A controversy at the New Yorker raises questions about media diversity and Twitter conduct. Also discussed: The singularity of Nathan Fielder, the beauty of baseball, and the hotness of Adam Driver
In addition to being the best sport, baseball is the most literary sport. Some options:
- Seconding The Boys of Summer.
- Driving Mr. Yogi is about the friendship between Yogi Berra and Ron Guidry. It's a history of Yogi's time w/ the Yankees but also just a moving story.
- Ladies and Gentlemen, the Bronx is Burning is part true crime, part baseball, part history of New York in the late 70s. It's fantastic.
- The Last Best League is a look at the Cape Cod league.
- Summer of '49 by David Halberstam
- Moneyball is actually good.
- The Big Fella is a great bio of Babe Ruth.
I'll cut myself off now (I can talk books and baseball all day)
Nancy, based on the songs you play at the end of each episode it seems like we have MAJOR overlap in musical taste. Weren't you going to put together a playlist of perfect pop songs or something? Did I miss that? Can you paste the link here? I'm hoping you can expose me to some gems I may have missed over the decades.
"Don't get cocky" -- an archivist working for decades at a high-profile organization would surely have seen a phrase like this before and, even if not knowing its origins and prior uses (Star Wars!), would know how to research it. And then maybe would understand the context and rethink her initial response. That's just one of the oddball things about this story.
Those stories about the restaurants closing is sad and infuriating. These people causing this kind of trouble have no idea how one starts and runs a small business. Nancy's recent great story about this would be a lesson for all of them.
For several years, I considered changing my last name after getting fed up with people pointing out how it sounded like Angela Lansbury. I swear, when I lived in Texas, I thought everyone must have grown up watching Murder She Wrote. So many comments and jokes about my last name. (Funny side story - high school ex bf’s sister was named Jessica Fletcher. Eventually, I decided against changing my name because I share it with my maternal grandfather who was my first and most loving father figure. Miss him everyday.
My long posts are probably annoying, but I can't help myself. Listening to you feels like being in a conversation with friends and I have to give my two cents.
1. "Blue" by the Jayhawks? Did you steal my CD collection? Whoever is choosing outros has exactly the same music taste as me.
2. Gawker is awful and everything you said about responsible journalism or lack thereof was spot on.
3. The cafe in Philly and the lesbian bar in Portland: Nancy, you are totally right, these stories are insane. But do you think they reflect a larger cultural movement? I feel like these are just nutso outlier events: completely ridiculous and unjust, but I don't see them as indicative of a larger trend of liberal politics run amok. I don't know, in a country of 330 million people, I think you can find just about crazy thing you can think of. At the same time, I'm not in a big city and my media consumption is limited, so I could definitely be out of touch.
4. Nathan Fielder: I had the same reaction as Sarah: I'm not even sure I like this, but I have to keep watching. I'm always a little uncomfortable that he's making fun of the people he has on the show. He does kind of toe the line, but Sarah, you're right, it's kinder than Sasha Baron Cohen. Part of his appeal is you never know quite where he's coming from.
5. The opening section of Underworld! The setting is the "shot heard round the world," when Bobby Thomson hit the homer for the NY Giants that won the 1951 pennant over the Brooklyn Dodgers. That whole passage has stuck with me for 20 years! I can't believe you brought that up. So great.
6. I already gave you a 5-star rating on Apple with a written review, but if we can do more than one I'll do as many as you need. You guys are the best.
Fun discussion about middle names. Mine is from my dad, something I think is pretty common. I didn't like my last name growing up because people don't know how to pronounce it or spell it. I got over that long ago when I realized it's easier in many ways to have a name that stands out. ... I'm thinking of a book with short essays on baseball that I thought was pretty good -- it's packed in a box in storage and I'm going to see if I can find it. .... Sarah, maybe you should interview this New Yorker archivist -- 28 years at one job is kinda amazing this day and age, plus we could learn more about archiving! Thank you for another fine walk!
One more silly comment here...My name is Robin, and in grade school, some twerps (boys) thought it was hilarious to call me Robin Redbreast. To which I responded (at least once, as far as I can remember): "How would YOU know?"
