This American Life

Kids using perfectly logical arguments and arriving at perfectly wrong conclusions.

Visit thisamericanlife.org/lifepartners to sign up for our premium subscription.
Prologue: Ira talks with Rebecca who, using perfectly valid evidence, arrived at the perfectly incorrect conclusion that her neighbor, Ronnie Loeberfeld, was the tooth fairy. Ira also talks with Dr. Alison Gopnik, co-author of the book, "The Scientist in the Crib," about what exactly kid logic is. (6 minutes)
Act One: More stories like the one in the prologue, where kids look at something going on around them, observe it carefully, think about it logically, and come to conclusions that are completely incorrect. (11 minutes)
Act Two: Michael Chabon reads an excerpt from his short story "Werewolves in Their Youth," from his collection of the same name, about an act of kid logic that succeeds where adult logic fails. (16 minutes)
Act Three: Howie Chackowicz tried a risky combination when he was little, kid logic with puppy love. He used to think that girls would fall in love with him if they could just see him sleeping or hear him read aloud. He revisits his biggest childhood crush and finds out that not only did his methods not work, but that no one even noticed them. (10 minutes)
Act Four: Alex Blumberg investigates a little-studied phenomenon: Children who get a mistaken idea in their heads about how something works or what something means, and then don't figure out until well into adulthood that they were wrong. Including the tale of a girl who received a tissue box for Christmas, allegedly painted by trained monkeys. (13 minutes)
Transcripts are available at thisamericanlife.org
This American Life privacy policy.
Learn more about sponsor message choices.

An episode from our show's early days: Stories about what happens when strangers are kind — and when they're not.

Prologue: Brett Leveridge was standing on the subway platform when a man walked by, stopping in front of each passenger to deliver a quiet verdict: "You're in. You're out. You can stay. You—gotta go." Most people ignored him. But Brett found himself hoping for the thumbs up. (5 minutes)
Act One: New York City locksmith Joel Kostman tells the story of an act of kindness he committed, hoping for a small reward. (13 minutes)
Act Two: In 1940, Jack Geiger, at the age of fourteen, left his middle-class Jewish home and knocked on the door of a Black actor named Canada Lee. He asked Lee if he could move in with him. Lee said yes. In Lee's Harlem apartment, Geiger spent a year among many of the great figures of the Harlem Renaissance: Langston Hughes, Billy Strayhorn, Richard Wright, Adam Clayton Powell. (11 minutes)
Act Three: How two next-door neighbors start treating each other badly, and how their feud becomes an all-consuming obsession. Paul Tough reports. (14 minutes)
Act Four: For five weeks, a singer named Nick Drakides stood on a stoop in the East Village, singing Sinatra songs late at night to the delight of his neighbors. The cops didn't bust him; the crowds behaved. It was his gift to New York. Blake Eskin tells the story. (12 minutes)
Transcripts are available at thisamericanlife.org
This American Life privacy policy.
Learn more about sponsor message choices.

911 calls unlike any we’ve heard before, and other stories about immigration agents sweeping through America.

Visit thisamericanlife.org/lifepartners to sign up for our premium subscription.
Prologue: A collection of 911 calls where you can hear immigration enforcement moving through different cities and leaving chaos in their wake. (9 minutes)
Act One: More 911 calls, including people on the line with dispatchers as ICE is chasing them, trying to puzzle out their next moves. (22 minutes)
Act Two: Home Depots keep getting raided over and over again in Los Angeles. And day laborers are still showing up in store parking lots to find work every day.  So what’s that like? Months and months of that cat and mouse? Anayansi Diaz-Cortes went to find out. (11 minutes)
Act Three: Memo Torres tries to build an archive of every person taken by federal agents in Southern California. (11 minutes)
Transcripts are available at thisamericanlife.org
This American Life privacy policy.
Learn more about sponsor message choices.

In the new year, stories of people trying a radical approach to solving their problems.

Visit thisamericanlife.org/lifepartners to sign up for our premium subscription.
Prologue: Ira meets two sisters who got into a fight, and then learned a lesson in turning the other cheek. (8 minutes)
Act One: A hardened PI works the toughest case of his very young life. (18 minutes)
Act Two: Producer Aviva DeKornfeld talks to a man who finds himself the target of vengeful crows. (8 minutes)
Act Three: Comedian Josh Johnson wonders if some people should’ve been spanked as kids. (10 minutes)
Act Four: Writer Etgar Keret reads his story about a bus driver who refuses to open the doors for late passengers. (9 minutes)
Transcripts are available at thisamericanlife.org
This American Life privacy policy.
Learn more about sponsor message choices.

When a joke could get you killed, should you say it anyway? A group of Syrian comedians test the limits of their newfound freedom, a year after the fall of the brutal Assad regime.

Visit thisamericanlife.org/lifepartners to sign up for our premium subscription.
Prologue: Under the dictatorship of Bashar al-Assad, comedian Sharief Homsi knew which jokes were too dangerous to say on stage. Now that Syria is under the control of a new government, Sharief and the other comedians of “Styria” set out on a national tour to see how far their comedy can go in this new Syria. (6 minutes)
Act One: The comedians test out risky material and get big laughs on early tour dates. It’s going smoothly until they find out that their show scheduled in the conservative city of Hama is in danger of being cancelled. (13 minutes)
Act Two: The comedians go to battle with local officials. (18 minutes)
Act Three: The comedians try everything they can think of to keep their shows from being cancelled. (20 minutes)
Transcripts are available at thisamericanlife.org
This American Life privacy policy.
Learn more about sponsor message choices.