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A Righteous Gemstone · Aaron Mahnke's Cabinet of Curiosities

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  Speaker 1: Welcome to Aaron Manke'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 are right there on display, just
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  Speaker 1: waiting for us to explore. Welcome to the Cabinet of Curiosities.
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  Speaker 1: In nineteen ninety nine, rapper Eminem burst into the spotlight
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  Speaker 1: when he dropped his hugely successful album The Slim Shady LP.
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  Speaker 1: Over twenty songs and skits, Eminem used clever lyrics and
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  Speaker 1: tight rhythms to paint a picture of his alter ego,
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  Speaker 1: Slim Shady, a cartoonishly violent degenerate who loved to cause chaos.
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  Speaker 1: While slim Shady was a fictional character, Eminem used the
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  Speaker 1: persona to rap about real problems he had seen growing
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  Speaker 1: up in Detroit, from poverty to drug addiction. But one
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  Speaker 1: song in particular crossed over into real life in a
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  Speaker 1: way that Eminem never expected. The track Brain Damage followed
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  Speaker 1: Slimshady in the ultimate revenge fantasy, beating up his middle
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  Speaker 1: school bully. In the song, Eminem rapped about a kid
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  Speaker 1: named DiAngelo Bailey attacking him in a school bathroom and
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  Speaker 1: giving him, as the title suggested, brain damage. However, the
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  Speaker 1: incident in the song not's entirely fictional. Marshall Mathers aka
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  Speaker 1: Eminem really was bullied as a kid in Detroit, and yes,
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  Speaker 1: there really was a DiAngelo Bailey. In nineteen eighty two,
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  Speaker 1: Marshall's mother sued the school district for failing to protect
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  Speaker 1: her son. She claimed that he had been beaten so
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  Speaker 1: badly by a boy named DiAngelo Bailey that he suffered
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  Speaker 1: a cerebral hemorrhage and was in and out of consciousness
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  Speaker 1: for five days. At the time, the suit was thrown
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  Speaker 1: out with a county ruling that schools were immune from lawsuits,
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  Speaker 1: so young Eminem had to wait nearly twenty years to
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  Speaker 1: get his revenge on DiAngelo in the form of a song.
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  Speaker 1: When Brain Damage first hit the airwaves, Rolling Stone magazine
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  Speaker 1: actually tracked down Eminem's old bully to ask him about it.
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  Speaker 1: They found him still in Detroit, working as a janitor
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  Speaker 1: with the wife and kids. In a nineteen ninety nine interview,
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  Speaker 1: DiAngelo readily admitted to bullying the rapper. He claimed that
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  Speaker 1: there was a whole group of kids that used to
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  Speaker 1: do so, and he even remembered the incident that Eminem's
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  Speaker 1: mother sued the school over, bragging that yes, he and
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  Speaker 1: the others had knocked Eminem over at recess and told
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  Speaker 1: the teachers that he had slipped on ice. Two years later, though,
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  Speaker 1: after the Slim Shady LP had gone platinum, DiAngelo Bailey
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  Speaker 1: changed his tune. He sued Eminem for defamation, claiming the
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  Speaker 1: lyrics had harmed his reputation and made him a laughing stock.
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  Speaker 1: He argued that the song had hurt his own attempt
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  Speaker 1: at a rap career and that Eminem was only targeting
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  Speaker 1: him to gain credibility for being tough among the hip
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  Speaker 1: hop community. DiAngelo asked the court for a million dollars
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  Speaker 1: in damages, argue that Eminem had made him sound like
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  Speaker 1: a saddistic psychopath, which, to be fair, was how he
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  Speaker 1: was portrayed in the song. In two thousand and three,
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  Speaker 1: the case made it to a county circuit court in Michigan.
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  Speaker 1: Lawyers for Eminem and DiAngelo Bailey laid out their cases,
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  Speaker 1: and after hearing the evidence, Judge Deborah Cervito gave her ruling. Now,
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  Speaker 1: it wasn't what was in the ruling that was remarkable.
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  Speaker 1: Judge Servito ruled that the lyrics were clearly an exaggeration.
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  Speaker 1: The rap was protected under the constitutional right to free speech,
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  Speaker 1: and Eminem had the right to express himself, even if
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  Speaker 1: he used real names and childhood events to do so.
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  Speaker 1: Not only that, but DiAngelo Bailey had admitted in interviews
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  Speaker 1: that he did bully Eminem, although he claimed that it
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  Speaker 1: was just horseplay. The court wasn't convinced that the damage
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  Speaker 1: to his reputation was worth a million dollar payout. All
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  Speaker 1: of this, of course, was pretty standard for a court ruling.
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  Speaker 1: What was in standard, though, was how it was delivered.
