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Transcript

SYSK's 2025 Holiday Extravaganza Christmas Special · Stuff You Should Know

0:01
Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio.
0:20
Speaker 2: Do Do Do Do Do, Do Do Do, and welcome
0:23
Speaker 2: to the podcast. I'm Josh, and there's Chuck and Jerry's
0:26
Speaker 2: here too. Somewhere in spirit. She may be haunting somebody
0:29
Speaker 2: right now as a ghost of Christmas past. I'm not sure. Yeah,
0:32
Speaker 2: And this is our annual Stuff you Should Know Holiday
0:35
Speaker 2: special Hunt Chalk.
0:37
Speaker 1: That's right, I tell you what. It's one of, if
0:40
Speaker 1: not our favorite episodes of the year. M h. I
0:43
Speaker 1: will say it's getting harder and harder to come up
0:44
Speaker 1: with stuff. We're delving further out into the world and
0:49
Speaker 1: further back in time.
0:51
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, this is our Anglo American edition, I guess.
0:55
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's right. European listeners are going to be pretty stoked.
0:57
Speaker 1: And also we like to point out this this is
1:00
Speaker 1: one of two episodes at the year where we draw
1:02
Speaker 1: a line in the sand and say, sales take the
1:05
Speaker 1: day off. No ads for this one.
1:07
Speaker 2: Yeah, because Christmas is commercial enough? Am I right?
1:10
Speaker 1: Yeah? Man? Am I going to sell these? No?
1:12
Speaker 2: These belong to you guys, the people there are gifts.
1:15
Speaker 1: That's right. And by the way, if you hear the
1:17
Speaker 1: tinkle tinkle of ice. It's because Josh talked me into
1:20
Speaker 1: making the drink that we're gonna You know, sometimes we
1:23
Speaker 1: have a little Christmas drink that we put out as
1:26
Speaker 1: a part of this episode, and we're doing that again
1:27
Speaker 1: this year, and so I'm having what we call here
1:30
Speaker 1: in the South a nooner.
1:32
Speaker 2: I didn't have to try very hard. What do you
1:35
Speaker 2: want to start with, Chuck? And also hats off to
1:37
Speaker 2: Jerry for doing all of the wonderful sound design that
1:41
Speaker 2: makes this Christmas episode so special every year.
1:44
Speaker 1: That's right, as usually we're flying by the seat of
1:46
Speaker 1: our pants. What do you say we start with one
1:48
Speaker 1: of your picks on the Morabians, who we've talked about
1:52
Speaker 1: before on a Christmas episode. I believe I don't remember
1:55
Speaker 1: that we definitely did.
1:57
Speaker 2: It makes sense because they are definitely sod with Christmas
2:00
Speaker 2: in the United States, and I would guess the Czech
2:03
Speaker 2: Republic too. At the time the Moravians made the move
2:06
Speaker 2: over to North America in the eighteenth century, the Czech
2:10
Speaker 2: Republic was still called Bohemia, and the Moravians first settled
2:15
Speaker 2: in the Lehigh Valley of Pennsylvania, and they where a
2:17
Speaker 2: very devout group still are and that's why Pennsylvania has
2:21
Speaker 2: towns named Nazareth in Bethlehem, for example.
2:24
Speaker 1: Yeah, never knew that until yesterday.
2:27
Speaker 2: So they brought a lot of Christmas traditions with them.
2:29
Speaker 2: The Moravian cookies Mevini gingery, molasses heavy flat, yeah, crispy delicious.
2:36
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, yeah, those cookies came from these people. They
2:40
Speaker 2: also brought the seeds of miniature Christmas villages that people
2:44
Speaker 2: put up around the holidays too.
2:46
Speaker 1: That's right. If you look back in the Middle Ages
2:49
Speaker 1: in Europe, well, there's a bunch of awful things going on.
2:51
Speaker 1: But one of the fun things was a trend of
2:53
Speaker 1: creating Nativity scenes. They were called, I guess cretches. And
2:58
Speaker 1: you know what a Nativity scene is. They're a little
3:00
Speaker 1: dioramas of the of the scene of the birth of
3:03
Speaker 1: Jesus in a manger. And yeah, the Moravians saw those
3:07
Speaker 1: and they were like, hold my molasses cookie, because we're
3:10
Speaker 1: gonna kick this up a notch. And they kicked it
3:12
Speaker 1: up such a notch that the Germans created a term
3:17
Speaker 1: basically for that notch of these crutches, these Moravian crutches,
3:21
Speaker 1: called a puts. It means to put out or decorate
3:24
Speaker 1: and putzing was the act of doing this nothing to
3:27
Speaker 1: do with the Yiddish term you're a putts or putsing about?
3:32
Speaker 2: No, oh really, I thought putsing probably came from that
3:35
Speaker 2: because you're going from house to house, as we'll find out.
3:38
Speaker 1: No, because the putts is sort of a fool and
3:40
Speaker 1: puttsing about is kind of doing foolish things.
3:43
Speaker 2: I see, I heard a putts was something else entirely
3:46
Speaker 2: that we would well be able to mention on the episode.
3:48
Speaker 1: Is that not true, that's the original, that's the og meeting. Yes,
3:52
Speaker 1: you are correct.
3:53
Speaker 2: Okay, So Moravians, like you said, they kind of took
3:57
Speaker 2: this medieval tradition to like a whole new level. The
4:02
Speaker 2: putts is that they created just started getting bigger and bigger.
4:06
Speaker 2: They started out with those Nativity scenes, the crush, but
4:09
Speaker 2: they started adding new figures like the shepherd's dog. Well,
4:12
Speaker 2: shepherd's dog, from what I understand, doesn't appear in any
4:16
Speaker 2: biblical description of the Nativity scene, which was the birth
4:19
Speaker 2: of Jesus.
4:20
Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, but you still.
4:22
Speaker 2: Want to include the shepherd's dog because you're starting to
4:24
Speaker 2: make a better and better diorama. Eventually, there were too
4:28
Speaker 2: many characters to fit in the manger. So they started
4:30
Speaker 2: hanging out outside the manger.
4:33
Speaker 1: Yeah, They're like, where am I going to put the
4:34
Speaker 1: manger repair guy? They had no spot. So they created
4:38
Speaker 1: they just expanded the natural scene around the I guess
4:43
Speaker 1: the barn. They created fields. Of course, all of a
4:46
Speaker 1: sudden you had lakes, you had cliffs, you had rivers,
4:49
Speaker 1: you had buildings, you had more buildings, and before you
4:53
Speaker 1: know it, a putts or a putz rather it's probably puts.
4:57
Speaker 1: It could take up an entire room, like they would
4:59
Speaker 1: clear up room and dedicate it to their puts.
5:02
Speaker 2: Right, And so there's a tradition that kind of grew
5:06
Speaker 2: up around this where that room would usually be closed
5:08
Speaker 2: off to the kids of the family got to do that,
5:10
Speaker 2: and the adults would go in there and puts around
5:13
Speaker 2: o their poots. Then on Christmas Eve they would unveil
5:18
Speaker 2: the poots, the family poots, to the kids. And I'm
5:22
Speaker 2: sure it was just a great a great time for everybody.
5:25
Speaker 1: That's right. And now I digress very briefly to tell
5:28
Speaker 1: you of a little natural diorama I made at my
5:32
Speaker 1: camp on a stump, on a big old tree stump
5:36
Speaker 1: that I brought up there from a neighbor's front yard.
5:39
Speaker 2: I brought your own stump.
5:40
Speaker 1: I brought my own stump, which was a whole story
5:42
Speaker 1: in itself, which I won't get into. But the stump
5:45
Speaker 1: is now located near the fire and I created a
5:47
Speaker 1: whole scene there where we display the rocks that we
5:50
Speaker 1: paint when we go up there. And then I brought
5:52
Speaker 1: it a step forward and I made a whole nature
5:55
Speaker 1: scene featuring little plastic animals of all the animals that
5:57
Speaker 1: I've caught in the camp cam nice And I mentioned
6:00
Speaker 1: this only because while I was doing it, it was
6:02
Speaker 1: a weekend with a lot of the kids there. A
6:04
Speaker 1: bunch of neighbors and friends went up and families.
6:07
Speaker 2: Were they invited?
6:08
Speaker 1: They were not. Every time they came over there to
6:10
Speaker 1: try and arrange things, very gently said this is mister
6:15
Speaker 1: Chuck's project.
6:16
Speaker 2: Right.
6:17
Speaker 1: Yeah, So that wasn't so much fun. But it reminded
6:19
Speaker 1: me of the Moravians saying, kids get out of here.
6:23
Speaker 2: Right. Did you unveil it to the children's delight though
6:26
Speaker 2: on Christmas Eve?
