811: The One Place I Can’t Go

10/01/23 • 60 min

27 Listeners

Spots we’re avoiding in our private maps of the world.

Prologue: Guest host Bim Adewunmi talks to her cousin Kamyl about a funny thing Kamyl did when she was small, regarding a dog named Foxy. (4 minutes)
Act One: Comedian Atsuko Okatsuka moved suddenly from Japan to the U.S. when she was eight years old, and has long joked that it was because her grandmother kidnapped her from her dad. But she'd never talked to anyone in her family about what had actually happened. (31 minutes)
Act Two: Producer Emmanuel Dzotsi has a tale about something he avoids at all costs, even though it seems to follow him everywhere he goes. (8 minutes)
Act Three: Writer Tamsyn Muir spent her childhood craving a world that she could not find on earth. So as an adult, she just created it. And it was perfect. Until she became the one person who couldn't go there. (12 minutes)

Transcripts are available at thisamericanlife.org

Spots we’re avoiding in our private maps of the world.

Prologue: Guest host Bim Adewunmi talks to her cousin Kamyl about a funny thing Kamyl did when she was small, regarding a dog named Foxy. (4 minutes)
Act One: Comedian Atsuko Okatsuka moved suddenly from Japan to the U.S. when she was eight years old, and has long joked that it was because her grandmother kidnapped her from her dad. But she'd never talked to anyone in her family about what had actually happened. (31 minutes)
Act Two: Producer Emmanuel Dzotsi has a tale about something he avoids at all costs, even though it seems to follow him everywhere he goes. (8 minutes)
Act Three: Writer Tamsyn Muir spent her childhood craving a world that she could not find on earth. So as an adult, she just created it. And it was perfect. Until she became the one person who couldn't go there. (12 minutes)

Transcripts are available at thisamericanlife.org

2 Recommendations

An exploration of the very upper limits of what you do for someone you love.

Prologue: Host Ira Glass explains what we’re doing on today’s show. (2 minutes)
Act One: Amy Bloom tells the story of her husband, Brian, getting Alzheimer's and wanting assisted suicide. Her search to find a way to do that led her to Dignitas, in Switzerland. Hear this intimate and frank account of the experience they go through, excerpted from her book, IN LOVE. (39 minutes)
Act Two: Comedian Zarna Garg tells jokes onstage about the extreme ways she tries to control her daughter Zoya’s life. Zoya explains, they’re not really jokes. Ira Glass talks to both of them about it. (15 minutes)

Transcripts are available at thisamericanlife.org

We bring the movies to you.

Prologue: Host Ira Glass revisits the one movie he’s seen more than any other, about an ocean liner that gets hit by a tsunami and flips over. (9 minutes)
Act One: Our producer, Diane Wu, spent most of her life thinking she doesn’t have a unique and personal take on The Sound of Music. She is wrong. (13 minutes)
Act Two: To cope with the COVID pandemic, producer Sean Cole finds himself turning to a movie about a pandemic. But the virus in this movie isn’t like any you’ve ever heard of. (19 minutes)
Act Three: Comedian Will Weldon’s ex-wife made a movie loosely based on their marriage. Producer Elna Baker watches the film with Will as he revisits his break-up. (15 minutes)
Act Four: Jaime Amor does yoga storytelling for kids at Cosmic Kids Yoga and on YouTube. We ask her to try taking on a film for grownups. (7 minutes)

Transcripts are available at thisamericanlife.org