WEBVTT - The Fountain, Too Fast for Shadows 0:00:03.040 --> 0:00:06.840 Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio. 0:00:13.320 --> 0:00:15.080 Hey you welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. 0:00:15.160 --> 0:00:18.040 My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe mcformick. 0:00:18.680 --> 0:00:21.680 So the title for this episode comes from a poem 0:00:21.760 --> 0:00:26.239 by English poet Elizabeth Jennings With nineteen twenty six through 0:00:26.239 --> 0:00:30.800 two thousand and one. This poem contains the lines observe 0:00:30.840 --> 0:00:35.120 it there the fountain too fast for shadows, too wild 0:00:35.200 --> 0:00:38.559 for the lights which illuminate it, to hold even a 0:00:38.640 --> 0:00:42.680 moment an ounce of water back. The poem in full 0:00:42.840 --> 0:00:45.520 details how we might observe a fountain in an urban 0:00:45.600 --> 0:00:50.160 center and makes a comparison to more ancient traditions. Joe, 0:00:50.200 --> 0:00:53.280 were you familiar with this poem or this poet prior 0:00:53.320 --> 0:00:55.800 to this episode? She was a new one for me. 0:00:56.240 --> 0:00:58.600 I'm not sure the name is familiar, but I need 0:00:58.600 --> 0:01:00.480 to look up more of her stuff to to see 0:01:00.480 --> 0:01:02.360 if there's anything I recognize well. 0:01:02.400 --> 0:01:05.920 This poem fountain, Like I say, it also connects back 0:01:05.959 --> 0:01:10.360 to some of these more ancient traditions that are reflected 0:01:10.400 --> 0:01:13.280 in our tradition of spending times with fountains and other 0:01:13.360 --> 0:01:17.319 water features. Just to read another bit from it, quote 0:01:17.760 --> 0:01:21.479 see in that stress, an image of utter calm, a stillness. 0:01:21.480 --> 0:01:24.240 There it is how we must have felt once at 0:01:24.240 --> 0:01:28.240 the edge of some perpetual stream, fearful of touching, bringing 0:01:28.280 --> 0:01:31.880 no thirst at all, panicked by no perception of ourselves, 0:01:32.160 --> 0:01:35.560 but drawing the water down to the deepest wonder well. 0:01:35.600 --> 0:01:38.440 That phrasing gives a much profounder spin to the kind 0:01:38.480 --> 0:01:42.119 of awe that I recall feeling when looking at fountains 0:01:42.280 --> 0:01:46.800 as a child. Particularly, what I remember is a fountain 0:01:46.959 --> 0:01:49.800 in the mall in my hometown when I was a 0:01:49.880 --> 0:01:52.840 kid that had a kind of kind of a tile 0:01:53.000 --> 0:01:56.520 mosaic bottom that was always covered in pennies. I guess 0:01:56.880 --> 0:02:00.320 the idea is that people would throw pennies into the 0:02:00.320 --> 0:02:02.400 fountain and make a wish. At least that's what I 0:02:02.440 --> 0:02:04.720 was always told you did, and I really liked to 0:02:04.760 --> 0:02:07.520 do this, and I think firmly believed in the magic 0:02:07.920 --> 0:02:10.360 of the wish granting powers of the fountain. 0:02:10.800 --> 0:02:13.960 I didn't even think about fountains and water features and malls, 0:02:13.960 --> 0:02:18.000 but oh man, shopping malls had some great ones as 0:02:18.000 --> 0:02:20.560 far as I remember, and of course smaller at the time, 0:02:20.600 --> 0:02:24.880 so they seemed more gigantic, you know, some sort of 0:02:24.919 --> 0:02:28.680 a fountain there in the atrium of the mall beautiful 0:02:28.720 --> 0:02:29.280 to behold. 0:02:30.360 --> 0:02:32.760 I do remember thinking when I saw all of the 0:02:32.760 --> 0:02:36.880 pennies on the bottom, I also thought, at some point 0:02:37.000 --> 0:02:40.000 they must clean all those up, because it's not like 0:02:40.080 --> 0:02:43.000 overflowing with pennies. They've got to go in and get them. 0:02:43.080 --> 0:02:45.960 And then my thought as a child was who gets 0:02:46.000 --> 0:02:49.160 to keep all that money? That's so much money when 0:02:49.200 --> 0:02:51.239 you collect all of them, you know, that's got to 0:02:51.280 --> 0:02:53.200 be tens of dollars. 0:02:55.040 --> 0:02:56.520 I mean, this is why that one scene in the 0:02:56.520 --> 0:03:00.639 Goonies I think was so impactful, the extrap elation of 0:03:01.560 --> 0:03:04.520 our dreams of harvesting the coins of a fountain. 