The Welcome to the Well, I'm Anson Mount.

And I am Brandon Edgians.

And today we're going to bring you part two of our interview with violinist and founder of Street Symphony, Vijay Gupta.

And this is just a little bit of audio that I had left over, but I thought it was worth listening to because VJ is in a very rare group of people. He is a recipient of a MacArthur Fellowship. And this is one of

those things that I've always wanted to talk about on this show, Brandon, because it's always

struck me as this amazing award that's given to artists, scientists, thinkers, and yet the way it's done is one of the

strangest and I think mysterious things that I've ever ever heard. And as much as I can,

I try to collect these stories because it's wild. Have you met anybody who's won one of these things?

Matt? No.

Well, it's a weird thing because the members of the board of the MacArthur, they're all

anonymous. So the trick in letting somebody know that they've received a MacArthur is something that they've had to think around for quite some time.

And eventually they started making anonymous phone calls, right?

And that worked for a long time until people got smartphones and we could start seeing blocked phone numbers.

And people stopped picking up the phone.

So they eventually had to add a callback number so that they could leave messages saying you might want to call us back. And nobody knows who's on this board. It's really mysterious. But essentially, the ward is an

astounding amount of money. It changes every year, obviously, as the endowment enlarges and as

inflation goes on. But it suffice to say, it's enough money to change your life and the work you do.

And on the MacArthur Fellowship website, it explains

it as saying awarding unrestricted fellowships to talented individuals who have shown extraordinary

originality and dedication in their creative pursuits and a marked capacity for self-direction.

And there's no strings attached.

You use this money however you see fit.

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