MisInfoNation

For this season one finale of Passport, we head to Australia to explore the star-studded skies of the country’s Western Outback. Scarce on people and heavy on sheep and cattle stations, the vast expanses of land and desert here offer pure darkness and one of the top global destinations to stargaze. Astro revellers travel from all over the world, but what many miss out on is the rich tapestry of indigenous creation stories, myths, and customs that the stars can all point to.

The Australian Aboriginals have been reading the skies above this land longer than any culture on earth. They possess a deep understanding of cosmology and how to accurately read the stars for navigation, water sourcing, animal migration and breeding patterns, natural law, customs, and spirituality. For thousands of years, this profound astronomical intelligence has been buried. Fortunately, this is changing.

Passport producer Jennifer Carr took a trip Down Under for Part 1 of this double episode season finale of Passport, and discovered there’s a whole lot more to the Cosmos than meets our Western eyes.

For more, including links to the things we talked about, and the places we visited, plus a full transcript, visit https://www.frequencymachine.com/passport

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

South Africa, the rainbow nation. A place of dazzling sun, incredible wildlife, rugged coasts, and tabletop mountains, with a people as diverse and creative as the landscape. The country’s art scene too is in rude health, one of the most forward thinking on the continent. But South Africa as a place of space, of technology, of the future? It’s not where your mind immediately goes.

Today, the country’s creatives are not remaining stuck in tradition. Take one look at South Africa’s best young artists, especially those in the vibrant city of Johannesburg, and you’ll notice a theme. They’re all following a code, an aesthetic, known as Afrofuturism. It’s an artistic concept which places people of the African diaspora in the future.

But why are South African musicians, writers, and artists looking forward not back? To space not the earth? How did apartheid cause utopian visions of the future? What links ancient African mythology with Black Panther? This week on Passport, we’re headed to Johannesburg to meet the South African afrofuturists to find out.

For more, including links to the things we talked about, and the places we visited, plus a full transcript, visit: https://www.frequencymachine.com/passport

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Clowns: freaky, funny or downright mystifying?

This week, we tread the boards of the French capital and dive into the city’s age-old love affair with this very distinct form of theatrics.

Paris has been an epicentre for performance artistry since the 1800s, but today the face of clowning and the circus look and feel very different. These days, clowning is cutthroat – demanding, grueling, and for some in the industry, a dying art that few can master. Besides a look at some of Paris’ most competitive clown schools, we also delve into the dark side of clowns and how pop culture has given us more than we bargained for beneath all that grease paint and innocent smiles: coulrophobia – the fear of clowns.

Join Passport producer, Jennifer Carr, for a fantastical journey full of conversations with clowns and artistic directors and a front row seat for an impromptu performance by Russian clown Igor, in our Barcelona studio.

For more, including links to the things we talked about, and the places we visited, plus a full transcript, visit https://www.frequencymachine.com/passport

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Traditions are weird, almost by definition. But where do they come from? In this week’s special Xmas episode of Passport, Neil and Andrés talk to Sergi Del Bas and historian Dani Cortijo about one of the most misunderstood regions of Spain. Catalonia. Or as the locals call it Catalunya. This is Spain, but it is very much not Spain.

And here in Catalunya, there exists what is perhaps one of the strangest Christmas traditions in the entire world. There is no Santa here. Here Xmas involves a log. About two feet long. With a face. Named Caga Tio. The Sh!t Log.

This week, Neil and Dre take you home for the holidays to put on your scatological detective hats and try to figure out how the personality of a culture created one of the most incredible symbols of the festive season in the world; A log, with a face, that you beat with sticks to encourage him to poop gifts.

For more, including pictures of Neil’s very own Caga Tio and others from all over Barcelona, plus links to the places we visited and a full transcript, visit: https://frequencymachine.com/passport. Just click on Episode 34.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

The mission of MisInfoNation is to help us understand whether our ideas about a place are real or just Imagined. But what about a place that was built on imagination? A place that would be the most visited country on earth… if it was a country? This week, we’re finding out with a trip to Disney.

Disney’s films are burned into the memory of nearly every single person alive. It’s world is immense, unavoidable, unmatched and undeniable. But the parks… well the parks are the real country of Disney. Deep Disney. A place where you walk, ride, eat, and meet the locals.

This is no cartoon, this is a place where you will certainly need a map, a plan, a schedule and a guide. And this week, we’ve got a good one. A parks mega fan. A snappy dresser. A foodie and a theme park journalist and the host of her own Disney podcast, Very Amusing: the whip smart, bubbly fountain of Diz wisdom, Carlye Wisel.

On this episode of MisInfoNation, Carlye’s going to help us sort out what the world gets right about Walt Disney World (and Disneyland. And Epcot. And Tokyo Disney.) and what it gets wronger than Goofy leaning against a wall with his head off. What’s it like to live as a Citizen (AKA a cast member) of Disney? Is there such a thing as good food in a theme park? And does Disney really make its own… smells? And of course the most important question of all - we’re going to the happiest place on earth… to find out if it really is.

Plus, if you think food at a theme parks is all bland hotdogs and overpriced sodas, Caryle’s got some Saved Pins to prove you wrong.

