**Cringe**

and then a slew of emotions:

<sad>
<disturbed>
<worried>
<disappointed>

I saw Ira Glass last night at the Boston Opera House. I’ve been a fan of This American Life since I discovered it one afternoon several years ago shortly after I moved to the Boston area and started tuning into WBUR. I was running errands. I sat in the car parked in front of my apartment building with a few bags of groceries slowly thawing in my backseat simply because I had to hear the rest of the show. I have a feeling a lot of this show’s fans spend time sitting in their parked cars listening.

Though I haven’t been able to tune in as much lately, when I saw that Ira was coming to town I *really* wanted to attend. I had no idea what this Boston show was going to be about, so it was a surprise to me when I went into the Opera House last night and saw programs and cards that showed Ira next to a Showtime logo. Television? Huh? What’s happening?

I must not be the only one who reacted this way, as it seemed a portion of the show was dedicated to convincing us radio show fans that this television show was going to be really good, and television is in a great era, and look at how much images can enhance your experience, and look at all these great shows on t.v., and did I mention this show is going to me really good, and….

I reacted skeptically. Ira opened the show telling a piece of a short story on his first experience with cardboard “television cameras” in grade school, and then retold the story with cartoons. It was clever, and certainly warmed me up to the idea of seeing how Ira would match his stories to imagery. But I wasn’t convinced.

The show was divided into four acts with three storytellers in addition to Ira and an act on the television show. The three storytellers were riotously funny, and though I am focusing on the television part of the show in this entry, I do not want to ignore how great they were.

The third act introduced the television show’s producer and took us through some of the decisions they had to make on the show. Should Ira be visible? How? What kind videography – artistic? documentary? reality-tv? They put thought into representing the show’s intensely personal stories without runining their thought provoking nature. Often the radio show leads you down a road and lets you come to your own conclusion or judgement. It seems that is important to the producer and Ira to keep. </disturbed></worried>

I like the idea of This American Life on TV, but only in addition to the radio show, which I did not hear is ending. </sad> I enjoy the radio show because of the wonderful stories and I like making up my own imagery. Sometimes images don’t enhance my experience. It’s like reading a book and then seeing the movie – often to my disappointment. But it doesn’t mean that the movie is bad, just different and less than my expectations. Maybe this show will be really really great, but if I am always comparing it to my radio experience I may never see it so.

Which I guess in the end is disappointing. Here I have been a fan of the show for years and wonder how I will feel about the TV show. I won’t even go into how I feel about it being on Showtime, which I won’t subscribe to. I am hopeful that I will see a few episodes on someone else’s TV or the net and fall in love with it just as I did the radio show. Skeptical, but hopeful.