0:03:04.639 --> 0:03:07.120 You know, Oh, is that is that in the Goonies. 0:03:07.160 --> 0:03:09.200 I don't remember that they had the same thought I did. 0:03:09.680 --> 0:03:12.040 Well, no, they in the Goonies, if memory serves, It's 0:03:12.040 --> 0:03:14.160 been a long time since I've seen it. There's that 0:03:14.960 --> 0:03:17.919 there's like these caverns beneath the wishing well, and that's 0:03:17.919 --> 0:03:19.960 where all the coins are, and one of the kids 0:03:19.960 --> 0:03:21.840 goes to steal a bunch of them, and they're like, no, no, 0:03:21.880 --> 0:03:24.160 those are peaceful people's wishes. You're not supposed to take them. 0:03:24.680 --> 0:03:28.200 And the children, you know, abstain and ultimately they have 0:03:28.240 --> 0:03:29.840 pirate gold on the radar. 0:03:29.960 --> 0:03:33.120 So well, I didn't make the connection. I did believe 0:03:33.120 --> 0:03:36.880 in the wish granting powers, and I did greedily lust 0:03:36.920 --> 0:03:39.040 after all of the penny money, but I didn't think 0:03:39.040 --> 0:03:42.320 that would be stealing people's wishes. It's already granted right 0:03:42.360 --> 0:03:45.000 once the pennies there, Now it's just free money. 0:03:45.080 --> 0:03:47.240 Yeah. I don't know how that it depends on superstitious Sure, 0:03:47.320 --> 0:03:50.640 I guess how it works, but at any rate, I yeah, 0:03:50.680 --> 0:03:53.920 I always am curious to see if a fountain has coins, 0:03:53.920 --> 0:03:56.520 And even though I don't nowadays, I'm not thinking about 0:03:56.640 --> 0:03:59.320 harvesting them. I'm still just one of the things I 0:03:59.360 --> 0:04:01.840 kind of like checking off the mental checklist when I 0:04:01.920 --> 0:04:04.360 check out a fountain. Are there coins in it? What's 0:04:04.400 --> 0:04:06.920 the filtration system look like? You know, where's the water 0:04:07.000 --> 0:04:10.240 coming out of? Like, if there's a fountain somewhere, I 0:04:10.320 --> 0:04:12.680 need to get closer to it so I can take 0:04:12.720 --> 0:04:15.520 it all in. Beyond that, I don't think i'd ever 0:04:15.560 --> 0:04:18.840 really thought about, you know, any universal truths about the 0:04:19.200 --> 0:04:22.200 calming nature of fountains. I've always just kind of in 0:04:22.200 --> 0:04:24.600 the back of my mind thought well, they're nice. Sometimes 0:04:24.600 --> 0:04:28.920 they have interesting statues incorporated into their design, and they 0:04:28.920 --> 0:04:31.599 can be cooling on a hot day, that sort of thing, 0:04:32.240 --> 0:04:34.400 And they're often like at the center of everything, you know. 0:04:34.440 --> 0:04:38.000 I think of like the fountain in Washington Square, you know, 0:04:38.040 --> 0:04:41.520 I think about the indeed, the fountains in the atrium 0:04:41.560 --> 0:04:43.680 at a mall, at a shopping mall, which was like 0:04:43.720 --> 0:04:47.280 a center of community in some respects. 0:04:47.520 --> 0:04:50.080 Well, and yet another way that the fountain was sacred 0:04:50.120 --> 0:04:53.600 to my child's brain. But taking some of the profound 0:04:54.120 --> 0:04:57.360 varnish off of it, I do associate the idea of 0:04:57.360 --> 0:04:59.359 a fountain with the smell of the mall food court, 0:05:00.920 --> 0:05:03.960 you know. It's that's where the saborrow mingles with the 0:05:04.400 --> 0:05:05.640 with the Kariaki place. 0:05:06.680 --> 0:05:08.839 Yeah, the ma All food court of our childhoods. This 0:05:09.000 --> 0:05:12.279 is a place where you also had freedom, like suddenly 0:05:12.360 --> 0:05:14.880 you could often often the case, you could choose what 0:05:14.960 --> 0:05:18.359 you were going to eat, and it made you feel powerful. 