George Seibold

The Invisibilia episode “True You” is an exemplary podcast in terms of it uses music and sound to convey the ideas presented over the course of the episode. At the very beginning, as soon as the narrator mentions a plague, there is the sound of someone clearing their throat and rifling through papers. This instantly sets the aural seen of someone preparing to read from something very old. The podcast then transitions to someone reading a section from Exodus that details the plague of locusts. This instance of sound setting the scene for what the audience ought to be visualizing during the podcast is repeated in different ways over the course of the episode. The cheery music when the grasshoppers were introduced, the sounds of an electric toothbrush and running water when Tanya was getting ready to go to bed, and the “meow” that played when Chad talked about when he found the drawing of the cat are all examples of how the podcast used sound effects to illustrate the image that the scene was trying to convey. The use of sound in this way provided the listener an extra dimension of engagement so that they could better picture the narrative and stay immersed in the story.

Another way in which sound was used was to give the podcast “space” for the listener to consider the story. If the entire episode was just a sequence of people talking from start to end, there would be no room for the listener to breath, contemplate the story, and give proper consideration to the ideas presented. However, if there was just silence between the big ideas, the podcast would sound strangely choppy and unfinished—and while it can be used effectively in certain circumstances, silence is generally pretty boring and would quickly get listeners to lose interest and immersion. Ambient sounds and simple music strike a balance between uninterrupted speech and silence, because it allows the listener to reflect on what they’re hearing without completely taking them out of the podcast. As an added benefit, sound and music can also orient the audience’s emotions, due to the fact that they can influence our mood. There were some significant instances throughout “True You,” often no more than a few seconds, where there was nothing but ambient sounds or light music. These instances were often at transitional points in the two narratives, such as when Tanya’s dream persona was introduced, or immediately after the story of Chad’s first F-word.

A (very) inchoate list of podcast ideas:

• Some derivation of what I wrote my feature about.

My feature article focused on the value that college has for its students. Perhaps a compelling podcast could be made focusing in on why different students are in college, and what obstacles—both expected and otherwise—they found along the way. Pretty applicable to the people here and anyone that undertook something like college.

• Something about the Cynic?

Not sure of what the story could be but lord knows it occupies too much space in my mind to not be worth mentioning here. A larger idea this could tie into could be accountability or teamwork

• Current drama going on in the English department

Apparently there are some faculty or funding cuts going on? I don’t know too much about the issue, but sounds like it could make for a good investigative story. Funding as a concept is pretty much at the forefront of a lot of issues in America today.

The overarching “story” for This American Life episode 583: “It’ll Make Sense When You’re Older” is about how some things could only be understood by getting older. The story is presented in different ways throughout the different acts, but generally it’s about people who think they understand something, and then they grow older and change, and see that thing in a new light. Sometimes, in the case of the first act, it may seem that the person knows about the thing the less they understand it; whereas other times, like the second act, there may be more to the topic than the person realizes, and they only find out by getting older. This lead neatly to the episode’s topic sentence: somebody does (or in the case of most of the episode, believes) something because they feel like they understand it, but they only truly realize what it is after they get older. In the third act, this is seen by the man who originally believes that the Alzheimer’s tests were a waste of time, until he eventually loses his ability to read a clock. It’s then that he realizes the importance of the tests, and also the mechanics went into his ability to how he lost his ability to read a clock.

The Alex Blumberg formula for this episode would be “I’m doing a story about getting older, and what’s interesting about it is that it looks into how our understanding of things we think we know seems to change as we age.” An additional aspect to this is the term “it’ll make sense when you’re older,” which, as explained in the introduction, is often told to children who already think they have the understanding required to make sense of these kinds of things. It is quite convenient that a common phrase fits so perfectly with the theme, otherwise I’m sure it would be much more difficult to find such a punchy title.

As for the specific acts, I feel as though the Blumberg template is most applicable to the different stories since it offers more flexibility than the focus sentence and the Wheeler template. For the first act, the filled Blumberg template would be “I’m doing a story about a boy’s relationships to high school parties, which is interesting because his perspective completely changes.” Another element to the story that makes it interesting, but isn’t a major theme of the piece, is that the boy didn’t seem to realize how much of a switch his perspective took until he was actually being interviewed. For the second act, the filled template would be “I’m doing a story about a woman’s experience confronting racism, which is interesting because it ties into her family history and her relationship with her mother.” This act is the most different from the rest, because it seems to have more to do with Sasheer Zamata’s family and the cultural context in which she and her mother were brought up. It still manages to fit into the larger story of the episode because it revolves around Zamata’s understanding being shifted after her perspective on the topic was changed. Additionally, the interplay between her narrative and her mom’s was an interesting take on the “when you’re older” part of the theme. For the final act, the template would be completed as “I’m doing a story about this man’s experience with Alzheimer’s, which is interesting because he has a unique take on how to deal with his memory loss.” This one is fairly straightforward, as most of the act is devoted to explaining who the man is and how he went about deconstructing analog clock notation.

