Slow Burn

In 1982, the Jane Fonda Workout became the best-selling home video of all time. Over decades, it and its 22 follow ups would spawn a fitness empire, sell more than 17 million copies, and transform Fonda into a leg-warmer-clad exercise guru. And 40 years after its initial release, when the COVID pandemic hit, the workout had a moment yet again. People began doing it alone and on Zoom, tweeting about it, writing about it. So when Jane Fonda agreed to talk to us, we set out to do an episode about it—but it did not go as planned. On Part 1 of a special two-part Decoder Ring, originally released in 2020, we explore the decades-long relationship of Jane Fonda [https://www.janefonda.com/]and Leni Cazden, a fraught friendship that birthed the VHS workout that changed the world. It’s a story of creation, fame, forgiveness, trauma, betrayal, survival, politics, and exercise. You’ll hear from Jane Fonda and Leni Cazden, the brain behind the workout, and Shelly McKenzie, author of Getting Physical: The Rise of Fitness Culture in America. [http://www.amazon.com/dp/0700623043/?tag=slatmaga-20] In two weeks we’ll return with Part 2: the nitty gritty story of the bestselling VHS tape of all time. This episode was written by Willa Paskin. It was edited and produced by Benjamin Frisch. We had research assistance from Cleo Levin. Decoder Ring is produced by Katie Shepherd, Max Freedman, and Evan Chung, our supervising producer. Merritt Jacob is Senior Technical Director. If you have any cultural mysteries you want us to decode, email us at DecoderRing@slate.com [DecoderRing@slate.com], or leave a message on the Decoder RIng hotline at 347-460-7281. We love to hear any and all of your ideas for the show.  Sources for This Episode Burke, Carol. Camp All-American, Hanoi Jane, and the High-and-Tight [https://www.beacon.org/Camp-All-American-Hanoi-Jane-and-the-High-and-Tight-P527.aspx], Beacon Press, 2005. Fonda, Jane. My Life So Far [https://www.amazon.com/dp/0812975766/], Random House, 2005. Hershberger, Mary. Jane Fonda's War: A Political Biography of an Antiwar Icon [https://thenewpress.org/books/jane-fondas-war/?v=eb65bcceaa5f], The New Press, 2005. Lembcke, Jerry. Hanoi Jane: War, Sex, and Fantasies of Betrayal [https://www.umasspress.com/9781558498150/hanoi-jane/], University of Massachusetts Press, 2010. McKenzie, Shelly. Getting Physical: The Rise of Fitness Culture in America [https://www.amazon.com/Getting-Physical-Fitness-Culture-America/dp/0700623043], University Press of Kansas, 2013. Perlstein, Rick. Nixonland [https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Nixonland/Rick-Perlstein/9780743243032], Scribner, 2009. Rafferty, James Michael. “Politicising Stardom: Jane Fonda, IPC Films and Hollywood, 1977-1982 [https://qmro.qmul.ac.uk/xmlui/handle/123456789/675],” Queen Mary University of London Dissertation, 2010. Get more of Decoder Ring with Slate Plus! Join for exclusive bonus episodes of Decoder Ring and ad-free listening on all your favorite Slate podcasts. Subscribe from the Decoder Ring show page on Apple Podcasts [https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/decoder-ring/id1376577202] or Spotify [https://open.spotify.com/show/3vYNA0Ki5sUHnYC9QwQnKl]. Or, visit slate.com/decoderplus [https://slate.com/podcast-plus?utm_medium=link&utm_campaign=plus_pod&utm_content=Decoder_Ring&utm_source=episode_summary] for access wherever you listen. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices [https://megaphone.fm/adchoices]

Experimental archeology is, simply put, archeology that involves running experiments. Where traditional archaeologists may study, research, analyze, and theorize about how artifacts were made or used, experimental archaeologists actually try to recreate, test, and use them to see what they can learn. In doing so, they have given the field a whole new way to glean clues and get insights into the lives of our ancestors. Sam Kean [https://samkean.com/] is the author of a new book all about experimental archaeology called Dinner with King Tut [https://samkean.com/books/dinner-with-king-tut/]. With help from him and a few archaeologists, we dig into a number of puzzles that experimental archaeology has