podcast friday

[sabotabby]

 It's been awhile since I've done one of these. Ooops. It's been impossible to get any privacy lately, which means it's been impossible to listen to all my podcasts.

Today's highlight is Behind the Bastards' four-part series on Helena Blavatsky. Start here! You know how to find podcasts. Full disclosure: I am only halfway through the series but I'm pretty sure I'm going to like the rest.

If you've known me for awhile you might know that I have a certain obsession with Madame Blavatsky and based a LARP character on her and maaaay be making my next TTRPG character based on her. Without the racism, obviously. But she sits at the intersection of "absolutely horrible human being who did massive damage to the world and is responsible for no small part of our current mess" and "absolutely unhinged and hilarious."

In true BtB style, she's got a pretty sympathetic backstory, and it takes her from an ambitious young woman trapped by the patriarchy and kind of cool, actually, to unsuccessful Spiritualist conwoman, to where I'm now at, where she's met the other two figures with whom she'll found Theosophy,  Henry Olcott and William Quan Judge. Along the way there are many digressions involving which types of sandwiches are the most fuckable, and ovipositors. Maybe listen to it with headphones, but that goes for most of the things I recommend here.

Also I should add that Jamie Loftus is the guest. It's been forever since she's been on and she's probably my favourite of their guests. The three-way banter between her, Sophie, and Robert is just fantastic, and she obviously knows the most about occult-type grifts, so they can get into some very detailed discussions about specifics.

On a more serious note, learning about Blavatsky is more important than just interesting information about a bad historical person. The continuation of her ideas can be found in QAnon and Trumpism, so beyond just being fascinating, learning about where this ideology comes from is vital in combatting the conspiracy theories currently being used by the ruling class to beat us all to death.

Comments

[minoanmiss]

! I have never heard of her before and she sounds important and calamitous. *makes a note*

[sabotabby]

She's vile and I love her. Not in the sense that I'm happy that she existed in any way, shape, or form, but in the sense that she makes for a great main character.

[minoanmiss]

Like Kai Winn!

So I went and looked her up very shallowly, and my eyebrows flew off my face. Theosophy makes my head hurt.

[sabotabby]

Oh yes, she's definitely a Kai Winn.

I find Theosophy writing, like a lot of occult writing, near-impossible to parse, which is why I never became an occultist.

[minoanmiss]

It's like, "Therefore, the left toe of the Universe bends towards the will of the stars, so you must have gnosis of their their azimuths and settling downs..."

[naomikritzer]

I have been enjoying the hell out of it. I also started listening to Cool People Who Did Cool Stuff because of your post about their episode on the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising and I'm really enjoying that one and recommended it to Lyda (I especially love Margaret's schtick about how they are sponsored by things like the concept of potatoes. It made me think about what concept I'd want to be sponsored by if I were ever a guest on her show.)

I thought initially I'd never heard of Helena Blavatsky and then partway through the show it clicked that I had DEFINITELY read or watched things where people referred to "Madame Blavatsky" -- I think I even knew she was an occultist of some kind and I may at some point have even known that she helped found Theosophy (I majored in religion in college and some of the stuff I studied talked about Theosophy.)

[sabotabby]

I fantasize about being on Cool People and I think I would like to be sponsored by cats' soft little triangle ears that are like velvet. I think about this a lot. How does one get on podcasts and panels anyway?

[naomikritzer]

I can tell you how to get on panels at conventions (there's usually a signup process, and how that works varies by cons. Some cons you have to know The Right People, usually the local clique of superfans who run the con. Other cons you just put in your name and tell them enough about your credentials they know why they'd want you on the panel.) Podcasts, as far as I can tell it's entirely by invitation but with the additional caveat that a lot of podcasters, when they invite people, they get side-eyed by people who never listen to podcasts and have no idea what they're being asked to do, so a lot of podcasters are super nervous about inviting people and this is why as far as I can tell you only get on the Cool Zone Media podcasts if you're a friend of Robert or Sophie or someone they know, OR you also have a podcast and they've listened to it. (I would love to be on some podcasts. I'd be good at it! I'm funny and good at appropriate reactions, like laughing at your jokes, etc. But since I'm not ON any podcasts right NOW, the podcasters who do sorta know me from Twitter or whatever don't know if I have the world's most annoying voice. At least that's my theory. Also, possibly I totally DO have the world's most annoying voice and I'm just not aware of it! How would I even know?)

[sabotabby]

Ah, there's my problem. No credentials. And I probably don't know the right people, either. :)

I think I do have the most annoying voice, at least whenever I hear it. But I'm told I'm pretty funny so maybe that makes up for it.

[naomikritzer]

There are people out there who find Sarah Marshall's voice annoying and I LOVE Sarah Marshall's voice so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[naomikritzer]

Also a lot of the guests' main credential is, they also have a podcast, so you could start a podcast, but I'm going to say my impression overall is that podcasts are a lot of work (because you have to edit sound). Lyda and I have talked repeatedly about starting a podcast and have we done it? NOPE.

