If you don't yet know the radio phenomenon that is Ira Glass, you haven't quite tapped the treasures of radio. The 49-year-old bespectacled storyteller has elevated the radio interview into an artform. His podcast is the most downloaded podcast in the country. Glass brought his quirky narrative style to Showtime last year, and returns again on Sunday. He kicked it all off last night with a New York City performance that was beamed to 300 movie theaters in the US -- including AMC Clifton Commons.
I was one of about 50 people who showed up to watch it and the crowd -- like the one that watched him live -- tended to be young, male and hip, with some baby boomers of both genders thrown in.
At the beginning of the simulcast, Glass quipped that the management of the 300 cinemas had asked him to convey this message: if any of you happen to have gotten high, and intended to see "Harold and Kumar," that's in theater five.
One of the most memorable stories of the evening was about an Iraqi who'd recently come to live in New York and went on a tour of the South in order to talk to real Americans. Prompted by the "This American Life" film crew, the young man actually set up a Peanuts-inspired booth that said "Talk to an Iraqi." Except for an 11-year-old girl who apologized for the fact that America had invaded his country, most of the people who stopped by argued with him, acting like they knew more about Iraq than he did. What made the segment especially poignant was footage of the young man as a college student living with his upper-middle-class family right before the war began. When compared to the footage of bombed out cities afterwards, it was quite moving to see how much an ordinary Iraqi had lost. This story will air on Showtime on May 11.
The extraordinary two hours combined the intimacy of radio and the gestalt of watching a movie with a crowd.
Afterwards, Mista Barista observed a group of yeshiva students coming out of auditorium. One of them started for the ladies room, but didn't want to miss out on any of the post-show conversation. "You have to wait til I get out," she implored them. "Don't you see there's a line?"
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Ira Glass and the This American Life podcast is one of my favorite things.
He elevates the artform of storytelling to a new high. I'm still going backwards trying to catch up on the past years of the podcast. I'm amazing at how each and every one completely engrosses me for a solid hour of listening.