"I don't listen to podcasts. The format has never appealed to me. I am a visual learner. I love to read. Reading allows me to jump around..."

"... skim where I think it appropriate, moderate my pace, and return to passages that are important. With reading, I can easily highlight, or copy and paste a key phrase into a blog post. Moreover, much more care is put into the printed word. Authors (present company included) labor over every sentence, word, and syllable. Podcasts are different. Less care is put into the spoken word. Unless the narrator is reading from a transcript, we are left with the normal flow of conversational english.... Sure, I can play it at double-speed, but I am still stuck with his chronology...."

Writes Josh Blackman (at Volokh Conspiracy).

The thing I don't do — and for some (but not all) of those reasons — is watch the news and news commentary shows on television. You have to give yourself over to their control of your precious time. With text, you control your own time, according to your needs and abilities and predilections. And it's so passive. I can't easily blog it or send it to somebody. I'd have to either transcribe it or make a little video clip of it. So I would be either bored or agitated by the slowness, the repetition, and the loss of the opportunity to do something with it. 

But I wouldn't designate myself a "visual learner." I'm just someone who likes to do things with text. So, mostly, I read.

I have my uses for audio, including audiobooks and podcasts. I like an audiobook for a long walk for 2 reasons: 1. It keeps me from dwelling on the walk as a slog, and 2. It forces me to continue linearly through an entire book. And I like the right podcast while doing various tasks — housecleaning, personal hygiene, and so forth — that require some but not that much engagement. I like the sound of good conversation, the feeling of human company, and some random material to mix with my stray thoughts.

"'Being "cancel-adjacent" is exhausting'.... It’s especially enervating, she said, when you’re adjacent to people being canceled..."

"... for their coverage of other people who have been canceled. 'There is a word for this, but I’m not sure what it is. "Irony" is insufficient. If we cancel everyone... who will be left?'"

I think that stands on its own ripped out of context. Good luck reading the complicated context (and that's assuming you can get into the NYT): "What Really Happened at ‘Reply All’?/A podcast was applauded for its reporting on embedded racism in the workplace. It didn’t make it to the third episode."

I couldn't untangle the story. I was almost interested enough, but ultimately the complexity outweighed the hope of enlightenment. Was that also the problem with the podcast? I don't know. Did the podcast about racism have a racism problem? 

You tell me. I'm just posting because I wanted to record the sentence, "Being 'cancel-adjacent' is exhausting." I think "cancel-adjacent" is a term worth remembering. And I've been fascinated lately by the tendency of younger people to use the word "exhausting" in their complaints. 

For example, here's a WaPo article from last June, "Black people are tired of trying to explain racism":

Perhaps I was trying to explain institutional racism, or racism and Western Civilization, or racism and literature.... I have no recollection of this conversation. It sounds like my younger self — the self not yet exhausted explaining racism to white people.... Explaining racism is exhausting. It’s exhausting to explain to people who don’t believe you, or who look at you with blank expressions. Or, worse, who ask, “How do you know that happened because of race?”... Racism is exhausting.

"I dare you to name something more archetypally boomer than these two cherished idols—the Boss and the Chief—dubbing themselves rebellious in a Spotify-exclusive podcast..."

"... sponsored by Comcast and Dollar Shave Club. ('How do I handle grooming below the belt?' the ad spot asks; mercifully, neither host is made to read it.)... As a cultural figure, the Boss sits in a cross-racial sweet spot, as an anointed idol for the coded white working class who pairs his aging denim with bright-blue politics. He is also comfortable playing the good white liberal without self-punishing overtures. His home town of Freehold, New Jersey, was 'your typical small, provincial, redneck, racist little American nineteen-fifties town,' he says plainly, without squeamishness.... Discussing the protests of last summer, Obama comes just short of infantilizing the activities of those who were on the ground. 'I think there’s a little bit of an element of young people saying, "You’ve told us this is who we’re supposed to be."' A guitar strums gently in the background. 'And that’s why as long as protests and activism doesn’t veer into violence, my general attitude is—I want and expect young people to push those boundaries.'...  But I can understand the people who might still take comfort in hearing Obama right up against their eardrums, doing his host schtick, asking, 'Did you see the movie "Get Out"?,' referring to a memorable line that invokes his name."

From "Obama and Springsteen Are Here to Lull America" by Lauren Michele Jackson (The New Yorker).

The line in "Get Out" is: "By the way, I would have voted for Obama for a third term if I could." Read more about it in "Bradley Whitford didn't realize Get Out's Obama line was supposed to be a joke at first" (AV Club).

"In our own ways, Bruce and I have been on parallel journeys trying to understand this country that’s given us both so much. Trying to chronicle the stories of its people. Looking for a way to connect our own individual searches for meaning and truth and community with the larger story of America."

Said Barack Obama, quoted in "Barack Obama and Bruce Springsteen Join Many Men Before Them, Launch a Podcast" (NY Magazine).  

... journeys... stories... a way to connect our own individual searches for meaning and truth and community with the larger story of America... 

I don't know. That must appeal to some people but it sounds perfectly silly to me. 

 I love the photograph, which I'll copy because it's Spotify's picture (by Rob DeMartin) and they seem to be trying to promote the podcast, so I'm only helping them:

The 2 men and their environment are so ideal... and yet... where are the masks? Did they really do the podcast there on abutting sides of that delicate table? Does Bruce really use wheelie chairs on those loose, blanket-like rugs? That's not going to work. Did they just happen to cross their arms and legs in the same way? More importantly, do this guys have a good podcast-y way to talk back and forth? 

ADDED: I am actually going to attempt to listen to this. I'll let you know how it turns out.

UPDATE: My effort ended 14 minutes and 27 seconds in. I found it of no interest whatsoever.