79 Great and Essential Podcasts I Listen To Regularly (And That You Should Be Listening to Too), Part Two

This is the second of a year-end three part article celebrating the many podcasts I listen to. To read the first part, go here. To read the third part, go here.

podcast24Fugitive Waves: Until I had listened to The Kitchen Sisters’s very thoughtful podcast, I had no idea that an all-women radio station once flourished in Memphis during the mid-20th century (and was the idea of Sam Phillips!). Fugitive Waves has been doing incredible work finding meaning and history within snippets of sound and tracking down many fascinating figures whose daily lives involved significant advancements towards much of what we take for granted today and what may, in fact, be disappearing before us (such as this fascinating portrait of the late Taylor Negron, which was told largely through a series of voicemails that the comedian horded). (Link)

podcast25Great Lives: Great lives are often riddled with unfathomable sacrifices and ambition, and can indeed be so great that we scarcely know how great a person is until she is no longer around. And then there’s the matter of contending with greatness when we have never met the person in question. Influence remains a strange human predicament, but the details are always worth coaxing out. For how else do we instill our lives with the curiosity and the wonder to be as great as we can be for others? Presenter Matthew Parris is sometimes a tad too interested in aberrant gossip, but this program remains a reliable watermark illustrating the impact of a major figure on another prominent person’s life. And there are some fascinating inspirational sources, such as Monica Ali championing Richard Francis Burton or Ian McKellen on Edmund Hilary. The show reminds us that we are, even late in life, indebted to the people who formed us, who gave us some clue on how to go about living as greatly as we can. (Link)

podcast26Guys We Fucked: When I tell people how much I love this show, and how wonderfully courageous and honest hosts Krystyna Hutchinson and Corinne Fisher are, they look at me as if I’m some prurient middle-aged man. Well, perhaps I am in some way. But that’s not why I’m recommending the excellent Guys We Fucked. The setup involves the two ladies interviewing people who they have slept with or who have made a similarly splashing impact in their lives or who, like 62-year-old Jenice Matias, are still living the good life with a high sex drive. But this is not a podcast merely devoted to the licentious. There’s also a great vulnerability and sense of discovery in these conversations, with vital discussion points examining our relationship to sex, whether we be promiscuous or not. In a recent program, Krystyna described her many feelings in participating in her first threesome with her boyfriend. She was forced to reckon with the pleasure, the unexpected jealousy, the ennui, and the uncertainty of what transpired. It was one of those human moments, where the bawdiness gave way to ineluctable emotional dilemmas, that made me become an unrepentant booster of this podcast, that it wasn’t just some fun sex-positive show but one chronicling something much bigger that few people have the bravery to face and that we probably should in some way. (Link)

podcast27Here Be Monsters: Much like Sword and Scale, producer Jeff Entman is keenly pursuing some of the darker and challenging aspects of human existence — whether it be how a parent raises a small boy who suddenly realizes she’s really a girl or an extremely compelling and disturbing take on hate speech that is a must listen for anyone who cares about national expression. Entman rarely take the easy judgmental way out and it is his gentle compassion that compels us to dive deep into the lives of people we might not otherwise encounter in the real world. Entman is a true-blue humanist who pushes past our distaste and demands that we feel for the beasts and the demons we’d otherwise ignore. And if he’s this good now, I can’t wait to see the kind of radio he’ll be making five years from now. (Link)

podcast28Imaginary Worlds: I must confess that I’ve had a queasy and uneasy relationship with speculative fiction and fantasy over the last few years. I’ve always loved these genres and still dip in these reading waters, but the thoughtless agitation by frightened white men (seen with the Hugo Awards imbroglio) and the unearned arrogance of passable but not really all that terrific authors who seem to believe that being nominated for a World Fantasy Award is akin to Popehood has really helped to push me away. So I’m terribly grateful that the thoughtful and level-headed Eric Molinsky has gone out of his way to not only investigate tricky topics and listen to all sides (such as this episode on the Slave Leia controversy), but is rich enough in his pursuits to look into why certain types of stories (the paranoid and conspiracy-based appeal of The X-Files) take hold upon American culture. This is to speculative fiction what A Life Less Wasted is to video games: shining ruminative radio that has vacillators like me giving cultural terrain occupied by children another chance. (Link)

podcast29The Infinite Monkey Cage: It’s a fairly simple setup: put scientists together with comedians and have them discuss everything from quantum theory to the science of speed to genetics to the big bang. The conversations are always fun and thoughtful, sometimes heated, and the show remains a reliable stalwart among many science-based podcasts. (Link)

podcast30Limetown: I glommed onto Limetown, thanks in part to Jason Boog’s impassioned advocacy, and I’m so glad that I did. This is first-class radio drama and, once you hit the fourth episode, you won’t be able to stop listening to the entire run. It starts off as an homage to Serial, following a radio reporter investigating a mysterious “Panic” in a small town, before turning into a smart and riveting dialectic between science and the supernatural, and then folding in on itself with some high personal stakes. The show has top-notch production, great voice acting (particularly John Milosich as the obsessive scientist Max Finlayson), and sometimes veers into poetic riffs on Planet of the Apes, capitalism, what knowing your lover’s every thought really means — to the point where you forget, even as the final show takes on the form of a “live radio show,” that this is indeed an ostensible radio show, much less a radio drama. Limetown is very much the present and future of radio drama. It is not to be missed. (Link)

podcast31Longform: It took a few years for the boys at Longform to get their sea legs, but, now that they are attracting the likes of Ira Glass and Renata Adler (arguably her most revealing interview yet, thanks to Max Linsky’s enthusiastically persistent questioning style), the big draws are forcing these conversations about media and journalism life to mature quite gracefully. The dudebro talk is now at a minimum now that the hosts have gotten hitched and sired kids. And where else are you going to hear Ira Glass caviling with the interviewing style, forcing Longform to return for an unexpected rematch to atone for unasked questions? (Link)

podcast32Lore: In a podcasting climate crowded by many personal narratives, Lore distinguishes itself with its philosophical thrust, looking into the history of why people cling to possessions or how we live with hunger. Producer Aaron Mahnke’s investigation into the Cleary family is, for example, a fascinating examination of how Michael Cleary’s crazed belief that his wife Bridget was a changeling led to the most tragic outocme imaginable: the murder of his wife. But Mahnke seems to believe that there was something more human in the relationship that caused Michael Cleary to create a belief. Whether you believe Mahnke’s conclusions or not, his show is always thought-provoking, enhanced by a very atmospheric sound design. (Link)

podcast33Love + Radio: One of the most moving radio installments I heard in the last year was a story called “The Living Room,” in which a woman watches her neighbors, who always keep their curtains open and walk around the house naked, and then witnesses something tragic and extraordinary. And that is because Nick van der Kolk’s Love + Radio continues to take some of the biggest chances in podcasting, documenting the life of a “humilatrix,” finding fresh angles on the eruv, and talking with a man who speaks on behalf of sex offenders. This is compelling radio without being creepy. These are stories that need to be told. (Link)

podcast35Monday Morning Podcast (with Bill Burr): In addition to being one of the funniest standup comedians working today (and really you should see him if he passes through your town), Bill Burr puts out a twice-weekly podcast where he complains (often about banks, sports, drinking too much, and his problems with computers), looks things up on the Internet, offers advice to people who write in, and mangles the copy of his sponsors without apology. Burr claims not to give a fuck and often says a lot of foolish things for the sake of saying them, but there’s a weird humanity to Burr in the way he cares for the people who write in that makes him more than a mere everyman. The best parts of this show often occur when Burr’s wife Nia gets on the mike to rightly bust his chops for his errant views. (Link)

