Transcript of 730: The Empty Chair
Things we’ve lost in the past year — since the first American coronavirus case — that we haven’t talked about so much. Gossip. The chance to make new friends. And much larger stuff.
- 58:54
- 2.2K views
- Published almost 5 years ago
Transcript of 694: Get Back to Where You Once Belonged
People looking everywhere to find a place—any place—where, for once, they don't have to be the odd man out.
- 01:04:14
- 2K views
- Published almost 5 years ago
Transcript of 729: Making the Cut
There's always someone whose job it is to decide if you measure up.
- 01:03:26
- 2K views
- Published almost 5 years ago
Transcript of 692: The Show of Delights
In these dark, combative times, we attempt the most radical counterprogramming we could imagine: a show made up entirely of stories about delight.
- 01:04:48
- 2.1K views
- Published almost 5 years ago
Transcript of 728: Lights, Camera, Christmas!
This holiday season, we bring you a show filled with stories of people going to great lengths to throw a special Christmas for their families.
- 01:00:48
- 2K views
- Published almost 5 years ago
Transcript of 727: Boulder v. Hill
What the day-to-day business of saving the world looks like. We visit with one group of people who are trying to rescue us from something very large, and another group trying to rescue us from something very small.
- 01:06:09
- 2.3K views
- Published almost 5 years ago
Transcript of 726: Twenty-Five
To commemorate our show’s 25th year, we have a program about people who were born the year our show went on the air.
- 59:20
- 2.1K views
- Published almost 5 years ago
Transcript of 619: The Magic Show
Just a few years before he got the internship at NPR that started him in radio, our host Ira Glass had another career. He performed magic at children's birthday parties. A powerful sense of embarrassment has prevented him from ever doing an episode on the subject, but when he learned that producer David Kestenbaum was also a kid conjurer, they decided to dive in together.
- 01:00:45
- 2.3K views
- Published almost 5 years ago
Transcript of 682: Ten Sessions
What if someone told you about a type of therapy that could help you work through unhealed trauma in just ten sessions? Some people knock through it in two weeks. Jaime Lowe tried the therapy—and recorded it.
- 01:01:02
- 2.3K views
- Published almost 5 years ago
Transcript of 24 Hours at the Golden Apple
For our 25th Anniversary, a favorite episode from 2000. We document one day in a Chicago diner called the Golden Apple, starting at 5 a.m. and going until 5 a.m. the next morning. We hear from the waitress who has worked the graveyard shift for over two decades, the regular customers who come every day, the couples working out their problems, assorted drunks, and, of course, cops.
- 55:43
- 3.2K views
- Published almost 5 years ago
Transcript of Break-Up
For our 25th Anniversary, a favorite episode from 2007. Writer Starlee Kine on what makes the perfect break-up song and whether really sad music can actually make you feel better. Plus, an eight-year-old author of a book about divorce, and other stories from the heart of heartbreak.
- 58:00
- 2.6K views
- Published almost 5 years ago
Transcript of Switched at Birth
For our 25th Anniversary, a favorite episode from 2008. On a summer day in 1951, two baby girls were born in a hospital in small-town Wisconsin. The infants were accidentally switched, and went home with the wrong families. One of the mothers realized the mistake but chose to keep quiet. Until the day, more than 40 years later, when she decided to tell both daughters what happened. How the truth changed two families' lives—and how it didn't.
- 58:26
- 3.1K views
- Published almost 5 years ago
Transcript of 724: Personal Recount
Stories of people changing their minds.
- 01:03:38
- 1.7K views
- Published almost 5 years ago
Transcript of 723: Squeaker
Stories of people grappling with this endless presidential election.
- 01:09:23
- 1.7K views
- Published almost 5 years ago
Transcript of 718: Same Bed, Different Dreams
In this moment when our country is so deeply divided, we have stories of people who are tied together, but imagine radically different futures. In one case, a movie star and her ex-husband plot against Kim Jong-Il. In another, a woman stalks her doppelgänger. And sometimes, one bed is the basis for an entire relationship, even for a man who almost never sees the person who shares his bed.
- 01:03:00
- 2.2K views
- Published about 5 years ago
Transcript of 587: The Perils of Intimacy
Stories about mysteries that exist in relationships we thought couldn't possibly surprise us, the strangeness of putting our wants on the line with someone who may not share them at all, and how much we're willing to risk for someone we may never see again.
- 01:05:36
- 2.7K views
- Published about 5 years ago
Transcript of 716: Trail of Tears
For the holiday weekend, a roadtrip through history. In this moment when Americans are tearing down monuments and rethinking how to address the shameful parts of America’s past, we return to a story from the early days of our radio show that took that on, in a vivid and complicated way. Sarah Vowell and her twin sister Amy headed out on the road to retrace the Trail of Tears – the route their Cherokee ancestors took when expelled from their own land – and reflected on the question, what are we supposed to do with the mix of good and bad that is this country?
- 59:01
- 2.6K views
- Published about 5 years ago
Transcript of 577: Something Only I Can See
When you’re the only one who can see something, sometimes it feels like you’re in on a special secret. The hard part is getting anyone to believe your secret is real. This week, people trying to show others what they see—including a woman with muscular dystrophy who believes she has the same condition as an Olympic athlete.
- 01:02:00
- 2.5K views
- Published about 5 years ago
Transcript of 714: Day at the Beach
It’s the last few weeks of summer, so we’re going to the beach! This week, stories from the surf and sand.
- 01:05:36
- 2.2K views
- Published about 5 years ago
Transcript of 713: Made to Be Broken
From the moment we wake up in the morning there are a trillion rules — big and little — governing our lives. But sometimes, we encounter one we just can't abide by. In a pitched moment of rule-questioning, a show about rules and the people who break them.
- 01:01:47
- 2.6K views
- Published about 5 years ago
This American Life is a weekly public radio show, heard by 2.2 million people on more than 500 stations. Another 2.5 million people download the weekly podcast. It is hosted by Ira Glass, produced in collaboration with Chicago Public Media, delivered to stations by PRX The Public Radio Exchange, and has won all of the major broadcasting awards.