escape

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Co-hosts Rachelle Hampton and Candice Lim talk to writer Cyrena Touros about Dracula Daily, a newsletter that emails bite-sized passages from Bram Stoker’s 1897 novel to more than 235,000 readers. As an epistolary novel, Dracula is broken into letters written between May and November. Dracula Daily emails those letters to readers, who have now created a book club-like fandom rife with memes and sidebars about a guy stuck in a vampire’s castle.

How does a man wearing red and white check trousers escape from a prison underneath a moving truck?

Daniel Khalife - as we record - is still on the run. So where has he gone, how did he do it and what are the implications of the whole saga?

Also on today's episode - Chris Pincher resigns as an MP, Britain (sort of) rejoins the... via the Horizon project) and we discuss abortion laws in Mexico.

Editor: Tom Hughes

Senior Producer: Gabriel Radus

Producer: Laura FitzPatrick

Planning Producer: Alex Barnett

Social Media Editor: Georgia Foxwell

Video Producer: Will Gibson-Smith

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The escapism of movies took on a new importance during pandemic isolation. Caity Weaver, the author of this week’s Sunday Read, says that to properly embrace this year’s cinematic achievements, the Academy Awards should not only hand out accolades to new releases, but also to the older films that sustained us through this period.

If they did, Caity argues, Cher would be on course to win a second Oscar for her performance as Loretta Castorini in 1987’s “Moonstruck” — a film that, under lockdown, was a salve to many.

On today’s episode, a conversation with Cher about the film’s production, cast and legacy.

This story was written by Caity Weaver and recorded by Audm. To hear more audio stories from publishers like The New York Times, download Audm for iPhone or Android.

In 1962, three ordinary criminals transcended into folk heroes when they crawled out of their cells in Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary took to the water in a homemade raft and were never heard from again. Could they have possibly survived?

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Matt Schrier is an American photographer who survived seven months as an Al-Qaeda captive in Syria before escaping, and the author of The Dawn Prayer: A Memoir.

What We Discuss with Matt Schrier:

• How Matt Schrier was captured by Al-Qaeda just 45 minutes away from the border on his way out of Syria in 2012.
• How making his captors laugh on day one of his captivity got him special treatment from a usually unforgiving crowd.
• What Matt did to survive and plan an escape in spite of an unhelpful, self-sabotaging cellmate.
• Why Matthew feels betrayed by the FBI and the US government for putting intelligence gathering over the safety of Americans imprisoned by terrorists.
• Why, even after becoming the first American to escape from Al-Qaeda and his feelings of betrayal from his own government, he has no regrets about going to Syria in the first place.
• And much more...

Full show notes and resources can be found here: https://jordanharbinger.com/217

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Why do people keep resisting new things? That's the question the Pessimists Archive podcast tries to answer. Each episode travels back in time to the moment a new technology or innovation was introduced and explores why everyone was freaking out about it. Give Pessimists Archive a listen here!

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