Hi, friend!

The show that makes you the smartest person at dinner

I am now well past the age where I am looking to meet people in bars or clubs. But dinner parties? Love me a good dinner party.

And I was lucky enough to get an invite to one that turned out to be full of people working in experiential design and what the future of it looks like. Feel free to shoot me an email, and we can discuss at length the concept of “competitive socialization” and why I’m now really excited to dig into that space. Related, if you ever find yourself in London, the Traitors Experience is a phenomenal example of this and, as a fan of the show, an amazing night. Also, was I picked as a Traitor? Yes, yes, I was. Did I win? Yes. And did the people in the group resent me after? Yes, still dealing with that.

All that said - heady stuff, and it was also very clear after about five minutes that I was utterly out of my depth.

But the fun of the whole night was in the learning, being surrounded by experts in the field who weren’t closed off but inviting me into the conversation. The energy of that, the frisson, was intoxicating. I left with a pile of new ideas, two book recommendations, and three interactive theater experiences to go see (side note - I’m assuming I’ll be “cool dad” if I bring a six-year-old to the Black Mirror experience, yes?).

There is a pod that I love that captures that same vibe. Fascinating, exciting, makes you wanna go out and learn. So let’s celebrate that show as our new pick of the week; please welcome Ologies!

(had to check the spelling on that one a few times)

Ologies is hosted by Alie Ward, a science correspondent who has hosted the show since 2017. Every week she finds somebody who has given their entire working life to one very specific field. She calls them an ologist and then spends the pod digging into their life and world, asking the questions you’d like to think you would ask if you were smart and informed and a very, very good interviewer. Most episodes are named for the field they are based on. Squirrels. Menopause. Why complex societies fall apart. Which makes even reading the episode list fun.

Nine years doing anything is a very long time, and time can really begin to rub down the sharper creative edges. The Grand Canyon as a metaphor for the creative soul, worn down by millennia of stress and trauma. This is not the case for Ologies, where the current episode feels as fresh as the first.

And to that point, on the other side, the two minutes of tape that made me a true believer.