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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of

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Speaker 1: My Heart Radio. Hi, my name is Robert Lamb and

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Speaker 1: this is the Monster Fact, a short form series from

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Speaker 1: Stuff to Blow Your Mind, focusing in on mythical creatures, ideas,

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Speaker 1: and monsters in time. Spanish artist Francisco Goya's seventeen nine

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Speaker 1: collection Los Capricios consists of eighty different prints, each critiquing

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Speaker 1: a different folly of contemporary Spanish society. While number forty three,

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Speaker 1: The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters, is perhaps the most

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Speaker 1: famous selection from this album. Today, I'd like to talk

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Speaker 1: about Capriccio number three. Here comes the boogey Man or

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Speaker 1: care Vienna el Coco. In the illustration, a hooded figure

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Speaker 1: approaches a mother whose children's squirn and horror. The mother's faith, however,

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Speaker 1: is not possessed by fear. She seems eager, even as

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Speaker 1: described on met museum dot org. The image is thought

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Speaker 1: to express Goya's criticism of the indoctrination of Spanish children

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Speaker 1: into the terror of supernatural beings in both the home

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Speaker 1: and the educational system at large. But who or what

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Speaker 1: was El Coco? In Carol Rosa's Giants, Monsters and Dragons,

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Speaker 1: The folkloreist described it as a kind of ogre used

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Speaker 1: to scare children into good behavior. Better be good children,

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Speaker 1: or El Coco will come and take you away. Better

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Speaker 1: listen to mother, or el Coco will come and eat you.

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Speaker 1: The figure also appears in Portuguese traditions as well as

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Speaker 1: throughout the Spanish and Portuguese speaking world. Its female counterpart

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Speaker 1: was known as the Kuca. Descriptions of the monster's appearance

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Speaker 1: are terrible but vague, often invoking shagginess, burning eyes, novel size,

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Speaker 1: and comparisons to skulls or disembodied heads. In fact, the

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Speaker 1: old Portuguese word coco meant head or skull. When Portuguese

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Speaker 1: and Spanish explorers ventured amid the Pacific Islands, they discovered

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Speaker 1: something most unusual, a shaggy head shaped object with three holes,

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Speaker 1: reminiscent of a human skull. This, of course, came to

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Speaker 1: be known as the coconut. So the next time you

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Speaker 1: enjoy a coconut water or a perhaps a pina colada,

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Speaker 1: give a thought to El Coco, the terror of children

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Speaker 1: for centuries and propagator of supernatural anxiety. Tune in for

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Speaker 1: additional episodes of the Monster fact each week. As always

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Speaker 1: You can email us at contact at stuff to Blow

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Speaker 1: your Mind dot com. Stuff to Blow Your Mind is

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Speaker 1: a production of I heart Radio. For more podcasts for

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Speaker 1: my heart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,

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Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.