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Drunkboxer posted:There's a lot of "my sister had cancer" or stories as well, or "I adopted a baby the end" stories. I think it fools a lot of people because the story teller will sometimes show a lot of emotion while telling it, but if you think about it it's just an unremarkable story being told by someone that it didn't even happen to. Thought you were talking about the 'Cry for Help' episode for a minute. The stories themselves weren't that terrible, but they really really needed to be edited. The first one wastes a lot of time taking about the media circus even though it's fairly irrelevant to the story, the second one started strong and then faded into blandness and shilling for someone else's podcast, and the third gives us ten minutes of someone blathering about her sister's 'technically undiagnosed autism' before getting to the painfully obvious turn. There's a reason the better stories like that involve someone outside the family doing the story. vvvv It was a wonderful thing that happened to her and I certainly felt happier for hearing it. It just needed to be trimmed in the telling. Kangra fucked around with this message at 18:14 on May 17, 2014 |
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May 17, 2014 06:06
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If the autistic girl making a turnaround (and the obvious glee from the parents in this) didn't make you feel good and put a spring in your step then please stop listening to TAL. That's it's pace and style and there is plenty of other punchy, edgy stuff to go and listen to.
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May 17, 2014 08:26
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I listed to "Petty Tyrant" and a few others (Hitler's Boat, the Jerry Springer one, and one about the financial crisis) a couple years ago, enjoyed them a lot, then promptly got sidetracked and forgot about TAL. Lately I've listened to a few I've found in the thread or in the Featured section: Doppelgangers (was literally lol'ing at "It's a story about possibility. It's classic rags to riches..."), Separated at Birth, and the Coca Cola recipe one. Anyone else want to give me some more of their favorites? I'll be honest, I haven't hit a bad one yet... makes chores/cleaning my place go way quicker 
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May 20, 2014 11:22
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Individual opinions may vary, but the first ~25 minutes of Fiasco! remains one of the funniest segments the show has ever produced (my sole other post in this thread even mentions it, haha). However it's been so long since I've listened with any frequency I can't think of any other recs right off the top of my head. There's a hell of a back catalog to get through though, and only a handful of total duds (#511), so enjoy!
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May 21, 2014 01:06
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Pompous Rhombus posted:Anyone else want to give me some more of their favorites? I'll be honest, I haven't hit a bad one yet... makes chores/cleaning my place go way quicker I really liked the summer camp one that was re-aired back last year, though it's incredibly dated. They just interview a bunch of kids at this one summer camp and talk to them about their experiences there. I thought it was pretty cute. 
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May 21, 2014 01:21
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flesh dance posted:Individual opinions may vary, but the first ~25 minutes of Fiasco! remains one of the funniest segments the show has ever produced (my sole other post in this thread even mentions it, haha). Which one is 511? The ep where they talk about the 7 things that aren't fancy dinner conversation? edit: just re-read the Fiasco! show notes. I would have to agree with you.
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May 21, 2014 01:25
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I feel like the episodes dedicated to one long story are superior to the ones with several segments, so much so that when I see "stories" in the description I'm almost instantly disinterested unless the theme is compelling.
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May 21, 2014 02:35
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24 Hours at the Golden Apple is really good. It has this great slice of life feel to it that I think a lot of recent TAL seems to lack, and it really reminded me of Studs Terkel's Working. These people don't have to live extraordinary lives to be interesting. On a similar note, 129 Cars is also good. You really do start to root for the people, and you feel their setbacks and whatnot. Both of these lack David Sedaris, which seems to be my qualifier to even be considered a good episode. Edit: For more journalistic punch, Harper High School Part One and Part Two are great.
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May 21, 2014 02:45
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GrandpaPants posted:Edit: For more journalistic punch, Harper High School Part One and Part Two are great. This really is the pinnacle of journalistic TAL.
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May 21, 2014 03:06
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Americans in Paris was reaired this week, and while it isn't my favorite episode, it is an example of my favorite type of episode: a complex theme or common trope that you can instantly grok from the episode title, approached from a variety of angles both serious and humorous and political, and also David Sedaris because, why not?
