Things I've Been Enjoying Lately (2020 Edition)
Over the pandemic, I began keeping a list of articles that I wanted to remember and hold onto. It began growing in about July 2020 to the present (at the time of writing it is May 2021; editor me is here to point out that it is now July), and though it is maybe more of a time capsule for the past year, I do think the articles are worth sharing and enjoying. Some inspired deep thoughts and quiet contemplation, and others inspired laughs and good feelings. This collected list makes up most of the below though there are some recent additions mixed in. Part of the process of putting together this list has been to revisit the articles I had saved as a way to remind myself what I enjoyed the first time around, and let me say, there are some real gems.
Sometime during this past fall, I made a series of collages for my computer using found images from my once active tumblr and screenshots saved over the years. Five were for me, and one was for a friend. These became the backgrounds for my computer desktops and provided a good amount of joy, for the making and the final product. Each captured a different theme to serve as the background for particular thoughts or projects, as a way to focus my attention when on a certain screen. For my desktop computer, I created a compilation that is perhaps my favorite of them all, and that is the one opening this post.
I recommend pulling up a comfy chair and grabbing a drink, a tea, maybe a wine, and perhaps a snack to fuel the reading that awaits you.
THINGS I’VE BEEN READING
“On Endurance: A Call to Action (7/1/21)” by Seminary Co-op
Today, Seminary Co-op bookstore in Chicago, announced that they will be reopening their stores to customers on June 12, 2021. I am overjoyed to hear this news as their fate was up in the air, like so many bookstores last year, and it is a joy to hear that they’ve weathered the storm with the help of their customers and community. I saved this as I felt like it spoke elegantly about the value of bookstores. How much they mean to our communities, and to me personally. I very distinctly remember the line, first read as a child, “when in doubt, go to the library,” spoken by Ron about Hermione and how she turns to books during times of need. I feel like I too looked to books for guidance over this year and to the experiences of those who had lived through “unprecedented times”, a phrase I have come to hate, and found that while it did not make the situation any less hard or scary or frustrating, it was nice to have a conversation with the voices of the past. It’s also comforting, in a way, to know that the booksellers at Seminary Co-op also took to the books for help. (If you want to help out them and other bookstores, and are looking for places to start, please take a look at my “Guide to Independent Bookshops”.)
So instead, we acknowledge the extraordinary nature of this moment, when the stacks remain closed and two of the pursuits that most define our work – creating a world-class browsing experience and drawing community together over our shared love of books – are unavailable. This is not a challenge any of us anticipated or were prepared to face.
But we have manuals for this. Our stores are filled with them. While some of this is new, much of it is not, as an afternoon browsing these manuals shows us. Now as ever, it is critical to focus on our core values, what so many of us have gleaned from these volumes. If we were to consult our libraries, we might find some insight, solace, or wisdom, some much-needed perspective from the past to interpret the present and dream of a future. George Eliot hoped her readers might attain "a clearer conception and a more active admiration of those vital elements which bind men together." We ardently believe that the volumes on our shelves – from Eliot to hooks to Arendt, to name a few – can all elucidate those vital elements.
“Before Brexit, Grenfell, Covid-19… Ali Smith on writing four novels in four years” by Ali Smith for The Guardian
I have sent this article to so many people. I continue to think about it in the same way that I continue to think about her seasonal quartet and the amazing feat that are these books. I love how she talks about getting the idea for the quartet, and wondering if it was possible to write and publish a book in a year, and also the way in which she takes us around the British Library as she looks at handwritten manuscripts from Katherine Mansfield to Keats, and the ways in which they edited and wrote on the page. It feels so personal to be let into the writing process by those whom we’ve come to admire and respect, and I think Smith deserves to be on that list as she gives us glimpses into her own process and brilliance. As I eagerly awaited the publication of Summer last summer, the final book of the quartet and the one that hit the hardest as it dealt with the pandemic, I came to the realization as I read the last page that she’s not a writer for everyone, but if she’s for you, her words will spin a tale around you that you don’t want to disentangle.
I’d had a plan for decades, since I began writing anything at all, to try, at some point, to do four connected but separate books about the seasons. I suggested it now. I’d try to write one a year, deliver one a year. I’d start with Autumn, so we could end on the open leaf, the long light days of summer. If we did it like this, under time conditions, a kind of experiment sourced in cyclic time but moving forward through time simultaneously, it’d surely become about not just how story works but also how form, and society, and contemporary language itself – given that the novel form one way or another is always about all of these things – move and progress over a given time.
