824: Family Meeting
This American Life
02/25/24
•58m
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Your mother and I have something we want to talk with you about.
- Prologue: A family sits down to discuss one thing. But then the true purpose of the meeting emerges. (9 1⁄2 minutes)
- Act One: For one kibbutz-dwelling family in Israel, the decision of where to land after the October 7th attacks goes back and forth... and back... and forth. (28 minutes)
- Act One: For one kibbutz-dwelling family in Israel, the decision of where to land after the October 7th attacks goes back and forth... and back... and forth. (28 minutes)
- Act Two: An excerpt from “Belles Lettres," a short story by Nafissa Thompson-Spires from her book Heads of the Colored People, performed by actors Erika Alexander and Eisa Davis with a cameo from our colleague Alvin Melathe. (14 minutes)
Transcripts are available at thisamericanlife.org
Previous Episode
653: Crime Scene
February 18, 2024
•60m
Every crime scene hides a story. In this week's show, we hear about crime scenes and the stories they tell.
- Medical Examiner D.J. Drakovic, in Pontiac Michigan, explains how every crime scene is like a novel. (5 minutes)
- Act One: Reporter Nancy Updike spends two days with Neal Smither, who cleans up crime scenes for a living, and comes away wanting to open his Los Angeles franchise, despite the gore — or maybe because of it. (12 minutes)
- Act Two: Actor Matt Malloy reads a short story by Aimee Bender, from her book “The Girl in the Flammable Skirt," about what can be and cannot be recovered from a crime scene, or from anywhere. (12 minutes)
- Act Three: Sometimes criminals return to the scene of their misdeeds — to try to make things right, to try to undo the past. Katie Davis reports on her neighbor Bobby, who returned to the scene where he robbed people and conned people. This time, he came to coach little league. (22 minutes)
Transcripts are available at thisamericanlife.org
Next Episode
825: Yousef
March 3, 2024
•66m
A series of phone calls to a man in Gaza named Yousef Hammash, between early December and now. He talks about what he and his family are experiencing, sometimes as they are experiencing it.
- Act One: Over the course of one week in December, Yousef tries to get his sisters to safety, in Rafah. (29 minutes)
- Act Two: Yousef is managing a camp of 60 people in Rafah, including his youngest sister, who is 8 months pregnant. Every day there’s talk that Israel will launch a ground assault in Rafah. Yousef and his sister make a plan for her to give birth safely, but it doesn’t go according to plan. And all 60 people in the family are looking to Yousef to tell them where they should go next and how to stay safe. (27 minutes)
Transcripts are available at thisamericanlife.org
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