By a certain age, we ought to know that it is useless to try to impress someone. Or at least we should know not to do it at the expense of who we are.
This episode is part of a series I’m doing for National Podcast Post Month. Podcasters were challenged to post 30 episodes in 30 days. I’ll post super short episodes where I share clips from some old cassette tapes.
Even though I don’t have the old cassette tapes I recorded with my dad when I was a child, I do have some tapes that capture him just fine.
While maybe not as critical as having an email address, podcasts are still culturally relevant. Even presidents have used podcasts to communicate. So if the aim is equality, finding and listening to these shows has to be as easy as Googling a recipe.
Technology is leaving some people behind. That’s why for the first time a “Podcasts” class will be part of the Saint Paul Community Education offerings this fall. Those over 55 are most likely to miss out on these free “Internet radio shows”, but even the young can be left in the dark. For them it’s as if half the Internet went poof!
Rebekah Smith, the host of QuOTeD – The Question of the Day Podcast will be teaching the class. She likens the podcast knowledge gap to earlier technology hurdles. While maybe not as critical as having an email address, Smith says that podcasts are still culturally relevant. “Elected officials, including presidents, have used podcasting to communicate” Smith said. “So if the aim is equality, finding and listening to these shows has to be as easy as Googling a recipe.” Anyone who knows how to use a simple podcast app on their smartphone or other device has access to authors, experts, education, news and entertainment that cannot be found elsewhere. “Some of the best interviews I’ve heard have been on a podcast.” Smith said. “I think it’s because podcasts can dive deep. They don’t live under the same constraints as other media.”
The class will be held two Tuesdays, October 10 & 17 at 6:00 p.m. in Saint Paul. For more information and to enroll, visit https://tce.me/gr9v1d. Anyone can get started listening to podcasts by going to QuestionPodcast.com/HowToListen. “It’s all there.” Smith said. “Those who like to learn with a more personal touch are encouraged to take the class. We’ll help you get started.”
Just days before the class, September 30 marks the 4th anniversary of International Podcast Day. “It’s a nice reminder that just as we did outreach to get people on board with email, we’ll need to make the effort to ensure that no one is left behind when it comes to podcasts.” Smith said.
I was charmed by the way people often laughed as they responded to this question. What’s so funny about using salt to clean a cast iron skillet? You also hear pride in some voices. Saving money on a dryer repair or fixing a bicycle is a real accomplishment.
This produced some interesting responses from 50 people or so. Most could answer the question. But there were definitely a few who were “readers” and wanted nothing to do with a video on how to boil eggs. Themes come through. Home and car repair and cooking are some examples. I was charmed by the way people often laughed as they responded.
What’s so funny about using salt to clean a cast iron skillet? You also hear pride in some voices. Saving money on a dryer repair or fixing a bicycle is a real accomplishment. I just love that! There’s also something revealing – I think – about someone who learns how to make pretzels just for the challenge of it. At a WordCamp conference where many of the recordings were made, a few people asked, “Why this question?” It’s an attempt to spark a conversation, as is the case with every question I ask for the QuOTeD podcast. In this case, I think it works. How else would I have known that this person I met at a tech conference has a passion for making giant bubbles? And let’s face it. Wouldn’t you rather talk about that than the weather?
Can we turn a podcast episode around overnight? That was the challenge.
We collected tape at WordCamp – Minneapolis on a Friday morning into the afternoon with the goal of having a finished episode by the following Saturday afternoon. We got a head start by also collecting tape at a related speakers event Thursday evening.
Initially, I was concerned that there wouldn’t be enough time to gather enough tape to fill out a 58-minute episode. But that wasn’t so much of a problem. We briefly had three people on the job when Ingram, the audio engineer for this episode, jumped in to help. Most of the time there were two of us, Brian and me. While more help collecting tape certainly would have been good, the extra hands would have been best applied elsewhere. If I were to do this again, I’d put them on preparing clips for assembling. As for putting the pieces together, that’s relatively easy. Although, I still would have liked to have had more time to do this. I had ideas that I couldn’t execute because of the time limitations.
Nevertheless, we did it. The episode was ready for my Saturday afternoon presentation at WordCamp. As a result, I was completely sleep deprived, but we pulled it off. The plan was to publish the “YouTube” episode as part of my talk. People would have seen us recording interviews the day before. Some would actually be in the episode. To complete the circle Click! Click! Voila! We’ve just published our podcast! Cool, right?
This is the part where I am going to spare you the details of one technical glitch after another. Let’s just say that I was in a University classroom with state-of-the-art multimedia and between five of us, no one could make the sound work. Oh, and my talk was about podcasting.
The episode did fall a little short of the 58-minute mark, which would make it compatible with a KFAI Radio spot. More regrettable was that I ran out of time before I was able to include everyone who answered the question. For this reason, I’m thinking about making a less rushed version two of the show. I mean, I couldn’t believe how often “making slime” came up. Got to add that!
Update
On November 23, 2017 – Thanksgiving Day – the episode that was originally posted was replaced with a new one. It is the 58-minute version that will be used for an airing on KFAI radio on November 26.
