Rating: 5 stars

Over the past week, I have learned the pain of putting together a bar length set firsthand. Finding songs you love and want to cover is easy, but making them your own is difficult to do. ‘Under Cover,’ a new Spotify original podcast, explores how some of your favorite bands choose, transform and perform cover songs.

Each episode is about ten minutes long and highlights a different band’s experience covering one of their favorite or most challenging songs. Many songs are picked by artists in an effort to pay homage to a musician they admire, experiment with sound elements, or to work with a genre they wouldn’t normally create.

“I feel there are three categories of cover songs,” Ben Gibbard of Death Cab for Cutie said during the podcast’s first episode. “There is the fairly universal song that a lot of people know. When they hear an artist they admire perform it, it sheds a new light on the song, or adds a kind of sense of humor, or weight to it … Then there are the obscure, record collector cover songs that people like myself like to bust out from time to time, to teach people about songs they might not otherwise know about. And then there tend to be the songs that are really moving me or us in a particular moment that have special significance.”

This podcast offered insight into music composition and aesthetics from two of my vocal idols, Courtney Barnett and Rachael Price. While having extremely different styles, these two women are equally passionate about their craft, and hearing the two women I admire fangirl over their favorite artists was a unique experience.

On the podcast’s 21st episode, Lake Street Dive dissected their cover of Annie Lennox’s “Walking on Broken Glass,” and discussed the choices made in their transformation of the EDM sounding track to match their southern folk rock sound.

“You have to get in the head of musicians that you admire and really get inside the song and figure out why it works the way it does, why it does to you what it does,” Price said during Lake Street Dive’s interview. “And then you can take little bits and pieces of that and bring it into your own songwriting, too.”

The personal narratives that accompany each band’s cover contribute a lot to the podcast’s appeal. Hearing about Lake Street Dive’s struggle to fill their sets before they wrote original content inspired me as an artist and inspired me to hear their songs in a new way. It’s also compelling to hear what elements of each song inspires and excites the musician.

“I think I embellish the guitar solo a bit, just for my own ego,” Courtney Barnett said on covering “Houses” by Elyse Weinberg.

Other episodes feature artists who range widely in genre, like Troye Sivan, Panic! At the Disco and Vampire Weekend. All of the covers discussed on the podcast can be found on the Spotify Singles: Cover playlist, and ‘Under Cover’ can be streamed directly on Spotify.

Rating: 4 Stars

We are facing a turbulent time in politics. While I wish this generalized statement wasn’t frequently true, I don’t think it’s inaccurate. Within the past week, we have seen many lines drawn between political leaders, community members and movement organizers because of differences in beliefs. How do we fight this division? By being well informed. Not just with facts which align with our preexisting opinions and knowledge, but with the feelings and thoughts of the people on each side of the argument.

With so much information accessible at all times, it isn’t always enough to know what is happening. Oftentimes people need guidance on what it really means and how it affects our country. This is where The New York Times’ podcast “The Argument” hopes to bridge the gap.

Every Thursday, opinion columnists Ross Douthat, Michelle Goldberg and David Leonhardt explain a topic and address the argument from different sides of the political spectrum. From their diverse political backgrounds, each host usually contributes different information and attitudes to that week’s issue.

Douthat, a religious conservative, is not President Trump’s biggest fan but he is opposed to abortion and supports reduced immigration. Goldberg, a progressive, believes that our “administration’s callous elitism” will unravel our democracy. Leonhardt considers himself a moderate, frequently landing between his two co-hosts on issues.

In The New York Times’ “Opinion Today” newsletter which announced the podcast’s creation, David Leonhardt acknowledged that while they may not always agree, the hosts share the same goal.

“All of three us, though, share the same curiosity that many of you have. We want to understand other people’s beliefs. We want to engage with them honestly and sometimes sharply, but also respectfully,” Leonhardt said.

The moments which transfix me the most are when you can hear one of the hosts begin to truly understand and deeply contemplate an opinion oppositional to their own, or when a new interpretation of information challenges their way of thinking. You can, in real time, hear the gears of understanding turning. It creates room for a more complex understanding of society and promotes listening to others, over hearing ourselves talk.

