This America Life's Ira Glass

kansas public radio's saturdays at noon you know the voice to that issue which is a theme you a variety of different kinds of stories and it's ira glass host and producer of this american life which can be heard on more than five hundred public radio stations across the country and j mcintyre and today and keep your present one on one with ira glass who have come into the leed center at the university of kansas saturdays every twentieth he joins us from his office in new york city but the myra thank you our listeners are familiar with your radio program some of them are familiar with your television program on showtime your february twentieth event at the leed center at the university of kansas is not a radio show it's night your television so what exactly we be doing there what i'll be doing in a literal sense as a bee sitting on stage and had a big year necessary to actually re create the sound of art radio show so have oil coats and music and sound and a mixing board and so and so and so i'm talking about the radio

show but also playing arm outtakes and eggs are upset and then moments and that ends and i can re create the show on stage that make sense and that can innovate too simple low tech way and that and ends on talking about the radio show and what and why we do what we do how we put the thing together why we were making a show that so different from other radio shows and an alcoholic i understand the end of your work your talk you know there will be questioning answer period from the audience what questions you get asked most often from audiences like this but invariably of that like in the very first your very second question is about the music that we use in our stories because of but the music is is playing through a lot of the stories i played there and in the other two and then someone always i'm asked about the music so so that's so that's one i am and then i can then add up until recently i was asked in every question answer

session i give or where you find the stories in there so you know i really should actually addressed that in the top if everyone comes out the top asking night where you find the stories and so try to also try to have a whole section of talk which which actually explains explains the process which which is a disturbingly random process how you think that there became a scientific way to find the stories for your show but that in fact the two dumb luck plays a disturbingly profound award for all over this excessive this american life it's even possible for a budding journalist to get a story on your program for you just inundated with unsolicited stories and story ideas the answers to those two questions are yes and yes it is possible for for a budding journalist or simply a random person who has an idea for a story begins story on the show in fact pretty much every week there's just some stranger who's written to us and said lew i got a story and sometimes as a reporter and sometimes just a random listener and amanda

banana so so so so we are inundated but that we actually you know to use that ambition to do make nice story that those questions from the audience what do you were rarely or never get asked a date you expect to give you think what why doesn't someone ever asked me this question what's not to have something where decided she is such an obvious question that people should be asking me i remember and three years ago i'm david sedaris that the writer the couple a comic writer who's been on our show from the beginning he i'm quito me that he was among the situations were actually he was asked what interview question do you never get asked that you wish somebody would ask you and his answer to it was how much money do you make a last year because i think he was doing very well who really wanted to tackle the question and it added in

advance and i care what the us to have a lot of money actually he really he knew very successful so yeah i have a question like that and i think the second i mean i mean you know you think that this is important to me that no one ever asked about that a lot to say about but but a lot of them have to do with to subjects that down much any rule you should be interested in one is a link how in the world do you do you do you do you set up a lake the business of radio show like this like in addition to being like the on air person and an editor of the show you know the to the last so that energy for the show i am i got yeah it's it's a business that iran had to convince five hundred radio stations pick it up and did all kinds of things and they're in the running of it that i feel that we had to solve an end and i am and ends in some ways i think we have to be incredibly ingenious day to get the attention of the public radio system and to convince them that that we were decent show and i'm an answer that some have given a tremendous amount of thought

to and i feel a tremendous i throw out a creativity into and you know they're a special egg products and things and things we did just four program directors of the audience never ever saw you know just to just to get on the air and actually nobody in the right mind would actually be interested in that except for some yes you would create a radio show but but i have a summons to say about it but no one ever asked me about it and to the uninsured be so interesting to somebody who'd wasn't it clear your show and then the many other thing that's like that is that i was a reporter in the public schools before i did this like that every porter was general assignment reporter but became a point where being laid for for the course of several years i was an npr reporter stationed in the public schools and pure simeon to an elementary school for urine into a high school for a year and there was another high school that followed over the course of three years an end and the school's those falling were schools or trying to fix themselves in all the various ways that people try to fix public schools and end they came into a series of problems that honestly you don't see written about very much an

end and end my my assignment was to file a story every week or two first in this high school and in this elementary school for all things considered and i'm and my son it was to to explain like why is it so hard to fix a school like you know you use here is really sure about your school traditions of the wild was a sword for schools to get better at like i completely understand that now iaea i'd like to know as much about that as any reporter does and damned and i have a lot to say about it but you'd have to really be interested in and education preventing that nobody would ever ask about it would do things actually know anything about our i'm pat to it how to make a radio show and the chicago public school system say no one ever asked me about those banks though though if anybody right you go into the phone call about it i'll be happy to talk about it ever had a hammock spent a couple weeks ago where it with the two guys who run the chicago radio lab's this show is a great show and it comes amid a voice it's really the best new show in public radio in the

