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Transcriptions of This American Life podcast

136 episodes 170K views

Transcript of 695: Everyone's a Critic

People squirming in a world where everything is rated and reviewed.

  • 01:01:34
  • 2.2K views
  • Published almost 5 years ago

Transcript of 733: Warriors in the Garden

This week, three men who came together to protest the murder of George Floyd. They were unified, loud, and impressive, but over time these three friends end up in three very different places.

  • 01:04:51
  • 2.4K views
  • Published almost 5 years ago

Transcript of 635: Chip in My Brain

A boy who can’t dribble gets a coach, a new best friend, and something to believe in.

  • 01:06:55
  • 4.9K views
  • Published almost 5 years ago

Transcript of 732: Secrets

Why we tell them, and what happens after we do.

  • 01:00:01
  • 2.4K views
  • Published almost 5 years ago

Transcript of 731: What Lies Beneath

Stories of people summoning up stuff that’s usually hidden down deep.

  • 01:00:24
  • 3.2K views
  • Published almost 5 years ago

Transcript of 670: Beware the Jabberwock

Stories from the upside-down world where conspiracy theorists dwell.

  • 01:09:23
  • 3.5K views
  • Published almost 5 years ago

Transcript of 489: No Coincidence, No Story!

We asked listeners to send us their best coincidence stories, and we got more than 1,300 submissions! There were so many good ones we decided to make a whole show about them. From a chance encounter at a bus station to a romantic dollar bill to a baffling apparition in a college shower stall. 

  • 59:25
  • 3K views
  • Published almost 5 years ago

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
  • 2.4K views
  • Published about 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
  • 2.1K views
  • Published about 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
  • 2.1K views
  • Published about 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
  • 2.2K views
  • Published about 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
  • 2.1K views
  • Published about 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
  • 2.4K views
  • Published about 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
  • 2.2K views
  • Published about 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
  • 2.4K views
  • Published about 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
  • 2.5K views
  • Published about 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
  • 3.4K views
  • Published about 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
  • 2.9K views
  • Published about 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
  • 3.3K views
  • Published about 5 years ago

Transcript of 724: Personal Recount

Stories of people changing their minds.

  • 01:03:38
  • 1.9K views
  • Published about 5 years ago
Description of This American Life

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.