Latest / 1-800-1800 / 1-800-1803: On Meat Beating & Batteries

Transcript

1-800-1803: On Meat Beating & Batteries · 1-800-1800

0:00
SPEAKER_02: Ring, ring.
0:01
SPEAKER_02: Hello?
0:03
SPEAKER_02: Is this 1803?
0:03
SPEAKER_02: It is.
0:05
SPEAKER_02: Wow, hey.
0:06
SPEAKER_02: Hi.
0:07
SPEAKER_02: Hi.
0:09
SPEAKER_01: What's your real name?
0:10
SPEAKER_01: I'm just a baby.
0:12
SPEAKER_01: I'm just a baby.
0:14
SPEAKER_01: My real name is Madeline Porcella, and my real name is Mabel Taylor.
0:18
SPEAKER_02: My name is 1-800-1800.
0:19
SPEAKER_02: And this is Mandy Lyon Press.
0:25
SPEAKER_03: Hello, you've reached 1-800-1800.
0:34
SPEAKER_03: 1-800-1800.
0:34
SPEAKER_03: 1-800-1800.
0:34
SPEAKER_03: 1-800-1800.
0:34
SPEAKER_03: I have a burning question.
0:37
SPEAKER_03: 19th century is brand new.
0:38
SPEAKER_03: And you're just a helpless little baby baby.
0:41
SPEAKER_03: Just three years old.
0:41
SPEAKER_03: You finally emerged from your terrible twos.
0:44
SPEAKER_03: And I'm even worse.
0:44
SPEAKER_03: Is 1803 a bad year or a good year?
0:46
SPEAKER_03: We'll find out.
1:02
SPEAKER_01: This is a podcast brought to you by Mandy Lyon Press.
1:05
We republish 19th century novels written by women and weirdos
1:09
and here we're just
1:11
SPEAKER_01: going to chat about a random year of the 19th century.
1:15
SPEAKER_01: And I cannot be more thrilled.
1:17
SPEAKER_01: And this year is 1803.
1:18
SPEAKER_01: So before we start.
1:23
SPEAKER_01: Did you learn anything?
1:24
SPEAKER_01: No, I'm asking you that.
1:28
SPEAKER_01: Mabel, did you learn anything?
1:30
SPEAKER_01: I did.
1:30
SPEAKER_02: I learned something really interesting.
1:32
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
1:33
SPEAKER_02: Tell me.
1:34
SPEAKER_02: So I was, as one does, researching.
1:38
SPEAKER_01: Are you going to tell me in rhyme?
1:39
SPEAKER_01: Tell me in rhyme.
1:40
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
1:41
SPEAKER_01: Wait, that's a good question.
1:42
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
1:43
I was reading a book,
1:45
so I thought I would take a look at the history of the passport
1:48
photo.
1:50
SPEAKER_02: Amazing so far.
1:50
SPEAKER_02: Because I wanted to no-no, Dodo.
1:55
SPEAKER_01: A double-end rhyme there.
1:59
SPEAKER_02: And then I learned that in certain terms...
2:06
The passport photo,
2:09
or should I say the photo based ID photo was invented in
2:15
Philadelphia.
2:16
SPEAKER_02: I'm lost it.
2:17
SPEAKER_02: I lost the rhyme, but okay.
2:18
SPEAKER_02: You lost the rhyme scheme.
2:19
SPEAKER_01: You had some good slant rhymes there too.
2:21
SPEAKER_01: It's just, you know, that's advanced.
2:23
SPEAKER_02: I'm a poet.
2:23
SPEAKER_02: I should have done it as a haiku.
2:25
SPEAKER_02: Basically bottom line.
2:26
Did you know that photo based identification was invented at
2:29
the centennial
2:30
SPEAKER_02: exposition in 1876 in Philadelphia?
2:33
SPEAKER_01: No, I didn't know that.
2:34
SPEAKER_02: Because there were such dramas,
2:38
SPEAKER_02: apparently,
2:38
at past world's fairs in London and Paris and New York that
2:42
they were like,
2:43
SPEAKER_02: once and for all,
2:44
we need a new system that will allow us to ensure that each
2:47
ticket holder only goes
2:48
in once and people aren't buying a ticket and then giving it to
2:50
a bunch of people.
2:51
So they were like,
2:51
you need to have a photo and it needs to be on your pass into
2:55
the fair.
2:55
SPEAKER_02: Oh, it was like a ticket.
2:59
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it was like early PSYOP.
3:02
SPEAKER_01: Wow.
3:03
SPEAKER_01: That's not a PSYOP.
3:06
SPEAKER_01: That's blatant surveillance.
3:09
I just think it's so interesting because I have like probably
3:12
more than most people
3:14
read so much about World's Fairs and how they like changed how
3:17
people were made
3:18
SPEAKER_02: into citizens in the 19th century.
3:20
SPEAKER_02: There's always more.
3:21
SPEAKER_02: There's always more.
3:23
SPEAKER_02: And the fact that like photo IDs are not mentioned that I can remember is
3:27
SPEAKER_02: In the book that I read that's about surveillance at World's Fairs.
3:31
SPEAKER_02: I mean, I maybe just missed the page, but isn't that crazy?
3:35
SPEAKER_01: The pages were stuck together and actually there's a whole section on it.
3:38
SPEAKER_01: It's not my fault.
3:38
SPEAKER_01: It's the librarians.
3:41
SPEAKER_01: That is really interesting.
3:42
SPEAKER_01: I would have thought it was mugshots.
3:45
SPEAKER_02: Well, it was like kind of all happening at once.
3:47
SPEAKER_02: I mean,
3:48
obviously there's a lot of factors like photography becoming
3:51
more accessible and
3:52
SPEAKER_02: cheap and easy to do.
3:54
SPEAKER_02: And then people also...
3:57
SPEAKER_02: Like there's other stuff also I've read about Philadelphia in particular,
4:00
SPEAKER_02: the 1876 World's Fair,
4:01
SPEAKER_02: where they were like...
4:02
There was a lot of concern about crime and because it was also
4:06
the centennial of
4:07
SPEAKER_02: the United States,
4:08
SPEAKER_02: it was like a big celebration for America.
4:10
SPEAKER_02: And I can't remember,
4:11
SPEAKER_02: but they like,
4:12
SPEAKER_02: they told,
4:12
SPEAKER_02: I mean,
4:13
SPEAKER_02: all world's fairs,
4:13
SPEAKER_02: they like knock down like criminal neighborhoods and,
4:16
SPEAKER_02: or,
4:16
SPEAKER_02: you know,
4:16
SPEAKER_02: poor people.
4:17
SPEAKER_02: It's like the Olympics.
4:19
SPEAKER_02: It's exactly like the Olympics.
4:20
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
4:21
SPEAKER_02: I have friends who live in LA who are like,
4:22
SPEAKER_02: I can't stay here to watch the Olympics happen here.
4:25
SPEAKER_02: It's going to be so brutal the way that they're going to kill people.
4:29
SPEAKER_01: You think they're going to kill people?
4:31
I think they're going to clean out Skid Row to make LA a good
4:34
Olympic venue.
4:36
There is some organization like Nolympics or something that
4:40
talks about this.
4:41
Yeah,
4:42
I think the Olympics are an unequivocally bad thing for the
4:45
cities that they visit.
4:47
SPEAKER_01: Well,
4:47
SPEAKER_01: and to the World's Fair thing,
4:49
I actually have a proposal for a future episode that I want to
4:52
do about a protest
4:52
SPEAKER_01: at the World's Fair.
4:54
SPEAKER_02: Tell me.
4:55
I know of at least one abolitionist protest that was staged at
5:00
a world's fair.
5:02
SPEAKER_01: And I feel like I want to do an episode about protests at world's fairs.
5:06
SPEAKER_00: Oh, that's a good idea.
5:07
That's like definitely why they instituted that rule in part
5:11
was fear for some sort
5:12
SPEAKER_01: of demonstration.
5:13
SPEAKER_02: Also, like it was a money making venture at the end of the day.
5:17
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
5:18
SPEAKER_02: And I mean,
5:19
SPEAKER_02: I always marvel,
5:20
SPEAKER_02: like when I read about 1851 Crystal Palace,
5:22
SPEAKER_02: I'm like,
5:23
SPEAKER_02: how did they possibly regulate this thing?
5:25
Like,
5:26
I always wonder about crowd control and about like,
5:29
like,
5:29
we've talked about this.
5:29
SPEAKER_02: I've asked this stupid question,
5:31
SPEAKER_02: like when Lincoln gave the Gettysburg Address,
5:32
SPEAKER_02: like how did everyone hear him?
5:34
SPEAKER_02: There was like 30,000 people in the audience.
5:36
SPEAKER_02: Like, I don't know how anything technically worked.
5:40
in the 19th century is it just that like that's not the kind of
5:43
thing like if you
5:43
were in that crowd and you were in the back not knowing that
5:46
like amplification
5:47
would get better later in life like would you not think to be
5:51
like and I heard him
5:53
because of this because I feel like now I would be like if I'm
5:57
at a concert and I'm
5:57
SPEAKER_01: close to the speakers like that's what I'm talking about
6:01
SPEAKER_02: Like that's what you mean when you say you've heard something?
6:03
SPEAKER_02: It's too loud, I go.
6:04
SPEAKER_01: I go, I was at this concert and it sucked.
6:07
SPEAKER_01: I was right next to the speaker.
6:08
SPEAKER_01: It was too loud.
6:09
SPEAKER_01: I did not enjoy myself.
6:11
SPEAKER_02: Well,
6:11
SPEAKER_02: I,
6:12
SPEAKER_02: sort of on the topic of music,
6:13
SPEAKER_02: I've been reading this biography of Isabella Stewart Gardner,
6:16
SPEAKER_02: and a lot of it is fascinating,
6:18
SPEAKER_02: and I want to do an episode about her.
6:20
SPEAKER_02: But she was a huge fan of music,
6:23
SPEAKER_02: and,
6:23
SPEAKER_02: like,
6:25
SPEAKER_02: there was a time in the 1880s where she was in,
6:28
SPEAKER_02: I guess,
6:29
SPEAKER_02: somewhere in Germany,
6:30
SPEAKER_02: and she,
6:30
SPEAKER_02: like...
6:31
became a huge Wagner head like because people would go and see
6:35
Wagner operas for
6:37
like there were like four hours long she went like every single
6:40
day um well they
6:41
were four hours and I think they were also in multiple parts so
6:44
it was like you
6:45
would see part one that's four hours and then part two that's
6:47
four hours yeah and
6:49
like at one point her husband was like I cannot do this anymore
6:52
and he just left
6:53
SPEAKER_02: the city like he went to Vienna um awesome and
6:56
SPEAKER_01: Vienna, not famous for music at all.
6:59
SPEAKER_02: He just like went somewhere else.
7:01
SPEAKER_02: And I was thinking,
7:03
and then she like came back to Boston and she had built this
7:06
huge music room in her
7:07
SPEAKER_02: palace of a home and organized,
7:10
SPEAKER_02: like had the Boston symphony start playing in her home.
7:12
And I was just sort of thinking about the fact that like for
7:14
most of history,
7:15
SPEAKER_02: if you wanted to hear music,
7:16
SPEAKER_02: someone had to play it for you or you had to play it.
7:20
SPEAKER_02: And it's just such a different relationship to music.
7:23
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
7:25
which actually brings me to my fact are we ready yeah what did
7:29
you learn okay so
7:30
despite the fact that very publicly declaring that i refused to
7:34
do this i learned
7:35
what gooning is this week oh i saw you know i did figure it out
7:41
but go for it i
7:42
SPEAKER_02: mean i don't really know i just like accidentally scrolled into it
7:46
well that's what happened to me as well because that harper's
7:48
article came out and
7:49
everyone was talking about it do you want to hear what i think
7:51
it is i don't think
7:51
i didn't really look into it i think this would be okay yeah
7:54
yeah i did look into
7:55
it so now i know so go i think it's like a community of guys
7:59
online who masturbate
8:01
on zoom together and like have a worship of masturbation
8:05
culture yeah is that what
8:07
SPEAKER_01: it is it's like that but they have these like
8:10
like rigs where they like set up I'm sure like everyone
8:14
listening to this knows
8:16
more than we do actually so um I don't know why you would take
8:20
it from me but
8:21
basically there's like they'll have like like hacker style like
8:25
multiple screens
8:27
and they're like just trying to consume as much porn as
8:31
possible it's like a
8:32
SPEAKER_01: mukbang but for porn
8:34
yeah and they're also trying not to come because you apparently
8:41
like if you're
8:42
jerking off for 12 hours straight and like consuming all this
8:46
porn you reach some
8:48
sort of like nirvana state allegedly remember when you told me
8:52
that which is the
8:53
SPEAKER_01: goon state
8:54
Remember when you said you had learned two things and one of
8:58
them you were going to
8:58
use for a podcast that we were recording with my dad and the
9:00
other one was,
9:01
SPEAKER_02: quote,
9:01
SPEAKER_02: not appropriate to share with my dad.
9:03
And I'm like,
9:04
I'm watching you describe this to me,
9:06
imagining you describing it to my father.
9:07
SPEAKER_02: I'm sure he read this.
9:11
SPEAKER_02: I don't know.
9:11
SPEAKER_02: I could text him and ask.
9:13
SPEAKER_02: That is the most fucked up thing I've ever heard.
9:16
Yeah,
9:16
I mean,
9:16
I had several thoughts about it,
9:18
which is like why I wanted to bring it up.
