Episode – 241: 20 Acts in 60 Minutes
Date – December 12, 2008
Time – Approx. 60 min.
Website - http://www.thislife.org/Radio_Episode.aspx?episode=241
Description of podcast: Instead of the regular "each week we choose a theme, and bring you three or four stories on that theme" business, this week we throw all that away and bring you twenty stories—yes, twenty—in sixty minutes. Inspiration for this week's show came from the Neo-Futurists, whose long-running Chicago show Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind promises 30 Plays in 60 Minutes every single weekend.
Why I picked this podcast?
The reason the title '20 acts in 60 minutes' stood out among all the other episodes of 'This American Life' is because my attention span is not one to be proud of. I do consider myself a patient person, however, the idea of 3 minute long interesting stories one after the other for 60 minutes both terrifies and intrigues me.
The entire 60 minutes of this podcast is dedicated to all the stories that are 'stories that cant be used on the show because they are too short' . This idea comes from a group called the Neo-Futurists, as stated in the description.
I think this is a fascinating subject to base a radio show on, as every individual has a story to share, and I enjoyed listening to random stories of the everyday citizen. In this case, however, the stories were retrieved from living the 'American life'. I think that through these stories I learnt quite a lot about the American culture and life, such as, what people would consider odd, and what human acts or behaviours would go observed by others.
The first story is told by the actor Tate Donovan(The OC, Friends). In this story Tate Donovan shares an embarassing story in which a young boy and his date asked for a photograph which is misunderstood by Donovan.
Another story was written by an author who usually writes much longer stories. The entire podcast goes on to share individuals' most interesting experiences. My favourite short story was the very last one. This was the one short story narrated by Ira Glass about a play he went to that was written and acted by young girls in juvenile halls. They acted out musicals about their life and at the end all sang an apology to their mothers, who were in the audiences. The reason this was my favourite podcast because it included insight on the psychology of young juvenile delinquents. Overall i thought this was a good podcast and worth listening to.
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