I'm still listening to this episode, and almost pulled off to the side of the road but waited til I got home so I could write this...Has anyone started a Bingo card for you guys yet? Two words keep coming to my mind. 1) "fascinating." 😁 The other word is...what is it, Nancy? Is it "ruminative" or "renumerative"? You've said it at least twice... So anyway(!), when you guys were talking about how sometimes you have to stop yourself from asking whether you're "smart" enough to cover a story, I had a flashback of an interview I was trying to have with a person about subsidized housing for a five-part piece I was working on for a 400-level journalism class (my beat was poverty in Champaign -Urbanana). The guy said that I "seem to be fairly innocuous" when he asked me why I was covering this beat. "Innocuous." It gave me such a hot flash of embarrassment. I ended up becoming a technical writer instead of a journalist after I graduated. (But I did use my journalism skills well to demystify technical jargon and procedures.) Anyway, you guys make journalism look so easy and you're really beautiful writers. 💜 And now, back to your podcast!
Regarding baseball books, I second The Boys of Summer. For Hodges specific books there is Gil Hodges A Hall of Fame Life. The Teammates by David Halberstam is great as is The Summer of ‘49. The Big Fella by Jane Leavey is an amazing Babe Ruth biography that is essentially an analysis of the rise of modern celebrity.
I am in the middle of the podcast and you are at the baseball stuff. I have two recommendations. Actually more.
1. Nine Innings by Daniel Okrent. I am sure Matt has read this ( he reads everything about baseball) because it is about the 1982 Angels and the Brewers who both played in the ALCS that year.
2. October 64 by David Halberstam about the 1964 season (a crusher for this then 14 yo Phillies fan) but it deals with the racial issues in baseball.
The Daily Beast has the worst copy editing. Well, they must not have a copy editor but you’d think whoever posts it on the site would look over the article once before posting it. I’ve seen duplicate paragraphs twice in the same article, three or more very obvious typos. It’s like how people call The Guardian The Grauniad.
You shouldn’t be too surprised by the reaction to the name of the new segment. In this episode alone I heard Nancy say #WeLoveMen and we heard the ladies speak in various ways, and using multiple double and triple entendres, about their “hotboxes” and what was in them? One’s mind inevitably wanders in certain directions… Great show! As always.
Nancy and Sarah, this isn't relevant to this ep but I couldn't figure out how to send this to you!
Did you read this essay, "Scenes from an Open Marriage," in the Paris Review recently? It's delicious and I would love to hear your thoughts!! https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2022/06/29/scenes-from-an-open-marriage/
Reading that also led me down the rabbit hole of this person's writing, and was pretty blown away by her piece about sibling envy. https://yalereview.org/article/there-i-almost-am
I think you two could really sink your teeth into these.
I listened to SEIYGE during my whole drive from Vermont to Wisconsin last weekend. Thanks for your thought provoking work!
In addition to being the best sport, baseball is the most literary sport. Some options:
- Seconding The Boys of Summer.
- Driving Mr. Yogi is about the friendship between Yogi Berra and Ron Guidry. It's a history of Yogi's time w/ the Yankees but also just a moving story.
- Ladies and Gentlemen, the Bronx is Burning is part true crime, part baseball, part history of New York in the late 70s. It's fantastic.
- The Last Best League is a look at the Cape Cod league.
- Summer of '49 by David Halberstam
- Moneyball is actually good.
- The Big Fella is a great bio of Babe Ruth.
I'll cut myself off now (I can talk books and baseball all day)
Nancy, based on the songs you play at the end of each episode it seems like we have MAJOR overlap in musical taste. Weren't you going to put together a playlist of perfect pop songs or something? Did I miss that? Can you paste the link here? I'm hoping you can expose me to some gems I may have missed over the decades.
"Don't get cocky" -- an archivist working for decades at a high-profile organization would surely have seen a phrase like this before and, even if not knowing its origins and prior uses (Star Wars!), would know how to research it. And then maybe would understand the context and rethink her initial response. That's just one of the oddball things about this story.
Those stories about the restaurants closing is sad and infuriating. These people causing this kind of trouble have no idea how one starts and runs a small business. Nancy's recent great story about this would be a lesson for all of them.
For several years, I considered changing my last name after getting fed up with people pointing out how it sounded like Angela Lansbury. I swear, when I lived in Texas, I thought everyone must have grown up watching Murder She Wrote. So many comments and jokes about my last name. (Funny side story - high school ex bf’s sister was named Jessica Fletcher. Eventually, I decided against changing my name because I share it with my maternal grandfather who was my first and most loving father figure. Miss him everyday.
My long posts are probably annoying, but I can't help myself. Listening to you feels like being in a conversation with friends and I have to give my two cents.
1. "Blue" by the Jayhawks? Did you steal my CD collection? Whoever is choosing outros has exactly the same music taste as me.
