But last night I was hypnotized by the show. I rented the Tudors, season 2, and after the last episode (Anne Boleyn gets the ax... hope I didn't give anything away) I scanned the special features for good extras. There it was... a preview episode of This American Life, the TV version. I had to peek. I had seen a preview of the first season on another disc, probably the Tudors season 1. After watching that sneak peek, I immediately put it on my Netflix queue. Lately it has been stuck behind Battlestar Galactica and Dexter (priorities, people). The peek was about this man who sets up tableaux of Biblical scenes and then paints them. The guy who played Jesus was awesome, dealing with his own issues around religion, having a girlfriend and maintaining an appropriately long beard. It was funny and weird and just like the radio show, I was hooked in.
The episode I watched last night was even better. It was all about escaping. The story it featured was about this 27 year-old man, Mike Phillips who is confined to a wheelchair and uses a computer to speak and write and maintain an awesome blog. I was so drawn into his story. How he met his girlfriend, why he wants his ceiling painted black and who he would want to be his voice (Johnny Depp, by the way). This kid is far from disabled. He is cogent, aware and fascinatingly real; it just takes him three minutes to communicate one sentence.
The way Ira Glass told his story is just so wonderful. This American Life is all about story; something that may seem mundane or removed suddenly becomes close. Watching that last night made me a) move the first season up to first place in my queue, and b) consider the way I tell a story. I think of that great scene in "Out of Africa" where Meryl Streep's character sits down and tells an epic story after Robert Redford provides the first line. I wish I could do that. Where do I get stuck telling my story? What about you? What is your story and do you feel like you tell it well?
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