Speaker 1: You're listening to Part Time Genius, the production of Kaleidoscope
Speaker 1: and iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Guess what will What's that Mango?
Speaker 1: So you know that painting of dogs playing poker, like
Speaker 1: the ones where dogs are drinking and playing cards.
Speaker 2: You know, it's funny. I was at a thrift store
Speaker 2: the other day with my son William, and I actually
Speaker 2: think I saw a puzzle of that painting right there
Speaker 2: in the store, so I should have bought it for.
Speaker 1: This that's amazing. So I don't know if I told
Speaker 1: you this, but like when I was in high school,
Speaker 1: my dad saw that painting for the first time, and
Speaker 1: he was so delighted by it, and he couldn't stop
Speaker 1: talking about it. He was like, can you believe that
Speaker 1: a bulldog is cheating? It's so ridiculous, it's crazy. He
Speaker 1: just kept talking about it for a few weeks. And
Speaker 1: then one day I came home and I looked above
Speaker 1: my dog Lupinese dogbed, and he had framed a print
Speaker 1: of it and put it above her cage because he
Speaker 1: won make sure she had some art in the house too.
Speaker 2: Just so ludicrous. Yeah, it's so sweet though, too. I mean,
Speaker 2: your family's always been pretty dog obsessed.
Speaker 1: Though, right, Yeah, I mean, we always used to joke
Speaker 1: that I would have to put a jacket on when
Speaker 1: I entered the house because my dog was super fluffy,
Speaker 1: and my parents kept the house super cold so that
Speaker 1: she was comfortable. Like it didn't matter if my sister
Speaker 1: and I were comfortable, but as long as my dog
Speaker 1: was comfortable, everything was okay. But thinking about that artwork
Speaker 1: over my dog's cage and the fact that apparently it
Speaker 1: sold at auction in twenty fifteen for seven hundred thousand
Speaker 1: dollars or close to seven hundred thousand dollars like learning,
Speaker 1: that made me want to look into the origins of
Speaker 1: the painting war and learn more about the artists. So
Speaker 1: that's what we're doing this week, talking about dogs playing poker.
Speaker 2: Let's dive in. Hey their podcast listeners, Welcome to Part
Speaker 2: Time Genius. I'm Will Pearson and is always I'm joined
Speaker 2: by my good friend Mangesh hot Ticketter and sitting behind
Speaker 2: that studio booth, I was looking forward to this one
Speaker 2: that day. I couldn't wait to see what Dylan would
Speaker 2: be doing. And he is not disappointing. He is dancing
Speaker 2: like I have never seen him dance before, and he's
Speaker 2: blasting the song poker Face. I have to admit I
Speaker 2: sort of called this. He is a huge Lady Gaga fan.
Speaker 2: But that's our palain producer, Dylan Fagan.
Speaker 1: I think he said he wanted to play that song
Speaker 1: on repeat to inspire us, But I'm pretty sure the
Speaker 1: disco ball and the strobe light are more for him
Speaker 1: than for us.
Speaker 2: There is no question about that, all right, mego, So,
Speaker 2: I know we're both dog lovers, and we both like art,
Speaker 2: and so I guess this episode is sort of the
Speaker 2: Venn diagram of those interests. So let's talk dogs playing
Speaker 2: poker absolutely.
Speaker 1: So. The first thing I wanted to bring up is
Speaker 1: that when you hear that phrase dogs playing poker, we
Speaker 1: probably pictured the same thing, right, like that picture of
Speaker 1: a bunch of dogs at a poker table, this bulldog
Speaker 1: cheating by handing an ace under the table to his pal,
Speaker 1: another bulldog. But dogs playing Poker isn't actually one painting.
Speaker 1: It's kind of the shorthand that's applied to a group
Speaker 1: of eighteen paintings, all by a New York artist named
Speaker 1: Cassius Marcellus Coolidge or Cash Coolidge, and the painting that
Speaker 1: we're most familiar with, though one with that cheating dog
Speaker 1: is called a Friend in Need, but the one that
Speaker 1: kicked off the whole series is actually called Poker Game.
Speaker 1: It depicts four large, brown and white dogs sitting around
Speaker 1: a poker table and one is smoking a cigar, one
Speaker 1: has a pipe, one has a cigarette, and they've all
Speaker 1: got a bottle of whiskey between them.
Speaker 2: Which that last part that's why you know it's ridiculous
Speaker 2: because most dogs, I'm pretty sure jen drinkers.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, Poker Game was really well received at the time.
Speaker 1: Some cigar companies reproduced it to decorate their cigar boxes,
Speaker 1: but this led to even more dog paintings being commissioned.
Speaker 1: So in nineteen oh three, the publishing company Brown and
Speaker 1: Bigelow from Minnesota actually paid Coolidge to paint sixteen more
Speaker 1: dog paintings.
Speaker 2: So, like, why did they need so many paintings of dogs?
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a good question, But basically they wanted to
Speaker 1: slap them on like calendars or ads or posters that
Speaker 1: sort of thing. And Coolidge's dogs, it turns out, were
Speaker 1: pretty versatile. Like they weren't just hanging out drinking whiskey
Speaker 1: and playing cards. Sometimes they were playing baseball, or football
Speaker 1: or fixing a car. One painting is even of a
Speaker 1: bunch of dogs in the courtroom pleading a case.
Speaker 2: So I guess my next question is what drove Cash
Speaker 2: Coolidge to paint all those dogs doing human stuff?
Speaker 1: I mean, obviously, in the case of the sixteen paintings,
Speaker 1: it was the money and the commissioning. But ah, the
Speaker 1: first one, Poker Game, he just painted that on his own,
Speaker 1: and I didn't realize how long ago he started this series.
Speaker 1: Poker Game was created in eighteen ninety four. While it's
Speaker 1: unknown where he got the idea, it's not just like
Speaker 1: thrown together haphazardly. The image is a composition that's inspired
Speaker 1: by Caravaggio, George de Latour, and Paul Saisan, all who
Speaker 1: have their own depictions of card game scenes, albeit with
Speaker 1: you know, humans of their subjects rather than dogs. But
Speaker 1: some have compared Coolidge's A Friend in Need with this
Speaker 1: English artist Sir Edwin Lancier's painting. He did one called
Speaker 1: Laying Down the Law in eighteen forty, and both works
Speaker 1: feature dogs gathered around pensively, kind of acting like people,
Speaker 1: card players in Coolidge's one, and lawyers and lanciers. However,
Speaker 1: if you look at Coolidge's painting. It's kind of lighter
Speaker 1: in tone, slightly more comical. And actually, I'm just going
Speaker 1: to send you these images so you can see the difference.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, I mean, I see what you're saying
Speaker 2: that Coolidges is slightly more comical. But I mean they're
Speaker 2: both kind of silly paintings of dogs doing human stuff.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean that it's true for sure, But now,
Speaker 1: I mean that's what's happening. Yeah. You know, while Coolidge
Speaker 1: wasn't the first to do this type of work, he's
Speaker 1: definitely the most prolific, and he kind of took the
Speaker 1: idea and ran with it in a way that no
Speaker 1: one else had.
Speaker 2: I feel like we need to back up, though, because
Speaker 2: you know, there must be something interesting about the upbringing
Speaker 2: of someone who eventually spends a lifetime painting dogs. So
Speaker 2: let's look into his background.
Speaker 1: That sounds great. So Cash Coolidge was born September eighteenth,
Speaker 1: eighteen forty four to a prosperous Quaker family in Antwerp,
Speaker 1: New York. The family had a lot of land, they
Speaker 1: were into farming, and so he grows up really well educated.
Speaker 1: But he's not just a painter. Before he painted dogs,
Speaker 1: he'd already done all these other things. In eighteen seventy one,
Speaker 1: he founded the first bank in Antwerp. He opened and
Speaker 1: then sold several pharmacies in upstate New York. He also
Speaker 1: founded his hometown's first newspaper, the Antwerp News. So he's
Speaker 1: really got a lot on his resume.
Speaker 2: I mean, the guy is prettyccomplished. I didn't see the
Speaker 2: bank thing coming, like, that's just such an interesting background.
Speaker 1: Yeah, finance is really where the dog inspiration comes from.
Speaker 1: But in eighteen seventy three, Coolidge went to Europe and
Speaker 1: that's kind of what kicked off his career as a
Speaker 1: travel writer but also as an artist. He had a
Speaker 1: travel column at the time for the Watertown Times called
Speaker 1: Cash's Column two k's weirdly in the alliteration there. But
Speaker 1: to supplement his income, he also worked as a cartoonist
Speaker 1: for local newspapers, and he also gave penmanship lessons. But
Speaker 1: he had this growing side hustle as a lightning sketcher.
Speaker 1: And this is the thing they used to do where
Speaker 1: people paid up to fifty cents for the privilege of
Speaker 1: watching an artist do these super speed sketches of a
Speaker 1: series of people sitting for portraits.
Speaker 2: I mean it sounds a little bit like those quick
Speaker 2: caricatures you can see and get when you're on a
Speaker 2: boardwalk or something like that, where they give you a
Speaker 2: huge head and you're on a skateboard for some reason.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's always a skateboard. But one Rochester news paper
Speaker 1: from the time actually wrote about this incredible event that
Speaker 1: took place at a local Masonic lodge.
Speaker 2: Did you say Masonic lodge?
Speaker 1: Yeah, So we're going to get into that later. But
Speaker 1: the paper said, the celebrated artist CM Coolidge, known to
Speaker 1: the public under the nom de plume Cash, will give
Speaker 1: an entertainment in offhand caricaturing, in which branch of art
Speaker 1: he has no superior. We have had the personal pleasure
Speaker 1: of witnessing mister Coolidge as skilled in this line, and
Speaker 1: can most heartily recommend him to the public.
Speaker 2: I mean, it sounds like he was pretty successful. He's
Speaker 2: probably the best big head on a skateboard artist around.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and this is even before his dog paintings. So
Speaker 1: Coolidge had a pretty good career as an artist, doing
Speaker 1: illustrations for newspapers and magazines. He was also doing things
Speaker 1: like ads for shoe companies. He was making good money,
Speaker 1: but none of his other work really sticks in the
Speaker 1: American psyche the way those dogs sitting around smoking and
Speaker 1: drinking and playing cards do.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, there's something very funny about the paintings,
Speaker 2: but there's also something a little bit dark about them,
Speaker 2: Like it looks like the are getting away with something
Speaker 2: each time, like they snuck out of their little dog
Speaker 2: houses in the middle of the night to blow off
Speaker 2: some steam without the supervision of their owners. Like you
Speaker 2: get what I'm saying here, I do.
Speaker 1: And the fact that the dogs are gambling is very illicit,
Speaker 1: especially for dogs.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yes, that's definitely controversial for dogs and for humans too.
Speaker 2: But you know, at the time, gambling was actually illegal
Speaker 2: or technically illegal, And according to Lucy Sante's Low Life,
Speaker 2: an amazing book about New York's Lower East Side, in
Speaker 2: the late eighteen hundreds and early nineteen hundreds, tammany hallback
Speaker 2: syndicates quote handled protection for gambling establishments, so that meant
Speaker 2: the highest ranked city officials in New York City were
Speaker 2: facilitating these illegal gambling halls. This included Mayor Robert Van Wick,
Speaker 2: and that was obviously controversial because at the same time,
Speaker 2: people like the city's DA that was a man named
Speaker 2: William Travers. Jerome had made it his personal mission to
Speaker 2: end gambling the city.
Speaker 1: Which sounds like a huge conflict. So does that play
Speaker 1: out publicly at all?
Speaker 2: It definitely does. So you've got Jerome. He starts staging
Speaker 2: raids on these gambling houses and making sure that he
Speaker 2: gets as much publicity as possible by inviting reporters to
Speaker 2: come along. Also, to make the whole thing extra dramatic,
Speaker 2: he personally wields a hatchet to break down doors. So
Speaker 2: pretty dramatic. That sounds ridiculous, Yeah, but it was all
Speaker 2: over the papers and really in the zeitgeist at the time.
Speaker 2: Like this guy named al Adams. He was a widely
Speaker 2: disliked policy king. He owned two breweries, one hundred saloons,
Speaker 2: and two million dollars in real estate, and allegedly had
Speaker 2: a steak in every gambling house between Battery and one
Speaker 2: hundred and tenth Street. So he was eventually arrested. He
Speaker 2: was sentenced to eighteen months in sing sing. But if
Speaker 2: you're an adult in New York at the time, you're
Speaker 2: probably reading about these gambling raids every day in the newspaper.
Speaker 2: It's kind of like the backdrop of everybody's life at
Speaker 2: the time. But also, if you're a man, you're probably
Speaker 2: even attending some of these underground card games, and so
Speaker 2: Coolidge's works are kind of this wink to the viewer
Speaker 2: because the card scenes are both depicting something illegal but
Speaker 2: also playful and absurd, like the games are going to
Speaker 2: take place whether you like it or not, and whether
Speaker 2: dog owners know about it or not.
Speaker 1: I mean that's interesting. It's like Colige is saying chill
Speaker 1: Out is just a card game right.
Speaker 2: Well, and by using dogs as a stand in for humans,
Speaker 2: it all seems pretty non threatening. I mean, who's going
Speaker 2: to raid a late night dog party? Like, let the
Speaker 2: dogs be dogs, you know, we always say that.
Speaker 1: We always say that. I like how we're acting like
Speaker 1: dogs drinking whiskey and betting with poker chips as dogs
Speaker 1: being dogged.
Speaker 2: Yeah, dog, let them be dogs. You know.
Speaker 1: It's also worth men saying that the Dog's Playing Poker
Speaker 1: series is very much a boys club, Like there's one
Speaker 1: painting in the series where a bunch of angry female
Speaker 1: dogs storm in to break up their husband's card game
Speaker 1: like a marital police raid. And also coolidge state of
Speaker 1: bachelor until his sixties. So as much as this might
Speaker 1: have been like a light political statement, he was very much,
Speaker 1: as our researcher Mary points out, a dude making art
Speaker 1: for his fellow dudes, speaking of which we should talk
Speaker 1: about the Masons. But before we do that, why don't
Speaker 1: we take a quick break.
Speaker 2: Welcome back to part time Genius, where we're talking about dogs,
Speaker 2: playing poker and doing other human stuff too. Of course, so, mege,
Speaker 2: I think you were going to tell us about the
Speaker 2: artist Cash Coolidge's connection to Mason's or Masonic lodges. I
Speaker 2: know you'd mentioned earlier that he used to do speed
Speaker 2: drawing events at them.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so the Masonic stuff mostly goes back to one
Speaker 1: of the paintings Coolidge produced as part of his commission
Speaker 1: from Brown and Bigelow. It's called Riding the Goat, and
Speaker 1: it depicts a blindfolded dog riding a goat in front
Speaker 1: of this proving audience of other dogs.
Speaker 2: That's a little.
Speaker 1: Weird, Yeah, just the normal stuff you'd see at a
Speaker 1: dog park. But unlike the poker game paintings, which are
Speaker 1: more obviously relatable, the details Coolidge included in this painting
Speaker 1: are pretty odd, Like some dogs are wearing special circular hats.
Speaker 1: They're sitting at high desks, they're recording everything. One dog
Speaker 1: is wearing a pointy hat, a masquerade mask, and a cape.
Speaker 1: And there's a blindfolded dog riding the goat. He actually
Speaker 1: has a rope around his neck which is being held
Speaker 1: by a cocker spaniel.
Speaker 2: It's starting to sound a little eyes wide shut to
Speaker 2: be honest with you.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it wouldn't be out of place in that movie
Speaker 1: except for all the dogs. But the part of the
Speaker 1: reason this is depicted this way is that cast Coolidge
Speaker 1: was definitely in the Freemason so that part's not a secret,
Speaker 1: but it's possible he included some mason imagery kind of
Speaker 1: as a joke for his friends. There's a site called
Speaker 1: dogs Playing Poker dot org, which is actually an amazing resource.
Speaker 1: It's made by a computer programmer named Joe, and he
Speaker 1: spoke to an anonymous mason who actually broke down the
Speaker 1: painting symbolism for the audience, and so this is what
Speaker 1: the mason said. Quote Riding the Goat depicts one of
Speaker 1: the first three principal degrees of free masonry. The blindfold
Speaker 1: is an important part of the first three degrees and
Speaker 1: has a specific and symbolic meaning in each degree. The
Speaker 1: rope around his neck is called a cable toe. Another
Speaker 1: important Masonic symbol. The three dogs sitting to the left
Speaker 1: at the desk indicate the three principal officers of any
Speaker 1: Masonic lodge. The dog to the right is wearing a
Speaker 1: red cap. In Scottish right Masonry, this cap is the
Speaker 1: emblem of a kcch Mason. I'm not sure exactly what
Speaker 1: that is, but clearly something of importance. And some dogs
Speaker 1: are wearing blue caps, a symbol that represents a fifty
Speaker 1: year Mason, meaning dogs or people I guess who've been
Speaker 1: initiated fifty or more years ago.
Speaker 2: I mean, it definitely feels very insidery.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but Kolitch also might have put in all that
Speaker 1: imagery kind of as a joke for his fellow Masons. Basically,
Speaker 1: there were old rumors that Mason's rode goats as a
Speaker 1: form of initiation, and by Coolidge's time, Mason's had turned
Speaker 1: that accusation into an inside joke.
Speaker 2: So I guess he just used this thing he was
Speaker 2: getting paid to make as an opportunity to joke around
Speaker 2: with his boys.
Speaker 1: Basically, but Coolidge was a real creative force, and he
Speaker 1: did more than just paint dogs, doing things like he
Speaker 1: really enjoyed making all kinds of art. And you know
Speaker 1: those like plywood cutouts that you stick your face through.
Speaker 2: Like like the ones you'd see at a carnival or
Speaker 2: an amusement park something like that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and boardwalks too, right, cash Coolidge patented those. He
Speaker 1: called them comic foregrounds, and he created all these different
Speaker 1: drawings to be used as the fake foregrounds. He actually
Speaker 1: only patented a very specific version of these cutouts, ones
Speaker 1: that had an image of a person with their normal
Speaker 1: head but the sketch of a very tiny body. So
Speaker 1: there were no strong man or bikini body ones, which
Speaker 1: is ridiculous. But it's amazing to me that he's behind
Speaker 1: those and also illustrated tons of books. He wrote a play,
Speaker 1: he wrote a comic opera.
Speaker 2: I mean, this guy's all over the place, like from
Speaker 2: starting a bank to writing an opera, Like if this
Speaker 2: guy's done everything.
Speaker 1: I mean it's also weird stuff like the opera was
Speaker 1: called King gall Nipper and it was about the marital
Speaker 1: and the morris adventures of human tourists in the realm
Speaker 1: of the King of the Mosquitoes.
Speaker 2: No, but It is kind of crazy that Coolidge was
Speaker 2: so prolific and has done so many interesting things, but
Speaker 2: the only thing he's really remembered for is his dog art.
Speaker 2: And actually nobody remembers him. We just remember the dogs.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, people do love dogs. But you know,
Speaker 1: the nineteenth century was sort of a golden age of
Speaker 1: dog art, and so this is the generation before Coolidge.
Speaker 1: There's an artist named maud Earl and when Lancer who
Speaker 1: we mentioned before, Arthur Wardle and John Sargent Noble, and
Speaker 1: they were all artists commissioned by Queen Victoria to make
Speaker 1: dog art. Apparently she liked many of us, was really
Speaker 1: into dogs and particularly Pomeranians. But Lancer painted dozens of
Speaker 1: Queen Victoria's pets and was rewarded with the Knighthood for
Speaker 1: the work, so, you know, pretty fancy. Also, this thing
Speaker 1: trickles down because the Queen's into it and royals are
Speaker 1: into it, Suddenly the middle classes into it as well,
Speaker 1: and by the end of the Victorian era, English homes
Speaker 1: were full of reproductions of his dog paintings.
Speaker 2: I feel like this was just the golden age of
Speaker 2: dog art. I mean, what a time to be alive. Mango.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean the DVC review of this twenty twenty
Speaker 1: three exhibition of dog art actually shed some light on
Speaker 1: why dogs in particular are fascinators so much. This is
Speaker 1: how the review puts it. Dogs are borderline creatures on
Speaker 1: the threshold of two worlds, the human and the animal.
Speaker 1: We see human qualities like faithfulness, empathy, and intelligence mirrored
Speaker 1: in canine behavior, but we also admired dog's sensory superpowers,
Speaker 1: and they're more instinctive connection with the wild. We've always
Speaker 1: been infatuated with dogs because we consider them in betweeners,
Speaker 1: half mirrors of our own behavior and half windows into
Speaker 1: the mysteries of nature.
Speaker 2: I mean, I do like Coolidge's ability to sort of
Speaker 2: tap into this existing human fascination but then put his
Speaker 2: own spin on it.
Speaker 1: I mean, his generation of work is kind of more
Speaker 1: pop culture in a way. It's made for everyone, and
Speaker 1: Mason's too. But the funny thing is that his wife
Speaker 1: and daughter were never really into dogs. They were more
Speaker 1: cat people.
Speaker 2: That's pretty ridiculous. I mean, it's funny though. Coolidge's work
Speaker 2: have this light hearted element, but he's not painting for
Speaker 2: the Queen, and I think a lot of people would
Speaker 2: describe Coolidge's Dogs Playing Poker series as kitchy.
Speaker 1: Can you explain that a little more?
Speaker 2: Well, I actually have this in my notes. When you
Speaker 2: go to the Wikipedia article for kitch, the first image
Speaker 2: at the top of the page is of a friend
Speaker 2: in need and the caption says a common example of
Speaker 2: modern kitch.
Speaker 1: Oh, that's interesting, So how are we defining kitch exactly?
Speaker 2: So? Merriam Webster defines kitch as something that appeals to
Speaker 2: popular or lowbrow taste and is often of poor quality,
Speaker 2: attacky or lowbrow quality or condition. And like, you're insulting
Speaker 2: my dog's artwork here, But yeah, I know, it's just
Speaker 2: it's terrible. But it's also used ironically or with enough
Speaker 2: self awareness that it can boomerang back around to actually
Speaker 2: being a compliment.
Speaker 1: How can it be a compliment?
Speaker 2: Well, apparently the word emerged in the art markets of Munich,
Speaker 2: and this was in the eighteen sixties and eighteen seventies,
Speaker 2: describing cheap and popular pictures and sketches. And it might
Speaker 2: derive from the German word kitchen, which means to smear,
Speaker 2: or from the German verb vert kitchen, which means to cheapen.
Speaker 2: But you know, the most interesting theory is that it
Speaker 2: could be an inversion of the French word chic, which
Speaker 2: basically means fashionable.
Speaker 1: Oh, that's funny that kitch is like cheek backwards.
Speaker 2: And when it's used in certain context, kitsch is definitely
Speaker 2: an insult and it can definitely feel cheap. And some
Speaker 2: examples of classic kitsch are Santa Claus in the supermarket
Speaker 2: pictures of poodles with ribbons in their hair, souvenir snow glow.
Speaker 2: But then artists kind of inverted the idea and embraced it.
Speaker 2: So think about people like Andy Warhol with his Marilyn
Speaker 2: Monroe or Chairman Mau Prince, or Jeff Coons with his
Speaker 2: balloon dog sculptures, those sorts of things.
Speaker 1: So what do we think dogs playing poker is like?
Speaker 1: Is it Jeff Coons or snow globe?
Speaker 2: You know, it's kind of tough to say. In nineteen
Speaker 2: thirty nine, the art critic Clement Greenberg wrote a famous
Speaker 2: essay titled Avant Garde and Kitsch. It was done more
Speaker 2: to influence American ideas about kitch than anything else. So
Speaker 2: he basically says that urbanization and modern capitalism robs people
Speaker 2: of the time and space they need to engage with
Speaker 2: authentic art, and that kitsch or commercial art arose as
Speaker 2: a cheap replacement. And this was to occupy people's minds
Speaker 2: and the little freedom that they do have. And he
Speaker 2: also says, quote, kitsch is mechanical and operates by formulas.
Speaker 1: I guess you could argue that like dogs playing poker
Speaker 1: does just that. Like Coolidge hit a nerve with his
Speaker 1: first painting poker game and then he basically plugged in
Speaker 1: a formula scenes of dogs doing very human things, which
Speaker 1: turned into commerce.
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, that's totally it. But Greenberg also says this
Speaker 2: about kitch. He says, now and then it produces something
Speaker 2: of merit, something that has an authentic folk flavor.
Speaker 1: Yeah, these days, Coolidge's dog painting sell for hundreds of
Speaker 1: thousands of dollars, so it's kind of safe to say
Speaker 1: he's transcended the average flea market level of kitch.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Plus, I feel like dogs playing Poker has worked its
Speaker 1: way deep into our consciousness. There are multiple dogs playing
Speaker 1: Poker references on the Simpsons. There was a two thousand
Speaker 1: crime thriller starring Tim Curry called Four Dogs Playing Poker.
Speaker 1: And you know that old SNL sketch where the Wild
Speaker 1: and Crazy guys of course, in their very first appearance
Speaker 1: on the show, there's a frame print of a Friend
Speaker 1: in Need that's hanging on their apartment wall.
Speaker 2: God, that's amazing. It's so funny to imagine those guys
Speaker 2: whose only interest was quote getting chicks, buying art for
Speaker 2: their apartment, and settling on dogs playing poker to attract chicks.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I feel like women see dogs playing poker and
Speaker 1: just swoon.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, does it every time? You know? I actually
Speaker 2: love this little anecdote about Gary Larson. Of course, you
Speaker 2: know the cartoonists behind the Far Side comics, So he
Speaker 2: drew a Far Side cartoon where he imagined the dogs
Speaker 2: playing poker. Artist earlier in his career painting giraffes, chickens
Speaker 2: and other animals playing poker, but he didn't think the
Speaker 2: artist's name was well known, so he randomly named him
Speaker 2: Gus Nickerson. And then years later he read an article
Speaker 2: about cash Coolidge and he learned more about them, and
Speaker 2: he said, quote, if you think about it, a Friend
Speaker 2: in Need is arguably as famous in this country as
Speaker 2: the Mona Lisa by what's his name? I just didn't
Speaker 2: give Koolie his proper due so good.
Speaker 1: That's such a huge endorsement. And I love Gary Larson
Speaker 1: so much. I love that, you know, he's this incredible
Speaker 1: illustrator and cultural commentator giving big ups to another artist.
Speaker 1: But you know, one thing I keep thinking about. It
Speaker 1: must be hard to shuffle cards with no thumbs.
Speaker 2: You know, That's the one detail I've enough to be
Speaker 2: able to swallow like it's just not realistic, Mango.
Speaker 1: I know we'll never get over that, But how about
Speaker 1: we end on a little fact off.
Speaker 2: All right, let's do it? All right? So we mentioned
Speaker 2: earlier that Coolidge's most famous painting often gets mistitled as
Speaker 2: dogs playing poker, but you could just as easily call
Speaker 2: it dogs cheating at poker, because if you look closely,
Speaker 2: only two of the seven dogs at the table seem
Speaker 2: to be playing fair. The rest are either shiftily glancing
Speaker 2: at each other's hands or straight up passing cards under
Speaker 2: the table.
Speaker 1: One thing I learned this week is that dogs really
Speaker 1: do cheat at poker, or at least they can with
Speaker 1: the proper training. And this is thanks to a technique
Speaker 1: called hand targeting. A dog can be trained to use
Speaker 1: his mouth to select a single playing card from someone's
Speaker 1: hand and then give that card to another player. So,
Speaker 1: in theory, someone could cheat at poker by using dogs
Speaker 1: to pass cards under the table, just like in Coolidge's paintings.
Speaker 2: All right, well here's a quick one. In the early
Speaker 2: two thousands, Value Soft Inc. Released a PC poker game
Speaker 2: pattern off of Coolidge's paintings, and it was called, of course,
Speaker 2: Dogs Playing Poker. The high stakes poker simulator featured a
Speaker 2: cast of eighteen canine opponents for the player to face
Speaker 2: off against, including a dalmatian, a mechanical dog, an ancient
Speaker 2: dinosaur dog, and what appears to be a cat wearing
Speaker 2: a sign that says a dog, which I think is
Speaker 2: pretty fun. The game didn't hang around on shelves for long,
Speaker 2: but intrepid poker hounds should still be able to sniff
Speaker 2: it out online without too much trouble.
Speaker 1: So when I think of Richard Nixon, I think about
Speaker 1: the first president to ban soup from the White House dinners,
Speaker 1: and also someone who used to call up Christian Latner
Speaker 1: when he was a college basketball player to give him
Speaker 1: advice at halftime. And of course I guess this watergate too.
Speaker 1: But did you know that Richard Nixon was an excellent
Speaker 1: poker player. Apparently he was so good that most of
Speaker 1: his first political campaign was funded by winnings from his
Speaker 1: time in the navy.
Speaker 2: Ah, that's a good one. Actually, speaking of presidents playing poker,
Speaker 2: this is a funny one. According to the Lewis and
Speaker 2: Sun Paper, President Harding once bet the entire set of
Speaker 2: White House China in a poker game to General MacArthur's
Speaker 2: wife Louise and lost it to her.
Speaker 1: That's incredible. Did you know that at the Angola Prison
Speaker 1: rodeo there's an event called convict Poker, which is more
Speaker 1: like bulls playing poker, but apparently four inmates sit at
Speaker 1: a table playing cards in the ring and then a
Speaker 1: bull is released and the last man to leave the
Speaker 1: table wins, which sounds terrifying.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's interesting. I didn't know about that all right.
Speaker 2: So getting back a little closer to dogs playing poker,
Speaker 2: here's the fact I've found about cats playing poker. So
Speaker 2: it turns out that by the time Coolidge began his
Speaker 2: series on dogs playing poker, British illustrator Lewis Wayne had
Speaker 2: already spent several years anthropomorphizing cats for the London crowd
Speaker 2: and his fansful style depicted cats walking on their hind legs,
Speaker 2: wearing clothes, partaking in all sorts of social activities normally
Speaker 2: reserved for humans, like golfing and celebrating Christmas, drinking cocktails,
Speaker 2: and yes, even playing cards. So it's worth noting though,
Speaker 2: that Wayne's cats didn't restrict themselves to just poker. They
Speaker 2: were also avid bridge players too, which feels very cat.
Speaker 1: Like and very classy.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: So here's the thing that I learned, which is just
Speaker 1: insane to be Do you know that there's a real
Speaker 1: dog ashiba you knew named peanut Butter, the first dog
Speaker 1: to speed run a video game at a twenty twenty
Speaker 1: four Games Done Quick charity event. Peanut Butter used a
Speaker 1: custom made controller. The dog was able to input commands
Speaker 1: from his owner and successfully clear all twenty five levels
Speaker 1: of the nineteen eighty five nes game gyro Mighte. It
Speaker 1: took peanut Butter twenty six minutes and twenty four seconds
Speaker 1: to beat the game, which was just over two minutes
Speaker 1: slower than the fastest human time on record, and in
Speaker 1: the month since the event, both peanut Butter and a
Speaker 1: husky named Coda have now surpassed that record, finishing the
Speaker 1: game in right around twenty three minutes.
Speaker 2: That is wild and unfortunately I don't think I can
Speaker 2: beat a fact about video game playing dog. So yeah,
Speaker 2: I think you win this one, Mango, I fold.
Speaker 1: I love it. Well. That's it for today as part
Speaker 1: Time Genius, and next week we're going to be trying
Speaker 1: something new. We're going to be putting out a few
Speaker 1: episodes a week, but we do need feedback, so writers
Speaker 1: at peat Genius, moms at gmail dot com and let
Speaker 1: us know what you'd like, what you want to hear,
Speaker 1: anything else that's on your mind. And you can also
Speaker 1: find us on Instagram at part Time Genius. Again, we
Speaker 1: reopened that account and are taking messages there. So from Mary, Gabe, Dylan,
Speaker 1: Will and myself, thank you so much for listening. Part
Speaker 1: Time Genius is a production of Kaleidoscope and iHeartRadio. This
Speaker 1: show is hosted by Will Pearson and me Mongaishatikler and
Speaker 1: research by our good pal Mary Philip Sandy. Today's episode
Speaker 1: was engineered and produced by the wonderful Dylan Fagan with
Speaker 1: support from Tyler Klang. The show is executive produced for
Speaker 1: iHeart by Katrina Norvell and Ali Perry, with social media
Speaker 1: support from Sasha Gay, Trustee Dara Potts, and Vinny Shorey.
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