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- [00:02]
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- [00:31]
Jad Abumrad
Hello, I'm Jad Abumrad. This is Radiolab. The podcast. The homecoming podcast, actually. Welcome. One of the things that Robert and I had in common when we met way back when was that we both went to Oberlin. Oberlin College in Ohio. I did music as a composition major and this was in the 90s. Robert studied history in the sepia colored 60s, at least in my mind. And despite our difference in ages, we both left this school feeling like Oberlin was a really big part of who we are. So when we were asked to return to Oberlin to speak on campus on March 6, 2008 as part of their convocation series, we were totally thrilled. And nervous and terrified and thrilled. Anyhow, it was a snow covered night and we went into Finney Chapel. All right, Finney Chapel. Those words mean nothing to you. But to us, Feeney Chapel is like Madison Square Garden, because this was, you know, this is where you went to see jazz greats play and you heard speeches by cultural dignitaries. But there we were, these two schmoes on stage talking, you know, to our old professors. And it was really quite weird, frankly. So anyways, we did a whole long lecture which got into lots of Oberlin nostalgia. And we're going to spare you most of that, but I'm going to play just a couple excerpts from the evening where we tell stories about Radiolab that you may not have heard before. And to get started, here is the Robert and Jad romance story. Well, not really. It's the story of how we met, which centers around the first radio piece that we ever made together. I'm going to play that for you. Never before heard Radiolab piece. Prepare yourself. This is Radiolab the Early years. So five years ago I was working at wnyc. I was sort of Radiolab was not yet a thing, and I was between jobs, so to speak, and someone hands me, program director, hands me a stack of scripts and says, go interview these people. And I did. And at the very end of the stack was a guy named Robert Crowitz. I sort of knew the name A little bit. And he said, what's your story? Before we do any of this, what's your story? And I said, well, I work at WNYC and I freelance for npr.
- [02:45]
Robert Krulwitz
Me too.
- [02:46]
Jad Abumrad
He said, me too. Then he asked me, well, what about before that? I said, well, I work at wbai.
- [02:54]
Robert Krulwitz
Me too.
- [02:55]
Jad Abumrad
He said, me too. And then he said, where did you go to school? And I said, oberlin. Get out.
- [03:03]
Robert Krulwitz
I said. I said, wait, so this is the deal. You're living my life 25 years after me. Let's go have breakfast. You can tell me what it's like on the other side or whatever you call it.
- [03:17]
Jad Abumrad
And somewhere at like breakfast number 31, we decided that we would try some radio together. We started doing various weirdly strange experiments, few of which have survived. But we do have the very first thing we collaborated on, which we thought was fabulous. We thought, this is going to be the beginning of revolution.
- [03:40]
Robert Krulwitz
In a small way. In a small way, because the phone call we got was from Ira Glass, who runs this American Life, who's a friend of mine, but is also like, you know, the God. So he says, hey, we're going to have a show coming up. It's an hour show, but it will only have two minute contributions. So you had this record or something?
- [03:54]
Jad Abumrad
Yes. So the show that Ira was planning on airing was Flag Day. That was the projected broadcast day. I happened to have, purely coincidentally, a piece of archival tape that someone had sent me, which was a 1950s picture book audio that described the rules by which you are supposed to approach the flag. You are supposed to salute the flag, how you're supposed to display the flag when there are other flags in the room. All kinds of very arcane minutiae about how to respect the flag. And it's completely ridiculous.
- [04:28]
Robert Krulwitz
Totally.
- [04:28]
Jad Abumrad
And here's what we did. Here's what we did.
- [04:31]
Robert Krulwitz
A few weeks ago, my friend Jad got a tape from his friend Jake of an old record from 1960, 1961. It was a How to record, how to handle and how to honor the American flag. Because, said the narrator, for the first 150 years, there were no rules for the flag.
- [04:50]
Archival Flag Etiquette Narrator
To correct this situation, in 1923, the representatives of 68 patriotic and civic organizations met in Washington D.C. i insist that.
- [05:02]
Robert Krulwitz
We fold the flag from the left to the right. No, no, it must be from the right to the left.
- [05:08]
Archival Flag Etiquette Narrator
To draw up a national code of flag etiquette. According to the law, our flag should always be raised briskly.
- [05:16]
Robert Krulwitz
Faster, Johnny, faster. Hey, Mom, I'm trying And to the.
