Host Ira Glass with Sarah, who did phone sex and nude dancing.

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.

Susanna Kaysen reads from her account of living at McLean psychiatric hospital for about two years, starting when she was eighteen. Her book, Girl, Interrupted, describes daily life on the ward.

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

We begin to hear a story by Scott Carrier.

Dishwasher Pete, author of the book Dishwasher: One Man's Quest to Wash Dishes in All Fifty States, went to the National Restaurant Association convention on assignment from This American Life.

Reporter Paul Tough talks with Aaron Hsu-Flanders, an acknowledged master in the field of animal balloons, who says that artistic jealousies have ruined his life. Even in the world of latex giraffes and doggies, there are artistic rivalries and bitterness.

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

A con man named Nick Ward who's so good he's thanked.

Host Ira Glass talks to three teenage boys who buy computer equipment using stolen credit card numbers.

David Sedaris, on his mother's lung cancer.

Sarah Vowell, on selling the secrets of art dealer Graham Arader.

Richard Lyons, from the band Negativland, tells the story of a Xeroxed book he put together for a few friends. It's photos of smashed-up cars in a junkyard.

How a guy named Tom became Camden Joy — and what he gained and what he lost. With Sarah Vowell.

An excerpt from Heather Woodbury's epic eight-hour solo show WhatEver: An American Odyssey in Eight Acts.

New York writer Camden Joy tells what happened when in a greasy spoon restaurant filled with cabbies and club kids when Frank's film The Manchurian Candidate came on television. The whole place got silent, watched the film, and choked up.

Cheryl Trykv hears she's gonna live.

Dishwasher Pete on Letterman.

Hollywood is all about the idea of getting something for nothing, and no show on the subject would be complete without a Hollywood story. Writer Sandra Tsing Loh provides it.

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.

Short fiction by George Saunders.

Alix Spiegel in Colorado Springs, where a massive prayer project is underway to pray for every person, business, and school. When she arrives, she finds the Christians speak a kind of Christian jargon she does not understand.

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.