Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me! - Everyone & Secret Messages

Episode Date: April 20, 2022

Comedian Emmy Blotnick and Emma find a message in a bottle, learn what not to do with cheese, and Domee Shi, director of Pixar's "Turning Red" talks about her Harry Potter fan fiction.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

Coming up, love letters, lost notebooks, turning red director Domi Shi, and she's in all the wrong places. I'm Emma Choi, and this is Everyone and Their Mom. Hi everyone, I'm Emma Choi. Welcome to Everyone and Their Mom, a weekly show from Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me. This week, we're discussing the mysterious return of some long-lost notebooks with comedian, Wait, Wait panelist, and someone who I associate strongly with grilled cheese and tomato soup. It's Emmy Blotnick. Hi, Emmy. Oh my God. Hi. I feel incredibly seen by that intro. Oh my God. Hi. I feel incredibly seen by that intro. I thought you would. I mean,

I'm so excited to talk about this news. Someone anonymously returned two of Charles Darwin's actual notebooks to the Cambridge University Library after they frantically searched for them for 20 years. Did you see this? No one told me about the notebooks. I was also looking for them. Oh no. Where were you looking for the notebooks? I thought maybe they would be with my notebooks, but why would that be, you know? Yeah. Let's talk about what really happened. On a dark and stormy night in 2001, two of Charles Darwin's notebooks were stolen from Cambridge University's library. And just a reminder, Charles Darwin is that evolution nerd. The library looked through their collection of 10 million books for almost 20 years trying to

find them before they finally reported them stolen. They should have just let my mom look around in there. She would have found them in like five minutes, but whatever. Charles, I didn't know you had a girlfriend. I know. And no one knew where they were until, bam, two decades after they were stolen, they reappeared outside of a librarian's office. One of the notebooks had a note that said, quote, librarian happy Easter. They made it so cryptic and loaded, it could have just been enjoy the books, you know? Of course not. been enjoy the books, you know? Of course not. The library's director described her relief as, quote, profound and almost impossible to adequately express, which makes sense because the notebooks actually contained really important content, like Darwin's famous sketch of the Tree

of Life. Okay, I'm going to sound very uninformed here. What is, is the Tree of Life a specific tree? It's a sketch, apparently apparently that Darwin did that's really important. It's like a gray-haired lady who drives a Kia Sorento would have on it as a bumper sticker. Yes. Imagine looking through 10 million books for just two, you know? I'm thinking about the process of filing through 10 million books. And there was a story a few years ago, there's like a librarian who found like a piece of cheese inside of a book, because like people use anything as a bookmark.

Oh, that's incredible. A piece of cheese is such a cute bookmark. I know, but it must have really stunk. I'm going to be honest with you, when we're in the book drop, we try not to smell things. My name is Anna Holmes. I'm a library worker here in the Pacific Northwest. Yeah, so we wanted to talk to you today because a few years ago we fell in love with one of your tweets. And can you guess which tweet I'm talking about?

Yes, yes. I had tweeted for patrons to please stop using cheese as a bookmark. And yes, this has happened more than once. How many times have you found cheese in a book? Me personally, twice. Twice! I had tweeted this was a friend had found an actual craft single inside a book. And so that was that was the third straw for me. I was just like, OK, no more cheese. Can you tell us about the moment where you found the cheese?

The first cheese was a piece of kind of that squishy inside of oil wrapper. I'm not even sure what it's called, but it's that kind of fancy cheese you put out for a party. Yeah. I will say that I got a lot of replies to the tweet that had people chiming in with what they found. And one that I found completely gross was an expired banana. Oh, that's effortful. That's like a 3D object as a bookmark. We've been talking about this news coming from the library at Cambridge University. They spent 20 years looking through 10 million books looking for these two missing notebooks from Charles Darwin. And all of a sudden they were returned. Did you see that story?

