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Monday, January 16, 2006

This American Obsession

For those of you that have been paying attention since my new site debuted, and especially my blog, you may have noticed a curious little link off to the right hand side, or rather a small conclave of websites entitled: "Links that make me happy". Of all the millions of beneficial and not so useful websites, by far for the past year my all time favorite is NPR and more specifically "This American Life". My love for this radio show has almost become an obsession, and the lucky students who have worked with me at Monty Hall can attest to my random and often loud outbursts of laughter or other vocal exclamation that come out from me while I listen. Even worst when I make them hear a sound bite that I think is positively remarkable only to receive a stare that declares, "What the hell are you making me listen to Matt?"

So what is This American Life? (which I shall refer to as TAL from hence forth) It is a radio program produced by Public Radio International, and played on NPR stations through out the country, and their entire archive can be listened to for free at www.ThisAmericanLife.com. Now I know what you are thinking, "don't only former tree hugging hippies with a lava lamp and black light listen to that NPR stuff?". Actually as far as I am concerned NPR is the last bastioned of intelligence, sanity, and enlightenment left in the media, and one of the best sources to improve ones worldview. TAL is a weekly hour-long show hosted by Ira Glass in which each week they pick a theme and have several stories on that theme. Topics range from the lighthearted to the deadly serious and are written and narrated by a group of regular writers as well as guests. One of these writers is a sub-obsession of mine, Sarah Vowell.

You probably know her as the voice of Violet from the Incredibles, but more importantly is an amazing writer with a sharp sarcastic wit and an infatuation like me for American History. She has written several books, last I read was "Assassination Vacation" about her tour of the U.S. visiting all the Presidential assassination landmarks, great book, but I digress. If you go the TAL website run a search on her name and any one of her episodes is going to be a great one, although they are all great, hers are just super great! Oh Sarah... if only I were ten years older... and you dug animators. Too creepy? I'll move on, I can always talk more about Sarah in a later blog.

This is how geeky I have become. My idea of a really great evening is a glass of Spatlesse wine, animating in Maya, my cat, and a new episode of TAL. It doesn't matter how poor my mood is, or how pessimistic I am feeling that this country has completely and utterly lost its mind, This American life always makes me feel warm and fuzzy, and most of the time damn proud to live in this marvelous if not often nutty country of ours. So the entire impetus for writing this diatribe was to tell you about an especially terrific episode I just listened to:

"Not What I Meant" aired earlier this year. I originally heard it actually on the radio, although I do most of my listening of the show via the Internet. This episode is about people saying or doing one thing, and it getting completely misunderstood, sometimes with things going horribly wrong. Act One is my favorite, and is about a man completely at the wrong place, at the wrong time, with the wrong items, and saying the absolute wrong things. He ends up getting the FBI and Donald Rumsfeld after him and eventually they figure out he is in fact as dumb as he looks and not an international terrorist. Of course hilarity ensures throughout. This story would be funny enough on its own, but as luck would have it a similar event happened to me when I worked at a summer camp. I had the Secret Service department of Anti Internet Terrorism looking for me. Long story short is I learned two things: First there are exactly seven Matthew Ornstein's in the entire U.S.A., and one of them had been running muck on the web. Second that I rather nicely fit the profile of a internet liberal terrorist, but I promises you I am not. The details I will save for another time, its a amusing tale, one worthy of story and song. In the mean time go forth and listen to the episode, I know for a fact you will enjoy it. Expect to see more links to TAL on the blog, and if you become addicted as well let me know, maybe we can start a 12-step therapy group. "Hello my name is Matt Ornstein, and I haven't listened to a This American Life episode in two weeks, and I fear I may fall off the wagon".

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