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  Speaker 1: You see, in recognition of the defendant, Eminem, she wrote
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  Speaker 1: a portion of her ruling a rap. It's a curious
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  Speaker 1: end to a curious story, and I think it's fair
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  Speaker 1: to say not only did Judge cerveto drop the case,
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  Speaker 1: she also dropped the mic. Nothing quite ignites the imagination
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  Speaker 1: like the promise of buried treasure. It has formed the
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  Speaker 1: basis for pirate legends, adventure stories, and a series of
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  Speaker 1: real life treasure hunters who go to the ends of
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  Speaker 1: the earth to find rare objects that they can display
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  Speaker 1: back home. One of the most popular tourist destinations. In
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  Speaker 1: England is the Tower of London, where you can see
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  Speaker 1: the Crown Jewels on display, each gem possessing a rich
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  Speaker 1: backstory of its own. However, as pretty as these gems are,
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  Speaker 1: treasure hunting stories often come with a warning. As beautiful
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  Speaker 1: as they are to look at, precious stones may bring
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  Speaker 1: more trouble than their worth. In the process of retrieving them,
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  Speaker 1: you'll invite the greed of a their treasure hunters, or
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  Speaker 1: even bring a curse upon yourself. Take, for example, the
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  Speaker 1: Deli purple sapphire. It's an undeniably striking gem set in
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  Speaker 1: a silver frame. Never mind that it's actually an amethyst,
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  Speaker 1: so its title is a bit of a misnomer. It
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  Speaker 1: has a second, probably more accurate name, though, the Gem
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  Speaker 1: of Sorrow. According to the legend, it was once kept
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  Speaker 1: in a temple of Indra in Canpoor, India. For those
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  Speaker 1: who don't know, Indra is the Hindu god who represents
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  Speaker 1: the weather, so things like lightning and storms, but also
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  Speaker 1: war so in general, not the sort of god you
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  Speaker 1: want to steal from, and this is exactly what happened.
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  Speaker 1: In eighteen fifty seven, the continent of India was thrown
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  Speaker 1: into chaos when locals rebelled against the rule of the
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  Speaker 1: British East India Company, and during that upheaval, a British
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  Speaker 1: cavalryman entered the temple of Indra and took the beautiful
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  Speaker 1: purple stone for himself. His name was Colonel W. Ferris,
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  Speaker 1: and he traveled back to England with the Purple gem
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  Speaker 1: as a keepsake of his time on the continent. Not
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  Speaker 1: long after, his fortunes took a turn for the worse.
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  Speaker 1: His family members started falling very badly ill. His finances soured,
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  Speaker 1: and at first he thought that it was just bad
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  Speaker 1: luck on his part, but then he loaned the stone
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  Speaker 1: to a friend. That stone eventually came back after his
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  Speaker 1: friend had taken his own life. At this point, Ferris
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  Speaker 1: was convinced the stone itself was cursed. He must get
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  Speaker 1: rid of it as soon as possible. What happened after
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  Speaker 1: that has been lost to time. But by eighteen ninety
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  Speaker 1: the stone had made its way into the hands of
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  Speaker 1: a scientist and polymath named Edward Heron Allen, and it
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  Speaker 1: was Allan who began the tales of this gem's legend.
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  Speaker 1: He's the one who called it the Deli Sapphire and
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  Speaker 1: the one who said that had brought nothing but misfortune.
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  Speaker 1: Just like Ferris before him, he found that this curse
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  Speaker 1: always shifted to the person who possessed the gem. He'd
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  Speaker 1: once given it to a friend who was a professional singer,
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  Speaker 1: and she subsequently lost her voice permanently and gave the
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  Speaker 1: amethyst back. The dire game of hot potato would only
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  Speaker 1: continue from there. Growing desperate, Haron Allen threw the stone
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  Speaker 1: into a canal. Three months later, it was given back
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  Speaker 1: to him because someone had dredged it up by accident,
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  Speaker 1: and it made its way from hand to hand until
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  Speaker 1: it was returned. Just like a bad penny, it kept
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  Speaker 1: turning up a gem with the ability to ruin your life.
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  Speaker 1: Reasoning that there was no proper way to dispose of it,
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  Speaker 1: Haron Allen sealed the gem in a locked box and
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  Speaker 1: put that box in a bank vault, and then he
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  Speaker 1: gave instructions to his family to never open that box
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  Speaker 1: until after he was dead. Edward Heron Allen passed away
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  Speaker 1: in the nineteen forties, after which his daughter opened the
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  Speaker 1: safe to find the amethyst still there, waiting for a
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  Speaker 1: new owner to torment. Remembering her father's stories about this gem,
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  Speaker 1: she immediately donated it to London's Natural History Museum. Now, allegedly,
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  Speaker 1: as they transported the stone from the vault to the museum,
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  Speaker 1: the truck carrying the gem was beset by a powerful storm,
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  Speaker 1: as if Indra himself had come to remind them who
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  Speaker 1: the rightful owner was. Eventually, though, it arrived and the
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  Speaker 1: cursed amethyst has been on display in the Natural History
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  Speaker 1: Museum ever since. So the next time you rea at
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  Speaker 1: a museum and you see a beautiful gem from a
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  Speaker 1: far off land, remember there is no knowing what spirits
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  Speaker 1: it brought along for the ride. Everything in the museum
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  Speaker 1: has a story of its own, some benign and some
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  Speaker 1: like this stone, littered with tragedy. Cursed or not. Stealing
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  Speaker 1: always does have a price. As Shakespeare once said, all
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  Speaker 1: that glitters is not gold. Gilded tombs do worms infold.
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  Speaker 1: I hope you've enjoyed today's guided tour of the Cabinet
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  Speaker 1: of Curiosities. Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts, or learn
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  Speaker 1: more about the show by visiting Curiosities podcast dot com.
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  Speaker 1: The show was created by me Aaron Mankey in partnership
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  Speaker 1: with How Stuff Works. I make another award winning show
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  Speaker 1: called Lore, which is a podcast, book series, and television
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  Speaker 1: show and you can learn all about it over at
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  Speaker 1: the worldolore dot com. And until next time, I stay curious. Yeah,