Do Listen Twice: Recent Episodes
This American Life
To celebrate the iTunes release of Mike Birbiglia's movie Don't Think Twice, host Ira Glass presents a podcast miniseries featuring his favorite stories that Birbiglia has told on This American Life over the years. https://itunes.com/dontthinktwice
Yousef is forced into a move he is not sure he can make.
- Prologue: Since the beginning of the war in Gaza, Yousef Hammash has decided where to go next and when. In Rafah, he is out of options and faces his toughest move yet. (5 minutes)
- Act One: Yousef does not even want to think about leaving Gaza. (18 minutes)
- Act Two: The actual price — in cash — of getting out of Gaza. (31 minutes)
Transcripts are available at thisamericanlife.org
Donald Trump has talked about taking retribution on his enemies since the early days of his 2024 presidential campaign. After his conviction last week in New York, his talk intensified. We try to understand what his retribution might look like by speaking with people who have the most to lose in a second Trump administration: people who believe Trump will be coming for them.
- Prologue: Donald Trump has talked about taking revenge on his enemies since the early days of his 2024 presidential campaign. Ira Glass talks to reporter Jonathan Karl about how Trump has placed retribution at the center of his run and what we know about how he’s thinking about it. (16 minutes)
- Act One: Reporter Alix Spiegel talks to two people with good reason to fear a second Trump administration. Former White House Press Secretary Stephanie Grisham spent six years with the Trumps but resigned after January 6th and wrote a scathing tell-all book about her experience. Fred Wellman worked for The Lincoln Project - a group of high-profile Republicans who pledged to keep Trump out of office during the 2020 campaign. (22 minutes)
- Act Two: Alex Vindman became the face of the first Trump impeachment after he reported to his superiors that Trump had asked the President of Ukraine to investigate Hunter Biden, the son of his political opponent. At the time, Vindman believed that his Congressional testimony would not jeopardize him; now, he and his wife Rachel are having second thoughts. (14 minutes)
- Act Three: After hearing from people who dread a possible second Trump term, we hear from those who are excited about it. Reporter Zoe Chace checks into whether his supporters are excited for retribution. (7 minutes)
Transcripts are available at thisamericanlife.org
People tethered to one particular other person, whether they want to be or not.
- Prologue: Guest host Emmanuel Dzotsi talks to Leroy Smith about how one high school basketball tryout forever changed Leroy’s relationship to a childhood friend. (7 minutes)
- Act One: A man finds himself sucked into an intense head-to-head running competition against a perfect rival – all for free burritos from Chipotle. (18 minutes)
- Act Two: Writer Simon Rich grapples with an A.I. chatbot that threatens to make him obsolete. (21 minutes)
- Act Three: For writer Marie Phillips, moving in with her partner meant finding herself deeply connected to the woman who came before her. (12 minutes)
Transcripts are available at thisamericanlife.org
How they organize the chaos of the world, for good and for bad.
- Prologue: Ira interviews David Wallechinsky, who wrote a wildly popular book in the 1970s called The Book of Lists, full of trivia and research, gathered into lists like "18 Brains" and "What They Weighed." The book sold millions of copies and had four sequels and a brief spin-off TV show. The list books were like the internet, before the internet. (12 minutes)
- Act One: John Fecile talks to his brother, Pat, about a list their other brother made before he died. They each have different ideas about what the list means and how they feel about it. (14 minutes)
- Act 2: A brief visit with Bobby, who keeps a list in his phone of all the dogs in his neighborhood and their names to save him from the awkwardness of not knowing the name of someone’s dog – because people get upset if you don’t remember their dog’s name. (3 minutes)
- Act Two: Reporter Masha Gessen talks to Russians living in America and elsewhere, about lists they’ve been put on by the Russian government in the last few years. Masha is also on one of these lists. Each list has its own complex rules and potential consequences, for the people on the lists and for their family members who live in Russia. (28 minutes)
Transcripts are available at thisamericanlife.org
The trial for the men accused of orchestrating the September 11 terrorist attacks still hasn’t started yet. Family members of those who died that day are still hoping for some kind of accountability, more than 22 years later. This week, the story of how one victim’s sister is navigating this historic and twisted trial.
- Prologue: Host Ira Glass introduces the new series that Serial is doing about Guantánamo Bay. This is the second of two episodes of theirs that we’re airing. (2 minutes)
- Act One: We meet Colleen Kelly, a member of September 11th Families for Peaceful Tomorrows, and learn just how upside down and messed up the trial for the 9/11 accused has been over the past decade. (28 minutes)
- Act Two: Sarah Koenig explains what’s probably the best possible outcome that everyone can hope for at this point. And why, when it hits the news someday — if it ever happens — it’s sure to be deeply misunderstood by lots of people. Plus a trip to Guantánamo with Colleen. (31 minutes)
Transcripts are available at thisamericanlife.org
For years, Majid believed that if he could testify in court about what happened to him when he was held in a CIA black site, a judge and jury would give him a break. Finally, he got a chance to see if he was right.
