This American Life – Episode 871: The Thing About Things
Date: October 26, 2025
Host: Ira Glass
Overview
This episode explores the complex, often paradoxical relationships people have with objects—the things that populate our lives, shape our memories, tug at our hearts, and sometimes, seem to run our lives instead of the other way around. Through true, cinematic stories, we meet people who find themselves bound to beloved items in ways that are both touching and hilarious, with “things” acting as curses, emblems of love, and repositories of identity.
Key Segments & Insights
I. Act 1: Nunzio’s Motorcycle
“Some objects have a power over us that's special. They make us do crazy stuff, stuff we probably wouldn't do for another person for years sometimes.”
—Ira Glass [10:06]
Summary:
- Nunzio, at 13 in 1975, buys a dilapidated 1966 Honda scooter from a neighbor for $50, with dreams of riding with his friends in West Albany, NY ([03:13]).
- The bike is in pieces and badly damaged; Nunzio’s talent for engines can’t make up for missing parts and money ([04:24]).
- It sits untouched for 24 years until his parents move house and Nunzio revives the project ([04:57]).
- After finding a mechanic to rebuild the engine, the mechanic disappears—eventually discovered to be in prison ([06:24], [07:26]).
- Nunzio tracks down the imprisoned mechanic, retrieves the untouched engine, and painstakingly restores the bike himself over another year ([08:48]).
- Despite decades of effort, Nunzio has only ridden the scooter about 40 times in 20 years ([09:56]).
- “The point of the bike was not riding it.” It’s a time capsule, a link to his 13-year-old self and friendships ([07:12]).
Notable Quotes:
- “None of those choices were acceptable to me. The most important thing here for me was keeping it all original. To have the exact bike when I took it at 13. Still today.” —Nunzio [06:53]
- “It was really a piece of time of me with my friends at that age.” —Nunzio [07:12]
II. Act 2: The Petrified Wood Curse
Reported by: Aviva de Kornfeld
Summary:
- Ted, as a boy in the 1970s, steals a large chunk of petrified wood from the Petrified Forest National Park, encouraged by his dad ([12:14]).
- Decades later, his daughter finds the rock and alerts him to tales of a “curse” that afflicts people who steal petrified wood ([14:43]).
- Ted, who feels plagued by bad luck—house fire, hurricane, marital troubles, and more—becomes convinced he’s cursed by the rock ([15:15]).
- He returns the rock to the park with an apologetic letter, and soon after begins to experience astonishing good fortune, including a windfall from a $9 duck call found at a flea market ([24:02], [25:00]).
- Hundreds of people have sent rocks back to the park over the decades, each with letters begging for clemency from “the curse”; the returned rocks end up in the park’s “conscience pile” ([23:11]).
- After his “curse is lifted,” Ted finds success in a new career based on luck, and reflects on the need for stories to make sense of our fortunes ([24:44]).
Notable Letters from Others:
- “Please release me. My life is hell.”
- “You should tell people these are cursed before people take them. Sorry, but...”
Notable Quotes:
- “It was a scourge on my life. It was a shadow that was always with me. If something bad could happen, it would happen.” —Ted [16:23]
- “I got so lucky that I can’t even talk about it.” —Ted [23:58]
- “A lot of the letters come from people at the end of their lives doing a little psychic housekeeping before they go.” —Aviva de Kornfeld [26:31]
- "[I pray] the return will deem forgiveness from God, the Petrified Forest national park, and the people of the United States of America." —Ted’s letter [26:50]
- “That big pile of returned rocks, the rangers have a name for it. It’s called the conscience pile, which I find kind of moving.” —Aviva de Kornfeld [26:50]
III. Act 3: A Few Hundred of My Favorite Things
Reported by: Jonathan Goldstein (cross-over with his podcast, Heavyweight)
Summary:
- Gregor’s problem: his elderly parents, Etta (an artist) and Milt, are deeply attached to their huge, cluttered, three-story home filled with collections—egg beaters, bisque nodders, colorful bottles, and homemade art ([29:51], [30:47]).
- Etta’s Zen-like inscriptions on her bottles urge letting go, yet she struggles to give anything away ([33:14], [33:54]).
- Milt claims he’s unattached but is complicit, continually bringing Etta new “charming” objects ([34:22]).