9:20
One is because I've talked about this also with my like
9:22
burgeoning fascination with
9:24
SPEAKER_01: the bop girls and their social media presence.
9:27
SPEAKER_01: Like the way that like porn consumption and production,
9:36
SPEAKER_01: it's like none of these things have anything to do with sex at all,
9:40
SPEAKER_01: as far as I'm concerned.
9:42
SPEAKER_02: Do you know Molly Lambert?
9:44
SPEAKER_02: The name sounds familiar.
9:46
She did a big podcast about Heidi Fleiss who had the prostitute
9:49
ring in LA.
9:50
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, of course I know who Heidi Fleiss is.
9:51
Her new podcast is about Jenna Jameson and it's called Jenna
9:54
World and I think we
9:55
SPEAKER_02: should listen to that.
9:56
SPEAKER_01: We should.
9:57
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I'm like, I don't know.
9:59
SPEAKER_01: And I wrote,
9:59
SPEAKER_01: I like,
10:00
SPEAKER_01: when I was gathering my thoughts about this and writing it down,
10:03
SPEAKER_01: I was like...
10:06
SPEAKER_01: It's like the sort of like medium is the message of it all.
10:12
This like ability to consume images at this level is like so
10:16
shocking and upsetting.
10:17
And I think thinking about the 19th century and the anxieties
10:20
about that that were
10:20
SPEAKER_01: emerging at the time is like pretty interesting and
10:25
yeah like having a photo of everyone who goes to the world's
10:28
fair is not that it is
10:30
the first step that gets to the end state of goon where you're
10:33
watching 27 porn
10:36
SPEAKER_01: porns pornos at a time i would forgot what the plural is
10:42
I mean and the like also I've been reading a lot about
10:47
photography this week and
10:48
the invention of photography and kind of like photography as it
10:52
becomes an art form
10:53
theory about it and this idea that like by capturing a moment
10:57
you're both like
10:58
SPEAKER_01: rendering the subject of your photo object but also in a way it's this
11:05
uncanny experience of like the return of the repressed because
11:08
that even if the
11:09
person is still alive in some way that is that moment is dead
11:13
and so you're like
11:14
watching death and so you're both like have objectified the
11:19
human and also turned
11:20
it into this kind of like doppelganger like weird doubling I
11:25
was which is always
11:26
SPEAKER_01: death
11:28
SPEAKER_02: Yeah,
11:28
I was thinking about the history of photography this week
11:30
because I went to see the
11:32
SPEAKER_02: Man Ray exhibition at the Met.
11:33
And I think it's a really challenging show because I generally
11:40
find it hard to find
11:42
SPEAKER_02: early photographic experiments avant-garde.
11:46
SPEAKER_02: Because it's so...
11:49
normal looking like it the show is all about the rayograph
11:52
which is the like non
11:54
camera photographic medium that he coined like coined the term
11:58
for and it looks
12:00
like something i could speak on a xerox machine like we did
12:04
make them in like
12:05
SPEAKER_01: elementary school cyanograph whatever like cyanotype
12:09
I was with Rebecca and like I was rushing through it and she
12:13
was like I don't even
12:14
understand what you're looking at like you're not looking at
12:16
anything and I was
12:17
like oh good point so I was like okay let's go back to the
12:19
beginning and I like
12:20
made myself stand a little bit more still and like take it in
12:24
and I was like oh
12:25
like this is crazy well because the section of my list I'm
12:29
doing is surrealism and
12:30
I feel like my maybe like gooning came to me at the time that I
12:33
was learning about
12:35
SPEAKER_01: that on like it was a synchronicity because it's like I
12:39
actually the the real problem that I'm having with these
12:42
readings is like I'm like
12:44
I can understand on some level why these kind of like basically
12:49
what's avant-garde
12:50
about surrealist photography is that they are taking existing
12:56
objects and making
12:57
SPEAKER_01: them look like something else but like so often that
13:02
Transmutation is about like violence to the female body in a
13:06
way that I'm finding
13:07
SPEAKER_01: like deeply upsetting and never have really thought about before.
13:10
SPEAKER_01: Well,
13:10
SPEAKER_02: the violin of Ingres,
13:12
SPEAKER_02: like the most famous Man Ray photo,
13:14
the most expensive photo of all time that's in this exhibition
13:16
is a woman mutilated
13:18
SPEAKER_02: to look like,
13:18
SPEAKER_02: not actually mutilated,
13:20
SPEAKER_02: made to look like a violin.
13:21
SPEAKER_02: And did you know the origin?
13:24
SPEAKER_02: I should save this for a future episode,
13:26
SPEAKER_02: but because we're talking about it,
13:27
SPEAKER_02: do you know the origin of that phrase in French?
13:29
SPEAKER_02: Le violin de Ingres.
13:32
SPEAKER_02: It was a common phrase used in France at the time,
13:35
and it refers to the fact that Ingres was obviously one of the
13:39
most famous,
13:40
SPEAKER_02: talented painters ever,
13:42
SPEAKER_02: but he was more proud of his abilities as an amateur violinist.
13:46
SPEAKER_02: Well, that's amazing.
13:47
SPEAKER_02: And so you would say,
13:48
SPEAKER_02: like,
13:48
SPEAKER_02: the violin of Ingres,
13:49
SPEAKER_02: because it was...
13:50
SPEAKER_02: Like,
13:51
SPEAKER_01: not the thing that everyone else likes about you,
13:52
SPEAKER_01: but the thing you like about yourself.
13:54
SPEAKER_02: I'm kind of like, what is the colloquial meaning of the phrase now?
13:58
SPEAKER_02: I'm like, what...
13:59
SPEAKER_02: I can't remember.
14:00
SPEAKER_02: Um, but I can look that up and we'll talk about it.
14:04
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
14:05
SPEAKER_01: Let's, let's save that for later episode.
14:07
SPEAKER_01: Um,
14:08
SPEAKER_01: yeah,
14:08
SPEAKER_01: no,
14:09
SPEAKER_01: it's just like,
14:10
it's really been disturbing me and then to kind of at the same
14:14
time be exposed to
14:16
SPEAKER_01: this like ultimate manifestation of it.
14:20
SPEAKER_01: I mean, the other thing that I was thinking about is like,
14:24
like maybe an extension of that in my own,
14:27
like,
14:27
I really don't find porn appealing at all.
14:30
SPEAKER_00: Let's go there.
14:31
SPEAKER_01: I just like, I don't.
14:33
SPEAKER_01: So I like can't comprehend like any aspect of this.
14:39
SPEAKER_01: It just doesn't seem like sex.
14:42
SPEAKER_01: I mean, it's not sex.
14:44
SPEAKER_01: It's not but like, or like, it's not sexy.
14:48
I also like think we should do like a Kama Sutra episode
14:51
because there's like,
14:52
I was recently reading about someone else who was like the
14:54
first English publisher
14:56
SPEAKER_02: of the Kama Sutra,
14:58
SPEAKER_02: which is really interesting.
14:59
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that makes sense.
15:00
SPEAKER_01: They're probably like a theosophist.
15:02
SPEAKER_01: That was big.
15:03
SPEAKER_01: All of the kind of like Eastern religion stuff.
15:06
Oh,
15:06
the other thing that I was going to say about gooning,
15:09
finish your point.
15:10
SPEAKER_01: I think it's related.
15:10
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
15:11
SPEAKER_02: Cause I was going to say like the gooning thing is like,
15:12
SPEAKER_02: that's also called edging and that's like a spiritual yogic,
15:18
SPEAKER_02: like sexual practice.
15:20
SPEAKER_02: And there's,
15:21
SPEAKER_02: I don't know.
15:21
SPEAKER_02: There's like,
15:22
SPEAKER_02: there's something about gooning that's particularly horrifying because a,
15:25
SPEAKER_02: as you're pointing out,
15:26
there's something like that in another time it would have been
15:28
like a surrealist
15:29
SPEAKER_02: art project.
15:30
SPEAKER_02: And then in another time or context,
15:31
it would have been like a spiritual practice that was
15:34
meaningful and could like
15:35
SPEAKER_02: help people.
15:38
SPEAKER_01: But now it's like pure avoidance, I think.
15:40
yeah like I was okay what I was gonna say I have two things one
15:45
I was like thinking
15:46
about like what is sexy to me to try to like articulate what
15:53
was so horrifying
15:53
about this and I the thing I came up with was like like when
15:57
the host at a
15:59
steakhouse like asks what your favorite holiday is like
16:03
something like so kind of
16:05
SPEAKER_01: like
16:06
SPEAKER_01: It's such an unexpected thing.
16:09
SPEAKER_01: It's like sweet.
16:11
SPEAKER_01: It's like, I just, I don't know.
16:13
SPEAKER_01: I was like,
16:13
SPEAKER_01: there's just not,
16:14
SPEAKER_01: I mean,
16:15
SPEAKER_01: obviously there are other things that are sexy to me,
16:17
SPEAKER_01: but I was like,
16:18
SPEAKER_01: like kind of an abstract,
16:19
like a moment that I'm like randomly sort of weirdly turned on
16:24
is like something
16:25
SPEAKER_01: like that.
16:26
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
16:27
Where you're like,
16:28
it's just,
16:29
whereas like porn is like the most expected thing.
16:31
SPEAKER_02: Mm-hmm.
16:33
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
16:34
SPEAKER_01: I mean, I know.
16:35
SPEAKER_01: Does that make sense?
16:36
SPEAKER_02: It does make sense to me.
16:36
SPEAKER_02: And I think,
16:38
I think a lot about those types of social interactions that
16:41
you're referring to,
16:43
SPEAKER_02: like the steakhouse type of interaction.
16:44
SPEAKER_02: Um,
16:47
because I think there's like an old world elegance to the
16:50
steakhouse and to be,
16:52
SPEAKER_02: and there's like a type of man,
16:54
generally a man who just has this like comfort with himself and
16:58
with the world and
17:00
SPEAKER_02: like,
17:00
i just also like my feminism is such that i really like i adore
17:05
a really smart nice
17:07
guy telling me he loves when i smile like you know like i like
17:11
being i don't know
17:13
because i'm just like there's a way that we we leap upon older
17:17
men who don't know
17:18
SPEAKER_02: better telling girls to smile or holding a door
17:21
SPEAKER_02: But I'm like, I love having the door held.
17:23
SPEAKER_02: They revere women.
17:25
SPEAKER_02: And I think that is the pure sexuality.
17:27
SPEAKER_02: Whereas gooning obviously reduces a woman to nothing.
17:33
SPEAKER_01: But it's like vanquishing this like,
17:35
SPEAKER_01: okay,
17:36
SPEAKER_01: well,
17:37
SPEAKER_01: so here are the other two things I have to say about it.
17:40
SPEAKER_01: I keep adding things.
17:42
SPEAKER_01: I talk about this all day.
17:43
SPEAKER_01: So to the point of Kama Sutra,
17:46
SPEAKER_01: well,
17:47
SPEAKER_01: I'm thinking also about Oneida,
17:50
SPEAKER_01: which is a for people who don't know,
17:53
in the 19th century was like a free love colony that was
17:56
founded in upstate New
17:57
York on the sort of basis that women were sexual beings as well
18:02
and should be able
18:03
SPEAKER_01: to like.
18:04
have sex with whoever they wanted into the way that they made
18:07
sure their form of
18:08
SPEAKER_01: contraception was not coming.
18:10
SPEAKER_01: Do you remember this?
18:11
SPEAKER_01: And I was like, how the fuck does that work?
18:13
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
18:14
But the Gooners will talk about how they've trained their
18:16
muscles to like do this
18:18
SPEAKER_01: for 12 hours without ever ejaculating.
18:21
yeah i mean also i think oneida is understood to be like uh one
18:26
of the first places
18:27
where like eugenics were practiced because it was only i think
18:31
it's actually like
18:32
nazi germany and oneida were the only two places eugenics were
18:36
ever put into actual
18:37
practice yeah it's like a twin farm in argentina or something i
18:40
just looked it up
18:41
SPEAKER_02: the oneida stirpy culture at the stirpy culture
18:44
stirpiculture experiment at the oneida community was the first
18:46
positive eugenics
18:47
experiment in american history resulting in the planned
18:49
conception birth and
18:50
rearing of 58 children unbelievable stirps means stock stem or
18:56
root in latin yeah i
18:59
mean that is this whole thing it's just like really devastating
19:03
and then the other
19:04
SPEAKER_01: sort of i like want
19:07
these guys to like go help a girl put her jacket on and realize
19:11
it's like not that
19:12
SPEAKER_01: hard I want them to be like put to hard labor
19:19
SPEAKER_02: They're suffering.
19:20
SPEAKER_02: No, I know.
19:21
But I think that like connecting with nature and like farming
19:24
could be really good for them.
19:25
SPEAKER_02: I was talking about this.
19:28
I was talking to someone who has like a really difficult dog
19:32
that was found on the
19:33
side of the road in Tennessee at two years old is like a
19:36
hunting dog and now lives
19:38
in a New York City apartment and is obviously crazy and is in
19:42
really intense
19:43
SPEAKER_01: training.
19:43
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
19:44
SPEAKER_02: And I was like, that dog needs to go to work.
19:46
Like my dad has a dog who's a sheep dog and had behavioral
19:49
problems until he
19:50
SPEAKER_02: brought her sheep herding.
19:51
SPEAKER_02: And now she's perfect.
19:52
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
19:53
SPEAKER_02: And that dog needs to go hunt.
