Not What I Signed Up For
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Marian Fontana thinks she's going onto a news show for a five-minute interview about firefighters and 9/11 ... and ends up in a situation that no one would ever want to be in. Also, a short story from Nick Hornby, a story about a boy – and an exceedingly small country. Aired Saturday, September 30, 2006. [MORE]
The Kindness of Strangers
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Brett Leveridge was standing on the subway. A guy came walking down the platform, stopping in front of each passenger and delivering a quiet verdict: "You're in. You're out. You, you can stay. You – gotta go." Most people ignored the guy. But Brett found himself, against his will, hoping the guy would give him the thumbs up. Stories of the kindness of strangers, and where it leads. Also, the unkindness of strangers and where that can lead. You can see a graphic recreation of Brett's story in our comic book, Radio: An Illustrated Guide. Aired Saturday, September 23, 2006. [MORE]
Unconditional Love
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Hard as it is to believe, during the 1930's and 40's a whole school of mental health professionals decided that unconditional love was a terrible thing to give a child. The government printed pamphlets, warning mothers against the dangers of holding their kids. The head of the American Psychological Association and even a mothers' organization endorsed the idea that mothers were dangerous – until psychologist Harry Harlow set out to prove them wrong with a series of experiments with monkeys. This week we consider the problems with unconditional love, and try to answer the question: is it actually possible to teach someone to love you? Aired Saturday, September 16, 2006. [MORE]
Getting and Spending
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How far will we go to get money? And once we've got it, what should we spend it on? This week, answers to these giant questions, plus a new story by John Hodgman about going rogue in America's biggest mall. The story is part of his book, The Areas of My Expertise. Aired Saturday, September 9, 2006. [MORE]
Americans in Paris
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Many Americans have dreamy and romantic ideas about Paris, notions which probably trace back to the 1920s, to the vision of Paris created by the expatriate Americans there. But David Sedaris moved to France with no special feelings for the place. His head wasn't full of Ernest Hemingway and Gertrude Stein and Sartre and Proust; he was a blank slate. And so the places he's found as his favorites tend to be places where the people aren't mean to him when he speaks French, or places where very unusual and fascinating objects are sold, or place that are unlike anywhere in the States. This week, David takes Ira on a tour of town. He talks more about his struggle with daily life in France in his book Me Talk Pretty One Day. Aired Saturday, August 26, 2006. [MORE]
This American Life Pledge Drive Special
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Aired Saturday, August 19, 2006. [MORE]
Image Makers
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Sometimes it seems that no matter how hard you try to get people to see you in a certain way, their image of you never quite matches what you had in mind. This week, stories on the attempt to remedy this problem. A tragically un-hip institution attempts a drastic makeover, with the help of a Detroit rock band. A mother and son try to keep Dad alive, when all they have left are a few personal things he kept close. And Jonathan Goldstein and his dad talk shop on how to be a man and find they have very different ideas. Aired Saturday, August 5, 2006. [MORE]
My Pen Pal
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Stories of very unusual pen pals, including a ten-year-old girl from small-town Michigan named Sarah York, and how she became pen pals with a man who was considered an enemy of the United States, a dictator, a drug trafficker, and a murderer: Manuel Noriega. In the photo, Sarah's greeting crowds of Panamanians on a visit to Panama City when she was eleven. The building behind them, the Panamanian Defense Forces Headquarters, was later destroyed in "Operation Just Cause," the U.S invasion of Panama, in 1989. Aired Saturday, July 29, 2006. [MORE]
The Parrot and the Potbellied Pig
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Wolves and rabbits and bears are the usual suspects in our fables — but who will serve as the heroes of our modern-day tales? This week we bring you some candidates, and counter that there are more to parrots than pirates; more to pigs than houses made of straw. One endangered thick-billed parrot turns the lives of three New Yorkers upside down. One little pig ends an entire relationship. And David Sedaris brings these two animals together in a new story. Aired Saturday, July 22, 2006. [MORE]
Go Ask Your Father
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We bring you stories of sons and daughters trying to reach out and figure out what makes their dads tick; what motivates them, and, if they are who they say they are. In his thirties, Lennard Davis realized that the man who raised him may not be his father. In fact, either one of these two men – Morris and Abie – could be Lennard's biological father. He has spent the last 20 years trying to figure out which one, and goes on a scientific quest to finally find out the truth. Aired Saturday, July 15, 2006. [MORE]
D.I.Y.
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After four lawyers fail to get an innocent man, Collin Warner, out of prison, his friend, Carl King, takes on the case himself. He becomes a do-it-yourself investigator. He learns to read court records, he tracks down hard-to-find witnesses, he gets the real murderer to come forward with his story. In the end, he's able to accomplish all sorts of things the police and the professionals can't. King now runs an organization, called Success to Freedom, devoted to helping wrongfully convicted inmates. Aired Saturday, July 8, 2006. [MORE]
Reunited (and It Feels So Good)
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Stories about getting back together with your parent, your spouse, your ... Brahmin bull. When Ralph and Sandra's pet bull Chance died, science brought him back in the form of a genetically identical clone. Ralph and Sandra called the new bull Second Chance and at first they thought he was a reincarnation of Chance. But science, and Second Chance himself, seemed to disagree. Aired Saturday, July 1, 2006. [MORE]
It's Never Over
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Jon Ronson goes to his high school reunion to try to get to the bottom of why his schoolmates threw him into a lake twenty years earlier. And a woman buys a house on the cheap, with the understanding that the seller will soon vacate. More than ten years later, she's still waiting. These and other stories of things never seeming to come to an end. Aired Saturday, June 24, 2006. [MORE]
Father's Day
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For Father's Day, stories about fathers going out of their way to protect their kids, and kids going out of their way to protect their fathers. Photographer Joel Meyerowitz decided to go on a last big trip with his father Hy, who has Alzheimer's. Joel also brought his own son. The purpose of the trip? To try to get close to a part of Hy's personality that Alzheimer's has eradicated, to see if it might be possible to jumpstart some of his memories. Aired Saturday, June 17, 2006. [MORE]