I’ve always had a problematic relationship to the news, and I’ve struggled to navigate that even more since this pandemic began. I talk to my father about the night I yelled at him over his insufficient fear of the virus, and I look back on a 1954 essay by E.B. White about the disparity between his experience of a hurricane and the coverage he hears of that hurricane on the radio.

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Blue Dot Sessions

The Eye of Edna by E.B. White

Cancel Everything by Yascha Mounk

Like most people, I imagine, I've been having a lot of anxious thoughts these days. And I’ve been wishing I could get those thoughts out of my head. Then I remembered that I used to have a podcast called Anxious Machine.

So here’s my first episode in three years, part of a planned, ongoing audio journal. This episode starts with some thoughts about how this virus first entered my consciousness, how it felt to watch the movie Contagion with my daughter, and trying to stay awake to what's happening.

The House Glows with Almost No Help by Chris Zabriskie

Contagion: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack by Cliff Martinez

Contagion by Steven Soderbergh

Dana Stevens on the Slate Culture Gabfest

Wesley Morris on On The Media

I'm announcing a whole new podcast, and giving you a listen to the first episode. The podcast is called Before It Had a Theme, and on it, Britta Greene an I discuss and deconstruct old episodes of This American Life. On this episode, we discuss the very first episode of that show, as well as why the show is worth discussing, how we and others became fans of the show, and why we love Ira Glass’s mother.

Clips from following were used in this episode:

Coffaro’s Theme by Bill Frisell

Episode of Tape with Jonathan Mejivar

Episode of Tape with Ben Calhoun

Ira’s talk at the Third Coast Audio Festival

Longform Podcast, Episode 159: Ira Glass

This American Life, Episode 1: New Beginnings

Ira’s talk at the Gel Conference

Rob's Twitter

Britta's Twitter

Show Twitter

Review us on Apple Podcasts

Sometimes in your life, you reach a crossroads, go on a men’s weekend, spend too much time alone in the forest, have a mid-life crisis, and start thinking you can change the world with your podcast. This episode is about that happening to me. Part one of a three-part series.

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Startup

Opening Credits by johnny_ripper

Divider by Chris Zabriskie

Audrey by johnny_ripper

Mario Bava Sleeps in a Little Later Than He Expected To by Chris Zabriskie

Black Book by johnny_ripper

The Dark Glow of the Mountains by Chris Zabriskie

A Void by johnny_ripper

Program Reverie by Podington Bear

Massive by Podington Bear

Parents of young children have an especially fraught relationship with their smartphones. On the one hand, these devices are indispensable tools for getting things done and staying connected to the adult world while in the midst of childcare. On the other hand, the culture is constantly telling parents, and particularly mothers, that they’re too distracted by these devices, that smartphones are stealing precious attention away from our kids.

But the idea that parents should be focusing so much attention on their kids is itself a modern invention. In fact, our current understanding of parenthood and childhood is, in a very real way, the product of technology.

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Moms, Let Go of Your Smartphone Guilt

Siobhan Adcock’s website

Amy Shearn’s website

Opening Credits by johnny_ripper

Spring Solstice by Podington Bear

Cylinder Three by Chris Zabriskie

The Dark Glow of the Mountain by Chris Zabriskie

Walkin Flags by Sealadder

Button Mushrooms by Podington Bear

Stuck Dream by Podington Bear

88 by Podington Bear

What True Self? Feels Bogus, Lets Watch Jason X by Chris Zabriskie

This past week, my kids went back to school. Summer vacation has come and gone. And that’s gotten me thinking about the very idea of summer vacation because every summer, for the past several years, my wife, her sisters and our families have had this tradition of going to a cabin for a few days to get out of the city. We don’t own a cabin. We have to rent one. And this year, the process of finding it, looking at pictures of all the possible cabins on all the possible lakes, made me wonder about this particular, middle-class American ritual of going into the wilderness for vacation, where that ritual came from, and what it says about our relationship to modern life.

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Special thanks this week to new Patreon supporter Matt Holliday.

Where Was the Birthplace of the American Vacation?