- Prologue: Ira talks about the exciting new series that Serial is doing about Guantánamo Bay. We’re airing two of those episodes on the show – one this week and one next. (2 minutes)
- Act One: Majid Khan struggled with his identity when he was young. And then he realized exactly who he wanted to be – a member of Al Qaeda, carrying out orders for Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. He did bad things. But are the things that the U.S. Government did to him worse than his actual crimes? (38 minutes)
- Act Two: Majid finally gets his day in court. At his sentencing hearing, he describes to the jury what his interrogators did to him. (20 minutes)
Transcripts are available at thisamericanlife.org
While the seniors danced at Prom Night 2001 in Hoisington, Kansas—a town of about 3,000—a tornado hit the town, destroying about a third of it. When they emerged from the dance, they discovered what had happened, and in the weeks that followed, they tried to explain to themselves why the tornado hit where it did. Plus other stories that happen on Prom Night.
- Prologue: A high school boy explains how prom is the culmination of his effort to get in with a cool group of people. (5 minutes)
- Act One: Susan Burton reports on Prom Night 2001 in Hoisington, Kansas, a town of about 3,000. While the seniors danced, a tornado hit the town, destroying about a third of it. When they emerged from the dance, they discovered what had happened, and in the weeks that followed, they tried to explain to themselves why the tornado hit where it did. (25 minutes)
- Act Two: Host Ira Glass talks with Francine Pascal, who's written or invented the plot lines for over 700 books for teenagers in the various Sweet Valley High series....Sweet Valley Kids, Sweet Valley Twins, Sweet Valley University, Sweet Valley Senior Year. She explains why a prom story is a must for teen movies and TV shows. (6 minutes)
- Act Three: For a more typical view of prom night, we hear prom night at Chicago's Taft High School. (9 minutes)
- Act Four: In this act, we argue that the epicenter of prom genius—the place where America's prom future is being born—is the town of Racine, Wisconsin. In Racine, they've added one ingredient to prom that takes it to a whole new level of intensity. Reported by Wendy Dorr. (10 minutes)
Transcripts are available at thisamericanlife.org
Gladiators in the Colosseum. Sideshow performers. Reality television. We've always loved to gawk at the misery or majesty of others. But this week, we ask the question: What's it like when the tables are turned and all eyes are on you?
- Prologue: Ira talks to Joel Gold, a psychologist and author, about a strangely common delusion known as the "Truman Show Delusion," in which patients believe that they are being filmed, 24/7, for a national reality television program. (6 minutes)
- Act One: Producer Stephanie Foo speaks to Nasubi, a Japanese comedian who, in the 90s, just wanted a little bit of fame. So he was thrilled when he won an opportunity to have his own segment on a Japanese reality TV show. Until he found out the premise: he had to sit in an empty apartment with no food, clothes or contact with the outside world, enter sweepstakes from magazines… and hope that he won enough sustenance to survive. (23 minutes)
- Act Two: Writer Ariel Sabar tells the story of Roger Barker, a psychologist who believed that humans should be studied outside the lab. So Barker dispatched an army of graduate students to follow the children of Oskaloosa, Kansas, and write down every single thing they did. Sabar wrote a book - a Kindle Single - about Roger Barker, called "The Outsider." (8 1/2 minutes)
- Act Three: Charlie Brill and Mitzi McCall were a comedy duo back in the mid-1960s, playing clubs around Los Angeles, when their agent called to tell them he'd landed them the gig of a lifetime: They were going to be on The Ed Sullivan Show. The only problem was that their performance was a total fiasco, for a bunch of reasons, including one they never saw coming. David Segal reports. (17 minutes)
Transcripts are available at thisamericanlife.org
A girl signs up for a class. A couple hires an accountant. A group of co-workers decides to pool their money and buy a couple of lottery tickets. In the beginning, they're full of hope and optimism — and then something turns. Stories of good ideas gone bad.
- Prologue: Paul was a cop. One night he was pulling second shift when he had a perfectly good idea: He'd stretch out in the back seat and take a little nap during his break. He fell right asleep, and slept well until he woke up and realized the funny thing about the back seats of cop cars: The doors don't open from the inside. Paul is author of the book Bad Cop: New York's Least Likely Police Officer Tells All. (8 minutes)
- Act One: It was two months into the tour. Katie Else and the rest of the Riverdance cast had been performing eight shows a week. They decided to pool their money for the Mega-Millions lottery. Lotto fever gripped the cast. They started to genuinely believe they would take home about $2 million each, and quit Riverdance the next day. They took the stage the night of the drawing and pulled off their best performance ever, "For the Lotto!," trying to direct their energy towards the win. An hour later, at the hotel bar, the numbers came in. (17 minutes)
- Act Two: After years of neglecting their personal finances, Joel and his wife finally decide to sort things out. They hire a tax accountant named Len, whose casual manner is a real comfort, at first. But then, "casual" turns into "drunk" and then it's clear that he's just plain delinquent. Joel tries to take his business elsewhere, but Len refuses to let go of their file. He begs for a second chance, which it seems, came too late. Joel Lovell is executive editor at Pineapple Street Media. (8 minutes)
- Act Three: Davy Rothbart was on a 136-city tour appearing on morning TV talk shows to promote his book Found: The Best Lost, Tossed, and Forgotten Items from Around the World. Just before one appearance he had what seemed like a great idea at the time. Without letting the host know, he tested it out, live, on-air. Davy is the creator of Found Magazine and author of the book of essays My Heart Is An Idiot. (6 minutes)
- Act Four: When Elspeth was a girl, she wanted nothing more than her father's attention. He was busy, a doctor, and distant. One day he agrees to put on a volunteer seminar for their church, about his area of expertise: "The Function of the Heart." Elspeth and her best friend are the only two kids who show up, and Elspeth is attentive and engaged, the perfect student. It was an incredible experience for her, the best day she's ever spent with her dad...she thinks. That is, until her mother takes her aside and explains her big mistake. (8 minutes)
Transcripts are available at thisamericanlife.org
It can be hard to know the right moment for something to happen.
