Dadich and Armisen.

The lights were bright, the music poppy and the toys plentiful at the opening of the Wired pop-up store party in Soho last week. Incoming editor in chief Scott Dadich greeted the crowd with a big smile and a lot of handshaking. He was splitting town for San Francisco soon—he starts at his new post in early January. Mr. Dadich looked Bay Area-appropriate in a jaunty tie designed by his wife and black-and-white Burberry sneakers to go with his suit.

“He looks like Ron Burgundy,” a friend noted.

The crowd gravitated toward the dance floor, where ?uestlove pumped out songs that made the Transom nostalgic for bar mitzvah music. Among the guests we spotted This American Life host Ira Glass and actress Amber Tamblyn, the latter trying out a new Chromebook. Kinect stations at the Buick Verano Turbo activation lined the sides of the room, and nobody seemed too old to wave his or her arms wildly.The martini bar no doubt helped.

“I like looking at gadgets,” Portlandia actor Fred Armisen told the Transom. Mr. Armisen and SNL cast member Vanessa Bayer were especially taken with the 3D printer, which printed functioning headphones and a dress.

“I feel like I’m doing so much advertising,” Ms. Bayer said when we suggested that she and Mr. Armisen work for the company that makes the 3D printer. “Anyone who will listen, I’m telling them about it.” She took a bite of a marshmallow-filled brownie, which statuesque women carried among the guests on silver trays.

“It looks like a Best Buy in here,” we overheard someone say, which we later conveyed to Ms. Bayer.

“What kind of Best Buy would have a 3D printer?” she asked with mock indignation.

As we stood in the path of the food trays, a young entrepreneur offered to show us his favorite gadget on display—a safe with a cellphone charger inside. We were about to express disbelief that anybody would choose that above all other gadgets, when it dawned on us that ulterior motives were at play.

“Did you invent this?” we asked. He had, though he did not clarify its purpose.

“I like the safe with the charger,” Mr. Armisen told us later. “You know, when you are in a hotel and you put your iPad in the safe? At least it can still charge.”

We suppose.

Like the electronic-charging safe, some gadgets on display were utilitarian, while others were more ... conceptual.

“Apparently, that ball that rolls around is really cool,” Ms. Bayer said. “I didn’t totally understand it, but it’s supposed to be cool.”

But the Transom’s favorite gadget—we never did find the ball Ms. Bayer described—had to be the TSA-grade bag scanner with a printer attached. We just dropped our purse on the conveyor belt and left clutching a printout of its contents. We didn’t even have to take off our shoes.

Ira Glass (Getty Images)

Though we missed Mr. Sedaris yesterday, we’re still getting our fill of “IRL” encounters withThis American Life personalities. Today, it’s Ira Glass, the venerable NPR quirk-meister, appearing with modern dance troupe Monica Bill Barnes and Company. Before and after the dance performances, with titles like “Mostly Fanfare” and “I Feel Like”—quirk on quirk!—Mr. Glass is to speak and moderate a discussion. We have a million questions for the man whose voice makes every commute less boring, more charismatic—and so few of them are about dance!

NYU’s Skirball Center for the Performing Arts, 566 LaGuardia Place, 8pm tonight and 3pm tomorrow, tickets and information can be found at nyuskirball.org.

Mike Birbiglia in Sleepwalk With Me. (IFC)

A longer conversation with Mike Birbiglia and Ira Glass about Sleepwalk with Me can be found here.

Mike Birbiglia is not a morning person. The 34-year-old comedian has compared himself to a bear when he has to wake up. He does the impression: a rather pitiful, yawning “roar” made while clumsily swiping at anything nearby. “Bear” by way of cowardly lion.

It’s understandable that Mr. Birbiglia has a tough time in the morning—he spends his nights running around in his pajamas. The baby-faced writer/actor/comedian—and now director—suffers from REM behavior disorder, a rare neurological dysfunction that causes him not only to sleepwalk, but to physically engage with the things he confronts in his dreams—for example, a menacing, hovering jackal.

