I need your questions!
Hello from deep in the recesses of a podcast laboratory
Over the past few months we have been building this new podcast called Weekly Search Engine.
In case you missed it, here’s the trailer:
Search Engine will publish on the same feed as Crypto Island, so you should subscribe to Crypto Island if you don’t want to miss the new show (Apple, Spotify). Sorry we don’t have pretty new art yet, we’re futzing.
Right now we’re piloting, which means making episodes and not putting them out, a novel and strange experience for me. Deciding what are the arbitrary rules we’re inventing for this artistic endeavor. Learning a lot as we go.
One thing I’ve learned is that it’s good to make some text bigger to break up the flow of an email.
I’ve also gotten to go down some strange new rabbit holes.
Learning about a Sleater-Kinney concert for some gorillas that ended in fiasco, meeting a drug dealer who gave one of the best anti-drug talks I’ve ever heard, running down a fairly disturbing conspiracy theory involving the safety of airline food.
In the trailer, I off-handedly asked listeners to send in their own questions. And those questions have been the strangest and most enjoyable of all.
You learn a lot about people from the questions they ask. For instance, there’s a lot of ambient curiosity right now around housing. One question I particularly enjoyed running down was “There’s so many empty office buildings where I live, why can’t they just be turned into apartments?”
Another good one I belatedly realized I’d also had my whole life was: “How sad are the monkeys in the zoo?”
My favorite question in the I-haven’t-yet-figured-it-out pile is “What am I supposed to do when I feel bad but I don’t know why?” which came from a 12-year old.
The main point of this email, besides to say hello, and to assert that I continue to be alive, is to ask for more questions.
If there’s something you’re wondering about, please shoot me an email at pjvogt85@gmail.com.
No question too big, no question too small. Questions can be personal and specific, or big and broad. I just want to know, what are the things in the world or in your life that you can’t stop wondering about, that you want explained.
Thanks,
PJ
I got one that is so very heavy on my mind.
Why do divorce cases take so effing long once they hit the courts?
Hi, I don't know if this thread still gets read, but question: Are mascots having a moment? And if so, why?
I know it sounds silly cause every high school and most major sporting teams have a mascot- and they're seemingly 'big in japan' (seen on the mondo mascots twitter account)-but I feel like I'm seeing them more and more in advertising (duolingo, the recent return of the fruit of the loom people). In a time where there's so much hype around AI and things like Vtubers/ Little Miquela type models, why are some companies turning back to tangible, cloth mascots?