- Prologue: When Jordan was going into his senior year of high school in small town Utah, he and his buddies all lived together in a house, daring each other into Jackass-style pranks and stunts. There's one particular thing Jordan did that he did not want to talk to Ira about. (10 minutes)
- Act One: Harmon Leon is a writer and comedian whose cocktail party story about “the-weirdest-gig-I-ever-did” is more weird—by a lot—than anyone else’s we’ve heard. He answered an ad several years ago that called for a hilarious sidekick to a celebrity on a hidden camera show. (30 minutes)
- Act Two: One of the show's producers, Zoe Chace, tells Ira about a joke she made pretty soon after something terrible had happened.
Transcripts are available at thisamericanlife.org
People taking it upon themselves to solve the tiny, overlooked crimes of the world.
- Prologue: Host Ira Glass bikes around Manhattan with Gersh Kuntzman, in search of illegal license plates. (11 minutes)
- Act One: Writer Michael Harriot reexamines the DIY criminal justice system his mom invented to deal with his bad behavior as a child. (20 minutes)
- Act Two: Producer Aviva DeKornfeld talks to Caveh Zahedi about a crime he may or may not have committed, depending on who you ask. (7 minutes)
- Act Three: Micaela Blei accidentally solves a crime that had been going on for a long time, right under her nose, and has to decide what to do next. She told this story onstage at The Moth. (7 minutes)
- Act Four: Editor Bethel Habte examines video evidence of two parents trying to get to the bottom of a minor crime committed in their own home. (7 minutes)
Transcripts are available at thisamericanlife.org
Mysteries that exist in relationships we thought couldn't possibly surprise us.
- Prologue: Ira talks to Rachel Rosenthal, who spent years trying to figure out who had stolen her identity. She was closing bank account after bank account, getting more and more paranoid, until she realized she knew exactly who the thief was. (5 minutes)
- Act One: Ira’s conversation with Rachel Rosenthal continues. She tells the story of why it took her so long to break up with her boyfriend, even after she figured out that he had stolen from her. We heard about Rachel's story via the podcast Risk! (9 minutes)
- Act Two: Producer Neil Drumming conducts an experiment to find out: can two adults, both new in town, become friends, with the right help? (16 minutes)
- Act Three: Comedian Kyle Mizono, in a live performance, tells about the time she met her hero, spent a week working with him every day, and it went really well. And then, she emailed him. (10 minutes)
- Act Four: A short story by Lydia Davis about trying to calculate the cost of a love affair. The story is read by actor Matt Malloy. (12 minutes)
Transcripts are available at thisamericanlife.org
The things we break and the ones we can't fix.
- Prologue: Ira tells the stories of three things that broke–two of them in his own family. (8 minutes)
- Act One: A teenage whiz kid invents a new toy for Milton Bradley. Then the trouble starts. (28 minutes)
- Act Two: Reporter Dana Ballout sifts through a very long list—the list of journalists killed in the Israel-Hamas War—and comes back with five small fragments of the lives of the people on it. (10 minutes)
- Act Three: A skateboarding legend makes a final attempt at a high-flying trick. (6 minutes)
Transcripts are available at thisamericanlife.org
People waking up to the fact that the world has suddenly changed.
- Prologue: Jackson Landers tells the story of a very strange decision he made one summer day. (6 minutes)
- Act One: Elena Kostyuchenko tells the story of how she was probably poisoned after reporting on Russian’s invasion of Ukraine, and how she kept not believing it was happening. Bela Shayevich translated this story from Russian and reads it for us. (21 minutes)
- Act Two: A recording of comedian Tig Notaro in the process of trying to catch up to the present and absolutely not being able to. (8 minutes)
- Act Three: Producer Zoe Chace with a political fable that she noticed playing out last week in North Carolina. (11 minutes)
- Act Four: Producer Tobin Low finds a group of people with a special relationship with the idea of catching up. (10 minutes)
Transcripts are available at thisamericanlife.org
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
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 ½ 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
An investigation of when and why people ask loaded questions that are a proxy for something else.
- 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 that are asked a lot, 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)
Transcripts are available at thisamericanlife.org
What it means to have words—and to lose them.
- Prologue: Sometimes we don’t want to say what’s going on because putting it into words would make it real. At other times, words don’t seem to capture the weight of what we want to say. Susanna Fogel talks about her friend Margaret Riley, who died earlier this week. (6 minutes)
- Act One: The story of a woman from Gaza City who ran out of words. Seventy-two days into the war, Youmna stopped talking. (27 minutes)
- Act Two: For years there was a word that Val’s mother did not want to use. Val sets out to figure out why. (22 minutes)
Transcripts are available at thisamericanlife.org
One call to a very unusual hotline, and everything that followed.