All of these acts tie into the larger story of understanding and perception because they showed different ways in which people change as they grow into different stages of their lives. To borrow the final element of Wheeler’s template, these stories are relatable to every human on the face of the planet because everyone grows old, and pretty much everyone has had an experience where they thought they understood something until they grew older and realized that their perspective had changed. The stories themselves somewhat resist being categorized in these templates because mostly they’re based more off explaining a change rather than following a narrative, yet they still all contain a topic and a reason for being interesting.

The podcasts I chose for this blog post were three episodes of This American Life: listened to back-to-back in the airplane back home for spring break. They were episode 636: “I Thought It Would Be Easier,” episode 638: “Rom-Com,” and episode 635: “Chip in My Brain.” All of these podcasts have elements that reflect the notes we took on the podcasting process, especially in terms of story structure and the way the respective themes are presented. While This American Life is a relatively by-the-book inquiry-based podcast (quite literally, in fact, since it is one of the podcasts featured in Out on the Wire), two of these three episodes have a somewhat unconventional format. While the typical This American Life episode has three or four acts that focus on different aspects or interpretations of an overlying theme, episode 636 only has two acts, with each one focusing on how politicians from both of the primary American political parties are getting by a year into Trump’s presidency. Episode 635 forgoes the multiple-act structure and spends the entire run of the podcast detailing the story of a boy’s indoctrination into a two-person cult. Despite the variant structures of these podcasts, they still demonstrate the core organizational elements we outlined in class. They begin their narratives by introducing characters, framing a conflict, and detailing an event or issue that leads to action. Episode 638 goes about this in a fairly conventional way for the podcast, in that it has several stories all based around the concept of romantic comedy; each act is a different take on the “rom-com” that involves simple but dynamic characters engaging in activities motivated by issues that arise in their lives. Episode 635 does this in an even simpler way, since there are fewer characters and inciting incidents given by the fact that it is only one story instead of several. That being said, the narrative is much more dynamic, since it has the entire hour to grow and develop. Regardless, it still follows the basic podcast structure.

The music in all the podcasts also follows the guidelines we laid out in class, in that they appear as “white space” to give the listener a break, while also acting as a way to orient our emotions. The music in all three of the podcasts is relatively minor, to the extent that I have trouble remembering any specific song or clip they used in any of the podcasts. This is likely intentional; the music is there to punctuate the stories, not overshadow them. While I do not remember any of the songs, I remember vividly the emotions I felt listening to the different stories. I am actually quite curious as to how much thought went in to choosing the music and sound clips, since they seem to perfectly thread the needle between effectively amplifying the mood while being forgettable enough to not weigh down the podcast or get in the way of the narrative. That being said, having a really great song in the middle of a podcast does not seem like the kind of thing that could take away from the story. I guess the work they put in to finding music is secondary to crafting the story though, so having good music is not much of a concern. One thing I often pick up on while listening to This American Life is that the songs they put at the end of the podcast always have lyrics that relate in some way to the theme, and are almost always lighthearted regardless of how serious or depressing the last act is. I see the value of ending the podcast on a good note, though.

As far as how these stories must have been pitched, I can easily envision how each one must have been presented. For 636, there must be countless stories of politicians having trouble with seemingly simple things, so getting a few stories from across the aisle and presenting them as emulating Trump’s famous “I thought it would be easier” quote seems like a no-brainer. With 638, they often do a romance-themed episode for Valentine’s day, so compiling romance stories and spinning them so that they are reminiscent of rom-com movies also seems pretty intuitive. As for 635, the story itself is so outrageous that it almost seems to have written itself. It has a clear timeline, a compelling cast of characters, and an intriguing conflict. Best of all, it lends itself to larger themes of growing up and dealing with the past. All of the questions that I had as a listener were asked at one point or another in interviews, and it ultimately led to a satisfying conclusion.

