Friday, July 12, 2013

A Few Favorite Podcasts

Blog reader Christina said, "I just started reading Imaginative Realism, and I'm really enjoying it. In the book you say you listen to podcasts. I'm wondering which podcasts you listen to."

Thanks, Christina. Here are five of my favorites. I love all these programs because I can listen while I'm painting without being distracted by visuals. I'll give logo of the program, a description of the program, and an individual show I really liked:

Radiolab. "Radiolab is a show about curiosity. Where sound illuminates ideas, and the boundaries blur between science, philosophy, and human experience."Happy Birthday, Good Dr. Sacks. "One of our favorite human beings turns 80 this week. To celebrate, Robert asks Oliver Sacks to look back on his career, and explain how thousands of worms and a motorbike accident led to a brilliant writing career."

This American Life. "The radio show and TV show follow the same format. There's a theme to each episode, and a variety of stories on that theme. It's mostly true stories of everyday people, though not always." 
"Georgia Rambler." In the 1970s a reporter named Charles Salter wrote a column for the Atlanta Journal called "Georgia Rambler." He'd get into his car, head out to some small town, and ask around until he found a story. This week, nine of us go to Georgia to try it out for ourselves, in small towns all over the state.


Sidebar Nation. "Four-color conversations on comics, art, and pop culture."
Brad Holland. "Brad's been a 'creator of images' (that's a nice safe title) for almost four decades now and he's still going strong. In our opinion, his career and contributions to the art community are marked in several ways."




Science magazine podcast. "The world's leading journal of original scientific research."
Bird Intelligence. As birds earn recognition for their intelligence, scientists are taking a closer look at bird brains using PET scans. Virginia Morell describes the state of the research.


If you would like to nominate your favorites in the comments, perhaps I'll do a poll of the best of the best.


12 comments:

Gina Florio Sous said...

Radiolab is my all-time favorite as well.

I also listen quite frequently to 'Stuff You Should Know', with two entertaining hosts speaking on a variety of topics, and 'The Moth' podcast, true stories of everyday people told live that run the gamut of human emotions. http://www.stuffyoushouldknow.com/podcasts/ and http://themoth.org/about/programs/the-moth-podcast Stuff You Should Know also has a range of 'spinoff' podcasts, like 'Stuff You Missed in History Class.'

Torbjörn Källström said...

Escapeartists.org is a great site with three different podcasts for science fiction, fantasy and horror short stories respectively. Usually very well read and interesting stories.

Larry MacDougall said...

http://www.listentoamovie.com/

Is also very good. They have many movies, TV shows and radio plays to listen to.

Diana Moses Botkin said...

Thank you for those sources: will have to check them out.

Thank you also for the mention of Brad Holland. I was just thinking of him the other day, along with Alan Cober. Both of them have been inspirational.

Kokopelli said...

Hi James, will chech out your recommended podcast, here's a couple for you avaiable on ITunes.
DID (Desert island discs) radio 4 on the BBC with Kirsty Young. This is very long running with a huge number of old archives to listen too.
Amateur Traveler Podcast by Chris Christiansen.
Warning both of these are for me very addictive.
Thanks for all your input in art directions.
Ciao
Jimu

Unknown said...

Thanks for sharing. I also really like Radiolab and This American Life.

There are so many others I enjoy listening to:
The Moth (People telling stories from their life, kinda like an unedited This American Life.)
The Story Collider (Personal stories about science.)
Hardcore History with Dan Carlin (Fantastic history show.)
Friday Night Comedy from BBC Radio 4 (British version of Wait Wait Don't Tell Me)
Answer Me This (Lighthearted and funny British podcast, answering random questions.)

Andrew said...

Good Job Brain is a fun little podcast that's basically trivia stuff on all manners of things, from famous mistakes to bodily functions to smells to sports.

Star Talk Radio is a great radio show that Neil DeGrasse Tyson hosts that covers scientific topics of all sorts. My favorite so far was the one about the human brain.

Last one is the Nerdist podcast, which is interviews with various celebrities, usually comedians but also actors, musicians, and the occasional comic book writer. Very geek/pop culture oriented, and very light hearted. Also really interesting to hear people talk about how they came about, you start to see some similar threads in people's lives.

Anonymous said...

I listen to quite a few podcasts: Hindsight, rear vision, big ideas, health report all from ABC radio national Australia; The Food Show, In Our Time and Start the Week from BBC Radio 4; ideas, quirks and quarks, the current and As It Happens from CBC, last but the most listen too is Artists Helping Artists blogtalk radio show marketing and artist interviews...

I figure that I need something interesting to talk about cause painting though exciting for me...is not so exciting form others! ;)

C. Asdel Cisneros said...

You blogged about my question. How cool! Thanks.

Three I subscribe to, two I'm excited to check out.

I also enjoy The Skeptics Guide to the Universe, A Way With Words (a podcast about the English language), How Did This Get Made? (comedy show about bad movies), Star Talk Radio with Neil deGrasse Tyson, Answer Me This, The Nerdist, Freakonomics, etc., etc., etc.

I love reading all the comments. Many new podcasts to try.

Meera Rao said...

All my favorites - also the ones in comments :) I also like "to the best of our knowledge ," " on being with Krista Tippett ," Terry Gross interviews, and also "zencasts" - and in the end too little time!!!

Mike said...

I first found out about this blog from Bullseye, a pop culture magazine style show from the good people at maximumfun.org. It's a fun listen and has turned me on to some of my favorite stuff, music, art, movies, etc, ever in my life.

JohnB said...

I listen to Junkfood Dinner, a podcast where they review 3 cult horror, scifi, or just strange movies. I also love Illogical Contraption, a show where some stoner metalheads talk about different stuff and often have obscure celebrities on.