- Prologue: Ira talks about a priest who set up what may have been the first hotline in the United States. It was just him, answering a phone, trying to help strangers who called. (2 minutes)
- Act One: The Never Use Alone hotline was set up so that drug users can call if they are say, using heroin by themselves. Someone will stay on the line with them in case they overdose. We hear the recording of one call, from a woman named Kimber. (13 minutes)
- Act Two: An EMT learns he was connected to the call, in more ways than he realized. (16 minutes)
- Act Three: Jessie, who took the call, explains how she discovered the hotline. She keeps in touch with Kimber. Until one day, Kimber disappears. (16 minutes)
- Act Four: We learn what happened to Kimber after she called the line. (10 minutes)
Transcripts are available at thisamericanlife.org
Nine radio reporters. Two days. One rest stop on the New York State Thruway. Stories of people who are just passing through, and the ones who can’t leave, because this is where their jobs are.
- Act One: Host Ira Glass describes scenes from a rest stop on the New York State Thruway, the Plattekill Travel Plaza, and the kind of people you might meet if you ever stayed long enough to talk with them. These include Robert Woodhill, the general manager, who needs a good sales day so he can beat his friend Andy, who manages a rest stop in Maine, in their weekly competition. Ira hangs out with a group of foreign students who’ve landed in Plattekill on a summer work program, and reporter Lisa Pollak gets travel tips from Lenny Wheat, who works at the rest stop’s information booth. Reporter Jonathan Goldstein spends a few hours in the rest stop parking lot. (30 minutes)
- Act Two: More stories of travelers and workers at a highway rest stop. The competition between Plattekill and Maine continues. Reporter Sean Cole observes the lunch rush at the rest stop’s busiest restaurant and stumbles into a behind-the-scenes romance. Reporter Gregory Warner watches a cashier at the Travel Mart deal with an angry customer. Reporters Nancy Updike and Jay Allison hang out for the graveyard shift – midnight to 8 a.m. – and find a surprising amount of romance at the rest stop. (26 minutes)
Transcripts are available at thisamericanlife.org
The mysterious hold supers have on their buildings, or that their buildings have on them.
- Host Ira Glass visits the Upper East Side building in Manhattan where Peter Roach has been the super for about ten years. Peter has a lot of keys. He doesn't know what most of them unlock. (4 minutes)
- Act One: Reporter Jack Hitt tells the story of how he helped organize tenants and threaten a rent strike in a New York City building back in the 1980s. Before long, Bob, the building super became his enemy. The situation got pretty ugly. Mobster ugly. Bob began to brag about how important he was in his native Brazil, how he could kill a person and be immune from prosecution. Only many years later did Jack find out how dangerous Bob really was. (23 minutes)
- Act Two: The super in Josh Bearman's Los Angeles building was kind of a needy character. He would sometimes ask Josh to come into his apartment and help him out -- check whether his garbage was being moved by a ghost, for example. Then one day he told Josh a story that involved these elements: a gas station, a beautiful woman, an orchid, a snowman, Indonesia, and a check he'd written for $30,000. It was so crazy, that naturally, Josh believed it. (12 minutes)
- Act Three: A man who we're calling "Dennis" inherits his father's job as a landlord of a big apartment building. His dad had warned him that bad tenants could drive even a good man to become heartless, but Dennis vowed that would never happen to him. He's tested on this point when he tries to help a couple that falls behind in their rent. He sets up a payment plan for them, teaches them how to make a budget, helps them with their personal problems. For six years, he stops himself from kicking them out. This story was co-produced by Sonari Glinton. (16 minutes)
Transcripts are available at thisamericanlife.org
Legendary radio broadcaster Paul Harvey had a popular show called “The Rest of the Story.” Today on our show, we do just that. We hear from people who, whether they want to or not, find themselves face-to-face with the rest of their stories.
- Prologue: Legendary broadcaster Paul Harvey had one of the most popular radio shows of all time. For 35 years he served up big twists and jaw dropping reveals all with his one-of-a-kind delivery. (7 minutes)
- Act One: Psychiatry used to be all talk. Then came a patient named Ray Osheroff. Producer Chris Benderev tells us what became of the man who changed therapy. (26 minutes)
- Act Two: Contributor Samuel James thought he knew what happened to his mother. But he was wrong. Then he was wrong again. (9 minutes)
- Act Three: A new resident in Berlin is greeted like a minor celebrity wherever she goes. The perks are nice, but does she really want to know why? Producer Bim Adewunmi has the rest of the story. (14 minutes)
Transcripts are available at thisamericanlife.org
It’s the last few weeks of summer, so we’re going to the beach! This week, stories from the surf and sand.
- Prologue: Host Ira Glass reflects on his feelings about going to the beach. (3 minutes)
- Act One: Producer Dana Chivvis explores the case of a 66-year-old working lifeguard who is suing New York State for age discrimination after refusing to wear a Speedo on the job. (15 minutes)
- Act Two: Alex Blumberg talks to Shane Dubow about a time decades ago, when Shane went sea kayaking and camping with his friends on the beach in Baja California, Mexico. When Shane’s neck stiffens up on him, he finds himself looking for an unlikely chiropractor, in the middle of nowhere. (11 minutes)
- Act Three: This clip is from what Ira calls “the beachiest show” public radio ever made. It’s a segment from NPR’s 1970’s show, Ocean Hour. In it we hear from a man who lives on the beach, literally. He explains how it provides him everything he needs to survive. You can hear the original hour of radio, which included The Beachcomber, courtesy of Nation Public Radio, Inc. (3 minutes)
- Act Four: David Sedaris comes from a big family, who for many years growing up, took annual vacations to the same beach house. In this story, David tells us about losing a sister, and how her death prompted a family reunion back at the beach. David is the author of many books, including Calypso. (27 minutes)
Transcripts are available at thisamericanlife.org
Nadia's family is split between Russia and Ukraine, which is pretty common. And when Russia invaded Ukraine, it didn’t just start fighting on the battlefield. It sparked family conflict, too. An intimate story of the war from writer Masha Gessen.
