853: Groundhog Day
This American Life
02/02/25
•55m
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People stuck in a loop, trying to find their way out.
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- Prologue: Host Ira Glass talks to B.A. Parker about her birthday tradition. (6 minutes)
- Act One: Producer Aviva DeKornfeld speaks with a father and daughter who have been playing the same game for 25 years. (9 minutes)
- Act Two: Talia Augustidis asks a single question over and over. (5 minutes)
- Act Three: Editor David Kestenbaum speaks with Jeff Permar, who is trapped in a Groundhog Day situation — with an actual groundhog! (9 minutes)
- Act Four: Parking in a big city can be a real pain. Producer Valerie Kipnis speaks with a man who has taken it upon himself to try to mitigate the weekly hassle. (14 minutes)
- Act Five: Short fiction from Bess Kalb about a groundhog named Susan, who has her own opinions about the holiday named after her species. (7 minutes)
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823: The Question Trap
January 26, 2025
•57m
An investigation of when and why people ask loaded questions that are a proxy for something else.
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- Prologue: Host Ira Glass talks with producer Tobin Low about the question he got asked after he and his husband moved in together, and what he thinks people were really asking. (4 minutes)
- Act One: “What do you think about Beyoncé?” and other questions raised by people on first dates. (12 minutes)
- Act Two: When a common, seemingly innocuous question goes wildly off the rails. (13 minutes)
- Act Three: Why are people asking me if my mother recognizes me, when it’s totally beside the point? (14 minutes)
- Act Four: Schools ask their students the strangest essay questions sometimes. The experience of tutoring anxious teenagers through how to answer them requires a balladier, singing their lived experience to a crowd as though it were the Middle Ages. (10 minutes)
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339: Break-Up
February 9, 2025
•60m
For Valentine's Day, stories from the heart of heartbreak.
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- Prologue: Host Ira Glass talks with Lauren Waterman, who's in the middle of a break-up right now and grappling with totally contradictory feelings. (5 minutes)
- Act One: In the wake of a break-up, writer Starlee Kine finds so much comfort in break-up songs that she decides to try and write one herself—even though she has no musical ability whatsoever. For some help, she goes to a rather surprising expert on the subject: Phil Collins. (29 minutes)
- Act Two: Eight-year-old Betsy Walter goes on a campaign to understand her parents' divorce — a campaign that takes her to school guidance counselors, children's book authors, and the mayor of New York City. (10 minutes)
- Act Three: Ira talks with divorce mediator Barry Berkman about why it's bad when the justice system gets involved in a break-up. (8 minutes)
- Act Four: What divorce looks like from the dog's point of view. (5 minutes)
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