Podcast Summary: Selected Shorts – "Tangled Lives"

Host: Meg Wolitzer
Date: September 4, 2025
Performers: Richard Kind, Karen Pittman, Juliana Margulies
Location: Recorded live at Symphony Space, New York City

Overview

This episode of Selected Shorts, titled "Tangled Lives," explores the messy, alluring, and often transformative ways in which relationships and chance encounters shape our lives. Through three fiction readings—by Raphael Bob-Waksberg, Danielle Henderson, and Melissa Bank—performed by acclaimed actors, the show delves into stories of missed connections, the collision of family and faith, and sibling bonds stretched by romantic turmoil. Each piece probes the theme of human entanglement, whether through silence, humor, or raw discomfort.

Key Discussion Points & Story Breakdown

1. Introduction: The Nature of "Tangle"

• Host Meg Wolitzer sets the tone by reflecting on the meaning of the word "tangle":
  • “Tangle is such a great word… Either way, the implication is messy but… possibly also alluring and tantalizing.” (02:50)
• Emphasizes that tonight’s stories explore encounters and relationships that, whether for an evening or a lifetime, leave the characters forever changed—forever tangled.

2. Story One: "missed connection M4W" by Raphael Bob-Waksberg

Reader: Richard Kind
Segment Starting: 04:42

Summary

A man and a woman make eye contact on the NYC Q subway line and neither ever speaks. Instead, they both silently ride through the city’s boroughs, missing their stops, circling the city—and each other—for years, their quiet non-conversation stretching into decades. The story evolves from comic awkwardness to existential meditation on longing, inertia, and the poignant absurdity of potential connections never realized.

Key Insights & Moments

• The act of “falling in love with the idea of someone” seen every day, yet never actually known.
• The missed opportunity crystallizes as time accumulates, until both have spent "sixty years" circling, sustained by snacks and subway acts, never speaking.
• The moment of parting is heartbreakingly understated:
  • “You stood up as the train pulled into Queensborough Plaza… you hesitated, perhaps waiting for me to say something, giving me one last chance to stop you. But… I said nothing.” (11:05)
• The narrator’s realization:
  • “How amazing it is that you can know somebody for sixty years and yet not really know that person at all.” (13:27)

Notable Quote

“For sixty years we just sat in that car, just barely pretending to notice each other. I got to know you so well, if only peripherally… and I thought about how amazing it is that you can know somebody for sixty years and yet not really know that person at all.”
— Richard Kind (reading), 11:30-13:27

3. Story Two: "My Years of Living Dangerously" by Danielle Henderson

Reader: Karen Pittman
Segment Starting: 15:14

Summary

A sharp-witted autobiographical account of Henderson’s upbringing in a Black family—culturally Catholic in name, but spiritually invested in family rituals and playful blasphemy over strict religious practice. The protagonist’s initiation into church school and confession brings a comic series of lies (“I yelled at my teacher. I stole my best friend’s toy. I kicked a dog.”) that paradoxically empowers her to start misbehaving for real because of the ease of forgiveness.

Key Insights & Moments

• The gap between ‘official’ religion and family culture is mined for humor and insight:
  • “‘God damn’ was the most widely used descriptor of all things animal, vegetable or mineral.” (15:47)
• The story plays with the tension between spiritual guilt, the confessional’s absolution, and youthful rebellion:
  • “If I could lie and be quickly forgiven, there was nothing to stop me from actually doing some of the stuff I was making up. Catholicism flipped a switch and turned me on to a life of crime.” (17:50)
• Family gatherings for communion are described in vivid, satirical detail:
  • “It looks like a hooker, her parents, and their madam are happier than ever to marry their youngest children off to each other before they hand them over to the Pope.” (23:50)
• After first communion, familial entanglements replace spiritual ones:
  • “‘My communion marked the beginning of my soul’s salvation and the end of stealing. It was a relief. I had a hard time believing in God and I was running out of stuff to make up in confession.’” (27:58)

Notable Quotes

“‘God damn’ was the most widely used descriptor of all things animal, vegetable or mineral… It filled a space and your job was to figure out how to read between the lines of what each goddamn actually meant.”
— Karen Pittman (reading), 15:47

“If I could lie and be quickly forgiven, there was nothing to stop me from actually doing some of the stuff I was making up. Catholicism flipped a switch and turned me on to a life of crime.”
— Karen Pittman (reading), 17:50

4. Story Three: "Run, Run, Run, Run, Run, Run, Run Away" by Melissa Bank

Reader: Juliana Margulies
Segment Starting: 31:05

Summary

A sibling drama unfolds as the narrator watches her brother, Jack, fall hard—and painfully—for Mary Pat, a woman who is charismatic, mysterious, and emotionally unavailable. Their father has just died, intensifying emotional stakes and the need for familial care. The narrator is caught between wanting to protect her brother and respecting his autonomy, while Mary Pat’s baggage and complicated needs pull Jack deeper.

Key Insights & Moments

• The story captures the peculiar intimacy and frustration of sibling relationships during times of romantic upheaval and family grief.
• The gradual unraveling of Mary Pat’s hold on Jack is delicately rendered, from initial awe to fevered devotion, and finally collapse.
• Sibling humor and code words evoke a shared history, e.g.,
  • Playing with “Leggo my Eggo” at the end as they sit in a diner trying to restore normalcy. (54:07)
• A haunting refrain echoes the Talking Heads song:
  • “Run, run, run, run, run, run, run away.” (45:18)
• The narrator’s need to look after Jack, regardless of the entanglement’s fallout:
  • “If my father is listening, I think we will look after each other.” (55:18)

Notable Quotes

“Happiness, I realize, is beside the point. I realize, too, that he doesn’t want me to help him figure anything out or to help him feel better. He wants me to help him win Mary Pat.”
— Juliana Margulies (reading as narrator), 44:07

“I know that nothing I can say… will separate him from his woman. He says, ‘It’s not like I have a choice.’ I say, ‘Of course you do.’”
— Juliana Margulies (reading as narrator), 53:19

Memorable Reflections from Backstage

• Juliana Margulies, on performing Bank’s story and capturing the complexity of messy, supportive sibling dynamics:

  “It’s a complicated family… you feel this incredible responsibility of the narrator to keep the family together and to care for each other. And it comes at… this moment in time when you’re in love with someone, her brother falls in love with someone and she’s just not the right person for him… So what do you do? You care for them as best you can and watch them spiral down and hopefully pick them up off the floor when they’re done.”
  — Juliana Margulies (55:37)

Timestamps for Key Segments

• Intro to Theme ("Tangled") – 01:13
• Story 1: missed connection M4W – 04:42
  • “Sixty years on the train” moment – 11:30
• Story 2: My Years of Living Dangerously – 15:14
  • “Catholicism flipped a switch…” – 17:50
• Story 3: Run, Run, Run, Run, Run, Run, Run Away – 31:05
  • “Run, run, run, run, run, run, run away” refrain – 45:18
  • “Leggo my Eggo” diner scene – 54:07
• Juliana Margulies backstage reflection – 55:37

Overall Tone and Style

Selected Shorts fuses poignancy and humor, with the host’s gently intellectual framing, and the actors’ performances oscillating between comic and deeply emotional. The episode explores family, faith, unspoken passion, and self-sabotage with compassion, mischief, and insight.

This episode will resonate with any listener who’s ever felt the complexity of being tied to others by love, history, or missed opportunity.

For more stories and to experience the tangled magic of fiction live, visit Selected Shorts.