Explore every episode of the podcast Deviate
| Title | Pub. Date | Duration | |
|---|---|---|---|
| A history and future of digital and biological technology, with Jane Metcalfe | 08 Aug 2024 | 00:59:27 | |
“We need positive visions of how all this technology gets deployed, because what we visualize is what we build.” –Jane Metcalfe In this episode of Deviate, Rolf and Jane talk about the pioneering work she did with Wired during the dawn of the “digital revolution” (3:00); how and why Jane’s professional focus shifted away from digital issues and into food and health issues in the ’00s (15:00); how science is trying to bring in diverse new data points and communication models to improve holistic health worldwide (28:30); how the health of the world’s humans is not separate from the health of the world’s animals, plants, and microorganisms, and how a bio-economy seeks to harness rather than extract the resources of nature (41:00); how regional and cultural differences affect how we perceive health, nutrition, and technology, and the importance of ethics in making scientific decisions (51:00). Jane Metcalfe (@janemetcalfe) is the co-founder of Wired Magazine, and the chair of the Human Immunome Project, a global non-profit working to decode the immune system in order to transform how we prevent, diagnose, and treat disease. Notable Links:
The Deviate theme music comes from the title track of Cedar Van Tassel’s 2017 album Lumber. Note: We don’t host a “comments” section, but we’re happy to hear your questions and insights via email, at deviate@rolfpotts.com. | |||
| Bicycling across the USA (with no money or food) looking for human connection | 16 Jul 2024 | 00:50:01 | |
“My parents passed away and it created this sense of recklessness in me, but in a positive way: I wanted to create a travel experience and push myself and learn about myself. Because you never know how long you’re gonna be around for.” –Daniel Troia In this episode of Deviate, Rolf and Daniel talk about why Daniel chose to bicycle across America with no money or food, the privileges that set him apart from people who have to do it out of necessity, and how this kind of journey is a time-honored undertaking for people experiencing grief (2:00); the kinds of people Daniel met on the trip, how his vulnerability put him into contact with new and unfamiliar people and communities, and how visiting places in person increases empathy with the people who live here (12:30); what Daniel discovered while “dumpster diving,” and other surprises he found on the road (24:30); what it was like to self-document the trip DIY style with camera glasses, a GoPro, and a drone, and what experiences didn’t make it into the film (30:30); the lessons that Daniel brought home from the trip, where he plans to travel next, and his advice for people who want to create their own bike journey (44:00); and an “Easter Egg” about Daniel’s experiences in Kansas (49:00). Daniel Troia (@the_travelin_dude) is the director of We Are All in This Together, which documents his cross-country USA bicycle journey with no food and no money, in search of human connection. Notable Links:
The Deviate theme music comes from the title track of Cedar Van Tassel’s 2017 album Lumber. Note: We don’t host a “comments” section, but we’re happy to hear your questions and insights via email, at deviate@rolfpotts.com. | |||
| Going abroad for love, and travel writing that says something new about a place | 14 Nov 2023 | 00:35:40 | |
“When asked to give advice to young people looking to become travel writers, I invariably tell them to go – alone – and live in a country where they don’t speak the language.” –Thomas Swick In this episode of Deviate, Rolf and Tom talk about the thematic limitations of memoir writing, and the early stages of Tom’s career as a journalist (2:00); his decision to move to Poland for love, and his experiences living in Warsaw around the time of the Solidarity movement (9:30); the task of writing a travel memoir about events that happened decades ago, and how the American news cycles tends to ignore international matters (15:00); the task of getting started in travel writing in the twenty-first century (21:00); and how travel writers have the ability to bring a fresh eye to places that people who live there might miss (26:00). Thomas Swick (@roostertie) is an author and writer of The Joys of Travel, A Way to See the World, and Unquiet Days. His newest book is Falling into Place: A Story of Love, Poland, and the Making of a Travel Writer. Notable Links:
The Deviate theme music comes from the title track of Cedar Van Tassel’s 2017 album Lumber. Note: We don’t host a “comments” section, but we’re happy to hear your questions and insights via email, at deviate@rolfpotts.com. | |||
| Pandemic love, cheating death, & cassette tapes: A personal history of nostalgia | 13 Oct 2020 | 00:56:58 | |
“Nostalgia isn’t rational, and just like Warrant’s 1990 song “Cherry Pie” reminds me of 1989 more than the recorded sound of my own voice from 1989, watching the movie Dazed and Confused for the first time literally made me long for a time in life that was less happy than the time I was living in when I saw it.” — Rolf Potts In this essay episode of Deviate Rolf talks about four recent factors in his life that have changed the ways he views nostalgia (4:00); how he may well could have been killed in a motorcycle wreck in Asia in 2019, and how the accident affected his way of seeing the world in the months after it happened (8:30); how the word “nostalgia” has conventionally been defined, in both the modern and premodern sense (18:45); Rolf’s complicated memories of youthful interactions with movies like Star Wars, Dazed and Confused, and Before Sunrise (23:00); how Rolf met a traveler named Kristen Bush (aka “Kiki”) in Kansas during the pandemic, and what factors made their connection unique (34:45); how Michel de Montaigne made sense of his near-fatal horse accident in the 16th century, versus how Rolf has come to make sense of his motorcycle accident in Asia (40:00); how Rolf has trouble intuiting his own past when he listens to his own voice on old cassette tapes (43:30); and how Rolf and Kiki have come to make sense of their past, present, and future together, and how this pandemic moment will one day feed its own nostalgia (48:30). Kristen Bush is an actress, known for Paterno (2018), Liberal Arts (2012), and Synecdoche, New York (2008). Her TV credits include The Affair, The Good Wife, Elementary, and Law & Order: SVU. She has performed onstage at Manhattan Theatre Club, The Public, the Old Globe, Goodman Theatre, and Lincoln Center. Notable Links:
Books, movies and TV shows mentioned:
Music used in this episode:
Note: We don’t host a “comments” section, but we’re happy to hear your questions and insights via email, at deviate@rolfpotts.com. | |||
| A folk history of Satanic Panic, backmasking, and rock music in the 1980s | 06 Oct 2020 | 01:24:48 | |
“There are the actual facts of what was happening in popular culture in the 1980s — and then there was this tantalizing notion that music played backwards was going to seed our minds with evil. Which was scary, but also kind of cool to a certain kid-like way of thinking.” — Rolf Potts In this rebroadcast episode of Deviate Rolf delves into the idea of “backward masking” in rock music, and how it came to influence notions of “Satanic Panic” in America over the course of the 1980s. Returning to the show for this musical deep-dive are Jedd Beaudoin (@JeddBeaudoin), who hosts the syndicated music show “Strange Currency,” and Michael Carmody (@Carmody68), a musician, record collector, and entrepreneur. Together they discuss preacher Jacob Aranza’s underground-classic 1983 anti-rock book Backward Masking Unmasked and its idiosyncratic take on popular music (4:00); the history of rock and roll and American culture that led up to Satanic Panic in the 1980s (31:10); how rock acts exploited the idea of Satanism to sell records just as preachers, politicians, and pop-journalists fixated on its supposed dangers to attract followers (42:10); and the legacy of Satanic Panic and the seeming lack of evil in today’s popular music (1:05:45). Rock and roll curiosities mentioned
Movies and TV shows mentioned
Other people, institutions, and events mentioned
Rock Devil Rock CHiPs TV clip Quincy punk-rock episode clip This episode was engineered by Torin Andersen of KMUW studios in Wichita. The Deviate theme music comes from the title track of Cedar Van Tassel’s 2017 album Lumber. Note: We don’t host a “comments” section, but we’re happy to hear your questions and insights via email, at deviate@rolfpotts.com. | |||
| What it’s like to travel 37 countries (and counting) in a wheelchair | 29 Sep 2020 | 00:40:17 | |
“Face the fear, and go for it.” – Cory Lee In this episode of Deviate, Rolf and Cory discuss what challenges disabled travelers contend with, and how Cory got started as a traveler with spinal muscular atrophy (2:30); good destinations for travelers with mobility issues, and what challenges present themselves on the ground for travelers with disabilities (10:00); non-traditional activities like adventure travel or volunteering for people with disabilities, (20:00); and what it’s been like for Cory to write and blog about disability travel, and how it became his full-time job (26:00). Then, Rolf is joined by listener Zachary York to discuss what it’s like to travel with Neurofibromatosis type I (32:00). Cory Lee (@coryleetweets) is the founder of Curb Free with Cory Lee, a travel blog sharing his experiences from a wheelchair user’s perspective. Cory is a 2-time Lowell Thomas Award winner for Best Travel Blog and was named the 2018 Person of the Year by New Mobility Magazine. Notable Links:
This episode of Deviate is brought to you by Tortuga Backpacks, which set the standard for the best, most durable, organized, and comfortable travel backpacks. Tortuga products also include daypacks, duffels, and other travel accessories, which are all made with the traveler in mind and have been featured by Wirecutter, The New York Times, Travel + Leisure, Business Insider, Carryology, and many other industry outlets. This episode is also brought to you by AirTreks, an industry leader in multi-stop international travel. AirTreks is a distributed travel company with employees working from all corners of the world to help with your flight planning, specializing in complex routes with up to 25 stops. The AirTreks website offers suggested pre-planned travel itineraries to help you get started, but can customize to fit your journey. The Deviate theme music comes from the title track of Cedar Van Tassel’s 2017 album Lumber. Note: We don’t host a “comments” section, but we’re happy to hear your questions and insights via email, at deviate@rolfpotts.com. | |||
| 20 lessons learned from 20 years as a travel writer: A TravelCon keynote | 22 Sep 2020 | 00:36:55 | |
“Embrace your travel mistakes. You can’t ‘fail’ at travel; you can only learn from travel.” –Rolf Potts In this episode of Deviate, which excerpts a keynote talk from TravelCon, Rolf talks a bit about his background of growing up in Kansas and dreaming about travel, his earliest vagabonding travels, and his first forays into travel writing (3:30); then Rolf shares his “20 lessons learned from 20 years as a travel writer,” (7:30). Notable Links:
Podcasts and essays alluded to:
1) Relationships count more than platforms 2) Distinctive content counts more than self-promotion 3) If in doubt, ask for help 4) If in doubt say yes 5) There is always more to learn 6) Don’t postpone things 7) Be an expat at some point in your travel career 8) Take it slow 9) It’s OK to make mistakes 10) Don’t set limits 11) Walk until your day becomes interesting 12) Meet people 13) Report back on the human world 14) Try something different 15) Actively learn new skills 16) Dare to be lonely, lost, and bored 17) Remember the ethical dynamic of travel 18) Develop a notion of home 19) Success is a matter of doing it long enough 20) Make the lessons last a lifetime OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAThis episode of Deviate is brought to you by Tortuga Backpacks, which set the standard for the best, most durable, organized, and comfortable travel backpacks. Tortuga products also include daypacks, duffels, and other travel accessories, which are all made with the traveler in mind and have been featured by Wirecutter, The New York Times, Travel + Leisure, Business Insider, Carryology, and many other industry outlets. The Deviate theme music comes from the title track of Cedar Van Tassel’s 2017 album Lumber. Note: We don’t host a “comments” section, but we’re happy to hear your questions and insights via email, at deviate@rolfpotts.com. | |||