I did not, but wow. What do you think it would be like to go through that many books? That sounds utterly normal. Really? Can you take us into the mind of that librarian, like the moment the books were returned after two decades of looking? How do you think that felt? That's vindication. Like, I knew it wasn't lost. Yeah. I knew it wasn't here. I knew it. I knew it. I knew it. And probably just gratitude. They were probably just really grateful to have those books back. Well, Anna, we just can't get over how many books librarians have to keep track of. So we want to play a game with you and test your knowledge on every book in the universe.

Oh, God. Is that okay? Yes. the universe. Oh, God. Is that okay? Yes. Okay, okay. It's called Real Book or Fake Book, and we're going to tell you the title of a book, and you tell us if it's a real book or if it's a fake one we made up. Okay. First, The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat and Other Clinical Tales. Real book, fake book. That one's real. Yes, it is. Have you read it? I have not, but it's crossed my desk sometimes. There we go. Next, How to Snuggle Your Iguana. Real Yes, it is. Have you read it? I have not, but it's crossed my desk sometimes. There we go. Next.

How to snuggle your iguana. Real book, fake book. Let's go fake. It is fake. Yeah. Okay. That's highly dangerous. Okay.

Don't pee on my leg and tell me it's raining. Real book or fake book? That one's real. Yes. You know who it's by? I don't. Judge Judy, baby. Of course.

How you can ice skate better using self-hypnosis. Real book or fake book? That's hard. Let's go fake. It is fake. You're doing amazing. Yes. How you can bowl better using self-hypnosis. Let's go real. Yes, exactly right. Which sounds, again, dangerous. again dangerous next knitting with dog hair

better a sweater from a dog you know and love them from a sheep you'll never meet unfortunately that's real yes you've seen it i've seen it that's not a title you soon forget okay last one charles darwin's notebooks real book or fake book? Real. Yeah. Oh my gosh. You did so great. That's crazy. Bam, bam. There we go. Okay. Well, Anna, thank you so much for coming on and chatting with me. This was so fun. Thanks for having me. It was great. I kind of wish that these were Darwin's personal journals, like diaries. I did assume that that's what they were. I was totally picturing like, please return to Charlie Darby if found, you know, like I was picturing stickers, doodles, but I guess it's science, science journals. Yeah. Is this a good tree of life?

Check Y or N. I've been journaling since I was six and my early journals all have like stupid little quotes on them. Like be yourself, be real, you know? Yeah. Hockey is life and the rest is just details. I destroyed all my journals from that age. I remember like when I, I think it was right around when I went off to college, just being like, nobody can ever find these, tearing them apart. Yeah, you don't really want someone finding your diary 10 years later. You know, that reminds me of another story we talked about this week. Yes. So some people were walking on the beach and they found a message in a bottle from 1966. And they're from two teenage girls who are asking for boyfriends. Wow. It is literally, it's like early, early Tinder. I know. It's like 1960s Tinder because like

in my experience, using Tinder to find a decent person to love has roughly the same odds as throwing a bottle into the ocean. And apparently they cast the bottles from the same beach that they were found, which means that the bottles only moved a couple of yards and yielded zero results. Oh my god. What are the odds that the ocean doesn't take your message in the bottle away? Like, what are the odds? I mean, I think this is such a beautiful love story, you know? It has all the elements.

It has determination, desperation, yearning, longing, you know, and but it's also pathetic in some ways, like every love story is. It does feel very, that feels very romantic to cast a bottle out into the ocean and hope your husband shows up. I think for a lot of us, we almost like lobotomized that part of our memories because it was so awkward. Just to start off, will you introduce yourself to us? Hi, I'm Domi Shi, and I am the director of Turning Red. Yes, you are. I loved Turning Red. And you're the first sole female director of a Pixar film. What's it like to be you, Domi? Oh, I don't know. It feels pretty awesome right now. I mean, we have something in common. You started as an intern at Pixar. And I just started actually at NPR as an intern too. But you went from intern to director for 10 years. Yeah. Like,

what happened there? Like, how'd you do that? A lot of it was luck and timing, but also just the support of very awesome people at the studio, like Pete Docter. My first job at Pixar was a storyboard artist on his film Inside Out. Right. though at the time I was like one of a handful of women in the story department um I kind of in in some way used that as a as a superpower on this show where there weren't a lot of women but they needed a perspective and uh and a point of view from somebody who had been uh a 13 year old girl. Yeah, that was the one thing that I knew I was an expert at, like, coming into the industry completely green and not knowing anything. I was like, I at least know about the anxieties of growing up and being a girl overwhelmed with her emotions. Yeah, I mean, I mean, that's a great segue into Turning Red. For anyone who hasn't seen it yet, can you describe it for us?

