I love comedians because I think comedians make things that aren’t stories work-they find these moments and they don’t have to worry about the arc. universal means everybody will relate, and that is not true. I had a friend who wrote about spending a very large sum of money on a boyfriend and buying a house and stuff, and then she got letters from people saying, “Oh, I did that too.” There is always somebody who’s going to relate. Well, I think there’s always somebody who’s going to relate to something. People will say, “If I’m going through it, surely someone else is,” therefore, I should totally tell this as a story. I’ve heard a lot that the personal talk about how the personal can be universal. But I wasn’t going to storytelling events when I was in college at all.īut there’s a pitfall to that, because now lots of people think they should tell stories, even if they don’t really have any. There was like, Spalding Gray, obviously-all these people existed. And I know that was a thing before, but I just think Sedaris really started the contemporary version. ![]() ![]() People will call themselves professional storytellers and that’s a job you can have. I feel like storytelling wasn’t much of a thing at that point, anyway. I had gone to school for playwriting, screenwriting, and I feel like I learned nothing about stories from that, and everything about stories from This American Life. The pitches were always these amazing stories that you could listen to in the pitch meeting, and that was a really good education. A lot of the early stuff, they would call it “the best dinner party anecdote you’ve ever heard.” I learned a lot watching how the other producers pitched stories. This American Life is really good at stories. I didn’t do a good job of reacting to it. At the time, I’d never had anything featured on me and I guess I’d written personal things, but I just remember being incredibly embarrassed. I don’t have that now-I can’t really watch myself on video, but I can listen to my stories. Why is that? Were you self-conscious about hearing your voice? But then I heard the story, and had a hard time listening to it. I liked the sensibility of him and all that immediately. But I knew the minute I met Paul that I wanted to work for it and be a part of it. There was this guy at the bookstore who would listen to This American Life, but he seemed sort of old-timey. Most radio I knew was, like, the crazy lady next door who had her radio on all the time, so I associated the radio with crazy people. I didn’t grow up in an NPR-listening household. No, no-maybe for young journalists, but not me. Was radio on your radar at that time? Was it even thought of as a forum for young journalists? It got back to this man Paul Tough, a Canadian actually, who was also one of the founding consultants at the beginning of This American Life, so he did a story then about me and this neighbour. And without fail you’d go into the hall and she’d open her door and shine a flashlight at you. I used to have barbecues on my roof, and people would come over and you could watch the documentary I made about her and then go into the hall and see the real subject. ![]() I was just finishing up college and I did this video for this film and video class, a documentary about my neighbour, this crazy old lady who thought I was a drug kingpin. Starlee Kine: I was on the show before I was an intern. Kine is currently working on a book about the self-help industry.Ĭhris Berube: So you started as an intern, right? Or you contributed to the show before you were an intern. She ended up writing a simple, but heart rending piece, despite being unable to play an instrument. In it, Kine decided that, to move on from the end of a particularly significant relationship, she would write a torch song, and recruited Phil Collins for help. The story is one of the most popular in the program’s history. She’s told both wacky, shaggy dog stories-including one about staying in a potentially haunted hotel-and deeply heartfelt ones, such as The Break-Up. The first is Starlee Kine, who has been on the show since nearly the beginning. To note the occasion, we’re profiling three of the show’s most notable contributors. This American Life is airing its 500th episode this week.
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