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Rolling Stone · 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 are
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  Speaker 1: right there on display, just waiting for us to explore.
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  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Cabinet of Curiosities. As a child, Larry
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  Speaker 1: had dreams of soaring high above the clouds. After all,
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  Speaker 1: he was from Los Angeles, a place where people from
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  Speaker 1: all over the world came to follow their great, big
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  Speaker 1: dreams and find great big success. Larry applied for the
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  Speaker 1: United States Air Force after high school in the hopes
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  Speaker 1: of becoming a fighter pilot. Gliding through the sky and
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  Speaker 1: zooming past the clouds were all he wanted to do.
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  Speaker 1: The Air Force couldn't help him, though, not with this
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  Speaker 1: terrible eyesight. He was rejected and eventually found work as
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  Speaker 1: a trucker as well as a part time gig at
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  Speaker 1: a television studio, two jobs about as far from the
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  Speaker 1: sky as you can get without working on a submarine.
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  Speaker 1: But his boyhood dreams never really went away. He remembered
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  Speaker 1: a trip to a military surplus store in his teens
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  Speaker 1: where he saw weather balloons hanging from the ceiling, the
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  Speaker 1: kind meteorologists send into the atmosphere to take readings of
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  Speaker 1: air pressure, temperature, and humidity. They were strong, made of rubber,
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  Speaker 1: and meant to carry heavy loads. They would have to do.
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  Speaker 1: Larry and his girlfriend forged a requisition from the TV
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  Speaker 1: studio for forty five weather balloons and several tanks of helium,
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  Speaker 1: telling the vendor they were for a local commercial shoot,
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  Speaker 1: and well, Larry wasn't entirely lying. He would definitely be
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  Speaker 1: on TV by the end of all of this. It
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  Speaker 1: was long before the phrase going viral was attached to
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  Speaker 1: anything but deadly pandemics. Still, what he was about to
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  Speaker 1: attempt would definitely get him a slot on the six
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  Speaker 1: o'clock news. Call it a midlife crisis, Call it inspiration.
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  Speaker 1: That's what Larry did when he filled all forty five
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  Speaker 1: of his weather balloons and tied them to a metal launchair.
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  Speaker 1: He dubbed the vessel the Inspiration One. Had launched it
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  Speaker 1: from his home in San Pedro, California, with himself as
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  Speaker 1: its sole passenger, along with the BB gun, a CB radio,
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  Speaker 1: and a camera by his side. Each balloon measured four
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  Speaker 1: feet across when fully inflated, and together all forty five
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  Speaker 1: of them carried him to an altitude of sixteen thousand
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  Speaker 1: feet in no time. Two commercial airliners noticed the makeshift
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  Speaker 1: craft and notify the f A A of the not
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  Speaker 1: so unidentified flying object. Only a few minutes into his
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  Speaker 1: trip and he was already famous. But Larry was in
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  Speaker 1: a bind. The chair had risen so quickly and to
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  Speaker 1: such a height he worried shooting the balloons might cause
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  Speaker 1: the chair to become unbalanced and spit him out. He
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  Speaker 1: lifted the BB gun to his shoulder and one by
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  Speaker 1: one popped a few balloons. The chair slowly descended, with
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  Speaker 1: Larry holding on for dear life. Forty five minutes had
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  Speaker 1: passed since the launch, and he was coasting his way
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  Speaker 1: to an easy landing when the worst thing happened. Larry
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  Speaker 1: lost his grip, not on the chair, but on the
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  Speaker 1: BB gun. His landing gear, for lack of a better phrase,
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  Speaker 1: had fallen off, and now it was up to gravity
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  Speaker 1: and the California winds to carry him to safety. Well,
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  Speaker 1: safety was the first choice, the winds had another idea.
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  Speaker 1: As the chair floated down, the cables from the popped
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  Speaker 1: balloons dangled below and got caught on power lines in
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  Speaker 1: Long Beach. They caused a blackout across the entire town,
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  Speaker 1: but Larry survived and managed to climb down from his
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  Speaker 1: first predicament and into a brand new one. The Long
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  Speaker 1: Beach Police Department knew all about his little excursion, and
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  Speaker 1: they'd been waiting. They took him into custody for violating
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  Speaker 1: the Federal Aviation Act. He'd paid a fine, but since
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  Speaker 1: no one got hurt, he didn't face any jail time.
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  Speaker 1: He did, however, enjoy his fifteen minutes of fame, appearing
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  Speaker 1: in a TIMEX ad and doing some motivational speaking across
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  Speaker 1: the country. Eventually, Larry's wild idea led others to follow
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  Speaker 1: in his airsteps. No fewer than five people have attempted
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  Speaker 1: similar trips using balloons and deck chairs, and while Larry
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  Speaker 1: might not have fulfilled his dream of flying a fighter
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  Speaker 1: plane for the Air Force, his story did become the
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  Speaker 1: basis for several episodes of hit TV shows, including The
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  Speaker 1: A Team and Hill Street Blues, oh and a major
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  Speaker 1: film from Disney and Pixar Up And Let's face it,
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  Speaker 1: if you're looking for fame, you can't get much higher
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  Speaker 1: than that. There's a sequence in the film The Shawshank
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  Speaker 1: Redemption where the main character Andy Dufrayne scatters pebbles and
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  Speaker 1: rocks from his cell wall all over the prison yard.
