[RADIOLAB INTRO]

JAD ABUMRAD: Hello, I'm Jad Abumrad.

ROBERT KRULWICH: I'm Robert Krulwich.

JAD: This is Radiolab, the podcast.

ROBERT: Not the regular broadcast. We say that all the time, you know, because we want to do the regular broadcast, and we will, coming up in a few weeks now. And we want to do more podcasts.

JAD: We would love to do about seven times more podcasts and 12 times more radio shows, but we have a really tiny staff and really tiny, really tiny shoestring operation. And...

ROBERT: The way we actually got a chance to do this at all is because the public radio station in New York City, WNYC, allowed us to come in early in the morning for the first couple—first year or so, and then really late at night. And we were just given playtime just to come up with this concept. And it is unusual for a public radio station to just say, "Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, just don't bother us." So we didn't bother them, and then we came and said, "Here, can we bother you with this?" And they put us on the air and they've given us this place. So...

JAD: And here we are.

ROBERT: Here we are.

JAD: This is our way of asking you to support the station that supports us.

ROBERT: Even if you're in Lorain, Ohio, even if you're in Albuquerque.

JAD: That's right. You can go to Radiolab.org and click Support. It would mean a lot to us.

ROBERT: There's a little button on our site that says "Support."

JAD: So, Robert, here we are. You know, we're trying to raise funds here. And we pulled a few emails from our inbox. People who have a relationship with the show. This is kind of an interesting one. Can I read it to you?

ROBERT: Yeah, sure.

JAD: Uh, "Dear Radiolab, there's a girl here in Chicago that I really like. Her name is Lisa. She's lovely. I think she likes me, too. We started out as friends working in an improv show together. And through the rehearsal process, we grew very close to one another. Late night phone calls, silly text messages, the whole shebang. A new romance blossoming." You with me?

ROBERT: Yeah.

JAD: "A few weeks ago, she asked me to burn her a disc of, in quotes, 'something good.' And I instantly knew what I wanted to burn for her. I made individual discs of three Radiolab shows for her. "Who Am I?" "Sleep" and "Memory and Forgetting." Each disc had one show on them. I picked those three because they touched on something particularly lovely in their subject matters." Ooh, it gets better. "We met in a park right by my house on a sunny Saturday morning, and I handed her the discs. These were my instructions to her." And the following is in italics. "'When you get home, turn off your cell phone. Put a note up telling your roommates not to disturb you. Turn off all the lights, curl up somewhere comfortable, put on your headphones, put on one of these discs, any one of them, and give yourself over to them. It will be the smartest, most interesting, soul expanding hours of your life.'" I'm totally in love with this guy. Even if I didn't even know what Radiolab was, I'd be like, "You're the man!"

ROBERT: I never thought we'd be like a line to get a girl in a bar.

JAD: I know. I want to read some more from this letter. "Sorry that took so long to share, but I just thought you might like to hear about how your show is bringing people together in a very real way. In your offices and out in the field recording the show, you might not have contact with the listeners and how you do subtly influence their world. Lisa and I probably would be getting together on our own without Radiolab, but the show is definitely a part of our relationship now, and it's brought us closer. I thought you would like to know. All my best to you and Robert and the rest of the Radiolab crew. Sincerely, Chris Obittle. Chicago, Illinois."

ROBERT: Chris Obittle. Wow. So did this really work? I mean, did he...?

JAD: Well, we have his number right here, as a matter of fact. Shall we call him?

ROBERT: Yes.

JAD: Hello?

CHRIS OBITTLE: Hello?

JAD: Hey. Hi, is this Chris?

CHRIS OBITTLE: This is. Is this Jad?

JAD: Yes. Hi, Chris. Jad.

ROBERT: This is Robert over here.

CHRIS OBITTLE: Oh, hi Robert.

ROBERT: Hey.

JAD: And where are we reaching you?

CHRIS OBITTLE: Yeah, well, I'm backstage at one of our theaters here in Chicago, Illinois.

JAD: Oh, get out! Did we just pull you off stage from rehearsal or something?

CHRIS OBITTLE: No, I'm an executive assistant, so...

JAD: Oh.

CHRIS OBITTLE: I'm not actually in a show right now.

JAD: Okay. But you keep the shows going now.

CHRIS OBITTLE: Yeah, that's the way I look at it. All the admin stuff that I do helps the shows happen, so...

JAD: So hey Chris, can you tell us the story that you—that you emailed to us, the story about Lisa and Radiolab and how that all came about?

