Decoder Ring | Mailbag: Yo-Yos, Sandboxes, and Encores
Slow Burn
Slate Audio
4.6 • 25.2K Ratings
🗓️ 17 December 2025
⏱️ 62 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Decoder Ring listeners write in with some excellent mysteries, and for our last episode of the year we’re solving three of them. Why do children play in boxes full of sand? Why do rock bands pretend like the show is over when everybody knows they’re coming back for an encore? And what was up with those school assemblies where you’d get to skip class to learn about…yo-yos?
The voices you’ll hear in this episode include yo-yo masters ”Dazzling Dave” Schulte and Dale Oliver, children’s book author Rob Peñas, Pulitzer Prize-winning design critic Alexandra Lange, and music journalists Brian Wise, Michael Walker, and Travis Andrews.
You can find all the music from the segment about encores in this YouTube playlist.
This episode was produced by Max Freedman, Katie Shepherd, and Evan Chung, Decoder Ring’s supervising producer. Merritt Jacob is Senior Technical Director. We had additional production from Joel Meyer.
If you have any cultural mysteries you want us to decode, email us at DecoderRing@slate.com or leave a message on our hotline at (347) 460-7281.
Get more of Decoder Ring with Slate Plus! Join for exclusive bonus episodes of Decoder Ring and ad-free listening on all your favorite Slate podcasts. Subscribe from the Decoder Ring show page on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Or, visit slate.com/decoderplus for access wherever you listen.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Hi, it's Willa, and I have a request, which is that you really listen to what I'm about to say. |
| 0:07.6 | I have a pitch for you. It's not an advertisement, though. It's something more important to the long-term health and survival of Decoder Ring than that. |
| 0:16.1 | You may or may not be aware, but the kind of show that we make or that we strive to make, one that is |
| 0:22.6 | reported and researched and polished and belabored and obsessed over until hopefully the whole |
| 0:29.6 | thing gets so good that it achieves a kind of lift off and you don't even know how hard we |
| 0:35.5 | worked on it and it all just seems easy and fun and buoyant and engaging. |
| 0:39.5 | Well, that kind of show is becoming a rarer and rarer thing in the world of podcasts. |
| 0:45.7 | And for us to be able to keep doing it, just straight up, we need your help. |
| 0:52.4 | If you enjoy decodering, if you get something out of it, if you've learned |
| 0:57.5 | something, if you've laughed, if you've thought something new, if you've gotten a fun fact to share |
| 1:02.4 | at a party, I am asking for you to sign up for Slate Plus. Through the end of the year, we are running |
| 1:08.5 | a 50% off special on Slate Plus membership. |
| 1:12.9 | To get that enormous discount, all you have to do is go to slate.com slash decoder plus |
| 1:19.4 | and at checkout, enter the code Decoder 50. |
| 1:23.6 | It will give you access to a full year of Slate's content for just $59, which is less than $3 per episode of decodering. |
| 1:32.0 | And that's not even including all our exclusive Slate Plus content, which we've been running all year and we're going to continue to, stuff that includes extra interviews, segments, and mailbag questions. |
| 1:42.6 | And a Slate Plus membership gets you more than just access to decodering. |
| 1:46.1 | You get ad-free listening and access to plus content across all Slate podcasts. You get unlimited |
| 1:51.4 | reading on Slate.com and the Slate app. You get every Slate game and you will be supporting Slate's |
| 1:57.9 | independent journalism at a time when independent journalists, Slate, |
| 2:03.7 | and we here at Decodering, could really use your help. As you will hear in this episode, |
| 2:10.3 | we could not make Decodering without our listeners. We get so much from you guys, and we work |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Slate Audio, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of Slate Audio and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.