A Twitterscript with Gordon Hempton

by Trent Gilliss, senior editor

Gordon HemptonOn March 7, 2012, the audio ecologist and “soundtracker” Gordon Hempton found his way to a comfy-quiet public radio studio in Seattle to speak with our host, Krista Tippett, via ISDN line. We live-tweeted some of the best verbal nuggets from this conversation. What are your favorites?

Christian Wiman: A Twitterscript

~Trent Gilliss, senior editor

Storyteller Kevin Kling: A Twitterscript

by Susan Leem, associate producer

Kevin KlingKevin Kling is “part funny guy, part poet and playwright, part wise man.” And, we here at On Being were delighted to have the playwright and storyteller in our studios to share his life lessons and experiences with us.

On February 9, we live-tweeted highlights of his  interview with Krista Tippett and have aggregated them below for those who weren’t able to follow along. Follow us next time at @BeingTweets.

For those not familiar with Kevin Kling, he is a prolific writer, performer, and a nationally recognized artist.  He may be best known for his storytelling and commentaries at National Public Radio. With humanity and wit, Kling describes life growing up in the Midwest with his congenital birth defect, and how he’s been changed after surviving a near-fatal motorcycle accident.

  1. Kevin Kling is in the room now (1pm CST - 2:30pm). Please join our live video stream and chat with us at http://bit.ly/bmE6vj [9 Feb, 1:00 PM]
  2. “I was always blessed to be around good storytellers.” ~Kevin Kling http://bit.ly/bmE6vj [9 Feb, 1:11 PM]
  3. “I still think of spirit through the breath.” ~Kevin Kling http://bit.ly/bmE6vj [9 Feb, 1:12 PM]
  4. “Humor is a way to establish trust.” ~Kevin Kling http://bit.ly/bmE6vj [9 Feb, 1:14 PM]
  5. “For the rest of my life I will have a foot in another world.” ~Kevin Kling, on living after a motorcycle accident http://bit.ly/bmE6vj [9 Feb, 1:19 PM]
  6. “Shakespeare could get pretty folksy.” ~Kevin Kling http://bit.ly/bmE6vj [9 Feb, 1:20 PM]
  7. “Compassion can have a shelf life.” ~Kevin Kling http://bit.ly/bmE6vj [9 Feb, 1:23 PM]
  8. “When you are born w/ loss, you grow from it. When you experience loss later in life, you grow toward it.” ~Kevin Kling http://bit.ly/bmE6vj [9 Feb, 1:29 PM]
  9. “There are blessings in my curses every day, even today.” ~Kevin Kling http://bit.ly/bmE6vj  [9 Feb, 1:37 PM]
  10. “[A good cry] is like an inward sauna.” ~Kevin Kling http://bit.ly/bmE6vj [9 Feb, 1:39 PM]
  11. “With every discovery, a million more mysteries come up. It’s more important to find solace in a mystery.” ~Kevin Kling http://bit.ly/bmE6vj [9 Feb, 1:43 PM]
  12. “Sense of humor is not only regional, it’s weather-driven.” ~Kevin Kling http://bit.ly/bmE6vj [9 Feb, 1:46 PM]
  13. “We need to rewrite our stories so we can sleep at night” ~Kevin Kling http://bit.ly/bmE6vj [9 Feb, 1:58 PM]
  14. “Nobody’s an artist on purpose.” ~Kevin Kling http://bit.ly/bmE6vj [9 Feb, 2:00 PM]

String Theorist S. James Gates: A Twitterscript

by Susan Leem, associate producer

S. James GatesS. James Gates is known for pioneering supersymmetry, a theory that could “explain some of the greatest mysteries of the universe, such as how elementary particles got their mass.” There’s actually a symmetry between these two fundamental entities that compose the universe, invisible partners with names like selectrons (partner of electrons) and photinos (partner of photons). Gates shares with us a scientist’s rich, connected way of looking at the universe, “where we become essential to the universe.”

We live-tweeted highlights of this 90-minute conversation and have aggregated them below for those who weren’t able to follow along. Look for our show with him in the coming weeks, and follow us next time at @BeingTweets.

