'This American Life' host Ira Glass brings his radio stories to Seattle

It's a Monday morning and, no doubt all over the U.S., people have returned to work to find unexpected crises awaiting them.

Ira Glass, host and producer of public radio's immensely popular "This American Life" program, certainly has his share. Speaking by phone from his New York City office, Glass faces what sounds like a disaster-in-progress involving his next show, scheduled to air Friday.

Yet his graciousness and infectious, low-key, ironic laugh dissolves one's sudden guilt for taking up his time.

"This week's show keeps destroying itself," Glass says. "All four stories scheduled have dissolved into nothing. One of our interviewers is suddenly at Guantánamo, another was boring, one needed more time and one didn't speak well. We have nothing on tape. I posted a notice on our Facebook page: 'Does anyone have stories?' "

Glass will likely describe other (amusing-in-retrospect) instances of bad luck for "This American Life" ("TAL") when he appears Saturday at Benaroya Hall for a presentation called "Radio Stories and Other Stories."

He says he will talk about the show, play recordings of funny moments and use a mixing console to demonstrate how "TAL," with its blended elements of field recordings, music, narration, effects and found footage, is produced.

"TAL" has largely followed the same, first-person, narrative-driven format since its debut as "Your Radio Playhouse" in 1995.

With national syndication a year later, contributing editors and independent writers and producers have provided the show's dramatic and comic essays, memoirs, reportage and occasional pieces of fiction. The writing careers of Sarah Vowell and David Sedaris, among others, were launched via "TAL."

Heard locally on FM radio stations KUOW and KPLU, the show's Seattle-Tacoma audience is among the three largest in the nation.

As if scrounging for replacement material on deadline isn't enough of a challenge, Glass can barely hear me through the noise of a construction worker on a scaffold outside his window.

He chuckles at the burlesque of coincidence: Glass recently completed jury duty on an injury case involving a worker who fell from a scaffold. The experience caused havoc with "TAL"'s recording schedule but laid the groundwork for a possible future show.

"I have the phone number of everyone involved," says Glass. "I'll return to the scene of that crime."

Do all such semi-routine life experiences automatically become fodder for "TAL"?

"There are not that many things so interesting I wish I had to bat away stories," he says. "Stories need characters you can relate to. The plot has to be surprising, leading to thoughts about the world that are interesting and universal. Even stories of life-changing, traumatic events can lack surprise."

"TAL," and Glass, have won several prestigious journalism awards. Yet, after 15 years, Glass doesn't see a specific impact of the show on the culture of journalism outside public radio.

"It's a school others do well," he says. "Michael Lewis, Malcolm Gladwell, even '60 Minutes' — all are strong on character and plot. But certain things play differently on the radio. There's intimacy in people talking and going through experiences."

Tom Keogh: tomwkeogh@yahoo.com