Mob

#76 - 19 September 1997

The mob as portrayed in movies, and as it is in real life. And its hold over us.

Kindness of Strangers

#75 - 12 September 1997

Stories of the kindness of strangers and where it leads. Also, the unkindness of strangers and where that can lead. All of today's stories take place in the city most people think of as the least kind city in America: New York.

Conventions

#74 - 29 August 1997

What happens when people with one common interest gather in monstrous, fluorescent -lit halls for the weekend? Sometimes they drive each other crazy, sometimes they fall in love.

Blame It on Art

#73 - 22 August 1997

The darker side of the art world: petty jealousies, competitiveness, failure. And also what's so great about art.

Trek

#72 - 8 August 1997

An idiosyncratic first-person travelogue about race relations and tourism from radio producer Rich Robinson and television producer Josh Seftel. Their radio story is about a trip they took to the new South Africa. Rich Robinson is black. Josh Seftel is white. The interracial pair travel through the still mostly-segregated society and have very different opinions about what they see, especially when it comes to some distant relatives of Josh's in South Africa.

Defying Sickness

#71 - 1 August 1997

Stories of people trying to do exactly what the doctors say they can't — or shouldn't.

Other People's Mail

#70 - 25 July 1997

When you read other people's mail, you can't help but try to fill in between the lines. You try to decipher the stories of the people who wrote the letters. We hear four stories of people who read other people's mail, and what happens to them once they get caught up in these other lives.

Dream House

#69 - 18 July 1997

How many of our parents move to some place — some dream house — with some vision of a new life in the new place, and move the family with them, hoping it works out for the kids. Three stories on this theme.

Lincoln's Second Inaugural

#68 - 4 July 1997

A show for July 4th weekend. We begin with perhaps the most moving, poetic inaugural speech in American history, and look at its legacy today. In his second inaugural address, Lincoln wondered aloud why God saw fit to send the slaughter of the Civil War to the United States. His conclusion: that slavery was a kind of original sin for the United States, for both North and South, and all Americans had to do penance for it.

Your Dream, My Nightmare

#67 - 27 June 1997

Could it be more obvious? Stories in which someone's dream is someone else's nightmare. All of us get into these situations with strangers, with the people we love most, with our own parents, with our children.