This American Life

Alright -- being asked to listen to episodes of TAL is maybe the best assignment I've ever been given in school. I am an avid TAL fan, and have a huge crush on Ira Glass. But that is beside the point. I'm tempted to take the first few paragraphs of this blog to chronicle my devotion to this radio program, but that's not really the blog assignment, is it? That said, I think I will write two or three sentences anyway -- just because the format of a blog allows for it.

I started listening to TAL life in 2000, but it wasn't until 2005 (or there abouts) that I found the free podcast. What I've done since then is to download the weekly podcast, supplement it with past episodes, which only cost 95 cents, and then listen to them as I run and/or bike. I've trained for several marathons with only my dog and Ira as companions -- and they're all I really need.

I'm certain I like this program for the reasons that we were assigned to listen to a couple of episodes -- because of the sounds the listener gets to hear and the stories they create. The three episodes in our class schedule are wonderful representations of the way in which this program uses sound in innovative ways.

My favorite sound, which others have picked up on and tried out in their own radio shows, is laughter -- the sincere laughter -- of the host, Ira. The short piece about the babysitters who let fall our of their bag evidence of their having eaten a grapefruit and a can of black beans gives us the best of Ira's laugh. But it's in every episode. When he finds something is funny, he laughs and he doesn't edit out this genuine response to someone else's words/story.

What else? Ira creates an intimacy with his audience by speaking into the microphone in a regular voice, with regular intonation, and real pacing. If he wants to repeat himself, he does. (There's a great example of this in the New Beginnings Episode -- I forget the phrase he repeats, but he repeats it three times before finishing his sentence.) It is as if he is looking us "in the eye," as he was advised to do in that first show. It feels to me a little like getting a tape from my grandmother when I was little. As she talked into the microphone, she had a real audience -- my family and me -- in mind, and we knew it by her voice and by her pauses.

Of course the most obvious brilliant use of sound that Ira employs is music. I loved the music he chose for the start of the 20 short acts episode -- fast paced, made to feel like hurrying. I also love the carnival tunes he often chooses to create a sense of the unordinary within the ordinary. A favorite episode, which was recently replayed but came out first two summers ago, was about breakups. Starlee Kine tells asking Phil Collins how to write a great love song about unrequitted love. She plays the best tragic love songs as a part of her piece -- from Phil Collins to Bonnie Raitt's "I can't make you love me." The music, including the song she eventually writes, makes fun in a very good natured way of all break up songs ever written. I remember listening to that story while running through a canyon up in the Sacramentos and feeling almost sheepishly embarrassed at my own love of break up songs and their sticky sweet sappiness. It was wonderful.

I listened to the "A Little Bit of Knowledge" episode this past July while weeding. I found myself laughing out loud at the many times I too have gotten into adulthood without questioning basic assumptions, as well contributing to my own version of "Modern Jackass." So in this case -- and many others, I not only hear Ira's laughter at an adult who doesn't yet realize that unicorns aren't real, but my own laughter. And of course I never listen to David Sidaris' contributions without laughing out loud. Ira seems to have access to stories and story tellers with whom I connect.

The music, the quality of voice and recording, Ira's and my laughter, the organic sounds in the stories told -- they all have part in making this one of the best radio shows ever.