19:55
SPEAKER_02: Like let the dogs do what they were meant to do.
19:57
SPEAKER_02: Let the guys stop coding.
19:59
SPEAKER_01: That's definitely true.
20:02
SPEAKER_01: And I like,
20:02
SPEAKER_01: I don't pretend to know the lives of these guys,
20:05
SPEAKER_01: but it's like,
20:06
SPEAKER_01: I guarantee you if you like forced yourself to actually...
20:13
be around women oh this is what I was gonna say you like you
20:17
it's just not it's not
20:18
a comparable experience like because I feel I've as you know
20:22
have done a lot of
20:22
research about sex dolls and kind of like one of the discourses
20:25
around sex dolls
20:26
that I'm always like baffled by is women being like they're
20:29
trying to replace us
20:31
it's like you should be so look you think that thing is the
20:34
same as me like you
20:36
It's,
20:37
it's not even like,
20:38
oh,
20:38
I'm so much like better and like more real or whatever.
20:40
SPEAKER_01: It's just like, it's incomparable.
20:41
SPEAKER_01: It's a piece of plastic.
20:43
SPEAKER_01: Like, what are you just cause it has like big titties.
20:46
Like it makes no sense to me that you would be threatened by
20:49
something like that.
20:50
SPEAKER_01: And I think similarly,
20:51
SPEAKER_01: like some of the kind of like feminist discourse around porn is like,
20:54
SPEAKER_01: well,
20:54
SPEAKER_01: these guys are getting like unrealistic expectations of women.
20:57
SPEAKER_01: And it's like, no, they're getting no expectations of women.
21:00
SPEAKER_01: They don't know women at all.
21:01
SPEAKER_01: These are not women.
21:02
SPEAKER_01: These are things.
21:04
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
21:04
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
21:05
SPEAKER_02: Well,
21:05
SPEAKER_02: also,
21:05
I kind of think the sex doll dialogue is even different now
21:09
than it was when you
21:10
SPEAKER_02: and I were more engaged in it like five years ago.
21:12
SPEAKER_01: The way that the sex doll industry has progressed.
21:16
SPEAKER_02: Because like now when you said that,
21:18
SPEAKER_02: like,
21:18
SPEAKER_02: yeah,
21:18
SPEAKER_02: the sex doll might have bigger tits than I do,
21:21
SPEAKER_02: but I could go and get bigger tits tomorrow.
21:24
SPEAKER_02: Like, and obviously that was five years ago.
21:26
SPEAKER_01: Sex dolls are like AI and can do whatever you want.
21:28
SPEAKER_01: And if you want them to,
21:29
SPEAKER_01: if you want to like simulate,
21:30
SPEAKER_01: like blowing a girl's brains out,
21:33
SPEAKER_01: you can do it with like an AI thing.
21:35
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's true.
21:36
I guess and that actually surrealism is like like all of the
21:42
surrealists were like
21:44
Kokoschka yeah of course but like Giacometti has all these
21:48
prints that are like
21:50
mute pretending he mutilated a woman he talks about this dream
21:53
he had where he like
21:54
rapes a 32 year old woman and then rapes her daughter and kills
21:57
them both it's just
21:58
SPEAKER_01: like and there's like a kind of
22:03
SPEAKER_01: There's like in sort of the psychoanalytic stuff I'm reading about it,
22:07
there's this idea that like the feminine other being such a
22:10
threat is obviously
22:10
SPEAKER_01: because of the feminine and the self that is being suppressed.
22:14
And like that the reason that's happening in the 20s and 30s is
22:18
like associated
22:19
with the rise of fascism and this idea of like turning against
22:22
the other outside
22:23
and how that inherently involves like a kind of self
22:29
suppression and a self
22:30
SPEAKER_01: mutilation.
22:32
SPEAKER_02: Well,
22:33
how do you see that in context of like the hill of dreams and
22:36
the story you tell of
22:37
SPEAKER_02: it where it's like,
22:39
SPEAKER_02: after plundering the world and digging for coal and mining for diamonds,
22:43
SPEAKER_02: then of course,
22:44
the English have no choice but to start like excavating their
22:47
own minds and
22:48
SPEAKER_02: becoming drug addicts.
22:50
SPEAKER_01: Well,
22:50
I think it's sort of at core the thing that I feel like we've
22:56
actually talked about
22:56
SPEAKER_01: a lot,
22:57
SPEAKER_01: maybe not on this podcast,
22:58
but in our lives about how part of the project of modernity is
23:04
constructing an
23:05
SPEAKER_01: alternative to it and then forcing it out,
23:09
SPEAKER_01: you know,
23:09
SPEAKER_01: like putting it outside of yourself.
23:10
SPEAKER_01: Like you have to make up this idea of like
23:14
a primitive society or a feminine other in order to justify the
23:20
sort of male
23:21
rational concept of modernity like those things don't exist
23:24
before yeah in the same
23:26
way well and also they are both in the histories that we're
23:31
talking about like the
23:32
purview of art and artists and i think it's interesting like i
23:36
think that's what i
23:37
keep for some reason coming back to of all the horrors of
23:40
gooning that you're
23:40
SPEAKER_02: describing like the fact that it's like
23:43
it is a creative project in a way and yeah it's a montage
23:48
project it's collage um
23:51
like the fact that it's not art and that i don't know i don't
23:57
know i was also kind
23:57
of thinking about painters recently like there are so many
24:02
contemporary painters
24:03
SPEAKER_02: painting beautiful things and and painting is in and
24:08
SPEAKER_02: I don't know about contemporary art, but I know that painting is in.
24:11
SPEAKER_01: Figurative painting is in.
24:12
SPEAKER_02: Figurative painting is in.
24:14
SPEAKER_02: But I'm like,
24:15
I don't really see painting that seems to be such a disruption
24:20
of what came before
24:21
SPEAKER_02: it and such an intense reflection of society,
24:23
SPEAKER_02: like the way that Impressionism was.
24:26
SPEAKER_02: Or like pointillism was.
24:28
SPEAKER_02: And I was like, what are we painting?
24:30
I kind of think we're in like a fantasy moment where things are
24:34
like really tacky
24:35
SPEAKER_01: and like the taste has not,
24:39
we know that what is past is no longer like the right mode of
24:43
representation,
24:44
SPEAKER_01: but taste and expression haven't caught up.
24:48
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that's interesting.
24:50
SPEAKER_01: I'm sure that's true.
24:52
SPEAKER_01: It's just like,
24:53
SPEAKER_01: because things that are,
24:55
SPEAKER_01: because like this sort of like more interesting,
24:59
SPEAKER_01: like avant-garde art experiments,
25:01
I would think are things that are happening like with AI and
25:03
with digital stuff,
25:05
SPEAKER_01: but those are still not happening.
25:09
creating like sort of ruptures they're still recycling other
25:13
types of images
25:16
literally like no like quite literally so they I don't know
25:19
there's like something
25:22
I was actually thinking about that recently because I was
25:25
discussing like because I
25:27
study fin de siècle art which is like notoriously tacky and I
25:32
was talking with
25:33
SPEAKER_01: someone who works on fin de siècle literature which is like has a similar
25:37
SPEAKER_01: reputation of being kind of like
25:40
like neither here nor there really well back to man ray i think
25:45
one of the
25:45
arguments that the curators of the new exhibition at the met do
25:49
so successfully
25:50
through the staging of the show is that it starts with his
25:53
paintings and then it
25:55
goes into the radiographs and you realize and they say this
25:59
like i realized it
25:59
SPEAKER_02: before i read it
26:01
um i realized that all the tools that he was using to paint
26:04
because he wasn't using
26:05
brushes he was using like hard edge things those become the
26:08
subjects of his
26:09
rayographs and so i see it's like a it's super elegant the
26:14
transition from yeah the
26:15
tools being used to scrape the paint into interesting
26:18
formations and then the tools
26:19
themselves becoming like these non-things the title of the show
26:24
is like when
26:24
SPEAKER_02: objects dream which obviously i love
26:26
yeah um well that's also like the media theory thing like
26:30
marshall mcclellan says
26:32
in in the medium is the message it's like every medium the
26:39
content of every medium
26:40
is a is a different medium so like when you get to like
26:47
television the content of
26:48
television is the photograph and the content of the photograph
26:51
is like the staged
26:52
SPEAKER_01: moment and the or like the content performing art or whatever
26:56
yeah and the content of a book is the word and the content of
27:01
the word is speech
27:03
and it's like you know every development is actually just
27:07
taking the previous form
27:09
of medium and turning it into the content of the next thing
27:15
except for mandy lyon
27:16
which is except for mandy lyon and mcclellan actually wrote
27:19
that it was so weird
27:22
SPEAKER_02: I'm like, our books?
27:23
SPEAKER_02: I don't know.
27:24
SPEAKER_02: I'm looking at them.
27:25
SPEAKER_02: They're kind of their own thing.
27:26
SPEAKER_02: They're their whole own thing.
27:30
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and also, like, the object stream.
27:32
I mean,
27:33
McLuhan and Benjamin are,
27:35
like,
27:35
talk about how media dreams the future.
27:38
SPEAKER_01: You know, like, culture dreams its own futures.
27:42
SPEAKER_02: Culture dreams its own future.
27:44
SPEAKER_01: And right now we're dreaming a future of four screens.
27:48
SPEAKER_01: Split screen playing 18...
27:52
SPEAKER_01: pornos.
27:54
SPEAKER_01: Jesus Christ.
27:56
SPEAKER_02: I gotta look into gooning more.
27:58
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
27:58
I'm no longer saying I'm not learning what something is because
28:01
then I had to learn about that.
28:03
Whereas if I had just not said anything,
28:04
maybe I could have kept ignoring it.
28:06
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
28:07
SPEAKER_01: You brought it upon yourself, basically.
28:09
SPEAKER_01: Basically.
28:10
SPEAKER_02: Can we talk about 1803 now, I guess?
28:13
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I would love to.
28:13
SPEAKER_01: Let's move on.
28:14
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
28:14
SPEAKER_01: 1803 is the earliest year we've ever done.
28:17
SPEAKER_01: Ha!
28:22
And so I would like to preface this by saying I am a specialist
28:26
in the late 19th century.
28:29
SPEAKER_01: So what I have is what I've got.
28:33
I kind of want to ask why we are even having you do this year,
28:37
but I think you'll get there.
28:39
SPEAKER_01: I'll get there.
28:40
SPEAKER_01: So I'll start with just my sprinkling of random facts about 1803 as ever.
28:44
SPEAKER_01: Lay them on me.
28:47
it was kind of a big year so thomas jefferson is president i
28:53
think i knew that
28:54
because in 1805 which is the year we have done he was also
28:57
president no it was
28:58
james madison wasn't it no because jefferson was overseeing the
29:01
lewis and clark
29:02
mission oh yeah babe he was president from 1801 to 1809 james
29:07
madison was 1814
29:07
SPEAKER_01: maybe
29:11
anyway okay so yeah thomas jefferson is the president and
29:15
actually lewis and clark
29:16
left in 1803 even though they're like primary they were just
29:20
gone for a long time
29:21
they were gone forever but they do in 1803 they set set sail on
29:25
their expedition
29:26
walking no they actually sailed at the beginning down the miss
29:29
not the mississippi
29:31
SPEAKER_01: the missouri river i believe you i have no
29:36
SPEAKER_01: I have nothing to add to that.
29:38
SPEAKER_02: I know I'm correct.
29:39
SPEAKER_01: I think you're, you know, more than me on this subject.
29:41
SPEAKER_01: Um,
29:41
SPEAKER_01: also the Louisiana purchase happens to the U S doubles in size,
29:44
SPEAKER_01: which is why Lewis and Clark go in the first place.
29:47
SPEAKER_01: Yep.
29:48
SPEAKER_01: I'm with you.
29:49
SPEAKER_01: Do you want me to just skip it since you know?
29:51
SPEAKER_01: No, our audience might not.
29:53
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
29:53
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
29:54
SPEAKER_01: And then,
29:55
SPEAKER_01: um,
29:56
SPEAKER_01: in Europe,
29:57
SPEAKER_01: which is not really,
29:58
SPEAKER_01: uh,
29:59
SPEAKER_01: actually I am in Europe for most of the episode,
30:01
but it's not like the geopolitical stuff in Europe is not the
30:05
most important,
30:05
SPEAKER_01: but there is a lot going on.
30:06
So there's a Napoleon,
30:08
um,
30:09
there's the beginning of the Napoleonic Wars,
30:12
um,
30:13
There's a major redistribution of territorial sovereignty in
30:18
the Holy Roman Empire,
30:20
which I wrote down the German word for this act that was
30:24
enacted that caused this
30:25
SPEAKER_01: to happen.
30:26
And I just want to say it because this is one word and I'm
30:29
trying to learn German
30:30
SPEAKER_01: right now and I want to prove that it's impossible.
30:32
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
30:36
SPEAKER_01: Let me guess what it means.
30:38
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
30:40
SPEAKER_02: Is it Reich spelled R-E-I-C-H?
30:45
SPEAKER_02: Yep.
30:45
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
30:46
SPEAKER_02: So Reich is like era, isn't it?
30:49
no what is third right leader oh no third it's like a it's like
30:54
um the third right
30:56
like this the second right was the empire emperor it's the it's
30:59
the government okay
31:01
so it's kind of close okay so it's like yeah deputy is the next
31:04
one deputation
31:06
SPEAKER_02: deputation so and then how does it end
31:10
SPEAKER_01: I actually don't know what this word means.