However, while I trust and admire the hosts of the podcast, I am not encountering New York Times opinion columnists on a daily basis. Their format excludes the voice of the uninformed who, in my experience, often speak the loudest in controversial conversation. While they bring on guests on the podcast, these guests are usually authors or political commentators, not the kind of people who necessarily angrily rant on Facebook posts. This leaves me still not quite comfortable knowing how to address a large demographic of aggressive arguers.

There is also the issue of intersectionality. While the hosts all express different political stances, their reach is limited due to their socioeconomic positioning. So, for example, when they are looking at issues that require discussing racism or poverty, white voices are, by proxy, elevated in an issue that does not affect them in a universal way.

While these are two important issues, I do not think they undermine the podcast’s desired influence. They are still educating listeners on issues and attempting to deliver a politically dynamic perspective. Every week they have a new opportunity to bring more intersectional voices into the mix.

As we all grapple with determining what is right, The New York Time’s “The Argument” is too. Stream “The Argument” on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or on their website https://www.nytimes.com/column/the-argument.

Every year, the University of Maine Museum of Art (UMMA) attempts to bring modern and contemporary art to central Maine by highlighting 12 original exhibitions. On Friday, Jan. 18, UMMA invited Meghan Brady, Richard Keen and Zach Horn to share their work with the community in the first three exhibitions of 2019.

Meghan Brady, a painter who lives and works in Midcoast Maine, is notorious for her large scale patchwork pieces. The nine pieces in Brady’s collection “Reversible Roles” range in size and play with bright and uplifting blues, yellows and oranges. One piece, entitled “Everyday” spans 16 feet across and reaches from floor to ceiling. The piece is composed of acrylic collage on unstretched canvas. These pieces confront the audience, enveloping the viewer and demanding interpretation due to their size and color.

“My process is a lot of trial and error,” Brady said. “Recently, I have been better about trusting an acquired logic in my decision making. This logic isn’t something that I could describe clearly but is likely a combination of formal concerns and a learned sense of order, color, light, touch. Basically, I make drawings until the paintings are really cooking. I work in series and so when I am between painting groups, I might spend some time making woodcuts or throwing and glazing pots. I think working in different materials feeds the whole studio project.”

Her inspiration from additional mediums is apparent in her work. They influence her paintings by affecting her manipulation of line and curve, provoking thoughts of ceramics and sculpture.

The show’s second exhibit, “Edging Forward,” highlights the work of Richard Keen, an artist who explores abstraction in both painting and mixed media wall-oriented sculpture. Keen crafts his sculptures with a wide array of materials, frequently using styrofoam, wood, polyester resin and spray enamel. While each of Keen’s 25 pieces are overtly individual, they work together to create an air of curiosity and collaboration.

“I believe that abstraction, in all forms, allows the viewer to bring their own meaning to the conversation and enter a personal dialogue with my work versus presenting them with all the answers about who I am as an artist,” Keen said.

Keen finds inspiration for, and reprieve from, his artwork by diving in boatyards and marinas. He prioritizes time in the outdoors to collect experiences he can reconstruct into art. He believes this method of living maximizes and balances his ability to make art.
“My abstractions always begin from observation,” Keen said. “Whether from the sea as a diver, the landscape as an explorer, or from boats as a source of inspiration, some final works reveal direct connections to my experiences while the origins of others are more disguised. I filter which elements of my experiences are brought into focus by removing unnecessary detail, often simplifying the world into line, shape, color, and texture.”
The third exhibit, “Big Rock Candy Mountain,” features the whimsical work of Zach Horn. The inspiration for his collection came from a desire to create a metaphysical picnic. Each piece dissects and reinterprets different elements of a picnic and allows the audience to piece together the room as one experience. He does this by shifting perspective, altering scale, and manipulating color schemes. In the piece “Spaghetti I,” Horn may seem to have merely painted a bowl of spaghetti. However, he frames the painting with silver plastic forks which shifts the audience’s perception and allows for a more complex interpretation of the piece.

