
  • This is the first in a five-part series, and they are all fantastic so far. This first episode is about the impact of the Sony Walkman and how Chinese culture was massively influenced by hordes of discarded western music that found their way into a black market.
Turn on images to see.
Episode art by Bryan Ahonen.


The Documentary: Hiroshima successors
  • From the BBC, first hand accounts from survivors of the Hiroshima bomb and the practice they continue to keep their stories alive. 
  • Found by way of Paul Kondo’s excellent Podcast Gumbo newsletter. Read here on the very personal connection his family has to this audio.
 

Elon Musk: The Evening Rocket—Dimension X
  • Originally available only for the BBC, historian and podcaster Jill Lepore brings this mini-series about the Elon Musk version of capitalism to podcast apps everywhere. 
  • The first episode examines Musk’s early roots in South Africa and what kind of influence Apartheid and science fiction had on his trajectory. 
  • This show lives in its own feed, but also within The Last Archive, Lepore’s main show.


Rumble Strip: Finn and the Bell
  • “This isn’t a story about suicide. It’s a story about a boy called Finn who loved to fish and play baseball and write poetry and embroider…and what happens to a small Vermont community as it staggers forward after an unspeakable tragedy.”
  • A really moving portrait of this young man and the impact he had on his community. Excellent storytelling. 


Scrolls & Leaves: The Lost Port of Muziris
  • If you like world history and expertly crafted soundscapes, this show is for you.
  • This first episode is about the decades long archeological effort in a sleepy town in India to uncover the site for the fabled port of Muziris. 
  • Be sure to wear good headphones!


Soonish: This Is How You Win the Time War
  • “Should we make Daylight Saving Time permanent? Should we move the boundaries between time zones, or transplant whole regions, such as New England, into neighboring time zones? Should we consider abolishing time zones altogether and simply live according to the movements of the sun?”
  • What better day to contemplate this than today?! An episode full of ideas and arguments I had never heard, and well worth learning about. 
  • I also had no idea there are actually 38 time zones (because of weird in-between zones some countries use). 
  • I very much appreciate the title of this episode, which takes its name from a great sci-fi story I happened to read a few months ago (it's not often I understand references).


Way Too Interested: PUZZLES with Roy Wood Jr. and Steve Richardson
  • "A podcast about curiosity, creativity, discovery." Go on, you have my attention.
  • A new show with a great premise. Someone really into something comes on the show to talk about it and then, along with the host, talks to an expert about their obsession.
  • This episode is with puzzle superfan Roy Wood Jr, comedian and Daily Show regular. They talk to Steve Richardson, who is "Tormentor-in-Chief" of his puzzle company, and it's all pretty damn interesting. 

PODCAST LINKS
 
Pictures of Microphones in the Wild. Alternatively, you can view this as a visual ode to badass audio producers and field reporters. If you think all podcast photos are bland and boring, check these out.
Turn on images to see. Picture of interview on horseback.
Image credit: Louise Johns
 

OTHER LINKS TO MAKE YOU THINK

The Illustrated Life of Edith Zimmerman. I’ve become a big fan of Drawing Links over the past few years, and am excited to share a short interview of how Edith Zimmerman came to create it and how she found herself to be a full time comics artist.
 

Newton’s three-body problem explained. A great little five minute TED-Ed video.
 

Making Lego Car CLIMB Obstacles. I bet you’ll end up watching the entirety of this 5 minute video like I did. You’ll also learn a bit about rover type vehicle engineering along the way.
 
 
...

Dune mini-playlist
I’ve been consuming lots of Dune content after seeing the new movie twice, and wanted to share some of the best. A podcast, a video from Vanity Fair, and three videos from an amazing channel on YouTube I just found called Quinn’s Ideas (full of really thoughtful content about Dune, Foundation, Hyperion, and a bunch of other sci-fi). 

1) Cows in the Field: Dune [podcast]. In which the hosts and the guest quite humorously extol the virtues of the original 1984 David Lynch version of Dune, and argue that the batshit crazy parts of the adaptation are worth embracing. Personally, I think the new one is better and that you really need nostalgia for Lynch’s version to appreciate it, but it made me start watching it nonetheless. 
2) 'Dune' Director Denis Villeneuve Breaks Down the Gom Jabbar Scene [YouTube]. Definitely worth watching for anyone who liked the new movie. 
3) The politics of Dune explained FIVE minutes. This and the next two are from the channel Quinn’s Ideas. Really helpful and well done. 
4) The Truth About Why There are No Robots in Dune [YouTube]. Easy to miss that there is no AI, and this explains the reason this is built-in to the original story.
5) Dune 2021 director responds to Dune being called a “White Savior” story [YouTube]. The spoiler is that it’s the opposite if you know the larger Dune story trajectory.
 

That's all for today. See you in two weeks!

For fun: Every Dad trains their whole life for this moment.

For fun 2: the exact moment when you realize grappling is not for you. The slow zoom in makes it. 

For fun 3:  Animal Collective My Girls music video. A song I’ve long loved, but I've only just watched its extremely strange but entrancing music video.


And p.s., if you want to see more stuff like the Edith Zimmerman interview from above, be sure to sign up for my other newsletter

Connect with me @erikthejones on twitter and if you've learned anything interesting, please forward this link to any curious natured friends or family so they can subscribe. Many thanks!


Erik
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Hurt Your Brain Website
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