- [05:19]
Archival Flag Etiquette Narrator
Very peak of the statue. When the flag is displayed over the middle of a street, it should be suspended vertically with the Union to the north on an east west street.
- [05:32]
Robert Krulwitz
Excuse me.
- [05:32]
Archival Flag Etiquette Narrator
Or to the east on a north south street.
- [05:35]
Robert Krulwitz
Does that street run eastward? I think it runs east west, but I'm not. It has run east west since I was north south, run north south since I've been a kid.
- [05:44]
Archival Flag Etiquette Narrator
Mark?
- [05:44]
Robert Krulwitz
Yes, Eddie? I got the American flag, the police regimental flag, and I got eight thumbtacks. Now what should I do? You put up both of them, Eddie, but you got to listen to the man.
- [05:54]
Archival Flag Etiquette Narrator
The flag may be displayed against a wall crossed with another flag. In this arrangement, however, the flag of the United States should always be on the left with its staff in front of the staff of the other flag.
- [06:06]
Robert Krulwitz
Like this.
- [06:08]
Archival Flag Etiquette Narrator
Before being lowered at sunset, the flag should again be raised to the peak momentarily. It should be lowered slowly, with a solemn dignity befitting the occasion.
- [06:20]
Robert Krulwitz
Can I slow down, Mom? No, Johnny, not till it's all the way to the end. That's not what the man said. Didn't I say? No, it's watch out there. I dropped my thumb. Do you have a couple compass, Mom?
- [06:38]
Jad Abumrad
So there you have it. Thank you.
- [06:43]
Robert Krulwitz
Now, we sent it off to Ira. Ira opened it up or whatever, put it on. And this is his opinion.
- [06:51]
Ira Glass
It was horrible. Yeah, it was really horrible. To the point where, like. Well, like, you know, there's stories which people turn in and, you know, they. They need a little buffing up here and there. And then there's stories that are bad. And then there's a special category where we really don't know what to say in response.
- [07:10]
Jad Abumrad
So apparently he didn't like it. Here's what his producer, Julie Snyder, had to say.
- [07:15]
Ira Glass
I remember at the time, I was working out of my apartment, and so I remember even at one point standing in the bathroom staring at the brick wall, listening to the piece while I was on the phone and just being really, really confused.
- [07:32]
Jad Abumrad
I thought I was past this, but I'm literally tearing up in embarrassment right now.
- [07:35]
Ira Glass
I was just very confused. I was very, very, very confused. I have a better perspective on it now. I stand by my earlier judgment. I am not confused. And everything that was bad about it is still bad. Like it doesn't have a point. You know what I mean? It starts off in a place that. That seems like it could go somewhere. And then it's almost like the two of you take this premise of this old record and then you just kind of dance on the surface of this record and throw in a lot of shenanigans, and then it ends and it says literally nothing. So at the end of two minutes, it's both sort of complicated. You keep waiting to understand what is it about, and then ultimately you are left wondering, what. What was that about? I mean, it's just amazing that you were able to put together such a wonderful program after that. Somehow you. I mean, I don't. I'm trying to say that that was. Listening back to it today, I was just like, wow, it is really interesting to see sort of the incredibly early stages of where you just got really, really headed in the wrong direction.
- [08:42]
Jad Abumrad
But if someone were to have walked in the room and asked both of you, will these two guys succeed back at that moment, you would have said, no freaking way.
- [08:51]
Ira Glass
Oh, absolutely not. Yeah. Clearly they're a terrible influence on each other. That Jad allows a kind of self indulgence in Robert, and Robert brings out a sort of self indulgence in Jad. Clearly. Just terrible chemistry. Like, I never would have put you together on anything ever again. Let me just say this wasn't an episode where we were demanding a lot. We were looking. All we wanted was things would be short. And this is an episode where one of the segments that made it where you guys didn't was simply scallops on a beach. No narration, just going like, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click. That's it. The sound of scallops for 25 seconds. We ran that instead of running this.
- [09:35]
Jad Abumrad
So we lost out to scallops.
- [09:37]
Robert Krulwitz
I think that. Well, first of all, Ira went to Brown University. They don't know anything there. They don't have majors. They don't have any. I don't know what they do there. But if that man thinks that clicking scallops beats our flag thing, he should go back to radio school and start all over. It's my opinion. My humble opinion.
