Note: This post has no paywall. Enjoy! — Paul
Ever since I launched Inconspicuous Consumption in the summer of 2024, I’ve had this notion in the back of my head that I’d periodically do some audio posts. I initially thought the “Little Stories” series would be a good fit for that, because those posts tend to be short, first-person anecdotes without any photos or links, which would make them well-suited for audio. But for whatever reason, I never took the step of recording any of them as spoken-word narratives.
But yesterday I found myself working on a different kind of short, anecdotal post without any photos or links (about an interesting experience I had while watching the new movie Send Help), and I suddenly realized, “Hey, maybe this should be IC’s first audio post!” So I took what I’d written, rejiggered the text slightly (certain phrases work better in print than when spoken, and vicey-versey), and then sat down to record the story, which you can listen to at the top of this page.
The audio is only three minutes long, so it’s not a big commitment. But if you’d rather read a transcript, that’s available here.
I’m treating this audio format as an experiment. It will never become the main thing around here, but it might become an occasional thing or a semi-regular thing — at least if people like it. So please use the comments section to give me some feedback. Let me know what you like or don’t like about this inaugural audio post, any suggestions you might have, and so on. Of course, comments about the post’s topic are also welcome. Thanks!
(Special shout-out to The Art of Noticing’s Rob Walker, whose own excellent audio posts helped inspire me to finally take this step.)
Paul Lukas has been obsessing over the inconspicuous for most of his life, and has been writing about those obsessions for more than 30 years. You can contact him here.