helped solve—conundrums involving ancient megafauna, bizarre cookware, and deep sea voyages. In this episode, you’ll hear from archaeologists Susan Kaplan [https://www.bowdoin.edu/profiles/faculty/skaplan/index.html] of Bowdoin College and Karen Harry [https://www.unlv.edu/people/karen-harry] of University of Nevada, Las Vegas, and Native Hawaiian activist and storyteller Nāʻālehu Anthony [https://www.naalehuanthony.com/]. To learn more about the story of Hokule’a and its first navigator, Mau Piailug, watch Nāʻālehu Anthony’s 2010 documentary, Papa Mau: The Wayfinder [https://oiwi.tv/papa-mau-the-wayfinder/], as well as The Navigators: Pathfinders of the Pacific [https://naturedocumentaries.org/14031/master-navigators-pacific/]. This episode was produced by Katie Shepherd and Max Freedman. Decoder Ring is also produced by Willa Paskin and Evan Chung, our supervising producer. Merritt Jacob is Senior Technical Director. We had mixing help from Kevin Bendis. We’d also like to thank Metin Eren and Paul Benham. If you have any cultural mysteries you want us to decode, email us at DecoderRing@slate.com [DecoderRing@slate.com] or leave a message on our hotline at (347) 460-7281. Get more of Decoder Ring with Slate Plus! Join for exclusive bonus episodes of Decoder Ring and ad-free listening on all your favorite Slate podcasts. Subscribe from the Decoder Ring show page on Apple Podcasts [https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/decoder-ring/id1376577202] or Spotify [https://open.spotify.com/show/3vYNA0Ki5sUHnYC9QwQnKl]. Or, visit slate.com/decoderplus [https://slate.com/podcast-plus?utm_medium=link&utm_campaign=plus_pod&utm_content=Decoder_Ring&utm_source=episode_summary] for access wherever you listen. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices [https://megaphone.fm/adchoices]

From The Simpsons’ Big Book of British Smiles to Austin Powers’ ochre-tinged grin, American culture can’t stop bad-mouthing English teeth. But why? Are they worse than any other nation’s? June Thomas [https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/june-thomas/a-place-of-our-own/9781541601741/] drills down into the origins of the stereotype, and discovers that the different approaches to dentistry on each side of the Atlantic have a lot to say about our national values. In this episode, you’ll hear from historians Mimi Goodall [https://oxfordandempire.web.ox.ac.uk/people/mimi-goodall], Mathew Thomson [https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/arts/history/people/staff_index/mthomson/], and Alyssa Picard, author of Making the American Mouth [https://www.rutgersuniversitypress.org/making-the-american-mouth/9780813561615/]; and from professor of dental public health Richard Watt [https://profiles.ucl.ac.uk/4657-richard-watt]. This episode was written by June Thomas and edited and produced by Evan Chung, Decoder Ring’s supervising producer. Our show is also produced by Willa Paskin, Katie Shepherd, and Max Freedman. Merritt Jacob is Senior Technical Director. If you have any cultural mysteries you want us to decode, email us at DecoderRing@slate.com [DecoderRing@slate.com] or leave a message on our hotline at (347) 460-7281. Sources for This Episode Goodall, Mimi. “Sugar in the British Atlantic World, 1650-1720 [https://dissertation.com/abstract/2283454],” DPhil dissertation, Oxford University, 2022. Mintz, Sidney. Sweetness and Power: The Place of Sugar in Modern History [https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/322123/sweetness-and-power-by-sidney-w-mintz/], Penguin Books, 1986. Picard, Alyssa. Making the American Mouth: Dentists and Public Health in the Twentieth Century [https://www.rutgersuniversitypress.org/making-the-american-mouth/9780813561615/], Rutgers University Press, 2009.  