  1. “My understanding of the word ‘space’ is so different than my understanding of space at age 4 or age 8.” -Professor James Gates 1:10 PM, 25 Jan 

  2. “I ended up at MIT which itself was a dream…a school where you studied the good stuff.” -Professor James Gates 1:14 PM, 25 Jan 

  3. “It’s about balance…we humans, it seems like we’re coded to look for symmetry.” - Professor James Gates 1:19 PM, 25 Jan 

  4. “It shows up in our art and music, but if the world were perfectly symmetrical we could not exist.” -Professor James Gates 1:25 PM, 25 Jan 

  5. “The Higgs particle we believe is responsible for the creation of mass for everything else in the universe.” -James Gates 1:26 PM, 25 Jan 

  6. “With string theory we have a view of the universe where we become essential to the universe.” -Professor James Gates 1:30 PM, 25 Jan 

  7. “We become part and parcel of what our universe is in a way I’ve never seen done in science before.” -Professor James Gates 1:31 PM, 25 Jan 

  8. “In many cultures the act of naming is regarded as a very powerful thing.” –Professor James Gates 1:33 PM, 25 Jan 

  9. “If science conjures, it’s when we get a clear picture of something we didn’t know and give it a name.” -Professor James Gates 1:35 PM, 25 Jan 

  10. “Math is an extrasensory organ for those who learn to use it that way.” -Professor James Gates 1:36 PM, 25 Jan 

  11.  “I’m a hidden-dimensional refusenik.” -Professor James Gates 1:38 PM, 25 Jan 

  12. “It’s almost like the equations are trying to tell you a story.” -Professor James Gates 1:40 PM, 25 Jan

  13. “When you do the calculations, it seems there’s an imperative to follow the path.” -Professor James Gates 1:41 PM, 25 Jan

  14. “We’re not trying to find solutions, we’re looking at the structures of the equations…like DNA.” -Professor James Gates 1:47 PM, 25 Jan

  15. “Adinkras have existed in West African cultures for a very long time. They are symbols that have hidden meaning.” -James Gates 1:54 PM, 25 Jan

  16. An Adinkra: “He who does not know can become knowing by education.”
    -Professor James Gates 1:56 PM, 25 Jan

  17. “A large fraction of the fundamental science done at this point has been inward-looking.” -Professor James Gates 2:01 PM, 25 Jan

  18. “Science in my experience does not permit us the illusion of certainty.” -Professor S. James Gates 2:10 PM, 25 Jan
  19. “We are forced by the structure of science to recognize human fallibility, human limits.” -Professor S. James Gates 2:12 PM, 25 Jan
  20. “By embracing our limits, by embracing our fallibility we become more knowledgeable.” -Professor and physicist S. James Gates 2:14 PM, 25 Jan

Photo of S. James Gates by John Consoli/University of Maryland

Meredith Monk: A Twitterscript

by Susan Leem, associate producer

Meredith MonkLast Wednesday, the artist Meredith Monk joined our host Krista Tippett for a 90-minute conversation via ISDN. We live-tweeted highlights of this interview and have aggregated them below for those who weren’t able to follow along. Look for our show with her in the coming weeks, and follow us next time at @BeingTweets.

For those not familiar with Ms. Monk, she is an American composer, performer, director, vocalist, filmmaker, and choreographer who has been creating multi-disciplinary works since the 1960s. She is best known for her vocal innovations, including a wide range of extended techniques.

Also a practicing Buddhist, she is a member of the Shambala sangha. Her most recent album, Songs of Ascension, is inspired by a Zen abbot who described Songs of Ascents — songs which Jews were believed to have sung in biblical times on pilgrimages to Jerusalem and to the top of Mount Zion.