0:05:18.760 --> 0:05:24.360 But coming back to water features and fountains specifically, of course, 0:05:24.400 --> 0:05:26.040 we have to think larger than that. We have to 0:05:26.080 --> 0:05:28.720 think too about just like running water, bodies of water 0:05:28.800 --> 0:05:33.160 in general, and you know, personally, and I think this 0:05:33.400 --> 0:05:37.279 applies somewhat universally. I've always found waters to be calming 0:05:37.360 --> 0:05:39.839 to be around. They're often great places to do some 0:05:39.920 --> 0:05:42.720 thinking or to do less thinking in a good way, 0:05:42.760 --> 0:05:46.640 you know, to sort of unshackle from your normal thought process. 0:05:47.080 --> 0:05:50.119 And I think I've mentioned before on the show that 0:05:50.160 --> 0:05:54.440 there's a very useful stress reduction exercise that makes use 0:05:54.480 --> 0:05:57.560 of this connection. It's called leaves on a stream. It's 0:05:57.560 --> 0:06:01.480 a cognitive diffusion technique that allows you to distance yourself 0:06:01.800 --> 0:06:05.240 from the thoughts that you're having. So the way it goes, 0:06:05.279 --> 0:06:06.880 and you can look this up online. There are plenty 0:06:06.920 --> 0:06:10.320 of online resources that that spell it out in more detail. 0:06:10.360 --> 0:06:13.320 But you imagine yourself seated beside a running stream. You 0:06:13.400 --> 0:06:17.960 imagine taking a given thought, essentially taking it out of yourself, 0:06:18.200 --> 0:06:20.960 placing it upon a floating leaf, and allowing the stream 0:06:21.000 --> 0:06:23.919 to carry that leaf and the thought away from you. 0:06:25.600 --> 0:06:28.080 And you know, everyone's mileage may vary, but I find 0:06:28.120 --> 0:06:31.400 it very constructive. But I was thinking about it again here, 0:06:31.520 --> 0:06:34.920 thinking about fountains, thinking about natural bodies of water, and 0:06:35.480 --> 0:06:37.800 they're they're they're calming powers. 0:06:38.440 --> 0:06:41.280 It does seem like an especially nice image for concretizing 0:06:41.320 --> 0:06:45.680 your your emotions and your thoughts because it's it's passive, 0:06:45.880 --> 0:06:49.279 like the the water does the carrying away for you, 0:06:49.360 --> 0:06:51.840 so it doesn't even involve you having to imagine like 0:06:52.279 --> 0:06:55.640 forcing or shoving the idea away. It is just carried 0:06:55.720 --> 0:06:56.600 away by nature. 0:06:57.279 --> 0:07:00.680 Yeah. Yeah, Now we've talked a bit on the show 0:07:00.800 --> 0:07:03.920 previously about the history and importance of public water works. 0:07:04.080 --> 0:07:05.680 We're not going to reachret all of that here, but 0:07:05.720 --> 0:07:07.600 I wanted to at least touch on some of it 0:07:08.200 --> 0:07:11.320 in this case via a twenty fifteen article titled Short 0:07:11.360 --> 0:07:15.000 Global History of Fountains by Juty at All, published in 0:07:15.040 --> 0:07:18.480 the journal Water. That's pointed out that the word fountain 0:07:18.560 --> 0:07:21.760 stems from the Latin fawnds, which can refer to both 0:07:21.840 --> 0:07:25.520 artificial and natural water features, not like the fawns on 0:07:25.960 --> 0:07:31.040 happy Days, but fis I've also read that the source 0:07:31.200 --> 0:07:37.040 is fontana, which informs the medieval fount or source, and 0:07:37.120 --> 0:07:41.040 so fountain becomes a symbol of a providing source as well. 0:07:41.080 --> 0:07:44.080 Like this idea of a fountain as being this thing 0:07:44.240 --> 0:07:49.480 from which something else beneficial arises becomes pretty crucial to 0:07:49.560 --> 0:07:52.520 a lot of a lot of our language. Now, the 0:07:52.520 --> 0:07:56.640 construction of fountains properly dates back to ancient times, and 0:07:56.720 --> 0:07:59.480 the authors of this paper point out that regional water 0:07:59.560 --> 0:08:03.880 available played a role in what form fountains took and 0:08:03.920 --> 0:08:06.520 how they were fed. For instance, they mentioned that for 0:08:06.600 --> 0:08:10.600 the ancient Egyptians bringing water out for the people or 0:08:10.640 --> 0:08:13.200 for personal use, it was a matter of pulling water 0:08:13.240 --> 0:08:16.600 from the Mighty Nile. Meanwhile, the Minoans and the Greeks 0:08:16.800 --> 0:08:21.480 brought water down from the mountains via aqueducts. So this is, 0:08:21.600 --> 0:08:24.040 