Birthdays, anniversaries, and milestones of all sorts...and how they mean something whether we want them to or not. A live show taped for our fifth anniversary, back in 2000, when we went on the road to Boston, New York, Chicago, and L.A. A co-production with public radio stations WBUR, WNYC, WBEZ, and KCRW.
Prologue.We hear the story of a disastrous birthday party and how it's hard not to see these kinds of moments as symbolic of something bad. (5 minutes)
Act One. Pilgrim's Progress.
Regular TAL contributor Sarah Vowell takes over the family Thanksgiving dinner by bringing everyone to New York. What results is a series of milestones and family firsts. Everyone in the family is the kind of person who prefers to be alone, so the very thing that binds them together as a family actually makes it hard for them to spend time together. (13 minutes)
Song: "Bye Bye Baby," OK Go
Act Two. Kodak Moments of the Dead.
The story of Tyler Cassity and how he's trying to remake one of our oldest rituals of commemoration.
Tyler is one of the owners of a cemetery called Hollywood Forever, and he's been introducing 20th-Century technology to American funerals, which haven't changed much since the Civil War. At Hollywood Forever, the cost of a burial includes a video of your life: to be shown at your funeral, to be viewable at kiosks on the cemetery grounds, and to be posted—for eternity—on the Internet. (16 minutes)
Act Three. Birthday Gift.
On a commemorative day, it can be hard to feel a real sense of the past and of how time has moved forward. Russell Banks has a story demonstrating what it might take to do just that. He reads "The Moor," from his collection of short fiction The Angel on the Roof. (19 minutes)