[MUSIC PLAYING] 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 [MUSIC PLAYING] 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 [MUSIC PLAYING] ‘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 [MUSIC PLAYING] 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 [MUSIC PLAYING] 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 [MUSIC PLAYING] 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