“The Sunday Paper: Mary and Julian Navey” by Desmond and Dempsey
In my notes at the time of reading, I wrote that I “will need to copy a couple of their answers into my journal to remember” and how this article was a “wonderful capture of how lockdown has been for people and the good that has come out of it.” Now current me, on reflection, realized that I never actually wrote down the quotes that spoke so highly to me at the time of reading so was left wondering which ones sparked at the time, but what I do remember is that it left me with a feeling of warmth post-reading, and now when I think back, I think it touches on the ways that lockdown provided some time for reconnection with our surroundings and ourselves. It does feel a bit like a capsule of that time.
“Don’t Ask Me About My Coleslaw” by Amateur Gourmet
This is exactly what it sounds like: an article about coleslaw. It is less of a recipe and more of a “how to” on discovering your own coleslaw recipe and ways to be adaptable. As someone who recently had a grill arrive for the balcony, I think there will be many meals made on the grill, probably supported by different coleslaws and potato salads, so if you too find yourself looking for new takes on summer favorites, maybe this will serve as a fun and insightful read.
“I’ve Turned To Love”: Jake Gyllenhaal On Having Children, Turning 40 & Being British at Heart” by Olivia Marks for British Vogue
When it comes to celebrity interviews, most feel like they miss the mark and spend more time describing the clothes the interviewee wore, and less about anything that matters. That being acknowledged, I am still a sucker for an interview with an actor, or writer, or personality I like, which is probably why I continue to love and praise Desert Island Discs as I think it not only introduces its listeners to new and familiar names, but there is depth to the interview. There are countless other podcast/radio interview shows I listen to which hit this mark so wonderfully. What this article did that I liked was that it went a bit deeper than most fashion magazine interviews and touched on subjects like sensitivity and male friendships, which I don’t think get talked about enough. Does it still hit some of those surface topics one might expect in Vogue, yeah it does, but did I enjoy the read, yes I did.
“Artist Knits ‘Temperature Scarf’ To Track Climate Change Everyday for a Whole Year” for My Modern Met
Writer Josie George started knitting her temperature scarf in January 2020. Initially it was “as a way to engage with the effects of climate change. She discovered her experience of weather patterns often paralleled her own life and emotions. As an author and artist, George's many projects center around awareness of her surrounding environment.” I followed her journey month by month on Twitter, and not only was it lovely to see the beautiful pattern that was emerging, it was also such a tangible way to track the passing of time. I think it is a really interesting project to embark on as a way to record a year, the weather patterns, and your place within it all. It is a project that I might someday want to embark on, maybe as a way to capture the seasons of multiple locations.
“Hilary Mantel: ‘Being a novelist is no fun. But fun isn’t high on my list’” for The Guardian
The final book of Hilary Mantel’s Cromwell series, The Mirror and the Light, came out last year in a beautiful edition, as did a compilation of her London Review of Books articles called Mantel Pieces (brilliant title), and after the publication of both, Mantel sat down to process the end of this series and offer some good writing advice when asked questions by other famous writers, actors, and figures. I have a folder of screenshots from this interview that offer so many insightful nuggets that I hope will offer inspiration or guidance. I also particularly enjoyed her discussion of writing the series. Mantel talks about how even though she thought about Thomas Cromwell in her 20s, she wasn’t able to write about him then, for she explains “experience weighs heavy.” The look of Cromwell in his portraits portrays a man of life and experience, and she too needed to live life to gain her own experiences. She also likes to live through her character’s senses, and explains how that informs the story:
Mysteriously, while I was writing this book it was always winter, always on the verge of dark; there must have been spring, but the seasons began to merge.
I remember sitting on the couch while I read this article, in what is now our old apartment, in an attempt to decrease the open tabs on my computer, which is always too many, and the way Mantel writes about writing and story and inspiration really hit me in that moment. I probably do a lot more thinking about my writing than actually writing but sometimes reading about the process of other writers feels comforting as, most of the time, the act of doing the work stems from a similar place of pushing oneself to type down the ideas that are floating around in one’s head, and how sometimes, that is the hardest part of all.