“Big Rock Candy Mountain is wrapped up in my relationship with my kids,” Horn said. “I’m the cook in our house and so part of the way that I express love is through food. Pancakes on Saturdays are statements. My indulgences of my sons’ idiosyncrasies, like giving them an extra plate for syrup, or cutting the pancakes into thin strips, or undercooking the pancakes… are my ways of saying ‘yes’ ‘I love you’ ‘I would do anything for you.’ Spaghetti, besides being beautiful and fun to paint… is what my mother makes for me when she says ‘I love you’. That’s why I have made spaghetti paintings over and over.”

Located at 40 Harlow St. in downtown Bangor, UMMA is free and open to the public Tuesday through Saturday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. If you are interested in interpreting these pieces, the three winter exhibits will be on display through May 4, 2019.

On Thursday, Dec. 6 the University of Maine’s Campus Activities Board (CAB) hosted a poetry slam in the North Pod of the Memorial Union. The slam featured six UMaine students who shared their original poetry in a three-round competition.

CAB has been hosting their bi-annual poetry slams since the spring of 2014. To perform, interested students submitted three poems ranging between two and three minutes in length for consideration. Between each round, audience members mingled while judges reflected on and scored each participant.

The judges included Jane Pappas, a graduate assistant and former CAB poetry slam competitor, Laura Cowan, an associate professor of English, and the evening’s host, Cameron Grover, a poet and former UMaine graduate student.

Grover welcomed the audience and introduced each round by performing his own readings which included Neil Hilborn’s “Joey,” and original works “Alternative Facts” and “Leg Dreams.”

“Giving students who want to read [their poetry] someone to read to is so much more important than you think,” Grover said.

Grover participated in CAB slams as an undergraduate student, graduate student and now returns to help foster the community he loves. He instructed the audience on how to give the participants feedback during the performances, encouraging people to snap at lines that resonated with them. This helped to create a positive performance space and enabled the audience to participate in the slam.

“There is a vital community of student poets and performers on this campus who contribute to the artistic life at the University of Maine,” Cowan said. “These students come from all majors. Their interests and backgrounds are diverse. There was a community of students who already knew each other at this event, but in the breaks between the rounds of poetry and in the conversations between audience members, I could see this community absorbing more people and inviting more people into its ranks. It was an open, inclusive space.”

Jennifer MacArthur, a fourth-year secondary education student, took home third place. The first poem she performed, titled “College,” she had written that morning. The poem was a rumination on the collegiate experience and included reflections such as: “Failure doesn’t get you on mom and dad’s fridge.” Her second poem was titled “The wolf who cried girl,” and her third poem described personal experiences of working at a casino.

Cara Morgan, a fourth-year English student, was awarded second place. Morgan’s poems discussed many facets of mental health, eating disorders and sexual assault. Morgan uses her gift to reflect on her own past and to manifest a better future. The emotion of her poetry was embodied in a line from her first poem which stated, “broken is just a word, not a name.”

“I was particularly impressed by the intellectual, emotional, social depth and range of these pieces,” Cowan said. “These are students who are willing to write about controversial and sensitive personal, social, and political subjects. They treated these subjects with nuance and sophistication. I was personally impressed. It made me proud of our University of Maine students. They are dealing with vital social and political issues in compelling ways. And by sharing their art, they are helping their community think about these subjects.”

Nola Prevost, a second-year English student, was awarded first place. Prevost’s first piece, titled “On softness,” described a dream like conversation with her therapist, and took the audience on a journey through her mind.

“Honestly, what inspires my writing is life,” Prevost said. “The nitty gritty, the happy, the sad, the crazy, the honest. Everything I write is something I’ve personally experienced, and things that have lived so long in my mind that I have to get them out on paper… Poetry has helped me get through my anxiety and depression. It’s a way for me to conceptualize my worries outside of my head.”

Her other two contributions included “From the photon” and “From the glass half full.” While varying in subject and tone, these three works gave the audience insight into how Prevost sees the world.

