This American Life is a syndicated radio show on NPR. If you’ve never heard it, hear the free pod cast at www.thisamericanlife.org or check your local listings on your NPR station.
This week was a rerun, but a great one. 20 Acts in 60 minutes is actually one of my favorite episodes. If your new to the radio program, every week host Ira Glass and his team of contributors picks some topic and break the show up into acts. Each act is a radio documentary on that topic. This week, rather then the three to five acts they usually have, they ran two acts on various random subjects. Basically whatever would fit into the tiny slots. And it was fantastic.
My favorite story…actually stories–with so many acts, it’s hard to pick just one, was the one about the Penguin from the Batman universe and Mary Poppins. It was so horribly clever and I found myself being envious of the writer’s ability to put such a complete and well written story into such a small space. As a ranter, I find myself writing way too much. The other story I liked was about Joey, the prisoner in the youth detention facility. I think he did a pretty good job. I also couldn’t believe how ridiculous the cook, or whatever he was, that he interviewed was being.
Read the full review after the jump.
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