NPR's Pod Club: Handpicked recommendations from the folks who live for this stuff

RACHEL MARTIN
HOST, WILD CARD WITH RACHEL MARTIN

Hey Pod Club,

It’s Rachel Martin from Wild Card! So nice to meet up with you here. I’m thinking a lot about joy this week, and how we can summon it when things feel dark. And yes, the sun is setting earlier, but I’m talking about the existential kind of dark found in headline after headline. We can’t bury our heads in the sand, but we can hunt for joy whenever possible. It’s the only way to keep going.

And that’s what kept running through my head when I was taping a recent episode of Wild Card with superstar drag queen Trixie Mattel. I will fully cop to knowing very little about Trixie before this interview. My producers had been pitching her for many months. I wasn’t against the idea; I just wasn’t sure what it would be like to interview someone about their most “authentic self” when they are literally performing a character.

Behind the makeup (and under the massive wig) of Trixie Mattel is a lovely guy named Brian Firkus. I watched the documentary about his life called Moving Parts and fell in love with him — and her. But where did Brian end and Trixie begin? Would their answers to these existential questions differ? We’ll never know because it was Trixie who showed up for our conversation, in all her drag fabulousness.

All I can tell you is that it was one of my favorite Wild Card conversations. She talked openly about her family, learning to manage anxiety and depression, and how drag has given her an expansive confidence nothing else could. She’s also HILARIOUS. Some of her humor busts through the front door with confetti and trumpets, but some of her best jokes sneak in through the back door with slippers, a floral muumuu and a cigarette.

I got a message from a listener after the episode dropped, thanking me for having Trixie as a guest. “To see you having such a blast felt very validating. Some people see drag as silly and nonsense but to queer people it’s our joy!”

Trixie is my joy now, too.

💫 Rachel

The week’s best episodes

…to share with someone who brings you joy

😱 The healing power of horror
Okay okay, this is a departure from the “joy” we’ve been talking about — but not by much! WUNC’s Embodied asks us to take a second look at the genre of horror. Their guest believes that being terrified is its own kind of catharsis, and can even help us process real-world trauma.

GIVE IT A LISTEN

💸 The proper etiquette of asking your friends to pay your back
Today, transferring money is frictionless, but that doesn’t mean that it happens promptly. According to Venmo, about 40% of people take a week or more to pay their friends back on the platform. The Indicator brings in an etiquette coach to help with getting your $20 back, plus the hosts offer their own ideas.

GIVE IT A LISTEN

❤️‍🩹 Conflict in healthy relationships is inevitable...
But it's complicated. They say conflict can bring you closer, but how does that work, exactly? Life Kit talks with conflict resolution expert Priya Parker, who believes that embracing tension in our relationships is an investment in the future.

GIVE IT A LISTEN

🎥 How Aaron Sorkin came up with The West Wing 'walk and talk'
Aaron Sorkin has a new movie out this month — “The Social Reckoning”. This bonus episode of Fresh Air goes deep into the archives, to Sorkin’s interview with Terry Gross in 2012. He addresses the writing and direction he’s known for, and the origin of the classic “walk and talk” scenes in “The West Wing”. Get access to this episode (and sponsor-free listening) by signing up for NPR+.

One to Watch

A baseball field inside Grand Teton National Park?! Not if local leaders have anything to say about it.⁠ NPR News Now has the details.

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Correction

The 10/2 edition of Pod Club mistakenly stated that the Throughline episode titled "How Baseball Got Its Beat" covered Black culture and improvisation, which it does not. It would be more accurate to say the episode covers the history of music in baseball, from the iconic organ to modern walk-up songs.

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