31:15
SPEAKER_01: I was like thinking about that.
31:18
SPEAKER_01: It's basically like a redistribution of territory.
31:22
SPEAKER_02: I was going to guess as much.
31:24
SPEAKER_01: And different, like the leader changing.
31:27
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
31:29
SPEAKER_02: You know what I'm going to say?
31:30
SPEAKER_02: Sorry.
31:32
SPEAKER_02: Like,
31:32
SPEAKER_02: yes,
31:32
SPEAKER_02: you are a late 19th century person,
31:34
SPEAKER_02: but when someone says Napoleon,
31:36
SPEAKER_02: I always think Madeline.
31:38
SPEAKER_02: I do love Napoleon.
31:39
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
31:40
SPEAKER_01: You're contradictory in terms.
31:43
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
31:44
SPEAKER_01: I just like, I love when people achieve their dreams.
31:48
SPEAKER_02: You said that about Zoran too.
31:49
SPEAKER_02: You're very complicated.
31:52
SPEAKER_01: I don't have a, like a, it's the medium is the message.
31:55
SPEAKER_01: Like I don't care about the content of their dreams.
31:57
SPEAKER_01: I care about the moment of achievement.
31:59
SPEAKER_02: Clarification.
32:00
She does care about the content of the dreams because if the
32:03
dream was like to kill
32:04
SPEAKER_02: all people,
32:04
SPEAKER_02: I think you wouldn't be into that.
32:06
SPEAKER_02: I think Napoleon would have done it if
32:09
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I mean, that was certainly the goal.
32:11
SPEAKER_01: He killed a lot of people.
32:13
SPEAKER_01: He really did.
32:13
SPEAKER_01: Okay,
32:17
the first public railway lines opened in England and the first
32:20
steamboat sails in
32:21
SPEAKER_01: Scotland.
32:22
So I think also like just if we're saying this is the beginning
32:25
of the 19th
32:26
SPEAKER_01: century,
32:26
SPEAKER_01: which it just objectively is,
32:28
SPEAKER_01: like you see these kind of seeds being planted.
32:31
SPEAKER_01: Mm-hmm.
32:33
SPEAKER_01: Um, and the colonial wars are happening in it in India.
32:37
SPEAKER_01: The British East India company is expanding.
32:39
SPEAKER_01: The first smallpox vaccination campaign is happening in Spanish America.
32:44
SPEAKER_01: Um,
32:45
SPEAKER_01: and finally Beethoven premieres his second symphony,
32:49
SPEAKER_01: which is only interesting to me in that in 1803,
32:53
we are living in a world where nobody has ever heard
32:56
Beethoven's fifth symphony.
32:58
SPEAKER_01: Wow.
32:59
SPEAKER_01: Kind of crazy.
33:00
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
33:01
SPEAKER_02: Yeah,
33:02
SPEAKER_02: I have something to say about that,
33:04
SPEAKER_02: which I often have said,
33:05
SPEAKER_02: which is like,
33:06
SPEAKER_02: I really need to get better at marrying like classical musicians,
33:12
SPEAKER_02: Baroque musicians,
33:12
SPEAKER_02: whatever on to like the other things I know about,
33:15
because you're trying and we should I think we should make a
33:19
point going forward to
33:19
SPEAKER_02: talk more about music.
33:22
okay it's so hard for me but i will i just think it's like a
33:24
good challenge for us
33:25
yeah i mean i so beethoven's fifth symphony is first performed
33:29
in 1808 so it's not
33:31
so long after this but i just think that becomes by the time
33:37
we're growing up it's
33:38
like a cartoon it's so prevalent that it's in cartoons which i
33:42
think is my go-to
33:43
for something having like complete cultural saturation is that
33:46
it's in cartoons
33:47
SPEAKER_01: But it's like Bugs Bunny.
33:49
SPEAKER_01: It's like no longer even music anymore.
33:51
SPEAKER_01: It's so far removed.
33:52
SPEAKER_01: And so to be at a moment where that has not even been conceived of yet.
33:57
SPEAKER_02: Well, this is what I was saying about Isabella Stewart Gardner.
33:59
SPEAKER_02: Like,
34:01
SPEAKER_02: yes,
34:01
SPEAKER_02: you're making a kind of separate point and talk about mediumist message,
34:03
like where the music like we don't see Beethoven or Brahms or
34:07
anyone or Bach as
34:08
SPEAKER_02: like musicians.
34:09
SPEAKER_02: We see them as classical music.
34:12
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
34:13
SPEAKER_02: And I think that's so different than how we talk about art history,
34:15
SPEAKER_02: maybe because I'm just not as schooled in music history.
34:18
I'm kind of thinking maybe that like what I think about in
34:22
terms of music history
34:23
and like the concept of classical music is what people who are
34:26
like not engaged
34:26
SPEAKER_01: with art history at all think of when people talk about art like as such.
34:32
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
34:32
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
34:32
SPEAKER_02: I think that's true.
34:33
SPEAKER_02: Like,
34:33
SPEAKER_02: because I,
34:34
I'm constantly like eavesdropping on sort of regular old
34:38
visitors to the Met who go
34:39
SPEAKER_02: to the Met,
34:39
SPEAKER_02: not because they want to see the Man Ray exhibition,
34:41
SPEAKER_02: but because they're,
34:43
SPEAKER_02: they're going because they're supposed to when they come to New York.
34:45
SPEAKER_01: Right.
34:46
SPEAKER_02: And I mean, you see it all the time.
34:48
Like what people think a good painting is like when it looks
34:52
like it can like sort
34:53
SPEAKER_02: of look like a painting by the
34:55
SPEAKER_02: Da Vinci.
34:56
SPEAKER_02: So therefore,
34:57
SPEAKER_02: like,
34:57
SPEAKER_02: I don't know,
34:58
SPEAKER_02: you know,
34:58
like whatever it is like when I was at the William Blake
35:00
exhibition and at LACMA
35:02
SPEAKER_01: and I heard the guy go,
35:03
SPEAKER_01: he wasn't very good,
35:04
SPEAKER_01: was he?
35:06
SPEAKER_01: I was like, okay.
35:07
SPEAKER_01: Do you remember when we were at the Sargent?
35:10
SPEAKER_01: Oh, yeah, the Las Meninas.
35:12
Yeah,
35:13
Sargent was a huge Velasquez fan,
35:15
and so there's an amazing composition.
35:17
SPEAKER_02: There was an amazing composition at the Sargent exhibition at the Met,
35:20
which was like the Boyt Daughters painting across from one of
35:24
Sargent's studies of
35:25
SPEAKER_02: Las Meninas,
35:26
SPEAKER_02: and
35:27
SPEAKER_02: It was a study.
35:28
SPEAKER_02: So it's like not that detailed,
35:30
SPEAKER_01: but also...
35:30
SPEAKER_01: Also the small people in Las Meninas are...
35:33
SPEAKER_01: Some of them are children,
35:34
SPEAKER_01: but some of them are like dwarves.
35:36
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
35:36
And so they were rendered as such,
35:39
but obviously like that wasn't explained in the...
35:42
yeah you kind of had to know it's also like it to me that's
35:45
like the most famous
35:46
painting in the world so it's like i can tell what it is even
35:49
if it's a really bad
35:50
version like if it's a square canvas i'm like oh las meninas
35:53
yeah and madeline and
35:54
i were looking at las meninas las meninas and this woman goes
35:57
to her husband god he
35:58
really slipped on this one not his best not his best work and
36:06
it's just i like the
36:07
SPEAKER_01: idea that it was just a swing and a miss
36:11
oh it's so cool like that's so cool i love that someone thought
36:14
that and said that
36:15
because even like if i'm i've never once looked at a painting
36:18
and thought yeah
36:19
swing and a miss well yeah because and that's like that is the
36:23
way that other
36:23
people look at our history that we look at music history where
36:26
we're like well he
36:27
tried like or i don't know like it sounds like not my favorite
36:32
it looks like a
36:32
painting i need to get smarter on music okay we can work on it
36:37
i maybe the next
36:40
SPEAKER_01: Maybe your next year you could do something musical.
36:43
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
36:43
SPEAKER_01: I'm writing that down.
36:46
SPEAKER_01: We could watch Amadeus.
36:47
That's like the closest I come to knowing about the history of
36:49
classical music.
36:50
SPEAKER_02: Also, isn't Beethoven a character as like a dog?
36:53
SPEAKER_02: Beethoven the dog.
36:54
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
36:55
SPEAKER_01: Beethoven, 1992.
36:56
SPEAKER_01: That's not like a biopic of Beethoven.
36:59
SPEAKER_01: It's just a dog named Beethoven.
37:01
SPEAKER_01: I know.
37:01
SPEAKER_01: I'm like, we should watch that.
37:04
SPEAKER_01: We're never going to learn this way.
37:05
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
37:06
SPEAKER_01: I've never seen it.
37:07
SPEAKER_01: Roll over Beethoven.
37:09
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
37:09
SPEAKER_01: Let's keep going.
37:12
SPEAKER_01: Let's spend another 20 minutes on this.
37:17
SPEAKER_01: Okay, so that is my summary of 1803 in a walnut shell.
37:23
SPEAKER_01: In a walnut shell.
37:24
SPEAKER_01: In a walnut shell.
37:25
SPEAKER_01: So now we'll get to what I want to talk about,
37:28
SPEAKER_01: which is that in 1803,
37:30
SPEAKER_01: a scientific text is published by Giovanni Aldini entitled,
37:34
SPEAKER_01: and get ready because it's a mouthful.
37:36
an account of the late improvements in Galvanism with a series
37:39
of curious and
37:39
interesting experiments performed before the commissioner of
37:42
the French National
37:43
SPEAKER_01: Institute and repeated lately in the anatomical theaters of London,
37:47
to which is added an appendix containing the author's
37:49
experiments on the body of a
37:51
SPEAKER_01: malefactor executed at Newgate,
37:54
SPEAKER_01: et cetera,
37:54
SPEAKER_01: et cetera.
37:56
SPEAKER_02: Should I guess what I think it's about?
37:58
SPEAKER_01: I mean, it's all right there.
38:01
SPEAKER_02: Are they trying to reanimate a human being?
38:03
SPEAKER_02: Yes.
38:05
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
38:06
I heard galvanize and I heard dead guy or not dead guy,
38:09
but I heard about a dead body in there.
38:11
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
38:12
SPEAKER_01: The body of a malefactor executed at Newgate, in fact.
38:16
SPEAKER_02: And who wrote this?
38:18
SPEAKER_01: Giovanni Aldini.
38:19
SPEAKER_01: So Giovanni Aldini was born in 1762 and died in 1834.
38:22
He's an Italian physicist and a professor of physics at Bologna
38:27
University.
38:28
SPEAKER_01: And he is the nephew of Luigi Galvani, who invented galvanize.
38:34
SPEAKER_01: Oh my God.
38:37
SPEAKER_01: And so he,
38:40
SPEAKER_01: his like main kind of interest in his scientific career was galvanism and
38:46
SPEAKER_01: protecting his uncle's legacy,
38:48
SPEAKER_01: which I'll explain why there's like a huge controversy essentially around
38:51
SPEAKER_01: galvanism.
38:53
SPEAKER_01: the invention of the battery.
38:55
SPEAKER_01: And he's interested in medical applications of galvanism.
38:59
He's also concerned with the construction and illumination of
39:03
lighthouses,
39:04
experiments for preserving human life and material objects from
39:07
destruction by
39:08
SPEAKER_01: fire.
39:08
And he's like most remembered today for these public
39:17
demonstrations of galvanism he
39:19
SPEAKER_01: did that were like incredibly gruesome.
39:22
SPEAKER_01: which I will explain it in more detail.
39:25
SPEAKER_02: You're like, and now I will horrify you.
39:27
SPEAKER_01: This is like a really scary episode.
39:30
SPEAKER_00: I'm scared already.
39:32
SPEAKER_01: You should be.
39:34
So his uncle invented,
39:37
Luigi Galvani invented his like galvanic battery in the 1780s.
39:43
SPEAKER_01: And he did it by,
39:46
he was doing an experiment where he was dissecting a frog and
39:50
like two pieces of
39:51
SPEAKER_01: metal touched and the frog's leg jumped.
39:55
SPEAKER_01: Wait, he didn't mean to do that.
39:57
SPEAKER_01: No, it was an accident.
39:59
SPEAKER_01: Why was he touching two pieces of metal together?
40:01
Like the knife touched the brass plate that the frog was on or
40:04
something and there
40:04
SPEAKER_01: was an electric spark and the frog's leg jumped.
40:06
SPEAKER_02: That's crazy.
40:08
SPEAKER_01: And Galvani then...
40:13
starts experimenting with basically using electric charges to
40:20
make frog's legs
40:21
SPEAKER_01: twitch,
40:22
SPEAKER_01: for lack of a better way to say that.
40:27
SPEAKER_01: And he is convinced that he has discovered...
40:32
animal electricity which in the 18th century would have been
40:36
akin to discovering
40:37
the source of life itself like he's he thinks he's found the
40:41
source of like why we
40:43
move and why we're animated and um and that the answer is this
40:48
naturally occurring
40:49
fluid which is a bioelectricity that can be conducted through
40:53
meat like frog's legs
40:56
And is related to like Mesmer's idea of animal magnetism and
41:00
these subtle fluids
41:02
SPEAKER_01: and like ether,
41:03
SPEAKER_01: all of these subtle fluids that are sort of thought to exist,
41:07
SPEAKER_01: but can't be sensed,
41:09
but are like the 18th century explanation for everything that
41:12
happens in the world,
41:12
SPEAKER_01: basically.
