podcasts
Podcast Recommendation: A History of Rock Music in 500 Songs
For a long time my podcast listening has been almost exclusively nerdy tech podcasts mixed up with nerdy theology podcasts, with an occasional news or true crime mixed in to liven things up. Somehow I have almost entirely bypassed any that were music-related. (I did listen to a couple episodes of Song Exploder right after it debuted, but it just didn’t hook me.)
Somewhere along the line, Rob Weinert-Kendt on Twitter started linking to A History of Rock Music in 500 Songs by British host Andrew Hickey. It took me only a couple episodes and I was hooked.
The format of the podcast is one song per 30-ish minute episode, but each episode covers far more than just the titular song. Hickey provides background on the artist, the influences that formed that artist, stories about the creation of the song, and so on. You come away from the episode having learned a lot not just about a particular song but also about the developing music scene in the Americas (and, once you get in a ways, in Europe). He starts with the first inklings of what would become rock music as they emerged in the big band scene. (Episode 1: “Flying Home” by the Benny Goodman Sextet.)
500 episodes is a significant feat for any podcast, and setting out that goal in the title of your show seems rather ambitious, but I’m willing to bet that Mr. Hickey has all 500 songs charted out, and the moxie to see it through. He’s currently up through Episode 157 (“See Emily Play” by Pink Floyd), and is publishing a lot of bonus material for Patreon subscribers. I’m learning a lot as I go, so even if some interruption keeps the series from completion, it’s still been an excellent investment of time.
So, if you’re interested in rock music, A History of Rock Music in 500 Songs is highly recommended.
Podcast Listening, Social Distancing Edition
Back in the old days (say, before March 2020), my podcast listening tilted heavily toward current events. For my own mental well-being, that isn’t a good listening diet whilst being at home for weeks on end. So, in addition to my usual handful of sermon podcasts, what’s a guy to listen to? How about stories about people far worse off than ourselves?
Enter the Fall of Civilizations Podcast. Hosted by Paul M. M. Cooper, this podcast takes lengthy (90 minutes to 3 hours) looks at ancient civilizations, what drove them to flourish, and then what caused their downfall. Cooper is a British writer and archivist with a PhD focused on the cultural and literary significance of ruins. His podcast isn’t particularly fancy from a production standpoint - mostly him narrating, occasional voice actors reading historical documents, and some background music - but he delves into the history of great civilizations and brings them to life.
Over the last couple weeks I’ve listened with fascination as Cooper described the fall of the Roman Empire in Britain, the Mediterranean Bronze Age, and the Khmer Empire of medieval Cambodia. (I didn’t get that one in college history class!) There are only ten episodes in total right now, so I only have another 8 or 10 hours of listening left ahead of me, but it’s been quite enjoyable.
If you’ve got an interest in ancient history or in hours of narration by a guy with a nice British accent, it’s worth a try. You can find it on YouTube, SoundCloud, or generally wherever you listen to podcasts.
A healthier approach to a mid-life crisis...
Andrew Osenga started a new podcast earlier this year called The Pivot. Episode 3 is his discussion with musician, producer, and composer Don Chaffer. Toward the end of the interview, Don talks about how he’s started writing for musical theater, and how it provides an outlet that he needs as a 40-ish father and husband.
…when you have kids in particular you just give and give and give and give. And one day you wake up and you’re like ‘what do I get, what’s my part in this thing? Because I used to do a lot of stuff I liked… sometimes I would go out to eat or watch a movie! That was crazy!’. I told a monk friend of mine one time, he said ‘tell me everything’. And I said ‘well I feel like between family and work I’ve got nothing left.’ And he said “yeah! and a hundred years ago you’d be dead by now, too.” So, there’s just something about this phase of life, it’s just - he’s like, ‘people died at that point just because they were too pooped to keep living’. And I feel like - so that’s what a mid-life crisis is. You hit these limitations and you think ‘I’d rather have, you know, a Corvette and a hot blonde with a boob job. And so you do these crazy stupid things, blow up your whole life. And it’s like – one of the jokes I’ve made is that my mid-life crisis was music theater instead of hookers and blow. But it’s true. I think that it became - one of the things I realized is that you find a healthy outlet to give yourself some space, to do some things you enjoy. Because that’s important. You can’t live on only sacrifice. It ends up being a negation. While love and sacrificial love are endless, hypothetically, they aren’t for a human, right? They’re only endless because they come from somewhere else. There’s some point you kinda run yourself out and you realize ‘I don’t have infinite capacity here to be a loving husband and father. I’ve gotta do something for myself.’ The other piece of it for a marriage is to try to invite each other into it together. Not necessarily doing the same things, because usually that isn’t going to help - you need space from each other - but invite each other into that headspace of like, ‘do some things for yourself. I’ll do some things for myself. We’ll get a babysitter if we can afford it. Or swap. I’ll take the kids tonight, you take them on Wednesday.’