This political remix video takes a Walmart advertisement and, through the use of audio adjustment and interspersed clips from The Terminator (1984), turns it into a mock fascistic propaganda piece that looks like it could have come straight from Skynet itself. The Walmart ad used in the remix video is titled “I am a Factory.” The ad consists of a monologue from the first-person perspective of a factory as shots of decrepit factories and old footage of things reminiscent of industry (a rocket launching, cars being made on an assembly line) punctuate the factory’s claims of how it once used to be great. As the monologue shifts from talking about the past to talking about the future, the visual footage changes to portray happy factory workers and active industrial processes. The ad flashes some statements about how Walmart is committed to supporting local industries, and then the monologue closes out with the message “work is a beautiful thing.”

In the remixed video, as soon as the monologue shifts from the past to the present/future, the voice gets perceptively deeper and more filtered, as if it was being said by a machine. The music also takes a turn, becoming more sinister. Both of these aspects of the audio work to shift the implications of the monologue; while the original speech was meant to inspire hope for the future of the American industry, the edited version makes it sound like a grim warning. It’s also not hard to notice some of the dogwhistling present in the ad: while the statement “but I’m still here, and I believe I will rise again” only vaguely suggests the reactionary conservative ideal of traditionalism in the original ad, it becomes a darker portent reminiscent of the kinds of things thrown around by radical nationalist organizations. In this context, the statement immediately following, “we will build things, and build families, and build dreams,” sounds like a fascist slogan that seems like it belongs on signs held by red-faced crowds shouting “blood and soil.”

The remixed video also intersperses clips from The Terminator showing the titular robots being made by similar industrial processes as the one depicted in the ad. One of the final shots, which reveals a completed Terminator after the monologue states “it’s time to get back to what America does best” conveys a scathing critique on American industry and large corporations. The juxtaposition between the monologue and the Terminator clips suggests that the American industry is best at making things that kill people (a critique on both poor work environments and the military-industrial complex), and that American capitalistic ideals are turning factory workers themselves into selfless automatons. Finally, the recut ad closes out on Arnold Schwarzenegger’s iconic red-eyed stare as the altered voice asserts that “work is a beautiful thing.” A large quantity of theoretical work has been done on the aesthetics of fascism, but for the sake of brevity all that needs to be said about the combination of the connotations of the statement, the cultural context from which The Terminator was created, and the juxtaposition of the two in an edited Walmart ad is that it succinctly ties up everything previously outlined in this blog post in a way that’s both humorously absurd yet undoubtedly a little haunting.

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/foodfeatures/meat/

Robert Kunzig and Douglas Emlen, the authors of “The Carnivore’s Dilemma” and “Astonishing Weaponry of the Dung Beetle,” respectively, both crafted essays that involve transforming heady research into something digestible to the general public, while still managing to draw important conclusions from the data. This is not always easy, and fortunately for Kunzig and Emlen, they’re both writing for publications generally targeted for people who are interested in relatively nuanced ideas. Both the authors form concrete connections between the research they are attempting to communicate and popular events and concepts, so that the reader has a strong frame of reference to draw on. For instance, Kunzig associates his research with the larger public discourse on factory farming and consumerism, so the reader can better understand where his points lie in the bigger picture; Emlen relates his description of dung beetle combat to larger global conflicts, so that the reader can draw inferences from the analogy. Additionally, both of the writers incorporate a certain reversal or subversion of expectations to keep the reader hooked and interested in the ideas they are trying to convey. That being said, their strategies differ in some notable ways: Kunzig, in what was likely an effort to humanize a side that has mostly been seen as an antagonist in the public stage, presents his data as ideas posited by actual people—specifically, the cattle-feeders he talked to. Emlen, on the other hand, provides data on dung beetles in order to prove an entirely different point—the beetles weren’t important, but the similarities between them and us were. While both of the writers used fairly straightforward strategies to make the research interesting to the reader, there were some areas where the fell short. Kunzig cited topics that were relevant to the public discussion of the meat industry, but his only conclusion was that people ought to be aware that the issue is more nuanced than it seems; a valuable point, for sure, but it’s fair to say that a large quantity of people interested enough to read such an essay would probably be aware that the issue isn’t black and white. As for Emlen, his essay makes a fairly abrupt change from beetles to human conflict; he crafted an interesting metaphor, but didn’t really take it any further than connecting the bugs to people. Perhaps if he went back to talking about beetles at the end of the essay and left the conclusive statement in the last paragraph unsaid, the reader could come to that conclusion on their own and have a more fulfilling interaction with the essay.

