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Six String · Aaron Mahnke's Cabinet of Curiosities

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  Speaker 1: Welcome to Aaron Menke's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of
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  Speaker 1: iHeartRadio and Grimm and Mild. Our world is full of
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  Speaker 1: the unexplainable, and if history is an open book, all
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  Speaker 1: of these amazing tales right there on display, just waiting
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  Speaker 1: for us to explore. Welcome to the Cabinet of Curiosities.
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  Speaker 1: Leo was not a musical child. Since he was born
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  Speaker 1: in nineteen oh nine two orange farmers in Fullerton, California.
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  Speaker 1: His earliest memories were less harmonies and melodies and more sun,
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  Speaker 1: dirt and citrus. He did take a few piano lessons
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  Speaker 1: as he grew up, and even tried to play the saxophone,
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  Speaker 1: but all that was soon left behind once Leo discovered
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  Speaker 1: his true passion electronics. When he was fourteen years old,
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  Speaker 1: Leo's uncle brought him to his auto shop. While the
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  Speaker 1: engines and complicated mechanics fascinated Leo, the thing that truly
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  Speaker 1: caught his attention was his uncle's hobby project, a radio
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  Speaker 1: made out of spare parts. The second he saw Leo
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  Speaker 1: was hooked. That's why the saxophone and piano lessons had
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  Speaker 1: never stuck. He didn't want to create sound. He wanted
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  Speaker 1: to broadcast it. As Leo the kid grew into Leo
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  Speaker 1: the young man, his passion for machines grew with him.
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  Speaker 1: He found jobs around Orange County as a delivery man
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  Speaker 1: and then as an accountant, but he always carved out
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  Speaker 1: time to tinker with his radios. When the Great Depression
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  Speaker 1: put him out of work as a bookkeeper, Leo decided
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  Speaker 1: to finally follow his dreams. He borrowed six hundred dollars
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  Speaker 1: and in nineteen thirty eight opened his very first radio
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  Speaker 1: repair shop. Leo quickly found his calling as an inventor
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  Speaker 1: and technician. Soon musicians from miles around were coming to
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  Speaker 1: his fuller tin repair shop for public address systems and
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  Speaker 1: electronic amphlifi. With so many musicians around, Leo began experimenting
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  Speaker 1: with not just making tools to broadcast music, but instruments
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  Speaker 1: to make music itself. In the early nineteen forties, Leo
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  Speaker 1: began trading ideas with his client, Clayton or Kaufman, who
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  Speaker 1: went by the name Doc. Doc was a country musician
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  Speaker 1: who played an instrument called a lap steel guitar. These
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  Speaker 1: originated in Hawaii, of all places, When a player laid
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  Speaker 1: an acoustic guitar flat on his lap and used a
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  Speaker 1: steel slide to smoothly shift between pitches. The pair soon
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  Speaker 1: developed an electric version of the instrument, which immediately became
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  Speaker 1: a favorite among country musicians. So for the next few years,
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  Speaker 1: Leo made his money churning out amps and these new
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  Speaker 1: electric lap steel guitars. Leo was also an introverted inventor
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  Speaker 1: who was happiest when he was at his workbench. He
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  Speaker 1: was constantly changing and improving his creations, looking for the
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  Speaker 1: little additions that would make them work harder, be more efficient,
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  Speaker 1: and most importantly, sound better. His coworkers joked that if
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  Speaker 1: he had one hundred dollars to make something, he would
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  Speaker 1: spend ninety nine dollars making it work and one dollar
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  Speaker 1: for it to look pretty. By nineteen fifty, Doc had
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  Speaker 1: left the company and Leo was looking for a new
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  Speaker 1: way to expand. Lap steel guitars were great, but the
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  Speaker 1: market was limited. However, there was a new instrument that
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  Speaker 1: seemed to be growing in popularity. You see, around this time,
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  Speaker 1: big bands, which had dominated dance halls for more than
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  Speaker 1: a decade, were falling out of favor. Venues were hiring
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  Speaker 1: smaller outfits which played rhythm and blues or honky tonk
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  Speaker 1: country music. Many of these bands started using electric guitars,
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  Speaker 1: which were loud enough to cut through a crowded roadhouse.
