From WBEZ Public Radio in Chicago

YaYa · January 2011

It's

he's Ira Glass

each week they bring you stories around a theme and they are some of the best listening you can find on your radio/podcast listening device of your choice

they cover almost every topic under the sun, the most recent episode focused on children being thrust into political situations through the lens of an interactive display at the Ronald Reagan library

the stories can be funny, sad, heartbreaking, but they are almost always interesting

I know we have a lot of people who listen to it here, so let's talk about it!

Anjin-San · January 2011

ira glass has a voice you want to oppress with a jackboot

Zoel · January 2011

Anjin-San wrote: »

ira glass has a voice you want to oppress with a jackboot

Maybe you just hate things that sound nice.

YaYa · January 2011

Anjin-San wrote: »

ira glass has a voice you want to oppress with a jackboot

relevant

Langly · January 2011

more like this pinko communist life am I right?

No I'm not I fucking love Ira Glass muah muah kiss me Ira.

Futore · January 2011

ira glass has a voice that I have a gay crush on

PiptheFair · January 2011

Anjin-San wrote: »

ira glass has a voice you want to oppress with a jackboot

I kinda wanna break his face with a five iron

Zoel · January 2011

there are no words

Jasconius · January 2011

maybe he can buy some glasses that make me not want to punch him

PiptheFair · January 2011

you know what a better npr series is

wait wait, don't tell me

also car talk

Zoel · January 2011

It's true he does want you to punch him though.

It gives him power.

Fearghaill · January 2011

I had never heard this before, so I just looked up a clip to hear what his voice sounds like.

Gotta agree with Anjin on this one. Seems like something you'd have to enjoy in spite of his voice, not because of it.

BusterK · January 2011

You guys should check the first season of the TV show on Showtime
The second season isn't as good

Langly · January 2011

BusterK wrote: »

You guys should check the first season of the TV show on Showtime
The second season isn't as good

I really liked the first season, yes.

Also I don't get the flak about his voice. I really like it.

Futore · January 2011

YaYa wrote: »

Anjin-San wrote: »

ira glass has a voice you want to oppress with a jackboot

relevant

my life is complete. Thank you so much, Yaya. Thank you.

Anjin-San · January 2011

BusterK wrote: »

You guys should check the first season of the TV show on Showtime
The second season isn't as good

oh man

the opening episode with that bull Chance. that was eerie stuff!

Zoel · January 2011

Yeah I love his voice.

But admittedly I also instantly fall in love with girls with lisps so

Langly · January 2011

Now Diane Rheme. Oh my god shut the fuck up you old bag of farts your voice makes me want to go on a blind rampage.

Koshian · January 2011

I love ira glass

Futore · January 2011

Langly wrote: »

BusterK wrote: »

You guys should check the first season of the TV show on Showtime
The second season isn't as good

I really liked the first season, yes.

Also I don't get the flak about his voice. I really like it.

hearing it out of the context of the stories isn't all that impressive. It's not necessarily the sound of his voice that his fans love so much. I would say it's the massive amounts of various emotions that I go through while I listen to his stories.

also, the TV show is on Netflix Instant

Anjin-San · January 2011

diane rheme has probably caused a lot of car wrecks

Futore · January 2011

Langly wrote: »

Now Diane Rheme. Oh my god shut the fuck up you old bag of farts your voice makes me want to go on a blind rampage.

She is one of the best interviewers/radio voices of all time. But yeah, at this point in her life, it's just grim.

BusterK · January 2011

Anjin-San wrote: »

BusterK wrote: »

You guys should check the first season of the TV show on Showtime
The second season isn't as good

oh man

the opening episode with that bull Chance. that was eerie stuff!

I liked the second story in that episode better
About Improv Everywhere and the band

Anjin-San · January 2011

second season was depression town

the one about the santas rebuking one another was good (radio)

Langly · January 2011

Futore wrote: »

Langly wrote: »

Now Diane Rheme. Oh my god shut the fuck up you old bag of farts your voice makes me want to go on a blind rampage.

She is one of the best interviewers/radio voices of all time. But yeah, at this point in her life, it's just grim.

No she's really great, that's why I still listen. It's just that her voice sounds like an exaggerated impersonation of an old woman. It's so annoying.

Futore · January 2011

BusterK wrote: »

Anjin-San wrote: »

BusterK wrote: »

You guys should check the first season of the TV show on Showtime
The second season isn't as good

oh man

the opening episode with that bull Chance. that was eerie stuff!

I liked the second story in that episode better
About Improv Everywhere and the band

The first time I ever saw this show, I saw this episode. I was on a plane, traveling alone. It's strange to be crying and laughing in the middle of coach.

Monkeyfeet · January 2011

Yaya don't you have Australian podcasts you should be listening to instead?

