Ira Glass: “From WBEZ Chicago, it’s This American Life, distributed by Public Radio International. To explain the idea for this week’s radio show I need to tell you about this date one of the producers of our show, Jane Feltes, went on recently.”
Jane Feltes: “He would use these arguments like, ‘He went to BU.’ I don’t know what… is that Boston University?”
Ira Glass: “Yeah.”
Jane Feltes: “Is that a good school?”
Ira Glass: “I don’t know.”
Jane Feltes: “I don’t know either.”
Overheard Phone Call: “They’re gonna enter their password, and then click ‘Forgot Password.’ (pause) No, they’re gonna ENTER their password. (pause) Right, and then click ‘Forgot Password.'”
“Are you still walking the street?”
“No! I only did that when I was younger!”
– 22 year-old Harvard Girls on the T
“I didn’t realize I’d taken my pants off.”
– Guy on T (thankfully wearing pants at the time)
From our course descriptions:
“Explores the way various cultures shape the lives and social development of children. Topics include cultural concepts of childhood; the acquisition of culture; socialization and moral development; cognition, emotion, and behavior in childhood; children’s language and play; and the cultural shaping of personality. Hefner. 4 either sem.”
Guy: “I don’t break the law. If I do, it’s for good reason.”
Cop: “What kind of reason would it be for?”
Guy: “I don’t know, probably steal somebody’s guns that ain’t police officers.”
Cop: “So you steal people’s guns?”
Guy: “Yeah, I do that a lot!”
– Cops
Overheard: “This is diarrhea, vomiting, upset stomach, (garbled) extremely contagious (garbled).”
From craigslist: “Looking for an indvidual (sic) edit DVD and make the (sic) G rated. My kids are small and thier (sic) are alot (sic) of great movies out but do not want them to view the violence or inappropiate (sic) material”
(Yeah, it’s an overuse of “sic,” but you can’t say it’s undeserved.)
In Episode 110: Mapping of This American Life there’s an act that leads with a discussion of the background noise we hear all the time from appliances at home and in the office – noise that, like all sound, has a particular pitch.
“For some reason I had been thinking about why it is that we seem, almost universally, to assume that a minor chord is sad and a major chord is happy. If a minor third is just somehow inherently sad, then if I were sitting in an office having a minor third played at me all day long, then it’s indeed possible that I could be made sad by just sitting in my office.”
Guy on Cell Phone: “… My friend and I just went to a naked club. … Yeah!” (the train lurches and he drops the phone) “Aaaa. Hang on, mom.”
– Overheard on the T