HOUR ONE:
Melissa Fay Greene was on this program in 2006 to talk about a middle-class Ethiopian widow whose home became a refuge for hundreds of AIDS-orphaned children. She told that story in her book There Is No Me Without You. In the years since then, Greene and her husband have adopted four children from Ethiopia. Those kids joined another son adopted from Bulgaria as well as Greene’s four other children by birth. When the number of children hit nine, Greene turned her reporter’s eye to events at home and she wrote No Biking in the House Without a Helmet. Today, we present this interview as an act of remembrance. One of Greene’s adopted sons died tragically in October at the age of 20.
HOUR TWO:
Bob talks to Marion Jacobson, an ethnomusicologist and accordionist, about her book Squeeze This!: A Cultural History of the Accordion in America. It’s the first history of the piano accordion to trace the evolution of the instrument from its invention in 19th century Vienna to its inclusion in nearly every style of American music today – from polka, Cajun and klezmer to Tejano, classical and rock n’ roll.
Bob speaks with psychology professor, cognitive scientist, music fan and musician Daniel Levitin about exactly what happens to us when we listen to the radio. Levitin is the author of This is Your Brain on Music: The Science of a Human Obsession.
Daniel Levitin said near the end of his interview with Bob Edwards that he considered Beethoven to be a genius because he had used the simple scale for Ode to Joy–something like that. I'm certainly not discrediting Beethoven. Yes, he's a genius. His Ode to Joy however, begins on the mediant "Mi" and not the tonic "Do." Another composer in 1937, Richard Rodgers, wrote the music for the Broadway show, Babes in Arms, and if you listen to it, you will find the title song is the scale beginning on Do and continuing thru Re, Mi, Fa, So, La, Ti, Do. Some 30-35 years later, Richard Rodgers wrote the music to another Broadway show, The Sound of Music, in which once again he decided to use the scale in the song Doe, a Deer, etc. That's twice. I consider Richard Rodgers a genius, too.
Since moving out of Atlanta (my wife and I are GPB listeners now), I don't get to hear Bob Edwards Weekend that often, but when I do, I always enjoy it. Today's segment with Melissa Fay Greene was a real driveway moment (well, parking-lot moment… the Rooms-To-Go parking lot) for me.
The story was moving, so moving, and the segment was put together and handled very well. We sat in the parking lot to hear it out, and I got downright misty.
Now I just need to get GPB to pick up your show!
Thanks to you and to Melissa Fay Greene for the wonderful rebroadcast of her earlier story of generosity and vulnerability. The reason I write today is that I especially thank her for her writing in the Coda. Along with Joan Wickersham's book The Suicide Index, Melissa's thoughts add to my growing sense that my husband's suicide 2 years ago may have had its long-buried roots in his own childhood trauma.