Neil deGrasse Tyson's secret love of musicals

By Brian Mastroianni CBS News September 14, 2016, 12:31 PM

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So, in an alternate universe, if Neil deGrasse Tyson was being interviewed on “StarTalk,” what would be the surprising thing we’d learn about him?

I have a secret passion for Broadway musicals (laughs). One day, I would love to write the songs and libretto for a musical. In this musical, I would want to write the perfect sentence where boy meets girl. Well, I guess that would be a little heteronormative. Well, two people meet one another, fall in love, but words no longer suffice, words break out in song. The words in the song would convey the depth of emotion.

I have deep respect for language, for words, for poetry. I dally in it when I write my books, but only one in 10 sentences is ever that great – I need to up that fraction!

Who knew Neil deGrasse Tyson had a soft spot for musicals!

Well, I don’t have musical skill, so this is very much in an alternate universe (laughs). But you know, I love rhythm and pacing. I wrote one such sentence that I tweeted out recently, it had the second-highest retweets. For me, it was one of my perfect sentences. It reads: “In 5-billion yrs the Sun will expand and engulf our orbit as the charred ember that was once Earth vaporizes. Have a nice day.”

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