Fearghaill · January 2011

"This Bogan Life"

Futore · January 2011

This Australian Life:

Episode 220: It's Hot and There Are Bugs

Zoel · January 2011

This Australian Life

is apparently a show that exists and doesn't look so good

http://australianetwork.com/life/

Rankenphile · January 2011

This show really opened my eyes to the grim realities of the minutae of suburban whites

Anjin-San · January 2011

also: young black cowboys in philly

Rankenphile · January 2011

The Onion wrote:

'This American Life' Completes Documentation Of Liberal, Upper-Middle-Class Existence

CHICAGO—Producers of the long-running Chicago Public Radio program This American Life announced Monday that they have completed their comprehensive 12-year survey of life as a modern upper-middle-class American.

In what cultural anthropologists are calling a "colossal achievement" in the study of white-collar professionals, the popular radio show has successfully isolated all 7,442 known characteristics of college graduates who earn between $62,500 and $125,000 per year and feel strongly that something should be done about global warming.

"We've done it," said senior producer Julie Snyder, who was personally interviewed for a 2003 This American Life episode, "Going Eclectic," in which she described what it's like to be a bilingual member of the ACLU trained in kite-making by a Japanese stepfather. "There is not a single existential crisis or self-congratulatory epiphany that has been or could be experienced by a left-leaning agnostic that we have not exhaustively documented and grouped by theme."

Added Snyder, "We here at public radio couldn't be more pleased with ourselves."

The final episode, which explored the universal tribulations of having to live with roommates again in one's mid-30s after a divorce, provided an apt bookend for the project. The completed work is expected to be an indispensable source of information for years to come about the thoughts and tastes of bespectacled cynics prone to neuroses who are actually doing just fine.

his American Life host and producer Ira Glass began work on the project in 1995 in Chicago, where he found himself inspired by and catering to an audience of professionals who dine out frequently and have a hard time getting angry. Glass and his team of producers, writers, and interns set about the exhausting task of gathering all available information on a range of subjects from minor skirmishes with the law to the rewards of occasionally talking to poor people. The raw data was then analyzed, deconstructed, reconstructed, re-deconstructed, organized under a broad philosophical title, and interspliced with musical interludes by rock duo They Might Be Giants.

Though This American Life is now lauded as the definitive source for material about getting an autistic teenager admitted to Harvard, its early run was marked by painful trial-and-error, according to producer Alex Blumberg.

"At first, we were getting a lot of stories from recovered drug addicts and East African refugees living in the States, which had their compelling elements but came off a bit cloying," Blumberg said. "But then we realized that if we had overeducated people with voices rather unsuitable for radio narrate the stories with clever analogies and accessible morals, the whole thing would come off far less depressing."

Blumberg said that the turning point came in 1997, when producers discovered a group of inner-city schoolchildren inadvertently teaching an important lesson to their attractive, suburban-raised teacher about what makes us human.

Also aiding the study were the many contributors to This American Life, who took time from their best-selling essay-writing careers to donate personal anecdotes about dropping out of prestigious art schools, taking harrowing but poignant childhood vacations to the Grand Canyon, and the unique challenges of growing up in families supportive of their homosexuality.

On Sunday, writer and contributing editor Sarah Vowell called the project's end "oddly anticlimactic," but questioned whether work was actually complete because the show had not yet addressed the subject of "Things Ending."

"Seeing this project through to its culmination was equally satisfying and strange," said Vowell, speaking at a book signing in Colonial Williamsburg dressed as Betsy Ross. "I feel not unlike the early Pilgrims, who, standing atop Plymouth Rock after a long and arduous sea voyage, reflected on their journey, perhaps thinking to themselves 'For God's sake—doesn't anybody have anything to eat in this settlement?'"

Glass, who personally contributed over 2,000 anecdotes from his own life for documentation, called the project's conclusion the "end of an era."

"When we finished, I have to tell you, I felt something I never expected: a profound sense of contentment—maybe even relief," Glass said. "Afterwards, the other producers and I sat around for a long while, remarking on how interesting and strange it was to finally complete the study, and how perhaps it is, in some way, symbolic of life in general."

Rankenphile · January 2011

Jasconius · January 2011

Rankenphile wrote: »

This show really opened my eyes to the grim realities of the minutae of suburban whites

the best post

Nirya · January 2011

I've never heard this stuff, but if it's as good as Paul Harvey's "The Rest of the Story", I may give it a listen.

BusterK · January 2011

That's a funny joke from the Onion since the exact same thing could be said about The Onion AV Club

Jasconius · January 2011

Nirya wrote: »

I've never heard this stuff, but if it's as good as Paul Harvey's "The Rest of the Story", I may give it a listen.

It's not

YaYa · January 2011

Rank that is amazing

Langly · January 2011

Ira Glass is better than Paul Harvey you wanna fight about it?

Rankenphile · January 2011

RadioLab is a much better show.

Penny Arcade

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