Modal elements of This American Life

"#1: New Beginnings," 11/25/05
Added 9/28/08

Strangely, I didn't find it terribly evident that this was a "first shot" at This American Life, largely because it seems the show had a distinctive identity from the start. One thing I like about this program (though I've had limited experience listening to it) is that it's not really about the emcee; Ira Glass acts like a navigator, behaving the way an editor of an anthology behaves in introducing the featured stories and offering a small bit of commentary on them.

The use of music in the Kevin Kelly story represents what I like about this program; it's sometimes hard to tell whether it's supposed to be funny or melancholy. If it were just Kelly's voice, the story might seem more depressing; while I expected a kind of carpe diem story about skydiving and whatnot, Kelly's narrative struck a different chord. By anonymously giving away money, setting up a will, and so on, he really does act as if he were going to die in six months. The piece could have easily used a lot of strings and piano to underscore the story as a more emotionally driven piece, but the subtle blues riffs make it harder to react to the story in a particular way. The orchestral music that punctuates some segments of the piece lend a darker sense to the narrative, but it usually occurs at points when there is tension, not necessarily that contemplative sadness Kelly conveys in much of the story. The ending, though, hits that inspirational note by allowing stark silence to dominate as the author struggles to continue reading, repeating the same statement. Then, the music takes over again, putting us back into a more comfortable place.

I absolutely loved how the Lawrence Steger story made use of the whole recording process as the show itself; we hear Steger commenting, "Um, this isn't the right section of Blade Runner...can we just kill the Blade Runner?" and "The music is Strauss' four last songs...okay, can you take it under me? Hold...okay, can you take it out? Can you take out the Janet Baker?...Can we nix that Strauss music? It's kind of too mournful." (This particular commentary starts at around 39:00 if you want to find it in the podcast; it persists throughout the story, though.)


"20 Acts in 60 Minutes," 10/14/05
Added 9/28/08

The opening by Ira Glass gives a sense of speed and rushedness by combining fast-paced music with the rhythm of a typewriter in the background. In general, changes in music and in the voices you hear let you know that there is some kind of transition, either within a story or between two stories.

In the Tate Donovan piece, I first noted that the laughter of the interviewer in background lets us know she's there before she asks any questions; it also gives us a sense of where the story is going. We can't see his face, so we can't be entirely sure what it's indicating about his narrative. When he gets to the part with the kid with the camera, the music gives a sense of wacky foreboding and Tate's voice lowers to almost a whisper, becoming more monotonous. When he's "playing" himself, though, his tone varies wildly, giving a sense of enthusiasm and further wackiness. When he gets to the end of the story, the producer's "Ohhhh..." lets us know how we should react to that awkward moment Donovan describes; the background music also disappears at that moment.

The Susan Drury piece about the radio station in Tennessee gives a sense of nostalgia by using big band music in the background. The accents you hear in the excerpts from the Swap and Shop program give a better sense of location; the difference between these voices and the accent-free voice of the narrator lends distance between them and further permits us to view the radio show as being from another time and place.

What struck me about the piece from the inmates in the juvenile prison was how the head of the kitchen crew reacted to the questioning of the inmates. He seemed to get really angry at them for no reason, which upset me at first until I realized that he might have also been reacting to something nonverbal. There was also a lack of context for the man's reaction; the woman the inmates speak to reveals that the incident had resulted in a riot in the dining hall, which probably explains the man's anger.

The use of printer sounds and melancholy music was especially effective in the story about That Guy in the Office. The printer is very much the same in this story as it is in Matt's life and as Matt is in the lives of the people he works with: a constant presence that you'd never notice unless you were really looking for it.