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hi everyone I'm Jim Ryan let me begin by wishing all of you a Happy Mother's Day
and welcome to episode 7 of digital Arts on the Hill we are now almost two months
into this and I hope you've been enjoying it as much as I have the
opening piece was a quartet that featured among others our very own Dan Sender
a member of our music faculty coming up you're going to hear some
firsts on the show a rock and roll performance an organ piece and a
dramatic reading by UVA alum and actor Jason George of Grey's Anatomy and
one quick note we'll be taking a break next week because we're hosting a
virtual celebration of the class of 2020 but I will tell you that that
celebration will feature a couple of musical pieces that you will not want to
miss until then happy Mother's Day again be well and I hope you enjoy the show
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Thank You Virginia Women's Chorus by the way do you guys all know who rocks? Moms
moms totally rock but for purposes of this show do you guys know who rocks and
rolls? Free Union next on Arts on the Hill
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‘Freedom ain’t free’ Is that what you meant When you said ‘nothin comes easy?’
I’m a little lost, I thought that I I was out fightin for a little piece
I was out workin all night To one day have it all in the Free World
Watch what you do, where you step, they’re listening Watch where you go, who you meet, they’re judging
If it’s all a dream, why am I not awake? This reality is so hard to take
In the free world, free world
We’re living in the free world Free world
Elaborate illusion Is that what you meant when you said
‘Everyone’s included?’ Well We’re a little lost I think that
We gave up our values for a little piece Now we’re out marching all day
For a chance to get it back in the free world
Watch what you do, where you step, they’re listening Watch where you go, who you meet, they’re judging
If it’s not a dream, why are we not awake? This reality is so hard to take
In the free world, free world We’re living in the free world
Free world
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It's a Free world
Free world
We’re living in the free world Free world
wahoowa what's up y'all it's Jason George College class of 94 I was honored
to be asked to be part of UVA Arts on the Hill and in thinking about what I
was going to perform or recite it occurred to me that I play a doctor on
TV I actually play doctor who became a firefighter on Grey's Anatomy in station
19 and I wanted to do something that would honor the bravery of those people
out in the streets who are taking care of the rest of us but I also wanted to
honor the fact that those people those brave souls are well it's more than just
the doctors and firefighters it's also the the nurses the lab technicians the
people who volunteer and come in and help flip people who have COVID-19 if
you know anything about the disease that's a really essential part of the
process for people who are very far gone it's the grocery store workers
it's the people who deliver our groceries and deliver our food from
restaurants it's well you know it's the janitor who has to clean up after
all of this and when you hear the story I think you you'll understand why I
chose it it's an article from the Washingtonian from August of 1989 by
Katie McCabe and eventually it was turned into a movie of the same title as
the article which is Like Something the Lord Made: Vivien Thomas was paid a
janitor's wage never went to college and still became a legend in the field of
heart surgery say his name and the busiest heart surgeons in the world will
stop and talk for an hour of course they have time they'll say these men who count
time in seconds who race against the clock this is about Vivien Thomas for
Vivien they'll make time Dr. Denton Cooley has just come out of surgery and
he has 47 minutes between operations no you don't need an appointment his
secretary is saying Dr. Cooley's right here he wants to talk to you now Cooley
suddenly is on the line from his Texas Heart Institute in Houston in a slow
Texas drawl he says he just loves being bothered about Vivien
and then in 47 minutes just about the time it takes him to do a triple bypass he tells you
about the man who taught him that kind of speed no Vivien Thomas
wasn't a doctor says Cooley he wasn't even a college graduate he was just so
smart and so skilled and so much his own man that it didn't matter
and could he operate even if you've never seen surgery before Cooley says
you could do it because Vivien made it look so simple Vivien Thomas and
Denton Cooley both arrived at Baltimore's Johns Hopkins Hospital in
1941 Cooley to begin working on his medical degree Thomas to run the
hospital surgical lab under Dr. Alfred Blalock in 1941 the only other black
employees at the Johns Hopkins Hospital were janitors people stopped and stared
at Thomas flying down corridors in his white lab coat visitors eyes widened at
the sight of a black man running the lab but ultimately the fact that Thomas was
black didn't matter either what mattered was that Alfred Blalock
and Vivien Thomas could do historic things together that neither could do
alone together they devised an operation to save blue babies infants born with a
heart defect that sends blood past their lungs and Cooley was there as an intern
for the first one he remembers the tension in the operating room that
November morning in 1944 as Dr. Blalock rebuilt a little girl's tiny twisted
heart he remembers how that baby went from blue to pink the minute Dr.
