Yo-Yo Ma (1) vs. Li Wenwen; Hill advances

For our most recent matchup, Dzhaughn reported on a horrible GPT-3 response to the query and summarized:

If even AI can’t recommend Ai, well, there you go.

Good point. From the other direction, Brian reports:

Lauren Hill has been “misunderestimated” all of her life. The future may be Chinese, but American hip hop culture dominates right now. Quoting Ms. Hill:

Girlfriend, let me break it down for you again
You know I only say it ’cause I’m truly genuine
Don’t be a hard rock when you really are a gem
Baby girl, respect is just a minimum

Indeed. The rapper will advance.

Also Raghu delivers the factual information that Lauryn Hill is erratic and can arrive very late to her performances. But our seminar is special! I’m sure she’d show up on time if we invited her.

Today’s matchup

Top-seeded vs. unseeded in the “Duplicate names” category. Whaddya wanna see, fiddlin’ or weightliftin’? Yo-Yo could entrance us with his tunes, but Wenwen can lift 187 kilograms! She could lift Yo-Yo and his cello.

This is an important bout, as it’s the final one in Round 1; see the bracket above.

Again, here are the announcement and the rules.

8 thoughts on “Yo-Yo Ma (1) vs. Li Wenwen; Hill advances

  1. Yo-Yo Ma is fresh off his appearance in the second best Knives Out movie, and could definitely talk about that, if nothing else. Li WenWen however seems to be very strong. So neither is that accomplished, really. I’d like to bring Michael Keaton back.

  2. My wife once saw Yo Yo Ma conduct a master class for budding young cellists. One teenager was struggling with a passage. Ma kindly said “If I can do that so can you”. We couldn’t possibly find a more modest speaker who could teach us more.

  3. Both seminars seem likely to focus on their careers, rights? I doubt they be trying to extrapolate into other areas. In that case…

    Yo Yo certainly seems interesting and all that but, honestly, we’ve had plenty of famous musicians talking about their lives and the challenges they face over the years, be it via books, interviews, etc. I doubt we’d learn something new.

    Wenwen’s seminar could offer as chance to hear about an area that at least I’m not the least bit familiar with! Techniques, diets, mental and physical fortitude, I mean, this sounds like an area ripe for a seminar.

  4. Yo Yo Ma brings so much more than perspective on being a classical musician. He has been the foremost cellist in the world for decades and has collaborated with musicians from many other genres and toured the world. When he speaks he gives a sense of being transcendental and also, a regular guy. There is so much I would want to ask him . What did he learn from all the people and cultures he has collaborated with? He is near the end of a long career (he was a child prodigy), how has his perspective on work and purpose changed over the course of this? What are the sources of his sincere and abiding humility, what pitfalls of fame did he draw near and how did he avoid them? He is from a musical family and his sister is highly accomplished in her own way. How do they relate to one another or support each other? What solutions does he see for the worlds intractable problems?

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