“A long story: why record numbers of readers turned to doorstopper classics in lockdown” by Alice Vincent for Penguin UK
This article was one of the inspirations behind my 2021 reading goal of tackling my doorstopper books: the ones over 500 pages that sometimes sit on the shelf untouched even though I have every interest and intention to read. I also liked that this was a challenge that many readers took on during lockdown as a way to pass the time, as a challenge that felt achievable and offered a tangible end, and maybe as a way to connect to a classic’s subject matter in a new way. Some of the people quoted say that reading long novels in 50 page chunks is a way for the process to feel less daunting, like you’re making progress, and how a big book can change you, as “you are relying on the author to take you through a long journey.”
“Michael Cunningham on Virginia Woolf’s Literary Revolution” by Michael Cunningham for the New York Times
There was a moment last year - now, don’t ask me when because my sense of when things occurred last year has become muddled and pushed together - when I saw an article talking about how more and more people had taken to reading Mrs. Dalloway during quarantines. I find that each year I tend to turn to Woolf when I need her, reading a new work, maybe two. Last summer I was reading the excellent biography Square Haunting, in which she was one of the featured women, and I too, found the experience of reading about women of the past to be a big comfort. I wonder if that’s why so many people were turning to her most famous work. Michael Cunningham, author of The Hours, the novel based off Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway, is well acquainted with the work. In this article, he talks about the mechanics of the novel and what continues to make it so groundbreaking. One element that I’ve become more fascinated with is how the novel was written, and set, after WWI. It sneaks in, particularly in Septimus, but it is also in the background of life, a bit like a ghost that is haunting Clarissa and London as it deems to go back to normal. It makes me wonder what novels will talk about the pandemic. Whether or not it will be referenced by name or by remarks that readers of today will recognize as being in response to these events but which might go unnoticed by future audiences.
“Mrs. Dalloway” would be a book about a London that had been changed forever, superimposed over a London determined to get back to business as usual, as quickly as possible. Clarissa would stand in for all those who still believed in flowers and parties; Septimus for those who’d been harmed beyond any powers of recovery. The novel would also mark the early period of a literary career that would change forever the ways in which novels are written, and read. It’s an intricately wrought portrait of a place and a moment, and a stunningly acute depiction of the multifarious experience of living a life, anywhere, at any time.
“A Lifetime of Lessons in ‘Mrs. Dalloway’” by Jenny Offill for The New Yorker
Jenny Offill, author of The Department of Speculation and Weather, traces the ways in which her perception of Mrs. Dalloway has shifted throughout her life. (Funny enough, I went to the Weather book event at Skylight Books back in early 2020, and it was one of the last in person events I went to.) The article touches on the ways in which books can change as we read them, as we change, as our relationships to the material changes. I have noticed this in my own life with books I chose to reread and it makes me curious on what books will carry the narrative of my life as I get older.
In 1916, Virginia Woolf wrote about a peculiarity that runs through all real works of art. The books of certain writers (she was speaking of Charlotte Brontë at the time) seem to shape-shift with each reading. The plot might become comfortingly familiar, but the emotional revelations within it change. Scenes once passed over as unimportant begin to prickle with new meaning, as if time itself had been the missing ingredient for understanding them. Woolf went on to describe the works she returned to again and again: “At each fresh reading one notices some change in them, as if the sap of life ran in their leaves, and with skies and plants they had the power to alter their shape and colour from season to season. To write down one’s impressions of Hamlet as one reads it year after year, would be virtually to record one’s own autobiography, for as we know more of life, so Shakespeare comments upon what we know."
“The Pram in the Hall" by Laura Freeman on Barbara Hepworth, A Pictorial Autobiography for Slightly Foxed
This article was part of the 2021 Spring edition of Slightly Foxed (edition 69), which is a quarterly literary journal that I’ve followed on and off since first discovering it in Heffers in Cambridge; but, it wasn’t until last summer that I finally subscribed to the quarterly. What I love about it is the way the articles are not only about books, most of which I am not familiar with, so there are always discoveries waiting to be made, but also the way that people weave their lives with the books, and the books with their lives. I remember one article from that very first edition I bought about what it was like to work at the Royal Society of Literature, and remembering folding down the corner so I could return to it again. This article that I want to share today was read in our new apartment, one evening when I had climbed into bed with the desire to read but unsure if my mind and eyes would allow me to focus. The thing that struck me about it is the way in which other writers and creators, and in particular, other women writers and creators, have also had trouble carving out time for their work, especially with the weight of domesticity, or motherhood, or being a good partner/wife, or making an income, or or or, resting on her shoulders. While I was lying in bed and thinking about how often so many things come before me and my projects, I clung to the notion of doing work for thirty minutes. It felt achievable, and realistic, to devote thirty minutes a day to my creativities, and then over time the bulk of work would grow. Much like working through a doorstopper book. So while it doesn’t always feel like I’m achieving the goals I wish to meet, showing up in small windows to make some forward momentum, does feel like maybe I’m making some kind of progress, and hopefully pushing away the feelings of doubt.
