Latest / Ridiculous History / The Tangled History of Topiary, Part Two: That Shrub Is Looking at Me Funny

Transcript

The Tangled History of Topiary, Part Two: That Shrub Is Looking at Me Funny · Ridiculous History

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio. Welcome back to
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: the show Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always so much
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: for tuning in. Let's hear for the man, the myth,
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: the legend. He's known around the world for being one
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: of the best podcast producers and biggest centophiles out there,
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: also having terrible taste in friends. That's right, Casey Pegram
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: has joined us once again for part two on the
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: history of topiary.
• 0:51
  Speaker 2: Here too, kind Ben, thanks for having me. Here's our guy, Geez.
• 0:54
  Speaker 2: I don't know, man, we don't really need much preamble here. Well,
• 0:57
  Speaker 2: I think you're nol I'm bad, that's your part. I
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: am Still it is a fascinating topic. I don't think
• 1:03
  Speaker 2: any of us had any idea that there was this
• 1:06
  Speaker 2: much to discuss about the surprisingly old art of topiery.
• 1:12
  Speaker 2: So let's just jump right into it. Guys, what do
• 1:14
  Speaker 2: you say to it? Yes, yes, the French tradition, I
• 1:19
  Speaker 2: guess kind of reached its peak under what often is
• 1:22
  Speaker 2: the case the sun king himself. I mean, anytime we
• 1:25
  Speaker 2: have something that peaks in French history, it's usually because
• 1:28
  Speaker 2: this dude had something to do with it. This is
• 1:30
  Speaker 2: quite opulent fellow Louis the fourteenth in the Palace of Versailles,
• 1:36
  Speaker 2: which was nothing if not maximal, but of course only
• 1:39
  Speaker 2: had one on one bathroom, one toilet.
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: The richest people in France were like, well, I'm gonna
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: go poop in the yard by the topieri topiary.
• 1:51
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you got to make room for all the topiary.
• 1:52
  Speaker 2: Were they still using human waste as as fertilizer back then,
• 1:56
  Speaker 2: because that would makes sense. They were like they just
• 1:58
  Speaker 2: didn't feel it was that's that's gold, right there, don't
• 2:01
  Speaker 2: be flushing that down brown gold.
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 2:03
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: Versailles had these four thousand acre gardens. It's huge. You
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: can hear us talk about it in the History of restrooms.
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: And they had very high standards for their for how
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: these topiary things should be cut. One point nine million
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: pots were always on hand so that the beds could
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: be replanted overnight while the king slept and he could
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: wake up to a surprise the next day. It's just
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: absolutely indicative of why France had a revolution.
• 2:38
  Speaker 2: Yes, sure, maybe she didn't say let the meat cake,
• 2:42
  Speaker 2: but the attitude of let the meat cake was pretty pervasive, right.
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: One hundred percent, dude. And then if you go across
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: the channel over to England. You'll see they had something
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: called the not garden. So they would take a bunch
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: of herbs and they would tie them together, you know,
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: like doing a French braid and hair or to like
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: or rope bridge. And then they had English yu trees
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: of course because you know it's England, and they would
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: also clip those down into hedges and grow them out
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: into mazes. It was very it was very hot.
• 3:11
  Speaker 2: Time, absolutely, and then we have the Dutch entering the chat.
• 3:16
  Speaker 2: Who you know, if you've ever been to Amsterdam, unbelievably beautiful, flowerful,
• 3:23
  Speaker 2: you know, fields like gardens really just it's like everywhere. Honestly,
• 3:27
  Speaker 2: there's a there's a Mario Kart level for Amsterdam that
• 3:30
  Speaker 2: was recently added and it is just chock full of
• 3:33
  Speaker 2: windmills and tulips. But yeah, the Dutch really got a
• 3:37
  Speaker 2: got a taste for gardening. But also we know, if
• 3:40
  Speaker 2: you know anything about Amsterdam, you know that it's it's
• 3:44
  Speaker 2: it's a very packed kind of metro type city. So
• 3:47
  Speaker 2: space is really precious, so they had to figure out
• 3:51
  Speaker 2: ways to maximize space, and in order to do that,
• 3:54
  Speaker 2: they got mega precise micro with their calculations for these gardens,
• 4:01
  Speaker 2: and they also, surprise, surprise, were super into topiary. Yeah.