6:28
Speaker 1: No. I unveiled it later that evening and they said,
6:30
Speaker 1: buzz off turkey. I wasn't a part of it.
6:33
Speaker 2: So there were people who got so good at it
6:36
Speaker 2: that they became known for their puttses or poots's. One.
6:39
Speaker 2: Probably the most famous Moravian puts artist I guess yeah
6:43
Speaker 2: would be, was named Jenny Train. She was working in
6:47
Speaker 2: I guess about the mid twentieth century, and her puttses
6:50
Speaker 2: were so great that some of the museums in the
6:52
Speaker 2: Lehigh Valley hold them in their collections and display them
6:55
Speaker 2: at certain times.
6:56
Speaker 1: Of the year. That's right. And the non Marie got
7:00
Speaker 1: into it at a certain point, so much so that
7:02
Speaker 1: they were like, we don't even need this Nativity scene
7:04
Speaker 1: any longer. Let's just create a Christmas village. Sure, you
7:07
Speaker 1: can buy these things if you want, but it's a
7:09
Speaker 1: lot more fun if you sort of collect things piece
7:12
Speaker 1: by piece and set up your own. Obviously, electricity came
7:15
Speaker 1: along and you could have, you know, Christmas lights. You
7:18
Speaker 1: could have little ski lifts that take people up tiny mountains.
7:21
Speaker 1: They do that so cute.
7:23
Speaker 2: Yeah, for sure. Apparently lit Max is probably from what
7:27
Speaker 2: I could tell the leader in Miniature Christmas Village Manufactory. Yeah, oh,
7:33
Speaker 2: you want me to tell you some more about them, please,
7:36
Speaker 2: So they have different themes. Like you said, you can
7:38
Speaker 2: buy these whole kits like wholesale, but they also I think,
7:41
Speaker 2: sell each piece individually because if you know so there's
7:44
Speaker 2: the Christmas tip. If you know somebody who sets up
7:48
Speaker 2: Christmas villages around Christmas, yeah, that is a guaranteed home
7:51
Speaker 2: run gift to get them another piece for their collection.
7:54
Speaker 2: They will not be mad about.
7:56
Speaker 1: It, yeah for sure. But if you choose to buy
7:59
Speaker 1: whole kit, you can get you know, themes, you can
8:01
Speaker 1: get like a Norman Rockwell thing or like a Victorian
8:04
Speaker 1: age thing. That'd be kind of a fun one.
8:06
Speaker 2: I think that seems to be that in like Swiss
8:09
Speaker 2: village seems to be like a pretty common theme. But
8:12
Speaker 2: there's also I've seen one for the fifties. Somebody's really
8:16
Speaker 2: heavy in the do op. I guess that would be
8:18
Speaker 2: their kind. So there was also Santo's Wonderland, you know,
8:21
Speaker 2: like where it's at Sanna's actual village. That seems pretty
8:24
Speaker 2: good thematically speaking.
8:26
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's right. And we want to thank listener Robert Paulson,
8:29
Speaker 1: who's been listening forever. Yeah, because he always sends in
8:32
Speaker 1: Christmas ideas and I believe he sent this one in
8:35
Speaker 1: under the guise of trains around the tree and that
8:38
Speaker 1: led to this because it seems that the origin of
8:41
Speaker 1: the trains around the tree came from this tradition of
8:44
Speaker 1: creating these villages. They eventually added trains, and once Lionel
8:48
Speaker 1: came along with their electric train sets, sometimes the village
8:51
Speaker 1: went away and it just became a train around the tree.
8:53
Speaker 2: Yeah. And then people who had those trains around their
8:56
Speaker 2: trees grew up, they got nostalgic for them, they started
8:58
Speaker 2: setting them up for their kids, and it became a
9:01
Speaker 2: Christmas tradition thanks to our Moravian friends.
9:04
Speaker 1: That's right, and that is the story of the Moravian
9:07
Speaker 1: tiny villages And scene, what do you want to do next?
9:22
Speaker 2: Do you want to tell everybody about your drink so
9:24
Speaker 2: they can possibly press paws and make one and then
9:27
Speaker 2: come back for the rest of it?
9:28
Speaker 1: Yeah? Why not? Okay? This year, the drink that we're
9:31
Speaker 1: going to talk about is Chuck's special Pumpkin Spice Old Fashion.
9:37
Speaker 1: I've been drinking these lately because when fall rolls around
9:40
Speaker 1: here in Georgia, that's when the whiskey and the bourbon
9:43
Speaker 1: kind of becomes a little more to my taste, definitely,
9:46
Speaker 1: And this year I heard about a pumpkin spice Old Fashion,
9:49
Speaker 1: and I thought you know what, I've never made my
9:50
Speaker 1: own syrups and stuff, so I'm going to make my
9:53
Speaker 1: own pumpkin spice syrup from scratch. And I did, and
9:55
Speaker 1: it's great.
9:57
Speaker 2: I have some questions about your recipe. I may have
9:59
Speaker 2: some suggestions. I'm not surprised, and you tell me, you
10:04
Speaker 2: tell me if you think that they would be incorporaable.
10:07
Speaker 1: Uh okay, I mean you can. You can do it,
10:09
Speaker 1: what however you want to?
10:10
Speaker 2: So all right, well listen, so you start with five
10:12
Speaker 2: cups of water, right?
10:14
Speaker 1: Uh yeah. I mean I'm not an exact guy when
10:16
Speaker 1: it comes to recipes, so I had a really hard
10:19
Speaker 1: time coming with measurements because I'm just I fly by
10:22
Speaker 1: the seat of my pants when it comes to cooking
10:23
Speaker 1: and things.
10:24
Speaker 2: Okay, well, so you got that. You've got one and
10:28
Speaker 2: a half cups like brown sugar, another half a cup turbinato,
10:31
Speaker 2: which is like the granular minimally processed sugar.
10:35
Speaker 1: Yeah, but it's sort of like the pre brown sugars.
10:38
Speaker 1: It's got that same molasses flavor.
10:40
Speaker 2: Okay, and then do you like your syrup very sweet?
10:43
Speaker 1: Uh? Yeah, I mean in this case, you know, you know,
10:46
Speaker 1: I actually don't think I measured the water. What I
10:48
Speaker 1: think I did was I got an old bourbon bottle
10:52
Speaker 1: and clean that out really good and filled that up
10:54
Speaker 1: because I wanted it to fill that bottle. So I
10:57
Speaker 1: guess it's what is that bottle like? Like, is that
10:59
Speaker 1: a lead seven fifty? Yeah? I got a seven to
11:03
Speaker 1: fifty so whatever that equates two cup.
11:04
Speaker 2: Wise, although I guess it could be a leader.
11:07
Speaker 1: No, no, no, no, the leader is the big guy, right, yeah, No,
11:10
Speaker 1: this is the seven to fifty. So, however much water
11:12
Speaker 1: that is, so you.
11:13
Speaker 2: Can depending on how sweet you want your syrup to be,
11:15
Speaker 2: you can make it a two to one ratio two
11:18
Speaker 2: cups of water to one cup of sugar, or a
11:21
Speaker 2: one to one ratio if you really like a sweet
11:23
Speaker 2: one cup of sugar to one cup of water, and
11:26
Speaker 2: then you expand it from there, depending on how much
11:28
Speaker 2: you've got in your whisky bottle.
11:29
Speaker 1: Right, yeah, that sounds about right.
11:31
Speaker 2: And then you've got to make your spice mix though yourself.
11:33
Speaker 2: Chuck here is showing off everybody, and his recipe says
11:36
Speaker 2: it's best if you grind and powder your own.
11:39
Speaker 1: Sure, what do you have, well, classic pumpkin spice. It
11:43
Speaker 1: can vary depending on who you are, but I did
11:45
Speaker 1: about a tablespoon of cinnamon, about a half a tablespoon
11:48
Speaker 1: of nutmeg, and then you've got to go a little
11:51
Speaker 1: bit lighter, maybe a teaspoon or two of ginger, about
11:55
Speaker 1: a teaspoon of allspice, and about a half a teaspoon
11:57
Speaker 1: of clove, because clove is you know, pretty it can overpaw. Yeah,
12:01
Speaker 1: but again it depends on how you like your pumpkin spice.
12:03
Speaker 1: But you know, you mix those all up, you throw
12:06
Speaker 1: it all, you know, you boil that water and then
12:08
Speaker 1: throw in the sugar in that pumpkin spice mix, and
12:11
Speaker 1: you just stir it until you get to the consistency
12:14
Speaker 1: that you like, which, you know, the longer you boil,
12:16
Speaker 1: the kind of thicker it's going to get.
