Listening to the Doppelganger episode of This American Life really made me think about how radio is done. The show included an audio clip of SNL’s Weekend Update segment of Actor Fred Armestein impersonating This American Life host Ira Glass. I was not familiar with Ira Glass before listening to this clip so I was often about who was speaking.

In addition to the cohost, sounds of what was going on in the studio were included like papers shuffling as the men talked and music, that is, music without words that adds to the story.

In the second segment on fake calamari, sounds of the food processing plant as well as music to set the mood were included. This helped set the mood but still, the story was hard for me to listen to and follow without visuals. I have worked with pork intestine before, as I have been making sausage with my family for most of my life and have also made calamari from whole squid, so I was left to wonder what exactly the pork bung looked like, does it look like a mix of the two or something else?

Deep Fried Pork Bung

I Googled it and this image was what I found, deep fried pork bung does not look too much like Calamari, in my opinion.

The sound effects were what drew me into the story the most and kept me hooked on the fake calamari story due to the lack of visuals. There was a phone ringing sound effect to start a phone interview on the show and a somewhat staticky white noise mixed with the actual phone conversation. This made me feel as a listener as if I was listening in on the actual conversation. The sounds of the market where they purchased bung and the background sounds of the restaurant where they ate it helped me feel what was going on in the story. They made me feel like I was there.

The show used microphones on the people who were eating the calamari/pork bung, recording the crunches of the food. This also made me feel connected to what was going on because I recognized the crunchiness of the calamari.

The show used a bit of a bumper between stories, reminding people that they were listening to This American Life and that the episode was about doppelgängers.

The second story on the show contrasted Afghanistan and Philadelphia. It used background music and never had a moment of silence. It went back and forth between the men from Afghanistan and Philadelphia, telling nearly the same story despite being in completely different parts of the world, dominated by different cultures. While their stories were of violence and were emotional and hard to listen to at times, their parallels kept me listening.

The listening experience was an interesting one for me. I did not think I’d be as interested in listening to the radio stories as I was.