Downers

#129 – Crisis Crisis Crisis We wake up, one day, in a world without recycling. How are our lives different? This is the type of question that only our podcast is brave enough to tackle. We talk babushkas spoon-feeding borscht. We talk nuns vs. monks. We investigate the issues of today!   Plugs this week: NORMAL PEOPLE by Sally Rooney (Kate) dhammatalks.org (Jack) Best American Nonrequired Reading (Hao)   downersradio@gmail.com • /r/downersradio • @downersradio on the twits

#128 – The year is a 2069. We open on desert dunes, wind blowing sand into eddies and whirls. The camera pans, only to reveal the three co-hosts of Downers sitting at a table, recording their thoughts into a sound mixer. They traveled to the year 2069 to bring back SEVERAL TABOOS that might SHOCK or ALARM you. Some taboos involve gas stoves. Some involve being nude in front of your family! Wild!!   Also, we're on Spotify!   Plugs this week: Nail painting (Kate) An Airbnb with a nice kitchen (Hao) Rice and a little bit of butter (Jack)   downersradio@gmail.com • /r/downersradio • @downersradio on twitter

#127 – Jack and Hao explore the distant past this week, through the magic of podcasting. We take a trip to ANCIENT EGYPT to explore how pharaohs interacted with the people beneath them. We explore POWER DYNAMICS. We ask DID PYRAMIDS HAVE REFRIGERATORS? These are questions that most history classes are afraid to tackle. Not us!   Plugs this week: Slay the Spire / A sea lion I met (Hao) A lot of ("a burst of") cardboard (Jack)   downersradio@gmail.com • /r/downersradio • @downersradio

#126 – Just Jack and Kate this week, on a special episode of Downers. Whether it's depression, anxiety, or a general funk, we all get experience emotional valleys (or maybe craters) from time to time. We devote the hour to the actual topic of SADNESS on our sadness podcast. All that, and more, on Downers! (Hao's graphics card broke so he's writing this without having listened to the episode. I will update this copy as soon as I listen to it on my phone!)

#125 — Hello from the road! As I type, the trees of Los Angeles fly past me. We are plunging our way to the airport, and we miss the beautiful house we stayed at. Parting is bittersweet, as ever. This week, on the show, we discuss late-late capitalism AND the Japanese practice of public radio calisthenics. Interested? Confused? Tune in to find out more!   Plugs this week: Cat ownership / allergy medicine (Kate) Brussel sprouts (Hao) The stars (Jack)      

#124 – Cat allergies? A party game called FORTUNATELY, UNFORTUNATELY?? What a content-packed episode! This episode was recorded during the Manhattan power outage of 2019, which gives it a spooky, dystopic tone.   Plugs: RETURN OF THE OBRA DINN (Kate) The Amazon backlash (Hao) FINAL FANTASY XIV:  (Jack)   @downersradio • downersradio@gmail.com • /r/downersradio

#123 – Microdosing psychedelic drugs is all the rage, maybe, these days, but what OTHER things should we be microdosing? Dust, perhaps?? We devote the hour to weighing in on this important topic!   Also, we do a new segment called OVERHEARD IN THE CITY   Plugs this week:   Sitting down / meditating (Jack) Tiger Sugar in Causeway Bay (Kate) Pawlikowski's 2018 COLD WAR (Hao)   downersradio@gmail.com • /r/downersradio on reddit • downersradio@gmail.com

#122 – Kate and Hao pore over /r/relationships, answering thorny questions such as "What do I do if my mom won't let me go outside?" and "Is my boyfriend a drug dealer?" There is something fundamentally human about the stories on /r/relationships, which often start as one mistake or misunderstanding that then snowballs beyond the person's control. Real-life relationships are complicated, and we fearlessly wade into the quicksand on this episode!   Plugs this week: Dogs & fireflies in Ft. Greene Park (Hao) DrGluon plays Sims 4 on Twitch (Kate)   @downersradio • /r/downersradio on reddit • downersradio@gmail.com

#121 – We're back with our curious medical maladies in addition to a rare rule-break so that we can talk about the Hong Kong protests as they DIRECTLY affect one of our correspondents, sort of, maybe. Kate breaks down the recent protests, and outlines how we got to this point! She might get extradited to China, she might not. To find out, you'll have to tune in!    Plugs this week:   Grant Sputore's 2019 I AM MOTHER (Jack) Back and shoulder tension massages (Kate) The smell of the summer wind drifting through the window (Hao)   downersradio@gmail.com • /r/downersradio • @downersradio on twitter

#120 – As an adult, one of the things you find yourself doing over and over, tedium after tedium, is scheduling events. Establishing who, what, and where over SMS, email, and Slack is the bread and butter of adulthood, and we devote the hour to this particularly beige piece of modern life. How can one get better at wrangling friends and family and strangers together? What does it mean that our society is structured in such a way that it's impossible to have incidental contact with the people who bring us joy without having to go through a Google Calendar invite? All this, sans Jack, and more!   Plugs this week:   1996's very own SCHIZOPOLIS (Hao) Stars Above™ yoga pants (Kate)   downersradio@gmail.com • @downersradio on twitter • /r/downersradio on reddit

#119 – It's just Hao this week! We're gonna really get into it. We're really gonna tear it up. WHALE SONGS. THE NEWS. TAKE IT OR LEAVE IT: DOGS.

