Ira Glass

{ February 15, 2009 @ 9:42 pm } · { Reaction }

I think Ira Glass is a very perceptive writer. This interview was very interesting and entertaining to watch; really able to keep the viewers attention, even through all the four parts.

Ira begins with talking about anecdotes and described different ways of using them that aren’t the same every time. It was interesting to listen to him use the example of a man walking through his quiet house. When he was done giving his example I found myself wanting to hear more of it to see what happened next. He proved his point in the example by stating that an anecdote took a boring story and turned it into suspense. He touched on the usefulness of the anecdote and reflection. I never thought of how well the reflection and the anecdote can be used together. The way Ira explained there relationship to the whole story showed the viewer a different way to twist a story.

An important issue in our class that Ira discussed was that half the battle is finding a story. He’s inspirational in saying that you have to “kill” the story and get rid of the boring parts.

 I really enjoyed watching his interview and found his techniques very useful.