Mass for Shut-ins: The Gin and Tacos Podcast

A pair of artists use a large market research survey to find out what people say they like least in music and, with their neuroscientist friend, set out to create the worst possible song. Featuring an opera soprano rapping about Wittgenstein, and a chorus of children singing about Yom Kippur at Walmart.  Did they succeed in making the worst song? Let's put it this way: It isn't good. The full song...

In 1982 an eccentric, paranoid coal baron from Frog Level, VA wanted to buy a remote island to get away from Communists, taxes, and Freudian psychoanalysts. He chooses one of the Pitcairn Islands (of Mutiny on the Bounty fame) and proceeds to try to buy it from the UK, of which it is a colony. And here's the thing: they almost said yes. They wanted to say yes.  A real-life version of Boss Hogg cam...

Story: Three Men in a Can - Voskhod 1. The USSR beats the USA to the feat of sending a three-person crew into space by pointing at its one-man spacecraft and telling three guys "Get in there." A story (with a happy ending!) about claustrophobia as we are all starting to feel a bit cooped up from sheltering in place. Guest: Dr. Samantha Montano, who holds a Ph. D. in emergency management, discusses...

The origin story of those flaming bottles we all know and love. Nothing says "Take that, The Man!" like the imagery of someone in a mask lobbing a Molotov. Today it's an anti-authoritarian gesture, but it started as (checks notes) a Finnish tank-killer. In one of the least-remembered conflicts of the 20th Century, the Soviet-Finnish Winter War of 1939. Minicasts are short stories for fans of quick...

Story: One of my favorite phenomena in demographic data...the harvesting effect. What I learned from a heat wave in Chicago in 1995, and how it applies to the current coronavirus outbreak. Mortality data can simultaneously be accurate and misleading. Guest: Mike Pearl ( @MikeLeePearl) , author of the Vice column "How scared should I be?" and of the new book The Day it Finally Happens . We talk abo...

Guest: Adam Johnson ( @ adamjohnsonNYC ) is the cohost of Citations Needed , an outstanding podcast on the media and political communication. He joins me to talk about the unfolding situation in Iran and how it rekindles some of the biggest problems with media coverage of the Iraq War run-up, like the exclusion of anti-war voices in "debates" that boil down to both sides agreeing that war is aweso...

The 2nd annual All-Mailbag Episode. Question Cathy and I tackle ranked-choice voting & instant runoff voting, whether the primaries are too nasty, how to put your time to the best use in the election, climate change, Brexit, and whether the hot dog counts as a sandwich (hint: it does, and I'm sorry). Please support Mass for Shut-ins, an independent and ad-free podcast,  via Patreon . Contact me vi...

If you need more encouragement to listen to a story about the Lewis & Clark expedition shitting poisonous heavy metals all over the continent and how science has exploited that to generate useful historical data, I don't know what to tell you.  Minicasts are short stories for fans of quick, to-the-point podcasts and as a nice change of pace from the longer full episodes of Mass for Shut-ins. Get f...

An underemployed draftsman named Harry Beck looked at the original London Underground map, realized it was crap, and set himself the task of creating a better one. By ignoring one of the cardinal rules of mapmaking he showed how to make transit maps better and easier to use.  Minicasts are short stories for fans of quick, to-the-point podcasts and as a nice change of pace from the longer full epis...

In 1946, post-war Britain tries to solve four very different problems at once: a labor surplus of returning military, a shortage of key foods, the need to make colonies economically independent, and a dignified way to draw down the Empire. The scheme they came up with is ... incredible. That is to say, you will not find it credible. Tanzania. 3 million acres of rock-hard clay soil. It just screams...

Walking around the countryside ("rambling") is very important to the British, and they don't take kindly to the idea that unoccupied land is off-limits to walkers. The so-called Right to Roam, even on privately owned land, is the direct result of ... direct action. In 1932 a group of walking enthusiasts / Communists in Manchester engaged in mass civil disobedience by walking across the Duke of Dev...

Story: Why does the President, and only the President, require natural born citizenship in the Constitution? If you think you know why, you're likely only half-correct. It has a lot to do with the way the document's authors understood the history of politics in monarchies.  Guest: Astra Taylor (@ astradisastra) is a documentarian and author whose recent book, Democracy May Not Exist, But We'll Mis...

