Video killed the radio star. Internet killed the video star (though the video star was already left mostly dead with MTV’s slough of horrible reality TV shows).
But wait, that radio star isn’t quite dead yet!
This American Life may not sell out stadiums, but it has brought radio back in a big way. Each week, several stories are presented, loosely based around a theme. Part 60 Minutes, part local news/human interest story; every episode never fails to both inform and edify.
Many people today live a hermetically sealed life: Wake up in a cookie-cutter tract house, commute via car to work, spend much of the day in a cubicle, and then back to the house. One’s perspective on the world around them can get easily skewed, their own problems and views becoming out of proportion and out of sync with the rest of the city and country they live in. This American Life’s weekly shows offer perspectives one wouldn’t normally get in an otherwise sealed existence.
If you can’t get to your radio on Sunday evenings, virtually every episode is available for free download, either by streaming from the website, or by podcast through iTunes or any other media player you prefer.
According to the TAL web site, “Each episode has a theme. That’s mostly because a theme makes it seem like there’s a reason to sit and listen to a story about a contest where everyone stands around a truck for days until only one person is left on their feet…or a grown man trying to convince a skeptical friend that not only has he heard the world’s greatest phone message, but that it’s about the Little Mermaid…or a man who’s obsessed with Niagara Falls, lives minutes from the Falls, writes and thinks about the Falls all the time, but can’t bring himself to actually visit the Falls because, as he says, “they’ve ruined the Falls.” If you’re not doing stories about the news, or celebrities, or things people have ever heard of elsewhere, you have to give people a reason to keep listening. The themes make it seem like you should.”
Most everyone I’ve told about this show have balked at the hour-long program hour. If you can’t find the time to spend in front of the radio or your computer, you can pick up the first season of the episodes from the television show that aired on Showtime.
If you’ve got some time on your hands right now, I highly recommend this episode.