This American Life

I love writeups that get the most boring information out of the way...

As Ira Glass says every week, "Each week we choose a theme and invite different writers and performers to contribute items on the theme." Most shows consist of a short introduction by Glass and 3 or 4 10-15 minute stories about people you've never heard of, all of which relate in some way to that theme.

It sounds boring, but it's amazing. This American Life reminds you that every life is full of drama, passion and meaning. Take, for example, the show "Family Business." Glass explains that he had the idea for the show when he read estimates that say "40 to 60 percent of our nation's gross domestic product is created by family businesses, but talking to anyone who works for one of these companies, you end up wondering...how?"

So you have four stories. One is about a woman who discovers that her father's family was destroyed over a fight about the family business, and tries to go back to find out why a 1963 letter led to the collapse of a family. Another is done by a relatively liberal man who ends up as a campaign worker on his brother's run for office--as a Republican. A third is a story from the 80s. The storyteller worked for a family of Grecian refugees who were running an ice cream parlor in Toronto, and who turned out to have an even stranger story than the one they admitted to. The fourth piece was about a family who run "Chad's Place," a restaurant dedicated to the memory of a family member who was tragically killed just before his high school graduation.

These are stories...you have to be drawn into them, and when the twist in the story comes you twist right along with it. "Chad's Place" begins with the restaurant, and people walking around with shirts that say "Chad's Brother." "Chad's Father." The family explains that Chad is dead and that this was his dream. How did he die? Well, his best friend accidentally shot him while they were playing around with his father's gun. This is their monument to him. When you hear the father--an ordinary working-class guy--saying, "you look in the mirror and you think it will get better...but it never gets better," and you hear these guys--guys who listen to Motley Crue and hunt--talk about how they all contemplated or attempted suicide--you won't forget it.

And this happens every week. The woman whose authoritarian father was adopted as a guru by an alternative rock band. The woman who calls her adult sister and asks to speak to her stuffed animal. The Rent groupies who found out that one of their number was dying, just like in the musical. The teenage girl who decided to become Latina. The sixth-grade teacher who got his class to take over the school by force and institute a dictatorship. And they all happen.

One of the best things in any medium.

(I've been waiting for a reason to add to this node for years).

Ira Glass and his band of intellectual cronies are hard at work filming a cable television series, set to air on Showtime in early 2007. Ignoring the fact that Showtime isn't exactly known for its highbrow entertainment (I vividly remember being excited as a young man for 11:30pm to hit the network because that's where the softcore pornography lived) let me explain to you why, success or not, it will fail; why, in fact, it was doomed to fail before it even left the gate.

There's this photo of Ira Glass that I use for my Livejournal icon. Black and white, Glass is holding a clipboard up in front of his face between himself and the camera; written on it with a thick black pen are the words 'Radio = No Pictures.' Those three words were so affecting on me that it's become a bit of a philosophy of mine.

(Incidentally, to anyone who thought that was a picture of me: I'm flattered, but no.)

The reason radio storytelling is so unique and so noble is that it exercises a muscle so rarely used in america these days: a person's imagination. Until I found that picture and bio of Ira Glass, I had zero idea what he looked like except what I knew from his stories. I knew he was bright and funny, and sounded young though probably wasn't. He sounded like he wore glasses (he does) and he sounded vaguely gay (he's not). I pictured him as fair-haired (no), clean-shaven (yes), and quick and precise in his movements (no idea damn straight). Over the last eight years of me listening to his show, I built an image of him. In a very real way, I created Ira Glass in my head. Well. My Ira Glass anyway. I could say the same thing for his entire crew.

Paradoxically, Sarah Vowell looks exactly like she sounds.

Anyway. To go with this ideology, Ira has constantly and adamantly refused to be photographed because that wasn't the point. He believed that the picture of him his listeners had in their heads was far more powerful and important that what he actually looked like. He believed in the power of storytelling and of fabulism and of Public Radio as the last bastion of those who preferred to learn with their ears instead of with their eyes, of people who created and believed in the world that lived between their ears far more than what they saw, a world where what they thought just existed right there in their minds, real as life. People who learn aurally speak better, write better, imagine better. They are the owners of what's left of the American aural tradition, the owners of this (not the) American Life. Even the title is a giveaway - it says, right there, that his is just One American Life; he was just lucky enough to have access to a bigass antenna and a production budget.

you know the saying "A Picture Is Worth A Thousand Words?" I call Bullshit. You can take a photograph of a woman staring out a windowpane streaked with glass and call it 'melancholy' but nothing can compare with the vividness of the image in your own mind because the photograph is someone else's. The Melancholy of your imagination is yours. It's in your head, fully realized. It breathes.

I won't watch his television show, not even close. But maybe, just maybe, I'll bury my face in the crook of my arm like I used to fall asleep, eyes swollen shut, and listen.

This is not about the radio show. This is some personal thoughts on almost twenty years of an Englishman's life in 'Murica.

"Please don't call me 'mate', I am not Australian" —wertperch.

