Slow Burn Podcast

Decoder Ring | Mailbag: Fruit Snacks, Waterbeds, and Lobster TanksIt’s our annual mailbag episode! We get a lot of wonderful reader emails suggesting topics for the show — and at the end of the year we try to answer some of them. This year, we’re tackling four fascinating questions. Why do grocery stores keep live lobsters in tanks, unlike any other animal? How did candy get rebranded as “fruit snacks” when fruit is already a snack? Whatever happened to perfumed ads in magazines? And what was the waterbed all about? We’ll get an answer from the waterbed’s inventor who still has four of them. You’ll hear from Ray Shalhoub of Joray Fruit Rolls, consumer lawyer Steve Gardner, Jessica Murphy, aka the “Perfume Professor,” inventor Charlie Hall, restaurant historian Jan Whitaker, and the CEO of Crustacean Compassion, Dr. Ben Sturgeon. This episode was produced by Max Freedman and Sofie Kodner. Decoder Ring is also produced by Willa Paskin, Evan Chung, and Katie Shepherd. Derek John is Executive Producer. Merritt Jacob is Senior Technical Director. If you have any cultural mysteries you want us to decode, email us at DecoderRing@slate.com. Want more Decoder Ring? Subscribe to Slate Plus to unlock exclusive bonus episodes. Plus, you’ll access ad-free listening across all your favorite Slate podcasts. Subscribe now on Apple Podcasts by clicking “Try Free” at the top of the Decoder Ring show page. Or, visit slate.com/decoderplus to get access wherever you listen. Disclosure in Podcast Description: A Bond Account is a self-directed brokerage account with Public Investing, member FINRA/SIPC. Deposits into this account are used to purchase 10 investment-grade and high-yield bonds. As of 9/26/24, the average, annualized yield to worst (YTW) across the Bond Account is greater than 6%. A bond’s yield is a function of its market price, which can fluctuate; therefore, a bond’s YTW is not “locked in” until the bond is purchased, and your yield at time of purchase may be different from the yield shown here. The “locked in” YTW is not guaranteed; you may receive less than the YTW of the bonds in the Bond Account if you sell any of the bonds before maturity or if the issuer defaults on the bond. Public Investing charges a markup on each bond trade. See our Fee Schedule. Bond Accounts are not recommendations of individual bonds or default allocations. The bonds in the Bond Account have not been selected based on your needs or risk profile. See https://public.com/disclosures/bond-account to learn more. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Decoder Ring | Jump, Jive and Fail: The ’90s Swing CrazeWhen we recently got a couple of listener emails asking about the swing revival of the late 1990s, host Willa Paskin’s first, knee jerk reaction was just: no. She lived through it, and remembers it as being so incredibly corny and uncool. Insofar as the swing revival persists in the cultural memory, it’s usually as a punchline or as head-scratcher, a particularly odd-seeming fad. But then we started talking to everyone who was anyone in the swing scene, from Big Bad Voodoo Daddy to the dancers in the infamous Gap khakis commercial. It turns out the 90’s swing revival is more involved, more interesting and, OK, maybe cooler than we ever imagined. It’s about an underground scene that went above ground in a major way, and how that level of success can obscure what’s happening while it’s happening—but also long after it’s over. This episode was written and produced by Willa Paskin, Evan Chung, and Sofie Kodner with mix help from Max Freedman. Decoder Ring is produced by Willa Paskin, Evan Chung, Max Freedman and Katie Shepherd. Derek John is Executive Producer. Merritt Jacob is Senior Technical Director. Thank you to listeners Lorraine Denman and Alex Friendly for originally asking us about the ‘90s swing revival. In this episode, you’ll hear from Mando Dorame, Michael Moss, Scotty Morris, Tom Maxwell, Sylvia Skylar, Christian Perry, Steve Perry, John Bunkley, and Carl Byrd. Thank you to Kerstin Emhoff, Tom Breihan, Stephanie Landwehr, and Ken Partridge, whose conversation and book Hell of a Hat: The Rise of '90s Ska and Swing was extremely helpful. If you have any cultural mysteries you want us to decode, email us at DecoderRing@slate.com. Or you can also call us now at our new Decoder Ring hotline at 347-460-7281. We love to hear any and all of your ideas for the show. Want more Decoder Ring? Subscribe to Slate Plus to unlock exclusive bonus episodes. Plus, you’ll access ad-free listening across all your favorite Slate podcasts. Subscribe now on Apple Podcasts by clicking “Try Free” at the top of the Decoder Ring show page. Or, visit slate.com/decoderplus to get access wherever you listen. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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