These American Lives
This American Life is smart, literate, funny, nostalgic Americana for the 21st Century. It's a brilliant show, produced by National Public Radio, that mixes audio performance, storytelling, live sound, and audio archaeology into weekly themed chronicles that reflect the myriad facets of American culture better than any radio show I've heard. It's true Americana - full of memory and innovation, fear and gusto, love, hate, heroism, capitalism, fantasy, and hard reality. It's the best use and evokation of the pure mystery of radio since the heyday of Joe Frank.
This American Life is inseparable from the personality of its creator and host, Ira Glass, who to me sounds exactly like what I'd imagine Alvy Singer and Annie Hall's kid to sound like, with a cute Tom Brokaw-style guttural 'l', where "world" sounds like "worrwd." Somehow, my friend Mark inexplicably thought this voice belonged to an African American. "With that accent?" I asked, exasperated, as Mark shook his head in disbelief at Glass' photo. "With a name like Ira Glass?" Mark really had his heart set on Ira Glass as a black man. He said the revelation was something like finding out the sexy voice on the phone sex line is actually a 300-pound woman.
Well here's another bomb-diggety-bomb: Ira is Phillip Glass' cousin. Yes, here in California we get passionate about our NPR. So - as yesterday I shattered Mark's mental preconceptions of his favorite NPR personalities, let me today crush those shattered shards into powder. :-)
Let's digress a moment for a little game.
You hear the same voices and same names every day: "From National Public Radio News in Washington, I'm Corey Flintoff," or "from WHYY in Philiadelphia, I'm Terry Gross, with "Fresh Air." But do you know the faces in front of the voices? Match the public radio personality's head with their name!
(Note: the game includeds personalities from NPR, Public Radio International (PRI), KQED in San Francisco, and KCRW in Santa Monica. The photos are from the NPR, PRI, KQED, and KCRW websites.)
A. The evil imposter Jason Bentley, host of Metropolis on KCRW in Santa Monica
B. The venerable Carl Kasell, NPR newscaster and judge/scorekeeper on NPR's Wait Wait...Don't Tell Me!
C. Ira Flatow, host of NPR's Talk of the Nation: Science Friday
D. Keven Guillory, newscaster and producer of Forum on KQED
E. David Brown, host of PRI's Marketplace
F. Linda Wertheimer, Senior National Correspondent and former co-host of NPR's All Things Considered
G. Robert Siegel, co-host of NPR's All Things Considered
H. Mandalit Del Barco, NPR Los Angeles Bureau reporter
I. Terry Gross, host of NPR's Fresh Air with Terry Gross
J. Korva Coleman, NPR newscaster and host of SymphonyCast
K. Steve Inskeep, co-host of NPR's Morning Edition
L. Nic Harcourt, host of KCRW's Morning Becomes Eclectic and PRI's Sounds Eclectic
M. Melissa Block, co-host of NPR's All Things Considered
N. Corey Flintoff, NPR newscaster
O. Angie Coiro, host of KQED's Friday Forum
P. Dr. Michael Krasny, host of KQED's Forum
Q. Michelle Norris, co-host of NPR's All Things Considered
R. Neil Conan, host of NPR's Talk of the Nation
S. Jerry Neuman, KQED announcer
T. Juan Williams, NPR senior correspondent and former host of Talk of the Nation
I'll post the answers shortly.
Jerry Neuman rules. Jerry Neuman is the lovable, slightly dotty evening annoucer on KQED in San Francisco, and I remember driving home in my old, long commute, and laughing at the inevitable daily Neuman snafu: "...cool, with fog clearing to the coast by midday. Now let's turn to Angie Coiro in Metro Traffic" ...[silence]... "Angie Coiro are you there?" ...[silence]... *BEEEEEEEEEEP* ... "Woops, I believe that was the wrong switch, let's try...Angie Coiro in Metro Traffic...are...you...there?" ...[silence]... Nope, let's try...Angie Coiro?"
"[eyeroll in voice] Thanks, Jerry. There's a two car pileup on the Southbound Nimitz at..."
Neuman's the perfect Bay Area public radio drive time guy. Very mellow. You know. In that way.
Anyway, back to This American Life. I took a walk yesterday in the midafternoon and it was a really beautiful day - sunny and crisp and cool, and it was a long walk, so I was able listen to two episodes of This American Life that I'd had stored on my iPod for about a year. I'd heard them broadcast on the radio and immediately went and archived their streams to mp3.
Jason #2: Check you out - at the dawn of 2005, you're a white, unemployed 30-year-old, middle-class blogger walking through the heart of Silicon Valley listening to mp3s of This American Life on your iPod...that you converted from streams. What, was listening to "Hey Yaaa!" on the L-Train just a little too very for ya?Total Recorder is great for archiving just about any sound format to mp3, wav, ogg, and several other formats. It does codec coversions easily, but will also record just about anything coming off your sound board - which is how I recorded all four commentary tracks to the first two The Lord of the Rings movies to listen to on my drive from New York to Michigan and back to California. At $11.95, it's a sure thing!
Jason #1: Shut up, dude, I'm trying to write.
I've used Total Recorder to archive a fair deal of streamed audio, including some awesome episodes of NPR's Lost and Found Sound - especially the radio genius of the incomperable Kitchen Sisters. I've kept the first few hours of NPR's Morning Edition from September 11, 2001. Listening to the morning unfold in retrospect is just so bleak and sad. Not only for the event but for the inexorable march toward tyrrany that would follow. And of course, I've archived some excellent episodes of This American Life.
Now, I'm not silly enough to think I could get away with posting the mp3s here, but I will point you to a couple of streams on their website (www.thisamericanlife.org).
The two episodes of This American Life that are my two favorites and the ones I rediscovered yesterday are:
- Telephone.
An episode devoted to the human relationship to and human relationships through the telephone. I'm mostly focused here on the the first Act of this episode, which is the true story of a teenager's drug addiction told through the recordings his father secrety made of his phone calls in the 80's. It's intense, rewarding, and difficult for anyone who ever been in the orbit of addiction. The rest of the episode is also very well done, and more lighthearted. Act II is a profile of They Might Be Giants.
- The House On Loon Lake.
The entire episode is devoted to an emotional, gripping real-life mystery - told by writer Adam Beckman and his childhood friends, members of his family, and others as Beckman seeks answers to the mystery of artifacts he found as a child in the 70's, as he trespassed with his friends in an old abandoned house in New Hampshire. Beckman eventually finds out the truth is far different, and in many ways, more tragic than he had imagined.
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