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Hitch posted: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. Nah, it's not just you. They did a podcast recently called "60 words" that exemplifies the change quite well. That was about the war against terror. Before that was an episode on the "neither confirm nor deny" phrase and another one about amazon fulfillment centers. Arguably, only half of their episodes are now actually about science, wonder, education, and their usual forte.
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Jun 30, 2014 22:35
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That's a good point about Radiolab. I hadn't noticed the change too much. Though the most recent one about the brain electrodes was pretty good.
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Jun 30, 2014 23:26
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Absolutely agree. I think the "60 Words" episode was when I stepped back and really noticed that things had changed, but it's been a few years in the making.
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Jun 30, 2014 23:33
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Hitch posted:What are you top tier podcasts? Uhh Yeah Dude, Roderick on the Line, Intelligence Squared, Smartest Man in The World & some farming podcasts.
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Jul 1, 2014 00:21
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The one thing I hate about Snap Judgment is that they never put a list of the songs they use in their podcasts. They have some really great nu-jazz and chillout songs that are right up my alley.
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Jul 1, 2014 03:21
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Does anyone have recommended episodes of Snap Judgment to start with?
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Jul 1, 2014 04:35
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I find the host of Snap Judgement to be very difficult to listen to, which is saying a lot considering the deviated septum voice of the guy who opens TAL every week, plus every other NPR host.
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Jul 1, 2014 04:52
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I really like TAL still. I actually appear to be in the minority but the serious stories are just as enjoyable for me. I wouldn't call it middle class liberal misery porn either. It's telling interesting stories by and large. I do love the light airy episodes like the one that takes place at the rest stop too. I'm fine skipping episodes that bore me but they are few and far between.
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Jul 1, 2014 04:54
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soggybagel posted: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? The UK version of TAL was called Jon Ronson On. Ronson had tried to get Radio 4 to do reruns of TAL, but rather than buying it off of PRI they instead had him do his own version. The format was slightly different. The running time was around 30 minutes rather than TAL's 60, and so obviously they covered less ground. Rather than multiple full fledged acts, there'd be one main story and it'd kind of be interwoven with more conversational stuff on the same theme. You can find quite a few of the episodes on YouTube or the Internet Archive.
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Jul 3, 2014 18:55
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wafflesnsegways posted:Does anyone have recommended episodes of Snap Judgment to start with? The first one I heard was The Mercenary. Thought it was pretty interesting and got me hooked.
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Jul 3, 2014 19:37
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So, TALers.. in the car today on a long drive I heard the 'Live Radio Drama' show.. I think it's the latest where they're doing TAL in a theater and turning the stories into performances. A little hit and miss but the musical version of the story of the kid being busted for selling weed (to the undercover female cop in school) I thought was great. Enjoyed it immensely, particularly if you're a TAL regular and know the story from before. The origianl story always pissed me off a bit in that the female cop was so self righteous and yeah sure, what she is doing is catching people selling drugs in school.. but it stinks so hard of entrapment that I could never agree that kid should have gone down in a fireball like he did. Thoughts (on both the original story and the musical retelling)?
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Jul 3, 2014 22:18
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I thought that was the high point of that episode, yeah. As for the original story I kind of waver between exactly agreeing with what you said and not caring about that kid because he was such a dummy. I guess all teenagers are dumb though so I guess it's not really fair.
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Jul 3, 2014 22:28
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I agree, although one of the interesting things about the story was how you could almost see how the cop ended up there, although I was never really on her side. The musical version was a lot less nuanced, and was basically villainizing her. On the whole, that radio drama episode was one of the most Public Radio sounding things I've ever heard, made even tougher to listen to by the audience. I barely made it through the smug applause that followed the mention of Phillip Glass's name. I did like that musical sequence despite myself, though.
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Jul 3, 2014 22:29
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Not being American I assume 'public radio sounding' means self-congratulatory and the best word, I guess, would be pretentious. Basically a bunch of people slapping each other on the back about their heartfelt amazing 'work' when lots of it amounts to some loving dreary poo poo that wouldn't find a home anywhere else. I got into the swing of it just with the whole 'TAL-fever' that you would be naturally trying to work in a live performance of the show. Still.. there is lovely stuff but I still just shrug it off and say 'ok that didn't work, but at least I'm getting something fresh and a bit out there rather than godawful mainstream media'. edit: oh yeah, on the kid in that story. I have to look up what a felony charge is because we don't have such a thing but that is serious, serious poo poo. So he gets one for selling some weed, in a case that any judge can hear he wasn't really selling anything and just trying to get into this girl's pants. Some weed, a little baggie of weed. Weed is legal in Cali, right, but federally it's not which is just an awesome mash of logic. I'm pretty sure I would have done the same thing at 18, can many of you say you wouldn't have? You were that much of a straight-laced boring nerd that you would have said NO WAY, MISSY, I DO NOT ENGAGE IN SUCH BEHAVIORS! A pretty girl could have asked me electrocute my dick with a 9 volt battery for laughs and I would have unzipped my fly in seconds. Tony Montana fucked around with this message at 22:42 on Jul 3, 2014 |
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Jul 3, 2014 22:37
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Tony Montana posted:Not being American I assume 'public radio sounding' means self-congratulatory and the best word, I guess, would be pretentious. Basically a bunch of people slapping each other on the back about their heartfelt amazing 'work' when lots of it amounts to some loving dreary poo poo that wouldn't find a home anywhere else. That's about right. Public radio is great, but can sometimes pander to what it sees as its main audience and donor base, which is wealthy older liberals. That pandering can be annoying but also kind of charming, because it's not a group of people that is otherwise pandered to by the media. (The other funny source for this is New York Times trend pieces.)
