This American Life-r Sarah Vowell has written a new book, The Wordy Shipmates, which is the most readable history of New England Puritan thought you're likely to come across in your lifetime. It's a bit like reading the journal of a grad student who's doing their thesis on Puritan rhetoric--with all the marginal asides and musings left poignantly in. We emailed her a few questions, and she wrote back, double-spacing after periods, which extra space......

What are you supposed to say about a play that bored you to tears but isn't exactly bad? This was the question we were mulling over last night after seeing Kevin Kling's How? How? Why? Why? Why? at the Seattle Rep. Kling is best known as an NPR contributor, which explains the audience's lustful appreciation of the show; How? How? Why? Why? Why? is basically an amalgam of This American Life and Prairie Home Companion,......

Let's cut to the chase: the winner of a This American Life TV series poster signed by Ira Glass is Jessica. Congratulations, Jessica -- email us so we can figure out how to get your poster to you. The rest of you will have to settle for watching the show itself, which has its Showtime premiere tonight at 10:30. (Actually, we're pretty sure it's on InDemand, as well, but we don't have Showtime so......

Jonathan Raban's Surveillance is the first book in Seattlest's Book Club. If you haven't picked up your copy yet, don't forget to ask for the Seattlest Book Club discount at Santoro's Books in Greenwood and Bailey-Coy Books on Capitol Hill. Last week, we brought up the issue of plot. Literary reviewers contend that Raban "isn't interested" in it. Amazon reviewers just call it "rambling and pointless" (caution: spoilers at that link). Raban himself, on......

Tonight's episode of This American Life is "What I Learned from TV," compiled from live performances on their tour of the same name. Pieces by David Rakoff, Sarah Vowell, and Dan Savage will be included. Seattlest went on March 7, when the live show hit the Paramount, and we can confirm that the Rakoff and Savage stories are solid. (We're also happy that Alexa Junge's piece, about her experiences as a female TV scriptwriter,......

We confess: we wondered if it was worth it. This American Life cut down on the new radio shows so they could produce their new TV show (debuting on Showtime next month). And it's not that we didn't think they could make TV, but we really did miss the radio show. But this trailer for the TV show? It restores our faith, gives us hope, and inspires us to contemplate dropping HBO for Showtime,......

Jesse Thorn, member of sketch comedy group Prank the Dean, produces his public radio show from his own living room in Los Angeles. At first, Seattlest thought that was code for "I am unemployed and play a lot of XBox" but it turns out he actually does have a radio show (this is still ambiguous on the "unemployed" detail), and even more to the point: it is very good. For many, even those of us......

When John Moe let us know he was leaving KUOW, our first question was, "What about The Works?" We've finally pieced together an answer: It's now a segment on The Beat, hosted by Glenn Fleischman, who says on his blog, "I'll be talking about technology as a guest of host Megan Sukys every Wednesday at 2.07 pm for 12 1/2 minutes on KUOW-FM's The Beat starting Jan. 24." We figured this out backwards, by visiting......

The Hugo House is running an inquiry into that most terrible and divisive of subjects: childhood. On October 13th and 14th, they will feature a host of writers and speakers, all of whom share a few things in common: they write, speak, and they all had childhoods. Seattlest also had a childhood, several of them. In fact, we are in a bit of a childhood renaissance as we speak. We’ve found the adult world to......

"Are you disappointed that more people aren't converting to atheism after seeing your show?" That (loosely paraphrased) was the question that kicked off Ira Glass' conversation with Julia Sweeney on Saturday night. "No. I'm not really that conceited," replied Sweeney. (Again, paraphrased. We did not smuggle in a recording device.) Glass got first billing Saturday night, but Sweeney was really the star of the show. After a brief pitch for funding from Ross Reynolds,......

If this were the Marvel Universe, John Gottman would be an X-Man. He's the marriage researcher who can, famously, watch a couple talk to each other for an hour and then predict with 95% accuracy whether or not their marriage is going to last. Essay god Malcolm Gladwell used Gottman to illustrate the power of thin-slicing in Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking. (Haven't read it yet? Get on it or get fired.) Radio......

John Hodgman, Writer, has offered up fascinating insights into himself for our sister publication, Gothamist. He's created smarty-pants user-generated content for McSweeney's and This American Life. And Mr. Hodgman, Writer, has published a book, The Areas of My Expertise, in which he makes up a bunch of facts. (Like that's not a contradiction in terms. Did you think no one would notice, Mr. Hodgman? Must you lie to us to be funny?) Basically, the book......

1) Mercir (EMP Sky Church) - We started the day with some electro indie rock. With moody vocals, usually more atmospheric than lyrical, this three piece uses guitars, keyboards and a latop computer to create a rich wall of sound. 2) Citizen Cope (Main Stage) - We keep hearing about how great Citizen Cope is. That “Bullet in a Target” song is everywhere. Prior to Saturday, the other songs we heard by him (aka Clarence......

Seattlest has been scrambling to come up with the reason why there's renewed interest in the abandoned Quiznos story and was about to give up and blame it on the internet winds when we came across a comment left in one of our previous posts on the subject (thanks Austinist!). It looks like the popular radio show "This American Life" has finally caught up to us and released a program on the local Quiznos franchise......