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: The thing is so the Netherlands now, you know, Amsterdam
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: is a very old, very heavily developed city and if
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: you go out, you know, there really are these picturesque
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: tulip fields and windmills and all that.
• 4:19
  Speaker 2: That's true.
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: And they were always as a country struggling with space
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: in the days of their maritime trade empire. They had
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: a very different take on topiery and ornamental gardens in
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: general because they had simply encountered many new species of
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: plant life, and so they were able to flex super
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: duper hard on this. And you could go to a garden,
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: a Dutch garden, and you would see plants and flowers
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: that you couldn't see anywhere else in Europe, at least
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: at this time. And so the well to do in
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: England start picking and choosing the kind of stuff they
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: want to emulate. So they're like, okay, we're gonna we
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: like the uniformity, the grand duel of the French style.
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: We also love, we're in love with these Dutch strong
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: geometric patterns, and we want to get you know, maybe
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: one day we can get some of those fancy tulips.
• 5:17
  Speaker 2: But this is still like the era.
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: Of humanity where you would rent a pineapple to impress
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: people at a party.
• 5:23
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: So maybe they didn't get the tulips, but they wanted
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: to look like. They wanted people to look at their
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: gardens and say, oh, they know about the Netherlands.
• 5:31
  Speaker 2: That's right. Yeah, and we you know, we certainly have
• 5:33
  Speaker 2: parallels to that. Oh in society, people living above their
• 5:37
  Speaker 2: means or you know, having some sort of thing that
• 5:39
  Speaker 2: there's a status symbol or whatever that might be adorning
• 5:42
  Speaker 2: their their home or their clothing or whatever it might be. Yeah, sure, exactly.
• 5:48
  Speaker 2: So look at me, I'm a fancy guy, even though
• 5:53
  Speaker 2: maybe you're living check to check, it's it's it's it's
• 5:56
  Speaker 2: a it's a pretty tough situation. There's that fancy guy.
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: He's that fancy guy with that wristwatch and a phone
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: he could tell time twice.
• 6:04
  Speaker 2: And the default mortgage.
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: Right, So yeah, we see that this, you know, this
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: race to acquire social status via topierian specific is to
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: your point, noal, It is a microcosmic example of the
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: larger human urge across culture to impress people based on
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: your material possessions and it should not be a surprise
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: that the Tudors embrace topiary, and Henry the Eighth says,
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna go to the Romans.
• 6:40
  Speaker 2: He goes.
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: He hires some Italian gardeners to transform Hampton Court. He
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: gets real deal Italian landscapers. And when a German writer
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: named Thomas Platter visits Hampton Court during the reign of
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: Elizabeth I, he goes nuts. We've even got a quote
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: from him. He was really impressed. I think that's right.
• 6:59
  Speaker 2: He had to say that he beheld all manner of shapes,
• 7:04
  Speaker 2: men and women, half men and half horse, sirens serving
• 7:08
  Speaker 2: maids with baskets, French lilies and delicate crenelations. That's a
• 7:13
  Speaker 2: great word, all true to the life, and so cleverly
• 7:17
  Speaker 2: and amusingly interwoven, mingled and grown together, trimmed and arranged
• 7:22
  Speaker 2: picture wise that their equal would be difficult to find. Beautiful.
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Oh, plus he's also he's a writer, so he's
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: pretty talented at that.
• 7:31
  Speaker 2: But okay, that's how he talked too, I did it.
• 7:34
  Speaker 2: That was a perfect impression. Yeah.
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: We based that on YouTube recordings from his vlog. So
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: William the Third introduces the Dutch style and then he
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: is the guy who commissions the Hampton Court Maze. Around
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: seventeen hundred, they built this. Beat me here, Casey, they
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: build this big maze, and it's like a hearts and
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: minds thing. It's to impress company, you know, folks to
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: pay are where he grew up up in the US,
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: your parents might have done something similar, like a small
• 8:03
  Speaker 1: version of this is the guest bathroom has the decorative
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: soap that no one can touch, or the decorative hand towels.
