This American Life

On Thursday night I went with my sister and brother-in-law to see the cinematic live-broadcast version of the National Public Radio show "This American Life."
I wasn't sure exactly what to expect, as all I really knew of the show was the one or two programs I had listened to in my sister's rural living room, and all I knew of the cinematic event was that it would cost $20, and we would drive all the way to Manchester, which is father than you would normally go for most anything, to see it. I could also sense Jordan and Roger's excitement as they planned and prepared- dressing up just a little, buying special snacks to sneak in to the theater, even, I would say, preparing by not talking about it too much. I contributed, I think, by not asking too much.
We dropped their perfect toddler, Leif, off at Roger's mother's house for an evening of ice cream and Nana entertainment, and completed the tuckings and combings for the final haul over the Connecticut River.
I wouldn't say I was disappointed to pull up to a regular strip-mall Showtime Theater building, but it did peel one layer of glaze off of my unimagined experience. At the same time, as my sister pointed out, the show hadn't even made it to the highway-side movie marquis. This did make it seem a little more underground, a little more "B" movie. You had to have special information for this show. A special invitation.
As we discussed on the way home, that is almost certainly part of the charm that wins the hearts of the NPR crowd. It may be national and public, but, I have to guess that simply by virtue of being radio, it feels like indie rock. It feels like your own discovery that if the regular buttered popcorn public really paid attention to, would certainly be hugely famous. Of course at the same time, the fanship prefers it small, prefers it less popular.
We carefully chose our theater seats, and watched the screen, rather engrossed in the graphically simple but intellectually delightful word puzzles. Six letter word for a racy new spring dress? MAYHEM. My favorite of the puzzles was in the final minutes before showtime, changing one letter of the previous word to fit the next clue. "Now and ___" THEN "US enemy?" THEM. Clever. Sassy. Underground.
The film began: if I had thought about it more carefully, I might have guessed that an NPR live broadcast might be a simple stage set with guests and performers walking on with jeans and blazers, holding up showpieces like napkins and post-it notes. I'm glad I didn't think of it, because I have certainly been as tainted as any of my peers by the need for special effects and sexy gore and so on, and I may have hesitated to spend that $20 (28,000 won) on the production that proved to be one of the most inspirational and genuinely heart-warming cinematic events I've ever attended.
Ira Brooks is the kind of guy you wish you were best friends with in high school. He gives the impression, like maybe many radio guys do, that he was abjectly unpopular. Much like the whole of NPR.
On to the stage walked regular people. It was astonishing how simple and yet profound their stories were. For a moment I wondered if they were listeners who had sent in winning letters. It came across this way, and made it all the more inspiring- their stories of car accidents and police mishandling, emotional rehabilitation and even struggling with the Catholic church.
It happened that the final story took place in one of my home cities, and I recognized the church he talked about slinking in the back of. Was this the reason I felt so particularly attached?
As we filed out, noting the oddity of leaving a theater sans end credits, I noticed that the crowd we had joined was clearly an NPR crowd- fashioned in earth-tone punk-type garb, friendly but subdued. I was enchanted to be part of this crowd, and enchanted that this crowd was the National Public American Life crowd. I instantaneously, after over 25 years of torment over the question, had a new stereo-typical image of the Unitedstatesian American. So much so that I'm not going to tell anyone at all. You have to be on the inside for the special invitation.

In a Missing Thunderstorm

I've been in Connecticut for several days now. I've seen their wildlife and eaten their pancakes. And yet here I am, well after 1 am on a Sunday night, still quite hopelessly jet-lagged.

My other current home is 13 hours in the future, in humid, charmingly hyperactive JeonJu, South Korea. The cherry blossoms have been out there for a few weeks now, and we have been comfortable, even hot, in t-shirts. But here in Southern New England I'm wearing every layer of clothing available to me, and trying in vain to fight a bad cold. I think I've actually blown out my eardrums coughing.

I've been noticing that my family here in CT is much more intuned to weather and animals and so on than we are in JeonJu. My sister pulls the car over at the sight of a porcupine; my dad arrives late for burritos because he and my step-mother needed to stop and watch the bald eagle's nest by the Connecticut River. My brother-in-law sets the computer default to check the weather. And so I know I can count on cold rain for the next five days.

Tonight the chance of thunderstorms is 100%. Yet I don't hear a thing. This could be due to my aforementioned ear drum damage. But I'm in a cabin in the middle of a nature preserve, where I would surely hear anything nature had to offer. In fact I'm quite sure I can hear an owl at the moment, scaring the mice away.

At this moment when the rest of the world is asleep or too far away to point out that I'm taking myself much to seriously, this seems an apt metaphor for my life- awake and listening, but somehow missing the thunder and lightning.