Invisible Worlds

#141 - 1 October 1999

Stories of people who are trying to make invisible worlds visible, and what happens when you make them visible.

Family Business

#140 - 24 September 1999

Stories of family businesses, and what happens when the tension of family dynamics collides with the pressure of capitalist market forces.

Ghosts of Elections Past

#139 - 3 September 1999

Stories of political idealists, stories designed to provide some small sense of hope about American politics. Most of these were first broadcast during the 1996 Presidential race.

The Real Thing

#138 - 27 August 1999

Stories of people drawn to some idea, some picture, some "thing" that they just want to be. How some people imitate this "thing" innocently, some less innocently, and how easy it is to slip from one to the other.

The Book That Changed Your Life

#137 - 20 August 1999

Stories of people who believe a book changed their life. It's a romantic notion, and one reason we believe it is because we want to believe our lives can be changed by something so simple as an idea — or a set of ideas contained in a book.

You Are Here

#136 - 6 August 1999

Three stories, three people, and three sets of maps. Stories of people trying to figure out where they are in the world in the most literal and least literal ways possible. We explore what it's like to be lost—how we all struggle in that moment not to give ourselves over to fear but try to enjoy it.

Allure of Crime

#135 - 23 July 1999

We think of crime as a kind of monolithic, menacing presence. But there are many kinds of crimes and many kinds of criminals. Through our crimes, we express who we are. Today we hear of three different criminals and three different kinds of crimes.

We Didn't

#134 - 9 July 1999

Stories about what happens when we don't do something. It turns out that not falling in love, not doing our jobs, not spending time with our families is every bit as vivid and complicated an experience as doing something.

Sales

#133 - 25 June 1999

Consider for a moment all the art forms that began in America: jazz, the blues, musical theater, rock n' roll, phonograph recordings, television, motion pictures, video games. But the art form in which America leads the world—more than any other—is the art of selling. In this show: case examples to prove the point.

Father's Day '99

#132 - 18 June 1999

For Father's Day, stories about fathers going out of their way to protect their kids, and kids going out of their way to protect their fathers.