Friday, March 28, 2025
Become a Patron!“You can’t think of anything more pleasing, I guess, to a biographer, than that they would be able to look in the coffin of their subject, but I did,” says Megan Marshall, who won the Pulitzer Prize in 2014 for Margaret Fuller: A New American Life. Her latest book, After Lives: On Biography and the Mysteries of the Human Heart (Mariner Books) takes a more personal turn.
She’s also the author of Elizabeth Bishop: A Miracle for Breakfast and The Peabody Sisters: Three Women Who Ignited American Romanticism (a Pulitzer finalist).
This was a great talk about biography, research, and what Megan related to most from the women she wrote about. It was a really fun and engaging chat about the writing of biography and when the shape of it reveals itself to her.
Be sure to snag the companion podstack here so you may check out full transcripts and other podcast ephemera.
Parting Shot: On Flying and Raging
If you’re listening to this on Friday, I flew into Boston last night. One hopes I landed safely and didn’t meet the same, callous, tragic, and avoidable fate of the flyers from a couple months ago. Part of me hard core wanted to cancel, but I’m taking the chance. Musk be damned. My flight numbers flying east are DL4149 and DL0474, so if you hear any of those numbers in the news, don’t expect a podcast next week and apologies to Amanda Heckert, Yi Shun Lai, Maggie Messitt, Megan Baxter, John O’Connor, John Glionna, and Debbie Millman, whose episodes are in the can and won’t be produced. Nick Paumgarten is scheduled to appear on the podcast and I will stand you up. It’s not my fault. Don’t be mad at me.
I have nice long layover in Seattle, and I love that airport. I love my little Eugene airport, too. It’s the best, and flying east is always easier than west, time wise at least.
About two weeks ago, I had Instagram on my phone for pod purposes, but as is always the case, if it’s on my phone, I will mindlessly open it, click on three stories at the top, close it, repeat 7,000 times.
But what was really troubling was when I scrolled down a few squares, I was met with a string of Meta AI bots. The first, a very Republican-looking Boomer-aged white male (think Tommy Tuberville) in a suit with an American flag tie. This AI asked if I wanted to talk about conservative politics. I was like What. The. Fuck.
It gets weirder.
Beside that was a sexy image of a blonde in aviators with a bullet proof vest, tactical gear, toting a pistol just wondering if I’d like to talk, you know, maybe about certain inalienable rights. There was another sexy lady who looked like she was about to head to the shooting range, you know, after a day at the spa. I deleted it from my phone immediately (UPDATE: It’s back on for CNFriday). I should have taken screenshots for posterity but I was troubled by what the algorithm thought of me, or what it was trying to bait me into.
Then, of course, what’s making the rounds this week was all of our books in LibGen being used by Meta to teach its AI how to be human. Yep, Six Weeks in Saratoga was there. Joke’s on you Meta, horse racing is dead.
But in all seriousness, these fuckers need to burn. I don’t mean that literally but this shit has gone on long enough.
The pod’s IG feed just eclipsed 1,000 followers, which took years to build, if you want to call it “building.” I post about the podcast and unless the guest shares with their followers, maybe 10% of my audience sees it. I used to get decent traction in stories. Now, maybe 15-16 impressions, even if people “like” what I post, that’s less than 2%. This is why we can’t build an audience on these terrible platforms. They’re not serving us, and think of how much time we waste trying to reach people we hope to serve with our work?
That’s why I hope you’ll subscribe to my two newsletter lists, my rager being my favorite, but this one has its value too, if you want transcripts and such. For now, we can rely on email. If you kindly provide me with your email address, you get my email newsletter on the first of the month for the rager and with every new pod for the podstack. It arrives in your inbox at the time of sending, no algorithm, though it might get sorted into promotions or spam, but that’s an easy fix.
It’s why I’m doing quarterly live, in-person podcasts because the only way these gilded age motherfuckers win is if we allow it. Don’t let the fact that you share family pictures keep you on these platforms. Create a fucking website or a group text thread. These people are evil. For too long we’ve given them everything and they’ve given us, what, network effect? A network effect that they slowly eroded away to nearly nothing? Fuck them. This is how we rage against the algorithm, by doing things in person, by doing things the slow way, by building trust.
I’ll do my part. I hope you’ll do yours.
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