Problems notwithstanding, I still count this experiment as a success. It can be useful to accomplish something with barely enough time. Now I wouldn’t want this to be a normal mode of doing things. But if you are flooded with resources, you won’t actually learn what it takes to do something because you have more than enough. But if you cut it close, you’ll get a better sense of what it really takes. And then you can make adjustments from there.
I am certain that this could not have been done without Brian’s help or without Ingram’s help and technical expertise. It was a joy to hand the files over to Ingram who leveled the audio (so that you can listen to the show without “riding the volume”) and fixed other issues to make things sound better. In the past, I have done this myself as an amateur. In this case, I know for certain there wouldn’t have been the time to do it.
I’d like to try this again.
When I had a college radio show the station manager would scold us for using insider lingo on the air. “Say ‘Public Service Announcement’ and not ‘cart'”, he would insist. Carts were these boxy looking tapes where the PSAs and other promos lived. You could easily jam them into a player, sort of like an 8-track tape, which made them ideal for these short bits. Today as more and more jargon infiltrates the language, I wish there were a staff meeting where someone would stand up and say, “Stop doing that! You sound like an idiot!”
Continue reading “I Do Not Consume Podcasts”We make up a story about how a painting of a fireplace ended up in our living room.
The week of Thanksgiving, we had some people over. After dinner we sat around the fireplace to chew on a question. How did this painting end up in our living room? We began by describing the painting. Then we introduced an artist, Helena Susan Adams. By the end of the evening, we pieced together the history of the painting, what had inspired it, where it had been and how did it ultimately come into my hands. Various characters popped up, of course. So I thought it would be fun to interview some of them and add their voices to the mix. I love the mix of reality and fiction. We start in one place and end in the other.
Who knew? Tupperware art is a thing.
We are looking for the real artist who made the painting that inspired our story. You can help us find this person by sharing this picture on social media.
On Facebook a friend shared the following post about apologies from the Instagram account of FeministVoice (December 21, 2016).
“lately i’ve been replacing my ‘i’m sorry’s with ‘thank you’s’ like instead of ‘sorry i’m late’ i’ll say ‘thanks for waiting for me’, or instead of ‘sorry for being such a mess’ i’ll say ‘thank you for loving me and caring about me unconditionally’ and it’s not only shifted the way i think and feel about myself but also improved my relationships with others who now get to receive my gratitude instead of my negativity.”
As of this writing, 58 people have liked the post and 54 have shared it.
Why?
“How do you know when you’ve heard a sincere apology?” is a question I’ve been asking for a future episode of my podcast, QuOTeD (now available). So the suggestion to substitute our sorries with our gratitude struck me a little funny. The more I thought about it, the more it seemed like a load of crap.
The impulse to rein in unnecessary apologies is understandable. But broadly replacing them with gratitude feels false. It discounts why we apologize.
What tells the truth? What connects? What heals? According to the handful of random people who responded to my question so far, this is exactly the purpose of an apology. It
Tells the truth.
Connects.
Heals.
Apologies move us through conflict. They are not the cause of our low self-esteem or the reason for negativity in our lives. Whereas these things might be exacerbated when we hide from our imperfections instead of embracing them, which an apology can help us do.
Unlike an apology, gratitude does not necessarily acknowledge the reality of the harmed party (i.e., the truth). In the case of the above post, gratitude is primarily concerned with the comfort of the offender who wants to avoid conflict. So, instead of facing how our actions may have negatively affected another, it’s easier to conflate apologies with self-hatred or attach them to our critics who demand perfection. Or we might have personal issues that make apologies difficult. Now “self-care” gets to mean that we should be overly concerned about how much we apologize. Be careful with your pruning. It turns out that the words “I’m sorry” do matter. When wronged, people want to hear those words and they notice when they don’t. In some cases, they remember these instances forever.
Not to overblow the issue of tardiness, thanking me for waiting for you does nothing to acknowledge my reality, except to say that I did wait some undetermined amount of time – which you have deemed trivial. This fact is divorced from whatever might have been going on for me logistically, emotionally or whatever (i.e, my reality). Maybe I was irritated. In this case, a pre-emptive “thank you” becomes a means to manage and control my response. That hardly sounds like genuine gratitude to me. Just like corporate speak, it aims to redefine my reality without consulting me. It’s creepy. It also glosses over what is being communicated. Situations vary, but you’re being 15 minutes late tells me that I do not matter. Someone is a few minutes late and now I don’t matter? To clarify, I know that I do matter. And it’s why I can recognize it when I’m being treated as if I don’t.
It might be more helpful to ask “What does it mean to honor someone?” At minimum wouldn’t we show up on time and be fully present once there? The habitually late who want to see themselves as free spirits as opposed to as passive aggressive control freaks who can’t think of a better way to claim their power will cringe to hear that honoring your word by being on time matters. Your calendar might try to prove helplessness. It is crammed with soccer games, good causes, appointments, even double-bookings. My first impulse is to make reassurances. We’ve all been late. Nobody is perfect. But this is off the topic. Instead, I refer you to this unapologetic article about tardiness in which self-respect requires directly and gently confronting those who keep us waiting.
