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No Man Band · Aaron Mahnke's Cabinet of Curiosities

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  Speaker 1: Our world is full of the unexplainable, and if history
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  Speaker 1: is an open book, all of these amazing tales right
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  Speaker 1: there on display, just waiting for us to explore. Welcome
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  Speaker 1: to the Cabinet of Curiosities. Everyone needs a home. Sometimes
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  Speaker 1: we plant roots where we're born, choosing to stay among
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  Speaker 1: what's safe and familiar. Other times we have to leave
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  Speaker 1: one home in order to find another where we can
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  Speaker 1: be accepted and thrive. George Colby was in search of
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  Speaker 1: such a place in eighteen seventy five when he left
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  Speaker 1: his home in Pike, New York. George was a trance medium,
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  Speaker 1: someone who would speak as though the dead were communicating
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  Speaker 1: through them during a seance. He traveled all over the country,
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  Speaker 1: conducting sessions and giving readings to the public. But it
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  Speaker 1: was during a stay in Iowa when his travels took
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  Speaker 1: him on a journey he'd never expected. He had been
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  Speaker 1: contacted during one of his seances by a Native American
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  Speaker 1: spirit called Seneca. Seneca told George to go to Florida.
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  Speaker 1: It was there where he was meant to establish a
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  Speaker 1: community for others like him, mediums, psychics, and other spiritual
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  Speaker 1: men and women who would flock to this place to
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  Speaker 1: practice their craft, making a home for themselves apart from
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  Speaker 1: a world that called them hacks and frauds. As he
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  Speaker 1: made his way south, George contracted a bad case of tuberculosis.
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  Speaker 1: By the time he'd reached his destination, he was in
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  Speaker 1: bad shape and close to death. Seneca, now deemed his
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  Speaker 1: spirit guide by the intrepid medium, led him to a
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  Speaker 1: spring deep in the wilds of Florida. George drank from
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  Speaker 1: that spring, and according to his tail, the waters cured
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  Speaker 1: him of his ailment. This was the beginning of a
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  Speaker 1: town he would call the Cassadega Spiritualist Camp Meeting Association,
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  Speaker 1: more commonly known as Plee Cassadega, named after a spiritual
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  Speaker 1: community near his hometown back in New York. Perhaps Seneca
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  Speaker 1: had been right, or maybe George just happened to tap
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  Speaker 1: into something needed at the time, but Cassadega became an
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  Speaker 1: overnight sensation. Psychics and mediums quickly found their way to
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  Speaker 1: the town and built houses for themselves across its fifty
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  Speaker 1: seven acres. Many of the homes became makeshift business establishments,
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  Speaker 1: as their occupants were known to host seances for tourists
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  Speaker 1: who had come to learn of their loved ones fate
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  Speaker 1: in the afterlife. Growth kind of stalled in the nineteen thirties,
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  Speaker 1: but the mediums never left, and their descendants eventually took
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  Speaker 1: over the homes and the family businesses, conducting seances and
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  Speaker 1: readings for curious tourists who were passing through. Of course,
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  Speaker 1: a town populated by spiritualists was bound to attract other
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  Speaker 1: entities as well. The hotel Cassadega, which still looks just
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  Speaker 1: like it did in nineteen seven, continues to rent rooms
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  Speaker 1: to folks looking to indulge their other worldly side for
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  Speaker 1: more than a a It's been said guests have even
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  Speaker 1: run into a friendly ghost or two during their time there.
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  Speaker 1: It's not surprising to learn that the hotel isn't the
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  Speaker 1: only part of the town that's remained the same since
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  Speaker 1: its inception. Hassadega itself really hasn't changed much since the
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  Speaker 1: nineteen thirties, when it was a major destination for spiritualists
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  Speaker 1: from all over the country. Today, while the world around
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  Speaker 1: Cassadega marches forward, those who live there and maintain it
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  Speaker 1: make sure the camp remains true to its roots. Resident
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  Speaker 1: psychics there have claimed to have spoken to all manner
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  Speaker 1: of famous spirits like that of Abraham Lincoln, and have
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  Speaker 1: witnessed all sorts of paranormal phenomena around town. Computers and
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  Speaker 1: compiers have been known in malfunction out of nowhere. Ghosts
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  Speaker 1: wander around homes, peering from windows to pedestrians. Outside in
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  Speaker 1: the cemetery on the edge of town, there's something called
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  Speaker 1: the Devil's Chair, a place for mourners to rest and
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  Speaker 1: reflect on the passing of loved ones. However, as time
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  Speaker 1: has gone by, a more sinister narrative has come to
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  Speaker 1: surround the chair. Allegedly, anyone brave enough to sit in
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  Speaker 1: it is said to come face to face with the
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  Speaker 1: devil himself. There's a curfew within the camp that lasts
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  Speaker 1: from dusk until dawn, discouraging anyone who might be looking
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  Speaker 1: to cause trouble after dark. Psychic readings, handwriting analysis, and
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  Speaker 1: seances are still conducted today, and the town continues to
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  Speaker 1: be a beacon for those in touch with the other side.
