Stories of what can and cannot be translated. A short, non-athletic, bespectacled East Asian studies major who couldn't make his high school basketball team finds himself in the NBA as the personal translator for the first-ever Chinese pro basketball superstar, Yao Ming. Plus, a Palestinian man teaches Hebrew classes in the Gaza strip to Palestinians eager to learn news from the other side of the checkpoint.
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Prologue
Host Ira Glass talks with producer Alex Blumberg about going on a date with a woman from Russia. Even though she spoke perfect English, the night was a misunderstanding, because they each had different ideas of what is meant by the words "good date." (7 minutes)
Act One
The Chasm Between Comedy And Music
Why is it that karaoke machines only have songs on them? If what they do is take a version of a public performance and allow the rest of us to give our own interpretations of the material, why aren't there other options, like the "you talkin to me?" scene from Taxi Driver, or Martin Luther King, Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech. Jonathan Goldstein and producer Starlee Kine find out why when they go to a karaoke club that has, along with all the songs, comedy routines for people to perform. (11 minutes)
Act Two
Star Of Bethlehem
Very few Palestinians speak Hebrew, and very few Israelis speak Arabic, even though most Palestinians and Israelis live a short drive from one another. Nancy Updike has this story about Nasser Laham, a Palestinian TV journalist in Bethlehem who has a nightly show where he translates Israeli broadcasts into Arabic. It's a very popular show in Bethlehem, but it's complicated speaking your enemy's language. (19 minutes)
Act Three
Translating For The Very, Very, Very, Very Tall
The story of a not-very-tall, not-very-athletic man—Colin Pine—who becomes a minor celebrity in the NBA, as the translator for one of the most famous rookies in basketball history: The first Chinese player ever to go number one in the draft, Yao Ming. Reporter Jesse Hardman tells his story. (17 minutes)
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Act Three: Family Feudalism
Sketch comedy troupe Kasper Hauser performs a radio game show, where a race car driver, a guy fluent in middle English, and a teacher take turns cramming all the 21st century wisdom they can into a 30 second phone call to the 14th century.
Act Four: My Other Dog's A German Shepherd
Regular This American Life contributor Dan Savage, a syndicated sex columnist with possibly the filthiest mouth of anyone you could ever meet, finds a TV program so dirty, so weird, and so perverted that he won't let his son watch it—even though it's a kids' show, made for kids, and broadcast on a network for kids.
Act Two: M*A*S*H Notes
Ira reports on a week he spent on the set of the TV show M*A*S*H in 1979, supposedly to do a story about the program for National Public Radio.
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Act V
A group of inmates at a high-security prison stage a production of the last act of Hamlet.
Mistakes Were Made
Freezing dead people so scientists can reanimate them in the future is a lot harder than it sounds.