This American Life
484: Doppelgängers
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We got a tip about a meat plant selling pig intestines as fake calamari, wondered if it could be true, and decided to investigate. Doppelgängers, doubles, evil twins and not-so-evil twins, this week. Fred Armisen co-hosts with Ira Glass.
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- Prologue: Fred Armisen worked up an imitation of Ira and put it into a sketch on Saturday Night Live a couple of years ago. But when they rehearsed it with an audience, there was not a roar of recognition; it seemed like Ira might not be famous enough to be mocked on network TV. Armisen finally gets a go as Ira’s doppelgänger in our studios by co-hosting this episode. (4 minutes)
- Act One: Ben Calhoun tells a story of physical resemblance — not of a person, but of food. A while ago, a farmer walked through a pork processing plant in Oklahoma with a friend who managed it. He came across boxes stacked on the floor with labels that said “artificial calamari.” So he asked his friend “What’s artificial calamari?” “Bung,” his friend replied. “Hog rectum.” Have you or I eaten bung dressed up as seafood? Ben investigated. (26 minutes)
- Act Two: For decades, the writer Alex Kotlowitz has been writing about the inner cities and the toll of violence on young people. So when he heard about a program at Drexel University where guys from the inner city get counseling for PTSD, he wondered if the effect of urban violence was comparable to the trauma that a person experiences from war. Kotlowitz talks to a military vet from Afghanistan and a guy from Philadelphia who’s lived in some pretty bad neighborhoods to find out if they are doubles of some sort. (23 minutes)
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