I resonate with that more than I’d like to admit many days. (I bet my wife does, too.)
Another view of 'love of neighbor'
I was catching up on my backlog of On Being podcasts and came across a fascinating discussion with writer Alain de Botton. de Botton is an atheist, but provided a description of the idea of love of fellow citizen (in my words, “neighbor”) that was insightful to me.
MR. DE BOTTON: …I think you’re onto something huge and rather counterintuitive because we associate the word “love” with private life. We don’t associate it with life in the republic, with civil society. But I think that a functioning society requires two things that, again, just don’t sound very normal, but they require love and politeness. And by “love” I mean a capacity to enter imaginatively into the minds of people with whom you don’t immediately agree, and to look for the more charitable explanations for behavior which doesn’t appeal to you and which could seem plain wrong, not just to chuck them immediately in prison or to hold them up in front of a law court but to…
MS. TIPPETT: Or just tell them how stupid they are, right?
MR. DE BOTTON: Right. Exactly. We’re permanently — all sides are attempting to show how stupid every other side is. And the other thing, of course, is politeness, which is an attempt not necessarily to say everything, to understand that there is a role for private feelings, which if they were to emerge, would do damage to everyone concerned. But we’ve got this culture of kind of self-disclosure. And as I say, it spills out into politics as well. The same dynamic goes on of, like, “If I’m not telling you exactly what I think, then I may develop a twitch or an illness from not expunging my feelings.” To which I would say, “No, you’re not. You’re preserving the peace and the good nature of the republic, and it’s absolutely what you should be doing.”
I really like this definition of love of neighbor that way - to work to understand them by giving them the benefit of the doubt, to look for the most charitable explanation for their position. We as Christians could take that idea to heart.
A couple recent podcast episodes worth recommending
I listen regularly to a handful of podcasts, and irregularly to a couple handfuls more. This past week I’ve run across a couple episodes that I feel are particularly worth recommending:
Radiolab Presents: More Perfect: “The Political Thicket”.
More Perfect is a short-run podcast (they plan to produce 7 episodes) by the wonderful folks at Radiolab that is focusing on the US Supreme Court. The Political Thicket is an episode about the 1962 Baker vs. Carr decision in which SCOTUS first really got involved in political decisions - in this case, by forcing Tennessee to reapportion legislative districts in a way that provided equal representation for both whites and blacks. Fascinating stuff.
Fresh Air: Christopher Eccleston On ‘The A Word,’ and Rethinking His Faith After ‘The Leftovers’
Fresh Air is hardly a novel or surprising podcast recommendation, but this Terry Gross interview with actor Christopher Eccleston was superb. I’m really only familiar with Eccleston from his season playing the lead in Doctor Who, but after this interview I also really want to catch up with The Leftovers.
Eccleston talks frankly about his wrestling with faith, talking about how he’s moved from an angry atheism to a more open viewpoint, and how the Biblical book of Job has loomed large in playing his character in The Leftovers. He also talks very personally about his struggles in relating to and caring for his father who suffered from dementia for 15 years before passing away in 2012.
A really fantastic interview - Terry Gross is of course a premier interviewer, and Eccleston is a very engaging and forthcoming subject. Worth 40 minutes.
