Charley Locke
Culture

A Stormtrooper Tell-All and 4 Other Essential Podcasts

Internet rabbit holes, fiction from the Eiffel Tower, and a trip to Tatooine. These are the podcasts you're looking for.
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If you're going to Tosche Station on Tatooine to pick up some power converters, who do you buy them from? Who is this guy? What should you do if you accidentally end a voicemail to your dentist with "I love you"? This week, we've got answers to all those burning questions. Plus, fiction from the ballroom at the top of the Eiffel Tower and the most honest marketing meeting of all time.

  • The best *Reply All* episodes are Internet rabbit holes explored to the extreme—and "Boy in Photo" does this by going all the way to Upper Darby, Pennsylvania. In 2006, an ILX message board rallied around a photo of two girls and one lonely-looking guy, whom the message board named "Wayne." They went on to follow the social media and lives of the characters for the next 10 years. In this episode, host PJ Vogt nervously travels to the Philadelphia suburb where he grew up to track down the real Wayne. Listen through for an unexpected turn at the end.
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    NPR

    Radiolab, “Seneca, Nebraska”

    Is the solution to a nation divided to just let it divide? In this episode of *Radiolab*, learn about a town that did just that—or at least put it up to a vote. After small-town squabbles became irreconcilable differences, the residents of Seneca, Nebraska decide whether to unincorporate, and whether there’s any value in keeping the town together. [Listen here](http://www.radiolab.org/story/seneca-nebraska/).
  • *The Truth* offers strange, excellent fiction—and this week, there’s a selection of five pieces written and performed by funny people (including Scott Adsit, Tami Sagher, and Colin Nissan). Tune in for confessions couched in marketing buzzwords, a dangerously gibberish traffic report, and panicked, unrequited voicemails from a patient to his dentist.
  • This is the episode you’re looking for. In 1977, Anthony Forrest was the stormtrooper who first showed us the effects of a Jedi Mind Trick. In *I Was There Too*, Forrest talks about the difficulty of making eye contact with Alec Guinness while wearing a stormtrooper uniform and the backstory behind Fixer, Luke’s friend back at Tosche Station. Plus, his turn in *The Spy Who Loved Me*.
  • Julian hopes to be a part of it all: the ventriloquism lessons, the cricket translation machine, the bird who plays every instrument in an orchestra save the viola. But *Orbiting Human Circus (of the Air)*, the variety radio show broadcast from a ballroom at the top of the Eiffel Tower, has no place for a lonely, bumbling janitor. Told by Julian’s imaginary friend—or at least, imaginary narrator—the latest project from the *Welcome to Nightvale* team is as delightfully strange as you'd expect.

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Charley Locke writes about growing up and growing old for publications including The Atlantic, The New York Times Magazine, and WIRED. ... Read More
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TopicspodcastsRadiolabStar Wars
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