Best Chris Klimek Podcasts (2024)

1
As Hurricanes Get Stronger, Can a $34 Billion Plan Save Texas? 32:36

2M ago32:36

32:36

After Hurricane Ike destroyed thousands of homes and inflicted an estimated $30 billion in damages in 2008, engineers hatched an ambitious plan to protect southeast Texas and its coastal refineries and shipping routes from violent storms. The $34 billion collaboration spearheaded by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is a harbinger of the type of mas…

1
How to Sweat Like an Olympian 30:22

3M ago30:22

30:22

Have you ever felt embarrassed by the need to carry a towel, or even a fresh shirt, with you during the most sweltering months of the year? You shouldn’t. Sweating is one of the most remarkable ways our bodies protect themselves when the mercury heads north. With summer temperatures spiking around the world as the sweat-filled Olympic Games begin i…

1
Survey: Help Us Design Our Future Season 0:34

3M ago0:34

0:34

We're over here making podcasts, and you're over there listening. Let's bridge that gap! We want to know more about you, like: why you're listening, what your favorite topics are, and what Smithsonian magazine can do to make "There's More to That" even better. Tell us what you think at smithsonianmag.com/podcastsurvey.…

1
The Wild Story of What Happened to Pablo Escobar’s Hungry, Hungry Hippos 29:31

3M ago29:31

29:31

Four decades ago, Pablo Escobar brought to his Medellín hideaway four hippopotamuses, the centerpieces of a menagerie that included llamas, cheetahs, lions, tigers, ostriches and other exotic fauna. After Colombian police shot Escobar dead in December 1993, veterinarians removed the animals—except the hippos, which were deemed too dangerous to appr…

1
‘The Crime of the Century,’ a Century Later 35:06

4M ago35:06

35:06

The past hundred years have seen more than one high-profile prosecution branded as the “crime of the century.” The shocking 1924 crime that was among the first to carry the title turned out to be a harbinger of how public mania around criminal cases could influence the legal system, and how psychiatry would be used and abused by prosecutors and def…

1
America’s Best New Restaurant Celebrates the Flavors of West Africa 27:18

4M ago27:18

27:18

African cuisine has always been well represented in the United States, particularly in dishes characterized as “Southern” in origin, like gumbo or hoppin’ john. But even before chef Serigne Mbaye’s New Orleans eatery Dakar NOLA was named the Best New Restaurant of 2024 at the James Beard Awards this week, the contributions of the African diaspora t…

1
How Americans Got Hooked on Counting Calories More Than A Century Ago 36:42

5M ago36:42

36:42

In 1918, Lulu Hunt Peters—one of the first women in America to earn a medical doctorate—published the best seller Diet and Health With Key to the Calories, making a name for herself as an apostle for weight reduction in an era when malnutrition was a far greater public health threat than obesity. She pioneered the idea of measuring food intake via …

1
ENCORE: Those Orcas (Still) Aren't Doing What You Think 28:52

5M ago28:52

28:52

Last summer, news reports of orcas deliberately tearing the propellers off of yachts in the Strait of Gibraltar thrilled observers who were eager to cast these intelligent and social pack hunters as class warriors striking a blow for the “common mammals” against the one percent. That turned out to be wishful thinking, according to guest Lori Marino…

1
How Artificial Intelligence Is Making 2,000-Year-Old Scrolls Readable Again 35:53

5M ago35:53

35:53

When Mount Vesuvius erupted in 79 C.E., it covered the ancient cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum under tons of ash. Millennia later, in the mid-18th century, archeologists began to unearth the city, including its famed libraries, but the scrolls they found were too fragile to be unrolled and read; their contents were thought to be lost forever. Onl…

1
Roads Scholars 25:38

6M ago25:38

25:38

As highways encroach ever further into animal habitats, drivers and wildlife are in greater danger than ever. And off the beaten path, decaying old forest roads are inflicting damage as well. “Roads are this incredibly disruptive force all over the planet that are truly changing wild animals’ lives and our own lives in almost unfathomable, unaccoun…

1
Why We Love Eclipses 28:30

6M ago28:30

28:30

Eclipses have been a subject of fascination throughout human history, and the fact that we now have a clearer understanding of what they actually are—at least in the celestial mechanics sense—than we did in centuries past has not made them any less exciting. With the North American total solar eclipse just days away as we’re releasing this episode,…