For more, including links to the things we talked about, and the places we visited, plus a full transcript, visit https://www.frequencymachine.com/passport

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

On this episode of Passport, we go across India by train to find a melting pot of culture sitting within the carriages. From history, literature, Bollywood and real love, you never know what’s round the corner when you hand the conductor your ticket and take your seat.

Why have trains inspired poems, films and writing throughout India? What makes them the perfect protagonist and why they are a great place to start a story? Especially love stories. This week, tales from inside the trains and a microcosm of Indian life - one that only exists on the railway.

For more, including links to the things we talked about, and the places we visited, plus a full transcript, visit https://www.frequencymachine.com/passport

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

The Passport team is off for Thanksgiving this week, but we’ve got a taste of what’s to come.

This season we’ve taken you to over 30 countries. We’ve met the world’s most famous extra in Belfast, investigated a stolen Van Gogh in Amsterdam, met mafia fighting chefs in Palermo, spent the night in the hotel that inspired The Shining, and set the record straight on Italy, Iran, Iceland and Russia. But we’re not done yet!

Coming up on the show: we search for love on the rails in India, visit Disneyland to see if it really is the happiest place on Earth, go back to the Afrofuturism in South Africa, and try to figure out just why the French love clowns so much. We gaze up at the stars in Australia with the world’s very first astronomers, and do our best to figure out what the deal is with Barcelona’s very… shall we say unique… Christmas tradition - Caga Tió.

So enjoy the holiday if you’re celebrating… and we’ll see you in the next place! 

For more, visit https://www.frequencymachine.com/passport

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Guisepe Verdi said, you can keep the universe, just give me Italy and if you’ve ever been, you know instantly what he means. Italy seems to have it all. The madness and romance of Rome. The pristine, perfectly colour coded class and style of Milan. The rugged and rich and endlessly tasty islands of Sicily and Sardinia. Cliché wise, Italy is a glaringly obvious choice for one of our MisInfoNation episodes. The whole world thinks it knows exactly what Italy is like. But those clichés can’t all be true. Can they? Is Italy really a country full of tall, dark, mafia-connected, passionate people who love pasta and make some of the best food on earth?

To find out, we’ve called in Milan-born photographer, Dario Flores D’arcais to help us sort through the facts and fiction (stylish fiction, but fiction nonetheless) of that big old beautiful boot jutting out into the Mediterranean Sea - Italia.

For more, including links to the things we talked about, and the places we visited, plus a full transcript, visit https://www.frequencymachine.com/passport

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Portugal’s Douro Valley is one of the toughest places on the planet to grow wine. Steep, terraced hills, treacherous river rapids, and blistering hot summers are a sharp contrast to the rolling hills of Spain’s Rioja or the Cypress-lined country roads of Tuscany. And yet, the Douro is actually the oldest demarcated wine region in the world. And even though a vine plague in the 1800s nearly wiped out every vineyard in the region, the Douro survived.

That’s because the people here are famed for their resilience and ability to repeatedly outsmart nature, no matter what it throws at them. And that goes double for the women. In fact, it was one of the valley’s daughters that saved wine in the region. Who are these remarkable women? What makes the Douro Valley, and its world-class wine scene, so special?

And will the threat of climate change - and now Covid - finally be their undoing?

Passport’s Jennifer Carr invites you to open a bottle and discover a place for wine lovers, warriors, and the women who are changing the face of winemaking - one glass at a time.

For more, including links to the things we talked about, and the places we visited, plus a full transcript, visit https://www.frequencymachine.com/passport

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

The 2020 US presidential election is probably the most important in a century. Everything is at stake: from the health of the world’s most powerful nation to the very nature of truth in the modern world. It’s been a frantic race, with many despairing at the divisiveness of modern US politics. But elections don’t always have to be doom and gloom. This week on Passport we take a look at two elections from around the world which tell us a lot about each country and prove the true power of democracy.

First, to the UK, for a bizarre story about election night, satire and two intergalactic space lords vying to become Prime Minister. In 2019, a character from an obscure 1980s Star Wars spoof known as Lord Buckethead - picture a budget Darth Vader - was resurrected to stand for election. But he had cylindrical headed competition: Count Binface. In a tale which highlights bizarre copyright law and some absurd quirks of UK politics, these two joke candidates faced off against Boris Johnson, proving British comedy goes all the way to the top, and that satire is the best way to bring politicians down to size.

And next, to Uruguay, a tiny country on the Atlantic coast of South America. Well, to a tiny farm in the grasslands outside the capital Montevideo, really. It’s not the most obvious place to look for someone who genuinely changed the world, but on this farm you’ll find Pepe Mujica - an old farmer who ran the country from 2009 - 2015. His story, which saw him transform from anarchist guerilla to peace-loving man-of-the-people president, shows what can happen when pragmatism meets progressive politics.

So, if you’re nervously watching the polls or want some respite from it altogether, come on a journey around the world to see what really happens when the smallest of people speak truth to power.

For more, including links to the things we talked about, and the places we visited, plus a full transcript, visit: https://frequencymachine.com/passport

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.