I'm continually impressed with Ira Glass as an editor, interviewer and now with his new Showtime programme, This American Life, TV host. I honestly can't believe how good this series is. I've watched every episode back to back twice and I'm still reeling.



Quite simply, this is reality television or what reality television should have been before it got commandeered by posers in constructed atmospheres. Have you ever thought about why it's called "Reality TV" when there isn't anything real about it? A bunch of people who would never meet up in real life are thrown together in a completely artificial situation-a house, an island-to compete for something equally artificial-a modeling contract, a million dollars. That's not real. This American Life is a hundred percent human, real, and down to earth all the time. The stories are forthright, touching, amazing.



It's a testament to Ira's skill as an interviewer that he somehow manages to find people and tell their stories without artifice-there isn't an ounce of cheese or a single turn of spin in any one of these stories. You don't hear Ira or his staff ask a lot of questions on camera, but he must be amazing at his job because he brings out the best in people. Also the camera shots in this series are outstanding. In one interview a 13 year old boy rallies against love while his red headed classmate floats dreamily though a field of grass. In another interview the viewers get to see Chance the Bull through the kitchen window of it's owner. It's beautiful. All of it. It's simply amazing. My husband and I were both teary eyed after several of these stories.



Besides meeting a 13 year old boy who has sworn off love, you'll visit a Chicago hot dog stand where customers and staff swear at each other in a free for all that brings out the worst in human nature, sit with a man who watches TV in his wife's mausoleum every other day, walk the ranch of a kind hearted Texas man who had his beloved bull cloned and you'll probably give up meat after "smelling" an Iowa pig farm. And after every single episode you'll feel like the human race isn't headed for a big black hole in space after all. You'll feel like we're good, like there's hope for us because it can't be that bleak if this is what people are really like-vulnerable, kind, interesting, good hearted.



If you're looking for more culture like this-I'd recommend The New Kings of Non-Fiction edited by Ira Glass and Best American Essays 2007 edited by David Foster Wallace. And for a movie that's down to earth (if a little quirky) Eagle v. Shark.