41:13
SPEAKER_01: And I'm like, is that wrong?
41:15
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
41:17
SPEAKER_01: I don't think I, okay.
41:20
If there's somebody listening who like is like,
41:22
you're the biggest idiot in the world.
41:23
SPEAKER_01: That's fine.
41:25
SPEAKER_01: Tell me, I'd be curious to know.
41:27
SPEAKER_01: I don't think we know why we are alive.
41:33
I don't think this question of the animal electricity or the
41:37
animating life force
41:38
SPEAKER_01: has been answered,
41:39
SPEAKER_01: has it?
41:40
SPEAKER_02: Well, I was like, okay, so we breathe, right?
41:44
SPEAKER_02: We need oxygen.
41:46
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
41:48
SPEAKER_02: And we have blood and we have a heart.
41:51
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
41:52
And is there some sort of chemical reaction between the oxygen
41:55
that we breathe and
41:57
SPEAKER_02: whatever is inside of us?
41:59
SPEAKER_01: Your heart is just like going like this all the time for some reason.
42:02
SPEAKER_01: Why?
42:03
SPEAKER_01: We should have called my dad in for this part.
42:06
But I don't think I literally don't think science has answered
42:09
this question.
42:10
find that really hard to I think they know like how to
42:13
manipulate it but I don't
42:15
think that like the basic question of like why life is possible
42:21
has been answered
42:22
or is answerable you know what my favorite bit in the office is
42:26
when Michael is
42:27
like being really hyper and doing a bit that nobody else is
42:31
finding funny Pam is
42:32
like the only way to make him stop in situations like this is
42:35
to go up to him
42:36
SPEAKER_02: pretend he's a robot and say oh
42:37
SPEAKER_02: Oh no, your batteries fell out.
42:42
SPEAKER_02: And then he goes, I was just learning to love.
42:49
SPEAKER_02: That's really funny.
42:51
SPEAKER_02: And it seems like you're telling me that was correct.
42:53
SPEAKER_02: That is an accurate representation of human life.
42:55
SPEAKER_01: That's how they got Galvani to stop.
42:57
I'm also obsessed still with the fact that Galvani is the
43:01
etymology of galvanize.
43:03
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it's crazy.
43:04
And it's like to the silhouette point that we discussed in a
43:07
previous episode.
43:08
SPEAKER_02: How many other words are we using that are just people's names?
43:11
SPEAKER_01: Well, the person who confronts or who challenges Galvani's
43:17
hypothesis is named alessandro volta no yeah where does tesla
43:23
come into this he's
43:25
later okay tesla's battery tesla's battery is later um nicolai
43:32
this is like the
43:33
1780s this is like before like electricity is really like
43:38
lightning you know yeah
43:41
SPEAKER_02: and
43:42
SPEAKER_02: Well,
43:42
I was going to ask about lightning because also hadn't people
43:45
seen someone get
43:45
SPEAKER_02: shocked by lightning and thought,
43:47
SPEAKER_02: oh,
43:47
SPEAKER_02: that's doing something to that person.
43:50
SPEAKER_01: Yeah,
43:50
SPEAKER_01: but I think this is the first time that it's like this,
43:55
SPEAKER_01: the questions that they're asking in these enlightenment experiments.
43:59
I mean,
43:59
first of all,
43:59
like the scientific method as such is kind of like recent
44:02
research.
44:03
but also they're starting to ask these questions and looking
44:07
for different forces.
44:10
SPEAKER_01: Like now they know gravity, like just in a basic kind of like,
44:16
SPEAKER_01: I have to use the word ontology and I'm so sorry.
44:19
SPEAKER_01: Thank you for apologizing.
44:21
SPEAKER_01: But like on an ontological level,
44:24
like the world all of a sudden has all of these forces and
44:29
fluids and ways of
44:30
SPEAKER_01: manipulating the body and space,
44:33
like Newtonian physics and things that just like 50 years ago
44:38
had not existed.
44:40
SPEAKER_02: Mm-hmm.
44:42
SPEAKER_02: Well, it's like, this is really what breaks.
44:44
SPEAKER_02: I mean,
44:44
because everything you're talking about is like breaking an
44:47
idea of how human life
44:49
SPEAKER_02: worked here.
44:51
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
44:51
SPEAKER_01: Like, I mean, it was just like all religious.
44:54
SPEAKER_01: And then like,
44:54
SPEAKER_01: even in the Renaissance where it's like people,
44:56
like people in the Renaissance thought like rocks had special
44:59
powers and like,
45:01
they were just living in a world with like mystery and magic in
45:04
a way that by the
45:05
SPEAKER_01: 1780s,
45:06
they're like really trying to figure things out chemically and
45:08
physically.
45:09
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
45:09
Do you think they were right to do that or they should have
45:11
just let things be?
45:12
SPEAKER_01: I mean,
45:14
SPEAKER_01: personally,
45:14
it's hard for me to say because I obviously think that they
45:19
shouldn't have done it.
45:20
But also like I'm living in an apartment where I can flick the
45:22
lights on and like I
45:23
SPEAKER_01: don't know how hard it would be to live without that.
45:26
SPEAKER_01: I think not fun.
45:27
SPEAKER_02: I mean, let's say we wouldn't be here on Zoom right now.
45:30
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
45:31
SPEAKER_02: Our podcast wouldn't exist if they hadn't done this.
45:35
SPEAKER_02: I mean, we would also obviously not be alive.
45:38
All of this probably helped usher in an age of antibiotics and
45:42
such that are
45:43
SPEAKER_02: crucial to our existence.
45:44
SPEAKER_02: But anyway, someone's got to keep the lights on.
45:47
SPEAKER_01: Someone's got to keep the lights on.
45:49
But basically Voltus does these counter experiments where he
45:53
proves that the frog
45:55
leg is not the necessary part of this electrical current and
46:01
that you can make a
46:02
SPEAKER_01: battery with just metal and like acid-soaked
46:07
like conductors basically i just had like a great sci-fi novel
46:12
concept which is
46:13
like we've flashed back to a world where actually you did need
46:16
the frog leg so like
46:17
every electrical wire every cable has like a little frog leg at
46:21
the beginning or
46:21
end of it well i didn't really think about it because we're not
46:24
in person today so
46:25
i can't show you maybe i'll share a screen but i have like so
46:28
many images of
46:30
batteries that are like instead of being like piles of metal
46:33
like the voltaic pile
46:35
SPEAKER_01: is the famous first battery they're like frogs like
46:37
like stacked on top of each other i need to see that also just
46:43
a quick note like we
46:45
SPEAKER_02: actually should do a version of the podcast where we like make powerpoint
46:48
presentations to each other and do presentations like this i
46:51
know wait here i am
46:52
SPEAKER_01: going to share a screen with you and show you this
46:55
SPEAKER_01: And we can put it.
46:56
SPEAKER_01: That's psychotic.
46:59
SPEAKER_01: Literally frog's legs.
47:02
SPEAKER_01: I don't know what else to say about it.
47:03
SPEAKER_02: That's what I was doing in yoga today with the legs spread like that.
47:07
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
47:08
SPEAKER_01: That's a good stretch.
47:10
warrior one warrior two um and so this so but volta and galvani
47:16
are friends um
47:19
galvani or volta is the one who coins the term galvanism which
47:25
is sort of sweet to
47:27
SPEAKER_01: be like bud you're wrong but we can name it after you
47:31
SPEAKER_01: I'm going to call something porcellanism.
47:33
SPEAKER_01: Porcellanism?
47:36
SPEAKER_01: I wonder what it will be.
47:37
SPEAKER_01: Maybe whatever your big book is about.
47:43
And they are just going back and forth about this possibility
47:50
of conducting
47:51
SPEAKER_01: electricity and controlling electricity,
47:52
SPEAKER_01: which has not really been an option before.
47:54
SPEAKER_01: Lightning existed, obviously, from the gods.
47:59
And you could manipulate lightning with lightning rods or with
48:04
the famous kite
48:05
SPEAKER_01: experiments and stuff.
48:07
SPEAKER_01: But you couldn't really store and discharge electricity at will.
48:13
SPEAKER_01: Totally.
48:14
SPEAKER_01: So that's what they're inventing right now, which is nuts.
48:16
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
48:18
SPEAKER_01: And they don't...
48:21
As with many inventions that I feel like we have talked about
48:25
and will continue to
48:26
SPEAKER_01: talk about,
48:26
SPEAKER_01: it's like...
48:27
The time between when something is invented and when they
48:31
figure out what to do
48:32
SPEAKER_01: with it is like the most interesting time in the life of an object.
48:36
SPEAKER_02: Yeah,
48:37
because I was just getting a flashback like there are things
48:41
that I learned about
48:42
SPEAKER_02: when I used to take science class.
48:45
SPEAKER_01: In middle school?
48:46
SPEAKER_02: In high school.
48:47
SPEAKER_02: But my high school science was sort of sophisticated.
48:50
SPEAKER_02: Not in that I ever learned chemistry or physics,
48:52
SPEAKER_02: but that I was visiting power plants in California.
48:57
SPEAKER_02: I think that some of the flaws of solar power is you can't store it
49:03
like like and wind power we or like we haven't invested or i
49:07
don't think we've like
49:08
invested as heavily in that though so like a lot of like wind
49:12
power and solar power
49:13
it's like if it's not being used right then it's gone well i
49:16
mean if you think
49:17
about it like anytime the wind blows and it's not like caught
49:20
by a windmill and
49:21
SPEAKER_01: stored it's it's gone it's wasted yeah wasted potential oh
49:27
SPEAKER_01: It shocks me to think about shocks.
49:32
SPEAKER_01: Well, that's like I'm not actually going to say this.
49:34
SPEAKER_01: I was going to talk about Heidegger, but I'll refrain.
49:37
SPEAKER_01: Please don't.
49:40
SPEAKER_01: So Volta,
49:42
SPEAKER_01: after he realizes frog legs are not an essential part of this equation,
49:48
SPEAKER_01: sends a letter to they're both Italian.
49:52
SPEAKER_01: Their names give the game away, but I just will clarify.
49:56
SPEAKER_01: And on the 20th of March,
49:58
SPEAKER_01: 1800,
49:59
SPEAKER_01: Volta sends a letter to Joseph Banks,
50:03
SPEAKER_01: who is the president of the Royal Society of London.
50:06
And basically in the letter details how to build this battery
50:10
and they're able to replicate it.
50:13
SPEAKER_01: And at this moment,
50:17
that's the moment he kind of like wins the battle of the
50:21
batteries because he has
50:26
produced this like supposedly animal fluid that Galvani
50:31
discovered with only metal
50:33
and cardboard and then has been able to explain how to do it
50:36
and replicate the
50:36
SPEAKER_01: experiment elsewhere.
50:37
SPEAKER_01: That's so cool.
50:39
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
50:40
SPEAKER_01: And...
50:47
They also do all these experiments where they then take that
50:50
battery with wires and
50:53
SPEAKER_01: touch parts of their faces and stimulate all the senses with electricity.
51:02
SPEAKER_01: So despite the fact that they've moved on from frog legs,
51:06
they remain interested in the possibility of this as a kind of
51:10
biological tool in
51:12
SPEAKER_01: some way,
51:12
SPEAKER_01: but it's unclear to them what it's for.
51:15
SPEAKER_01: but they know that it stimulated the muscle in the frog's legs.
51:17
SPEAKER_01: And then they're like,
51:17
SPEAKER_01: well,
51:18
SPEAKER_01: it can also like,
51:19
SPEAKER_01: if you shock your ear,
51:20
SPEAKER_01: you hear something like it can do all these things.
51:25
SPEAKER_01: The possibilities are endless.
51:27
SPEAKER_01: What do you think they're getting it?
51:29
SPEAKER_01: Well,
51:30
SPEAKER_01: like Volta in his letter to the Royal Society,
51:33
SPEAKER_01: like talks about how they could make a fake eel,
51:35
SPEAKER_01: like a fake electric eel,
51:39
SPEAKER_01: if they just took the battery as it was,
51:40
SPEAKER_01: but then put a tail on it.
51:44
SPEAKER_02: Why would anyone do that?
51:45
SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
51:47
SPEAKER_01: I think they were like really,
51:48
it is really like the difference between discovering something
51:52
and figuring out
51:52
SPEAKER_01: what it's for is like
51:55
yeah people think it's easy but it's really complicated then in
52:04
1801 Napoleon found
52:06
out that London had built this battery and is so jealous he's
52:12
like furious so he
52:14
brings both and this is as Napoleon is conquering parts of
52:16
Italy so he's conquered
52:18
whatever part of italy volta lives in has brought him to the
52:23
french royal science
52:25
academy and has him make a battery for the french and then this
52:30
is a quote napoleon
52:32
went to inspect it shortly afterward and to the astonishment of
52:35
the custodians of
52:36
the apparatus he seized the two terminals and placed them on
52:39
his tongue before he
52:40
SPEAKER_01: could be prevented he received a shock that rendered him speechless
52:44
SPEAKER_02: I'm just like, these people are so brave.
52:46
SPEAKER_02: I feel like if I saw something that I'd never seen before,
52:49
SPEAKER_02: my first instinct would not be to put it on my tongue.
52:52
SPEAKER_01: Yeah,
52:52
SPEAKER_01: it's sort of like an infantile way of knowing,
52:54
SPEAKER_01: like knowing with your like hot mouth is like what babies do.
