Speaker 1: Pushkin. Six years ago, before podcasting was even a twinkle
Speaker 1: in my eye, I wrote a screenplay for a TV series.
Speaker 1: It was called Druet Hills, my first and only screenplay.
Speaker 1: I spent a year on it. In the opening scene,
Speaker 1: a battered Honda pulls up to a house on a long,
Speaker 1: leafy street.
Speaker 2: Angela Nation thirty one is behind the wheel, jeans, Afro sunglasses.
Speaker 2: She's beautiful, though trying not to be. The car looks
Speaker 2: like a family's been living in the back seat. She
Speaker 2: pulls up to an immaculate Victorian. A petite, very proper
Speaker 2: African American woman comes out the front door, Ingrid James
Speaker 2: sixty three. She gets in.
Speaker 1: Beak clear, nothing happened with Drewett Hills. I got as
Speaker 1: far as pitching it to a Hollywood studio. I shouldn't
Speaker 1: say who, Well, okay, it was Fox. Imagine a room
Speaker 1: full of TV executives around a table. I talked about
Speaker 1: the big themes, the theories, race, conscience, conspiracies, corruption, blah
Speaker 1: blah blah. I waved my hands in the air for
Speaker 1: a good hour. The room was hushed, and when I
Speaker 1: was done, the executive in charge said, we love it,
Speaker 1: but do you think you could work in a car chase.
Speaker 1: Things went downhill from there. My name is Malcolm Gladwell.
Speaker 1: You're listening to Revisionist History, my podcast about things overlooked
Speaker 1: and misunderstood. This is part one of what will be
Speaker 1: two bonus episodes for the holiday season. I'm going to
Speaker 1: answer your listener questions, riff on things Revisionist History ish,
Speaker 1: and tell random stories, including in part two, what about
Speaker 1: my Dad, another about a famous rapper, and beginning in
Speaker 1: an act of shameless self promotion, with the story of
Speaker 1: my failed screenplay. We brought it to life with the
Speaker 1: help of the Pushkin theatrical players. I promise the point
Speaker 1: of all this will be clear.
Speaker 2: In a moment, Angela looks over at Ingrid season Atlanta
Speaker 2: Hawks cap in the bag by Ingrid's feet.
Speaker 3: Oh, Ingrid a Hawks cap? Wait? You made Wyatt take
Speaker 3: you to a game.
Speaker 2: Ingrid leans forward and pushes the cap down in the
Speaker 2: bag so it's no longer visible. My one indulgence, Angela
Speaker 2: rarely gets the upper hand on Ingrid.
Speaker 3: Do you have one of those big phone number one hands?
Speaker 2: I most certainly do not.
Speaker 3: Will you make buy you big things of popcorn?
Speaker 2: Ingrid shutters involuntarily, then with a mischievous flint. Although I
Speaker 2: did once try out for the Hawk's cheerleading team. What
Speaker 2: it was the seventies. She makes a dismissive move with
Speaker 2: her hand, as if that explains everything. I thought they
Speaker 2: were dances. I did ballet, you know, I didn't realize
Speaker 2: it would be so vulgar. The men play a beautiful game,
Speaker 2: the women shake their bosoms. Angela instinctively does up the
Speaker 2: lower of the two open buttons on her blouse. They
Speaker 2: had a player named John Drew. Oh my Ingrid gazes
Speaker 2: out the window. It's nice to be reminded of those days.
Speaker 1: My screenplay was set in Atlanta. Now why did I
Speaker 1: write a screenplay set in Atlanta? Because I'm obsessed with Atlanta.
Speaker 1: Ask anyone who knows me. I'm always threatening to move there.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 1: People always say such and such as the future of America.
Speaker 1: Texas is the future of America, Florida is the future
Speaker 1: of America. No, no, no. Best case scenario for all
Speaker 1: of us is if Atlanta is the future of America.
Speaker 1: Because Atlanta is the most wonderful mashup of all the
Speaker 1: most wonderful bits and pieces of this country. Birthplace of
Speaker 1: the Civil Rights Movement, Janelle Manet in Wonderland, and Gucci
Speaker 1: Mane and Migos, and basically half the entire hip hop
Speaker 1: world CNN, Jimmy Carter, Stacy Abrams, the best Indian food
Speaker 1: in the US outside of Queen's, the Running Oval at
Speaker 1: Piedmont Park, Little Tart bake Shop, I could go on.