| Sex, travel, and the art of being a better bad tourist (with Suzanne Roberts) | 15 Sep 2020 | 01:04:19 | |
“Sometimes we do things for ourselves in the name of adventure, without thinking about how this affects other people.” – Suzanne Roberts In this episode of Deviate, Rolf and Suzanne discuss what it means to be a bad traveler, and the ethical quandaries that come with being a tourist (3:00); examples from Suzanne’s book about her interacting from a position of privilege with trekking guides during a mudslide in Peru, giving a Power Bar to a leper in India, or wanting to help underaged prostitutes in Nicaragua (12:00); burning-ghat tourism in Varanasi, and how places where death is more public make one confront the notion of death and “aliveness” in a more realistic way (23:00); sex, dating and relationships abroad (34:00); and the challenge of writing about sensitive cross-cultural topics, and the utility of “sensitivity readers” versus good on-the-ground reporting in travel writing (55:00). Suzanne Roberts (@SuzanneRoberts) is a travel writer, memoirist, and poet. Her books include the 2012 National Outdoor Book Award-winning Almost Somewhere, her new travel memoir Bad Tourist, and four collections of poetry. For more about Suzanne, check out https://www.suzanneroberts.net/ Notable Links:
This episode of Deviate is brought to you by Tortuga Backpacks, which set the standard for the best, most durable, organized, and comfortable travel backpacks. Tortuga products also include daypacks, duffels, and other travel accessories, which are all made with the traveler in mind and have been featured by Wirecutter, The New York Times, Travel + Leisure, Business Insider, Carryology, and many other industry outlets. This episode is also brought to you by AirTreks, an industry leader in multi-stop international travel. AirTreks is a distributed travel company with employees working from all corners of the world to help with your flight planning, specializing in complex routes with up to 25 stops. The AirTreks website offers suggested pre-planned travel itineraries to help you get started, but can customize to fit your journey. The Deviate theme music comes from the title track of Cedar Van Tassel’s 2017 album Lumber. Note: We don’t host a “comments” section, but we’re happy to hear your questions and insights via email, at deviate@rolfpotts.com. | |||
| Drunk in China: A vicarious Middle Kingdom adventure via its favorite booze | 08 Sep 2020 | 00:42:57 | |
“There is this arrogant assumption that the things we don’t know or understand must be bad, because if they were good, we would already know about them or understand them.” –Derek Sandhaus In this episode of Deviate, Rolf and Derek discuss the culture and traditions of baijiu liquor in China (4:00); Derek’s introduction to China and baijiu, and how Sichuan, more than any other province, is known for making baijiu (15:00); the history of baijiu, its significance to Chinese culture, and the rules that surround its consumption at meals (22:00); how alcohol influenced Chinese culture and agriculture over the years, and how foreigners have interacted with baijiu (31:00); the challenge in introducing baijiu to the American market, how it has as many variations as different as vodka and tequila, and how to find and enjoy baijiu in the United States (36:30). Derek Sandhaus (@dsandhaus) is a writer, traveler, and author of several books on Chinese history and culture, including Baijiu: The Essential Guide to Chinese Spirits and Drunk in China. He is a cofounder of Ming River Sichuan Baijiu and currently serves as the brand’s communications director. He is also the editor of DrinkBaijiu.com. Notable Links:
This episode of Deviate is brought to you by Tortuga Backpacks, which set the standard for the best, most durable, organized, and comfortable travel backpacks. Tortuga products also include daypacks, duffels, and other travel accessories, which are all made with the traveler in mind and have been featured by Wirecutter, The New York Times, Travel + Leisure, Business Insider, Carryology, and many other industry outlets. This episode is also brought to you by AirTreks, an industry leader in multi-stop international travel. AirTreks is a distributed travel company with employees working from all corners of the world to help with your flight planning, specializing in complex routes with up to 25 stops. The AirTreks website offers suggested pre-planned travel itineraries to help you get started, but can customize to fit your journey. The Deviate theme music comes from the title track of Cedar Van Tassel’s 2017 album Lumber. Note: We don’t host a “comments” section, but we’re happy to hear your questions and insights via email, at deviate@rolfpotts.com. | |||
| Growing up racially diverse: A not-so-politically-correct roundtable | 01 Sep 2020 | 01:46:06 | |
“So many hate-filled things—whether on social media or just people talking—are based on stereotypes that are not accurate. Too many people simply don’t interact with people who are different from them.” —Joe Rodriguez In this episode of Deviate, childhood friends Rolf, Kaye, Tony, and Joe discuss the racially specific nicknames people gave each other in high school back in the 1980s (7:40); how exactly their racial and socioeconomic situations influenced the way they grew up as young people (14:30); why it’s important to respect specific aspects of other people’s lives, even if you can’t entirely relate to them, and how individual people don’t necessarily represent everyone in a given group (37:00); what it feels like to be judged by strangers on the basis of your race, especially when you come from a minority group (51:30); how their race and the location of their neighborhoods affected their extracurricular lives as teenagers, and how diversity exists even within individual racial groups (1:06:00); how dating and marrying across racial lines can give you a deepened perspective on racial difference (1:18:00); and how the personal experience of racial diversity is so much richer, more nuanced, and intertwined with “social capital” than the way it’s discussed in the click-bait atmosphere of social media (1:30:00). Kaye Monk-Morgan is an Assistant Vice President for Academic Affairs at Wichita State University. Tony Johnson works with troubled youth as an intervention specialist with the Wichita Public Schools. A former newspaper journalist, Joe Rodriguez works as the Director of Development at Wichita’s Holy Savior Catholic Church and Academy. Notable Links:
The Deviate theme music comes from the title track of Cedar Van Tassel’s 2017 album Lumber. Note: We don’t host a “comments” section, but we’re happy to hear your questions and insights via email, at deviate@rolfpotts.com. | |||
| Eric Weiner’s journey into the ways philosophy compels us to live better | 25 Aug 2020 | 01:04:32 | |
“The more we try to seize happiness, the more it slips from our grasp. Happiness is a by-product, never an objective. It’s an unexpected windfall from a life lived well.” –Eric Weiner In this episode of Deviate, Rolf and Eric discuss why practicing (rather than just studying) philosophy is important (2:00); which philosophies make the most sense during pandemic, and Nietzsche’s notion of “Eternal Recurrence” (10:00); aging versus staying young, and the similarities between Greek and Buddhist philosophy (21:00); how travel underpins the philosophical journey, and how train travel promotes deep thinking (31:00); how walking enables thinking and reflection, and the value or art and music (42:00); and loving life while also coming to terms with death (53:00). Eric Weiner (@Eric_Weiner) is an award-winning journalist, bestselling author, and speaker. His books include The Geography of Bliss and The Geography of Genius, as well as the spiritual memoir Man Seeks God and, his latest title, The Socrates Express. Eric is a former foreign correspondent for NPR, and reporter for The New York Times. For more about Eric, check out https://ericweinerbooks.com/ Notable Links:
This episode is brought to you by AirTreks, an industry leader in multi-stop international travel. AirTreks is a distributed travel company with employees working from all corners of the world to help with your flight planning, specializing in complex routes with up to 25 stops. The AirTreks website offers suggested pre-planned travel itineraries to help you get started, but can customize to fit your journey. The Deviate theme music comes from the title track of Cedar Van Tassel’s 2017 album Lumber. Note: We don’t host a “comments” section, but we’re happy to hear your questions and insights via email, at deviate@rolfpotts.com. | |||
| Life changing travel experiences: The best hostel ever (in Cairo) | 18 Aug 2020 | 01:07:34 | |
“There are so many ways travel can change your life, in ways you could never imagine before you leave home.” –Daniel Neely In this episode of Deviate, Rolf reads his essay, Backpackers’ Ball at the Sultan Hotel (7:30) before he and Dan reflect on the international cast of characters they met at at the Sultan Hotel in Cairo, and how workaday activities can make the city more interesting than tourist attractions (36:30); the friendships you make in hostels and how they end up shaping your life (44:45); how smartphones may have changed the vibe of some hostels, and how interacting with strangers at hostels can change your life (60:00). A native of Arizona, Daniel Neely served as Peace Corps volunteer in Honduras in the early 2000s. He now works as a Senior Advisor in Emergency Preparedness at the Wellington (New Zealand) Region Emergency Management Office. He previously appeared on Deviate episode 42, “How to survive a natural disaster.” Notable Links:
This episode of Deviate is brought to you by Tortuga Backpacks, which set the standard for the best, most durable, organized, and comfortable travel backpacks. Tortuga products also include daypacks, duffels, and other travel accessories, which are all made with the traveler in mind and have been featured by Wirecutter, The New York Times, Travel + Leisure, Business Insider, Carryology, and many other industry outlets. This episode is also brought to you by AirTreks, an industry leader in multi-stop international travel. If you’ve ever planned a trip with multiple stops, you know that finding the right flights can be difficult. Between balancing travel logistics and cost, it often becomes impossible to build an itinerary that matches your travel goals. AirTreks is a distributed travel company with employees working from all corners of the world to help with your flight planning, specializing in complex routes with up to 25 stops. The AirTreks website offers suggested pre-planned travel itineraries to help you get started, but can customize to fit your journey. The Deviate theme music comes from the title track of Cedar Van Tassel’s 2017 album Lumber. Note: We don’t host a “comments” section, but we’re happy to hear your questions and insights via email, at deviate@rolfpotts.com. | |||
| Brian Koppelman on the intimacy of podcasting and the genius of Iron Maiden | 11 Aug 2020 | 00:45:22 | |
“My ambition was not financial, but a creative ambition toward fulfillment and satisfaction — and to be a better human toward those whom I loved.” – Brian Koppelman In this episode of Deviate, Rolf and Brian discuss podcast fandom, and how listening to podcasts is intimate in a way other media is not (2:00); self-improvement and ambition versus fulfillment, and the cultural reach of what Brian has created (11:00); the influence of music, and how a single album or artwork affects you at certain ages or times of your life (22:00); and masculine emotions as they are expressed in music, and writing to music informs your creativity (41:00). Brian Koppleman (@briankoppelman) is a screenwriter and co-creator / showrunner of the television show Billions. His screenwriting credits include Rounders and Ocean’s Thirteen. He is also the host of The Moment podcast. Notable Links:
The Deviate theme music comes from the title track of Cedar Van Tassel’s 2017 album Lumber. Note: We don’t host a “comments” section, but we’re happy to hear your questions and insights via email, at deviate@rolfpotts.com. | |||
| Seek places where your very presence makes you interesting (book club redo) | 31 Oct 2023 | 00:27:56 | |
“One way of making famous landmarks more comprehensible is to look for surprises, good and bad, that go beyond what you are expected to encounter there, details that open you up to the raw imperfections of the encounter itself.” –Rolf Potts In this episode of Deviate – which is a redo of episode 229, which didn’t air properly due to technical problems – Rolf and The Vagabond’s Way book club participants discuss how to break out of standard tourist routines and see places in unexpected way (1:30); how to get beyond the transactional, “taxi drivers and bartenders” layer of travel (10:00); how to become more independent of technology and smartphones as a traveler and find the “wisdom of place” (16:00); and the travel photos Rolf wishes he had taken when vagabonding 20 years ago (23:00). Discussion moderator Luke Richardson is a traveler, author, and DJ based in England. Notable Links:
The Deviate theme music comes from the title track of Cedar Van Tassel’s 2017 album Lumber. Note: We don’t host a “comments” section, but we’re happy to hear your questions and insights via email, at deviate@rolfpotts.com. | |||
| Vagabonding pioneer Ed Buryn on what indie travel was like in the 1960s | 04 Aug 2020 | 00:52:30 | |
“Realizing that you will die greatly clarifies your vision of life, and stimulates opportunities for making the vision real.” –Ed Buryn In this episode of Deviate, Rolf and Ed discuss the impetus behind Ed’s first travels to Europe by van in the 1960s, and his early forays into self-printed and self-promoted books about the experience (3:00); how travel to Europe was different 50 years ago, and the joy and freedom that comes with not knowing what happens next (14:30); Ed’s philosophies and influences, including living in “the now” (21:00); how travel allows you to reinvent yourself, and how meeting people is the best gift of travel (36:00); and Ed’s ambitions for poetry and travel, and his advice to travelers in today’s world (44:30). Ed Buryn is an author and photographer who was one of the first to popularize the term “vagabonding” through the publication of his books Vagabonding In Europe and North America and Vagabonding in America. For more about Ed, check out https://edburyn.com. Notable Links:
This episode of Deviate is brought to you by Tortuga Backpacks, which set the standard for the best, most durable, organized, and comfortable travel backpacks. Tortuga products also include daypacks, duffels, and other travel accessories, which are all made with the traveler in mind and have been featured by The New York Times, Travel + Leisure, Carryology, and many other industry outlets. This episode is also brought to you by AirTreks, an industry leader in multi-stop international travel. AirTreks has employees working from all corners of the world to help with your flight planning, specializing in complex routes with up to 25 stops. The AirTreks website offers suggested pre-planned travel itineraries to help you get started, but can customize to fit your journey. The Deviate theme music comes from the title track of Cedar Van Tassel’s 2017 album Lumber. Note: We don’t host a “comments” section, but we’re happy to hear your questions and insights via email, at deviate@rolfpotts.com. | |||
| Kevin Kelly on how travel has changed over the past 50 years [rebroadcast] | 28 Jul 2020 | 01:45:45 | |
“I met people who would say, ‘I wish I had more time to travel like you do.’ They had more money than time, and I had more time than money. In terms of traveling it’s much better to have more time than more money. …If you have a chance to travel, just do it. You won’t regret it.” – Kevin Kelly Kevin Kelly (@kevin2kelly) is a polymath in the truest sense of the word. Aside from being a co-founder of Wired magazine, he is also co-founder of the Rosetta Project, which is aiming to build an archive of all documented human languages, and he serves on the board of the Long Now Foundation. He is a photographer, writer, and futurist (he was “futurist adviser” on the 2002 Steven Spielberg movie, Minority Report), with much of his work centering on Asian and digital culture. In this episode of Deviate, Rolf and Kevin discuss the inspiration for his Asia travel in the 1970s (3:00); getting around and dealing with language barriers (15:00); the people he encountered while traveling in Asia, and the life-expanding nature of his journey (32:00); what he packed (47:00); modernity and technology in Asia, and managing his photography during travel (1:07:00); and self-actualization, discovering oneself through travel, and what the future holds in Asia. For more on Kevin, check out http://kk.org/ Notable Links:
The Deviate theme music comes from the title track of Cedar Van Tassel’s 2017 album Lumber. Note: We don’t host a “comments” section, but we’re happy to hear your questions and insights via email, at deviate@rolfpotts.com. | |||
| Remembering Bettina Gilois (and what writers can learn from her work) | 21 Jul 2020 | 01:34:09 | |
“The opening line of your work should hold within it the germ of your entire idea. Attention spans are growing ever shorter. Grab your reader while you can.” – Bettina Gilois Bettina Gilois (1961-2020) was an award-winning screenwriter and author who worked in Hollywood for more than thirty years. Her screen credits included McFarland, USA and Glory Road. In this rebroadcast episode of Deviate (which originally aired in July of 2019), Bettina and Rolf discuss writing about real people (4:00); Bettina’s career path and the importance of perseverance (24:00); the importance of simplicity in storytelling (41:00); why certain stories are worth telling (56:00); and the craft of writing (1:15:00). Notable Links:
This episode of Deviate is brought to you by AirTreks, an industry leader in multi-stop international travel. If you’ve ever planned a trip with multiple stops, you know that finding the right flights can be difficult. Between balancing travel logistics and cost, it often becomes impossible to build an itinerary that matches your travel goals. AirTreks is a distributed travel company with employees working from all corners of the world to help with your flight planning, specializing in complex routes with up to 25 stops. The AirTreks website offers suggested pre-planned travel itineraries to help you get started, but can customize to fit your journey. The Deviate theme music comes from the title track of Cedar Van Tassel’s 2017 album Lumber. Note: We don’t host a “comments” section, but we’re happy to hear your questions and insights via email, at deviate@rolfpotts.com. | |||
| Talking with my parents about how to handle it when your parents die | 14 Jul 2020 | 00:48:59 | |
“In America aging is often seen as an insult rather than an inevitable human process. We don’t celebrate getting older; we ‘fight’ age by pretending to be young.” –Rolf Potts In this episode of Deviate Rolf and his parents, Alice and George Potts, talk about how surviving the COVID-19 pandemic has changed their relationship, and how it gave them a pretext to go through a “death checklist” together (3:00); how one’s grandparents and parents live on in one’s memories and one’s conversations, the life-values they passed on, and what it felt like when those loved ones declined and died (14:00); how, over the years, elderly people and philosophers have come to terms with notions of decline and death (31:00); and personal insights about what it’s like to have grown older after having lived a long life (44:00). George and Alice Potts are retired schoolteachers based in Kansas. George taught science at various Wichita high schools, as well as at Friends University, where he pioneered graduate-level programs in Zoo Science and Environmental Studies. He also helped facilitate the Outdoor Wildlife Learning Sites (OWLS) program for the Kansas Department of Wildlife and Parks. Alice taught second graders in the Wichita public schools for more than 30 years. In 1994 her classes succeed in promoting legislation to declare the barred tiger salamander the Kansas State Amphibian. Notable Links:
The Deviate theme music comes from the title track of Cedar Van Tassel’s 2017 album Lumber. Note: We don’t host a “comments” section, but we’re happy to hear your questions and insights via email, at deviate@rolfpotts.com. | |||
| Bonus: Unpacking the mission of travel-writing in the 21st century | 07 Jul 2020 | 00:40:16 | |
“One of the miracles of travel writing is to constantly be reminded of how much we don’t know.” – Doug Bock Clark In this episode of Deviate, Rolf and Doug discuss how travel writing is defined, and what purposes it serves in the twenty-first century (3:30), the boundaries of travel writing, the nuanced task of trying to humanize people in a travel story, and the future of the form (19:00). Then, Rolf reads his essay, “Why Travel Writing Matters” from the Fall 2017 issue of The Chattahoochee Review (29:00). Doug Bock Clark (@DougBockClark) is a GQ correspondent and a contributor for the website of The New Yorker. His first book, The Last Whalers, was a New York Times Notable Book for 2019. He also produced the feature documentary Assassins, which premiered at Sundance in January 2020 and was inspired by one of his investigations. Notable Links:
This episode of Deviate is brought to you by Santa Fe Writing Workshop, the leading experiential photographic workshop and writers lab in the US. Offering world-renowned professional photographers and Pulitzer Prize winning writers both in the U.S. and abroad, its reputation has been built upon a foundation of creativity and community for individuals of all levels. Prioritizing inspiration and openness to new ideas as much as it does craft, the Santa Fe Writing Workshop establishes itself as an enclave of creativity and education. The Deviate theme music comes from the title track of Cedar Van Tassel’s 2017 album Lumber. Note: We don’t host a “comments” section, but we’re happy to hear your questions and insights via email, at deviate@rolfpotts.com. | |||
| What the world’s last subsistence hunters can teach us about humanity | 02 Jul 2020 | 00:56:55 | |
“The Lamalerans hunt in a way that is almost exactly the same as the way people hunted during Moby Dick’s time. Going on one of these hunts is analogous to what Ishmael or Queequeg was doing.” –Doug Bock Clark In this episode of Deviate Rolf and Doug talk about how he came to write about the Lamalerans, and how he aimed to evoke a sense for what it’s like to live in the isolated fishing communities of that part of the world (2:30); how and why the Lamalerans came to embrace a traditional hunting and barter lifestyle, and what indigenous groups are trying to live similar lifestyles (7:30); unique social rituals, spiritual systems, and ways of speaking carried out by Lamalerans (18:30); what aspects of modernity had been embraced by the tribespeople, and why, when Doug went to that part of the world (25:00); Doug’s personal experience of living on the island with the Lamalerans, and how he chose to tell the story of the islanders (33:00); how the influence of technology and the outside world, including tourism, is affecting the Lamalerans (41:00); and what encounters with cultures like this can teach us about who we are, who we were, and who we will be (53:00). Doug Bock Clark (@DougBockClark) is a GQ correspondent and a contributor for the website of The New Yorker. His first book, The Last Whalers, was a New York Times Notable Book for 2019. He also produced the feature documentary Assassins, which premiered at Sundance in January 2020 and was inspired by one of his investigations. Notable Links:
This episode of Deviate is brought to you by Tortuga Backpacks, which set the standard for the best, most durable, organized, and comfortable travel backpacks. Tortuga products also include daypacks, duffels, and other travel accessories, which are all made with the traveler in mind and have been featured by The New York Times, Travel + Leisure, Carryology, and many other industry outlets. This episode is also brought to you by AirTreks, an industry leader in multi-stop international travel. AirTreks has employees working from all corners of the world to help with your flight planning, specializing in complex routes with up to 25 stops. The AirTreks website offers suggested pre-planned travel itineraries to help you get started, but can customize to fit your journey. The Deviate theme music comes from the title track of Cedar Van Tassel’s 2017 album Lumber. Note: We don’t host a “comments” section, but we’re happy to hear your questions and insights via email, at deviate@rolfpotts.com. | |||
| Revisiting The Great Gatsby, high-school-style, in quarantine | 30 Jun 2020 | 00:53:38 | |
“One reason why Gatsby is called a ‘Great American Novel’ is that it illuminates a conversation we haven’t stopped having in this country. We keep pretending to be people we’re not.” –Rolf Potts In this episode of Deviate Rolf and his old high school friends reflect on the role of Nick Carraway as the narrator of The Great Gatsby, how he deals with race and privilege, and whether or not his perspective is reliable (7:00); Fitzgerald’s use of language and juxtaposition in depicting characters and their relationships (22:00); the characters’ lack of moral grounding amid the opulence and wealth, and how it drives the story (28:00); how the youth and the age of the characters in Gatsby resonates differently depending your age when you read it (38:30); and how big questions like love, money, and life are addressed in the novel (49:00). [Easter Egg “Lightning Round” kicks in at 51:45.] Kaye Monk-Morgan is an Assistant Vice President for Academic Affairs at Wichita State University, where she facilitates leadership and professional development opportunities for low-income and first-generation students. Erin Perry O’Donnell operates Dovetail Community Workshop, which teaches woodworking classes in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Tom Davis teaches English at Sumner Academy of Arts & Science in Kansas City, Kansas. Notable Links:
The Deviate theme music comes from the title track of Cedar Van Tassel’s 2017 album Lumber. Note: We don’t host a “comments” section, but we’re happy to hear your questions and insights via email, at deviate@rolfpotts.com. | |||
| Why travelers visit museums (in places like Iceland), and what they find there | 23 Jun 2020 | 00:50:10 | |
“You can’t ever really know what a museum will offer you until you get there.” – Kendra Green In this episode of Deviate, Rolf and Kendra discuss their own earliest fascination with museums (2:40); the appeal and particularities of Icelandic museums (10:00); museums as a form of national identity (24:00); the relationship of collecting to the creation of museums (35:00); and museums as a way of engaging with one’s imagination (46:00). Kendra Greene is a writer, artist, and author of The Museum of Whales You Will Never See. She has worked at various museums, including the Museum of Contemporary Photography, and the Chicago History Museum. Karen is currently Associate Editor of prose at the Southwest Review and a Fellow at Harvard University’s Library Innovation Lab. For more about Kendra, check out http://akendragreene.com. Notable Links:
This episode of Deviate is brought to you by AirTreks, an industry leader in multi-stop international travel. Airtreks is a distributed travel company with employees working from all corners of the world to help with your flight planning, specializing in complex routes with up to 25 stops. The Airtreks website offers suggested pre-planned travel itineraries to help you get started, but can customize to fit your journey. This episode of Deviate is also brought to you by Tortuga Backpacks, which set the standard for the best, most durable, organized, and comfortable travel backpacks. Tortuga products also include daypacks, duffels, and other travel accessories, which are all made with the traveler in mind and have been featured by Wirecutter, The New York Times, Travel + Leisure, Business Insider, and many other industry outlets. The Deviate theme music comes from the title track of Cedar Van Tassel’s 2017 album Lumber. Note: We don’t host a “comments” section, but we’re happy to hear your questions and insights via email, at deviate@rolfpotts.com. | |||
| Life changing travel experiences: Jumping freight trains in the Pacific NW | 16 Jun 2020 | 01:27:25 | |
“He gave us five rules for jumping freight trains, and we broke every one of those rules once the adventure began.” In this episode of Deviate, Rolf and his longtime friend Brian recall their old ambition to jump freight trains across the Pacific Northwest, and what factors inspired it (4:00); what kinds of research and preparation they did to make the train-jumping experience possible (16:30); the early hours of their attempt to reach Canada by catching a boxcar from the Vancouver, Washington rail yard, and the dangers of challenges that awaited them (28:30); their unanticipated detour through the Columbia Gorge to Pasco, and their experience of getting detained by railroad police in Spokane (35:00); making the decision to escape Spokane by retracing their route, and getting stuck in a “hobo jungle” in the town of Wishram (56:30); making sense of the adventure afterwards, and how train-jumping has (and has not) changed in the social-media age (1:15:30). Notable links:
Freight-jumping links:
The Deviate theme music comes from the title track of Cedar Van Tassel’s 2017 album Lumber. Note: We don’t host a “comments” section, but we’re happy to hear your questions and insights via email, at deviate@rolfpotts.com. | |||
| Kate Harris on the way travel can lead us into deeper questions about the universe | 09 Jun 2020 | 01:04:54 | |
“Travel is often one part geography and nine parts imagination.” –Kate Harris In this episode of Deviate Rolf and Kate discuss Kate’s early fixation with exploration and interest in Mars (3:00); science as a catalyst for exploration (10:30); the universality of the human experience and her trip through Asia (21:00); the concept of borders (32:00); nostalgia and the transformational effect of travel (43:00); the role of home in relation to travel (52:00); and letting adventure into your life (1:02:00). Kate Harris (@kateonmars) is an adventure writer, named by Condé Nast Traveler as one of the “world’s most adventurous women.” Her work has appeared in Outside, The Walrus, and Georgia Review. Her book, Lands of Lost Borders, is a national bestseller For more about Kate, check out www.kateharris.ca Notable Links:
This episode of Deviate is brought to you by Tortuga Backpacks, which set the standard for the best, most durable, organized, and comfortable travel backpacks. Tortuga products also include daypacks, duffels, and other travel accessories, which are all made with the traveler in mind and have been featured by The New York Times, Travel + Leisure, Carryology, and many other industry outlets. This episode is also brought to you by AirTreks, an industry leader in multi-stop international travel. AirTreks has employees working from all corners of the world to help with your flight planning, specializing in complex routes with up to 25 stops. The AirTreks website offers suggested pre-planned travel itineraries to help you get started, but can customize to fit your journey. The Deviate theme music comes from the title track of Cedar Van Tassel’s 2017 album Lumber. Note: We don’t host a “comments” section, but we’re happy to hear your questions and insights via email, at deviate@rolfpotts.com. | |||
| Travel memoir lab: Truth, luck, & multi-genre storytelling (with Tom Bissell) | 17 Oct 2023 | 00:58:13 | |
“Not everyone who’s lucky is talented and not everyone who’s talented is lucky.” –Tom Bissell In this episode of Deviate, Rolf and Tom talk about Tom’s lack of travel experience when he joined the Peace Corps, and how he dealt with his early failures (2:30); the role that luck (as well as craft and obsessive reading) has played in his writing career (8:00); how, as a writer, to turn real-life people, including yourself, into convincingly human and honest nonfiction “characters” (16:00); Tom “failures” as a writer, the challenges of screenwriting, and the difficulty of writing books that sell (38:30); the book that Tom is most proud of, and how to get out of the success/failure dichotomy as a creative person (47:00); plus a post-interview segment about drinking in Paris (56:00). Tom Bissell is an American author, journalist, critic, and screenwriter. He is the author of such books as Chasing the Sea, Apostle, God Lives in St. Petersburg, Extra Lives, and The Disaster Artist. Notable Links:
The Deviate theme music comes from the title track of Cedar Van Tassel’s 2017 album Lumber. Note: We don’t host a “comments” section, but we’re happy to hear your questions and insights via email, at deviate@rolfpotts.com. | |||
| Andrew McCarthy on the Proust Questionnaire (and Brat Pack legacy) | 02 Jun 2020 | 00:47:15 | |
“I had a great day in Cambodia, and I was like, ‘Oh my god I’m so happy right now.’ I had no idea what I was doing, or what I would discover, and I just trusted that I would be OK.” –Andrew McCarthy In this episode of Deviate Rolf and Andrew discuss his relationship with interviews and the origin of the Brat Pack (3:30); fear and journaling in the time of pandemic, and treasured possessions (12:30); regrets, and artistic truth (23:00); writing as a way of thinking, and what Andrew values in his friends (29:00); and happiness, quarantine-reading, The Great Gatsby, and coming to terms with ones youthful success (38:00). Andrew McCarthy (@AndrewTMcCarthy), who rose to fame as a teen actor during the John Hughes 80’s era, is a television director and writer of such books as The Long Way Home and Just Fly Away. Notable Links:
This episode is brought to you by AirTreks, an industry leader in multi-stop international travel. The AirTreks website offers suggested pre-planned travel itineraries to help you get started, but can customize to fit your journey. This episode is also brought to you by Tortuga Backpacks, which set the standard for the best, most durable, organized, and comfortable travel backpacks. Tortuga products also include daypacks, duffels, and other travel accessories made with the traveler in mind. The Deviate theme music comes from the title track of Cedar Van Tassel’s 2017 album Lumber. Note: We don’t host a “comments” section, but we’re happy to hear your questions and insights via email, at deviate@rolfpotts.com. | |||
| How to balance creative success with business success: An open chat | 26 May 2020 | 01:17:24 | |
“The dualities of the ‘creative person’ and the ‘business person’ don’t need to exist any more, because one person can do all of it.” –Sachit Gupta In this episode of Deviate, Rolf and Sachit discuss creativity versus business success, and the currency of social media (2:30); the diminishing returns of listening to advice, and the importance of action (16:00); interview and preparation techniques, and how how “bringing value” can apply to spiritual ideas as readily as business ideas (24:00); being creative in business, and how creative people are now expected to do their own marketing and promotion (36:00); thinking innovatively, and breaking with habit and tradition (44:00); how success can be compromised in the clickbait era, and creativity in the age of social media (59:00). Sachit Gupta (@sachitgupta) is the founder of Platforms Media, where he helps creators build, grow, and scale their online platforms to amplify their message and connect with brands. He is also the host of the Conscious Creators Show. Notable Links:
The Deviate theme music comes from the title track of Cedar Van Tassel’s 2017 album Lumber. Note: We don’t host a “comments” section, but we’re happy to hear your questions and insights via email, at deviate@rolfpotts.com. | |||
| How underground exploration is the perennial frontier of adventure travel | 19 May 2020 | 01:01:20 | |