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Jul 3, 2014 23:00
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Tony Montana posted:Some weed, a little baggie of weed. Weed is legal in Cali, right, but federally it's not which is just an awesome mash of logic. This story took place in Florida, though*. Even in California, it's not quite legal for everyone (although de facto it pretty much is for anyone who wants it). Colorado and Washington state (where Seattle is) did just legalize it. There's actually a good TAL story on the twisted state-federal logic from this last year, Nipped in the Bud. As for the kid, he deserves the blame for doing something stupid and illegal, but the cop seemed to be trying her hardest to put him in that position. It's no use saying you're actually helping people when instead of keeping them away from danger you push them toward it and see if they fall. That said, I think it's hard to tell just from what we heard in the story how much was constructed by the editors, or the lawyers, or other people involved. They made some genuine statements at times, but not a lot of it felt authentic. Maybe that's why the musical version works better; it's presented less realistically. *It's interesting to me that for many of the stories they air, how people talk, what they are talking about, and how they describe things will almost instantly give most Americans listening an idea of where the story is set. I guess it's sort of lost on international audiences, but it's something that's often done well and kind of subtly.
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Jul 4, 2014 03:04
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The story about the game show in this week's episode was horrifying
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Jul 4, 2014 16:14
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I really hope they never do another 20 acts in 60 minutes thing again, since that was really, really boring. I think a format like that gravitates towards humor pieces more, but I also realized that I'm probably not their target audience for humor. It all felt like the sort of anecdotes that you'd hear at wine parties or something, where people try to impress meaning into mundane events without putting any effort into making it funny. Also, I am fairly certain they'd done that "Mama, I'm sorry" thing before, but I can't recall where.
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Jul 10, 2014 16:10
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GrandpaPants posted:Also, I am fairly certain they'd done that "Mama, I'm sorry" thing before, but I can't recall where.
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Jul 10, 2014 17:45
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GrandpaPants posted:I really hope they never do another 20 acts in 60 minutes thing again, since that was really, really boring. Yeah it was terrible. I think they've done it before, I've heard another show like that. I was alone in a car, with about 300 kms in front of me to drive (which is a couple of hours at least, European highways mean about 130-150 kph  ) and I still turned that poo poo off. Just gently caress off, not funny or interesting and just lame.
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Jul 10, 2014 21:36
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i haven't listened to 20 acts in 60 minutes in a while but i think act 19 and 20 are both pretty good and a bunch of them are p interesting. it is kind of a time filler segment tho. i just listened to 388. rest stop and i really liked that one what are some other shows where it's just quick windows into ordinary lives.
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Jul 10, 2014 21:43
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My buddy produces a sketch comedy festival and I asked him once what the most played out, cliched premise he's seen while watching horrible audition tapes. He said it was the meta-dialogue sketch with things like "statement" "question?" and "witty comeback". TAL then played that exact bit as an example of some theatre group's ground-breaking concept: SHORT PLAYS.
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Jul 10, 2014 21:46
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misdirectomy posted:My buddy produces a sketch comedy festival and I asked him once what the most played out, cliched premise he's seen while watching horrible audition tapes. He said it was the meta-dialogue sketch with things like "statement" "question?" and "witty comeback". TAL then played that exact bit as an example of some theatre group's ground-breaking concept: SHORT PLAYS. I didn't know people did that with horrible audition tapes, but Steven Soderbergh did it in 1996 with Schizopolis.
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Jul 10, 2014 22:23
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Tony Montana posted:Yeah it was terrible. I think they've done it before, I've heard another show like that. This week was a rerun so you may have heard this exact episode before
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Jul 11, 2014 01:29
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dongsbot 9000 posted:
24 Hours at the Golden Apple is the gold standard of that type. There aren't that many that work as well. '129 Cars' has some of that feeling (except the people are all of a type - buying and selling cars), and 'Notes from Camp' kind of does too (there most of the captured lives are kids).