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  Speaker 1: Often they were hollow acoustic guitars with electric pickups that
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  Speaker 1: enabled them to be played through amplifiers, but these were uncommon,
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  Speaker 1: expensive and not easy to maintain on the road. Leo
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  Speaker 1: saw his inn and in nineteen fifty one he introduced
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  Speaker 1: his new invention, a mass produced, solid bodied electric guitar.
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  Speaker 1: The guitar was loud and durable, with a bright, clean sound.
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  Speaker 1: It had interchangeable parts, too, which meant that if you
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  Speaker 1: broke the neck on the road, you could just swap
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  Speaker 1: it out. It was easy to tune and wouldn't produce
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  Speaker 1: feedback when plugged into an amp, and most importantly, it
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  Speaker 1: was cheap. The low cost of Leo's guitars fueled a
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  Speaker 1: boom in electric guitar music that completely changed the face
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  Speaker 1: of pop culture. Jazz, rhythm and blues, and motown fused
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  Speaker 1: into a brand new sound called rock and roll, and
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  Speaker 1: Leo's instruments were rights at the forefront. From Eric Clapton
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  Speaker 1: and Jimmy Page to Muddy Waters and BB King. Leo's
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  Speaker 1: guitars were the favorites of rock Royalty. They even found
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  Speaker 1: their way into the hands of both the Beatles and
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  Speaker 1: the Rolling Stones. Sometimes our careers take us place as
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  Speaker 1: we never intended. Ongoing radio enthusiast Leo Fender never expected
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  Speaker 1: to end up in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame,
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  Speaker 1: but he changed the face of music forever in nineteen
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  Speaker 1: fifty one when his Fender Telecaster leapt onto the scene.
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  Speaker 1: Not bad for a guy who didn't play guitar. It's
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  Speaker 1: been said that beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
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  Speaker 1: What we find attractive in our mate differs from person
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  Speaker 1: to person. It could be the shape of their nose,
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  Speaker 1: or how big their ears are, or something not physical
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  Speaker 1: at all, like their sense of humor. But for hundreds
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  Speaker 1: of years, Europeans grew obsessed with the looks of the
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  Speaker 1: noble elite, but not because they found them attractive. Actually,
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  Speaker 1: it was quite the opposite. It started back in the
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  Speaker 1: sixteen hundreds when words spread of a young woman named
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  Speaker 1: Tannakin Skinker. And I know she sounds like a Star
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  Speaker 1: Wars character, but her story is one of tragedy and horror.
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  Speaker 1: According to seventeenth century writings, Miss Skinker's mother had not
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  Speaker 1: been kind to the less fortunate. After a beggar woman
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  Speaker 1: approached her for help, the woman sent her away. Well,
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  Speaker 1: as it turned out that was no ordinary beggar she
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  Speaker 1: had dealt with. It was a witch disguise who took
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  Speaker 1: her revenge out on the woman's poor unborn daughter. The
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  Speaker 1: witch said, and this is a modern paraphrase, as the
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  Speaker 1: mother is hoggish, so too shall be her unborn child.
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  Speaker 1: And with that Miss Skinker's fate was sealed. She was
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  Speaker 1: born with the face of a pig and could not speak,
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  Speaker 1: only grunt. She also ate out of a silver trough Sadly,
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  Speaker 1: her piggish demeanor was off putting two potential suitors. It
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  Speaker 1: didn't matter how much money her family had or how
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  Speaker 1: nice her clothes were, no man would approach her. But
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  Speaker 1: before you think of it as a unique and isolated story,
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  Speaker 1: the tale of Tannakin Skinker is actually similar to a
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  Speaker 1: few other tales of rich young European women, such as
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  Speaker 1: the story of Miss Jacob's Daughter, also from the sixteenth century.
