fintan lives with: Recent Episodes
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Ecuador, 1987. Socialist General Frank Vargas Pazos and his army kidnap the President of Ecuador in an attempted coup d'état – El Taurazo. 37 years later, his grandson Marcelo Ayala and I sit down at UnionDocs (a documentary center in NYC), to talk about this incident and Marcelo's project to uncover more about a grandfather he hardly knew growing up.
Marcelo's journalistic work: https://paralelo.info/
Thanks to UnionDocs for having us!
We're bringing it back to 2017 when wee little fintan, fresh out of college, went to the navajo nation to live with multi-dualistic spirit, sheep herder, semitruck driver, GIS wizz, filmmaker and writer Carrie House!
i worked extra hard to bring this one back from the archives so please enjoy xx
i met Jorge Wunch in the high desert of western New Mexico. we worked together at Cottonwood Gulch Expeditions, a summer outdoor youth program that i attended as a kid. we dive deep into the joys and challenges of traveling for 5 weeks with 4 teens through 3 states, shutting our eyes every night under the pale moonlight.
the coyotes are never too far away.
learn more about Cottonwood Gulch at cottonwoodgulch.org
i'm so excited to share with y'all a conversation with my friend Ella at the end of a whirlwind 3 week journey together through Mexico. From Art Week in Mexico City to the mountains of Colima and the beaches of the Pacific, hear all about the magical towns we visited, salsa-drenched meals we shared and surprising hyper local beverages we consumed. Oh the memories :)
Huilo Marvavilla is an artist and storyteller who i met in 2019 when i was looking to visit Costa Rica. Huilo built and ran an incredible art residency program for many years until the residency was burnt to the ground by the neighbors.
Huilo is now developing a film that unravels this story and weaves together many other layers of the challenges facing Costa Ricans today. In this episode we chat about the complex process of making a documentary, what it takes to be an artist fully devoted to your craft and life in the small city of Tepic, Mexico.
Find out more about the film at: https://jaguarbridgeproductions.com/
fintan travels with college friend Zaw Bo from Hanoi to Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam. listen to us chat about how we met, how (not) different we are 5 years later and all the fun and challenges brought on by traveling with someone and sleeping in the same bed for 2 weeks. Zaw is from Burma, so we also chat a bit about his experience living through a military coup and how much his life has changed. we also talk ice cream! Zaw's future career path is in churning out sweet deliciousness.
while trying to leave India to fly to Vietnam, i encountered a series of obstacles that almost set me off the edge...
join me as i travel to southern India to visit Sahana and Tapan, two very cool people from the state of Karnataka. get ready for an adventure in art, south indian food, birds and crocodiles!
fintan lives with actor and model @sleepystevo in nyc and europe! join us as we talk passionate things from Stephen's bed in bushwick, brooklyn.
raised in brooklyn and now living and studying in madrid, Paola is down for anything! join us on this in-depth conversation on clubbing, skincare, capitalism and more, brought to you live from Paola's bedroom.
fintan lives with college mate Rebekah Rennick on the road from the east coast to Iowa to attend our 5 year college reunion! we chat about the cool things Rebekah did while at Grinnell College and about their (now previous) job as a sex educator. this episode was originally recorded in June 2022.
fintan lives with cousin Karl and his partner Cristina in Villalba, a small city in the region of Madrid, Spain.
Cris and Karl started dating during the covid lockdown in 2020, so i asked them about what that was like.
We also talk about La Gordoloba, a very cool community garden that started as a squat, which i’ve been visiting often during my time here.
fintan lives with auntie Nollaig Rowan at her home in Dublin, Ireland. Nollaig recounts fintan's visits as a child and family trips to the Irish countryside, where we cooked up fresh shellfish and witnessed the birth of lambs. Nollaig also shares some of the writing she's worked on this year, including for a children's book (One Old Ostrich) that was a whole family effort (illustrated by fintan's mother and with layout by fintan; for sale at https://theostrichbooks.com).
fintan travels with Will Hamilton and Claudia Handal from the mountains to the seaside of Albania. Will shares his journey from growing up in Iowa to moving halfway across the world to do the Peace Corps in Kosovo, leading to an adoration of the Balkan way of life. We discuss the food, culture and language of Albania from Will's balcony in Sarandë.
fintan lives with musician and future transit planner Max Christensen at their home in Minneapolis. Max shares his experience living through the uprisings of 2020, their impact on his sense of community and the implications for urban planners striving to build a more equitable city. We also get to hear Max (aka Sky the Dog) break down some of his favorite songs off his new album Plants Have Feelings Too You Know (stream it on Spotify and Apple Music).
fintan lives with cousin Jeanne Johnston in Oahu.
Jeanne was born in Hilo, Hawai’i. At age 6 she survived a 7.4 magnitude tsunami, which catalyzed a lifelong passion of telling the stories of tsunami survivors. In 1996 she co-founded the Pacific Tsunami Museum in Hilo. Jeanne has held all sorts of wild jobs: working in pineapple and fish canneries, as a flight attendant for Western Airlines, a first mate on a fishing boat in the Bering Sea, and as a chef on a research vessel that sailed around the world (narrowly avoiding a pirate attack).
Jeanne now lives in Kailua, Oahu with her daughter and grandkids and works for FEMA as a disaster mitigation specialist.
music in the episode by Johnny Akamu: https://jonnyakamu.bandcamp.com/album/here-and-there
fintan gets in bed with musicmaker Marcos Ospina for a discussion on love and queerness.
fintan lives with-- wait, that's not right...
fintan dates singer Seth Tack while on a stint in Iowa.
fintan lives with their sibling Cormac and rising trap star Tommy Owens. Cormac and Tommy may share some of the same body parts...
Fintan lives with queer filmmaker Carrie House for a month on the Navajo Nation in Arizona.