« struggle and progress | Main | I know it's wrong to want to steal your neighbor's dog »
November 15, 2005
seeing Ira Glass 
On Sunday night, i got really lucky. Mela took me to a lecture at Reed College, only open to the Reedie community: Ira Glass, of This American Life, with his talk Lies, Sissies, and Fiascoes: Notes on Making a New Kind of Radio.
I was excited about it. I was expecting to enjoy it. I was willing to tolerate uncomfortable chairs and being too close to the people sitting next to me. But there was part of me that was feeling a little blase about it.
I'm assuming you're familiar with This American Life, though perhaps I shouldn't make that assumption. It's an hour long show that runs on public radio stations which is concerned with first-person storytelling. The stories or reporting may be about anything at all, but they tend to have an immediacy that is rare to find in professional media. They are professional, they know how to use their mics and recorders, but the amazing thing is that they just let people talk. And so you immediately empathize with the woman in New Orleans who ran home to get a pack of cigarettes, and ended up stuck at the Superdome.
But the energy in the auditorium, uncomfortable chairs or not, was palpable. The college kids are so very young, so very cute, so very serious in that Reedie way, so wacky. And even those of us with mortgages and day jobs were a bit, um, starstruck.
A student introduced him. "He's my hero! He's revolutionary!", she gushed, each phrase ending with an emphatic exclamation point. And then the lights went down. Like, completely down. Like, pitch black.
I'm sitting there with my goofy scooter glove/wrister warmer that I'm knitting, and thinking, hell, how am I supposed to knit in complete darkness? And the voice, the voice pours into the room, so familiar, so intimate.
I'd like to tell you what he talked about, but I honestly don't remember. I was captivated from the first minute to the last, but I got home, and Sweetie asked about it, and I'm like, ummm? What did he talk about?
He swears a lot, which I like. He talks like my friends. He speaks really in this immediate way, like he's talking to his friends. Us. Like he really likes us. I remember he asked if any of us were familiar with the topic sentence, and a bunch of us raise our hands, and then he asks, in the same tone, how many of us were stoned, and then, "you are under my power: you must answer my questions!", afterwards, collapsing into giggles.
And so we really liked him.
He talked about how doing a radio show, telling a story, is like giving a good sermon. He talked about the mechanics of what makes a good story, or a good sermon, work. Loving creative work is why you should be doing creative work. Loving creative work means you have great taste... but in anything, just starting out, you're going to suck, and your sucking is going to break your heart. Nobody tells you about that gap between where your work is now, and your exquisite good taste, and no one tells you that you just have keep slogging on, trusting that at some point you won't suck.
I think the thing which is most impressive about his talk was that it had to be scripted. It had to be sculpted and worked on and worked over, and yet, he spoke naturally, relaxedly, as if he were just forming the ideas then. Like he was your friend who just wouldn't shut up—but unlike the friend who won't shut up, you're hanging on every word. He seemed genuine with his emotion, with his wonder, laughter, passion.
He spoke til 10pm. Two hours. Well past my bedtime. And I spent a lot of Monday thinking about it. And this morning too.
I did a bit of web surfing as I was thinking about and trying to write this. How do I capture this in my clumsy way?
Here is a bit from a recent interview (August):
Brian Montopoli: I don't think that puts me in a vanguard, though. I think all the vanguard people all have cleaning ladies. Anyway, and feel free to just blow this question off if you want, but ...
Ira Glass: Wouldn't it be weird if you were to ask me a question that is so offensive that I would actually like hang up? I would totally do like a Robert Novak on you and be like, "I'm sorry, I don't talk about that anymore." (laughing) I would love that.
BM: Sadly, I don't think my question is anywhere near offensive enough for that. I did this fellowship at NPR a few years back, and when I was doing it, I told people that I liked "This American Life." And what everyone said to me was, "Oh, you know, Ira Glass took that show to NPR and they blew him off, and so he took it to PRI." And then I would get conflicting reports about what actually happened. And I was hoping just once and for all, there could be the definitive account of, like, whether you were blown off by NPR, and then angrily, in a huff, took your show to PRI, or what exactly happened.
IG: I'm sorry, I don't talk about that.
(Glass hangs up. Thirty seconds later, he calls back.)
BM: I can't believe you actually hung up.
IG: See, that felt good. I want to do that every interview, now.
BM: It would change your reputation, that's for sure. I just thought it was like a fake clicking noise, but it was actually a real click. I'm blown away.
IG: I guess it sort of takes some of the spice out of it that I called you back.
BM: Yeah, it does ...
Posted at November 15, 2005
Comments
How cool! I love Ira Glass and I love the bit of wisdom that with any creative pursuit, in the beginning you are going to suck and it's going to break your heart. Sometimes I feel so paralyzed by the sucking quotient of my work that I feel ready to give up. I don't feel that way so much now. Thanks for sharing that.
Posted by: Marisa at November 15, 2005 2:06 PM
hey, you were there?! i didn't see ya! i'm still on the crutches and had to sit by the door in the floor seating section. perhaps that's why.
DAMN that was the best. i walked into my office the next morning and my coworker, who had also attended, turned around in his chair to face me. all i could say was, "GODDAMN!" he knew what i meant. heh. was it really two hours? MAN! i brought The Boyfriend, who hasn't really listening to TAL much, and even he was floored.
i'm so glad you got to be there. woulda liked to have seen your knitting project...
Posted by: hollie at November 15, 2005 3:10 PM
!!*jealous*!!
Posted by: Fritz at November 16, 2005 9:38 AM
Ohimygod! You saw Ira Glass? I love that show. The supposedly super cool among my friends claims to have "moved past" This American Life, but I don't believe them. Where would one go? What would post-TAL be?
Posted by: Liz at November 16, 2005 11:49 AM
o god, o god , o god. my heart, it is fluttering.
(did you hear the recent TAL episode where Ira sang!? sigh. my toes, they doth curl).
Posted by: Megan at November 17, 2005 7:21 AM
That part about no one telling you that you're going to suck at first is so, so true.
Posted by: Megan at November 17, 2005 7:29 AM