Speaker 1: I was once in my favorite coffee shop in Atlanta
Speaker 1: and realized that around me were a rock band writing lyrics,
Speaker 1: a couple of folks having a Bible study, someone from
Speaker 1: the Mayor's office, and a handful of moms with kids,
Speaker 1: all representing, by my count at least six different ethnicities
Speaker 1: and an age range of maybe seventy. How beautiful is that?
Speaker 1: I love Atlanta? And I thought that if I set
Speaker 1: a TV series in Atlanta and somehow magically it got made,
Speaker 1: then I'd have an excuse to go there all the time.
Speaker 3: How have you been, I'm recovering getting there. I've spent
Speaker 3: seven years buried away day and night. Then one day
Speaker 3: it's over. It's almost like I got a divorce. I'll
Speaker 3: tell you the whole story someday.
Speaker 2: I already know Jesus, I will always watch out for you, my.
Speaker 1: Dear, remember that by the way to break in here.
Speaker 1: This is an allusion to the dark mystery at the
Speaker 1: heart of the story.
Speaker 2: She reaches over and grasps Angela's hand briefly. Ingred is
Speaker 2: not one for prolonged displays of a mother. The two
Speaker 2: of them sit in companionable silence from Grant Park, the
Speaker 2: grittiness of the old fourth ward, finally regal Druid Hills,
Speaker 2: leafy streets, turn of the Sentry Mansions. Ingrid is now
Speaker 2: back to her church lady routine, adjusting her hair in
Speaker 2: the visor mirror, subject closed, we see a big sign
Speaker 2: Emory University Hospital. Angela heads toward the main entrance. Ingrid
Speaker 2: shakes her head. Angela keeps driving around to the loading
Speaker 2: docks at the back. Ingrid smiles at Angela touches her
Speaker 2: arm affectionately as she exits the car. There's something so
Speaker 2: ostentatious about the front door, don't you think?
Speaker 1: Our hero Angela Nation and her mysterious sidekick Ingrid James
Speaker 1: are brilliant scientists on the faculty of the Medical Center
Speaker 1: at Emory University, hence the title Druwood Hills. That's the
Speaker 1: neighborhood in Atlanta, where Emory is now. You may have
Speaker 1: noticed that Emory University is the sponsor of this bonus
Speaker 1: episode of our Visionist History. Emory came to us and
Speaker 1: asked if they could talk about some of the work
Speaker 1: they've been doing during the pandemic. And it's super interesting,
Speaker 1: as you'll hear in a moment. But the offer made
Speaker 1: me happy for more selfish reasons as well. The first
Speaker 1: time I went to Atlanta nearly thirty years ago was
Speaker 1: to visit Emory. I was a science reporter back then
Speaker 1: for the Washington Post, and if you write about American medicine,
Speaker 1: you eventually make the pilgrimage to Emory. Emory is how
Speaker 1: I got obsessed with Atlanta. My disaster of a screenplay
Speaker 1: was a medical mystery set at Emory. I mean, what
Speaker 1: are the odds? How often does life come together so
Speaker 1: beautifully and serendipitously under the sacred umbrella of the four
Speaker 1: h four area code. See here we are Revisionist History
Speaker 1: Bonus Holiday Atlanta Addition Part one. All Right, before we
Speaker 1: go any further, I want to explain why Emory is
Speaker 1: such a magical place for people interested in medicine.
Speaker 5: Healthcare has been part of Emory since the campus moved
Speaker 5: from a small town east of Atlanta to Atlanta in
Speaker 5: about nineteen fifteen, and at that point the Atlanta Medical
Speaker 5: College became part of Emory University as a school of Medicine.
Speaker 1: This is Greg Fenvis, the university's president.
Speaker 5: A decade or so after that. One of the most
Speaker 5: important benefactors for Emory University Robert W. Woodruff.
Speaker 1: He's the Coca Cola guy, right.