Liftoff Episode 12: Geof makes the bigtime
When the Relay podcast guys announced a show about space, my first thought was “sure, Stephen and Jason are great, but they need Geof as a third host”. Well, he hasn’t made it that far yet, but I was excited yesterday to see that he did make it on to Liftoff episode 12 as a guest.
Geof works at the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, as a Payload Rack Officer for the International Space Station. I’ve heard bits and pieces about his job over the last year, but I learned a lot listening to him talk here. If you’re interested in space, Liftoff is worth a listen.
The first shoreline of the invisible world
There’s a beautiful bit in the On Being episode that was published earlier this week, from a 2008 interview that host Krista Tippett held with the late Irish poet John O’Donohue.
This quote reminds me of a lot of what NT Wright says about the spiritual dimension and about churches being beachheads where God’s kingdom overlaps and is shining into the world. Here’s what O’Donohue said:
The more I’ve been thinking about this, the way we make divisions all the time between the visible world and the invisible world, and it’s as if the invisible world is the poor relation and the visible world is ultimate ground and reality, and the more I’ve been thinking about this the more it seems to me actually that the visible world is the first shoreline of the invisible world. And the same way, I believe, with the body and the soul - that actually the body is in the soul, not the soul just in the body - and that in some way the poignance of being a human being is that you are the place where the invisible becomes visible and expressive in some way.
“The poignance of being a human being is that you are the place where the invisible becomes visible and expressive in some way.”
Beautiful.
A little bit of a bozo
My theme in any discussion over the past couple of years has usually come around to “well, yeah, but… it’s complicated.” So my head started nodding enthusiastically yesterday when listening to the Reconcilable Differences podcast, when I heard Merlin Mann say this about the possibility that he’s a contrarian (at about 22 minutes into the episode):
What a lot of people get and that some people don’t get is that you’re not trying to be difficult, but that the more you enjoy something the more you’re interested in seeing how it could be better. And here’s a thing that’s actually not such a big deal that you could make better. It’s not an insult, it’s not a slam. And for me, whenever people say “oh you gotta to out and set goals for yourself”, I’ll be “well, maybe”. You know goals can really be self-defeating if they aren’t updated and realistic. “Oh you should never have goals.” Well, that’s not true. Do you really wanna play tennis without a net? I feel like maybe I’m more of a contrarian? I feel like, whenever somebody comes up with something that’s, like, an unvulnerable pronouncement about how the world mostly always is, it gets my dander up a little bit, and I don’t feel like I have to say something, but I know I’m thinking that person’s probably a little bit of a bozo.
Preach, brother Merlin. Preach.
A Meal Shared Among Friends
I’ve had the sacraments (especially the Eucharist) on my mind lately after reading James K. A. Smith’s Desiring the Kingdom, and then listening to the On Being podcast this morning I found this bit from Father Greg Boyle, a delightful Jesuit priest who has spent his life working with gang members in Los Angeles:
Jesus doesn’t lose any sleep that we will forget that the Eucharist is sacred; He is anxious that we might forget that it’s ordinary, that it’s a meal shared among friends, because if we don’t see that, then we’ll be unable to recognize the sacred in the ordinary, and that’s the incarnation.
Interesting to hear from a Catholic. But in my experience, this is a trap we Evangelicals have fallen into at various times, too.
Krista Tippett on listening to those of other faiths
The guys over on Nomad Podcast recently interviewed Krista Tippett, a Christian who hosts a public radio interview program called On Being. I’ve never listened to her show before - though I may need to catch up with some episodes - but it would seem she makes a habit of interviewing people of all beliefs, of asking lots of good questions, and really actively listening to the answers.
So, the Nomad guys asked her, in listening to and conversing with all these other faith traditions, does she ever feel pressure to convert to one of the other faiths? I thought her answer about belief was helpful [at about 34:00]:
None of [these conversations] make me feel like I have to convert. But here’s what I would say: the cumulative effect of all of these conversations… has instilled in me this expansive and ever-expanding sense of mystery. So my sense of mystery is quite different from when I started. And [has increased] my comfort level with that, and just really being able to take a delight in that [the sense of mystery]. So no, I don’t feel like I have to convert, but I also think that I have less and less of a need to be able to tie everything up with a neat bow. If something doesn’t completely make sense, or it’s not logical, or I don’t see how these things fit together, it doesn’t threaten my faith, and I can leave it to the realm of mystery.