boom magical puberty hits and she uncontrollably poofs into a giant furry red panda anytime she gets overwhelmed with emotion uh happy sad angry embarrassed lusty and uh the story is kind of just about how she deals with this uh inner beast and and whether or not she wants to go down the path that her mom and her family chose, which was to get rid of it or to keep it and embrace that inner wild side inside of her. Well, okay. We've been talking about this new story this week where two teenage girls like 60 years ago wrote a message in a bottle asking for boyfriends and someone just found it. Did you hear about that? No, that's adorable. I know. I love that. And it reminded us of turning red. What do you think this this bottle story tells us about being a teenager? Just makes me like, remember what it's like to be a teen and how you're just

bursting with earnest emotion. I kind of miss that because these days, like, I mean, as an adult, it's hard to, like, care about a lot of things because you, like, become cynical. But then as a teen, you just, you just, like, unafraid. You just kind of throw your emotions and your heart and pour your heart into things and just risk being heartbroken. I love that feeling yeah I mean when you were 13 was there anything you did that was similar to that like there's anything you've like threw your whole body into loving Harry Potter for sure I was so obsessed to the point where I would draw fan art I drew a lot of fan art and I entered this like fan club contest where it's like, draw Draco and Hermione's children and come up with biographies about them.

And I was rendering Draco and Hermione's children for hours in my family's computer, not going outside. My mom's like, what are you doing? That's such a funny origin story that like, if you trace Turning Red all the way back, it goes to deviant art fan fiction. Yeah, it's definitely that. That's so awesome. Can we ask you to think through something with us? Yeah. Okay. So do you think this message in a bottle story has what it takes to be a feature Pixar film? Oh I think so I think it's a great setup they maybe like get a response back years later and they have to like like but they're both like grown up and cynical adults but they have to go back to being like teen girls and going on this adventure to find their

like true love yeah ends up being like a merperson or something like that or I don't know like maybe they don't find the the dude or the person but you know they they find each other and they realize like oh my gosh like all this time like you were my my soulmate I had to go on this journey to to find the person that's right next to me this whole time. I know that there's a joke about every Pixar film needs to reveal one universal human truth

ever since Inside Out. What do you think is the big universal truth from this bottle story? That teen girls are horny. True. Yeah.

Well, thank you so much, Domi. I'm going to I'm going to treasure this forever. So thanks so much for coming on our show. Yeah, of course. It's so fun. I mean, what were you doing with your friends when you were 15? Were you were you also throwing your friends when you were 15? Were you also throwing lovesick messages out to sea? I don't think we ever did that specifically, but like,

do you remember we would play the game like M.A.S.H. or like the cootie catcher thing? And I feel like that whole game was like designing your fancy future, you know? Me and my best friend Katie thought that we were like, we lived in Northern Virginia, which is not a small town, but we're like, we got to get out of this town. And then we like drove to DC and got ice cream. We're like, no one understands us. It was like everything at 15 matters so much all the time.

And my brother's 16 right now. And like everything matters to him so much all the time. And it's exhausting oh is he uh is he writing messages in bottles what's what's today's 15 year old uh doing to make the moves you're not gonna believe me but it's tiktoks like he flirted with his last girlfriend by posting a tiktok of him making a song out of her name. Wow. That's really cute. Oh, we probably shouldn't air that.

Nathan's going to get really mad at me if I say that on air. Spoiler alert, we really wanted to air that part, but I was too afraid to ask him because I thought he would get mad at me. So our producer, Jennifer, bravely went to go ask him instead. No, you're good. You're good. Sorry, someone just came into the room. Yeah.