Thoreau Leaves Walden Pond

Why Fire Makes Us Human

Working At Play: A History of Vacations in the United States

Gentle Chase by Podington Bear

Arrival by North Hive

Tam by LJ Kruzer

Electron by Podington Bear

Halflight by Podington Bear

Tamz by LJ Kruzer

88 by Podington Bear

Since the wide-spread adoption of embalming in the United States, most Americans have turned the process of handling the deceased over to experts in the undertaking business. On this episode, the story of one family who decided that they wanted to be the ones to wash and prepare the body of the son and brother they’d lost.

This episode was previously aired on the podcast Neighbors, one of the podcasts in The Heard.

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Cylinder Five by Chris Zabrinskie

88 by Podington Bear

My older brother Scott lives almost completely outside the network of modern life: he has no internet, no email address, no cable TV or satellite, not even an antenna for his television. Until recently, he didn’t even have a bank account or a telephone. In this episode, I try to get to the bottom of why he hates computers, and especially the internet, even though the internet helped him solve a question he’s had since the day he was born.

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Heavy Flutter by Podington Bear

I Am Running with Temporary Success from a Monstrous Vacuum in Pursuit by Chris Zabriskie

The Sun Is Scheduled to Come Out Tomorrow by Chris Zabriskie

The House Glows with Almost No Help by Chris Zabriskie

The Theatrical Poster for Potergeist III by Podington Bear

The Dark Glow of the Mountains by Podington Bear

88 by Podington Bear

Special thanks to Eric Keys, Cam Hudson, Bradley Dunham, and Gordon Delp for their support of this podcast.

Humans have been reading for thousands of years, but ever since the invention of television, people have been worried that reading is in decline. The latest worry is that, even if the Internet has caused an uptick in the quantity of our reading, we're reading on screens instead of paper, and this seems to degrade the quality of our reading.

On this episode, technology writer Clive Thompson talks about the history of reading as a technology, why we’re worried about its future, and what happened when he tried to read War and Peace on his iPhone.

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Clive Thompson’s essay about reading War and Peace on his iPhone

Clive Thompson’s essay about the novelty effect

Clive Thompson’s book Smarter than You Think

Hanna Rosin’s article for The Atlantic about children and screens

Amaranth Borsuk & Brad Bouse: Between Page and Screen

Curious Process by Podington Bear

Oxygen Garden by Chris Zabriskie

Deeper by Phlox.s

Rythn by Podington Bear

Mensa by Podington Bear

Steppin Intro by Podington Bear

Program Reverie by Podington Bear

Euphoric by Podington Bear

Respiration by Podington Bear

88 by Podington Bear

When she was growing up, Adrienne didn’t want to believe she was losing her hearing, and she didn’t want to wear hearing aids. This is the story of how she decided to embrace the technology that restored her hearing, and what happened when she did.

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Mark Bramhill

Cylinder Five by Chris Zabriskie

There Are Many Different Kinds of Love by Chris Zabriskie

Cylinder Six by Chris Zabriskie

The Sun Is Scheduled to Come out Tomorrow by Chris Zabriskie

I Am running with Temporary Success from a Monstrous Vacuum in Pursuit by Chris Zabriskie

Heavy Flutter by Podington Bear

Brethren Arise by Chris Zabriskie

I Need to Start Writing Things Down by Chris Zabriskie

Androids Always Escape by Chris Zabriskie

88 by Podington Bear

What True Self? Feels Bogus, Let’s Watch Jason X by Chris Zabriskie

When I heard the news of the recent Supreme Court ruling on marriage between same sex couples, I wanted to go back to an interview I did in 2009 with two women who decided to get married before it was legal in their state. It’s easy to forget what couples like them had to go through back then — traveling outside of their state to get a document that would have no legal standing at all where they lived. I wanted to know why that piece of paper mattered to them. This is their story.

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This episode was supported in part by Mark Bramhill, through Patreon.

Supreme Court ruling on marriage

Clip of All Things Considered on the ruling

Clip of Proposition 8 passing on KRON TV newscast

CGI Snake by Chris Zabriskie

Cylinder Four by Chris Zabriskie

Filaments by Podington Bear

Happy Ending by Podington Bear

The Sun Is Scheduled to Come Out Tomorrow by Chris Zabriskie

Corridor by Podington Bear

88 by Podington Bear

What True Self? Feels Bogus, Let’s Watch Jason X by Chris Zabriskie