The following post is from our advertiser, This American Life on Showtime. This American Life, the Showtime Original Series based on the celebrated Ira Glass radio show, is back with an all-new season. Funny, dramatic and surprising real-life stories from the most extraordinary ordinary people in America come together in what Newsweek proclaims “a jewel of a TV series.” From a stand-up comedy camp for kids, to riding stables in a North Philly ghetto; from......

--At Intersection for the Arts, an evening of performances, readings, and conversations with formerly-incarcerated youth in The Prison Project, their year-long artistic exploration of the California penal system. $5-15, 7 p.m., 446 Valencia (x 15th). --At the Balboa, you've got a documentary about Hitler's theft of European art works in one theater, and Knocked Up in the other. 3630 Balboa (x 38th), $8.50 (unless it's your birthday, in which case it's free!). --Tonight at the......

Phillyist Jill (who compiles half of those Week Around The Ists posts for all of us in the Gothamist network) sends along some info about a nationwide memoir contest that they're sponsoring out of Philadelphia -- so those of you frustrated (or successful!) This American Life aspirants, start mining your childhood for poignantly-insightful anecdotes! This is all part of the autobiographical-supporting First Person Arts' Sixth Annual Memoir-Writing Contest, and this year's theme this year is......

Local Comedian, Heather Gold of I Look Like An Egg, but I Identify As A Cookie fame will be at the Jewish Community Center of SF (3200 California St at Presidio) tonight with Outside In: hacking, pranking and prison-braking, an interactive talk show that's being compared to This American Life in real-time. Guests: Corporate hacker and hacking fan Bradley Horowitz (Creator of Yahoo Hack Day, VP of Product Strategy, acquirer of flickr, upcoming.org), undercover satirist......

Okay, let's get the premise of this band over quickly, and with a minimum of references to Hufflepuff badgers and flying Bludger balls -- the band Harry and the Potters is made up of two brothers, one of whom calls himself Harry Year 7 and the other of whom is Harry Year 4. They write original songs all based on the Harry Potter universe, like "Save Ginny Weasley From Dean Thomas," "The Missing Arm of......

This American Life repeated a show recently about cringing (Episode 182 from 4/13/01, no way to link directly to this episode). It covered why someone cringes, what it means to cringe, and people's most cringe-worthy episodes. Highlights included a woman's story about dating a hari krishna, and a nightmarish MASH interview by Ira Glass. (It's actually kinda refreshing to learn that Ira is human, but we wouldn't wish his interview on anyone.) Point being that......

Good thing we got to the Swedish-American early for Friday night's Porchlight Third Anniversary storytelling evening -- even 45 minutes before the show, the rush ticket line was snaking all the way down to the Lucky 13. And inside, the crowd (women in flower-print shift dresses, men in corderoy) was distracted the arduous folding-chair seat selection process by the gigantic set of klieg lights and steadicam equipment -- KRON 4 was taping the show. (We've always wanted to be on KRON 4!!! Look for us!) Porchlight is basically the live San Francisco version of This American Life -- hosts Arline Klatte and Beth Lisick invite people to come up to the stage and tell an extemporaneous story on a theme. No notes, no patter, and a strict 10-minute limit per person. Friday's show was Porchlight's Third Anniversary show, with the theme, "Eye of the Tiger: Stories of Weird Little Triumphs." Because it was the Third Anniversary, storytellers were limited to 6 minutes, and they featured a lightning round, where five members of the audience would be picked to tell a one-minute story each. After the jump: the tyrannies of a live studio audience, the ominous 2-minute piano warning, and Matt Gonzalez on Archie Manning. Picture of Porchlight hosts Arline Klatte and Beth Lisick by Lori Spears...

Here at SFist, there's nothing we hold dearer than our precious preconceptions and snap judgements. As evidenced by our recent plague of Blink-readings, we busy urban hipsters have no time for fact-gathering and mold-breaking -- we want decisions, motherf**cker, and we want them now! That's why our latest intarweb-obsession is Buttercouple.com, a sort of statistical matchmaking cross between Friendster and AmIHotOrNot plus The Gottman Institute (you know, that guy from This American Life who......