David Sedaris reads his new fable about a squirrel, a chipmunk, and a love that could never be. He's the author of many books, including Dress Your Family in Cordoroy and Denim.
Host Ira Glass talks to film critic Jonathan Rosenbaum of the Chicago Reader about an anonymous love letter that turned out to be very different than it seemed.
We hear Billie Holliday, Keely Smith and Leo Reisman (with Anita Boyer) asking the musical question, "What Is This Thing Called Love?" And, reporter Sean Cole talks about love with Joe and Helen Garland, who fell in love during World War II, but married other people. Thirty years later they met again, felt the same love they felt when they were young, divorced their respective spouses, and finally married each other.
An act named after two TV shows, one where women sit around and talk, the other where men sit around and talk. If men are from Mars and women are from Venus, when you switch from one planet to another, what do you need to know about love? We hear from several transsexual men who've done exactly that.
Jeffrey Brown wrote a comic novel called Clumsy, a beautiful and intimate account of his relationship with his ex-girlfriend. He talks with Ira about the relationship and why he chose to draw cartoons about it after it ended.
Host Ira Glass talks with Michael Beaumier, who runs the personals section of the Chicago Reader, and who functions as a kind of guardian angel for many of the singles who advertise in his paper.
Another story of someone using the word love as they try to make sense of things. Russell Banks reads an edited version of his short story "Sarah Cole: A Type of Love Story," which appears in its full version in his collection The Angel on the Roof.
A story from David Sedaris about how the movie The End of the Affair almost ended his relationship. He argues that being in love sometimes means not saying what's going through your head.
Jonathan Goldstein and Heather O'Neill tell the true story of what happens when a person tries to intrude on a idyllic family of two, one of whom loves him, one of whom does not. For the first few years Jonathan knew Heather, her daughter Arizona was not very fond of him.
We hear a tape that a man named David Cossin made for a woman in Italy named Allesandra whom he'd met during a week he spent there, and with whom he'd fallen in love. He sent her a dozen tapes, including one where he tries to convince her to move to New York and be with him.
David Cossin's and Allesandra Pomarico's story from the prologue continues. We hear more of David's tapes, and they both tell us how successful the tapes were.
Jonathan Goldstein with a story about what it's like to date Lois Lane when she's on the rebound from Superman. Jonathan Goldstein is the author of the novels Lenny Bruce is Dead and Ladies and Gentlemen, The Bible!.
There is that moment when you're falling for someone, before either of you says the word love...but when you both FEEL it. But then once the word love is applied to a feeling...is it possible we're all actually referring to different feelings? Jonathan Goldstein tells a story about what if the word love didn't exist.
Howie Chackowicz tried a risky combination when he was little, kid logic with puppy love. He used to think that girls would fall in love with him if they could just see him sleeping, or if they could hear him read aloud.
Cringing means literally "to shrink from something dangerous or painful." So what could be more potentially dangerous or painful—more cringe-worthy—than love? Nancy Updike reports on the characteristics and bylaws of cringe love.
On a commemorative day, it can be hard to feel a real sense of the past and of how time has moved forward. Russell Banks has a story demonstrating what it might take to do just that.