Sleepwalk with Me, Mr. Birbiglia’s latest effort, is based on his New York Times best seller, which stemmed from a short monologue on This American Life. It tells the story of his night-bound struggle, which includes dream-state plot lines that range from participating in an Olympics ceremony for dust-bustering to saving his loved ones from a heat-seeking missile (an act of martyrdom that included a real leap from a real second-story window, requiring 33 stitches upon waking up, covered in glass, on the lawn outside the La Quinta Hotel in Washington).

But like Freud said, a pipe is never just a pipe, and as Sleepwalk and his life story go on, Mr. Birbiglia’s semi-fictional counterpart, Matt Pandamiglio, finds himself running scared—even in his waking life—from forces he feels are beyond his control. There are looming specters haunting, but they come along with the more mundane dread of everyday life: in commitment, failure, success, disappointed parents and overachieving siblings.

Hence the jackal: a giant hybrid insect/wolf that chases the somnambulist around his apartment until he finally destroys the creature—which turns out to be his hamper. In the movie, this is how we are introduced to Matt and his long-suffering girlfriend Abby (Lauren Ambrose). As his life becomes more unmanageable, his dreams escalate in their violence. Finally able to get a couple of low-paying gigs, Matt spends all his time on the road and in hotels with new-found comedy-club friends and the ubiquitous subculture of underground female comedy groupies (women whom Seth Hertzog once unceremoniously dubbed “chucklefuckers”). He proposes to Abby in the middle of a drunken fight, partly to get her to stop crying and partly out of guilt for an unconfessed indiscretion. “Remember, you’re on my side here,” our less-than-heroic protagonist must remind his audience at one point.

While Mr. Birbiglia has said in previous interviews that the hardest part of translating his play to film was the dream sequences, it’s actually the addition of the extra characters. The story struggles in its transition from a one-man performance to an ensemble film. Almost all of the actors are friends and colleagues of the stand-up, including comedians David Wain, Wyatt Cenac, Kristen Schaal, Jessi Klein and Marc Maron all play supporting characters that resemble their public personas. At times, it can feel like the script is not so much the monologue rewritten but an compendium of influences of these other comics’ sets. (The exception being Girls actor Alex Karpovsky, who plays a caustic stand-up doing a gig at Matt’s bar. His routine is actually from an old Mike Birbiglia set.)

The collaborative effort that went into the script--which had four writers, including Ira Glass and two of Mr. Birbiglia's siblings--would explain why the script took two years to write, despite being essentially an adaptation.

Chicago Public Radio's precious nerd-hunk Mr. Glass, not only a cowriter but the executive producer as well, entered Mr. Birbiglia’s life in 2008, when he invited the comedian on This American Life for the first time. The story Mr. Birbiglia told then was a truncated version of what would become Sleepwalk With Me, a PG rendition with all the bad deeds removed and the lighthearted reckonings kept in for the tote-bearing listeners at home. The comic’s easy style of combining laughter with pathos earned him a spot as a regular contributor to the show, as well as a lasting friendship with its host.

And their film, Sleepwalk with Me, holds together as a story that, like a particularly good episode of This American Life, is both laugh-out-loud funny and somewhat melancholic.

Sleepwalk With Me opens August 24th at the IFC Center.

SLEEPWALK WITH ME

Running Time 90 minutes

Written by Mike Birbiglia, Joe Birbiglia, Seth Barrish, and Ira Glass

Directed by Mike Birbiglia

Starring Mike Birbiglia, Lauren Ambrose and Carol Kane

3.5/4

In his dreams! Mike Birbiglia wins big in Sleepwalk With Me. (IFC)

Mike Birbiglia is not a morning person. The 34-year-old comedian has compared himself to a bear when he has to wake up. He does the impression: a rather pitiful, yawning “roar” made while clumsily swiping at anything nearby. “Bear” by way of cowardly lion.

It’s understandable that Mr. Birbiglia has a tough time in the morning—he spends his nights running around in his pajamas. The baby-faced writer/actor/comedian—and now director—suffers from REM behavior disorder, a rare neurological dysfunction that causes him not only to sleepwalk, but to physically engage with the things he confronts in his dreams—for example, a menacing, hovering jackal.

“When I moved in with my girlfriend from college, that’s when I started seeing the jackal,” Mr. Bibiglia told The Observer early Monday morning at the Crosby Hotel. “It definitely freaked her out, but she got very good at talking me down. She would be like, ‘There’s no jackal, go to bed.’ And I’d be like ‘Are you sure?’”