“Nola’s pieces combined well the many aspects of poetry slam pieces. Her language and figures of speech were original,” Cowan said. “Nola’s pieces had memorable lines that made you look at her subject in new ways. Her pieces were often about emotions that were common to many audience members. Her ‘performance’ itself was also lively with quite a bit of variety. I loved the ‘lilt’ in her voice at special moments in all three pieces.”

Grover, Cowan and Prevost all expressed how important events like this are on campus, not only for poets but other members of the student body as well.

“It’s important to host events like this on campus because it gives people like me a space to share these personal experiences,” Prevost said. “It’s not easy to put your emotions on display, even if it is through poems. But doing it, performing and sharing these innermost thoughts and feelings, no matter how light or dark, is freeing.”

If you are interested in attending or participating in CAB’s bi-annual poetry slam, follow them on Facebook and be on the lookout spring of 2019.

Rating: Five Stars

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to be a member of a cult?

Every Tuesday, Greg Polcyn and Vanessa Richardson highlight a different cult and explore the history and psychology behind how they came to be. With a little over 60 episodes, they have covered notorious groups including the Order of the Solar Temple, Heaven’s Gate and the Manson Family. Most cults are explored over the course of two episodes, the first focusing on the life and mind of the cult leader, and the second examining the cult and its members.

Polcyn provides historical context, helping listeners understand the way politics, culture and religion play into the cult’s beliefs and formation. Richardson goes inside the minds of those involved, examining the behaviors of the cult’s leaders and members and how their psyche may have affected their actions. Every episode is marked with a disclaimer that while Richardson is not a psychologist or a psychiatrist, she grounds her contribution in significant research. However, after hearing her speak on these conditions fluently and citing many credible sources as she does, it is easy to trust her analysis.

Polcyn and Richardson bring a compelling eeriness to the show, their voices both electric and sterile. I believe this is caused by how scripted the show is. Their conversations are stripped of anything comforting or familiar which makes comments such as “Thanks, Greg” and “You raise an interesting point, Vanessa” almost robotic. While this may be off-putting to some listeners, I feel it adds something wicked.

“Cults” is one of many shows on the Parcast Network. Parcast was created by Max Cutler in 2016 when Cutler decided he wanted to create a different type of program. The network is distinct due to its thematically dark content, thorough research, high production quality and enjoyable storytelling. Other shows hosted by the network include “Kingpins,” “Hostage,” “Assassination” and “Serial Killers.”

“I kind of went reverse logic in the sense that I wanted to launch in an area that had a lot of competition. I thought that by adding production value and bringing storytelling into it, we could be different,” Cutler said in an interview with Forbes Magazine, on why he wanted Parcast to focus on the true crime genre.

While true crime may be in the cultural limelight, “Cults” gives its audience something different. There are no additional ploys, it is a show which desires to give you information and understanding about this strange phenomenon. Each episode comes in at almost an hour, but the scripting allows the listener to stay engaged throughout. You finish every episode feeling as though the only way you could understand the group better would be to have been a part of it.

Listen to “Cults” and any other show on the Parcast Network on Apple Podcasts, Google Play, Spotify, or Stitcher. Episodes older than six months are now available in their ad-free archives through Stitcher Premium.

On Monday, Nov. 5, “UMaine Unido,” a Rising Tide professorship initiative to highlight Latino accomplishments, held their first event in Hill Auditorium at the University of Maine. The event hosted Américo Mendoza-Mori, a respected Latinx academic and a professor of Spanish and Quechua at the University of Pennsylvania, to discuss the importance of supporting and teaching indigenous languages in colleges and universities.

The evening was hosted by Carlos Villacorta, an assistant professor of Spanish at The University of Maine. The goal of “UMaine Unido” is to increase awareness and respect for the contributions of Latinxs, both immigrants and those born in America, on campus and across the nation. The series was established by professor Villacorta and Dan Sandweiss, a professor of anthropology, quaternary and climate studies.

“While working to better integrate Latinx and mainstream communities at the university, the project also intends to build a greater sense of identity and support among UMaine Latinxs, an underserved minority on our campus,” said Villacorta.