- [09:52]
Jad Abumrad
Exactly. But a little Oberlin. Yeah.
- [09:57]
Robert Krulwitz
Anyway.
- [09:58]
Jad Abumrad
No, he's a great supporter of the show. So this was an inauspicious beginning, to say the least.
- [10:03]
Robert Krulwitz
We thought, well, if we failed on the two minute IRA thing, like, now, what are we going to do? So what your friend is in this situation is that there is a kind of restlessness and a kind of ambition that sort of. And I really do feel it comes from here in some way that you keep wanting to poke at things, you keep wanting to challenge things.
- [10:24]
Jad Abumrad
The flip side of that, as the Ira situation was just one bit of evidence for, is that sometimes that doesn't translate so well to the rest of the world.
- [10:35]
Robert Krulwitz
Yeah. I heard recently that somebody was vomiting in color this week on campus. Like, you know, that's a little excessive. Taking color dye and then vomiting out in some kind of interesting template.
- [10:45]
Jad Abumrad
Makes perfect sense here, though.
- [10:47]
Robert Krulwitz
Well, I don't know.
- [10:48]
Jad Abumrad
Well, I'll just give you an example. Personally, I spent four years in composition here, writing music, writing this kind of music, basically.
- [11:06]
Robert Krulwitz
What were you thinking?
- [11:08]
Jad Abumrad
I was thinking 200 years of, you know, European harmonies handed down that, you know, screw that. Why should we take the harmonies that are given to us from the Europeans? Let's just flip that on the head. What is that idea of consonance? Dissonance is a new consonant. Let's just question, man. Question. Any case makes perfect sense. Hear it over.
- [11:34]
Robert Krulwitz
Don't applaud. Don't applaud.
- [11:36]
Jad Abumrad
This is the only room where you'd get applause for that kind of music, and I love you all for it. But no quicker could you clear a room than to put something like, on, and people would just run from the room. And I've tried this in New York. I've said, hey, check this thing out. I made when I was a senior. And it didn't go so well for me. Oberlin and the kind of thought process and respect for ideas and also hostility towards ideas that you want to sort of. You want to poke at things. That very Oberlin spirit is something that, for me, was like a grenade where you pull the pin and it goes off later. And for me, that was about seven years later. I mean, I spent several years wondering, what the hell did I learn here? I know how to create some of the most awful and dissonant music. To saw pianos in half, which was, like, encouraged in odd ways. Not that I ever did that, but what does that really give you? But what it gives you, I think, is something interesting and beautiful because those ideas come back in a very different form.
- [12:44]
Robert Krulwitz
So you can see then that really what we're doing is this is about complex ideas. But it is essentially because of Jad, it is a musical composition that we are doing. This gives us a chance to do what music actually does when it's just naked and being music, which is to thrill you or give you a feeling of deep sadness or of great joy.
- [13:13]
Jad Abumrad
So anyways, we went on and on and around. Here was where the Oberlin nostalgia began. So we'll leave it at that for now. But afterwards, we had time for two questions. The audience questions weren't recorded, so Robert had to paraphrase Here he is.
- [13:25]
Robert Krulwitz
The question is how do we choose what level to approach a topic at when our listeners range from people who know nothing to people who know all too much.
- [13:36]
Jad Abumrad
That's an interesting question, because it is maybe. Robert and I are very. We like each other a lot, but we disagree on many, many things. And this is one of the ones we always fight about because I come down on one side of your question and he comes down on another often.
- [13:54]
Robert Krulwitz
I am a network trained reporter in my companies where I've worked at abc. For example, if you have a problem like if you go, Jack and Jill went up the hill to fetch, I'm not sure exactly what kind of a substance it was, and then drop the substance, make it a pail, he's going to just fetch a pail. Jack and Joe went up the hill to fetch a pail.
- [14:11]
Archival Flag Etiquette Narrator
Good.
- [14:12]
Robert Krulwitz
We don't have to deal with the water issue at all. It also shortens the peace. So I find safety in less. And what I discovered is he thinks, he, he thinks to say to solve it is to say Jack and Jill went up the hill to get a pail of. Well, first of all, we'll begin with two molecules, we'll put them together, then we'll add another molecule. Let's talk to 17 people about that. I said, no, we do not do that.
- [14:35]
Jad Abumrad
So we have a complexity disagreement that sort of runs through these shows where I'll come in with a 25 minute version of some sort of neuroscience story with very exciting words like dorsolateral prefrontal cortex over and over. And he's like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. So you can't say that.
