I started listening to podcasts to dull the time I spent working in a windowless museum call center. I was hooked by shows like Heavyweight, Invisibilia,Embedded, and Reply All. The kind of pod that’s deeply reported and impeccably fact-checked, but still feels like your smartest friend sharing their most interesting story with you over a beer.
This story from WBUR’s Endless Thread about a globetrotting, stiletto-wearing hiker named “Ridiculoubs” hit exactly that note.This image stopped me in my tracks and made me click play on an episode titled Extraordinary vs. Extra Ordinary. (The photo is real, by the way! Not AI, but a staggering self-portrait taken with a drone.)
An EndlessThread listener named Jordan was planning international hikes, when he kept coming across photos like this one in Google Maps reviews from someone with the username “Ridiculoubs” (a play on the red-bottomed shoe brand Christian Louboutin). Jordan and his wife were intrigued by the high-heeled hiker and their mysterious digital breadcrumb trail so they contacted Endless Thread to see if they could make sense of this whimsical digital footprint.
In true podcast-deep-dive fashion (thank god for journalism) they did! Ridiculoubs isn’t trying to become famous, and is keeping his identity secret, but we do get to hear from him directly on why he does what he does.
…What, did you think I was going to quote him? And take the fun out of one of life’s greatest joys: listening to a heartfelt story from a wonderful podcast? No way.
Happy listening,
🎧 Em
P.S.
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The week’s best episodes
……to share with your friend with the best shoes
🪩 Electro-dance pop for all
My favorite band MUNA released their fourth LP last week and was featured in NPR Music’s new music Friday. Dancing on the Wall has everything: Big, hooky beats, piercing insights on the war in Gaza and more of the queer anthems they’ve become known for. It’s in NPR Music’s (and my) running for the best album of the year filled with “wall-to-wall bangers.”
🐟 There’s something in the water…
And it might be salmon with cocaine inside them? Leave it to Short Wave to explain why Swedish scientists are purposely giving salmon the drug to learn more about the chemical water pollution and how it affects every ecosystem on Earth.
❤️🩹 A “memoir of marriage” goes to Netflix
Netflix won an A-list bidding war over the book of the moment, Strangers by Belle Burden. The author and Harvard-educated lawyer speaks with Juana Summers on NPR's Book of the Day on divorce and financial literacy for women.
➕ Wait, were we wrong? NPR Politics is answering listener questions! Senior political correspondent Tamara Keith and Miles Parks tackle questions like, "which stories proved our initial instincts wrong?" and ones for nosey people (me) like, "are there any surprising items in our equipment bags?"
Get access to this episode (and sponsor-free listening) by signing up for NPR+.
One to Watch
It's Been a Minute host Brittany Luse has been following the buzzy I’ve Had It podcast since the beginning and here she chats with co-host Jennifer Welch about the f-word: fascism.
@NPR / Instagram
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