CHRIS OBITTLE: I guess it starts with us meeting, Lisa and I. We met at an audition for an improv comedy show that we were performing here in Chicago called Fugue. And we agreed that we were gonna have our first kind of like, I guess, a date type deal. And there's this park here in Chicago at the corner of Lincoln and Montrose. We thought that would be a good place to meet. And at the time, I had just downloaded all three seasons of Radiolab and was basically freebasing it every day.

ROBERT: [laughs] Not that we, of course, endorse such a thing.

JAD: And why did it occur to you to give her Radiolab? I mean, what did you think giving her Radiolab would make her think about you?

CHRIS OBITTLE: I thought it would tell her that I'm sensitive and aware to, you know, kind of the greater truths of the things that are out there. Because I think that's what Radiolab brings, is, you know, an investigation of what it's like to be a human being. And she's a very passionate person. Being alive is—I mean, she's good at that. She lives well. She—and I wanted to show her that I can, too, that I can appreciate things that are exceptionally beautiful.

JAD: Wow!

CHRIS OBITTLE: You guys can use that for marketing if you want to.

JAD: Yeah, we sure can.

ROBERT: Yeah, I just put little brackets around it and quotation marks and put your name under it and put it on Broadway.

JAD: No, that's really sweet. Did it work?

CHRIS OBITTLE: Yeah. Oh, my gosh. Yeah.

JAD: Well, tell me—set the whole scene for us. You're in the park, you said, and you give her these CDs. How did that all go down?

CHRIS OBITTLE: Well, the thing I remember really distinctly, and this is kind of ridiculous, is that we were mobbed by dogs. There were dogs all over the park that day, and that's kind of incidental to the story, but there were dogs all over us, and we just had to sit there and tolerate people coming up and saying, "Hi, here's our dog." Yeah. And so I give her these three discs, and I promised her, I said, "If you actually listen to all three of these, you will find afterwards that your soul has been expanded, if just a little bit." I guess that's what she did.

ROBERT: So we have to just put out an all-points bulletin that if you are a young woman somewhere in the Chicago area and you meet some cute guy walking around with cassettes, just walk the other way quickly.

JAD: No!

ROBERT: If he's coming at you.

JAD: On the contrary.

ROBERT: Radiolab is his alter—is his heart.

CHRIS OBITTLE: Yeah, you can't miss him. He'll be dressed up like an executive assistant.

ROBERT: [laughs]

JAD: [laughs]

CHRIS OBITTLE: Hey, I just want to thank you guys for everything you guys do with Radiolab. It's one of those beautiful things out there in the world. It's amazing that it's free because I would absolutely pay for it and will do that. You should pay for the things that you love, otherwise you lose them.

JAD: Right on. Okay, well, thank You, Chris.

ROBERT: Thanks.

CHRIS OBITTLE: Thank you, guys.

ROBERT: Bye. Bye.

JAD: Bye. Bye.

CHRIS OBITTLE: Thanks, guys.

JAD: Bye.

ROBERT: So now I guess I have to wonder—I mean, do you think that our program is, you know, hot enough? Brainy, sure, but like, would a girl get turned on if we handed them—her us?

JAD: Are you skeptical?

ROBERT: [laughs] A teeny bit.

JAD: But just as a matter of fact, I have her number.

ROBERT: Excellent!

JAD: So let's call her.

ROBERT: Okay.

JAD: Hello?

LISA: Hello?

JAD: Hi, is this Lisa?

LISA: Yes.

JAD: Hey, this is Jad. How are you?

LISA: I'm doing great. It is so good to hear your voice again.

JAD: Oh, well, it's...

ROBERT: Again? So you guys have talked before?

JAD: Well, only in that way that we talk to people over the air.

ROBERT: Oh, I just want to make sure that nothing strange is going on.

JAD: That's Robert, by the way.

ROBERT: Hi.

LISA: Hi, Robert.

JAD: Okay. So Lisa, I'm sure you know what we're doing. We're trying to raise money for public radio, and in various ways demonstrate the good that public radio can do in the world bringing people, I don't know, peace of mind, love, perhaps. Or not. So can you tell us how you first heard about Radiolab and that story?

LISA: Well, during this rehearsal process of this show, I met a wonderful man and we decided to meet in the park. And he had mentioned that he was going to burn something for me.

JAD: Burn something? What were you expecting?

ROBERT: Actually, he was going to do some kind of act of self immolation.