most innovative about the only make ten of them here and so this is not a lot of stations can threaten a program something which comes at ten hours a year and so the main way people listen to it is it's a it's an internet show and you can download all the upsets for free on the internet and i would encourage anybody ago to do just google the word radio lab one were at myspace and annotated element to their incredible shows a really really fun to listen till and an end and they used sounded an end it like nobody really has ever done in public radio i think but anyway so so so odd so this you guys who says it had some business problems with their show in a childlike way we would've been two years ago i did it i had breakfast with a few of them and they were so excited that like somebody had thought about this before them and then i was i said that like the ones i got a chance to talk for forty five minutes about this thing that i thought so much about that no one would ever be interested in hearing me talk about sodas i did get the chance to eat and so we need to test plans an audience to ask about the chicago

public school system and then and then and then we bury the rest of the audience to snip snip exactly exactly you for public radio for thirty years starting with an intercepted npr where does anyone on to do almost every job you can do at npr the us farther though what led you to an interest in radio in the first place i had no interest in area in the first place i really did like a normal person and really like radio to cara's like honestly who cares about you know a leg lately the medium overtime as television films can be pretty interesting to really who cares about radio you have to be real geek and m and so i had no special interest in in radio at all like any normal person and end and i was it was my freshman year of college and i was looking for a summer job and i end it and i got a summer job conflicted money at a pizza place but then in addition i'm i talked my way into an internship at npr and i and

an end that end and i had never heard him here on the air on the base of their one and a job that would be in the media and so what are the local tv stations and radio stations and ad agencies in baltimore where i grew up and then there's one guy at the comedy album fm you know rock station in baltimore and i and he's i gather and carry the free but it is his new outfit that national public radio at dc and he had a friend who was working at allen visited his friend and times i talked my way into that is letting them let me stick around to make a promise that was my first that was my first gig commit to make promises the entire and i had that i hadn't we're a little bit like a country musicians at some very basic skills that is the detective of radio only that you know like that kind of let's have to attack tech tech happy person could pick up an a day so suicide so super hard and m and end up and then that's how i ended up there and then discount one thing led to

another like an npr team to be really wonderful place to work and the people really wonderful roast live in and then i just kind of bounced from job to job and then these are producing this american life back in nineteen ninety five i think the show was changed since its early days and this changes surprising amount actually the gaming ltd for the first year he wasn't totally clear way what the show was i gave you isn't the severely episodes of stuff that we would try performance art things and other things that would that we wouldn't do now i'm just because at some point we became really interested in just narrative storytelling and i'd always been in there is a strong piece of it but at some point we just became clear liquid that's all we do that so special you know i guess that's that's what we do that we can really distinguish ourselves in said that that took over and that really became the what we what we do where's a urine in their wishes it wasn't so super clear and their militias occasionally do it that we take on a topical thing

but generally the mission of the early shows with that ways that we would apply the tools of journalism to stories that were very small and very personal in a way that the journalism really really really packed them and this time only became more more interested is a staff in him and using that technique of telling stories whether characters and scenes of funny moments and emotional moments using that to tackle the news and to tackle buteau guantanamo and interviewed the war and terror in post katrina new orleans and end our end sensing wasn't just you know all kinds of very very end the healthcare system leadership we did two shows this year you know just it's just really is a kind of storytelling technique two to eliminate that that that did the most successful thing maybe we've ever done in the era of the early shows that we've done not be exploiting the mortgage the mortgage backed security system and how it brought down our economy i feel like that was that was an example something where in daily journalism its gdp in a way you know that time and disaffected to

find the people who we were able to find as a weekly show could spend months putting together a story i'm adam knew it would be easily told the story of how mortgage back securities brought down our economy by getting the actual people who are in that business to explain i get here is here's what we did and his wife and what the hell was going through our heads as we're bringing down the us economy and i'm you know i know that's is that something that's perfectly suited to ice and then also fills a gap in truth a public radio's pretty excellent coverage of the above you know that the economic crisis at today's it's hard being on npr because it is to endure it does a great job covering the stuff as daily news and its analysis of and so it's a white spaces their work for anybody else to say anything i feel like it i don't need to do that is some space but involves a kind of kind of deep recording we get surprised by the positive feedback you got from the planet money series now no i mean i think it was

