My grandparents held grudges so well and so thoroughly that in the aftermath of drama, everyone knew the drill: The offending person or subject was no longer to be mentioned. This is obviously unfortunate. Lore and venting instead spread outward from each person to their own webs of acquaintances, but within the family, drama became taboo. This is neither healthy nor productive for nosy little punks like me. Fortunately for gossips everywhere, some families chatter a lot. Some even consult fortune tellers for life advice. Others simply deal with forbidden subjects in the the good ol' way: lying.
For the penultimate episode of Season 7, prepare yourselves for a huge family lore drop. We're going One Hundred Years of Solitude mode. This is a good reminder to us all that you don’t get to be old without collecting a lifetime’s worth of secrets along the way.
This week our guest is Hrishikesh Hirway! Hrishikesh is a singer and songwriter, and the host of Song Exploder, an award-winning podcast and Netflix series where he interviews other musicians about how they created one of their songs. He co-hosted The West Wing Weekly as well as Home Cooking with chef (and previous Normal Gossip guest) Samin Nosrat. Hrishikesh has also composed original scores for film and TV, including the Netflix series Everything Sucks, and the video game The Red Lantern, and the upcoming sci-fi thriller Companion, which comes out in theaters in January.
Hrishikesh brought Kelsey the story of his parents' matchmaker, and then Kelsey told Hrishikesh a multigenerational tale of a big family, a fortune teller’s prophecy, and one huge lie.
You can support the show by subscribing on Pocket Casts, Overcast, or wherever else you listen! You can also follow Normal Gossip on Instagram. The transcript of this week's episode can be found here. You can sign up for the Normal Gossip newsletter here.
Send your gossip to normalgossip@defector.com, or leave a voice message on our hotline at 26-79-GOSSIP.