In his presentation, entitled “Supporting Indigenous Languages: The Case of Quechua,” Mendoza-Mori gave a history of Quechua and a defense of its value in modern academia. Despite having nearly eight million speakers and being the most widely spoken Indigenous language of the Americas, UNESCO, United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, and other organizations recognize Quechua as an endangered language. Quechua speakers span across the globe, the largest populations living in Bolivia and Ecuador, and appearing in Spain and Italy.

“Valuing Quechua also means valuing the indigenous people who speak it and the knowledge they have built through centuries,” said Villacorta. “It is important to remember that the population of Quechua speakers is declining, which is why the United Nations now considers it an endangered language. By keeping it alive we are preserving its people and hundreds of years of knowledge that we usually do not take into consideration.”

Mendoza-Mori believes that one of the keys to keeping Quechua alive is through millennials reclamation of their heritage, and the assertion of students to have courses and classes made available to them. Since 2014, Mendoza-Mori has been working to keep the history of Quechua alive at University of Pennsylvania by teaching courses, but also creating cultural policies which have been featured at major institutions such as the United Nations and in the media.

“He is one of the only five professors teaching Quechua in the United States and we consider his approach and contribution to indigenous languages and cultures a model to follow. His insight on this particular topic enlightens our way of understanding and learning about other cultures and languages,” said Villacorta.

One audience member opened up a compelling dialogue asking how the Penobscot people could use the preservation of Quechua as a model for the preservation of Eastern Abenaki. As there are no fluent speakers and all they know of the language has been obtained through a compiled dictionary, the challenge is a little greater, but not hopeless.

Mendoza-Mori then gave a short lesson in Quechua, which he called a “shock lesson,” that included 10 minutes of Mendoza-Mori speaking only Quechua. He guided the attendees through a short quiz on the primary points of the lecture, then walked around the room teaching greetings, parts of the body, and a song titled “Pirwalla, Pirwa.”

If you would like to attend the next event in the “UMaine Unido” professorship or learn of other multicultural programs at UMaine, check the UMaine event calendar or visit https://umaine.edu/las/.

Orono House of Pizza has certainly earned its status as one of the University of Maine’s most popular eateries and nightlife destinations. OHOP, as it’s commonly referred to by students and members of the community, is popular for its wide selection of food, including sandwiches, wraps, salads, calzones, and breadsticks. However, it’s not just the meal deals and events that make OHOP so great; their staple item, pizza, and more specifically the buffalo chicken pizza, is the best you’ll ever have.”

When you think of a standard buffalo chicken style pizza, you probably imagine something that is loaded with a variety of ingredients like bleu cheese crumbles, sliced tomato, hot sauce, and chives. Put all of these together and you have a pizza that is elegant and tasty but ultimately feels a bit unnecessary. This is not the case with OHOP’s take on this popular pie.

The thing that makes OHOP’s buffalo chicken pizza so amazing is its simplicity. The pie isn’t populated with anything that it doesn’t need. It has the dough, the red sauce, and the mozzarella cheese, topped off with generous chunks of buffalo chicken tenders. It’s essentially a regular cheese pizza with a buffalo chicken topping. This simple, yet effective and delicious, recipe makes this pizza stand apart from others like it. It gives you everything you want and nothing that you don’t. The dough isn’t too thin or heavy and has a nice crunch to it. The red sauce is tangy but doesn’t overpower the rest of the pie. The mozzarella cheese is distributed evenly throughout and the buffalo chicken tenders have the perfect level of heat and flavor, spicy, but not too hot.

Although it’s a fairly simplistic pizza, OHOP’s buffalo chicken pie is actually quite filling. A small can easily accommodate two people and more than satisfy one, while a large is perfect for a small group of three to six. The price is also pretty good, coming in at $9.95 and $16.95 for a small and large respectively. This makes it a great tasting and affordable option for date-nights, football parties, group projects and for those times when cooking or going to the dining hall isn’t in the cards. Not to mention that you can substitute the red sauce for bleu cheese or ranch if you want.