12:17
Speaker 2: Yeah, and the clearer it'll get the more you boil,
12:19
Speaker 2: I think, right, it'll eventually just go whoop and turn clear.
12:23
Speaker 1: No, no, no, this is a very dark brown syrup.
12:26
Speaker 2: Right, so sorry, not clear, I mean translucent, but still
12:30
Speaker 2: dark brown.
12:30
Speaker 1: I don't even know what translucent means.
12:32
Speaker 2: Then it means like it goes from cloudy to where
12:35
Speaker 2: you could see through it even though you're seeing through
12:37
Speaker 2: like brown.
12:39
Speaker 1: I don't know if you could see through the stuff.
12:40
Speaker 2: Okay, well then this is some thick syrup.
12:43
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean it looks sort of like a coke
12:45
Speaker 1: and a bottle.
12:46
Speaker 2: Okay, great, So I do have one one thing to add, okay,
12:52
Speaker 2: if you so, if you take cinnamon, it does not
12:55
Speaker 2: like water. It's hydro haiti. I can't remember which which
12:59
Speaker 2: what it's called, but it does not like to mix.
13:01
Speaker 2: Do you ever have trouble mixing it in with the
13:03
Speaker 2: boiling water?
13:04
Speaker 1: Nope, mixed up, just fine.
13:05
Speaker 2: Okay. Well, I've found that if you mix something like
13:08
Speaker 2: cinnamon and I would guess all of the spices with
13:11
Speaker 2: sugar ahead of time, it binds to the sugar and
13:13
Speaker 2: it allows it to dissolve more easily.
13:15
Speaker 1: Oh okay, good tip.
13:17
Speaker 2: That was my only other tip.
13:19
Speaker 1: I love it. That sounds pretty good. The other thing
13:20
Speaker 1: I did was Emily dehydrates of fruits as bar garnishes.
13:26
Speaker 1: So she had a big mess of orange peel that
13:30
Speaker 1: she had dehydrated. So I kind of chopped those up
13:32
Speaker 1: and threw that in the bottle as well, because you know,
13:34
Speaker 1: an old fashion has those orange notes.
13:37
Speaker 2: Yeah.
13:38
Speaker 1: And if you want to make the old fashion, and
13:40
Speaker 1: I have to say, you can put this in your coffee.
13:43
Speaker 1: You can drizzle it on a cheesecake. It's just a
13:45
Speaker 1: pumpkin spice sweet syrup, so you can. Really it doesn't
13:48
Speaker 1: have to be an alcoholic drink, but you're gonna make
13:50
Speaker 1: the old fashion. I do two ounces of bourbon. You
13:53
Speaker 1: can use rye if you want a little shake of
13:56
Speaker 1: that angle store bitters. I do a little shake of
13:58
Speaker 1: orange bitters on top. Then I love this elguappo chickory
14:02
Speaker 1: pecan or pecan bitters.
14:05
Speaker 2: They're local, right, I don't know if.
14:07
Speaker 1: They are not, but you know, if you can find
14:09
Speaker 1: a chickory pecan or any kind of like walnut or
14:12
Speaker 1: pecan bitters, I think it really adds a nice touch.
14:14
Speaker 2: It does sound very nice. And then of course the
14:17
Speaker 2: coup de gras, the death blow, which is the pumpkin
14:20
Speaker 2: spice syrup.
14:21
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean it spends on how sweet you like
14:23
Speaker 1: these things. You can just put just a little bit
14:25
Speaker 1: if you don't like it too sweet, and you're still
14:27
Speaker 1: going to get that flavor. And you know, all of
14:30
Speaker 1: this stuff. You can make it less boozy if you
14:32
Speaker 1: want the one I made for today, since it's a noon,
14:35
Speaker 1: or I just made a little happy so I just
14:36
Speaker 1: did one ounce of bourbon.
14:38
Speaker 2: Very smart. So you take that, you make sure everything
14:41
Speaker 2: is at room temperature. You put it in a glass,
14:43
Speaker 2: and you drink it and sayoh.
14:46
Speaker 1: No, no, no, no, no, what I do? I mean
14:48
Speaker 1: you can just put it straight over ice and mix
14:50
Speaker 1: it with a spoon or something. But if you really
14:52
Speaker 1: want to do it right, put that stuff in a cocktail,
14:53
Speaker 1: shake with ice, shake it really really good, and then
14:57
Speaker 1: get a nice heavyweight cocktail glass out of at a
15:00
Speaker 1: cocktail cherry to the bottom of that thing. Pour it
15:03
Speaker 1: over a giant square ice cube or a giant round
15:05
Speaker 1: ice cube if you want to really be fancy. And
15:08
Speaker 1: then here's the key. As you know, Josh, you got
15:10
Speaker 1: to get that orange peel right.
15:13
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, you want a nice wide swath of orange peel,
15:16
Speaker 2: no pith, no white on the bottom, or as minimal
15:19
Speaker 2: as possible.
15:19
Speaker 1: Yeah, And you twist it.
15:22
Speaker 2: You twist it over the top of the drink, and
15:25
Speaker 2: if you look closely, you can see a spray come out.
15:28
Speaker 2: And then all of a sudden there's a little oil
15:30
Speaker 2: slick on top of the drink, and you, friend, have
15:33
Speaker 2: just expressed the essential oils from that orange into your
15:36
Speaker 2: old fashion.
15:37
Speaker 1: That's right, And just a quick psa for all the
15:40
Speaker 1: bartenders out there. When you make a martini or anything
15:44
Speaker 1: with like a lemon or orange, make it a big
15:47
Speaker 1: wide you know, they have those the little peelers that
15:50
Speaker 1: you know, like a cocktail peeler. You can get the
15:53
Speaker 1: kind that does the little tiny pigtail curly cue. Those
15:57
Speaker 1: are annoying. They curl them up, they hang it on
15:59
Speaker 1: the outside the glass. But the whole point of that
16:01
Speaker 1: peel is to get that essential oil, and you can't
16:05
Speaker 1: do that with those little little skinny things. So bartenders,
16:08
Speaker 1: for the love of Pete, give the customer a big
16:11
Speaker 1: wide peel so they can express that thing themselves.
16:15
Speaker 2: Our listeners named Pete just said, yeah, that's right. What's
16:19
Speaker 2: the last little bit? If you really want to show
16:21
Speaker 2: off though, chuck.
16:23
Speaker 1: Oh, if you want to, if you have a zester
16:26
Speaker 1: like little Greater, get a cinnamon stick and just just
16:30
Speaker 1: grate a little fresh cinnamon.
16:31
Speaker 2: On top, just a little bit, just a touch. That's right,
16:35
Speaker 2: and people will be like, this is the best Christmas
16:38
Speaker 2: I've ever had.
16:38
Speaker 1: Yeah, Or you can stick that cinnamon stick right in
16:40
Speaker 1: the drink if you really want to get crazy.
16:43
Speaker 2: One other thing that we should probably say though off
16:45
Speaker 2: the bat is when you make the syrup, you want
16:48
Speaker 2: to make it ahead because it needs to cool and
16:50
Speaker 2: go in the fridge.
16:51
Speaker 1: Right, yeah, yeah, keep that thing in the fridge. And
16:54
Speaker 1: like I said, I use an old liquor bottle because
16:56
Speaker 1: it has a cork on top, or if you have
16:57
Speaker 1: those fancy bottles with the little clasp on top with
17:01
Speaker 1: the cork, like, that's great. When I went to my
17:04
Speaker 1: brother's Thanksgiving this year, I got one of Emily's little tiny, like,
17:09
Speaker 1: you know, four or five ounce bottles and poured some
17:11
Speaker 1: in there and brought it along. It's a nice, nice
17:13
Speaker 1: thing to give us a gift.
17:14
Speaker 2: That is classy, buddy, thank you. Okay, well, I guess
17:18
Speaker 2: we should probably let everybody pause, go make the pumpkin
17:22
Speaker 2: spice syrup, wait a couple of days, and then come
17:25
Speaker 2: back and we'll start the next segment. How about that.
17:27
Speaker 1: That's right?
17:35
Speaker 2: What do you want to do next? Chuck?
17:38
Speaker 1: Well, I mean let's go back to one of yours.
17:40
Speaker 1: Should we do the Frozen Fair?
17:42
Speaker 2: Yeah, we're gonna go back in time, way back.
17:49
Speaker 1: Frozen Fair, the Fryar's Fair, the frost Fairs. I didn't
17:54
Speaker 1: get it once, did I?
17:55
Speaker 2: Featuring the Fryars.
17:57
Speaker 1: That's right.
