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Out of Tune · 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. Books do not simply appear.
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  Speaker 1: Someone must undertake the task to sit down and compose
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  Speaker 1: the words on the page for another person to read.
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  Speaker 1: And that's the main purpose of a book, to be read,
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  Speaker 1: to convey information to another individual so that they might
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  Speaker 1: learn or be entertained, or in some cases both. A
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  Speaker 1: book is a vessel and the person who opens that
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  Speaker 1: vessel is meant to consume the contents within, which is
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  Speaker 1: what makes the Voytage Manuscripts such a complex and strange volume.
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  Speaker 1: It was discovered by an antiquarian bookseller named Wilfred Voynage
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  Speaker 1: in it had been passed down through the ages from
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  Speaker 1: Holy Roman emperors two doctors to check collectors, going missing
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  Speaker 1: for two centuries until finally ending up in the hands
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  Speaker 1: of Voynage. He purchased it in a small Italian village
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  Speaker 1: and brought it back to London, where he kept it
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  Speaker 1: hidden for several years. Then in nineteen fifteen, Voynage decided
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  Speaker 1: to reveal the manuscript of the World, and scholars were
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  Speaker 1: befuddled by it. Measuring roughly the size of a standard
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  Speaker 1: modern hardcover, the book is comprised of two hundred forty
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  Speaker 1: vellum pages bound within a goat skin binding In two
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  Speaker 1: thousand nine, radio carbon dating test Pegnet's creation to sometime
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  Speaker 1: in the early fourteen hundreds. Almost every page is adorned
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  Speaker 1: with paintings and drawings of flowers, mythological creatures, buildings and people,
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  Speaker 1: oh and text texts that no one can read. Some
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  Speaker 1: words are written in Latin, but the majority of the
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  Speaker 1: next is written in an unknown language. It has been
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  Speaker 1: studied continuously since Voyinage first uncovered the manuscript over a
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  Speaker 1: century ago, and no one has successfully deciphered its contents.
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  Speaker 1: It's even been studied by n Essay cryptographers, who believe
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  Speaker 1: the manuscript was written in a European language that had
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  Speaker 1: been converted using a kind of cipher to obscure the text. Others, though,
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  Speaker 1: say that the words are really codes that required a
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  Speaker 1: separate book to translate properly. One man who examined the
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  Speaker 1: book in claimed that it was actually a diary written
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  Speaker 1: in a special shorthand only understood by the original author. However,
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  Speaker 1: historians quickly debunked that theory, citing that the abbreviations used
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  Speaker 1: in the book weren't based on any known style or form. Scientists, students,
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  Speaker 1: and scholars looked at everything, the arrangement of the text,
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  Speaker 1: the number of letters and words in each line, how
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  Speaker 1: each letter was formed, and still came away knowing no more.
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  Speaker 1: And they did before they laid eyes on it. One
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  Speaker 1: of the more prominent theories came from a television writer
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  Speaker 1: and historian named Nicholas Gibbs. He'd been contacted to examine
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  Speaker 1: the manuscript as part of a project he was working
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  Speaker 1: on for a UK television show. He published his findings
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  Speaker 1: on a prominent literary website, where it was picked up
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  Speaker 1: by countless outlets across the Internet. By all accounts, he'd
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  Speaker 1: done what no one else could do. He had solved
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  Speaker 1: the mystery. Now, according to Gibbs, many of the Latin
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  Speaker 1: abbreviations had been used in fifteenth century medical texts about herbs.