- Prologue: An extended family, and eight fights. (1 minutes)
- Fight #1: Luka’s parents – Nadia and Karen – try to figure out where to take him once war breaks out. (6 minutes)
- Fight #2: Nadia and Karen have been arguing over Russian-ness since they needed to pick a school for Luka. (10 minutes)
- Fights #3 and #4: Nadia remembers the times that Luka’s father would suggest going to Crimea for vacation, as if it wasn’t Ukrainian land occupied by Russia. And she remembers a present that Karen once gave Luka––the sort which had to be smuggled into the country. (6 minutes)
- Fight #5: Nadia tells the story of her father, Alex, who lives near Bucha, and how differently he and she view the Russian atrocities there. (10 minutes)
- Fight #6: Nadia tells the story of her mother, who lives in Russia, and how she won’t do the one thing Nadia keeps asking her to do. (2 minutes)
- Fight #7: Karen sends Nadia a photo which drives them to a final showdown. (12 minutes)
- Fight #8: Nadia’s step-father works for the Russian government. How to manage that? (4 minutes)
- Epilogue: Nadia and Karen’s son, Luka, who most of these fights are about, gets the last word. (3 minutes)
Transcripts are available at thisamericanlife.org
People on the verge of a big change, not wanting to let go. And the people who give them the final push.
- Prologue: Guest Host Sean Cole gets some scary news about his health, and decides to quit smoking. (5 minutes)
- Act One: Sean Cole attempts to kick his 35 year-long smoking habit, using a book that’s said to have helped millions of people to quit. (33 minutes)
- Act Two: Someone writes into the advice column Dear Sugar to ask whether or not they should quit a relationship, and gets a strange but very persuasive response. (9 minutes)
- Act Three: Even people who vehemently disagreed with Heider Garcia wanted him to stay in his job. But then something happened that made staying impossible. Zoe Chace reports. (9 minutes)
Transcripts are available at thisamericanlife.org
The true story of an abandoned house, discovered by a young boy in the 1970s, and the mysterious family who disappeared without a trace.
- Ira introduces this week's story. (1 minute)
- Act One: Adam Beckman tells the first part of his story, about how, back in the 70s, he and his friends broke into an abandoned house in the small town of Freedom, New Hampshire. The home turned out to be a perfect time capsule, containing the furniture, letters and personal effects of an entire family — abandoned for decades. It seemed like the family just vanished one day, leaving salt and pepper shakers on the table, notes on the bedroom mirror, and a wallet with money still inside. Adam and his friends read the letters, saving some as clues, and never forgot. (30 minutes.)
- Act Two: Adam Beckman continues his story. He returns to the town in New Hampshire where he discovered the abandoned house as a kid and tries to find out what happened there. It turns out he's not the only one looking for an answer to that question. (25 minutes)
Transcripts are available at thisamericanlife.org
Governor Ron DeSantis is running for president on the argument that he'll do for America what he's done for Florida. So what's it like in Florida?
- Prologue: Florida is now the fastest growing state, and DeSantis says people are moving there from all over because of him. We speak to people who did make the move, at least in part, for DeSantis’s policies. (6 minutes)
- Act One: Among the big items in DeSantis's run for president is medical freedom. Producer Zoe Chace wanted to understand its appeal and its growing popularity. So she spent some time in Sarasota County, where one man — at the side of former Trump appointee Mike Flynn — is creating a sort of little parallel universe for this very thing. (33 minutes)
- Act Two: DeSantis has passed law after law about what can and can’t be taught in Florida classrooms, starting as early as elementary school. And last spring, Florida Republicans introduced a bill initially proposing to ban things like critical race theory and identity politics, or students majoring in things like gender studies in Florida universities. Reporter Emmanuel Dzotsi followed how things unfolded at one of the biggest universities there, Florida State, from the bill’s introduction all the way to its passage. He explains how professors and students have been preparing. (25 minutes)
- Act Three: Among the legislation introduced by DeSantis that has passed is a ban on minors receiving transition care. The bill passed into law a few months ago. We speak with a teen whose family has since had to flee the state in order to access the care they needed. (2 minutes)
Transcripts are available at thisamericanlife.org
Many Americans have dreamy and romantic ideas about Paris, notions which probably trace back to the 1920s vision of Paris created by the expatriate Americans there. But what's it actually like in Paris if you're an American, without rose-colored glasses?