17:58
Speaker 2: So we're talking about a series of basically impromptu winter
18:03
Speaker 2: festivals that happened to London over the course of a
18:06
Speaker 2: few hundred years and had tipped to the BBC London Museum,
18:10
Speaker 2: History Jar, Honest History and the podcast Tales of History
18:15
Speaker 2: and Imagination. And what we're talking about is they're called
18:19
Speaker 2: the Frost Fairs. And we should give you a little
18:21
Speaker 2: background first because the bridge that's now London Bridge was
18:26
Speaker 2: built in the sixties. The bridge before that was built
18:29
Speaker 2: in eighteen thirty one, and that eighteen thirty one bridge
18:32
Speaker 2: was disassembled and reassembled in Lake Havasoo, Arizona, which is
18:37
Speaker 2: where it stands today. And that little gift from London
18:40
Speaker 2: to Lake Havasou gave rise to a really great nineteen
18:44
Speaker 2: eighty five TV movie starring David Hasselhoff, Glate Terror at
18:48
Speaker 2: London Bridge. Definitely worth watching. But the problem is the
18:53
Speaker 2: eighteen thirty one bridge and the nineteen sixties bridge put
18:57
Speaker 2: an end to this impromptu winter tradition in London forever.
19:02
Speaker 1: That's right. That new London Bridge has five arches. The
19:06
Speaker 1: one previous to that from eighteen thirty one had nineteen arches,
19:10
Speaker 1: but they were closer together, they were pretty narrow and
19:14
Speaker 1: water didn't float through those things very well. And it
19:17
Speaker 1: was also a time when the Thames was shallower. And
19:22
Speaker 1: was it narrower or wider?
19:24
Speaker 2: Wider?
19:24
Speaker 1: Wider and shallower, Yeah, wider and shallower. So all of
19:27
Speaker 1: this sort of added up to because of a strange
19:30
Speaker 1: weather phenomenon that Josh is going to describe, a time
19:33
Speaker 1: when the Thames would actually freeze over.
19:36
Speaker 2: Yeah, the Little Ice Age was going on too, from
19:39
Speaker 2: the mid thirteen hundreds to the mid eighteen hundreds. This
19:41
Speaker 2: period about five hundred years, there was some really weird
19:46
Speaker 2: extra cold weather. Global temperatures dropped, and that means, ultimately
19:51
Speaker 2: for our purposes with this story, that winters in London
19:55
Speaker 2: were way colder during that five hundred year period than
19:58
Speaker 2: they are today. So you put that toge the design
20:00
Speaker 2: of the bridge with way more narrow arches, the Little
20:03
Speaker 2: ice Age and the wider, shallower Thames. That meant that
20:07
Speaker 2: the Thames could freeze over sometimes like it can't today.
20:11
Speaker 1: That's right, And that happened in fifteen sixty four when
20:15
Speaker 1: it froze over and people in London were like, hey,
20:19
Speaker 1: that's pretty cool. Let's go out and get drunk and
20:22
Speaker 1: walk around and play on that thing.
20:24
Speaker 2: Yeah, apparently even Queen Elizabeth I was like, that looked fun,
20:28
Speaker 2: let's go.
20:30
Speaker 1: She packed up for Corgi's and slipped around on the
20:32
Speaker 1: ice for a little while. It froze again in sixteen
20:36
Speaker 1: oh seven eight, and this time they were like, hey,
20:39
Speaker 1: BlimE me, this thing's frozen again. Let's get drunk and
20:42
Speaker 1: sell some things. That was Australian. Oh man.
20:47
Speaker 2: The thing is is like a lot of people bade
20:49
Speaker 2: their money by shipping and moving stuff up and down
20:51
Speaker 2: the Thames. They suddenly couldn't so some of those people
20:54
Speaker 2: just set up stalls to try to make up whatever
20:56
Speaker 2: they could. That was the first time anyone used the
20:59
Speaker 2: term frost fair for these things.
21:01
Speaker 1: Or frozen fryar or whatever the heck, righty.
21:03
Speaker 2: A frozen fryar frost fair. It wasn't until though, I
21:07
Speaker 2: think sixteen eighty three eighty four, that it really became
21:11
Speaker 2: like a full blown thing.
21:12
Speaker 1: Though. Yeah, I mean that was a couple of months
21:14
Speaker 1: of frozen Thames, and this time it was like a
21:18
Speaker 1: real like a Christmas market. Basically everybody is selling their wares.
21:22
Speaker 1: Like you said, people that normally sold stuff on the
21:25
Speaker 1: side of the river were all set up down there.
21:28
Speaker 1: They had so many rows of booths that they formed
21:31
Speaker 1: a literal avenue down the middle of the Thames. And
21:34
Speaker 1: you could do everything. You could have a sit down
21:36
Speaker 1: restaurant meal under a huge tint made of boat sails
21:41
Speaker 1: that are propped up by rowing oars.
21:43
Speaker 2: Yeah, and it was apparently quite a party because there
21:46
Speaker 2: was a writer of the time, John Evelyn. He wrote
21:49
Speaker 2: that that Frost Fair was a bacchanalien triumph, a carnival
21:53
Speaker 2: on the water. Yeah, that's saying quite a bit. This
21:56
Speaker 2: is again, this is like people aren't like, Okay, the
21:59
Speaker 2: sixteen eighty three f Frost Fairs coming up, we better
22:01
Speaker 2: start planning. These were all generally impropt too. That was
22:05
Speaker 2: pretty cool that sixteen eighty three one lasted two months.
22:10
Speaker 2: And Tales of History and Imagination, the podcast I thanked earlier,
22:14
Speaker 2: they turned up a fact that some guy bet some
22:17
Speaker 2: other guy that he could build a three story house,
22:21
Speaker 2: spend a night in it, and take it down before
22:24
Speaker 2: the Thames thawed. And it's a great story even despite
22:28
Speaker 2: the fact that neither we nor Tales of History and
22:30
Speaker 2: Imagination could find out the outcome.
22:32
Speaker 1: Of the bet. That sounds like a good show.
22:35
Speaker 2: Yeah it is. There's a lot of great episodes that
22:37
Speaker 2: I saw when I was looking for that. I'm not
22:39
Speaker 2: sure how I stumbled across it. I guess I just
22:41
Speaker 2: came across some of their Christmas content.
22:44
Speaker 1: I love it. I'm gonna check it out so big
22:46
Speaker 1: thanks to them. There were a couple of more frost Fairs,
22:50
Speaker 1: not Friars, in seventeen sixteen and again in seventeen thirty nine,
22:54
Speaker 1: so there. I mean, I don't know if anyone's doing
22:56
Speaker 1: the math. There are large, large gaps between all this stuff, right.
23:00
Speaker 1: It's not like, you know, they went on the internet
23:02
Speaker 1: and were like, hey, the last time they did all this,
23:04
Speaker 1: so people are you know, I guess word gets passed down,
23:08
Speaker 1: you know, like, hey, here's this is a thing to
23:10
Speaker 1: do when the times freezes. But sadly, the last Frost
23:15
Speaker 1: Fair was in eighteen fourteen.
23:18
Speaker 2: Yeah, and you know that somebody at the seventeen sixteen
23:21
Speaker 2: Frost Fair was like, this Frost Fair sucks. Yesterre to
23:23
Speaker 2: eighty four sold out eighty four rocked Man.
23:26
Speaker 1: Yeah.
23:27
Speaker 2: So yeah. The last one was eighteen fourteen, and the
23:30
Speaker 2: BBC talked about it in one of their articles, and
23:33
Speaker 2: they interviewed a food history named Ivan Day, and he
23:37
Speaker 2: said that the eighteen fourteen Frost Fair was basically food
23:41
Speaker 2: and drink and people getting wasted. He said that there
23:44
Speaker 2: was this one drink called a pearl it was it
23:48
Speaker 2: was wormwood wine. It's kind of like vermouth gin together,
23:52
Speaker 2: so it was hot. It was like a hot, super
23:55
Speaker 2: potent martini. Then he said, quote, you'd get absolutely wrecked
23:59
Speaker 2: on it. There was a spiky beer that has a
24:02
Speaker 2: lot of spices in it called mum, which is what
24:04
Speaker 2: you'd probably call it a winter ale today. Yeah, I
24:07
Speaker 2: love that, And then of course this regular gin. There
24:09
Speaker 2: was also other stuff too. There's tea, coffee, hot chocolate,
24:13
Speaker 2: and there was plenty of food to eat, particularly the
24:16
Speaker 2: roast ox. Right.
24:17
Speaker 1: Oh man, Yeah, I don't even like saying those words together.
24:21
Speaker 1: But this Iban Day, this food historian, he replicates cooking
24:26
Speaker 1: techniques from back then, and for this roast ox, he
24:29
Speaker 1: said it would take basically a day over twenty four
24:31
Speaker 1: hours to roast this thing in front of a fire.