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May 21, 2014 03:24
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The two that hooked me to TAL were House on Loon Lake and NUMMI. Both of them are each one long story, and the kind of story I look forward to.
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May 21, 2014 16:39
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Zohn posted:Americans in Paris was reaired this week, and while it isn't my favorite episode, it is an example of my favorite type of episode: a complex theme or common trope that you can instantly grok from the episode title, approached from a variety of angles both serious and humorous and political, and also David Sedaris because, why not? I re-listened to this as well. First of all I thought the Parisian music loop was godawful. It was also hilarious to me that they played Niggas in Paris after the final story. Hollis Brown fucked around with this message at 02:04 on May 23, 2014 |
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May 23, 2014 01:52
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48 Hour Boner posted:The two that hooked me to TAL were House on Loon Lake and NUMMI. Both of them are each one long story, and the kind of story I look forward to. Those two are great, always like to re-listen to them every now and then. Some of the multiple story episodes are good, in my opinion. Like "Middle of the Night", "Matchmakers", and "How to Rest in Peace"
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May 23, 2014 02:54
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"Very Tough Love" is an outstanding work of journalism that actually had an impact.
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May 23, 2014 03:03
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Tater Love 
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48 Hour Boner posted:The two that hooked me to TAL were House on Loon Lake and NUMMI. Both of them are each one long story, and the kind of story I look forward to. I listened to the NUMMI one a week ago, really got me hooked. I decided to just go back to episode 1 and go from there. Finding it quite uneven, some segments set my teeth on edge (the card game skit from Episode 2, the 20 tedious minutes about "Duki" the imaginary friend from episode 3), and some are absolutely brilliant/powerful, like the one about the night 3,000 turkeys died. When it's good, it's great, when it sucks... well, the fast forward button is right there. I like the app too, nice to be able to cache an episode for offline listening (be nice if it could be more than 1 ep, but not the end of the world) and have everything right there.
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Jun 9, 2014 01:41
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Another great one-story episode is "352: The Ghost of Bobby Dunbar".
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Jun 20, 2014 22:10
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Which episode has the Santa Claus wars? That was a perfect shorter segment.
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Jun 20, 2014 23:49
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Admiral Goodenough posted:Which episode has the Santa Claus wars? That was a perfect shorter segment. Scenes from a Mall the first ever TAL episode I ever heard!
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Jun 21, 2014 02:54
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Is it just me, or has TAL gotten much more depressing in the past few years? The typical TAL story now seems to be one that you think is going to end with an uplifting resolution and instead it just... ends in the lurch. There are some episodes where I'm like "That wasn't even a story. That was poverty porn. There's no resolution except that now I feel bad." Am I the only one who feels like TAL has become a sad show?
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Jun 21, 2014 03:13
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There's nothing the core NPR crowd loves more is to hear a sad story and cluck their tongues and go 'oh dear oh dear oh dear' so they can bring it up next time they're talking about how the world is just terrible and if only someone would do something. It's tragedy porn because the listeners have fallen into the tumblr trap of thinking 'awareness' fixes anything on its own, so by nodding and agreeing that these stories are quite sad they're helping, really!
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Jun 21, 2014 03:52
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TAL raised lots of money for Harper High School after their story ended with the school facing a budget crisis. What did people think of the Asa Carter story? I had never heard of the book, and I thought it was fascinating.
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Jun 21, 2014 05:20
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Tatum Girlparts posted:There's nothing the core NPR crowd loves more is to hear a sad story and cluck their tongues and go 'oh dear oh dear oh dear' so they can bring it up next time they're talking about how the world is just terrible and if only someone would do something. It's tragedy porn because the listeners have fallen into the tumblr trap of thinking 'awareness' fixes anything on its own, so by nodding and agreeing that these stories are quite sad they're helping, really! Or maybe it's just because the story is interesting. There's a lot of suffering in the world and I feel that knowing about it can make you more empathetic even if you're not rushing to Pakistan to free the children working in brick kilns.