you know, something to keep in mind. There's the sort 0:08:24.040 --> 0:08:28.000 of especially when you go back into the origins of fountains, 0:08:28.240 --> 0:08:32.320 there are a lot more practical purposes in mind for 0:08:32.559 --> 0:08:35.080 having that water there, And then how do you get 0:08:35.120 --> 0:08:37.640 the water there? You're not just piping it in from 0:08:37.640 --> 0:08:40.280 the local modern water system, you know, there are other 0:08:40.320 --> 0:08:43.440 means that have to be in place. One of the 0:08:43.480 --> 0:08:46.319 primary purposes for ancient fountains was of course to bring 0:08:46.360 --> 0:08:49.560 water to the people for drinking, as well as for 0:08:49.600 --> 0:08:52.440 other uses such as bathing. We've talked about that on 0:08:52.480 --> 0:08:55.680 the show before. Another big one that I hadn't thought 0:08:55.720 --> 0:08:57.120 as much about, and I guess part of this is 0:08:57.200 --> 0:09:00.640 because we haven't we've touched on Firefight, but we haven't 0:09:00.679 --> 0:09:03.160 done a lot on firefighting, but this was another reason 0:09:03.160 --> 0:09:07.440 to have a source of water available in a center 0:09:07.640 --> 0:09:08.920 of the population. 0:09:09.440 --> 0:09:12.480 I think we actually did a pretty extensive look at 0:09:12.559 --> 0:09:16.880 firefighting in our Invention episode on the fire extinguisher. 0:09:17.240 --> 0:09:20.000 Yeah, and we got into like fire extinguisher grenades and 0:09:20.040 --> 0:09:21.720 so forth. Yeah. 0:09:21.720 --> 0:09:24.880 But going into ancient history, how the fire fighting in 0:09:24.960 --> 0:09:28.160 ancient Rome and how it had a very different character 0:09:28.280 --> 0:09:31.640 because if I remember correctly, the early version in maybe 0:09:31.679 --> 0:09:34.480 like the first century BCE or so, there was like 0:09:34.520 --> 0:09:38.280 a rich guy who instituted fire brigades who would come 0:09:38.320 --> 0:09:40.360 to your house if it was on fire, not to 0:09:40.520 --> 0:09:42.760 like as a public service, put it out for you, 0:09:43.160 --> 0:09:45.760 but to say, hey, I will buy your house for 0:09:45.800 --> 0:09:49.600 the following price, take it or leave it. And if 0:09:49.679 --> 0:09:52.440 you know, if you agreed to let this guy buy 0:09:52.480 --> 0:09:55.040 your house, then his dudes would put out the fire. 0:09:56.320 --> 0:09:58.360 Yeah. I think there's a scene in one of Stevens 0:09:58.400 --> 0:10:01.960 Sailor's Gordian Honest books that take place in ancient Rome 0:10:02.040 --> 0:10:06.360 where this exact situation takes place with like the building 0:10:06.400 --> 0:10:10.480 burning down and here's the sky shows up and he's like, well, 0:10:10.679 --> 0:10:14.920 you know, it looks like your property is really plummeting 0:10:15.160 --> 0:10:17.400 in value. Now would be a great time to sell 0:10:17.440 --> 0:10:20.040 to me, as opposed to five minutes from now. 0:10:20.320 --> 0:10:23.320 Wicked in an especially hilarious way. But of course, you know, 0:10:23.400 --> 0:10:25.960 later on the idea of firefighting as a public service 0:10:25.960 --> 0:10:30.520 that benefits everyone does develop, And yeah, of course there 0:10:30.520 --> 0:10:32.480 are a lot of different ways to fight fires, and 0:10:32.520 --> 0:10:34.840 not all of them involve water. Of course, some involve 0:10:34.960 --> 0:10:37.480 like you know, pulling down structures to create barriers to 0:10:37.520 --> 0:10:40.720 fire spreading and things like that. But yeah, water of 0:10:40.760 --> 0:10:44.360 course is quite often one of the most important tools 0:10:44.360 --> 0:10:45.320 in fighting fires. 