OK Glass
by Scott Hardie on September 18, 2014
Last weekend, Kelly and I drove up to St. Petersburg with friends to see Ira Glass present a one-man stage show explaining how he makes This American Life on the radio. I had no prior familiarity with his work, having not heard the radio show unlike the fans that I went with, but I think it's long past time that I started listening to the celebrated series online.
Glass talked about how he studied semiotics in college, and that made a lot of sense: He approaches the radio show not like a journalist, but like a storyteller, using structure rather than content to build the audience's interest. He broke down some of his most famous episodes and explained how he organized them to build mysteries in the mind of the listener and establish universal connections to the people in the tale. I'm absolutely going to start applying his lessons to my own storytelling.
The stage show was frequently funny -- Glass has the skills to be a comedian, if not the psychopathology -- but for the cost of the tickets, I guess I expected more. It was over so soon, after Glass explained maybe four aspects about how his show works, and there was no visual element to the show other than Glass just walking around the stage, gesturing as he talked. The radio show has zero visual component, so I thought maybe the stage show would project images onto a screen or bring out some props or something to differentiate it. The stage show did include several requests to donate to the local NPR member station, so it was like the radio in that sense.
Even though stage show itself was not very good despite some laughs, I'll be glad that I went if it gets me listening to the backlog of This American Life online and gets me to approach storytelling in a new way.
Logical Operator
The creator of Funeratic, Scott Hardie, blogs about running this site, losing weight, and other passions including his wife Kelly, his friends, movies, gaming, and Florida. Read more »
Signs of Summer
The recent Florida wildfires have been a nasty reminder (I drove through one burned-down forest and it was a terrible sight), but if you need any more indication that summer is here, just step outside: It's scorching. Apparently one local still didn't think it was hot enough to take precautions, as evidenced by the recent explosion in the parking lot when we pulled into a strip mall for lunch. An entire trailer had burned into ash with only a skeletal frame and two melted tires remaining. Go »Grievances
I haven't written about my life in this blog for a while because I haven't liked to think about the state of my life. Things could always be worse, but I still don't feel much optimism these days. - We're being pinched by the economy. Go »Christmas 2016
After a hectic househunt and move, it was nice to have a family vacation to take a break from everything. The whole visit had already been planned back in the summer, and we had spent six months saving up plenty of money to pay for it, so all we had to do was relax and enjoy it. Kelly's father Russ and brother Andy, and Andy's boyfriend Joe flew in for a week. Go »Over and Out
"How's the week treating you?" "Like I slept with its wife." I've had better weeks. Go »Downtown A-Town
I can't write about why I spent the week in Atlanta because it's too confidential and work-related, but I can say that I had a good time around the margins of that event. The first day was the only loss. I got so little sleep the night before (seemingly a part of every trip I take) that I spent it groggy and exhausted. Go »
