How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Podcast

I was first intro­duced to pod­cast­ing by Todd Burns, my edi­tor at [Sty­lus Magazine](http://stylusmagazine.com). He was way out in front on that, bring­ing read­ers the Sty­cast far more often than they deserved. Sure, it may have sound­ed like a painful eye prob­lem, it was much fur­ther ahead of its time than I realized. 

Since then I’d describe my rela­tion­ship with pod­casts as aspi­ra­tional; I treat them like I would chal­leng­ing books or a Bela Tarr movie. I find myself load­ing up on inter­est­ing shows that are all over the map, only to find the badge of unheard shows grow­ing dai­ly. I’d delete them from my iPod and for­get about them for months before skulk­ing back to them like I need­ed to take my med­i­cine. What was it about them that turned me off? 

Were they too ama­teur­ish? Too pro­fes­sion­al? Sim­ply too long?

While they may not have become the enter­tain­ment jug­ger­naut the pod­cast pio­neers thought they might become, pod­casts have come of age rather nice­ly. There are sev­er­al I lis­ten to reg­u­lar­ly, includ­ing Jesse Thorn’s Bulls­eye, a few Ear­wolf shows and The Low Times, host­ed by Philly ex-pats Mag­gie Sero­ta and Daniel Ral­ston, along with some guy Chuck Wool­ery blocked on Twit­ter. I’m also watch­ing a few from TWiT.tv in an effort to get more out of my iPhone and iPad. See? I told you I was aspirational!

I still over­reach: will I ever real­ly lis­ten to the Leonard Lopate show? Some episodes of The Moth are so serious!

What are your favorites? Tell me about them!