OHOP offers a lot of delicious pizzas but the buffalo chicken is one of the absolute best. It’s delicious, filling and is perfect for a multitude of occasions. If you like pizza, buffalo chicken and an all-around great deal, then you should check out this fantastic pie the next time you visit OHOP. It satisfies on all levels.

OHOP is located at 154 Park St. in Orono.

On Thursday, Nov. 8, Wilde Stein hosted its annual Gay Thanksgiving dinner in the North Pod of the Memorial Union. The dinner, which has been a staple event for Wilde Stein and the LGBTQ community since the 1970’s, has allowed hundreds of students to come together for a Thanksgiving meal when going home for the holidays isn’t an option.

Wilde Stein, the University of Maine’s Queer-Straight Alliance, is celebrating its 45th year on campus. Every year, the group contributes time and hard work to provide a Thanksgiving meal for the LGBTQ community to share together. Wilde Stein started as a small student group and is one of the oldest queer-straight alliances in the country. Shortly after its inception, the group saw the need for an event where students could gather and enjoy Thanksgiving, especially if they weren’t being accepted at home.

“Gay Thanksgiving is probably our most popular event,” Jane Pappas, a graduate assistant and Wilde Stein advisor, said. “Last year we had upwards of two-hundred people which makes it our biggest event of the fall semester. There’s something really powerful in sharing a meal together, and a lot of people within the LGBTQ community find themselves with no place to go, especially around the holidays. So, this event provides that sense of community that a lot of people, unfortunately, don’t have.”

This year once again saw an attendance of about two hundred people.

“For me, it’s really the community here at UMaine that makes this event so great,” Annabelle Osborne, a third-year journalism student, said.

One of the things that makes Gay Thanksgiving such a wonderful event, other than the plethora of turkey and mashed potatoes, is the inclusion of guest speakers. This year, Gia Drew, the Program Director for Equality Maine, came and spoke about the importance of events like this.

“When I came out as transgender about seven or eight years ago, my family turned their back on me, and that was really difficult to not be welcome at home for holidays,” Drew said. “Over time, we’ve re-acquainted, but that’s why tonight’s event is so important to be together, show our love and respect for one another, and enjoy this meal while also remembering that there’s still a lot of work to do.”

Equality Maine was founded in 1984 and has been a huge program for the LGBTQ community in Maine ever since. Maine was also one of the first states to pass an anti-discrimination law, a huge step forward for the states’ LGBTQ community.

“I’m trying to put myself out of business, I want everyone to be able to enjoy life freely without the constraints of harassment and bullying,” said Drew.

For more information about Wilde Stein, Gay Thanksgiving and other events, stop by the Rainbow Resource Center located in the Memorial Union.

Rating: 5 stars

We have reached a period in American politics so relentless that even I, a passionate journalist, often feel completely overwhelmed and lost in the chaotic happenings of our country. The over-saturation of news in my life has lead to a subliminal tolerance against headlines. The only way I stay up to date on current events is through word of mouth, and thankfully, there is a podcast for that.

On the days I don’t feel like endlessly scrolling through Twitter, The New York Times’ podcast “The Daily” keeps me in the loop. It has become a staple of my morning routine. It’s calming intro music and Michael Barbaro’s voice has become as essential to starting my day as brushing my teeth.

The podcast is released every weekday morning, just in time for the earliest commuter to have content to consume. Each episode usually focuses on one topic, using interviews with Times writers and important sources, and closes with a summary of recent headlines. Recent topics have included issues such as “The Re-emergence of American Anti-semitism,” “Voters Both Parties are Ignoring” and “Letting Louis C.K. Back on Stage.”

The show’s host, Michael Barbaro, gained renown during the 2016 presidential election. His articles were frequently featured on the front page of The New York Times as he became one of their most prominent writers. In an interview with Laura Hazard Owen of Nieman Lab, Michael Barbaro commented on how the podcast came to be.

“I don’t think we see an on-demand morning news audio program like this out there,” Barbaro said to Nieman Lab. “That observation was a starting point, joined by the reality that we employ a thousand journalists who are really smart, really well sourced, and who are really good talkers. Those are the two most powerful factors.”

