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 »
The Aggravation of Blog Readers by the Movie-Spoiler Scott Hardie
The upcoming Western The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford has looked appealing to me for a while now. (I originally used a pic of Brad Pitt in character for the Jesse James goo.) Great cast, great photography, great old-fashioned title. Go »Open Letter to a Lab Technician at Manatee Memorial Hospital
Just a few things that I would have liked to have said if I could have gotten a word in edgewise: - Yes, there is a strong correlation between ultra-processed food and obesity, but so far, no causal connection has been proven. - No, organic produce is not *all* covered in pesticides anyway, although some is farmed using non-synthetic pesticide and some winds up exposed to synthetic pesticide anyway for a variety of reasons. - Bill Gates promotes and invests in soy-based meat replacements because he believes that soy products are better for the environment and for human health. Go »Newer Neighbors Upstairs
"That's the fucking truth!" "You're a fucking idiot!" "Shut the fuck up before I slap your ugly head!" Go »Lars and the Ripoff
I'm sure that Lars and the Real Girl is a good movie and that Ryan Gosling is Oscar-worthy, yadda yadda. But will the bloggers out there spreading the word please stop acting like it's such an original premise to have an adult treat a life-size doll like a real person? In the past few years alone, I've watched indie movies May and Love Object cover the same ground, with Dummy skirting closeby, and those are only a few examples; plenty more exist through the years. Go »Love, Scott
Today is my mother Joan's 70th birthday. I wish her all the happiness in the world, but the occasion brings me feelings of guilt, for I have nothing to give her. Partly that because of bad timing, since she's on a cruise with her boyfriend Andy at the moment. Go »
