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Jack and Barbara Willke got their start on the Catholic speaking circuit talking about the pleasure of sex within marriage. Supervising Producer of Narrative Podcasts. This episode of Decoder Ring was written by Willa Paskin and produced by Willa Paskin and Katie Shepherd. We also hear from mall-goers whose personal experiences help us make sense of this disdained yet beloved, disappearing yet surviving place. In this episode, Alexandra Lange, the author of the new book Meet Me at the Fountain: an Inside History of the Mall walks us through the atriums, escalators, and food courts of this singular suburban space. What do we lose if we lose the mall? 70 years into their existence, these hulking temples to commerce are surprisingly resilient and filled with contradictions. (While we work on the next season of Slow Burn we're showcasing Slate's other narrative podcasts, starting with a new season of Decoder Ring.)
THE SLOW BURN PLUS
With Slate Plus you get ad-free podcasts, bonus episodes, and total access to all of Slate’s journalism. If you have any cultural mysteries you want us to decode, email us at If you love the show and want to support us, consider joining Slate Plus. It was produced by Willa Paskin and Katie Shepherd. This episode of Decoder Ring was written by Dan Kois and edited by Willa Paskin. Along the way, Dan meets Andy Zax, a guy who, like him, was bewildered by this forgotten star-until he became an accidental fan, and then somehow the only person keeping Rod McKuen’s flame alive. We’ll hear from Stephanie Burt, Mike Chasar and Barry Alfonso, author of Rod’s biography A Voice of the Warm. So, how did the most salable poet in American history simply disappear? On today’s episode, Slate writer Dan Kois went searching for Rod McKuen, a famous poet who isn’t so famous anymore. He released dozens of albums, was a regular on late night, and was even nominated for an Oscar. Rod McKuen sold multiple millions of poetry books in the 60s and 70s. If you have any cultural mysteries you want us to decode, email us at you love the show and want to support us, consider joining Slate Plus. Eric’s got a lot more stories like this one so subscribe wherever you listen.ĭecoder Ring is written by Willa Paskin and produced by Willa Paskin and Katie Shepherd. Thanks to Eric Molinsky for bringing us this story that originally aired on his terrific podcast Imaginary Worlds. Baker and Stephanie Kelley-Romano explain how the Hills’ alien abduction changed science fiction forever. Then professors Susan Lepselter, Chris Bader, Joseph O. Betty Hill’s niece, Kathleen Marden, recounts how the story went viral and her aunt and uncle became unwitting celebrities. When you think of an alien abduction, what do you picture? Humanoid creatures, medical experiments, lost memories retrieved through hypnosis? That narrative was largely unknown until Betty and Barney Hill went public about their own alien abduction in the 1960s.