“Even the briefest trip into a tunnel or a cave can feel like an escape into a parallel reality, the way characters in children’s books vanish through portals into secret worlds.” –Will Hunt In this episode of Deviate, Rolf and Will talk about our imaginative relationship with underground places, and how it often starts in childhood (4:30); the concept of “urban exploration” in the industrial spaces underneath cities, and Will’s fascination with a NYC graffiti artist named REVS (11:00); the catacombs of Paris, how easy it is to get lost underground, and how hard it is to map underground passages (26:15); going underground as a form of time travel, the microbes that live underground, and the relics that can be found underground (40:00); the spiritual aspect of spending time underground in the dark zone of a cave (51:00); and how and why to get started exploring underground (59:00). Will Hunt’s (@willhunt__) writing, photography, and audio storytelling have appeared in The Economist, the Paris Review Daily, The Atavist, The Guardian, Discover, Audible Originals, and Outside, among other places. He is currently a visiting scholar at the NYU Institute for Public Knowledge. Underground is his first book. More about Will at: https://www.willhunt.net/ Notable Links:
This episode of Deviate is brought to you by Tortuga Backpacks, which set the standard for the best, most durable, organized, and comfortable travel backpacks. Tortuga products also include daypacks, duffels, and other travel accessories, which are all made with the traveler in mind and have been featured by Wirecutter, The New York Times, Travel + Leisure, Business Insider, Carryology, and many other industry outlets. This episode is also brought to you by AirTreks, an industry leader in multi-stop international travel. If you’ve ever planned a trip with multiple stops, you know that finding the right flights can be difficult. Between balancing travel logistics and cost, it often becomes impossible to build an itinerary that matches your travel goals. AirTreks is a distributed travel company with employees working from all corners of the world to help with your flight planning, specializing in complex routes with up to 25 stops. The AirTreks website offers suggested pre-planned travel itineraries to help you get started, but can customize to fit your journey. The Deviate theme music comes from the title track of Cedar Van Tassel’s 2017 album Lumber. Note: We don’t host a “comments” section, but we’re happy to hear your questions and insights via email, at deviate@rolfpotts.com. | |||
| Honeymoon without her husband: Maggie Downs’ uncommon world journey | 12 May 2020 | 00:50:45 | |
“You need to create your own life, and gather memories while you still can. There are no guarantees that you will have a ‘next year’ or a ‘ten years from now’ or even a tomorrow.” –Maggie Downs In this episode of Deviate, Rolf and Maggie discuss how she started traveling (3:00); “trying on” different versions of yourself during travel (17:00); and travel as a way to reflect on your life (37:00). Maggie Downs (@downsanddirty) is an award-winning writer whose work has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, and Lonely Planet’s True Stories From the World’s Best Writers and Best Women’s Travel Writing. She is the author of Braver Than You Think. This episode is also brought to you by AirTreks, an industry leader in multi-stop international travel, specializing in complex routes with up to 25 stops. The AirTreks website offers suggested pre-planned travel itineraries to help you get started, but can customize to fit your journey. The Deviate theme music comes from the title track of Cedar Van Tassel’s 2017 album Lumber. Note: We don’t host a “comments” section, but we’re happy to hear your questions and insights via email, at deviate@rolfpotts.com. | |||
| The win-win of being a mentor, with Cal Fussman and Alex Banayan | 07 May 2020 | 01:16:07 | |
“I reached out to dozens of potential mentors. The two that that changed my life are the ones who didn’t give me advice upon first meeting me, but asked me questions..” –Alex Banayan In this episode of Deviate, Rolf, Cal, and Alex discuss how Alex realized he desperately he needed help in writing his book The Third Door, how Cal Fussman came to help him with the project, and why asking questions is as essential of a mentor as is giving advice (5:30); why the vulnerability and tension of good storytelling is more essential than conveying dry facts in writing a business book, and how Cal encouraged Alex to recount a humiliating story about sending a single shoe to Warren Buffet at the behest of a bad-faith mentor (23:00); what happens when a would-be mentor gives the mentee advice out of narcissism or bad faith, and how to know when not to heed the advice of a mentor (35:00); how to find and recount the most vulnerable and appealing part of your own life-narrative, and how Cal taught himself how to tell good stories (42:00); what Cal and Alex’s mentoring sessions looked like, in terms of what Cal was trying to get Alex to understand (51:00); what Cal learned from Alex as his mentor, how Alex’s insights improved his career, and what older people in general can learn from younger people (56:30); and what kinds of advice Cal and Alex have for people seeking to discover and fine-tune mentor-mentee relationships (1:02:00). Cal Fussman (@calfussman) is a journalist, author, and Writer at Large for Esquire Magazine, where he has interviewed the likes of Muhammad Ali, Mikhail Gorbachev, Jeff Bezos, Richard Branson, Robert DeNiro and hundreds of others who’ve shaped the last half-century. Alex Banayan (@AlexBanayan) was named to Forbes’ 30 Under 30, and Business Insider’s “Most Powerful People Under 30” lists. He is the author of the international bestseller The Third Door. For more about Cal and Alex, check out their websites, https://www.calfussman.com and https://thirddoorbook.com. Notable Links:
This episode of Deviate is brought to you by Tortuga Backpacks, which set the standard for the best, most durable, organized, and comfortable travel backpacks. Tortuga products also include daypacks, duffels, and other travel accessories, which are all made with the traveler in mind and have been featured by Wirecutter, the New York Times, Travel + Leisure, Business Insider, Carryology, and many other industry outlets. The Deviate theme music comes from the title track of Cedar Van Tassel’s 2017 album Lumber. Note: We don’t host a “comments” section, but we’re happy to hear your questions and insights via email, at deviate@rolfpotts.com. | |||
| Why a “Shelter in Place Film Festival” beats bingeing video right now | 06 May 2020 | 00:53:25 | |
“Binge watching is designed to make time disappear. A home film festival is designed to be time well spent.” –Kevin Smokler Kevin Smokler (@weegee) is a writer, public speaker, critic, and author of Brat Pack America and Practical Classics. He speaks on the future of media and culture and his written work has appeared in such publications as the Los Angeles Times, Buzzfeed, and Vulture. He previously appeared as a guest on Episode 33 of Deviate, Why 1980s coming-of-age movies matter, and Episode 60, “Celebrating the best travel movies ever.” In this episode of Deviate, Rolf and Kevin explain how to organize and execute a Shelter in Place Film Festival as an alternative to bingeing video during a time of pandemic. Kevin hosts a full guide online at his website, but here’s an outline version: Notes on creating a Shelter in Place Film Festival
An afternoon? A day? A weekend? Film Festivals are inherently a time-bound activity. It may seem counterintuitive to begin planning with how much time you wish to spend watching movies rather than how many or what movies you wish to see. But you can always add movies if everyone’s having a great time, or cut the lineup short if everyone’s falling asleep. Setting a time-limit also creates reasonable expectations. Watching eleven movies in a day is not going to happen. Watching three over a week might seem anti-climactic, something you’d do anyway instead of creating an event. Film festivals are about maximizing quality for each hour spent watching, not about watching until you and your guests physically can’t anymore.
A film festival for just you and your loved ones at home is the easiest way to do this. Level up by inviting friends or another family to join: Everyone watches the movies in their own home then signs on to Zoom or Google Hangout afterward at a designated time to talk about the movie you just saw. If you’re making it a truly virtual film festival, it’s a bit more important to stick to a schedule so all participants know when they should be watching and when they should be talking with each other.
You can either designate a leader who picks all the movies, or you can create a list based on a theme (see next) and vote. A designated leader, like dictatorship, is more efficient. Democracy, as Oscar Wilde said, “is great but takes up a lot of weeknights.” If you’re the leader, do your own research and come up with the program or poll your own electorate of family and friends for both a theme or movies that fit it. But remember, this kind of film festival is designed to entertain the guests, not show what sort of genius you were for coming up with the event in the first place. Film festivals benefit from a strong leader so the movies are well chosen and hang together. Someone who is a leader, but listens to those he/she has invited to the festival.
Festivals have themes to distinguish themselves from binge watching. The idea is many movies creatively grouped in a interesting way. Half the joy is coming up with that creative list rather than just hitting “next” on the remote control. A Vertical Festival is usually organized around the body of work of a creative person (all of Denzel Washington’s pre-Oscar movies, all movies directed by Ava Duvernay). The purpose of a Vertical Festival is to notice commonalities (Michael Douglas never plays a working-class person) and evolutions (Laura Dern often played quiet characters in her 20s and loud characters in her 40s and 50s). A Horizontal Festival is organized around something non-people-related that all the chosen movies have in common (movies who all have “Star” in their name, movies that take place in Chicago). The purpose of a Horizontal Film Festival — because you have declared the thing they have in common up front — is to notice differences (look how many different kinds of movies took place only at night). A Spring-Cleaning Festival is a conscious attempt to see movies that have languished on your to-be-watched list for too long. A Spring-Cleaning Festival is better reserved for a my-family-only kind of festival where everyone’s had a hand in the queue to be cleaned out in the first place. A Hall of Fame Festival is usually grouped around the perceived “best” movies in a genre (Romantic Comedies) or a given time period (the 1990s). A Hall of Fame Festival will inspire debate and discussion b/c “best” is a subjective criterion. A Hub and Spoke Festival will begin with a beloved, well known film, then move on to ancillary movies (another movie by that director, a remake, another movie featuring a jazz soundtrack) and material (short films from that director, a documentary about the hub film’s subject) from there. A Hub and Spoke Festival usually needs a strong leader to push the spokes out far enough from the hub so the movies at this festival feel different enough from one another.
Whether you go with one leader or a group vote, start by collectively making a first draft list of movies that fit your theme. Most likely it will be longer than the time you have. If it is, either the group votes or the leader should choose using their best judgment. Failing either of those, go with the movies highest rated on Rotten Tomatoes (unless you are really into watching bad movies).
It is best to have either hard copies of your chosen films, either on DVD or digital download. Streaming services are notorious for removing movies from their library without telling anybody and you don’t want to depend on a movie being available service on day of your festival because there’s no promise of that.
Unless your theme requires you to go in a specific order, start with a short fun, banger of a film to whet everyone’s appetites. End on a movie with uplift because if you end with a horribly depressing movie, the audience will not only feel depressed about the movie, but the festival itself (and most likely you as well). In between, you generally want to alternative between heavy and light emotional tones, between short and long run-times.