0:10:45.880 --> 0:10:50.120 Now. One of the things about bringing water into a city, 0:10:50.760 --> 0:10:53.679 one of the problems here are potential potential problems, is well, 0:10:53.679 --> 0:10:56.679 you can have to deal with drainage, removal, fouled water, 0:10:57.040 --> 0:11:01.199 and various public health challenges that can emerge from public 0:11:01.280 --> 0:11:05.240 water works, and that can get into things like you know, 0:11:05.280 --> 0:11:08.960 I have to worry about water borne ill illnesses, potentially mosquitoes, 0:11:09.280 --> 0:11:13.959 things of that nature. So systems to bring water into 0:11:14.000 --> 0:11:18.920 a city these were extremely important for human civilizations, and 0:11:19.000 --> 0:11:21.760 we see them in all the major civilizations of the 0:11:21.800 --> 0:11:25.080 ancient world as well as the various ancient civilizations of 0:11:25.120 --> 0:11:28.520 the New World. The earliest carved water basin apparently dates 0:11:28.559 --> 0:11:31.640 back to three thousand BC in the Mesopotamian site of Tello, 0:11:32.240 --> 0:11:37.320 and a stone fountain figure in another Mesopotamian site, Mari 0:11:37.920 --> 0:11:42.520 dates back to two thousand BCE. This would basically be 0:11:42.559 --> 0:11:45.160 in line with the common fountain trope that we've seen 0:11:45.200 --> 0:11:48.760 again and again of a goddess holding a base of 0:11:48.800 --> 0:11:53.720 some sort that releases piped in water, just sort of 0:11:53.840 --> 0:11:55.800 an irresistible image. And I guess part of this comes 0:11:55.840 --> 0:11:59.040 down to, like what a fountain does that like recasts 0:11:59.040 --> 0:12:02.080 the idea of water being gifted to people. 0:12:03.120 --> 0:12:04.160 As if from a morton. 0:12:04.320 --> 0:12:10.840 Joe, Yeah, yeah. The Romans were, of course masters of hydraulics, 0:12:10.840 --> 0:12:14.000 which they adopted from the Etruscan civilization, and the Roman 0:12:14.040 --> 0:12:17.560 tradition greatly influenced the medieval fountain tradition to follow. Now, 0:12:17.600 --> 0:12:19.560 one thing in this paper that I thought was really interesting. 0:12:19.600 --> 0:12:23.640 They point out that in China, wells and streams were 0:12:23.640 --> 0:12:27.400 along the primary source of water, so wells tend to 0:12:27.400 --> 0:12:30.360 play the role we see public fountains play in other 0:12:30.440 --> 0:12:34.880 parts of the world. In some of these Mesopotamian accounts, 0:12:35.480 --> 0:12:38.559 these public wells were crucial as well to city planning. 0:12:38.800 --> 0:12:41.480 These would be the things that you plan the structure 0:12:41.559 --> 0:12:45.120 of the city around. They also note that quote spring 0:12:45.200 --> 0:12:50.720 and structures have also assumed characteristics of fountains in China, 0:12:51.559 --> 0:12:53.560 so what we might think of as proper fountains were 0:12:53.559 --> 0:12:57.280 also introduced and built in urban and palace settings later 0:12:57.360 --> 0:13:02.080 over the course of centuries. But sometimes you might have 0:13:02.160 --> 0:13:06.000 something just constructed at a where a spring emerges or 0:13:06.040 --> 0:13:08.480 where a spring has come to, and this will sort 0:13:08.480 --> 0:13:12.800 of take on the building and appearance of a western fountain. 0:13:13.360 --> 0:13:17.640 Now The authors even include discussion of modern and industrial 0:13:17.679 --> 0:13:21.920 age water kiosks in the paper, which serve the purpose 0:13:21.960 --> 0:13:26.520 of distributing clean water to the people, though without most 0:13:26.559 --> 0:13:30.679 of the more aesthetically pleasing aspects that you associate with 0:13:31.040 --> 0:13:34.040 a public fountain. Nowadays, you can look up images of 0:13:34.120 --> 0:13:36.920 various water kiosks that I believe they're especially common in 0:13:36.920 --> 0:13:40.679 subs of how in Africa a place where people can 0:13:40.720 --> 0:13:44.600 go and get water, and it often takes on a 0:13:44.640 --> 0:13:46.680 more I guess, sort of commercial appearance. I mean it 0:13:46.720 --> 0:13:51.199 looks like a little shop in many cases. Sometimes they 0:13:51.280 --> 0:13:55.360 even you see something that looks more like a vending machine. 