Blalock removed the clamps and her arteries began to function and he
remembers where Thomas stood on a little step stool looking over Dr. Blalock's
right shoulder answering questions and coaching every move
you see explains Cooley it was Vivien who had worked it all out
in the lab in the canine heart long before Dr. Blalock did Eileen the first
blue baby there were no cardiac experts then that was the beginning a
loudspeakers summons Cooley to surgery he says he's on his way to do a tech
case right now that's tetralogy of Fallot the
congenital heart defect that causes blue baby syndrome
they say that Cooley does them faster than anyone that he can make a tetralogy
operation look so simply doesn't even look like surgery that's what I took
from Vivien he says simplicity there wasn't a false move not a wasted motion
when he operated but in the medical world of the 1940s that chose and trained
men like Denton Cooley there wasn't supposed to be a place for a black man
with or without a degree still Vivien Thomas made a place for himself he was a
teacher to surgeons at a time when he could not become one he was a cardiac
pioneer 30 years before Hopkins opened its doors to the first black surgical
resident those are the facts that Cooley has laid out as swiftly and efficiently
as he operates and yet history argues that the Vivien Thomas story could never
have happened
Thank You Jason a beautiful story and we really appreciate you taking the time to
participate and share your amazing skills with us on digital Arts on the
Hill as one of our wonderful UVA arts alumni speaking of amazing and wonderful
our next performer takes her artistry to a bridge outside perhaps somewhere over
the rainbow
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hello I'm Andie Weaver I am the senior administrative assistant in the arts and
sciences dean's office here at UVA I'm going to be reading my poem burnweed
which is about the COVID-19 pandemic among other things if you don't know
what burnweed is it's a plant that I first saw after moving here to
Charlottesville about a year ago it has fluffy white seed pods that float
on the wind and when it all starts to bloom in the later summer months it's
really beautiful and captivating to watch so that's part of what inspired this poem
Burnweed, April 2020: In spring we can't breathe and the crown is heavy
burnweed drifts from the tracks in CVS I hunt germ-X for the homeless man so long
when I emerge empty-handed he's already left burnweed drifts from the tracks
there's a house for sale room enough for each dwarfs own bed and bath fairies
guard the gardens where Snow White sings to flowers or birds or bats the barn is
flecked with lights tables far away burnweed drifts from the tracks do Royals
dance here and in their towers vomit wine into gold toilets die in glass
caskets burnweed drifts from the tracks in the forests of my home state mobile
morgues devoured 419 each corpse could own 1.2 acres of Snow White's farm how
grim that in the year of perfect vision our hindsight is failing as I walk home
mask damp burnweed drifts from the tracks like fairies like pathogens
like it did last spring
thank you so much love that poem I think poetry is gonna get us all really
through this as will music music for the Soul from sacred places
this from fourth-year student Chelsea Holt on the organ playing a song of solace
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that's our show folks thanks for watching a special shout out to my
mother and my wife my two favorite Mother's a big fan of mother nature too
but she gets her own day Earth Day. In two weeks we'll be coming back to you
with another episode of Arts on the Hill next Saturday be sure to tune in at 1pm
for the virtual celebration and conferral of degrees which is going to
include some pretty amazing arts as well and some great music folks these are
crazy times hang in there and just know that with each day there is progress and
hope be well and see you in a couple weeks