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This American Life

Each week we choose a theme. Then anything can happen. This American Life is true stories that unfold like little movies for radio. Personal stories with funny moments, big feelings, and surprising plot twists. Newsy stories that try to capture what it’s like to be alive right now. It’s the most popular weekly podcast in the world, and winner of the first ever Pulitzer Prize for a radio show or podcast. Hosted by Ira Glass and produced in collaboration with WBEZ Chicago.

Stories about the intersection of Christmas and retail, originally broadcast in 1996 when our show was only a year old. Including David Sedaris's "Santaland Diaries" about the seasons he spent working as an elf at Macy's.

Christmas and Commerce

How one block in Portland, Oregon became a movie-set war zone that lots of people think is a real war zone.

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 • Prologue: What the movie Hearts of Darkness and right-wing influencers have in common. (8 minutes)
 • Act One: Producers Zoe Chace and Suzanne Gaber follow a bunch of right-wing influencers as they search for Antifa in Portland. (31 minutes)
 • Act Two: We meet the so-called leader of Antifa in Portland. (16 minutes)

Transcripts are available at thisamericanlife.org

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877: The Making Of

The vexing difficulty of finding the perfect gift.

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 • Prologue: Host Ira Glass goes to a busy Target store one week before Christmas. Most shoppers he talks to don't think any of their gifts will be returned. (3 minutes)
 • Act One: Ian Brown tries, after decades of failure, to give his mother the perfect Christmas gift. He and his brother attempt something they haven't done since they were kids: Rehearse and sing her a program of Christmas carols. (19 minutes)
 • Act Two: We play a 1959 original recording of Truman Capote reading his holiday story A Christmas Memory. (18 minutes)
 • Act Three: Caitlin Shetterly reports on a true-life holiday fable from rural Maine, complete with a misunderstood recluse with a heart of gold, a deserving family in need, and a very special Christmas tree farm with secrets of its own. (16 minutes)

Transcripts are available at thisamericanlife.org

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255: Our Holiday Gift-Giving Guide

When history comes knocking, you have to figure out what to do.

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 • Prologue: Brittany’s job is to answer anonymous calls and texts from people in the military. This year, she’s gotten more than usual–most of them are wondering about what to do with orders they’ve been given. Or orders they’re afraid they’ll get someday in the future. (9 minutes)
 • Act One: Jad Abumrad tells the story of the "ideological genealogy” of Fela Kuti’s anti-colonial politics–his mother. In late 1940s Nigeria, Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti found herself at the center of a big, historical moment: an uprising led by thousands of women selling goods in Nigeria’s markets. Jad goes searching for who she really was, and how she became the person who galvanized a movement when history demanded it of her. (45 minutes)

Transcripts are available at thisamericanlife.org

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876: Bigger Than Me

What’s in the box? What’s in the $%&ing box?!?

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 • Prologue: A class of second graders is handed a sealed box with a mystery object inside. They are supposed to guess what it is, but the lesson goes off the rails. (8 minutes)
 • Act One: A man is hired along with a crew to dig a mysterious hole on the slopes of Mt. Shasta. The hole goes sixty feet down. But what are they looking for? (24 minutes)
 • Act 2: A sparkly mystery. One woman hopes the military-industrial complex is involved. (4 minutes)
 • Act Two: What happens when the full force of the federal government arrives on your block? (14 minutes)
 • Act Three: A comedian finds himself trapped in an uncomfortable mystery in the backseat of a cab. (4 minutes)

Transcripts are available at thisamericanlife.org

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875: I Hate Mysteries

What’s great about living in a family is that everyone sees everything differently. Also, that’s what’s awful about living in a family. We go behind closed doors with two families. 

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 • Prologue: When Heather Gay started taking steps away from Mormonism, she thought it was her secret. That her daughters had no idea. Until she talked to them about their mismatched memories. (17 minutes)
 • Act One: In every house, behind every closed door, a private drama is unfolding. In the Rivera house, the drama comes in the form of a question: should they stay or should they go? This question winds its way around the house until someone finally answers it. (44 minutes)

Transcripts are available at thisamericanlife.org

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874: Under One Roof

Shalom Auslander goes on vacation with his family, suspects the beloved, chatty old man in the room next door is an imposter, and sets out to prove it. This and other stories about the pitfalls of making snap judgments about others.

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 • Prologue: Amy Roberts thought it was obvious that she was an adult, not a kid, and she assumed the friendly man working at the children's museum knew it too. Unfortunately, the man had Amy pegged all wrong. And by the time she figured it out, it was too late for either of them to save face. Host Ira Glass talks to Amy about the embarrassing ordeal that taught her never to assume she knows what someone else is thinking. (8 minutes)
 • Act One: While riding in a patrol car to research a novel, crime writer Richard Price witnessed a misunderstanding that, for many people, is pretty much accepted as an upsetting fact of life. Richard Price told this story, which he describes as a tale taken from real life and dramatized, onstage at The Moth in New York. (12 minutes)
 • Act Two: There are situations where making judgments about people based on limited information is not only accepted but required. One of those situations is open adoption, where birth mothers actually choose the adoptive parents for their child. Producer Nancy Updike talks to a pregnant woman named Kim, going through the first stage of open adoption: reading dozens of letters from prospective parents, all of whom seem utterly capable and appealing. (6 minutes)
 • Act Three: David Rakoff picks a fight with a hit Broadway show. (6 minutes)
 • Act Four: Shalom Auslander tells the story of the time he went on vacation, pegged the guest in the room next door as an imposter, and devoted his holiday to trying to prove it. Shalom is the author of Feh: a Memoir. (22 minutes)

Transcripts are available at thisamericanlife.org

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873: Got You Pegged

America loves winners—now more than ever. But how do you get to a win in 2025 America? We watch someone trying to score a win in a game whose rules are being made up as she plays. 

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 • Prologue: Ira talks to producer Diane Wu about an informal survey she’s done with the staff of This American Life about a phrase Ira says a lot that includes the word “winners.” (8 minutes)
 • Act One: Two people see one of President Trump’s first executive orders and get excited, and then get to work. (46 minutes)

Transcripts are available at thisamericanlife.org

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872: Winners

Three stories about the strange power inanimate objects can hold over us.

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 • Prologue: Nunzio gets caught in a kind of servile relationship—with a scooter. (8 minutes)
 • Act One: Ted was six when he first picked up a rock from the Petrified Forest National Park. Nearly 50 years later, he really wishes he hadn’t. Aviva DeKornfeld talked to him. (15 minutes)
 • Act Two: Heavyweight host Jonathan Goldstein leaps in to help a family, who are not entirely sure they want or need his help, get rid of their stuff. (31 minutes)

Transcripts are available at thisamericanlife.org

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871: The Thing About Things

Ira Glass shares some news about This American Life

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875: I Hate Mysteries

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