Sound Memory: This American Life's "Living Without"

Personally, I tend towards non-fiction work of all kinds. Whether it's in literature, film, photography, or radio, I love hearing and telling the stories of real, existing people. This American Life is a favorite documentary radio program of mine and my favorite show is one that I listened to last year. It's called "Living Without." Act one is the one that struck me the most and it became my example of explaining to non-listeners what TAL is all about. Act one is called "Do You Hear What I Hear?" and it's the story of a man who has tinnitus, a constant ringing noise in his ear. The show is produced with the constant ringing in the background, so the story is truly only tangible if you listen to it with headphones. There's no way to properly realize the annoyance of this noise visually. Hearing the sound, a d-flat in the right ear and a c in the left ear, while the story progresses puts you into the mind of this man. It's maddening. The story only draws you in more from there. A few minutes into the story, the man's daughter reveals that she has hearing loss. Hearing loss of the exact tone that the man hears all the time. Here's the selection from the transcript:

Abby Alexanian

I can't hear one of the tones that you ear.

Nubar Alexanian

So you didn't hear the tone in my right ear?

Abby Alexanian

No, I couldn't hear the high one, because I'm missing that. That's part of my hearing loss. I'm missing that particular frequency in both my ears.

Nubar Alexanian

So you can't hear the sound--

Abby Alexanian

I can't hear the sound that you hear all the time.

Nubar Alexanian

At all.

Abby Alexanian

At all.

Nubar Alexanian

That's incredible, though, don't you think?

Abby Alexanian

I don't know. It's too much of a coincidence.

All in all, the story's about more than hearing things and not hearing things. It's about being forced into a new life. Because of his loss of hearing, he has to stop working. He has to slow his life down. He has to be with his child as she's growing up. It's about acceptance and patience and the importance of family. 

This simple, seventeen-minute story blew my mind when I first heard it. The realization that a story about all these big, human emotions and conflicts can be realized in a story about such a simple thing: tinnitus. And that this particular story was perfectly realized with only sound. The audio was the most important aspect of this story, because it placed you in the mind of the protagonist in a way that visuals or words wouldn't be able to do. And, additionally, that the story was produced by the man himself, Nubar Alexanian, for transom.org, a website that enables the public and new storytellers to tell their stories for the radio. The comparably low cost of producing a piece for radio (rather than producing a short film or movie) allows for a wider range of people to tell their own stories.