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194
September 21, 2001

Before and After

Stories in the wake of the events of September 11, 2001.

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Michael Foran

Prologue

Ira talks with two New Yorkers on their reactions to seeing something they could never have believed possible. They acted in ways that they never had before, just ran around and around in circles. (4 minutes)

By

Ira Glass
Act One

In The After Of Before And After

Lynn Simpson worked on the 89th floor of the World Trade Center. She escaped, along with the rest of her office, and now is trying to figure out what it means that she's alive, and how her life is different now. (15 minutes)

By

Ira Glass

Song:

“Then Was Then, Now Is Now” by Peggy Lee
Act Two

Watching From The River's Edge

David Rakoff tells the story of the day that used to hold the record as the worst disaster in New York history: June 15th, 1904, when the steamship The General Slocum, caught fire and sank in the Hudson river, killing 1,031 passengers. Almost everyone aboard was from one neighborhood in New York, and by all accounts, that neighborhood was never the same again. (9 minutes)

By

David Rakoff

Song:

“100 Years from Now” by Wilco
Act Three

Notes From The Underground

In our search for events that might illuminate what we've seen in New York this week, we hear interviews with survivors of a terrorist attack that happened in a crowded city, during rush hour, just six years ago. On March 20, 1995, the Aum cult dropped plastic bags of poison gas on the Tokyo subway. Haruki Murakami interviewed dozens of survivors about what happened, and how they got on with their lives afterwards. The English edition of the book of interviews is called Underground: the Tokyo Gas Attack and the Japanese Psyche, and he gave us permission to read portions of it here. (12 minutes)

By

Haruki Murakami

Song:

“Place to Be” by Nick Drake
Act Four

Far From Home

David Sedaris talks about American and French reaction to the recent news in Paris, where he lives. He's the author of Me Talk Pretty One Day and other books. (6 minutes)

By

David Sedaris

Song:

“America the Beautiful” by Ray Charles
Act Five

U.s.a., Me-s.a.

Ira talks with Chicago Public Radio reporter Shirley Jahad about white Chicagoans and Arab-American Chicagoans facing off, each side waving American flags and shouting "U.S.A."...and how each means very different things when they do it. (6 minutes)

By

Ira Glass

Related

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445: Ten Years In
Sept. 9, 2011

Act One: Kabul Kabul Kabul Kabul Chameleon

Hyder Akbar was a teenager living with his family in the Bay Area when president Hamid Karzai asked Hyder's dad to return to Afghanistan and become an official in the new government.
169: Pursuit of Happiness
Sept. 29, 2000

Act One: One Man's Treasure Is Another Man's Trash

David Rakoff tells a story about an actual pursuit—a scavenger hunt—that takes hundreds of hours to create ... done for the sheer pleasure of it.
702: One Last Thing Before I Go
Apr. 24, 2020

Act One: Really Long Distance

Producer Miki Meek tells the story of a phone booth in Japan that attracts thousands of people who lost loved ones in the 2011 tsunami and earthquake.

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Feb. 22, 2013

Harper High School - Part Two

Part two of our program on Harper High School in Chicago, where in the last year 29 current and recent students were shot.

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