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  Speaker 1: The idea that the book had been written in a
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  Speaker 1: kind of code or cipher had been incorrect. All it
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  Speaker 1: was was medical shorthand. And not only that, but many
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  Speaker 1: of the diagrams within the book match diagrams and other
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  Speaker 1: medical texts that Gibbs had consulted, leading him to believe
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  Speaker 1: the manuscript had been a specially created document for one
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  Speaker 1: specific reader who wanted all of their necessary information stored
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  Speaker 1: within one book. The Voyage manuscript predates the printing press
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  Speaker 1: by a few decades, so books of that time had
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  Speaker 1: to be reproduced manually, gives claim this particular manuscript had
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  Speaker 1: been a greatest hits album of other textbooks pertaining to
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  Speaker 1: herbal medicine and gynecology. Sadly, his treatise would quickly become
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  Speaker 1: a target of criticism, and soon after it was published,
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  Speaker 1: medievalists dug in. They ripped apart his theory, mainly about
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  Speaker 1: how he interpreted the Latin abbreviations. No one within the
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  Speaker 1: historical community took him seriously, and just like that, everyone
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  Speaker 1: was back to square one. Things got so desperate at
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  Speaker 1: one point that rumors circulated that the book was a fake,
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  Speaker 1: fabricated by Voynage himself using his vast knowledge of antique
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  Speaker 1: books of bookmaking. Historians, though, have ruled that idea out
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  Speaker 1: due to the age and provenance of the vellum. Finding
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  Speaker 1: so many pages from a single source would have been
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  Speaker 1: nearly impossible even for a dealer such as Voyage, and
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  Speaker 1: so for now the Voyage Manuscript remains an unsolved literary mystery.
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  Speaker 1: Theories seem to be debunked as soon as they are offered,
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  Speaker 1: but for anyone wanting to try their luck, they'll have
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  Speaker 1: to pay a visit to Yale University. That's where the
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  Speaker 1: book is housed today, within it's rare Book and Manuscript
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  Speaker 1: Library under the call number MS for zero eight. And
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  Speaker 1: if you managed to sit in front of it, happy reading.
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  Speaker 1: Music has a way of affecting people like nothing else.
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  Speaker 1: Hearing an old song can transport a person back to
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  Speaker 1: their childhood, drumming up feelings of wistfulness or pain. Love
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  Speaker 1: songs can ignite romance on a star lit night, or
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  Speaker 1: regret for something lost. Music has always been equated with magic,
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  Speaker 1: and in some ways it really is. In others, it's
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  Speaker 1: a poison that can bring a person lower than they've
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  Speaker 1: ever thought possible. Bounding Father Benjamin Franklin learned about this
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  Speaker 1: more sinister side of music the hard way. Franklin was
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  Speaker 1: a bit of a renaissance man, with his interest extending
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  Speaker 1: from politics, to art, to literature, and to music. A
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  Speaker 1: friend of his Edward de Laval played a unique kind
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  Speaker 1: of instrument, one that captivated Franklin from the first note.
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  Speaker 1: He called it a glass harp, and it wasn't really
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  Speaker 1: an instrument at all, at least not in the traditional sense.
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  Speaker 1: It didn't use strings or a reed to generate sound.
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  Speaker 1: There was nothing more than a table of glass cups
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  Speaker 1: filled to different levels with water. Delaval would wet his
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  Speaker 1: finger and rub it along the rim of each glass,
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  Speaker 1: one at a time, which would generate a tone. Franklin
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  Speaker 1: was enchanted by the gentle hums from Delaval's harp, so
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  Speaker 1: he set out to make one for himself. His idea
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  Speaker 1: was to construct the table of goblets into something that
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  Speaker 1: would it in a box and could be easily transported
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  Speaker 1: for travel. He worked with the local glass blower to
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  Speaker 1: create glass bowls of various sizes arranged on an iron
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  Speaker 1: rod horizontally. Each bowl would play a single note when
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  Speaker 1: touched by a wet finger. A foot pedal would spin
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  Speaker 1: the whole contraption, allowing Franklin to simply shift his hands
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  Speaker 1: when he wanted to play different notes. The novel new
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  Speaker 1: design actually allowed him to play up to ten notes
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  Speaker 1: at the same time, much like a piano. He dubbed
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  Speaker 1: his creation the glass armonica, yes, just like harmonica, another
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  Speaker 1: name it often went by. He debuted his glass armonica
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  Speaker 1: in seventeen sixty two, and it took off with audiences immediately.
