By Audrey Bailey
How much paper does a typical American use in one year? And what are chorks, sporks and trongs?
The answer to the first question is approximately 700 pounds, and the rest are names of different eating utensils used around the world. But what these random facts have in common is they’re all topics of discussion for siblings and podcast co-hosts, Julie Kinn and Marc Shecter.
Their new podcast, Station Wagon with Marc and Julie, aims at exploring the cultural and historical implications of items and actions people often take for granted in their daily lives.
And to further investigate these matters, Kinn and Schecter go without the featured podcast topic for two weeks to see how it affects daily life. So far, they have taken two-week breaks from going outside, using paper and staying up-to-date on the news, among other things.
“You know, being able to look at things we take for granted, and look at, ‘why is this in our life? Why do we use paper so much for everything?’ and then go without it for a couple weeks, it’s pretty neat,” Kinn said. “It challenges the way we look at the world.”
Both siblings grew up in central Indiana, with Shecter graduating from North Central High School and Kinn from Carmel High School.
From there, Schecter received his master’s degree in instructional systems technology from Indiana University, while Kinn received her Ph.D. in clinical psychology at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Once Shecter had completed grad school, the two siblings began making their way west toward Washington, where they now reside around the Seattle area. Kinn works as a clinical psychologist, and Schecter is an online educator.
“I moved out west after grad school, to Spokane, Wash., and then further west to the Seattle area to work for a different company,” Shecter said. “And then as my wife and I had kids, my parents followed us out, and then Julie and her family came also west.”
Thoughts about starting a podcast, however, didn’t initiate until around three months ago, when Kinn called her brother and posed the idea. For Schecter, the answer was obvious.
“Julie just called me one day out of the blue and said, ‘hey, do you want to do a podcast?’ And you know, I thought about it for half of a second and just thought about how great it would be,” he said.
The method behind Station Wagon Podcast is simple for the siblings and will remain that way for the many topics planned to come. It’s all about having fun and trying new things by giving up some of the old ones for a bit.
“The main thing that I think we both agree with is that we want to keep having fun doing it,” Shecter said. “And, when we realize we’re not having fun with it anymore, we’re going to stop the podcast.”
Kinn chuckled in response and continued, “I don’t see that happening any time soon.”
Station Wagon podcasts with Marc and Julie can be found online at wagonpod.com and on iTunes, Stitcher and SoundCloud.
