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Small Wonders · 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 must be seen. Two
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  Speaker 1: believed patronized by royalty, nobility, and clergy, the smallest performers
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  Speaker 1: in the world, interesting alike to old and young, rich
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  Speaker 1: and poor. These kinds of proclamations grace the enchanting advertisements
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  Speaker 1: of one of the oldest and most lucrative side show exhibits,
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  Speaker 1: the flea circus, depicting cartoon insects fencing one another or
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  Speaker 1: balancing on a tight rope. These inventive ads promised entertainment
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  Speaker 1: the likes of which had never been seen, or at
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  Speaker 1: least couldn't be seen without the help of a magnifying glass.
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  Speaker 1: If the idea of a flea circus sounds too good
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  Speaker 1: to be true, that's because it is the concept of
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  Speaker 1: miniscule bugs swinging on the trappees or launching themselves from
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  Speaker 1: a tiny cannon forces the spectator to suspend disbelief to
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  Speaker 1: consider that the humble fleet, once the harbinger of the
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  Speaker 1: black death that killed half of Europe in the hundreds,
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  Speaker 1: could also be trained to perform daring feats in a
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  Speaker 1: venue no larger than a monopoly board. The truth is
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  Speaker 1: much darker. Please only live for a few months, so
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  Speaker 1: they can't be trained. Instead, most ring leaders thread gold
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  Speaker 1: wires around their necks, which are then tied to various
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  Speaker 1: props for them to interact with. Please like ants can
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  Speaker 1: lift objects much larger than themselves, so they appear to
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  Speaker 1: be kicking or carrying things, when in reality they're just
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  Speaker 1: trying to find a way out. However, most Flee circus
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  Speaker 1: owners didn't go of that much trouble to make their
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  Speaker 1: circuses seem authentic. Many simply wired up their dollhouse sized
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  Speaker 1: diving boards and carousels with electric mechanisms so that it
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  Speaker 1: only looked like they had trained fleas to perform, when
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  Speaker 1: in fact no fleas were present at all. The earliest
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  Speaker 1: known Flee circus was said to have debuted in London
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  Speaker 1: in the eighteen twenties, and since then they've become novelties,
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  Speaker 1: nothing more than wholesome entertainment for nostalgic audiences. But the
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  Speaker 1: use of tiny insects to demonstrate their ingenuity goes back
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  Speaker 1: much further than the eighteen twenties. In fact, it dates
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  Speaker 1: all the way back to fifteen seventy eight and a
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  Speaker 1: man named Mark Scaliot. Mark was a blacksmith, and a
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  Speaker 1: darned good one at that. His work was renowned for
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  Speaker 1: its intricate detail and impeccable quality, but Mark really wanted
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  Speaker 1: to show the world what he could do. Swords and
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  Speaker 1: armor and the occasional piece of jewelry were fine, but
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  Speaker 1: Mark was capable of so much more. So he enlisted
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  Speaker 1: the help of the side show hosts Favor Britt Creepy
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  Speaker 1: Crawley a Fleet. Mark work day and night crafting something
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  Speaker 1: no one else had seen, and if he did his
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  Speaker 1: job right, no one else would see. He constructed a
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  Speaker 1: miniature lock and to go with it, a key, all
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  Speaker 1: of which were constructed using only eleven pieces of iron,
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  Speaker 1: steel and brass strong on a chain made up of
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  Speaker 1: forty three links. All of it weighed no more than
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  Speaker 1: a grain of gold. And these weren't just sculptures to
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  Speaker 1: demonstrate how small his work could get. The key he
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  Speaker 1: had constructed actually did function inside the lock, and he
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  Speaker 1: hung it all around the neck of a fleet. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: a flee which had no problem moving around while wearing
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  Speaker 1: the necklace. Scolliot's work is said to have given birth
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  Speaker 1: to the modern flee circus, although it took a while.
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  Speaker 1: Stories of his accomplishment, however, made the rounds for over
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  Speaker 1: a hundred years after he debuted his teeny tiny necklace
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  Speaker 1: and paved the way for people like Oswaldis nor Hingerists,
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  Speaker 1: who made six hundred fleece size dishes out of ivory.
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  Speaker 1: Pope Paul the fifth was said to have counted them
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  Speaker 1: all himself by hand using a special pair of glasses.
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  Speaker 1: Or there was Johannes Ferarius, who built wooden cannons and
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  Speaker 1: carriages no bigger than a peppercorn, or Claudius Callus, who
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  Speaker 1: carved miniature birds designed to sit on the tops of
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  Speaker 1: trees and tweet as they reacted with the water flowing
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  Speaker 1: through the trunks. This was truly inventive and skilled work,
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  Speaker 1: done without the use of laser cut blades or the
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  Speaker 1: technology we take for granted today. It became the basis
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  Speaker 1: for entire movements of miniature artwork, dioramas, and even Hollywood
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  Speaker 1: special effects, and all of it down to the molecule
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  Speaker 1: hung on the shoulders of one tiny flea. Some might
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  Speaker 1: call that curious. We put a lot of stock in numbers.
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  Speaker 1: I don't mean the ones that run our daily lives,
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  Speaker 1: like our four oh one case or the stock market.
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  Speaker 1: I'm talking about the numbers we hold close to us,
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  Speaker 1: the lucky lottery numbers we play every week, and the
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  Speaker 1: not so lucky numbers we avoid because of superstition, triscade, decophobia.
