I’ve been wanting to interview people on whether they felt like they cheated at yoga for a long time, but what finally made this audio piece coalesce was the mind-blowing brilliance that is This American Life. If you don’t know about this radio show out of Chicago, read on for more info.
This piece I’ve made is so derivative and so much weaker than anything they do that it kind of feels like This American Life fan fiction, but I’m fine with that. That’s just how good TAL is.
No Flash? Get the MP3 file here.
My American friends had talked about it for years, but I’ve only gotten hooked on This American Life in the past few months. Each episode has three or four stories on a single theme, a pretty uninteresting concept, but it’s all in the execution — I have yet to listen to a episode that did not deliver interesting ideas, moving moments or absurd hilarity, and sometimes all of the above. Do yourself a favour and listen for free here. It’s the sensibility that subjective stories have more honesty and humanity than objective journalism that gave me an angle on my piece and allowed me to take it in a more interesting direction.
Yoga Ipod image above taken from here. Thanks to Carma, Susan, Kirby and Ben for excellent feedback!
8 responses to “Yoga Cheater”
Starting from Scratch is one of my favorite This American Life episodes. It has a story about a guy who drives a limousine, earns some cash, gambles it and sometimes makes thousands of dollars in a day, but just keeps gambling until it’s all gone, and then drives his limousine the next day, earns some cash, etc., over and over again. This episode also has one of Jonathon Goldstein’s (of CBC’s Wiretap) rewritten bible stories, which are always excellent. Listen up! http://audio.wbez.org/tal/233.m3u
Actually, Jonathan Goldstein’s Wiretap (my fave ep’s Of Man and Beast) is one of the reasons I started listening — JG is a producer on TAL. It’s my favorite CBC show, for sure.
Pod *cough* cast…
…and wiretap too.
Jim,
Every morning (okay, so it ends up being 3-4 mornings a week. The spirit is willing, the flesh is sleepy) But every morning that I put the ol’ yoga DVD in, I fast forward through the introduction and get down to business. Cheating? Yeah, probably. Serenity now. And I mean NOW, buster. Daddy’s got to get to work.
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Wow, thanks for this. It’s hilarious, and incredibly honest. I think it’s nice to break through ceremony and sanctity occasionally. Otherwise we become too self-important.
pingback here.
How is riding a bicycle macho? I don’t get the joke and I don’t get TAL. Whatever happened to Joe Frank? How Birks and yoga makes you a “hippie” is way beyond me, too. All of those “hippies” are dead. Only the wannabes are left.
Get a job (and a haircut, too)!!!
the yoga bit was great. I like the frivolous intamacy. And the sense of profound honesty regarding light hearted topics.