• 8:10
  Speaker 2: Yeah right, right, right, Oh man. I always get so irritated.
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: I get it. I love festivity. I like commemorating occasions,
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: but it always irritated me as a utilitarian and a
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: minimalist to know that there was this entire part of
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: a hall closet that was like, we only put this
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: stuff out during Halloween or Thanksgiving.
• 8:34
  Speaker 2: This is the you know, end of the year stuff.
• 8:37
  Speaker 2: I've just converted to like a Halloween house. So I
• 8:40
  Speaker 2: just keep my decorations up all year. I add little
• 8:43
  Speaker 2: extra touches like the pumpkins, which obviously don't last year round.
• 8:46
  Speaker 2: But I realized I still have a giant fuzzy spider
• 8:49
  Speaker 2: on my front porch from last Halloween. So I'm just supplementing.
• 8:52
  Speaker 2: I have a weizu board welcome Matt that you know,
• 8:56
  Speaker 2: I bought it Spirit Halloween. But that's just my welcome Matt.
• 8:59
  Speaker 2: You know, it's easier than plus Halloween rules. Yeah.
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: Plus you know I said this in a poem. I
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: think of coming out, but it's always Halloween in America,
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: you know it has been for some time.
• 9:10
  Speaker 2: Think about it, folks. But anyway, so I don't think
• 9:13
  Speaker 2: too hard. Yeah, yeah, don't depress yourself. But it is accurate.
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: So there's this awesome topiary like Hedge May's kind of
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: thing going on in Hampton Court. A lot of other
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: people see it, and various different courtiers of William the
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: Third plants their own topieria at their own country houses,
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: just like plenty of the younger And we know that
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: a lot of these have been lost in time. But
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: we also saw something that happens with any esthetic trend
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: or fashionable fad. Once too many people are able to
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: do it, it loses its social utility. That's why so
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: many other w high faluting fashion houses would get mad
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: when too many hip hop celebrities liked their stuff, Like
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: Burberry got mad about that totally.
• 10:12
  Speaker 2: I mean the scarcity and exclusivity model is key. You know.
• 10:17
  Speaker 2: That's why I like Supreme. If you go on their website,
• 10:20
  Speaker 2: there's stuff's always sold out because you have to buy
• 10:23
  Speaker 2: it in the store. It's the only way. And when
• 10:25
  Speaker 2: they drop something new, you know, you get it then
• 10:27
  Speaker 2: or it's gone. And it's actually a pretty decent little
• 10:30
  Speaker 2: way to make some money flipping that stuff if you
• 10:32
  Speaker 2: actually live near one of those places there, even if
• 10:34
  Speaker 2: you're not into the style. Yeah, and this happens with
• 10:38
  Speaker 2: topiery as well.
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: There's a really solid argument the country life folks make
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: that as topiery became more common, as it became more
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: of an aesthetic, and increasingly less wealthy people were able
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: to do something like it, the tide turns against topiery,
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: especially when a guy named Joseph Addison and launches a
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: disk track about topiery in his magazine The Spectators Our
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: British Gardeners, he writes in seventeen twelve, instead of artering nature,
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: love to deviate from it as much as possible.
• 11:14
  Speaker 2: Our trees rise.
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: And cones, globes and pyramids. We see the marks of
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: the scissors upon every plant. And for my own part,
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: I would rather look upon a tree and all its luxuriancy,
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: not a word and diffusion of bousand branches than when
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: it is cut thus and trimmed into a mathematical figure.
• 11:37
  Speaker 2: So this quote is interesting because like every other word
• 11:41
  Speaker 2: is capitalized. Yes, it's like a poem or something. It's
• 11:45
  Speaker 2: very wow, it's like a manifesto. By the way, I
• 11:48
  Speaker 2: just wanted to add, I think Supreme should make a topiery.
• 11:51
  Speaker 2: That's a great idea. Yeah, just one.