LISA: I didn't know what to expect, but I thought, well, let's see here. Guy knows that girl likes him, has finally agreed to meet girl. I'm thinking, "Hmm, Wilco CD" or like something kind of, you know, neutral and accessible and easy to listen to music. And when I approached him, the first thing that he handed me were these three CDs. And I look at it and it says, "Who Am I?" "Memory and "Forgetting" and "Sleep." So I said, "What is this?" And he goes, "This is a show called Radiolab, and it's out of New York. And these two guys are amazing. And I'm into it right now and telling everyone about it, and I'd like to know what you think of it. So you have to go home, wait 'til night time, turn off all the lights in your house, put this in your CD player."

CHRIS OBITTLE: I said, "When you get home, don't listen to these immediately. Hang on to them for a couple of hours, because you want to do these at the end of your day when there's no distractions and noise going around. So turn your cell phone off, don't put it on vibrate, turn it off so that it won't disturb you, and turn off the TV and any other incidental noise. Put a note up on the door telling people that you're busy doing something so they won't come in and disturb you. And put your earphones on and then..."

LISA: "Listen, and kind of give yourself over to it and just allow yourself to experience this show."

JAD: Wow.

ROBERT: So you went home and did you do that?

JAD: Did you do what he asked?

LISA: I actually—I put it in and got into bed, and I just snuggled up under the covers and got these—I have these big kind of DJ bass-heavy headphones on. So I listened to "Sleep." That was the first one.

JAD: That first night at a hotel. Why is it no one could sleep well that first night at a hotel?"

CARLOS SCHENCK: On your first night of sleeping in a hotel room, you generally have less REM sleep and less deep, slow wave sleep relative to sleeping in your house.

JAD: I suffer from that myself, I don't sleep well in hotel rooms. Especially if it was just one night per place or something, my sleep is terrible. Especially if it's just one night per place or something. My sleep is terrible.

CARLOS SCHENCK: There are some folk that actually hypothesize there are certain predator relays in the brain, and that these circuits remain active at all times.

ROBERT: Meanwhile, is your feeling for the guy just getting deeper and bigger and warmer and...?

LISA: Well, sure. Because I think that when you choose to share something from your life with someone, it's really the things that come into your life, things you integrate, become a part of you.

JAD: And when you saw him next, what was that conversation like?

LISA: I actually—I called him the next day. I was so excited. And we had just met, too. And I thought, "Oh, I'm coming on too strong." And I said, "I had—you know, Chris, I had to call you. That Santa Claus guy in the sleep lab. Is that for real? Do you think that's for real?"

JAD: He showed us tape after tape.

CARLOS SCHENCK: We're viewing a man who we very affectionately call Santa Claus.

JAD: On the screen, a large guy thrashes back and forth.

CARLOS SCHENCK: His legs are moving. He's going back and forth from his side to his back.

JAD: And then suddenly, he starts to...

[ARCHIVE CLIP: Ho, ho, ho, ho, ho. Ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho. Ho, ho, ho.]

LISA: Do people actually do that? I mean, that's a human condition where people ho, ho, ho in their sleep? And we had—we just laughed about it. And you could tell that, you know, our passions about the subject were matching. And we had all this new information, this whole world of information to explore through the show.

JAD: So Lisa, let me ask you sort of a business question here.

LISA: Sure.

JAD: If you were gonna talk to all of the Radiolab listeners out there in the world, all the public radio listeners, and ask them to support the show, what would you say? Why would someone want to do that, do you think?

LISA: I think that it's very easy to go about everyday life, to go from place to place, having the same conversations, getting very comfortable in what you think you know. And what I love about Radiolab is it opens up your world, it opens up your awareness to things that you may see every day, but not know how to delve deeper into. And you guys do the work for us. You do your research, and find all these fascinating people to talk to, and present this information in a way that is entertaining, it's funny, it's sobering and educational all at once.

ROBERT: And are you and Chris now living together in a small little house in a cabin somewhere in a beautiful park setting with the Lake Michigan?

LISA: With two and a half dogs and one child and 2.5 this and that? Yeah, we actually did part ways just a matter of days ago, about a week ago. And that's so...

JAD: Oh, no!

LISA: ...amazing to me that you guys came right before we knew each other, and now just as it's ending, you're back again. I don't understand that, but it feels like...

ROBERT: Oh my God. Do you think it's because we didn't get on with our next season quick enough?

JAD: Yeah. Do you think if we had just turned out some more shows, this might have lasted a few beats longer?

LISA: Do you have one on the different way men and women are raised to communicate with each other?

