1. I returned to the world of podcasts today after figuring out how to call them up on my Alexa App through TuneIn. I listened to an episode of Criminal entitled "Unexpected Guests." Host Phoebe Judge had put out a request for listeners to email her stories of weird things that had happened to them over the years. Two of the stories were creepy and one was touching, a tale of trust and goodwill, but weird all the same. Want to hear these stories? Click here.
2. Listening to Lauren Ober hosting WAMU and NPR's The Big Listen (a broadcast about podcasts) is emotionally risky business for me. For reasons I don't understand, listening to Lauren Ober call her listeners "pals" and her calling Washington, D. C. "the capital of America" along with her other verbal quirks and hoarse intonations that always make me smile, and, hearing the music composed for the program, brings me to tears, nostalgic tears.
I used to listen to The Big Listen on my phone while walking in D. C. or on the radio while driving between Greenbelt and DC Brau and so hearing the show get underway with Lauren Ober's weekly pitch about NPR radio, transports me back to strolling around the outside and inside of Union Station or walking in the Capitol Hill neighborhood or driving on the Baltimore-Washington Parkway through Greenbelt Park or driving on MD 201 past Rinaldi's Riverdale Bowl and traversing Decatur St. to connect with Baltimore Ave. and Bladensburg Rd, past all the Cottage City, MD shopping centers, fast food restaurants, auto and body repair shops, and two dialysis centers before crossing Eastern Avenue into D.C., turning right, and easing on down the little hill beside the Post Office to D. C. Brau.
Whether I drove down the Balt.-Wash. Parkway or down Rt. 201, the trip was hardly picturesque, except when passing through Greenbelt Park (a National Park, by the way). So when I miss this drive, it's not for its beauty. I simply came to love where I lived for those three years and the voice of Lauren Ober brings it all back.
If you'd like to listen to the episode entitled, "The Big Listen's Favorite New Podcasts of 2017 (That Aren't S-Town)", just click here and then click on the "Listen" triangle in the lavender box. You can also see a picture of Lauren Ober hugging a nutcracker.
I also listened to a food history episode on Burnt Toast, the podcast of the blog Food 52. In just fourteen minutes, this podcast episode gives its listeners quite a history lesson on food swindlers and the history of margarine. If you'd like to know how food isn't always what it appears to be and learn more about margarine, just click here and go to the second episode on the list.
3. So, learning to work with TuneIn on the Alexa app turned out to be great fun. My last discovery of the night was New Orleans Public Radio (WWNO) and the weekly program American Routes. Host Nick Spitzer spends two hours every show focusing on some aspect of American music with plenty of songs and interviews. His show that broadcast back on December 18, 2013 featured Richard Thompson and Zachary Richard -- it's titled "Songs of the Expatriates". You, too, can listen to this show! Just click right here. You'll get to hear Cajun, Creole, early rock, English folk/rock, Queen Ida, Clifton Chenier, Michael Ducet, Los Lobos, Fairport Convention, Fats Domino, and a whole lot more, including Richard Thompson singing a song in French!
By the way, my day of listening also included listening to almost all of The Grateful Dead's seminal album, Europe '72. It features some great blues songs, a fine Hank Williams cover, one my favorite traditional songs ("I Know You Rider"), righteous keyboards by Pigpen, wicked guitar work by Jerry Garcia, some energetic rock and roll, and many passages of vocal beauty.
So, today, all day, there was snow falling and night falling fast oh fast and I listened on my Echo Dot as the day went past.
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