0:13:55.720 --> 0:13:59.160 And you can also make comparisons like water kiosk and 0:13:59.320 --> 0:14:03.840 say public ice dispensary, you know those you see these especially, 0:14:03.920 --> 0:14:05.400 we see these a lot in the United States. I know, 0:14:05.440 --> 0:14:08.640 when you go into rural areas and there's like the 0:14:08.720 --> 0:14:12.280 standalone machine that you can pull up to, you pay 0:14:12.280 --> 0:14:15.240 the machine and you get some ice. You know you 0:14:15.600 --> 0:14:19.080 are buying water. I'llbeit in a frozen form from that 0:14:19.160 --> 0:14:22.320 machine right now. That Beings said, I guess water kiosks 0:14:22.440 --> 0:14:25.400 could still be considered like a social center, a place 0:14:25.400 --> 0:14:28.040 where people were going for water. And while most of 0:14:28.080 --> 0:14:31.920 the examples I was looking at seem largely transactional and functional, 0:14:32.280 --> 0:14:33.960 I suppose it doesn't have to be the case. 0:14:34.640 --> 0:14:34.760 Though. 0:14:34.800 --> 0:14:38.240 When I looked around for like more pleasing designs and 0:14:38.320 --> 0:14:41.640 water kiosks, the only thing that was coming up for 0:14:41.720 --> 0:14:45.200 me were various design competitions that were more situated in 0:14:45.280 --> 0:14:48.720 say London, and were essentially coming up with water fountain 0:14:48.760 --> 0:14:52.440 designs that you know, looked crazy things that weren't necessarily 0:14:52.520 --> 0:14:58.720 I think, actually brought to life in urban settings. But 0:14:59.240 --> 0:15:02.040 I don't know, maybe the there have been efforts to 0:15:02.800 --> 0:15:07.640 sort of evolve water kiosk sites throughout the rest of 0:15:07.640 --> 0:15:08.960 the world as well. I'm not sure. 0:15:09.360 --> 0:15:12.000 Well, this idea sort of highlights the two different faces 0:15:12.040 --> 0:15:16.080 of the civic water dispensing area. So you can have 0:15:16.240 --> 0:15:19.640 on one hand, something that is functional that is there. 0:15:20.000 --> 0:15:22.440 It's a place for people to get water that they 0:15:22.480 --> 0:15:24.760 need for you know, everything in life basically that you 0:15:24.840 --> 0:15:27.080 need in order to drink, to cook, to clean and 0:15:27.120 --> 0:15:31.080 so forth. And then the other idea is water based 0:15:31.120 --> 0:15:35.080 infrastructure that is there to be enjoyed, maybe the same 0:15:35.120 --> 0:15:37.520 way that a park would be there to be enjoyed. 0:15:37.920 --> 0:15:41.720 I think in the popular imagination, something that brings all 0:15:41.760 --> 0:15:45.440 these together is, of course the chocolate factory of Willy Wonka, 0:15:45.520 --> 0:15:49.080 where we see the chocolate mixed by waterfall. It is 0:15:49.120 --> 0:15:53.240 a pleasing water fall to behold. You're you're not supposed 0:15:53.240 --> 0:15:57.480 to swim in it, of course, but still, you know, 0:15:57.560 --> 0:16:00.800 some uses of the chocolate are available via fun and 0:16:00.840 --> 0:16:03.480 then of course we do have chocolate chocolate fountains at 0:16:03.480 --> 0:16:05.200 events and all. So it is weird how we get 0:16:05.200 --> 0:16:07.560 into this use of fountains, both in the imagination and 0:16:07.600 --> 0:16:11.960 in reality, for liquids that are not drinking water. 0:16:12.680 --> 0:16:15.800 Why do the culinary fountains always go in the sweet direction? 0:16:16.200 --> 0:16:18.440 I want to see more savory ones, you know. So 0:16:18.480 --> 0:16:22.640 it's the nacho cheese fountain, the gravy fountain. I don't 0:16:22.680 --> 0:16:25.320 know what, maybe cheese fondue fountain. I guess that's pretty 0:16:25.360 --> 0:16:26.640 similar to nacho cheese. 0:16:26.920 --> 0:16:29.040 Well that that surely exists, right, some sort. 0:16:28.840 --> 0:16:31.520 Of a cheese fountain, I suppose, I would guess. 