  1. For the next 90 minutes we’ll be live-tweeting Krista’s interview with composer/vocalist/performer/ Meredith Monk —@meredith_monk 1:02 PM 11 Jan
  2. “Singing was a natural kind of language for me. I read music before I read words.” —@meredith_monk 1:10 PM 11 Jan
  3. “I think of the voice as a very kinetic instrument. I think of the body and the voice as one.” —@meredith_monk 1:12 PM 11 Jan
  4. “Auditions are hard on the human level…I was looking for people who could sing well, and had a radiant generosity to them.” —@meredith_monk 1:14 PM 11 Jan
  5. “Auditions are hard at the human level. I like to give back to people.” —@meredith_monk 1:15 PM 11 Jan
  6. “I’m really trying to do something that makes the voice universal and transcendent.” —@meredith_monk 1:16 PM 11 Jan
  7. “I had the revelation that the voice could be like the body. Like the spine, it could turn, it could fall…” —@meredith_monk 1:20 PM 11 Jan
  8. “I had the sensation of something ancient, primal, visceral, preverbal expression.” —@meredith_monk 1:21 PM 11 Jan
  9. “As an artist so interested in uncovering the invisible, mysterious, inexplicable, things we can’t label.” —@meredith_monk 1:24 PM 11 Jan
  10. “I was thinking of the voice as the messenger of my soul.” —@meredith_monk 1:24 PM 11 Jan
  11. “Performing is such an amazing template of human behavior: of generosity, sensitive to the environment and to other people.” —@meredith_monk 1:28 PM 11 Jan
  12. “We’re taught to be distracted and diverted from feeling the good pain as in open-heartedness of the moment.” —@meredith_monk 1:30 PM 11 Jan
  13. “I wanted to spend the rest of my life making pieces about things you can’t make pieces about.” —@meredith_monk 1:34 PM 11 Jan
  14. “The act of making artwork was the act of contemplating something.” —@meredith_monk 1:35 PM 11 Jan
  15. “How do we spend time on this planet? How do you do work that’s of benefit?” —@meredith_monk 1:35 PM 11 Jan
  16. “Why does worship always go up? There’s this idea of heaven going up.” —@meredith_monk 1:38 PM 11 Jan
  17. “In the Buddhist tradition there’s circumambulation, that’s a different form, going around.” —@meredith_monk 1:39 PM 11 Jan
  18. “I love the idea of working with strings, the bowing arm is so much like the breath.” —@meredith_monk 1:40 PM 11 Jan
  19. “Maybe I should’ve called it ‘Songs of Going Up and Down’” —@meredith_monk on her new work “Songs of Ascension” 1:43 PM 11 Jan
  20. “Play is something to really think about. That sense of playfulness is another aspect of being alive, awake.” —@meredith_monk 1:45 PM 11 Jan
  21. “When it comes down to it, you leave love behind…the Beatles had it right.” —@meredith_monk 1: 48 PM 11 Jan
  22. “If I do use words, they’re used more abstractly…The word dissolves into pure sound.” —@meredith_monk on song writing 1:55 PM 11 Jan
  23. “The older I get, the simpler the work gets…the most essential is what reaches people the most.” —@meredith_monk 2:00 PM 11 Jan
  24. “Curiosity is a great antidote to fear.” —@meredith_monk 2:00 PM 11 Jan
  25. “All of us as human beings are part of the world vocal family.” —@meredith_monk 2:04 PM 11 Jan
  26. “The human voice is the original instrument. You’re going back to the beginnings of utterance…The memory of being a human being.” —@meredith_monk 2:04 PM 11 Jan
  27. “Most of my songs deal with emotion…between the cracks of emotion.” —@meredith_monk 2:10 PM 11 Jan
  28. “It was like two young children just loving each other so much” —@meredith_monk on singing for the Dalai Lama 2:16 PM 11 Jan
  29. @rosannecash - Meredith Monk (@meredith_monk) loved your interview with Krista and would love to meet you! 2:19 PM 11 Jan

Photo of Meredith Monk by Jesse Frohman.

Judy Atkinson: A Twitterscript

by Anne Breckbill, associate web developer

On August 10, 2010, Krista Tippett interviewed Australian Judy Atkinson, an expert in violence, trauma/healing, and aboriginal people. The following is the complete Twitterscript from that interview.

  1. Krista is starting to interview Australian Judy Atkinson, an expert in violence, trauma and healing, and aboriginals.
  2. Judy Atkinson talks about her history-the story of the Hornet Bank massacre, one of many in Australia during colonization http://is.gd/ecaKr
  3. “A symptom of trauma is to act out — what’s gotten into the deepest part of the soul has to come out again.” — Judy Atkinson
  4. “The middle of the cyclone feels safe, but it’s still moving. You have to decide to move through it to come out the other side.”
  5. “Cultural art/dance is about taking the pain of human existence and recycling it so when we emerge we become strong…” — Judy Atkinson
  6. “As I think and talk to you I’m creating a future. If I talk to you with anger, distress…then I take that into my future.” — Judy Atkinson
  7. Judy Atkinson speaks of discovering Dadirri - Aboriginal deep listening, awareness, and contemplation. http://is.gd/eccs8
  8. “We have to be able to put our hands out to each other, sit with each other, and not push away the stories that need to be told.” — Judy Atkinson
  9. “Respond when a person asks for help because that’s the best time you can help a person or community.” — Judy Atkinson on helping others
  10. “The more we listen to each other with real intent, the more we understand the richness in our souls that we can share with others.” — Judy Atkinson
  11. “It’s from the depths of our pain that we grow — it’s not when everything’s fine and hunky-dory.” — Judy Atkinson on sitting with pain
  12. “As we make sense of our [pain] stories, the stories change and we transcend them.” — Judy Atkinson

Joanna Brooks: a Twitterscript

by Susan Leem, associate producer

Joanna BrooksJoanna Brooks describes herself as an unorthodox Mormon who continues to practice her faith from inside the tradition. She’s a literature professor, journalist at Religion Dispatches, and blogger at Ask Mormon Girl. And Politico named her as one of “50 politicos to watch” as many Americans experience this so-called “Mormon moment” of national politics. 

