Episode 127: Fear and Longing

This week, Jessica and Michael talk about Fiona Apple’s latest album, Fetch the Bolt Cutters, and her radical honesty. Jessica says,

There’s a kind of tradition in art making to have the suffering that comes out of the work be an expression of the suffering we all feel. And yet suffering is an intensely personal experience.

Also mentioned this week:

• Emily Nussbaum, The New Yorker, Fiona Apple’s Art of Radical Sensitivity
• Soraya Roberts, Longreads, What Happens If I Don’t Like Fiona Apple?
• Mean Girls, “Stop trying to make fetch happen”
• Bumper: Democracy Now, Fiona Apple on “making people feel free” through music
• Bumper: Phoebe Bridgers performs “Scott Street” (Live on Sound Opinions)
• Hrishi Hirway, creator of podcast, Song Exploder
• Mike Errico’s playlists of last album songs: Volume 1; Volume 2
• James Francis O’Brien, DESIGN BY ACCIDENT
• Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird
• Bumper: Clip from That Mitchell & Webb Look, The Quiz Broadcast (may be other examples with better sound)
• That Mitchell and Webb Look, The Quiz Broadcast
• Princeton, Shakespeare and Co. project; examples: Gertrude Stein, Hemingway, Simone de Beauvoir
• Alison Flood, The Guardian, Legendary Paris bookshop reveals reading habits of illustrious clientele

Subscribe to The Observatory on Apple Podcasts or your favorite podcast app, or follow Design Observer on Spotify or Soundcloud.

You can also join the Design Observer Cooperative.