Speaking of This American Life (as I did in the last post: 2 units each), yesterday I listened to the most hysterical episode of the show that I have ever heard. At one point I was moaning out of embarrassment for the person, at another point I cried, and a host of the stories had me laughing out loud.
Here's their summary of the show:
241: 20 Acts in 60 MinutesInstead of the regular "each week we choose a theme, and bring you three or four stories on that theme" business, this week we throw all that away and bring you twenty stories—yes, twenty—in sixty minutes. Inspiration for this week's show came from the Neo-Futurists, whose long-running Chicago show Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind promises 30 Plays in 60 Minutes every single weekend.In the interest of space, we won't list every single act name. Some of the many topics you'll hear covered: the pitfalls of being almost famous, the greatest dog name in the world, the magic words to get into West Point, and more more more. Several stories come from Jay Allison and Atlantic Public Media (who also run the 'anyone can make radio' website Transom.org). You can hear more of their fantastically short pieces for public radio stations WCAI and WNAN at their site. Also, we hear from writers Jonathan Goldstein, Etgar Keret, Chuck Klosterman, David Lipsky, and David Sedaris. One story—made by a teenager locked up in juvenile detention—came from Blunt Radio.
Listen to it for free online or download it for $1 to put on your ipod or on a CD. Pencil it in for your next 1-hr drive, 1-hr house cleaning, or whatever! You'll be happy you did.
PS- I know this post says it was by Tim, but it's me, Hannah. I think it would be bad stewardship of my time to go back and fix this, but I thought I should clarify that although Tim was laughing during the show, I was the only one moaning and crying.
