jjd323's blog

I have been listening to a podcast entitled This Developer's Life; the latest episode was all about being mean and is very much worth listening to. That is, if you are interested in the lives of software developers then it's probably the kind of thing you would want to listen to. The form of the podcast is stylistically based upon an apparently a more famous podcast entitled This American Life. If you are interested in the lives of Americans then I guess you might have listened to it before; I haven't. The form of the podcast primarily consists of short interviews that are played over music, which sometimes comes into the foreground to punctuate the different topics that are under discussion. Apparently the form of the podcast is really just lifted from a common cinematic style.

I am listening to EPTPE for the second time. I immediately noticed how the form of this series is similar to these podcasts, which means that it too has a cinematic flair. It is stylistically unique amongst the series that have been produced by DC; from Wikipedia: “several conversations between Tommy and Wayne [are] separated by sound-clips of piano music, which come between topic changes.” It happens that the presenter of This Developer's Life has commented on the format for his podcast (first three paragraphs). In these first paragraphs he gives a name to these cinematic flashes when "the music weaves in and out and serves as a conceptual break": Pickled Ginger Moments. I guess this refers to the eating pickled ginger between pieces of delicious sushi in order to cleanse the palette. This raises some interesting questions: If these moments are Pickled Ginger, does that make EPTPE a giant sushi banquet? Was Wayne the soy sauce? Who or what is the wasabi?