- Host Ira Glass talks with writer David Sedaris at the Louvre in Paris. David's never set foot inside, though he lives just a few minutes away. He says most people go to the Louvre because they think they should. Where he would take them if they wanted to see the city where he's lived for two years is very different. (6 minutes)
- Act One: David Sedaris takes Ira on a tour of his favorite spots in Paris. He moved to France with no special feelings for the place. His head wasn't full of Ernest Hemingway and Gertrude Stein and Sartre and Proust; he was a blank slate. And so the places he's found as his favorites tend to be places where the people aren't mean to him when he speaks French, or places where very unusual and fascinating objects are sold, or place that are unlike anywhere in the States. (27 minutes)
- Act Two: We hear from two Americans who live in Paris about what it is that draws the people who love France so much. (6 minutes)
- Act Three: Is Paris still the racially tolerant place that Richard Wright and James Baldwin discovered in the 1940s? Janet McDonald talks about whether African-Americans are still welcomed in Paris so warmly, even after a half century of African migration to the city. Also: Why it's sometimes better for her to put on a bad American accent. Janet wrote the book Project Girl. (16 minutes)
Transcripts are available at thisamericanlife.org
At a Yale fertility clinic, dozens of women began their I.V.F. cycles full of expectation and hope. Then a surgical procedure caused them excruciating pain. In the hours that followed, some of the women called the clinic to report their pain — but most of the staff members who fielded the patients’ reports did not know the real reason for the pain, which was that a nurse at the clinic was stealing fentanyl and replacing it with saline. What happened at that clinic? What are the stories we tell about women's pain and what happens when we minimize or dismiss it?
The Retrievals, a new five-part series from Serial Productions, is hosted and reported by longtime This American Life producer and editor Susan Burton. We're excited to bring you the first episode today.
- Prologue: Ira Glass introduces the first episode of a brand new podcast from longtime This American Life producer and editor Susan Burton. (1 minute)
- Act One: Susan Burton introduces some of the many women who went to a Yale fertility clinic for IVF treatment, and charts their experience from hopeful beginning to excruciatingly painful egg retrieval. (27 minutes)
- Act Two: Often bypassing logic, the women go to great lengths to construct elaborate stories to make sense of their inexplicable pain. And then, a letter arrives. (25 minutes)
Transcripts are available at thisamericanlife.org
Humans encounter non-human intelligences of various kinds and try to make sense of them.
- Prologue: Ira has some thoughts about our country’s long history of alien invasion movies. (2 minutes)
- Act One: In this past year we’ve witnessed a revolution in A.I. since the public rollout of ChatGPT. Our Senior Editor David Kestenbaum thinks that even though there’s been a ton of coverage, there’s one thing people haven’t talked much about: have these machines gotten to the point that they’re starting to have something like human intelligence? Where they actually understand language and concepts, and can reason? He talks with scientists at Microsoft who’ve been trying to figure that out. (30 minutes)
- Act Two: A short piece of fiction from the perspective of aliens who’ve been scouting Earth, from writer Terry Bisson. It’s called “They're Made Out of Meat.” It’s performed by actors Maeve Higgins and H Jon Benjamin. (5 minutes)
- Act Three: A species of massive, mysterious, highly intelligent beings have recently been making contact with humanity. Or our boats, anyway. Many people seem convinced they are seeking revenge for past injustices. Producer Chris Benderev wondered if that was true. (7 minutes)
- Act Four: Many of us, especially when we’re young, feel like we’re the alien, trying to understand and fit in with the humans on this planet. Producer Diane Wu spent some time recently with a teenage humanoid who feels that way. (15 minutes)
Transcripts are available at thisamericanlife.org
Ira's own father, Barry Glass, co-hosts this special Father's Day show.
- Prologue: Ira talks with his father and co-host for this show, Barry Glass, about his own early days working in radio. (3 minutes)
- Act One: LA writer/performer Sandra Tsing Loh discovers that a local rock band has recorded a song about her own father, wildly misinterpreting who he is. They think he’s a free spirit; she believes he’s a worried, miserly grump. She invites the band and her father into the studio to discuss it. (10 minutes)
- Act Two: Ian Brown explains the lengths a normal dad will go to give his daughter a memorable birthday party, including a birthday stunt so crass that he and his wife shocked all of their friends. (12 minutes)
- Act Three: Audio artist Jay Allison and writer Dan Robb present an audio montage on the moment Robb’s parents divorced. (11 minutes)
- Act Four: Chicago playwright Beau O’Reilly talks about how he reconciled with his estranged father years ago by becoming an alcoholic just like him. (14 minutes)
Transcripts are available at thisamericanlife.org
The one animal we can’t seem to live without, even when we really, really want to.
- Prologue: At this spring’s announcement of New York City’s inaugural rat czar, we meet Darneice Foster, who despises the rats outside her apartment. And host Ira Glass introduces two special co-hosts for today’s show. (11 minutes)
- Act One: Producer Elna Baker meets Todd Sklar, a man who can’t quit rats. (22 minutes)
- Act Two: Fifty years ago, New York City started to put garbage out in plastic bags. This has become the number one food source for rats. Producer Ike Sriskandarajah investigates the decision that led to the city’s rat baby boom. (10 minutes)
- Act Three: How did Alberta, Canada pull off a feat that has eluded the rest of human civilization? Ira visits the largest rat-less land in the world. (15 minutes)
- Act Four: We drop a hot mic into a hot mess of a rats’ nest. You’ll never believe what happens next. (3 minutes)
Transcripts are available at thisamericanlife.org
In these dark, combative times, we attempt the most radical counterprogramming we could imagine: a show made up entirely of stories about delight.
