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Snowmen as Protest: The Miracle of 1511 · Ridiculous History

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Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of I Heart Radio. Welcome
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Speaker 1: to the show, Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always for
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Speaker 1: tuning in. Quick housekeeping note today, this is not just
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Speaker 1: our first Snowman episode. This is also our first n
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Speaker 1: s f W or not Safe for work Snowman episode.
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Speaker 1: So it gets a little blue here. It might not
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Speaker 1: be for everybody I've been Yeah, I'm know, and s
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Speaker 1: f W depending on where you work. Um, but maybe
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Speaker 1: not one for to co listen, perhaps with the kiddos,
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Speaker 1: because we're gonna get into some pretty raunchy Snowman related
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Speaker 1: discussions here, um, because it turns out that the history
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Speaker 1: of the Snowman is much less innocuous and childlike than
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Speaker 1: one might think. Yes, that's right, that's right. So I
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Speaker 1: think we're we're both filled with mirth here as we
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Speaker 1: record this because we did not see this one coming.
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Speaker 1: So well done to our researcher Gabe who hipped us
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Speaker 1: to this. Uh, super producer Casey Pegram, do you do
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Speaker 1: you know what we're talking about? Do you know what
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Speaker 1: we're alluding to? Or you on this ride with our audience.
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Speaker 1: I mean, I'm I'm guessing it's gonna have to do
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Speaker 1: something with snowman anatomy. But that's that's about all I've got.
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Speaker 1: I mean, you know that it's a pretty obvious place
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Speaker 1: to go there. Yes, yes, so here we go, folks,
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Speaker 1: snow men. You know what we're talking about. Did you
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Speaker 1: guys know, Casey, did you guys build snowman when you
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Speaker 1: were wee laddies. Well, I didn't really grow I mean, okay,
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Speaker 1: so I've I've I've mentioned. I've mentioned that I was
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Speaker 1: once a small German boy up until the age of six.
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Speaker 1: I did live in Germany, and you know, it snows
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Speaker 1: pretty regularly in Germany, so I do have snowy childhood memories,
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Speaker 1: but it gets a little hazy in that period between
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Speaker 1: birth to six. So I definitely made a snowman and
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Speaker 1: snow angel or two back in the day, but I
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Speaker 1: don't have like distinct snowman memories. How about you, Casey. Oh? Yeah,
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Speaker 1: when when we would get snow here in Georgia, we
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Speaker 1: would definitely go out and build snowman if there was
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Speaker 1: enough on the ground actually do that, which didn't happen
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Speaker 1: all the time, but once in a while we would
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Speaker 1: get enough snow to do that. Yeah, yeah, I have
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Speaker 1: I've always loved the sculpture aspect of it, just going
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Speaker 1: out and building stuff. So any time that I've been
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Speaker 1: in a place that that has enough snow to work with,
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Speaker 1: and I'll do it. But to your point, Casey, there
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Speaker 1: have been a couple of times here in Georgia where
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Speaker 1: there was light dusting of snow and I thought, no,
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Speaker 1: I'm not going to try to force this. I don't
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Speaker 1: want to make a desiccated snowman. But as long as
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Speaker 1: there have been people around in snowy climbs, there have
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Speaker 1: probably been snowmen. In all That's Interesting dot Com, there's
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Speaker 1: a great article pointing this out. We're we like to
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Speaker 1: make things in our own image. That's a very human thing.
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Speaker 1: So we'll build human shaped art pieces basically whenever we can,
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Speaker 1: out of whatever inspires us. And so when we try
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Speaker 1: to think about, like who built the first snowman, who
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Speaker 1: had the idea first, it's impossible to figure it out.
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Speaker 1: We will we will probably never know because it's ephemeral too,
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Speaker 1: like an ice sculpture. It literally is an ice sculpture,
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Speaker 1: So we can't ever find the answer to that. It's
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Speaker 1: true and and that all That's interesting. Dot Com article
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Speaker 1: compares it to the idea of tracking down the first
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Speaker 1: person to ever sneeze. Um, it's it's it's really is
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Speaker 1: something that's like lost the time. Um as as are
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Speaker 1: a lot of historical firsts if you think about it.
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Speaker 1: But what we do know is that snowmen have existed
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Speaker 1: throughout history. Um and initially we're kind of something that
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Speaker 1: was very highly regarded. Yeah, that's the weirdest thing. Spoiler
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Speaker 1: folks at the end of the episode, Uh, we're gonna
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Speaker 1: ask for your opinion about this, but I'm I am
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Speaker 1: of the mind. Now know that the typical snowman of
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Speaker 1: these years, this era is probably a little simple in
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Speaker 1: comparison to some of the elaborate snowman that we're about
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Speaker 1: to learn about, or should I say snowfolk, because they're
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Speaker 1: not all snow dudes. We know. The first photograph of
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Speaker 1: a snowman was snowman Gee, John Snowman attorney it love, Yes,
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Speaker 1: there we go, John Snowman. Uh. This first photograph was
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Speaker 1: taken in by a photographer named Mary Dilwyn. This was
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Speaker 1: not too long after the camera was invented and propagated,
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Speaker 1: so oddly enough, just to give you a sense of
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Speaker 1: their place in human history. The first photo of a
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Speaker 1: snowman is also one of the first photos of anything ever,
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Speaker 1: which is, you know, it's a little known fact that
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Speaker 1: you can use to bore people at your next holiday gathering.
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Speaker 1: Around the turn of the twentieth century, they're really popular
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Speaker 1: as an image on postcards, greeting cards, magazine covers, because
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Speaker 1: you know what clearer signal is there that the holiday
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Speaker 1: season in winter has begun right absolutely, and it is
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Speaker 1: something that then kind of infiltrates um advertising. You know, obviously,
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Speaker 1: you know, we know, Coca Cola is largely credited with
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Speaker 1: kind of popularizing that image of the modern kind of
5:44
Speaker 1: Santa clause that we think of today, and all of
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Speaker 1: that was in the service of selling you know, sugary drinks. Um. Also,
5:50
Speaker 1: you know, the whole Cocacola polar Bear thing. While snowmen
5:54
Speaker 1: were used or actually was referred to as snow lushes,
5:58
Speaker 1: were used in ads for alcoholic beverages like Miller, Jack Daniels,
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Speaker 1: and Schlitz. And it turns out that the first snowman
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Speaker 1: ever to be drawn was considered a Jewish snowman. Bob
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Speaker 1: Eckstein wrote a book called the History of the Snowman
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Speaker 1: and traced back the earliest depiction of the snowman to
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Speaker 1: a manuscript of the Book of Hours from thirteen eighty
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Speaker 1: and it's not in a positive light. It's actually almost,
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Speaker 1: uh like a propagandistic kind of anti Semitic drawing that
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Speaker 1: shows a Jewish snowman melting near a fire um and
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Speaker 1: the accompanying text describes the crucifixion of Christ. How weird
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Speaker 1: is that the Book of Hours is this devotional book
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Speaker 1: that was pretty for Christians. It was very popular in
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Speaker 1: the Middle Ages. It's it's the most common surviving medieval
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Speaker 1: illuminated manuscript. But yeah, that's a far cry from frosty,
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Speaker 1: is it? Not? Like I was thinking about this is
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Speaker 1: thinking a lot about snowman architecture, because before the pandemic hit,
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Speaker 1: I was going to be in a very snowy place
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Speaker 1: towards the end of the year. But now you know,
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Speaker 1: of course, like many people, I'm staying home. I thought
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Speaker 1: a lot about what kind of snowman I would build.
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Speaker 1: And I think we all have, at least people in
7:25
Speaker 1: our generation in this part of the world, we all
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Speaker 1: have this sort of archetypal vision of what comprises a snowman. Right,
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Speaker 1: three balls of snow and probably in slightly decreasing sizes, right,
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Speaker 1: some lumps of coal, although who has cold nowadays, A
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Speaker 1: couple of sticks for arms, and then a carrot for
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Speaker 1: a nose. If you think about it from an artistic standpoint,
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Speaker 1: it's got a lot of outsider art or fulk art
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Speaker 1: about it. It's minimalist, it's abstract. But back in the day,
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Speaker 1: centuries ago, the snowman sculptors of yesteryear weren't just plopping
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Speaker 1: three big snowballs one the top the other. They were
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Speaker 1: making straight up sculptures, and a lot of them were
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Speaker 1: actually working artists who just put their energy into snowmen
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Speaker 1: every so often. Yeah, and that's again when I at
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Speaker 1: the top of the show, I was talking about kind
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Speaker 1: of the prestigious early um days of snowman, at least
8:23
Speaker 1: in terms of the historical record, because like you said, bad,
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Speaker 1: I mean, as long as there's been snow and people,
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Speaker 1: you know, seeing people, there probably have been instances of folks,
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Speaker 1: you know, bawling it up and making it into like
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Speaker 1: an anthropomorphic kind of human resembling thing, you know, much
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Speaker 1: like cave drawings, etcetera. So when we really start, like
8:43
Speaker 1: you said, you mentioned that early photograph, one of the
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Speaker 1: earliest photographs showing the snowman and then the young boy.
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Speaker 1: But before that, we have historical records of these really
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Speaker 1: absurdly elaborate, like you said, almost like ice sculpture esque
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Speaker 1: works of art that were done at the behest of royalty.
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Speaker 1: For example, Uh, Prince Albert had a twelve foot snowman
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Speaker 1: built for his wife, Queen Victoria, and even Michelangelo Um,
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Speaker 1: the famous painter and sculptor UM made one for the Medicis,
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Speaker 1: who are the famous Italian uh family that you know,
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Speaker 1: benefactor family. And in four four Piero de Lorenzo de Medici,
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Speaker 1: who was sort of this the heir to the Medici
9:29
Speaker 1: family UM, was known as Piero the Unfortunate UH. And
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Speaker 1: it's largely I think that nickname came because he was
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Speaker 1: considered weak. His father, Lorenzo, the head of the Medici family,
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Speaker 1: was considered strong and um benevolent, where the lesser Medici
9:48
Speaker 1: was considered kind of a bit of a spoiled, selfish,
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Speaker 1: greedy brat. UM. So yeah, he kind of had a
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Speaker 1: chip on his shoulder, didn't he ben wanted to, you know,
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Speaker 1: kind of rise to the reputation of his father. I
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Speaker 1: was having a hard time doing that. Yeah, he had
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Speaker 1: what I call junior syndrome, which is measuring oneself against
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Speaker 1: one's forebearers. Uh. He he did try to be a
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Speaker 1: patron of the arts like other Medici's before him, and
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Speaker 1: he commissioned the famous artist Michael Angelo. He commissioned the
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Speaker 1: famous artist Michael Angelo for exactly one thing, which was
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Speaker 1: the build a snowman in the courtyard. And Michael Agelo
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Speaker 1: made this amazing sculpture from snow, and this snowman lived
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Speaker 1: on in other people's minds. Artists that were envious of
10:39
Speaker 1: Michelangelo's success tried to out snowman him by building like
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Speaker 1: a larger snowman based on famous Romans sculptures. But it
10:51
Speaker 1: felt kind of try hard. You know. There's one thing
10:54
Speaker 1: I want to say though, that's interesting because we're talking
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Speaker 1: about very wealthy people, we should also understand that this
11:01
Speaker 1: was a boon for people who are not at the
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Speaker 1: top of the social status quo. Because these are free
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Speaker 1: art supplies dropping from the sky. You don't need anything
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Speaker 1: but creativity and time to make a snowman. Now instead
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Speaker 1: of you know, like, how are you going to buy
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Speaker 1: a block of marble. If you're an artist who happens
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Speaker 1: before so as soon as snow arrives in the Middle Ages,
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Speaker 1: towns filled with snowmen, and not just snowmen, but snow sculptures,
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Speaker 1: snow animals and stuff. And before these things melt, they're
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Speaker 1: often you know, comparable in quality two legit sculptures. Well,
11:40
Speaker 1: they are legitimate sculptures, but you know what I mean,
11:42
Speaker 1: sculptures and stuff like stone or metal. Well, and I
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Speaker 1: think our our buddy Alex Williams would appreciate the ephemeral
11:49
Speaker 1: nature of these in the same way that I think,
11:52
Speaker 1: um is it uh Tibetan monks that do those like
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Speaker 1: sand mandolas, um, these super elaborate sand paintings that like
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Speaker 1: just fuss over like for for days, um, and then
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Speaker 1: they wipe them all away, And there's something kind of
12:05
Speaker 1: beautiful about that. But it's true. It was a great
12:09
Speaker 1: way to like hone your skills. If you didn't have
12:13
Speaker 1: access because art supplies would have you would have had
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Speaker 1: to have a patron like the Manic Cheese to even
12:16
Speaker 1: have access to to the stuff to to to like
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Speaker 1: even get into how do you get into bronze, you know,
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Speaker 1: or or or um or marble without having someone to help,
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Speaker 1: you know, buy you that stuff or like quarry it
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Speaker 1: for you literally, So this would have been a good
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Speaker 1: way for like a startup artist to attempt to get
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Speaker 1: good at you know, making the classical kind of new
12:36
Speaker 1: sculptures or whatever. Right, Yeah, yeah, that's a really good point, man,
12:39
Speaker 1: because I think about that too. Like I remember one
12:44
Speaker 1: of the first orchestras I went to we Tyke, I
12:49
Speaker 1: saw someone playing harp for the first time. It was
12:52
Speaker 1: maybe five years old, and my first thought as a
12:55
Speaker 1: kid was like, how do you get into the harp?
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Speaker 1: Who just totally who just has a heart laying around?
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Speaker 1: And that's that's kind of a question. That's I think
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Speaker 1: that's similar in theme to the question about how someone
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Speaker 1: gets into sculpting. I mean, my grandfather, one of my
13:12
Speaker 1: grandfather's was a fairly well known sculptor, and I still
13:17
Speaker 1: am baffled as to how he pulled it off, Like,
13:19
Speaker 1: how do you just convince someone to give you tons
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Speaker 1: of marble? It's weird, it's a weird gig. This leads
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Speaker 1: us to something called the Miracle of fifteen eleven. All Right, folks,
13:36
Speaker 1: here's where it's about. Things are about to get a
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Speaker 1: little um the raunchy side. Yes, so join with us.
13:43
Speaker 1: Shout out to everybody making a snowman at home. We
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Speaker 1: are not responsible for how the following story may impact
13:52
Speaker 1: your sculpture. Casey's interested. I could tell Casey's wondering where
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Speaker 1: we're going with this. So back in the Middle Ages,
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Speaker 1: things were made with snow to make a statement. You
14:05
Speaker 1: just didn't have a cute little frosty, right you. You
14:08
Speaker 1: might be remarking on the zeitgeist of the time. So,
14:12
Speaker 1: of course it was tradition amongst the artistic class to
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Speaker 1: populate cities with snowmen whenever there was a lot of snow.
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Speaker 1: And this is Europe, so there's gonna be a lot
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Speaker 1: of snow in many places at some point in the year.
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Speaker 1: Winter was also a really tough tough time. Famine, plague, sickness,
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Speaker 1: none of these things. War, of course, none of these
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Speaker 1: things were uncommon, and so when snow came it was
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Speaker 1: like a party. You know, there were festivals, there were
14:39
Speaker 1: morale boosters. I know, Nold you have probably been too,
14:42
Speaker 1: and I know Casey you've probably as well. Been to
14:44
Speaker 1: Christmas markets in Europe. I've been to a couple of those,
14:48
Speaker 1: and it's it's a very old tradition. It's meant to
14:51
Speaker 1: give people a little bit of a dose of feel good,
14:54
Speaker 1: you know what I mean, a little serotonin in these
14:57
Speaker 1: challenging times, and the idea, the political ideas that the
15:01
Speaker 1: public can blow off steam for a few weeks and
15:06
Speaker 1: they can be kind of supervised. In fifteen eleven in
15:10
Speaker 1: Brussels there was a really nasty winter. It is called
15:14
Speaker 1: the Winter of Death, and for six straight weeks, starting
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Speaker 1: on New Year's Day, temperatures never rose above freezing. So
15:26
Speaker 1: the ruling class said, we're going to have a festival.
15:29
Speaker 1: What better time? And this was seen as kind of
15:32
Speaker 1: an event for the class strife, for the misery of
15:38
Speaker 1: the people in Brussels at the time, But it didn't
15:41
Speaker 1: work out quite the way the ruling class wanted. No.
15:45
Speaker 1: From our previous episode, what was the name? We found
15:48
Speaker 1: the name for that thing at the top of the chimney, right,
15:51
Speaker 1: the cap. The thing at the top of the chimney
15:53
Speaker 1: is the cap, the little hat that goes on top
15:54
Speaker 1: of the kind of uh so, the smoke is and
15:57
Speaker 1: just pouring out and one fell swoop it sort of
15:59
Speaker 1: like breaks the smoke stream a little bit, but Yeah,
16:02
Speaker 1: the cap that's correct, say, like a chimney cap on
16:05
Speaker 1: the social strife. Maybe I don't know. Look all not
16:08
Speaker 1: all these comparisons are gonna work. But what happened, nol,
16:13
Speaker 1: What happened when this festival began in fifteen eleven, when
16:18
Speaker 1: people started building snowman. Yeah, and we don't have like
16:21
Speaker 1: a ton of of historical record about this, but we
16:25
Speaker 1: do have a handful of accounts, and and you could
16:29
Speaker 1: describe them as does Atlas Obscura, as colorful accounts. Um.
16:35
Speaker 1: The town poet was one of of these sources, these
16:38
Speaker 1: primary sources, and they were a handful of other diaries.
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Speaker 1: These were definitely not the types of three, you know,
16:44
Speaker 1: mounds of snow stacked on top of each other in
16:47
Speaker 1: descending order snowmen that we think of today. In Brussels,
16:53
Speaker 1: every single corner of the downtown area was overflowing with
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Speaker 1: these figures, pantomiming like topical things, you know, something either
17:06
Speaker 1: from like folklore or something actually from the news of
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Speaker 1: the day. You had biblical figures like Jesus Is, you
17:14
Speaker 1: had unicorns, You had these kind of like bearded mountain
17:18
Speaker 1: dwelling wild men, mermaids, you know, like village idiots all
17:23
Speaker 1: of this stuff. Um, and they were almost like this
17:26
Speaker 1: kind of I don't know, you think of like a
17:28
Speaker 1: Nativity scene, you know, are these different figures stock characters,
17:31
Speaker 1: not stock characters, but like characters that are interacting together
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Speaker 1: to kind of tell a story, um tableaus, if you will.
17:38
Speaker 1: And so that was a big, you know thing with these.
17:41
Speaker 1: They were using these, uh, these snow creations to tell stories,
17:46
Speaker 1: some of which were pretty gnarly. Oh yeah, man, some
17:50
Speaker 1: of these were Some of these were stories from pre
17:55
Speaker 1: Christian mythologies. Some of them were more day to day
17:59
Speaker 1: Monday things and not particularly pleasant, like a tooth puller
18:03
Speaker 1: equivalent of a dentist. But the thing is these ran
18:09
Speaker 1: the gamut. There were some very high brow snowfolk and
18:14
Speaker 1: there was some very lubro snowfolk. We see this weird
18:19
Speaker 1: kind of class divide. A lot of the snow sculptures
18:23
Speaker 1: reflect the public fears, their frustrations, their desires. Things were
18:28
Speaker 1: politically charged, and they were also incredibly sexually explicit tableau.
18:35
Speaker 1: There visual satire, social commentary. There was a urinating fountain Boy,
18:44
Speaker 1: which I know, Casey, you and I have talked about
18:46
Speaker 1: a little bit. And also Chris Christopher Hasiotis from of
18:49
Speaker 1: the show. Brussels is famous for these like peen statues,
18:55
Speaker 1: which is weird to me, but you know, I'm an outsider,
18:57
Speaker 1: so it's common though people are like, oh, yeah, you know,
19:02
Speaker 1: it's part of our culture, these little peating guys. But
19:05
Speaker 1: they're somebody made one of those. Uh there was a
19:08
Speaker 1: cow that is defecating. Uh. There. If you look at
19:12
Speaker 1: the historical sources that you just mentioned earlier, NOL, more
19:17
Speaker 1: than fifty percent of the scenes depicted by these snow
19:21
Speaker 1: sculptures are either sexual or scattological. It is all sex
19:26
Speaker 1: and poop for like more than half of these totally. Yeah,
19:30
Speaker 1: and I'm We're talking like pretty graphic depictions of these things.
19:36
Speaker 1: Some of these are fully anatomically correct. Um. We have
19:41
Speaker 1: accounts of couples, you know, basically fornicating for lack of
19:47
Speaker 1: a I don't know, it just seems like I'm a priest.
19:49
Speaker 1: When you call snow banging love it um a snow couple.
19:54
Speaker 1: Um kind of getting it on in front of the
19:57
Speaker 1: town fountain, complete with like a full direction from the mail. Um.
20:02
Speaker 1: And there's in the red light district of town. You
20:04
Speaker 1: had sculptures of sex workers standing on these corners. Um.
20:09
Speaker 1: In another scene, there was actually kind of a naughty
20:12
Speaker 1: nun um in the act of seducing a man. Um.
20:17
Speaker 1: It was really a complete like carte blanche, you know,
20:22
Speaker 1: way for people to express these very kind of salacious
20:26
Speaker 1: and um sort of hidden you know, meanings in religious texts,
20:31
Speaker 1: or a way to to really um turn it on
20:34
Speaker 1: its head, sort of the conservative nature of religion. Yeah,
20:39
Speaker 1: there was a there was a stand of frozen politicians
20:43
Speaker 1: that functioned kind of as the op ed page. The
20:46
Speaker 1: population of Brussels was exploring and addressing things that were
20:51
Speaker 1: taboo that would otherwise be dangerous for some people to
20:54
Speaker 1: uh to have dialogue about. So one of the big
20:59
Speaker 1: big issues the context in which the miracle of fifteen
21:02
Speaker 1: eleven occurs was classism, Right, the social classes created their
21:07
Speaker 1: own brand of snow men, and they were caricatures of
21:11
Speaker 1: their opponents. They also reflected their ambitions, their obsessions. So
21:17
Speaker 1: when you're expressing yourself and your concerns and your position
21:20
Speaker 1: in society through the snowmen, other people might not agree
21:24
Speaker 1: with you. So people who were offended by the sculpture
21:27
Speaker 1: of one snow person or another wouldn't take it out
21:30
Speaker 1: on the person who made it, they would take it
21:32
Speaker 1: out on the snowman. They would try to vandalize it
21:34
Speaker 1: and destroy it, and yeah, which makes sense. And thus
21:37
Speaker 1: the Brussels authorities said, we're going to take action, and
21:41
Speaker 1: they printed out these flyers and they made these flyers
21:45
Speaker 1: that threatened to punish anyone caught damaging a snowman, which
21:50
Speaker 1: I think is a really cool Christmas e law. That
21:52
Speaker 1: is so cool. And it's also interesting that like, even
21:55
Speaker 1: though these were you know, challenging works and and oftentimes
22:01
Speaker 1: not particularly flattering to the people in power, Uh, it
22:04
Speaker 1: was protected speech. I think that's really progressive, wouldn't you say? Yeah, absolutely,
22:10
Speaker 1: It's it's nuts that we have the exact quote that
22:13
Speaker 1: says the noblemen from the city of Brussels proclaimed that
22:17
Speaker 1: nobody during day or night could break any personage into pieces.
22:26
Speaker 1: So the magistrates got involved and they said, hey, stop
22:30
Speaker 1: messing with these snowmen. The public did not always enjoy
22:36
Speaker 1: this freedom. In fact, in subsequent years, derogatory snowmen were
22:42
Speaker 1: became such a problem that the government went back and
22:45
Speaker 1: placed restrictions on making these snow sculptures because they were
22:50
Speaker 1: such a powerful statement. We do want to say also,
22:53
Speaker 1: by the way, just like an insult comic, Brussels became
22:57
Speaker 1: kind of its own group mind insult comic. Everybody got something.
23:02
Speaker 1: Everybody was thrown under the bus, the working class, the nobles,
23:06
Speaker 1: the clergy. At some point everybody got dunked on. And
23:11
Speaker 1: it's wild because history has kind of forgotten the Miracle
23:15
Speaker 1: of fifteen eleven. Uh you know knowl you mentioned the
23:19
Speaker 1: town poet earlier, Jan Smkins, classic classic name Jan Smeckins.
23:27
Speaker 1: Um he wrote a poem about the miracle of fifteen eleven.
23:32
Speaker 1: It was actually a ballad that that kind of describes
23:36
Speaker 1: this period in pretty good detail. Um, it's got a
23:40
Speaker 1: pretty long name. It's von der von claren uh issa
23:44
Speaker 1: on Snee, which I think means snow. I can tell
23:47
Speaker 1: you that much. Um, I'm very Lauren and Krueger vondendict,
23:54
Speaker 1: which translates to the miracle of real or imaginary ice
23:57
Speaker 1: and snow. A lost and then found poem and it
24:01
Speaker 1: does exactly what it purports to do and kind of
24:04
Speaker 1: describing this period. There was a reprint of the poem
24:07
Speaker 1: in nineteen but a lot of literary historians I don't
24:12
Speaker 1: think it was particularly you know, high brow in fact,
24:16
Speaker 1: it's often written off as being vulgar and rhetorical as
24:21
Speaker 1: opposed to, you know, the kind of high standards of
24:25
Speaker 1: classical poetry of Latin or French, and just to make
24:29
Speaker 1: sure that we come through on that blueness warning and
24:33
Speaker 1: make it worthy a while. Yeah, the poem as He's
24:36
Speaker 1: a null is vulgar. Also some of these statues, one
24:40
Speaker 1: of these sculptures they're being referred to. There's one with
24:43
Speaker 1: like one of those fountain boys pissing in someone's mouth.
24:47
Speaker 1: There was another one where there was a couple having
24:49
Speaker 1: sexual congress, and there was this is creepy. There was
24:52
Speaker 1: a third snowman that was part of the tableau, who's
24:56
Speaker 1: like off in the distance sporting a you know, a
25:00
Speaker 1: snow woody. And this is a powerful political statement. This
25:06
Speaker 1: is speaking truth to power through art. But the miracle
25:10
Speaker 1: of fifteen eleven is maybe a miracle because of that
25:14
Speaker 1: vast social upheaval, the way Brussels held a wintry mirror
25:18
Speaker 1: up to itself. But it's not a miracle because just
25:22
Speaker 1: because there were snow sculptures. This wasn't the first festival
25:25
Speaker 1: of its kind. Uh, this wasn't the first time people
25:28
Speaker 1: have made raunchy snowmen. There were other cities hosting similar
25:33
Speaker 1: events and smaller events before and after this, but this one,
25:40
Speaker 1: really actual facts changed the society of Brussels and it
25:46
Speaker 1: it inspired this shift in the balance of power. Snowman
25:51
Speaker 1: not just as raunchy satire, but also as political figures.
25:57
Speaker 1: These folks were rock stars. Like imagine if one day, UH,
26:02
Speaker 1: somewhere in the US, where some part of the U
26:05
Speaker 1: s where it snows pretty often, people did a protest
26:08
Speaker 1: by building snowmen. It's a pretty genius idea, I think,
26:13
Speaker 1: and I hope it comes back more political activism in
26:16
Speaker 1: your snowmen, please. I completely agree. Um. By the way,
26:20
Speaker 1: I did attempt to enter the full text of that
26:23
Speaker 1: Middle Dutch poem that we talked about uh and and
26:26
Speaker 1: the translation results are spotty at best. But there's one
26:31
Speaker 1: line that pops out that I think is fantastic. Uh.
26:34
Speaker 1: A large pair grim from the flying hen those crayon
26:39
Speaker 1: picked in his own butt. A hunt has its tongue out.
26:43
Speaker 1: Our lord is standing here, want to know ten and
26:47
Speaker 1: the women of Samarian so we sagin So. Yeah, kind
26:52
Speaker 1: of spotty results there, but I love the idea. I'm
26:54
Speaker 1: I'm intrigued those crayon picked in his own Buttom, I mean,
26:58
Speaker 1: you know, things happen, right, So yeah, things definitely happened. Um,
27:04
Speaker 1: and thank god we have Jan Schmecken to help kind
27:07
Speaker 1: of like paint the picture, even if it's in sort
27:09
Speaker 1: of spottily translated Middle Dutch. I love I love chicken
27:14
Speaker 1: is a name. It sounds like a cool, unusual flavor
27:17
Speaker 1: of a jelly or jam, probably because of the similarity
27:20
Speaker 1: to smuckers. But I would I would check out like
27:22
Speaker 1: Jon Schmick and Lincoln berry jam. That's funny you said
27:25
Speaker 1: I've been in German. Schmecken means it's yummy, means something
27:30
Speaker 1: is is tasty. Oh, I wonder if there was a
27:32
Speaker 1: real name or a stage name. Oh Man the huts
27:35
Speaker 1: bud to say, I've got to be the town poet
27:37
Speaker 1: called me Mr Yummy. So we hope you enjoyed today's episode.
27:43
Speaker 1: And we're not you know, we're not at all DENNI
27:45
Speaker 1: grading modern snow folk. We'd love to see your snow
27:50
Speaker 1: sculptures or your family snow sculptures, especially if you are
27:53
Speaker 1: one of the people is lucky enough to live in
27:56
Speaker 1: an area where it snows every year, because I can
27:59
Speaker 1: tell you the three of us would be out there
28:01
Speaker 1: every single year building weird snow stuff if if we
28:06
Speaker 1: had those materials readily available. But yes, send us your
28:11
Speaker 1: snow sculptures. Where do I send them? You might be asking, Well,
28:15
Speaker 1: you can find us all over the internet. Uh, post
28:18
Speaker 1: them in Ridiculous Historians. That's our Facebook page. Let us
28:21
Speaker 1: know on Twitter or tag us on Instagram, not just
28:24
Speaker 1: as a show blood as individuals. Yes, you can find
28:28
Speaker 1: me on Instagram exclusively where I am at how Now
28:30
Speaker 1: Noel Brown, Ben Where can folks find you ridiculous Historians?
28:34
Speaker 1: You can find me on Twitter where I am at
28:37
Speaker 1: Ben Bully hs W. Let me know what awards you
28:39
Speaker 1: will win for the quarries. Uh, and you can find
28:42
Speaker 1: me on Instagram where I am at Ben Bowling. Thanks
28:47
Speaker 1: as always to our super producer and snow sculptor extraordinaire
28:52
Speaker 1: Casey Pegram. Huge thanks to Alex Williams who composed our theme.
28:55
Speaker 1: Christopher Haciota is here in spirit. Uh E's Jeff Coach
28:57
Speaker 1: check out her new show j dot Ill with the fantastic,
29:01
Speaker 1: wonderfully talented Jill scott Um. It's a fabulous show that
29:05
Speaker 1: has been working on for quite some time, and I'm
29:07
Speaker 1: really happy to see that in the world. So give
29:09
Speaker 1: that a listen and leave a review for them, and
29:11
Speaker 1: leave a review for us while you're at it. It
29:13
Speaker 1: really helps people discover the show and helps pop us
29:16
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Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts. That's right, every time you leave a review,
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Speaker 1: our boss personally sends conciguliary to our house and says
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Speaker 1: you have one more day. Yep, and since tis the
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Speaker 1: season an angel may or may not get its wings.
29:36
Speaker 1: We'll see you next time. Folks. For more podcasts for
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Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.