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Episodes from This American Life
The Idiot
M. Gessen returns to our show with a true-crime story that takes place entirely within their own family. This story comes to us from the producers at Serial Productions—who invented the true-crime podcast more than a decade ago—and from The New York Times. Act One: M Gessen tells Ira Glass about the surprising events that prompted them to begin reporting on their own family for their new podcast, The Idiot. They play the first episode of the series. (14 minutes)Act Two: Ira Glass and M Gessen continue to talk through the story of M’s cousin, Allen...
Call Your Parents
In the early days of the radio show, Ira did a series of interviews with his parents that completely changed his relationship with them. This week, he returns to those interviews. Visit thisamericanlife.org/lifepartners to sign up for our premium subscription.Prologue: Ira talks about why four conversations reveal how his relationship with his parents changed. (4 minutes)Act One: Ira’s mom, Shirley, is invited to lead a discussion about how to get along with your adult children. Her adult children question her expertise. (9 minutes)Act Two: Ira asks his parents for advice on how he s...
In the Shadow of the City
Stories that take place on the edge of civilization, just out of sight. Visit thisamericanlife.org/lifepartners to sign up for our premium subscription.Prologue: Every city's got a place like this: that weird no man's land on the outskirts of town, with junk yards and landfills. Charlie Gregerson grew up near that stuff, on Chicago's far south side, and he remembers finding debris from famous Louis Sullivan masterpieces in the garbage dump after those buildings were demolished. (4 minutes)Act One: Out for a simple pleasure cruise with two friends, Alex Zharov was planning to see...
Give a Little Whistle
Two lawyers who work for ICE step forward and lift the curtain on what is really happening inside our immigration system right now. Visit thisamericanlife.org/lifepartners to sign up for our premium subscription.Prologue: Two lawyers dive into the details of what they’ve witnessed behind the scenes in different parts of the immigration system. (2 minutes)Act One: Former ICE attorney Ryan Schwank explains the chaos and dysfunction he observed at an ICE training academy, which led him to whistleblow to Congress two weeks ago. (12 minutes)Act Two: A federal judge orders the government to immed...
Office Politics
Stories of high drama from America's workplaces — surprising, emotional places full of the greed, jealousy, and ambition of real politics. Visit thisamericanlife.org/lifepartners to sign up for our premium subscription.Prologue: We hear three stories of how conflicts are resolved in offices. Two of those stories come from sociologist Calvin Morrill, who studied the executive suites at a number of large companies in his book The Executive Way: Conflict Management in Corporations. The last story comes from host Ira Glass, who talks about how he ended up punching his own boss in the stomach in fr...
I Want What I Want
People deciding to do things that most of us do NOT choose to do. Visit thisamericanlife.org/lifepartners to sign up for our premium subscription.Prologue: A new documentary called The Boys and the Bees captures a moment where a six-year-old has a very unlikely wish, and his dad decides to grant it. Host Ira Glass talks with filmmaker Arielle Knight about what happens next. (9 minutes)Act One: John Tothill tells the story of Edward Dando, a 19th-century British glutton who would eat hundreds of oysters at a time and then run out on the check. Joh...
Kid Logic
Kids using perfectly logical arguments and arriving at perfectly wrong conclusions. Visit thisamericanlife.org/lifepartners to sign up for our premium subscription.Prologue: Ira talks with Rebecca who, using perfectly valid evidence, arrived at the perfectly incorrect conclusion that her neighbor, Ronnie Loeberfeld, was the tooth fairy. Ira also talks with Dr. Alison Gopnik, co-author of the book, "The Scientist in the Crib," about what exactly kid logic is. (6 minutes)Act One: More stories like the one in the prologue, where kids look at something going on around them, observe it carefully, think about it logically...
Kindness of Strangers
An episode from our show's early days: Stories about what happens when strangers are kind — and when they're not. Prologue: Brett Leveridge was standing on the subway platform when a man walked by, stopping in front of each passenger to deliver a quiet verdict: "You're in. You're out. You can stay. You—gotta go." Most people ignored him. But Brett found himself hoping for the thumbs up. (5 minutes)Act One: New York City locksmith Joel Kostman tells the story of an act of kindness he committed, hoping for a small reward. (13 minutes)Act Two: In 1940, Jack Geiger, at the...
What Is Your Emergency?
911 calls unlike any we’ve heard before, and other stories about immigration agents sweeping through America. Visit thisamericanlife.org/lifepartners to sign up for our premium subscription.Prologue: A collection of 911 calls where you can hear immigration enforcement moving through different cities and leaving chaos in their wake. (9 minutes)Act One: More 911 calls, including people on the line with dispatchers as ICE is chasing them, trying to puzzle out their next moves. (22 minutes)Act Two: Home Depots keep getting raided over and over again in Los Angeles. And day laborers are still showing up in store park...
Try a Little Tenderness
In the new year, stories of people trying a radical approach to solving their problems. Visit thisamericanlife.org/lifepartners to sign up for our premium subscription.Prologue: Ira meets two sisters who got into a fight, and then learned a lesson in turning the other cheek. (8 minutes)Act One: A hardened PI works the toughest case of his very young life. (18 minutes)Act Two: Producer Aviva DeKornfeld talks to a man who finds himself the target of vengeful crows. (8 minutes)Act Three: Comedian Josh Johnson wonders if some people should’ve been spanked as kids. (10 minutes)Act...
A Christian and a Muslim Walk Into a Bar
When a joke could get you killed, should you say it anyway? A group of Syrian comedians test the limits of their newfound freedom, a year after the fall of the brutal Assad regime. Visit thisamericanlife.org/lifepartners to sign up for our premium subscription.Prologue: Under the dictatorship of Bashar al-Assad, comedian Sharief Homsi knew which jokes were too dangerous to say on stage. Now that Syria is under the control of a new government, Sharief and the other comedians of “Styria” set out on a national tour to see how far their comedy can go i...
The Americans Outside My Window
In this special mini-episode, we hear from someone in Venezuela with a very specific take on last week's U.S. attack.