1
The Man Behind "Manhunt" 32:50

7M ago32:50

32:50

Before it was even published in 2006, historian James Swanson’s book Manhunt: The 12-Day Chase for Lincoln’s Killer attracted the notice of Hollywood. After several prior attempts to adapt the nonfiction thriller for the screen, the first two episodes of the seven-part Apple TV+ miniseries Manhunt finally premiered on March 15, with the subsequent …

1
Before Beyoncé and Taylor Swift Ran the World, There Was Joan Baez 32:05

7M ago32:05

32:05

Taylor Swift and Beyoncé have achieved a degree of power in the music industry that singer/songwriters of earlier eras like Joan Baez—as the folk icon tells us—never even contemplated. Six decades ago, Baez was part of a folk revival that regarded music not merely as entertainment but as a vessel for political engagement and social change. In the d…

1
How to Separate Fact From Myth in the Extraordinary Story of Sojourner Truth 38:04

8M ago38:04

38:04

The facts of Sojourner Truth’s life are inspiring: Born into slavery in the late 1790s, she became an influential abolitionist and Pentecostal preacher, transfixing audiences from the mid 1840s through the late 1870s with her candid and powerful voice, not to mention her singing. Tall and strong, Truth was physically formidable, too. No one was usi…

1
How We See Oppenheimer (redux) 18:58

9M ago18:58

18:58

Christopher Nolan's epic new film "Oppenheimer" is no mere biopic… nor is it the first attempt to capture the father of the atomic bomb in fiction. We look at prior dramatizations of this very complicated man—including one wherein J. Robert Oppenheimer played himself!—and examine why they worked or didn't. In this episode: Physicist-turned-photogra…

1
Merry Christmas With the Moms and Dads: Yuletunes Eclectic & Inexplicable XVIII — Hall Deckening, Part One 36:03

10M ago36:03

36:03

WARNING: THIS IS NOT AN EPISODE OF THE BELOVED AND INFLUENTIAL PODCAST "A DEGREE ABSOLUTE!" Yippe kai yay, Christmas lovers. It’s your buddy Chris — sans Glen this time — with yet another installment in the metronomically reliable and stereoscopicaly hi-fi-able yuletunes eclectic and inexplicable compilation series. This is installment 18 — they gr…

1
The Books We Loved 33:13

10M ago33:13

33:13

You can describe what a journalist does in any number of ways. One definition that’s as accurate as any is that a journalist is someone who liked having homework back when they were in school so much that they decided to keep doing homework for a career. That certainly describes the team here at Smithsonian magazine. We’re all big readers. So we th…

1
When Your Great-Great-Great-Grandfather Is a Civil War Hero 27:18

10M ago27:18

27:18

Photographer Drew Gardner has a passion for history. His long-term project, “The Descendants,” wherein he recreates famous portraits of historical figures featuring their direct offspring, is his most visible expression of this interest. But like a lot of people who study history, Gardner has in recent years begun to contemplate more deeply the que…

1
Why Wildfires Are Burning Hotter and Longer 33:01

11M ago33:01

33:01

The 2023 United Nations Climate Change Conference, or COP28, begins this week in Dubai. A new topic on the agenda this year is how wildfires are emerging as a serious health risk not just to those in their immediate vicinity, but even to people thousands of miles away. Last summer, smoke from Canadian wildfires drifted not only as far south as the …

1
How NASA Captured Asteroid Dust to Find the Origins of Life 31:00

11M ago31:00

31:00

Capturing a piece of an asteroid and bringing it to Earth is even more difficult than it is time-consuming. After four years in space, NASA’s OSIRIS-REx craft made a brief landing on the asteroid Bennu to collect samples of the ancient rock. Six months later, part of the spacecraft began its journey home to Earth, and earlier this fall, that sample…

1
Healing the Wounds of the Vietnam War 34:02

12M ago34:02

34:02

Every Veterans Day, Jeremy Redmon thinks about his father, Donald Lee Redmon — an Air Force veteran who survived more than 300 combat missions over Southeast Asia, but who took his own life when Jeremy was 14. This year, Redmon traveled back to Hanoi with a group of former prisoners of war, many of whom had flown the same missions as his dad. Jerem…

