Inspired by a spate of new Chicago stage adaptations of the Faust story, This American Life brings you stories of people who made a deal with the devil.
Dangerous Minds
LuAnne Johnson is a teacher who sold her story to Hollywood and saw it made into the film and TV series Dangerous Minds, in which a character named LuAnne Johnson does things the real LuAnne believes are unethical and silly. (15 minutes)
The Undiscovered Country
Found tape of a conversation about bringing back the dead. (11 minutes)
Voyager
Alix Spiegel tells the story of her friend Jayna, who made a Faustian bargain at 11 years old. (12 minutes)
Carmen Becomes Faust
Carmen Delzell on a deal she made with the devil when she turned 30. (14 minutes)
First Contact
Daniel Pinkwater reads his children's picture book Devil in the Drain. (4 minutes)
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Act Two: Scientists in a Haunted House
An excerpt from Your Radio is Haunted. (6 minutes)
Act One: Small Thoughts In Big Brains
This American Life producer Alex Blumberg investigates a little-studied phenomenon: Children who get a mistaken idea in their heads about how something works or what something means, and then don't figure out until well into adulthood that they were wrong.
Act Three: The Router Less Taken
A man tries to unload a piece of junk he bought by selling it on eBay...not by concealing its many terrible properties...but by bragging about them.
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