- Prologue: Ira Glass talks to Bim Adewunmi about her understanding of delight through American pop culture and the summer she spent in the US as a 19-year-old. Ira then hands the show over to Bim as guest host. (10 minutes)
- Act One: Bim talks to poet Ross Gay, whose book inspired today’s show, about the discipline and rigor of seeking and holding onto delight. (8 minutes)
- Act Two: Producer Robyn Semien captures a special morning for her five-year-old son, Cole, who is doing something delightful for the very first time: he’s getting to ride the school bus. (4 minutes)
- Act Three: Producer Miki Meek speaks to Noriko Meek, her 72-year-old mother, about discovering delight late in life. (8 minutes)
- Act Four: Producer Dana Chivvis follows the night zookeeper at the Denver Zoo as she doles out snacks and tucks the animals in. (9 minutes)
- Act Five: What happens when a dealer of delight gets depressed? Podcast host Tracy Clayton talks to Bim Adewunmi about the road back. (17 minutes)
Transcripts are available at thisamericanlife.org
Five years after the #MeToo explosion, what’s happened in the lives of the women who stepped forward and went public with their stories? We tell the story of a teenager who spoke out against one of the most powerful people in her state, and what happened next.
- Prologue: Some powerful and well known men lost their jobs after #MeToo. But what about the women at the center of all this who’ve been way less visible after they told what happened to them? We hear about big and small ways the aftermath of coming forward continues to pop up in their daily lives. (10 minutes)
- Act One: Back in 2021, a 19-year-old intern at the Idaho state legislature reported that a state Representative named Aaron von Ehlinger raped her. She went by the name Jane Doe. There was a public ethics hearing and Ehlinger resigned. State legislators talked about how proud they were of their ability to do the right thing so quickly. But the story that the public knows is very different from what actually happened to Jane. She talks about it in-depth for the first time. (25 minutes)
- Act Two: Jane Doe walks into a public ethics hearing at the Idaho state capitol and navigates the aftermath. (23 minutes)
- Act Three: Jane Doe sent some questions for us to ask Chanel Miller. For years, Chanel was known as Emily Doe. She wrote a victim impact statement that millions of people read. (A swimmer at Stanford University named Brock Turner sexually assaulted her while she was unconscious.) She talks about how she decided to come out with her real name and who Emily Doe is to her now. (9 minutes)
Transcripts are available at thisamericanlife.org
We answer the following questions about superpowers: Can superheroes be real people? (No.) Can real people become superheroes? (Maybe.) And which is better: flight or invisibility? (Depends who you ask.)
- Host Ira Glass talks to comic artist Chris Ware, who thought about superheroes a lot of the time as a kid. He invented his own character and made a superhero costume, which he wore to school under his regular clothes. Everything went fine until he realized he would have to change for gym class. (6 minutes)
- Act One: John Hodgman conducts an informal survey in which he asks the age-old question: Which is better: The power of flight or the power of invisibility? (14 minutes)
- Act Two: Kelly McEvers with the story of Zora, a self-made superhero. From the time she was five years old, Zora had recurring dreams in which she was a 6'5" warrior queen, who could fly and shoot lightning from her hands. She made a list, pages and pages long, of all the things she could accomplish to actually become that superhero: martial arts, evasive driving, bomb defusing. By the time she was 30, most of her list had been checked off. She was as close to a superhero as any mortal could hope to come. But her dream had changed. (17 minutes)
- Act Three: Ira talks with Jonathan Morris, the amazingly funny and charming editor of the website "Gone and Forgotten," an internet archive of failed comic book characters. Jonathan explains what makes a new superhero succeed, and what makes him tank. (9 minutes)
- Act Four: Of course you can’t be a superhero without a supervillain trying to destroy you. And the most interesting supervillains, of course, are the ones who think that they're the real heroes, not the guys in the capes. Glynn Washington tells the story of Evil D. (9 minutes)
Transcripts are available at thisamericanlife.org
Looping thoughts about people you barely know, or don't know at all.
- Prologue: We get a tip that an entire town is consumed by a huge, elementary-school-style crush on a local veterinarian. Guest host Lilly Sullivan goes to Utah to investigate the mystery of the hot vet. (8 minutes)
- Act One: We do the thing the people in town would rather die than do – spill the crush to the legendary Dr. Artz himself. Lilly Sullivan reports. (8 minutes)
- Act Two: Producer Alix Spiegel talks to one of her closest friends, Sarah Blust, about the time Sarah met a stranger who, unbeknownst to her, had already spent years thinking about her. (29 minutes)
- Act Three: There are certain jobs where thinking about someone else’s life is just built into it. Aviva DeKornfeld has a theory that petsitting is a job like that. She talks to a couple of pet sitters to find out. (14 minutes)
Transcripts are available at thisamericanlife.org
A week after Jerry Springer’s death, we go back to a story we first broadcast years ago, about a side of Springer most people don’t know and can’t imagine: his years as an idealistic politician in the mold of Bobby Kennedy. Plus other stories of people who try to leave some moment in their life behind, which can be hard.
In 1912 a four-year-old boy named Bobby Dunbar went missing in a swamp in Louisiana. Eight months later, he was found in the hands of a wandering handyman in Mississippi. In 2004, Bobby Dunbar's granddaughter discovered a secret beneath the legend of her grandfather's kidnapping, a secret whose revelation would divide her own family, bring redemption to another, and become the answer to a third family's century-old prayer.
It’s been nine months since Roe v. Wade was overturned. We talk to people who wanted abortions right when the laws were changing in their states. They had to wait for appointments, for money to travel or abortion pills. And during that waiting, a lot of interesting things happened. We see how much life has changed, nine months later.
