This American Life

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Hoops: Aug 19, 2005; A Black Mark For Retarded Posting

kuddles posted:

The Super, about an apartment superintendent who had a bunch of crazy stories and half of them turned out to be true, and a guy who made a promise to himself to not be a cold, emotionless person his father was at the job, until he encounters renters who put his bleeding heart persona to the test.

I think it's this one with the guy who tells a story about his friend who beat cancer, who meets a woman who invites him into a fantastic investment opportunity....

Anyone who listened to it knows what I mean. I was in tears laughing at that. Thinking about it now, still smiling.

# ¿ Oct 2, 2011 22:01

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# ¿ Apr 28, 2024 14:44

Hoops: Aug 19, 2005; A Black Mark For Retarded Posting

I really like The Moth, I just wish a few more people knew how to end a story. Most of the stories peak around 3/4s of the way through, then they go "so that's what happened. Thank you" and it ends with a little damp squib.

# ¿ Oct 4, 2011 17:15

Hoops: Aug 19, 2005; A Black Mark For Retarded Posting

Mogambo posted:

I really wanted to like The Moth based on the great stories they sometimes use on TAL. But, the thing is that they cherry-pick only the best stories out of the bunch for that show. However, The Moth Podcast is a mixed bag, and more often than not it veers into "my life overcoming drug addiction/depression/loneliness etc." or "look how quirky it is being me" which for me is boring and uninteresting.

There was one, maybe three months ago, where the whole thing was this woman whining about her relationship with her mother, and how messed up she was because of her non-abused, non-poor, non-endangered childhood. I completely rolled my eyes at that, it was the definition of the self-involved, neurotic, therapy-crutch cliche. I couldn't believe people were empathising and cheering, she should have been booed off the stage.

Just recently I'm starting to realise that most of them aren't that great, but I've only been listening to them for a few months so I'm not sick of it yet. The very first one I heard was the guy who was talking about being a professional stand-up comic while his child had a fatal illness, which had me close to tears. That was such a powerful story that I've been willing to keep listening to the podcast so I don't miss out on the best ones like that.

# ¿ Oct 4, 2011 22:54

Hoops: Aug 19, 2005; A Black Mark For Retarded Posting

maxnmona posted:

Speaking of humanizing Ira Glass, this interview with Ira and his wife is fascinating and really far from his This American Life persona

http://howwasyourweek.libsyn.com/ep-15-what-s-this-it-s-the-style-ira-glass-anaheed-alani

My God the intro was unbearable. Will that woman please shut the gently caress up.

# ¿ Oct 10, 2011 21:52

Hoops: Aug 19, 2005; A Black Mark For Retarded Posting

maxnmona posted:

There was one Planet Money podcast where he was interviewing someone and he introduced himself as being from public radio and the woman immediately said "Oh yeah, I love your This American Life."

Well Alex Blumberg is a producer on This American Life. It's a more famous NPR show than Planet Money as well, so I think she was just responding to that rather than mistaking him for Ira Glass. Although they do sound really similar.

# ¿ Nov 16, 2011 17:09

Hoops: Aug 19, 2005; A Black Mark For Retarded Posting

danifestmestny posted:

There was something in her voice that had me hear it the same way maxnmona did. That was from a few weeks ago and then Alex appeared briefly on TAL on the middle school episode and my brain imploded for 15 seconds

Oh yeah I remember that. Had to stop and skip back a minute to figure out what was happening.

# ¿ Nov 16, 2011 17:17

Hoops: Aug 19, 2005; A Black Mark For Retarded Posting

danifestmestny posted:

I'm finally listening to Episode 403 (thanks again for the suggestion) about NUMMI and it's hilarious and embarrassing.

I don't really know enough context about the American Auto industry and it's history to appreciate it, but it all seemed pretty hosed up.

# ¿ Nov 16, 2011 17:23

Hoops: Aug 19, 2005; A Black Mark For Retarded Posting

Just listened to the new Christmas and Commerce one, it's probably my overall favourite episode ever. There are individual stories I like better but I really liked everything in this. David Sedaris' Santaland Diary was really, really great. A few people were complaining about overexposure of him earlier in the thread, but I don't know much about him and that might have been the first thing of his I've heard. A couple of lines in the Christmas Freud part were fantastic too.