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  Speaker 1: The details there are much the same as in Tannikin's ordeal.
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  Speaker 1: A pregnant Dutch woman rejects a beggar at the door,
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  Speaker 1: only to have her unborn daughter cursed with a pig
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  Speaker 1: face once she was born. There was also an occurrence
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  Speaker 1: involving a London woman in eighteen fifteen. Her carriage was
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  Speaker 1: overtaken by curious onlookers hoping to catch a glimpse of
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  Speaker 1: the swinelike features she was reported to possess. Her story
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  Speaker 1: found its way into various papers and publications, further spreading
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  Speaker 1: the mythology of the pig faced woman far and wide.
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  Speaker 1: In fact, it was the newspapers that pushed the narrative
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  Speaker 1: of the London woman with a pig face over the
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  Speaker 1: course of several articles. One reader even wrote into The
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  Speaker 1: Times asking for a job as an assistant to a
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  Speaker 1: lady who was heavily afflicted in the face. Another offered
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  Speaker 1: to marry the pig faced woman. But had these individuals
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  Speaker 1: really been cursed with faces like pigs or was there
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  Speaker 1: something else going on? Well, there's no medical proof that
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  Speaker 1: any of these women actually existed, but we do have stories, songs, articles,
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  Speaker 1: and other works alleging that they did. London's printing industry
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  Speaker 1: in the nineteenth century published everything from penny dreadfuls to
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  Speaker 1: urban legends about people and places that may or may
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  Speaker 1: not have been real anything to sell a paper have
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  Speaker 1: been away to knock the wealthy down a peg or two.
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  Speaker 1: After all, they had all that money and they didn't
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  Speaker 1: share it with the less fortunates, making them ugly on
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  Speaker 1: the inside. So maybe the poor started spreading rumors about
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  Speaker 1: how they were ugly on the outside too. But there
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  Speaker 1: was something else at play here, specifically, how people from
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  Speaker 1: all walks of life were fascinated by birth defects. For
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  Speaker 1: a long time, children born with physical deformities or genetic
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  Speaker 1: mutations were often seen as novelties or as sideshow exhibits.
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  Speaker 1: It was believed that their parents had angered God or
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  Speaker 1: done something horrible for them to be born this way.
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  Speaker 1: Of course, rarely were the targets of these stories men
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  Speaker 1: Men were almost never depicted as animalistic in appearance, so
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  Speaker 1: there was a healthy dose of sexism at work as well.
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  Speaker 1: After all, if a woman, especially a pregnant woman, became
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  Speaker 1: sick or displeased the church, or stepped out of line
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  Speaker 1: in any way, then she and her unborn child would
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  Speaker 1: be punished. Thankfully, London's fascination with the pig faced woman
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  Speaker 1: died out months after the first stories had been published.
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  Speaker 1: But the idea did rear its ugly head again, as
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  Speaker 1: actual circus side shows advertise their own versions of the character.
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  Speaker 1: In reality, they usually shaped a bear and put it
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  Speaker 1: in address, hoping that that would convince attendees. One thing, however,
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  Speaker 1: is true. The pig faced Woman's existence, whether real or imagined,
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  Speaker 1: showed us all who the real monsters were. I hope
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  Speaker 1: you've enjoyed today's guided tour of the Cabinet of Curiosities.
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  Speaker 1: Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts, or learn more about
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  Speaker 1: the show by visiting Curiosities podcast dot com. The show
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  Speaker 1: was created by me Aaron Mankey in partnership with how
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  Speaker 1: Stuff Works. I make another award winning show called Lore,
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  Speaker 1: which is a podcast, book series, and television show, and
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  Speaker 1: you can learn all about it over at the Worldolore
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  Speaker 1: dot com. And until next time, stay curious.