After your festival do something completely different, like go for a hike or call someone. Watching a bunch of movies in a row can be a mostly forgettable activity if it’s all swallowing and no digesting. The Deviate theme music comes from the title track of Cedar Van Tassel’s 2017 album Lumber. Note: We don’t host a “comments” section, but we’re happy to hear your questions and insights via email, at deviate@rolfpotts.com. | |||
| Using your travel skills to make quarantine life better: An open chat | 05 May 2020 | 00:57:56 | |
“Give yourself the luxury of unplugging from the news cycle. Like travel, this will allow you to reconnect with an older way of being human.” –Rolf Potts To celebrate the launch of Deviate Season 3, Rolf gets the tables turned on him as he is interviewed by Konrad Waliszewski as part of TripScout’s #TravelFromHome initiative. Discussion topics include how travel skills apply to quarantine life at home, and how to engage in creative new habits a familiar environment (3:00); how to find serendipity and spontaneity at home when you can’t travel (12:00); hopes and advice for “getting travel right” once we’re able to travel again (17:30); how to engage in the spirit of long-term travel when you have a more traditional life, such as kids or a place-based job (26:00); which travel books Rolf recommends right now, why he started the Deviate podcast, and which projects he plans to tackle in the near-future (31:00); and how Rolf plans his journeys, what inspired his early travels, and how he seeks to go vagabonding in places close to home (43:00). Konrad Waliszewski (@goKonrad) is the CEO and co-founder of TripScout, a travel entertainment platform and app that provides a portal for visual discovery by featuring the best articles and videos from top publishers and local influencers for each destination. Prior to TripScout, he was the COO of Speek as well as a consultant for private equity firms and Fortune 500 companies. Notable Links:
The Deviate theme music comes from the title track of Cedar Van Tassel’s 2017 album Lumber. Note: We don’t host a “comments” section, but we’re happy to hear your questions and insights via email, at deviate@rolfpotts.com. | |||
| Reports from my travels in quarantine: A Deviate Season Two coda | 28 Apr 2020 | 00:43:23 | |
“The pandemic might be a pretext to reinvent travel writing in a way that actually reports on the nuances of a complicated world rather than just framing vacation experiences.” –Rolf Potts In this episode of Deviate, Rolf reports solo from his quarantine to talk about the end of his second podcast season, and the misconceptions people have about his home state of Kansas (0:50); what travel might look like once we are no longer in quarantine, the ethical issues surrounding the consumer rituals of the travel industry, and the shortcomings of commercial travel media and travel writing (9:00); how vagabonding travel skills, habits, instincts can help make pandemic quarantine easier and more dynamic, including reading books (16:00); a recap of the most interesting and unique episodes of Deviate Season Two, including movie episodes (20:40); what to expect from Season Three of Deviate, including episodes about travel, travel writing, nostalgia, and racial diversity (25:10); and what life is like for Rolf in quarantine in Kansas (30:00). The episode also includes songs from Cedar Van Tassel’s album Lumber, including “USD 306,” “Turkey Vulture Sky,” and “Lumber.” Notable Links:
Rolf’s pandemic book readings and suggestions:
The Deviate theme music comes from the title track of Cedar Van Tassel’s 2017 album Lumber. Note: We don’t host a “comments” section, but we’re happy to hear your questions and insights via email, at deviate@rolfpotts.com. | |||
| Life changing travel experiences, quarantine edition: Paris and Prague | 23 Apr 2020 | 00:53:49 | |
“This is another thing that travel teaches you: It reminds you that you have to live now, and travel is a way of living now.” – Rolf Potts In this episode of Deviate, Rolf and his parents convene in quarantine to reminisce about their old trip to Paris and Prague together, and how it deepened their memories, their understanding of Europe, and their relationship with each other. They begin by talking about why exactly they went to Paris and Prague (8:00); what sights they saw in Paris, both intentional and accidental, and how they remember their experience there (13:00); how in some ways travel to other cultures is a form of “time travel” (18:00); how travel has a way of reverting travelers into a childlike awareness of their surroundings (24:00); why Père Lachaise Cemetery is a fascinating place to visit in Paris (30:00); how a hostel made for a good place from which to base an exploration of Prague, and what they found in the city by walking everywhere (36:00); the joy of taking public transport into unfamiliar neighborhoods and finding Corvette rallies and street performers and old citadels (43:00); and what their strongest memories of the travel experience were (52:00). George and Alice Potts are retired schoolteachers based in Kansas. Alice taught second graders in the Wichita public schools for more than 30 years. In 1994 her classes succeed in promoting legislation to declare the barred tiger salamander the Kansas State Amphibian. George taught science at various Wichita high schools, as well as at Friends University, where he pioneered graduate-level programs in Zoo Science and Environmental Studies. He also helped facilitate the Outdoor Wildlife Learning Sites (OWLS) program for the Kansas Department of Wildlife and Parks. Notable Links:
This episode of Deviate is also brought to you by Tortuga Backpacks, which set the standard for the best, most durable, organized, and comfortable travel backpacks, and AirTreks, an industry leader in multi-stop international travel. The AirTreks website offers suggested pre-planned travel itineraries to help you get started, and can customize the route to fit your journey. The Deviate theme music comes from the title track of Cedar Van Tassel’s 2017 album Lumber. Note: We don’t host a “comments” section, but we’re happy to hear your questions and insights via email, at deviate@rolfpotts.com. | |||
| How COVID-19 will transform the business of long-term world travel | 21 Apr 2020 | 00:25:41 | |
“What will travel look like after the pandemic? In material ways it will probably change more than it did post-9/11.” –Sean Keener In this episode of Deviate, Rolf and Sean talk about how fast the assumptions surrounding international travel have changed in recent weeks, and how that has transformed the assumptions of the travel industry (4:15); making sense of the current uncertainty about how travel has been altered by the COVID-19 pandemic (9;30); distinguishing facts from stories while information about travel keeps changing (16:00); and what travel possibilities and travel ideals might look like in the near future (21:00). Sean Keener (@SEKeener) is the Cofounder and CEO of the BootsnAll Travel Network, a travel media network focused on planning complex, multi-stop, round-the-world travel. He is also the Chairman of AirTreks, a travel network specializing in multi-stop international travel. Notable Links:
The Deviate theme music comes from the title track of Cedar Van Tassel’s 2017 album Lumber. COVID-19 episode art was created by Luke Van Tassel. More of his art online here. Note: We don’t host a “comments” section, but we’re happy to hear your questions and insights via email, at deviate@rolfpotts.com. | |||
| Seek places where your very presence makes you interesting (book club remix) | 03 Oct 2023 | 00:27:05 | |
“One way of making famous landmarks more comprehensible is to look for surprises, good and bad, that go beyond what you are expected to encounter there, details that open you up to the raw imperfections of the encounter itself.” –Rolf Potts In this episode of Deviate, Rolf and The Vagabond’s Way book club participants discuss how to break out of standard tourist routines and see places in unexpected way (1:30); how to get beyond the transactional, “taxi drivers and bartenders” layer of travel (10:00); how to become more independent of technology and smartphones as a traveler and find the “wisdom of place” (16:00); and the travel photos Rolf wishes he had taken when vagabonding 20 years ago (23:00). Discussion moderator Luke Richardson is a traveler, author, and DJ based in England. Notable Links:
The Deviate theme music comes from the title track of Cedar Van Tassel’s 2017 album Lumber. Note: We don’t host a “comments” section, but we’re happy to hear your questions and insights via email, at deviate@rolfpotts.com. | |||
| What fear is, how it works, and how to manage it (with Eva Holland) | 14 Apr 2020 | 00:59:28 | |
“Fear of fear is part of what we have to untangle. Sometimes the real fear never arrives, but you’ve already worked yourself into a state of crisis.” –Eva Holland In this episode of Deviate, Rolf talks to Eva talk about how she came to write a book about fear, how fear has affected her own life, and how fear was a part of researching and writing her book (2:00); how fear is defined in the scientific, physiological, and emotional sense (9:00); what Eva learned about existential fears in the context of losing her mother (15:00); how Eva came to be aware of with her fear of heights, and how she came to deal with it (20:00); what science has to say about intuition, what it’s like to “smell fear,” and what military research has revealed about how we manage fear (27:00); how the experience of trauma is related to certain kind of fear, and what therapies have been developed to help cure PTSD (33:00); the notion of “fearlessness,” and what it’s like for people who don’t seem to experience fear in the way others do (40:00); a beta blocker therapy that is being developed in Amsterdam to treat fear memories (46:30); and how the fear of fear complicates fear itself (53:00). Eva Holland (@evaholland) is a correspondent for Outside magazine, and the author of Nerve: Adventures in the Science of Fear. Her work has been nominated for a Canadian National Magazine Award, anthologized in The Best Women’s Travel Writing and The Best Canadian Sports Writing, and listed among the notable selections in multiple editions of The Best American Essays, The Best American Sports Writing, and The Best American Travel Writing. She lives in the Yukon Territory. Notable Links:
This episode is brought to you by AirTreks, an industry leader in multi-stop international travel. The AirTreks website offers suggested pre-planned travel itineraries to help you get started, but can customize to fit your journey. The Deviate theme music comes from the title track of Cedar Van Tassel’s 2017 album Lumber. Note: We don’t host a “comments” section, but we’re happy to hear your questions and insights via email, at deviate@rolfpotts.com. | |||
| On losing one’s parents to COVID-19: A traveler-report addendum | 07 Apr 2020 | 00:23:00 | |
“Imagine you wake up and you get this call telling you that your father died three days after your mother. How do you think I felt? I couldn’t even cry any more. ” –Marco Ferrarese This episode of Deviate, Rolf summarizes the pandemic-travel reports he’s been getting from travelers is places like London, Turkey, Mexico, India, and Macau (2:00); then the episode transitions into Marco Ferrarese’s report about his travel-writing excursion in Peru, and what it’s like to be locked down in the Peruvian mountain town of Cabanaconde (4:45); how he heard that Tundra and Maurizio, his parents back home in the Lombardy region Italy, had become sick, and why the virus was still spreading in that part of the country (6:45); how his parents’ illness was initially misdiagnosed, and how things changed when they were admitted to the hospital (11:40); how it was difficult to interpret the news that was being passed along from the hospital as his parents’ conditioned worsened, and how he found out that his mother, and later his father, had died (14:00); and how seriously we need to take the warnings we hear about COVID-19 (21:00). Marco Ferrarese is an independent researcher and freelance writer. He is author of Nazi Goreng, and Banana Punk Rawk Trails: A Euro-Fool’s Metal Punk Journeys in Malaysia, Borneo and Indonesia, and has reported from all over Asia for a number of international publications including BBC, CNN and National Geographic Traveller. His other projects include Penang Insider and Monkey Rock World: Untamed Travel on Asia’s Hidden Roads. Episode art shows Marco Ferrarese’s parents, Tundra and Maurizio, visiting the southern Italian town of Matera in 2015. The Deviate theme music comes from the title track of Cedar Van Tassel’s 2017 album Lumber. Note: We don’t host a “comments” section, but we’re happy to hear your questions and insights via email, at deviate@rolfpotts.com. | |||
| How COVID-19 will transform airports (and other pandemic considerations) | 02 Apr 2020 | 00:51:38 | |
“Epidemiologists have found that you can slow a pandemic tremendously by focusing public hygiene efforts on three key global airports.” –Dr. JP Santiago In this episode of Deviate, Rolf and Dr. JP Santiago talk about how the COVID-19 pandemic will change global air travel moving forward (2:00); the prescience of the 2011 movie Contagion, what the scientific data says right now about how long COVID-19 can contaminate various surfaces (13:30); what to make of certain “folk cures” for COVID-19, as well as whether or not it’s safe to take medicines like ibuprofen to treat symptoms (20:00); the future of post-traditional medical treatment approaches, such a telemedicine (29:30); what other pandemics, such as H1N1 can (or cannot) teach us about how to respond to COVID-19 (34:00); and when “normal” life might return, given pandemic concerns, and what that might look like (42:00). JP Santiago has been a family medicine physician in private practice in Dallas/Fort Worth for nearly 20 years. He earned his medical degree in 1997 from the University of Texas Southwestern in Dallas, and did his residency training and was chief resident at the University of Kansas Medical Center before returning to Texas. He will be retiring from private practice in April to work for the Indian Health Service to provide medical care to Native American reservations as a traveling physician. His wife is a physician as well and he has four children. He maintains an aviation magazine online at: https://theavgeeks.com/ Notable Links:
This episode is also brought to you by AirTreks, an industry leader in multi-stop international travel. AirTreks is a distributed travel company with employees working from all corners of the world to help with your flight planning, specializing in complex routes with up to 25 stops. The AirTreks website offers suggested pre-planned travel itineraries to help you get started, but can customize to fit your journey. The Deviate theme music comes from the title track of Cedar Van Tassel’s 2017 album Lumber. COVID-19 episode art was created by Luke Van Tassel. More of his art is online here. Note: We don’t host a “comments” section, but we’re happy to hear your questions and insights via email, at deviate@rolfpotts.com. | |||
| Why the way we discuss (and interpret information about) COVID-19 matters | 31 Mar 2020 | 00:42:50 | |
“We need to avoid cherry-picking pandemic data that suits our personal narrative of what we think is going on.” –Dr. JP Santiago In this episode of Deviate, Rolf and Dr. JP Santiago talk about how the “existential threat” of pandemic is changing the way family-practice doctors are dealing with patients right now (1:40); the role of data in medicine, the definition of “observer bias,” and how the willingness to arrive at conclusions that contradict one’s initial hypothesis is essential in a medical context (9:30); a history of the shortcomings and dangers of naming infectious diseases after animals, people, or geographical places (20:00); how capitalism can be a force that can both enable and compromise solutions during a pandemic (33:30); and Dr. Santiago’s advice on how people should respond to the pandemic (40:00). JP Santiago has been a family medicine physician in private practice in Dallas/Fort Worth for nearly 20 years. He earned his medical degree in 1997 from the University of Texas Southwestern in Dallas, and did his residency training and was chief resident at the University of Kansas Medical Center before returning to Texas. He will be retiring from private practice in April to work for the Indian Health Service to provide medical care to Native American reservations as a traveling physician. His wife is a physician as well and he has four children. He maintains an aviation magazine online at: https://theavgeeks.com/ Notable Links:
This episode is also brought to you by AirTreks, an industry leader in multi-stop international travel. AirTreks is a distributed travel company with employees working from all corners of the world to help with your flight planning, specializing in complex routes with up to 25 stops. The AirTreks website offers suggested pre-planned travel itineraries to help you get started, but can customize to fit your journey. The Deviate theme music comes from the title track of Cedar Van Tassel’s 2017 album Lumber. COVID-19 episode art was created by Luke Van Tassel. More of his art online here. Note: We don’t host a “comments” section, but we’re happy to hear your questions and insights via email, at deviate@rolfpotts.com. | |||
| What it’s like to travel during COVID-19: Reports from around the world | 26 Mar 2020 | 00:47:02 | |
“All the struggles of travel have taught me lessons about survival that will be useful coming up.” –Rollie Peterkin “I don’t think there are any ‘right’ choices at the moment. We’re all making the best with what we’ve got to work with.” –Aimée Bruneau “I think we’ll come out of this with a better sense that caring for other people is the most important thing in life. Not material possessions. Not political differences. Not ethnicity or religion. Just the fact that we’re all one human family.” –Barbara Weibel In this episode of Deviate, Mike and Anne Howard describe what it’s like to be staying put in Poland during the pandemic lockdown (2:30); Justine Miller talks about being stuck in a Tunis hotel after flights stopped leaving the airport (6:00); Rollie Peterkin recounts what it was like to travel in Turkey as news of the pandemic mounted (9:00); Samantha Page talks about how Australian emergency preparedness was enhanced by the recent wildfire outbreak there (13:30); Aimée Bruneau describes a comparatively laid-back atmosphere in Mexico (17:00); Jeremy Kroeker talks about how his inter-continental motorcycle journey has come to a stand-still in Uruguay (22:00); Barbara Ann Weibel talks about how locals and expats are working together to solve problems in Thailand (26:00); Karen Catchpole and Eric Mohl describe uncertain attitudes toward outsiders in parts of Argentina (30:45); Troy Nahumko talks about how his kids are dealing with new developments in Spain (35:00); and Dennis and Stephanie Kay describes how pandemic life in France is a model for what could happen in the United States (39:30). Pandemic dispatch correspondents: Mike & Anne Howard (@HoneyTrek) are the authors of Ultimate Journeys for Two: Extraordinary Destinations on Every Continent, and Comfortably Wild: The Best Glamping Destinations in North America. Justine Miller (@JustineIMiller) is a TV reporter for News 12 The Bronx and News 12 Brooklyn in New York City. She and her husband are in the middle of a seven-month sabbatical that is taking them around the world. Rollie Peterkin (@Rolliepeterkin) is the author of The Cage: Escaping the American Dream, which recount his experience of becoming an MMA fighter in Peru after having left a career as a bond trader on Wall Street. Samantha Page (@sampagee) has traveling internationally for more than two years, and is now based in Canberra, where she works as a writer and content developer for the Australian National University. Aimée Bruneau is a professor of acting, a public speaking coach, an audiobook narrator, a children’s book author, a yoga teacher, a world travel addict, and an international pet-sitter. Jeremy Kroeker (@Jeremy_Kroeker) is the author of Motorcycle Therapy: A Canadian Adventure in Central America, and Through Dust and Darkness: A Motorcycle Journey of Fear and Faith in the Middle East. Barbara Ann Weibel (@holeinthedonut) has been traveling the world since she walked away from corporate life in 2007. She shares stories about the places she visits and the people she meets on her blog, Hole in the Donut Cultural Travel. Karen Catchpole and Eric Mohl (@transamericas_journey) have been traveling full-time since 2006, when they left their apartment in New York City and embarked on their ongoing Trans-Americas Journey. Troy Nahumko is an author and musician based in Caceres, Spain. His recent travel writing focuses on travels around the Mediterranean, from Tangiers to Istanbul. Dennis and Stephanie Kay are Americans who have been living abroad and traveling the world since 2003. They are currently living as full time residents in Strasbourg, France. This episode is also brought to you by AirTreks, an industry leader in multi-stop international travel. The AirTreks website offers suggested pre-planned travel itineraries to help you get started, but can customize to fit a given journey. The Deviate theme music comes from the title track of Cedar Van Tassel’s 2017 album Lumber. COVID-19 episode art was created by Luke Van Tassel. More of his art online here. Note: We don’t host a “comments” section, but we’re happy to hear your questions and insights via email, at deviate@rolfpotts.com. | |||
| How Nomadic Matt got COVID-19. Plus: Reports from stranded travelers | 24 Mar 2020 | 00:50:35 | |
“Being diagnosed with COVID-19 creates a lot of anxiety. And then you think: Is this thing I’m feeling just anxiety, or is it shortness of breath? Do I need to go to the hospital?” –Nomadic Matt Kepnes This episode of Deviate, begins with Rolf and Matt Kepnes taking about what it has been like for Matt to suffer from COVID-19, where he might have contracted it (having recently traveled to Taiwan, Paris, and New York), and what will happen to TravelCon in 2020 (2:30); digital nomad Melissa Witmer describes her social isolation in the Canary Islands after having traveled in Turkey (13:00); Marco Ferrarese talks about getting stuck in Peru while COVID-19 ravages his home country of Italy (16:40); Stephanie Johnson explains her decision to stay in rural Kenya rather than try and return stateside (21:05); Jon DeHart describes a seemingly lackadaisical pandemic atmosphere in Tokyo (27:10); Amber Hoffman recounts reactions to COVID-19 in Hong Kong and Spain (32:15); Claire and Sam Jessup talk about waiting out the lockdown in a motorhome in Denmark (37:50); and Brooks Eakin recounts the atmosphere in Shanghai, dating back to the first time in made headlines back in January (43:55). Travelers and correspondents appearing in this episode: Matt Kepnes (@nomadicmatt), commonly known as “Nomadic Matt,” is a travel blogger and the New York Times bestselling author of Travel the World on $50 a Day. He is also the founder of TravelCon, a yearly conference to help people learn the skills needed to develop a profitable and sustainable career in the travel industry. His newest book is Ten Years a Nomad. Melissa Witmer is the founder of UltyResults.com a business that helps ultimate frisbee players and coaches improve their performance on the frisbee field. She has been running this business as a digital nomad with no permanent location since 2015. Marco Ferrarese is an independent researcher and freelance writer. He is author of Nazi Goreng, and Banana Punk Rawk Trails: A Euro-Fool’s Metal Punk Journeys in Malaysia, Borneo and Indonesia, and has reported from all over Asia for a number of international publications including BBC, CNN and National Geographic Traveller. Originally from Washington DC, Stephanie Nasbe Johnson currently lives in Kabarnet, Baringo County, Kenya, where she teaches art and computers through the Polkadot Library, which was set up to encourage a reading culture and promote gender equality. Jonathan DeHart is a Tokyo-based writer and editor focused on culture and society in Asia. He is the author of a first-edition Japan guidebook for Moon Travel Guides and a journalist with more than 500 published articles. Amber Hoffman is the food and travel writer behind With Husband In Tow, and, more recently, The Bean Bites, which is a recipe site that focuses on beans and lentils, including pantry staples. Her newest book is The Food Traveler’s Guide to The Costa Brava. Claire and Sam Jessup have been traveling by motorhome since getting married in September 2018. You can follow our adventures on Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, or Twitter. Brooks Eakin (@BrooksEakin) is an American writer and musician based in Shanghai, China. The Deviate podcast is sponsored by AirTreks, an industry leader in multi-stop international travel. The AirTreks website offers suggested pre-planned travel itineraries to help you get started, but can customize to fit a given journey. The Deviate theme music comes from the title track of Cedar Van Tassel’s 2017 album Lumber. COVID-19 episode art was created by Luke Van Tassel. More of his art online here. Note: We don’t host a “comments” section, but we’re happy to hear your questions and insights via email, at deviate@rolfpotts.com. | |||
| How to make sense of health data in a time of pandemic (and beyond) | 19 Mar 2020 | 00:50:51 | |
“Travel is in our nature. We’ll have to counterbalance our new ‘normal’ when borders reopen to weigh in an extra element of risk.” –Dr. JP Santiago In this episode of Deviate, Rolf and Dr. JP Santiago talk about how to make sense of the misinformation about COVID-19 that has flooded social media, and how American cultural attitudes toward the pandemic differ from those in Asia (2:10); how COVID-19 affects its victims, and what data doctors are looking for about the pandemic (12:00); how the virus replicates itself, the duration of its incubation period, and how to stay healthy in public places (17:45); the importance of social distancing and self-quarantine for sick people, and how to keep from transmitting sickness to health workers (22:00); reliable online sources for information about the COVID-19 virus (29:00); how the pandemic has affected travel, and how travelers can stay healthy moving forward (32:00); what happens next with the COVID-19 pandemic worldwide, our efforts to create a vaccine, political foresight, and how the virus will affect human behavior moving forward (38:20). JP Santiago has been a family medicine physician in private practice in Dallas/Fort Worth for nearly 20 years. He earned his medical degree in 1997 from the University of Texas Southwestern in Dallas, and did his residency training and was chief resident at the University of Kansas Medical Center before returning to Texas. He will be retiring from private practice in April to work for the Indian Health Service to provide medical care to Native American reservations as a traveling physician. His wife is a physician as well and he has four children. He maintains an aviation magazine online at: https://theavgeeks.com/ Notable Links:
This episode is also brought to you by AirTreks, an industry leader in multi-stop international travel. AirTreks is a distributed travel company with employees working from all corners of the world to help with your flight planning, specializing in complex routes with up to 25 stops. The AirTreks website offers suggested pre-planned travel itineraries to help you get started, but can customize to fit your journey. The Deviate theme music comes from the title track of Cedar Van Tassel’s 2017 album Lumber. COVID-19 episode art was created by Luke Van Tassel. More of his art online here. Note: We don’t host a “comments” section, but we’re happy to hear your questions and insights via email, at deviate@rolfpotts.com. | |||
| How to enhance your career by becoming a better public speaker and reader | 17 Mar 2020 | 00:59:21 | |