Speaker 5: He is the legendary CEO of Coca Cola. But mister Woodruff,
Speaker 5: as we call him here at Emory, loved the rural
Speaker 5: areas in his ranch in South Georgia. Malaria was a
Speaker 5: huge problem, and so Georgia as a state was one
Speaker 5: of the leaders in developing treatments for malaria in the
Speaker 5: early part of the twentieth century. Years later, after World
Speaker 5: War Two, mister Woodroffe was very good friends with Dwight D. Eisenhower.
Speaker 5: Malary had been a big problem in World War Two
Speaker 5: that Eisenhower had had to deal with, and so the
Speaker 5: federal government wanted to establish a research center to solve malaria,
Speaker 5: treat malaria, prevent malaria, and mister Woodroff, through his friendship
Speaker 5: with President Eisenhower had it located on Emory property, which
Speaker 5: became the Center for Disease Control and Prevention that is
Speaker 5: now not only across the street, it's actually on the
Speaker 5: Emory campus. And so that relationship between Emory It's School
Speaker 5: of Medicine and focus on infectious diseases, and the CDC
Speaker 5: has been very, very close since World War Two.
Speaker 1: One of the heroes of the AIDS epidemic was Jim Curran,
Speaker 1: head of the CDC in the nineteen eighties. He's now
Speaker 1: the dean of the Public Health School at Emory. Emory
Speaker 1: was where one of the most important drugs against HIV
Speaker 1: M treva was discovered. When the American medical workers who
Speaker 1: had fallen ill with ebola in Africa a few years
Speaker 1: ago came home to be treated, where did they go
Speaker 1: Emory because Emory was one of the few places set
Speaker 1: up in this country to treat them. Tucked away in
Speaker 1: Druid Hills is a really remarkable place that has played
Speaker 1: a key role in our understanding of infectious diseases for
Speaker 1: seventy five years, which is something to be grateful for,
Speaker 1: especially now. My favorite part of Emory is the Yerkees
Speaker 1: National Primate Research Center, one of the oldest and biggest
Speaker 1: non human research centers in the country. Three thousand non
Speaker 1: human primates and eight thousand rodents eight thousand. Do you
Speaker 1: know what the plot of my screenplay was. Our hero
Speaker 1: Angela was testing an experimental drug for Huntington's disease on
Speaker 1: a specially engineered strain of mice created by her boss,
Speaker 1: Rajen at the Yerkie Center. The whole story was about mice.
Speaker 3: And this.
Speaker 2: Angela opens and adjoining door.
Speaker 3: Is where Rajon keeps his mice.
Speaker 2: In metal cages. We see mouse after mouse, dozens of them,
Speaker 2: moving like old men. Rajon's Huntington's mice. The air is
Speaker 2: filled with a sound of feeble squeaks.
Speaker 3: Rajon is much better with mice than people.
Speaker 1: If there is anyone out there in Movieland who is
Speaker 1: interested in a screenplay about two black women from Atlanta
Speaker 1: trying to cure a deadly disease co starring a room
Speaker 1: full of specially engineered lab mice at the Yerkei Center,
Speaker 1: call me let's make this happen. Okay, Time for the
Speaker 1: listener mailbag. Ryan am asks, if you could have dinner
Speaker 1: with any three people from history, who would they be
Speaker 1: and why I think it would be my great grandmother's.
Speaker 1: I only met one of them, Martha Nation, a very
Speaker 1: regal Jamaican lady who when she died in her late
Speaker 1: nineties had just a few strands of gray hair. She
Speaker 1: was the embodiment of black Don't Crack. But I never
Speaker 1: met the other three. How great would that be? Here's
Speaker 1: a comment from a listener on iTunes, DC Commute. You
Speaker 1: know I read the comments right. DC Commute says, I
Speaker 1: think you should revisit The Obscure Virus Club, Season four,
Speaker 1: episode ten. The recent success of vaccine development stands on
Speaker 1: the shoulders of giants. This is actually a great point
Speaker 1: and it deserves a long answer. Obscure Virus Club, if
Speaker 1: you haven't listened to it was about all group of
Speaker 1: virologists who spent years and years in a scientific wilderness
Speaker 1: studying a group of weird animal viruses that no one
Speaker 1: else thought were even remotely meaningful. They were ridiculed, ostracized.
