Ope Pardon, No. 18: Baby's First Podcast Binge

As of this writing, I have spent the last 18 waking hours listening to the podcast Normal Gossip.

After hearing good things about it for several months, I finally decided to hit play on the first episode of the first season sometime in the afternoon of New Year's Day. And then I simply have not stopped listening.

The thing with podcasts — and I say this as someone who is notoriously bad about listening to podcasts with any regularity — is that you can listen to them while doing most things. (I just usually chose not to.) So I listened to Normal Gossip while I did my gift shopping (I am a January gift giver), worked on my budget (new year, new me), cooked dinner, cleaned my apartment, walked my dog. I listened to it all day Monday while I worked and during every one of Jack's subsequent walks. I am, in fact, listening to it while I am writing this.

Now, to be fair, by the second season I started fast forwarding through the introduction where the host interviews the guests (there are only so many ways to answer the question "what's your relationship to gossip" and "do you consider yourself a gossip") and by the last couple episodes, I was mostly committed to finishing the season so that I could make a clean break.

However! Please don't let that lessen what has so far been an implicit but let me now make extremely direct endorsement: Normal Gossip is a perfect podcast and I am, as should be evident by now, obsessed.

While I have to imagine much of this mailing list is already familiar with the podcast, but for those that are not, the premise is simple: After the aforementioned introductory interview, host Kelsey McKinney (journalist, culture writer) tells a guest (typically another journalist or extremely online professional) a story of "normal gossip" (low-stakes, local, nothing too dark) and the guests reacts as anyone receiving good goss would. There is also a sprinkle of "choose your own adventure" fun as McKinney will occasionally pause and ask the guest how they would react or what they would do.

I would recommend starting with season 1, episode 1 and continuing forth as such — as my behavior should indicate, I was immediately hooked — but I will also offer my five favorite episodes just for posterity and also so that when you listen to them, you can text me immediately about them.

1. Nemesis by Proxy (Season 1, Episode 6): The episode begins with McKinney describing a man that our heroine has just met and she says, "There's only one real problem, and it's not a real problem, right?" and guest Delia Cai snorts and responds, "I guess we'll see" and babyyy, do we ever.

2. Spot the Scammer (Season 1, Episode 8): My favorite episodes involve friend groups and/or trips that I am eternally grateful bear no resemblance to my friend groups. I think this is spiritually very similar to season 1, episode 5 ("Leave 'em a Little Bit Broke, a Little Bit Mad") which is my friend's favorite episode and one of the truest to what is classic "gossip" (versus just a wild story, "Spot the Scammer" is admittedly more "wild story") and also it is an unimpeachable reminder to never put anything in writing that you would not feel comfortable having read in a court of law (or on a podcast), but anyways I personally prefer this one.

3. Grandma's Best Friend Dot (Season 2, Episode 1): This episode has White Lotus energy and I will not explain further than that. (They might actually make the reference in the episode too, I can't remember what is an original thought at this point.)

4. Not Quite Magicians (Season 2, Episode 2): I know (because I listened to the FAQ episode too) that they heavily anonymize the stories and as such the close-up magic is almost certainly one such anonymized detail however it made me laugh every time they said "not-quite-magic" and also I spent the whole time imagining this story taking place in Chicago and you cannot convince me otherwise.

5. Season 1 BONUS: Your Family Gossip (Season 1 Episode 9): Several short pieces of gossip directly from the listeners, delightful.

I love gossip, especially, perhaps even more so, when I don't know the people involved. Over the years, I have also been blessed to be the recipient of much delicious gossip, I think because I am a pretty good listener and advice giver and also judicious distributor of my own reserves of gossip. (I can, to be clear, keep a secret and I don't spread gossip just to spread gossip — at least not to anyone living on the same continent. My new coworkers are huge gossips but currently I direct most of what I hear to my friends back in the U.S.)

Lately, I have been thinking about the parts of myself that I have lost touch with and want to bring back into my life in 2023 — you know, gentle resolutions, and all that. Mostly, I've been thinking about wanting to be more intentional in my relationship to music again (live shows, and new artists, and resisting Spotify curation) and going out dancing more. But also, apparently, as this podcast has reminded me, I miss gossip!

Which is to say, if you need anyone to gossip with who lives in another country and has no personal connection to any of the people in your story (or better yet, ONCE had a personal connection but now is, as previously noted, living in another country) — please, contact me at any time in any fashion.

Anyways! Happy New Year!

Send me your Normal Gossip thoughts and/or your normal gossip.