My newest obsession has been listening to hours upon hours of archived episodes of This American Life, produced in Chicago by National Public Radio. If you’re an NPR junkie like me, or maybe if you’ve overheard it playing in your parent’s car, you probably know how completely absorbing, adorable, smart and entertaining this show is. I subscribe to their free weekly podcast (easy to find on iTunes or on their website) but I just recently discovered the site which houses ALL the episodes ever aired and even better a sort of catalogue of the producers’ favorites. The favorites list is a really great place to start if you’ve never heard an episode. (On their site, Thislife.org, go to On the Radio and then Our Favorites.) I recommend “Break-Up,” “Babysitting,” “Notes on Camp,” and for a recently hilarious one, “The Super,” which will be under Episode Archive rather than Favorites. You’re gonna love Ira Glass, he’s the host, and well, he’s fantastic.
Anyway, aside from advertising my favorite form of alternative, public access radio, I wanted to talk about one specific episode I listened to the other day called “Act V” (also can be found under Our Favorites.) The format of the show is typically broken down into several acts which are all connected by a general theme. Each act tells some kind of story, whether that is in fact a work of fiction read by its author or a documentary-style look at some guy’s experience with something or other, etc. It’s casual, reflective and most importantly for our class, mundane in the best way possible. So this episode is about a woman who directs a group of inmates convicted for murder in a production of Hamlet. Needless to say, the style of the play is alternative, it’s not about celebrity or class or status and in an incredibly poignant way, it’s not even about acting. As the episode does an excellent job of describing, these are actually murderers playing roles they’ve already performed. It’s fascinating. I won’t gush on. Just listen to it.
abra
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thanks abra for your comment on This American Life. I have listened to quite a few episodes and am glad that NPR has supported this series. There are times when it seems a bit formulaic-- especially the style of speaking where there are these pauses between sentences. It's not just Ira Glass who does it-- it seems to be the show style, as everyone who is on the show starts doing it. I don't know why it bugs me, but I started hearing it -- and it now distracts me sometimes from the content.
There was a sweet tribute to Ira Glass this week on Prarie Home Companion: http://www.publicradio.org/tools/media/player/start/00:00:00:00.0/end/00:00:37:59.0/phc/2008/01/26_phc.ram
it's a few minutes in, but it is a sweet song sung by Garrison Keiler about radio and mentions Ira Glass as a hero.
I doubt if very many people your age listen to Keiler-- that is a great thing about This American Life-- more than any other show, it has made the demographics much more diverse age wise!
DeeDee
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