And honestly, I find that I can to back into the tradition, into Christianity, that there’s a reverence for mystery there, for the things that we won’t be able to explain in this lifetime, that I actually think modernity kind of neglected. It’s really very liberating to recover that, and to take delight in it. And I actually think that a reverence for mystery - there’s something that Einstein said, that a reverence for mystery is at the heart of the best of science and the arts and religion - I actually think that a reverence for mystery, which is an orthodox orientation, creates this beautiful space for deeply religious people to remain deeply grounded in their identities and inhabit this puzzling, amazing world full of religious others.
Mere Fidelity Podcast on NT Wright
I’ve recently started listening to the Mere Fidelity podcast, a theological conversation between Americans Derek Rishmawy and Matthew Lee Anderson, and Brits Alistair Roberts and Andrew Wilson. On a recent episode they took up the topic of Anglican theologian NT Wright.
Now it’s no secret to any readers of this blog that I’m a huge NT Wright fan; I have given away more copies of Surprised By Hope to friends than any other volume, heard him in person once, and in general point to him as one of the most influential authors in my theological development over the past decade. I’ve read most of his recent popular-level books, and the first three of his Christian Origins series. (His two-volume fourth part of that series is sitting in my to-read pile.)
All the participants on the podcast expressed a great deal of admiration and appreciation for Wright before launching into their criticisms, but it was the criticisms that had me wanting to shout “but… but…” at my phone as I listened. I think much of my disagreement with them may be explained by my American layman’s perspective, and indeed they may have provided enough caveats through the podcast that we’re likely not in great disagreement, but I want to trace their thoughts and my responses here if only to benefit my own thinking.
Wright’s Characterization (Caricature?) of Evangelicalism
This is where I’m going to bang heads with the MF guys (and probably mostly Anderson) the most. At one point he says this:
[…in Surprised by hope] he [Wright] has a narrative about evangelicalism that’s largely de-historicized. That rips even hymn verses out of their context and uses them to show all of these problems within the evangelical milieu. And he says lots of true things in doing so, but he creates such a caricature of the mentality that he’s disagreeing with along the way that I think it’s really unfortunate. [at 13:20 or so in the podcast]
And later on:
The only reason anyone should ever by ‘surprised by hope’ in this world is if they ignored Augustine, ignored Calvin, ignored Aquinas, ignored Luther, ignored everyone who has been saying ‘new creation’ and ‘resurrected bodies’ for the past two thousand years. [at 20:45]
Here, I suppose, the evangelical academic’s caricature is the layman’s sense of reality. I would respond to Anderson here that for every historic evangelical who would largely align with Wright, thus making Wright’s claims a caricature, that there is likely a current evangelical who would not, or at least who knows little on the subject, thus making the “caricature” something much closer to reality.
At the sampling of evangelical churches I’ve belonged to in my 37 years (including Baptist, Bible, Christian & Missionary Alliance, and Evangelical Free), never once have I heard a full-bodied story of resurrection taught in the way Wright proclaims it. Most often the eschatology isn’t taught at all, or it’s lightly glossed over - certainly never brought in a way that emphasizes (as Wright does) how that understanding of the Kingdom impacts how we live in the here and now. My conversations with fellow church members anecdotally indicate that the Left Behind series continues to more significantly influence the common evangelical layman’s view of end times than anything else. (Maybe the upcoming Nic Cage remake of the Left Behind movie will change that? Nah.)
As to the specific point about ripping lines of hymns out of context, I’ll say just two things. First: that the hymns he calls out are some which I have grown up loving dearly, which makes Wright’s criticism a bit painful; second: That this bit of the book will fall flat with American evangelicals within the next 10 years or so since most of us are singing only modern praise songs now, the content of which typically struggles to be correct theologically about even the basics of the faith, and which almost never addresses eschatology.