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  Speaker 1: I assume George Colby would be proud to know his
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  Speaker 1: little community is still around today, but he died decades ago,
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  Speaker 1: long before it reached its peak. But if we really
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  Speaker 1: wanted to know, maybe somebody there could just ask him.
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  Speaker 1: Most Inventions arise in order to fulfill a need. Perhaps
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  Speaker 1: there's something tedious that can be done more efficiently, or
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  Speaker 1: a job to differ cult for our bare hands that
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  Speaker 1: a machine can do for us. Inventions have the power
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  Speaker 1: to improve upon the world. The automobile got us from
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  Speaker 1: point A to point be faster and more safely than
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  Speaker 1: horses ever did. The printing press allowed for the mass
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  Speaker 1: production of books, as well as increased literacy across the world.
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  Speaker 1: Thanks to the press, books were no longer handwritten works
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  Speaker 1: of art meant only for the wealthy. And then there's
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  Speaker 1: the Phonalist doubt the eighth Wonder of the World. When
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  Speaker 1: it was unveiled in nineteen ten, the concept behind it
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  Speaker 1: wasn't entirely new. It was created in Germany by Ludwig Hupfeld,
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  Speaker 1: a manufacturer of player pianos and orchestrians. Orchestrions were automatic
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  Speaker 1: music players designed to sound like full bands. Hiring live
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  Speaker 1: musicians to play at parties and in hotel lobbies was expensive,
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  Speaker 1: but a business could invest in an orchestrion and provide
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  Speaker 1: customers with a live performance at any time. Many orchestrions
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  Speaker 1: combined piano, drums, xylophones, and pipe organs. To get a
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  Speaker 1: complete sound, a roll of paper with precisely punched holes
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  Speaker 1: was spun beneath a metal bar that would trigger a
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  Speaker 1: series of pneumatic bellows, activating a specific tone from one
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  Speaker 1: of the instruments, or several of them at once. The
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  Speaker 1: phono list, however, was different. Rather than including only percussive
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  Speaker 1: instruments like pianos and drums, Upfield's creation added something extraordinary violins,
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  Speaker 1: three of them, to be exact, But it wasn't as
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  Speaker 1: simple as you might expect to add them. In first,
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  Speaker 1: violin isn't played like a piano. There are no keys
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  Speaker 1: to press. The note was made by pressing a finger
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  Speaker 1: against a string in a certain spot and then dragging
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  Speaker 1: a bow across it. In order to achieve this without
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  Speaker 1: the use of a human hand, each of the three
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  Speaker 1: violins was reduced to only one active string that mounted
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  Speaker 1: vertically above the player piano. As the paper roll was
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  Speaker 1: fed across the reader bar, pneumatic bellows acted like violinist fingers,
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  Speaker 1: pressing each string in the right ace so the correct
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  Speaker 1: note could be played, and as that happened, a circular
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  Speaker 1: bow made of horsehairs rotated around the violins. Eliciting either
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  Speaker 1: one note at a time or full chords while the
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  Speaker 1: piano played underneath. The result was a feast for the
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  Speaker 1: eyes and the ears. No one had ever built something
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  Speaker 1: that's so accurately replicated an orchestral sound before, and no
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  Speaker 1: one at the nineteen ten Brussels International World's Fair had
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  Speaker 1: heard anything like it before. A home or business with
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  Speaker 1: one of these on display didn't need to hire a
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  Speaker 1: band or a string quartet to liven the place up.
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  Speaker 1: It could do all that for them. Stores often had
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  Speaker 1: coin operated models that would play any one of several
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  Speaker 1: songs on demand. Occasionally, additional performers would accompany the machine,
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  Speaker 1: providing a live component to the automated sound. Customers would
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  Speaker 1: flock to watch the phono lists mechanisms move while they
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  Speaker 1: listened to the sweet music being played. All told, nearly
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  Speaker 1: a thousand paper music rolls were made for it, though
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  Speaker 1: sadly it's popularity didn't last too long. By the nine twenties,
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  Speaker 1: as phonographs and radios became the norm, the phono list
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  Speaker 1: fell into obscurity. They were big and loud and very expensive,
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  Speaker 1: and nobody wanted to hear a fake band when the
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  Speaker 1: real thing was just the drop of a needle away.
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  Speaker 1: Out of the thousands that were manufactured, only sixty three
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  Speaker 1: still exist today, and they're not cheap. One recently sold
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  Speaker 1: at auction for almost nine thousand dollars, and I've got
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  Speaker 1: to say, at that price, a live band doesn't sound
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  Speaker 1: like a bad idea after all. I hope you've enjoyed
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  Speaker 1: today's guided tour of the Cabinet of Curiosities. Subscribe for
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  Speaker 1: free on Apple Podcasts, or learn more about the show
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  Speaker 1: by visiting Curiosities podcast dot com. The show was created
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  Speaker 1: by me Aaron Mankey in partnership with how Stuff Works.
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  Speaker 1: I may another award winning show called Lore, which is
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  Speaker 1: a podcast, book series, and television show, and you can
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  Speaker 1: learn all about it over at the World of Lore
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  Speaker 1: dot com. And until next time, stay curious.