241: 20 Acts in 60 Minutes
This American Life
12/31/23
•59m
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Instead of the usual "each week we choose a theme, and bring you 3 or 4 stories on that theme" business, we throw all that away and bring you 20 stories—yes, 20—in 60 minutes.
- Ira Glass introduces the idea of doing 20 stories in one hour.
- Act One: Contributor Starlee Kine talks to actor Tate Donovan about the day he felt he was being exactly the kind of celebrity he'd wanted to be: when suddenly, he was approached by a kid with a camera.
- Act Two: Writer and producer Scott Carrier recognizes a woman he sees in a restaurant.
- Act Three: Susan Drury talks about "Swap and Shop," a local radio classifieds show that has become a low-tech, personable sort of Ebay.
- Act Four: From Patty Martin: a one minute, four second vacation on Nantucket Island, involving a lot of waving.
- Act Five: From Vicki Merrick, Eric Kipp, and Jay Allison at Transom: scallops on Martha's Vineyard.
- Act Six: From Blunt Youth Radio: a story of a possibly bad "food situation" at the cafeteria in juvenile detention.
- Act Seven: Jonathan Goldstein, host of Wiretap, brings us this story about The Penguin as a young man.
- Act Eight: Two brothers, ages 12 and 13, have very different ideas for their dog's name.
- Act Nine: Elaine Boehm overhears a couple in her pet shop, trying to choose a dog collar.
- Act Ten: A two minute play called “Title,” written and performed by Greg Allen and Heather Riordan of the Chicago group, The Neo-Futurists. It’s part of their long-running show "Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind: 30 Plays in 60 Minutes."
- Act Eleven: Author David Sedaris on cell phone usage in restrooms.
- Act Twelve: Brent Runyon reports from the kids' section at the public library.
- Act Thirteen: Catherine and John, two college undergrads, do a babysitting gig together. After the kids are asleep and the two of them get hungry, John doesn't think they should eat any of the food in the house; they settle on a compromise.
- Act Fourteen: Mystery and missing flavor at the hot dog plant.
- Act Fifteen: Author David Rakoff worked at an advertising agency, and could see exactly where its technology was going.
- Act Sixteen: Someone sits next to the printer. You see him forty times a day. What's his name? What does he do?
- Act Seventeen: Richard Kerry has an impressive ability: he can recreate the sound of a whole swamp.
- Act Eighteen: Author Chuck Klosterman and his friends make a party game out of comparing television shows to rock bands. They call it "Monkees Equals Monkees."
- Act Nineteen: Every year 1,200 new army cadets arrive at West Point. Once they say a single sentence correctly, they can go to their barracks. But not until then. David Lipsky reports. He's the author of Absolutely American.
- Act Twenty: Teenage girls from a detention center perform a song for their parents.
Transcripts are available at thisamericanlife.org
Previous Episode
820: It Wouldn’t Be Make-Believe If You’d Believe In Me
December 24, 2023
•62m
A major political party in a major swing state bets on a new leader: a total political outsider. How does that work out for them?
- Prologue: In 2022, Michigan Republicans ran anti-establishment candidates who claimed the last presidential election was stolen. And they lost big. Now, the state party regroups and must decide whether to stay the course or moderate. (7 minutes)
- Act One: The Michigan GOP’s newly elected leader, Kristina Karamo, faces her first big test: Can she organize and pull off the state party’s fabled, expensive Mackinac Island conference as a political outsider – with no fundraising experience or establishment connections? (9 minutes)
- Act Two: Two young Michigan GOP vice chairs are totally on board with Kristina Karamo’s take on politics and hate the establishment like her. So why do they feel iced out by her? (15 minutes)
- Act Three: At the start of the year, Warren Carpenter was a Kristina Karamo supporter; helped her get elected. Now he’s plotting her ouster. (13 minutes)
- Act Four: Kristina Karamo and her camp defend themselves against Warren’s attacks that they’re bad at fundraising and bad at leading the party. (13 minutes)
Transcripts are available at thisamericanlife.org
Next Episode
205: Plan B
January 7, 2024
•60m
There's the thing you plan to do, and then there's the thing you end up doing.
- Ira summarizes the results of an informal poll of about a hundred people, about whether they were living their Plan A or Plan B and recounts a moment from a short story by author Ron Carlson. (2 minutes)
- Act One: John Hodgman first encountered Cuervo Man on a press junket to Cuervo Nation, a small island owned by Jose Cuervo Tequila. Cuervo Man was wearing nothing but a Speedo, wraparound shades, and a red cape. Occasionally he’d stick a toilet plunger on his bald head. John was fascinated and eventually got to know Cuervo Man, whose real name was Ryan. Though the Cuervo act was Ryan’s Plan B, it had a special power that John couldn't help but envy. (19 minutes)
- Act Two: Starlee Kine was becoming friends with a woman named Robin when they started to encounter an obstacle, a common obstacle people run into when the become friends as adults. So Robin invented a Plan B to solve the problem. (6 minutes)
- Act Three: Ira talks with Barry Keenan, who was living a lot of people’s plan A in the early 60’s. He was rich, he was successful. But when he lost all his money and got hooked on painkillers, he switched to a Plan B to make money. He decided to kidnap the 19-year-old Frank Sinatra Jr. (11 minutes)
- Act Four: Jonathan Goldstein took a telemarketing job as a kind of temporary Plan B, never suspecting that it would be a ten year chapter in his life. (10 minutes)
- Act Five: J. Robert Lennon reads an excerpt from his short story "The Accursed Items," in which he demonstrates that even objects can fulfill a fate different from the one for which they were intended. Even inanimate objects can have a plan B. (6 minutes)
Transcripts are available at thisamericanlife.org
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