<div>I wanted to add to this conversation before it's brought up again in a future post and in another context, as it most surely will. I understand what you're saying and I agree with most of it -- This American Life is certainly "safe" and boring by comparison with Joe Frank's work. Yet I disagree that reason is abandoned in Joe's shows. This may be a small point for me to contest, but I sense that Joe's shows are highly-edited and controlled environments, and I still feel "safe" within his boundaries. (That is, within his shows' boundaries; I'm not certain I could actually tolerate being within Joe's boundaries. That's a joke, folks.)
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<div><br>I'm not trying to miss the point here; I understand you're simply differentiating between Glass' and Frank's styles. I just think this is an intersting aspect of Joe's work, the sense that "anything can happen". There certainly is that sense, the sense that you could next be listening (or *not* listening) to an interview with a mime -- in other words, a minute or two of dead air -- as Joe once presented us with, decades ago. Or the sense that we'll find a preacher arguing violently with Joe about religion, "casting dispersions", LOL...Or that we'll find ourselves wondering if Joe is saying goodbye to his work in a show titled "Goodbye". Yet all this is still contained within a "safe" environment, thankfully -- a higly-polished and produced work of art that never completely lapses into an anarchistic shit-on-your-face "performance art". (Though I do dig performance art, and consider Joe somewhat of a performance artist, I prefer his more reasonable approach to the form, if I can say that without sounding like an asshole.)
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<div>Harold</div>
<div><a href="http://somethingthathappened.com">http://somethingthathappened.com</a><br> </div>
<div><span class="gmail_quote">On 2/20/07, <b class="gmail_sendername">Sam Holland</b> <<a href="mailto:sam.holland@gmail.com">sam.holland@gmail.com</a>> wrote:</span>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="PADDING-LEFT: 1ex; MARGIN: 0px 0px 0px 0.8ex; BORDER-LEFT: #ccc 1px solid">I don't think Ira Glass could fairly be called derivative except in<br>the broadest possible sense, but his show is much less interesting
<br>than Joe Frank's. I often have conversations with people who are fans<br>of This American Life--I don't know anyone who listens to NPR who<br>doesn't at least claim to be a listener--and they're always very
<br>enthusiastic, and they want to talk about the show, and talk about<br>what a visionary radio producer Ira Glass is. And I always tell them<br>that I think This American Life is boring by comparison.<br><br>TAL is "safe" in the way that NPR is "safe." At least--and I might be
<br>completely wrong on this--the way I perceive it: that even when<br>addressing dark or unsettling subject matter, I never lose the sense<br>that I'm listening to the voice of reason, the authoritative tone. Am<br>I talking out of my ass? And on Joe Frank's show, anything could
<br>happen. Reason is abandoned. I might be listening to an entire<br>episode's worth of lunatic ranting. The only thing I'm really sure of<br>is that it's going to be either sixty or thirty minutes long. I don't
<br>get that from Ira Glass. And I don't really feel that Glass is an<br>artist so much as an editor or curator, presiding over the<br>storytelling equivalent of Sound and Spirit.<br><br><br>> ------------------------------
<br>><br>> Message: 4<br>> Date: Sun, 18 Feb 2007 15:49:47 -0500<br>> From: "Steve Schneider" <<a href="mailto:scs1@theavocadopapers.com">scs1@theavocadopapers.com</a>><br>> Subject: RE: [joe-frank-list] Ira Glass etc
<br>> To: "'Joe Frank Mailing List'" <<a href="mailto:joe-frank-list@armory.com">joe-frank-list@armory.com</a>><br>> Message-ID:<br>> <<a href="mailto:200702182049.l1IKnuCo018370@svcstatl08.hotspot.t-mobile.com">
200702182049.l1IKnuCo018370@svcstatl08.hotspot.t-mobile.com</a>><br>> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"<br>><br>> Re the last few posts about TAL and Ira Glass: This American Life is a<br>
> fantastic show. I don't know what "edgy" even means (or "abstract," for<br>> that matter); what I do know is that, like Joe Frank's work, TAL is<br>> ground-breaking radio. But they're utterly different! I have never, once,
<br>> sensed that Glass was trying to emulate or rip off JF. TAL seems to me to<br>> be essentially a magazine: two, three, or rour features reported on by<br>> various producers, with the occasional fiction thrown in (
e.g. D. Sedaris<br>> reading a short story). JF's shows are simply nothing like that, and I'm<br>> referring to any of his formats: the "reality" shows such as the Karma<br>> series; the improvised, highly edited radio dramas; the fictional
<br>> monologues; the non-fictional monologues such as "No Show"; and so on.<br>><br>> I have seen Glass credit JF at least twice (which is nice, although I'm not<br>> entirely sure that he owes much artistically to JF). When JF has mentioned
<br>> Glass, there has been a tinge of annoyance or jealousy, and frankly I'm not<br>> sure why. As far as the "God, I really hate David Sedaris and Ira Glass,<br>> those two miserable geeks, those wretched freaks. They should move in
<br>> together, adopt children, leave the country, maybe go to mars. What do you<br>> think?" quote, which I believe starts off the women-police-officer show: are<br>> we really supposed to take that 100% seriously? Especially in a show
<br>> devoted to getting a rise out of people and especially women (by suggesting<br>> that women are not fit to be police officers)? In another, he complains<br>> about the phenomenal (by public-radio standards) success of TAL, but in that
<br>> piece, he seems to me to be complaining mostly about the lack of support<br>> that his show gets (from KCRW, I guess). I've never sensed any real<br>> animosity towards Glass from JF. With most of JF, a lot is open to
<br>> interpretation, of course...<br>><br>> Look, I basically spent half of 2004 and most of 2005 working through the JF<br>> shows -- to the extent that I didn't even read many books during that time.<br>
> I must have listened to some of the shows 30 times. I'm a huge admirer.<br>> But only on a JF mailing list could Ira Glass be seen as a sell-out, or as<br>> being too mainstream. (Not that this post is, necessarily, saying that, but
<br>> I've seen a lot of bitterness directed towards Glass -- which is funny: I<br>> doubt there would be any of that were it not for the coincidence that IG was<br>> an intern for JF long, long ago).<br>>
<br>> I guess what I'd like to know is, what do people think that Glass "stole"<br>> from JF? What things? Specifically?<br>><br>> -- Steve.<br>_______________________________________________<br>
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