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: I'm looking at their website. One hundred and fifty eight
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: bucks for a hoodie. Is it's gonna need to be
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: a little bit more of an impressive hoodie?
• 12:03
  Speaker 2: I agree, dude. Not to mention if you've ever been
• 12:05
  Speaker 2: into what's it called Balenciaga. They have one of those
• 12:09
  Speaker 2: stores at the Mall, one of the fancy malls here
• 12:12
  Speaker 2: in Atlanta, and I looked at a nondescript gray hoodie
• 12:16
  Speaker 2: that just says Balenciaga on it in very small script,
• 12:18
  Speaker 2: one thousand dollars. No, thank you, it's good. It's irritating.
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: I've been a busy little bit and I've been saving money,
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: but I end up.
• 12:27
  Speaker 2: In a lot of airports. We all do.
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: And the thing that gets me especially when you're traveling
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: through an international airport. Is there are all these extremely
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: high end stores with the idea that someone's going, Yes,
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: I saved up for quite a while to fly across
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: the Pacific, and the first thing I'm gonna do is
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: impulse purchase a Rolex.
• 12:49
  Speaker 2: I think it's largely designed for people that are just
• 12:52
  Speaker 2: money is no object, right, I don't know whim, you know,
• 12:55
  Speaker 2: I always wonder too about like I think there's probably
• 12:57
  Speaker 2: a bit in somebody's stand up routine about luggage store
• 13:00
  Speaker 2: at the airport, Like when does that ever come in hand?
• 13:03
  Speaker 2: What circumstances would you be in where you'd already at
• 13:05
  Speaker 2: the airport and need to buy luggage, because even if
• 13:07
  Speaker 2: you were going to get another one, you'd already how
• 13:10
  Speaker 2: did you get your stuff there? Maybe you buy it
• 13:12
  Speaker 2: on the front end because you want to get souvenirs
• 13:16
  Speaker 2: you're leaving the air and you're leaving, you buy it,
• 13:18
  Speaker 2: and then you go, okay, we solved it. Mission a
• 13:20
  Speaker 2: com orre you break your luggage.
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: I've only bought luggage at the airport twice, and once
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: it was because we had to go get stuff, and
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: then once.
• 13:27
  Speaker 2: It was you're in an elite class.
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: No luggage, you're in an elite class.
• 13:32
  Speaker 2: A bad planning, and I did like it. I no
• 13:35
  Speaker 2: offense to those folks.
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: They're trying to make a living, but there's so many
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: better places to buy luggage.
• 13:40
  Speaker 2: I'll tell you one thing that you can't have bad
• 13:43
  Speaker 2: planning involved with. That's topiary. Yeah, because that'll come back
• 13:47
  Speaker 2: to haunt you in fact. Yeah. In seventeen thirteen, an
• 13:52
  Speaker 2: English poet and satirist and Alexander Pope wrote another scathing
• 14:00
  Speaker 2: article about the excesses of topieri that he felt encapsulated
• 14:07
  Speaker 2: this kind of rot, you know, in his part of
• 14:09
  Speaker 2: the world. He goes on to say, quote a citizen
• 14:13
  Speaker 2: is no sooner proprietor of a couple of yews, but
• 14:16
  Speaker 2: he entertains thoughts of erecting them into giants like those
• 14:20
  Speaker 2: of Guildhall. Any ladies that please may have their own
• 14:24
  Speaker 2: effigies in myrtle, or their husbands in hornbeam. Imagine horn beam.
• 14:31
  Speaker 2: He adds, talking about some specific varieties of bush, tree
• 14:35
  Speaker 2: and shrub. His particular hatred of the quote vergent sculpture. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 14:43
  Speaker 2: This was basically a condemnation of the excesses of the
• 14:48
  Speaker 2: upper crust right.
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: One hundred percent and put this put a lot of
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: the like aspirational the people on the low end of
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: the upper class. This put them into panic mode because
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: they were like, holy he smokes or egads, We've spent
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: so much money hiring.
• 15:04
  Speaker 2: This Italian gardener.
