Speaker 1: You're listening to part Time Genius, the production of Kaleidoscope
Speaker 1: and iHeartRadio. Guess what Will?
Speaker 2: What's that Mango?
Speaker 1: So I just found out that the first surprise parties
Speaker 1: had nothing to do with birthdays or parties.
Speaker 2: I don't really understand what any of this means, but
Speaker 2: go ahead and explain, please.
Speaker 1: So apparently the earliest use of the term surprise party
Speaker 1: was in an eighteen forty novel by Irish writer Charles
Speaker 1: lever And a surprise party was a squad of soldiers
Speaker 1: lying in wait and engaged in a sneak attack. But
Speaker 1: what's interesting is that, as weird as it might seem
Speaker 1: for surprise parties to have this, you know, military origin,
Speaker 1: it actually kind of makes sense. The word surprise is
Speaker 1: direc from this old French verb suprendre, which means to
Speaker 1: seize or to invade. So from the very beginning the
Speaker 1: word surprise had this military context, and that actually carried
Speaker 1: over to English in the fourteenth century.
Speaker 2: Well I'm curious, so when does the meaning change to
Speaker 2: more of what we think of as a surprise, like
Speaker 2: something more more pleasant.
Speaker 1: So that doesn't emerge until about one hundred years later.
Speaker 1: Before that, the word was used almost exclusively to refer
Speaker 1: to an unexpected attack on troops. In fact, it would
Speaker 1: have been redundant to call something a surprise attack, because
Speaker 1: back then every surprise was an attack.
Speaker 2: I'll be honest, though, that's kind of how I feel
Speaker 2: about surprise parties today.
Speaker 1: I mean, I know you're joking, but there are definitely
Speaker 1: people who hate surprise parties, and there's actually a scientific
Speaker 1: reason for that. The momentary shock from a surprise triggers
Speaker 1: the release of a stress response hormone. It's called nora adrenaline,
Speaker 1: and this is part of the body's fight or flight response.
Speaker 1: So your heart ray and blood pressure go up whether
Speaker 1: brain focuses on assessing the threat. So when someone comes
Speaker 1: at you in a dark room with a dozen flaming sticks,
Speaker 1: your brain and your body can't help but go on
Speaker 1: the defensive. But thinking about surprise parties made me wonder
Speaker 1: about all the other things associated with parties, like why
Speaker 1: do we blow out birthday candles? Whose idea was it
Speaker 1: to throw confetti everywhere? And why do people like glitter?
Speaker 1: So those are just a few of the questions we're
Speaker 1: tackling today. Strap on your party hat because we're about
Speaker 1: to dive in.
Speaker 2: Hey their podcast listeners, Welcome to Part Time Genius. I'm
Speaker 2: Will Pearson and as always I'm joined by my good
Speaker 2: friend Mangesh how Ticketer and on the other side of
Speaker 2: that soundproof glass slicing off a nice fat piece of
Speaker 2: cake for himself. I'm glad he's rewarding himself today. That
Speaker 2: is our friend producer for real. That's Dylan Fagan. Now
Speaker 2: he very kindly brought this in for today's show. But
Speaker 2: I do want to clarify something up front. Even though
Speaker 2: it looks like a birthday cake with a lot of candles,
Speaker 2: today isn't one of our birthdays.
Speaker 1: I know who's supposed to blow those things out. I mean,
Speaker 1: I guess Dylan, because he's only one back there in
Speaker 1: the booth. But I do want to point out how
Speaker 1: thoughtful Dylan is. He set out slices for each of
Speaker 1: us before digging in for himself, because that's the kind
Speaker 1: of guy he is. But I am curious, why are
Speaker 1: there candles on this thing?
Speaker 2: I thought maybe it was just because he's a huge
Speaker 2: fan of surprise parties. You were talking about surprises at
Speaker 2: the top of the show. I think we forgot to
Speaker 2: mention by the way one of the greatest sketches or
Speaker 2: recurring sketches of all time on SNL, where Christen Wig
Speaker 2: plays the ant that just can't handle the excitement of
Speaker 2: all these surprises. It's pretty great, but oh yeah, it's
Speaker 2: pretty yeah. It's just such a such a such a
Speaker 2: such a good good care there. But you know, typically
Speaker 2: the easiest way to tell cake cake from birthday cake
Speaker 2: is to check if the cake is on fire or not.
Speaker 2: And in Dylan's defense, adorning a cake with candles on
Speaker 2: it isn't just a birthday thing. In fact, the tradition
Speaker 2: is thought to have started back in ancient Greece. It
Speaker 2: was a tribute to Artemis, who was the goddess of
Speaker 2: fertility and hunting. Now she was closely associated with the
Speaker 2: moon as well, so her followers would bait round cakes
Speaker 2: in her honor, and then they would decorate them with
Speaker 2: lit candles, sort of to mimic the glow of the
Speaker 2: full moon. I'd never thought about that before, but it
Speaker 2: makes sense. So while the first candles on a cake
Speaker 2: were still celebratory and still a present, they weren't really
Speaker 2: connected to birthdays like they are today.
