Vocal fry. Sounds like a vaguely misspelled snack? Or maybe some sort of verbal joust? Actually, it’s a technical term used to describe the lowest tone of one’s voice, characterised by a creaky, slightly hoarse quality. It could make the speaker sound relaxed and natural, or, depending on the listener, just bored and tired. It’s all a matter of perception. If you’ve been listening to podcasts for a while, you may have noticed that many hosts, across genders, have this slightly raspy quality to their voice, as if you’ve joined them in the middle of a leisurely exchange. It’s part of the intimacy of the medium, that sense of an ongoing conversation between familiars that you’ve been given the opportunity to listen in on.
Among all the glowing reviews of the NPR podcast series Invisibilia is nestled this one criticism — “too much vocal fry” — which sent me racing online for an explanation of the term. Presenter voice quality aside, the podcast has a lot to recommend it. At the outset, it takes on a rather challenging task, of discussing the “invisible forces that shape our lives”. Hosts Alix Spiegel, Lulu Miller and Hanna Rosin “go out into the world and talk to unusual people whose lives are dramatically shaped by those invisible forces.” They look at such things as thoughts, emotions, assumptions, beliefs, fears, hopes, imagination…all those intangible, but no less real, elements of our lives.
In their very first episode (“The Secret History of Thoughts”), for instance, Spiegel and Miller springboard from the story of a man struggling with dark thoughts (such as stabbing his wife with a kitchen knife) to the study of “thinking about thinking” and ultimately, to the practice and principles of cognitive behavioural therapy. What do these thoughts mean, and what do they have to do with who we are? How do our thoughts relate to our actions? Abstract and deep questions, to be sure, but what rescues it all from falling into an arcane academic discussion is the focus on real stories, of real people.
The power of expectations
In “How to Become Batman”, Spiegel and Miller talk about a series of studies that showed that expectations and beliefs could influence outcomes to varying extents, and asked, “Can my expectations make a blind person see?” The scientist they ask laughs as he replies, “Absolutely not”.
But then they take us to meet Daniel Kish, who lost his vision to eye cancer as a child, and who has just led them on a hike through a forest, navigating by echolocation. “I think most blind people could move around with fluidity and confidence if that were the expectation.”
Kish’s story, of being allowed to explore his world without restriction or fear, illustrates the argument that expectations shape people in powerful ways. “There’s life…and there’s living your life,” says his mother, Paula, as she explains how she allowed her blind son to take the same risks and do the same things as sighted children.
Perfect mix
When I encountered the first season of Invisibilia four years ago, it struck me as being perfect non-fiction audio, with its mix of conversation, host-banter, narration and drama. Spiegel and Miller, coming with experience in This American Life and Radiolab, shared an easy dynamic on air, their conversation fluidly framing the serious topics they undertook to explore. The research is almost always presented by scholars in their own voices, just as the stories are told by those who have lived them. They were joined in the third season by Hanna Rosin, a long-time journalist who brought a certain gravitas to the show. The themes tackled in Invisibilia’s four seasons have ranged from how our clothes affect personality to the frames of reference we carry, to the grey spaces in what’s become a black and white world.
The podcast, which is produced by an all-woman team, has just started its fifth season. The first episode this year explores pain — as a medical mystery and a defining part of some people’s lives. “Pain is easy to dismiss in other people,” says Rosin as she introduces the episode. “But our own pain has a way of grabbing our attention, and holding it like a vice.” It’s another of those intangible, inexpressible, but very real forces that indeed shape our lives.
Forget the vocal fry. Invisibilia does keep you listening, especially if you’re tantalised by the big “why?” questions of human existence.
(A fortnightly series on podcasts.)
The Hyderabad-based writer and academic is a neatnik fighting a losing battle with the clutter in her head.