I love a podcast that has a really specific concept. I also love a podcast that has very short episodes. So it may be no surprise to you that one of my favorite podcasts of all time is the ultra-short-format (and too short-lived) 10 Things That Scare Me.
10 Things That Scare Me is incredibly beautiful, in both how it’s made and what it’s about. It’s an interview show where the guest talks about ten things that scare them. (I also love a podcast that makes a promise to you and then keeps it.)
I was first introduced to the show by my friend and fellow podcaster-in-arms, Helen Zaltzman, who knows I’m partial to very short podcasts. The first episode I heard was Anna Chlumsky’s. I’m a big fan of Veep and In the Loop and her performances in both, and at the time, her episode was the most recent. It was 6 minutes long, so I put it on while driving the four minutes to the grocery store. I spent the last two minutes parked, transfixed. Despite the seemingly straight-forward premise, I was surprised by almost everything I heard. I immediately put on another episode. Groceries be damned! (For, like, five more minutes.)
The show is a non-narrated format, which means that you only hear the guest’s voice. (This is also the format I use in Song Exploder and Partners.) To me, this is a great way to make a podcast feel very intimate, and when combined with the confessions about whatever inspires fear in that person – both big things and small things, silly things and gravely serious things – it felt like a tiny, revelatory glimpse into someone’s mind.
Every interview that someone does is a chance for them to answer the gargantuan question: “Who am I?” It’s a question that is too big to answer in any form other than an entire life, lived in real-time. So you can only chip at it, in little bits. What I want from a podcast interview, ideally, is for someone to answer the question “who am I?” in a way that reveals something new – new to the listener, and maybe new to the interviewee, too. That’s what I feel like you get on 10 Things.
On top of that, the show has the best sound design I’ve ever heard — it’s not just well made, and well executed, but it’s a piece of the show’s text, as well.. As Anna Chlumsky described her fear of misunderstandings, and how the show Curb Your Enthusiasm made her anxious, in the background, you hear a piano moving up the scale, chromatically, and a chorus of voices going “ppppbbbbtttthhhhh” – blowing raspberries in key with the piano. It’s an eerie, unsettling, anxious sound, as well as a very silly one, and it pairs perfectly with hearing her talk about how gut-churning, cringe-inducing comedy like Curb Your Enthusiasm makes her feel. The sound crescendoes and then cuts off abruptly as she goes to her next item.
BUT THEN: the next thing that scares her? “Poor vocal health.” She talks about the need to warm up her voice. And suddenly your brain casts back a second in time and remembers that creepy soundtrack we had just been hearing was a group of people doing vocal warmups! Just brilliant. That sound design is the work of Isaac Jones, who also makes the show’s fantastic music. I don’t use the term ‘genius’ often, but on multiple occasions while listening to the show, I have considered the possibility that he is a genius. (There’s a compilation of some of his work on the podcast that you can listen to here.)
Some months after falling in love with the show, I got to do an episode of my own for them. I was interviewed by producer Odelia Rubin, and we spoke for over two hours. The resulting episode, despite how brief it is, feels like a terrifyingly up-close and personal view into who I really am. My awe for their editing and sense of pacing only grew, knowing what the raw materials were that they had to work with. If someone wanted a crash course into what my brain is like, I would point them to that episode.
And so, I’m pointing you to that episode of 10 Things That Scare Me, as well as a handful of others, including some from my sister-in-pod Samin Nosrat; Ear Hustle co-host Earlonne Woods; fellow Bulletin writer Mitch Albom; and that Anna Chlumsky episode that got me in the first place. I put those all in a Hark playlist that you can listen to here.
If you enjoyed this newsletter, please hit the “join the discussion” button and leave me a comment. Because you know what’s one thing that scares me? The idea that these emails are just disappearing into a vortex of inboxes, only to be trashed upon entry. So if you made it this far, say hello! Maybe let me know something that scares you. We can look at all the fears that get mentioned in the comments and think of it as one long poem that our collective anxieties are writing together, as we each try to answer who we are.
Hrishikesh