‘Neither a borrower nor a lender be,’ my grandfather used to say gravely. His caution wasn’t about money. It was about books. Do not lend a book you will want back and do not borrow one you will be sorry to return. Sound advice. Not that I’ve kept to it. […] I lent my copy of Barbara Hepworth’s A Pictorial Autobiography to an illustrator friend who, for reasons of distance and diaries, I rarely see. We had been talking about children and creativity and whether one must necessarily restrict the other: the easel, the laptop, the pram in the hall. I said she must read Hepworth and posted her my copy. It arrived. She thanked me. After that: nothing. Nothing for months and months and a year, and for months after that. I nursed a perverse and very British grievance. I couldn’t possibly ask for it back, because that would be rude. Instead, I did the proper and polite thing of raining resentment, curses and hellfire on her head every time my eye caught the gap in the bookcase.
“Le Carré’s death touched me. It feels like the grownups are leaving the room” by Jonathan Freedland for The Guardian
For many, 2020 was the year that we collectively looked at our mortality differently, or for some, maybe considered it for the first time. What I found interesting about this article was that it not only touches on how we mourn for public figure who’s work or presence has influenced our lives but also for those close to us. It is an opinion piece, as the writer attempts to process the loss of John Le Carré, and can serve as a meditation for the reader on the way we process and think about our own grief.
“Postcard-Perfect Scenes, Constructed From Memory and Scraps of Paper” for the New York Times
Incredibly beautiful collages made by photographer Vik Muniz that captures the feeling of cities that we haven’t traveled to or seen recently. The collages are all made from old postcards with vibrant colors that bring the landscapes to life. I find his work to be transportive in a way that captures the spirit of a place, more so than a picture perfect reality, though he does a pretty good job of creating that too.
“Thank God for the Poets” by Margaret Renki for the New York Times
There is so much I could say about this article but I think I will save much of it and leave you, dear reader, to discover it for yourself. This article was sent to me back in April - the line “April was the cruelest month” comes to mind as I sit trying to write this, which I think might displease T.S. Eliot to have it used out of context - and it really sat with me. I began to think a lot about poetry. The brilliant ways in which it captures the fleeting and sometimes can explain the things we can’t yet speak. At the top of our new bookshelves sits the poetry. On closer reflection, I think almost all of the collections are mine, from the beautiful leather bound edition that was a birthday gift that year in Quebec, to the poets I read in college, to the collections gifted and picked out in San Francisco after graduation, to the ones I’ve had since I was a teen. There have been many moments in my life when I look to the poets for answers, comfort, or understanding. Somehow, I know that they’ll always be there, and that each time I approach a poem, my understanding of it will change, as I have changed and my knowledge has changed. After reading this article, I took to looking at this shelf and wondering which poet was the one to read for this moment. Keats came to mind. My edition is this thick old Oxford edition of all his collected works. That didn’t seem right. I want something that fits in a pocket and can be carried around, so if Keats it shall be, then perhaps a smaller edition must be found.
Thank God for our poets, here in the mildness of April and in the winter storms alike, who help us find the words our own tongues feel too swollen to speak. Thank God for the poets who teach our blinkered eyes to see these gifts the world has given us, and what we owe it in return.
WHAT I'VE BEEN WATCHING
“A Video for 2020” by Lizzy Hadfield
The viewer is taken along by narration from Intimations by Zadie Smith, her pandemic collection of essays, while watching scenes of lockdown, of domesticity, of home. Both images and words hit so close to home on the experience that was experienced by all of us, maybe not all of it applying to you, but all of it applying to us as a collective. I found the video comforting and yet also a marker for these times, which even now has already shifted into a different version of experience. It’s a time capsule that feels so close and yet, with each day, feels a little further away as we wait to see what will happen next.
