1 00:00:04,080 --> 00:00:07,400 Speaker 1: Welcome to Aaron Manke's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of 2 00:00:07,480 --> 00:00:14,440 Speaker 1: iHeartRadio and Grimm and Mild. Our world is full of 3 00:00:14,480 --> 00:00:18,440 Speaker 1: the unexplainable, and if history is an open book, all 4 00:00:18,480 --> 00:00:22,159 Speaker 1: of these amazing tales are right there on display, just 5 00:00:22,200 --> 00:00:28,840 Speaker 1: waiting for us to explore. Welcome to the Cabinet of Curiosities. 6 00:00:36,360 --> 00:00:40,319 Speaker 1: Boxing has always attracted big and strange personalities who use 7 00:00:40,400 --> 00:00:43,520 Speaker 1: the sport as performance art, becoming what we might call 8 00:00:43,600 --> 00:00:48,080 Speaker 1: professional trolls. Comedian Andy Kaufman used to challenge random women 9 00:00:48,120 --> 00:00:50,320 Speaker 1: to box with him in the ring before pro wrestler 10 00:00:50,400 --> 00:00:53,040 Speaker 1: Jerry Lawler put him in a neck brace. But all 11 00:00:53,040 --> 00:00:56,640 Speaker 1: these modern performance artist boxers were preceded by an even 12 00:00:56,720 --> 00:00:59,640 Speaker 1: stranger character, one who may have just been the first 13 00:01:00,040 --> 00:01:05,120 Speaker 1: professional boxing troll. Born in eighteen eighty seven, Arthur Craven 14 00:01:05,280 --> 00:01:08,120 Speaker 1: liked to introduce himself as and this is the quote, 15 00:01:08,240 --> 00:01:14,600 Speaker 1: the world's shortest haired poet, boxer, hotel rat, muleteer, snake Charmer, chauffeur, 16 00:01:15,040 --> 00:01:20,120 Speaker 1: illuriphile gold prospector, grandson of the Queen's Chancellor, nephew of 17 00:01:20,200 --> 00:01:23,880 Speaker 1: Oscar Wilde. Yeah, put that one on a tombstone. Oh 18 00:01:23,920 --> 00:01:27,000 Speaker 1: and If you're wondering what an alluriphile is, it's someone 19 00:01:27,200 --> 00:01:30,600 Speaker 1: who loves cats. Arthur grew up in Switzerland, but always 20 00:01:30,640 --> 00:01:33,160 Speaker 1: found life there to be a little too constricting. He 21 00:01:33,240 --> 00:01:36,119 Speaker 1: traveled around Europe and became a boxer. He was always 22 00:01:36,120 --> 00:01:38,640 Speaker 1: a big man and so the sport suited him, but 23 00:01:38,880 --> 00:01:42,240 Speaker 1: even trading blows in the ring wasn't exciting enough for him. 24 00:01:42,440 --> 00:01:44,080 Speaker 1: He liked to add a bit of theater to his 25 00:01:44,200 --> 00:01:48,200 Speaker 1: matches by giving speeches on art, trash talking the other boxers, 26 00:01:48,440 --> 00:01:52,200 Speaker 1: threatening suicide, firing a gun into the air, and throwing 27 00:01:52,240 --> 00:01:55,640 Speaker 1: his briefcase at the audience. In other words, he liked 28 00:01:55,640 --> 00:01:58,480 Speaker 1: to troll the crowd. It's like he only ever felt 29 00:01:58,480 --> 00:02:01,640 Speaker 1: alive if everyone in the room hated him. He took 30 00:02:01,640 --> 00:02:04,240 Speaker 1: this to a new extreme once he arrived in Spain, 31 00:02:04,320 --> 00:02:08,040 Speaker 1: where he arranged a match with world champion boxer Jack Johnson. 