This American Life

I've mentioned this radio show before, but if you haven't checked it out, do yourself a favor and listen. Visit it at This American Life, and you can click on the radio link and that will take you to an episode archive and you can listen there directly, or you can subscribe to the podcasts, or download through the website itself.

What I think this show does better than anything is just know exactly how to present the story. It certainly helps that the subject matter is usually something interesting to begin with, but I'll bet that if they read the instructions for the operating system on your computer they could keep you glued to your chair.

Today I listened to last week's episode, "Remember Me," which has a bunch of stories about people being remembered in ways that either aren't true or not how they intended to be remembered. One segment within the show was especially poignant, and made me a little bit teary-eyed while I was doing the low row at the gym.

This blog post accomplishes two goals for me: I wanted to mention what I had heard today, but I also wanted to try out using this transcription kit that I borrowed to transcribe interviews that I've done this week for my qualitative methods course.

So here is my first attempt at transcription:

There is an organization that is recording people's voices to preserve their stories for their children and generations to come. It's called Story Core. They have an audio booth in Grand Central Station in New York City, including others around the country. And sometimes you can hear some of the voices and stories that they have gathered on public radio. Here are two stories they recorded in New York...the second is a bus driver who has never forgotten one of his customers...

I remember one woman in particular. She was a senior who had gotten on my bus, and she seemed completely lost. I could see that she was confused. I don't know whether it was an illness. But she looked so beautiful for a hot summer day...to have her fur on (sounding almost as if he's shaking his head)...so I said, uh, "are you okay?"

"Oh, I'm fine, I'm fine, but I don't know what restaurant I'm meeting my friends."

I said, "you sit in the bus. I'll run in and check each restaurant."

The very, very last one on the left. I said, "it's gotta be this one."

So I said, "stay in here, sweetie. It's nice and cool in here."

I went in and I said, "there's a lady in the bus, and she said she's not sure the restaurant..."

And I saw a whole bunch of other seniors there, and they said, "oh it's probably her."

So I ran back to the bus. I said, "sweetie, your restaurant is right here."

And I said, "no no, don't move."

And I grabbed her hand. And I remember my right hand grabbed her right hand. I wanted to make her feel special, like it's a limousine. It's a bus! (this last phrase he says quickly, like he's in disbelief that he could create this illusion of it being more than just a bus.)

And she says she felt like Cinderella. And she said...(voice cracking)..."I've been diagnosed with cancer...and today is the best day of my life."

Just because I helped her off the bus (he says, almost questioning it). I never forgot that woman.

This segment was about 2 minutes and it took me at least 4-5x that amount of time to get all the words in there. Just a quick sidenote about transcribing - I can't believe how much more feeling we communicate through our voice. The parenthetical remarks above are mine so that you could get a better sense of the feeling with which he was speaking. There is so much of the message that you just can't understand in the absence of the voice. Communication is really so interesting. Important things - things that matter - should always be communicated through speech, not text. Just saying...

You know what may be the hardest part about transcribing? Getting the punctuation right. There is so much that can be said that is automatically understood that just can't come across as easily in writing, unless you're really good at it.

Anyway...I loved that story. If you get a chance to click on the link above, listen to that episode and it comes up about 18 minutes into the broadcast.

I also thought I would mention that on Thursday, April 23rd, they are doing a live broadcast to movie theaters around the country of the show. I already checked and it will be playing at the Irvine Spectrum, and The Block of Orange, if you're interested in going. For tickets and listings of other available theaters visit this link here. Tickets are $20. Anyone wanna go with me? I'll be in town that week. Woo!