Sleepwalk with Me, Mr. Birbiglia’s latest effort, is based on his New York Times best seller, which stemmed from a short monologue on This American Life. It tells the story of his night-bound struggle, which includes dream-state plot lines that range from participating in an Olympics ceremony for dust-bustering to saving his loved ones from a heat-seeking missile (an act of martyrdom that included a real leap from a real second-story window, requiring 33 stitches upon waking up, covered in glass, on the lawn outside the La Quinta Hotel in Washington).

Mr. Birbiglia told The Observer that he has been sleepwalking since his teens, but that no one in his family had ever thought much of it—he was simply a teenager going through the stresses of high school.

“That’s the first time I think I had real anxiety in my life. It had to do with grades, SATs and getting into college. It was the first time I realized, ‘Oh, my life has stakes.’”

But like Freud said, a pipe is never just a pipe, and as Sleepwalk and his life story go on, Mr. Birbiglia’s semi-fictional counterpart, Matt Pandamiglio, finds himself running scared from forces he feels are beyond his control. There are looming specters haunting, but they come along with the more mundane dread of everyday life: in commitment, failure, success, disappointed parents and overachieving siblings.

Hence the jackal: a giant hybrid insect/wolf that chases the somnambulist around his apartment until he finally destroys the creature—which turns out to be his hamper. In the movie, this is how we are introduced to Matt and his long-suffering girlfriend Abby (Lauren Ambrose). As his life becomes more unmanageable, his dreams escalate in their violence. Finally able to get a couple of low-paying gigs, Matt spends all his time on the road and in hotels with newfound comedy-club friends and the ubiquitous subculture of underground female comedy groupies (women whom Seth Hertzog once unceremoniously dubbed “chucklefuckers”). He proposes to Abby in the middle of a drunken fight, partly to get her to stop crying and partly out of guilt for an unconfessed indiscretion. “Remember, you’re on my side here,” our less-than-heroic protagonist must remind his audience at one point.

While Mr. Birbiglia has said in previous interviews that the hardest part of translating his play to film was the dream sequences, it’s actually the addition of the extra characters. The story struggles in its transition from a one-man performance to an ensemble film. Almost all of the actors are friends and colleagues of the stand-up, including comedians David Wain, Wyatt Cenac, Kristen Schaal, Jessi Klein and Marc Maron all play supporting characters that resemble their public personas. At times, it can feel like the script is not so much the monologue rewritten but an compendium of influences of these other comics’ sets. (The exception being Girls actor Alex Karpovsky, who plays a caustic stand-up doing a gig at Matt’s bar. His routine is actually from an old Mike Birbiglia set.)

Mr. Birbiglia spoke of the collaborative effort that went into the script, with actors sitting around, doing table readings in his apartment and making tweaks and suggestions. That would explain why the script took two years to write, despite being essentially an adaptation.

Still, it holds together as a story that, like a particularly good episode of This American Life, is both laugh-out-loud funny and somewhat melancholic.

But the dream-states don’t end when the movie does: though the resolution of the (more or less) autobiographical Sleepwalk is bittersweet—Matt finally sees a doctor, mans up about his unhealthy relationship and gets a rather unusual prescription to prevent his nightmares from causing any more physical harm—the reality is harsher. Mr. Birbiglia continues to suffer from REM behavior disorder.

But did writing, directing and starring in his first feature film remedy his situation at all?

“Shooting a movie isn’t good for a sleep disorder,” Mr. Birbiglia laughed.

“I would direct in my sleep. It was very postmodern. I’d be adjusting lamps and stuff around me in my sleep, and my wife would come in while I was adjusting lamps and be like, ‘What are you doing?’”

Mr. Birbiglia’s disorder, strangely enough, allows him to interact with people while still asleep. “I would tell her, ‘Shhh! We’re shooting.’ And she’d be like, ‘No, we’re not shooting. You’re asleep.’”

“I would literally, like, patronize her,” Mr. Birbiglia said, as if this were a fairly normal fight for a couple to be having. “I’d be like, ‘Yeah, I’m sorry, but we are. And you have to get off the set.’ That’s the thing about sleepwalking, or any sort of sleep disorder where you think you’re awake. When someone interrupts you, you just kind of look down on them for not understanding.”

