Category Archives: Thinkingest

Lighthearted discussions of overthinking and analysis paralysis. Each week features host Bill Lascher and a special guest analyzing, dissecting, and contemplating a wide range of topics, including careers, style, food, romance, social graces, leisure, holidays, travel, finances, fitness and anything else that might be on their minds. But don’t expect strict adherence to these topics: conversations can and will wander every which way. Do expect fun and digression.

The Thinkingest Episode 6 – Patrick Nork on Creativity

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(Source: Patrick Nork | twitter.com/well_inked_hand)

(Source: Patrick Nork)

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Freelance writing is far from the only game in town when it comes to striking out on one’s own as a creative professional. For the most recent edition of The Thinkingest I sat down with Portland-based visual artist and creative consultant Patrick Nork to talk about going into business for oneself as a creative professional. Nork is the proprietor of Well-Inked Hand, which provides creative problem solving, design and other services. He is also an accomplished printmaker and a board member at Print Arts Northwest.
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The Thinkingest Episode 5: The Fluidity of Freaks

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Daisy and Violet Hilton, looking adorable with they curls and they saxophones. (Source: themuddyshallows.tumblr.com/)

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What’s behind the term “overthinking?” What’s behind this urge to have a podcast of the things we over-analyze and dissect to exhaustion? In some sense there’s an anxiety about being thought a freak, about doing things “wrong” by some sense. So I thought I’d spend some time having a conversation with an old friend of mine who devotes most of her overthinking to studying freaks and their portrayal in literature.
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The Thinkingest Thoughts on Food With Rhea Kennedy

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Produce at L.A.'s Grand Central Market

Photo by Bill Lascher

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I’m a little disappointed with myself that I didn’t go with the obvious title for this latest episode of The Thinkingest Podcast: “Food for Thought.”

Alas, you’ll have to live without corny titles. The good news: The Thinkingest is back with a new episode featuring Rhea Yablon Kennedy. Rhea is a Washington D.C.-based writer and teacher whose work often addresses food and foodways (though she explains it better herself on the Podcast).

“Food is a great thing to think about or overthink, because you’re rewarded with it,” Rhea said during our chat.

I overthink food quite often. Food is, of course, one of our most primary needs, so it’s no surprise how much we mull over the ways we eat. The decisions we make about what kind of food to buy, about how much of it to eat, about how to grow and distribute and sell food are all topics worth, well, chewing upon. But it still fascinates me how much energy we expend making sure we eat well, how much strain the realities of our modern life places on our ability to do so consistently, and how much imbalance there remains in the way food is distributed, marketed and subsidized. Many thinkers have digested these discussions far better than I, but they’re still worth having.
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The Thinkingest Heads Home

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Sunset in Ventura

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In what may be boring or may be genius, I serve as my own guest on the latest edition of the Thinkingest podcast.

This week’s topic is “Home.” Listen in as I discuss with myself what home means to me, and all the different ways I can identify home. Find out just how much I’m thinking about what might be my next home. It’s an amorphous topic, but take a listen for a peek at all the little gears turning around in my mind.

And listen all the way through to find out what kickball, content vending, apartment hunting, books and my love life have in common.

Thanks for listening. Don’t forget to check out past episodes of the Thinkingest here at Lascher at Large, subscribe to the feed at Feedburner or iTunes. Like it or hate it, why not leave me a review on iTunes? And if you like it, please share it. My apologies if you hate it. I’ll try not to think too hard about it.

Thinkingest Episode 2: Decision Fatigue

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Appropos of nothing, a glimpse from somewhere between Sacramento and Davis during a recent train trip on which I got a lot of thinking done.

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While I’m away in Southern California poring through reams of Melville Jacoby’s letters, photographs and telegrams I’ve continued to over-think the “Thinkingest” Podcast. This week’s edition of the podcast features Monique Balas, a freelance journalist and the woman behind the “Pet Talk” column for OregonLive and the Oregonian. We talk about decision fatigue, toothpaste, and the life of a freelance journalist. For us, it comes down to over-thinking over-thinking.

Find Monique at oregonlive.com/pets or on Facebook.

This week, I also expand on my five-things I’m over-thinking and ask my guest the five things she’s over-thinking this week. What about you? What are the five things you’re mentally dissecting this week? Let us know in the comments or by email to bill [at] lascheratlarge [dot] com.

Over-analytically yours,
Bill