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Loose conversations with a restless moral compass.
Tangentially Speaking with Christopher Ryan moves from personal riffs into long-form conversations with guests who have taken unusual paths. Recent episodes wander through Mexico, Crestone, reincarnation research, rewilding, filmmaking, relationships, and the uneasy feeling that the world is fraying.
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Tangentially Speaking with Christopher Ryan is built around the belief that the detour is often the point. The show does not rush. Recent episodes open with Christopher Ryan thinking aloud about Crestone, COVID memory, global disruption, petroleum dependence, solar panels, gardens, typewriters, and the strange persistence of ordinary life when the world feels unstable. Those openings are not just throat-clearing. They set the temperature for conversations that are personal first and theoretical second. A chat with Andy Bellerby becomes a story about work, risk, firefighting, identity, and the rare freedom of being able to test a new life without burning the old one down. A conversation with Jesse Bering moves through Ian Stevenson, reincarnation, psychology, sexuality, deviance, shame, and the tension between mystery and explanation. Peter Michael Bauer brings rewilding, collapse, school rebellion, depression, and survival into the same rough frame. Tao Ruspoli’s episode turns a film about a relationship into a wider discussion of marriage, contradiction, distance, intimacy, and the camera as both shield and doorway. Ryley Newport’s appearance begins with a friend’s admiring email and lingers on what it means to be a good person without making goodness sound sentimental. The AROMA episodes shift into a looser subscriber-side register, with Anya crashing Chris romas as travel, Mexico, Baja California palapas, and world-weariness fold into the mix. The show can be funny. It can also get grave very quickly. Its strength is not a fixed format or a tidy argument but a willingness to let memory, psychology, sex, ecology, friendship, and mortality sit at the same table. Christopher Ryan’s role is part monologist, part interviewer, part restless pattern-finder. He treats guests as people with histories rather than as representatives of a take. That makes the conversations feel spacious, sometimes messy, and often unusually candid. Listeners looking for clipped debate or rigid topical coverage may find it too loose. Listeners who like long-form audio with warmth, skepticism, travel dust, and existential static will understand the appeal fast.
Made for: Best for listeners who enjoy long, informal conversations about culture, psychology, travel, relationships, global disruption, and unconventional lives. It especially suits people who prefer reflective wandering over tightly produced interviews.
What sets it apart: The show’s signature is the way Christopher Ryan’s solo reflections and guest conversations blur together into one continuing inquiry. A small anecdote can become a social diagnosis, and a guest’s life story can become a meditation on risk, identity, or survival.
Tangentially Speaking is dedicated to the idea that good conversation is organic, uncensored, revelatory, and free to go down unexpected paths with unconventional people. chrisryan.substack.com
Based on 6 episodes we listened to · September 2026
Its filmmaker conversations connect creative process to the personal relationships and unresolved questions that shape the work.
Christopher Ryan lets biography set the route, then follows a guest's story toward larger questions about identity, relationships, belief, and social convention.
Reincarnation research gives way to a question about desire; Christopher Ryan expects your curiosity to keep up.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A wandering Crestone conversation connects post-COVID unease, solar panels, typewriter mechanics and the old pressures built into everyday systems.
Christopher Ryan turns a loose Crestone COVID memory into a small study of delayed reaction. The episode starts with isolation in a place where life already happened mostly outdoors, then lands in the more practical anxiety of shoring up a home system with solar panels.
A firefighter's life story shaped by risk, identity, and the pull toward home.
Christopher Ryan's Tangentially Speaking episode with a big, gentle guest begins in a notably admiring register, and that praise can take a little too much air before the discussion reaches its strongest ground.
A loose, humane conversation about reincarnation and what explanation can do to erotic mystery.
Jesse Bering makes sense as the guest for a conversation that sets reincarnation alongside the limits of explaining human sexuality. The host frames Ian Stevenson as a psychiatrist, or at least someone understood that way, who worked at the University of Virginia and tried to…
A loose memorial-to-rewilding conversation with a very specific, very human left turn.
Christopher Ryan's conversation with Peter Michael Bauer keeps circling memory, especially Justin Alexander, and uses that personal history to frame talk of school rebellion, collapse prep, and rewilding.
A thoughtful film conversation about intimacy, AI, and the work that begins once romance deepens.
The Dulcinea Dialectic frames its film conversation around intimacy, technology, and the harder negotiations that follow the early rush of romance.
A wandering recording confession gives way to a vivid, plainspoken account of injury, missing memory, and the meaning people attach to survival.
The episode begins in Sitges, Spain, with Chris re-recording a walk-and-talk after street noise, pauses, and distraction made the first attempt feel too rough.
A grounded conversation about risk, timing, and the uneasy sense that life is ready to change.
The guest's story gives the episode its quiet momentum: he leaves a small town, takes a chance on Canada with $2,600 in a red suitcase, and eventually finds himself working in the same mine where his father had worked when he was born.
Armenia-centered analysis for a volatile region.
Chris Ryan introduces this episode from Sitges, Spain, reflecting on podcasting and the sudden news that his Uncle Dan had a heart attack and is on life support.
Host Christopher Ryan introduces Andy Bellerby, a man he met randomly while camping on a remote Baja beach.
The host reflects on his personal experience during the COVID-19 pandemic, noting how living in a rural area like Creston minimized disruptions and affected his memory of that period.
This episode promotes a Substack subscription for bonus content featuring travel conversations in Mexico, with an offer for free access for those who can't afford it.
The host opens by treating the guest like exactly the kind of person a show hopes to find.
This episode promotes a Substack subscription offering bonus content featuring philosophical conversations from Mexico, with an honor system for free access if needed.
This episode features an interview with Jesse Bering discussing his book about Ian Stevenson's research on reincarnation and the afterlife.
The host opens on a laptop mic and apologizes for the rough sound.
The host opens from Los Angeles, still shaken by a rough drive from Mexico, then eases into a conversation with a returning filmmaker.
The host introduces Ryley Newport, a guest recommended by a mutual friend, Nick Stevens, highlighting the genuine admiration and respect in their friendship.
This episode is a live stream from Santa Inés, Baja California, where the hosts address technical issues with their video setup and interact with their audience.
This episode features an interview with 91-year-old Barbara Lindoerfer, a Jungian therapist who has lived a full life traveling the world, recorded while camping in Baja California.
The host discusses ICE agents shooting people in Minneapolis, labeling them as terrorists while lying about the circumstances with apparent disregard for believability.