Searching for Ira Glass

Thanks to my good friend, Pizza Cottontail, we had tickets to see Ira Glass at Jesse Auditorium this evening. Glass hosts the very popular NPR program, This American Life. Secrets to his successful formula were revealed through stories and vignettes from his years in public radio.

Since starting this blog, I have often found myself asking, "How can I make this a blog post?" It's almost become an obsession. It ruins expereinces as I search for a story or topic about which to rant. The Ira Glass engagement was no exception.

I listened to one story after another, searching for my own angle. Glass shared some older classics like the piece he did where he interviewed a couple that had completely different stories of the same event. He played stories about a man making an ass of himself in front of his office's intern. One story after another helped demonstrate Glass' eficacious story-telling techniques.

Although the tales were fascinatiing and insights intruiging, I couldn't help but be distracted by the constant stream of people going to and from the restroom. It wasn't so much that they were going to the loo at such a steady pace. What got me was the difficulty these audience members had just finding their seats again.

Person after person walked up and down the aisle, searching for their rows. I'd watch a woman pass by, promptly turn around, walk past me, only to turn around again until somehow stumbling down her row. One audience member after adother walked by, searching for the correct seat.

What made this so unbearable is that at some point, I realized that I too had to go to the restroom. I wondered whether I could go to the restroom and avoid the embarrassment of not being able to find my row. This idea of looking like an imbecile who can't remember for the three minutes it takes to return from a trip to the toilet where I was sitting froze me to my chair. I couldn't bear to be that person. The thought consumed me.

In the meantime, Glass finally wrapped up his "performance" with a Q & A session. During this time, he revealed that often the best stories come to journalists when they are no longer looking for the story. That's when I knew what to blog about.

I'm sorry if you were looking for the very insights Ira Glass shared with his audience tonight in this blog post. He shared some and gave me a lot to think about in my own attempt at story-telling. I'm just glad that I didn't miss any of it to go to the restroom.