1
How the Osage Changed Martin Scorsese’s Mind About "Killers of the Flower Moon" 35:11

12M ago35:11

35:11

A true-life saga involving organized crime, racial prejudice, and evolving American identity, David Grann’s 2017 nonfiction book Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the F.B.I. seemed at first glance like a perfect fit for Martin Scorsese, the beloved filmmaker whose dozens of critically adored movies include Taxi Driver, …

1
A Brief History of Book Banning in America 26:16

1y ago26:16

26:16

Book-banning might seem like a relic of less enlightened times, but the practice is back in a big way. The American Library Association reports that 2022 saw more attempts to have books removed from public libraries than in any prior year this century — indeed, it documented more than twice as many attempted bans in 2022 than in 2021. In schools, a…

1
Those Orcas Aren't Doing What You Think 28:52

1y ago28:52

28:52

It’s not the most urgent news story that’s gripped the world since 2020, but it might be the weirdest: The last three years have seen more 400 “encounters”— many reports have used the word “attacks”—between orca whales and boats in the Strait of Gibraltar. Because the orcas are particularly fond of tearing the propellers off of yachts, the temptati…

1
Meet the WWII Battalion of Black Women That Inspired an Army Base’s New Name 37:07

1y ago37:07

37:07

The 6888th Central Postal Directory Battalion was the only unit comprised entirely of Black women to have been deployed overseas during World War II, and it had served a critical function: clearing the backlog of mail that marked the only line of communication between American soldiers in Europe and their loved ones back home. In this episode, we s…

1
Beyond the Titanic: The Real Science of Deep Sea Exploration 34:35

1y ago34:35

34:35

After five people perished on a controversial submersible dive to the wreckage of the Titanic in June, we got to thinking about what genuine undersea exploration looks like. In this episode, we speak with Tony Perrottet, who profiled the late OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush for Smithsonian magazine in 2019, about our ancient fascination with exploring …

1
What Happens When the Colorado River Dries Up? 23:49

1y ago23:49

23:49

What happens when one of the nation's largest rivers dries up? Photojournalist Pete McBride tells us about the consequences of a prolonged drought in the Colorado River, which provides drinking water and electricity to millions of Americans, and shares his experience walking the river from end to end. What can we learn from the landscape revealed b…

1
How We See Oppenheimer. Plus: Smithsonian’s Inside Look at the Top-Secret Los Alamos Site 17:42

1y ago17:42

17:42

Christopher Nolan's epic new film "Oppenheimer" is no mere biopic… nor is it the first attempt to capture the father of the atomic bomb in fiction. We look at prior dramatizations of this very complicated man—including one wherein J. Robert Oppenheimer played himself!—and examine why they worked or didn't. In the episode: Physicist-turned-photograp…

1
He's (Not) Just Ken: The True History of Barbie’s Beau 25:37

1y ago25:37

25:37

He is (K)enough… or is he? With filmmaker Greta Gerwig's Barbie breaking box-office records—and devoting much of its story to Ken's existential crisis—we wondered if there's any more to Barbie's perennial plus-one. Journalist and lifelong Barbie fan Emily Tamkin talks us through Ken’s development, or lack thereof, over the decades. Read Emily’s “A …

1
Coming July 27: There's More to That from Smithsonian magazine and PRX 1:34

1y ago1:34

1:34

Smithsonian magazine covers history, science and culture in the way only it can — through a lens on the world that is insightful and grounded in richly reported stories. On There's More to That, meet the magazine's journalists and hear how they discover the forces behind the biggest issues of our time.…

1
The Airborne Yuletide Event [Side B] 55:14

2y ago55:14

55:14

WARNING: THIS IS NOT AN EPISODE OF THE BELOVED AND INFLUENTIAL PODCAST "A DEGREE ABSOLUTE!" The yulemix enters its Pierce Brosnan era with this seventeenth senses-shattering installment! It's another paradoxically digital yule (ana)log, optimized to obfuscate and illuminate your holiday season. Each side will conveniently fit onto a one side of a 1…

1
The Airborne Yuletide Event [Side A] 52:01

2y ago52:01

52:01

WARNING: THIS IS NOT AN EPISODE OF THE BELOVED AND INFLUENTIAL PODCAST "A DEGREE ABSOLUTE!" The yulemix enters its Pierce Brosnan era with this seventeenth senses-shattering installment! It's another paradoxically digital yule (ana)log, optimized to obfuscate and illuminate your holiday season. Each side will conveniently fit onto a one side of a 1…

