Olympic with Returned Soldiers Arthur Lismer
I went back and forth on this one. There are a couple of old episodes from 99% Invisible that are real biggies for me, and I wasn’t exactly sure where I’d come down. More recently, the show has put out great episodes about the carpet in Portland’s airport, challenge coins, and flags. Roman Mars is real into flags.
But for this week I want to reach back a bit further to a show about Dazzle. It’s a type of camouflage developed in the First World War primarily to counter submarines. When you hear the word camouflage, you probably imagine patterns that are meant to blend into a background, but this is completely different. The patterns are loud, geometric explosions designed to hide a ship’s course rather than the ship itself. Dazzle is visually striking, and the show does a great job conveying just how weird it is.
99% Invisible is a design podcast, but the show defines that word in its broadest sense. It's a really good mix of episodes about the familiar things you take for granted and designed objects you’ve never heard of. In terms of production, 99% Invisible is complex, inventive and engaging. More than anything though, it’s absolutely fucking crisp. Every detail in every show is absolutely perfect—it’s jaw dropping. What’s more, the show’s host, Roman Mars, is the driving force behind Radiotopia—it’s a podcast collective that got up and running through annual kickstarter drives. Memory Palace (from Week 1) is now part of Radiotopia, but there are a ton of other well crafted shows including Criminal, Love+Radio and Song Exploder on their slate, too.