799: The Lives of Others
Update: 2023-05-14
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Looping thoughts about people you barely know, or don't know at all.
- Prologue: We get a tip that an entire town is consumed by a huge, elementary-school-style crush on a local veterinarian. Guest host Lilly Sullivan goes to Utah to investigate the mystery of the hot vet. (8 minutes)
- Act One: We do the thing the people in town would rather die than do – spill the crush to the legendary Dr. Artz himself. Lilly Sullivan reports. (8 minutes)
- Act Two: Producer Alix Spiegel talks to one of her closest friends, Sarah Blust, about the time Sarah met a stranger who, unbeknownst to her, had already spent years thinking about her. (29 minutes)
- Act Three: There are certain jobs where thinking about someone else’s life is just built into it. Aviva DeKornfeld has a theory that petsitting is a job like that. She talks to a couple of pet sitters to find out. (14 minutes)
Transcripts are available at thisamericanlife.org
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Awesome episode!
I have to learn to ignore vocal fry. Clearly it's the fashionable mode of speech for women of the Gen-X and Millineal generations. It's the most grating habit and I've no clue why it became so prevalent. Alix's and Aviva's vocal fry speech habit is so off-putting -- akin to nails on a chalkboard -- that I had to stop listening and read the transcript. Some years back, This American Life did a show about it. What a shame that it was even ignored by staff.