Jan

13

Radio Lab

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I have become a podcast junkie. It used to be that I listened to books on cd all the time in the car. But now my commute is much shorter so it takes weeks to get through a book. So instead I’ve started listening to podcasts and now I don’t just do it when I drive, but also when I do my weekend trip to the grocery store. (Which I’m about to do.)

One of my very favorites is Radio Lab, which is just perfect. It is smart enough to inform and interest but isn’t out of my grasp. I can listen while I’m looking for the right kind of cheese and be completely engaged. It’s usually pretty science-y, which I enjoy quite a lot. But last week they had an episode that had me totally enraptured. I heard it in one sitting on a long drive in the car and I’m glad it worked out that way.

The episode was called The Ring and I. I had no clue what it was about when I turned it on, so I was pleasantly surprised when it turned out to be an exploration of Wagner’s famous Ring Cycle, a set of long and difficult operas. I love opera, but I’m relatively uninformed. I have the few that I’ve seen that I enjoy, but getting regular opera tickets is an expensive undertaking and I usually don’t have the patience to listen to it on cd. The Ring Cycle, in particular, is a lot to swallow since it totals to around 20 hours.

RadioLab not only walks you through all the individual operas, sharing the highlights and the story, but also introduces you to that small group that is particularly obsessed with them. It was educational, I learned a lot about leitmotifs, which was perhaps my favorite part. But the best thing, really, was just driving there, hearing what everyone said, while I listened to Wagner. Wow. It was one of those transcendental types of experiences that only comes from the best art. And since I’m one of those crazy types who loves learning about everything, I felt like I could really appreciate it more by the end instead of just hearing it with no context. I highly recommend taking an hour some time and giving it a listen. The Radio Lab archives are also quite tremendous.