24 posts tagged “thislife”

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:

Have a Happy Thanksgiving! And tell us your stories of this holiday-ish time of year.

Here's our take on it:

116

Chicago Public Radio

This American Life: #116 Poultry Slam

For Thanksgiving, the time of year when poultry consumption is highest, we investigate turkeys, chickens, ducks—fowl of all types...and their mysterious hold over us. Broadcasts this weekend 11/23-11/25.

This Week's Assignment:

Tell us your stories of coping with a life-altering family event.

Here's our take on it:

Murder familyvox

This American Life: #342 Murder in the Family

Stories of people whose lives were changed by violence. A young woman
discovers that she owes her life to a boy killed in a gang shooting.
Another woman decides to stop searching for her father's killer. And
other stories. Broadcasts this weekend: 11/02-11/04.

Next Tuesday, October 16, Ira Glass will host a screening of G.J. Echternkamp's documentary Frank and Cindy at the Museum of Modern Art as part of the CMJ Film Festival. We excerpted parts of G.J.'s movie in our TV episode "The Cameraman," and this is your chance to see the full-length version! And afterward, Ira will do a Q&A with G.J. and his parents, Frank and Cindy.

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This Week's Assignment
Tell us your stories about performing Hamlet (I know it's kind of a narrow topic this week, but feel free to take liberty with it!).

Here's our take on it:

ActV Vox Promo

This American Life

This American Life: #218 Act V

We devote this entire episode to one story: over the course of six months, reporter and TAL contributor Jack Hitt followed a group of inmates at a high-security prison as they rehearsed and staged a production of the last act—Act V—of Hamlet. Shakespeare may seem like an odd match for a group of hardened criminals, but Jack found that they understand the Bard on a level that most of us might not. It's a play about murder and its consequences, performed by murderers living out the consequences.
Broadcasts this weekend, 10/12 - 10/14

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?"

Hey folks, sorry for the delay in posting this, but we hope you'll enter! We're giving out free stuff!!!

Listen to the song featured on This American Life! Then make your own version!

"The Three of Us"—written during Act One of the episode, "Break-Up"—changed dramatically depending on how it was mixed. Witness: the slower, sparer version we played in the show vs. a happier, poppier version. Julia Greenberg's vocals are the same in both versions; Joe McGinty's arrangement changed. (If you want more than streaming audio, you can purchase mp3s at Joe's MySpace page.)

If you'd like to take a crack at mixing your own version, we've posted all of the tracks they used (53 MB): guitar, vocals, keyboard, back-up vocals, etc.—25 in all. Details are in the complete track listing, and the tempo of the song is 100 bpm. If you're a musician and want to take a crack at performing it yourself, we've also made the sheet music available. Plus, check out Joe's photos of some of the instruments!

The contest deadline is September 30, 2007, and we'll send TAL swag to everyone who enters. Email your version to web@thislife.org. Please also include an address where we can mail your swag. We'll post all of the entries on our website, and we also hope to create a little balloting system so that listeners can vote for their favorites.

Happy mixing!

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.