# ¿ Dec 27, 2011 04:39

Hoops: Aug 19, 2005; A Black Mark For Retarded Posting

maxnmona posted:

I know people like things to be binary because that's easier to grasp, so he must either be all good or completely worthless, but his talent is not subjective

That's such a bratty response. He's the one saying that it's not a big deal not to have him as your cup of tea and you're the one saying that he is the best monologuist in the world right now.

# ¿ Mar 19, 2012 17:55

Hoops: Aug 19, 2005; A Black Mark For Retarded Posting

Just listened to this week's David Rakoff tribute episode and it was fantastic. The bit on Rent had me laughing out loud. I don't pay a huge amount of attention to who the individual contributors are so I only really knew David Rakoff from recognising his voice. I guess it's a nice legacy that this episode was really, really strong.

# ¿ Aug 20, 2012 03:40

Hoops: Aug 19, 2005; A Black Mark For Retarded Posting

I'm listening to the latest podcast episode. The guy telling the story about eating in every restaurant. What the gently caress is he talking about? It's basically impossible to actually keep track of what he's saying. This is a pretty old episode, but I've never heard a worse segment.

# ¿ Jan 4, 2013 23:50

Hoops: Aug 19, 2005; A Black Mark For Retarded Posting

I really like his autobiographical/real-world stuff, but I agree that the animal fables don't work and just end up becoming tiresome. There'll be one or two "David Sedaris" turns of phrase or wit that I enjoy but I'll still be waiting for the whole thing to end.

# ¿ Jan 6, 2013 02:08

Hoops: Aug 19, 2005; A Black Mark For Retarded Posting

GrandpaPants posted:

Do I just not "get" David Sedaris or was his segment in the Deception episode kinda boring and meandering and not at all as hilarious as the audience thought it was? I was also kinda hoping for a better resolution to that busboy story than "I got paid crap and left," but it was a good look into a world I would (thankfully) never interact with personally, which is what This American Life does best.

I liked the David Sedaris story, it just needed a better ending. It's probably loosely based on something that actually happened, but enough of it was obviously fictionalized that he could have put in a bit of a bang at the end. I agree with the country club one too, I was surprised when it was over, I thought it was still in the setup for the actual story.

# ¿ Jan 23, 2013 16:56

Hoops: Aug 19, 2005; A Black Mark For Retarded Posting

I was really gripped by the first part of this story. One of the best TALs in a while and there's a cliffhanger in the middle...

# ¿ Feb 18, 2013 00:17

Hoops: Aug 19, 2005; A Black Mark For Retarded Posting

Chimp_On_Stilts posted:

The last two episodes of TAL deserve a Pullitzer.

I can only hope the program receives national media attention.

Just from a story-telling point of view the second wasn't as dramatic as the first (although obviously this is real life and its a good thing there was no incidents at the football game/dance) but the second half when it talked about the problem on more of a macro level was really interesting too.

# ¿ Feb 24, 2013 21:27

Hoops: Aug 19, 2005; A Black Mark For Retarded Posting

I didn't even think the impression was that dead on. It wasn't bad, but probably not enough to stand up as voice only, which I guess it really needs to be if you're doing Ira Glass.

# ¿ Mar 27, 2013 22:27

Hoops: Aug 19, 2005; A Black Mark For Retarded Posting

I just tried a youtube video and I definitely felt something pretty immediately. It was really mild, but it was like that sensation you get the second before you yawn, when your jaw muscles relax and start tingling, and it spreads to your scalp. Pretty interesting.

I put TAL on when I'm drifting off to sleep so I only remember the start of that segment, I'll have to listen to it again tonight.

# ¿ Apr 3, 2013 00:58

Hoops: Aug 19, 2005; A Black Mark For Retarded Posting

AllisonByProxy posted:

If you really enjoy listening you should throw them a few bucks for the app. It let's you stream every single episode, jump straight to specific acts, search by contributor, and much more. I'm not sure how I got by without it.

To be fair, can't you do all this on the site anyway?

# ¿ May 19, 2013 13:40

Hoops: Aug 19, 2005; A Black Mark For Retarded Posting

Sheikh Djibouti posted:

What is somewhat surprising, though, is that there's not a separate thread; shouldn't there be?

The first post on this page was from more than two weeks ago, I don't see the need. It's a 12 part show right? It'll be over by mid-December, I think the TAL thread is fine to keep discussion in.