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: We can only get Giuseppe for you know, a couple
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: of months out of the year, and now it's not popular.
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: Now we look out of date and dumb. We look
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: like squares or cones or pyramids or giants. So this
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: leads to a slow burned purge of these decorative sculptures.
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: In the seventeen twenties seventeen thirties, the aristocrats of England
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: are clearing out. They're paying people rather of course they're
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: not doing themselves. They're clearing out their gardens. And this
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: is the dawn of the more natural garden. It's still
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: very manufactured, but it's meant to look like an idyllic
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: water side by a creek or something.
• 15:55
  Speaker 2: Is the idea here that that it's sort of becoming
• 15:58
  Speaker 2: ghost to flaunt your wealth in this way. In this
• 16:01
  Speaker 2: way I think so yeah, other flex is totally fine,
• 16:05
  Speaker 2: fair enough, but like also you never know too it
• 16:08
  Speaker 2: probably could could make you a bit of a target,
• 16:11
  Speaker 2: you know what I mean. Like it's like, look at
• 16:13
  Speaker 2: that house with all the giant, oddly shaped shrubs. Let's
• 16:16
  Speaker 2: let's break into that place. They probably got some nice stuff.
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: They definitely have hedge trimmers if we need those.
• 16:24
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: So then it's interesting because then again the cycle repeats,
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: it reaches a new turn. In the eighteen forties, botanist
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: and garden writer named John Loudon says, you know, guys,
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: enough time has passed. I missed Toppiery and he's his
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: voice is tremendously influential in this circle. And it's funny
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: because it reminds it reminds me of so many things
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: that we have all seen in the modern day, especially
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: with like Twitter, or with Instagram or TikTok. After a
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: certain number of decades passes, someone will go, only ninety
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: kids will get this. You guys, I miss cassette tapes.
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: My question is do you really? Because there's better stuff
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: out there, you know what I mean, Like records I
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: think are different because that technology is really solid and
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: it conveys sound in a different way. But what I'm
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: saying is nostalgia is a hell of a drug, and
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: this our buddy John totally tapped in when he hit
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: the aristocrats with nostalgia, and so people started decorating garden
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: rooms again. They opened them the estates to the public,
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: and then within a few years, boom boom boom. Topieri's
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: back on top maybe.
• 17:43
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I were in eighteen sixty seven. I guess when
• 17:46
  Speaker 2: you have this kind of shift in, I guess topiery
• 17:50
  Speaker 2: more like kind of coming back into the forefront as
• 17:53
  Speaker 2: like an art form, and it has to do with
• 17:56
  Speaker 2: kind of fascination with a lot of things going on
• 18:00
  Speaker 2: in Japan, like a lot of the cultural you know,
• 18:03
  Speaker 2: crafts and practices of the Japanese and at the World's Fair,
• 18:08
  Speaker 2: this really kind of makes its debut in a way.
• 18:11
  Speaker 2: The entire continent was basically like Beatlemania, but for Japanese stuff. Yeah,
• 18:17
  Speaker 2: they became a bunch of wiyaboos. That's exactly right. And
• 18:21
  Speaker 2: this included things like Japanese gardening, like these zen type
• 18:25
  Speaker 2: gardens and like the very organic shaped you know, it
• 18:29
  Speaker 2: wasn't topier. It's almost anti Topieri, right like, because it
• 18:33
  Speaker 2: was you know, very meticulously trimmed and crafted, but it
• 18:38
  Speaker 2: was all designed to feel as as natural as possible,
• 18:42
  Speaker 2: and there are these very precise pruning techniques that the
• 18:46
  Speaker 2: Japanese gardeners would use, some of which were not that
• 18:51
  Speaker 2: far off from what we'd seen with some of these
• 18:53
  Speaker 2: Italian gardens.
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: Of course, Bonzai is like mini Topieri, right, I love
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: love Love. I am by no means responsible enough of
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: a person to take care of a Bondsie tree much less.
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: You know, honestly, it probably wouldn't buy one either, because
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: they really dope looking ones are.
• 19:15
  Speaker 2: Expensive, thousands of dollars.