obviously great it is as is the editor of those stories you know they they came in with the material and the end it was obviously doing something radically different and an ocean of ends and really incredibly hopeful i didn't understand what happened to the economy until we started writing this piece and i think that every word them are most people wear them if you're a beta for a kind of an expert on the sort of thing i'm had that same experience i think we all heard a lot of these terms thrown around and end didn't really understand how we exactly what what it meant and our end and it's this helpful tip to spend an hour and really like hear the people who were involved roulette out for you in and tell the story of it as a story of nowhere or it's like that little detective story unfolding there was a go as a grave program boeing and thinks putin thousands of interviews with people both famous and ordinary people over the years either any interviews a really

stand out for you the that's years later you still remember that person or authorities that some of the really touched your life in a way other lots of them of course i mean they're lots of them i mean some people say if it yeah like lately when you when you're interviewing it when you're interviewing a lot of people it's sort of like it's at all it had going into like a little business relationship many semi in a business setting an end and a certain percentages she blended become your friend you know i i mean it's a small percentage but like it but this is you know a very small percentage of people who at just hit it off with for whatever chemical reason you offer somebody and then you stay in touch with them so there's a camp for people like that ahmed and then ah yeah i mean anyone and people like that was as kenny mike phillips it who destroy on in our tv show and art and he's a guy who has very limited physical movement because of a disease he's had since childhood and basically he can just move his farm

and with his thumb he can run a computer and so that gives them access to the worldwide a computer he can speak into the computer he can he can interact with the world and then buddy such a conflict is has a very like winning funny charming guy and i'm with a very dark outlook alive given his situation and just for whatever reason where we usually like each other and so he became a buddy in and you know i'm still in touch with him i am but you know like end to end yet he's really know what it did anything like that deeply for me the interviews i generally feel afterwards they go the worst are always the interviews with famous people i'm awe and those of the lazarus what the most likely that had the opportunity a couple of years ago it was when the anniversaries of fresh air with terry gross the show and end as an incredible are noticeable so do you wanna do we would like to do a good event on stage for a fur for whyy listeners as your shows at a

philadelphia publicist the burrito i see a big fancy event celebrating anniversary fresh air and without light will be great is like let's have somebody interviewed terry gross yeah she's i was interviewing people there there's a rear terry gross and then we'd like you to do it so that is an incredible honor i like terry gross could use any interviewer anywhere and she chose me but then it's just like oh no no i had an interview terry gross do any mistakes that i want to play basketball against michael jordan it was the most horrifying and then and take in some ways as like how i even do this i read all these interviews with aaron and could in effect she hates most people were mostly an abuser ever done with her as i am you know i carried and it took me weeks rehearsing every there wasn't an automobile us straight up terry gross interview with her identity interview exactly as it can be done if she were doing it so so then at that point and then that when i get a degree so sure that i studied permanently

and so the reason that so i could be her and then to her the favor of like i'm just going to do it terry gross interview with you and we give you the thing you knew the present did you give others kind of and that and i thank god that sort of work though that i've really like she was totally calm relaxed and all that i was totally sweating and the whole time and that leads you into perfume and i'm an expression in at their ears the radio what's your most embarrassing moment of causing that because i can't it's not because they don't exist and some of them in their own lives and embarrassing moments an ethic and almost every interview i do i see some dumb ass thing that we that i feel so lincoln and then you have a recording of a snowy going to date have to hear yourself said you know your the person go i like wired and lake lake by ied's you know so just so there's all these and it's like a daily thing for me i'm i mean i remember it

i am in the forest in this american life i was the host of other impure show talk of the nation for six months and in that job i interviewed mike schuster who isn't then i am piers correspondent in moscow and other and i can be the exact numbers but there's this thing going on where where i have a statistically use it but a camp where the interview we had to explain like so happy with what's lifelike in moscow right now and i knew that prices went up you know like two hundred percent a year is increasing every every year they go up twenty percent of all the prices go up and i asked him and mike schuster who was one of my mentors a gooder he was one of my mentors and when i was starting off as a reporter i am i was a terrible writer for radio and end and mike schuster is on is that i think if your regular and

carelessly might not notice them about but if you're out with a new works in radio he has the most incredibly clean rating for radio imaginable it out totally conversational every sense is a sense of is he doesn't speak in like that news speak that that that's become a bad reporter would do it when he writes for radio he sounds like a human being readied for radio and it is a perfect clarity to his writing it's like it's crystal clear he decided to write a part of things it's just level and i and he's and he's a former taro and so and so and so and so when i was a beginning reporter aleppo wasn't a terribly the writer hp bad writer and i would show my scripts howard payne pay mike schuster a little money it is a likely continue a minute as i good at this form a end to tell me like what i'm doing wrong and so and so he would do that man with some lesser a long time it took me a while to learn how to write well for radio and a lot of things i'm i told me i still

