Glass talks about how every story contains two parts, an anecdote, and a moment of reflection. He also addresses how difficult it is to actually find a good story, good taste, and the pitfalls of storytelling. I chose to listen to First Day, and enjoyed it for the most part. The prologue and first stories weren’t as entertaining as the second and third, and the fourth was somewhere in between, for me. I’m a fan of humor, so the second and third stories really caught my attention, and even made me laugh while listening to them. I understand the reason for the prologue, it definitely sets up the general idea behind all these stories, about the first day of any new adventure in your life, but it wasn’t as upbeat as I would prefer an attention-grabbing story to be. I found that a little contradictory to Glass’ ideas on “good taste,” but this is also my personal opinion, and like I said, I do see the reason for it, so even though I personally didn’t enjoy it, I have appreciation for it. All the stories contain the two parts (anecdote and reflection), have conflict, and don’t fail in the “pitfall” area (each speaker discusses both the other people involved in their stories, as well as their own role in their stories, and I would say none of them were guilty of trying to imitate someone they’ve heard on the radio, they all seemed like normal people any listener could relate to, making different voices for different characters like anyone telling a story would do). (Now that I’m thinking about it, I did it in my first audio story when I was imitating my 6-year-old nephew, and do it all the time.) Regardless of what story I was listening to, it is true that I wanted to know the next thing that would happen, both talked about by Glass and in RADIO, which is what kept me listening even to the stories that weren’t as entertaining to me. To be honest, I couldn’t tell which parts were cut and pasted together, it all flowed really nicely. As I mentioned in my previous post, I watched the four-part series and First Day before reading RADIO, but after I read RADIO, I thought about how Glass’ description of asking interviewees questions that actually allow you, the listener, to be able to envision the story as you’re hearing it, really came into play. It was almost awkward hearing, “ACT THREE. BAD SEX WITH BUD KEMP,” because I could imagine the scenes playing out as she described them. I thought the role of the sounds and music did exactly what Glass said they would do, which is either stop, and give emphasis to the next thing the person said, or give you a moment to think about everything you just heard. I liked the background music, when I was younger I wouldn’t watch scary movies (okay, I still won’t watch scary movies, I know you all remember when me and the girl sitting next to me jumped during that zombie animatedgif Burtis showed us, BUT this story came from when I was younger) so my nana put the sound on mute, and just like that it wasn’t nearly as scary as before. Music plays a huge role in buildup, and in setting up the type of emotional response you want in your listeners, and I really liked the way it was used in First Day.