32 00:02:08,440 --> 00:02:11,040 Speaker 1: Some claim the match was rigged from the start to 33 00:02:11,080 --> 00:02:14,240 Speaker 1: earn both boxers a bunch of money, and others claimed 34 00:02:14,240 --> 00:02:16,679 Speaker 1: that Arthur was just out of his depth. Either way, 35 00:02:16,919 --> 00:02:19,720 Speaker 1: the match ultimately resulted in Arthur being knocked out in 36 00:02:19,800 --> 00:02:22,560 Speaker 1: the sixth round. This caused such an uproar that the 37 00:02:22,560 --> 00:02:25,720 Speaker 1: crowd rioted and Arthur had to escape out the side 38 00:02:25,720 --> 00:02:28,760 Speaker 1: of the venue. He fled to New York, where he 39 00:02:28,800 --> 00:02:32,120 Speaker 1: seemed to step away from boxing, instead focusing on his 40 00:02:32,200 --> 00:02:36,200 Speaker 1: performance art. He continued to troll, writing articles and making 41 00:02:36,280 --> 00:02:39,440 Speaker 1: speeches where he insulted just about every other artist he 42 00:02:39,480 --> 00:02:42,600 Speaker 1: could think of, whether they were a poet, painter, actor, 43 00:02:42,840 --> 00:02:46,679 Speaker 1: or otherwise. He was even arrested once for exposing himself 44 00:02:46,720 --> 00:02:50,239 Speaker 1: on stage again anything to get a rise out of people. 45 00:02:50,840 --> 00:02:53,640 Speaker 1: But as much as Arthur seemed to like to antagonize 46 00:02:53,639 --> 00:02:56,400 Speaker 1: his fellow human beings, he did have a soft spot 47 00:02:56,400 --> 00:02:59,720 Speaker 1: for the poet Mina Loy. She too had left Europe 48 00:02:59,760 --> 00:03:02,959 Speaker 1: after being dissatisfied with life there, and although she didn't 49 00:03:03,040 --> 00:03:05,919 Speaker 1: like Arthur when they first met, she soon fell for him. 50 00:03:06,200 --> 00:03:09,160 Speaker 1: He had a passion for life and a fearlessness that 51 00:03:09,400 --> 00:03:12,280 Speaker 1: endeared him to her. They decided to move to Mexico 52 00:03:12,400 --> 00:03:15,840 Speaker 1: in late nineteen seventeen. As Arthur was always worried that 53 00:03:15,919 --> 00:03:19,040 Speaker 1: one Allied country or another would try to draft him 54 00:03:19,040 --> 00:03:22,800 Speaker 1: into the Great War, the boxer poet troll seemed to 55 00:03:22,840 --> 00:03:26,640 Speaker 1: finally calm down, content to teach boxing lessons and pass 56 00:03:26,720 --> 00:03:29,320 Speaker 1: his days with Mina. They got married and soon she 57 00:03:29,400 --> 00:03:33,320 Speaker 1: became pregnant with a daughter. But life in Mexico was hard, 58 00:03:33,400 --> 00:03:36,240 Speaker 1: and the couple struggled to make ends meet. They heard 59 00:03:36,280 --> 00:03:39,080 Speaker 1: that they could live more affordably in Buenos Aires, but 60 00:03:39,120 --> 00:03:41,600 Speaker 1: they could only afford to buy passage there for Mina. 61 00:03:41,840 --> 00:03:45,320 Speaker 1: So that's what they did, and in late nineteen eighteen, 62 00:03:45,720 --> 00:03:48,640 Speaker 1: Arthur decided to go there ahead of her by traveling 63 00:03:48,680 --> 00:03:51,320 Speaker 1: with a friend in an old row boat. It's maybe 64 00:03:51,360 --> 00:03:53,440 Speaker 1: not the best plan to try to sail the length 65 00:03:53,440 --> 00:03:56,680 Speaker 1: of South America in such a small vessel, and maybe 66 00:03:56,680 --> 00:04:00,000 Speaker 1: this was yet another one of Arthur's strange performance art stuff. 