Three people, and one animal, who know the path their lives will take until, suddenly, they don’t.
People so close to each other, in extremely intimate situations, who are also a million miles apart.
A flute player breaks into a British museum and makes off with a million dollars worth of dead birds.
Exactly how much are the animals that live in our homes caught up in our everyday family dynamics?
When it comes to finding love, there seems to be two schools of thought on the best way to go about it. One says, wait for that lightning-strike magic. The other says, make a calculation and choose the best option available. Who has it right?
Writer Etgar Keret tries to come up with the stories that capture his late mother, Orna Keret—but it’s hard, he says, because she’s like Maria in West Side Story and she’s also like Thanos from the Avengers. He ends up with a series of very short stories — most just a few paragraphs long — that give glimpses of different sides of her. These written stories are interspersed with off-the-cuff stories he tells host Ira Glass.
San Francisco’s Spider-Man burglar was remarkable. He dropped into buildings from skylights, leapt 10 feet from one roof to another. But mostly, his talent got him into trouble. This week, his story, and stories of other undesirable talents.
Not long ago, Republicans in Ohio passed a constitutional amendment to end gerrymandering in the state. And then a funny thing happened. The same Ohio Republicans drew electoral maps that violated their own constitutional amendment. They’ll be using them in this week’s midterm elections. We try to understand how that could happen.
We hear from kids who are dealing with some of the country’s most contentious debates. Debates that are supposedly about them.
This bird-focused week, stories about birds and the hearts they sway, the havoc they wreak, the lives they change.
Two people go on excavations of their families’ pasts. Including the first episode of the new podcast, “We Were Three,” hosted by our longtime producer, Nancy Updike, and from Serial Productions and The New York Times.
Getting to the facts can be difficult, but it’s always the right thing to do. Except when it isn’t.
There’s a program that brings together kids from two schools. One school is public and in the country’s poorest congressional district. The other is private and costs $43,000/year. They are three miles apart. The hope is that kids connect, but some of the public school kids just can’t get over the divide. We hear what happens when you get to see the other side and it looks a lot better.
When a fundamental part of yourself changes dramatically, are you still who you thought you were?
Ten people were killed at a grocery store in Buffalo, NY. Their stories, as you’ve never heard them.
The Supreme Court case that overturned Roe v. Wade began with a lawsuit filed by a Mississippi abortion clinic. On the day Roe was overturned, we were there. Stories from the center of this moment of history, the day it happened.
The final episode of Do Listen Twice, the podcast miniseries celebrating the release of the film Don't Think Twice. In this episode, some of the best improv actors in the country perform special Christmas themed show recorded live at the Bell House in Brooklyn. Saturday Night Live cast members Aidy Bryant and Sasheer Zamata, Scott Adsit, Tami Sagher, Chris Gethard, and Mike Birbiglia dream up a magical world on stage that’s only possible at Christmas. Don't Think Twice is available here: https://itunes.com/dontthinktwice
Mike Birbiglia talks about how getting into comedy is like starting up a business that no one wants; it’s all supply, no demand. https://itunes.com/dontthinktwice
Mike Birbiglia tells the story about the time he ruined a cancer charity event, by giving the worst performance of his life. https://itunes.com/dontthinktwice
Ira Glass and Mike Birbiblia introduce at story that Mike told at a This American Life live show at Brooklyn Academy of Music. It's about a trip Mike, his wife, and his cat took, where they met parasitic zombie mice. https://itunes.com/dontthinktwice
Ira and Mike discuss the first story that Mike ever told on This American Life, about the sleepwalking that almost killed him. https://itunes.com/dontthinktwice
When introducing this story about when his good-guyness was called into question, Mike Birbiglia somehow manages to mention his grandfather who helped build the NYC subway. The story originally aired on This American Life #515 "Good Guys" on January 10, 2015. Check out Mike's new movie Don't Think Twice: https://itunes.com/dontthinktwice
Mike Birbiglia tells Ira Glass about something that happened at a show he performed this past weekend, relating to the story in this episode, about the time he became the fall guy for his entire high school. It originally aired on This American Life #384 on June 26, 2009. Check out Mike's new movie Don't Think Twice: https://itunes.com/dontthinktwice
Mike Birbiglia tells Ira Glass an update about the story featured in this episode... and Ira isn't impressed. The story originally aired on This American Life #374 "Somewhere Out There" on February 13, 2009. Check out Mike's new movie Don't Think Twice: https://itunes.com/dontthinktwice
Ira Glass and Mike Birbiglia talk about how Ira cajoles Mike into revealing things he doesn't want to on This American Life, including the story featured in this episode, about the time Mike was hit by a drunk driver and made to pay $12,000 for the drunk driver's car. The story originally aired on This American Life #379 "Return to the Scene of the Crime" on May 1, 2009. Check out Mike's new movie Don't Think Twice: https://itunes.com/dontthinktwice
Ira Glass and Mike Birbiglia introduce Do Listen Twice, the podcast miniseries celebrating the iTunes release of their movie Don't Think Twice. Mike gives a "where are they now" update to the story featured in this episode, about his rocky foray into the world of making out with girls. It originally aired on This American Life #411 "First Contact" on June 25, 2010. https://itunes.com/dontthinktwice