Nathan, so you're Emma's brother. We've heard about you before. Yeah. And tell me where you are right now. I'm in like a, I think it's a Spanish room, somewhere in my school. Okay. And you're in high school?

Yeah, I'm in high school. Oh my gosh. Well, we got the whole Choi family in on this. Thank you so much for talking to me. I have learned recently that you are an incredible jazz pianist. Oh, no, I'm an okay jazz pianist. Okay. So Nathan, I want to talk to you about something that happened with the jazz piano.

And I'm talking to you to protect Emma in case you get mad. And you can tell me or you can decide not to tell me did you write a girl a song on TikTok on the piano okay uh yeah I saw this TikTok a while ago where a guy like uh assigned a different key a different different letter, an alphabet. And I just spelled out her name on the keyboard and then made a song out of that melody. That's so beautiful. So every key had a letter. So I started on middle C and that was A.

And going up chromatically each step, it was A, B, C, D, E, F, G, all the way to Z. And then afterwards, I just kind of made harmonies and stuff. Oh, my gosh. Is that a TikTok thing? Like love letters on TikTok? Or is that something that you did? I haven't seen it in a while.

I saw it once before, but I haven't seen it come up since then. Nathan, are you mad that Emma told us? And are you mad that I'm talking to you about it? I didn't expect that was the direction you'd be taking it, but sure. Yeah, I'm not mad. I'm not mad at you.

Okay, well, I have another secret to tell you that i uh she shared the video with me and the song is incredible it's beautiful nathan wait which i made a couple for like one for my dog too which one was her name i don't think it it wasn't for your dog the name was ruby oh that was my dog that's for your dog yeah yeah that's the second one i did i misunderstood i thought it was for the girl ruby's my dog yeah okay well you can write a love letter to your dog too yeah yeah have you seen the video like uh the actual one no can i can i see it right now yeah sure do you you have TikTok? No. Or I can probably try to... I can get it for you. Did you text it to me? It just delivered.

Okay. Okay. I'm watching it right now. Hold on. Nathan, this is beautiful. Oh, my God. Can I ask, how did it go? No.

No, she liked it. She liked it. She liked the song. Okay. But she's like, nah, later on, it did not work out. You know what, Nathan? She liked the song, and I did too. I think that's a win

yes that's the victory in itself that's the victory for sure emmy thanks so much for hanging out with us this was so fun It was such a pleasure. Hey, Emma, if you ever stole Charles Darwin's notebooks, I would not snitch on you. Aw, thank you, Emmy. I would definitely snitch on you. Aw! And on that note, thanks for joining us, Emmy. Thanks for having me.

And now the most romantic part of the podcast, the credits. This show was brought to you by Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me. This episode was produced by Haley Fager, Zola Ray, Lillian King, Nancy Seichow, and Robert, the Nightmare Man. Our supervising producer is Jennifer Mills and our Doug Berman is Mike Danforth. Once again, Lorna White, you're the best. We love you. Thank you for knowing how to make her sound amazing. Once again, Lorna White, you're the best. We love you.

Thank you for knowing how to make her sound amazing. Thanks to library worker, author, and disability rights activist Anna Holmes for reliving some of her worst library moments with us. That was kind of a rough one. Find them on Twitter at Anna Book Writer. Thanks to TikTok pianist, high school sophomore, and my brother, Nathan Choi, for not hating me after I exposed his love life to the world. That happened like a couple of times. I love you, Nathan. Thanks for. That happened like a couple of times.

I love you, Nathan. Thanks for hanging out with us, Domi-shi. If I go clubbing, like I need like a place where I can sit down. We love your movie so much and I want you to be the godmother to my future kids. Thank you to my co-host, comedian, wait-wait panelist and human personification of a sparkly yet tasteful jumpsuit, Emmy Blotnick. Oh my God, what a rollercoaster that was.

See Emmy in real life at the Moon Tower Comedy Festival in Austin, Texas from April 21st to 23rd. I'm Emma Choi, and you can find me at WaitWaitNPR. Oh, I didn't write a joke for this one. Okay, I'm done. This is NPR.

Sorry, our bells here are like uncomfortably long.