in praise of the things I've liked lately

For no good reason, but perhaps it'll send some traffic their way:

I became a podcast addict while in New Zealand (every time I hear the theme music for a Slate or NPR podcast, my mind flashes back to the streets of Wellington. When I started listening to them, I'd listen to my iPod on the streets as I walked to work.) I attempt to try out new ones every few weeks, although not in a regimented way.

The best I've found lately is from the Australian radio station Triple J. Their New Music Podcast is exactly what I was hoping to find when I stumbled across it. It's a sampling of brand-new music, most from Australian acts and all from bands you've likely never heard of. It beats the hell out of Indiefeed's alt-rock podcast, which is what I used to use to listen to Indie bands I'd never heard of, for two reasons. One, and most importantly, the Triple J podcast is simply an mp3 of the song. Straight up. None of the talking before and after that Indiefeed has - introducing the track, reading the liner notes for a bio of the band - and which is often laid over the opening bars of the track. Triple J just gives you a song to listen to. Perfect. Two, personally I have liked a far higher proportion the songs played on Triple J than on Indiefeed. Oz has some good music, and it's stuff I'll never hear otherwise.

One I've been listening to for a while, but need to list here, is Radio Lab from NPR station WYNC. It's closely related to This American Life, in that they use various sorts of radio storytelling to explore a theme. Unlike This American Life, Radio Lab is less about personal experience and more about abstract scientific concepts talked about in innovative ways. It feels like the hosts are telling you a story about Time, or Sleep, or the possibility of Life in the Universe. There are interviews, there are stories, it all feels very casual - but if you listen very much, you can tell just how much work they put into it to make sure everything sounds just so. They play with noise to create some cool effects, many of which you don't notice on a first listen. I also make sure to get everything Radio Lab co-host Robert Krulwich does for NPR - he's their science correspondent, and his segments are always a little bit off-kilter but in an excellently informative way.


On the Netflix queue, the most interesting thing I've seen lately is a short film, also from Australia, called Harvie Krumpet. The 22-minute film (which you can watch online through the link) follows a man throughout a life of hard luck and a few bright spots. There are a few great dead-pan black humor moments in the writing and the visuals. But what really makes this film great is the tone of it. It follows Harvie through his life, a life which is mostly filled with pain but which Harvie generally gets through by tolerating his situation and occasionally finding joy, such as through his wife an daughter. That's the simplistic summary. The tone, however, doesn't move too far into the tragic senselessness of his pain or the utter hopelessness of a life filled with problems. Neither does it veer the other way, pointing out the bright side and bringing a message of hope. Like life itself, it's filled with bits of both extremes, but mostly it just is. Harvie doesn't always look on the bright side, he doesn't always accept what's happened to him with grace. Neither does he always dwell on his problems. He reacts to both, then generally, sometimes reluctantly, just gets on with life. Very rarely does any work of art balance grimness and light so deftly, without going overboard on either one. Just watch it.