People starting over—sometimes because they want to, other times because they have to.

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Prologue: Host Ira Glass talks to Jorge Just, who thought he'd started over successfully. He'd moved to New York, found an apartment that everyone told him was a great deal, things were looking good. Then a reality television show visited his building. (8 minutes)Act One: Molly FitzSimons tells the story of her father starting over. After 25 years in the same zip code, as an executive in the same company, he moved to Los Angeles and tried to start over in a new life with a new venture: A cable channel, with no people, no talking, no plots, but lots and lots of puppies. (15 minutes)Act Two: Mary Beth Kirchner documents one day in the life of a hustler named Joe, who wakes up every morning broke, hustles as much as $10,000 during the day and then loses most of it by the time he goes to bed. What it's like to start from scratch every day of your life. (18 minutes)Act Three: Jonathan Goldstein reads a story about the first people to ever start from scratch, a couple named Adam and Eve. (14 minutes)

Transcripts are available at thisamericanlife.org

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With this episode, we’re putting on our music hat. For a program that relies so much on scoring and sound, it’s not often we talk about the musicians and the music they make that inspire us. Today, that changes. Today, we bring you two stories. Each about musicians that our former host and creator of Radiolab, Jad Abumrad, loves. We originally released these stories many years ago, and both start deep in music itself. Then quickly, they dig deeper — into our relationships with technology, and ourselves. 

We start with the band Dawn of Midi, who straddle the intersection between acoustic and electronic sounds. Jad talks to the band about their album, Dysnomia, and how it's filled with heavily-layered rhythms that feel both mechanistic and deeply human, at the same time.

Then, Jad talks with Juana Molina, an Argentine singer who accidentally became a famous actress, when all along all she really wanted was to be a musician. 

Special thanks to Dawn of Midi and Juana Molina.

EPISODE CREDITS: 

Reported by - JAD ABUMRAD 

EPISODE CITATIONS:

Check out Dawn of Midi at dawnofmidi.com and Juana Molina at juanamolina.com

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This week marks the 20th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, the natural disaster the devastated the city of New Orleans. To mark the anniversary, we are joined by Alisa Payne, producer and showrunner of the new Netflix docuseries "Katrina: Come Hell and High Water," which spotlights the stories of survivors. Plus, callers share their thoughts and memories of that time.

[REBROADCAST FROM April 16, 2025] Writer and director David Cronenberg's new film "The Shrouds" is partly inspired from the grief of losing his wife in recent years. The film follows a grieving businessman named Karsh who invents a way to connect with the dead. Cronenberg discusses, alongside actor Diane Kruger, who stars in the film. "The Shrouds" is now streaming on the Criterion Channel.

Meg Wolitzer presents two stories about neighbors and the unexpected relationships that can develop between people who live adjacent to one another.  In Tess Gallagher’s “Mr. Woodriff’s Neckties,” a famous novelist lets his neighbor in on a secret.  The reader is Dion Graham.  In “Hoodie in Xanadu,” by Ann Beattie, a  woman discovers that her shy neighbor possesses creative genius.  The story is performed by Kirsten Vangsness.

My guest today is Jia Tolentino. Jia is the author of the essay collection Trick Mirror, which was named one of the best books of 2019 by The New York Times Book Review, NPR, The Paris Review, and more. She won a National Magazine Award for her work at the New Yorker, where she’s been a staff writer since 2016. Her writing covers so many different topics, from Roe V. Wade to the internet to pop culture and music. And today, we’re going to talk about the 1996 pop hit “I Love You Always Forever” by Donna Lewis. 

For more, visit songexploder.net/jia-tolentino.

A new film three longtime Brooklynites as they navigate love, loss, career and friendship as their neighborhoods change right in front of them. Director Rachel Holder joins us to discuss "Love, Brooklyn," a cinematic tribute to the beloved New York City borough alongside actor Nicole Beharie who stars in the film.

Peter Mendelsund is an author, graphic designer, artist, and the creative director of The Atlantic. And this year he has two new books out about human emotion. Exhibitionist: 1 Journal, 1 Depression, 100 Paintings is personal memoir, diary, and showcase of the art he created during a serious bout of depression in 2020. And his new novel Weepers is about a group of professional mourners living in a world gone numb. Mendelsund joins to discuss both books.

Comedian Jeff Ross discusses his new one-man show, "Take a Banana For the Ride." It is running now on Broadway at the Nederlander Theater through September 28.