17 posts tagged “assignment”

This Week's Assignment:
Tell us your stories about working under pressure, when the stakes are high.

Audio: Ira Presents Tough Room

This American Life

This American Life, Episode 348: Tough Room

This week on This American Life: Comedy writers at The Onion pitch 700 story ideas a week. 16 make the cut. Also, a man on a mission of peace and understanding in a country that has one more slogan for him to promote—nuclear energy. These and other stories of people speaking their minds in very tough rooms. Broadcasting February 1st - 3rd, 2008 on This American Life.

This Week's Assignment:

Tell us your stories of competition.

Here's our take on it:

344

Chicago Public Radio

This American Life #344: The Competition

Stories about the unintended consequences of market forces, including the story of a Tulsa businessman who tried to cut costs—not by outsourcing his operations to India, but by bringing workers from India to Tulsa. With decidedly mixed results. Also, a story about two competing TV news teams in Boise, Idaho, who begin with the exact same set of facts about a local sex offender, and end up with totally opposite conclusions. Broadcasts this weekend 11/30-12/2.

This Week's Assignment:
Tell us your stories about trying to talk to kids!

Here's our take on it:

#341_ How to Talk to Kids promo 1

Chicago Public Radio

This American Life: #341 How to Talk to Kids

A raunchy comedian gets booked on a tour...of kids' sleep-away camps. A middle-aged woman grapples with right and wrong in talking to her teenage daughter about her sexuality. Plus, other stories of adults trying to learn the language of children.

This Week's Assignment:

Tell us your stories of transforming yourself.

Here's our take on it:

Vox Promo 121

Chicago Public Radio

1 comment

This American Life: #121 Twentieth Century Man

Twentieth Century Man. Over the course of his life, Keith Aldrich was a child of depression in Oklahoma; a preacher-in-training in booming California; an aspiring Hollywood actor; in the 1950s, a self-styled beat writer and then a man in a grey flannel suit; in the 1960s, a member of the New York literati and then a hippie; in the 1970s, a denizen of the suburbs for seventies-era Ice Storm kind of life; and a born-again Christian when the Moral Majority helped put Ronald Reagan in office. Gillian Aldrich, one of his nine children, tells the story of Keith's life, which serves not only as a history of the major cultural shifts of the second half of the twentieth century, but also a case study in the question, "What happens if you're too good at transforming yourself?"

This Week's Assignment

Have you done anything lately that you knew was wrong... but you just couldn't stop yourself? Tell us your stories about the devil in you.

Here's our take on it:

340

Chicago Public Radio

1 comment

This American Life Episode #340: The Devil in Me

We all have that thing in us: a voice telling us to do or think something we shouldn't. In this episode, stories of people trying to exorcize that voice. An Iraq War veteran comes home with an aversion to all Muslims and decides to systematically defeat his own bigotry. And a fundamentalist Christian takes on an actual demon who happens to visit his college classroom.

This Week's Assignment

Can love really be unconditional? Tell us your stories about unconditional love.

Here's our take on it:

PROMO #317_ Unconditional Love

Chicago Public Radio

1 comment

This Week's Assignment:

Tell us your stories about breaking up.

Here's our take on it:

339

Chicago Public Radio

The world is not divided into two types of people—unless you've just been through a horrible breakup, in which case it's divided between people who understand and people who don't. Stories of people trying to comprehend their own breakups and those of others, including writer Starlee Kine on what makes the perfect post-breakup song. Broadcasts this 8/24-8/26 on This American Life.

This Week's Assignment:

Tell us your stories of uncovering some mystery and what happened next...

Here's our take on it:

28: Detectives

Chicago Public Radio

This American Life Episode #28: Detectives

Writer David Sedaris recalls the days when his mother and sister played armchair detective - until a very odd crime wave hit within their own home. Host Ira Glass goes out on surveillance with a real life private eye. Broadcasts 8/17-8/19

This Week's Assignment:
Tell us your stories about being in the public eye.

Here's our take on it:

338

Chicago Public Radio

2 comments

This American Life Episode #338: The Spokesman

An 18-year-old in foster care—Anthony Pico, pictured with San Francisco mayor Gavin Newsom—gives speeches to the big and powerful all over California. Public speaking changed his life. But being a spokeskid, he's found, is complicated. Plus, other stories of what happens when you go from private person to public face. Broadcasts 8/10-8/12 on This American Life.

This Week's Assignment: 
Tell us your stories about the darker side of the art world.

Here's our take on it:

#72_ Blame it on Art (2007 Rerun) Vox Promo

Chicago Public Radio

Blame it on Art. The darker side of the art world: petty jealousies, competitiveness, failure. And what's so great about art. David Sedaris tells the story of his short-lived career as a performance artist. Aaron Hsu-Flanders, an acknowledged master in the field of animal balloons, declares that artistic jealousies have ruined his life. The King of "Song Poems" and how his jazz snob son learned to love his music. And locksmith Joel Kostman. Broadcasts August 3 - August 5 on This American Life.