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)

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#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)

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#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)

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#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)

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#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)

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#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 • [email protected]

#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)

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#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)

[email protected] • @downersradio on twitter • /r/downersradio on reddit