April 17: Yo-Yo Ma

One of the guest stars on NPR's "Ask Me Another" this week was Yo-Yo Ma, the famous world-renown cellist (65 years old, Chinese, child prodigy, graduate of Julliard and Harvard, lives in Western Mass, has 18 Grammys and the Presidential Medal of Freedom. He often plays with the Boston Symphony Orchestra; we saw him play at Tanglewood a few years back. He is an amazing cellist, and it was a delightful concert). 

Ask Me Another is a radio game show; it used to be performed live at the Bell House in Brooklyn, NY and featured contestants from the audience and just one "celebrity" guest contestant. (We saw a live show there a few years ago). During the pandemic, they pivoted to doing the game remotely with only famous celebrities as all of their game contestants. The host of the show, Ophira Eisenberg, interviews them and then plays a game with them. 

Yo-Yo Ma's interview this week was incredibly delightful, and he played the game they came up with (about naming classical songs sampled in pop songs) very well. He seemed like such a good person, thoughtful, caring, kind, giving, and perceptive, but was also well spoken and humorous and super easy to listen to him. I think I could listen to him talk and tell stories all day. In one of the lead ups to the interview, before a commercial break, Ophira says, "It's awesome, he's awesome, and listening to this may even make you a better person," which I would definitely agree with. She also says it was one of her favorite interviews. Here are some of my favorite highlights of the show:

• He brought his cello into the clinical site for his second vaccination (because his wife told him he couldn't just leave his super expensive important cello in the car!) A nurse asked him to play, so he did. (He specifically did not just want to show up with his cello and start playing without being asked, very humble of him.) He said about the experience, "I love to play in all kinds of places, and what was lovely was that there was an elderly gentlemen who obviously needed the music, because he just turned his chair around, came really close but socially distanced, and the whole time I was playing he put his head in his hands and he was just kind of drinking it in." 
• He also noted that he appreciated how the clinic was well-organized and well-ordered (which sounded a LOT like me!), and that it was an ultimate demonstration of people doing civic duty. "This is who we are, this is the country that I think we live in...people are giving of their time and abilities for the public good."
• During COVID, he got creative with how to perform, and did a little traveling gig on the back of a flatbed truck. He commented that it was best way to perform because it is "so liberating". One spot the truck stopped at was a dairy farm, and "by the end, all the cows had moved over to our side of the fence. They were drawn to something!"
• He started playing cello when he was 4 but played violin before that and "failed". Ophira wanted to know more about that. He says he is 2 1/2 and his parents determined he was very bad at violin and gave him a cello instead! That is just crazy!! 
• He has a grandson who started to play cello and wanted to take over, and Yo-Yo laughingly said, "But I don't want competition! I need my job!"
• It was also fun learning about the songs featured: Graduation Song by Vitamin C samples Pachelbel's Canon in D, This Night by Billy Joel samples Sonata Pathetique by Beethoven, Love U Crazay by En Vogue samples The Nutcracker Suite by Tchaikovsky, and Lady Linda by the Beach Boys samples Jesu Joy of Man's Desiring by Bach.

(Another delightful note: In a previous episode, Ophira (a Canadian) had talked about studying for her US Citizenship Test, and she asked her cohost, Jonathan Coulton, one of the questions from the test. "What did the US Declaration of Independence do?" Jonathan jokingly answered, "Technically, nothing." So this week, Ophira talked about her experience actually taking the test, and the Declaration of Independence question was her first question on the test. Ophira answered by saying, "It declared that America was free from Great Britain." And her proctor said, "Yes, but it is also a trick question, because the Declaration of Independence didn't actually DO anything." To which Ophira responded, "That's what Jonathan Coulton said!!" hahahahaha!)

With delight,

♥Jamie

PS: Also on NPR on Saturday was a rerun on a This American Life episode (Gardens of Branching Paths) about the multiverse!! 

PPS: Another delightful little moment on NPR was an interview about how to get people to follow pandemic guidelines and get vaccinated, and the interviewer posited that if we could see how we were all interconnected, more people would act for the common good.