0:16:32.160 --> 0:16:35.480 Anyway, coming back to this Water Journal paper, the authors 0:16:35.520 --> 0:16:39.360 here they stress that fountains also often stood as symbols 0:16:39.400 --> 0:16:42.240 of power and wealth. Somebody builds them, someone provides them 0:16:42.240 --> 0:16:44.960 for the people. But there's still this calming element to 0:16:45.000 --> 0:16:49.120 the urban fountain, offering sites and sounds conducive to relaxation 0:16:49.960 --> 0:16:53.240 that are frequently cited in histories and literature. As many 0:16:53.280 --> 0:16:56.760 of the practical reasons for public fountains declined in modern times, 0:16:57.760 --> 0:17:01.240 the esthetic elements remained in playing the soothing sites and 0:17:01.400 --> 0:17:06.159 sounds of the running water. Another interesting point this is 0:17:06.160 --> 0:17:09.359 something I read in Fountains as Reservoirs of myth and 0:17:09.440 --> 0:17:13.240 memory from Myths on the Map the Storied Landscapes of 0:17:13.280 --> 0:17:16.719 Ancient Greece from twenty seventeen by Betsy A. Robinson, or 0:17:17.320 --> 0:17:21.960 this section about fountains is by Robinson, and in this 0:17:22.280 --> 0:17:25.879 they point out that public fountains, specifically those in Greek traditions, 0:17:26.280 --> 0:17:29.560 were also a means of quote, connecting past and present 0:17:29.600 --> 0:17:35.560 and establishing authority by the manipulation of architectural form and 0:17:35.640 --> 0:17:39.760 the selective retelling of stories. So I found that fascinating 0:17:40.000 --> 0:17:43.879 to think about and be reminded of, because the public 0:17:43.920 --> 0:17:46.520 fountain here is both a means of bringing water to 0:17:46.560 --> 0:17:51.760 the people, but also conceptualizing the deliverer of that water 0:17:51.920 --> 0:17:55.320 by means of myth and legends reflected in the carvings, 0:17:55.400 --> 0:17:58.480 the statues and so forth then make up a given fountain. 0:17:59.200 --> 0:18:02.080 For instance, who is the goddess that is pouring forth 0:18:02.119 --> 0:18:06.600 the water, and what is that goddess's relationship to the 0:18:06.680 --> 0:18:09.560 to the people in power at the moment, et cetera. 0:18:10.280 --> 0:18:13.360 Yes, flowing water almost kind of naturally tells a story, 0:18:13.480 --> 0:18:18.040 or it easily can be narrativized in some way by 0:18:18.200 --> 0:18:21.600 you know, filling in the infrastructure around it with images 0:18:21.640 --> 0:18:22.720 and representations. 0:18:23.200 --> 0:18:26.080 Yeah, can you imagine if our primary sources of water 0:18:26.119 --> 0:18:30.560 today are faucets, what if by law they were required 0:18:30.920 --> 0:18:35.919 to resemble entities or beings or specific people in power 0:18:37.359 --> 0:18:40.800 as they're bringing forth your prescious drinking or dishwashing water. 0:18:41.119 --> 0:18:44.600 Yes, the faucet is like your local water commissioner's face 0:18:44.800 --> 0:18:47.680 and the water is coming out of their mouth or 0:18:47.720 --> 0:18:49.679 something like vomiting the water to you. 0:18:50.200 --> 0:19:02.200 Yeah. Away. The main idea we're exploring this episode, though, 0:19:02.200 --> 0:19:04.919 is the idea that there is something soothing, calming, and 0:19:05.000 --> 0:19:08.760 mentally restoring about public fountains, something that may, you know, 0:19:09.320 --> 0:19:11.520 subjectively seem to be the case with many of us, 0:19:11.520 --> 0:19:14.080 but you know, is there something more objective there as well. 0:19:14.880 --> 0:19:18.240 There's actually been a fair amount of certainly recent scholarship 0:19:18.240 --> 0:19:20.560 on the topic that we're going to touch on in 0:19:21.680 --> 0:19:24.880 this We're going to get into this idea of blue spaces. 0:19:25.480 --> 0:19:29.680 So in the world of urban and land use planning, 0:19:30.240 --> 0:19:34.160 there's green space obviously, you know, we think of gardens, trees, 0:19:35.600 --> 0:19:38.440 whole parks, et cetera. And then there's a subset of 0:19:38.480 --> 0:19:40.480 green space known as blue space. And the blue of 0:19:40.480 --> 0:19:43.680 course refers to water, you know, as water is often 0:19:43.720 --> 0:19:46.440 blue on the map, if not in actual visual appearance, 0:19:46.760 --> 0:19:50.320 and it entails all manner of naturally occurring and artificial 0:19:50.359 --> 0:19:53.879 water features, including fountains. Now, once again it's important to 0:19:53.880 --> 0:19:57.280 stress that proximity to natural and or artificial Blue Spaces 0:19:57.320 --> 0:19:59.960 has always come with certain additional risks and potential danger. 