Speaker 1: Then one day all those naysayers woke up and realized, oh,
Speaker 1: the work these people were doing, often the shadows is
Speaker 1: going to save the world. And if you want to
Speaker 1: know how the Obscure Virus Club saved the world, you'll
Speaker 1: have to listen to the episode because I don't want
Speaker 1: to give away the ending. The point of the episode
Speaker 1: was that's how science works. Everything important and beautiful begins
Speaker 1: years and years earlier with someone's quixotic obsession. And so
Speaker 1: thanks for your comment, DC Commute. This is absolutely the
Speaker 1: case with COVID vaccines as well. There are countless examples.
Speaker 1: But since we're telling Emory stories, let me pick one
Speaker 1: from one of their scientists, a guy named Rama Amara,
Speaker 1: who is so obscure Virus Club. In his case, his
Speaker 1: obsession was with something called the envy a vaccine. This
Speaker 1: is a vaccine made from the pox virus family. A
Speaker 1: version of it has been used as a vaccine against smallpox.
Speaker 1: It's been tweaked so that it can't cause disease anymore,
Speaker 1: but because it still resembles something menacing, the immune system
Speaker 1: goes on high alert the minute it comes across it.
Speaker 1: And the theory that scientists like Amara had was that
Speaker 1: if you tinkered with MVA and customized it, you could
Speaker 1: produce an immune response against other deadly infectious diseases.
Speaker 6: I was working on tuberculosis vaccines and I used to
Speaker 6: go to TV sanitoria to collect samples from TV patients.
Speaker 6: That's when I started seeing HIV infection.
Speaker 1: That's amara So then.
Speaker 6: I developed interest in also developing a HIV vaccine. That's
Speaker 6: how I came to Emory to.
Speaker 1: Work on that problem. He moves to Atlanta to Emory,
Speaker 1: and just to put this in perspective, he moves to
Speaker 1: Atlanta in the year two thousand. So for twenty years
Speaker 1: his lab works on the problem, learning everything they can
Speaker 1: about how this particular vaccine, emery MVA, interacts with the
Speaker 1: body's immune system. You've been working on this vaccine for
Speaker 1: this model for twenty years, as yet nothing had reached
Speaker 1: the market. Did you get discouraged? Did you wonder whether anything,
Speaker 1: whether this research was ever going to bear fruit.
Speaker 6: Personally, I was not, but I have heard a lot
Speaker 6: of times from my friends that you know, this is
Speaker 6: going to be a long road, maybe you should start
Speaker 6: working on other vaccines as well, so that there is
Speaker 6: some result at the end. So I was never going
Speaker 6: to leave the HIV vaccine at foot, but I did
Speaker 6: think about branching into other vaccines as well. So I
Speaker 6: was thinking too. We started actually working on vaccines for
Speaker 6: TB so that was that's where I started it's again
Speaker 6: a hard target.
Speaker 1: So you picked two of the toughest targets out there. Yes,
Speaker 1: you're someone with a you're a glutton for punishment.
Speaker 6: That's true. So but I wanted to tackle something really challenging.
Speaker 1: And then what happens and we had.
Speaker 6: A meeting in the center at the Erkes Primate Center,
Speaker 6: and all our colleagues got together and we were talking
Speaker 6: about what we should be doing. I think that was
Speaker 6: towards the end of February or beginning of March. I
Speaker 6: think then at that point it, you know, I came
Speaker 6: back to my lab from the meeting. Then I was
Speaker 6: discussing with my people. You know, it would be good
Speaker 6: to make a vaccine, but do you think we have
Speaker 6: the band right now? And then they all said no, no, no,
Speaker 6: we really want to do it, and they're also excited.
Speaker 6: Everybody wanted to do it, so that gave me a
Speaker 6: lot of push and then I decided that we should
Speaker 6: do one. We should make one.
Speaker 1: And what the idea was that if you'd made such
Speaker 1: progress against HIV and HIV is much harder target, the
Speaker 1: notion was, well, we should be able to make really
Speaker 1: good inroads against COVID. Was that the thinking.
Speaker 6: Yes, that's the thinking.
Speaker 1: HIV is hard to make a vaccine against because it
Speaker 1: mutates like crazy, So you have to design a vaccine
Speaker 1: that can handle all these constant changes. And HIV integrates
Speaker 1: into your body's DNA, it literally becomes part of you.
