This American Life Podcast

We got a tip about a meat plant selling pig intestines as fake calamari, wondered if it could be true, and decided to investigate. Doppelgngers, doubles, evil twins and not-so-evil twins, this week. Fred Armisen co-hosts with Ira Glass.

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• Prologue: Fred Armisen worked up an imitation of Ira and put it into a sketch on Saturday Night Live a couple of years ago. But when they rehearsed it with an audience, there was not a roar of recognition; it seemed like Ira might not be famous enough to be mocked on network TV. Armisen finally gets a go as Iras doppelgnger in our studios by co-hosting this episode.(4 minutes)
• Act One: Ben Calhoun tells a story of physical resemblance not of a person, but of food. A while ago, a farmer walked through a pork processing plant in Oklahoma with a friend who managed it. He came across boxes stacked on the floor with labels that said "artificial calamari." So he asked his friend "Whats artificial calamari?" "Bung," his friend replied. "Hog rectum." Have you or I eaten bung dressed up as seafood? Ben investigated. (26 minutes)
• Act Two: For decades, the writer Alex Kotlowitz has been writing about the inner cities and the toll of violence on young people. So when he heard about a program at Drexel University where guys from the inner city get counseling for PTSD, he wondered if the effect of urban violence was comparable to the trauma that a person experiences from war. Kotlowitz talks to a military vet from Afghanistan and a guy from Philadelphia whos lived in some pretty bad neighborhoods to find out if they are doubles of some sort. (23 minutes)

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Conversations across a divide: People who are outside a war zone check in with family, friends, and strangers inside.

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• Prologue: The Hammash family’s group chat unfolds over texts, starting before the war. (8 minutes)
• Act One: When Yousef Hammash left Gaza a year ago, his sisters decided to stay behind. We hear about the toll that separation has taken on Yousef and the sister he’s closest to, Aseel. (30 minutes)
• Act Two: Mohammed Mhawish, a reporter who left Gaza a year ago with his family, talks to a young woman in Gaza about how she manages her hunger. Israel blockaded all food from Gaza for more than two months. (15 minutes)
• Coda: Chana gives a short update about Banias, a 9-year-old girl in Gaza she's been speaking with for months. (4 minutes)

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A show about people who are suddenly confronted with who they are.

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• Prologue: Guest host Aviva DeKornfeld tells Ira Glass about breaking into a community pool as a kid, and the split-second decision that has haunted her ever since. (4 minutes)
• Act One: Some people are great in a crisis. Others, not so much. Does that mean anything about who we really are? Tobin Low investigates. (10 minutes)
• Act Two: Aviva DeKornfeld has the story of Leisha Hailey, who was certain she had the next million-dollar idea. (11 minutes)
• Act Three: Comedian Mike Birbiglia talks about the questions his daughter asks him and how trying to answer them showed him surprising reflections of himself.  (15 minutes)
• Act Four: David Kestenbaum tells the story of the suspicious disappearance of multiple shoes and a woman determined to explain it. (8 minutes)

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Boen Wang has a theory that a lot of the misery in his life can be traced to a single moment that happened years before he was born. So he makes a pilgrimage to see if he’s right.

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• Prologue: Ira talks about what it’s like to go back to 1119 Bayard Street in Baltimore. (6 minutes)
• Part One: Boen visits Norman, Oklahoma, where he was born, to meet the man he thinks changed his parents’ lives—and his life, too. (31 minutes)
• Part Two: Boen’s friend, Andrew, and his parents take what he learned in Part One, throw it into a blender, and push puree. (20 minutes)

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Mike Birbiglia got used to strange things happening to him when he slept—until something happened that almost killed him. This and other reasons to fear sleep, including bedbugs, "The Shining," and mild-mannered husbands who turn into maniacs while asleep.

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• Prologue: Host Ira Glass talks about his fear of sleep, and reports on other people who have very strong reasons of their own to fear bedtime. (8 minutes)
• Act One: Mike Birbiglia talks about the sleepwalking that nearly killed him. (13 minutes)
• Act Two: Producers Nancy Updike and Robyn Semien report on critters that can kill sleep: cockroaches and bedbugs. (11 minutes)
• Act Three: Joel Lovell explains why, as an 11-year-old, he trained himself not to fall asleep, and how that had some unintended consequences. (10 minutes)
• Act Four: Seth Lind explains how he ended up watching Stanley Kubrick's The Shining when he was six years old, and how it led to two years where every night he had trouble falling asleep and nightmares. (7 minutes)
• Act Five: For some people, the fear of sleep is linked to the fear of death. We hear from some of them. (5 minutes)

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