Speaker 1: And so what do the Greeks do in that non
Speaker 1: birthday scenario, like, did they blow off the candles or
Speaker 1: did they just let them burn down like we're doing here.
Speaker 2: Well, nobody knows for certain. They may have just handled
Speaker 2: it on a cake by cake basis. But it's worth
Speaker 2: noting that many ancient cultures believe that smoke could carry
Speaker 2: their prayers to the gods, which is kind of a
Speaker 2: nice idea. That was the whole idea behind burnt offerings
Speaker 2: in Some historians think that the modern tradition of making
Speaker 2: a wish when you blow out the birthday candles may
Speaker 2: have developed from that same belief. You think about blowing
Speaker 2: out the candles the smoke rising up to the gods, like,
Speaker 2: it's an interesting idea, that's really fascinating.
Speaker 1: And I know this is a ridiculous question and we
Speaker 1: probably don't have an answer to it, but do we
Speaker 1: have to know who the first person was to put
Speaker 1: candles on a cake specifically for a birthday?
Speaker 2: Well, I don't know about the very first person, but
Speaker 2: one of the earliest and the most well known was
Speaker 2: the German nobleman, Count Ludwig Vaughan Zisendorf, which is such
Speaker 2: a great name now thanks to the contemporary account of
Speaker 2: author Andreas Frye. We know that the Count pulled out
Speaker 2: all the stops for his birthday back in seventeen forty six.
Speaker 2: He bought in wagonloads of decorations and set up special
Speaker 2: lighting all throughout his hull. But the most impressive part
Speaker 2: of the celebration had to be the dessert, because according
Speaker 2: to fry I quote, there was a cake as large
Speaker 2: as any oven could be found to bake it, and
Speaker 2: holes made in the cake according to the years of
Speaker 2: the person's age, everyone having a candle stuck into it
Speaker 2: and won in the middle. So it was a big cake. Now,
Speaker 2: I was considerate enough not to mention the count's age,
Speaker 2: but a little quick math does tell us he would
Speaker 2: have turned forty six that year, so that means, counting
Speaker 2: the one in the middle, there were forty seven candles
Speaker 2: on his birthday cake, which explains why they would have
Speaker 2: had to make it so massive.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I guess they hadn't invented number shaped candles yet,
Speaker 1: right right right.
Speaker 2: That took a lot of technology to get this.
Speaker 1: But I am curious, like what was the deal with
Speaker 1: the candle in the middle, Like was that just so
Speaker 1: one to grow on? Kind of thing?
Speaker 2: I haven't heard that term one to grow on. So
Speaker 2: that's why I mean, I guess pretty much most sources
Speaker 2: I found say that the center candle symbolize the light
Speaker 2: of life and the hope for another good year and
Speaker 2: a year of good health. Now, of course, Count Zinzendorff
Speaker 2: didn't come up with the candle tradition himself. Well, the
Speaker 2: account of his party maybe the earliest known. There was
Speaker 2: written record of birthday cake candles, and plenty of German
Speaker 2: families who were also known to celebrate the candles during Kinderfest,
Speaker 2: which was a child's birthday celebration. And those cases, though,
Speaker 2: the candle practice worked a little bit differently than what
Speaker 2: we are used to today. So rather than blowing out
Speaker 2: the candles right away, German families lit them in the
Speaker 2: morning and they kept them burning all the way down
Speaker 2: until dinnertime, and if any of the candles happened to
Speaker 2: burn out before it was time to cut the cake,
Speaker 2: a vigilant family member would swoop in to replace it
Speaker 2: with a fresh one.
Speaker 1: That is incredible, but also like why I mean, if
Speaker 1: they were burning through a whole day's worth of candles,
Speaker 1: then the cag had to be covered in wax by
Speaker 1: the time they finally went to eat it, right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I'm pretty sure it would taste pretty disgusting
Speaker 2: since most candles were made from rendered animal fat at
Speaker 2: the time. But you know, many Germans at the time
Speaker 2: believed that children were especially vulnerable to spiritual attacks on
Speaker 2: their birthdays, and so making sure the candles on the
Speaker 2: kid's cakes stayed lit was was really this sort of
Speaker 2: symbolic way to protect them from an evil influence, and
Speaker 2: for most parents, the peace of mind was more important
Speaker 2: than coating your cake and wax.
Speaker 1: It's pretty wild to see just how many of our
Speaker 1: birthday traditions have grown out of like these old religious
Speaker 1: customs and decisions. I mean, it's a similar story with
Speaker 1: those plastic noise makers that people had out at parties.
