Piece Comment

Review of Julie the Amtrak God


Like most of the other 8 million young people into public radio, I was inspired in large part by This American Life. Everyone has their own reasons for liking it, but mine has to do with a very specific moment that TAL is supremely good at creating. It's that moment of sedate humor-tinged sadness--not the sounds and stories of deep emotion, but those an ironic smile.

"Julie" is that moment in spades, and it's one of the first pieces I genuinely became obsessed with on PRX. I could listen to it hundreds of times and never get sick of it. On one level, the dichotomy between Jenny's lonliness and Julie's digitized voice is hysterical. The pregnant pause before each of Julie's responses is especially weird and entertaining. But the whole time you're struck by the ridiculousness of it all, it never takes away from relating to the intimation of pain in Jenny's voice.

There's something so familiar about the tone of this piece, even though I've never heard anything like it.