There is nothing that exasperates me more¹ than having someone speak to me while I am trying to listen to This American Life; when I listen to the radio, I am listening to the radio and doing nothing else–sipping some tea or nibbling on shortbread, perhaps, but really, doing nothing else–I simply do not have the cognitive capacity to truly process complex aural information² if I am the least bit distracted by anything else–I have tried to catch up with Ira Glass while baking or reading or soundlessly practising guitar fingerings and I have discovered that any other task is suffiently distracting to keep me from following the stories at hand and, yeah, while I know there is a sense in which I should be participating in the TAL backlash, my social circle is not white or upper-middle class or generally StuffWhitePeopleLike-ish enough to care about affecting an air of NPR fatigue–but for me, after years of having Glass’ voice as soothing white noise, I find myself prompted to pen a hagiography based altogether on his arresting patois³.

1. An admitted bit of an exaggeration. For effect, you know.↩
2. This American Life: complex aural information. Heh.↩
3. Though perhaps I am in the minority in finding his voice so pleasant; it has been suggested that the show be called “This American Lisp”: Dude, you’re a radio presenter. See a speech pathologist already. Hm. I suppose for every empty critique of TAL that in one contradictory breath mentions yuppies and hipsters and the literati, there is a hilarious one precipiced on speech impediments (admittedly, I could personally live without hearing Sarah Vowell ever again for the rest of my life). [NOT LISPIST]↩