{"id":161,"date":"2009-05-24T18:54:11","date_gmt":"2009-05-25T01:54:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/melinakantor.com\/?p=161"},"modified":"2009-05-24T19:03:15","modified_gmt":"2009-05-25T02:03:15","slug":"sleepwalk-with-me","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/melinakantor.com\/?p=161","title":{"rendered":"Sleepwalk With Me"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2><span style=\"color: #000080;\"><em>By the wonderful Mike Birbiglia<\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" style=\"border: opx solid black;\" src=\"https:\/\/melinakantor.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/06\/greekkey31.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"545\" height=\"15\" \/><\/p>\n<p>As you may know, I&#8217;ve got a bit of an obsession with the <a href=\"http:\/\/thislife.org\/\" target=\"_blank\">This American Life<\/a> podcast. Sadly, it&#8217;s the only motivation I have to wake up at the crap of dawn on Mondays and spend over an hour on the train.<\/p>\n<p>In other words, I listen to it as soon as it&#8217;s up on iTunes.<\/p>\n<p>Months ago, one of the &#8220;acts&#8221; was done by a comedian telling a story about sleepwalking. I still remember where I was when I heard it. I had just come off the Subway at 81st and Central Park West and was on my way to pick up the dog at the groomer.<\/p>\n<p>Usually, I don&#8217;t walk down the street with my earbuds. But in this case, I was too involved to even think about turning off the iPod, or to worry about the fact that I was walking down the street laughing.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>And then <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Ira_Glass\" target=\"_blank\">Ira Glass<\/a> announced that they&#8217;d borrowed this segment from something called the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.themoth.org\/\" target=\"_blank\">Moth<\/a>, and that the comedian was <a href=\"http:\/\/www.birbigs.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">Mike Birbiglia<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Fast forward a few months to when The Moth is another obsession, to the point that I&#8217;m a member and now go to story slams.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>And let&#8217;s not forget my Twitter obsession and the fact that I follow all things relating to <a href=\"http:\/\/twitter.com\/PRIthislife\" target=\"_blank\">TAL<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/twitter.com\/mothStories\" target=\"_blank\">The Moth<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/twitter.com\/pri\" target=\"_blank\">PRI<\/a> or <a href=\"http:\/\/twitter.com\/birbigs\" target=\"_blank\">Mike Birbiglia<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Which is how I ended up <a href=\"http:\/\/sleepwalkwithmike.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">here<\/a> this afternoon:<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter\" style=\"border: 0;\" src=\"https:\/\/melinakantor.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/img-0899.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"500\" \/><\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>So apparently Mike Birbiglia gets an email alert ever time somebody mentions him on a blog, and apparently there have been one or two mean bloggers. Which is a shame.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Why?<\/p>\n<p>Because Mike Birbiglia is one of the most talented storytellers I have <em>ever<\/em> heard. His choice of words, his timing, and his expressions are priceless. Even his request that we turn off our cell phones had the audience cracking up. And he&#8217;s funny without even trying!<\/p>\n<p>I don&#8217;t think that I, or the people next to me, stopped laughing the entire time. \u00a0<\/p>\n<p>As a special treat, here&#8217;s the TAL\/Moth segment I mentioned earlier. Listen to it. I promise, you won&#8217;t regret it.<\/p>\n<p>Enjoy!<br \/>\n<code><object type=\"application\/x-shockwave-flash\" data=\"http:\/\/static.odeo.com\/flash\/player_audio_embed_v2.swf\" width=\"325\" height=\"60\" id=\"odeo_audio\"><param name=\"movie\" value=\"http:\/\/static.odeo.com\/flash\/player_audio_embed_v2.swf\" \/><param name=\"FlashVars\" value=\"jStr=[{'id': 23866626}]\" \/><\/object><\/code><br \/>\nP.S. Mike, on the off chance you&#8217;re reading this, I&#8217;m so sorry you had train woes today. Someday, the MTA will realize that people actually <em>do<\/em> use trains on Sundays. Sigh. . .<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" style=\"vertical-align: middle; border: 0;\" src=\"https:\/\/melinakantor.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/07\/blackolive_small.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"50\" height=\"32\" \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By the wonderful Mike Birbiglia As you may know, I&#8217;ve got a bit of an obsession with the This American Life podcast. Sadly, it&#8217;s the only motivation I have to wake up at the crap of dawn on Mondays and spend over an hour on the train. In other words, I listen to it as [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-161","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mel-in-manhattan"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/melinakantor.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/161","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/melinakantor.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/melinakantor.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/melinakantor.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/melinakantor.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=161"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/melinakantor.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/161\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/melinakantor.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=161"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/melinakantor.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=161"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/melinakantor.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=161"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}