covering my head sometimes innocent read the script so now like i am the host of talk of the nation ivory ride like a habit i ever like it's a pretty you know like i've clearly like i've mastered the problems i went to him to sell for me in the first place and i'm talking to him over this line from moscow and we haven't talk in years right lately we really hadn't talked in years i keep going off to moscow years before you are in an empty city really know me as like a fully developed like oh now i'm an adult i had a real job at npr not a beginner anymore is really the first time in years and i am interviewing over the line and the host of talk of the nation and i am an nsa like and so and so you know i've read that is sooner to do you know that the prices go up to you know twenty percent a year and so what is that even mean like what is that mean a delay like to have things like go up a hundred times and isolate them across the dollar this year that cost two hundred dollars next year and then there's a rule on pause and might point out actually two and percent means that it doubles your goals and that night and then later does the whole

tone of the writer how stupid can i be and there were another few gaffes like that along the way where it's like me trying to ask like the edgy late let's just talk about what is really like kind of question where like mike was just like so i knew at a year this and i feel like in general when when my interviews or bad overreaching i can hear myself kind of overreaching and and that's just a kind of consequence that's asa listen to you're so week in and week out of feel like we know you in smelly and me yeah in fact you really talk about your personal life on the show i think maybe have only heard a half dozen references to your parents or your wife what do you think we'd be real surprised to know about you personally you'd be surprised the amount of time spent cooking for a dog i'm surprised about it to my county would approve of people cooking for their parents you know as people are crazy

that we have this four year old rescue crew dude has a massive stomach problems to the point were like what about once a month to his stomach just completely shuts down his leg it is to an onsite visit did you notice is the justice system and he said the vomiting of blood and we have to take him to the theories is that it's a very very bad seriously medical stomach problems and so we have to cook him food we cook at my wife and i answer this like a friend we take a while to prepare food for animal i'm at a lot actually and so there's a lot of like peeling sweet potatoes and others period where where where the protein the needs a starch and protein there's period that the protein that you see analysts and harbach is rabbit and so and so he was eating raspberries a set the ball and says oh that he's so we were cooking like where we were cooking like e e cooking and then like taking them meet often abounds like eat rabbits a week and i always that i gave brazilian by making rabbits because really expensive with vineyard city really relate to me or hunt rabbits and like an end and end and

say we know steve is the radio show we move to europe to do the tv show and then does it seem to join trouble back to chicago so we hear new york city and they were buying like eat rabbits which automatically like that's a really weird purchase at that butcher to start with an inane and then i was on the rabbits prospective health problem calling it would be he's doing of the rabbits would know because the rabbits a distinct lake go yeah that dog is cute but each of us in any idea how we get his job in an election year was between us we did in that dog and they'd be right you know and they didn't do it is always seems like we're going to be cooking and animal that's cuter than your pet for your pet whose job is to be killed you need is religion isn't very very wrong and so that's one thing i think people would be surprised about an end and i think i am and i think in in real in a big i think and real conversation in real like interactions

with people you know like i'm the math is still going on as i am when i'm doing interviews and reading for the radio you know i think i think you know like i mean i did you know i'm somebody with like a project that i'm working on and thinking a lot about end and i think on this track and you know like i'm a distracted person a lot of the time because i'm thinking about right away what we don't know how we're going to fix that story in the quileute sure they could get on the plane on thursday or wednesday give is ago a lot of that going to my head la times and i am and i am a member and member of friends said to me once again the main difference between you in person and you on the radio is that on the radio i have your full attention or something like that which is which sounds like a little sadder when i say it here it sounds like your like empathetic and i'm not like mr brisson very nice jewish religion people of friendships

and super cause of my wife and you know male a quaker fine rhythms that butler i definitely am not is totally focused as i am on the radio in two thousand seventy you lost the tv version of your show which has gone on to win three emmys now obviously there's something that game when you add a visual component to your stories that do you feel like there's something that's lost as well i mean it's not that kind of intimacy is lost because you can have intimacy with pictures that the kind of calm friendly casual intimacy that comes from that comes just isn't just a fact of being on the radio like that that's kind of built into the radio is actually see a kind of tricky thing to achieve on tv and maybe if i were used to performing on tv that would seem that would seem so hard but but but but i

