Writer David Sedaris on an unwelcome surprise in a toilet — a turd.

David Sedaris, on his mother's lung cancer.

David Sedaris play, with Toby Wherry and Penelope Boyer.

David Sedaris reads this story. A high-powered theater critic applies his critical skills to the Christmas pageants at local elementary schools.

David Sedaris recounts his shameful career as a performance artist. Recorded before a live audience by KUOW Seattle.

David Sedaris tells a story from his boyhood, when a voice inside his head commanded him to lick every light switch and tap his forehead with his heel. It's from his book Naked.

A Hollywood TV producer tries to convince a church of evangelical Christians to sell out a member of their own congregation. Matt Malloy reads. He was one of the stars of the acclaimed independent film In the Company of Men.Also in this act: Dickens vs.

Writer David Sedaris on parents' dreams and children's nightmares.

How David Sedaris became a Christmas writer — and how he started writing stories about the holiday that are so dark that sometimes it seems that he's trying to single handedly destroy Christmas. We hear from members of David's own family, and from David, all of whom insist that David loves Christmas.

An original radio drama called "Kathleen on the Carpet," in which animals talk and hold their own "animal court." It's a comedy by David Sedaris, starring our own radio theater company, the Pinetree Gang.

Julia Sweeney reads this story. She's a former Saturday Night Live cast member and star of the sad and comic memoir of life with cancer, God Said, "Ha!," which played on Broadway.

David Beers explains the gorgeous, modern vision that drew his family, and tons of other families, to California, and then what happened after they arrived.

David Rakoff on how he tried to pass as a local once he moved from Toronto to New York. He claims that there must be a chip in his head — or something like it — that automatically tells him when someone or something famous is Canadian.

An Allen Ginsberg poem and Ira Glass.

Story of a romance that began in a mental hospital. Sometimes, the line between crazy and not crazy is blurry; certain behavior could mean either thing.

Ira Glass talks with David Axelrod, who was an advisor to Harold Washington and to Barack Obama as well. In 2007, when we last broadcast this show, Ira recorded an interview with Axelrod who was riding on Obama’s campaign bus, during the Democratic Primary in Iowa.

Foreign correspondent Jim Biederman reports from a cell phone inside the Louvre, in front of the Mona Lisa, on what people say while they're standing in front of some of the world's greatest works of art. It turns out to be pretty banal.

Ira reads an excerpt from James Ellroy's memoir My Dark Places.

Ira with 19-year-old Claudia Perez at a furniture store in Claudia's Mexican neighborhood.

Host Ira Glass goes to the Federal Express hub at Memphis to watch 1.2 million pieces of overnight mail get sorted in one night and to talk to the adrenaline junkies in the FedEx Command Center.

Samantha Martin trains raccoons to play basketball and rats to bowl. She says that what we want from animals is for them to imitate humans.

An interracial couple takes a plantation tour.

Dr Patricia Deegan hears voices in her head. She's a psychologist and she believes that the only way mental health workers can really understand what their patients go through is if they hear voices themselves.

Michael Lesy reads.