#118 – Suki Kim's 2014 book WITHOUT YOU, THERE IS NO US, which documents her 2011 visit to North Korea as an English teacher to its elite students, is the topic of the hour. This episode was released very late because the time slipped away from Hao... but no matter! We talk about the nature of Korea's geopolitics today; we figure out Jack's juice problem; we dive into the sadness of the world today, bravely, like astronauts.   Plugs this week:   The programming language Smalltalk (Jack) Sarah J. Maas's THRONE OF GLASS (Kate) Making friends (Hao)   downersradio@gmail.com • /r/downersradio • @downersradio

#117 – Jack and Hao mount a stirring attack on personhood labels. This is something we often allude to on the podcast, the idea of putting people in boxes that often are too big or too small to contain them. Now we devote the entire hour to breaking down exactly what we mean and which labels we abhor the most (husband/wife/partner, man/woman).   WARNING: THIS EPISODE ALSO CONTAINS SIGNIFICANT SPOILERS FOR POKÉMON: DETECTIVE PIKACHU (2019)   Plugs this week: Pouches by Baggu (Kate) Ursula Le Guin's THE WORD FOR WORLD IS FOREST (Hao) Kiwis, the fruit (Jack)   downersradio@gmail.com • /r/downersradio on reddit • @downersradio on twitter

#116 – Beefs! We all have past mistakes that haunt us. In this hour, we squash some of our beefs. Also, in the B-plot, we discuss hygiene. What's up with the shower industry, and the marketing around it? Only on Downers could an episode format this innovative make its way to your ears.   Plugs this week: Being unironic (Jack) The Park Church Co-op (Hao) in Brooklyn Giant inflatable, like, chair bed things (Kate) for the beach   downersradio@gmail.com • /r/downersradio • @downersradio on twitter

#115 – This week, we devote the hour to The Washingtonian's article "What Happened After My 13-Year-Old [sic] Son Joined the Alt-Right." We also get a follow-up to Kate's travels to Tokyo, where she experienced a PEDESTRIAN SCRAMBLE. Road safety... toxic internet forums... it's another classic Downers episode! Plugs this week: Leonard Susskind's THE THEORETICAL MINIMUM lectures (Hao) Watching a patch of grass (Jack) Modded content for THE SIMS (Kate)   downersradio@gmail.com | /r/downersradio | @downersradio on twitter

#114 – Downers convenes this week to discuss the important topic of the week: BIOHACKING. What is it??? Should be afraid of it, or should we embrace it wholeheartedly? We also talk along the way about intermittent fasting and the gendering of diet culture and how baby Wikipedia articles become adult Wikipedia articles.   Plugs this week:   Teochow cuisine, the Bo Ky restaurant on Bayard (Hao) The Faber & Faber piano books (Jack) Rinse Aid (Kate)   downersradio@gmail.com • @downersradio • /r/downersradio

#113 – We break our rule about current events to talk about places of worship. In light of recent horrific events, we cannot help but feel compelled to say nice things about them. Just Jack and Hao on this episode. Kate will be back next week! downersradio@gmail.com | /r/downersradio | @downersradio on twitter

EPISODE 112 // Julian Assange has been arrested and is facing extradition. WikiLeaks sits at the intersection of technology and policy and naturally makes good fodder for our podcast. Which is why we instead go on a long rambling discussion about the nature of news and sadness! We also talk about Julian's cat. Where is his meow-meow right now?   Plugs this week: Hybrid car's plug-in system (Jack) Haircuts (Kate) Texting a friend you haven't texted in a while (Hao)   downersradio@gmail.com | /r/downersradio on reddit | downersradio@gmail.com | @downersradio on twitter | downersradio@gmail.com 

EPISODE 111 // We devote this hour to Jenny Odell's EYEO 2017 keynote talk on doing nothing. How do you do nothing? And what is it like to create art that encourages people to do nothing? We. Find. Out.   Plugs: Tokyo Disney Tourist Guide (Kate) Coffee grounds with air (Hao) Doing nothing (Jack)   downersradio@gmail.com | @downersradio on Twitter | /r/downersradio on reddit

EPISODE 110 // Slack! The unicorn that Silicon Valley fell in love in. We three all use it. If you don’t use it, it’s the work-chat application that people just can’t get enough of. In this episode we critically inspect Slack. Are private channels pernicious? Is giving Slack all your information forever a good move? We. Find. Out.   Plugs this week:   Raw peas (Jack) Grandma’s plates (Hao) Bon Appetit’s April Fool’s ASMR video (Kate)   /r/downersradio on reddit | downersradio@gmail.com | @downersradio on twitter