The Political Power of Gas Prices and More: The Week in Narrated Articles

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/28/podcasts/haunted-house-balenciaga-kanye-west.html

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This weekend, listen to a collection of narrated articles from around The New York Times, read aloud by the reporters who wrote them.

Written by Emily Badger and Eve Washington | Narrated by Emily Badger

Ask Americans their outlook on the country — its future, its economy, its president — and their mood has risen and fallen in surveys this year in striking sync with the price of gas. Gas prices go up, and fear that the country is on the wrong track often does, too. Gas prices go down, and so does unhappiness with the president.

It’s of course not the case that fuel prices alone dictate the optimism (or surliness) of the nation. But these patterns suggest that gas, distinct from other things we buy, wields real power over how Americans think about their personal circumstances, the wider economy and even the state of the nation.

Written and narrated by Anna Kodé

Many Americans believe that their home is inhabited by someone or something that isn’t a living being. An October study from the home security company Vivint, based in Utah, found that nearly half of the thousand surveyed homeowners believed that their house was haunted. Another survey of 1,000 people by Real Estate Witch, an education platform for home buyers and sellers, found similar results, with 44 percent of respondents saying that they’ve lived in a haunted house.

Researchers attribute increasing belief in the supernatural to the rise of paranormal-related media, a decline in religious affiliation and the pandemic. With so many people believing that they live with ghosts, a new question arises: How does one live with a ghost? Are there ways to become comfortable with it, or certain actions to keep away from so as not to disturb it?

Written and narrated by Jon Caramanica

Throughout his career, Ye, the artist formerly known as Kanye West, has gobbled up platforms — sometimes others’, sometimes ones he has built himself. The very act of consuming public oxygen has been a centerpiece of his art for two decades.

Even though in recent years Ye has, time and again, expressed sentiments that have been uninformed, ill-phrased and profoundly concerning, he has routinely found ways to paper over the disturbances.

In this moment, following two straight weeks of offensive chatter — “I’m going death con 3 on Jewish people”; “the guy’s knee wasn’t even on his neck like that” (on George Floyd); “I prefer my kids knew Hanukkah than Kwanzaa. At least it will come with some financial engineering”; “Bernard Arnault killed my best friend” (on Virgil Abloh); and more — it’s challenging to imagine a future for Ye in which he bounces back as crisply as he has in the past.

Written and narrated by Jenny Vrentas

Chuck Osborne weighed more than 13 pounds when he thundered into the world, the largest baby the hospital had ever seen. The doctor who delivered him predicted that he would play football for the University of Southern California. That wasn’t far off.

Chuck played defensive tackle on his high school football team and was such a menace to opposing quarterbacks that he was regularly double-teamed. He continued on to the University of Arizona, where he was part of a nationally known defense. His mother, Kathleen Bajgrowicz, remembers Chuck telling her, “Mom, they hit so hard in college.” And when he made it to the N.F.L., he said, “Mom, they really hit hard here.” She tried not to worry. It seemed like he could handle anything. But there were some things, and some people, even Chuck Osborne couldn’t handle.

Written and narrated by Nick Haramis

Demna was hired by Balenciaga in 2015 with a clear mandate: to make the clothes feel urgent again. As an heir to the legendary tailor once described by Dior as “the master of us all” and by Coco Chanel as “a couturier in the truest sense of the word” — as well as a more immediate successor to the urbane, forward-thinking French Belgian designer Nicolas Ghesquière, who spent 15 years at the brand’s helm before departing in 2012 — he was not an obvious choice.

Cristóbal Balenciaga was a perfectionist intent on achieving sculptural purity through minimal construction, a feat he came closest to realizing in his spring 1967 collection, which included a wedding dress held together by a single seam. Demna, who looks like a headbanger, in torn jeans and ratty band T-shirts, with piercings in both ears, seemed to have emerged onto fashion’s biggest stage straight from a Rammstein concert.

But since his appointment at Balenciaga, Demna has become, if not his generation’s most important designer, certainly its most exciting.

The Times’s narrated articles are made by Tally Abecassis, Parin Behrooz, Anna Diamond, Sarah Diamond, Jack D’Isidoro, Aaron Esposito, Dan Farrell, Elena Hecht, Adrienne Hurst, Elisheba Ittoop, Emma Kehlbeck, Marion Lozano, Tanya Pérez, Krish Seenivasan, Margaret H. Willison, Kate Winslett, John Woo and Tiana Young. Special thanks to Sam Dolnick, Ryan Wegner, Julia Simon and Desiree Ibekwe.