“The Japanese Artist Who Sends His Work to Space” for The New Yorker
Do you ever find yourself wondering how flowers could be avant-garde? Azuma Makoto’s use of plants is extraordinary. He creates structures that are not only beautiful, but are also pushed to the limit of what you would even consider a flower arrangement to be. He submerges flowers underwater to observe the transformation that takes place when the environment is altered. He allows structures to wilt and die to observe the beauty of life. He even sends flowers into space. It is a magical short, and inspired visions for what I hope the Bloom Report might be able to someday become.
“Re-engineering the Brown Betty teapot” for the Victoria and Albert Museum
Sometime last year I came across information about the re-engineering of the Brown Betty teapot. Now, I would consider myself well versed in the ways of teapots, as the owner of a few Brown Betty’s and as someone who uses at least two teapots a day, but I will admit that I hadn’t ever really thought about what, how, and if, the design could be improved. That’s where Ian McIntyre comes in. Ian spent three years researching the Brown Betty, pulling together as much of the story around the teapot and its design features as he could. Article Magazine recently did a story about the process of the re-engineering, which includes the introduction of old features, such as the non-drip spout, a locking lid, a round bowl shape which is supposed to be the perfect shape for brewing loose leaf tea, and a handle that sets your fingers back from the body so they don’t burn. The design looks pretty perfect. It also makes me think about the other everyday items I use all the time, which I would be lost without, but whose design I have never fully considered. Ian’s teapot is now in the V&A Museum as part of their permanent collection.
On a personal level, the project had great meaning for McIntyre, which is probably why he delivered such an outstanding piece of design. “I feel that the Brown Betty is a counterpoint to the seemingly unending barrage of new products being launched and discontinued daily in the design industry. I feel that this story reflects a dedication to a material, or a design, and the refinement of a process that has given rise to a classic, not because of nostalgia, but because it’s the best at what it does.”
“The Bee Gees: How Can You Mend A Broken Heart” Documentary
I think I may have talked to everyone about this doc. I watched it one night in the old apartment and was completely captivated. I only really knew about disco era Bee Gees of “You Should Be Dancing” and “Night Fever.” I didn’t even know they were brothers, and that seems like a basic fact. I learned so much about the Bee Gees and that they were so much more than disco. They were constantly evolving from being part of the British Invasion to their Miami years and discovering the falsetto to their songwriter years. It is not only well made but it has a lot of good songs, many of which I hadn’t heard. It very well might add a boogie to your step.
“Day’s Delights” by Elizabeth Day
This is technically a 2021 thing I’ve been enjoying lately, and to be more precise, one from the past three weeks. Elizabeth Day is an author, journalist, podcaster, who has recently begun hosting short videos on her Instagram channel to discuss the things she’s been enjoying, or in other terms, her delights. This is the first of her videos I watched though I have become familiar with her written work after reading How to Fail at the end of last year, after being a casual podcast listener. (I remember one time being stuck on the 101 on my way to Malibu and listening to her podcast, also titled How to Fail, and being ever so taken.) But there is something special to hearing someone talk about their recent delights, from book recommendations to clothing items to perhaps a food or a jar of flowers, that I find absorbing and calming. I also think she has excellent book taste so I am always interested in what books I should place on my radar.
"The Ponds" Documentary
Back in February 2019, six months after my first swim at the Hampstead Ladies’ Pond, I emailed the director of a new documentary titled The Ponds to ask if there would be a US release date. At the time I was told that unfortunately no, there were no plans at that time. Fast forward to April 2020, when I receive an email from the same director letting me know that the documentary was now available stateside via vimeo. The pandemic was still very fresh and I had every intention to watch the film then, but honestly, I forgot about it. That is, until the other day - at the time of writing it is now mid-June 2021 - when we were discussing the far off idea of traveling somewhere else. My mind went to London and then today, the subject came full force into my mind as I ran an afternoon bath, my feet in the cold water and my mind suddenly taken to the Ladies’ Pond. You may be asking yourself a couple questions, such as 1) what is this documentary about?, and 2) what is this Ladies’ Pond. The Ponds is a documentary set around the Hampstead Heath ponds where swimmers gather year round to swim. There are three ponds: Men’s, Ladies’, and Mixed. I wrote about my experience at the Ladies’ pond in much greater depth last year. So today, I brewed myself a cup of tea with one of the last square shortbreads from Te Company, and I sat completely taken by the documentary. I found it moving, beautiful, heartwarming, yearnful, and all around transportive. I wish so much that there was a door that would allow me to step into places far away and be able to partake in the activities I so miss, in the places that call to me. I wish one such doorway, as I would hope to have a few, would take me to Hampstead Heath so I could swim a morning lap around the pond. I have never had the chance to be an outdoor winter swimmer but this documentary and stories from other wild swimmers makes me want to try someday.