Mr. Birbiglia once said in an interview that it is a common misconception that waking up a sleepwalker is dangerous.

“Every sleep doctor I’ve talked to said it was an urban legend that you shouldn’t wake up a sleepwalker,” he said. “All that will happen is that you will get condescended to.”

CHICAGO PUBLIC RADIO’S PRECIOUS nerd-hunk Ira Glass, the film’s co-writer and executive producer, entered Mr. Birbiglia’s life in 2008, when he invited the comedian on This American Life for the first time. The story Mr. Birbiglia told then was a truncated version of what would become Sleepwalk With Me, a PG rendition with all the bad deeds removed and the lighthearted reckonings kept in for the tote-bearing listeners at home. The comic’s easy style of combining laughter with pathos earned him a spot as a regular contributor to the show, as well as a lasting friendship with its host.

Four years later, the two have developed an affectionate green-room rapport.

“Mike asked me to produce the film. He thought it would help him get meetings,” said second-time producer and first-time writer Mr. Glass in his clarinet tones as he joined us for coffee. He leaned back in his plush velvet armchair, glancing at a surprised Mr. Birbiglia.

“Sorry, Mike, I know we’ve never talked about this—but it’s time we told somebody.”

“I don’t think that’s what this was!”

“Are you sure?”

The improv scene adjourned, Mr. Birbiglia’s face broke out into a lopsided grin.

“Ira and I have a good back-and-forth, because he slashes me, and I like it.”

“I slash you?”

“Yeah. But I like being slashed.”

One got the sense that even without an audience, Mr. Birbiglia and Mr. Glass would have continued their “Fifty Shades of Grey by way of Statler and Waldorf” routine, just to keep themselves amused. But, luckily, it would seem that won’t be a concern.

Sleepwalk With Me opens August 24th at the IFC Center.

SLEEPWALK WITH ME

Running Time 90 minutes

Written by Mike Birbiglia, Joe Birbiglia, Seth Barrish, and Ira Glass

Directed by Mike Birbiglia

Starring Mike Birbiglia, Lauren Ambrose and Carol Kane

3.5/4

The Accusers

Yasha Levine and Mark Ames, writing for their own site, The S.H.A.M.E. Media Transparency Project, which opened shop on in March. As Russian expats, both helped co-found the satirical Russian alt-biweekly The eXile (another co-founder: Rolling Stone political columnist Matt Taibbi), which still lives on, online. More recently, the duo were widely credited with having connected the Koch Brothers to the Tea Party (after Playboy all but erased from existence the original piece in which they initially made the connection for the magazine).

The Accused

Adam Davidson, the co-host and co-founder of NPR's Planet Money. Prior to Planet Money, Davidson worked for NPR as an international business and economics correspondent for NPR, and was a Middle Eastern correspondent for Public Radio International. Aside from co-hosting Planet Money, Davidson also has a gig as a regular columnist for The New York Times Magazine and, according to Levine and Ames, makes decent coin on the side with speaking engagements too. Here's his NPR biography. Here's Levine and Ames's biography of him.

The Charge(s)

First, that a notoriously hostile 2009 Planet Money interview between Davidson and Elizabeth Warren—the special adviser to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau—was ethically tainted by Planet Money's financial arrangements with "the sole sponsor underwriting Davidson's Planet Money show and his salary." Levine and Ames argue that the sponsor in question—a financial services conglomerate—lobbied against the creation of the CFPB before it was created (and around the time of the interview), which is evidence of an insidious conflict of interest. Furthermore, they allege that Davidson is accepting speaking fees from the industry he covers for both NPR and The New York Times Magazine, something largely viewed as an unsavory, questionable practice by most journalists (and journalism institutions, which usually have guidelines against that sort of thing).