24:34
Speaker 1: And Buddy, I don't know if these numbers are right,
24:37
Speaker 1: but he said that that ox could feed eight hundred people.
24:41
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, and he's a food historian, so he would
24:44
Speaker 2: probably know.
24:45
Speaker 1: I mean, I guess you're just getting like an ox
24:48
Speaker 1: a moose boushe. It's not a plate full of ox
24:52
Speaker 1: for eight hundred, There's no way.
24:54
Speaker 2: I don't know. I mean maybe their oxes were way
24:56
Speaker 2: bigger during the little ice Age.
24:57
Speaker 1: I think it's oxen, my friend.
25:00
Speaker 2: Yeah, thank you for correcting me on that one.
25:02
Speaker 1: What else would they serve mutton?
25:04
Speaker 2: Yeah? Sure, which is kind of like it's almost like
25:08
Speaker 2: a sheep like meat.
25:10
Speaker 1: I think it is sheep. Isn't it like a grown sheep?
25:13
Speaker 2: Yeah?
25:14
Speaker 1: Yeah?
25:14
Speaker 2: And you don't want that. Nobody wants mutton.
25:16
Speaker 1: Really, I don't want mutton. So Jerry Seinfeld certainly doesn't
25:19
Speaker 1: want mutton.
25:20
Speaker 2: So what does that one me?
25:22
Speaker 1: That was from Seinfeld? Remember he had a girlfriend that
25:26
Speaker 1: he was spitting out food and putting it in his jacket,
25:29
Speaker 1: and she was serving mutton vaguely. He would wrap it
25:32
Speaker 1: in his napkin and stuff in his pocket, and eventually
25:34
Speaker 1: Elaine borrowed his coat and got it backed by a dog.
25:39
Speaker 2: Man. That was a great show, sure was. So. The
25:43
Speaker 2: reason why the eighteen fourteen one was the last one
25:46
Speaker 2: is because, like you said, the newer better. I guess
25:49
Speaker 2: versions of the London Bridge have wider spans, so the
25:53
Speaker 2: water camp back up behind the little narrow arches and freeze.
25:57
Speaker 2: It just isn't gonna happen, everybody. Frost Fair was eighteen fourteen,
26:01
Speaker 2: but parts of the Thames can freeze from time to time,
26:04
Speaker 2: and the BBC turned up one from nineteen sixty two.
26:08
Speaker 2: The winner in that year was called the Big Freeze
26:11
Speaker 2: in London, and someone spotted a man riding a bicycle
26:15
Speaker 2: on the Thames probably thinking to himself, you know what,
26:18
Speaker 2: the Frozen Friar Fair would be great right now?
26:21
Speaker 1: Yeah? I hope it was a penny farthing. Yeah, for sure,
26:24
Speaker 1: that'd be fantastic, very nice. All right, So that's the
26:28
Speaker 1: Frozen frost Fire Fair. Where are we going next? My friend?
26:32
Speaker 1: As we as we load up the sleigh and prepare
26:34
Speaker 1: to take off.
26:36
Speaker 2: I don't know. I feel like I don't know. What
26:40
Speaker 2: do you want to do? You pick one?
26:42
Speaker 1: Let's do our tribute to Vince GERALDI okay, I came
26:58
Speaker 1: up with this one, I know. In one episodisode we
27:01
Speaker 1: certainly talked about the Charlie Brown Christmas Special and kind
27:05
Speaker 1: of dabbled in this, but I wanted to just sort
27:07
Speaker 1: of do a little tribute to the man himself, because boy,
27:11
Speaker 1: oh boy, for my money, there's no better Christmas music
27:14
Speaker 1: than the Charlie Brown Christmas Special vince Garaldi Jazz Trio.
27:18
Speaker 2: I'm protective of that. I keep it at bay because
27:22
Speaker 2: I don't ever want to get sick of it.
27:24
Speaker 1: Okay, I don't get sick of it, but I do
27:27
Speaker 1: appreciate that because we both certainly cherish it.
27:30
Speaker 2: Like I can't even listen to Journey anymore because I've
27:32
Speaker 2: heard their songs too many times. I don't want the
27:36
Speaker 2: Charlie Brown Christmas to become the new Journey.
27:38
Speaker 1: Yeah, who wants that?
27:40
Speaker 2: Right? So let's talk about vince Garaldi, though, because if
27:44
Speaker 2: you know of him from the Charlie Brown Christmas soundtrack,
27:49
Speaker 2: you essentially are familiar with the vast majority of vince
27:52
Speaker 2: Garaldi's work.
27:53
Speaker 1: Yeah, and big thanks to The New Yorker, specifically an
27:56
Speaker 1: article from Ethan Iverson I think from twenty Seventeenish Piano
28:01
Speaker 1: with Johnny dot com that's jo nn why and Unconservatory
28:06
Speaker 1: dot org, who all had little bits and pieces about
28:08
Speaker 1: the great vince Garaldi, who was born Vincent Anthony Dalaglio
28:14
Speaker 1: in nineteen twenty eight and San Francisco.
28:16
Speaker 2: Yeah, his mom Carmela Divarce's biological father, Vincenzo Delaggio, and
28:21
Speaker 2: married a guy named Tony Garaldi. Tony Garaldi adopted him,
28:26
Speaker 2: and as a head tip and a thank you to Tony,
28:28
Speaker 2: Vince said, let's change my last name, shall we? Guys?
28:31
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, is there ever a more Italian name
28:34
Speaker 1: than Vincenzo de Laggio.
28:36
Speaker 2: No, there really isn't.
28:37
Speaker 1: Yeah, maybe Tony soprano.
28:40
Speaker 2: So he he ended up. He actually wasn't very musically inclined.
28:44
Speaker 2: I think he took some piano lessons, but it never
28:46
Speaker 2: really got under his skin. When he was a kid,
28:48
Speaker 2: his uncle's introduced him to jazz, and he was like eh,
28:51
Speaker 2: And he didn't really start playing until he went to
28:54
Speaker 2: San Francisco State University for.
28:56
Speaker 1: A little while.
28:57
Speaker 2: And then there was an interlude between that and them
29:00
Speaker 2: really getting going playing the Korean War, where he served
29:03
Speaker 2: as a cook in the army.
29:04
Speaker 1: That's right, he went to the war. He came back and,
29:08
Speaker 1: like you said, sort of started playing around a little jazz.
29:11
Speaker 1: Clearly a talented guy, and he started going to these
29:14
Speaker 1: jazz clubs in San Francisco, started playing wherever he could
29:18
Speaker 1: little sort of I guess, not open mic, but open
29:21
Speaker 1: key nights or whatever you would call those, and eventually
29:24
Speaker 1: he got his first real gig, playing the intermissions during
29:28
Speaker 1: Art Tatum shows at a club called the Blackhawk.
29:31
Speaker 2: Yeah. Art Tatum, he was actually from Toledo. He was
29:33
Speaker 2: a self taught piano virtuo so who was nearly blind.
29:37
Speaker 2: He's great, and he was so his talent was so
29:40
Speaker 2: intimidating that vince Garaldi later said working with him was
29:44
Speaker 2: more than scary. I came close to giving up the instrument,
29:47
Speaker 2: and I wouldn't have been the first after working around Tatum.
29:50
Speaker 1: Yeah, pretty intimidating.
29:52
Speaker 2: Yeah, so he did not give up the instrument. Fortunately,
29:56
Speaker 2: he went on to play with the likes of Cal Jader,
29:59
Speaker 2: who who he was a vibraphone player who was into
30:03
Speaker 2: Latin inflected jazz.
30:05
Speaker 1: Yeah, he's awesome, by the way, if you're into that
30:07
Speaker 1: sort of Latin jazz thing. He's probably the most famous
30:11
Speaker 1: non Latin Latin jazz guy. And the vibraphone is just
30:14
Speaker 1: it's it's well, it's a vibe, it really is.
30:17
Speaker 2: I love a good vibraphone. Jazz trio.
30:20
Speaker 1: Yeah, same.
30:21
Speaker 2: He formed his own trio I think in nineteen fifty
30:24
Speaker 2: five with a couple of friends, Eddie Durant and Dean Riley.
30:27
Speaker 2: Now was that the all time vince Garaldi trio.
30:32
Speaker 1: I don't know, because they're not the guys who played
30:34
Speaker 1: on the Charlie Brown. So then I think there were
30:37
Speaker 1: iterations of the vince Garaldi trio over the years.