67 00:04:00,520 --> 00:04:03,080 Speaker 1: It turned out to be his last two because after 68 00:04:03,160 --> 00:04:05,440 Speaker 1: Mina wave goodbye to him on the dock, she never 69 00:04:05,520 --> 00:04:09,040 Speaker 1: saw him again. Now, conventional wisdom would say that he 70 00:04:09,120 --> 00:04:11,840 Speaker 1: drowned right, although there have been theories over the years 71 00:04:11,840 --> 00:04:15,440 Speaker 1: that he was merely escaping responsibility and started a new 72 00:04:15,480 --> 00:04:18,520 Speaker 1: life elsewhere. If Mina believe this, she didn't hold it 73 00:04:18,560 --> 00:04:21,760 Speaker 1: against him, though. Even after his disappearance, she claimed that 74 00:04:21,800 --> 00:04:24,760 Speaker 1: her happiest years were the ones she spent with him. 75 00:04:24,880 --> 00:04:27,440 Speaker 1: She gave birth to their daughter the following year. In 76 00:04:27,560 --> 00:04:32,040 Speaker 1: nineteen nineteen, Arthur left behind a curious legacy of trolling 77 00:04:32,080 --> 00:04:35,680 Speaker 1: audiences with a body of work that mostly consisted of 78 00:04:35,800 --> 00:04:40,200 Speaker 1: insulting diatribes against other artists, and as despicable as he 79 00:04:40,240 --> 00:04:42,760 Speaker 1: could be at times, he set a bold example of 80 00:04:42,800 --> 00:04:45,599 Speaker 1: living life to the fullest and refusing to bow to 81 00:04:45,640 --> 00:04:51,160 Speaker 1: the expectations of others. He had no fear and endless curiosity. 82 00:05:04,600 --> 00:05:07,240 Speaker 1: For some of us, it's easy to lose focus. We 83 00:05:07,360 --> 00:05:11,200 Speaker 1: use coping mechanisms to fight distractions, like keeping a strict 84 00:05:11,240 --> 00:05:15,400 Speaker 1: work schedule, meditating, finding a quiet place to concentrate, or 85 00:05:15,600 --> 00:05:18,480 Speaker 1: even locking our phones. But what do you do when 86 00:05:18,520 --> 00:05:21,719 Speaker 1: it feels like nothing you try helps. Sometimes you have 87 00:05:21,760 --> 00:05:24,680 Speaker 1: to go to extremes, like how in the nineteenth century 88 00:05:24,920 --> 00:05:28,840 Speaker 1: one man used an unorthodox method to lay his procrastination 89 00:05:29,000 --> 00:05:32,600 Speaker 1: habit bare. Victor had a problem, you see. To put 90 00:05:32,640 --> 00:05:37,240 Speaker 1: it simply, he was just too popular. Born in eighteen 91 00:05:37,279 --> 00:05:39,799 Speaker 1: oh two to an upper class family, he had shown 92 00:05:39,839 --> 00:05:42,960 Speaker 1: a special talent for words. At an early age, he 93 00:05:43,040 --> 00:05:47,560 Speaker 1: became obsessed with romantic writers, devouring works about passion, beauty, 94 00:05:47,600 --> 00:05:51,680 Speaker 1: and heroes with rich emotional lives. By eighteen seventeen, he'd 95 00:05:51,680 --> 00:05:54,880 Speaker 1: written a poem for a French academy competition, which was 96 00:05:54,960 --> 00:05:58,280 Speaker 1: so mature the judges refused to believe a fifteen year 97 00:05:58,279 --> 00:06:01,400 Speaker 1: old could have written it. By eighteen thirty one, twenty 98 00:06:01,480 --> 00:06:04,200 Speaker 1: nine year old Victor's career was rising to new heights. 99 00:06:04,320 --> 00:06:06,520 Speaker 1: He'd been working for the past few years as a 100 00:06:06,560 --> 00:06:09,280 Speaker 1: novelist and a playwright, and was even starting to get 101 00:06:09,320 --> 00:06:12,000 Speaker 1: some acclaim for it. In fact, the collection of poems 102 00:06:12,040 --> 00:06:14,159 Speaker 1: that he published at the age of twenty was so 103 00:06:14,279 --> 00:06:17,719 Speaker 1: well received the French king granted him a royal pension. 