Anderson doesn’t let it go, though. Later on he argued that Billy Graham’s view of resurrection and heaven isn’t really that different from Wright’s, if you know the code words:
For all the good that he [Wright] is doing, the straw man has brought an unnecessary antithesis and hostility towards the older ways of framing things that doesn’t realize that evangelicals have shorthand, and a whole cluster of concepts behind that shorthand, and it’s not all as bad as NT Wright presents it as being in his lay-level work. [at 22:50]
A couple of thoughts here: first, I wouldn’t assume that Wright “doesn’t realize” that evangelicals have this shorthand. I would assume it is familiar to him and most all scholars who have even a passing familiarity with the history of evangelical thought. However, Surprised By Hope is a popular work, and at the popular level I think there are many, many evangelicals who aren’t familiar with this shorthand.
Fortunately, Rishmawy chimed in on this point:
You and I know that’s shorthand… [but] I think there are times when the shorthand has gotten lost in pop evangelicalism or pop fundamentalism or whatever, where people hear this and are, like, ‘this is totally new’ and you’re right, my pastor has kind of sounded like that. The best of the tradition has never lost sight of this. [at 23:20]
I’m not sure what bits of evangelical tradition Derek deems “the best”, but his comments about that shorthand being lost in pop evangelicalism are, in my experience, right on. When I heard Wright speak in Nashville a couple years ago he noted that, as a surprise to him, he’d developed ‘something of a side ministry’ helping American evangelicals find their way out of the Left Behind sort of theological mess. I’m one of those, and grateful for it.
At another point in the discussion, Roberts, in making an (apparently obligatory on Mere Fidelity) Oliver O’Donavan reference brought up a point that I very much appreciated - that American fanboys of Wright, in feeling that Wright is some sort of Pied Piper (no, not that Piper) leading them out of evangelicalism, would not be feeling their current disillusionment with Wright on social issues if they understood his theology more fully. To wit:
It was Oliver O’Donavan in a conference in dialog with NT Wright that I attended - he made the point that Wright always makes these hyperbolic statements that seem to be anti-traditionalist in order to cover up just how traditionalist he actually is, how conservative his position is, because otherwise people wouldn’t realize how firmly in continuity it is with Reformed evangelical tradition. [at 19:20]
This has actually led me to appreciate Wright even a bit more lately than I had before, because I find myself having pushed pretty hard against evangelicalism the past several years, only to consistently find that while I am often sympathetic with the plight of some of my more progressive brethren, I can’t fully get on board with them when it comes to much of their social progressivism. It’s encouraging to have someone like Wright seemingly closer to that middle ground where I often find myself.
To the esteemed gents on Mere Fidelity - first, thanks for the great conversation. Yours has quickly become a favorite podcast of mine. But I’d urge you, in the midst of your theological erudition, to not so quickly pooh-pooh Wright’s pop characterization of evangelicalism. By many accounts he is speaking evangelical truth at a level that is reaching many who may never delve into Augustine, Calvin, Aquinas, or Luther. And for that we should be thankful.
The Mere Fidelity guys are promising a second discussion on Wright to discuss the Reformed folks' issues with his theology. I’ll listen with interest but, not being Reformed myself, without much of a dog in the fight.
My Podcast Listening circa January 2014
At the moment I’m subscribed to 14 podcasts. I do all my podcast listening on my phone - mostly in the car or (during the summer months) while running or doing lawn work. (This has a nasty side-effect where I get a really backed-up queue in the winter months, but oh well.)
For the purposes of organization I’ll group them into four rough categories: Tech, Entertainment, Theology, and Other. I’ll address them in that order.
Tech
Accidental Tech Podcast - OK, surely the guys like Dan and Geof who are actually reading this are familiar with ATP. A weekly podcast around Apple tech nerdery, it features Marco Arment, John Siracusa, and Casey Liss. Lately they’ve spent far too much time obsessing over the new Mac Pro - which I complained about on Twitter and Casey subsequently appreciated - but usually it’s an entertaining listen. Average Duration: 90 minutes.
Pragmatic - This is a new one on my list; in fact, I’ve only listened to the first half of the first (well, sixth) episode. It’s a weekly podcast which purports to address the “practical application” of technology. Average Duration: 60 minutes.
