Complaint, interrupted

This morning, I was all ready to write a complaint as a post here. I've been kind of bothered about this issue for a while, and have never found the right platform for talking about it (plus, Chris is tired of hearing about it). The problem? The (sometimes) terrible music in a knitting podcast I listen to regularly. Sometimes it's great (Jonathan Coulton), and sometimes it's all obvious lyrics and overdone vocals. The injustice! I listened to the two most recent episodes this morning, and had the angry wind knocked right out of me: the music wasn't bad. It wasn't the best thing ever (and one of the bands, though apparently comprised entirely of women, was called "Girly Man", which...no.), but it was a nice mix of fun and poignant and bouncy. Darn you, podcast author with musical tastes that differ from mine, and also impeccable timing!

This doesn't get you out of a complaint, though. The podcast has rubbed me the wrong way before - the theme of the episodes for a while was "alchemy", which is fine as a metaphor, but (and I'll keep saying this through gritted teeth until the rest of you give up and go along with me) magical thinking is not science. People who made themselves crazy with mercury fumes while trying to transform lead into gold are not a model for informed inquiry or the scientific method.

I...get a little defensive about this. Needless to say, I never wrote this to the podcast author (no constructive point), but it bothered me every episode until she switched the theme to "Make Do and Mend", which was lovely and thoughtful. I liked that a lot.