One of the things I cannot adjust to is American holidays. What is one supposed to do on President's Day‽¹ They mean nothing to me, and seemingly, little enough to the citizens they are supposed to benefit. Another ongoing issue is that the sheer size of his country means I can't just pop down the road to visit old friends.

This is not going to be a massive dig about America. Over the years here on E2 I have had much to say about USian politics, religion, healthcare and their saving our asses in WWII, and whilst I'm not done with any of those topics by any means, I do not intend to dwell on them today, so no trigger warning is required today. Rather, these are my gently teasing thoughts on the differences between my life here and my experience of things in Blighty and those in the US. Some are good, some are bad, some just intriguing to me.

For background, I first flew out to the US in November 2004, after falling for one of the users here. Many of my friends had warned me that things were very different here, and thatas a true Englishman I would find it hard to adjust, so my expectations were oddly set. By this time I had met many Americans in person, even entertaining a few in my home, and so I thought I was ready for anything.

WRONG. Landing in LAX after twelve hours in an aeroplane (not "airplane"!) was eye-opening. The pub was fascinating to me, of course, and my first beer (Alaskan Smoked Porter) was a surprising delight, though an attempt to discuss cask beer was a failure. After flying to Sacramento to actually meet Christine, we undertook the twenty minutes drive to her home in Davis, and the real adjustment began. My first thought, oddly enough, was not "We're on the wrong bloody side of the road!", it was "Ye gods, there are so many fucking billboards!" and "By Jove, how many lanes does a highway need‽". Arrival at her house meant discovering that light switches were upside-down by British standards, and after that, that US water taps were often overly complex. Mixer taps are not unknown in the UK, but here almost every tap was a mixer, and often it was unclear to me how they worked. Some were working in three axes; not that I'm a dummy or anything, but I rather like having a separate control for hot and cold. In the UK there is a very good reason for this, and one day I am going to write about that.

After the tap discovery, there was the kettle. Almost every British home has an electric kettle (in well-organised homes there may be two or three kettles, including at least one backup). Christine's house had a stovetop kettle for the gas range and that was it. Not a huge deal because I knew how gas stoves worked, but it was slightly jarring. At least she had decent (loose-leaf) tea and a proper teapot! But then Christine was correctly brought up by a family descended from Scots and Midlands folk, who clearly knew what was right, and she'd brought her daughter up with the same good values.

After I moved to the US to live, in March 2005, I discovered even more oddities as I moved more freely amongst the populace, and once I began to drive here and spread my wings beyond this little town there was a whole world of difference.

To begin with, there's language; it's often said that we are two nations separated by a common language, and it applies to spoken as well as written language. American's, it turns out, often drop prepositions ("write your Congressman" being an example; where I was taught, the word "to" is missing from this phrase. In England we are encouraged to "write to your MP" about an issue, and the American use was (still occasionally is) jarring.

The "flap T" is a classic example of the difference between US and UK speech. We may drop many things, but rarely the T sound in the middle of a word. You'll hear the odd glottal stop, but the T is there for a reason and by Gum we will pronounce it. I have had puzzled looks when asking for water in a restaurant because the US ear did not hear what I meant. For those unfamiliar, in the US "water" is often pronounced closer to "wahder" or "warder" than a hard T sound. Better (bedder‽) folk than I will tell you all the differences about phonetics, but that's not my jam. I have had to adjust my speech to ask for "budder" when butter was lacking. It does work the other way round. I've had some teasing because my accent is non-rhotic, which is to say I don't pronounce my Rs. "park the car" ("pahk the cah") must sound strange to the US ear, but I can't bring myself to adjust and am happy to remain lumped in with Bostonians in this regard.

Speaking of parking the car, in the US you park in a parking lot, and in the UK, a car park. A shop is a store here, a motorway a freeway. My car boot is your trunk, my bonnet your hood. I'm happy to say I get my gas from a gas station rather than my petrol from a service station, but it still occasionally sounds odd in my own ear when I say it. If I slip up, most Americans are smart enough to know what I mean without comment, but there are a vocal few who clearly expect me to change my whole language for their benefit. I will continue to say "windscreen" and you know full well what I mean, blast your eyes. These people may be the same minority who expect every immigrant to learn English because "we speak English here!" Those same kind of people exist in the UK too; they may be safely ignored on the whole in either place. There is however nothing to say that English is the official language of the US, even if it's the customary language. DOn't be rude, people, others grew up wtih different languages and want to have the freedom to continue to do so, especially with family and friends. There are parts of California, indeed, where the customary language is Spanish; there's a town not far from me where he vast majority are nativ Spanish speakers, and most business is conducted in that language. I'm ashamed to say that I have more Hungarian than Spanish; I have a medium-term goal of learning some conversational Spanish.

US household power is next. I admit to still having a complete loathing of the whole of the US domestic power system, from the weakness of 110 volts as opposed to the superior 220+. US plugs are a joke; too many appliances come with weak copper prongs that don't stay in the power socket long enough; they are not required, as the UK's British Standard requires, to be earthed ("grounded") or independently fused. I mourn the British power plug as I miss a Cornish pasty or a pork pie, despite all the jokes about them making for good caltrops.