Entertainment
Filmspotting - A long-running public-radio-originated discussion of new films, punctuated with movie marathons highlighting overlooked titles from movie history. This is my first listen every week. Hosts Adam Kempenaar and Josh Larsen keep the discussion lively and provide many more good ideas for film watching than I will ever have time to keep up with. Average Duration: 75 minutes.
Disasterpiece Theatre - This one also has the virtue of being hosted by my friend-of-a-friend and sometimes acquaintance Stephen Granade. Imagine yourself in a Hollywood pitch room and pitching the most ridiculous movie ideas that (let’s all admit) could probably get made. Stephen and co-host Alex White are quick- witted and hilarious. Enjoyable stuff. Average Duration: 30 minutes.
The Q&A with Jeff Goldsmith - This one is a little more of a niche, I guess. Goldsmith interviews movie screenwriters about their story, writing methods, and experiences in the entertainment industry. I find it fascinating to hear storytellers talk about the craft of writing a good story. Average Duration: 80 minutes.
WTF with Marc Maron - D-list comedian Marc Maron invites celebrities into his garage/studio and records hour-long interviews that range here, there, and everywhere. I almost gave up on this one until Don Chaffer reminded me that the 2-minute skip button could be put to good use. Skip the first 12 minutes of Maron plugging his comedy act and get straight to the interview. Maron asks really good questions, isn’t afraid to ask about God, religion, and philosophy on life. Average Duration: The interview portion is usually 60-70 minutes.
Theology
The Mortification of Spin - My buddy Mike set me on to this one a month ago. Comes out weekly or so, hosted by Carl Trueman. Besides winning the award for most cleverly-named podcast, this one does me good to remember that there are Calvinists on the internet who I can still agree with most of the time. (I said on the internet, friends. There are lots of Calvinists I agree with most of the time among my personal friends and acquaintances.)
Nomad - I think Randy linked this one a couple months back. Hosted by two British guys, this one is fairly emergent (is that still a thing?) or liberal evangelical. I don’t find myself agreeing with them too much, but I find it a valuable listen because it helps me identify the places where liberal evangelicalism starts to go off the rails and needs to be dialed back. And they’re right sometimes, too. (This may be the most backhanded podcast recommendation ever.) Average Duration: 65 minutes.
Then we come to two that have the distinction of featuring internet friends of mine:
The Pulpiteer - this one features the sermons of pastor Andy Croel of Carson City United Methodist Church in Michigan. I dig Andy’s sermons. He always points me to Jesus, has a good perspective on the text, and gives me something to chew on while keeping it under 30 minutes. Amazing. Average Duration: 30 minutes.
Trying Too Hard - This one also features Andy Croel in conversation with Arkansian UMC buddy Matthew Johnson. OK, I’ll be honest: they’ve only published two episodes so far and I haven’t listened to either of them yet, but they’re queued up on my phone and I’m looking forward to them. That’s worth something, right? Average Duration: 23 minutes.
Misc
Dads Being Dads - I’ve only listened to part of one of these so far; can’t remember who recommended them. But what I’ve heard so far has been good. It’s refreshing to hear dads talk about being dads. (As an aside: it’s curious to me that while you’d find this kind of parenting discussion going on in the Christian blogosphere on mom blogs, you have to go to the secular arena to hear the dad’s perspective. What’s up with that? But that’s a thought to be more fully formed in a separate blog post.) Average Duration: 60 minutes.
Fresh Air - OK, you’ve heard this show on NPR before, right? I don’t really need to say any more than that. I like that they split the show segments into separate feed items, so I can delete the bits I’m not interested in and keep the others. Average Duration: varies based on segment. 45 minutes max. Some as short as 6 minutes.
Song Exploder - I just subscribed to this one as well. It only has one episode so far. The goal is that they will interview a musician each time and have that musician play a track and then “explode” it - examining the different tracks, production, etc. This interests me as a musician, so I’m subscribing for now. Average Duration: 15 minutes.
The Thousand People I Tried To Be - This one has a feed but no episodes yet. I’m still waiting for my buddy Geof to edit and publish his first interview. I like the concept, and would enjoy it if he makes it a consistent thing. Average Duration: unknown.