Podcast Corner: Sam Anderson’s Animal antics provide great listening
Animal follows Sam Anderson's travels around the world.
What a delightful journey the six-part podcast Animal takes us on. Yes, geographically we travel from host Sam Anderson’s living room to Iceland, Mexico, and Japan, and begin and end with a hole - one from which Anderson’s pet hamster Mango escapes through, the other a ‘bat volcano’.
But we go on a personal journey too. Anderson relates his personal life to us, how his daughter is heading to college, how his son has just turned 16, how he’s missing these life events to traverse the world for experiences that will, yes, last a lifetime, but then what? He ruminates on death, of his father’s loss and how he wears his gloves and some other items to remind him of when he was still around.
A staff writer with the New York Times, Anderson ponders his and our place in this vast world, as do some of his accomplices across the series. Like on the fifth episode ‘Wolves’. Perhaps the most forgettable of the bunch, it still manages a deep existential exit as they journey to an underwhelming statue of the last Japanese wolf. His interpreter ponders: “What would the last statue of a person be like? What would the last statue of a dog or a cat be like?” It may not be powerful written down like this, but coming when it does, it feels profound.
Episode two is the aural equivalent of Blue Planet, as Anderson travels to Iceland to rescue baby puffins from the sea. The sheer joy as he tosses them back into the sea - a technique akin to swinging kettlebells - is clearly evident.
Of course, there is the pressing matter of environmental disaster lurking in these stories. Habitats have been destroyed, diets have been ruined - there’s a particularly distressing bit about a manatee carcass being found with sand in its stomach as it was so desperate for nourishment. We should treasure these beautiful creatures, Anderson suggests, because we do not want them to end up a statue like the Japanese wolf.
One animal that is not in danger anytime soon is the ferret. Anderson travels to a convention centre in Ohio for a ferret show and competition. Again, his empathy is on display as he relates his anxiety meds with one of his companions - she’s on double his dosage. It’s so touching. The episode ends in hilarious fastion as our host tries to resist ferret ownership.
“I thought two was kind of the magic number?” Anderson asks.
Ferret owner Erin replies : “No, because two is harder because then they’ll bond together maybe. And then if one of them dies, the other one gets really sad and it dies shortly thereafter. So if you have three, it’s just a better life. Yeah. I would say three. And three is like having one, but better.” Like a ferret owner, you’ll only want more of Animals.