“The average human ear tunes out after about six minutes of orality. It used to be nine.” –Elena Passarello In this episode of Deviate, Rolf and Elena talk about the first giraffe ever to live in Paris in the 19th century (3:30); how public presentation and performance differs from other kinds of speaking and reading, and how to prepare for it (9:00); the role of nervousness in public speaking, and how to deal with it (21:00); how prepare a text or script before reading or using it as an outline in a public speaking situation (31:00); and the importance of concrete language and “syntactical music” in public speaking (42:00). Elena Passarello is an American writer, actor, and professor. Her book Let Me Clear My Throat (Sarabande, 2012), won the gold medal for nonfiction at the 2013 Independent Publisher Awards, and her essays on performance, pop culture, and the natural world have been published in Oxford American, Slate, and Creative Nonfiction, among other publications,. For more on Elena, check out https://www.elenapassarello.com/. Notable Links:
This episode is brought to you by AirTreks, an industry leader in multi-stop international travel. If you’ve ever planned a trip with multiple stops, you know that finding the right flights can be difficult. Between balancing travel logistics and cost, it often becomes impossible to build an itinerary that matches your travel goals. AirTreks is a distributed travel company with employees working from all corners of the world to help with your flight planning, specializing in complex routes with up to 25 stops. The AirTreks website offers suggested pre-planned travel itineraries to help you get started, but can customize to fit your journey. The Deviate theme music comes from the title track of Cedar Van Tassel’s 2017 album Lumber. Note: We don’t host a “comments” section, but we’re happy to hear your questions and insights via email, at deviate@rolfpotts.com. | |||
| On sabbaticals: How to take a career break without breaking your career | 10 Mar 2020 | 01:03:30 | |
“Travel is kind of strength-training for your soul.” –Tara Quinn In this episode of Deviate, Rolf and Tara talk about she got started coaching people pm setting up work sabbaticals, what her clients’ most common concerns are, and how Americans’ attitude toward work are different from the rest of the world (3:00); common tactics and techniques she employs as a sabbatical coach, and what kinds of clients she attracts (17:00); how to use travel as a pretext for professional development, self-education, and changing careers (28:00); the importance of imperfection and failure in learning useful lessons from travel (40:00); and ending a long-term sabbatical journey and transitioning back into professional life (48:00). Tara Quinn (@threemonthvisa) is a certified life and career coach with a passion for working with clients who dream of taking time off to travel, live, work, study or volunteer abroad. Tara roster of clients includes people from companies such as Apple, Google, Microsoft, Bank of America, UC Berkeley, and The United Nations. For more on Tara and her career, check out http://www.threemonthvisa.com/. Notable Links:
This episode of Deviate is brought to you by Tortuga Backpacks, which set the standard for the best, most durable, organized, and comfortable travel backpacks. Tortuga products also include daypacks, duffels, and other travel accessories, which are all made with the traveler in mind and have been featured by Wirecutter, The New York Times, Travel + Leisure, Business Insider, Carryology, and many other industry outlets. This episode is also brought to you by AirTreks, an industry leader in multi-stop international travel. If you’ve ever planned a trip with multiple stops, you know that finding the right flights can be difficult. Between balancing travel logistics and cost, it often becomes impossible to build an itinerary that matches your travel goals. AirTreks is a distributed travel company with employees working from all corners of the world to help with your flight planning, specializing in complex routes with up to 25 stops. The AirTreks website offers suggested pre-planned travel itineraries to help you get started, but can customize to fit your journey. The Deviate theme music comes from the title track of Cedar Van Tassel’s 2017 album Lumber. Note: We don’t host a “comments” section, but we’re happy to hear your questions and insights via email, at deviate@rolfpotts.com. | |||
| Ari Shaffir and Rolf do a deep-dive on the finer points of indie travel | 03 Mar 2020 | 01:46:45 | |
“It doesn’t matter where you’re going. Just find a reason to go.” –Ari Shaffir Ari Shaffir (@AriShaffir) is a comedian, writer, podcaster, and actor. He is the current host of the Skeptic Tank podcast. For more information on Ari, visit his website. This episode of Deviate is excerpted from Ari Shaffir’s Skeptic Tank episode #298: Vagabonder. In this episode of Deviate, Ari and Rolf sit down in New York’s Tompkins Square Park and talk about the esoteric obsessions that lead you into unique adventures in faraway countries, and the best way to meet people on the road (4:20); learning languages other than English (11:30); how the presence of communication technology has changed travel, including its social dynamic (17:30); using toilets, eating unfamiliar food, and haggling in markets in non-Western countries (28:00); how travel changes once you’re more experienced as a traveler (53:00); comfort food, ordering food overseas, living as an expat overseas, and getting started out in your career overseas (1:04:00); how expectations affect a journey, and how expectations affect one’s task as a travel writer (1:17:00). Notable Links:
This episode of Deviate is brought to you by Tortuga Backpacks, which set the standard for the best, most durable, organized, and comfortable travel backpacks. Tortuga products also include daypacks, duffels, and other travel accessories, which are all made with the traveler in mind and have been featured by Wirecutter, The New York Times, Travel + Leisure, Business Insider, Carryology, and many other industry outlets. This episode is also brought to you by AirTreks, an industry leader in multi-stop international travel. If you’ve ever planned a trip with multiple stops, you know that finding the right flights can be difficult. Between balancing travel logistics and cost, it often becomes impossible to build an itinerary that matches your travel goals. AirTreks is a distributed travel company with employees working from all corners of the world to help with your flight planning, specializing in complex routes with up to 25 stops. The AirTreks website offers suggested pre-planned travel itineraries to help you get started, but can customize to fit your journey. The Deviate theme music comes from the title track of Cedar Van Tassel’s 2017 album Lumber. Note: We don’t host a “comments” section, but we’re happy to hear your questions and insights via email, at deviate@rolfpotts.com. | |||
| Vagabonding audio companion: A life in (and philosophy of) long-term travel | 19 Sep 2023 | 00:39:32 | |
“One ironic anxiety of travel is that suddenly you’re living in ‘organic time’ and you’re not used to it.” –Rolf Potts In this “vagabonding audio companion” episode of Deviate, remixed from Aaron Millar’s Armchair Explorer podcast, Rolf talks about his earliest travel dreams, and what compelled him to finally take a vagabonding dream trip around North America by van in his early twenties (2:00); how travel expectations and planning are often at odds with the joy of what happens spontaneously on the road (8:30); the delightful surprises Rolf found on a recent trip to Sumatra and the Mentawai Islands (11:30); Rolf’s experiences in Myanmar, and the importance of seeing time, rather than possessions, as our most important form of wealth in life (22:00); Rolf’s early experiences in Southeast Asia, and his monthlong boat journey down the Mekong River (31:00); and how, at its best, travel teaches us to pay attention to life itself (35:00). The Armchair Explorer podcast features adventure storytelling set to music and cinematic effects. Notable Links:
The Deviate theme music comes from the title track of Cedar Van Tassel’s 2017 album Lumber. Note: We don’t host a “comments” section, but we’re happy to hear your questions and insights via email, at deviate@rolfpotts.com. | |||
| Remembering Nirvana, and how music can frame experience (and memory) | 27 Feb 2020 | 00:32:45 | |
“Part of our lives are lived on social media and part are lived in our heart and in the real world. The discrepancy between the two often makes people miserable.” – Aaron Hamburger In this episode of Deviate, Rolf and Aaron discuss identifying with Nirvana (3:00); the nature of genius (11:00); and the search of authenticity (20:00). Aaron Hamburger (@hamburger_aaron) is an author whose writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Chicago Tribune. He is the author of Nirvana is Here and The View from Stalin’s Head, which was awarded the Rome Prize by the American Academy of Arts and Letters and nominated for a Violet Quill Award. For more on Aaron, check out https://aaronhamburger.com/. Notable Links:
This episode is also brought to you by AirTreks, an industry leader in multi-stop international travel. If you’ve ever planned a trip with multiple stops, you know that finding the right flights can be difficult. Between balancing travel logistics and cost, it often becomes impossible to build an itinerary that matches your travel goals. AirTreks is a distributed travel company with employees working from all corners of the world to help with your flight planning, specializing in complex routes with up to 25 stops. The AirTreks website offers suggested pre-planned travel itineraries to help you get started, but can customize to fit your journey. The Deviate theme music comes from the title track of Cedar Van Tassel’s 2017 album Lumber. Note: We don’t host a “comments” section, but we’re happy to hear your questions and insights via email, at deviate@rolfpotts.com. | |||
| How music affects you when you’re young (or, the joys of Jane’s Addiction) | 25 Feb 2020 | 00:55:42 | |
“In the late 1980s human beings were your YouTube algorithm. Flesh-and-blood people introduced you to the music that changed your life.” —Rolf Potts In this episode of Deviate, Rolf and and Tod talk about Tod’s experience of being in the Jane’s Addiction “Stop!” video (3:00); Rolf reads his essay about discovering the album “Nothing’s Shocking” in 1989 (7:00); Rolf and Tod discuss what it was like to see Jane’s Addiction in the southern California music scene of the mid-late 1980s, versus what listening to AOR radio music was like in the middle of the country (19:30); how radio programming, independent record stores, and personal relationships dictated musical tastes in the 1980s, and how music enabled certain alternative lifestyles (30:00); how Jane’s Addiction influenced the sound of certain 1990s Seattle grunge bands, (38:00); what it’s like when you’re older to listen to music you loved when you were young, and how online algorithms and new technologies have changed the way people now listen to music (44:00); and the legacy of bands like Jane’s Addiction and how they changed the way we listen to music now. Novelist Tod Goldberg (@todgoldberg) is the New York Times bestselling author of over a dozen books, including the novel Gangsterland, which is currently being developed into a television series for Amazon. He is also the director of the University of California-Riverside Palm Desert Low-Residency MFA, and the co-host of the Literary Disco podcast. Notable links:
This episode is brought to you by AirTreks, an industry leader in multi-stop international travel. If you’ve ever planned a trip with multiple stops, you know that finding the right flights can be difficult. Between balancing travel logistics and cost, it often becomes impossible to build an itinerary that matches your travel goals. AirTreks is a distributed travel company with employees working from all corners of the world to help with your flight planning, specializing in complex routes with up to 25 stops. The AirTreks website offers suggested pre-planned travel itineraries to help you get started, but can customize to fit your journey. Tod Goldberg and Jane’s Addiction bassist Eric Avery at Mt. Baldy in 1990.The Deviate theme music comes from the title track of Cedar Van Tassel’s 2017 album Lumber. Note: We don’t host a “comments” section, but we’re happy to hear your questions and insights via email, at deviate@rolfpotts.com. | |||
| Life-changing travel experiences: China and Mongolia with my parents | 18 Feb 2020 | 01:12:26 | |
“Home is in dialogue with the places you travel, and often serves as an interpretive lens.” – Rolf Potts In this episode of Deviate, Rolf and his parents reflect their journey to China and Mongolia many years ago. The episode starts with an excerpt of Rolf’s 2001 NPR dispatch about the experience, then they recall their visit Korea four years earlier, when Rolf worked as an English teacher in Pusan (13:00); then they recount their impressions of staying together in a youth hostel in China, and exploring the sights of Beijing (20:00); and finally they recall their train ride to Mongolia, and their unusual experiences in the countryside outside of Ulan Bator (48:00). George and Alice Potts are retired schoolteachers based in Kansas. Alice taught second graders in the Wichita public schools for more than 30 years. In 1994 her classes succeed in promoting legislation to declare the barred tiger salamander the Kansas State Amphibian. George taught science at various Wichita high schools, as well as at Friends University, where he pioneered graduate-level programs in Zoo Science and Environmental Studies. He also helped facilitate the Outdoor Wildlife Learning Sites (OWLS) program for the Kansas Department of Wildlife and Parks. Notable Links:
This episode is also brought to you by AirTreks, an industry leader in multi-stop international travel. If you’ve ever planned a trip with multiple stops, you know that finding the right flights can be difficult. Between balancing travel logistics and cost, it often becomes impossible to build an itinerary that matches your travel goals. AirTreks is a distributed travel company with employees working from all corners of the world to help with your flight planning, specializing in complex routes with up to 25 stops. The AirTreks website offers suggested pre-planned travel itineraries to help you get started, but can customize to fit your journey. The Deviate theme music comes from the title track of Cedar Van Tassel’s 2017 album Lumber. Note: We don’t host a “comments” section, but we’re happy to hear your questions and insights via email, at deviate@rolfpotts.com. | |||