{"podcast":{"title":"Sleeping with Celebrities","slug":"sleeping-with-celebrities-6040543","podcast_index_feed_id":6040543,"rss_url":"https://feeds.simplecast.com/ebjiDp6h","website_url":"https://www.maximumfun.org/podcasts/sleeping-with-celebrities","image_url":"https://image.simplecastcdn.com/images/0838eec6-85d9-4e04-824b-d59d3798a659/21d20fe2-3253-4fef-a1e2-1de63855db7c/3000x3000/sleeping-with-celebrities.jpg?aid=rss_feed","author":"Maximum Fun","episode_count":208,"summary":"Getting to sleep can be difficult sometimes. Now you can achieve that urgently needed rest by taking advantage of our most precious natural resource: celebrities. Each week on the slyly humorous and reassuring Sleeping with Celebrities, host John Moe talks with a different guest from the world of entertainment about something they know a lot about. The conversation is guaranteed to be just interesting enough to draw your attention away from your own swirling anxieties but never interesting enough to keep you awake. No startling revelations, no dramatic screaming confrontations, but plenty of low-key dialogue, intricately laced deadpan comedy, and a ticket to dreamland.","last_synced_at":"2026-07-29T16:18:55.267398+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/sleeping-with-celebrities-6040543"},"episode":{"title":"NPR’s Glen Weldon Talks The Silmarillion and That Ought To Put You To Sleep","slug":"npr-s-glen-weldon-talks-the-silmarillion-and-that-ought-to-put-you-to-sleep","published_at":"2026-07-01T07:00:00+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/sleeping-with-celebrities-6040543/npr-s-glen-weldon-talks-the-silmarillion-and-that-ought-to-put-you-to-sleep","show_page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/sleeping-with-celebrities-6040543","url":"https://www.maximumfun.org/podcasts/sleeping-with-celebrities","audio_url":"https://afp-9384.calisto.simplecastaudio.com/f0e4476d-3ac9-477a-9c63-2fcc05183b2b/episodes/d12f9f9d-fa29-4fa4-b859-e7a82dbdef2f/audio/128/default.mp3?aid=rss_feed&awCollectionId=f0e4476d-3ac9-477a-9c63-2fcc05183b2b&awEpisodeId=d12f9f9d-fa29-4fa4-b859-e7a82dbdef2f&feed=ebjiDp6h","summary":"You have to be a slight J.R.R. Tolkien nerd to watch the Peter Jackson Lord of the Rings film series. They’re long, there’s three of them, and it helps to know your hobbits from your elves. You have to be even more of a fan to read the dense, lengthy Tolkien books. But then there’s Glen Weldon, co-host of NPR’s Pop Culture Happy Hour, who has read everything Tolkien many times over including The Silmarillion. That’s the book Tolkien died while writing with extensive arcana of the world of Middle Earth. Here’s the part in the description where I would give you examples but it’s so deep, so thickly layered, such extreme Tolkienness that I kind of zoned out just listening to Glen take this deepest of dives. “The book is structured as a history, with sections on the creation of the world, the gods (Valar), the history of the Elves and Men, and the downfall of Númenor, all centered around the conflict with the first Dark Lord, Morgoth, and the rebellion of the Elf Fëanor,” says Wikipedia, and who am I to disagree? The detail, combined with Glen’s avuncular NPR voice ought to conk you out before you can say, “Celebrimbor.”","meta_description":"You have to be a slight J.R.R. Tolkien nerd to watch the Peter Jackson Lord of the Rings film series. They’re long, there’s three of them, and it helps to…","key_points":[],"chapters":[],"topics":[],"duration_seconds":2795,"processing_state":"not_requested","actions":[{"name":"request_transcript","method":"POST","url":"https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/sleeping-with-celebrities-6040543/episodes/npr-s-glen-weldon-talks-the-silmarillion-and-that-ought-to-put-you-to-sleep/transcription-requests","description":"Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode."},{"name":"read_markdown","method":"GET","url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/sleeping-with-celebrities-6040543/npr-s-glen-weldon-talks-the-silmarillion-and-that-ought-to-put-you-to-sleep.md","description":"Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource."}]}}