Can you give us a brief genesis of The Memory Palace podcast? I came into radio wanting to be an artist and wound up being a journalist. That's worked out well for the most part. But at some point, I stopped trying to make beautiful things. I started The Memory Palace as a way to fix that. I'm fascinated by anecdotes. I can go on and on about how they structure our consciousness and how you can broaden that out to talk about the way that the news and history structure our lives. But I can't do that without sounding like a pretentious jackass. So: I love anecdotes. Love history anecdotes. Think they're awesome. And I can obsess about why one gets remembered and another doesn't. Why, for instance, one radio story cuts through and moves you and another doesn't. There are times when you listen to the radio and hear a story about say, a checkpoint in Gaza, or a congressman holding up a piece of legislation, or a teacher saddled by medical bills, and they just glide by. Then there are other times when you get it . When you understand that those people at that checkpoint are real people. That that congressman is feeling the weight of the world on his shoulders. That teacher is actually saddled by medical bills. Those people are real people. And you're moved. And you're suddenly aware of the wonder of the world. I wanted to create something that set out to do that every time. Which, as a purely practical matter -- working through the language, the story structure, the read, the music, the mix -- is a fun challenge. As something sort of ridiculous and lofty, the experience has been personally valuable