104 00:06:18,400 --> 00:06:22,560 Speaker 1: With royal recognition came royal innovations, and soon Victor found 105 00:06:22,600 --> 00:06:26,000 Speaker 1: himself at the center of Paris high society. Every night 106 00:06:26,080 --> 00:06:28,719 Speaker 1: was a party, or a ball, or a night at 107 00:06:28,760 --> 00:06:32,880 Speaker 1: the opera. The evenings with no invitations, Victor amused himself 108 00:06:32,880 --> 00:06:36,160 Speaker 1: by hosting nearly thirty guests for dinner, and most nights 109 00:06:36,240 --> 00:06:38,880 Speaker 1: Victor would stay out late, roaming the streets of Paris, 110 00:06:39,000 --> 00:06:42,760 Speaker 1: visiting bars and brothels. But as his social life soared, 111 00:06:43,080 --> 00:06:46,400 Speaker 1: his writing suffered. The life of a writer has to be, 112 00:06:46,520 --> 00:06:49,880 Speaker 1: in some respects a solitary one to crack poems or 113 00:06:49,920 --> 00:06:54,400 Speaker 1: pen novels any long stretches of uninterrupted time alone. As 114 00:06:54,440 --> 00:06:56,520 Speaker 1: long as Victor was the life of the party, it 115 00:06:56,560 --> 00:06:59,600 Speaker 1: would be the death of his career. So one day 116 00:06:59,640 --> 00:07:01,960 Speaker 1: in eighteen teen thirty one, with a deadline for his 117 00:07:02,080 --> 00:07:05,640 Speaker 1: latest novel, Looming, Victor took a new approach. He knew 118 00:07:05,680 --> 00:07:07,520 Speaker 1: if he had the free will to leave his house 119 00:07:07,520 --> 00:07:09,760 Speaker 1: and party, he would never stay home long enough to 120 00:07:09,800 --> 00:07:12,040 Speaker 1: finish the book. So he made it so that he 121 00:07:12,080 --> 00:07:16,640 Speaker 1: could never leave. First, he purchased a large gray shawl. Next, 122 00:07:16,680 --> 00:07:19,280 Speaker 1: he summoned a servant to his chambers and had them 123 00:07:19,320 --> 00:07:21,960 Speaker 1: gather up all of his clothes, And then he had 124 00:07:21,960 --> 00:07:25,080 Speaker 1: the servant take the clothes, lock them away, and hide 125 00:07:25,080 --> 00:07:28,400 Speaker 1: the key from him. Now, when invitations to the palace 126 00:07:28,520 --> 00:07:31,960 Speaker 1: or the opera came, Victor had to refuse. He literally 127 00:07:32,040 --> 00:07:34,680 Speaker 1: had nothing to wear. He couldn't even leave to go 128 00:07:34,680 --> 00:07:37,880 Speaker 1: to the bar lest he be arrested for public indecency. 129 00:07:38,320 --> 00:07:41,640 Speaker 1: For months, Victor worked like this, wrapped in nothing but 130 00:07:41,800 --> 00:07:44,920 Speaker 1: the gray shawl. And perhaps it was the influence of 131 00:07:44,960 --> 00:07:48,720 Speaker 1: that shawl that led Victor to start thinking about social inequality. 