This American Life

I'm obsessed with it. I've long since accepted that loving NPR makes me a middle-aged, white woman on the inside. But recently, with the introduction of the "This American Life" podcast into my life, I am completely in thrall to NPR. I laugh. I download multiple episodes a day. I try to keep from crying on the BART when listening to depressing segments.

I think part of the appeal is Ira Glass' soothing, public radio voice with its appropriate gravitas. But I think a little bit of it has to do with the movie Sleepless in Seattle, which I watched for the first time two nights ago. (As a side note, I found the movie disappointing. I spend an hour and a half watching a movie and the main characters don't meet until the end? And there's no kissing? What a crock. I would also like to note that it was horribly misbilled by Netflix as a romantic comedy. It was more stalkerish than anything else, and there's a limit on how amusing a movie about a widower and a woman who doesn't love her fiancé can be.)

But the more relevant point here is that Meg Ryan's character falls in love with Tom Hanks' after hearing him on the radio. That one aspect of the movie really makes sense to me. I think I may not just like "This American Life," but also be slightly enamored of Ira Glass. I know he's horribly too old for me, I'll probably never meet him, and that he doesn't usually speak for that long on the show, but there's something really compelling about those few minutes when he is on air.