Ira Glass
Ira Glass
Ira Jeffrey Glassis an American public radio personality and the host and producer of the radio and television show This American Life...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionRadio Host
Date of Birth3 March 1959
CityBaltimore, MD
CountryUnited States of America
characters contrast dramatic emotion empathize gets imagining logic machine sequence staged tool
The story is a machine for empathy. In contrast to logic or reason, a story is about emotion that gets staged over a sequence of dramatic moments, so you empathize with the characters without really thinking about it too much. It is a really powerful tool for imagining yourself in other people's situations.
cream jobs kid magician
I am such a do-goody, people-pleasing kid - or I was - I don't think I've ever been fired, not even from an ice cream shop, magician for kids' parties, not even in my early jobs in radio.
In most daily journalism, you only fact-check something if it seems a little fishy.
america attention country culture current expect idealism informed interested level older people somebody step totally touch utterly vision
Her vision of what the country is, and what she should be writing about, is totally her own. She's utterly in step with the current moment, ... She's in touch with contemporary culture and the things people in their 20s are interested in, but it's all informed with a level of attention and idealism about America as a place you would expect from somebody much older and tweedier.
amuse characters describe happen heard interest interested people public radio stories
For most people when you say - public radio - they automatically think it's like medicine. We only do stories that amuse and interest us. For people who haven't heard the show, we describe it like a movie where there are characters and you're interested in what's going to happen to them.
time watch
I didn't watch T.V. from the time I was 18 'til my mid-30s. And then I got a T.V. to watch 'The Sopranos.' I realized, 'Oh, T.V. is really interesting.'
generally movies shows symbolism
I hate dream sequences in movies and T.V. shows generally for their heavy-handed symbolism and storytelling tediousness.
across aids hard hearing
Hearing it in her words, it makes it all the more real. It's something that's hard to get across in print, hard to do in any other way. ... We all hear about AIDS in Africa, but this makes it real.
baby belief remember
I remember clearly that when I was little it was explained to me [that] the way that babies were made was that God put the baby into some lady's stomach, right? And, at some point, I learned how it really happened, and really that was the beginning of the end of my belief in God. Up until that point, it had always been a really weird act of intervention on God's part.
people
For people starting public radio shows, one of the things you have to do is you have to talk every single public radio station into picking you up.
thinking people radio
But sadly, one of the problems with being on public radio is that people tend to think you're being sincere all the time.
writing creating lucky
If you're not failing all the time, you're not creating a situation where you can get lucky.
thinking frightening
I'm going to go with Chihuahua, just because I can't think of anything more frightening than a giant Chihuahua.
trying want stuff
You just want to try a bunch of stuff, because you don't know what's going to be great.