P.S Adnan definitely did it

# ¿ Nov 3, 2014 01:51

Hoops: Aug 19, 2005; A Black Mark For Retarded Posting

Raar_Im_A_Dinosaur posted:

My biggest gripe with Serial is the stupid girl in the MailChimp ad who doesn't know how to pronounce chimp. Chaimp? Really? I don't care if you're a kid, unless it's intentional, you're a loving moron if you can't pronounce chimp.

It's definitely a little girl that isn't a native english speaker, the advert is "more than 7 million businesses around the world use Mail Chimp", it's part of the idea of the ad, no need to overthink it.

[edit]I always took her voice to be hispanic

# ¿ Nov 7, 2014 21:04

Hoops: Aug 19, 2005; A Black Mark For Retarded Posting

Republican Vampire posted:

Former TAL producer Starlee Kine has a new podcast up called Mystery Show that seems to be a pretty decompressed version of the kind of stuff she used to do on the show. She sets out, ostensibly to 'solve' a mystery (In Episode 1 it's the sudden closure of a video rental shop in Manhattan) but the story is really more about her meandering around, talking to members of the public, that sort of thing. It's done by Gimlet, a startup founded by the Planet Money people, which a lot of This American Life people apparently jumped to.

I listened to the first episode today as it was featured on the Start Up podcast (the podcast about the launch of Gimlet, if anyone doesn't know). I was sort of enjoying it as it was billed, solving minor unimportant mysteries in people's lives. Then it took the specific turn where she said (something along the lines of) "so it was then that I realised - the real mystery here wasn't about a video store, the real mystery was why do people do the things that they do?".

It really made me groan because it was the most hokey, This American Life-y crowbar ever, in the middle of a tedious section about some guy watching Fellini films. I think a sad cello even started playing in the background to give it that real extra depth.

I'll give the next episode a go, but I'm not interested if every episode tries to turn itself into a philosophical question, I'd genuinely prefer an actual mystery show.

Hoops fucked around with this message at 03:00 on May 31, 2015

# ¿ May 31, 2015 02:53

Hoops: Aug 19, 2005; A Black Mark For Retarded Posting

double post

# ¿ May 31, 2015 02:53

Hoops: Aug 19, 2005; A Black Mark For Retarded Posting

Yvonmukluk posted:

They did a repeat of the Super, so I listened to it to see what the deal was. Holy drat .

The Super was one of the first episodes I ever listened to. Weightlifting snowman was one of the funniest things I'd ever heard.

# ¿ Jul 4, 2015 12:19

Hoops: Aug 19, 2005; A Black Mark For Retarded Posting

bad day posted:

I tried to like Mystery Show but, wow, such useless and uninteresting "mysteries".

I was the same after the first episode (was literally rolling my eyes at how loving NPR it was) but it clicked for me after that. I'm sure you've already figured out that it's about the journey not the actual mystery, but once they started getting a bit more "fun" it clicked with me much better. The one about Jake Gyllenhaal's height has been the best one so far.

# ¿ Aug 5, 2015 12:17

Hoops: Aug 19, 2005; A Black Mark For Retarded Posting

Maybe it's because I don't have kids, but I have a real aversion to people trying to present their average suburban childhood experiences as some poignant snapshot of Americana, I just don't give a poo poo if your family used to gather round the TV and watch sitcoms or whatever. So I'm really struggling with this Home Movies episode. I can enjoy it if they're great storytellers, but I'm on the third of these now and it's the same droney voice each time.

# ¿ Dec 7, 2015 19:38

Hoops: Aug 19, 2005; A Black Mark For Retarded Posting

The Modern Leper posted:

Also, Zoe's been pretty good about working with the right - they sent her to Colorado to cover the Republican events during the 2012 election, and it's somewhat telling that she was able to sit down with the evangelical family for however long without them (apparently) addressing the fact that she is SUPER gay.

Well Planet Money was always just slightly right of centre economically, I assume the staff there are all somewhat anti-regulation, pro-free market? She may not vote republican but she can probably connect with them on a level that a lot of public radio people would struggle with.

# ¿ Feb 22, 2016 17:27

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# ¿ Apr 28, 2024 14:44

Hoops: Aug 19, 2005; A Black Mark For Retarded Posting

There's a decent chance they'll cover it on the new season of Start-up, it seems like exactly the sort of thing they would record.

# ¿ Oct 6, 2016 21:56

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > Rapidly Going Deaf > This American Life