Tag: podcasting

2023 in Review: Hard Launched

Posted on by Elise

“There are years that ask questions and years that answer.”

― Zora Neale Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God

On book release day at CNN in New York, reacting live to host Richard Quest in a Korean jimjilbang

It was the year of Taylormania, the year of ongoing wars and displacement, the hottest year on record (and climbing), the year of Ozempic, the year artificial intelligence advances demonstrated astonishing capabilities and triggered serious concerns. Life comes at you fast. Faster than we can humanly process, I think. The AI field is apparently advancing three times faster than Moore’s Law (in other words, doubling capabilities and speed every six months). In the US, the year started with 17 excruciating ballots to elect Kevin McCarthy as Speaker of the House and it’s ending with him not even serving in the House anymore.

The podcasting industry (ahem, my industry) got clobbered. Companies folded. Spotify laid off hundreds and killed its in-house podcast units, and my longtime employers in public radio laid off swaths of talent. The film industry effectively went on hiatus this summer as both the unions for screenwriters and actors went on strike, which, living in Los Angeles, I saw in my backyard. I even joined in the picketing with my screenwriter partner, until the stalemate with the studios finally, finally came to an end.

My year was about giving my heart and soul to launching and touring my first book. Energy and love came back to me in surprising, rewarding, heartfelt ways. Superstars moderated book talks with me in cities across the country and most recently, in Hong Kong. People like my tax accountant, high school prom date, and my former and current bosses all showed up. I had the great honor of being invited on national broadcasts and podcasts and featured in magazines. I met and corresponded with thousands of readers directly, who shared similar desires to resist factory-issued beauty culture and stand up for bodily autonomy and liberation. Friends and readers, I cannot say thank you enough.

Photo credit: Sarah Makki for LAist

Favorite TED Talks: Research-backed ways to manage pain. Dr. Becky, on repair.

Best gift: Rob wrote me a song about all my paradoxes and performed it with his band at my birthday party

Favorite Film: Past Lives

Firsts: Picket line. Ketamine treatment. Book release. Book tour. Writing a film treatment. Mahjong.

Disappointments: Facebook page got hacked and they couldn’t restore years of photos and videos. Not enough newborn meetups! Have my friends all stopped having little babies?! My opinion piece for the New York Times got spiked at the last minute. I missed my BFF Sudeep’s wedding party in DC because of schedule conflicts.

New cities: Yosemite National Park, though I suppose it’s not a city. Ensenada in Baja California, famous for its blowhole. Isa observed this natural phenomenon sandwiched by Mennonites, which she didn’t even notice because she was so mesmerized by the blowhole.

Isa in Ensenada

Notable New Friend: Janet Yang, who is a force in the entertainment industry, the current head of the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences, and walks the walk when it comes to Asian representation and excellence. She’s opened the doors to a network of badass Asian women that I admire and feel fortified and nourished by.

With Janet at one of her mahjong parties

Fave Tennis Player: Daniil Medvedev — he’s blunt, he’s precise, he is genuine. He’s had an incredible year. He has gawky fluidity and a smothering wingspan. All I’ve ever wanted is gawky fluidity. All I have ever been is gawky.

Favorite podcast episode: Radiolab’s episode, The Seagulls, on how same sex behavior is far more common in the animal kingdom than scientists thought. It’s evolutionarily adaptive. Here’s a WaPo story on the same idea.

Purchases and practices that fed me:

  • Iced Honey Lavender Latte from Love Coffee Bar, in LA’s Mar Vista neighborhood. So creamy and so delicious. It better be, because it’s $7.50, not counting the tip.
  • Making Ram-Don, the instant noodle+steak combo popularized in a crucial scene in Parasite. Maangchi teaches it best.
  • Xirena white button down, and I liked it so much I got the same shirt in black

