I can now settle the age-old debate about what is and isn't a podcast. If at the end of your show, and in promos, you say "Available where ever you get your podcasts," then it's a podcast! If you don't say it, then it ain't a podcast! To illustrate, here's the shortest podcast ever.#
Eli Pariser: "First thoughts on Artifact, the new news reader from the Instagram guys. Right now it feels like a slick, maybe more personalized rewrite of Apple News. But not much serendipity—it’s all pretty narrowly tailored to what I indicated as my tastes, and I haven’t discovered much that’s surprising or interesting there."#
Artifact is like a new version of OS/2 after the web and Mosaic already existed. Kind of beside the point. We've moved beyond that.#
This week's 500 songs podcast is about the Monkees. I was right in the middle of their demographic when the TV show aired between 1966 and and 1968. I watched every episode. I had all their records. There was kind of a stink around them, perceivable even to an 11-year-old. People would say they weren't musicians, they weren't playing the instruments, and they were the kind of act only teenie boppers (like me!) could like. But Andrew Hickey in this episode dispels all that, explaining how they were a really important good musical group. They were friends will all the musicians of the day who we do respect. All but one of the Monkees is gone now. They were nice people apparently. It gives me a warm feeling to know they were better than who the cynics said they were. #- We must teach all American kids of all races about slavery the same way German kids learn about the Holocaust. #
- I regret that we didn't learn about slavery in public school in NYC when I was a child in the 60s. #
- I only found out by reading books about slavery, which I did over the last few years after listening to the 1619 Project podcasts, which were eye-opening.#