Speaker 1: They actually have their roots in pre Christian Europe, when
Speaker 1: people believe that evil spirits targeted you on your birthday,
Speaker 1: so all your friends and relatives were supposed to make
Speaker 1: a bunch of noise to scare them off and protect you.
Speaker 2: I mean, it's funny that you can walk around places
Speaker 2: like party City and just see a whole bunch of
Speaker 2: things that have roots and ancient rituals. You know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, it's pretty interesting, but now that you
Speaker 1: measure it, there's at least one party staple with a
Speaker 1: much more modern origin story involves a New Jersey cattle rancher,
Speaker 1: a precision cutting machine, and a whole boatload of schnibbles.
Speaker 2: I love it when you have a tease like that
Speaker 2: where I have no idea what you're talking about, but
Speaker 2: you know what, let's take a quick break. I'm going
Speaker 2: to try to figure it out, and then when we
Speaker 2: come back, you can bring me up to speed.
Speaker 1: You're listening to part Time Genius and we're celebrating the
Speaker 1: strange science and hidden histories behind the world's favorite party supply.
Speaker 1: So will what's the worst party you've been to? Or
Speaker 1: like something you hate to see at parties? Clowns, magicians.
Speaker 2: I'm gonna be honest with you, Mango, I love it
Speaker 2: when clowns and magicians are at parties because they make
Speaker 2: people sort of uncomfortable to anybody that's bold enough to
Speaker 2: like dress up as a clown or do the magician thing,
Speaker 2: just given all how they are always the punchline of
Speaker 2: jokes like I love that bravery, that boldness, just the
Speaker 2: weirdness of it all. So I'm going in a different direction.
Speaker 2: I'm actually saying I really like it at parties when
Speaker 2: people have the things that people tend to hate the most.
Speaker 1: Anyway, what about you, Well, we went to something that
Speaker 1: was teased to me as a party, and then it
Speaker 1: was the startup thing and we showed up and then
Speaker 1: they put us all on computers and we had to
Speaker 1: do all these reviews of things that we had not
Speaker 1: intended to do, and I was so angry, Like I
Speaker 1: didn't want to sit there and review restaurants and cafes
Speaker 1: just to get into the small apartment where I could
Speaker 1: get a drink. That's ridiculous, annoying. But another thing I
Speaker 1: really hate about parties is glitter, and whether it's on
Speaker 1: decorations or banners or party hats, I hate how it's
Speaker 1: impossible to find and clean off, mostly because of static cling.
Speaker 1: And is that why glitter sticks to everything? Because that actually,
Speaker 1: you know what, Mango, I'm going to go back to
Speaker 1: your previous question.
Speaker 2: Parties with lots of glitter. That is one of the
Speaker 2: things I'm not a fan of. I know the kids
Speaker 2: love it, but it sticks to everything. But anyway, I
Speaker 2: thought it might have a little light adhesive on it.
Speaker 2: But what is the reason here?
Speaker 1: Yeah, so most glitter is actually made of bits of
Speaker 1: plastic covered and a layer of aluminum, and because that
Speaker 1: metal coating is negatively charged, it forms a powerful bond
Speaker 1: when it comes into contact with anything that's positively charged.
Speaker 1: So that could be something like human skin. But that's
Speaker 1: not to say that static electricity is the only reason
Speaker 1: why glitter is so sticky. It could be things like
Speaker 1: air viscosity. Also like surface tension if you're thinking about
Speaker 1: like trying to remove glitter from a flat surface or
Speaker 1: a wet surface, like that's part of the reason.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that is pretty interesting. But I sometimes wonder why
Speaker 2: glitter is still a thing because other than my daughter
Speaker 2: who just loves it and wants it to be involved
Speaker 2: in every dinner much less party, I feel like it's
Speaker 2: a thing we should be over by. Now what do
Speaker 2: you think?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean it is sparkly, and if history as
Speaker 1: taught as anything, it's that humans are big fans of bright,
Speaker 1: shiny objects, and this actually that might not be such
Speaker 1: a bad thing. I remember this study from a while back.
Speaker 1: There were these researchers who rowed up a big group
Speaker 1: of toddlers and infants and then monitored their enthusiasm for
Speaker 1: licking different kinds of plates, and apparently the babies were
Speaker 1: far more attracted to plates with glossy surfaces than they
Speaker 1: were the ones with matt finishes.
Speaker 2: I mean, I'm sort of in the same camp. If
Speaker 2: something super shiny like that, I sort of get the impulse.
Speaker 2: But what did that prove? Exactly?
Speaker 1: Yeah, you gotta lick it because late licking parties can
Speaker 1: be fun, is what it proved.