People who talked to me for QuOTeD also tended to want apologies to be coupled with change. Does being grateful accomplish this? No. But it does suggest what I can expect from you in the future. The lack of an apology indicates that no change is needed. Moreover, what you don’t say is up for interpretation. When you change the subject (i.e., say “thank you” instead of “I’m sorry”) I might conclude that under (your) terms of this relationship it is not acceptable to voice my dissatisfaction. I am to be silent about feeling annoyed and disrespected. This is the definition of dysfunction.
What you do say is also up for interpretation because you are not being straight, which has been the problem all along. Thanking me for something I didn’t willingly give you is another way to tell me that you’re in charge and that I can expect more of the same. You’ll continue to be some kind of lovable pocket-picking airhead that is incapable of anticipating traffic and I’ll play the supporting actor who serves to absolve you of your guilt by “accepting you as you are” at the expense of my own dignity.
To put it in the harshest terms, your self-love is buttressed by my self-hatred.
Apologies such as “sorry I’m late” sound hollow because they’re commonly offered without pausing enough to mean what we say. They’re filled with clichés about (self-imposed) emergencies, (predictable) traffic jams and (supposedly) lofty priorities. But instead of dropping the shallow apology, what about deepening it? What about just being sincere? What about intentionally honoring people? For me, it’s not that I’m incapable of getting my mother’s birthday card in the mail on time, which (it pains me to say) I don’t always do. It’s that I have never thought about it in these terms: Honoring her. What if I did? Might that change my behavior without perfection becoming the unreachable goal that constantly nags me? In any case, if you’re always late and don’t intend to make any adjustments, no apology is necessary. At some point it’s on me to decide whether I want to continue to make plans with someone who is unreliable or fill-in-the-blank, but that’s another story and again one that is addressed in this article.
But what about the apologies that really are driven by insecurities and self-hatred? For example, I don’t need to apologize to the plumber because my house is a mess. However, nor do I need to thank him or her for excusing it. And as mentioned before, these aren’t really apologies anyway as they aren’t intended to empathize with another person by diving into their reality. They’re just words intended to ease our own discomfort. They’re social niceties. Is that the end of the world? Regardless, no one will care if we ditch them.
[Collins, Marjory, 1912-1985, photographer Washington, D.C. 1942 Feb. Library of Congress. Under the auspices of the Bureau of University Travel and the National Capital School Visitors' Council, over 200 high school students chosen for their intellectual alertness visited Washington for a week. Mrs. Roosevelt apologizes to students for the disarray of the White House rooms which are being prepared for air raids.]
On the other hand, what if you ruin my favorite sweater? Are you going to apologize and try to make it right? Or are you going to thank me for not being materialistic and accepting that you’re no Martha Stewart in the laundry room? I’d hate to think of what a person like this would say should I find them screwing my husband! These are extreme examples and probably not the point of the post. But it’s helpful to see where the logic takes us. It breaks down with a capful of Clorox.
Keep it real, people. Say you’re sorry when you’ve done something wrong.
Can we recognize a city by its sound, sort of like recognizing the sound of a mother’s voice? This is one day in Chicago after the 2016 Podcast Movement conference.
Sometimes Chicago sounded like a casino. Other times a war zone with its relentless wailing of sirens and the whirring of helicopters that hovered almost within reach of the crowds at Millennium Park. Black Lives Matter is trying to get our attention.
Sometimes Chicago sounded like a carnival. Sometimes a church. Mixed in there were the street musicians playing for change, reminding me of the time I got lost in Brussels looking for the Sleep Well. This is not Saint Paul or Minneapolis. It makes me wonder if a person would be able to identify their hometown based on a recording, sort of like the sound of a mother’s voice.
People talk and I record them. This is not Chicago any more than the pictures I saw people taking of the Trump Tower would epitomize the city. It’s just a snapshot of a particular time and place. I wish I could have done more. I missed a lot, even the rumbling of the “L” from overhead. I’d like to go back.
In the name of free association, coincidence and curiosity here are some show links.
I pull out what little I know, which is that the Timberwolve’s (my team) recently hired Tom Thibodeau who won nearly 65 percent of his games in five seasons with the Bulls. But then Brook changed the subject…
The TV screens that plastered the walls of the hotel restaurant flashed from one crime scene to another. Baton Rouge. Saint Paul and eventually Dallas.
After a brief encounter, I wondered who their audience was.
When my neighbor showed me his Uber app and raved about how great the service is, it’s hard to argue with the genius of the idea that connects drivers to those needing a lift. Yet I’m not convinced that we have thought this through.
A man sits with two wagons in the middle of the sidewalk. With the exception of a few plastic bags, the wagons are empty. What’s going on here?
Brian and I were just in Chicago where I attended the Podcast Movement ’16 conference. I’m currently working on a QuOTeD episode that documents the extra day we spent in the Windy City after the conference. As we bummed around, with the exception of advertisements, I started to note the words people were wearing on t-shirts. I wondered if they could be strung together to either snap a sort of picture of the day or a specific time and place in the culture.
The t-shirts we saw were:
Continue reading “T-shirts and Poetry Games”
