Episode 77 (Butterflies)
the memory palace
Nate DiMeo
4.8 • 7.3K Ratings
🗓️ 27 October 2015
⏱️ 18 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
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Music* Under the credits is Harlaamstrat 74 off of John Dankworth's Modesty Blaise score.* First up is "Adultere bourgeoise," a piece from Paul Misraki's score to A Double tour.* Then we've got a piece called "Night Time Talk" by Stephen J. Anderson. * We hit For the Trees by Matmos a couple of times (the bit after: "the facts were these," or whatever I say)* Frank Durr's theme is P from that first LaBradford album, all those years ago. * The score for the House of Butterflies is called Fragment II by Library Tapes. It comes back again toward the end.* We also hear Invidia, by Deadmaus. That's the one we finish on.
Notes* Several essays were very helpful in researching this. Among those were: -http://pittmed.health.pitt.edu/jan_2001/butterflies.pdf-http://www.thenation.com/article/secret-history-lead/-http://www.wired.com/2013/01/looney-gas-and-lead-poisoning-a-short-sad-history/* I found William J. Kovarik's Dissertation, The Ethyl Controversy:How the News Media Set the Agenda for a Public Health Controversy over the use of Leaded Gasoline, 1924-1926, completely fascinating. * I relied on a number of papers from the W.H.O. when researching the health effects of lead and ozone depletion.* Here's the New York Times original expose about the House of Butterflies.* Finally, Thomas Midgely, IV's biography of his grandfather, From the Periodic Table to Production: The Life of Thomas Midgely, Jr., inventor of Leaded Gasoline and Freon Refrigerants, is, while unsurprisingly hagiographic, both well-researched and highly readable.
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| 0:00.0 | This is the memory palace. |
| 0:02.6 | I'm Nate Demet. |
| 0:04.6 | There was a mysterious knock that kept men and vast mansions up in the dead of night, |
| 0:10.8 | disturbed by the sound, the defied explanation, and bedeviled scientists. |
| 0:16.6 | And so a man named Thomas Midgley, who looked like a man named Thomas Midgley, kind eye, |
| 0:22.2 | bald, round face, round glasses, was put on the case. |
| 0:27.1 | And I'll tell you right up front that he cracks it. |
| 0:29.9 | But the case of the mysterious knock has a solution. |
| 0:33.4 | Thomas Midgley will follow a series of clues and draw a conclusion, and it will be the |
| 0:38.1 | crack one. |
| 0:39.1 | And I'll strip out any of the red herrings in false leads he may have stumbled on during |
| 0:43.2 | his investigation. |
| 0:45.2 | Because that part of the story, the mystery, that is the part that is notable, with a |
| 0:51.2 | straightforward chain of cause and effect. |
| 0:54.5 | And you'll forgive me if I cling to that little bit of comfort. |
| 0:58.0 | Anyway, to the beginning. |
| 1:00.6 | Thomas Midgley was born in Beaver Falls, Pennsylvania in 1889, to an upper middle-class family. |
| 1:06.2 | There's an anecdote from the life of young Tom that I'd like to share. |
| 1:09.8 | It seems to have some bearing on the rest of his story, and how the boy makes the man. |
| 1:14.0 | I can't say I'm entirely sure that it does. |
| 1:17.7 | Because how can we say with any certainty that there's a direct line between one experience, |
| 1:22.0 | one influence, and some outcome later on? |
... |
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