Speaker 2: Okay, Okay, I'm gonna go ahead and put that also
Speaker 2: on the list of things I don't want to happen
Speaker 2: at parties.
Speaker 1: It also suggests that humans are innately drawn to shiny,
Speaker 1: glistening objects, and it's not because we think they're pretty,
Speaker 1: but because they mimic the reflective sheen of fresh water. So,
Speaker 1: millions of years ago, the drive to seek out clean
Speaker 1: water helped keep our ancestors alive, and thanks to evolution,
Speaker 1: that same instinct is alive and well in this plate
Speaker 1: licking baby experiment today.
Speaker 2: Okay, so I see, So being dazzled by glitter just
Speaker 2: sort of means maybe you're thirsty.
Speaker 1: Mm hmm, yeah, thirsty for sparkle. But what's kind of
Speaker 1: fascinating is that glitter wasn't invented until the nineteen thirties,
Speaker 1: and even then it was only by accident.
Speaker 2: Okay, yeah, you were hitting about this earlier, something about
Speaker 2: New Jersey and New Jersey farmer, I guess, and a
Speaker 2: bunch of snubbles.
Speaker 1: What was the word you said, snibbles? It's actually an
Speaker 1: industry term for the leftover bits of paper, plastic, or
Speaker 1: fabric that result from manufacturing. And as for the Jersey farmer,
Speaker 1: he was a cattle rancher who had turned into an inventor.
Speaker 1: His name was Henry Ruschmann. In the nineteen thirties, he
Speaker 1: created a precision cutting machine to neatly trim developed glossy photos,
Speaker 1: but sometimes it malfunctioned and it cut the prints into tiny,
Speaker 1: useless pieces. Now, Rischmand threw out the schnibbles at first,
Speaker 1: but after noticing how pretty they were when they caught light,
Speaker 1: he built a new machine to purposely produce them from
Speaker 1: plastic scrap, and in their early forties he began marketing
Speaker 1: glitter for use in craft projects and holiday decorations. And
Speaker 1: while it was only supposed to be a side business
Speaker 1: at first, like a little extra income to help support
Speaker 1: his day operation slinging. All this glitter turned out to
Speaker 1: be way more lucrative than his other work, and that
Speaker 1: was due in part to the material shortages during World
Speaker 1: War Two. At Christmas time in nineteen forty two, Americans
Speaker 1: were encouraged to spare their candles, and it was encouraged
Speaker 1: that people use glitter to brighten their homes for the holidays.
Speaker 2: It's so funny to think it's something as unnecessary as glitter,
Speaker 2: you know, starting out is really like a wartime need.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and it was such a strangely specific idea that
Speaker 1: Riuschman's company, they're called Meadowbrook Inventions, it pretty much had
Speaker 1: a monopoly on glitter for decades. In fact, all these
Speaker 1: years later, Meadowbrook is still one of only two glitter
Speaker 1: manufacturers in the world, and the other one is called
Speaker 1: glitter X, and weirdly, it is also based in New Jersey.
Speaker 2: I'm honestly god a shock that the market for glitter
Speaker 2: is big enough to sustain two separate companies. I mean,
Speaker 2: these are microplastics, after all. You would think a single
Speaker 2: factory could just crank out all the need that's out there.
Speaker 1: I mean, glitter isn't just used for crafting and party supplies.
Speaker 1: It gets mixed into all kinds of consumer products that
Speaker 1: we don't think about, so it's everything from like nail
Speaker 1: polish to NFL helmets. There are even a few scientific
Speaker 1: applications too. For instance, this is amazing. Zookeepers and animal
Speaker 1: researchers will sometimes add glitter to animal feed so that
Speaker 1: they can tell one animal's fecal sample from another, which
Speaker 1: is just not fu real. So another thing to keep
Speaker 1: in mind is that we actually don't know what the
Speaker 1: industry's biggest client is doing with all their glitter and
Speaker 1: what does that mean. So you remember our pal Katie Weaver.
Speaker 1: She wrote this amazing piece for The New York Times
Speaker 1: a few years ago where she interviewed someone like glitter
Speaker 1: X about how glitter is made, and at one point
Speaker 1: she asks what the company's biggest market is, but the
Speaker 1: spokeswoman refuses to answer. She just laughs and says, you
Speaker 1: would never guess it. Just leave it at that, because
Speaker 1: they don't want anyone to know that it's glitter.
Speaker 2: Is such a cryptic response, like shouldn't she have just
Speaker 2: said like party hats or something. There's surely somebody who's
Speaker 2: figured out what the reason is right.
Speaker 1: So apparently there's a ton of online debate about this.
Speaker 1: So far, no one's come off with any solid evidence.