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  Speaker 1: The fear of the number thirteen, for example, stems from
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  Speaker 1: jesus last supper with his twelve apostles just before the crucifixion.
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  Speaker 1: Thus it's cultural designation as an unlucky number, though many
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  Speaker 1: other cultures seem to see the number as a source
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  Speaker 1: of good luck and fortune. But do you know any
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  Speaker 1: a phobia. You might not as its prominence. Is it
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  Speaker 1: nearly as widespread as the fear of the number thirteen.
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  Speaker 1: Any a phobia is the fear of the number nine,
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  Speaker 1: And for many classical composers throughout history, they had a
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  Speaker 1: good reason to worry. Over the course of his career,
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  Speaker 1: Ludwig von Beethoven com posed five piano concertos, one violin concerto,
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  Speaker 1: thirty two piano sonatas, sixteen string quartets, one mass, one opera,
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  Speaker 1: and nine symphonies. He started composing his ninth Symphony in
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  Speaker 1: the fall of eighteen two, working tirelessly for the next
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  Speaker 1: two years in order to complete it for the Philharmonic
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  Speaker 1: Society of London. The ninth was his last symphony he
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  Speaker 1: created before his death in eighteen Anton Dvorak, born fourteen
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  Speaker 1: years after Beethoven's death, wrote a number of operas and
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  Speaker 1: chamber music pieces before his death in nineteen o four.
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  Speaker 1: Among all those compositions nine symphonies. Franz Schubert, Jean Sibelius,
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  Speaker 1: Alexander Glazanov, Kurt Adderberg, and a whole host of others
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  Speaker 1: met similar fates. It didn't matter how many operas or
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  Speaker 1: choral pieces or canadas they wrote. Once they each reached
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  Speaker 1: their ninth symphony, the curtain fell for the last time.
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  Speaker 1: The phenomenon had become so prominent in the nineteenth century,
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  Speaker 1: audiences and critics grew superstitious that anyone who dared to
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  Speaker 1: complete a ninth symphony would meet their death soon after.
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  Speaker 1: German composer Gustav Mahler, however, thought that he could beat
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  Speaker 1: the curse in an inventive way. Maller was born almost
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  Speaker 1: thirty years after Beethoven's death and composed dozens of works,
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  Speaker 1: including chamber music, piano suites, and yes symphonies. He was
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  Speaker 1: well aware of the curse and its influence. In fact,
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  Speaker 1: death had weighed heavily on his mind and the years
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  Speaker 1: leading up to the composition of what would widely be
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  Speaker 1: considered his greatest work, The Song of the Earth, he
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  Speaker 1: had just resigned as director of the Vienna Court Opera House,
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  Speaker 1: his oldest daughter had passed away, and Maller himself had
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  Speaker 1: been diagnosed with severe heart defects. He had gone through
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  Speaker 1: the worst times of his life, and those experiences fueled
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  Speaker 1: him in the creation of a new work, his most
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  Speaker 1: beautiful and inspiring to date. Maller began composing The Song
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  Speaker 1: of the Earth, his ninth symphony. Comprised of six songs,
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  Speaker 1: The piece was to be sung by two singers, with
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  Speaker 1: each person taking turns singing each of the many movements.
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  Speaker 1: He finished it one year later, but the Curse of
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  Speaker 1: the Ninth still hung over him like a fog. He
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  Speaker 1: worried constantly. Then, because of his worry, he changed the
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  Speaker 1: title of his latest work, rather than numbering it the
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  Speaker 1: way he'd done for his eight previous symphonies, Maller subtitled
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  Speaker 1: it a Symphony for tenor alto and large orchestra without
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  Speaker 1: a number attached. He still technically remained a composer of
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  Speaker 1: only eight complete symphonies, quite the musical loophole. This left
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  Speaker 1: him free to focus on what would become his true
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  Speaker 1: ninth symphony, which he started composing around the same time
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  Speaker 1: he was working on The Song of the Earth. After
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  Speaker 1: beginning work on his ninth symphony, the real official one,
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  Speaker 1: that is, he told his wife the danger is past.
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  Speaker 1: He'd successfully begun ten symphonies, counting the Song of the Earth. Unfortunately,
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  Speaker 1: he was too quick to celebrate. Fate had seen through
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  Speaker 1: his ruse. Only two movements into his new work, Maler's
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  Speaker 1: diagnosis caught up with him, and he died of heart failure.
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  Speaker 1: As the composer Arnold Schoenberg once wrote in an essay
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  Speaker 1: shortly after Mahler's death, it seems that the ninth is
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  Speaker 1: a limit. He who wants to go beyond it must
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  Speaker 1: pass away. I hope you've enjoyed today's guided tour of
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  Speaker 1: the Cabinet of Curiosities. Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts,
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  Speaker 1: or learn more about the show by Visiting Curiosities podcast
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  Speaker 1: dot com. The show was created by me Aaron Manky
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  Speaker 1: in partnership with how Stuff Works. I make another award
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  Speaker 1: winning show called Lore which is a podcast, book series
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  Speaker 1: and tele Asian show and you can learn all about
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  Speaker 1: it over at the World of Lore dot com. And
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  Speaker 1: until next time, stay curious. H