- [14:55]
Robert Krulwitz
What to him is like terrifying to me. I think if you have a Latinate, you just run from the room. That's what I think.
- [15:01]
Jad Abumrad
So we have a bit of a tug of war often during the editing process where I put in too much, he takes out and then we sort of like, we find a nice balance where we might be talking to, I don't know, everybody, but talking in a way that doesn't fall into the traps of talking to those who know too much, but also doesn't dumb down. So there is a broad expanse of geography in the middle.
- [15:26]
Robert Krulwitz
I think we both start also as virgins. We don't really know what we're talking about at the beginning and then we find out along the way and we make that very clear. So we never pretend to anybody that we're scholars because we're not. And we do represent ourselves as novices. Which is a good thing. It's a good thing in a couple of ways. First, it means we can say, what? Honestly? And the second thing, it's like, could you explain that again, honestly? And then the third thing is it allows us to challenge these people as though we were ordinary, curious folks. You can't mean that. We have a show coming up right now about synthetic biology where engineers are building life forms that are new to existence, new to the history of life. And they're doing it quite aggressively. And we yell at them and we fight with them and we argue with them, and they give right back. But we're trying to model a kind of conversation with important people, powerful people, but particularly knowledgeable people, where we say, you can go up to a person with a lot of knowledge and ask him why. Ask him, how does he know that? Tell him, stop. Ask him why he keeps going and get away with it. And that's important?
- [16:37]
Jad Abumrad
Yep. Also for me, I mean, just to add to that, it's important to me. I mean, I am the child of two scientists. And it's funny, I once tried to interview my mom, and she went into scientist mode. And it was really startling because she would. I mean, my whole life would come home at the dinner table and she's studying intake of fat into cells. That's her thing. And so she'd say, here's how I think it works, Jad. And she'd grab the napkin and like, kind of carve it into a circle, like a cell, and say, here's. Okay, now, this salt shaker, this is a molecule. It's trying to get into the cell. And it's coming, coming, coming, coming, coming. But it needs something to ferry it through the cell wall. So here's the fork. The fork is a protein. It's the protein I study. And it takes the salt shaker, which is the fat, and it ferries it through the cell wall. And she's just like, I don't know what the hell she's talking about, but what I get from her is this, like, excitement. It's a passion. It's just a sense of mystery, of, like, figuring something out about the universe. But then I tried to interview her, and she went into a really sort of careful, mediated scientist way. We're using, like, alpha lipoic acid, really big words. And so for me, it's about challenging people, and it's about challenging people who know, as he was saying. But it's also about presenting science as something which is not inevitable. It is not something where people who are esteemed Sit behind podiums and convey knowledge to the rest of us who know nothing. It's about going into your lab, seeing screwing up, making mistakes, you know, breaking stuff, doing it again and again and again till you get lucky. You know, it's just. It's like anything. It's like.
- [18:11]
Robert Krulwitz
It's like you have to get lucky a lot of times.
- [18:13]
Jad Abumrad
Yeah. So it's a. So for me, there's a double edge to this. Like, you don't. You want to bring them off their podium, but you also want to make them feel flawed and wonderful, you know?
- [18:25]
Robert Krulwitz
Well, we'll take one last question, if you got any. Yeah. How do we pick what to talk about? Well, I don't know exactly. We talk about a lot of things, and then some things stick to the wall. Like we were talking about sperm. We're not sure we're allowed to talk about sperm in public, but sperm has gotten so interesting. Did you know, just recently, in the last few weeks, did you know that the testes of a blue whale that can weigh one test, I mean, that just stops the traffic. So we have to figure out whether we're allowed to. Whether we're allowed to do that. So sometimes we have to, like, sort of test whether it's polite enough. But the other thing is, do we continue to think about it? Does it sort of. Does it stay sticky? And if we keep coming back. I'm sorry. Hey, you're the school where they're vomiting for art out there. So thank you all very, very much for coming. It's been a great, great delight to be here. Thanks.
- [19:28]
Jad Abumrad
I hope you enjoyed the podcast. Thanks to everyone at Oberlin College for the warm homecoming reception. Radiolabs funded in part by the Alfred P. Sloan foundation, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, and the National Science Foundation. I'm Jad Abumrad for Robert Krulwitz, and I take care of.