Reading and Writing in a Digital Age

 

Before this week, the only time I ever listened to the radio was in the car. Most of the time, it would be a Russian talk show that my parents like to follow. But This American Life is really beginning to change the way I feel about radio. From the super-hero episode to the letter readings, to this–“Stories Pitched by Our Parents”–it’s a phenomenal show. I could go on and on talking about how much I love it but that’s not really the point of this post, now is it? The point is to talk about what makes a good story and who I think did the best job of doing so in the latest episode we all listened to.

 

To be quite honest, after hearing Lisa’s story, I couldn’t get over it. It had me laughing so hard that I could barely pay attention to the ones that followed. It goes without saying that the final story was the absolute best part of her entire act but I’ll get to that later. What first made me laugh was her mother and the way she was talking about the funeral she had been to. She sounded as though she found it so funny that she couldn’t talk about it without bursting into a fit of hysterical laughter. Have you ever had that moment where your friend is laughing so hard at something that you start laughing not because of the thing they’re laughing at but because of the fact that they’re laughing so hard? That’s how I felt listening to Lisa’s mom. Even when Lisa began to seriously look for funny stories about funerals, I couldn’t help but think back to her mother and start giggling.

 

Another thing that drew me in immediately was how genuine this story was. Lisa’s mother didn’t try to talk about heavy topics like corporate personhood, she just wanted to hear stories that would make her laugh. I didn’t feel like I was being taught a lesson or being forced to listen to some boring speech. I felt like  I was listening to a friend tell a story. I think the topic itself, although it could be somewhat grim, is also very genuine. There’s something ultimately human about death–it’s something everyone witnesses and something everyone experiences. I think it’s nice to look at it from a humorous perspective for a change. But although the story was very funny and down to earth, it did, at some points, stride towards a more universal message. I especially noticed this when Lisa interviewed Randy Earl and Ron Hast. “It turns out,” she says, “that in the funeral business, humor can be a touchy subject.”  Death usually isn’t funny. It’s very sad and it reminds us all of our mortality. It makes our hopes and dreams and who we are and what we do seem insignificant. And it makes life seem scarily pointless.

 

What’s great about this story is that it follows the best structure known to man–the sandwich. All the sadness and Lisa’s failed attempts to find something funny about death are in the middle, while all of the best parts are in the beginning and at the end. During the commentary after her story, Alex Blumberg comments, “You recorded the crap out of it. That was what made it so amazing.” I couldn’t agree more! What really made some of the anecdotes so funny was the people telling telling them. And as though the tie story and the pastor who locked himself in the closet weren’t hilarious enough, there came the Ukrainian church.

 

I think part of the reason I found the Ukrainian church story so absolutely hilarious is that I’m, well, Ukrainian.  And boy do I have some great Ukrainian church stories for Lisa Pollack. The part about donations and the voices Rob used and the way he changed his tone depending on the “good” donation or the “bad” one made it seem all too real–once again a benefit of recording the crap out of a story. I could definitely imagine myself sitting in that church, laughing as Bill Murray publicly humiliated all of my family members and then went out of his way to say something in English. Especially something like, “Barbara Drobish was a good lay! Dee!”