always i always found that week we could if we could achieve the same kinds of emotional moments on television as we achieve in every episode of a radio show but it took a great deal more cunning and construction to do it and both in terms of the storytelling but then also in terms of just the filmmaking lately like often in order to have a moment that feels quiet and introspective and emotional you have to have a lot of sped up action before it's either so i get to create yet to create a space in which the the reflective emotional moment can exist as if that makes sense and then and then and then at men making people relatable on tv is kind of a different project than a dozen radio on the radio it's it's really really easy if somebody is talking on the radio about something that really means something to them and talking from the heart you do you've got the jobs done wears on tv does it there's a lot of other factors to to make that work including how they look like they just the superficial like yeah have a look

endowment and it's not like they have to look a certain way but if they do look a certain way sometimes you have to like wait it out to people to people get over how it work and arm and yeah and so there's all of that is kind of is kind of an interesting challenge with tv t t t turned out to be more different from radio then either my radio staff or our collaborators in television really understood do you feel like you look back on and say your two thousand seven episodes down the road and think of wheaton illinois we're doing then or bigger so well will grow in some way that you got to get your own way your radio show dead when you listening there any feel that way when when i look at this though the first season of the tv show and then by the way we're off tv for an outbreak like we asked we asked to be taken off of tv and so we're out we are on hiatus officially and that is we did two seasons one when some emmys and then and

now we're basically broken leg taking a break from it until we think of a different way to do it i am and my hope is that we will go back and do some big splashy special or some some big project out for for the network which they're tilt until but that we would go back and do a series like we did just because that made the series just was kind of it was crude growing to do the tv series and the radio show at the same time but to give you question your ira already see that those early episodes things that that we would do that and i think oh god that's that we would then only is that way because we were beginners and then the biggest the biggest thing like that is is that a home is that when we went into doing tv we thought we could do something that that other journalism does and then that is most journalism is about the past that is the immediate past but about the past and so and so when a newspaper reporter a magazine reporter radio reporter is doing a story generally what we're doing is you go to a place or something

is already happened you talk to the people it happened to end meet you reconstruct kind of what happened you tell the story is something that happened in the past but as it turns out did you for television it's much much better if you're telling a story about something which is happening right now that that is that that that you're going back that people tell stories about the past but you're there with a camera at the moment of thing is happening and so we thought we could do stories about the past we thought we would invent anesthetic for television so that you could have people talking to the camera and then you do have footage that would be beautiful and evocative but not necessarily be that kind of like a standard tricks people do in reality tv and in and in documentary out where you see old photographs new ceo of movies and you know just a lot of audio tricks that we've seen a million times i went to put it in the past that that we would be out of that a new way to do it that would seem ill and end with either that could work but the deeper we got into it the more we realized actually get to really achieve as

much power as television can have we should really try to invent stories where the camera is there as the story unfolds and so in the second season it said that became at the heart of our project which all kinds of experiments about about how to do that and then they resented the second season as a lot more dynamic an end and a lot better than the first season and i'm an end and that tended to be just an enormously difficult on i'm reporting problem i give you think about if you think about what that is to try to tip to have the camera there at the moment that something important happens like a leg you doing to teaching figure out where the camera and tobago but what would his the story were doing anything about it it's it's it's the it's like it's like you have to figure that i had something really important in someone else's life something at listening at this really important can happen in somebody else's life it hasn't happened yet but it is going to happen on thursday at two o'clock

you know in this specific location and i will be with a clear the location to appear on television will be we get releases from all the people involved to appear on television and we would we really like separate cameron feel that like like it's a good thing to report doesn't in which hasn't happened yet and it's kind of what it says are hard is one thing it's a hard thing to find a story like that and much harder that didn't find any other kind of story that i've never heard of the morning i go i get it's just a weird journalistic act to try to find a story which hasn't happened yet and so and so that that's that's the main thing that became very very difficult so you're trying to figure out what to do with that project what else is ahead for you i mean honestly like them the main focus right now for it for all of us is making the radio show and there we have a bomb and we have all kinds of like exciting arm exciting things coming up in the next couple months that that are sort of different than anything we've ever done in different than anything the us is reported that one of these images started on and i just did an interview for

yesterday is the show that is just stories that are parents pitch you know you know like you know you know like i'm you know like i'll get your family members will say you know you should really do a story about a friend steve that yellow would set a while iowa the rules of the show ira what we have to make to an end and our goal is it that we're so willie sutton we're such macho radio producers that we will make them and no matter how flimsy perhaps the ideas are we will make those stories great commission social thing to do that i think is really really fun show and it had this huge investigative story about about the about the economic collapse that is really this amazing story that actually under hundreds of confidentiality think i'm out to say much about what we're doing with this group called pro publica out which which is about to investigative reporters the world are incredibly excited about a bunch of stuff going on the radio show in india