Thomson, Mathew. “Teeth and National Identity [https://peopleshistorynhs.org/encyclopaedia/nhs-teeth/],” People’s History of the NHS. Trumble, Angus. A Brief History of the Smile [https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/angus-trumble/a-brief-history-of-the-smile/9780465087792/?lens=basic-books], Basic Books, 2004. Wynbrandt, James. The Excruciating History of Dentistry: Toothsome Tales & Oral Oddities from Babylon to Braces [https://www.amazon.com/Excruciating-History-Dentistry-Toothsome-Oddities/dp/0312263198], St. Martin’s Griffin, 2000. Watt, Richard, et al. “Austin Powers bites back: a cross sectional comparison of US and English national oral health surveys [https://www.bmj.com/content/351/bmj.h6543],” BMJ, Dec. 16, 2015. Get more of Decoder Ring with Slate Plus! Join for exclusive bonus episodes of Decoder Ring and ad-free listening on all your favorite Slate podcasts. Subscribe from the Decoder Ring show page on Apple Podcasts [https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/decoder-ring/id1376577202] or Spotify [https://open.spotify.com/show/3vYNA0Ki5sUHnYC9QwQnKl]. Or, visit slate.com/decoderplus [https://slate.com/podcast-plus?utm_medium=link&utm_campaign=plus_pod&utm_content=Decoder_Ring&utm_source=episode_summary] for access wherever you listen. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices [https://megaphone.fm/adchoices]

In this episode we’re opening our mailbag to answer three fascinating questions from our listeners. How did “ass,” a word for donkeys and butts, become what linguists call an “intensifier” for just about everything? How do pharmaceuticals get their wacky names? And why do we all seem to think that aliens from outer space would travel to Earth just to kidnap our cows? In this episode, you’ll hear from linguistics professor Nicole Holliday [https://nicolerholliday.wordpress.com/], historians Greg Eghigian [https://history.la.psu.edu/directory/greg-eghigian/] and Mike Goleman, and professional “namer” Laurel Sutton [https://catchwordbranding.com/team/laurel-sutton/]. This episode of Decoder Ring was produced by Willa Paskin, Max Freedman, and Katie Shepherd. Our supervising producer is Evan Chung. Merritt Jacob is Slate’s Technical Director.  If you have any cultural mysteries you want us to decode, please email us at DecoderRing@slate.com [DecoderRing@slate.com], or leave a message on our hotline at 347-460-7281. Get more of Decoder Ring with Slate Plus! Join for exclusive bonus episodes of Decoder Ring and ad-free listening on all your favorite Slate podcasts. Subscribe from the Decoder Ring show page on Apple Podcasts [https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/decoder-ring/id1376577202] or Spotify [https://open.spotify.com/show/3vYNA0Ki5sUHnYC9QwQnKl]. Or, visit slate.com/decoderplus [https://slate.com/podcast-plus?utm_medium=link&utm_campaign=plus_pod&utm_content=Decoder_Ring&utm_source=episode_summary] for access wherever you listen. Sources for This Episode Bengston, Jonas. “Post-Intensifying: The Case of the Ass-Intensifier and Its Similar but Dissimilar Danish Counterpart [https://tidsskrift.dk/lev/article/download/125257/172074/263732],” Leviathan, 2021. Collier, Roger. “The art and science of naming drugs [https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4188646/],” Canadian Medical Association Journal, Oct. 2014. Eghigian, Greg. After the Flying Saucers Came: A Global History of the UFO Phenomenon [https://global.oup.com/academic/product/after-the-flying-saucers-came-9780190869878], Oxford University Press, 2024. Goleman, Michael J. “Wave of Mutilation: The Cattle Mutilation Phenomenon of the 1970s [https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.3098/ah.2011.85.3.398],” Agricultural History, 2011. Karet, Gail B. “How Do Drugs Get Named? [https://journalofethics.ama-assn.org/article/how-do-drugs-get-named/2019-08]” AMA Journal of Ethics, Aug. 2019. Miller, Wilson J. “Grammaticalizaton in English: A Diachronic and Synchronic Analysis of the "ass" Intensifier [https://scholarworks.calstate.edu/concern/theses/dr26xz79k],” Master’s Thesis, San Francisco State University, 2017. Monroe, Rachel. “The Enduring Panic About Cow Mutilations [https://www.newyorker.com/news/letter-from-the-southwest/the-enduring-panic-about-cow-mutilations],” The New Yorker, May 8, 2023. A Strange Harvest [https://www.amazon.com/Strange-Harvest-Linda-Moulton-Howe/dp/B09Q3NDMQ1], dir. Linda Moulton Howe, KMGH-TV, 1980. “United States Adopted Names naming guidelines [https://www.ama-assn.org/about/united-states-adopted-names-usan/united-states-adopted-names-naming-guidelines],” AMA. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices [https://megaphone.fm/adchoices]