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Jun 22, 2014 20:13
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Meatwave posted:Is it just me, or has TAL gotten much more depressing in the past few years? The typical TAL story now seems to be one that you think is going to end with an uplifting resolution and instead it just... ends in the lurch. There are some episodes where I'm like "That wasn't even a story. That was poverty porn. There's no resolution except that now I feel bad." Part of it is that they're basically turned their back on the kind of thing that made them famous. I mean, you still get the occasional fiction segment, but the kind of light, comic, exaggerated thing that David Sedaris, David Rakoff, Sarah Vowell, Starlee Kine, and others used to do wouldn't fly now because it's not "journalism" or clear-cut fiction. I think the Mike Daisy thing, and the ensuing questions about journalistic integrity, were kind of the point of no return for this.
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Jun 26, 2014 02:47
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zakharov posted:What did people think of the Asa Carter story? I had never heard of the book, and I thought it was fascinating. I kind of felt the exact same way. An interesting case of a maybe-fakeout but I have never heard of that book before.
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Jun 26, 2014 04:32
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This week's episode was their best ever, except for the last segment.
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Jun 26, 2014 05:08
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Republican Vampire posted:Part of it is that they're basically turned their back on the kind of thing that made them famous. I mean, you still get the occasional fiction segment, but the kind of light, comic, exaggerated thing that David Sedaris, David Rakoff, Sarah Vowell, Starlee Kine, and others used to do wouldn't fly now because it's not "journalism" or clear-cut fiction. I doubt this. They're a show. They'll do what gets them audience share. If the Squirrel Fable and Droll Tidbit demographic is big enough, they'll get back to it. Personally, I think Snap Judgement has been doing a much better job of what TAL used to be the best at, and some of TAL's best work has been in their more serious pieces, but there still seems to be room for the coastal hipster bits that people know and love.
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Jun 26, 2014 20:02
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doctorfrog posted:I doubt this. They're a show. They'll do what gets them audience share. If the Squirrel Fable and Droll Tidbit demographic is big enough, they'll get back to it. Personally, I think Snap Judgement has been doing a much better job of what TAL used to be the best at, and some of TAL's best work has been in their more serious pieces, but there still seems to be room for the coastal hipster bits that people know and love. I have a hard time with Snap Judgment because of the host's stories, which are boring as hell. That and all the stories at aren't even stories when you think about them.
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Jun 26, 2014 20:37
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Drunkboxer posted:I have a hard time with Snap Judgment because of the host's stories, which are boring as hell. That and all the stories at aren't even stories when you think about them. Same. I hate listening to the host's framing of the stories. I guess in the same way that Ira Glass can grate on people's ears.
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Jun 26, 2014 20:43
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Had no idea that Philip Glass was related to Ira.
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Jun 26, 2014 21:04
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doctorfrog posted:I doubt this. They're a show. They'll do what gets them audience share. If the Squirrel Fable and Droll Tidbit demographic is big enough, they'll get back to it. Personally, I think Snap Judgement has been doing a much better job of what TAL used to be the best at, and some of TAL's best work has been in their more serious pieces, but there still seems to be room for the coastal hipster bits that people know and love. I don't disagree that "journalism" gets them audience share. Harper High had more downloads than any other story. The shift in tone and material began years ago when they got a lot of accolades for their collaborations with Planet Money. It's not some binary switch. The winds had been blowing that way for quite some time. That said, you're also completely wrong if the staff of TAL can be trusted. Ira himself has said that they'd approach people like Sedaris and that kind of material in a fundamentally different way post-Daisy, and he's been cited as saying that in the Washington Post. Also as much as I might recognize the po-faced, middle class depression porn material in their more serious stuff, I prefer the looser stuff. I prefer Loon Lake to Dos Erres, and I'd much rather learn about what happens in Santaland than learn what some divinity grad thinks about the big pile of money.
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Jun 27, 2014 05:35
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I don't think it's fair to conflate David Sedaris and Mike Daisy. David Sedaris presents himself as an entertainer, and Mike Daisy presented himself as a journalist conducting an expose. It's OK for David Sedaris to invent a conversation with his mother. It's not OK for Mike Daisy to invent a conversation with an abused worker while accusing a company of unethical behavior. I understand that TAL would be cautious about the former after airing the latter. And they definitely need a way to differentiate between their serious journalism and their less-rigorous storytelling. But they should be able to find a way to do both without one hurting the other. It's cool that they're even trying. I don't know anywhere else that does anything like that.