ROBERT: There was a little bit of—we touched on that in the one about the body, you know, where my wife gets really mad at me because I don't cook. Did you hear that one?

LISA: Not yet. I'm catching up with the podcast.

JAD: It's the "Where Am I?" show.

ROBERT: Yeah. You can hear real intermarital distress if you listen closely.

JAD: Yeah.

ROBERT: So things just sort of—are you still—it sounds like—are you the one with the broken heart, or did you say, "No, I don't want to do this anymore?"

LISA: I absolutely adore him. There's no doubt about that. I wanted to spend the rest of my life with this person, and that was actually the first time I had ever felt or said anything like that to someone.

JAD: Well, we just want you to know, Lisa, that, you know, you may have broken up with Chris, but we really hope you haven't broken up with us.

LISA: No!

JAD: We still think there's a future with you, Lisa. We hope you do, too.

LISA: I'm so flattered. And I get two of you, too. That's so wonderful. I listened to "Memory and Forgetting" this morning because of course, it's so pertinent the way that we both are going to—that Chris and I are going to construct a story that protects us, that preserves memories or changes them according to our own survival techniques, our own coping mechanisms, how we're going to deal with these feelings. And I'm listening to "Memory and Forgetting" going, "So this is how the brain works. This is what's going on inside of me."

JAD: Reporter Ann Heppermann tracked him down for us.

YADIN DUDAI: Intuitively you think if you use a memory, you know, you know better because you remember it better, you recall it better, you know the details better, and so on and so on. But this is not what science shows. If you have a memory, the more you use it, the more you're likely to change it. So if you never use your memory, it's secured. So taking it a bit farther, the safest memories are the memories which are in the brain of people who cannot remember.

JAD: Well, thank you so much for taking the time out to talk to us and sharing the story. It was really cool to talk to you.

LISA: Same here, guys. It's been an absolute pleasure, I hope—I want you guys just to be on every person's podcast. I want everyone walking around instead of listening to Britney Spears and Justin Timberlake to be thinking about the soul and be thinking about their hearts and communication, all these things.

ROBERT: Thank you. I know Britney and Justin feel the same way. I have their telegrams somewhere in my pocket.

JAD: [laughs] But certainly you can think about the soul while listening to Britney and Justin. So maybe you just listen to us first.

LISA: You could think about the soul everywhere. It's everywhere.

JAD: Well, thanks so much.

LISA: Thank you, guys. What an absolute pleasure it's been talking with you and I hope you have a fantastic day.

JAD: You too. To you out there who are listening right now, and maybe there's someone in your life or was in your life, and you had something with that person that was really special and meaningful. Maybe it was a moment, but it's not there anymore, but it still is in your heart. Make a pledge in honor of that person or that moment.

ROBERT: Because we all have people who we got really close to, and then kind of things just didn't quite work out. But you never quite give that up.

JAD: And thank God for the radio after that person is no longer around. You've got some smart place to go where you can hear intelligent, meaningful stories that are emotional, too.

ROBERT: Boy, thank God for the radio to get you to the place which you will never forget. You know, either way, going in, coming out, we're always here. So what we want you to do to remind you is that if you—if you wish, just go to our www.radiolab.org, click on "Support" and give us a buck or two or three. That's all.

JAD: Oh, you know what? By the way, before we go, I just want to say, people in Chicago...

ROBERT: Chicagoland, they call themselves. People out in Chicagoland.

JAD: In Chi Town. On October...

ROBERT: They don't call it Chi Town.

JAD: Whatever. On October 26 and 27, which is Sunday and Monday of this week.

ROBERT: That's right.

JAD: Robert and I will actually be in Chicago at the Victory Gardens Biograph Theater.

ROBERT: You know where that is in Chicago.

JAD: Two shows. If you want to come see us, we'd love to see you.

ROBERT: At the Victory Gardens Biograph Theater in Chicago.

JAD: Right.

ROBERT: Or Chicagoland.

JAD: So, you know, go to Radiolab.org and get some tickets.

ROBERT: Yeah.

JAD: Radiolab is funded in part by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the National Science Foundation and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, who this month are honoring A Flash of Genius. It's a film, and it's winner of the 2008 Feature Film Prize in Science and Technology at the Hamptons International Film Festival. I'm Jad Abumrad.

ROBERT: I'm Robert Krulwich.

JAD: We'll see you next week, hear you. Whatever.

ROBERT: In two weeks.

JAD: In two weeks.

 

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