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A Little Iconic · Aaron Mahnke's Cabinet of Curiosities

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  Speaker 1: Welcome to Aaron Manky's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of
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  Speaker 1: I Heart Radio and Grim and Mild. Our world is
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  Speaker 1: full of the unexplainable, and if history is an open book,
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  Speaker 1: all of these amazing tales are right there on display,
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  Speaker 1: just waiting for us to explore. Welcome to the Cabinet
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  Speaker 1: of Curiosities. Secret societies litter the historical timeline with their
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  Speaker 1: closed doors and shuttered windows. They are veritable factories of curiosity.
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  Speaker 1: From templars and Freemason's to the always fascinating Illuminati. Each
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  Speaker 1: one is riddled with mystery. But those aren't the only three.
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  Speaker 1: They just so happened to be the ones that most
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  Speaker 1: people can name, because most secret societies usually fail to
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  Speaker 1: pique our curiosity. Take, for instance, a rather obscure order
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  Speaker 1: that arose in Bavaria back in sev The Pope had
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  Speaker 1: just issued a papal bull forbidding any Catholic from joining
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  Speaker 1: the Freemasons, and that just didn't sit well with one
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  Speaker 1: particular group. They wanted to join the elites and the
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  Speaker 1: hallowed halls of Freemasons, but the risk of excommunication made
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  Speaker 1: them pause. As such, an idea donned on the former
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  Speaker 1: Freemason elector of the city of Cologne, a guy named
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  Speaker 1: Clemens August of Vittelsbach. It was clemens brilliant idea to
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  Speaker 1: subvert this papal bull by creating another society of Freemasons
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  Speaker 1: and simply giving it a different name. But they would
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  Speaker 1: not lose the selectivity that all secret orders must have.
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  Speaker 1: This one required all aspiring members to possess and I quote, loyalty, trust, discretion, tenderness, sweetness, humanity,
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  Speaker 1: in a word, all the qualities that are the basis
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  Speaker 1: of love and friendship. Also, according to the doctrine of
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  Speaker 1: their club, the qualities of the icon of their order.
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  Speaker 1: To make it more official, this new society came complete
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  Speaker 1: with their own initiation rituals, many of which were quite progressive.
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  Speaker 1: Men and women alike were free to join, so long
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  Speaker 1: as they were Catholic, embodied the traits of their beloved icon,
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  Speaker 1: and willing to go through the rather particular initiation rites.
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  Speaker 1: On the day of initiation, all aspiring novices would put
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  Speaker 1: on a brass color and scratch at the order's door
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  Speaker 1: to be let in. They would then be blindfolded and
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  Speaker 1: paraded around the room nine times, and all while the
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  Speaker 1: initiated members within barked loudly in an attempt to shake
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  Speaker 1: the Novices into giving up their claim to the Order,
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  Speaker 1: testing their metal, if you will. But it didn't end there.
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  Speaker 1: If novices passed the gauntlet of noise and humiliation, they
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  Speaker 1: would then be required to kiss the backside of a
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  Speaker 1: porcelain figure of the group's icon, more specifically, just under
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  Speaker 1: the tail, because you see, this Secret Society's mascot wasn't
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  Speaker 1: a dead saint or an old world deity, No, it
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  Speaker 1: was a porcelain dog. When the dedication was thoroughly proven
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  Speaker 1: and unquestionably sound, new members were given silver medallions with
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  Speaker 1: the emblem of the Society emblazoned for all to see.
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  Speaker 1: Not exactly subtle, but it did the trick, although they
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  Speaker 1: didn't need to do it for long, because the Secret
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  Speaker 1: Society's lifespan could only be considered long in dog years.
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  Speaker 1: A mere ten years after founding, another branch attempted to
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  Speaker 1: start up elsewhere, only to be shut down soon after.
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  Speaker 1: A government investigation into the Order and their lodge began
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  Speaker 1: in Earnest and all of those secrets started to come
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  Speaker 1: to light. The government wasn't pleased with the fees and
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  Speaker 1: the controls that the Order held over its members, so
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  Speaker 1: they shut down the new branch of the Order before
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  Speaker 1: it was even house trained. According to German records, the
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  Speaker 1: Order itself was short lived, with the original group disbanding
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  Speaker 1: not long after, although some records in France suggest it
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  Speaker 1: might have hung on until nineteen o two. Now back
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  Speaker 1: to the matter of the mascots of this order. All
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  Speaker 1: good secret societies require a figurehead of some sort, right,
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  Speaker 1: the emblem by which all members hold themselves too. And
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  Speaker 1: since the members of this society were so inspired by
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  Speaker 1: the Canine, you might imagine they went with a powerful,
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  Speaker 1: mighty and intimidating breed. But if you did, you'd be wrong.
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  Speaker 1: You see, they called themselves the Order of the Pug.