Flying was luxurious (and costly) before 1977. Then deregulation happened. Now flying is cheap and bad. Pioneering low-cost / no-frills airlines like People Express showed us the way. In its short life (1981-1987) People Express introduced many lamentable aspects to U.S. air travel: paying to check bags, exchanging comfort for low prices, and going to Newark for some reason. And wait until you hea...

A 90,000-seat stadium is built to host a single event, then torn down. And it was in, of all places, Toledo, Ohio. In 1919 boxing was the king of the sports and entertainment world, and a match between two household names - Jack Dempsey and the little-remembered Jess Willard - was such a big event that its promoter could afford to build a stadium and use it like a Kleenex. In honor of the 100th an...

Story: Today's new cars are crammed full of tech to compensate for unusually poor rear and blind spot visibility. They've also gotten much heavier since 2000 - and more dangerous to for pedestrians. All of these are unintended consequences of regulatory changes in the auto industry after the Firestone Tires / SUV rollover debacle of the late 90s. I tie all those threads together for you. Guest: Am...

After World War I, German utopian pacifist architect Herman Sörgel proposed a scheme to keep European nations busy (and not fighting wars!) for 100 years by damming the Strait of Gibraltar, the Dardanelles, and the Strait of Sicily. This would produce enormous amounts of hydroelectricity AND lower the Mediterranean Sea by over 600 feet. That would connect Africa and Europe into one supercontinent...

Two police forces. Two sets of laws. Two postal systems. Two kinds of money. For 74 years the UK and France governed the island colony of the New Hebrides (since 1980, the independent nation of Vanuatu featured on Season 9 of Survivor) under a bizarre condominium arrangement. The islands were governed by the respective nations, with totally different laws and bureaucracies, on alternating days. An...

In a life-or-death situation, would you engage in cannibalism? What do people even taste like? In 1931, journalist and author William Seabrook wrote a book in which he answers that question for you...which is both extremely kind of him (so you don't have to find out on your own) and really gross and weird. One hint: People taste like another thing we shouldn't be eating. Minicasts are short (appro...

Story: Diamond Jim Brady's Million Dollar Sauce. Famous gourmand and eccentric rich person of the Gilded Age goes to ludicrous lengths to steal the recipe for what is purported to be the world's most delicious sauce for Filet of Sole. How far would you go to satisfy a food craving? Spoiler alert - you wouldn't go as far as Diamond Jim.  Guest: Amanda Kolson Hurley , author of the new book Radical...

If you've ever wondered, "Is it possible to guarantee winning the lottery by buying one ticket for every possible combination of numbers?" this is the Minicast for you. Does it work? Is it legal? Is it even POSSIBLE to do? You're about to find out. Minicasts are short (approx. 5-8 min) stories for fans of quick, to-the-point podcasts and as a nice change of pace from the longer full episodes of Ma...

Guest: Dr. Daniel Immerwahr , associate professor of history at Northwestern University and author of the new " How to Hide an Empire: the history of the greater United States. " We talk about the many ways in which America has maintained (and still maintains) an empire through territorial occupation, a network of military bases fanned out across the globe, and domination of international standard...

Fish are served as fish. Chickens as chicken. Turkeys as turkey. But when it comes to other commonly consumed animals in the English-speaking world we use different words for the animal and the food. Cows, pigs, sheep, and deer become beef, pork, mutton, and venison. Why? Well, it starts with the Norman conquest of England in 1066 and has to do with social class divisions between speakers of Old E...

A young Long Island housewife named Penelope Ashe saw her debut novel, Naked Came the Stranger, go straight to the best-seller list despite the mystery surrounding its reclusive author, its racy content, and its little-known publisher.  It pushed the limits of what "obscenity" meant in 1969. But gratuitous sex scenes aside, Penelope Ashe had an even bigger secret... Minicasts are short (approx. 5...

Guest: Dr. Rebekah Tromble (Leiden University), professor of political communication, led a team chosen by Twitter to conduct research on overall "health" of conversation on the platform. As soon as the company announced its plan to sponsor research, right-wingers flipped out and began a campaign of threats and harassment aimed largely at Rebekah. Six months later, her life is (mostly) back to nor...

Story: Andrew Johnson gets incredibly drunk at his inauguration and makes a scene you'll have to hear about to believe. He calls out every member of the Cabinet by name (Wu-Tang style), makes up his own oath of office, and nearly drives his colleagues to weep from shame. And he owed it all to Civil War-era medicine's inability to treat serious illness except with Patent Medicines (i.e., alcohol, o...