30:40
Speaker 2: Gotcha, So as he's starting to kind of pick up
30:43
Speaker 2: steam in the fifties, he played the Hungry Eye in
30:46
Speaker 2: San Francisco, He played with the big band leader Woody Herman,
30:50
Speaker 2: got back together with Carl Jader for a little while,
30:53
Speaker 2: and he was basically the leader of several different jazz groups.
30:57
Speaker 2: The thing is, he would probably be in name among
31:00
Speaker 2: jazz cats and hepcats in San Francisco still today, but
31:05
Speaker 2: it would probably be about the extent of his career
31:08
Speaker 2: had he not created this one particular song called cast
31:11
Speaker 2: Your Fate to the Wind. It's the other song that
31:14
Speaker 2: he's known for, just a little threeish minute jazz song
31:17
Speaker 2: from nineteen sixty two that he buried at the end
31:21
Speaker 2: of a very odd album that he came up with.
31:24
Speaker 1: Yeah, there was a movie in nineteen fifty nine a
31:26
Speaker 1: French film called Black Orpheus, and what he did was
31:30
Speaker 1: offer some sort of jazz arrangements of Brazilian music from
31:34
Speaker 1: that movie, and it was called Jazz Impressions of Black Orpheus.
31:37
Speaker 1: And like you said, he stuck cast your Fate to
31:39
Speaker 1: the Wind here at the end it is I'm sure
31:41
Speaker 1: you know the song right. It is an amazing jazz
31:45
Speaker 1: tune and the bones of everything you know about that
31:49
Speaker 1: Charlie Brown Christmas Special music is in cast your Fate
31:53
Speaker 1: to the Wind. It's just this. I mean, I think
31:56
Speaker 1: who was it that called it a breadth of fresh air?
31:58
Speaker 1: I think that was the ultimate producer of the Charlie
32:01
Speaker 1: Brown Christmas Special, Lee Mendelssohn.
32:04
Speaker 2: Yeah, so this is where fate really steps in because
32:07
Speaker 2: there was a San Francisco jazz show hosted by al
32:10
Speaker 2: Jasbo collins Man, what a great nickname. And on this
32:15
Speaker 2: show on KSFO, he would play vince Garaldi's stuff because
32:19
Speaker 2: by this time, the early sixties, vince Garaldi was pretty
32:21
Speaker 2: well known around San Francisco. And Lee Mendelssohn, who was
32:25
Speaker 2: starting a documentary project on Charles Schultz that would ultimately
32:29
Speaker 2: be called a boy named Charlie Brown, and he was
32:32
Speaker 2: looking for somebody to compose the music for it, and
32:34
Speaker 2: he heard cast Your Fate to the Wind and was like,
32:38
Speaker 2: I think this.
32:38
Speaker 1: Might be it. Yeah, that was it. He said, hey man,
32:43
Speaker 1: you want to compose some music for this documentary? He said,
32:46
Speaker 1: because they were both Bay Area guys, and he said, sure,
32:49
Speaker 1: I'll do it. And he created an entire original piece
32:52
Speaker 1: called Lenis and Lucy. That was the theme. And that
32:54
Speaker 1: is the you know, the very famous sort of Charlie
32:57
Speaker 1: Brown theme song that we all know and love.
32:59
Speaker 2: You do a little measure or two of it.
33:01
Speaker 1: D oh wait, I gotta do my hand.
33:07
Speaker 2: I'm dancing like in my arms in the air and
33:10
Speaker 2: then down and then up. Then now you're supposed to
33:14
Speaker 2: come in. That's very nice.
33:19
Speaker 1: I can't keep doing that. People are about to tune out.
33:21
Speaker 2: I think that was a great one. I'm sure everyone
33:23
Speaker 2: who's ever heard that song is like, oh, yeah, that one.
33:25
Speaker 1: Yeah.
33:26
Speaker 2: A lot of people probably don't know it is Linus
33:28
Speaker 2: and Lucy. I don't think of it. I just think
33:30
Speaker 2: of it as like the Peanuts theme.
33:31
Speaker 1: Yeah, So he made Linus and Lucy. The documentary went
33:34
Speaker 1: over and then Coca Cola came around and they said,
33:37
Speaker 1: we want to do this Christmas special Charlie Brown Christmas
33:40
Speaker 1: in spring sixty five, and so Giraldi was an obvious
33:43
Speaker 1: choice to come back and record music. So he recycled
33:46
Speaker 1: Linus and Lucy and also wrote Skating and Christmas Time
33:50
Speaker 1: Is Here iconic.
33:51
Speaker 2: Skating is one of the most beautiful songs of all time. Agreed, Yeah,
33:55
Speaker 2: and like you said, when you when you hear cast
33:57
Speaker 2: your fate to the wind, if you aren't familiar with that,
33:59
Speaker 2: you would immediately be like that sounds a lot like
34:01
Speaker 2: the Peanuts guy. He had a style that was all
34:04
Speaker 2: his own, that was instantly recognizable, and Charles Schultze even said, like, hey,
34:10
Speaker 2: he's his music is really to be credited in a
34:14
Speaker 2: large part for the success of the Charlie Brown Christmas specials.
34:18
Speaker 2: If you've heard Christmas Time Is Here too, there's an
34:22
Speaker 2: instrumental version that's all Giraldi, and then there's a well
34:25
Speaker 2: another Garali version, but it has lyrics of the little
34:27
Speaker 2: kids singing, and I guess Lee Mendelssohn basically did what
34:31
Speaker 2: a producer does when he couldn't find a lyricist. He
34:33
Speaker 2: just took the reins and did it himself.
34:36
Speaker 1: Yeah, apparently he was having trouble and he said he
34:38
Speaker 1: wrote it in about fifteen minutes on the back of
34:40
Speaker 1: an envelope. Pretty simple lyrics. But Vincecaraldy never went on
34:44
Speaker 1: to be known for a lot after this. His output
34:47
Speaker 1: after that wasn't super famous. But you know, I think
34:52
Speaker 1: it was Ethan Irison from that New Yorker article made
34:54
Speaker 1: it a great point. He was like, you know, he
34:56
Speaker 1: shouldn't be cast aside in the history of jazz. He
35:00
Speaker 1: should very much be remembered because his really his effective
35:04
Speaker 1: and efficient techniques on the piano. He called Charlie Brown
35:08
Speaker 1: Christmas like a gateway drug for people who were never
35:11
Speaker 1: into jazz before, and I think that kind of says
35:13
Speaker 1: it best.
35:14
Speaker 2: Yeah, And he didn't have much time to grow as
35:16
Speaker 2: a jazz musician after the Charlie Brown success because he
35:19
Speaker 2: died ten years later in nineteen seventy six at age
35:23
Speaker 2: forty seven.
35:24
Speaker 1: Yeah, but his music lives on.
35:26
Speaker 2: The Charlie Brown Christmas album was voted into the Grammy
35:30
Speaker 2: Hall of Fame in two thousand and seven. The only
35:32
Speaker 2: travesty with that is that it took so long, and
35:36
Speaker 2: it's part of the Library of Congress's National Recording Registry culturally,
35:40
Speaker 2: historically or sthetically important American sound recordings.
35:44
Speaker 1: That's right. I wish we could play all of that
35:47
Speaker 1: music today, but we can't because we don't want to
35:49
Speaker 1: get sued.
35:50
Speaker 2: Yeah, you're probably already going to get sued just by humming.
35:53
Speaker 1: Oh I doubt it. They've said. The judge would say,
35:56
Speaker 1: now that was not recognizable. Is the work at hand dismissed.
36:02
Speaker 2: Let's have a little jingle interlude of our own making
36:05
Speaker 2: that's in the public domain, and we will head on
36:09
Speaker 2: over to the dark of night in Wales.
36:11
Speaker 1: How about that. Let's do it.
36:24
Speaker 2: Okay, Chuck, We're in Wales. It's dark, it's cold, it's
36:28
Speaker 2: one of the twelve days of Christmas somewhere in there.
36:31
Speaker 2: And we want to thank Alexandra Stock, who has sent
36:33
Speaker 2: in plenty of ideas before she's sent this one in.
36:36
Speaker 2: We also want to thank Museum Wales, Skynews and Wales
36:40
Speaker 2: dot com for all the info about what's known as
36:42
Speaker 2: the Mary Lloyd, which is not spelled like it sounds,
36:47
Speaker 2: at least not the second part. It's Lwyd and that
36:50
Speaker 2: is Welsh. It's Welsh's Welsh gits and it's a Christmas
36:54
Speaker 2: tradition that clearly dates back to Celtic tradition. By the
37:01
Speaker 2: purpose the point, all that stuff has been kind of
37:03
Speaker 2: lost to history, but it's peculiar to Whales. You can't
37:07
Speaker 2: find this anywhere else, and even in most parts of
37:10
Speaker 2: Whales you're not going to find it these days. But
37:12
Speaker 2: it still survives, and for good reason, because it's actually
37:15
Speaker 2: a pretty cool little Christmas tradition for sure.
