Arts & Ideas magazine
Fall 2002

An Interview with Ira Glass

By Barbara McKenna

This story orignally appeared in Arts & Ideas magazine (Vo. 1, No. 3), a publication of Arts & Lectures at the University of California, Santa Cruz.

We've all seen them. People alone in their cars—men and women—guffawing without inhibition or clutching the steering wheel and weeping uncontrollably. It's possible those people are simply living out their personal dramas, but it's just as likely that they are listening to This American Life — the public radio show produced and hosted by Ira Glass.

The show centers on a different theme each week and delivers four to five segments on that theme. The segments can be monologues, interviews, dramatic readings, pretty much anything as long as, as Glass says, they have a "heart-gripping, memorable quality." That quality is the show's trademark—the thing that, even if it hasn't made longtime fans sob openly at the wheel, has caused them to be late for appointments because they simply couldn't switch off the show when they arrived at their destination.

This American Life premiered in Chicago in late 1995, won a Peabody Award right off the bat, and went national the following spring. It now airs on more than 300 public radio stations (locally on KUSP 88.9 FM at 4 p.m. Friday and 7 p.m. Sunday).

Glass, 40, began his career in radio in 1978 as an intern at National Public Radio (NPR), working for All Things Considered and Morning Edition. In his 20 years in radio he has done everything except build them—working as a tape cutter, newscast writer, desk assistant, editor, producer, reporter, and substitute host. In NPR's Chicago Bureau, he created several award-winning documentaries on public schools and race relations. In May of 1999, Rhino Records released the two-CD set Lies, Sissies & Fiascoes: The Best of This American Life.

Glass's public talk is the final event of Arts & Lectures' 1999-2000 season and takes place on Friday, April 28, at 7 and 9 p.m. in the UCSC Media Theater.

*****

Q: You use music in a way that makes it almost a second voice in the story—at times it interjects a statement into the monologue that can convey irony, poignancy, significance. How did you develop such exquisite timing and such a keen ear for the right piece of music?

A: Well, I don't think of it as a second voice, but we think of it as a really integral part of the show and the effect of the show. I've been reading the Harry Potter books and there's an utterly gratuitous but wonderful moment —there are a lot of those in the book, these throw-away gratuitous moments that are just wonderful. And, anyway, in this one, Harry has just arrived at the school and is sitting in a ceremony with his soon-to-be-friends. At the end of the ceremony they sing the school song and the headmaster says to himself "Ah, music. A far greater magic than anything we do here." And that's just it. Music is powerful. It makes every thing better and creates a mood and makes it feel like things are moving forward.

Q: One of the pieces that I think works so well on your CD is "Peter Pan," in which a guy tells the story of a director with grand ambitions. He talks about the opening performance and the series of disasters that occur. And in the background, Ravel's "Bolero" is carrying the story right along in the most beautiful way.

A: Bolero is so fantastically corny a choice of music, we almost didn't use it. But the producer who mixed that piece was Nancy Updike. And she's fantastic. And she felt it fit the pacing of the show so well, where the disasters get bigger and bigger as it progresses, so we went with it.

At one point I gave a copy of the CD to Philip Glass, who is my cousin who I had never met. And so I gave him our CD and I said, "If you're going to listen to one show on here, listen to this one." I thought of that because, basically, he's in the business of theatrical production and this is a show of theatrical production where everything goes wrong. But a day later it occurred to me what I had steered him to. And I thought, "Oh my god, he's going to hear that and it's the corniest piece of music in the world."

But, you know, someone once said, "Never underestimate the power of cheap music." And it's true. You can go for the cheesiest effect and it works.

When I'm putting the music in the new stuff it always reminds me of this thing I learned as a teenager. I learned to do magic tricks with sleight-of-hand and, when it works, you can even do it on yourself. You can stand in front of a mirror and make the coin disappear and it works on you. Obviously you know where it went and what you did, but you watch yourself doing it and part of you is convinced by what you see in the mirror. And there are a lot of times when I have that feeling about the show. You pull a piece together and while you're in the process it doesn't sound that remarkable, but when it's in final form, you know, like the coin in the hand, you can fool yourself. It can appear remarkable.

