One of the interesting (and less unfruitful) things I have been doing while in my state of unemployment is listening to podcasts, including ‘This American Life’, ‘The Moth’ and ‘The New Yorker: Fiction’. ‘The Moth’ features eclectic and intriguing stories told ‘live without notes’. I find most of the stories rather boring, but there is the occasional amusing and/or heartwarming gem. The New Yorker fiction podcast, on the other hand, is mostly just really boring &mdash perhaps I prefer reading prose than listening to it.
‘This American Life’, however, is excellent. I love it. It’s basically like ‘Reader’s Digest’, except it’s much more immersive, engaging and personal and less family-oriented (and more liberal). More immersive, because the pieces don’t just span a few pages, but are spread over an hour-long show. More engaging and personal, due to the nature of the medium &mdash listeners actually hear the people in the stories and they have a human voice narrating and hosting (Ira Glass, whom Stephen Colbert teased for always sounding ‘lifeless’ on the show &mdash which I completely agree with!). It’s great to listen to at night, alone, on headphones. The show’s iTunes link is here.
[...] the content as well as the more traditional production of This American Life (which I wrote about last year), Radiolab will definitely remain on my [...]