But even more than that, I like finding the story of somebody who we would never otherwise hear from and bring them into your home, into your car, into your life, and hopefully maybe help you see the world a little differently. Like, I do like being on stage at the Hollywood Bowl in front of thousands of people. She said, and then there's my middle son, Ari, who was so ignored as a middle child, he had to find a job where millions of people would pay attention to what he had to say. I tell a story about at my grandmother's 90th birthday party, my mother was introducing her three sons. SHAPIRO: Well, that's certainly an aspect of it. You interrogate yourself a little bit in this memoir, and you ask if maybe the common theme in your career is that you want attention. INSKEEP: In a passage of his book, Shapiro recounts interviewing a man who suddenly told him, probably you're on the radio because you want to be loved. What I picked up as the first grader who was the, like, only Jewish kid in his class and later picked up as, like, the only out gay teenager in my high school, was the ability to go to a crowd of people and say, this is unfamiliar, but I'm going to help you understand it. It's called "The Best Strangers In The World."Īre you still, in some sense, that first grader going around saying, let me tell you what Judaism is? INSKEEP: Shapiro's new memoir reflects on his varied life. SHAPIRO: (Singing in non-English language). Since then, he's become a correspondent, traveled much of the world, covered conflicts and elections, become host of NPR's All Things Considered, our afternoon program, and also is a singer who tours with the group Pink Martini, often singing in multiple languages. INSKEEP: Ari Shapiro 20 years ago doesn't sound that much different. It may not have been the first sandwich ever made, but it's the first in recorded history. And according to the NPR archives from back in 2003, he was still explaining Judaism to everybody else.ĪRI SHAPIRO, BYLINE: At the Passover celebration in the first century B.C., Rabbi Hillel smeared bitter herbs and an apple nut mixture called charoset between two slices of unleavened bread, or matzo. Not all that many years later, Ari Shapiro went to work at NPR. He says he and his brother were the only Jewish kids at their school in Fargo, N.D., and at Christmastime, they went around explaining what Hanukkah was. Our colleague Ari Shapiro begins a new memoir by recounting what he did in first grade.
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