The Evidence

A Sponsorship Problem: Ames and Levine published a 2009 lobbying report signed by the financial conglomerate in question, GMAC (now Ally Financial), in which the company discloses lobbying against the Consumer Financial Protection Agency Act of 2009, which created the CFPB that Elizabeth Warren now acts as a special adviser to. To them, this disclosure speaks great volumes about Davidson's coverage, particularly a 2009 interview between Davidson and Warren. At the time, Warren was lobbying for the act (as she was its architect), which set out to create an agency that would protect consumers from predatory practices by companies like GMAC/Ally Financial. During the interview, Davidson was so surprisingly hostile towards Warren that it famously warranted an apology from NPR's ombudsman.

[Ally (formerly GMAC), the consumer-lending arm of General Motors, is 74 percent owned by the government after receiving a $17.2 billion bailout. Even as other financial firms have emerged from the darkest days of the financial crisis, Ally has remained in the government’s debt, due to the struggles of Residential Capital, the Ally-owned mortgage lender that recently entered Chapter 11 bankruptcy.]

Meanwhile, Ally had sponsored the show since shortly after it had launched, in an arrangement that raised eyebrows when it was initially revealed. Ames and Levine note that at that time, Planet Money was the only NPR show with a single sponsor.

The Speaking Gigs: They've compiled some of Adam Davidson's "lucrative" speaking gigs, hosted and funded by some of the largest financial institutions in the world (JPMorgan, Wells Fargo, Bank of America and Goldman Sachs). While a widespread practice, it's one that in their eyes—and the eyes of many others—compromises journalistic integrity.

The Rules

We could not find the issues of sponsorship directly addressed in NPR's handbook, other than a section on the necessity of disclosures. But the issue has come up even after that section was added in. However: NPR's current ethics guide does mention avoiding speaking to groups where the appearance itself might put into question one's impartiality, along with participation in forums where "sponsoring groups or other participants are identified with a particular perspective." The policy of Chicago Public Media (which owns This American Life, from which Planet Money was spun off): "Journalists may not accept any form of compensation from the individuals, institutions or organizations they cover." Finally, the New York Times' standards and ethics guide urges staffers to be wary of speaking gigs "especially if the setting might suggest a close relationship" to the sponsor, and notes that gigs must be approved by newsroom management. The example they give: "An editor who deals with political campaigns might comfortably address a library gathering but not appear before a civic group that endorses issues or candidates. An environmental reporter can appropriately speak to a horticultural society but not to conservation groups known for their efforts to influence public policy."

Precedent

We couldn't find any examples of NPR ending a sponsorship relationship because of a radio segement or program's purview. That said, Planet Money's sponsorship agreement with Ally has come under question both internally and externally prior to this.

An NPR ombudsman concluded in December 2009:

[NPR senior vice president for news, Eileen] Weiss is correct that NPR has a large pool of credibility with most of its audience. But that pool is not infinite, and it can be diminished when listeners perceive a conflict of interest, even if one does not exist.

No action was taken then. This was nine months after Davidson's interview with Warren, which prompted an on-air apology from Davidson and an NPR ombudsman's column reprimanding Davidson. That column ran five days before Planet Money's deal with Ally was written up on AdAge.

Over at the Times, writers have indeed been punished or even fired for taking speaking fees. Thomas Friedman once had to return $75,000 in unapproved speaking fees. Times technology columnist David Pogue has come under fire multiple times for speaking fees and a trip to Disney World; he still writes there (other, less popular writers have been fired for taking free trips). Mary Tripsas, an associate professor at Harvard Business School, had a monthly column until she was fired for taking a speaking engagement. And Joe Nocera once came under fire for speaking fees, and he was given a pass as well.

What do other Times writers think of the policy? Ask Paul Krugman:

I do very little paid speaking now, and no consulting, because the New York Times has quite strict rules: basically I can only get paid for speaking to nonprofits that have no possible interest in influencing the content of the column. It’s a good rule — read Eric Alterman’s book “Sound and Fury” to see how speaking fees can corrupt pundits — though it meant that I took a substantial income cut to work for the Times.

In Davidson's Defense

Planet Money has indeed covered Ally once before, in a segment derided by an Ally publicist as "false" and "inflammatory." There is no empirical evidence that Davidson—who, in his words, has "nothing to do with the underwriting stuff"—has explicitly interacted with his sponsors in a way that would undoubtedly compromise his show's integrity. Levine and Ames have no proof of Davidson's pay for his speaking gigs (though there's been no denial that he was paid).