shan we haven't we have a bunch of movie movies that are in the works a half dozen stories on the radio show that are in development to be motion pictures and and this azalea began the years ago when i'm when steven soderbergh bought the rights to a story that that that that was that was heard on our show on that that made into this film with matt damon called the informant and and when that when that happened when it's a hotbed of which we weren't involved in about like a deliberate to the reporter who was involved in it i met various agents of people connecting networks and said you know you guys are always knew was new to raise money or public radio but you have this treasure trove of movie ready stories and one of the ways to be raising money and take the burden off the fundraising for you it would be i would be to be selling stuff to the movies as we thought actually that seems really smart and so and so we we had we went ahead and we started selling these things and one one one stray got made into a film called unaccompanied minors a kids' film directed by paul feig who was one of

the creators of freaks and geeks and memory of another had cut half dozen that are in development with various directors and studios and then the light and and and i expect probably win near the royal family were told was envy of kind of a half dozen that you're developing maybe one will go and so i think actually this year one of them will probably get started like they're one or two they're pretty close and i'm i know because really interesting an innate in the end it like like watching that happen is really interesting in and just mean people in the movie business has to really interesting i find them to be both lake the stereotypes you have of people in hollywood and very unlike family politically woman one comes down to the content of the stories and talking about the stories and what will make the stories better stories and how to shape than the stories i feel like i'm talking to my peers i felt we talk the same language and and it's actually about a fan and end in some of the directors who have gotten to meet and talk to about these things are marc forester interim

arson and some of the others and they just did they just incredible smart creative fueling people like that is amazing people who have met even a much less like a tail like scheme out like how'd you do this as a movie in an interview that we will be super involved with what is a certain point of these movies a week you know and i don't know anything about shooting at a movie but we had somebody on our staff who we hired away from warner brothers to just be so much of this movie stuff we have it whenever producers and movie producer i'm a jew who are whose job is to develop these things happen and she's a super proud to go in and it says isn't it really is is because when a really interesting thing to do i am and the uncensored is that going on to but that that's at like veteran scott a secondary kind of late funding to do a click the primary thing for me in the sense that this is the radio show any plans to do another live broadcast to movie theaters like he did last may i think i'm going to do it again i mean now like everybody's doing it i guess and he was doing on wait wait don't tell me is doing wanted everybody at india's realized

like oh this is a really nice way to reach an audience and i am fun for the audience to i'm ends and so i think we would do it again but not right away one last question there torino a tear does he love the references or hey the references of them your show it's a really good question and they won't you know he's always said he loves them and they were you're is why i wondered is that really true or is he just being gracious and now i actually like well you know we're really cause sen durbin i do believe that he actually close like some other way that the specifics of some of them that that it might be my candidate understand but but i believe it does he's he's a good boss in a good partner in this and he doesn't say so and that and in general it you know it's it's a really big then nike's for public radio listeners he sounds like a legendary figure like heat he tells me that he'll meet people and i end this

a you know why you interview a dozen his name and the below grade you exist for your present and comments and so and so you know not with the not intending to i think we we we made an accidentally semi famous let's say it's unlikely or purse the show is trying to figure what sound clip we'll hear it can you tell that raises never i never gets it right now well we should do a real time thing with listeners know the set where we're work as the show plays on a somewhat the station we should have them guess what what it's going to be and see you can see what percentage guess it right because i bet if you're listening to the whole show with that in mind visit percentage people can get i'm not one of them we can't really get out of second guessed that and i'm always writing i read this has been such a pleasure we're really looking forward to seeing

you at the leed center on february twentieth great time looking toward being diverted alliance i can't believe it i think it doesn't make people who have gone to school in alliance and at many cancers many times but i remember i'm going to say two to commit crimes or were delighted to have you so thank you again so good things we've been visiting with ira glass host and producer of this american life which airs at noon every saturday and kansas public radio tickets for iran's upcoming appearance at the leed center are still available for more information call its six for arts or eight six four two seven eight seven or that only the center's website lead back to you bat edu that's lead back pay you that's ed you also going on this month it's the kansas reads program statewide reading initiative sponsored by the kansas center for the book and the state library were joined today by roy byrd

