Podcast 1: Giggling and Gabbing

In Giggling and Gabbing's first podcast, we discuss the first 80 pages of "The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao." Though we lacked one member of our book club this week, we were still able to have a thoughtful conversation about the relationship between mother's and daughters, father's and son as well as the symbolism used to describe both Lola's and Oscar's adolescence. We decided Lola was the loser this week and Oscar was the winner. We decided this because Oscar has made progress to learn who he is and wants to be while Lola has begun to spiral out of control. Hope you giggle while we gab about Oscar Wao. Link to podcast below

https://soundcloud.com/eric-valenti-495614136/podcast-1-giggling-and-gabbing-figurative-and-literal
Giggling&Gabbing logo
Giggling&Gabbing logo

Comments (5)

Amelia Benamara (Student 2019)
Amelia Benamara

I enjoyed this podcast very much. Your introduction where you all yourselves are very attention grabbing and unique. I like that throughout the whole recording, the main fo is was on identity and self perception when placed in an environment where there are lack of resources. I like that you guys didn’t stray away from the main focus too much and also related the events to your personal experiences.

Messele Asfaw (Student 2019)
Messele Asfaw

Like Lucien said above, it struck me as kind of weird when you guys explained what your roles in the group were, and it kind of comes off as really fake. I think that the personality aspect should be shown, rather than explained. I guess the essential knowledge I gained from this is, don't make bad decisions. They lead you to bad situations. That is not good. Something I enjoyed about the podcast was that everyone talked pretty evenly in this podcast. You guys covered a wide range of topics and it flowed smoothly. Overall, good job!

Kimberly Gucciardi-Kriegh (Student 2019)
Kimberly Gucciardi-Kriegh

Great summary! As the listener, I know what is going on in the book from your explanation. You do a great job of all speaking and super strong analysis on all the themes in the book. You do a great job of letting the reader understand what is going on and have a good balance of fun and facts. I like the relation to your lives. If I was looking for podcasts, I would listen to this one again.

Julia Hood (Student 2019)
Julia Hood

I feel like in general, it did a good job of explaining the background of the story and flowing into the analyzation of the different parts of the text, for example talking about the lack of father/mother figures. I really enjoyed how humorous it was at certain times, I also really enjoyed how they all had different views and how they all expressed it very openly. I also liked how Leila talked about different cultural things.

Lucien Hearn (Student 2019)
Lucien Hearn

Lol, don't state what your personalities are in the beginning, bit strange isn't it? It's like you're trying to be the new characters on the cast of Friends. I'd also say the cutting between clips could be smoother, give a bit of time between words when you cut, makes it seem more like you just paused your speech. Or if you want to make it seem less jittery, put music quietly behind the entire track. Aside from those little nitpicks, very good, lots of thorough analysis and discussion of not just the themes that the book covers, but the nature of the writing and characters. I think you could discuss the author's intent more.