Speaker 1: HIV is mount Everest. Then COVID comes along and it
Speaker 1: doesn't mutate as much, doesn't hide in your DNA, and
Speaker 1: Amara realizes, I can make my vaccine climb that mountain.
Speaker 1: Had you not done those two decades of prepper work,
Speaker 1: you would not have been in a position to jump on.
Speaker 1: You wouldn't know whether MVA was a safe and effective
Speaker 1: vehicle for COVID. If you hadn't done all of that
Speaker 1: preparatory work with.
Speaker 6: HIVA, no, I would not have any clue.
Speaker 1: Now, will the Emory MVA vaccine turn out to be
Speaker 1: effective against COVID? We don't know yet. It's still being tested.
Speaker 1: At best, it's a second generation vaccine after the first
Speaker 1: wave of vaccines that were created in record time. But
Speaker 1: if the Emory vaccine works, it will be a crucial addition.
Speaker 1: The first wave vaccines are all super specific. They work
Speaker 1: against COVID nineteen. This COVID, the Emory MVA vaccine would
Speaker 1: be different because it triggers a much broader immune response.
Speaker 1: It could work against news strains of COVID. It could
Speaker 1: conceivably be used as a booster to extend your initial
Speaker 1: vaccine immunity. Here's my point. The lone success story in
Speaker 1: the pandemic thus far has been medical science. We have
Speaker 1: vaccines available just over a year after the pandemic started.
Speaker 1: That's bananas. But we shouldn't draw the lesson from this
Speaker 1: that science is fast. Science only looks fast. It's actually
Speaker 1: really slow. The quote unquote sudden development usually has twenty
Speaker 1: years of work behind it, and you can't order up
Speaker 1: progress because sometimes the magic happens only at the end
Speaker 1: of a wandering, serendipitous journey that may have looked like
Speaker 1: folly before it became a success. And what all this
Speaker 1: means is that progress doesn't come from ideas. It comes
Speaker 1: from places where smart people have the time and freedom
Speaker 1: to wander around and make mistakes and pursue interesting ideas
Speaker 1: that one day may end up saving your life. Well,
Speaker 1: thank you so much and good luck, Thank you much.
Speaker 1: We're all cheering for you.
Speaker 6: Thank you, thank you very much.
Speaker 1: Okay, we're back with more of your insightful listener questions.
Speaker 1: Marianna Missic at Mariana Missic writes, do you actually watch Friends?
Speaker 1: This is actually a question related to my book Talking
Speaker 1: to Strangers, which had an entire chapter on friends. And
Speaker 1: in answer to the question, of course I do. And
Speaker 1: while we're on the subject of friends, let me tell
Speaker 1: you the following true story. Now you need to know
Speaker 1: something about me before I start. I'm not good with faces.
Speaker 1: I usually identify people by the way they walk or
Speaker 1: how they dress. So this is years ago. I'm in
Speaker 1: a coffee shop in Miami, working away. Woman sits down
Speaker 1: next to me, leans over and says, super friendly, Hey,
Speaker 1: what's that you're eating? Is that good? And I'm working
Speaker 1: so I kind of grunt and ignore her. Five minutes
Speaker 1: past and I think, you know, she was really attractive.
Speaker 1: Five more minutes past, and I think you know, she
Speaker 1: looked really familiar. Five more minutes past and I'm like,
Speaker 1: oh my god, Jennifer Aniston. By that time she was gone.
Speaker 1: My big chance at tabloid immortality, and I blew it. Next.
Speaker 1: Courtney Miller at co A, Miller asks, is Canada better
Speaker 1: than America? Is even a question I actually thought of?
Speaker 1: This a lot this past summer, during all the George
Speaker 1: Floyd protests. You know how police departments all have slogans.
Speaker 1: In Los Angeles, the LAPD motto is to protect and
Speaker 1: to serve. In New York City it's fidelis ad mortem,
Speaker 1: faithful unto death. You know what it is in my
Speaker 1: hometown in Ontario, people helping people. Now, I don't want
Speaker 1: to read too much into the meaning of mottoes, but
Speaker 1: if you live in a society struggling with persistent problems
Speaker 1: of police violence, would you be happier with the police
Speaker 1: department that thinks of itself as a quasi military force
Speaker 1: engaged in life or desk struggles, or one that chooses
Speaker 1: to self identify as people helping people. I don't know.
