WITH MASSACHUSETTS still lingering in the third winter of COVID-19, Codcast listeners stayed bundled up and took in podcasts on wind power changes, new Boston leadership, and a renewed push for rent control with eagerness as 2023 began. But the most listened-to episode of the year was a conversation with GBH host Brian O’Donovan, the face of Celtic music in Boston, as he faced an ultimately terminal brain cancer diagnosis with “poetry and prayers.”
Some 1,520 people listened to O’Donovan reflect on the unique role of music in an ever more divided society.
“If you talk politics, if you talk history, even if you talk literature, at times they seem to have that division built into them,” he said. “I think that music and songs and dancing seem to eliminate that and invite people in on their own recognizance. And I think that’s a golden opportunity for us to use what we know, in our access to musicians and dancers and singers, to use that access to bring people together.”
O’Donovan celebrated two decades of his annual live show “A Christmas Celtic Sojourn,” drawing strength from the vitality of the music, his family, and the Celtic Sojourn community during his last winter.
And he turned to art itself for guidance, quoting the epitaph written on Irish poet Seamus Heaney’s grave, a line from one of Heaney’s poems: “Walk on air against your better judgment.”
“I really take that as a kind of a philosophy, almost, at this particular point, that I want to be as optimistic as I possibly can, knowing the bleakness of my situation as a reality, but also to walk on air, meaning, I think, take chances that you might have put off at other times in your life,” O’Donovan told reporter Shira Schoenberg.
O’Donovan died in October, at 66 years old. He said that sharing his public struggle with glioblastoma was, in part, to remind people that there is tremendous kindness still in the world, and to show that a life can be lived to its fullest even in the darkest circumstances.
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Here are this year’s top 10 Codcasts, along with links to the audio files and the stories we wrote about the conversations.
- GBH host Brian O’Donovan faces bleak prognosis with ‘poetry and prayers’, January 15.
Brian O’Donovan, host of GBH’s A Celtic Sojourn, discusses his terminal brain cancer diagnosis and considers the role of artists and their work in a divided time.
Listen to the Codcast or read the write-up by Shira Schoenberg.
- Michelle Wu makes the case for her planning and development overhaul, February 5.
New Boston Mayor Michelle Wu gets wonky with her plans to transform the city’s labyrinthian zoning codes and retool its long-controversial planning and development arm.
Listen to the Codcast or read the write-up by Michael Jonas.
- Lawmakers walk tightrope on wind power contracts, January 8.
Sen. Michael Barrett of Lexington and Rep. Jeffrey Roy of Franklin, the chairs of the Legislature’s Utilities, Telecommunications, and Energy Committee, discuss the challenges of wind farm developers and the risks that they could try to exploit these trends to the detriment of the state.
Listen to the Codcast or read the write-up by Bruce Mohl.
- The debate over Massachusetts vocational high school admission policies, February 12.
Karen Maguire, the superintendent of the Tri-County Regional Vocational Technical High School in Franklin, who defended the current voc-tech policy, debates state Sen. John Cronin of Fitchburg, who is pushing for a lottery admission system to be instituted.
Listen to the Codcast or read the write-up by Michael Jonas.
- Two Democrats debate state of Mass Dems, January 22.
Greg Maynard, a Brockton-based political consultant, worries the Democratic Party has been taken over at the local level by an “activist class” that pushes for candidates leaning to the left. Deb Kozikowski, the vice chair of the state Democratic Party, disagrees, arguing convention victories don’t shut out other candidates because of the low support threshold to make the ballot.
Listen to the Codcast or read the write-up by Bruce Mohl.
- Addressing the nitrogen challenge on Cape Cod, January 29.
Alan McLennen, the chair of the Orleans Board of Water and Sewer commissioners and a member of the Orleans Select Board, and Stephen Rafferty, the vice chair of Falmouth’s Water Quality Management Committee, discuss new regulations to address the serious nitrogen problem on Cape Cod.
Listen to the Codcast or read the write-up by Bruce Mohl.
- Moulton’s ambitious, expensive, and enthralling transportation vision, April 16.
US Rep. Seth Moulton pushes an ambitious expansion of the T’s commuter rail network, including a North-South rail link and high-speed rail to Western Mass.
Listen to the Codcast or read the write-up by Bruce Mohl.
- Taking the long view with the MBTA, April 23.
Nicholas Dagen Bloom, the author of The Great American Transit Disaster and a professor of urban policy and planning at Hunter College in New York City, said public transit in Boston is currently at a low point, and that’s nothing new.
Listen to the Codcast or read the write-up by Bruce Mohl.
- The curious state of Massachusetts’ rent control debate, March 5.
Real estate groups are launching broadsides against Boston Mayor Michelle Wu’s rent control home rule and attempts to lift the statewide rent control ban are once again hitting Beacon Hill. Greg Vasil, CEO of the Greater Boston Real Estate Board, and Rep. Sam Montaño of the 15th Suffolk District break down Boston’s controversial rent control proposal.
Listen to the Codcast or read the write-up by Jennifer Smith.
- Health Equity Compact trying to ‘boil the ocean’, March 12.
Juan Fernando Lopera and Myechia Minter-Jordan, key members of the Health Equity Compact, joined John McDonough of the T.H. Chan School of Public Health at Harvard University and Paul Hattis of the Lown Institute to discuss proposed legislation prioritizing health equity.
Listen to the Codcast or read the write-up by Bruce Mohl.