he's the director of the cancer center for the book look i'm right now i'm great who are not familiar with the kansas reads program what idea behind kansas reeves is an annual state wide reading a dissertation project that sponsored by the kansas center for the book at the state library and this year with the kansas humanities council as well we identify a set of books and the state library and selects the ya book that we will be reading we encourage everyone across kansas to read and discuss the same book and it usually kicks off on january twenty ninth kansas day and it continues until about the middle of march or about six weeks when we promote it and this is long differed direction for the kansas wheat prevent health we've just for this year this year lydia book will be dreams from my father by brock obama

and it's a little bit different but in different is good and we don't want to get stuck in the same vein all the time we do this is our fourth year we started with the learning tree by gordon parks how we did in cold blood by truman capote read last year i was here visiting about the region's small planes panetta picard and this year we are doing dreams for my father by brock obama which was written before the brock obama everyone into politics let alone became president but turned out we were impressed with his summer the kansas connections that he does have he still has family here in kansas of course and he talks about is this search for his father and how that fit into his role in his life and out i think it has a lot of themes that are common to many people not just african americans not just young people not just

kansans but the common throughout the country so the book is actually a memoir than is that while there are always going to be political connotations attached to it it's really not a book about politics it's a memoir about a young man searching for his heritage you just led perfectly to my next question kansas is a pretty red state let's say for the sake of argument i'm a republican i didn't vote for obama why would i want to read this book well i think yes in the first place were encouraging everyone to read it before they jump to the conclusion that it's a red or a blue bird but more importantly they should that it reads this this for the same reason that they would read langston hughes' or the same reason that they would read gordon parks because this is partly about an african american experience and

quite honestly we can lay claim to brock obama his mother was a kansan his grandparents were kansans he's actually from hawaii and the state a voyeur lays claim to him but probably more rightfully so but yeah they people should read this if they want to know about connecting to their own fathers if they want to know about a blended families if they want to know some of the other issues that are important in this book if they will know about other countries because obama was in hawaii he was in the soviet far east he was in kenya and he visited those places searching for his own his own background and heritage so that i think that's why they should read it not expenditure going to really be expecting politics and they're going to be very disappointed i never know why this book

which was published in nineteen ninety five rather than say i am his best selling book the audacity of hope this book lends itself much better to a reading and discussion project and they're quite honestly it is published by three rivers press which is a an imprint of random house and our random house had been promoting this book for community read across the country right up until he was elected and then for reasons of conflict of interest of both the white house and a random house the publisher not are not promoting this title right now that is really to do at work were still going to proceed but they're not promoting it because it would look the three self aggrandizing formed on both of their parts to take advantage of that but quite honestly we had been considering this along with four other titles before the election took place when you were considered

anything any of the other works either by obama or anyone else who was a bomb in india race this was a book that was considered because it is a memoir and it's an expects for example of memoir writing the idea behind the kansas read program isn't just that people read the book although certainly that's your primary goal but it's also that we have a chance to get together and to discuss the bloke that their information programs what are some of the programs that are taking place around kansas we have a number of world program ideas and programs that we're promoting the uk kansas humanities council has partially funded kansas reads dreams from my father about what that grant and why we are we're representing scholars last year we had had a lot of water that my life that we had not deal with a lot of authors in the first two that we had done

and there have been anti panetta who are so lucky to have on this element and put a treat that was to have her involvement in the program and nancy was a room a remarkable participant in a kansas reads the verge of small planes a year ago in fact i believe i can actually visited sixty six libraries in six weeks' time talking about her own work and making program presentations we don't have that this year we we talked about having a brock obama visit kansas during this time we talked about debt perhaps inviting his wife but down at you with those probably would probably be problematic to that this was not going to happen so we looked at other ways to present the book and busy with humus and scholars was an excellent way of bringing this book to kansans hour we have for scholars

through the humanities council j edgar tidwell from your decay you out to rita williams also from here kill you out we have the show writer from the air she teaches ethnic studies at kansas state university and we have david nichols who wrote that one of our kansas notable books two years ago about eisenhower and the civil rights movement which we've also they're like in a defeated david metcalfe and that wonderful book about eisenhower on this program yesterday and things like that exciting the kansas center for the book does these projects as part of a program to bring books and reading to kansans and openly see we are our authors presenting visiting recently had a mixed record as well and he's also one of our noble book authors that that just excites us to no end of the day the data is it has been invited along with the reserve and cheryl and edgar to present

a belt dreams from my father from their own scholarly in and humanities backgrounds and there were doing an update libraries and broadcasting for those programs to other libraries online through video conferencing technology so our world were very excited and this is a way to discuss this book from different perspectives and a number of the programs that are part of this kansas read have to do with reading one's own memoirs and going back in and telling your own life story then that was that something that librarians really focused on as we discuss this as we develop this programming in fact you know we have a list of program ideas on our web site for folks to adopt and use that they would like the very first one is no more writing perhaps memoirs are good