Speaker 1: But for this glitter conspiracy, some people think it's used
Speaker 1: in toothpaste. Others say it's mixed into sand on luxury beaches,
Speaker 1: both of which would of course be horrible news for
Speaker 1: our bodies in the world's oceans. But those are really
Speaker 1: just guesses because big glitter is not tellent.
Speaker 2: Big glitter, well, whatever it is, it's going to be
Speaker 2: with us for a good long while because I read
Speaker 2: it takes one thousand years for glitter to degrade. A
Speaker 2: thousand years.
Speaker 1: Yeah, which is why I wear team candles.
Speaker 2: Here at Partime View, we most definitely are. Now that said,
Speaker 2: if you're interested in engineering a festive atmosphere by throwing
Speaker 2: colorful little bits around, there's a much more environmentally friendly
Speaker 2: way to do it, and we're going to discuss that
Speaker 2: right after this break. Welcome back to part Time Genius.
Speaker 2: All right, Mango, So we talked a little bit about
Speaker 2: some party traditions that have their roots in antiquity, and
Speaker 2: it turns out we can add confetti to that list
Speaker 2: as well. Now, humans have a long colorful history of
Speaker 2: tossing around small objects at celebrations, and while shredded paper
Speaker 2: is the material of choice today, the ancient Greeks went
Speaker 2: for a much greener option. Actually, on special occasions like
Speaker 2: a soldier returning from war, an athlete winning a match,
Speaker 2: or a couple getting married, the public would celebrate by
Speaker 2: tossing around branches and leaves and garlands and just various
Speaker 2: other bits of plant matter.
Speaker 1: So they were just throwing plant matter in the air
Speaker 1: or were they throwing it at the people who are
Speaker 1: being honored?
Speaker 2: Honestly, it's kind of a free for all, like some
Speaker 2: people threw clippings over or onto the people being honored,
Speaker 2: and others through the greenery in front of them to
Speaker 2: be walked on. And historians aren't sure how the practice
Speaker 2: got started, but the best guess is that it evolved
Speaker 2: from gift get traditions, like you know, placing a laurel
Speaker 2: crown on the winner of a race or things like that,
Speaker 2: And you know, because an athlete might not want to
Speaker 2: stand around to be crowned by one hundred different people,
Speaker 2: so instead the crowd settled for throwing a gift and
Speaker 2: the winner's general direction.
Speaker 1: Okay, I got it, but these gifts were basically worthless,
Speaker 1: Like they weren't tossing flowers of fruit or anything useful.
Speaker 1: They were just throwing like branch clippings.
Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, that's true. I mean none of the greenery
Speaker 2: was ever collected or saved. It just all got trampled.
Speaker 2: But that's kind of why the practice can be thought
Speaker 2: of as a forerunner to throwing confetti, And both of
Speaker 2: these cases, it doesn't matter so much what's being thrown.
Speaker 2: It's the sheer volume of what you're throwing and the
Speaker 2: act of throwing, and that kind of makes the whole
Speaker 2: thing feel like a big party.
Speaker 1: Well obviously, like throwing bits of colorful paper are more
Speaker 1: like a fluria of flower pedals or something like that,
Speaker 1: But that feels so much better than geting smacked in
Speaker 1: the face with pine needles or tree branches like that
Speaker 1: doesn't seem like much of a party for those.
Speaker 2: I've been with you over that. I think anybody that
Speaker 2: thinks that is a party would be at that a
Speaker 2: little strange. But we are lucky though, that somebody finally
Speaker 2: thought to cut the plants into small throwable strips.
Speaker 1: And so when does that happen? Exactly? Like how old
Speaker 1: is modern confetti.
Speaker 2: Well, paper confetti only came about in the late nineteenth century,
Speaker 2: and prior to that many cultures had made the switch
Speaker 2: from throwing greenery at celebrations to throwing food stuffs. So
Speaker 2: the practice was especially popular at weddings, where guests would
Speaker 2: shower the newly weeds with handfuls of rice and raisins,
Speaker 2: nuts or even shortbread. And you think about more modern weddings,
Speaker 2: a lot of times you see things like rice being
Speaker 2: thrown as well as you know, couples exiting the wedding
Speaker 2: or things like that. But some cultures eventually applied the
Speaker 2: custom to other kinds of celebrations. You think about milestone birthdays, anniversaries,
Speaker 2: and in many cases the foods that were thrown were
Speaker 2: tasty enough for the guests to collect and eat them afterward.
Speaker 2: And in eighteenth century Italy they even adopted a special
Speaker 2: word for these small throwable treats, confetti, or translated little sweets.
Speaker 1: Oh that's interesting. I never had any idea that the
Speaker 1: word meant something. And you know, it kind of feels
Speaker 1: like a tease now that you're just getting paper instead
Speaker 1: of sweets.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's weird to think about, but confetti sprinkles are
Speaker 2: actually more in line with the original confetti. Yeah, like funfetti,
Speaker 2: Love some funfetti. It's probably one of my top ten cakes.