132 00:07:49,040 --> 00:07:51,920 Speaker 1: He'd grown up rich and never gone cold or hungry, 133 00:07:51,960 --> 00:07:54,720 Speaker 1: but every day in Paris people were forced to get 134 00:07:54,760 --> 00:07:57,720 Speaker 1: by on not much more than his gray shawl, And 135 00:07:57,800 --> 00:08:00,600 Speaker 1: as the months passed by with no clothes, a story 136 00:08:00,600 --> 00:08:03,840 Speaker 1: took shape in Victor's mind, one about people at both 137 00:08:03,960 --> 00:08:08,200 Speaker 1: ends of society, about a powerful archdeacon, a poor roma girl, 138 00:08:08,360 --> 00:08:11,440 Speaker 1: and a physically disabled man hidden away from the rest 139 00:08:11,440 --> 00:08:14,880 Speaker 1: of the world in a Gothic tower. In eighteen thirty one, 140 00:08:15,160 --> 00:08:19,320 Speaker 1: French literary hero Victor Hugo emerged from his close free 141 00:08:19,360 --> 00:08:22,400 Speaker 1: cell with the manuscript for The Hunchback of Notre Dame, 142 00:08:22,680 --> 00:08:26,360 Speaker 1: written almost entirely in the buff Throughout the rest of 143 00:08:26,400 --> 00:08:29,880 Speaker 1: his career, Victor Hugo had a huge impact on French culture. 144 00:08:30,080 --> 00:08:33,640 Speaker 1: He published more novels and got involved in politics, becoming 145 00:08:33,679 --> 00:08:38,240 Speaker 1: a champion of social reforms like free education, universal suffrage, 146 00:08:38,360 --> 00:08:41,319 Speaker 1: and an end to the death penalty. After speaking out 147 00:08:41,320 --> 00:08:44,640 Speaker 1: against Emperor Napoleon the Third's seizure of the French government, 148 00:08:44,920 --> 00:08:47,920 Speaker 1: he went into exile for fifteen years on the Channel 149 00:08:47,920 --> 00:08:50,920 Speaker 1: island of Guernsey, and it was during this time, over 150 00:08:50,960 --> 00:08:54,960 Speaker 1: a period of nearly seventeen years, that Victor wrote his masterpiece, 151 00:08:55,280 --> 00:08:59,320 Speaker 1: Les Miserab, a sweeping epic novel. The story follows rich 152 00:08:59,360 --> 00:09:02,880 Speaker 1: and poor French people in a time of great social upheaval. 153 00:09:03,240 --> 00:09:06,000 Speaker 1: At the center is Jean Valjean, an ex convict who 154 00:09:06,040 --> 00:09:08,720 Speaker 1: becomes a good man even as his past in the 155 00:09:08,760 --> 00:09:12,520 Speaker 1: form of Inspector Javert, catches up to him. As far 156 00:09:12,559 --> 00:09:15,200 Speaker 1: as we know, Victor Hugo never gave up his habit 157 00:09:15,280 --> 00:09:18,360 Speaker 1: of writing sant's clothing, so it's more than likely that 158 00:09:18,440 --> 00:09:21,320 Speaker 1: he spent a good chunk of those seventeen years wrapped 159 00:09:21,400 --> 00:09:25,080 Speaker 1: up in his handy shawl. They say great work requires 160 00:09:25,120 --> 00:09:28,080 Speaker 1: stripping away the distractions, and it seems in the case 161 00:09:28,080 --> 00:09:35,720 Speaker 1: of Victor Hugo, he took that quite literally. I hope 162 00:09:35,720 --> 00:09:39,040 Speaker 1: you've enjoyed today's guided tour of the Cabinet of Curiosities. 163 00:09:39,400 --> 00:09:42,480 Speaker 1: Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts, or learn more about 164 00:09:42,480 --> 00:09:47,079 Speaker 1: the show by visiting Curiosities podcast dot com. The show 165 00:09:47,280 --> 00:09:50,520 Speaker 1: was created by me Aaron Mankey in partnership with how 166 00:09:50,600 --> 00:09:54,240 Speaker 1: Stuff Works. I make another award winning show called Lore, 167 00:09:54,440 --> 00:09:58,080 Speaker 1: which is a podcast, book series, and television show, and 168 00:09:58,120 --> 00:10:00,720 Speaker 1: you can learn all about it over at the Worldoflore 169 00:10:01,000 --> 00:10:06,920 Speaker 1: dot com. And until next time, stay curious.