We live-tweeted highlights of this 75-minute conversation and have aggregated them below for those who weren’t able to follow along. Follow us next time at @BeingTweets and starting Thursday, October 20th, look for the produced show via our podcast or on your local public radio station:

  1. “My ancestors, my father’s mother was an Okie who went to pick cotton in Arizona, where they found the church. ” -Joanna Brooks 1:04 PM Oct 6th
  2. “Mormonism was my whole world, my whole imagination, (it) profoundly shaped what my goals should be as a human being.” -@askmormongirl 1:05 PM Oct 6th
  3. “Our bibles are fatter! We’re taught to memorize, study and underline, pursuit of knowledge…an important part of Mormon culture.”-J.Brooks 1:12 PM Oct 6th
  4. “It’s important to understand that the roots of Mormonism are firmly embedded in American Protestantism.” -Joanna Brooks @askmormongirl  1:13 PM Oct 6th
  5. “We (Mormons) were an exceptionally innovative strand of a desire to revive and restore Christianity.” -@askmormongirl Joanna Brooks 1:16 PM Oct 6th
  6. “Mormons view the family as the model for our eternities.” -@askmormongirl Joanna Brooks 1:25 PM Oct 6th
  7. “As we gain experience here on Earth the goal is to learn enough to become peers with God.” -Joanna Brooks 1:26 PM Oct 6th
  8. “We are each responsible for receiving inspiration to guide our lives.” -Joanna Brooks @askmormongirl 1:31 PM Oct 6th
  9. “Not all of us are correlated Mormons, and experience this tradition the same way.” -Joanna Brooks @askmormongirl 1:36 PM Oct 6th
  10. “The church hasn’t excommunicated people since the early 90s…(but) it was chilling.” -Joanna Brooks @askmormongirl 1:37 PM Oct 6th
  11. “There are so many people hungry to claim a place they can feel good about in this rich, powerful religious tradition.” -@askmormongirl 1:39 PM Oct 6th
  12. “There are many of us [non-Orthodox Mormons] who run the tapes of our excommunications in our heads.” ~Joanna Brooks (@askmormongirl) 1:43 PM Oct 6th
  13. “The experience of reexamining the foundations of your faith can be nurturing.” -Joanna Brooks @askmormongirl 1:44 PM Oct 6th
  14. “Mormonism is capable of sustaining nuance.” -Joanna Brooks 1:44 PM Oct 6th
  15. “Marriage has a very specific theology in Mormonism. My choice to marry outside the faith was devastating to my parents.” @askmormongirl 1:47 PM Oct 6th
  16. “Every parenting decision has the weight of God-hood on it.” -Joanna Brooks @askmormongirl 1:48 PM Oct 6th
  17. “Write anything about Mormonism for the public and at least 30 commentators are going to say underwear, underwear underwear!”~@askmormongirl 1:57 PM Oct 6th
  18. “How many jokes will they make about Mormon underwear on late night television?”~Joanna Brooks @askmormongirl on 2012 Presidential coverage 2:00 PM Oct 6th
  19. “My people were scraping by in Southern Idaho - theirs were at the center.” @askmormongirl on Romney and Huntsman’s elite Mormon roots. 2:04 PM Oct 6th
  20. “There’s a lot of flavors of Judaism. Mormonism - allegedly you’re either in or your out.” ~Joanna Brooks (@askmormongirl) 2:08 PM Oct 6th
  21. “Obedience and conscience are issues that every thoughtful Mormon has to deal with.” ~Joanna Brooks (@askmormongirl) 2:09 PM Oct 6th
  22. “No one ever asks to have a writer in their family.” ~Joanna Brooks (@askmormongirl) 2:10 PM Oct 6th
  23. “Mormons love to cry…Mormons are really waterworks.” ~Joanna Brooks (@askmormongirl) 2:16 PM Oct 6th
  24. An absolute pleasure, Joanna! RT @askmormongirl thanks for having me, krista. Thanks for making real space for the humanity of Mormonism. 2:33 PM Oct 6th

Twitterscript of Jane Gross, a “Dear Abby” of Caregiving

by Susan Leem, associate producer

Krista brought Jane Gross to our attention at our weekly Monday staff meeting as someone who knows aging intimately from the “far shore of caregiving.”