With this inspiration, the show premiered Feb. 1, 2017, and discussed Trump’s nomination of Neil Gorsuch to the supreme court. “The Daily” immediately drew a devout fan base and inspired an entire genre of news podcasts which, a little over a year later, has become well established.

“I think people are craving intimacy, and the honesty of a format in which journalists talk not just at them about the story, but are grappling with it in real time and are talking about the process they went through,” Barbaro said to Nieman Lab.

One of the biggest flaws, and only flaws in my opinion, is that it isn’t enough. The 20 minutes of discussion makes me feel as though I am doing my civic duty, that I’m staying educated, but this is inherently untrue. The detail and diversity of outlooks presented by “The Daily” make it a great addition to my routine, but one podcast, despite my desire, could never give me all of the information that I need.

It allows me to feel comfortable in my own complacency. While that is in no way the fault of a podcast, it is an important thing to look for when consuming media. I don’t think I’ll ever lose a taste for the show’s conversation and composition, but I will have to work on finding other sources I find equally informative. Stream “The Daily” on iTunes, Spotify, or your favorite podcast platform.

The recent influx of true crime obsessions has created a ripple effect in media, increasing the demand for content across platforms. The evidence can be seen in the number of Netflix originals or Youtube series released in the past two years that focus on the dark side of humanity. However, as a true crime fan and a podcast lover, the number of new podcasts devoted to true crime niches can be overwhelming and hard to sort through.

Last weekend while at dinner with some friends, I was asked if I listened to the podcast “Up and Vanished.” Over the course of the week, I binged every episode released of the show’s current season, as well as many older episodes.

Payne Lindsey, the podcast’s co-creator and host, is an award-winning director and documentarian with an interest in investigative journalism. He started the podcast after deciding to investigate the disappearance of Tara Grinstead, a high school teacher and former pageant queen from Georgia, Lindsey’s home state. The show’s first season aired on Aug. 7, 2016, and over the course of 24 episodes, Lindsey gives listeners insight into the catastrophic effect a disappearance can have on a community.

The show’s current season follows the disappearance of Kristal Anne Reisinger who, on July 13, 2016, disappeared from a full moon drum circle in Crestone, Colorado, the acclaimed “New Age Religious” capital of the world. Reisinger was known for being highly intuitive and emitting positivity and light. As a mother and a friend, those who knew her found it hard to believe that she would choose to disappear.

After two years without an arrest, Saguache County Sheriff’s Office has given up on treating Reisinger’s disappearance as a missing persons case. Now their only option is to investigate foul play.

What makes “Up and Vanished” so binge-worthy is the emotional and provocative testimonies that drive the podcast. The majority of the narrative is told through the stories of those affected. In episode three titled “Speculation,” Reisinger’s friend Angela uses the podcast as a platform to speak to whoever may have been involved in the disappearance of her friend.

“If you have any ounce of goodness in your heart, you’ll come forward and turn yourself in. But I don’t think you will, because I think you’re an evil person,” Angela said.

“Up and Vanished” blurs the lines between the genres of documentary, investigative journalism, and true crime entertainment. While this creates a compelling story, it also forces the listener to question the possible bias and misinformation in what they are hearing. While this could, and maybe should, be considered a negative, I see it as a practice in active listening.

Lindsey claims that the show’s goal is not necessarily to discover the truth, but rather to use storytelling to incite awareness and change on a grand scale. He wants people to know the names of Tara Grinstead and Kristal Reisinger, understand what happened to them and not be content without a resolution.

In addition to the curated story, the show has Q&A episodes where listeners can call in questions for Lindsey or other relevant members of the story, such as the police chief or the victim’s friends, to answer. This creates a new and complex layer of listener engagement that I, personally, haven’t seen in a podcast of the same genre; it contributes to the level of intrigue that the show creates, making the listeners feel as though the entire audience is working together to find her.

New episodes of the season are released every Monday. While there are currently seven episodes on Kristal’s disappearance, more are being released as the investigation develops. This means that not only the audience, but also the producers, don’t know what will come next.

Will you be a part of discovering the truth? You can find “Up and Vanished” on your favorite streaming platform.