The Official Word

An NPR spokesperson refused comment to Ames and Levine. They also contacted Ira Glass of This American Life, who also did not respond to their request for comment.

The Observer contacted an NPR spokesperson for comment through their communications department on Wednesday evening. We asked why they didn't comment to Ames and Levine, if Davidson's speaking engagements are of concern to NPR, and if—in light of the lobbying disclosure form vis-à-vis Davidson's (as noted by their own ombudsman) surprisingly hostile interview with Elizabeth Warren—Planet Money's sponsorship by Ally Bank was a concern to them. At the time, a spokeswoman answered:

I expect we'll give you comment on why we didn't comment before, and perhaps on some of these issues you raise.

This afternoon, the same NPR head of communications Dana Davis Rehm responded:

Adam reviews all his speaking engagements with his editors and we’re confident that none of them run counter to our ethical guidelines.

Beyond that, we don’t have any further comment.

When contacted Wednesday evening, a spokeswoman for the New York Times indicated that our call was the first she had heard of it; as of this afternoon, the Times was reviewing the issue, but had no official comment. UPDATE: On Friday afternoon, a spokeswoman from the New York Times emailed us with official comment:

We have discussed this situation with Adam and we’re confident that there has been no violation of our policies around speaking engagements and no conflict of interest.

When contacted by email Wednesday evening, Ames and Levine had this to say over email:

Until NPR answers these questions and fully discloses the nature of their relationship with Ally Bank, and their conflict-of-interest policy, everything else is a PR distraction. We have provided strong evidence of several very serious conflicts of interest. Evasions and distractions that avoid answering these allegations and questions, like the ones provided by their ombudsman back in 2009, will only reinforce our point about corruption at Planet Money.

They also pointed us to a March 2009 Columbia Journalism Review profile of NPR, which they provided as speaking to proof that "Davidson was in the very least intimately involved in the process of creating the show," which it certainly does. Again, that doesn't explicitly tie Davidson to Ally Bank's interests.

That said, Ames and Levine's takeaway isn't so forgiving:

This says pretty much everything you need to know about the gangrenous state of America's media, when two of the most respected media institutions adopt a mob strategy to protect their little racket.

At the very least, they have indeed made a compelling case that Davidson is—if not complicitly, then inherently—conflicted. Either way, it's a conflict that’s clearly uncomfortable to more than two people, regardless, and a few who'd rather not discuss it as well.

fkamer@observer.com | @weareyourfek

A spot fit for a radio star?

Chicago, it's really over. Sure, Ira Glass left a few years ago. Sure, he packed up the entire This American Life crew, said that he was never coming back, but all that time, he couldn't seem to settle down in any of the New York neighborhoods. And sometimes he even talked about how much he missed you, how he used to be able to get in a car and be anywhere in Chicago in 20 minutes. But now he's  gone and bought a condo at 159 West 24th Street!

Yes, Mr. Glass and wife Anaheed Alani paid $1.26 million for the one-bedroom apartment, a buy first spotted by The Real Deal.

The sponsor-owned unit, listed with Warburg brokers Herbert Chou, Joel Moss and Jocelyn Turken for $1.37 million, looks a little bland, or as the listing boasts, it "has all the charm suggested in its name." But we're sure the man who made a name for himself with the most un-NPR voice possible, only to launch a new generation of slavishly quirky NPR voices, will do something interesting with it.

The lofted apartment has high ceilings and a "windowed home office/sleeping area," making it "the perfect space to entertain or to enjoy a quiet evening at home." The building also has a shared roof deck. Maybe you can even see the Hudson from there? I mean, it's no Lake Michigan, and imagine what kind of place $1.26 million would buy in Chicago. But the Windy City wishes Mr. Glass and his new real estate every happiness.

kvelsey@observer.com

Ira Glass (Getty Images)

HBO is in development on a series based on a This American Life segment--material less capacious than, say, The Corrections (another upcoming HBO project) and yet as intriguing. The story is about a workaday fellow who tries to break out of his rut (very Nate on Six Feet Under!) by rescuing Mexican kidnap victims (very whichever-season-was-the-Mexican-compound one on Big Love!). The creative team is to include This American Life host Ira Glass (who'd previously adapted his format into a Showtime series), actor Owen Wilson, and Veronica Mars creator Rob Thomas. We'll be looking forward to a story told in, like, 13 acts, rather than the usual three or four.

