American Limbo
This morning on my drive into the office, as has become my habit, I listened to “This American Life.“ This particular episode was “American Limbo” and tells the story of the Jarvis family from West Virginia.
The story begins with the Jarvis family living off the land and off-the-grid in West Virginia on 140 acres of land. The parents are children of the sixties, minimalists and raising their children to be the same. The middle of the story occurs right across the peninsula from where I was living in West River, MD—at the same time the Jarvis family was living “on the hard” (as boat folk like to say) at Backyard Boats in Shadyside, MD. This family was literally rock-throwing distance from where my office was located at Parish Creek Marina. The candid actualities with the parents and children provide some amazing insight into how their family survived and the effect it had on all of them. This may be the best individual ‘act’ I have listened to on This American Life:
Act One. The Family That Flees Together, Trees Together. The Jarvis family, a group of eight, goes on the run from the law — for seven years. They live on a boat, in a treehouse in a swamp. They escape capture time after time. And how do the kids turn out, living a life outside of society, as fugitives? Surprisingly great. (22 minutes)
This American Life
Last week on my morning walk and drives into and out of Washington, DC, I found myself unimpressed with what passes for radio anymore. I tried to listen to my old standby, sports radio on the WTEM and found local hack Steve Czaban engrossed in golf naval gazing and 80’s musical mash-ups—this just days before the NFL draft. I quickly switched to the Tony Kornheiser show. As long as you are entertained by his endless yammerings on American Idol or his grossly out of touch take on the world, politics, bloggers, the environment and life in general then it’s really good listening. Otherwise, Mr. Tony’s show jumped the shark ages ago.
So, I turned off my radio, turned on my computer, fired up iTunes and found some real radio programming. I fully understand that I am way behind the curve on this. Something as good as “This American Life“ cannot possibly be a secret to most people. I downloaded and have listened to three of these shows and will probably never again listen to Kornheiser or Czaban. The first thing that struck me about these programs is the quality of the program; the subject matter is often quirky but always approachable, the style of storytelling is totally engaging and the production values are really excellent. In short, they are a pleasure to listen to. The “Image Makers” program on the Michigan State library system’s re-branding effort is absolutely hysterical, clever, educational and one of the best things I’ve listened to in a long, long time. Farewell, Steve, vio con dios Tony and AMF. Do yourself a favor and check out This American Life on iTunes. For the cost of your Starbucks morning fill up, you can get some interesting, thought-provoking listening material. I can’t recommend TAL enough!
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