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: They're very expensive, especially if they're older, and they're like
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: a hardwood, you know, so they've got the really tiny leaves.
• 19:24
  Speaker 2: And stuff, and they're really temperamental, right, Like, if you're
• 19:28
  Speaker 2: not taking care of them correctly, you can you can
• 19:30
  Speaker 2: lose them pretty easily.
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: They're sensitive boys. Yeah, yeah, for sure. But it's you
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: can see how people would have been fascinated with this
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: in Europe, especially the intentionality of the esthetic, right we're
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: talking about instead of this huge chaotic growth of stuff,
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: instead of this abundance of uniform, militaristic chopped trees, there's like,
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: let's have two trees and let's position them in an
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: interesting way, with perhaps a water feature and everybody in
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: Europe loses their minds.
• 20:07
  Speaker 2: They're like, this is amazing.
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: You know. It's like when the beat drops in an
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: EDM song. You know what I mean, they are the
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: best part of the song. It's the way for it,
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: you know, it's.
• 20:18
  Speaker 2: The knock they we're looking for.
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: At the same time, literature has embraced this romanticization of
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: topiary gardens in the past, so you would see like
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: Lewis Carroll write about secret gardens. You would later see
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: books like you know, the Secret Garden, right, yeah.
• 20:43
  Speaker 2: Exactly, and also made its way into you know, the
• 20:46
  Speaker 2: Greek paintings and the surrealist works of Salvador Dali and Papocasso.
• 20:52
  Speaker 2: So that's definitely the kind of I mean Picasso obviously,
• 20:56
  Speaker 2: some of his work is more political work, especially, so
• 21:01
  Speaker 2: I imagine that the idea of a topiery could also have
• 21:05
  Speaker 2: significance referencing that kind of elite class you know, of
• 21:09
  Speaker 2: conquerors you know from the past. But also they're just
• 21:12
  Speaker 2: freaking weird and they're creepy, and they're like there are
• 21:15
  Speaker 2: ways to really make them. An excellent feature in any
• 21:18
  Speaker 2: surrealist kind of work of fiction or horror or just
• 21:22
  Speaker 2: kind of just you know, something's not quite right. There's
• 21:25
  Speaker 2: a sense of foreboding. Again, is they used a great
• 21:28
  Speaker 2: effect in the Stephen King version. I guess, I guess
• 21:31
  Speaker 2: that movie is so revered in its own right. It
• 21:34
  Speaker 2: really does feel like that's the Kubrad version. There's the
• 21:36
  Speaker 2: Stephen King version. It does have topieries that come to
• 21:38
  Speaker 2: life and like stalk you know, young Danny.
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: Yeah, And the Stephen King version also has one of
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: my one of one of the few laugh out loud
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: parts of the novel where at the end spoiler by
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: the way for a decade's old novel with multiple film
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: and TV adaptations three to one spoil toward the end
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: when the Overlook Hotel is fully possessed the father. The
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: way that the kid saves the story in the book
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: is he turns up the gas boiler right, and the
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: boiler excludes the Overlook. At the very end, when the
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: Overlook possessing this guy realizes what's going on, he says.
• 22:22
  Speaker 2: You doesn't you doesn't like dare not right?
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: And I was so deep into this book. I'm again
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: when I read in this and I'm like, da isn't
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: a word?
• 22:32
  Speaker 2: You know?
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: And I asked my dad, and he was like, son,
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: this will make sense later. But uh, Stephen King does
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: a lot of drugs, so I didn't know it was
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: a real word, but I guess it is.
• 22:44
  Speaker 2: I think, yeah, I think you might have been in
• 22:46
  Speaker 2: the thick of his h his uh cocaine days when
• 22:50
  Speaker 2: he wrote that one.
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: It's apparently it's a northern US contraction of dare not
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: maybe it's transatlantic, but anyway, yes, you're right, this uncanny
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: valley is. I think Topieri can tap into that. Similar
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: to when you see a mannequin and you're not expecting it, right,
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: that's never pleasant. Sure they should stay in department stores.
