You're Wrong About

The movies freed Willy, but what about Keiko? For the second part of our trilogy on the biggest aquatic star of the 90s, deep sea correspondent Brianna Bowman takes Sarah through Keiko’s journey to the Oregon Coast Aquarium for rehabilitation and the developing plan to return him to the open ocean. But first, both marine scientists and rich benefactors have to try to teach a killer whale to be wild again. Digressions include the books of Jean Craighead George, the tragedy of the puns we misse...

Can a killer whale really jump that high? For kids of the 90s, the adventure movie Free Willy introduced us to magic of the orca through its charismatic megafauna star, Keiko. In part one of our series, deep sea correspondent Brianna Bowman tells Sarah about his journey from free marine mammal to imprisoned entertainer to Hollywood royalty. Together they discuss what Keiko meant to them as kids, 1990s whale-related activism, and the follies of anthropomorphic projection. Digressions include t...

“We’ve always been inventing and reinventing new worlds for taking care of each other. We just have to notice.” We asked our subscribers to send us audio postcards to encapsulate where they live, what makes it special, and what people get wrong about the place that they call home. For this holiday season, we've woven together an aural tapestry from their answers to remind one another that no matter how far apart we are, no matter what people say about the places we come from, we still share s...

What happens when Santa trades his sleigh for a rocket ship? Christmas correspondent Sarah Archer tells Sarah about how the Cold War era affected the image of old Kris Kringle through the rampant consumerism and shiny new technology of a post-war economy. Digressions include Reagan’s girlypop diet, the Freudian aspects of the Nutcracker, and the thrilling history of aluminum. Visit the YWA Instagram for visual references More Sarah Archer: https://www.sarah-archer.com/ Sarah on Instagra...

Remember being a teen and coming up with “cool” ways of spelling common words? Well, just like the teenager it was, the United States in the 18th century was annoying their mom, England, with the hip words that were being edited and added to their lexicon. The antagonistic pair of nations on the brink of the Revolutionary War were always competing to prove their superiority and independence in small cultural battles, and words themselves were no different. Fellow word-nerd Gabe Henry, a...