37:18
Speaker 1: And here's how it goes down. On a certain night,
37:21
Speaker 1: the Mauri Lloyd, which is a ghost horse, very pale
37:24
Speaker 1: ghost horse, rides from house to house kind of looking
37:27
Speaker 1: to be let in, looking for hospitality for people that
37:30
Speaker 1: are in there enjoying their pumpkin spice, old fashions and
37:33
Speaker 1: their apple ciders by the fireplace. But how it plays
37:37
Speaker 1: out is it's a hobby horse. These men get together
37:41
Speaker 1: it's a broomstick and they get covered in a white
37:44
Speaker 1: sheet to form the body of the horse. They have
37:46
Speaker 1: these colorful ribbons from the neck to form the neck
37:50
Speaker 1: in the main, and then here's the most disturbing part
37:55
Speaker 1: is I think sometimes it would be like paper machet
37:59
Speaker 1: or wood or something like that, with like a hinge jaw,
38:01
Speaker 1: so it looks like a horse's head, but in the
38:03
Speaker 1: olden days, traditionally it was a real horse's skull.
38:07
Speaker 2: Yeah, and it's frightening looking. If you see some old
38:10
Speaker 2: timey mari Lloyd's that they're scary, And one of the
38:14
Speaker 2: reasons why they're scary is they're supposed to represent like
38:17
Speaker 2: death and spirits and being out in the cold in
38:22
Speaker 2: the dark in winter. Right. But as scary as that sounds,
38:28
Speaker 2: it's not like a crampus tradition where mari Lloyd's going
38:30
Speaker 2: to come get you, like take you away and leave
38:33
Speaker 2: you cold or something like that. It's in the tradition
38:36
Speaker 2: of mummering, where caroling also came from going from house
38:40
Speaker 2: to house, getting as drunk as you possibly can and
38:43
Speaker 2: engaging in this kind of Christmas tradition, which is again
38:46
Speaker 2: this is fairly peculiar. But the whole thing takes place
38:50
Speaker 2: when the mari lloyd they're processing through the town essentially
38:54
Speaker 2: a parade, and they go from house to house. When
38:57
Speaker 2: they show up on the doorstep of a house, they
38:59
Speaker 2: start seeinginging verse and they through the closed door and
39:04
Speaker 2: on the other side of the door the family starts
39:06
Speaker 2: singing verse back and essentially a verse battle goes back
39:11
Speaker 2: and forth between the two.
39:13
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a rap battle. The weirdest thing about this
39:16
Speaker 1: is the door is closed, right, But I guess the
39:19
Speaker 1: whole point of this thing is they go back and forth.
39:24
Speaker 1: Sometimes it could take like an hour until one side
39:27
Speaker 1: finally gives up. I guess they can. You know, they
39:30
Speaker 1: can't come up with a new next line, or they're
39:33
Speaker 1: too drunk to and they say, all right, you guys win.
39:37
Speaker 1: So the reason the door is closed is because if
39:39
Speaker 1: there is a victory by the mary Lloyd crew, and
39:42
Speaker 1: they usually won, the whole point was to be invited
39:45
Speaker 1: in after that. So that's why the door is shut.
39:47
Speaker 2: Right. But again, the mary Lloyd is scary. It's death
39:49
Speaker 2: that kind of thing. That's why the family's trying to
39:51
Speaker 2: keep them out. But when they come in, they're like,
39:53
Speaker 2: here's some wastle, here's some rich crackers with the olive
39:56
Speaker 2: on it. You know, they welcome them in, and the
39:59
Speaker 2: mary Lloyd a role at that point is to run
40:02
Speaker 2: around and like nip at the children and scare them
40:05
Speaker 2: and maybe knock some stuff over. They might put the
40:08
Speaker 2: fire out in the family's house. Just general mischief and revelry. Right,
40:13
Speaker 2: there's a BBC like five to six minute documentary showing
40:18
Speaker 2: mary Lloyd. Well, it's called a Ponka pwnco That verse
40:24
Speaker 2: battle take place, and it's the most stayed presentation you
40:30
Speaker 2: can ever find. Like, if you just saw that, you'd
40:32
Speaker 2: be like mary Lloyd seems like a very serious thing,
40:35
Speaker 2: it's not. It was again drunken revelry going from house
40:39
Speaker 2: to house basically spreading the Christmas spirit and in return
40:42
Speaker 2: for letting the mary Lloyd in you your house would
40:45
Speaker 2: be blessed with good luck for the new year.
40:48
Speaker 1: That's right, we're the mary Lloyd's and we came to say,
40:52
Speaker 1: we came to bring you luck in the usual way.
40:56
Speaker 2: I love fruity pebbles in a major way.
40:58
Speaker 1: Yeah. So in the end it turns out to be
41:01
Speaker 1: a good party. I guess your home might get slightly wrecked,
41:03
Speaker 1: but you got good luck. There are a couple of
41:05
Speaker 1: theories about what that name actually means. One translation is
41:10
Speaker 1: gray Mary, and it's a legend linking mary Lloyd to
41:15
Speaker 1: the Nativity story and that it was a pregnant horse
41:18
Speaker 1: that was in the stables where Mary is said to
41:21
Speaker 1: have had Jesus. So they're like, we need some room
41:24
Speaker 1: in here to have this very special baby. So I
41:27
Speaker 1: know you're pregnant as well, horse, but hit the road. Yeah.
41:30
Speaker 2: The horse is like I was here first.
41:33
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I'm also pregnant by the way.
41:34
Speaker 2: And apparently the horse spent days trying to find a
41:38
Speaker 2: place to have her full It's a very sad story. Yeah,
41:42
Speaker 2: but it's Christian in origin, and a lot of people
41:45
Speaker 2: are like, this is not a Christian tradition. This is
41:48
Speaker 2: pagan as it gets. And there's the other translation of it,
41:53
Speaker 2: the gray Mayor, And in Celtic and British mythology, the
41:57
Speaker 2: gray Mayor or pale horse was of generated I guess
42:01
Speaker 2: animal that could kind of cross over from this world
42:05
Speaker 2: to the underworld fairly easily, which really kind of gets
42:08
Speaker 2: across the whole horse skull and explains all that kind
42:11
Speaker 2: of stuff.
42:12
Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, you know what they say about the gray Mayor.
42:15
Speaker 2: She's not what she used to be.
42:17
Speaker 1: No, she ain't.
42:18
Speaker 2: So this is a very old tradition probably, but it
42:21
Speaker 2: saw its hating in the nineteenth century and in the
42:24
Speaker 2: most delicious way, right.
42:26
Speaker 1: Yeah, But ironically, in trying to decry this thing that
42:29
Speaker 1: was a Christian scholar saying like, you know, we can't
42:31
Speaker 1: do this it, you know, like all things like the stress.
42:34
Speaker 1: In effect, it brought more attention. They didn't call it
42:36
Speaker 1: that then, but it brought more attention to it, and
42:39
Speaker 1: all of a sudden, like how to manuals sprung up right.
42:44
Speaker 2: And so finally, though that heyday in the nineteenth century
42:47
Speaker 2: kind of died off. By the nineteen sixties, it was
42:49
Speaker 2: totally gone. They think, like they don't think anyone was
42:52
Speaker 2: celebrating it anymore. But some groups of merrymakers found out
42:56
Speaker 2: about it or revived it, and it still goes on
43:00
Speaker 2: today in a few different places. And apparently it's when
43:03
Speaker 2: they do it. It's pretty big and pretty fun and
43:05
Speaker 2: pretty rowdy and just colorful and not really scary at all.
43:10
Speaker 1: I love it me too. Hats off whales, Hats off whales,
43:14
Speaker 1: Hats off Tom Jones.
43:18
Speaker 2: Mm see Welsh?
43:20
Speaker 1: Yeah, well that is name the singer with the Elvis hips.
43:24
Speaker 2: Yeah he was Welsh.
43:25
Speaker 1: Huh he's Welsh, baby, Okay, great.
43:39
Speaker 2: All right, Chuck, we've arrived at the last piece, which
43:41
Speaker 2: I love you found it and I think it's very
43:44
Speaker 2: helpful and I love how it adds some like good
43:47
Speaker 2: advice to this episode.
43:49
Speaker 1: That's right, because everyone loves putting up If you celebrate
43:53
Speaker 1: Christmas and you celebrate with a Christmas tree, you love
43:55
Speaker 1: putting up those Christmas tree lights. But storing those things
43:58
Speaker 1: and then unveiling them the next year can be a
44:00
Speaker 1: real pain in.