1
The Computer Wore Menace Shoes 56:56

2y ago56:56

56:56

It's a Y2K-pop extravaganza as Chris and Glen emerge from their unplanned and unannounced hiatus to dissect 72-year-old Patty McG's brief-but-memorable guest appearance reprising the role of Number Six for (the final eight minutes of) the Season 12 Simpsons episode "The Computer Wore Menace Shoes." Cowabunga! The Simpsons, season 12, episode six — …

1
BRASS TARGET with Keith Phipps 1:46:15

2y ago1:46:15

1:46:15

Our guest Keith Phipps is not just a sterling critic and a dad — an essential component when we cover a movie as openly paternal as 1978’s post-WWII espionage thriller Brass Target. He is also the author of new book examining the career of a singularly idiosyncratic actor. A Degree Absolute! endorses Keith’s book Age of Cage absolutely. And Brass T…

1
Darling / Schizoid / Checkmate (THE PRISONER 2009, part two) 1:17:37

2y ago1:17:37

1:17:37

It's More Talk About A-Frames and Holes as we slog dutifully through the back half of The Prisoner's 2009 Jim Caviezel-and-Ian McKellen-starring update. It turns out Chris did review Serenity, the Steven Knight film he referes to 54 minutes into this episode. Read that review if you wish! Darling, Schiozid, and Checkmate Written by Bill Gallagher D…

1
Arrival / Harmony / Anvil (THE PRISONER 2009, part one) 1:15:28

2+ y ago1:15:28

1:15:28

We’ve got good news and bad news for you, Villagers: After a long sojourn examining Patty McG’s eclectic-not-checkered filmography, we’ve returned to Prisoner content… in the form of the 2009 Jim Caviezel-and-Ian McKellen-starring update. At Glen’s suggestion, we are devoting a mere two episodes to this six-episode series, because inflation. Who’s …

1
A TIME TO KILL with Linda Holmes 2:04:37

2+ y ago2:04:37

2:04:37

Matty McC meets Patty McG in the battle you didn’t know you wanted to McSee! Look, A Time to Kill, the fourth big-studio adaptation of a John Grisham legal thriller to hit theaters in a 37-month period during the first Clinton Administration, is not a great showcase for our man Patty McG. There are just too many high-caliber, high-profile, and high…

1
BABY, SECRET OF THE LOST LEGEND with Jordan Morris 1:35:00

2+ y ago1:35:00

1:35:00

Terrible fonts! Racist tropes! Puppetty brontos! A doomed marriage! A movie that was made for no one! Plus Paddy McG phoning it in - hardly a single trilled R! Listen, and catch the opposite of a fever! Prolific podmedian & Eisner Award nominee Jordan Morris joins us to carbon-date a seminal document of his dino-loving youth, BABY, SECRET OF THE LO…

1
ALL NIGHT LONG with Casey Erin Clark 2:02:09

2+ y ago2:02:09

2:02:09

MOOR COWBELL! Slip into your cardigan, roll yourself a jazz cigarette, and prepare to savor one of Patty McG's most sinister heel turns as our lovely theme-song singer Casey Erin Clark joins us to deconstruct All Night Long, director Basil Dearden's 1962 adaptation of Othello set in the London jazz scene. PLUS! Casey draws upon her expertise as a v…

1
KINGS AND DESPERATE MEN 1:33:15

2+ y ago1:33:15

1:33:15

A movie for McGoohan die-hards that creator Alexis Kanner the Once-Boxed sued the makers of Die Hard over! Paddy McG and Kanner! Squaring off, with a Montreal radio show as their Thunderdome. A film with all the makings of a taut thriller involving hostages, a building wired with explosives, and McG in fine form: Rolling them Rs! Slamming them cons…

1
THE MOONSHINE WAR 1:27:13

2+ y ago1:27:13

1:27:13

Patty McG's first major project after The Prisoner wrapped up in early 1968 was The Moonshine War, for Sex and the Single Girl director (and title-song lyricist!) Richard Quine. Quine did not write this film's remarkably concise and descriptive title song, "The Ballad of Moonshine," leaving that to Hank Williams, Jr. The great crime writer Elmore L…