Speaker 1: Mitch at Papa MITCHI asks who's smarter, you or Michael
Speaker 1: Lewis Michael is. It's not even close. Let's put it
Speaker 1: this way. If you said to me, would I trade
Speaker 1: Michael's literary output for my own? Would I do it?
Speaker 1: And the answer is in a heartbeat, I actually think
Speaker 1: that The blind Side is a perfect book. I would
Speaker 1: have retired after writing that and his podcast Against the Rules,
Speaker 1: which he does for pushkin, I might add, is so good.
Speaker 1: This is actually a great time for me to give
Speaker 1: you my grand unified theory of Michael Lewis. Ready, it's
Speaker 1: that virtually every one of his books is a biblical allegory.
Speaker 1: It's why they strike such a chord. So Liar's Poker,
Speaker 1: his book about being a young naive college grad in
Speaker 1: the heart of a hostile Wall Street bank. That's Daniel
Speaker 1: in the Lionstan The blind Side is Easy. A couple
Speaker 1: rescues a young boy literally as he is walking alone
Speaker 1: and neglected by the side of the road. That's the
Speaker 1: Good Samaritan Flashboys, his book about a group of people
Speaker 1: trying to clean up crooked trading on Wall Street. That's
Speaker 1: Jesus and the money Changers. My father's temple is a
Speaker 1: house of prayer. You have turned it into a nest
Speaker 1: of thieves. Moneyball, which is about a group of baseball
Speaker 1: executives finding value in a group of players others have overlooked.
Speaker 1: I mean, come on, that's Jesus and Mary Magdalen, the
Speaker 1: prostitute and the outcast he drafts onto his team. Just
Speaker 1: so you know, I once ran this theory by Michael Lewis,
Speaker 1: and he looked at me like I was crazy. This
Speaker 1: next one is actually more of a comment than a
Speaker 1: question from Ryan x J nine hundred on iTunes boring
Speaker 1: two stars. I tried, it just didn't interest me. Scroll
Speaker 1: through the episode titles and see for yourself. It's kind
Speaker 1: of random and nothing all too interesting. Mah wait, isn't
Speaker 1: it's kind of random? A compliment I live for kind
Speaker 1: of random, Ryan, dude, lighten up? Okay? Final question from
Speaker 1: Twitter from normal guy one. What show idea that didn't
Speaker 1: make the cut was most surprising? Also? What idea ended
Speaker 1: up being different than expected? Well, it was this, Wait, Casey,
Speaker 1: can you play that song for us? Is it going
Speaker 1: to be two?
Speaker 7: Let's say? Okay, okay, Well we'll see if this happens.
Speaker 8: She grew up playing Calgary girl in Reilroadtown.
Speaker 7: Dream and she'd see oh shoot, hold on.
Speaker 1: I went to Nashville when I was reporting the final
Speaker 1: episode of season three, which may be my favorite ever
Speaker 1: analysis parapraxis Elvis. It's about the one song Elvis couldn't sing,
Speaker 1: and I arranged for a session musician to do a
Speaker 1: version of Elvis's song for me, very straightforward. So this musician,
Speaker 1: Casey Bowles, shows up. We start talking and eventually I
Speaker 1: persuaded her to sing one of her own songs, and
Speaker 1: it's one of the most magical moments I think in
Speaker 1: all of Revision's history.
Speaker 8: Dream and she'd see Hollywood Sunday, she do some distant
Speaker 8: Friday night at just right.
Speaker 4: Fate would come in.
Speaker 1: And carry her away.
Speaker 8: It's far shake cut safe from there.
Speaker 1: I never thought when I started this podcast that it
Speaker 1: would be a way of making friends, but it has. Anyway.
Speaker 1: I've stayed in touch with Casey and she's made some
Speaker 1: new music, including a song for kids called Dare to
Speaker 1: Be Me, which is really really lovely.
Speaker 4: Dare to be Dead to be Dare to be.