In no particular order, this year I…

Was in the live audience of The Masked Singer, a longtime bucket list item
Released my first book
Toured the book in 14 cities
Sold the film rights to said book(!)
Started a documentary project related to the book
Went to the pop culture event of the year: The Eras Tour
Learned how to play mahjong (poorly)
Dislocated my shoulder (again)
Appeared on 38 podcasts (including three of them I host)
Met two K-pop groups at KCON at the Staples center
Trained 24 times with my personal trainer neighbor two houses down
Got my neck and back cracked three times
Tried ketamine at a sub-anesthetic dose
Threw three big parties, including Deck the Balls, my ball-themed potluck and attended lots of book parties for Flawless and all the food was delicious
Met a member of Mac Sabbath, the McDonald’s+Black Sabbath tribute band
Saw a lot of artists perform live: Depeche Mode, Taylor Swift, Gracie Abrams, HAIM, Rain, XG, ATEEZ
Hosted a parade of friends at my house: Matt Thompson. And Bryan Tradup. And Pamela. And Lawrence and his family. And our staffer Mary. And my unstoppable actor friend Mari.
Returned to Asia for the first time in two years
Went to Washington DC five times
Read 28 books, reviewed a few of them
Attended two weddings: New York (Pamela and Jeff), DC (amy and Alli)
Flew 51,493 miles to 18 cities, five countries and spent 71 days away from home
Reunited with my brother in Hong Kong and visited my parents in Taipei

PREVIOUS YEARS IN REVIEW

2022|2021|2020 |2019 | 2018 | 2017 |  2016 | 2015 | 2014 | 2013 | 2012 | 2011 | 2010|2009 | 2008 | 2007 | 2006 | 2005 | 2004

The Big TED

Posted on by Elise
Upstairs at the convention center, a view of Vancouver Harbor

Back from Vancouver, where TED hosted its first flagship conference since 2019, and what an event it was. We were greeted by anti-vaxxers who have it out for Bill Gates, one of this year’s speakers.

Nearly 2,000 participants took part from all over the world, dozens of speakers and performances enchanted, empowered and enlightened us, an endless series of off-campus sessions, dinners and parties forged new connections, re-ignited old ones, and gave a lot of us COVID. I suppose the COVID part was to be expected.

With TED Radio Hour producers Rachel and James, between sessions.

As a TED podcast host, I was in Vancouver to work rather than simply watch and enjoy, so it meant not missing any talks, since we will be featuring them in the weeks and months to come on the podcast. I also conducted a series of behind-the-scenes conversations with this year’s speakers, which we will append to the end of their talks when they’re on the show.

Forager and TED speaker Alexis Nikole Nelson is just the raddest.

But there was plenty of time open in the schedule for partying and reuniting with friends, too.

This year, my former NPR colleague and life advice guru, Shankar, spoke on something called the illusion of continuity, which is also the subject of one of my favorite TED talks of all time. I was mainly happy just to see Shankar and hang out with him, as well as make a new friend in the former newsman, Dan Harris, who now runs the meditation app, 10 Percent Happier. Dan really crushed it on the TED stage, too.

My man Hot Rob came out to Vancouver to hang out with me and that was a balm, because these giant conferences where you’re surrounded by a sea of humanity have a way of making me feel really alienated and lonely. (I also felt like this when I covered the Olympics in 2018).

Got super cheap dumplings and Tsingtao with Hot Rob in downtown Vancouver

So I’m grateful he was there to kick it and make jokes about rich people like Elon Musk, who showed up on the last day. We squeezed in some Vancouver sightseeing, like a freezing cold bike ride along the sea walk and around Stanley Park. If not for the extremely helpful boost from electric bikes, I would not have made it back.

Ideas I’m excited about spreading: Universal basic services instead of universal basic income, a proper accounting of the climate benefitting labor that whales and elephants and other creatures do just by existing (so that they can be considered worth more alive than dead), and the work of the choreographer and animator Nina McNeely, whose stage production mesmerized us.

 

Livin’ That Multihyphenate Life

Posted on by Elise
New gig, who dis?

Starting today I’ll be in available in your feeds every weekday, hosting the daily TED talk podcast, which is the fittingly-named TED Talks Daily. It’s one of America’s top 20 podcasts and downloaded a million times a day, all over the world. Not only do I love working with the good folks at TED already and love being able to host this from anywhere with an internet connection, I can’t wait to connect with the global TED community. From the TED announcement:

 TED Talks Daily, which is downloaded one million times per day, is one of the most downloaded shows, and not just in the US — it’s been featured in Apple Podcasts’ top ten charts in 130 countries around the world (more than any other podcast)…

“TED Talks Daily has long been a favorite way for audiences to engage with TED Talks, so we’re looking forward to adding onto the format,” said Colin Helms, head of media at TED. “What listeners have come to know and love about TED Talks Daily will continue, but with Elise as our host, we can build a richer backdrop for our talks.”