Speaker 2: You know, to make a good fun fetti cake. But
Speaker 2: Italy's take was a little more nuanced than that. So
Speaker 2: in the nineteenth century, Italian confetti consisted mostly of sugar
Speaker 2: glazed nuts or dried fruit seeds sugared almonds, and this
Speaker 2: was especially popular at the country's carnival.
Speaker 1: Parties, which sounds better in theory, but I also don't
Speaker 1: want to be pelted by like a bunch of sticky almonds.
Speaker 2: You're so picky about the things you want to be
Speaker 2: pelted with. But actually all joking aside, You're not alone
Speaker 2: because plenty of partygoers also complained that the candied nuts
Speaker 2: were too dangerous, and not only because it hurt to
Speaker 2: get hit with them, because kids would often crawl around
Speaker 2: in the busy streets to collect them and to make
Speaker 2: matters where some bad actors started making fake confetti and
Speaker 2: it looked like sugared almonds but in reality was just
Speaker 2: globs of hardened plastic. So carnival, I know, it's terrible.
Speaker 2: So carnival party goers were eventually fed up with being
Speaker 2: bruised by fake almonds, and so in the late eighteen hundreds,
Speaker 2: Italy retired edible confetti and brought in paper confetti to
Speaker 2: replace it. Now, aside from being far less bruising, paper
Speaker 2: confetti proved cheaper, easier to clean up, and better still,
Speaker 2: it wasn't something that children would run into the streets
Speaker 2: to pick up.
Speaker 1: And it's like a better visual spectacle, right, Like the
Speaker 1: paper hangs, it flutters and the air instead of just
Speaker 1: like thudding to the ground.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I mean it's funny that you mentioned that,
Speaker 2: because confetti actually dazzled people and helped New York police
Speaker 2: keep the peace. Back in the early nineties, New Year's
Speaker 2: in Times Square was more like a drunken brawl than
Speaker 2: a party. But in nineteen ninety two the city tried
Speaker 2: to lighten things up by dumping a few thousand pounds
Speaker 2: of confetti on the ground.
Speaker 1: Thousand pounds and that works.
Speaker 2: And one spot they dropped it on one guy and
Speaker 2: it was just air, you know the scene you pictured,
Speaker 2: it flying everywhere, and the whole mood of the party
Speaker 2: actually shifted that night. And so every New Year since,
Speaker 2: most people in Times Square have been too dazzled to
Speaker 2: fight with each other. And it's interesting to imagine that scenario,
Speaker 2: but it kind of makes sense. But while we're talking
Speaker 2: about New York, we should probably talk about the city's
Speaker 2: own homegrown version of confetti, which is the ticker tape.
Speaker 1: You know, for some reason, I just assumed tickertape came
Speaker 1: from London. I didn't realize it was a New York convention.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Ticker tape made its debut in the eighteen sixties
Speaker 2: when the world's first stock ticker was unveiled at the
Speaker 2: New York Stock Exchange. The device could receive up to
Speaker 2: the minute stock prices over telegraph wires and then print
Speaker 2: them out almost in real time on these long, thin
Speaker 2: ribbons of paper tape. Both the machine and the paper
Speaker 2: were named for the distinctive tick tick tick sound that
Speaker 2: the type wheel made while printing.
Speaker 1: So tickertape kind of starts out as the opposite of confetti. Right.
Speaker 1: It wasn't party paper, it was business.
Speaker 2: Paper, that's exactly right. But that all changed a couple
Speaker 2: decades later. During the official opening of the Statue of
Speaker 2: Liberty in eighteen eighty six, there was this big celebration
Speaker 2: in Lower Manhattan with a parade starting at City Hall
Speaker 2: and ending at Battery Park with a clear view of
Speaker 2: the statue. Now, the use of ticker tape wasn't a
Speaker 2: plan part of the festivities, and the city's fledgling financial
Speaker 2: district wasn't even part of the route. But office workers
Speaker 2: didn't let that stop them from joining in the party.
Speaker 2: So when they heard the parade was passing a few
Speaker 2: streets over, some workers open their windows flung out the
Speaker 2: ribbons of used ticker tape that had been lying around
Speaker 2: the office, And when people and other buildings saw this,
Speaker 2: they started doing the same thing. It sort of sets
Speaker 2: off this chain reaction around the city. The flurry of
Speaker 2: ticker tape added such a festive touch to the proceedings
Speaker 2: that it soon became a fixture of New York parades.
Speaker 2: Although they're far less common today, the city has hosted
Speaker 2: more than two hundred ticker tape parades over the last
Speaker 2: century and a half. And although a few people realize that,
Speaker 2: there's even a monument in New York called the Canyon
Speaker 2: of Heroes that memorializes each ticker tape parade along with
Speaker 2: the people and the events that it was meant to celebrate.
