The Anthropocene Reviewed · Complexly, John Green

Seventeen Listener Suggestions, Reviewed

June 25, 2020·21 min·1 clip

At 22, working a 24-hour hospital chaplain shift, John Green saw moonlight illuminate a playground for the first time — and has found hope in it ever since.

John opens by acknowledging the thousands of listener emails he receives, noting that he does not respond individually but finds them moving enough to cry over regularly. He apologizes for the silence and offers this listener-suggestion episode as partial restitution. Twelve-year-old Beatrice asks him to review being a tween, and John responds with empathy, quoting a Mountain Goats lyric and giving tweenhood two stars. He then reviews The Mountain Goats themselves — his favorite band, whose music he calls almost scriptural — giving them five stars. Automatic doors get four stars for opening indiscriminately for moose and humans alike. Spoonerisms earn three and a half stars, with a detour through linguist Yuan Ren Zhao and his wife Buwei Yang Zhao, a physician and author whose 1945 cookbook coined 'stir-fry' and 'potsticker' for English readers. Dazzle Camouflage — WWI warships painted in contrasting stripes — gets one and a half stars, with John using it to meditate on the absurdity of 1918, a year when mechanization failed its promise and life expectancy fell. Pandemics receive one star, and John quotes a Clint Smith poem about the danger of silver-lining rhetoric. Stereo headphones, invented in 1958 by John C. Koss and younger than Burger King, receive 4.5 stars for enabling private, personal listening. Times New Roman gets three stars as a reliable-but-not-preferred typographic friend. Email sign-offs using only initials get two and a half stars, with John admitting he abandoned the habit after a friend's book implied it was self-important. Iron, the most common element on Earth by mass and the most common nutritional deficiency in humans, gets five stars despite reservations. Bath bombs, invented in 1989 by Mo Constantine co-founder of Lush, get four and a half stars. John describes taking at least four baths a week and quotes Sylvia Plath. Memes get four stars, with John acknowledging that contemporary meme language has grown sophisticated enough to exclude him. Sporks and beer helmets are both criticized as failed combinatory inventions at two and one and a half stars respectively. The Moon gets four stars after John recounts the formative night at 22 when he first truly experienced moonlight during a hospital chaplain shift.

As heard by us

A listener shaped study of Dazzle Camouflage, pandemics, headphones, and the moon.

Seventeen listener suggested topics give the episode its shape, but the real subject is how Green answers strangers: with gratitude, grief, and an inbox that sits at the center of the exchange. The opening makes the point plainly.

Read the full review in PlayNext →

Why you'd press play

For when you want listener-suggested topics turned into thoughtful, reflective reviews.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

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