Q: How many people put the show together?

A: Me and, now, four producers. For any given show one of the four will co-produce with me and that person and I decide on all the stories and the angles.

We tend to chat about it a lot. More work goes into conceiving the show than producing it. Once we have the stories nailed down we turn them around very fast—a day or two. But figuring out what the story is and what you're going to go for, that takes time.

And once a story is taped we may not use it. Often we'll go through 15 or 20 ideas and pay somebody to write and gather tape and, when we're finished, several of them may not make the cut. Some things you've just got to try to see if there's a story there.

The very best stuff comes from chance and luck and so we try and create a context where chance and luck can strike every week. You'll hit gold more often if you simply try out a lot of things. Very few organizations work that way. Maybe the New York Times or the New Yorker, they're among the few that commission a lot more work than you ultimately see in the magazine.

When I worked at "All Things Considered," if I was assigned a story and I was told that story would be on tonight and be four-and-a-half minutes long, then it would be on that night and it would be four-and-a-half minutes long. Having the luxury to think things through with people is idyllic—it's what every person on a daily show dreams of.

Q: Even with a week to produce each show, your job is not exactly low-key. How do you live with the intensity of this job? Can you live a normal life?

Oh yes. But it still feels new to me and I still feel like I haven't quite mastered it. Every week is just as frightening as the week before. Sometimes it takes me a full day to achieve a normal level of tension. You know what I mean?

We send the show out on satellite on Friday and usually Saturday is completely shot for me. I didn't even realize this until recently because I've been seeing someone and it's become an issue. It's like I'm still coming down off drugs on Saturday. This happens to a lot of people in broadcasting.

Q: It's an intense process, producing the show, isn't it? But you always sound so relaxed and engaged when you're on the air. How do you manage that?

A: One of the things that's peculiar about radio is the public performance aspect of it. You have to seem really relaxed or it doesn't work right. Right before the show, what we're doing is scrambling around and changing little things: rewriting introductions and retiming the show from that point, and it's really frantic. And the second the mike goes on, I have to be like, okay, we're just chatting. So, what I do is pretend I'm talking to exactly one person

Q: What makes a segment work for you. What's the difference between the one that airs and the one that hits the cutting room floor?

A: There's a lot of really competent material that we generate on the show that would be okay but it doesn't have the heart-gripping memorable quality that makes you stop and makes you remember later and surprises you.

Stories that we are looking for are ones we feel thrilled about putting on the radio. The structure is to have these be surprising stories with surprising voices. You know, I mean, mediocrity is a powerful force. The entire machine of the show, the production, is designed about making luck happen. When it works, you know it, because it's really different. You say, "I've never heard that before and I'm so glad to hear it." That's what we're aiming for.

Q: You have an amazing talent for interviewing. People open up and reveal themselves and express profound ideas in a really astonishing way in your interviews. What is the most important skill you have as an interviewer?

A: I get asked a lot what's the greatest secret to interviewing and the big secret is to be actually curious. I think when somebody is talking about the thing that means most to them in the world or a question that's unresolved in their head they are articulate. Americans, as a people, are stunningly open. It's not like traveling in France or Germany. People here will actually tell you what they think and they won't hold back. They're funny and smart and articulate in every walk of life. I'm never surprised about that.

For me, it isn't the question of, can this person step up to the plate, but, what do they care about that I can ask something about. If I can find the thing they care about or that is unresolved in their head, then they'll have something to say.

Terry Gross [producer of NPR's "Fresh Air"] said the thing about being an interviewer that's odd is you have to simultaneously be the person's therapist and friend, encouraging them to open up and share, and still be a ruthless editor, thinking, "This isn't working, where can I take it now."