WHAT I'VE BEEN LISTENING TO
“Missing Sounds of New York: An Auditory Love Letter to New Yorkers” by NYPL Staff
This collection of recordings came out early pandemic. It is an album of audio landscapes that takes you through the sounds of New York City. And sometimes inspires memories that brings you back to your own relationship with the city, sometimes the smells of the street, or the feeling of a cab swooshing by. I became very used to the city sounds outside my window - of the cars, the helicopters, the sirens, the lone human voice that would rise above the pitch - but I would also spend days dreaming about the far off places that I missed, the ones I would spend daydreaming about. This collection was able to bring me back to those places. Even though my feet were planted on the hardwood floor and my elbows perched on the kitchen table, my mind was somewhere else for a moment. I am also not someone who can concentrate when I’m able to pick out individual sounds like the lyrics to a sound or a nearby conversation but if it all rises to a certain point, that distant murmur of conversation, glassware and dishes clashing, doors opening and closing, and if it all becomes indistinguishable, well, then I am able to get lost in my thoughts with the sound moving around me. That’s why when the perfect environment in a bar or coffee shop is reached, it is the perfect place to read or write; and to me, this collection hits that perfect balance.
Sting and Shaggy: NPR Music Tiny Desk Concert by NPR Music
Though this is from 2019, I first listened to it in 2020, and then on repeat for various times throughout the year. It then came on after another video the other day and I sat listening to the mini-concert again. I especially like the mashup of “Englishman / Jamaican in New York.” There is a mellowness to Sting that sometimes gets overlooked or written off but I find his music enjoyable and calming. His acoustic music often reminds me of times in the past when the songs played during pivotal scenes though this combination feels very much of the present.
“Band on the Run” by Wings and Dua Lipa - “Levitating” / “Don’t Start Now” at the Grammy’s 2021
This would also be classified as an early 2021 find, and you may be asking yourself, “how do these two go together?” The album “Band on the Run” by Wings was rediscovered during the moving process when I found the vinyl in our collection, and was inspired to listen to it. What I found was a bop. It is one that can be listened all the way through and it will keep your attention throughout, maybe even have you singing along to songs that will be new favorites. The song “Mrs Vandebilt” would be added to my 110 driving playlist, along with “Levitating” which has become the song that I want to play as I drive on these winding roads to the new apartment. It’s got that hand clapping rhythm that makes you want to roll down all the windows on a traffic free day. It has a good California vibe to it. And why the Grammy performance? Well, I thoroughly enjoyed the pink sequins and the performance.
The High Low Podcast Finale
The High Low Podcast came to an end in December 2020. It was a society and culture podcast hosted by journalists Dolly Alderton and Pandora Skyes. I have not been the most regular listener of the High Low, but I have found that it has always been there for me when I needed an episode, and I am sad to know that it has come to an end. In a way, I feel like I came to it too late. There is an archive of episodes from the past four years waiting for me, so I guess that’s something. I had been putting off listening to the finale episode and it wasn’t until this week, as I began shuffling to and from the office, a now foreign and sometimes unpleasant journey across two traffic filled freeways, that I began listening. Each time I’ve pulled into my parking spot, I’ve sat in my car for a few extra minutes while a segment finishes, like when they played letters from listeners on how the podcast has either changed or accompanied them over the past four years. It was very moving and emotional to hear these stories, and it made me think of all the things that have lived beside my life, as well as the things that have gotten me through tough and good times. Dolly and Pandora have been the girlfriends you want to meet down at the pub for a bottle of wine, and now that they’ve said farewell, I might need to revisit the podcast from the beginning to find out all the juicy stories that I may have missed.