Speaker 1: Stay tuned to this feed for another bonus episode because
Speaker 1: I can't quit you, Atlanta, but for now, this is
Speaker 1: what I'd like to leave you with, Casey Bowls, Dare
Speaker 1: to Be Me. Happy Holidays everyone, well of again, said Zaga.
Speaker 3: Back would dance a.
Speaker 8: Roundside of the papering of Lion Anna Scotforto pigeonsality and
Speaker 8: sergic composition, no carbon copy, afta.
Speaker 1: Money relaize my amazing when the speed of a Varri
Speaker 1: Origin's history is produced by Mia Label and Lee m
Speaker 1: Gistu with Jacob Smith, Elouise Linton, Kobe Guildford and Anna
Speaker 1: nim Our. Editor is Julia Barton. Original scoring by Luis Skierra,
Speaker 1: mastering by Flan Williams. Special thanks to the Pushkin Crew
Speaker 1: head Fame Carly Migliori, Maya Knigg, Maggie Taylor, Eric Sandler,
Speaker 1: Jason Gambrel, Emily Rostek and of course el Hafe Jacob Weisberg.
Speaker 1: And special thanks to our actors. Angel Nation was played
Speaker 1: by Miriam Victorias Simmons, Ingrid James and the narrator were
Speaker 1: all played by Anto Jacob, who actually has a short
Speaker 1: film out called Love and Submission which you should look up.
Speaker 1: And finally, extra special things to Emory University Greg Friends, Rama, Amara,
Speaker 1: Robert Goddard and my mysterious behind the scenes friend Dan
Speaker 1: who made this happen. Oh and will someone please buy
Speaker 1: my screenplay please? I'm Malcolm Grado.
Speaker 4: To me, damn, damn to me, damn to me, to me,
Speaker 4: to me, damn to me.
Speaker 2: Interior Doctors, Emory University Hospital Day. An elderly African American
Speaker 2: woman sits alone. Eden Cummings seventy six is dressed as
Speaker 2: if for church, blue dress, pearls, her hair is all gray.
Speaker 2: She's reading Brown Face, Big Master. The door opens in
Speaker 2: walks Angela Nation, reviewing a clipboard in her hand. Nurves,
Speaker 2: can you tell me when the doctor gets here? Angela stops.
Speaker 2: She turns to face Eden, and for a long tense moment,
Speaker 2: their eyes lock.
Speaker 9: They break into peals of laughter. You must get that lot,
Speaker 9: not as much as you do.
Speaker 2: Eden nods her head slowly.
Speaker 3: How is Mike.
Speaker 2: He drove to the supermarket last week and turned left
Speaker 2: out the driveway instead of right. He's made that term
Speaker 2: for forty years. It's time to take away its keys.
Speaker 3: He's eighty four.
Speaker 2: He's eighty four. Angela says nothing. She waits for Eden
Speaker 2: to speak again. Why did you want me to come
Speaker 2: in by myself? Doctor Bennett always had us come in together.
Speaker 3: I know what doctor Cole did, but you're stuck with
Speaker 3: me now. If Mike comes here, the optimologists will get
Speaker 3: all worked up about his glyocoma, give him drops which
Speaker 3: will irritate his eyes, even though he's ten years before
Speaker 3: that becomes a problem. The cardiologists will tell him to
Speaker 3: change his diet and eat things that he's hated his
Speaker 3: entire life, and I'll diagnose him with early stage Alzheimer's,
Speaker 3: which will turn him from a human being into a patient.
Speaker 3: He's eighty four.
Speaker 2: Eden is becoming emotional and trying her best to hide it.
Speaker 2: Angela waits, lets her regain her composure.
Speaker 3: Are the two of you happy eating nods? How are
Speaker 3: the grandkids good?
Speaker 2: Eating nods?
Speaker 3: You don't need me, not yet.
Speaker 2: She escorts Eden to the door, sits back down at
Speaker 2: her desk, takes out an enormous ham sandwich in a
Speaker 2: bag of potato chips, and painstakingly places the contents of
Speaker 2: the bag, chip by chip between the two slices. Then
Speaker 2: she takes out her cellphone, takes a picture of the
Speaker 2: fortified sandwich and posts it to her Instagram