Monday, March 5, 2007

This American Life

I am on a complete blogging tear today. That's what I get after a long weekend and some time before that of inaction.

It always seemed like we picked it up when we were driving through Chicago or when we just happened to be listening on the weekend to NPR. In Fort Wayne, we began to make it a ritual every Sunday night. This American Life has been a highlight whenever we have listened to it since we were newly married.

This American Life, hosted by Ira Glass, is an NPR program about the stories of normal Americans. Each week they pick a theme and then do a number of acts, or stories, around that theme. The themes range from "Screaming Across the Divide", stories about Muslims and non-Muslims attempts at dialogue, to "The Prom" (Amanda's and my all-time favorite episode). There are moments in every show that make me laugh out loud. There are moments in many shows that make me cry. My only complaint with the show up until about a month ago was that it was not available except through audible.com. Then last month they began to make each episode available via podcast. Now every Monday morning, Sunday's episode is delivered to my iTunes. I LOVE IT.

Starting March 22nd, This American Life will become a TV show on Showtime. Although we don't have Showtime, we are hoping to get to see some of these. Whether you have the chance to catch the TV show or not, definitely check out the radio show/podcast. You won't be sorry.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I have enjoyed it with you a couple of times. One of my favorites lately is Sunday Morning on CBS. It starts at 9am. They have interesting news stories and always highlight a singer and artist.
Tricia

Allison said...

Andrew! I love love this show (thanks for the hot tip!)Though it does make me sad to not be in Chicago :(

I just subscribed to the podcast on iTunes last week and can't wait to listen to this week's Kid Logic! Should be very cute and funny.