44:01
Speaker 2: The rump, a real drag, right.
44:04
Speaker 1: That's right. So we're gonna tell you at least some
44:06
Speaker 1: Internet source tips on how to properly store those Christmas
44:09
Speaker 1: tree lights.
44:10
Speaker 2: The first one, I like this one. It's complicated, but
44:12
Speaker 2: it's cool. So you take a wrapping tube of Christmas
44:15
Speaker 2: paper wrapping tube first, unroll the paper on end, throw
44:18
Speaker 2: it away, and just take the tube and you make
44:21
Speaker 2: a little notch in the end, one end of it
44:23
Speaker 2: about an inch long, and you run the end of
44:26
Speaker 2: the Christmas lights through and you stick your jam like
44:31
Speaker 2: the plug and into that notch so it can't come out.
44:34
Speaker 1: Okay, yeah, well, I mean the plug goes into the
44:38
Speaker 1: tube hole, right, and then you just pull the electrical
44:41
Speaker 1: cord through that slit.
44:44
Speaker 2: Okay, that's another way to do it, sure, yeah, yeah, yeah.
44:47
Speaker 2: But then you take the lights and you start twisting them, twist, twist,
44:52
Speaker 2: twist around the tube. Well, you twist the tube and
44:55
Speaker 2: the lights kind of diagonally go around the tube, and
44:59
Speaker 2: then you get to the end, cut another slit, put
45:01
Speaker 2: the other plug end in, and there you go. You've
45:05
Speaker 2: got one way to store Christmas lights. That seems pretty
45:07
Speaker 2: great to me.
45:09
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, depending on the length of your tube,
45:12
Speaker 1: you might have to go back over the other way.
45:15
Speaker 1: But the point is it's not getting wrapped and wrapped
45:17
Speaker 1: and wrapped around each other. Maybe just like one overlap.
45:20
Speaker 2: Okay, that's one way. What about another way?
45:23
Speaker 1: Well, this is I mean these are all fairly similar.
45:25
Speaker 1: In this case, though, You're going to cut a rectangular
45:27
Speaker 1: piece of cardboard from a box. You know, depending on
45:31
Speaker 1: how big you want it, maybe eighteen inches by nine
45:33
Speaker 1: inches okay, And this time you cut little square notches
45:36
Speaker 1: about an inch from each end on both sides, and
45:39
Speaker 1: those notches are going to do the same thing that
45:42
Speaker 1: that slit did. They're going to secure that plug and
45:45
Speaker 1: then you just wrap it around that section of cardboard box.
45:49
Speaker 2: Yeah. Like, if you've ever done any plumbing work or something,
45:52
Speaker 2: sometimes whatever piece you're replacing, it'll come with a little
45:56
Speaker 2: thing of teflon tape. It's the exact same thing in
46:00
Speaker 2: miniature that we're talking about.
46:02
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly, I like that one.
46:04
Speaker 2: That's probably the one I would try of all these. Okay,
46:08
Speaker 2: this one sounds really not super helpful. You use one
46:12
Speaker 2: of those coffee caddies with the four little depressions for coffee,
46:17
Speaker 2: and you stick the plug in through one of the
46:20
Speaker 2: You know that each little hole or depression has some
46:24
Speaker 2: slits in it. Yeah, you stick the plug in through that,
46:27
Speaker 2: and you just start wrapping that guy over and over
46:29
Speaker 2: and over again, rap, rap, rap, and then when you
46:33
Speaker 2: reach the other plug in, you stick that through a
46:35
Speaker 2: hole too.
46:36
Speaker 1: Yeah, not too bad. This way is maybe a little
46:40
Speaker 1: likelier to get tangled because you're wrapping it over itself
46:43
Speaker 1: through the center of that thing, over and over.
46:44
Speaker 2: Right, But what about what do you do? Chuck? I
46:47
Speaker 2: think that's what the people want to hear.
46:49
Speaker 1: Well, the Chuck method is very low fi. I found
46:51
Speaker 1: that it works for me, may not work for you.
46:54
Speaker 1: I take the lights off the tree and then I
46:56
Speaker 1: lay them sort of out, one at a time on
46:59
Speaker 1: the cow, which because the whole point of all of
47:02
Speaker 1: this is you don't want those tangles, you know, that's
47:03
Speaker 1: the biggest hassle of these things. Sure, they're kind of unwieldy.
47:06
Speaker 1: And then I take that one of those little plastic
47:09
Speaker 1: grocery bags that I'm about to go recycle, and instead
47:12
Speaker 1: I just sort of bunch up that individual cord and
47:16
Speaker 1: stick it in the bag. Each one gets its own bag.
47:20
Speaker 1: As I said in this piece that I sent to you,
47:22
Speaker 1: it sounds super yanky, but I found that it doesn't
47:25
Speaker 1: really tangle when you take them back out, and they
47:28
Speaker 1: pack really nice, you know, much nicer than these big
47:31
Speaker 1: long tubes because you can just sort of flat pack
47:33
Speaker 1: them in a bin and as long as they're each one.
47:35
Speaker 1: The whole point is just to do one per bag
47:38
Speaker 1: and to keep them separate. And when I unveil them,
47:41
Speaker 1: they don't really get that tangly.
47:42
Speaker 2: That's amazing. There's got to be some sort of fluid
47:45
Speaker 2: dynamics or something at play that somebody could explain. But
47:48
Speaker 2: I don't get how that works. But that's cool.
47:51
Speaker 1: What's your method?
47:52
Speaker 2: Well, first of all, I want to say, you didn't
47:53
Speaker 2: say super yanky in the piece. It says JANKI af.
47:57
Speaker 1: That's right, because I'm a hip kid.
48:01
Speaker 2: My method is I follow two different methods. One, you
48:03
Speaker 2: can just leave the lights up throughout the year and
48:06
Speaker 2: just don't turn them on.
48:06
Speaker 1: Until Christmas on the tree. Okay.
48:10
Speaker 2: The second what I actually really do is I just
48:13
Speaker 2: do that method where you have your you stick your
48:16
Speaker 2: arm up at the elbow at a ninety degree angle.
48:19
Speaker 2: You just kind of wrap from between your thumb and
48:22
Speaker 2: forefinger across the palm through your elbow palm elbow, palm, elbow,
48:26
Speaker 2: and you have to say that out loud while you're
48:27
Speaker 2: doing it over and over again. It helps if people
48:29
Speaker 2: are watching you while you say that too. And then
48:32
Speaker 2: before you get to the end, maybe about six inches left,
48:36
Speaker 2: you wrap that around the middle of that.
48:39
Speaker 1: Com okay, and then like a like an extension cord style.
48:42
Speaker 2: Precisely, as a matter of fact, that's probably the best
48:45
Speaker 2: thing to call it. Extension cord style is what I do.
48:48
Speaker 1: All right. I bet that works pretty good, huh, it does.
48:50
Speaker 2: But I want to try yours.
48:51
Speaker 1: It sounds fun, yeah, I mean, like I said, it's
48:54
Speaker 1: pretty yanky. You can also, you know, we should point
48:56
Speaker 1: out that they obviously sell all sorts of contrap and
49:01
Speaker 1: storage devices for these now, but I don't know, just
49:05
Speaker 1: be a little more fun. Come up with your own method.
49:06
Speaker 1: Don't buy some other dumb thing.
49:08
Speaker 2: No, as anyone who's ever done the holidays really knows
49:11
Speaker 2: that's cheating. That's right, and that's it, everybody. That's the
49:16
Speaker 2: twenty twenty five Stuff you Should Know holiday extravaganza special
49:22
Speaker 2: of all time.
49:23
Speaker 1: That's right. And as we say every year, you know,
49:25
Speaker 1: whatever however you choose to celebrate your holiday this year,
49:28
Speaker 1: we hope you're doing it right. We hope you're surrounded
49:31
Speaker 1: by friends and loved ones. And it sounds trite to
49:34
Speaker 1: say that if you're lonely this holiday season that we're
49:38
Speaker 1: thinking about you, but we truly truly are, because this
49:41
Speaker 1: can be a rough time of the year for some folks,
49:44
Speaker 1: and so you know, we really think a lot about
49:47
Speaker 1: those those situations this time of year.
49:49
Speaker 2: That was very sweet, Chuck, Yeah, and everybody out there,
49:53
Speaker 2: we hope you guys have a happy holidays, that it's safe.
49:56
Speaker 2: That it's Mary Bright and all that jazz and from
50:00
Speaker 2: us and Jerry and the whole stuff you should Know.
50:02
Speaker 2: Crewe where you wish you a merry Christmas and a
50:05
Speaker 2: happy New.
50:26
Speaker 1: Stuff You Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For
50:29
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50:33
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