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  Speaker 1: Life imitates art. It's a saying that has come to
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  Speaker 1: signify that moment when something we experience in reality feels
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  Speaker 1: inspired by a creative work. For example, the book The
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  Speaker 1: Wreck of the titan told the story of a massive
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  Speaker 1: British ocean liner hitting an iceberg and sinking in the
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  Speaker 1: North Atlantic. It was published in and just fourteen years later,
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  Speaker 1: the real life Titanic met the exact same fate on
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  Speaker 1: its maiden voyage. But it was Oscar Wilde who said
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  Speaker 1: life imitates art far more than art imitates life. He
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  Speaker 1: believed art didn't inspire real life experiences in situations, it
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  Speaker 1: changed how we viewed them. For example, when we see
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  Speaker 1: fog rolling over a field as something beautiful, it's because
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  Speaker 1: painters like JMW. Turner were able to capture that beauty
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  Speaker 1: in their paintings. To us, life imitates art because we
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  Speaker 1: view life through a more artistic lens. But there have
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  Speaker 1: been occasions when that saying was flipped around, when art
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  Speaker 1: in fact imitated life, and one such person to experience
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  Speaker 1: that was Thomas Gagan. He didn't know it at the time,
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  Speaker 1: but his house was going to inspire several works of
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  Speaker 1: art over the next fifty years. In Thomas was working
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  Speaker 1: as the District Attorney of Rockland County, New York, just
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  Speaker 1: over thirty miles north of Manhattan. He bought a large
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  Speaker 1: Victorian style home in the town of Haverstraw, but it
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  Speaker 1: had seen better days. It had been built back in
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  Speaker 1: five near a hill overlooking the Hudson River, but had
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  Speaker 1: sat abandoned for years. Kids in town thought it was haunted,
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  Speaker 1: of course, but that didn't stop drifters from stopping by
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  Speaker 1: for a night's rest, often sleeping in the kitchen on
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  Speaker 1: a pile of hay. After World War One, Thomas bought
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  Speaker 1: the dwelling and renovated it so that he and his
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  Speaker 1: family could live there comfortably. It was three stories tall,
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  Speaker 1: with a covered porch and a tower like central section
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  Speaker 1: in front that soared above the rest of the house.
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  Speaker 1: It boasted a manswered roof common for the era, which
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  Speaker 1: sloped twice on each side, The upper slope on top
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  Speaker 1: connected to the steeper slope on the bottom, with dormer
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  Speaker 1: windows jutting out around its perimeter. Thomas's daughter, Amo, was
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  Speaker 1: the oldest of six and slept in a room on
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  Speaker 1: the second floor. She could see the Hudson from her window.
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  Speaker 1: One day in while gazing out at the landscape, she
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  Speaker 1: noticed a man on the other side of the tracks.
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  Speaker 1: He had a small canvas set up on a portable easel,
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  Speaker 1: and he was painting something. Little did she know she
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  Speaker 1: was watching a legend create what would become one of
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  Speaker 1: the most important paintings of the twentieth century. House by
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  Speaker 1: the Railroad by Edward Hopper. Hopper's interpretation of the house
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  Speaker 1: was smaller in scale. The windows practically covered the narrower
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  Speaker 1: sides and roof, with the interior shades pulled to various heights. Inside,
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  Speaker 1: it's bright white exterior popped against the shadow cast by
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  Speaker 1: the setting sun, which turned the house's front to a
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  Speaker 1: more muddled gray blue color, and across the foreground the
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  Speaker 1: artist painted a length of red oxidized train tracks. Hopper's
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  Speaker 1: painting portrayed the home as the solitary occupant of a
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  Speaker 1: town so remote even the trains stopped going there. It
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  Speaker 1: became iconic, so much so that the Museum of Modern
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  Speaker 1: Art featured it in their first American Art exhibition in
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  Speaker 1: nine The following year, it was inducted as a permanent
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  Speaker 1: part of their collection. But the curators at the Museum
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  Speaker 1: of Modern Art weren't the only ones captivated by the house.
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  Speaker 1: Three thousand miles away and thirty years later, a film
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  Speaker 1: director was looking for inspiration. He had recently acquired the
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  Speaker 1: rights to a scintillating new book that told the story
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  Speaker 1: of a lonely man living by himself in a creepy
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  Speaker 1: house at the top of a hill. Hopper's painting had
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  Speaker 1: been an inspiration to the director, who got to work
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  Speaker 1: with his set designers building his own version of the
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  Speaker 1: house on the Universal Studios back lot. For his rendition, however,
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  Speaker 1: he used parts of the Dowed House from the nineteen
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  Speaker 1: fifty movie Harvey starring Jimmy Stewarts. Most notably, he utilized
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  Speaker 1: the front of the home with a round porthole window
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  Speaker 1: in the middle of its mansored roof. Like Thomas Gagan's
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  Speaker 1: residence back in New York, the towering structure loomed ominously
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  Speaker 1: over the rest of the house. The director also had
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  Speaker 1: the exterior weathered and darkened. The dilapidated appearance gave the
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  Speaker 1: home an even more haunted look, which was exactly what
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  Speaker 1: Mr Hitchcock was hoping for. After all, it wouldn't have
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  Speaker 1: been scary for Norman Bates to care for his motel
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  Speaker 1: guests in a house that looked all clean and new.
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  Speaker 1: Visitors to Haverstraw don't often realize that the Gagan House
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  Speaker 1: inspired both Hopper's painting and Norman Bates home in the
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  Speaker 1: film version of Psycho, but the resemblance isn't hard to see.
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  Speaker 1: Art imitated life, and we're all the richer for it.
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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 Manky 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 show,
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  Speaker 1: and you can learn all about it over at the
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  Speaker 1: World of Lore dot com. And until next time, stay curious.