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There's a new episode of the podcast out today! In this episode, we explore a major social experiment–one that’s now barely a footnote in U.S. history. At the center of this story is the German industrialist Alfred Dolge.

Episode 4: Dolgeville In upstate New York, about an hour and a half northwest of Albany, sits the small town of Dolgeville: population 2,000. The scenery is beautiful: nestled in a valley surrounded by gentle green hills,

My grandmother was a lot of things: an abstract expressionist painter, a social worker, a collector of antiques. But as far as the internet is concerned, she had just one real claim to fame: she was the associate producer of Zombie Nightmare (1987), a movie so bad it’s featured on the IMDb’s “Bottom 100” list. Strangely, it stars Adam West and Tia Carrere.

In this episode, I do a deep dive into this extremely minor footnote in my family’s history. I rewatch the movie and try to get to bottom of what makes it so bad, and I also reach out to people who were actually involved in creating it. Terrible movies don’t make themselves. A movie this bad has to have a lot of secrets.

Episode 2: Zombie Nightmare My grandmother was a lot of things: an abstract expressionist painter, a social worker, a collector of antiques. But as far as the internet is concerned, she had just one real claim to fame: she was the associate producer of Zombie Nightmare (1987),

In the first episode, I explore the bizarre world of Fiverr, a website that lets you purchase services for five dollars. As an experiment in online music collaboration with strangers, I take one of my own songs and replace each instrument track with a new recording made by a Fiverr session musician. The episode chronicles the process and culminates in a version of the song produced entirely by the Internet.

Episode 1: The Fiverr Song Project In this episode, I explore the bizarre world of Fiverr, a website that lets you purchase services for five dollars. To learn how it works, I take one of my o...