Daisey, performing "The Agony and Ecstasy of Steve Jobs"

PRI's This American Life has retracted its most popular broadcast ever, "Mr. Daisey Goes to the Apple Factory," because it contains "significant fabrications," host and executive producer Ira Glass announced today. An excerpt of Mike Daisey's one-man show The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs, it has been downloaded 888,000 times and streamed another 206,000.

Mr. Daisey said he regretted allowing his one-man show--a combination of "fact, memoir, and dramatic license" --to be billed as journalism.

"My mistake, the mistake I truly regret, is that I had it on your show as journalism, and it's not journalism. It's theater," he wrote.

In the play, Mr. Daisey talks about visiting the FoxConn iPhone and iPad factory in Shenzen, China. Upon hearing the segment, Marketplace China correspondent Rob Schmitz, who had already done quite a bit of reporting on Apple's supply chain, doubted the veracity of Mr. Dasiey's experiences. Mr. Schmitz tracked down Mr. Daisey's interpreter in Shenzen, and she disputed much of the material in the play.

The fabrications include one of its most dramatic moments, involving an injured factory worker operating an iPad for the first time (Mr. Daisey's iPad) with his mangled hand, and the allegation that he met many underage factory workers. (That one also snuck by this paper.)

"Daisey lied to me and to This American Life producer Brian Reed during the fact checking we did on the story, before it was broadcast," Mr. Glass wrote. "That doesn't excuse the fact that we never should've put this on the air. In the end, this was our mistake."

When This American Life fact-checkers asked for his interpreter's contact information, Mr. Daisey said her cell phone number no longer worked and he had no way of reaching her.

"At that point, we should've killed the story," Mr. Glass said. "But other things Daisey told us about Apple's operations in China checked out, and we saw no reason to doubt him. We didn't think that he was lying to us and to audiences about the details of his story. That was a mistake."

This American Life has dedicated this weekend's program to correcting the errors in the piece, including interviews with Mr. Schmitz, Mr. Daisey and his interpreter, Cathy Lee. Which actually sounds kind of like your typical, things-are-never-what-they-seem This American Life tale of ambition, human fallibility, and the vagaries of truth and art. The show's home station, WBEZ Chicago, has also cancelled Mr. Daisey's live performance at the Chicago Theatre on April 7 and is refunding tickets.

Mr. Daisey responded on his blog, in the style of John D'Agata in The Lifespan of a Fact:

I stand by my work. My show is a theatrical piece whose goal is to create a human connection between our gorgeous devices and the brutal circumstances from which they emerge. It uses a combination of fact, memoir, and dramatic license to tell its story, and I believe it does so with integrity. Certainly, the comprehensive investigations undertaken by The New York Times and a number of labor rights groups to document conditions in electronics manufacturing would seem to bear this out.

What I do is not journalism. The tools of the theater are not the same as the tools of journalism. For this reason, I regret that I allowed THIS AMERICAN LIFE to air an excerpt from my monologue. THIS AMERICAN LIFE is essentially a journalistic ­- not a theatrical ­- enterprise, and as such it operates under a different set of rules and expectations. But this is my only regret. I am proud that my work seems to have sparked a growing storm of attention and concern over the often appalling conditions under which many of the high-tech products we love so much are assembled in China.

And the show must go on, according to Cult of Mac, which got this statement of support from The Public Theater, where Agony is currently running.

In the theater, our job is to create fictions that reveal truth — that’s what a storyteller does, that’s what a dramatist does. THE AGONY AND THE ECSTASY OF STEVE JOBS reveals, as Mike’s other monologues have, human truths in story form.

In this work, Mike uses a story to frame and lead debate about an important issue in a deeply compelling way. He has illuminated how our actions affect people half-a-world away and, in doing so, has spurred action to address a troubling situation. This is a powerful work of art and exactly the kind of storytelling that The Public Theater has supported, and will continue to support in the future.

Mike is an artist, not a journalist. Nevertheless, we wish he had been more precise with us and our audiences about what was and wasn’t his personal experience in the piece.