Q: Many of the stories on "This American Life" have stayed with me, have even haunted me. Are there any that have done that to you over the years?

A: The one that haunted me the most is the story about this woman named Dorothy Gaines who was thrown into prison for 19 years. We came across her story while working on a show about changes in U.S. sentencing laws. That sounds like it would be an unbelievably dull issue, but we try not to be knee-jerk about these problems and be precise and still tell the thing through novelistic stories.

So, we told the story of this woman who got 19 years. She was thrown in prison based on the testimony of people who admitted to being a part of a drug ring and could get their time reduced by naming other people. She was a working nurse with two kids. The police searched her house and found no evidence of drugs. In court everyone else copped a plea and got a year. She didn't cop a plea. She and her public defender said she's innocent, there is no evidence of guilt, so why cop a plea? She was found guilty and sentenced to 19 years. That's the same amount of time she would have gotten if she had hijacked a plane. It's more than she would have gotten for second-degree murder or rape. And so she's doing this time and really her only chance is that she would get a presidential pardon.

I really feel like we didn't do enough for her. I feel like I should be devoting more time to her. Doing something. I wish I could say that that happens more often, that we can do something. But the fact is, I'm in the situation where every week I'm so busy and scared that I'm going to put together a nice show that there's not even time to feel wistful about the show or the story from the week before.

Q: Who would you like to have interview you?

A: Terry Gross. I actually was interviewed by Terry Gross once, more than a year ago, and it was utterly distracting. You know, because I know Terry and we've met and we'll talk every now and then. The public radio world is pretty small. And then she's interviewing me and, how to say this, I felt really self-conscious to be talking about myself and I wanted to be a good interviewee and give to her what I ask other people to give to me. So I tried to be honest. And right in the middle of a lot of my answers, I would begin to think, "Why am I here talking about this?" That was the main thing that was odd. I don't exactly see why someone would be interested in me. From an analytical point of view, I understand that I do a radio show and I am a public figure so people might have a mild curiosity about why I do the show and who I am. So, from a personal point of view, that was the most uncomfortable thing.

She is an exceptional interviewer. She is the queen. There were certain things that people asked me about in every other interview I'd had recently that she came about in the slyest damn way. And it would take me a moment to answer because I was struck by the skillfulness of the way she was approaching the subject—the sheer craft of it was so beautiful. I don't know, it was like watching Michael Jordan.

Q: Can you think of a specific example?

A: One of the questions that came up a lot, that had been written about the show, was how many hours I work on it, and the fact that I work on it all the time. To me it's not remarkable, it's like anybody starting a new business, I don't view that as strange. But in every article for a while that would be a big big part of the story. She brought up the subject by saying, something like, "A lot has been written about how many hours you put in working on your job. What's the thing you miss most from regular life?" Which is such a graceful way of documenting who this person is and capturing what their life is like for the audience without having me repeat everything that's already been written, because that's not moving the story forward.

I have to say, when she asked it, it took me a moment to even think of my answer because I was so struck with the question. I was realizing, She wants to document that part of my life but doesn't want to talk about it because its stupid. So here's what she asks instead, which gets me reflecting on this experience and, in a certain way, more wistfully, gets me reflecting with emotion. For me, someone who does three or four interviews a week, I don't think I step up to that standard.

Q: You met with executives from several major networks last summer to discuss taking this show to a TV format. What's the status of that project?

A: We got very very generous and appropriate offers from two television networks and my staff and I met and decided we didn't want to commit ourselves to doing a series because we didn't want to stop doing radio. But we might do a special. We'll return to that idea at some point.

It amuses me, the idea of doing a TV show. It would be interesting to see how it would work out. But I feel nothing lacking from radio. Its true power is so rarely used that simply by trying to tell the stories we tell in the novelistic way that we do seems really unusual. Because we simply try to harness the power of radio, I feel like our show really stands out.

Back to Press Releases