This American Life

A bank robber on an undercover mission. A teenage girl with the powers of a tiger. A vigilante seeking vengeance in Ciudad Juárez. All have secret identities — but not all of them chose those identities for themselves.

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(00:00:00) Prologue: Ira attempts to solve perhaps the most unsolvable mystery at the Trees of Mystery in California: Who is the voice of Paul Bunyan? (7 minutes)
(00:07:23) Act One: If you ever think about assuming a secret identity, you may want to take a little time to consider the possible consequences. Jon Ronson tells the tale of a bank robber who absolutely does not take that advice. (22 minutes)
(00:31:33) Act Two: Elna Baker shares a story about her teenage cousin, Navey Baker, who maintains a secret identity while being a public figure: she's the school mascot, a tiger, at her high school. (11 minutes)
(00:41:28) Act Three: While we were putting together this week's show, we heard about a real-life Avenger with a secret identity in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico. Writer Yuri Herrera lived on the border for several years and spent a lot of time in Juarez. He went back there to see what effect this secret Avenger has had on the city. (13 minutes)
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We asked listeners to send us their best coincidence stories, and we got more than 1,300 submissions! There were so many good ones that we decided to make a whole show about them. From a chance encounter at a bus station to a romantic dollar bill to a baffling apparition in a college shower stall. 

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(00:00:00) Prologue: Hannah Jacoby tells the story of when she and her best friend Lindsey bonded over those toy soldiers with the parachutes, called (really) Poopatroopers — and how the little jumpers perfectly bookended their high-school years. And guest host Sarah Koenig explains the very interesting trends we discovered in our listeners' coincidences. (9 minutes)
(00:09:23) Act One: A surprising number of coincidences involve grandmothers. One grandma has so many coincidences happen to her that it drives her granddaughter, 16-year-old Juliana Bontrager, to try to beat her at her own coincidence game. We also hear from Blake Oliver about a very strange appearance his grandma once made. (9 minutes)
(00:19:31) Act Two: When it comes to love, coincidences tend to loom extra-large. Stephen Lee tells about the time his parents first met his fiance’s parents, and his future mother-in-law dropped a coincidence bomb. And we hear how a dollar bill ended up clinching a marriage, after floating around Chicago for years. (10 minutes)
(00:28:22) Act Three: Ryan Rozar told us about a confounding coincidence that was visited on him in college. We didn’t think it was a coincidence at all, so we set out to prove him wrong. (8 minutes)
(00:37:39) Act Four: More stories of dazzling coincidences: an old boyfriend is conjured in Morocco, a jazz singer seems to rise from the dead, and three boys believe they’ve seen a corpse. Plus stories of errant fathers, lost and found. (13 minutes)
(00:49:57) Act Five: Kerry Weeks tells about the time he lost a pocketknife and turned to the galaxy for help. (7 minutes)
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We discover what we believe might be the original recipe for Coca-Cola…and share it with you! When this episode first aired in 2011, it made international headlines. This, and another story about telling copies from originals.

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(00:00:00) Act One: The formula for Coca-Cola is one of the most jealously guarded trade secrets in the world. So we were surprised to find a 1979 newspaper article that might contain Coke's original recipe. We were even more surprised to find reasons to believe the recipe is real. (26 minutes)
(00:26:23) Act Two: Jake Halpern tells this story about document expert John Reznikoff, who came into possession of some materials which — if authentic — would change history. Then, things got complicated (32 minutes)
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Sayre Quevedo’s invented a way to do a podcast that feels completely new. He’s been recording nearly all his conversations for years, and the result is something that captures a person’s life in a raw and complicated way that’s rarely heard. His new show Reaching Out also documents his mutually judge-y relationship with his twin brother as they set out to find their long-lost birth father.

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(00:00:00) Prologue: Ira Glass introduces Reaching Out, a podcast that feels like it invented something completely new — an ambitious way of capturing a life in a way we'd never heard before. (1 minute)
(00:02:39) Part One: Sayre Quevedo and his brother start the search for their birth father, and they discover that this whole time he’s been a few minutes away from where Sayre lives. (20 minutes)
(00:21:49) Part Two: The twins try reaching out in a variety of ways before taking more direct action. Sayre tries to continue life as normal. (12 minutes)
(00:34:50) Part Three: Sayre and Connor go in person to face their dad. (24 minutes)
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Nikole Hannah-Jones made an argument 10 years ago in The New York Times Magazine that became famous. She wrote about choosing a public school for her daughter, Najya, in one of the most racially and economically segregated school systems in the country: New York City. Nikole chose a regular public school, one that most wealthy and middle-class parents wouldn’t consider, and she challenged other parents to do the same. 

She revisits that argument, and that choice, in a series of conversations with producer Chana Joffe-Walt and with her daughter, Najya, who’s now 16 and has her own very different views. 

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(00:00:00) Prologue: Chana talks with Nikole about what they both remember from being young parents just starting to think about schools for their children. (9 minutes)
(00:10:41) Act One: Nikole talks with Chana about Najya’s elementary school and the problems her family navigated there. (15 minutes)
(00:25:57) Act Two: Chana talks with Najya about her memories of elementary and middle school and how she felt about her mom’s choices. (9 minutes)
(00:31:40) Act Three: Nikole and Najya talk about what changed when Najya pushed back against her mom’s choices for elementary and middle school and got to choose her own high school. (10 minutes)
(00:42:08) Act Four: Nikole and Najya talk with each other about the different choices they made and the questions they still have for each other. (9 minutes)
(00:51:06) Act Five: Nikole fact-checks her memory against her old emails with Najya’s elementary school and has a painful revelation. (7 minutes)
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