It’s not just mimicry, that’s too basic. Partially, it’s a narrative mode, which blends a specific configuration of voice, packing, intimacy, humour and structure. But then it’s also the structure, the affect and the ethics involved.
Put this all together and what emerges is The Glassian Mode, a sort-of neo-radio format that is meant to evoke sincerity, delivered through ironic plot twists, which is required to have a few mic-drop moments (undeniable plot twists that draw you into the story). The voice itself, the sound and the tone of the narrator, needs to be transparent, intimate and immediate-sounding, slightly fragile at times, and delivered through a performance which is designed not to sound or feel like a performance at all.
Welcome The Final Days of Sgt Tibbs, a series from the Document team, from the New Hampshire Public Radio (NHPR), reported and narrated by Todd Bookman, who brings us a rather Glassian tale (tail?) about something we can all agree on: we love our pets.
That doesn’t mean that we all agree on the facts of the story….that doesn’t fit the structure. And, yes, like other series about animals and pets (Animal, from NYTimes), it gets dark, which is what allows for intimacy and connection. Ironic humour? Well that begins with the title and continues.
An unlikely thing happened the day that a 19-year-old Maine Coon cat went missing in Manchester, New Hampshire—it made the news. The Final Days of Sgt Tibbs follows the ugly fallout from the very likely event that this geriatric cat died. But more to the point, which is appropriately delivered through witty and poetic prose, it is not here to teach us not about the cat, but something about ourselves.
This cat? He’s a cutie…Sgt Tibbs has an impressive name, a snaggle tooth, stripes, mounds of fluff…you get the picture. It was clear to see was how much joy he brought to Rose, his original person, default owner, and then likewise later to the mother-daughter duo of Debbie and Sabrina, who spent the last few days of Tibbs’ life with him. This was after they discovered him, or stole him, depending on which side you fall on.
When the story turns dark
As it does, it illustrates just how close below the surface the tensions of race and class live in our communities. One day, we can be lovely neighbours to on another; and the next, after the dubious power of social media is leveraged, those same neighbours turn on each other in ugly ways.
Blame in this story is almost squarely placed on the Facebook, which was inflamed with a torrent of posts about Sgt Tibbs. On one side, it was the person who fed him and cared for him, for almost two decades. And on the other, a mother-daughter duo who owned a local shop.
Did he get lost? Or was he abducted? Why wouldn’t they just return the cat? Who was the ‘better’ cat owner? And why was this 19-year-old cat so skinny anyway?
It was gloves off she-said, she-said, with spray paint on windows and curse-laden comments. For me, this is the subtext of this series: that social media has a powerful leverage over each of us, and when the chips are down, it divides us more that it unites us.
Behold the power that our furry or fluffy friends can have over our own reason, actions and emotional outcomes.
What I love most about this series: it’s the embodiment of the entire narrative mode, which I’m going to call Glassian
First, I love that this story was taken on by a proper newsroom, the small but mighty audio news group at NHPR, who retains a longform narrative documentary unit inside their newsroom. Bookman addresses this head-on; he clarifies that he’s really a new-news reporter…that he usually covers state politics, court cases, the legislature…but that he’s also a cat guy. And after what I can only assume was a many-chaptered conversation, he managed to convince his editors to embrace the story of and elderly cat.
NHPR regularly punches above it weight. In 2023, I named their series The 13th Step was No1 on my Bingey List. It also went on to be Pulitzer Finalist, win a duPont-Columbia Award and a national Edward R. Murrow Award along with an Ambie Award. And yet, in light of the serious shadow this series cast inside the NHPR newsroom, they still chose to support and produce as brief stand-alone series, a story that clocks in just over 90 minutes, about an elderly cat.
The quiet thing that this series accomplishes
There’s a thread, a lineage, a type, and a range of styles within the narrative podcast universe. In this way, it exposes, with grandeur and elegance, the breadth and depth of the narrative podcast cannon. When you hear the voice of host and reporter Todd Bookman, and you should, it is inevitable that it will evoke another voice in your mind; none other than the iconic Ira Glass. The method of telling the story, and offering up bit sized throw away lines that offer an entire entry point to the subject is undeniable.
Bookman starts a sentence with phrases like:
“It gets weirder…” and “Apparently…” and then repeats a phrase that’s just tossed out, for effect. “Like he’s gone, gone.”
This series does was the great This American Life stories do, which is to make feelings circulate and roam around a singular event, in a random place. There’s an affect theory to all of this; emotions live inside these events, which play out like a three-act play in the series. There’s a tone and a cadence to the narrator, a voice which is both sincere and ironic in the same moment. It’s ideological at one level, but entirely direct on another. And then there’s the authentic-meter to it all…which begins with Bookman admitting that “he’s a cat guy.” And, that he’s usually a proper news reporter, so the fact that he has taken the time with this story, means you should too.
Maybe you can ground this all down to auditory sincerity; a narrative mode that’s rooted in how the dynamics of the voice play out. How it cues around hesitation, wry self-awareness and lobbs soft punchlines to the listeners so that they cultivate a sense of trust and intimacy.
When I hear Todd, I also hear Ira. And there was a time that this would annoy me. I vaguely recall the era of the late 20-teens, squarely inside the podcast boom, when it seemed like This American Life had been bled try of all the talent it had once nurtured and trained. And then what was left there was a bunch of people telling stories with voices that seemed to mimic Ira’s delivery and turn of phrase. It began to irk me over there, and for a time, it seemed like the TAL stories were a bit adrift.
But now, another boom and bust cycle later, the proliferation of so many types, and the tsunami of other podcast titles, I now see this as comforting, satisfying even, that the podcast industry now has discernable modes to hang on to.
Lynch, Dickens, Sorkin, Kafka, they’ve all been waiting for another to join their ranks. Behold, the narrative podcast mode known as Glassian.
This is so interesting, I hadn't thought about how Glassian it was. I just knew I loved the series — as I love everything from NHPR! Sgt. Tibbs made me think differently about what I can make into a narrative series. Like does there have to be a crime for it to be told like true crime?