52:59
SPEAKER_02: Well, weren't we just, someone was just telling me this
53:02
SPEAKER_02: Someone who has a baby or whose sibling has a baby was saying like,
53:05
you have to accept and like embrace the fact that children put
53:09
everything in their
53:09
mouths because that's the only way that they find out what the
53:11
world is like.
53:13
SPEAKER_02: And someone was like, look at that lamp.
53:15
SPEAKER_02: Like, I bet you know what that tastes like.
53:16
SPEAKER_02: And it's because you found out the hard way.
53:18
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, no, it's true.
53:19
SPEAKER_01: I mean, it's like, you've seen the video of my niece.
53:22
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I've seen her do that.
53:27
SPEAKER_01: That is really cool.
53:28
SPEAKER_01: It's awesome.
53:30
SPEAKER_01: And I bet it tastes horrible.
53:32
SPEAKER_01: But she really kept it in there.
53:34
She was like,
53:37
why would they give me this if I wasn't supposed to consume it
53:40
somehow?
53:41
She's like,
53:41
the only way to figure out how it works is to put on my tongue.
53:44
but Napoleon had the same impulse so your two-year-old niece
53:48
yeah um so basically
53:52
SPEAKER_01: like this battery is invented at this point by 1800 1801 it's like pretty
53:58
solidified the technology is spreading people know how to make
54:02
it but they still
54:02
SPEAKER_01: don't really know what to do with it and um
54:08
so this is where Aldini comes in so Galvani dies in 1798 and
54:15
Aldini is taking over
54:16
his legacy being like how do we use this technology and like
54:21
make it functional in
54:21
the future and he's like well the most obvious answer is to
54:27
figure out how to
54:27
SPEAKER_01: reanimate corpses
54:30
SPEAKER_01: He's not wrong.
54:31
SPEAKER_01: He's not wrong.
54:34
So another possibility that he comes up with is this idea of a
54:39
bio battery,
54:40
SPEAKER_01: which is essentially like the frog battery that I just showed you.
54:43
SPEAKER_01: It's piling up dead frogs or he Aldini makes one with the head of an ox.
54:50
SPEAKER_01: We all share a screen and show this to you again.
54:53
The image that I have of it is a man standing with a huge ox
54:58
head that's like the
54:59
SPEAKER_01: size of his torso with a conductor attached to the tongue.
55:03
SPEAKER_01: And what's he trying to do?
55:05
SPEAKER_01: That's a battery.
55:11
SPEAKER_01: That was his conception of what a battery could be.
55:14
SPEAKER_01: What is that?
55:15
SPEAKER_01: I don't know what they thought would happen.
55:18
SPEAKER_01: I really don't.
55:19
SPEAKER_01: So they make these animal, these like meat batteries, essentially.
55:23
SPEAKER_01: That's one of the things they're making those up until the 1840s.
55:26
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
55:28
That's like ongoing project for all of these guys is these meat
55:31
batteries.
55:33
SPEAKER_01: And then they're also interested in the reanimation of human corpses.
55:38
SPEAKER_01: So Aldini's most famous experiment is in 1803.
55:41
SPEAKER_01: He...
55:45
is making use of a really insane British act from 1752 called
55:52
the Murder Act,
55:54
SPEAKER_01: which is essentially that if you are hanged for murder,
55:57
SPEAKER_01: your body is...
55:59
SPEAKER_01: The second punishment you get is that your body is dissected for science.
56:04
SPEAKER_02: Oh, wow.
56:05
SPEAKER_02: I mean, I thought you were going to say worse of that, I guess.
56:09
SPEAKER_02: Like,
56:10
SPEAKER_02: I mean,
56:10
I guess what's so horrible about that is that you're denied
56:13
like a proper religious
56:14
SPEAKER_02: funeral and burial.
56:17
SPEAKER_01: What they were doing for science is like not.
56:22
SPEAKER_02: But also I'm like how everyone had to be dissected for science.
56:25
SPEAKER_02: They didn't look at one guy and think, yeah, we don't need him.
56:28
SPEAKER_01: Well, I want you to see the new Frankenstein.
56:30
SPEAKER_01: There's a scene like that.
56:31
SPEAKER_01: We'll talk about it.
56:35
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
56:35
SPEAKER_01: So, yeah.
56:37
SPEAKER_01: So he, in 1803, goes to Newgate.
56:40
SPEAKER_01: The Newgate Castle.
56:41
SPEAKER_01: I think it was the Newgate Castle.
56:44
SPEAKER_01: It's a prison.
56:45
SPEAKER_01: It's not a castle.
56:46
SPEAKER_01: But it's called a castle.
56:50
SPEAKER_01: Well, no.
56:50
SPEAKER_01: Maybe I'm making that up.
56:52
SPEAKER_01: It's called Newgate.
56:53
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
56:53
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
56:56
uh it just says new gate i made up the castle part ignore
57:00
that's my gothic
57:00
imagination at play you're bad um so he goes on the day that a
57:10
man named george
57:11
foster who's found guilty of murdering his wife and their child
57:15
is hung and
57:19
um aldini i'm gonna read an account from the newgate calendar
57:23
which was like the
57:24
newspaper of the time that describes what happens when the
57:27
galvanic process is used
57:29
on the body of george foster aldini who is the nephew of the
57:34
discoverer of this
57:35
most interesting science showed the eminent and superior powers
57:38
of galvanism to be
57:39
SPEAKER_01: far beyond any other stimulant in nature
57:42
SPEAKER_01: On the first application of the process to the face,
57:44
SPEAKER_01: the jaws of the deceased criminal began to quiver,
57:47
SPEAKER_01: and the adjoining muscles were horribly contorted,
57:50
SPEAKER_01: and one eye was actually opened.
57:53
SPEAKER_01: In the subsequent part of the process,
57:55
the right hand was raised and clenched and the legs and thighs
57:58
were set in motion.
58:00
SPEAKER_01: Mr.
58:01
SPEAKER_01: Pass,
58:01
SPEAKER_01: the beetle of the surgeon's company,
58:03
SPEAKER_01: who was officially present during the experiment,
58:05
SPEAKER_01: was so alarmed that he died of fright soon after his return home.
58:15
SPEAKER_02: You watch a dead guy be animated and you're so scared you die.
58:18
SPEAKER_02: Then what happens?
58:19
SPEAKER_01: They scared him to death.
58:21
SPEAKER_01: Well, it's really scary what you're describing.
58:23
SPEAKER_01: I cannot even imagine.
58:25
SPEAKER_01: It's so horrifying.
58:27
And then there's another description that's in a paper called
58:33
The Satirical View of London.
58:35
Or it's in a segment called The Satirical View of London under
58:38
the heading Quack Doctor.
58:40
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
58:41
And it says,
58:42
through Galvanism's agency,
58:43
the most wonderful distortions could be produced.
58:46
SPEAKER_01: And in an experiment made on Malefactor,
58:48
SPEAKER_01: who was executed at Newgate,
58:50
SPEAKER_01: he immediately opened his mouth.
58:52
SPEAKER_01: Doubtless,
58:52
SPEAKER_01: another application would have made him speak,
58:54
SPEAKER_01: but the operators,
58:55
SPEAKER_01: Aldini,
58:55
SPEAKER_01: Wilkinson,
58:56
SPEAKER_01: and co.
58:56
were so much affrighted that they threw down their instruments
58:59
and took to their heels.
59:00
SPEAKER_01: So this guy's saying they actually just ran away after the first try.
59:03
SPEAKER_01: They were so scared.
59:04
SPEAKER_02: But I'm also like,
59:06
SPEAKER_02: when you started saying that the mouth opened,
59:08
SPEAKER_02: I was like,
59:08
SPEAKER_02: I don't think speech would be uttered.
59:11
i don't know where now i'm like i don't know how human beings
59:13
work and i also don't
59:14
know where speech comes from but i'm like speeches your throat
59:16
muscles so i guess
59:18
you could create sound by shocking a dead corpse only one way
59:24
to i don't know is
59:26
SPEAKER_01: the answer and i don't even know where you go to find out
59:31
SPEAKER_01: Interestingly, Aldini sort of resents this like sexy type of journalism.
59:37
SPEAKER_01: What's the word for that?
59:40
SPEAKER_01: Yellow journalism?
59:42
SPEAKER_01: No.
59:42
SPEAKER_01: Whatever.
59:43
SPEAKER_01: Spectacular, like scintillating, you know, like making it a thing.
59:48
SPEAKER_01: And he describes it as the prostitution of Calvinism.
59:53
SPEAKER_01: And he's like, I'm doing real things.
59:57
work but he is doing this like these experiments comment like
1:00:01
he's doing as
1:00:02
SPEAKER_01: shocking of an experiment as he can every time he's doing these public
1:00:05
demonstrations to like raise awareness and kind of try to get
1:00:08
more interest and
1:00:09
money behind it's really quite galvanism and the other it's
1:00:14
shocking you've made
1:00:14
SPEAKER_01: that joke already
1:00:15
SPEAKER_01: I just want to do it again.
1:00:18
SPEAKER_01: He also is applying,
1:00:22
applying electricity to the mentally ill and his claims to
1:00:29
alleviate several cases
1:00:30
SPEAKER_01: of insanity via electric shock.
1:00:33
SPEAKER_01: So he's like inventing electric shock therapy.
1:00:35
SPEAKER_01: How that works.
1:00:36
SPEAKER_01: I also do not understand.
1:00:37
SPEAKER_01: It apparently does work now though.
1:00:39
SPEAKER_01: You know, my therapist told me I should get it.
1:00:40
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
1:00:43
SPEAKER_01: I know.
1:00:44
SPEAKER_01: I know it works.
1:00:45
SPEAKER_02: I still just don't understand how it works.
1:00:48
SPEAKER_01: He said it's really refined now.
1:00:53
SPEAKER_01: I think it like literally,
1:00:54
SPEAKER_01: I think your brain gets like in patterns and it like,
1:00:58
SPEAKER_01: it's like doing drugs or something where it's like,
1:01:00
SPEAKER_01: like wipes the slate clean.
1:01:03
SPEAKER_01: It's like dollhouse.
1:01:04
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's dollhouse.
1:01:05
SPEAKER_02: And this is why I understand why people are afraid of 5G.
1:01:08
SPEAKER_02: What is 5G supposed to do?
1:01:10
Like all these radio waves and cell waves or whatever are
1:01:13
supposed to be bad for your brain.
1:01:15
SPEAKER_02: And it's like, well, that's not that crazy of a leap.
1:01:17
SPEAKER_02: If you realize that electric shock to the brain can remap how it works.
1:01:21
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that's true.
1:01:24
SPEAKER_02: So I'm going to hang up because I can't be online anymore.
1:01:27
you're moving to the woods yeah it's gonna make this really
1:01:30
hard but okay um so
1:01:33
this stuff is happening like that experiment happens in 1803
1:01:37
that's kind of an
1:01:37
SPEAKER_01: infamous case and mary shelley
1:01:42
SPEAKER_01: Growing up in London, she can see Newgate from her window as a child.
1:01:48
SPEAKER_01: Whoa.
1:01:50
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
1:01:51
SPEAKER_01: And these things remain in the popular imagination.
1:01:54
As late as 1836,
1:01:56
there are cartoons in satirical newspapers and things about...
1:02:03
um galvanized corpses and like these there are these like
1:02:07
illustrations that show a
1:02:09
man rising out of the corpse and demons being like oh they got
1:02:12
him like we'll get
1:02:13
him next time kind of thing so there's like a real interest in
1:02:18
the possibility that
1:02:19
SPEAKER_01: people can be brought back from the dead
1:02:21
I mean,
1:02:22
there's also,
1:02:22
like,
1:02:23
it was difficult to know if someone was dead sometimes.
1:02:26
SPEAKER_02: Like, yes, if you were hanging them, you probably... Keep that thought.
1:02:29
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
1:02:30
SPEAKER_02: Should I pause on that?
1:02:31
SPEAKER_02: No, no.
1:02:32
SPEAKER_02: I guess I'm just going to say,
1:02:33
SPEAKER_02: like,
1:02:33
SPEAKER_02: we still...
1:02:34
I still hear stories about medical doctors and EMTs thinking
1:02:39
someone is deceased
1:02:40
and then realizing that their heart is still beating or they're
1:02:42
still breathing.
1:02:43
SPEAKER_02: Like...
1:02:44
SPEAKER_02: The boundary between life and death is a bit gray.
1:02:48
SPEAKER_02: And also people do move.
1:02:50
SPEAKER_02: Their corpses do move.
1:02:51
SPEAKER_02: Like it's like a chicken with its head cut off.
1:02:54
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
1:02:54
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
1:02:55
SPEAKER_01: So on that note, so Mary Shelley is growing up in London at the end.
1:03:01
SPEAKER_01: This is like part of the scientific discourse of the time,
1:03:04
SPEAKER_01: which her parents are Mary Wallenstrom Craft,
1:03:06
SPEAKER_01: who was a feminist writer,
1:03:08
SPEAKER_01: and her father was William Godwin.
1:03:10
So these discourses like would not have been foreign to her
1:03:13
house,
1:03:14
basically.
1:03:14
SPEAKER_01: And she's growing up in this kind of like intellectual world.
1:03:17
SPEAKER_02: Can I say that Wollstonecraft died of puerperal fever,
1:03:22
SPEAKER_02: which is what Oliver Wendell Holmes,
1:03:23
SPEAKER_02: the author of Elsie Venner,
1:03:25
SPEAKER_02: wrote the landmark study on.
