
Sign up to save your podcasts
Or


Decoder Ring is Slate's show about cracking cultural mysteries. In each episode, host Willa Paskin takes a cultural question, object, or habit, examines its history, and tries to figure out what it means and why it matters.
This episode introduces you to Ilona Granet, who was a New York art-scene fixture who won the praise of the art world when she put up anti-harassment street signs in lower Manhattan in the mid- 1980s. Her career seemed like a sure thing, but three decades on, and so much more art later, it still hasn’t materialized, even as her contemporaries are now hanging in museums. This episode is not about the familiar myth of making it, but the mystery of not making it. What happens, to an artist—to anyone—when they’re good enough, but that’s not enough?
If you like the show, subscribe to Decoder Ring on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen.
Need to set up your Slate Plus feed? If you subscribed through Slate.com, check out our FAQ at slate.com/podcastfaqs for easy instructions. Members subscribed via Apple Podcasts get automatic access—no setup required.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
By Slate Podcasts4.6
2379323,793 ratings
Decoder Ring is Slate's show about cracking cultural mysteries. In each episode, host Willa Paskin takes a cultural question, object, or habit, examines its history, and tries to figure out what it means and why it matters.
This episode introduces you to Ilona Granet, who was a New York art-scene fixture who won the praise of the art world when she put up anti-harassment street signs in lower Manhattan in the mid- 1980s. Her career seemed like a sure thing, but three decades on, and so much more art later, it still hasn’t materialized, even as her contemporaries are now hanging in museums. This episode is not about the familiar myth of making it, but the mystery of not making it. What happens, to an artist—to anyone—when they’re good enough, but that’s not enough?
If you like the show, subscribe to Decoder Ring on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen.
Need to set up your Slate Plus feed? If you subscribed through Slate.com, check out our FAQ at slate.com/podcastfaqs for easy instructions. Members subscribed via Apple Podcasts get automatic access—no setup required.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

76,194 Listeners

91,297 Listeners

37,595 Listeners

9,238 Listeners

8,471 Listeners

1,378 Listeners

3,530 Listeners

11,895 Listeners

2,843 Listeners

996 Listeners

1,030 Listeners

5,627 Listeners

58,974 Listeners

1,867 Listeners

113,121 Listeners

53 Listeners

2,083 Listeners

235 Listeners

2,122 Listeners

19,133 Listeners

2,405 Listeners

1,283 Listeners

16,512 Listeners

1,194 Listeners

449 Listeners

437 Listeners

16,525 Listeners

60 Listeners

48 Listeners

97 Listeners

6 Listeners

130 Listeners

0 Listeners

45 Listeners