Speaker 2: I never heard of That funniest part is that the
Speaker 2: ticker tape actually outlasted the stock ticker itself. The last
Speaker 2: mechanical models were released back in the early nineteen sixties,
Speaker 2: but ticker tape is still being tossed around all these
Speaker 2: years later.
Speaker 1: That is amazing. And speaking of things that are amazing,
Speaker 1: we should probably cap this party off. Get a little
Speaker 1: fact off. Here's another one of the lesser known uses
Speaker 1: of glitter solving a murder case. So back in the
Speaker 1: early two thousands, California forensic scientist Ed Jones helped solve
Speaker 1: the murder by matching the same red glitter found in
Speaker 1: a victim's hair to samples recovered from the suspect's vehicle.
Speaker 1: Apparently the killer had tried to clean his truck after
Speaker 1: the crime, but true to form, a few telltale pieces
Speaker 1: of glitter managed to sneak by him.
Speaker 2: You know, the one time when glitters stickiness actually comes
Speaker 2: in handy, Okay, I'll acknowledge that. All right, Well, here's
Speaker 2: a weird one I found out about confetti. Have you
Speaker 2: ever noticed that when confetti rains down after the World
Speaker 2: Series or some big event like that, the image quality
Speaker 2: on your TV takes a huge dip, it starts to
Speaker 2: look called choppy and the image kind of shutters. That's
Speaker 2: because the raw video has to be compressed for broadcast.
Speaker 2: But instead of reproducing every pixel that appears in a frame,
Speaker 2: compress files reuse some of the same information based on
Speaker 2: visual patterns, and that helps save space. So, for example,
Speaker 2: in a wide shot of a baseball field, the background
Speaker 2: information might be reused for multiple frames at a time,
Speaker 2: sort of frees up more data to focus on the
Speaker 2: players that are moving on the screen. Now, this reuse
Speaker 2: of pixels is subtle enough miss this in most cases,
Speaker 2: but confetti throws a wrench in things. It becomes much
Speaker 2: harder to predict the next frame when you suddenly have
Speaker 2: hundreds of tiny paper slips moving randomly through the shot,
Speaker 2: all at once. Now, in cases like that, the video
Speaker 2: has to consume more bits per second to keep up
Speaker 2: with the action, and the picture quality inevitably takes a
Speaker 2: big hit. So, even in the age of high speed
Speaker 2: streaming and ultra HDTVs, we still can't quite capture the
Speaker 2: full visual majesty of this low tech confetti storm. It's
Speaker 2: kind of wild.
Speaker 1: I've never even thought about that. So, speaking of technical things,
Speaker 1: have you ever wondered how crick candles work. I have. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So with regular candles, the force of your breath actually
Speaker 1: pushes the flame away from its fuel source, right, and
Speaker 1: it causes it to go out. But trick candles are
Speaker 1: manufactured with a small amount of magnesium inside their wicks. Now,
Speaker 1: the magnesium won't ignite when the candle is burning because
Speaker 1: the flame prevents oxygen from reaching it, and magnesium can't
Speaker 1: burn without oxygen. However, once the candle is blown out,
Speaker 1: oxygen immediately comes in contact with the magnesium and with
Speaker 1: a smoldering ember at the tip of the wick, and
Speaker 1: this causes the magnesium dust particles to ignite, creating tiny
Speaker 1: sparks that are hot enough to relight the candle. The
Speaker 1: chemical reaction can be repeated over and over until the
Speaker 1: magnesium supply is exhausted or until the birthday kit loses
Speaker 1: their patients, whichever happens first.
Speaker 2: All right, Well, speaking of birthday candles, I've always wondered
Speaker 2: if we really spread germs and bacteria when we low
Speaker 2: them out, So I decided to look into this, and
Speaker 2: it turns out that scientists from the Canadian Center of
Speaker 2: Science and Education have conducted some pretty extensive studies on this,
Speaker 2: and I'm sorry to say the results are not pretty.
Speaker 2: After multiple trials, the team found that cakes with candles
Speaker 2: that were blown out contain nearly fifteen thousand percent more
Speaker 2: bacteria than cakes that did not have candles blown out.
Speaker 2: That's obviously bad news for germophobes, but there is a
Speaker 2: silver lining here. So the research shows that most bacteria
Speaker 2: can't survive thisliva in our mouth or the acid in
Speaker 2: our stomach. We have a much greater chance of getting
Speaker 2: sick from bacteria that makes it into our noses and
Speaker 2: our eyes. So as long as you don't shove cake
Speaker 2: up there, you can still chill down in relative safety.