2. Gawker is awful and everything you said about responsible journalism or lack thereof was spot on.
3. The cafe in Philly and the lesbian bar in Portland: Nancy, you are totally right, these stories are insane. But do you think they reflect a larger cultural movement? I feel like these are just nutso outlier events: completely ridiculous and unjust, but I don't see them as indicative of a larger trend of liberal politics run amok. I don't know, in a country of 330 million people, I think you can find just about crazy thing you can think of. At the same time, I'm not in a big city and my media consumption is limited, so I could definitely be out of touch.
4. Nathan Fielder: I had the same reaction as Sarah: I'm not even sure I like this, but I have to keep watching. I'm always a little uncomfortable that he's making fun of the people he has on the show. He does kind of toe the line, but Sarah, you're right, it's kinder than Sasha Baron Cohen. Part of his appeal is you never know quite where he's coming from.
5. The opening section of Underworld! The setting is the "shot heard round the world," when Bobby Thomson hit the homer for the NY Giants that won the 1951 pennant over the Brooklyn Dodgers. That whole passage has stuck with me for 20 years! I can't believe you brought that up. So great.
6. I already gave you a 5-star rating on Apple with a written review, but if we can do more than one I'll do as many as you need. You guys are the best.
Oh my god. This whole episode! So much agreement. Minor addition to gawker’s downfall. They had outed Peter Thiel in 2007 and he held a grudge https://www.gawker.com/335894/peter-thiel-is-totally-gay-people
And pay up, people! That paywall content is primo 💎😎
Fun discussion about middle names. Mine is from my dad, something I think is pretty common. I didn't like my last name growing up because people don't know how to pronounce it or spell it. I got over that long ago when I realized it's easier in many ways to have a name that stands out. ... I'm thinking of a book with short essays on baseball that I thought was pretty good -- it's packed in a box in storage and I'm going to see if I can find it. .... Sarah, maybe you should interview this New Yorker archivist -- 28 years at one job is kinda amazing this day and age, plus we could learn more about archiving! Thank you for another fine walk!
"This is not a lens that I use as I move through the world."
-Sarah Effing Hepola.
Amen amen amen. And also, Nancy is on FIRE and I'm here for it! Love you gals.
One more silly comment here...My name is Robin, and in grade school, some twerps (boys) thought it was hilarious to call me Robin Redbreast. To which I responded (at least once, as far as I can remember): "How would YOU know?"
I'm still listening to this episode, and almost pulled off to the side of the road but waited til I got home so I could write this...Has anyone started a Bingo card for you guys yet? Two words keep coming to my mind. 1) "fascinating." 😁 The other word is...what is it, Nancy? Is it "ruminative" or "renumerative"? You've said it at least twice... So anyway(!), when you guys were talking about how sometimes you have to stop yourself from asking whether you're "smart" enough to cover a story, I had a flashback of an interview I was trying to have with a person about subsidized housing for a five-part piece I was working on for a 400-level journalism class (my beat was poverty in Champaign -Urbanana). The guy said that I "seem to be fairly innocuous" when he asked me why I was covering this beat. "Innocuous." It gave me such a hot flash of embarrassment. I ended up becoming a technical writer instead of a journalist after I graduated. (But I did use my journalism skills well to demystify technical jargon and procedures.) Anyway, you guys make journalism look so easy and you're really beautiful writers. 💜 And now, back to your podcast!
Regarding baseball books, I second The Boys of Summer. For Hodges specific books there is Gil Hodges A Hall of Fame Life. The Teammates by David Halberstam is great as is The Summer of ‘49. The Big Fella by Jane Leavey is an amazing Babe Ruth biography that is essentially an analysis of the rise of modern celebrity.
I am in the middle of the podcast and you are at the baseball stuff. I have two recommendations. Actually more.
1. Nine Innings by Daniel Okrent. I am sure Matt has read this ( he reads everything about baseball) because it is about the 1982 Angels and the Brewers who both played in the ALCS that year.
2. October 64 by David Halberstam about the 1964 season (a crusher for this then 14 yo Phillies fan) but it deals with the racial issues in baseball.
3. Anything by Roger Angell.
The Daily Beast has the worst copy editing. Well, they must not have a copy editor but you’d think whoever posts it on the site would look over the article once before posting it. I’ve seen duplicate paragraphs twice in the same article, three or more very obvious typos. It’s like how people call The Guardian The Grauniad.
No, no, "what makes you hot" as in ATTRACTIVE, not HORNY!!! 🤣 Sorry for the shock. Love you both!
You shouldn’t be too surprised by the reaction to the name of the new segment. In this episode alone I heard Nancy say #WeLoveMen and we heard the ladies speak in various ways, and using multiple double and triple entendres, about their “hotboxes” and what was in them? One’s mind inevitably wanders in certain directions… Great show! As always.