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Jul 11, 2014 06:20
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dongsbot 9000 posted:i just listened to 388. rest stop and i really liked that one what are some other shows where it's just quick windows into ordinary lives. If you haven't already, I would really recommend you read some Studs Terkel, especially Working if you want quick windows into ordinary lives. Absolutely love that book.
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Jul 11, 2014 06:34
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The Berzerker posted:This week was a rerun so you may have heard this exact episode before Yeah. This.
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Jul 11, 2014 08:12
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misdirectomy posted:My buddy produces a sketch comedy festival and I asked him once what the most played out, cliched premise he's seen while watching horrible audition tapes. He said it was the meta-dialogue sketch with things like "statement" "question?" and "witty comeback". TAL then played that exact bit as an example of some theatre group's ground-breaking concept: SHORT PLAYS. As pointed out, it's a repeat. It originally aired more than ten years ago so, barring the Soderbergh reference, the episode (or the theatre group) may be part of the reason why it's now a cliche. Hardly the show's fault.
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Jul 15, 2014 11:20
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What's going on with "530: Mind Your Own Business"? Can't seem to get it to play through any of the usual ways, and supposedly it's been out for 5 days?
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Jul 16, 2014 17:55
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That must be a typo. Last week was a repeat of 293. A Little Bit of Knowledge and the new episode shouldn't be on radios until Friday, online on Sunday.
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Jul 16, 2014 18:17
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Kangra posted:24 Hours at the Golden Apple is the gold standard of that type. There aren't that many that work as well. '129 Cars' has some of that feeling (except the people are all of a type - buying and selling cars), and 'Notes from Camp' kind of does too (there most of the captured lives are kids). 413: Georgia Rambler is another example of that style. 6 ten minute stories, I think most are good. It's been a while since I listened to it.
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Jul 16, 2014 20:28
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I'm digging this Georgia Rambler show. "In psychology what is it? The Maslow's hierarchy of needs? Krystal hamburgers in the South is at the top of Maslow's hierarchy." in that Georgian voice cracked me up when I heard it. Extremely disappointing that they didn't do this show recently so the Pickens County story would cover Doobie. got some chores tonight fucked around with this message at 21:09 on Jul 16, 2014 |
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Jul 16, 2014 21:06
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I just came here to say that ever since discovering Snap Judgement a few months ago I now have a TAL backlog of about a few months now. I can't deal with Ira anymore. Glenn is leagues beyond Ira's storytelling ability and his hosed up past makes those stories even better, the presentation is engaging and we hear more than the same 5 songs used as punctuation over and over (If I donate to you Ira, will you license more than just that one Bonobo track?). In fact, the music is one of the best parts of Snap. It's fun being taken back through 30 years of beats. The contributor stories are about on par with TAL, otherwise. I can't recommend enough to at least putting this in your rotation after TAL and before RadioLab.
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Jul 18, 2014 15:56
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Yeah, Snap Judgment rocks, and it's definitely a lot better than RadioLab (which I still find almost unlistenably obnoxious). I think one of the keys to me still enjoying TAL is that I'm able to tell relatively early on if I'm going to enjoy a story or not, and if I'm not going to (e.g. if it's a David Sedaris story), I just skip to the next one. dik-dik fucked around with this message at 16:05 on Jul 18, 2014 |
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Jul 18, 2014 16:00
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I lost a lot of respect for Ira after hearing what he does for his retarded spoiled dog
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Jul 21, 2014 06:22
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To each his own, I guess. Personally I can't stand the Snap Judgement guy, to the point that I can't really listen to the show.
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Jul 21, 2014 18:44
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I came to the realization people are crazy when it comes to their pets. Still, what Ira does for his dog is loving insane. Also the way he waves off the fact that the dog has bitten him, his wife, and even children to the point where it broke the skin was annoying.
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Jul 21, 2014 19:00
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The segment on cheerleading was pretty disappointing. I was half expecting them to start singing the virtues of the Sphere of Domesticity.
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Jul 21, 2014 19:14
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soggybagel posted:I came to the realization people are crazy when it comes to their pets. It's like a Dead Parrot Sketch, only with a violent dog. "He bit me." "Those are nips" "It broke the skin. My hand hurts." "Those are love nips. He really loves you a lot." "I'm bleeding. You dog is still growling." "We call those bloody nips. And he's purring. That's how he purrs." "You dog attacked and killed my puppy." "You puppy was about to die and my dog ran over and heroically gave comfort nips to his jugular to ease his passing. He's a hero, my dog!"
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Jul 21, 2014 19:16
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SinetheGuy posted:The segment on cheerleading was pretty disappointing. I was half expecting them to start singing the virtues of the Sphere of Domesticity. Yeah, for sure. Also, while Act II was good, it felt like they didn't wait until the story was fully over before airing it.
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Jul 21, 2014 19:51
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