Don't be an RSSHOLE
Share that audio goodness. Plus listen on to learn the truth about Easter Island, Mark Twain, and Alzheimer's.
Welcome to Hurt Your Brain #212, the place to get podcasts and links that will make you think, sent every so often.
Don’t be that person who listens to all manner of great podcasts and never tells anyone about them. Don’t be an RSSHOLE.
That sticker will make it in my podcast merch shop one day. In the meantime, please enjoy these delicious snacks for your ears.
PODCAST RECOMMENDATIONS
First up, another set of rapid fire recommendations.
Criminal’s The Roofman Part 1 and Part 2 are a fantastic and crazy duo of episodes. If you enjoyed The Studio on Apple TV+, you must listen to the two part episode of The Town with Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg (Part 1 and Part 2). Death, Sex & Money also has a great round table discussion called Money Advice For This Weird Moment.
Fall of Civilizations: 6. Easter Island - Where Giants Walked
The Big Idea: This may sound dramatic, but everything you know about Easter Island is probably not true, or is at least incomplete. History as a podcast genre is chock full of incredible pieces of storytelling, and this is one of them.
Easter Island got that name simply because European explorers found the island on Easter Day, which I guess is both obvious and a little disappointing.
Conan O’Brien Needs A Friend: Ron Chernow
The Big Idea: Ron Chernow has a new biography on Mark Twain, and Conan is a perfect interviewer here, being a huge Twain nerd and history buff (and recent recipient of the Mark Twain prize - which is on Netflix and very entertaining).
Twain REALLY loved a good business scheme, which is one of the unexpected things you’ll learn about his personal life in this conversation.
Chernow wrote the excellent Alexander Hamilton biography that Lin Manuel Miranda read and urgently felt needed to be turned into a hip hop musical.
The World As You’ll Know It: Why Haven’t We Solved Alzheimer’s?
The Big Idea: An excellent overview of what Alzheimer’s is, the current status of medical research, and recent dramatic examples of fraud that have set progress back.
I recommended this podcast last time, but Carl Zimmer does such a great job with this series and I hope he continues with his own podcasts in the future.
The future is shark
Radiolab’s has a new series of episodes called “Week of Shark” (ahem, VERY different than and not to be confused with “Shark Week” wink wink). There are five short episodes for each day last week, and they were all great and worth listening to. Start with Making a Monster.
How about these crazy shark facts from the episodes:
🦈 Sharks are much, much older than dinosaurs, and in fact are older than the freaking rings of Saturn?! They are also older than flowers or even trees. C’mon!
🦈 Also, the Greenland shark is the longest lived vertebrate, capable of living hundreds of years. There are Greenland sharks that were alive when Alexander Hamilton was born, and were still alive when the musical about him was made (second mention of Hamilton in one newsletter!).
🦈 Sharks have a very old immune system that doesn’t have some of the bells and whistles we have, but new evidence is showing the way theirs works could help us defeat cancer. You’ll also learn exactly why the future is shark.
PODCAST LINKS
26 Must-Read Podcast Newsletters. A fantastic list of newsletters from Podglomerate that will ensure you never run out of things to listen to. Honored to be mentioned in it among these other fine folks.
FOR FUN
You don’t need to be a golfer to enjoy this schadenfreude.
That’s it for this week. Thank you as always for reading and responding!
Please like or comment (or reply) if you want to share any comments. See you next time.
p.s. We saw MJ Lenderman and Waxahatchee in concert last night and it was a fantastic time. I continue to think about my custom earplugs being one of the best investments (and are totally worth the money). Also, Song Exploder has an episode on each of these artists and I hope to expand more on that next newsletter. My basic thought is this: Song Exploder is hands down the best podcast about the creative process in my opinion.