0:20:00.960 --> 0:20:03.880 We talked about those already, but there's also this compelling 0:20:03.920 --> 0:20:07.520 idea that blue spaces are an overall mental and or 0:20:07.600 --> 0:20:11.080 physical health benefit to those with access to the feature. 0:20:11.640 --> 0:20:14.200 And on one hand, this basic idea would seem to 0:20:14.640 --> 0:20:20.560 line up with the late EO. Wilson's biophilia hypothesis, something 0:20:20.560 --> 0:20:22.000 we've talked about on the show before. 0:20:22.720 --> 0:20:25.560 Yeah, this is kind of interesting. So we've done multiple 0:20:25.560 --> 0:20:30.359 episodes exploring and critiquing the biophilia hypothesis at length in 0:20:30.400 --> 0:20:32.280 the past, so we're not going to go into great 0:20:32.320 --> 0:20:35.880 depth on that again here, but briefly, in Wilson's words, 0:20:35.920 --> 0:20:38.679 this would have been what he believed was quote the 0:20:38.680 --> 0:20:43.920 innate tendency to focus on life and lifelike processes. So 0:20:44.000 --> 0:20:46.560 the argument goes that there is something in our brains 0:20:46.600 --> 0:20:50.280 that calls us to be fascinated by and attracted to 0:20:51.080 --> 0:20:54.560 other forms of life beyond just the obvious and direct 0:20:54.760 --> 0:20:57.240 benefits to our survival that we would get from them. 0:20:57.280 --> 0:20:59.840 So it's obvious why you would be attracted to, say 0:20:59.880 --> 0:21:02.439 an animal or a plant that you might eat for food, 0:21:03.040 --> 0:21:07.439 but that our fascination by and attraction to life forms 0:21:07.480 --> 0:21:10.800 goes way beyond this, goes to you things that you 0:21:10.840 --> 0:21:14.480 can't eat, things that you can't necessarily get any tangible, 0:21:15.160 --> 0:21:19.399 quantifiable benefit from. We still these other life forms, We 0:21:19.440 --> 0:21:22.320 still want to see and touch and spend time around them, 0:21:22.920 --> 0:21:25.600 and when they're not present in our lives, we feel 0:21:25.640 --> 0:21:29.000 a kind of we feel that loss as a kind 0:21:29.040 --> 0:21:34.360 of malaise or unhappiness. And so a funny thing here 0:21:34.359 --> 0:21:37.320 about water is that, of course, moving water is very 0:21:37.359 --> 0:21:41.359 often associated with the suite of esthetic and environmental preferences 0:21:41.400 --> 0:21:45.280 suggested by the biophilia hypothesis. Yet of course water is 0:21:45.320 --> 0:21:49.480 itself not alive. It, like rocks and air, is part 0:21:49.480 --> 0:21:53.040 of the inorganic environment. And yet of course the presence 0:21:53.040 --> 0:21:56.679 of water is greatly associated with the presence of life. Basically, 0:21:56.760 --> 0:21:59.560 all life on Earth needs water to survive. And it's 0:21:59.600 --> 0:22:02.520 not an accident that when you know, you're walking through 0:22:02.520 --> 0:22:04.639 the desert and you come to an oasis, it is 0:22:04.680 --> 0:22:08.160 suddenly surrounded by forms of life that were not found 0:22:08.200 --> 0:22:09.720 in the surrounding landscape. 0:22:10.280 --> 0:22:12.320 Yeah yeah, And you know, you can make the argument that, 0:22:12.359 --> 0:22:15.760 you know, we're hardwired to appreciate something like a nice 0:22:15.800 --> 0:22:19.240 flowing stream as opposed to another body of water. How 0:22:19.280 --> 0:22:21.000 would how would Donald Pleasance put it? 0:22:21.119 --> 0:22:23.919 Joe, Oh, the spirit of dark and lonely waters. 0:22:23.960 --> 0:22:26.000 Yeah, yeah, the dark and lonely water. 0:22:26.080 --> 0:22:29.359 That's it, ready to trap the unwary, the show off 0:22:29.440 --> 0:22:29.959 the fool. 0:22:32.480 --> 0:22:35.000 In this, we're of course referring to something we discussed 0:22:35.000 --> 0:22:39.439 in an older Halloween episode what Jenny Green teeth, But 0:22:39.520 --> 0:22:45.119 it was what a British public service advertisement or video 0:22:45.200 --> 0:22:49.639 message warning you against stagnant ponds and the danger to 0:22:49.680 --> 0:22:51.040 young children posed. 0:22:50.760 --> 0:22:54.080