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  Speaker 1: No one else knows what he's up to, but he's
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  Speaker 1: got a plan. An escape is in the works, and
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  Speaker 1: it's coming together, piece by piece, stone by stone over
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  Speaker 1: the course of two decades. Andy's Rocky scheme was pure fiction.
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  Speaker 1: But in France in the late eighteen hundreds, a man
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  Speaker 1: named Ferdinand Cheval was executing his own plan of escape,
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  Speaker 1: and he left no stone unturned. Ferdinand wasn't looking to
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  Speaker 1: escape prison, or war or anything like that. He fell, well,
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  Speaker 1: more like stumbled into an escape from his daily life.
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  Speaker 1: You see, Ferdinand was a postman delivering letters and packages
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  Speaker 1: in the southeast of France. One particular hectic day, he
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  Speaker 1: was practically running along his daily route when he tripped
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  Speaker 1: over something in his path, a rock. In loosening it
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  Speaker 1: from the earth, Ferdinand had loosened an old dream of his.
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  Speaker 1: He'd imagined building a palace of his own, one where
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  Speaker 1: he could rest after a hard day's work delivering other
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  Speaker 1: people's mail. The stone's serendipitous appearance and its bizarre shape
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  Speaker 1: had inspired him to finally put his dream into motion.
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  Speaker 1: That became the first of many pebbles Ferdinand collected over
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  Speaker 1: the next three decades. He'd walk his eighteen mile route
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  Speaker 1: across the south of France, collecting stones and rocks as
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  Speaker 1: he went, and thought about the work that he would
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  Speaker 1: do on his palace. By the time he got home,
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  Speaker 1: the sun had disappeared, so Ferdinand set to work by
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  Speaker 1: the light of an oil lamp. He toiled for hours
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  Speaker 1: assembling the stones into archways and walls and roofs. He
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  Speaker 1: poured everything into what he called l'a palais y d'Al
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  Speaker 1: or the ideal palace, and I mean everything. Hundreds of
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  Speaker 1: gallons of lime, mortar, and cement, as well as thousands
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  Speaker 1: of stones were all combined to create the palace. Ferdinand
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  Speaker 1: also paid homage to Christianity and Hinduism as well, which
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  Speaker 1: can clearly be seen in the finer details all around
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  Speaker 1: the structure. When Ferdinand finally completed the structure in nineteen
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  Speaker 1: o seven, at the age of seventy eight, it measured
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  Speaker 1: twenty six meters long and twelve meters high. Its construction
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  Speaker 1: was unlike anything anyone had ever seen, seemingly carved from
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  Speaker 1: a large mountain or having grown out of the ground
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  Speaker 1: like an enormous stalagmite. Ferdinand's pet project had also garnered
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  Speaker 1: him praise from some of the most acclaimed creators of
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  Speaker 1: all time, including writer Andre Breton and artist Pablo Picasso,
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  Speaker 1: who credited the d I Y carpenter with founding surrealistic architecture.
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  Speaker 1: Naturally at his age, Ferdinand had some ideas about how
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  Speaker 1: he wanted to spend his final days on earth, whenever
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  Speaker 1: they might be. He was seventy eight, after all, and
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  Speaker 1: what better place to be buried than within the home
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  Speaker 1: he built with his own two hands. But the town
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  Speaker 1: didn't see it that way, and they prevented him from
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  Speaker 1: planning his own burial within the palace. And that was
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  Speaker 1: all right. Ferdinand had a different idea, one that would
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  Speaker 1: take him much less time to complete. He got back
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  Speaker 1: to work with his stones and cement and lime, beginning
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  Speaker 1: a completely new structure set off from the house. It
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  Speaker 1: took him another eight years to finish it, but he
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  Speaker 1: finally did and his plan had paid off. Just a
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  Speaker 1: year and a half after putting the last stone into place,
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  Speaker 1: Ferdinand Cheval passed away. His spirit lives on in his
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  Speaker 1: ideal palace, which greets over one thousand visitors each year.
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  Speaker 1: They can tour the structure and walk its various hallways
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  Speaker 1: and corridors. Their mouths agape at the level of detail
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  Speaker 1: Ferdinand put into every corner. His body also never left.
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  Speaker 1: While it doesn't reside inside the house, it's not too
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  Speaker 1: far away. Ferdinand Cheval's remains were allowed to stay within
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  Speaker 1: the second structure he built, the one that took him
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  Speaker 1: eight years to finish, a mausoleum half a mile away.
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  Speaker 1: I hope you've enjoyed today's guided tour of the Cabinet
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  Speaker 1: of Curiosities. Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts, or learn
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  Speaker 1: more about the show by visiting Curiosities podcast dot com.
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  Speaker 1: The show was created by me Aaron Manky in partnership
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  Speaker 1: with how Stuff Works. I make another award winning show
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  Speaker 1: called Lore, which is a podcast, book series, and television show,
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  Speaker 1: and you can learn all about it over at the
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  Speaker 1: World of Lore dot com. And until next time, stay curious.