Host Ira Glass talks changing the name of the show from Your Radio Playhouse and stumbles on a more fundamental truth about naming things: The people with an investment in the name can be incredibly divisive. He consults television talk show host Joe Franklin for advice.

Author and kindergarten teacher (and MacArthur Genius Grant recipient) Vivian Paley tells the story of an experiment she conducted in her classroom to make children less cruel to each other. She instituted a rule: "You can't say 'You can't play.'" In other words, if two children are playing, and a third child comes over and wants to join them, they can't tell him or her to get lost.

A woman obsessed with the number 2.

Radio producer Dan Gediman's story about his older brother, "Alex Jones," who he idolized when they were kids. After many unsuccessful attempts to become a rock star, he finally made it in music, as a Tom Jones impersonator.

LA writer/performer Sandra Tsing Loh discovers that a local rock band has recorded a song about her own father, wildly misinterpreting who he is. They think he's a free spirit; she believes he's a worried, miserly grump.

Host Ira Glass brings together a panel of Republicans to discuss their lack of excitement about then-presumptive Republican Presidential nominee Bob Dole.

As high-school freshmen, Kim, Tiffany, and Laura were enamored of their fellow students who netted the leads in all the school plays. They're seniors now, and they're the ones landing all the lead roles.

Tapes recorded in a Chicago home Christmas morning, more than 50 years ago.

Michael Stumm on the uses of chickens in South African sangoma (witch doctor) culture.

Greg Whitehead, with screams from the This American Life audience.

Ira talks about one of the purest expressions of ordinary folks' desire to be detectives: a child's detective notebook — full of information, secret codes, cases, and an application to become an FBI agent.

David Sedaris reads one of his funniest and most affecting stories from his book Naked before a live audience. As an adolescent boy, David feared he might be a homosexual.

Alix Spiegel tells the story of her friend Jayna, who made a Faustian bargain at 11 years old.

Host Ira Glass uses Italian author Umberto Eco's essay Travels in Hyperreality as a guidebook to American simulated worlds. Eco says that the urge to create these miniature simulated worlds is a very American impulse — a significant American aesthetic — and one that's not often discussed.

Sherman Alexie's story "Because My Father was the Only Indian Who Saw Jimi Hendrix Play the Star Spangled Banner at Woodstock." (15 minutes)

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.

An excerpt from Your Radio is Haunted. (6 minutes)

Reporter Shirley Jahad investigates the politics of the Chicago hot dog on Navy Pier.

A man in New York runs an apology line.

David Sedaris continues his story.

We invited Dick Orkin to create a new Chickenman episode for our Poultry Slam.

Radical right wing Mexican-American activist Daniel D.