Finding Favorites with Leah Jones
Finding Favorites is where we learn about people’s favorite things and get recommendations without using an algorithm. Every other week, host Leah Jones sits down with a guest to learn about how they found their favorite thing, why they love it and why they think other people will fall in love, too.
Listen on:
Episodes
Sunday Oct 04, 2020
Sunday Oct 04, 2020
As the saying goes, "teach a girl to propagate a cactus and she'll eat fish for a lifetime." That's not the saying, but Whitney Wasson, who makes jokes for a living, joined me from her plant-filled Uptown apartment to talk about what it takes to keep all sorts of plants thriving during a quarantine. We also talk about the business of stand-up comedy, sobriety and the theory of dumbbell maps. Just this week she released a Sober Rabbit coloring book that you can grab in her Big Cartel shop.
Link round-up!
Whitney on Twitter
Sober Rabbit - on Instagram, Big Cartel, Patreon and Threadless
Rachel Lynett Theater Company
Adams and Sons in Chicago
Jackie and Laurie Show
How to care for your moss balls
Saturday Oct 03, 2020
Saturday Oct 03, 2020
Show and tells don't always translate to podcasts, so here is the tour that Whitney Wasson gave me of her houseplants - which includes Shamrocks, bunny cactus and scallions.
Follow Whitney everywhere!
Saturday Sep 26, 2020
Saturday Sep 26, 2020
In the full length episode of my interview with Keidra Chaney, I deleted a 10-minute segment of us oohing and aahing while we looked at Instagram. It was some of the most fun we had during our interview and so here's the clip. Hit up #KPopDollstagram on Instagram and scroll for cuteness.
Here are some of the specific dolls that we adored during our chat.
Knitted French and English overalls
Going to school in tiny backpacks
Danity as a dinosaur
A "side by side"
Friday Sep 25, 2020
Friday Sep 25, 2020
Keidra Chaney, known to most of us as @kdc, is the co-founder of The Learned Fangirl and the person who introduced me to KPop music as I followed her trips to Japan to see a band called Shinee. In this episode we talk about KPop fandom as a whole, but then do a deep dive on #KPopDollstagram - the Instagram hashtag you are going to love before the episodes ends.
Episode Links
Fan Studies Network
Nami Amuro
The 'K-pop fans will save us' narrative misses the bigger social justice picture
Shinee's big hats
KeidraDChaney.com
@KDC on Twitter
Sunday Sep 13, 2020
Sunday Sep 13, 2020
Adam Phelps, owner of Ghostwood Farms and an instructor at Lee's Martial Arts, loves Hapkido and martial arts. He was also the college radio DJ that Leah listened to every Sunday night in high school. This episode is mostly about martial arts and coming to martial arts as an adult, but also about music, COVID and farming.
Related Links
Lee's Martial Arts Bloomington (for Wednesday classes with Adam)
Ghostwood Farm
Neko Case on 3 Questions with Andy Richter
Neko Case on NPR Tiny Desk Concert
Billie Eilish on Carpool Karaoke
Adaptive ballroom dance with Vital Zinger
Monday Sep 07, 2020
Monday Sep 07, 2020
Steve Higgins is an award-winning English professor at Lewis and Clark who loves all things Doctor Who. We had a lovely conversation about how he first found the Doctor on two local PBS stations near St. Louis and rediscovered the Doctor in a clearance bin at a record shop.
Follow Steve on Twitter and Tik Tok where he does one minute poetry lessons.
Related Links
BroaDWcast.org
David Steel: The Power of 3 Podcast
Ink and Drink Comics
Comic Nurse: Taking Turns and Menopause
Pluto TV Classic Doctor Who Station
Party Animals on BBC
Thank you to fellow Millikin alumna Denise Meyerkord for introducing Steve and I for this conversation!
Sunday Aug 30, 2020
Sunday Aug 30, 2020
Jen Myers, a Chicago-based technologist, writer and podcaster, loves the movie-watch-along show Mystery Science Theater 3000. We talk about her earliest fandom to how she's trying to figure out how to take a life size Tom Servo along with her to Comic Cons.
Related Links
Mystery Science Theater 3000 IMDB
Follow Jen on Twitter and check out her website for news about projects.
Quiet Little Horrors podcast
Riff Trax
Shout Factory
The Flophouse Podcast
Thank you to sound engineer Nancy Caddigan who cleans up my zoomy audio!
Stay home, stay safe.
(Fresh file with music instead of dead air breaks, plus 19)
Tuesday Aug 25, 2020
Tuesday Aug 25, 2020
Jason Diamond is a Brooklyn-based writer who loves the weird American suburb, so much so that he wrote the book on them. The Sprawl: Reconsidering the Weird American Suburb is available today and is Jason's exploration of the art and culture that is born of suburbs.
We talk about so many of his favorite things, starting with a conversation about music and the Chicago live-music scene in the 90s, Romantic Comedies, independent bookstores, and great Chicago meals.
Links!
Follow Jason Diamond on Twitter and Instagram
Join Jason virtually at Volumes Bookstore on September 9th
Buy The Sprawl from an independent bookstore or his first book Searching for John Hughes
Leah's profile in the 2010 Big Jewcy list
Jason drove all around Lake Michigan in November
And the Mother-In-Law sandwich is real
Sunday Aug 23, 2020
Sunday Aug 23, 2020
Scotty Iseri, the host of The Imagine Neighborhood, loves open mic nights (and probably open mic afternoons, too). He learned plenty of life lessons trying to make strangers look up from their laptops and pay attention to him.
Links
The Imagine Neighborhood
The Digits
Scotty Got an Office Job
Emily Heller - writing retreats
Tumblr acquired by Yahoo, David Karp founder
Thea Lux runs a Zoom open mic
Find Leah on other podcasts
Friday Night Movies - Mantzoukas-Fest: Just talking about Jason Mantzoukas for an hour with friends
The Blank Slate with Sam Tanios
Saturday Aug 15, 2020
Saturday Aug 15, 2020
Robert Loerzel was once voted Chicago's best person to follow on Twitter and he still is. He also loves the film 2001: A Space Odyssey and all of the assorted books, comic books, and music associated with it. Robert almost picked David Lynch, so we don't leave him out of the conversation.
Leah recorded an extra-long introduction about the Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity, which is available on Play per View until August 20, 2020.
Links
Follow @RobertLoerzel on Twitter and Instagram
Buy his new book Walking Chicago
Buy his first book Alchemy of Bones
2001: A Space Odyssey (the novel) by Arthur C Clarke
How Uptown became an entertainment hub on Curious City
2001: A Space Odyssey. What it means and how it was made, The New Yorker
Space Odyssey: Stanley Kubrick, Arthur C. Clarke, and the Making of a Masterpiece
Our beloved Music Box Theater
Bonus Links
Elaborate Entrance of Chad Deity Play Per View available until August 20, 2020
Finding Favorites with Leah Jones
Everyone loves something. A hobby, a musician, an artist, a book genre - everyone has a favorite thing and this is the podcast where we hear the stories.
How did you discover your favorite thing? What do you love about it? Who have you met through it? How would someone sample your favorite thing?
At Finding Favorites, we get recommendations without using an algorithm.
Hosted by Leah Jones