This coming Thursday, August 12th, an outdoor film festival in Amsterdam called Pluk de Nacht ("Seize the Night") will screen several stories from the This American Life television show. Last night as a teaser for the screening, the festival showed the story of Haider Hamza, "Ask An Iraqi," from Season Two, Episode Two. Here are some photos of the screening, which drew a crowd of about 2500. If you happen to be in Amsterdam, check out the show on Thursday.
In late 2009, Ira Glass and six other This American Life producers took the stage at New York's 92nd Street Y, to talk for the first time as a group about how the show is put together. It ended up being a really fun night. Cameras were rolling, and now you can get a DVD of the event. The show includes a rare audio interview with our boss Torey Malatia (yep, he's real) about what it's like to be made fun of at the end of every episode. The DVD has cool packaging design by Susanna Vagt, beautiful menu animation by John Kuramoto, and even some hidden bonus features. We haven't printed too many, so get 'em while they're hot.
You can listen to Ira Glass describe the DVD below.
A few weeks ago when we were working on the episode Million Dollar Idea, we put a call out to listeners who wanted to share their schemes for making it big. Producer Robyn Semien talked with some of the folks who wrote in, including Abel Gonzales. Here's audio of Robyn interviewing Abel about his newest invention, which is honestly pretty amazing.
Thanks to the thousands of folks who took a few minutes to fill out our podcast listener survey! The survey is now closed. If you're curious you can check out the results here.
We put up a survey to help us learn what types of stories are audience favorites, what you think we should do less or more of on the show, how long you've been listening, etc. This is aimed at listeners of the podcast. If you only listen on the radio, the questions won't really be relevant, so you're off the hook. But if you do listen to the podcast and have a few minutes to fill out the survey, it'd be a big help.
Here's what I learned watching OK Go shoot this video:
1) When the Muppets are ready to stop performing (at least in a
setting like the Webbys) before the puppeteer takes his hand out of
the muppet, someone puts a black satin bag over the Muppet, so no one
has the unpleasant experience of seeing the Muppet lifeless. I
think maybe that's for our sake, not for the Muppets'.
2) Those Muppet guys are geniuses. I mean you know that already,
but to see them lying under a desk actually DOING it, ad-libbing the
big eye blinks after the staring contest, which is such a fantastic
piece of character work and comedy, it's very exciting.
3) Zach Galifianakis: What a nice man, to be waiting backstage at
the Webbys and allow himself to be dragged into this kind of thing by
a group of complete strangers. Afterward, I talked to him about
chicken farming in North Carolina, which apparently is our one mutual
interest.
What's your Million Dollar Idea? We have a show coming up in early July called Million Dollar Idea and thought it'd be fun to hear from you all, what YOUR ideas are. If you have a good one, and wouldn't mind us broadcasting it on the radio, send it to us! If we get enough of them, we might contact you and have you tell it over the phone for the show. Whaddaya got? email your idea to: milliondollar@thislife.org.
Ira and Lt. Governor Richard Ravitch will be guests on the Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC talking about last week's radio show at 11 a.m. Eastern Time (Thursday, June 24). Ira will play some clips that didn't make it into the story. The Lt. Governor will take audience questions.
It's another variety show, this one featuring two This American Life regulars: Dave Hill and producer Jane Feltes (who will teach the audience how to look beautiful in pictures). Also: Jeff Garlin!
This Thursday, June 24, 8 PM at the Gershwin Hotel, 7 E. 27th Street in New York. $5.