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  Speaker 1: The sound was unlike anything anyone had ever heard, and
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  Speaker 1: its popularity grew so quickly that legends like Mozart and
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  Speaker 1: Beethoven even composed music for it. However, not everyone found
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  Speaker 1: the glass harmonica a soothing experience. It's other worldly tones
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  Speaker 1: didn't sit well with some listeners, who spoke of dizziness,
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  Speaker 1: stomach gichs, fainting, and in some extreme cases, permanent nerve damage.
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  Speaker 1: Even worse were the psychological problems associated with its music.
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  Speaker 1: Both listeners and players were known to suffer from depression,
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  Speaker 1: suicidal thoughts, and some even had to be committed to
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  Speaker 1: sanitariums for delusions, and all of it was attributed to
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  Speaker 1: listening to this instrument. During one performance in Germany, a
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  Speaker 1: child died after a prolonged exposure to its music. The
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  Speaker 1: more spiritually minded believed its high pitched notes could summon
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  Speaker 1: the ghosts of the dead. In reality, it was science
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  Speaker 1: that held the answers. It turns out that the tones
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  Speaker 1: produced by the device occurred at such a range the
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  Speaker 1: human ear was unable to detect their origin. This disorientation,
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  Speaker 1: combined with the surreal nature of the notes themselves, may
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  Speaker 1: have been what had created such a discomfort in audiences.
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  Speaker 1: It had also been suspected that lead in the glass
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  Speaker 1: may have caused sickness in anyone who touched the bulls,
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  Speaker 1: but those claims were never confirmed. Most degree that the
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  Speaker 1: trace amounts that would have been present could not have
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  Speaker 1: been enough to triggered lead poisoning. Regardless of the science,
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  Speaker 1: these symptoms and stories led to the belief that the
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  Speaker 1: glass armonica was cursed, which led to its eventual decline,
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  Speaker 1: except in the case of Benjamin Franklin. He never experienced
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  Speaker 1: any of the instrument side effects and continued to play
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  Speaker 1: it until his death in seventeen. He was quoted as saying,
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  Speaker 1: of all my inventions, the glass armonica has given me
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  Speaker 1: the greatest personal satisfaction. Unfortunately, no one else felt the same.
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  Speaker 1: Over half a century after its debut, not a single
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  Speaker 1: musician was still playing the glass armonica. Musical tastes had
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  Speaker 1: moved on. New instruments were cropping up, ones whose notes
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  Speaker 1: could fill a concert Hall without creating psychological damage in
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  Speaker 1: the listener. By five thousand glass armonicas were made during
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  Speaker 1: the seventeen hundreds, and today only a handful still remain.
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  Speaker 1: A replica of the one Franklin played is on display
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  Speaker 1: at the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia. You can visit it
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  Speaker 1: if you want to see it. Surprisingly, though, the instrument
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  Speaker 1: has seen a kind of resurgence, most notably among film composers.
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  Speaker 1: In fact, thanks to composer James Horner, millions of people
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  Speaker 1: around the world have heard the otherworldly tones of the
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  Speaker 1: glass armonica without knowing it, and the song it's simply
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  Speaker 1: called Spock a theme for the same character in Star
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  Speaker 1: Trek two, The Wrath of con A good choice and one,
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  Speaker 1: I might add that is most logical. I hope you've
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  Speaker 1: enjoyed today's guided tour of the Cabinet of Curiosities. Subscribe
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  Speaker 1: for free on Apple Podcasts, or learn more about the
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  Speaker 1: show by visiting Curiosities podcast dot com. The show was
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  Speaker 1: created by me Aaron Manky in partnership with how Stuff Works.
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  Speaker 1: I make 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.