podcast36Mystery Show: When the great Jonathan Goldstein closed his witty radio show Wiretap earlier this year, I was bummed out, but delighted to find him cropping up on an episode of Mystery Show in obsessive desperation. His goal involved tracking down the mystery of a knotted jacket that once appeared on a Welcome Back, Kotter lunchbox, a scene that never appeared in the show that had aggravated him for years. Goldstein needed peace on this pressing issue and producer Starlee Kine devoted a good 88 minutes for her friend, talking with actors, hounding Gabe Kaplan, tracking down co-creator Alan Sacks, entering the world of lunch box illustrators. It is such great journeys, revealing the wends and digressions of good faith investigation, that makes Mystery Show a great deal of fun and show its bright promise in our rigorous pursuit of the joyous unknown. (Link)

podcast37Neighbors: If podcasting is indeed in a “golden age,” this well-earned glory has much to do with the sudden influx of raw personal narratives to the airwaves unfolding in ways that the weak-kneed, risk-averse NPR oligarchs have neither the vision nor the originality to conceive. By now, you’ve undoubtedly glommed onto the fact that many of the podcasts on this list are composed of emotionally naked stories of people who have discovered some connection to the universe they didn’t know they possessed. The Nashville-based Jakob Lewis’s contribution to this field has everything to do with connection, even an unusual one. One especially standout episode explored the draw that stuffed animals have upon adults, a phenomenon that might be easily dismissed by the thuggish snark police as nostalgia or sustained adolescence. But in Lewis’s hands, this exploration becomes something unexpectedly poignant, where we become aware how the plush toys (one posted on a street flyer) allow many of these people to sustain a vital link between childhood and adulthood through the intimacy of sleep. It may be eccentric, but who are we to gainsay how a person remains a caring individual? Who indeed are we to judge the eccentricities of others? Lewis’s brilliant podcast contains vital questions about how our scrutiny of others affects their lives and, for a man like me who is trying to be kinder, it has provided a welcome wakeup call that we could very well be on the other side of another person’s judgment and why it’s so important to accept a quirk or a fallacy rather than condemn it. (Link)

podcast38New Sounds: If you have any true sense of adventure at all, you know intuitively that it’s necessary to shake up your music palate from time to time. That’s where John Schaefer comes in, helpfully investigating new possibilities for the trombone (including a mass composed of 77 trombones!), plunging into American folk songs, profiling the Kronos Quartet, offering one of the best overviews of street composer Moondog produced for radio, and exploring the intersection between chamber music and turntables. New Sounds regularly turns me onto artists and genres I’ve never heard of before. And Schaefer treats every cut, even if it is a batshit offering, with the tranquil import of a DJ working classical radio. New Sounds is a vital forum for eclectic music. I’m hard-pressed to summon any podcast that comes even close to Schaefer’s exquisite curation. (Link)

podcast39Nocturne: I stumbled upon this marvelous night-themed podcast quite by accident. I’m someone who often walks at night and, Googling around at an early morning hour after an eight mile walk, I stumbled upon this stunning segment of a woman who took to walking in a effort to find a similar peace. And then I started listening to producer Vanessa Lowe’s other episodes, such as this investigation into night as something of an iconoclastic cri de couer, and started to understand how little our relationship to the dark hours has been investigated and how truly extraordinary this simple yet essential pursuit truly is. (Link)

podcast40The Noise Pop Podcast: If you’re anything like me, you’re probably on the hunt for underground music that you’ve never heard of, even if you’re an old bastard. (Okay, maybe I’m not that old. But I knew I had aged out of the concert scene years ago when a young man, seeing me excitably dancing, called me “Dad” at a Spoon concert. This has not stopped me from attending shows on a regular basis.) And if you live a busy life, well, that’s where finding the aggregators becomes a necessary option. I first knew of Noise Pop when I lived in San Francisco, where it was a reliable festival for emerging bands. I don’t live in San Francisco anymore, but I’m very glad that Noise Pop still has a strong presence in podcasting form through a very useful monthly show that celebrates many of the acts without resorting to the kind of snark found all too often in Brooklyn Vegan message forums and Pitchfork reviews. (Link)

podcast41Note to Self: I really love Manoush Zomorodi. She has almost the perfect mix of enthusiasm, heart, journalistic introspection, and thoughtfulness in her pursuits of many of the technological dilemmas that plague us. How, for example, do you contend with a racist Facebook friend? Should teens who sext be entirely condemned? How do we deal with phones that seem to be reading our minds (and, similarly, this remarkable investigation into surveillance should give every American pause)? Do we really need a profile ghostwriter to find love through online dating? Why do our exes text us? Note to Self is smart without ever skimping on fun. It’s the kind of effervescent exploration into digital issues that is more needed today than ever. (Link)

podcast42Notebooks on Cities and Culture: I’ve no idea what Colin Marshall’s podcasting future is, but I hope it’s a bright and productive one. Marshall’s enthusiastic pilgrimages to many faraway and nearby lands (especially his ardor for Korea) have revealed angles on cities I never would have otherwise considered. (The Copenhagen shows are especially interesting.) His most recent campaign to raise funds for his podcast didn’t pan out (despite an indefatigable 67 episodes in his fourth season), yet his gallant and gracious visits to the people devoted who think about urban design and cities continues with a new project on Byline. He’s still contributing podcasts to The Los Angeles Review of Books. I’m including him on the list, even though he is in limbo, because my sense is that Marshall’s epic canvassing is only the beginning of something that could prove very groundbreaking and game-changing, if he’s able to find the support to keep his journeys afloat. (Link)

podcast43On the Media: If you care about journalistic ethics or any subject that involves our always-shifting media climate, Brooke Gladstone and Bob Garfield’s long-running show remains essential listening. Garfield has the voice of a grizzled veteran who’s been working the room too long and is often best when he’s delivering cranky interrogations of people he deems egregious. Gladstone is the empathizer to Garfield’s gruff beat cop. Together, the pair valiantly upholds important news standards, but does so with the same spirit of fairness that they demand of their subjects. (Link)

podcast44The Organist: It took a little while for this podcast adjutant to The Believer to figure out what it was doing, but now that it is less committed to cutesiness and awkward radio plays (though that strain hasn’t been entirely deracinated), it has started to produce very interesting radio, such as this glimpse into what it was like to work for Orson Welles and this tremendously fascinating look at poet Christopher Knowles that really got me thinking about how loops and mainstream culture could very well be vital parts of being a distinct artist. There are some podcasts you have to stick with for a while to see how they develop. I’m thankful that I hung in there for The Organist, which I now greatly look forward to rather than remain uneasy about. (Link)

Next Up: Continue to Part Three!

79 Great and Essential Podcasts I Listen To Regularly (And That You Should Be Listening to Too), Part One

(This is the first of a year-end three part article celebrating the many podcasts I listen to. To read the second part, go here. To read the third part, go here.)

Because I walk a great deal and produce radio, I listen to a fairly hefty number of podcasts. The only person I know who rivals my heavy listening is the incomparable Fred Kiesche, a remarkably generous friend to radio who once confessed to me that he listened to 105 podcasts. (That the good Mr. Kiesche still finds time to be a dutiful family man and a hard worker is a tribute to his phenomenal character and his inspiring energies.)

Podcasting is not only an intimate and deeply meaningful medium that somehow always manages to refuel the soul, but it’s become an essential part of my efforts to understand numerous perspectives and other points of view. There are so many tremendously talented producers out there spending many hours of their precious time investigating human truths and unpacking existential quandries that I have felt incumbent to single out particularly outstanding examples from time to time on Twitter. But these efforts do not seem to be enough. Friends, who know of my fervent dedication, have often pressed me for the full list of titles. But because the number is quite large and there is something a bit gauche about consulting my phone and reading out a list of titles, I generally tend to hand-pick titles that I believe my friends will enjoy based on what I know of them and the time they have at their disposal. But this tactic, while honoring both producer and listener, is not altogether fair to all the podcasters I feel indebted to single out, for I am deeply loyal to and passionate about all of them.

So I’ve decided to reveal my full hand. This is the first of a three part article that will be released over the next week. Every podcast that I have listed below, covering variegated viewpoints and a motley array of topics, is doing incredible work in exploring the human condition and is worthy of your earbuds. Rather than break down the podcasts by subject, I am listing them in alphabetical order, with a few notes on why these shows are worth listening to.

podcasts199% Invisible: Roman Mars has become something of a rightful legend for establishing a formidable independent podcasting network, but he’s also a fantastically passionate producer, exploring the impact of architecture, design, and many other sensory realities we take for granted (such as wayfinding) without ever coming across as a know-it-all. Mars’s voice is warm and sincerely gushing, almost demanding that the listener bolt to the library to learn more. This program is a generous and well-researched resource for information junkies, getting into the history of military food and how it affected our kitchens and overturning, in Snopes-like fashion, the true history of milk carton kids, which was not as prominent in American culture as one might think. That Mars manages to pack so much into twenty minutes on a regular basis is a tribute to his concision, his very smart sensibilities, and his deeply meaningful impact upon podcasting. (Link)

podcast2A Life Well Wasted: Robert Ashley has produced only seven installments of his tremendously intelligent exploration of video games in in the past six years, but a newly released episode of A Life Well Wasted is always an event. The show, which started with a nonpareil oral history of Electronic Gaming Monthly‘s closing that brought heart and sophistication about how bonds are formed at a magazine, is driven by empathy and listening. Ashley does all the atmospheric sound and music on his own. The great composer Ennio Morricone recently defined a real composer as “someone who does the composition, orchestration and arrangement.” If such a definition can be shifted over to the podcasting world, then Robert Ashley is one of the most real podcasters we are very fortunate to have. (Link)

podcast4Anxious Machine: To what degree are we changed or possibly tormented by technology? Rob McGinley Myers is very much on the case, whether its tapping into his brother’s hatred for the Internet or an incredibly touching story about a woman who refused to believe that she was losing her hearing and how her life changed when she received hearing aids. What I love so much about Anxious Machine is how it is about technology without never seeming to be about it. It has this amazing way of emphasizing the human in all of its segments, almost mimicking the obliviousness of the profiled subjects in the way that a tool has changed them. (Link)

podcast5ARRVLS: There is a podcaster who I won’t name, someone who I mistook for a friend, who believes that he’s so good and so certain about people but who blew a very big chance he had at a major radio program and who only really cares about how he can use people. I know this because I’ve heard from a few others who were bamboozled by him. Which is a great shame. Because this podcaster’s failure to be a kind and understanding person, his tremendous solipsism and immaturity, is what is causing his work to suffer and preventing him, irrespective of my personal feelings for him (for good work is good work, regardless of whether the artist is a jerk), from being on this list. For this podcaster does not possess the rigor, the empathy, much less the robust commitment to truly connect with people. He only makes radio because he has nothing else going on in his life and, because he really hates himself and seems to despise the people who so generously tell him their stories, his work is little more than desperate conceptual lunges that never pan out. So when I discovered the confident, cogent, deeply meaningful, compassionate, and wondrous show known as ARRVLS, I knew I was listening to something that represented what this other podcaster lacks the inner courage and the humility to reach. What distinguishes ARRVLS is the way in which Jonathan I. Hirsch’s great work lets its subjects present their ideas (such as this remarkable view of the body as a map). Hirsch never strangles the listener into a prerigged conceptual thesis that is predicated on ridicule over reality. His mixing springs from the cadences of the people he listens to. He wants to not only enhance other people’s stories, but to allow you to feel them in the nuanced manner that he dramatizes the stories through his sound design. Hirsch is an extraordinary talent and I’m baffled as to why his work isn’t championed more. (Link)

podcast6Audio Drama Production Podcast: If you haven’t been paying attention to the podcasting landscape, we are presently in the midst of a great radio drama renaissance! Producers all across the planet are telling exciting new stories in this ever evolving medium. Where in the sam hill does one even begin to get the lay of the land? Leave it to Matthew and Robert, the fine enthusiastic Scotsmen behind Yap Audio Production, to offer not only an endless cataract of tips and tricks for unwashed and experienced producers, but who are vigorously tracking any and all known developments and creating a vital and inclusive community in the process. Whether it’s a detailed breakdown of binaural drama or the two gents riffing in their car on A to Z terminology, Matthew and Robert’s excellent program remains a must listen for anyone who is even remotely interested in audio drama narrative. (Link)

podcast3A Way with Words: Martha Barnette and Grant Barrett, based out of San Diego, are probably the most earnest and enthusiastic radio hosts on language working today. This is a call-in show, one that takes in queries about idioms, etymology, and odd lexical developments from listeners all across the country. So there is a certain populism involved, something that I have passionately defended in response to a few literary snobs who regrettably insist on sneering down on the rabble. But understanding language doesn’t have to be the province of the privileged few. As A Way with Words‘s weekly callers regularly remind us, words are something that affects all our lives. Barnette and Barrett are always unfailingly kind and patient and inclusive with the callers, reminding us that is our duty as thinking and feeling humans to do everything in our power to bring out infectious wonder and curiosity in all around us and not skimp out on the understanding. (Link)

podcast7BackStory: One of these days, some pedantic cultural journalist will identify the mysterious “Anonymous Donor” who helps keep this thoughtful program afloat. Whoever the donor may be, the generous help has allowed three endearingly effusive historians — each specializing in a different century — to produce one of the most low-key, relaxed, and far from humorless history programs on the radio. This great trio understands that looking back at the United States’s long relationship with Islam is vital to understanding what it is to be a Muslim in an age of Trump. But they’re not above delving into the history of shopping, a very useful overview of populism, and even America’s relationship with meat. The results, much like The Bowery Boys (see below), show that history need not be a turgid subject, but something so alive that it beckons an audience to seek the connecting threads to the present. (Link)

podcast8Belabored by Dissent Magazine: When the great Steven Greenhouse had to take a buyout from the New York Times in December 2014, America lost the only dedicated labor reporter working for a major newspaper. But Belabored, hosted by Sarah Jaffe and Michelle Chen, has been valiantly filling in the gaps, examining the ongoing “fight for $15” and helpfully filling in its audience on many of the important developments going on with organized labor. Interspersing Democracy Now!-style news summaries with author interviews, the show has become an invaluable resource for a topic that affects all of our lives, but that few media outlets seem to care about anymore. (Link)

podcast9Black Girls Talking: This perspicacious quartet of ladies are valiantly on top of pop culture, serving as a cheerful referendum on the privileged hubris that drives NPR’s obnoxious Pop Culture Happy Hour, whether it be interviewing Dear Kate founder Julie Sygiel or breaking down respectability politics with Janet Mock. This is pop culture talk that’s actually about something. The podcast somehow finds the energy to tackle racial representations in just about every major TV show and often gets into some lively and impassioned talk that seems to escape most self-appointed pundits. I was able to save myself a ticket for Magic Mike XXL (well, not that I ever really had the desire to see it), thanks in part to an episode that summed up everything I needed to know. And the regular crushes espoused by the ladies have had me wondering on occasion if it would be in my best interest to woo Mos Def. (Link)

podcast10The Black Tapes Podcast: Only a few months ago, this wonderfully creepy radio drama emerged on the Internet and has deservedly racked up a following. The show follows a radio reporter who sifts through a series of enigmatic tapes containing unresolved paranormal mysteries. From that simple setup, the show established a rather labyrinthine plot behind the tapes, something that goes deeper than a mere Serial meets The X-Files production. And that mystery has reached a point where the show’s devoted fans have transcribed all the episodes, hoping to find a way to uncover it all. When a podcast has that kind of well-deserved hold, you really see the power of radio. (Link)

podcast11Bookworm: Michael Silverblatt, one of the most generous and open-hearted readers in America, doesn’t get nearly enough credit for his thoughtful conversations with today’s leading authors. Silverblatt often finds strange connections in an author’s work and his lengthy questions possess a dreamy and otherworldly quality that takes on a force beyond the book and the author. But Silverblatt is a deeply compassionate and very well-read literary enthusiast, gallantly vacillating between dependable stalwarts like Mary Karr and Joy Williams and hot talent like Paul Murray and Louisa Hall to urge his listeners to feel just as prodigiously as he does. The only real downside of this show is the rather corny theme song, but it’s a small sacrifice for the always capable and ever gentle questioning. (Link)

podcast12The Bowery Boys: For anyone fascinated by New York history, the sheer passion that shines through in this fairly regular podcast is well worth your time. Hosts Thomas Meyers and Gregory Young always manage to sound giddy, even when they are discussing such sinister topics as Typhoid Mary or the murder of Stanford White. A few recent shows have seen this ebullient tag team go out to the many locations they expound about and I hope future programs continue these peregrinations, as the Boys clearly need more than a loyal online audience to push their winning enthusiasm on. (Link)

podcast13Cephalopodcast: Depending upon your temperament, this podcast from the perspective of a toast-loving giant squid will either annoy you or delight you. For me, it’s an enjoyable and wonderfully bizarre recontextualization of the modern world. What crazed mind would conjure up a strange scenario in which a giant squid teaches his audience how to play a game of Monopoly while unpacking some of its sinister capitalist lessons? Wizard rock pioneers Paul and Joe DeGeorge, of course. But don’t think about that. It’s the squid’s overly excitable musings that matter most here. (Link)

podcast14Comedy of the Week: This is one of several BBC feeds I subscribe to. Results are mixed, for the comedy can range from deeply compelling one-man shows off the Fringe circuit to pedestrian episodes of sketch comedy series. But it’s always good to give this feed a shot. If I had not subscribed to the feed, I never would have found out about the remarkable quiz show, Just a Minute, or realized that several performers I enjoyed in guest roles on British comedies had sizable theater careers. (Link)

podcast15Dan Carlin’s Hardcore History: Dan Carlin is one of the few podcasters who can keep you completely spellbound for four hours just through the power of his voice. That’s right, four hours. Every few months, Carlin drops a very long, deeply passionate, and well-researched consideration of some historical event. And when that happens, you have to find the time to listen to it. He’s that good, using little to no sound effects for his ruminations. I’m not especially keen on military history, but Carlin’s six-part series, “Blueprint for Armageddon,” made me completely fascinated about World War I dynamics for many months, particularly its game-changing effect upon how people viewed combat and the remarkably brutal battles. Dan Carlin is a national podcasting treasure for a reason. (Link)

podcast16Death, Sex & Money: Anna Sale is one of the best interviewers on radio today. She has this tremendous power of getting just about anyone to talk and tell her dark secrets, even as she reminds us that everyone, whether it be celebrities like Jane Fonda or a “homeless valedictorian” who made headlines has an inner story that is considerably more different than what we see on the surface. This show always feels beautifully intimate and low-key, almost as if you’re encroaching upon the world’s most private conversation. But it is always very human. (Link)

podcast17Do or DIY with People Like Us: Vicki Bennett is a long-time WFMU staple who flits in and out of rotation, but her sound collages are always a marvel of association and discovery, especially if you enjoy music. She has this incredible knack for finding the craziest riffs on pop music, weird yodeling anthems, campy songs about camping, and serves as a droll triangulator. This makes her somewhat close to Dr. Demento, yet Bennett’s thrust is cheerfully iconoclastic, urging us to break down some of the sacred cows and find the joys in destroying them. Bennett was one of my inspirations when I began creating a few DJ mixes earlier in the year that can be found in the old Segundo feed. Being on the other end of what Bennett does, I now know just how much work and happy accidents it requires to find the right transitions. That Bennett has produced as much as she has is a tribute to her indomitable energies and unique talent. (Link)

podcast18Documentaries BBC World Service: Anyone who truly believes that NPR is a hardcore news organization should have a listen to Assignment, which offers regular nail-biting segments from many far off corners of the world, whether it be the effect that the Syrian crisis has had on former football players to drug mules in Peru. You listen to these BBC radio documentaries knowing that the equipment now exists for anyone to go into the field and do this kind of reporting and you wonder why America can’t establish something that reveals global perspectives on this level. (Link)

podcast19Drama of the Week: Another BBC feed that, like Comedy of the Week, can be a mixed bag. But very often, the shows are well put together. Because the BBC has this annoying one month limit on its downloadable content, it’s always good to siphon off whatever gets sent out into the world for later listening. I once downloaded a radio drama of The Sea, The Sea starring Jeremy Irons by accident because of this strategy. (What sensible mind wouldn’t want that?) (Link)

podcast20Earbud Theater: This popping compendium of genre radio drama (largely horror and science fiction) has good production quality, gripping stories, and a few big names (Stephen Toblowsky, source text from Neil Gaiman, et al.). I’m especially fond of “Super Bad Day,” in which four people are united only by the common experience of having the worst day imaginable and must contend with the guilt and absurdity of surviving a bad day. It’s a fine and lively riff, with a hell of a kicker ending, on the human dilemma of comparing other people’s miseries to cope and living with sacrifice. (Link)

podcast21Everything is Stories: We often do not know how our actions touch people, much less the way in which someone we think we know has touched someone in the past. Everything is Stories is a wonderful show that is all about exploring the amazing achievements that lurk underneath our personal core and that are sometimes muddled by pain and needless hangups. A recent program followed forensic artist Lois Gibson, the sharp mind who successfully identified the sailor kissing the nurse in Alfred Eisenstaedt’s famous V-J Day in Times Square photo. But the story that led her to this achievement is surprising and touching, especially as we come to learn the real reasons why she became so good at identifying faces. Everything is Stories reminds us that history is often composed of small tilting moments and it is always a gripping listen. (Link)

podcast22First Day Back: There comes a point in all of our lives in which we need to take a hard look at our lives, finding the strength inside us to rebuild and reassess our priorities. And filmmaker Tally Abecassis is doing just that in real time, documenting her return to filmmaking after six years of being a full-time mother. This program is a magnificent soul-searching confessional on balancing work and life, the difficulties of living with decisions, and often has Tally backtracking to the people who shaped her (such as this episode in which Tally seeks out a teacher who made a huge impact on her). Personal narrative podcasts are often tricky negotiations, but there are some fine questions about gender roles, personal stakes, and the bravery of making another attempt contained in this compelling program. (Link)

podcast23Frank Delaney’s Re: Joyce: Frank Delaney may be one of the most cheerfully determined men in the podcasting world. He is in his seventies, but that’s not stopping him from unpacking James Joyce’s Ulysses in bite-sized installments. (He’s done the first six chapters so far and there are, as of this writing, just under 300 installments.) One hopes that Delaney will live long enough, much as Will & Ariel Durant managed to finish their Story of Civilization in their nineties) to complete his project. Thankfully, with generous donors, he has recently escalated his pace. Re: Joyce is a tremendously useful service for anyone who cares about Joyce and literature, one that has led me down some strange rabbit holes involving Irish history, Catholicism, and cheesy limericks. (Link)

Next: Proceed to Part 2!

On Living with an Inner Demon

This morning, I lost someone I loved. I never got to tell her that I loved her, but I did. She was warm, compassionate, intelligent, honest, courageous, independent-minded: everything you could ever want and more. My friends wanted to meet her. She was a dream that enters reality only a handful of times in your life. Needless to say, she meant everything to me. She was a woman whose life I wanted to make better. And that scared the fuck out of me. Because aside from living a life where close people seem to relish in abandoning me, the last time I loved someone like this, I was left for dead and ended up falling into an abyss of homelessness and joblessness and heartbreak that I crawled up from with a strength and valiance and resilience that I didn’t realize I had in me. Of course, that had been a pit of my own making.

You see, I have a problem. I live with a terrible demon inside me who is very frightening, who has this ability to wrap his scaly tentacles around all of my sterling characteristics and take over. He doesn’t come out as much as he used to, but he’s still there and he wants to destroy every good thing that happens to me and take down a few people if he can. He is a fearsome entity driven by fear who invades my core and tells me that I am not deserving of happiness and he persuades people who love me to stay away for the rest of their natural days. He sprouted during a time in which I experienced unfathomable pain and abuse, where people in my life would tell me that they loved me as they burned me with cigarettes and beat me and molested me. And this demon is so infamous that lies and rumors and conjectures about his existence have pervaded the literary world. Just about everyone in my family has the demon, which is one of many reasons I can’t have relationships with them, but some are not as aware of their demons as I am and, in some disheartening cases, they have not done the very difficult work in attenuating the demon or putting safeguards in place that ensure that the demon’s appearances last seconds rather than days.

I hate the demon with every fiber of my being and he revels in that hate. And even though his appearances in my life are very brief, and have been notably briefer in the last year thanks to work I’ve done and because I have surrounded myself with more positive and more honest people, they are frequent enough to dwarf the substantially wonderful qualities I also have, the character that causes many people to appreciate the sui generis being that I am. But the demon tells me that not a single soul will ever love and care for me. The demon makes people despise me and causes me, at times, to live a very solitary existence.

And now he has come out again and has scared the needless bejesus out of a tremendously kind woman who I let very deeply into my heart, someone who now wants nothing to do with me, someone who I said that I would give space to and then didn’t, someone whose inner peace I betrayed. And I have spent much of the day in tears. Because I didn’t know the demon was waiting in the wings, ready to chew up the scenery, and I couldn’t stop him from hogging the stage. This demon is a deeply evil and inconsiderate beast who is responsible for everything that has gone wrong in my life, yet the hell of it is that he’s also responsible for getting me to many places that I might not otherwise have reached. Just as people are never entirely good or evil, so too are demons.

I have sought considerable help in many forms and varieties against the demon. Many perspicacious professionals and fine minds have tried any number of techniques. The one thing that has worked is positivity. Perhaps it took getting humbled and severely knocked down for me to appreciate everything I have, which I remain grateful for every day, but positivity, whether it comes from me or from others, is not only its own reward, but it has this remarkable power against the demon. For the first time in years, I have lived many months without a single appearance by this scabrous all-consuming villain (although the demon’s more benign cousin, the grumpy commentator, does crop up on Twitter from time to time). And it’s all because I’ve opened myself up more to wonder and curiosity and joy and vivacity. So when I meet other people who have demons, and detect how much they are steered by them and see how little they recognize what is rollicking about inside, I go well out of my way to make them happy. Indeed, giving in many forms and performing secret good deeds and helping people out is what separates those who live with their demons, by which I mean an existence that involves knowing what conditions will keep the demon in check, from those who become totally consumed by them.

Being positive doesn’t mean turning your back on the world’s problems or ignoring social ills or adopting some treacly disposition. (I will, for example, remain staunchly opposed to Love Actually‘s morally contemptible and saccharine vision.) What it means is seeing possibility where others see hopelessness. What it means is working very hard to solve the insolvable, even if you fail and even if you only win back a small scrap of territory. What it means is life’s equivalent to how the marvelous Iris Murdoch once described the very greatest art: invigorating without consoling. Because who needs another “Sorry for your loss” when a loved one kicks the bucket? What everyone needs is the courage to go on, to live as gracefully as possible even as the worst things happen. Laughing through tears, summoning positive memories of people that our demons are telling us to despise on the spot, and being there for people are all effective ways to stub out pernicious fire.

I’m writing about my demon not only because I want to hold myself accountable, but because I want anyone who lives with a demon to know that they can live positively. I want them to know that even though I experienced what still feels like an earth-shattering loss, I’m still summoning some positivity. A friend’s funny cat photos, sent midway through the course of writing this essay, invigorated me greatly, as did another good friend who was gracious enough to meet me for lunch on last minute’s notice, where we had an honest and positive and far from humorless chat about this tricky dilemma of living with qualities that tear us down. It is this positivity, not unlike the joy that often flies high in the face of disaster, the “emotion graver than happiness but deeply positive” that Rebecca Solnit documented in her excellent book A Paradise Built in Hell, that flenses the sebeaceous muck from our souls and returns us to that essential duty of living. You can never entirely conquer your demons, but with positivity you can live with them.

On the Rise of Trump, the Failure to Reach the American People, and the Importance of “Great”

It is all too easy to dismiss a Donald Trump voter as a mere xenophobic bigot or to assert that this flailing mass of supporters, which hangs upon the tyrant’s every terrible word, is little more than a blank uneducated slate with which to imprint the most sinister hatreds and sordid hypocrisies seen from an outsider presidential candidate since George Wallace. There are certainly polls which suggest that the Trump base is overwhelmingly white, with little more than high school education. But when you leave a person for dead, cut adrift without resources in a callous American wasteland, and when your answer to his unsavory entreaties is to leave him out of your Weltanschauung or to block him on Twitter, do not be surprised if he turns to a demagogue in anger. Do not be astonished when he turns furious when there are no jobs and his life is discounted and he is very much afraid and his griefs, which can be reckoned with if caught early enough, transform into a hateful cancer. Do not be shocked when a tyrant comes along who grants the illusion of inclusiveness and who plays into a voter’s fears with the most extraordinary and unthinkable statements imaginable. Because you, with your gluten-free meals and your yoga mats and your blinkered sunbeam privilege, were never there for him.

We have been here before with Ross Perot and the Tea Party and even John Anderson in 1980. But we have also been here with Occupy Wall Street and Ralph Nader and, presently on the Left, the promise of Bernie Sanders. Populism is an amorphous and intoxicating serpent, epitomized by the infamous 1829 inauguration of Andrew Jackson, in which a drunken mob stormed the White House shortly after this twisted Jeffersonian offshoot was sworn in as a “great” patriarchal protector, a throng that could only be coaxed from the inner sanctum by bowls of spiked punch stationed on the outside lawn. But like it or not, we must accept that the American people have been told repeatedly that their individual viewpoints matter, that an everyman’s perspective is just as valid as that of a statesman, and that the playing field, even after nearly every study has demonstrated that income inequality is worse now than it was during the Gilded Age, is level. It is a distressing mirage, an insurmountable dream that even our most level-headed politicians continue to prop up. But who can blame anyone for wanting to believe in it? If we didn’t have that promise, if we continued to accept doom and gloom and mass shootings as the new American normal, then we’d have no reason to participate in politics.

Trump understands all this. And he is willing to spout forth any prevarication if it will carry the public through the murk and into his manipulative hands. Trump has endured, despite his shocking proposal to block all Muslims from entering the United States, and has maintained a 20 point lead in the polls not so much because of his beliefs, but because no other politician, with the possible exception of Sanders, has sustained the image of a formidable leader who is well outside the tentacles of a broken establishment and who will fix every problem through the sheer force of his inflexible (if deeply problematic) will. That it has come down to some sordid and superficial yahoo who boasts of possessing “the world’s greatest memory” speaks to the ravenous American hunger for something great.

makeamericagreatagainWhen populism has excelled in our nation, such as Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Fireside Chats and his many personal visits to workers employed through the Civilian Conservation Corps or the WPA (even if this came with the double-edged sword of internment camps), it was established on an intimacy between leader and follower, but one in which the follower had some real sense that his views were being considered. This was a relatively benign relationship predicated on national pride, of a belief in America as a nation of greatness. And if we listen to why voters are gravitating towards Trump, it becomes very clear that all they want is someone, anyone, who is aware of their existence and who will do something about it. They want someone who will “make America great again” or to make “America the way we once were.” The first sentiment is taken directly from a Trump supporter who is parroting the slogan on Trump’s website, that is indeed purchasable as a baseball cap, and that is inherently no different from Obama’s “Hope” campaign in 2008. And while it’s tempting to view this notion of “greatness” as something that is a regressive throwback due the “way we once were” qualifier, what voters are really communicating is that they want to be part of something great, which need not be rooted in recycling the past but in ensuring that greatness, previously experienced, is a palpable quality of our future. The promise of hope and change is simply not enough anymore. The American people rightfully demand a leader who will create results, even if this ideal is completely at odds with the realities of political compromise and brokering deals.

It is clear that Trump cannot be stopped through reasonable denouncements or a rhetorical standoff or pundits repeatedly limning his lies. What’s needed to sustain the American faith and reach the people is a voice that can speak stronger and with greater empathy and inclusion: a principled leader who won’t leave a single person behind (including Muslims) and whose very power will deflate all the air out of Trump’s balloon, exposing him for the hollow carnival act he really is. The Democrats have not had any presidential frontrunner willing to substantially include a voting bloc outside its centrist, middle-class demographic (that is, “working class,” blue-collar, the unemployed, or the homeless) since Mario Cuomo’s famous 1984 speech at the National Democratic Convention. This has been a serious mistake, especially given the nimble methods that Republicans have employed to scoop up this abandoned group of people. What made Cuomo’s speech so stirring was not just its remarkable truth-telling, but Cuomo’s insistence that he was not afraid to stand up to Reagan’s myth of America as “a shining city on a hill.” It was very much the principled outsider responding with a sense of history and a sense of honesty and a sense of profound need that would, in turn, create a great nation. Indeed, the word “great” is mentioned many times in Cuomo’s speech: “on behalf of the great Empire state,” “thank you for the great privilege,” “Today our great Democratic party,” “We would rather have laws written by the patron of this great city,” “to occupy the highest state, in the greatest State, in the greatest nation,” and, perhaps most importantly, “for love of this great nation.”

I illustrate Cuomo’s use of the word “great” to demonstrate that using “great” need not be a reductionist Faustian bargain or a capitulation to sloganeering if it is used reasonably. Cuomo believed, in ways that many Democrats have not since, that our nation was capable of being truly great. His sense of greatness was convincing not only because of the nimble way he weaved it into eloquent rhetoric, but because the modifier actually stands as a reliable measure for American opportunity. Stacked next to Cuomo, Trump’s ideas about “great” are little more than cheap fizz skimming off the beer keg.

Anyone who wishes to defeat Trump, whether as a Republican contender or the leading Democratic candidate, might wish to observe how the word “great” has struck a chord with his supporters. “Great,” which is tied in our notions of the “Great American Dream,” the “Great American Novel,” and even Great American Cookies, clearly has enough life left in it to change the course of the next eleven months. The time has come to reappropriate “great” from Trump and use it with a more meaningful greatness that wins back voters. America is too important a nation to have its notions of “greatness” be defined by a man hawking snake oil and hate. And failing that, for the cynics and the skeptics understandably tired of all these platitudes, there’s always the giddy nihilistic prospect of “great” becoming meaningless through overuse. Which would reveal Trump’s notion of “making America great again” for the shallow mantra it truly is.

The Best Books of 2015

Most my reading this year was devoted to research for several projects and to dead authors — in particular, just about everything ever written by Henry Green, a good chunk of Penelope Fitzgerald, and many volumes of the great Iris Murdoch, whose volume of letters (forthcoming in January here in the States) I will undoubtedly opine on somewhere. The nice thing about the dead is that you never have to worry about their social media presence, much less being that hip kid on Twitter being the first to skim through a status galley that nobody will give a toss about in six months. But I did squeeze in some time for contemporary titles and what follows is a list of exceedingly worthwhile books that greatly moved me and are very much worth your time:

binarystarSarah Gerard, Binary Star: Among many deceptively slim volumes published this year containing great wisdom about consciousness and interconnectedness, Gerard’s road trip saga was a standout. The couple at the center of this often fierce, sometimes breezy, sometimes heartbreaking novel is a woman who suffers from aneroxia and a man who is an alcoholic. The juxtaposition of rocket imagery and the nameless anorexic woman’s physical erosion from rapid weight loss finds a painful cadence with clipped sentences and a dialectic involving vegan anarchism. One reads this book, wondering if we are living in a world of disorders, or whether judgment itself may be causing us to see disorders. The book’s epigraph to Raoul Vaneigem’s The Revolution of Everyday Life hints further at the nature of this perceptual manipulation and one is left wondering what “irreducible core of creativity” that the main character may find. Perhaps it’s not meant to be glimpsed. This woman is, after all, becoming quite blind herself. Perhaps all we have left, wherever we are, is in the stars.

fateandfuriesLauren Groff, Fate and Furies: I was late to the party, but I’m so glad I took the plunge. This is an extremely well-observed portrait of a marriage built on a mirage. Groff expertly disguises the rapid-fire courtship of Lotto and Mathilde with a fusillade of college friends who live and disappear and reemerge as the couple enters middle age. That Groff has made the troubled husband a middling playwright and submerged this harrowing man in famous Greek classics (including a riff on Antigone) attests to the time-honored theater that humans have been encasing their relationships in for time immemorial. Almost serving as counterpoint to Mark Z. Danielewski’s respectable two volumes of The Familiar, Groff has also included a mysterious commentator within the narrative who offers bracketed asides. As painful as this novel can be to read for anyone who has been through a very long and sour relationship predicated on lies (or who has to watch a friend going through something like this), the sorrow nevertheless beckons the reader to summon more honesty, openness, and communication in real life. And for that reminder alone, Groff has emerged as a writer whose every future volume I will read upon publication.

speakhallLouisa Hall, Speak: Could human beings become addicted to robots? Why not? We walk the streets staring down at our phones, saturating our Instagram accounts with relentless photos, and logging every sordid detail about our lives on social media. Suppose that level of addiction had a conscience attached to it. And suppose it was modeled on the diary of a 17th century woman. Suppose further that an ELIZA-like program was somehow an AI missing link between the diary and the robots and that Alan Turing, just on the throes of being subjected to DES and its accompanying gynecomastia by a frightened homophobic government, was involved. You begin to have some inkling of what Hall’s ever thoughtful novel, which is brave enough to explore how our seduction to technology and its many byproducts may just be dwarfing the more important seduction of real life.

markandvoidPaul Murray, The Mark and the Void: Some critics have accused Murray of tackling too much in this hilarious, insightful, and often poignant book — almost as if the comic novel is not permitted ambition in our increasingly intolerant age. But Murray’s talent has sharpened considerably since Skippy Dies and we are all the richer for it. This penetrating tale involves a writer named Paul who asks a banker named Claude if he can follow him for a novel Paul’s writing about the Everyman. Paul, of course, has another ill-fated plan up his sleeve, one I don’t have it in my heart to give away. I’ll just say that Murray’s many twists and turns lend this book a kind of madcap momentum that, even before we’re aware of it, leads us into very heartfelt questions about what it is to be human at a moment in history in which banks resort to the most sinister plans imaginable (including building a golf course on an island fated to be flooded from climate change, under the theory that the investors can win back their investment from an insurance payout). What makes Murray such a great writer is the way he keeps his cleverness close to his chest. He is more interested in winning over readers, whoever they may be, by appealing to many brows, whether it be a Rothko-like painting that hangs in a rich man’s study or a sloppy low comedy Russian accomplice named Igor. This novel is a gripping portrait on what may be happening to our world as we surrender our invention and curiosity. At one point, an interoffice memo reading “All that glitters is not gold” is distributed throughout the bank. Not a single employee remembers this as a Shakespeare quote — indeed, a quote from one of the Bard’s most infamous plays about usury — but all take this “mantra” quite literally as a strategy to act on. Yet for all this, Murray never ridicules his subjects, which aligns this book with John P. Marquand’s underrated novel, Point of No Return (also about a banker). This novel is so terrific that I’m willing to suggest that Paul Murray may be our best shot at an Evelyn Waugh (albeit a kinder one) for the 21st century.

seedcolleectors2Scarlett Thomas, The Seed Collectors: As I wrote about this novel’s considerable achievements in September:

The Seed Collectors is holding up a very large mirror to the Quantified Self movement, whereby everything we do in this world creates data, collected and hawked and redistributed in ways that are not necessarily compatible with our complex feelings. The above passage, a glorious pisstake on gamification, sees Ollie, a man who Bryony is considering sleeping with, at the mercy of an Oral B Triumph SmartGuide, an alarmingly horrific (and quite real) device that demands its practitioners to brush teeth in highly specific ways, with emoticons rewarding a commonplace activity with Candy Crush-style perdition. Even a monstrous man named Charlie, who is introduced sexually violating a blind date before the thirty page mark (perhaps another reason why American houses lack the spine to publish this book), is someone who clings to a list of attributes that he’d like to see in “my perfect girlfriend.” And if quantification is the deadly condition uniting all these characters, then how do these disparate characters live? As the novel progresses, Thomas introduces a great deal of dialogue in which the speakers are never identified. And this missing data, so to speak, steers the reader towards an emotional intuition well outside any data subset. And as Thomas serves up more twists and revelations, we come to understand that it is still possible in our age of unmitigated surveillance to be attuned to our private thoughts (though for how long?). The novel, which we have believed all along to be thoroughly structured, has perhaps been a lifelike unstructured mess all along. And this unanticipated alignment between fiction and our data-plagued world feels more artful and poignant than such conceptual stunts as writing a short story composed entirely of tweets. It makes The Seed Collectors almost a cousin to Louisa Hall’s recent novel, the quite wonderful Speak, which used a computer algorithm to determine which of its five perspectives would be on deck next. But even if you don’t want to play this game of six-dimensional chess, The Seed Collectors still works as a sprightly narrative on its own terms, at times reading like an Iris Murdoch novel written for our time and beyond.

alittlelifeHanya Yanagahira, A Little Life: Nasty little men like Daniel Mendelsohn, a vicious narcissistic troll with a small penis (or so a source informed me; take it for what it is; this is a blind item I have no wish to corroborate), have no real understanding of trauma or pain or abuse, much less the painstaking empathy that friends and family must expend in helping the victim out of a self-perpetuating abyss. Thus, this critic is ill-equipped (in more ways that one) to speak of the relentless cycle of violence and vitriol that victims of abuse must not only live with, but often eke out to the people who love them. A Little Life is not a “woman’s novel.” It is a first-rate novel, independent of that belittling sobriquet, that dares to explore the uncomfortable interior of the ineffable in ways that misogynist novels like Jonathan Franzen’s Purity lack the honesty or the heart to broach. Its central character, Jude, is brilliant in all the right ways and scarred in all the wrong ones. While the prose does lean on a dismaying magazine shorthand, Yanagahira’s truths hit hard enough to overturn this stylistic cavil. “We didn’t know how to help him because we lacked the imagination needed to diagnose the problems,” a sentiment uttered by one of Jude’s friends, may sound trite to a heartless snob like Mendelsohn, but it is an especially succinct expression of America’s relationship to the afflicted. The book covers many years, often far into the future, and smartly avoids mentioning any current events. And that is because the problem of abuse needs to be isolated and examined at length, especially as we see its terrible culmination in the many mass shootings that have riddled our nation this year. As a victim of abuse, I cried tears of recognition when Jude allowed a man to assault and abuse him. For there was a time in my twenties when I allowed a lover into my life who did something quite similar. It took me years to recognize the threads that led back to an earlier life in which my very parents physically and emotionally abused me. And while I am now doing very well and am now the happiest I have been in years, I am ever on the alert for any small misstep that could send me even a few feet away from the self-destructive pit. Because as tough and as resilient and as seemingly well-adjusted as we survivors are, there’s always a chance. So Yanagahira’s novel almost served as exposure therapy, especially since I was down and out when I read it. For anyone fortunate enough to never experience abuse, I urge you to read A Little Life. Its worldview is far from “little,” unless you’re a small-minded hyperbolic attention whore paid to bray sociopathic sentences on command in one of the literary world’s declining institutions.

But if my plaudits aren’t enough to sell you on A Little Life, I should also point out that the only reason A Little Life is not pictured among the books in the header image is because, months ago, someone who had spent the night at my apartment and heard me rave about it happened to pilfer it.

Final Texts Sent to Women I’ve Dated in the Past Year: A Tale of Resilience and Emotional Maturity

Thank you for the text and for meeting me. While I enjoyed talking with you, I didn’t feel there was much of a connection. Nevertheless, I wish you the best of luck! All best, Ed

* * *

Not defensive at all. I was politely replying to your invitation and you made the leaps. I’m quite happy being who I am.

* * *

It is the best thing for me too. I feel that you are emotionally manipulative, unwilling to be honest and communicative, and deeply unfair. Nevertheless, I wish you the best of luck. Thanks for using me.

* * *

Please stop texting me. I’m not interested. Best of luck.

* * *

Do you even comprehend that men are not playthings for your deranged pleasure?

* * *

Okay, I get the hint. I hope you feel better. Thanks and best of luck.

* * *

Sounds like your life is too complicated. Best of luck.

* * *

Sounds like you’re not all that serious. And I have better things to do than have my chain dragged. Best of luck. And thank you for wasting my time.

* * *

I’m not ripping into anything. You’re doing a grand job of tearing down the house with your eleventh hour “revelations.” And I will call bullshit on people, especially unrelenting types who fire the first shot, who lack the self-awareness and the empathy to consider their own complicity. If you think I’m enjoying this (perhaps you are?), you’re gravely mistaken. But you’ve proven yourself wrong about a lot of things. I think we can both agree that there’s no profit in this exchange. So again I wish you best of luck.

* * *

And, by the way, I’m NOT nice. Your actions made me very angry. Because I once again allowed a self-absorbed woman to use me, to take advantage of my heart, to feign diffidence when she didn’t have the guts to cut her losses and declare the truth of her loneliness and her desperation. Go to hell. All you know how to do is toy with other hearts. And I won’t allow ANYONE to do that to me ever again.

* * *

Alright, one last try (because I like you) and I won’t bother you again. No need to reply back if you don’t want to. You mentioned last night that you were in a somewhat sullen mood because of your architectural comment chided by the martinet-minded boatman, that people felt intimidated by you because of your exuberance, that you rubbed some people the wrong way, that you weren’t accustomed to people treating you nice. I’m not sure if this (or perhaps the shrapnel from the businesslike unraveling of your marriage; believe me, I understand) has any bearing on your skittishness, but please know that I found you profoundly interesting, laden with great life, refreshingly independent-minded, and felt compelled to shower you with some affection that you seemed, in the way in which you shifted closer to me, to covet. You struck me as someone who was a bit surprised to receive kindness and receptive ears. Perhaps you were putting forth some front. I don’t know. What I do know is that you deserve to be treated well. You are an uncommon soul I’d like to know more. I’d be delighted to try again, if you’re ready and willing, taking things as slow as you’d like to go. Whatever you decide, whether with me or someone else, please know that some men do actually want to give to you and listen to you and respect you. As someone who adjusts her mind and body for a six week stint on the high seas in winter, you of all people know that life is always worth the risk and that goes for everything, whether the coos of romance or owning an apartment. In any event, thank you for the delightful evening and I really wish you the best and hope you find everything you’re looking for. – Ed

* * *

Many thanks for the conversation. I would be delighted to hear more about your adventures in Kenya. Good luck with the interview! Thanks, Ed

* * *

The princess’s gleaming eyes glistened with an unanticipated joy as the courtier handed her a parchment dripping with warm words written in a happy careful hand. The knight who had vowed to joust against dragons and play sweet songs for her upon his lute had delivered a letter from a faraway land that stirred some happy memory. She remembered the warmth of his hand, his easy smile, and his rather attentive ways. “Chivalry,” she had said, “is not dead.” A flowing coat shimmering against the frostiest gale was not something to be so readily dismissed. Some natural cannonball shot into the air, an ardor built not on war but on tenderness and that rather exciting quiver that accompanied more important passions.

The courtier had caught sight of a distant horse in the horizon, upon which rode the selfsame knight, who leaped from his steed and, shortly after spinning his sword into the air in the manner of a showman whirling a cane, performed an acrobatic interpretive dance that revealed the fine letters of the alphabet. “X…X…X”

This was quite a good deal of effort for a memory from so long before, certainly not the usual, but she couldn’t help smiling. The courtier opened the large book containing her many appointments and said, “The knight, ma’am. He hopes to schedule a visitation. Is there an opening?” The princess replied…

…well, how shall we continue this story?

* * *

No, you’re not. You’re one of those textbook cases Janet Malcolm wrote about.

* * *

I’d like to thank you for hurting me. It has provided me with a clarity which not only explains why X left you, but will ensure that I never make the same mistake of revealing my soul to a solipsist ever again. Best of luck. You definitely need it.

* * *

Affectionate and complimentary one moment, recoiling the next; goofy theatrical banter one minute, trilingual gymnastics almost as if you had to prove something (you didn’t) the next. You vacillated wildly in mood and I’m not interested in playing head games, whether conscious or subconscious. I’m interested in connecting with someone. Last night, you revealed yourself in ways that suggested very strongly that you could never do that with me, even though there was some part of you that wanted to. I don’t know if some of this is residual from the guy who hurt you. I’m sorry that happened, but I’m not going to be the fall guy. Get this in check. Other men won’t be nearly as patient or as understanding as I’ve been. Take good care of yourself. Truly. Nothing but empathy and good will here. Thanks and all best, Ed

* * *

First off, I’m sorry to hear about your grandmother. Having an ailing grandmother myself, I completely understand. Second, yes, I was the subject of a long, libelous, and predominantly untrue hit piece. I have been nothing less than courteous to you. I can even talk honestly about what really happened, as difficult as it is for me. But the one thing I won’t do is defend myself before someone who chooses to take stock in a distorted clickbait funhouse image of me rather than the very real and good man she met on Thursday night. I am truly sorry that you have opted to see the wrong version and apologize for any unsettling feelings caused by these disgraceful articles. All best, Ed

* * *

No problem. Glad to hear you landed a place! All best with your art and life. Many thanks, Ed

* * *

Thank you for taking the time out to meet last night. You seem nice and thoughtful, but I didn’t feel any romantic sparks. So I shall have to respectfully bow out. Nevertheless, I wish you the best in life and finishing your dissertation! Thanks and all best, Ed

* * *

Okay, I don’t want to add discomfort to an already awkward exchange. So I’m going to bow out of Thursday with all the grace I can muster, apologize for time wasted, and wish you the best. Thanks and supreme apologies, Ed

* * *

Of course we can be friends! I’m very honored that I got to meet you and your gregarious friends, enjoyed our moments, and am tremendously sorry that my heart hasn’t cooperated. For you are a very good soul who deserves nothing less than a marvelous man who will undoubtedly make you feel even more special than I possibly can. Again, my contrition and great gratitude. Please have a magnificent weekend! Thanks and all best, Ed

* * *

Good luck and take care!

* * *

Dear X: I’m very sorry to do this, but I’ve met someone in the last week who I’ve been getting very serious with. I very much enjoyed meeting you, but I’m going to have to cancel Thursday night because of this entirely unanticipated development. But I thank you for your time, hope you had a good holiday, and I wish you the best of luck! Thanks, Ed