Update: An earlier version of this post said NPR's This American Life, it's in fact PRI's.

Ira Glass and Mike Birbiglia pose at The Bing Bar

It's winding down, celebs are fleeing, the open bars are starting to dry up, and The Observer's 4 day long hangover is starting to catch up with us—enough of the sob story, we're going back in for more.

First stop: Surprise surprise—The Bing Bar for a dinner and after party with the cast and crew from Sleepwalk With Me

• NPR's Ira Glass stormed the red carpet (read: stood there graciously speaking to lesser media mortals) and gave us a few pointers on the birds and the bees as we asked him how he got here: "Well, when a mommy meets a daddy, and they reaaaaly really love each other..."
• Bourbon in hand, we borrow the ear of the star himself, comedian Mike Birbiglia who through "years and years of debilitating and honest failure" arrived right where he is today. This guy's put his 10,000 hours in.
• Occupy Sundance marched around a bit outside our window, seemingly unaware that their audience was already deeply sympathetic (right?)

A quick drive-by drinking at Grey Goose and we're headed back to the basement at Bing to catch Theophilus London and Asher Roth on stage

Theophilus London commands the stage at Bing

• "I wonder if anyone thinks I'm famous..." overheard The Observer from a partygoer as we checked in with the omnipresent Hannah Bronfman, fresh from a short stint in Vegas for the Chanel event the night prior.
• Quick to remind everyone that he's probably much cooler than you, an insufferable Mr. Roth muddled about the red carpet un-ironically bouncing a tennis ball. Cool, dude.
• You kind of have to give it to Mr. London, who cites preparation, concentration and "an obsession with experimenting as much as possible with the latest tech" in getting him to where he is today. For a 24 year old from Brooklyn, he's got the stage presence of a seasoned vet.

Alright fine, twist my arm, let's go to Tao

• We found fameball DJ Samantha Ronson belting out a passable set, eventually putting the entire party on hold at microphone point to pay homage to Noah Tepperberg "Everybody shut the fuck up, there's somebody here that we have to thank, and I think you know who that is..." A crass, yet sweet gesture that didn't not remind us of the holdup scene from Pulp Fiction.
• They're out of bourbon. This is a problem.
• Sundance make out team Kirsten Dunst and Garret Hedlund realized they were sick of dancing with the plebeians and decided it was time to break it down on stage where Ronson and Rashida Jones were all too happy to oblige.
• Even Rashida Jones's name is hot.

The Observer was disappointed to learn that our red-eye flight would be cutting off our opportunity to catch LCD Soundsystem's James Murphy attack the turntables at Bing tonight, but we suppose there's always next time.

In addition to the celebrities reportedly involved (Miranda July, Winnie Holzman, Joss Whedon, Jack Black, Dan Savage and Fred Armisen), Ms. Gevinson actually hired contributors from the open call for submissions she posted on her blog almost a year ago. She received thousands of applications, according to Ms. Condon.

Following through on that promise is move that might have been harder to pull off at xoJane.com, where Ms. Gevinson was originally planning on publishing her teen-oriented content. Ms. Gevinson backed out of Sassy editor Jane Pratt's project at the eleventh hour (sans acrimony, Ms. Condon says) because she wanted to own her own work. xoJane.com is published by the jargon-happy marketers Say Media.

Rookie contributors include many precocious, self-publishing young people like Ms. Gevinson, as well as some pros, including xoJane.com fashion editor Laia Garcia, Girlcrusher Emma Straub, Girls staff writer Lesley Arfin, fashion blogger and Bon Appetit designer Elizabeth Spiridakis, Daily Intel blogger Joe Coscarelli and novelist Stephanie Kuehnert.

Rookie plans to pay contributors, managing editor Emily Condon told the Observer. New York parent company New York Media will exclusively sell advertisements, but there were no investors covering the overhead.

Friends of Ms. Gevinson are helping out pro bono, including This American Life founder Ira Glass, who performed with Ms. Gevinson at the Sassy magazine tribute, and his wife, Anaheed Alani, who is Rookie features editor. Ms. Condon is a This American Life alumna. (Ms. Gevinson lives in Oak Park, Ill., outside Chicago, where This American Life was produced for many years.) The Awl founders have also served as informal advisers.