1
THE THREE LIVES OF THOMASINA with Josh Spiegel 2:00:50

2+ y ago2:00:50

2:00:50

Does Mister-not-Doctor Andrew MacDuhui (Paddy McG) hate pets? (He does not, no matter what his low-information neighbors in the fictional Scottish town of Inveronoch think.) Did Walt Disney hate cats? (Our very special guest Disney expert, Josh Spiegel, makes a compelling case.) Were animals harmed during the making of this motion picture? (Most ce…

1
THE SCARECROW OF ROMNEY MARSH with Margaret H. Willison 1:41:41

2+ y ago1:41:41

1:41:41

On February 9, 1964, Ed Sullivan introduced a band from Liverpool, England formerly known as The Quarrymen to an estimated 73 million viewers of his primetime CBS variety show. And down the dial on NBC, the anthology series Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Color drew an audience of something less than 73 million for the first installment of its thr…

1
SILVER STREAK with Ronald Young Jr. 1:42:40

2+ y ago1:42:40

1:42:40

Pop some vitamin E before listening, because it's gonna be hug 'n' munch all the way to Chicago! Solvable host Ronald Young, Jr. joins Glen and Chris to examine Silver Streak, ostensibly a hybrid romantic thriller / buddy comedy that gave the world the long-running Gene Wilder/Richard Pryor screen partnership and was a huge hit upon its release in …

1
BOXING DAY SPECIAL: Let's Talk About Christmas (2019 yulemix) 1:45:10

3y ago1:45:10

1:45:10

CAUTION: This is not an episode of A Degree Absolute! This is a halldecking aid. Happy Boxing Day, Degree Absolutionists! With Glen still waging his one-man war on Christmas from the sunny heathen hinterlands of Miami, I, Chris, have made an executive decision to use up our vacant server space this month to re-present my 2019 holiday mixtape, "Let'…

1
Cheer Is the Mind-Killer—Yuletunes Eclectic & Inexplicable XVI [Side B] 1:11:17

3y ago1:11:17

1:11:17

#Yulemix21 ABIDES! In this second half of my XVIth senses-shattering installment in the apparently unkillable Yuletunes Eclectic & Inexplicable series, Chris attempts penance for preempting your regularly-scheduled podcast with my mixtape by roping Glen & Casey in for some festive preamble before we get to the damn tape. Those halls aren't going to…

1
Cheer Is the Mind-Killer—Yuletunes Eclectic & Inexplicable XVI [Side A] 57:30

3y ago57:30

57:30

This is not an episode of A DEGREE ABSOLUTE! This is a halldecking aid. A DEGREE ABSOLUTE! shall return. What this is is the sixteenth installment in what has become a venerable holiday tradition that invariably makes me feel unhinged in the final couple of months of each year. Sixteen! They grow up so fast. The Yuletunes Eclectic & Inexplicable co…

1
BRAVEHEART with Alexandra Petri 1:54:04

3y ago1:54:04

1:54:04

It's primae noctis for your ears because we can put it off no longer: The quintuple-Academy Award-winning a-historical epic Braveheart is the most widely seen and, your hosts agree, best latter-day expression of undiluted Patrick McGooted. The Washington Post's Alexandra Petri returns to discuss her journalist doppelganger, the New York Times' Alex…

1
Our Top Six Twos 58:23

3y ago58:23

58:23

THERE CAN BE ONLY TWO(s) as Chris & Glen rank their top six on this week’s exciting episode! Thanks to @UrbanSpaceMan64 for suggesting the topic. Write to the Citizens Advice Bureau at adegreeabsolute dot gmail! Leave us a five-star review with your hottest Prisoner take on Apple Podcasts! Follow @NotaNumberPod! Our song: "A Degree Absolute!" Music…

1
MARY, QUEEN OF SCOTS 1:31:02

3y ago1:31:02

1:31:02

It’s the Notorious V.R.G. v. the founder of the Jackson Fivehead in this 16th century showdown among two dope queens—and we don’t mean Timothy Dalton & Ian Holm! PLUS: Jimmy Stewart! Current Release Corner! Dispatches from the French of Liberty, Kansas! Mary, Queen of Scots Written by John Hale Directed by Charles Jarrott Released December 1971 Wri…

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