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: I'm sorry. It's not like I'm advocating mannequin apartheid, but
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: if you're not expecting them, they're very strange to.
• 23:18
  Speaker 2: See the wild, especially the ones with like the really
• 23:22
  Speaker 2: creepily narrow wastes, you know, or really elongated necks. And
• 23:28
  Speaker 2: we know.
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: Now that you can see topieri in all sorts of places,
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: especially if you live in a large metro area, like
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: we just started making plans to go to the Atlanta
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: Botanical Garden, and we know that today topiery is this
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: is kind of a happy ending thing. Topiery is a
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: really cool way of beautifying common spaces.
• 23:52
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I hadn't though about it because I mentioned earlier
• 23:54
  Speaker 2: that I hadn't really ever seen any topieri, But I
• 23:56
  Speaker 2: realized now that I certainly have when I went to
• 23:58
  Speaker 2: Disney World recently. There are quite a few of them
• 24:01
  Speaker 2: there in the shape of you know, your favorite characters.
• 24:04
  Speaker 2: Disney brought topiery to America's kind of mainstream with these
• 24:10
  Speaker 2: trademark trimmed little fellas. Disney actually even developed some portable
• 24:15
  Speaker 2: topieries by fascinating moss and little shrubs to steal wires,
• 24:22
  Speaker 2: which was able to give them the support they needed
• 24:24
  Speaker 2: to create these kind of cutting guides. They all I
• 24:27
  Speaker 2: had to do is just trim around the cages, much
• 24:30
  Speaker 2: like those Rosemary contraptions you were talking about earlier.
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and I think there's something so very cool about that.
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: I would love to go visit the Potactical Garden with
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: you guys. You know, maybe maybe we can take the
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: lady friends and the kids. Sure, and I think we can.
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: Also now we can say we're looking at the world
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: with different, more topiery sensitive eyes, so you might be
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: surprised the next time you see a big public event.
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: The next time you visit a park in your neck
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: of the Global woods, folks, you might be surprised by
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: how much Topiery is out there. And we can't wait
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: to see the most stunning, most extreme, the weirdest example.
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: So I'm glad we made this a two part episode. Noel,
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: what about you?
• 25:17
  Speaker 2: Oh? Totally absolutely, you know. I never would have I
• 25:19
  Speaker 2: think this may have been my suggestion when we were
• 25:22
  Speaker 2: talking through potential topics once on one of our like
• 25:26
  Speaker 2: pitch meetings, and I think it just occurred to me that, like,
• 25:29
  Speaker 2: there must be some interesting stuff in the history of Topieri's,
• 25:34
  Speaker 2: and I had no idea it would be this much,
• 25:36
  Speaker 2: but boy was it ever and huge thanks to research
• 25:40
  Speaker 2: Associate extraordinariy Zach Williams, who, as always went above and beyond.
• 25:44
  Speaker 2: There was stuff we couldn't even get to in this
• 25:47
  Speaker 2: two parter on Topieri's. Big big thanks.
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: Too, Casey pegrim our super producer man the myth legend, Casey,
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: I do hope we can make this a regular thing.
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: Are you gonna help us get the band back together?
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: Absolutely love to Nice Okay, and big big thanks of
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: course to Max white Pants Williams. Big thanks to Jonathan
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: Strickland aka the quizt who I promised Jonathan I would
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: not publicly mock his hedge phobia, his topiary phobia, and
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: I do want everybody to know he has one, so
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: as of course, as always, if you have complaints, send
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: him to our complaint department, that is Jonathan Strickland at.
• 26:31
  Speaker 2: iHeartRadio dot com.
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: Big thanks Chris Frosciotis E's Jeffcoat here in Spirit, Gabe Lucier,
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: Alex Williams and Nole.
• 26:40
  Speaker 2: Big thanks to you. Man. I'm excited about the botanical gardener.
• 26:43
  Speaker 2: Me too, Buddy, me too, and thanks to you as well.
• 26:46
  Speaker 2: We'll see you next time, folks. For more podcasts from
• 26:59
  Speaker 2: my Heart Radio, is it the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
• 27:02
  Speaker 2: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows,