WEBVTT - From the Vault: The Fountain, Too Fast for Shadows 0:00:06.200 --> 0:00:09.440 Hello, and welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. My 0:00:09.560 --> 0:00:12.600 name is Joe McCormick. This week we have a holiday, 0:00:12.720 --> 0:00:16.320 so for today we are bringing you a Vault episode. 0:00:16.840 --> 0:00:20.160 This one originally aired May twenty fifth, twenty twenty three. 0:00:20.320 --> 0:00:23.840 It's the episode that Rob and I did about fountains, 0:00:24.000 --> 0:00:27.720 fountains as an architectural feature, and more broadly, about the 0:00:27.760 --> 0:00:35.920 idea of urban blue space. So we hope you enjoy. 0:00:34.600 --> 0:00:38.760 Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio. 0:00:44.840 --> 0:00:46.800 Hey, you welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. My 0:00:46.880 --> 0:00:47.720 name is Robert. 0:00:47.560 --> 0:00:49.600 Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick. 0:00:50.200 --> 0:00:53.240 So the title for this episode comes from a poem 0:00:53.320 --> 0:00:57.760 by English poet Elizabeth Jennings With nineteen twenty six through 0:00:57.800 --> 0:01:02.320 two thousand and one. This poem contains the lines observe 0:01:02.400 --> 0:01:06.600 it there the fountain, too fast for shadows, too wild 0:01:06.760 --> 0:01:10.120 for the lights which illuminate it, to hold even a 0:01:10.160 --> 0:01:14.240 moment an ounce of water back. The poem in full 0:01:14.400 --> 0:01:17.080 details how we might observe a fountain in an urban 0:01:17.160 --> 0:01:21.720 center and makes a comparison to more ancient traditions. Joe, 0:01:21.760 --> 0:01:24.839 were you familiar with this poem or this poet prior 0:01:24.880 --> 0:01:27.360 to this episode. She was a new one for me. 0:01:27.800 --> 0:01:30.120 I'm not sure the name is familiar, but I need 0:01:30.160 --> 0:01:32.160 to look up more of her stuff to see if 0:01:32.200 --> 0:01:33.640 there's anything I recognize. 0:01:33.760 --> 0:01:37.200 Well. This poem fountain, Like I say, it also connects 0:01:37.280 --> 0:01:41.240 back to some of these more ancient traditions that are 0:01:41.360 --> 0:01:44.600 reflected in our tradition of spending times with fountains and 0:01:44.640 --> 0:01:48.240 other water features. Just to read another bit from it, 0:01:48.560 --> 0:01:51.920 quote see in that stress and image of utter calm, 0:01:52.280 --> 0:01:55.120 a stillness. There it is how we must have felt 0:01:55.320 --> 0:01:59.000 once at the edge of some perpetual stream, fearful of touching, 0:01:59.360 --> 0:02:03.440 bringing no thirst at all, panicked by no perception of ourselves, 0:02:03.720 --> 0:02:07.120 but drawing the water down to the deepest wonder well. 0:02:07.120 --> 0:02:09.960 That phrasing gives a much profounder spin to the kind 0:02:10.040 --> 0:02:13.639 of awe that I recall feeling when looking at fountains 0:02:13.800 --> 0:02:18.320 as a child. Particularly, what I remember is a fountain 0:02:18.520 --> 0:02:21.360 in the mall in my hometown when I was a 0:02:21.400 --> 0:02:24.400 kid that had a kind of kind of a tile 0:02:24.560 --> 0:02:28.080 mosaic bottom that was always covered in pennies. I guess 0:02:28.440 --> 0:02:31.840 the idea was that people would throw pennies into the 0:02:31.840 --> 0:02:33.920 fountain and make a wish at least that's what I 0:02:33.960 --> 0:02:36.280 was always told you did, and I really liked to 0:02:36.320 --> 0:02:39.080 do this, and I think firmly believed in the magic 0:02:39.480 --> 0:02:41.920 of the wish granting powers of the fountain. 0:02:42.360 --> 0:02:45.520 I didn't even think about fountains and water features and malls. 0:02:45.520 --> 0:02:49.520 But oh man, shopping malls had some great ones, as 0:02:49.560 --> 0:02:52.079 far as I remember, and of course smaller at the time, 0:02:52.160 --> 0:02:56.440 so they seemed more gigantic, you know, some sort of 0:02:56.480 --> 0:03:00.239 a fountain there in the atrium of the mall, beautifull 0:03:00.280 --> 0:03:00.840 to behold. 0:03:01.919 --> 0:03:04.280 I do remember thinking when I saw all of the 0:03:04.320 --> 0:03:08.440 pennies on the bottom. I also thought, at some point 0:03:08.560 --> 0:03:11.400 they they must clean all those up, because it's not 0:03:11.440 --> 0:03:14.080 like overflowing with pennies. They've got to go in and 0:03:14.120 --> 0:03:14.560 get them. 0:03:14.639 --> 0:03:15.320 And then my. 0:03:15.360 --> 0:03:18.040 Thought as a child was who gets to keep all 0:03:18.080 --> 0:03:21.480 that money? That's so much money when you collect all 0:03:21.520 --> 0:03:24.760 of them, you know, that's got to be tens of dollars. 0:03:26.600 --> 0:03:28.080 I mean, this is why that one scene in the 0:03:28.080 --> 0:03:33.240 Goonies I think was so impactful, the extrapolation of our 0:03:33.360 --> 0:03:36.080 dreams of harvesting the coins of a fountain. 0:03:36.160 --> 0:03:38.680 You know, oh, is that is that in the Goonies. 0:03:38.680 --> 0:03:40.760 I don't remember that they had the same thought I did. 0:03:41.240 --> 0:03:43.560 Well, No, they in the goonies, if memory serves, it's 0:03:43.600 --> 0:03:45.720 been a long time since I've seen it. There's that 0:03:46.520 --> 0:03:49.480 there's like these caverns beneath the wishing well and that's 0:03:49.480 --> 0:03:51.520 where all the coins are, and one of the kids 0:03:51.520 --> 0:03:53.400 goes to steal a bunch of them, and they're like, no, no, 0:03:53.400 --> 0:03:55.720 those are peaceful people's wishes. You're not supposed to take them, 0:03:56.240 --> 0:03:59.680 and the children, you know, abstain, and ultimately they have 0:03:59.680 --> 0:04:01.360 pirates gold on the radar. 0:04:01.520 --> 0:04:04.280 So this well, I didn't make the connection. I did 0:04:04.320 --> 0:04:08.000 believe in the wish granting powers, and I did greedily 0:04:08.120 --> 0:04:10.400 lust after all of the penny money, but I didn't 0:04:10.400 --> 0:04:13.600 think that would be stealing people's wishes. It's already granted 0:04:13.680 --> 0:04:16.160 right once the pennies there. Now it's just free money. 0:04:16.640 --> 0:04:18.640 Yeah. I don't know how that. It depends on superstitious 0:04:18.640 --> 0:04:21.520 share I guess how it works. But at any rate, 0:04:21.600 --> 0:04:24.440 I yeah, I always am curious to see if a 0:04:24.480 --> 0:04:27.040 fountain has coins, and even though I don't nowadays, I'm 0:04:27.080 --> 0:04:30.480 not thinking about harvesting them. I'm still just one of 0:04:30.520 --> 0:04:32.279 the things I kind of like am checking off the 0:04:32.320 --> 0:04:34.480 mental checklist when I check out a fountain, are there 0:04:34.520 --> 0:04:37.760 coins in it? What's the filtration system look like? You know, 0:04:37.839 --> 0:04:40.200 where's the water coming out of? Like, if there's a 0:04:40.240 --> 0:04:43.360 fountain somewhere, I need to get closer to it so 0:04:43.440 --> 0:04:46.520 I can take it all in. Beyond that, I don't 0:04:46.520 --> 0:04:49.479 think I'd ever really thought about, you know, any universal 0:04:49.520 --> 0:04:53.359 truths about the calming nature of fountains. I've always just 0:04:53.400 --> 0:04:54.839 kind of in the back of my mind thought, well, 0:04:54.839 --> 0:04:59.360 they're nice. Sometimes they have interesting statues incorporated into their design. 0:05:00.360 --> 0:05:02.800 They can be cooling on a hot day, that sort 0:05:02.839 --> 0:05:05.760 of thing, and they're often like at the center of everything, 0:05:05.800 --> 0:05:09.239 you know. I think of like the fountain in Washington Square, 0:05:09.360 --> 0:05:12.400 you know, I think about the indeed, the fountains in 0:05:12.440 --> 0:05:14.680 the atrium at a mall, at a shopping mall, which 0:05:14.839 --> 0:05:18.840 was like a center of community in some respects. 0:05:19.040 --> 0:05:21.640 Well, and yet another way that the fountain was sacred 0:05:21.640 --> 0:05:25.120 to my child's brain. But taking some of the profound 0:05:25.680 --> 0:05:28.919 varnish off of it, I do associate the idea of 0:05:28.920 --> 0:05:30.919 a fountain with the smell of the mall food court, 0:05:32.480 --> 0:05:35.520 you know. It's that's where the saborrow mingles with the 0:05:35.920 --> 0:05:39.080 with the Kariaki place Yeah, the mall. 0:05:39.000 --> 0:05:41.120 Food court of our childhoods. This is a place where 0:05:41.120 --> 0:05:45.160 you also had freedom, like suddenly you could often often 0:05:45.200 --> 0:05:47.320 the case, you could choose what you were going to eat, 0:05:48.279 --> 0:05:51.760 and it made you feel powerful. But coming back to 0:05:51.880 --> 0:05:56.320 water features and fountains specifically, of course, we have to 0:05:56.320 --> 0:05:58.000 think larger than that. We have to think of two 0:05:58.040 --> 0:06:00.839 about just like running water, bodies of water in general. 0:06:01.320 --> 0:06:06.280 And you know, personally, and I think this applies somewhat universally. 0:06:06.480 --> 0:06:09.599 I've always found waters to be calming to be around. 0:06:09.880 --> 0:06:12.600 They're often great places to do some thinking or to 0:06:12.600 --> 0:06:14.640 do less thinking in a good way, you know, to 0:06:15.600 --> 0:06:19.040 sort of unshackle from your normal thought process. And I 0:06:19.080 --> 0:06:22.200 think I've mentioned before on the show that there's a 0:06:22.320 --> 0:06:26.760 very useful stress reduction exercise that makes use of this connection. 0:06:27.440 --> 0:06:30.520 It's called leaves on a stream. It's a cognitive diffusion 0:06:30.600 --> 0:06:34.280 technique that allows you to distance yourself from the thoughts 0:06:34.320 --> 0:06:37.000 that you're having. So the way it goes, and you 0:06:37.040 --> 0:06:38.880 can look this up online. There are plenty of online 0:06:38.880 --> 0:06:42.320 resources that spell it out in more detail. But you 0:06:42.400 --> 0:06:46.039 imagine yourself seated beside a running stream. You imagine taking 0:06:46.120 --> 0:06:50.200 a given thought, essentially taking it out of yourself, placing 0:06:50.240 --> 0:06:52.640 it upon a floating leaf and allowing the stream to 0:06:52.720 --> 0:06:57.320 carry that leaf and the thought away from you. And 0:06:57.360 --> 0:06:59.599 you know, everyone's mile wage may vary, but I find 0:06:59.640 --> 0:07:02.920 it very constructive. But I was thinking about it again here, 0:07:03.080 --> 0:07:07.679 thinking about fountains, thinking about natural bodies of water, and 0:07:07.040 --> 0:07:09.520 they're calming powers. 0:07:10.000 --> 0:07:12.840 It does seem like an especially nice image for concretizing 0:07:12.880 --> 0:07:17.680 your emotions and your thoughts because it's passive, like the 0:07:18.840 --> 0:07:21.440 water does the carrying away for you, So it doesn't 0:07:21.440 --> 0:07:25.000 even involve you having to imagine, like forcing or shoving 0:07:25.040 --> 0:07:28.160 the idea away. It is just carried away by nature. 0:07:28.840 --> 0:07:32.200 Yeah. Yeah, Now we've talked a bit on the show 0:07:32.360 --> 0:07:35.480 previously about the history and importance of public water works. 0:07:35.640 --> 0:07:37.120 We're not going to reach at all of that here, 0:07:37.160 --> 0:07:39.000 but I wanted to at least touch on some of 0:07:39.000 --> 0:07:42.280 it in this case via a twenty fifteen article titled 0:07:42.560 --> 0:07:46.480 Short Global History of Fountains by Juty at All, published 0:07:46.480 --> 0:07:49.520 in the journal Water. That's pointed out that the word 0:07:49.600 --> 0:07:53.160 fountain stems from the Latin fawns, which can refer to 0:07:53.160 --> 0:07:56.960 both artificial and natural water features. Not like the fawns 0:07:56.960 --> 0:08:01.800 on happy Days, but fots. I've also read that the 0:08:02.160 --> 0:08:08.000 source is fontana, which informs the medieval fount or source, 0:08:08.480 --> 0:08:12.200 and so fountain becomes a symbol of a providing source 0:08:12.200 --> 0:08:14.480 as well. Like this idea of a fountain as being 0:08:14.600 --> 0:08:20.520 this thing from which something else beneficial arises becomes pretty 0:08:20.520 --> 0:08:23.960 crucial to a lot of a lot of our language. Now. 0:08:24.000 --> 0:08:28.080 The construction of fountains properly dates back to ancient times, 0:08:28.120 --> 0:08:30.800 and the authors of this paper point out that regional 0:08:30.800 --> 0:08:34.880 water availability played a role in what form fountains took 0:08:35.280 --> 0:08:37.960 and how they were fed. For instance, they mentioned that 0:08:38.000 --> 0:08:41.560 for the ancient Egyptians bringing water out for the people 0:08:42.040 --> 0:08:44.480 or for personal use, it was a matter of pulling 0:08:44.520 --> 0:08:47.680 water from the Mighty Nile. Meanwhile, the Minoans and the 0:08:47.720 --> 0:08:51.800 Greeks brought water down from the mountains via aqueducts. So 0:08:52.720 --> 0:08:55.680 this is something to keep in mind. There's the sort of, 0:08:56.440 --> 0:08:59.520 especially when you go back into the origins of fountains, 0:09:00.040 --> 0:09:04.520 a lot more practical purposes in mind for having that 0:09:04.600 --> 0:09:07.440 water there, And then how do you get the water there? 0:09:07.280 --> 0:09:10.480 You're not just piping it in from the local modern 0:09:10.520 --> 0:09:12.360 water system, you know, there are other means that have 0:09:12.440 --> 0:09:16.160 to be in place. One of the primary purposes for 0:09:16.200 --> 0:09:18.720 ancient fountains was of course to bring water to the 0:09:18.760 --> 0:09:22.520 people for drinking, as well as for other uses such 0:09:22.520 --> 0:09:24.800 as bathing. We've talked about that on the show before. 0:09:24.960 --> 0:09:27.800 Another big one that I hadn't thought as much about. 0:09:27.840 --> 0:09:29.720 And I guess part of this is because we haven't 0:09:29.960 --> 0:09:32.840 We've touched on firefighting, but we haven't done a lot 0:09:32.920 --> 0:09:35.880 on firefighting. But this was another reason to have a 0:09:36.160 --> 0:09:40.479 source of water available in a center of the population. 0:09:40.960 --> 0:09:44.040 I think we actually did a pretty extensive look at 0:09:44.120 --> 0:09:48.480 firefighting in our Invention episode on the fire extinguisher. 0:09:48.760 --> 0:09:51.560 Yeah, and we got into like fire extinguisher grenades and 0:09:51.600 --> 0:09:52.160 so forth. 0:09:52.280 --> 0:09:56.400 Yeah, But going into ancient history, how the fire fighting 0:09:56.400 --> 0:09:59.240 in ancient Rome and how it had a very different 0:09:59.320 --> 0:10:02.520 character because if I remember correctly, the early version in 0:10:02.920 --> 0:10:05.920 maybe like the first century BCE or so, there was 0:10:05.960 --> 0:10:08.920 like a rich guy who instituted fire brigades who would 0:10:09.640 --> 0:10:11.760 come to your house if it was on fire, not 0:10:11.800 --> 0:10:14.319 to like as a public service, put it out for you, 0:10:14.720 --> 0:10:17.280 but to say, hey, I will buy your house for 0:10:17.360 --> 0:10:21.160 the following price, take it or leave it. And if 0:10:21.240 --> 0:10:24.000 you know, if you agreed to let this guy buy 0:10:24.000 --> 0:10:26.559 your house, then his dudes would put out the fire. 0:10:27.880 --> 0:10:29.920 Yeah. I think there's a scene in one of Stevens 0:10:29.960 --> 0:10:33.840 Sailor's Gordiana's books that take place in ancient Rome where 0:10:33.880 --> 0:10:38.280 this exact situation takes place with like the building burning 0:10:38.360 --> 0:10:42.040 down and this guy shows up and he's like, well, 0:10:42.200 --> 0:10:46.439 you know, it looks like your property is really plummeting 0:10:46.679 --> 0:10:48.960 in value. Now would be a great time to sell 0:10:49.000 --> 0:10:51.600 to me, as opposed to five minutes from now. 0:10:51.880 --> 0:10:54.880 Wicked in an especially hilarious way. But of course, you know, 0:10:54.960 --> 0:10:57.480 later on the idea of firefighting as a public service 0:10:57.520 --> 0:11:02.040 that benefits everyone does develop, and yeah, of course there 0:11:02.040 --> 0:11:04.040 are a lot of different ways to fight fires, and 0:11:04.040 --> 0:11:06.400 not all of them involve water. Of course, some involve 0:11:06.520 --> 0:11:09.040 like you know, pulling down structures to create barriers to 0:11:09.040 --> 0:11:12.240 fire spreading and things like that. But yeah, water of 0:11:12.280 --> 0:11:15.920 course is quite often one of the most important tools 0:11:15.920 --> 0:11:16.840 in fighting fires. 0:11:17.400 --> 0:11:21.640 Now. One of the things about bringing water into a city, 0:11:22.320 --> 0:11:25.240 one of the problems here are potential potential problems, is well, 0:11:25.240 --> 0:11:28.280 you're gonna have to deal with drainage, removal, fouled water, 0:11:28.600 --> 0:11:32.720 and various public health challenges that can emerge from public 0:11:32.800 --> 0:11:36.800 water works and that can get into things like you know, 0:11:36.800 --> 0:11:40.520 I have to worry about water borne ill illnesses, potentially mosquitoes, 0:11:40.840 --> 0:11:45.520 things of that nature. So systems to bring water into 0:11:45.559 --> 0:11:50.480 a city these were extremely important for human civilizations, and 0:11:50.520 --> 0:11:53.320 we see them in all the major civilizations of the 0:11:53.360 --> 0:11:56.640 ancient world as well as the various ancient civilizations of 0:11:56.640 --> 0:11:59.720 the New World. The earliest carved water based and apparently 0:11:59.800 --> 0:12:02.679 dates back to three thousand BC in the Mesopotamian site 0:12:02.679 --> 0:12:08.240 of Tello, and a stone fountain figure in another Mesopotamian site, 0:12:08.600 --> 0:12:13.960 Mari dates back to two thousand BCE. This would basically 0:12:13.960 --> 0:12:16.440 be in line with the common fountain trope that we've 0:12:16.480 --> 0:12:20.120 seen again and again of a goddess holding a base 0:12:20.200 --> 0:12:25.160 of some sort that releases piped in water, just sort 0:12:25.200 --> 0:12:27.080 of an irresistible image. And I guess part of this 0:12:27.160 --> 0:12:29.240 comes down to, like what a fountain does that like 0:12:29.920 --> 0:12:33.640 recasts the idea of water being gifted to people. 0:12:34.679 --> 0:12:38.439 As if from a morton Joe, Yeah. 0:12:38.559 --> 0:12:42.600 Yeah. The Romans were, of course masters of hydraulics, which 0:12:42.600 --> 0:12:45.880 they adopted from the Etruscan civilization, and the Roman tradition 0:12:45.960 --> 0:12:49.280 greatly influenced the medieval fountain tradition to follow Now. One 0:12:49.280 --> 0:12:51.120 thing in this paper that I thought was really interesting. 0:12:51.120 --> 0:12:55.199 They point out that in China, wells and streams were 0:12:55.200 --> 0:12:58.920 along the primary source of water, so wells tend to 0:12:58.960 --> 0:13:01.959 play the role we see public fountains play in other 0:13:02.000 --> 0:13:06.439 parts of the world. In some of these Mesopotamian accounts, 0:13:07.040 --> 0:13:10.120 these public wells were crucial as well to city planning. 0:13:10.360 --> 0:13:13.040 These would be the things that you plan the structure 0:13:13.120 --> 0:13:16.679 of the city around. They also note that quote spring 0:13:16.760 --> 0:13:22.280 and structures have also assumed characteristics of fountains in China, 0:13:23.120 --> 0:13:25.120 so what we might think of as proper fountains were 0:13:25.120 --> 0:13:28.840 also introduced and built in urban and palace settings later 0:13:28.920 --> 0:13:33.640 over the course of centuries. But sometimes you might have 0:13:33.679 --> 0:13:37.800 something just constructed where a spring emerges or where a 0:13:37.840 --> 0:13:40.360 spring has come to, and this will sort of take 0:13:40.400 --> 0:13:45.040 on the building and appearance of a western fountain. Now. 0:13:45.080 --> 0:13:49.480 The authors even include discussion of modern and industrial age 0:13:49.559 --> 0:13:53.640 water kiosks in the paper, which serve the purpose of 0:13:54.000 --> 0:13:58.160 distributing clean water to the people, though without most of 0:13:58.200 --> 0:14:02.360 the more esthetically pleasing ass that you associate with a 0:14:02.640 --> 0:14:05.959 public fountain. Nowadays, you can look up images of various 0:14:06.000 --> 0:14:08.680 water kiosks that I believe They're especially common in subs 0:14:08.720 --> 0:14:12.400 of how in Africa a place where people can go 0:14:12.480 --> 0:14:16.360 and get water, and it often takes on a more 0:14:16.400 --> 0:14:18.480 I guess, sort of commercial appearance. I mean it looks 0:14:18.520 --> 0:14:22.600 like a little a little shop in many cases. Sometimes 0:14:22.600 --> 0:14:25.880 they even you see something that looks more like a 0:14:26.000 --> 0:14:29.760 vending machine. And you can also make comparisons like water 0:14:29.880 --> 0:14:34.080 kiosk and say public ice dispensary, you know those, you 0:14:34.120 --> 0:14:36.200 see these especially, we see these a lot in the 0:14:36.280 --> 0:14:38.720 United States. I know, when you go into rural areas 0:14:39.040 --> 0:14:42.560 and there's like the standalone machine that you can pull 0:14:42.640 --> 0:14:45.200 up to, you pay the machine and you get some ice. 0:14:45.920 --> 0:14:50.200 You know you are buying water, albeit in a frozen form, 0:14:50.280 --> 0:14:53.040 from that machine. Right now, that Beings said, I guess 0:14:53.080 --> 0:14:56.560 water kiosks could still be considered like a social center, 0:14:56.640 --> 0:14:59.280 a place where people are going for water. And while 0:14:59.280 --> 0:15:02.200 most of the examp I was looking at seem largely 0:15:02.240 --> 0:15:05.040 transactional and functional, I suppose it doesn't have to be 0:15:05.080 --> 0:15:08.680 the case. Though. When I looked around for like more 0:15:08.720 --> 0:15:12.760 pleasing designs and water kiosks, the only thing that was 0:15:12.760 --> 0:15:15.640 coming up for me were various design competitions that were 0:15:15.920 --> 0:15:19.320 more situated in say London and were essentially coming up 0:15:19.360 --> 0:15:22.800 with water fountain designs that you know, looked crazy things 0:15:22.800 --> 0:15:28.080 that weren't necessarily I think, actually brought to life in 0:15:28.320 --> 0:15:32.200 urban settings. But I don't know. Maybe there have been 0:15:33.080 --> 0:15:38.880 efforts to sort of evolve water kiosk sites throughout the 0:15:38.880 --> 0:15:40.480 rest of the world as well. I'm not sure. 0:15:40.920 --> 0:15:43.560 Well, this idea sort of highlights the two different faces 0:15:43.600 --> 0:15:47.640 of the civic water dispensing area. So you can have 0:15:47.800 --> 0:15:51.200 on one hand, something that is functional that is there. 0:15:51.520 --> 0:15:53.960 It's a place for people to get water that they 0:15:54.000 --> 0:15:56.320 need for you know, everything in life basically that you 0:15:56.360 --> 0:15:58.600 need in order to drink, to cook, to clean and 0:15:58.640 --> 0:16:02.640 so forth. And then the other idea is water based 0:16:02.640 --> 0:16:06.640 infrastructure that is there to be enjoyed, maybe the same 0:16:06.640 --> 0:16:09.040 way that a park would be there to be enjoyed. 0:16:09.440 --> 0:16:13.280 I think in the popular imagination, something that brings all 0:16:13.320 --> 0:16:17.000 these together is of course, the chocolate factory of Willy Wonka, 0:16:17.080 --> 0:16:20.640 where we see the chocolate mixed by waterfall. It is 0:16:20.680 --> 0:16:24.840 a pleasing water fall to behold. You're not supposed to 0:16:24.840 --> 0:16:29.240 swim in it, of course, but still, you know, some 0:16:29.400 --> 0:16:32.520 uses of the chocolate are available via fountain. And then 0:16:32.560 --> 0:16:35.400 of course we do have chocolate chocolate fountains at events 0:16:35.440 --> 0:16:36.920 and all. So it is weird how we get into 0:16:36.960 --> 0:16:39.760 this use of fountains, both in the imagination and in reality, 0:16:40.680 --> 0:16:43.560 for liquids that are not drinking water. 0:16:44.240 --> 0:16:47.360 Why do the culinary fountains always go in the sweet direction. 0:16:47.520 --> 0:16:49.960 I want to see more savory ones, you know. So 0:16:50.040 --> 0:16:54.200 it's the nacho cheese fountain, the gravy fountain. I don't 0:16:54.240 --> 0:16:56.880 know what. Maybe cheese fondue fountain. I guess that's pretty 0:16:56.880 --> 0:16:58.160 similar to nacho cheese. 0:16:58.440 --> 0:17:00.520 Well that that surely exists, right, some sort of a 0:17:00.600 --> 0:17:04.760 cheese fountain, I suppose, I would guess. Anyway, Coming back 0:17:04.760 --> 0:17:08.040 to this Water Journal paper, the authors here, they stressed 0:17:08.040 --> 0:17:11.960 that fountains also often stood as symbols of power and wealth. 0:17:12.040 --> 0:17:15.040 Somebody builds them, someone provides them for the people. But 0:17:15.080 --> 0:17:18.119 there's still this calming element to the urban fountain, offering 0:17:18.200 --> 0:17:22.639 sites and sounds conducive to relaxation that are frequently cited 0:17:22.640 --> 0:17:26.080 in histories and literature. As many of the practical reasons 0:17:26.119 --> 0:17:30.320 for public fountains declined in modern times, the esthetic elements 0:17:30.320 --> 0:17:33.879 remained in play, including the soothing sites and sounds of 0:17:33.920 --> 0:17:38.119 the running water. Another interesting point. This is something I 0:17:38.160 --> 0:17:42.160 read in Fountains as Reservoirs of myth and memory from 0:17:42.440 --> 0:17:45.639 Myths on the Map the Storied Landscapes of Ancient Greece 0:17:45.760 --> 0:17:49.320 from twenty seventeen by Betsy A. Robinson, or this section 0:17:49.640 --> 0:17:54.200 about fountains is by Robinson, and in this they point 0:17:54.240 --> 0:17:58.040 out that public fountains, specifically those in Greek traditions, were 0:17:58.040 --> 0:18:01.240 also a means of quote, connecting past and present and 0:18:01.400 --> 0:18:07.280 establishing authority by the manipulation of architectural form and the 0:18:07.320 --> 0:18:11.639 selective retelling of stories. So I found that fascinating to 0:18:11.640 --> 0:18:15.800 think about and be reminded of, because the public fountain 0:18:15.880 --> 0:18:18.159 here is both a means of bringing water to the 0:18:18.200 --> 0:18:23.640 people but also conceptualizing the deliverer of that water by 0:18:23.680 --> 0:18:27.000 means of myth and legends reflected in the carvings, the 0:18:27.040 --> 0:18:30.040 statues and so forth then make up a given fountain. 0:18:30.760 --> 0:18:33.639 For instance, who is the goddess that is pouring forth 0:18:33.680 --> 0:18:38.000 the water, and what is that goddess's relationship to the 0:18:38.800 --> 0:18:40.840 people in power at the moment, etc. 0:18:41.840 --> 0:18:44.920 Yes, flowing water almost kind of naturally tells the story, 0:18:45.040 --> 0:18:49.000 or it easily can be narrativized in some way by 0:18:50.080 --> 0:18:54.280 filling in the infrastructure around it with images and representations. 0:18:54.720 --> 0:18:57.600 Yeah. Can you imagine if our primary sources of water 0:18:57.680 --> 0:19:02.119 today are faucets, What if by law they were required 0:19:02.480 --> 0:19:07.480 to resemble entities or beings or specific people in power 0:19:08.920 --> 0:19:12.320 as they're bringing forth your precious drinking or dishwashing water. 0:19:12.640 --> 0:19:16.159 Yes, the faucet is like your local water commissioner's face 0:19:16.320 --> 0:19:19.240 and the water is coming out of their mouth or 0:19:19.280 --> 0:19:21.240 something like vomiting the water to you. 0:19:21.720 --> 0:19:33.760 Yeah. Anyway, the main idea we're exploring this episode, though, 0:19:33.760 --> 0:19:36.480 is the idea that there is something soothing, calming, and 0:19:36.520 --> 0:19:40.239 mentally restoring about public fountains, something that may, you know, 0:19:40.880 --> 0:19:43.040 subjectively seem to be the case with many of us, 0:19:43.080 --> 0:19:45.639 but you know, is there something more objective there as well. 0:19:46.440 --> 0:19:49.800 There's actually been a fair amount of, certainly recent scholarship 0:19:49.800 --> 0:19:52.080 on the topic that we're going to touch on in 0:19:53.200 --> 0:19:55.280 this We we're going to get into this idea of 0:19:55.440 --> 0:19:56.440 blue spaces. 0:19:57.000 --> 0:19:57.640 So in the. 0:19:57.520 --> 0:20:03.240 World of urban land use planning, there's green space obviously, 0:20:03.560 --> 0:20:08.679 you know, we think of gardens, trees, whole parks, et cetera. 0:20:09.000 --> 0:20:10.879 And then there's a subset of green space known as 0:20:10.920 --> 0:20:13.119 blue space, and the blue of course, refers to water, 0:20:13.880 --> 0:20:16.000 you know, as water is often blue on the map, 0:20:16.040 --> 0:20:19.520 if not in actual visual appearance, and it entails all 0:20:19.600 --> 0:20:24.439 manner of naturally occurring and artificial water features, including fountains. Now, 0:20:24.480 --> 0:20:27.320 once again it's important to stress that proximity to natural 0:20:27.320 --> 0:20:29.920 and or artificial blue spaces has always come with certain 0:20:29.920 --> 0:20:33.960 additional risks and potential dangers. We talked about those already, 0:20:34.160 --> 0:20:37.399 but there's also this compelling idea that blue spaces are 0:20:37.440 --> 0:20:41.000 an overall mental and or physical health benefit to those 0:20:41.080 --> 0:20:44.199 with access to the feature. And on one hand, this 0:20:44.280 --> 0:20:49.280 basic idea would seem to line up with the late EO. 0:20:49.359 --> 0:20:53.560 Wilson's biophilia hypothesis, something we've talked about on the show before. 0:20:54.240 --> 0:20:57.080 Yeah, this is kind of interesting. So we've done multiple 0:20:57.119 --> 0:21:01.800 episodes exploring and critiquing the biophilia HIH hypothesis at length 0:21:01.840 --> 0:21:03.280 in the past, so we're not going to go into 0:21:03.480 --> 0:21:06.399 a great depth on that again here, but briefly, in 0:21:06.480 --> 0:21:09.680 Wilson's words, this would have been what he believed was 0:21:09.760 --> 0:21:14.800 quote the innate tendency to focus on life and lifelike processes. 0:21:15.320 --> 0:21:17.639 So the argument goes that there is something in our 0:21:17.680 --> 0:21:21.680 brains that calls us to be fascinated by and attracted 0:21:21.760 --> 0:21:25.639 to other forms of life beyond just the obvious and 0:21:25.720 --> 0:21:28.760 direct benefits to our survival that we would get from them. 0:21:28.800 --> 0:21:31.480 So it's obvious why you would be attracted to, say 0:21:31.520 --> 0:21:34.000 an animal or a plant that you might eat for food, 0:21:34.600 --> 0:21:39.000 but that our fascination by an attraction to life forms 0:21:39.000 --> 0:21:42.359 goes way beyond this, goes to you things that you 0:21:42.400 --> 0:21:46.000 can't eat, things that you can't necessarily get any tangible, 0:21:46.680 --> 0:21:50.960 quantifiable benefit from. We still these other life forms, We 0:21:51.000 --> 0:21:53.880 still want to see and touch and spend time around them, 0:21:54.440 --> 0:21:57.119 and when they're not present in our lives, we feel 0:21:57.160 --> 0:22:00.560 a kind of we feel that loss as a kind 0:22:00.600 --> 0:22:05.879 of malaise or unhappiness. And so a funny thing here 0:22:05.920 --> 0:22:08.880 about water is that, of course moving water is very 0:22:08.880 --> 0:22:12.919 often associated with the suite of esthetic and environmental preferences 0:22:12.960 --> 0:22:16.840 suggested by the biophilia hypothesis. Yet of course water is 0:22:16.880 --> 0:22:21.000 itself not alive. It, like rocks and air, is part 0:22:21.040 --> 0:22:24.560 of the inorganic environment. And yet of course the presence 0:22:24.600 --> 0:22:28.280 of water is greatly associated with the presence of life. Basically, 0:22:28.320 --> 0:22:31.120 all life on Earth needs water to survive, and it's 0:22:31.160 --> 0:22:34.080 not an accident that when you know you're walking through 0:22:34.080 --> 0:22:36.199 the desert and you come to an oasis, it is 0:22:36.200 --> 0:22:39.760 suddenly surrounded by forms of life that were not found 0:22:39.760 --> 0:22:41.280 in the surrounding landscape. 0:22:41.840 --> 0:22:43.800 Yeah. Yeah, And you know, you can make the argument, 0:22:43.920 --> 0:22:47.280 you know, we're hardwired to appreciate something like a nice 0:22:47.359 --> 0:22:51.320 flowing stream as opposed to another body of water. How 0:22:51.320 --> 0:22:53.440 would Donald Pleasants put it, Joe. 0:22:53.560 --> 0:22:55.479 Oh, the spirit of dark and lonely waters. 0:22:55.520 --> 0:22:57.560 Yeah. Yeah, the dark and lonly water. 0:22:57.640 --> 0:23:00.880 That's it, ready to trap the unware, the show off, 0:23:01.000 --> 0:23:01.520