Leslie Jamison, in her piece “In the Shadow of a Fairytale,” tells her story as a stepmother of a child who loves the evil stepmother trope. She begins the feature by explaining how her daughter loves the illusion of mistreatment, and then goes on to explain how evil stepmothers are often presented in children’s fairytales. Later in the article, she goes on to explain the difficulties she faces as a stepmother and compares and contrasts her relationship with her daughter with evil stepmothers and fairytale heroines, and ends the feature by exploring the realities of motherhood, both in the context of remarriage and in general. She also recognizes how her story might only apply to relatively few people (“slightly more than 10 percent of American women might relate!”) but that it relates to ideas and effect almost everyone—women, and also people with mothers.

What Jamison suggests is true in the beginning of the feature is that stepmothers have complicated relationships with their children. She introduces this point by making allusions to classic fairytales that feature evil stepmothers as antagonists, and then elaborates on her history with her daughter. The reader is likely receptive to this idea—if it wasn’t already easy to intuit that stepparents have added dimensions of complexity when it comes to being a parent to a child, many of us are familiar with stories that have villainous stepmothers. Throughout the feature, Jamison shares many personal experiences, which culminate at the end of the piece in the form of the second idea which she also suggests is true: parenting is complicated, family isn’t strictly biological, and mothers are just ordinary women. While this idea might be harder to swallow for some of the more conservative-minded readers, the audience would likely be more receptive to this idea since it is at the end of the piece, after Jamison already shared a number of her experiences being a mother. Sure, many of those experiences would be unique to stepmothers (or mothers who adopt), yet enough of them are similar to the plight of “traditional” motherhood that people who would normally be skeptical of such an idea would be pushed to see things from Jamison’s point of view.

While the reader may be receptive to the two ideas Jamison presents in the feature, certain aspects of them conflict with one another. For instance, one may not be able to immediately reconcile the idea that stepmom’s have a uniquely complicated relationship with their daughter with the idea that motherhood in and of itself is a unique experience. However, Jamison synthesizes these topics with the overarching theme of the piece, which is that mothers, step or otherwise, are just people and that every mother has a complex relationship with their child.

https://afriendofmine.nl/

While there aren’t any guidelines as to what one’s portfolio website ought to be, A Friend of Mine feels like how a portfolio website should. The user interface is sharp but minimal, allowing the displayed work to take center stage. Upon entering the website, you are greeted with a simple “Hello” and an introduction from the organization. There is no load time, no garish visuals, and best of all no distracting audio (whoever autoplays music in 2018 needs to get their internet license revoked). While “advertising for the digital age” is a fairly banal slogan, it successfully conveys two important ideas: A Friend of Mine is an advertising agency, and they’re a contemporary company that works primarily on the web.

The site itself has a relatively clean, simplistic design, making it easy to navigate without having any visual clutter. On the far left and right of the window are stylized links to the company’s “work” page (showing their recent projects) and the “about” section, respectively. Additionally, clicking these links depicts the website scrolling from one page to another, which gives the website a sense of tangibility—it’s as if you’re interacting with a physical object. That being said, the transition was a little choppy on my computer, which kind of broke the immersion. That just goes to show how fine a line portfolio websites must walk between having an engaging interface and hurting the user experience. Regardless, I imagine the transitions would look pretty slick when displayed as they were intended.

Back on the main page, the first things one sees when scrolling down are two boxes. The left is labeled “get to know us” followed by “Giving a shit since 2011.” accompanied by a trendy-looking Netherlander smiling and resting his arm on what appears to be a miniature prop column. The casual language and imagery in this box works to establish A Friend of Mine as a young, hip company that works with other young, hip companies that do things targeted to young, hip people. The second box depicts a cartoon superhero and links to their latest project. While the image doesn’t really fit with the rest of the website, it shows the viewer front-and-center what they’re working on and what it looks like. Further down is a bar of scrolling sans-serif text which reads “less talkie, more walkie,” followed by more boxes with links to the company’s Instagram, a Medium article about their relationship with a large client, and a countdown timer to Friday (which isn’t a link, but cheerily invites you to “come join our Friday drinks!”). All of these elements come together to create a kind of character for A Friend of Mine. Even though the website is visually basic, the clean design, casual language, and the prominence of the company’s projects resonate with one another to give the viewer a very clear idea of what A Friend of Mine is all about. With only a handful of pictures and a text on a white backdrop, the company was able to bill itself as a laid-back, hip ad company that takes its work seriously but still knows how to have a good time.