She's always asking people questions and prodding them for their stories.
As a pioneering musical matchmaker, Mr. Kirshner discovered many of the era's best songwriters, prodded them for hits and shopped the results to top artists.
When Mr. Jacobs prods them for memories or theories about why they survived when others succumbed, some cooperate eagerly, while others balk or change the subject.
Crimmins and Hendra chatted amiably on the air for an hour as Fugelsang prodded them for their thoughts on the US election.
Whenever they ran into Baby College graduates in the halls, they stopped to chat, prodding them for suggestions of good candidates in the building or elsewhere on the block.
Ms. Gaynor, 33, who is due in July with her first child, interviews enviably rakish mothers like Rebecca Minkoff, the fashion designer, and Jemima Kirke, a star of "Girls," prodding them for tips for which designer clothes might give enough throughout pregnancy or how to get one's figure back after birth.
If not, gently prod them with words of praise for the country.
Say their name loudly, ask them firmly to open their eyes, prod them and look for a response.
Secretary General Kofi Annan of the United Nations met privately today with President Bush and members of the Senate to prod them gently to give more for a new global fund to combat the AIDS epidemic.
In Putumayo, a poor and isolated province of farms and dusty towns carved out of Amazonian jungle, farmers remember how a government agency in 1996 prodded them to give up coca for the spiny palm trees that produce heart of palm.
When I interrupt them to ask for a foot rubdown, one reluctantly pulls herself away to bathe my feet in warm water and then prod and poke them for an hour, all for only $10.
