Work Hard, Fail, Keep Working, Get Lucky

March 27, 2008

Shan and I are huge fans of This American Life, so when Ira Glass talks, we listen. The above video of Ira explaining the inner workings of This American Life struck a chord. I’d love to master my domain as well as they master theirs.

I have something of an aversion to adages. I don’t like the idea of reducing the secret to life to a few words or a catch phrase. That said, it’s hard to argue with Glass’s point here—that you have to work a lot and be very discriminatory (willing to kill and enjoying it) when it comes to deciding what you publish out. Pretty concise. Pretty logical.

I hope my readers let me know when I’m boring them.

via 37 signals

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http://www.leefur.com Lee

This clip didn’t really ‘resonate’ (solly) with me as much, but I wanted to make one quick comment.

I love This American Life as well, though admittedly I don’t go out of my way to catch it. But I have a hard time with Ira’s voice. He’s just aurally dripping with pretentiousness. I know I should just focus on the content, but seriously, it’s rough. That said, every show I hear leaves me forgetting about this entirely by 5 minutes in.

The well-constructed stories I hear on TAL remind me some of the well-constructed essays I read on http://thenonist.com/.
http://tresvioletas.com Alex

master of your domain?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Contest
http://jedsundwall.com Jed

Yes, master of my domain.

And Lee, I had the same problem w/ Ira at first. I thought he sounded like such a liberal! I got over it though. Now I like him. You should hear when he describes himself as slightly femmy.