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Jun 27, 2014 13:29
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The issue with autobiographical / journalistic stories reaches back even further, it's just that TAL never felt the brunt of it until Daisy. I remember seeing Sedaris give a talk when someone asked him what it was like to do his sort of work after the debacle with A Million Little Pieces broke. He said his publisher was calling up his friends just to make sure a conversation about dirty laundry actually took place.
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Jun 27, 2014 14:19
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doctorfrog posted:I doubt this. They're a show. They'll do what gets them audience share. If the Squirrel Fable and Droll Tidbit demographic is big enough, they'll get back to it. Personally, I think Snap Judgement has been doing a much better job of what TAL used to be the best at, and some of TAL's best work has been in their more serious pieces, but there still seems to be room for the coastal hipster bits that people know and love. I now prefer Snap Judgement to TAL, but they're both lower tier podcast played last for me.
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Jun 27, 2014 19:22
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One thing I've always wondered is if there is a sizable international audience who listens to This American Life. And is there say, a UK version of this type of show?
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Jun 28, 2014 05:49
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Wow, the segment about Nasubi on the most recent episode was both fascinating and horrifying. I know that Japanese TV was known for its ridiculousness, but never to that extent. Now The Onion's parody of reality TV seems much more plausible... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0App7QizQCU
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Jun 30, 2014 03:07
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Max posted:The issue with autobiographical / journalistic stories reaches back even further, it's just that TAL never felt the brunt of it until Daisy. I remember seeing Sedaris give a talk when someone asked him what it was like to do his sort of work after the debacle with A Million Little Pieces broke. He said his publisher was calling up his friends just to make sure a conversation about dirty laundry actually took place. The thing is, Sedaris does take license at times, because he's an essayist/memoirist/creative-non-fictionist and that's what you're supposed to do in that genre. There's some confusion because the audience has grown over the past ten years but it used to just be understood that what you do when you write that sort of work is that some hyperbole for the sake of entertainment is to be expected, because what you're going for is verisimilitude, not God's Honest Truth. I hope that TAL hasn't closed the door on this sort of thing because of Mike Daisey because they are one of the few outlets for the essayist out there.
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Jun 30, 2014 08:07
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peter banana posted:I now prefer Snap Judgement to TAL, but they're both lower tier podcast played last for me. What are you top tier podcasts? Also, I'll have to give Snap Judgment a try.
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Jun 30, 2014 17:27
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Rick posted:The thing is, Sedaris does take license at times, because he's an essayist/memoirist/creative-non-fictionist and that's what you're supposed to do in that genre. There's some confusion because the audience has grown over the past ten years but it used to just be understood that what you do when you write that sort of work is that some hyperbole for the sake of entertainment is to be expected, because what you're going for is verisimilitude, not God's Honest Truth. He actually mentioned that. It was never a problem and no one bothered to really follow up on that stuff until the Million Little Pieces debacle.
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Jun 30, 2014 17:42
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Hitch posted:What are you top tier podcasts? I started listening to Snap Judgement about a month or two ago. Think of it as a mix of the sound mixing of Radiolab with the stories of TAL. I really like it and it's pretty obvious when stories are exaggerated. It's actually my preferred one over TAL now. I haven't enjoyed TAL as much as I used to.
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Jun 30, 2014 18:43
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calandryll posted:I started listening to Snap Judgement about a month or two ago. Think of it as a mix of the sound mixing of Radiolab with the stories of TAL. I really like it and it's pretty obvious when stories are exaggerated. It's actually my preferred one over TAL now. I haven't enjoyed TAL as much as I used to. I love RadioLab but I feel like it has changed recently. Not quite sure what it is, but the same feels true for TAL. Both seem to me to have changed recently on the type of work they do. ...maybe it's me that's changed. 
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Jun 30, 2014 22:14
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