Magpie Journals #1: The Mojito Games

Here I am, doing this public journaling because I’m getting burnt out on trying, or waiting for “the new Twitter”. These will probably come out on Mondays because normally I have Mondays off from my Day Job.

Personal:

A little bit ago, I had a surprise health issue pop up. While relatively minor it still scared me. Ever since I’ve been slowly trying to change. Less iced tea, more water. More veggies, fewer simple carbs. More yoga, less scrolling through Instagram. It’s an agonizingly slow transition, but one that has benefited my mental health over the last month or so.

One tiny piece of light through the struggle has been watching our little patio garden grow. We’re not growing much, but the thing that I love is my Mojito Games Pot. In switching from tea to water, I realized the effects of throwing mint and lemon into some carbonated water would be more enjoyable for me. So I added three types of mint to a pot so they’d be more concerned with fighting each other than fighting to escape the pot. Now I just pop out onto the patio and pick a few mint leaves to make my water a little more pleasant. If I could grow a lemon tree in an apartment in New Jersey, that would be the next step in my long game.

I share this to say, there are ways to find happiness in stressful change. We just have to practice looking for it.

Podcast Listening

Over the weekend I did a Podcast Marathon. If you follow me over on Instagram, you can see when these happen. I don't have a routine for these, but man. I love spending a day or two just listening to podcasts for 6+ hours. If you ever want to join me, leave a comment. I can definitely organize these.

When I do an intentional marathon, I try to pick a little bit of everything. It’s hard to stay on top of as many podcasts as are out there - one of the reasons why I have this blog. Most of us have more to worry about than podcasts, and since I'm so obsessed let my obsession help you.

1. Lost Women of Science: Which I reviewed Here. They are doing some mini-episodes. This one was on Alessandra Giliani.
2. Where There’s Woke: A look at the scare patterns through the history of the US.
3. How to Do the Pot: Many of these episodes are short, so I did a mini-review here. As more and more states legalize in the US this is a great podcast to get your feet wet with cannabis.
4. Taboo Science: recommended by Arielle Nissenblatt* I listened to an episode from 2020 on acne, since I have a history with the condition.
5. A Murder Without End: I listened to the first episode of a story telling us about how a murder in Jacksonville Florida, led to one of the longest extradition battles in British legal history
6. Art of History: I listened to the episode on Gericault’s Raft of the Medusa. There are content warnings for this episode.
7. Radio Lab: The episode “Man Against Horse” is fascinating and honestly makes me question a lot of my life choices.
8. Who Shat on the Floor at My Wedding?: I caved to the meme-nature of this podcast. A 13-episode saga exploring exactly the title.

Podcasting Industry:

Happy Birthday, Podcasting!

Podcasting started 20 years ago, if you want to read more about that specifically head over to this edition of Podnews.

I often refer back to my theatre background for why I’m able to do this criticism the way I do - but I’m always shocked by how young podcasting is. It's especially weird because I listen to podcasts on most days, so to have this something permeate my life that's younger than me is one of those "oh" moments.

I’ve had private conversations about it and how people think podcasting isn’t really that young. It's growing fast for how young it is. While I know podcasting is an extension of radio, I stepped from a field where we had to start in Ancient Greece with its history. The ability to physically record sound started in maybe the 1870s, The radio is an invention from the 1890s. Film started in the 1880s. If Podcasting was human, it isn’t even old enough to rent a car in the United States. The evolution of technology in the past 200 years has been absolutely wild. I think we're used to it now, but this is one of those moments that makes me think twice about how I'm looking at the medium and the industry.

Did your place in podcasting even exist five years ago? Ten? Did you listen to a podcast fifteen years ago? I don't know if I did. I was in high school, and I didn't start listening to podcasts seriously until college.

Which makes it all the more exciting for everyone involved. It might be frustrating because we’re all scraping for limited resources and attention but it also means that if we stick with it, we can make it really, really good. We can impact the art form, and the industry as a whole. So, I hope you stick with it and with me to see where we all go together.

The Monthly Magpie

While I’m incorporating these journals into my weekly life, I still have a subscription option for The Monthly Magpie. It comes out the first Friday of every month and gives updates straight to your inbox.

The Monthly Magpie Stats:  

Subscribers: 125 (No growth from June)

Open Rate: 61%

What do you want to see?

As I’ve grown Magpie, I have changed things, started things, teased things. I want to make this a place people can come to for podcast reviews but now I’m trying to figure out how to deal with the loss of that connection Twitter was giving me. So, what do you want to see from these journals?

Thanks for reading! The easiest way to support me is to subscribe to The Monthly Magpie, but if you want you can throw me some money over at my Ko-Fi. It's set up like a tip jar, so there's no pressure. It's just there.