Cool New Website

By: T.R. Slyder, TRSlyder@yahoo.com

The Memory Palace. It's got an NPR feel about it, in the best way- intelligent, and the author's voice has the NPR requisite lullaby-quality voice. If you like getting your Cliff Clavin on with little-known factoids, this site is for you.

I'm gonna plagiarize the Freakonomics blog to save myself time (note that I didn't copy their links over here, despite it looking like I did. I'm lazy.)

" History is full of half-forgotten tales. That time, for instance, when the British thought Ben Franklin was helping the French build a death ray. Or when everyone in the Netherlands accidentally got high for a year on rye bread tainted by a psychedelic mold. Or how a dentist’s visit to Carlsbad Cavern inspired a doomsday weapon that could have ended World War II, if the atom bomb hadn’t done it first. Nate DiMeo has been collecting these stories, in short, wonderful podcasts, on a site called The Memory Palace. "

I can recommend this site for sure. It's pretty new and there are only a handful of stories yet. But they are all between like 3 and 5 minutes (they're all done in audio form), so you don't have to devote much time to the site if you aren't willing. My favorite one is High Societies, especially the part about St. Catherine of Sienna.

One complaint about the site is that it offers the title of the piece and it's duration, but offers no description as to the story. The good news is that every one of them is good.