For Pod’s Sake!: Week of November 27th
I’m a huge podcast fan (as longtime readers of this blog know), and I’ve decided to start (yet another!) new series just to catch you up on my favorite listens. So here goes:
Donna Summer (Image Source)
Check out Hit Parade’s Chris Molanphy on the fasinating history of disco diva Donna Summer:
Donna Summer was a hit-maker for two decades and a dance floor deity for more than three. Her collaborations with Giorgio Moroder and Pete Bellotte were formative in dance, electronic, and rock music, influencing everyone from David Bowie and Blondie to Madonna and Moby. But the rock establishment was stinting in its appreciation—whether at Comiskey Park in Chicago in 1979 or the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in the 2000s. This month, we examine how Summer became the queen of disco … and how she transcended that role altogether.
Listen Image Source.
Charles Manson (Image Source)
Crazed cult leader Charles Manson died last week at the age of 83, and the Parcast podcast Cults did a two parter on him in September that provides not just the history behind the man, but perhaps, some of the psychology:
[H}ow he turned from a troubled “callous and unemotional” child into an infamous cult leader, where Manson got his inspiration, and what psychological factors molded a murderer so charismatic and manipulative that his murder weapon of choice was not guns, knives, or axes, but other human beings.
Listen to part one below:
Lili’uokalani at Queen Victoria’s Golden Jubilee in 1887 (via Wikicommons)
Over at The History Chicks, learn about Queen Lili’uokalani, the last monarch of Hawaii.
Lili’u Loloku Walania Kamakaeha was born on September 2, 1838. She was given an English name at her baptism, Lydia (which we never used in the podcast) and raised in a Hawaiian tradition called hanai, a sort of adoption, by Abner Paki and his wife, Laura Konia. Hawaii, at Lydia’s birth and for most of her life, was an independent nation, with a legislative government, a constitution, laws, a system of land ownership and Lili’u was a part of the ruling class.
Children who were in the line of succession to the throne were sent to a special Royal School run by American missionaries who had begun coming to Hawaii in the early 1800s. The kids at the school were bilingual in Hawaiian and English, but they also learned western deportment, a whole slew of academics, and how to walk the line between the two cultures. Lili’u also learned music- to play the piano, sing and write-a developed gift that she would use her whole life –writing 160 songs including the classic Hawaiian song of farewell, Aloha Oe.
Listen to her whole story here.
JOE RAEDLE/GETTY IMAGES
Just in time for Cyber Monday, this episode of Stuff Mom Never Told You on how Mod Cloth is actually owned by Wal-Mart (yeah, I had no clue, either).
And lastly, my new fav podcast, …These Are Their Stories: The Law & Order Podcast.
THESE ARE THEIR STORIES is the podcast about network TV’s most enduring crime franchise and the real life cases that inspired their shows. We and a special guest look at an episode of SVU, Criminal Intent, or original recipe…then talk about the real life “ripped from the headlines” case that inspired the show.
Hehehe, “original recipe”. I don’t even have one particular episode to recommend here; I want you to just check out any of these. Especially you, Kiki. Just click the link. They even have segments on all the many, many, many guest stars who’ve shown up repeatedly across the L&O universe. Click. The. Link.
So, what are you listening to, podcast-wise? Let me know in the comments!