Every time I think I've reached my limit, that at my age I just don't have the energy to follow yet another of the endlessly bifurcating trails of breadcrumbs that technology keeps throwing at me, I summon a little courage and try something new.
I heard about podcasts a long time ago but had always relegated them to "things too new and complicated for me to try." With a new vehicle and the decision whether to spend money to install my fancy radio with XM, I wondered if playing podcasts on my iPod might be a no-cost alternative to the $12 a month or so I've been paying XM for eight years.
Started with Google and proceeded to the Wikipedia page, which told me pretty much everything I needed to know. The easiest way for fearful folk like me is to open iTunes, click Podcasts on the top bar, and go shopping. I stuck with free ones, which abound. Downloaded two past shows from This American Life, which I always enjoyed on XM, and subscribed to receive auto-downloads weekly. Also grabbed shows from Skepticality and The Partially Examined Life, two titles I found intriguing.
Next I saved links to some other podcast sources listed by Google such as Podbean and fluctu8 for future investigation. Finally I visited XMPR, knowing I would find the free weekend podcast of the Bob Edwards Show. I downloaded eleven past shows and subscribed to this one too. I was delighted to see the site let me choose iPod-ready versions. Talk about painless.
Yesterday I plugged my iPod into my new car's aux input, ready to enjoy something thought-provoking on my half-hour commute. The darned thing was frozen, technology refusing to play ball. I shrugged it off and last night after plugging and unplugging it to my USB port a few times, it played fine.
Drum roll, please...
This morning I plugged it in and everything worked as promised. I listened to the first half of an hour show from Skepticality magazine. Breadcrumbs a-plenty poured from the factory radio's cheap speakers as this cheap listener enjoyed the same kind of intellectual stimulation that paid XM had been providing over the years. What a trip! to use the language of my semi-greatest generation.
And what a long strange trip it's been. Gutenberg and books, Hollywood and movies, Edison and the phonograph, then cassettes, CDs, MP3s, and now the MP3 incarnation of the talk show, the podcast. And all I had to do was give it a try, not so hard after all.
Showing posts with label Bob Edwards. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Bob Edwards. Show all posts
Apr 19, 2011
Aug 10, 2009
Follow the crumbs
I'm reading The Long Tail by Chris Anderson, the latest in a string of non-fiction books that started...well, I'm not sure when.
As a musician (and a former radio announcer with a jazz show) I'd always disdained talk radio. I figured that on the radio, anything but music was a waste of time. But having XM and hearing that Bob Edwards was coming on, having been unceremoniously dismissed from NPR, I thought I'd give XMPR a try. Might have been day two or three of listening when I caught him interviewing Malcolm Gladwell on his new book, Blink. Something clicked in my brain and it was like a reset button back to 1966, before I discovered drugs and alcohol. I drove straight to the nearest Barnes and Noble and bought the book, and one thing led to another.
Which is a way of saying the breadcrumbs seemed to appear before me. My curiosity led me down the oddest paths. Book after book, website after website, unable to stop but not wanting to...and yet wondering just why I felt compelled to pursue ideas with, as Frank Zappa might have termed it, No Commercial Potential. At least for me, a 50-something bookkeeper struggling to stay alive in a crashing economy. I mean, so what if I think Gladwell has some Neat Ideas. Does anyone really care?
And then this week I had an insight. Imagine that, insight. I guess there are still a few brain cells left that didn't succumb to the onslaught of days gone by. And the insight was this, with thanks to Chris Anderson and his wonderful book - that I do what I do because it's who I am. Whether it has a tremendous practical application or none whatsoever is simply irrelevant.
The pages of The Long Tail are helping me see that the digital age brings us to a point where we can be creators, and not just consumers. In my "day job" I may push a broom, or move billions of dollars around the world, or something in between...doesn't matter. If my passion is butterscotch, or hopscotch, or just plain hops...then that is what matters for me, and not the answer to the classic "And what do you do?"
So now I'm following the breadcrumbs without peering backwards and wondering what the heck I think I'm doing. Posts about some great books and web pages and the ideas therein will be forthcoming from time to time...comments, corrections, and suggestions welcome.
As a musician (and a former radio announcer with a jazz show) I'd always disdained talk radio. I figured that on the radio, anything but music was a waste of time. But having XM and hearing that Bob Edwards was coming on, having been unceremoniously dismissed from NPR, I thought I'd give XMPR a try. Might have been day two or three of listening when I caught him interviewing Malcolm Gladwell on his new book, Blink. Something clicked in my brain and it was like a reset button back to 1966, before I discovered drugs and alcohol. I drove straight to the nearest Barnes and Noble and bought the book, and one thing led to another.
Which is a way of saying the breadcrumbs seemed to appear before me. My curiosity led me down the oddest paths. Book after book, website after website, unable to stop but not wanting to...and yet wondering just why I felt compelled to pursue ideas with, as Frank Zappa might have termed it, No Commercial Potential. At least for me, a 50-something bookkeeper struggling to stay alive in a crashing economy. I mean, so what if I think Gladwell has some Neat Ideas. Does anyone really care?
And then this week I had an insight. Imagine that, insight. I guess there are still a few brain cells left that didn't succumb to the onslaught of days gone by. And the insight was this, with thanks to Chris Anderson and his wonderful book - that I do what I do because it's who I am. Whether it has a tremendous practical application or none whatsoever is simply irrelevant.
The pages of The Long Tail are helping me see that the digital age brings us to a point where we can be creators, and not just consumers. In my "day job" I may push a broom, or move billions of dollars around the world, or something in between...doesn't matter. If my passion is butterscotch, or hopscotch, or just plain hops...then that is what matters for me, and not the answer to the classic "And what do you do?"
So now I'm following the breadcrumbs without peering backwards and wondering what the heck I think I'm doing. Posts about some great books and web pages and the ideas therein will be forthcoming from time to time...comments, corrections, and suggestions welcome.
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