in in that in that respect the day remind us of our own personal experiences and i think that was what happened to me the second time i read green for my father i've read it twice now the first time i read it and i only or even thinking about this this was a number of years ago but after it was selected then we chose that book as our kansas reads title and i read it again and there's the second time around and it's it reminded me of so my own personal experiences and my own relationship with my father and things of that nature and i think that helps and then if we can help other folks to share in their memoir writing and who you might expect geologists to weep upon this and are certainly there is some of that

but just the mere notion of a love of recording things and how much of our family history have we lost because it was never recorded cds that you've read the book twice now i'm curious when you found most surprising about dreams from my father in either of your readings surprising perhaps about how much i could identify with that with some of his own soul searching i think a lot of us have gone through that when we can to admit it or not end up these experiences certainly eat meat but it's nothing like what i experienced growing up but i'm going to we know when he talked about it is is his own life story if you will it it made me think more about what we know what if i were writing a memoir what would i pick out he he focused on certain things and emotional while ago he has

written that if he were to do this again in my focus more on his mother what the time he was katy young members was right before you started law school when he beat begin doing the search and he was seeking a father he had never really know it it i know my guess my dad still with us amanda can appreciate that but i am in my experience my father was gone a lot at work two jobs to support the family he was gone quite a bit and so my relationship was with an absentee father except he was working all the time so in a way he was and that i am we all have worked as intended invitation was what what really appealed to one of the things i thought was interesting is we all know that he started his career as a community organizer i don't know about you but i didn't really have a sense of what that exactly

meant what does a community organizer in chicago do an end this book is a really frank discussion about what that job was like how frustrating it was how the challenges that he faced as a community organizer and i thought that was very interesting in maybe explaining a little bit of his perspective as in politics on a national level and i think that's that's an excellent point and i and my feeling as i was reading that was was this explains a lot about why he's going into politics because first time i'd read it he was still kerry and illinois senator end of his own experience in politics prior that was was a neo illinois state legislature and i was for a brief time and then he moved into the senate seat and then he moved on to the presidential race so his time in politics was actually been very short term compared to most politicians who

are lifelong career politicians easily been at it for a very short time that i have a big portion of that community organizing in the chicago area was getting people out to vote and out with my second reading it it just seemed very obvious to me that's the background that's why he decided to go into politics it all was that effort to get people to vote while people will both have something to vote for and we saw that again in the election the same thing happened and i think part of the reason he won the democratic nomination and part of the reason that he though was elected president was because he could organize people to vote at any given something to vote for if you haven't read the book get dreams for my father by brock obama the state library of kansas has very generously give in kansas public radio a couple copies of it

to give away if you like a chance to win one of those copies unlikely to drop me an email at kate mcintyre at k u that edu that's kate and c i n t y r e and k u that's ed you or you could drop me a note at our mailing address eleven twenty west eleventh street in moore and six six zero four four that's eleven twenty west eleventh street in lawrence six six zero four four roy what else is going on at the state library and asked and you've got some very exciting projects leading up into rss quit centennial years we kicked perkins reads dreams for my father off on january twenty nine the same day we also kicked off of the state library's the promotion of kansas won fifty packages one fifty years a state wide grassroots program out we're encouraging

that end and not just the state library but many state agencies many organizations many local and regional organizations are promoting one hundred and fifty years of kansas statehood alberto we got started because solar projects with you yet need to get some input for and one of them that we're quite excited about right now is one hundred and fifty books for the kansas asked centennial now we have asked people everywhere in kansas to send us recommendations or suggestions of kansas books the purpose is to celebrate the outstanding the memorable as dora goal favorite fiction children's adult nonfiction or just looking for books by kansans are about kansas and oh were hoping to publish a list of one hundred and fifty titles for the one hundred and fiftieth year of our states' existence

end we're looking for input from everyone so if anyone is interested in sharing that they can go to our web site and find the nomination form it can be submitted electronically it can be downloaded and sent to us how we accepted end up as we sit here today let's say we were we've had this open for four days and we already have a growing fall we look forward to worm see what's ahead for the us as the centennial phil thank you very much for coming in today roy again we'd been talking about the kansas reads program this year's reid is dreams from my father by brock obama thanks for i think you get this really bad for more information about the kansas reads program or to suggest a book for the kansas won fifty list go to the state library of kansas website debbie interviewed debbie you back pay as well i'd be bad info that's k s l i'd be back in file i'm kate

mcintyre keep your presents is a production of kansas public radio at the university of kansas