Ever since moving here I’ve craved and sought LA’s multi-hyphenate, project-based way of life. (Which is to say, I wanted to be job promiscuous instead of contractually locked down to one single employer.) So in addition to my other hustles, my dear friend Rachel and I co-founded a media company, and brought on another rad mom friend, Meghan. Reasonable Volume (yes named after Milton’s riff in my fave film of all time, Office Space) is already off & running and making bespoke pods & projects, so let’s make something together.

It probably goes without saying that I left my full-time role at NPR but in true LA-style, I am staying “attached,” like they say in Hollywood, to NPR projects as a roving host at-large. Public media remains vital and maybe now more so than ever.

And with guidance from my smart, savvy agent/friend/life coach, Howard, I sold my book project, Flawless, examining K-beauty, gender & power to Dutton, an imprint of Penguin Random House. This year I have to actually write it.

OK that’s the update. Change is hard but constant. I’m trying, like everyone else, to keep my head above water and stay open to all of it. My cadence these days is every other day or so I’m totally fine and find a lot of joy in my quotidian quarantine life, and every off day I’m in total despair and think of all the calamity and uncertainty nonstop. The only way through it is through it, but I hope that we can all stay connected and supportive to one another during this wild time to be alive, a wild time to be a human.

We’re Lifelong Friends

Posted on by Elise
The trolley! At WQED. (Credit: David Pinkerton)

I grew up with Mister Rogers and PBS in general. PBS played an outsized role in my childhood because my mother didn’t speak English with me at home, so a lot of my early understanding of the world came from what I saw on Sesame Street and Mister Rogers Neighborhood. When I was in elementary school, our family went to Pittsburgh and got a tour of the studio where they make the show. We got to see the puppets from the land of make believe and I was star struck. I think Mr. Rogers was my first celebrity crush, and always in my heart. When he died in the early aughts, I grieved. And since then, I have kept a book of his quotes and wisdom with me wherever I live, so other people can read him when they come over.

Last week while guest hosting It’s Been a Minute, I spoke with Carvell Wallace, the host of Finding Fred, a podcast that deep dives into Mister Rogers’ life and lessons and legacy.

Our conversation brought me to tears. This is the part of the transcript that hit me hard, though, it’s best heard rather than read. The Mr. Rogers conversation is in the middle of the show — it follows the “three words” A segment.

WALLACE: So he was really swimming upstream in almost every sense. And I think people – because we have unhealed children that live in us that we’re not seeing and that are not loved, I think we’re still looking for a child’s solution to being an adult. So perhaps what he might tell us is that – and he said this – this is something that he said in the last thing he ever did in television, which was a PSA after 9/11:

ROGERS (archived recording): I’m just so proud of all of you who have grown up with us. And I know how tough it is some days to look with hope and confidence on the months and years ahead.

WALLACE: And he talked about two very important concepts. One is the idea that – it’s a Jewish concept – tikkun olam, which means to be repairers of the world.

ROGERS (archived): I’m so grateful to you for helping the children in your life to know that you’ll do everything you can to keep them safe and to help them express their feelings in ways that will bring healing in many different neighborhoods.

WALLACE: And the second concept that he talked about is that he spoke to adults. And he said, I’m so proud of you and who you’ve become.

ROGERS: It’s such a good feeling to know that we’re lifelong friends.

WALLACE: And so even there, he’s saying to people, you are free from the burden to have to prove yourself. And so with that out of the way, perhaps you can focus on repairing the world.

GAAAHHH it hit me so hard in the feels when we played the tape of Mr. Rogers in the interview, and then again when I listened to the mixed version for edit/review, I started bawling all over again.

Settlers of Seoul Podcast

Posted on by Elise

This week I sat down with Arius Derr of a local podcast called Settlers of Seoul to talk about A LOT OF STUFF. Things I never thought about before, like the cryptocurrency Dogecoin. We did about an hour together, so I think this is officially the longest amount of time I’ve ever spent answering questions about myself. It was super fun, despite my being stumped a lot. Show notes are here.

Thanks, Arius!

Confrusted

Posted on by Elise

Converting to Snow Leopard operating system created a mountain of problems for me and all the video/audio programs we rely on. Various device driver downloads solved most of my camera compatibility issues, but now my hub for my podcasting mics is unable to be read as an “aggregate device”, because Snow Leopard won’t make that a choice.

This is a situation our technology grand pubah calls “confrustion”, the unfortunate hybrid of confusion and frustration. You can see it on our faces, below. I’m guessing since we’re a startup trying to build a new public media brand, being confrusted will become the norm for the next few weeks.

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