You guys! Did you know you can subscribe to this column? No longer will you simply stumble upon its treasures, it can come straight to you. To the literal thousands of you who have already subscribed, WELCOME, it’s a delight to have you here. As you might imagine, I’ve had a really good week; not only have I found out that that loads of people are interested in finding and sharing the lesser known podcasts hiding in the internet, but I have started learning French (bon pantalon) and traditional English dancing, ‘cos why not? but, more importantly, I have been recommended two absolutely gorgeous podcasts.
So here it is, your first newsletter-ready edition of Hear Here:
Tracking the Render Ghosts – Chips with Everything
At the moment, I’m living among the regeneration process of my estate and have been walking passed massive walls plastered with the faces of worryingly Photoshopped people, grinning for sheer joy in front of images at their futuristic homes (the reality for some has been less than joyful). But I’ve never given much thought to who these people were, though they must have been real living people once upon a time.
Artist James Bidle did wonder. He has wondered so much that it has become an obsession and our very own Leigh Alexander spoke to him last week, bringing us along for the ride. James has been searching high and low for the real humans behind these rendered images and found himself in Las Vegas, where he thinks the photos were taken in the late 1990s.
But I don’t want to give too much away. This short but sweet episode of Chips with Everything was blast to listen to. Not only was it an interesting topic but it is also not finished. It makes a real change to hear a story that is still going. James hasn’t found all these people yet: he has had exhibitions around the world, even made life-sized cardboard cutouts to see if anyone recognises themselves. And that makes it so exciting: I love thinking that these people are walking around somewhere in the world, oblivious to the fact that there’s a podcast-obsessed journalist who sees them everyday and who are, in some senses, a part of my communities story.
Home of the Brave
Sam Jordison got in touch to tell me about his all-time favourite podcast, Home of the Brave. As with all recommendations I gave it a listen – and was completely blown away. Where do I even begin with this beauty? The quality of the production alone was enough for me; it’s second to none.
The pod explores issues in America by combining well-researched facts with individual human stories. Most recently, the podcasts have covered Trump’s wall. The presenter, Scott Carrier, has a beautifully soothing and embracing voice that feels to me like the voice my subconscious might have ... if it was an American man, which I suppose would be quite confusing. Home of the Brave is an utter delight and pleasure to listen to; this is what Sam had to say:
Home of the Brave has only been going for two years, but its presenter Scott Carrier is a veteran broadcaster. He got his first break in 1983 when he showed up unannounced at the offices of National Public Radio in Washington DC, with a rucksack full of tapes that he’d recorded as he hitch-hiked his way to the US capital from Salt Lake City. Someone at NPR let him in and he ended up presenting a 30-minute programme, which seems incredible until you actually hear the recordings. They’re up there in the Home of the Brave archives and they are just beautiful: a series of eccentric, frank and deeply moving conversations that reveal all sorts of unexpected things about life in the USA.
That combination of reckless naivety and recording genius has been Carrier’s stock in trade ever since. Home of the Brave would be a wonderful thing in any era, but the fact that Carrier has travelling around to witness the rise of Donald Trump and the accompanying fallout in liberal America makes his programme even more urgent and impressive. His ability to get people from all sides to really speak their minds has made for some astonishing programmes. Sometimes it’s hard to listen to. Sometimes it feels like taking part in a collective nervous breakdown. But it also always offers humour and warmth and humanity. There’s hope in there too. Not least because Home of the Brave demonstrates that there’s still room for a thoughtful, strange and delicate person like Scott Carrier and that there are still people happy to listen to him. You won’t regret being one of them.
History of Philosophy
How to follow that? Well how about by going back to a good old fashioned podcast? Podcasts, before they were “cool” and everyone wanted to be involved, were the vestige of learning. Way back in 2007, I learned the entire History of Rome, because one man in a shed with a microphone wanted to share his knowledge and the History of Philosophy is just the same, though I’m not sure if it is actually recorded in a shed. I love this sort of podcast, particularly because the presenter, Peter Adamson, professor of philosophy at the LMU in Munich and at King’s College London, clearly knows what he is talking about. The series looks at the ideas, lives and historical context of the major philosophers as well as the lesser-known figures of the tradition.
Michael Pereira introduced me to it and I couldn’t be more grateful. Here’s what Michael had to say:
The ‘without any gaps’ project is an attempt to explore philosophy in a historically and culturally situated way. One of the things that they have done really well is examine the influence of Muslim and Jewish philosophers on the history of western philosophy, which is often largely ignored even by so-called ‘western’ experts in history of philosophy.
In this age where so many seem to be demonising Muslim folks, it’s quite interesting to see how much cultural influence there was in places like Spain. Our understanding of Aristotle is owed in no small part due to a translation and commentary movement perpetuated by Arab philosophers (among others).
Another interesting project they have is to explore Indian philosophy, as most people in philosophy courses are barely taught anything on Indian philosophy, it is fascinating to see how the ideas of the Buddha or the Vedic tradition are given such a clinical treatment in same way that Plato and Aristotle has in this series. From a scholarly point of view, Peter Adamson does a great job, but I also think in the age of anti-intellectualism and historical erasure, having a good solid understanding of intellectual history sends ripples of wider enlightenment to the culture at large.