- Gregor and siblings debate drastic solutions: moving parents out, building a museum in an old barn, or even hypnotizing Etta to let go ([37:00], [40:36]).
- Hypnosis is dismissed, and the museum idea stalls; all await a catalyst for real change.
- That moment comes when Etta’s art is shown in a Manhattan gallery. After the exhibit, Milt collapses, prompting Etta to finally consider the inevitability of letting go ([47:49]).
- Etta begins gifting her bottles to people, carefully matching the message to the recipient. This leads to real, if slow, progress ([50:16]).
- As Etta approaches death (diagnosed with brain cancer), family members rush to care for her, and she appears at peace, “dancing” in her final days ([54:50], [55:44]).
- After Etta’s death, her children, surprised by their own reluctance to part with her things, reflect on the role of art and possessions in legacy ([56:21]).
Notable Quotes:
- “All the bottles bear messages imploring one to let go. Yet Etta is incapable of letting go of the very bottles doing the imploring.” —Aviva de Kornfeld [33:25]
- “The Damoclean sword of mortality is coming, and all we’re gonna do is sit here and watch Rachel Maddow until it cuts our head off.” —Gregor [36:19]
- “I would love to live like a river flows, carried by the surprise of its own unfolding.” —Etta’s bottle inscription to Jonathan Goldstein [58:55]
- “It just feels really hard to like—her art, it feels... it’s like a part of her. Yeah, but it’s not her.” —Lexi, Gregor’s sister [56:21]
- “All of art is—it’s all just stuff. And stuff can be beautiful, but it’s there to help us get closer to the non stuff. Because, like the words Etta inscribed on one of her final bottles, all important matters are invisible.” —Jonathan Goldstein [59:04]
Memorable Moments & Themes
- Objects as Emotional Time Capsules: Nunzio’s relentless pursuit to restore the scooter is less about utility and more about preserving identity, memory, and a moment in time.
- Cursed Objects & Life Narratives: The petrified wood “curse” segment shows the human tendency to link random bad luck to physical objects, seeking explanation and redemption.
- Letting Go (or Not): Etta’s journey epitomizes how collecting is tied to love, art, legacy, and ultimately the fear of letting go—contrasted by her children’s later struggle with the same issues.
- Family & Legacy: The question of what to do with a parent’s possessions becomes a reflection on love, inheritance, and the challenge of preserving meaning when the person is gone.
Notable Quotes with Timestamps
- “None of those choices were acceptable to me. The most important thing here for me was keeping it all original...” —Nunzio [06:53]
- “I think—no, I was cursed 100%. You can ask my friends and family... it was an ongoing joke... I’m a realist... I was cursed. I saw it.” —Ted [16:45]
- “All the bottles bear messages imploring one to let go. Yet Etta is incapable of letting go of the very bottles doing the imploring.” —Aviva de Kornfeld [33:25]
- “The Damoclean sword of mortality is coming, and all we’re gonna do is sit here and watch Rachel Maddow until it cuts our head off.” —Gregor [36:19]
- “I would love to live like a river flows, carried by the surprise of its own unfolding.” —Etta [58:55]
- “All of art is—it’s all just stuff. And stuff can be beautiful, but it’s there to help us get closer to the non stuff. Because, like the words Etta inscribed on one of her final bottles, all important matters are invisible.” —Jonathan Goldstein [59:04]
Important Timestamps
- Nunzio’s Motorcycle Story: [03:13]–[10:06]
- Petrified Wood Curse/Ted’s Story: [12:05]–[26:50]
- Goldstein’s “A Few Hundred of My Favorite Things”: [29:46]–[59:04]
Tone and Style
- Reflective, intimate, sometimes self-effacing, with flashes of dark humor and irony.
- Deep dives into memory and emotion, blending the mundane with the profound—as in true This American Life fashion.
- Insightful narrative structure, moving from the specificity of individual stories to broader questions of meaning, memory, and the material world.
Conclusion
Through stories of a long-lost motorcycle, cursed rocks, and a house full of found-object art, this episode considers the way “things” help us hold on to our past, define ourselves, and ultimately learn, slowly, to let go. In their own unpredictable ways, the objects in these stories demand attention, restitution, and even change. And as the show gently reminds us, sometimes it’s only by working through our relationship to our things that we make peace with letting them, and life, move on.