White noise has a very precise technical definition, but people use the term loosely, to describe all sorts of washes of sound—synthetic hums, or natural sounds like a rainstorm or crashing waves—that can be used to mask other sounds. Twenty years ago, if you’d told someone white noise was a regular part of your life, they would have found that unusual. Nowadays, it’s likely they use it themselves or know someone who does. The global white noise business is valued at $1.3 billion; TikTok is full of people trumpeting its powers; and Spotify users alone listen to three million hours of it daily. Far more of these sounds already exist than any one person could need—or use. And yet, more keep coming.  Looking out at this uncanny ocean of seemingly indistinguishable noises, we wanted to see if it was possible to put a human face on it; to understand why there is so much of it, and what motivates the people trying to soothe our desperate ears with sounds you're not really supposed to hear. In this episode, you’ll hear from Elan Ullendorff, [https://elan.place/] who writes the illuminating Substack Escape the Algorithm [https://escapethealgorithm.substack.com/p/artisinal-white-noise]; Stéphane Pigeon [https://stephanepigeon.com/welcome.php], founder of myNoise [http://mynoise.net]; Brandon Reed, who runs Dwellspring [http://dwellspring.io]; and Mack Haygood [https://mactrasound.com/], author of Hush: Media and Sonic Self-Control [https://www.dukeupress.edu/hush] and host of the podcast Phantom Power [https://phantompod.org/]. We’d also like to thank Dan Berlau, Sarah Anderson, and Ashley Carman.  This episode was written by Katie Shepherd, Evan Chung, and Willa Paskin. It was produced by Katie Shepherd. We produce Decoder Ring with Max Freedman, and Evan is also our supervising producer. Merritt Jacob is Senior Technical Director. If you have any cultural mysteries you want us to decode, please email us at DecoderRing@slate.com [DecoderRing@slate.com], or leave a message on our hotline at 347-460-7281. Sources for This Episode Anderson, Sarah. The Lost Art of Silence: Reconnecting to the Power and Beauty of Quiet [https://www.shambhala.com/lost-art-of-silence.html], Shambhala Publications, 2023. Blum, Dani. “Can Brown Noise Turn Off Your Brain? [https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/09/23/well/mind/brown-noise.html]” New York Times, Sep. 23, 2022. Carman, Ashley. “Spotify Looked to Ban White Noise Podcasts to Become More Profitable, [https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2023-08-17/white-noise-podcasters-are-costing-spotify-38-million-a-year]” Bloomberg, Aug. 17, 2023.  Carman, Ashley. “Spotify to Cut Back Promotional Spending on White Noise Podcasts [https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-09-01/spotify-to-limit-white-noise-podcasters-money-making-options?embedded-checkout=true],” Bloomberg, Sep. 1, 2023. Hagood, Mack. Hush: Media and Sonic Self-Control [https://www.dukeupress.edu/hush], Duke University Press, 2019. Pickens, Thomas A., Sara P. Khan, and Daniel J. Berlau. “White noise as a possible therapeutic option for children with ADHD [https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0965229918309683],” Complementary Therapies in Medicine, Feb. 2019. Riva, Michele Augusto, Vincenzo Cimino, and Stefano Sanchirico. “Gian Lorenzo Bernini’s 17th century white noise machine [https://www.thelancet.com/journals/laneur/article/PIIS1474-4422(17)30297-1/abstract],” The Lancet Neurology, Oct. 2017. Want more Decoder Ring? Subscribe to Slate Plus to unlock exclusive bonus episodes. Plus, you’ll access ad-free listening across all your favorite Slate podcasts. Subscribe now on Apple Podcasts by clicking “Try Free” at the top of the Decoder Ring [https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/decoder-ring/id1376577202] show page. Or, visit slate.com/decoderplus [https://slate.com/podcast-plus?utm_medium=link&utm_campaign=plus_pod&utm_content=Decoder_Ring&utm_source=episode_summary] to get access wherever you listen. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices [https://megaphone.fm/adchoices]