User:Thijshijsijsjss/Gossamery/60-songs-that-explain-the-90s

In the ever droughtful search for podcasts, I stumbled upon 60 Songs That Explain the 90s.

108: Portishead, Glory Box

• Listened to on 15-02-2024
• Listen to it here

To try out this podcast, I decided to listen to the episode on Dummy semi randomly. Portishead has made some really great music, naturally, and they reside in an area of music history that I'm familiar with, but not super deep into. It is a rich area tough, so I thought this would be a good one to try out. In short: I was very positively surprised!

A meandering opening is held together by an anecdote of the narrator: while attending Portishead's 1997 concert in the Roseland Ballroom (NYC), they got so annoyed with a cheering crowdmember, that they beat them up using the saladbar nearby. The anecdote is in and out of focus during this 30 minute introduction, setting the stage of the time with related acts, the personal experiences of the narrator, and their relationship with Portishead's music. We are fed little audo snippets of the event, accompanying little snippets of the anecdote. We learn that the narrator was never there. But still, they were there and they beat up this audience member. It sounds gruesome, but it is told is such a caring manner. More and more, we learn that this all just a fiction. And then, the episode gets introduced and the intro is over.

I was in awe. The extent to which the narrator developed this fiction, only set the scene. The storytelling, masterfully interwoven with audio segments, making for a seamless* podcast experience.

In Special Issue 23, I have become increasingly interested in the power of fictionalization. Examples seen in this SI include:

• Documenting through Dialogue https://www.metamute.org/sites/www.metamute.org/files/pml/irational-orgs-traum.pdf/
• Map is the territory, a digital zine intended as an introduction to the command line in wizardly fashion.
• The chopchop oracle: presenting a welcome message randomly selected from a pool of diverse samples.

This podcast episode reinforced this already growing interest and fascination. I guess you start to notice more examples, when you start to look for them. Having a character share their name with a book's author, for example, a decently 'common' technique in literature (and in my experience especially in Dutch literature (E.g. Blauwe Maandagen, Hedonia, ..., but also Everything Is Illuminated)). Film can do this too (e.g. Curb your Enthusiasm). For a seemingly small thing, this carries a tremendous power in engaging the consumer. What is real and what is fiction? Embracing this ambiguity primes the consumer for a real engaged connection.

103: Fugazi, Merchandise

• Listened to on 17-02-2024
• Listen to it here