The hive's buzzing about podcasts today, what with the story about Odeo on the NYT business frontpage. I've been reading about the glories of podcasting for some time from the first-movers — Winer, Curry & Searls — but it's never much appealed to me. If someone has something to say, I'd rather read it than hear it. I'm also not much for listening to my iPod through headphones. (So what do I do with it? Not much, but I do use it via a cassette-adapter in my car.)

However, this morning I've thought of podcasts I'd strap on the earplugs for, maybe even pay for. I'd love an art or architecture critic talking in my ear as I tour the new MOMA; Simon Schama annotating the Rembrandts at the MET; or Peter Schjeldahl walking me through some blockbuster exhibit. Yes, museums do audio guides all the time, and occasionally they are even good. But why should museums have a monopoly on this content? I want something unstuffy, edgy, unbeholden to any institutional pressures.

I'd also like to hear somone in my ear at certain destinations — Shelby Foote at Shiloh, say, or Ian Frazier on a particular resonant stretch of road in South Dakota (notice here I've plugged my iPod into my car stereo). Now that I written these last two, I think I should make clear I'm not looking for books-on-tape excerpts but specific narration made for looking at a certain scene from a certain vantage point.

I guess I should also make clear I'm not just looking for podcasts from big old-media types, who will of course be the last ones to do them. I'm open to anyone the blogoshpere wants to serve up. Maybe John Robb has a favorite battlefield?

This is mostly a lazyweb request for content (hopefully that works too), but I did do a few googles looking for extant examples. In 2003 an artist group called Nature and Inquiry produced Invisible Ideas: A GPS-enabled Artwalk through the Boston Public Garden and Common for PDAs. Not exactly a podcast, but kind of what I am talking about. Couldn't find anything on Audible or at ipodder, but I may have missed it.

Like I said, this is mostly a lazyweb post/request. This is what I want to hear. Someone out there get busy.