Speaker 1: It's good to know. Here's the story from a party
Speaker 1: that went completely wrong. So back in nineteen twelve, sixteen
Speaker 1: women were fired from their jobs at the Ladies Home
Speaker 1: Journal for dancing the Turkey trot on their lunch break.
Speaker 1: Although the trendy dance this stuff had been named and
Speaker 1: modeled after the movements of a turkey, including elbow lifts
Speaker 1: to mimic the bird's flapping wings, it still managed to
Speaker 1: spark this outrage from the era's moral police. Some venues
Speaker 1: posted signs that said no turkey trotting allowed, and others
Speaker 1: went so far as stationing a uniformed employee in the
Speaker 1: center of the dance floor to watch out for illicit trotter's.
Speaker 1: The dance prohibitions hit peak absurdi though, when sixteen Philadelphia
Speaker 1: women were fired from a magazine for dancing the trot
Speaker 1: on company grounds. The staff had gathered in the ladies
Speaker 1: wreck room. This was during their lunch hour, and they
Speaker 1: were gearing up for the coming weekend by teaching each
Speaker 1: other these dance steps. Unfortunately, the magazine's chief editor, Edward Bach,
Speaker 1: happened to pass by just as the women were demonstrating
Speaker 1: the trot, and needless to say, he did not like
Speaker 1: what he saw. The mass firing was reported nationwide and
Speaker 1: most papers ran the same headline. Girls danced the turkey
Speaker 1: trot and editor Boch saw them and was fearfully shocked.
Speaker 2: So weird. That's great fact though. I actually have another
Speaker 2: cautionary tale for you, and it's about a French nobleman
Speaker 2: who threw an epic party in the seventeenth century and
Speaker 2: wound up paying for it for the rest of his life.
Speaker 2: His name was Nicolay Fouquet, and his party was supposedly
Speaker 2: meant to honor the most famous guest, twenty two year
Speaker 2: old King Louis the fourteenth. In reality, though, the event
Speaker 2: was just a way for Fouquet to show off his
Speaker 2: fancy new estate and maybe get himself promoted to Prime Minister.
Speaker 2: So Fouquet pulled out all the stops to achieve this.
Speaker 2: He invited somewhere between three thousand and six thousand people,
Speaker 2: and he gave every single one of them a costly gift.
Speaker 2: These diamond brooches for the ladies and thoroughbred horses for them.
Speaker 2: Then these gifts are wild now. He also called in
Speaker 2: a favor from the famous playwright Molier and had him
Speaker 2: write a new comedic play to be performed for the
Speaker 2: first time after dinner. The performance was held in these
Speaker 2: lavish gardens, and when it concluded, guests were treated to
Speaker 2: a spectacular firework show above the estate. There was even
Speaker 2: a big mechanical whale that quote swam through a canal
Speaker 2: and shot off even more fireworks. The party was a
Speaker 2: huge success by every measure except one. King Louis didn't
Speaker 2: feel honored by the event. In fact, the young king
Speaker 2: felt threatened by Fouquet's flagrant display of wealth, especially since
Speaker 2: it seemed to support earlier accusations that Fouquet had been
Speaker 2: stealing money from the Royal Treasury. But whether the rumors
Speaker 2: were true or not, Fouque's fate was sealed by the
Speaker 2: end of the party. He was arrested on trumped up
Speaker 2: charges just a few weeks later and spent the rest
Speaker 2: of his life in prison, all because he threw a
Speaker 2: party that was a little too good.
Speaker 1: I feel like, aside from glitter, wounding, a king's ego
Speaker 1: is probably the ultimate party foul. So I do think
Speaker 1: between the thurdbred horses and the approaches and all that,
Speaker 1: I think you get the trophy for this one.
Speaker 2: I mean, that's a lot of horses. Actually, I think
Speaker 2: Fouquet deserves the trophy for that. That is just wild.
Speaker 2: All right, Well, that's going to do it for today's
Speaker 2: Part Time Genius from Mary Gabe, Dylan Mango and me.
Speaker 2: Thank you so so much for listening now. If you
Speaker 2: enjoyed the show, come find us on Instagram at part
Speaker 2: Time Genius and be sure to tune in next week
Speaker 2: for another brand new episode.
Speaker 1: Part Time Genius is a production of Kaleidoscope and iHeartRadio.
Speaker 1: This show is hosted by Will Pearson and me Mongashtikler
Speaker 1: and research by our good pal Mary Philip Sandy. Today's
Speaker 1: episode was engineered and produced by the wonderful Dylan Fagan
Speaker 1: with support from Tyler Klang. The show is executive produced
Speaker 1: for iHeart by Katrina Norvel and Ali Perry, with social
Speaker 1: media support from Sasha Gay, trustee Dara Potts and Viney Shorey.
Speaker 1: For more podcasts from Kaleidoscope and iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.