"Not sure which country yours is, but if it's the one I'm currently living in, your plugs are a bloody disgrace, what with their EZ-Bend™ prongs and FallingOutAtTheDropOfAHatness. That said, we've all experienced your pain. It's part of why we have the NHS."

—comment on Reddit's /r/britishproblems

I've written a little about US/UK measures, from a discussion of why our pints are bigger than yours to the US insistence on non-metric units, but the one thing that still baffles me is the use of volume measures where weight is clearly more advantageous. US recipes use a "cup" measure which is unknown in the rest of the civilised world, and many folk get hot under the collar when this is pointed out. When I started writing about how to make good coffee at home, even a few here got bent out of shape because I measured coffee in grams. American insistence on using older units rather than SI units turns quickly into a flame war in online forums, and even in the otherwise peaceful and understanding forum of the farmers' market, voices have been raised. One woman asked my how much kale (or onions, as it may be) she should buy to get two cups fo her recipe. I have no idea, I'm not Wolfram Alpha. But apparently I am expected to know‽ Apparently, suggesting she buy a gram scale and perform some experiments herself was too much for the poor soul. Such is the divisive nature of things sometimes. Christine used to say "a pint's a pound the world around", and dear heart, much as I always loved you, you are Wrong in This. I would counter with "a litre of water is a pound and three quarter", and sometimes, but not always, it would end the argument.

On the whole I have learned to celebrate the differences between us. Biscuits and gravy initially sounded awful to me, biscuits being a small sweet cookie and gravy being a rich savoury brown substance made with art, Bisto and magic. Which brings me to the shopping. There are many things absent from my larder hat I sorely miss. Much as you have some delightful pickles, America, you are sorly lacking in Branston Pickle and piccalilli, and dash it, Grey Poupon will not cut the mustard when I want Colman's. ALso, where are my Weetabix? Breakfast cereal aisles can comprise a bewildering amount of US supermarket floor space and render me powerless through choice paralysis, but that prince of cereals is lacking. You'll do better once I am King.

I have learned to both enjoy and make biscuits and gravy, and it's a source of sadness that there are few places locally for me to enjoy it; in fact I have eaten at some places where I have had the cheek to criticise their b&g on the basis that I (an English man!) can make better. It rarely goes down well, rather like their gummy and flavourless gravy.

I could write a whole screed about American table etiquette, and might one day. My father was fond of saying that "the Americans eat like children", eschewing the proper use of a knife and fork and preferring to cut up and shovel their food into their pie-holes. I have on more than one occasion had to ask for a knife so I can eat. Salads seem to be the worst offenders for even some more "proper" restaurants who do not automatically provide a dinner knife. I've had to whip out my trusty Opinel more than once to demonstrate my need. (and I don;t mean threatening the server, I mean demonstrating why I need a knife to move and ready my food to eat. It seems such a small thing, but it's clearly important to me otherwise I wouldn't ask; just comply, FFS.

One word of advice on talking to a Brit (or Scot, come to that). DO NOT attempt the accent. You will fail humorously and be judged a fool. Story time: I was once advised to go to the Red Robin "restaurant" for fish and chips. I arrived, was presented a menu that did include that dish, but with a note that read "feel free to order in a British accent". Like I had a choice, I did give my order and the waitress (bless her heart, she tried!) responded with her take on the accent, which sounded to me like an upper-class toff trying hard to be mid-Western. It was terrible, yet she continued her spiel until finally I asked her to stop. On pointing out that I wasn;t simply following instructions, she fell back into her natural voice and I could stop the feeling of fremdsham embarrassment. Poor lamb, she was so sweet, good-natured and apologetic about it. The meal wasn't bad, but not like real fish'n'chips. I did have to decline her request for a date to teach me my ways; she was probably no more than 20.

Speaking of the word "date", in the UK it simply means that two people meet up, as in go for a coffee or a beer. In the US, a "date" seems to mean a much more serious and sticky affair. I've more than once come a cropper on this saying. I recently had a beer date with a woman probably a third my age, but telling someone "I had a date with J—", their internal translation of "date" meant that there had been rumpy-pumpy and no, that did not happen.

Oh, dates. Join the rest of the world in not putting the bloody month first. I simply cannot deal with it. And learn to use roundabouts on the road. I recently had a police officer chastise me because I didn't stop on a roundabout when he pulled me over. Yes, there will be a writeup about that incident.

I can talk football (gridiron) and soccer. I prefer rugby to either, but one can't have everything. It took a while to adjust to seemingly every bar and cafe having sports on all the time, but it's not huge. I think with that I am done. The US is a wonderful place full of some wonderful people and I try very hard to be accepting of y'all and your ways.

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¹ C-Dawg says re This American Life: President's Day: fall to your knees and pay obeisance to the august men who have "run our country" and without whom we'd all be totally lost. Also, buy a mattress on sale.

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