[sabotabby]

I have thought about it a lot! I even had a good idea for a fictional podcast, but I think I got too enthusiastic about it and scared everyone else off.

[naomikritzer]

I would 100% come on your podcast if you did one and wanted me, but I would not edit it. Editing the podcast is the hard bit. I have had great ideas for podcasts but never with a degree of motivation where I'd want to do the editing.

[sabotabby]

Oh yes, I suck terribly at audio editing. I have a former student who I'd absolutely pay money to do that kind of thing for me.

But zero motivation.

[frandroid]

You should absolutely send ARCs to Killjoy and Evans... Even if only in PDF form... Who knows what would happen.

[sabotabby]

That is definitely something my publisher should do. :)

[naomikritzer]

I've been on a handful of podcasts and my invites have been a funny mix.

1. Ada Palmer and Jo Walton invited me on their podcast because we're friends. I said yes. That went fine.

2. An internet friend invited me on his podcast but also it was a video podcast, and the software he used required some detailed stuff on my end, and the result was, tbh, sort of nightmarish and made me conclude that I needed to buy a new computer. (And then I hated the new computer and now it's gone off to college with Kiera.)

3. Someone I didn't know at all invited me onto his podcast. This was pre-pandemic so it meant going over to the recording studio at his house. Which I totally did, while thinking, "hope he's not a serial killer, ha ha oh well!" and making sure Ed knew where I was going. He was not a serial killer, he was super nice, it was fine.

4. A total stranger cold-emailed me and a bunch of other pro writers and invited us onto his podcast but part of the podcast was, we had to write an entire story with very strict requirements on a theme, unpaid. As far as I could tell he had maybe 50 entire listeners so this isn't even doing work for exposure, this is just work to gratify the guy's ego. I just sent him a "sorry, I am very busy, good luck with your project" response but I think some of the other authors he approached were less gentle with their no.

I've decided that if I ever meet Robert or Sophie, or for that matter Sarah Marshall, Michael Hobbes, Danny Lavery, or any of the other podcasters I listen to who have guests, I'm going to say, "oh! I LOVE your podcast!" and then straight up ask to be a guest. Politely, but something like, "I would LOVE to be a guest, I'm a good active listener, let me write down my e-mail in case you ever want a science fiction writer OR an expert on Minneapolis and St. Paul politics for whatever reason" and then hand them my card. (In Robert's case I will add, "I want to be on your podcast because I want to find out exactly who it is who runs the child-hunting island off the coast of Indonesia, I've wondered about this for years, is it Raytheon? Amazon? Better Help Online Therapy? Anyway if you have me on I promise not to tell anyone but my closest friends!"

[sabotabby]

I'd be hilariously incoherent if I was on a podcast with Ada Palmer, hahah. She's too smart to be allowed.

I did theoretically get invited onto a podcast but I emailed them with my idea and they never responded. Sigh.

I hate to be the one to break this to you but the child-hunting island is owned by Blue Apron. They forgot to beep it out in one of the Blavatsky episodes.

[naomikritzer]

BLUE APRON okay that's hilarious. Well, I can tell him that since I heard from a friend that it's Blue Apron I want to come on the podcast so I can find out in bleeped bits what nefarious horrifying thing Better Help Online Therapy does because surely there is SOMETHING.

[sabotabby]

Everyone on the train got to hear me yell out to my friend "the child-hunting island is owned by Blue Apron!" which was I'm sure fun for everyone.

[ioplokon]

if you become a wrestling fan again, there is a whole world of podcasts with a pretty low bar to becoming a guest on...

[sabotabby]

OOoooh that would be fun. I am insufficiently knowledgable at the moment but I can see myself getting nerdy about it. Though my books have nothing to do with wrestling unless it's wrestling with internecine left dynamics.

[frandroid]

You still have two sequels left to integrate wrestling in the storyline...

[sabotabby]

True! hah

[frandroid]

> Maybe listen to it with headphones

Bwahaha

> which means it's been impossible to listen to all my podcasts

We had lots of driving to do on vacation and I thought I'd go through lots of episodes, but F didn't care too much for that and was only able to impose my choice while at the wheel. :P

[sabotabby]

Awww. Yeah it was fun on the train because R. and I listened to the first episode together and cackled for 90 minutes straight. Then karma, as Blavatsky would define it, bit us on the ass and two irritating ladies stood in the aisle and talked the whole trip back.

[frandroid]

Oh karma!

[sabotabby]

At least we weren't in the aisle!

[ioplokon]

ah this explains why people have been casually mentioning her. thanks for sharing - this is quite fun bc now i Know Things about people, which I always like.

[sabotabby]

It took episode 3 before I realized why "Madame Blavatsky with a blonde afro" was trending on Midjourney.

[numb3r_5ev3n]

Woah this is weirdly synchronistic with what I've been working on. I'll give it a listen!

[sabotabby]

Same! Which is one of the reasons I got very excited.