Host Ira Glass talks to Amanda, who's 16 and lives with her mom in a Christian commune in Chicago.

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

Paul Johnson, Carlos Appleby, and Sanantonio Brooks talk about how their housing project is like a small town.

Ira and music contributor John Conners on Sinatra's worst songs. And a brief history of what makes that 1950s Sinatra sound so great, with Will Friedwald, author of the definitive book on Sinatra's music, Sinatra! The Song Is You: A Singer's Art.

Brett Leveridge was standing on the subway. A guy comes walking down the platform, stopping in front of each passenger and delivering a quiet verdict: "You're in.

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.

Independent producer Dan Collison, on Pilottown and a feature story that fell apart.

Chicago writer Tori Marlan with a man who sold guns to criminals for two years, and what he makes of the experience. Most of the illegal guns on the street were actually purchased legally.

New York writer Sarah Miller talks about two men she knows.

An interracial couple takes a plantation tour.

A story by Larry Doyle.

Sarah Vowell goes home to Montana to try and understand her gunsmith dad a little better.

Wisconsin Public Radio wanted to do something simple: start running Car Talk, the most popular single hour on public radio. But to do this, they had to move their local car show, About Cars, from the morning to the afternoon.

Singles in Agriculture. By reporter Liz Weil and Alix Spiegel.

The first part of Josh Seftel and Rich Robinson's documentary about South Africa. Josh meets people who may be distant South African relatives.

Ron Carlson's short story.

"Edison, New Jersey," a story about delivering pool tables from Junot Diaz's book Drown.

Kevin Kelly is interviewed.

Susan Berman, author of the memoir Easy Street, the True Story of a Gangster's Daugher, reads from her book about her father Davie Berman, a Jewish gangster and one of the men — with Meyer Lansky and Bugsy Siegel — who created modern Las Vegas. (7 minutes)Act Two continues after the break.

Two people who've nearly died in gun battles describe what it's like, getting shot at. They draw opposite conclusions from their near death experiences.

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

Writer Julie Showalter on her parents' romance.

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.

A look at the Chicago political machine in the days before our story begins.