This Pulitzer-nominated journalist developed her expertise on caregiving and aging not just vocationally, but through living this experience with her elderly mother in her final years.

She started The New Old Age blog for The New York Times and shared her most joyful moments and unexpected insights from role reversals of “becoming my mother’s mother” to learning how to collaborate with her adult sibling. She also has a book called A Bittersweet Season: Caring for Our Aging Parents and Ourselves.

Putting words around end-of-life issues is such a difficult task that, even in our tweets, it became difficult to substitute the words “death,” “dying,” or “aging”  literally when she used demonstratives like “this” and “that” to represent those ideas in conversation.

We live-tweeted highlights of this 90-minute conversation, which we’re aggregating and reposting for those who weren’t able to follow along. Follow us next time at @BeingTweets:

  1. @Janegross settling in at the mic as Krista begins her interview! 15 Jun
  2. “I don’t even remember SEEING old people when I was growing up.” -author Jane Gross 15 Jun
  3. “Very few people tell you along the way that just because you CAN fix X or Y doesn’t mean that you should.” -Jane Gross 15 Jun
  4. “My mother and I had a difficult relationship. I didn’t race to the loving caregiver’s role with an open heart.” -author Jane Gross 15 Jun
  5. “It kicks up all the dust of childhood, everyone becomes who they were when they were 10.” -Jane Gross on the stress of caregiving 15 Jun
  6. “(My brother and I) thought the faster we moved, the faster we could get back to what our lives were like before.” -Jane Gross 15 Jun
  7. “Most of us are more afraid of the process (of dying) than the fact.” -author Jane Gross 15 Jun
  8. “The idea of how to get through this by yourself makes my hair stand up.” -Jane Gross 15 Jun 
  9. “It’s pretty likely gonna be a friend (to take care of me at the end of my life).” -Jane Gross 15 Jun
  10. “My only personal solution to this is to be very conservative on the financial side. I don’t have children to pick up the slack.”-J.G. 15 Jun
  11. “I’m not sure it’s as bad when it actually happens than to watch it happen.” -Jane Gross on aging. 15 Jun
  12. “Rather than squeeze your eyes shut, you decide that there’s something interesting about it in the kind of spiritual life cycle sense.”-JG 15 Jun
  13. “One of the great gifts of being a journalist is you get to poke around at ‘these’ things before they’re your things.”-Jane Gross 15 Jun
  14. “I have seen what courage can be when there is no hope.” -May Sarton in Jane Gross’s “Bittersweet Season” 15 Jun
  15. “You find out what you’re made of. If there’s any advantage to having a long slow dying its the time to get things right.”-Jane Gross 15 Jun

Photo by Michael Lionstar.

A Twitterscript of Lord Martin Rees Interview

by Susan Leem, associate producer and Trent Gilliss, senior editor

Lord Martin ReesProfessor Rees gives The Reith Lectures 2010 (photo: The Reith Lectures/Flickr, cc by-nc-nd 2.0)

Early Monday morning, Krista interviewed eminent astronomer Lord Martin Rees, who TED describes as one of the “key thinkers on the future of humanity in the cosmos.”

Rees’ calls for peaceful coexistence between believers and non-believers has made waves among atheists. He raised more hackles recently by accepting this year’s Templeton Prize (joining the ranks of past winners Mother Teresa, John Polkinghorne, and Billy Graham). He has one foot in each world as an atheist who is devoted to the cultural, “tribal” experience of attending church.

As a highly credentialed scientist, Lord Rees has studied and pondered the mysteries of black holes and separate universes, but what placed him on our radar is his concern for science’s impacts on human beings. He is a rare individual in that his sense of mystery and wonder for distant worlds and other forms of life doesn’t eclipse his awe of humankind.

He argues that even science is not unassailable, and its truths can be quite difficult to grasp. In fact, the mere questions that scientists ask today could not have even been imagined 30 years ago.

We live-tweeted highlights of this 90-minute conversation, which we’re aggregating and reposting for those who weren’t able to follow along. Follow us next time at @BeingTweets:

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