1:03:27
SPEAKER_01: Oh, wow.
1:03:28
SPEAKER_01: Ding, ding, ding, ding.
1:03:30
This question of the state between life and death is something
1:03:33
that people are like
1:03:34
SPEAKER_01: really wrestling with.
1:03:35
SPEAKER_01: And in London,
1:03:38
there was a bit of a drowning problem on the Thames because so
1:03:41
many people worked
1:03:42
SPEAKER_01: on the Thames but didn't know how to swim.
1:03:44
Well,
1:03:45
I would not say the Thames is like an enticing place to learn
1:03:47
how to swim.
1:03:49
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, but what happens when you're thrown in?
1:03:55
SPEAKER_01: So in 1774,
1:03:57
two doctors named William Hawes and Thomas Cogan set up the
1:04:01
Royal Humane Society in
1:04:02
SPEAKER_01: London,
1:04:03
SPEAKER_01: which still exists,
1:04:04
but was initially called Society for the Recovery of Persons
1:04:08
Apparently Drowned.
1:04:09
SPEAKER_01: Apparently.
1:04:10
The naming in the 18th century,
1:04:12
like the title of that book and this,
1:04:14
I'm like,
1:04:15
edit.
1:04:22
SPEAKER_01: But so they were basically paying people who...
1:04:28
If you attempted to resuscitate someone who drowned,
1:04:30
you got two guineas.
1:04:31
And then if you successfully did it,
1:04:33
you got four guineas and like with CPR style.
1:04:37
SPEAKER_01: They didn't know exactly what worked.
1:04:39
SPEAKER_01: So it was, they would then publish every successful attempt.
1:04:44
So this society was collecting the apparently dead from the
1:04:48
river and then trying
1:04:50
SPEAKER_02: to revive them.
1:04:51
SPEAKER_02: No,
1:04:51
I think it was like if you happened to see someone who was
1:04:54
drowning and you tried
1:04:56
SPEAKER_01: to save them and it worked,
1:04:58
SPEAKER_01: you would like write in and be like,
1:04:59
SPEAKER_01: this happened.
1:05:00
SPEAKER_01: Like, this is the details of the event.
1:05:02
SPEAKER_01: Like, can I have my four guineas?
1:05:05
SPEAKER_01: It's a lot of money at the time, right?
1:05:06
SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
1:05:07
SPEAKER_01: I have no idea.
1:05:10
SPEAKER_01: And it still exists.
1:05:11
SPEAKER_01: It's now the Royal Humane Society.
1:05:17
SPEAKER_01: And they grant awards for acts of bravery and the saving of human life.
1:05:21
SPEAKER_01: They do the exact same thing.
1:05:23
SPEAKER_01: Wow.
1:05:23
SPEAKER_01: Do you get paid for it?
1:05:24
SPEAKER_01: I think so, yeah.
1:05:26
SPEAKER_01: Hmm.
1:05:27
it's the restoration of life by resuscitation is like part of
1:05:31
their mission statement.
1:05:33
SPEAKER_01: And they have a really funny website if you ever want to check it out.
1:05:38
SPEAKER_01: And basically the,
1:05:43
SPEAKER_01: This history of drowning is the reason,
1:05:47
the place that this conversation is happening because like
1:05:49
historically that is the
1:05:50
kind of moment where someone is apparently dead and is able to
1:05:54
be revived that is
1:05:55
SPEAKER_01: like the most common.
1:05:56
SPEAKER_01: Like that has happened a lot through all time.
1:05:59
SPEAKER_01: Like other kind of medical issues.
1:06:03
don't know like because you could just have like water in your
1:06:05
chest exactly yeah
1:06:07
you're like not breathing but then you come back um opposed to
1:06:11
like a heart attack
1:06:12
where if your heart doesn't work anymore you're kind of dead
1:06:15
well there's in the
1:06:16
hebrew book of kings elijah revives a dead child with mouth to
1:06:19
mouth what i just
1:06:24
SPEAKER_02: that sentence was beyond i believe you i'm just like what are you saying
1:06:33
SPEAKER_01: Is this episode too far afield?
1:06:36
SPEAKER_01: No, I love it.
1:06:36
SPEAKER_01: I'm learning a lot.
1:06:38
SPEAKER_01: And in the 1730s,
1:06:40
a Frenchman named René Antoine for a show popularized the
1:06:45
recent discovery that
1:06:46
using a pipe stem to blow stimulating tobacco smokes into the
1:06:50
intestines through
1:06:51
SPEAKER_01: the rectum was the best way to revive a drowned man.
1:06:55
oh my god so then louis the 15th is dazzled by this discovery
1:07:05
and and commissions a
1:07:07
book to be printed with the information and then this this is a
1:07:11
quote soon
1:07:12
riverbanks across europe were lined with resuscitation kits
1:07:17
including a nicotine
1:07:18
SPEAKER_01: enema
1:07:22
i yeah yeah yeah one time i was at a party in high school and
1:07:28
this girl walked into
1:07:30
the pool because it was dark and she had night blindness and
1:07:34
she was fine but i'm
1:07:35
like that would have been a situation where nicotine enema i
1:07:39
mean if it was 16 16
1:07:42
17 30 it would have that would have been how you fixed her
1:07:46
SPEAKER_01: I mean,
1:07:46
SPEAKER_01: she swam her way out,
1:07:48
SPEAKER_01: but...
1:07:49
SPEAKER_01: Eventually,
1:07:49
SPEAKER_01: they invent,
1:07:50
SPEAKER_01: like,
1:07:50
SPEAKER_01: what is closest to a contemporary defibrillator,
1:07:53
SPEAKER_01: which is,
1:07:53
SPEAKER_01: like,
1:07:54
SPEAKER_01: a...
1:07:54
But I think then it was pressure because they didn't have a
1:07:57
battery-powered thing,
1:07:59
SPEAKER_01: so you would,
1:07:59
SPEAKER_01: like,
1:07:59
SPEAKER_01: slam on the chest.
1:08:01
SPEAKER_01: But this is, like, a years-long process.
1:08:04
SPEAKER_01: So when corpse reanimation becomes possible for other ways of...
1:08:09
SPEAKER_01: recessive like not drowned people but just any old dead person that's why
1:08:13
everyone's like ears are perked up because they're like we've
1:08:15
been saving dead
1:08:17
people for years if they drowned uh-huh bringing people back
1:08:21
from the dead and an
1:08:23
interesting fact is that so that every year the royal humane
1:08:27
society had an annual
1:08:28
procession of those quote raised from the dead by the society's
1:08:33
methods and a lot
1:08:37
SPEAKER_01: of those were intended suicides
1:08:39
SPEAKER_01: And one of those intended suicides was Mary Wollstonecraft herself,
1:08:45
who leaped from Putney Bridge into the Thames in the depth of a
1:08:48
depression and
1:08:50
SPEAKER_01: complained,
1:08:51
SPEAKER_01: quote,
1:08:51
SPEAKER_01: I have only to lament that when the bitterness of death was passed,
1:08:54
SPEAKER_01: I was inhumanely brought back to life and misery.
1:08:58
SPEAKER_01: Um... So...
1:09:03
SPEAKER_01: I don't know if you see where I'm going with this,
1:09:05
SPEAKER_01: but this is kind of all around Mary Shelley while she's growing up.
1:09:08
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
1:09:10
And that's obviously a devastating statement from Mary
1:09:13
Wollstonecraft,
1:09:14
but...
1:09:17
SPEAKER_01: Even she herself is like, I was brought back to life.
1:09:21
SPEAKER_01: She's like, I died and came back.
1:09:23
Well,
1:09:24
you know what I'm thinking about throughout this entire
1:09:26
conversation?
1:09:27
SPEAKER_02: What?
1:09:27
SPEAKER_02: Is Buffy the vampire slayer.
1:09:30
And because of the vampires coming to life,
1:09:32
like those are dead people walking.
1:09:34
yeah quite literally quite literally but then also there's a
1:09:38
famous part of the
1:09:39
show where Buffy dies and everyone assumes she's gone to hell
1:09:43
and then they
1:09:44
resuscitate her revive her spirit like get her to reanimate and
1:09:48
she was like you
1:09:49
guys I was in heaven oh yeah and it's really dark it's really
1:09:53
dark yeah like
1:09:55
SPEAKER_02: unwatchable now I find it
1:09:58
SPEAKER_02: Why?
1:09:59
Just because my feeling about Buffy is that I watched it when I
1:10:02
was in high school
1:10:02
SPEAKER_02: and thought it was the best thing ever.
1:10:04
SPEAKER_02: Loved it.
1:10:04
SPEAKER_02: Thought it was so cool.
1:10:06
SPEAKER_02: And now watching it as an adult,
1:10:07
I'm like watching this young woman be put upon by the world and
1:10:14
be told that she is
1:10:15
SPEAKER_02: the person who will save the world.
1:10:17
SPEAKER_02: And then the Joss Whedon cancellation.
1:10:20
SPEAKER_02: It's so brutal.
1:10:21
SPEAKER_02: It's like surrealist disfigurement of a woman to me.
1:10:25
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I see that.
1:10:27
SPEAKER_01: And also,
1:10:27
SPEAKER_01: I mean,
1:10:28
SPEAKER_01: you're talking about Dollhouse,
1:10:29
SPEAKER_01: which is also a Joss Whedon venture and has like a similar kind of...
1:10:34
SPEAKER_01: He's fucked.
1:10:35
SPEAKER_01: He's fucked.
1:10:37
SPEAKER_01: And I do think that the fact that like...
1:10:42
she wanted to stay dead is like I the show becomes kind of
1:10:45
unbearable after that
1:10:46
because it's like how do you ever come back from that you can't
1:10:49
enjoy life after
1:10:50
that it also reminds me I you know how you were saying you
1:10:53
wanted didn't you say
1:10:54
you wanted to watch the new reality show about Alec Baldwin no
1:10:57
I would not have
1:10:58
SPEAKER_02: said that
1:10:59
SPEAKER_01: I think you considered it.
1:11:00
SPEAKER_01: I think I said it's fucked up.
1:11:01
SPEAKER_01: No,
1:11:02
SPEAKER_01: this is an opinion that I have,
1:11:03
which is that he should not be participating in a reality show
1:11:08
and like posting his
1:11:08
family online and all of these things when he literally
1:11:11
murdered a woman and...
1:11:15
SPEAKER_02: So I watched episode one last night.
1:11:18
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
1:11:19
SPEAKER_02: And it's all about, yeah, I mean, it's so fucked up completely.
1:11:23
SPEAKER_02: Your take is correct at watching it.
1:11:25
SPEAKER_02: It's like,
1:11:25
SPEAKER_02: I'm just like,
1:11:26
imagine that woman's daughter has to like watch this man and
1:11:29
his family enjoy life
1:11:30
SPEAKER_01: now for,
1:11:31
SPEAKER_02: but like the narrative,
1:11:33
SPEAKER_02: the like puff narrative meant to make him a sympathizable character,
1:11:38
SPEAKER_02: whatever a character who deserves our sympathy is they're like,
1:11:41
SPEAKER_02: he's like,
1:11:42
SPEAKER_02: I just wanted to stay asleep.
1:11:43
SPEAKER_02: I didn't want to wake up.
1:11:45
SPEAKER_02: And I need like, I never want to wake up anymore.
1:11:48
SPEAKER_02: He's like Buffy.
1:11:49
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
1:11:50
SPEAKER_01: So Buffy saved people.
1:11:51
SPEAKER_01: I mean,
1:11:51
SPEAKER_01: obviously that was an accident and it's like a tragic accident,
1:11:55
but I think you can still choose to like learn a lesson from a
1:11:58
tragic accident and
1:12:00
SPEAKER_01: like live your life differently.
1:12:01
SPEAKER_01: And he has doubled down.
1:12:03
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
1:12:04
SPEAKER_01: Sorry.
1:12:04
SPEAKER_01: I'm distracting you from your mission here.
1:12:06
SPEAKER_01: Keep going.
1:12:07
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
1:12:08
SPEAKER_01: Basically,
1:12:08
SPEAKER_01: I'm like taking a long walk to say that in the late 18th,
1:12:13
SPEAKER_01: early 19th century,
1:12:14
SPEAKER_01: there are different understandings of death than we have today.
1:12:17
SPEAKER_01: There are different categories of death.
1:12:19
SPEAKER_01: There is a kind of distinction between absolute death,
1:12:23
SPEAKER_01: which you cannot be revived from and being like insensate or lifeless,
1:12:28
SPEAKER_01: which actually like
1:12:31
now that I am more aware of this distinction is really common
1:12:36
in 19th century
1:12:37
novels for someone to be described as like coming back to life
1:12:40
if they faint or
1:12:42
have some kind of fit or that's what I was thinking about with
1:12:45
this the nicotine
1:12:46
enema it's like that's like smelling salts basically yeah like
1:12:50
there's this idea
1:12:51
SPEAKER_01: that you like death is present in life in a way that is like
1:12:58
SPEAKER_01: any time you kind of are out of yourself, you're dead.
1:13:03
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
1:13:03
SPEAKER_02: It's like people always also had these fevers.
1:13:05
SPEAKER_02: Like you couldn't break someone's fever as easily as you can now.
1:13:07
So they were like in this weird fugue state just on the other
1:13:11
side of something
1:13:12
SPEAKER_02: that you can't get to.
1:13:14
SPEAKER_02: I feel that way all the time reading 19th century novels.
1:13:17
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
1:13:17
SPEAKER_02: The death is everywhere.
1:13:18
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
1:13:19
SPEAKER_01: It's everywhere.
1:13:20
And like,
1:13:21
it's,
1:13:22
it's something that you're like,
1:13:23
yeah,
1:13:24
it's a state that you're in and out of.
1:13:25
SPEAKER_01: It's like a constant presence with you.
1:13:27
SPEAKER_01: It's not this kind of final thing that we're like afraid of.
1:13:31
SPEAKER_01: Also,
1:13:32
SPEAKER_01: like most of your children died,
1:13:34
SPEAKER_01: you know,
1:13:34
like your parents like died and then were kept in the house for
1:13:37
a month while you
1:13:38
SPEAKER_01: like made funeral arrangements.
1:13:40
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
1:13:40
SPEAKER_02: Like death was a constant experience.
1:13:43
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
1:13:44
as it is today but we're so much better at ostracizing it and
1:13:48
separating it and
1:13:49
we're better at avoiding it too but it's like the thing of like
1:13:52
you know this
1:13:53
repression that's coming back in these horrifying ways so it's
1:13:56
like maybe it would
1:13:56
be better to just live with the reality of death than to like
1:13:59
than to goon than to
1:14:01
goon because it's like it's like the petite moor it's like
1:14:07
every ejaculation is a
1:14:09
SPEAKER_01: little death
1:14:10
Yeah,
1:14:11
that is such...
1:14:11
Every time you get your period,
1:14:13
you're killing a baby.
1:14:14
SPEAKER_02: That's why it's illegal to have your period now.
1:14:18
SPEAKER_02: I wish.
1:14:28
SPEAKER_02: What next?
1:14:28
SPEAKER_02: What happens next?
1:14:31
SPEAKER_01: So...
1:14:33
SPEAKER_01: All of this is in a way leading me to Frankenstein.
1:14:36
SPEAKER_01: I know.
1:14:37
I know it was so subtle that maybe none of our listeners really
1:14:41
caught on to that.
1:14:42
SPEAKER_01: But basically, Frankenstein's having a moment right now.
1:14:47
SPEAKER_01: And I also have long been interested in the history of electricity.
1:14:53
SPEAKER_01: And in various film representations of Frankenstein,
1:14:57
it's always these kind of big Tesla coil looking batteries that
1:15:01
bring the monster
1:15:02
SPEAKER_01: back to life.
1:15:03
SPEAKER_01: And that's not exactly true in Shelley's version.
1:15:07
SPEAKER_01: But I think that in her version,
1:15:08
she's talking about these developments in science in a really
1:15:12
interesting way.
1:15:13
SPEAKER_01: And she's definitely referencing Galvanism.
1:15:16
SPEAKER_01: So it's originally published in 1818.
1:15:22
SPEAKER_01: And that same year is the year that Byron is writing Don Juan.
1:15:29
SPEAKER_01: Is that pronounced Don Juan?
1:15:32
no i think it's don juan i'm serious i've heard british people
1:15:36
say that british
1:15:37
people don't say things right okay then it's don juan british
1:15:45
people are insane i
1:15:47
can't i can't i've heard so many british people go don juan the
1:15:52
way that my grandma
1:15:53
SPEAKER_02: who's british says the word sauna i was like grandma what is say it
1:15:58
SPEAKER_02: I can't even say it, but it was like, Sauna?
1:16:02
SPEAKER_01: No.
1:16:03
SPEAKER_01: She's like, finished?
1:16:04
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, she's finished.
1:16:06
SPEAKER_02: And I was like, what is that, a cake?
1:16:07
SPEAKER_02: I was like, what are you talking about?
1:16:10
SPEAKER_01: Unbelievable.
1:16:11
SPEAKER_01: That's awesome.
1:16:13
SPEAKER_01: Well, basically, there's a line in Don Juan Juan about where he says...
1:16:23
SPEAKER_01: This is the age of oddities let loose.
1:16:25
Bread has been made indifferent from potatoes and Galvanism has
1:16:29
set corpses grinning.
1:16:31
SPEAKER_01: Bread has been made indifferent than potatoes?
1:16:34
SPEAKER_01: Has been made indifferent from potatoes.
1:16:36
SPEAKER_01: Like food is all becoming one thing.
1:16:39
SPEAKER_02: But I don't understand what that means.
1:16:43
SPEAKER_02: Bread has been made from potatoes.
1:16:46
SPEAKER_01: The more important point is the next part.
1:16:49
SPEAKER_01: I think it's just like the natural order of things.
1:16:53
SPEAKER_01: You didn't listen to the part of, okay.
1:16:55
SPEAKER_01: And galvanism has set some corpses grinning.
1:16:58
SPEAKER_02: Okay, got it.
1:16:59
How could you expect me to hear anything after potatoes and
1:17:02
bread are indifferent
1:17:04
SPEAKER_02: from each other?
1:17:04
SPEAKER_02: What?
1:17:06
i don't know it's the age of oddities let loose maybe talk
1:17:08
about the need to edit
1:17:09
red yeah cut that line it's distracting i was saying that about
1:17:13
you you should not
1:17:14
SPEAKER_02: have thought you could read me that and think i would hear the next part
1:17:17
SPEAKER_01: Well, it's a canto.
1:17:18
SPEAKER_01: I can't just read one part.
1:17:20
SPEAKER_01: You won't get the rhythm.
1:17:23
SPEAKER_01: I don't want to mess with Byron's meter.
1:17:27
SPEAKER_01: No one should.
1:17:28
SPEAKER_01: No one should.
1:17:29
SPEAKER_01: I'm sure people know the story of Frankenstein,
1:17:34
SPEAKER_01: which is that Byron,
1:17:36
SPEAKER_01: his mistress,
1:17:37
SPEAKER_01: and his maid,
1:17:38
SPEAKER_01: and the Shelleys who had recently eloped go to,
1:17:42
SPEAKER_01: I think,
1:17:44
SPEAKER_01: a lake in Switzerland.
1:17:45
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
1:17:46
to have a vacation and then there is a volcanic eruption that
1:17:50
causes this like year
1:17:52
with no summer and so their vacation is ruined because they
1:17:56
have to stay inside the
1:17:56
whole time it's freezing and raining because of this like mini
1:18:01
ice age this volcano
1:18:02
SPEAKER_01: created
1:18:03
which is in itself insane um there's also like crazy reports
1:18:10
about that same
1:18:11
SPEAKER_02: volcanic event like all over the world like it i think it changed weather
1:18:15
everywhere it was the year with no summer i think yeah like for
1:18:18
all the world or at
1:18:21
least the northern hemisphere i don't know how weather works me
1:18:24
neither i don't
1:18:25
know about that i'll try to learn about that for a podcast down
1:18:28
under i'm gonna
1:18:29
SPEAKER_02: write that down under music weather
1:18:33
SPEAKER_01: But so she writes in the 1831 preface to Frankenstein,
1:18:37
SPEAKER_01: which is after it's already very popular,
1:18:39
SPEAKER_01: kind of telling this story.
1:18:41
SPEAKER_01: And she mentions Galvanism.
1:18:43
SPEAKER_01: She says,
1:18:44
SPEAKER_01: many and long were the conversations between Lord Byron and Shelley,
1:18:47
SPEAKER_01: to which I was a devout but nearly silent listener.
1:18:50
SPEAKER_01: During one of these various philosophical doctrines were discussed and,
1:18:54
SPEAKER_01: among others,
1:18:54
the nature of the principle of life and whether there was any
1:18:57
probability of its
1:18:58
SPEAKER_01: ever being discovered and communicated.
1:19:00
SPEAKER_01: Perhaps a corpse would be reanimated.
1:19:03
SPEAKER_01: Galvanism had given token of such things.
1:19:05
SPEAKER_01: Perhaps the component parts of a creature might be manufactured,
1:19:09
SPEAKER_01: brought together and endued with vital warmth.
1:19:17
Night waned upon this talk and even the witching hour had gone
1:19:20
by before we retired to rest.
1:19:22
When I placed my head on my pillow,
1:19:23
I did not sleep,
1:19:24
nor could I be said to think she's dead.
1:19:27
SPEAKER_01: My imagination,
1:19:29
SPEAKER_01: unbidden,
1:19:29
SPEAKER_01: possessed and guided me,
1:19:31
gifting the successive images that arose in my mind with a
1:19:34
vividness far beyond the
1:19:36
SPEAKER_01: usual bounds of reverie.
1:19:38
SPEAKER_01: I saw with shut eyes but acute mental vision.
1:19:41
I saw the pale student of unhallowed arts kneeling beside the
1:19:44
thing he had put together.
1:19:45
SPEAKER_01: I saw the hideous phantasm of a man stretched out and then,
1:19:49
SPEAKER_01: on the working of some powerful engine,
1:19:51
SPEAKER_01: show signs of life and stir with an uneasy half-vital motion.
1:19:57
SPEAKER_01: Whoa.
1:19:58
SPEAKER_01: Crazy.
1:20:02
SPEAKER_02: Well, you should analyze that before I say my thing.
1:20:05
SPEAKER_01: Well,
1:20:06
SPEAKER_01: I just think,
1:20:06
SPEAKER_01: like,
1:20:08
SPEAKER_01: what Frankenstein is really about is,
1:20:11
SPEAKER_01: and what Byron is even saying in that line,
1:20:15
SPEAKER_01: is,
1:20:16
SPEAKER_01: like,
1:20:17
SPEAKER_01: science is going too far.
1:20:20
SPEAKER_01: And that's really what this battery,
1:20:21
SPEAKER_01: I mean,
1:20:22
SPEAKER_01: to your point of,
1:20:22
SPEAKER_01: like,
1:20:22
SPEAKER_01: should they have done these experiments,
1:20:24
SPEAKER_01: your question earlier,
1:20:25
SPEAKER_01: it's like,
1:20:25
SPEAKER_01: I think Byron and Shelley are saying no.
1:20:29
SPEAKER_02: Well,
1:20:29
SPEAKER_02: what I was going to say is,
1:20:31
so the fact that I threw out earlier that Wollstonecraft died
1:20:35
in childbirth while
1:20:37
SPEAKER_02: giving birth to Mary Shelley.
1:20:39
And I was thinking when you were saying she described herself
1:20:42
as like a devout but
1:20:44
SPEAKER_02: silent listener to these conversations about galvanism,
1:20:47
SPEAKER_02: like what her perspective must have been.
1:20:49
Not only being the daughter of someone who had tried to kill
1:20:52
herself and then been
1:20:53
SPEAKER_02: revived against her will,
1:20:54
SPEAKER_02: but then also someone who had then died giving birth.
1:20:58
And how childbirth,
1:21:00
especially when women died during it,
1:21:02
is this weird type of resuscitation.
1:21:04
SPEAKER_02: And it's Frankenstein-like too because it's like from death you are born.
1:21:09
And I just can't even imagine how she must have experienced
1:21:12
these conversations.
1:21:13
That's kind of the end of the notes that I have and we can keep
1:21:16
talking about it.
1:21:17
SPEAKER_01: I also did read the first like 100 pages of Frankenstein.
1:21:23
But I kind of want to finish it and save it for when we talk
1:21:25
about the movie.
1:21:26
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I need to reread it is what you're making me think.
1:21:29
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, because the movie also is really different from the book.
1:21:33
SPEAKER_01: I'm not like critical of that.
1:21:35
SPEAKER_01: It's like a common enough story.
1:21:37
And I think it's like more in the public imagination now than
1:21:40
it is like Shelley's
1:21:41
SPEAKER_01: property anymore.
1:21:42
SPEAKER_01: So I don't think like taking liberties with the plot or whatever.
1:21:46
But I think the choices that he made in doing that are really
1:21:49
interesting to think
1:21:50
about with what the story is in the book and what Shelley is
1:21:52
really interested in.
1:21:54
SPEAKER_01: I can't wait to read it and to watch it.
1:21:57
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
1:21:57
So everybody should subscribe to our Substack so that they can
1:22:02
hear next episode
1:22:04
SPEAKER_01: when we do that.
1:22:06
SPEAKER_01: And it will be for subscribers only.
1:22:09
We should say,
1:22:10
I think we have not announced that on the main episodes of
1:22:13
1-800-1800.
1:22:14
SPEAKER_02: We have another episode of this podcast each month,
1:22:17
SPEAKER_02: not about a year,
1:22:18
SPEAKER_02: but about a special fun topic.
1:22:20
SPEAKER_02: And the next one will be about Frankenstein.
1:22:22
SPEAKER_01: And we're really excited to talk about it and share.
1:22:24
SPEAKER_01: So this was really just teeing that up.
1:22:26
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
1:22:26
SPEAKER_01: Basically context.
1:22:28
SPEAKER_01: Isn't it crazy?
1:22:30
SPEAKER_01: It's insane.
1:22:30
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
1:22:33
SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
1:22:33
SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
1:22:34
SPEAKER_01: Love you.
1:22:34
SPEAKER_01: Love you.
1:22:35
SPEAKER_01: Bye guys.
1:22:35
SPEAKER_01: Bye.
1:22:37
SPEAKER_03: Hello.
1:22:38
SPEAKER_03: You've reached 1-800-1800.
1:22:39
SPEAKER_03: 1-800-1800.
1:22:39
SPEAKER_03: I have a burning question.
1:22:40
SPEAKER_03: 1-800-1800.
1:22:55
SPEAKER_03: I have a burning question.