Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production
Speaker 1: of iHeartRadio. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Tracy V. Wilson,
Speaker 1: and Holly is not here today, so instead I have
Speaker 1: a very special guest, which is Nate Demeyo of the
Speaker 1: podcast The Memory Palace and also author of the forthcoming
Speaker 1: book The Memory Palace, which is coming out from Random
Speaker 1: House on November nineteenth. If you're not familiar with Nate's show,
Speaker 1: you will get a chance to change that in just
Speaker 1: a few minutes. Hi, Nate, Welcome to the show.
Speaker 2: I am so happy to be here. I'm a longtime
Speaker 2: fan of the show.
Speaker 1: I'm a longtime fan of your show. Also, you have
Speaker 1: been on our show once before. That was nine years ago,
Speaker 1: which is hard to believe. At that time you had
Speaker 1: sixty five episodes. Now there are more than two hundred
Speaker 1: and twenty episodes of your show from just looking at
Speaker 1: the website today. How are we both still doing this?
Speaker 1: I guess that's my first question. Does it surprise you
Speaker 1: that all these years later we're both still doing the
Speaker 1: same thing?
Speaker 2: You know, it does and it doesn't. On the one hand,
Speaker 2: you know, nine years so I was realizing that I
Speaker 2: am this is my fifteenth year of doing the Memory Palace.
Speaker 2: I'm about to enter my sixteenth year, and that is
Speaker 2: sort of insane. And it's been easy for me to
Speaker 2: keep track of that because it kind of started shortly
Speaker 2: after my daughter was born and I was like, oh,
Speaker 2: I need to make sure I have like a creative
Speaker 2: outlet that I'm like building and and she's she's about
Speaker 2: to turn sixteenth in a couple of weeks. So here
Speaker 2: we are. Wow. Yeah, But that's the thing that is
Speaker 2: actually more surprising than just its longevity is the notion
Speaker 2: that you know, nine years ago felt like we've been
Speaker 2: doing for a long time. It felt like we were
Speaker 2: really it did. It really did. But on the on
Speaker 2: the other hand, like I discovered fairly early on when
Speaker 2: I started to do the short narrative his you know,
Speaker 2: historical stories put them to music, kind of found a
Speaker 2: voice that was you know, factually accurate, but also a
Speaker 2: little bit dreamy and a little bit you know, focused
Speaker 2: on sort of wonder and uh and kind of just
Speaker 2: like the mystery of not just like the mystery of
Speaker 2: living in the past, but living in the present with
Speaker 2: the past, you know, the way that just for people
Speaker 2: who love historical stories like we do in thinking about
Speaker 2: it that just kind of like magic place that invoking
Speaker 2: the past and the people that live there kind of
Speaker 2: brings out in you. I really discovered fairly early on
Speaker 2: as I started doing this that setting aside, you know,
Speaker 2: careerism and setting setting aside deadlines, there was just something
Speaker 2: I found personally useful and kind of exciting about doing
Speaker 2: these stories and about like taking the time to to
Speaker 2: read about, uh, you know, these figures and forgotten moments
Speaker 2: and you know, you know, find words you know and
Speaker 2: find words in music, and the combination of those two
Speaker 2: things to like kind of share that sort of wonder
Speaker 2: that experiencing those things like brought out in me and
Speaker 2: share them with listeners and so like, as a result,
Speaker 2: like this just kind of feels like a thing. I
Speaker 2: feel like I found a thing that was useful to
Speaker 2: my life, and as a result, it feels like a
Speaker 2: thing I'm just kind of going to be doing in
Speaker 2: some capacity forever. Like I felt like I stumbled upon
Speaker 2: a venue in the podcast to like express these things.
Speaker 2: So on the one hand, like, yeah, sixteen years is
Speaker 2: a very long time, But in the other hand, it's
Speaker 2: a little bit of like, yeah, this is my life now,
Speaker 2: and it remains a big and vital part of it.
Speaker 1: I love that it sort of reminds me of how
Speaker 1: I used to say that the first thing I found
Speaker 1: that I was really good at was being in college.
Speaker 1: And when I was hired to write for the website
Speaker 1: HowStuffWorks dot com, which is a totally different website now
Speaker 1: than it was when they hired me, I was like
Speaker 1: being in college again, because I was spending all of
Speaker 1: my time learning something and then writing about what I learned.
Speaker 1: And now my job is still that, but now I
Speaker 1: say the thing into a microphone afterward, and so it
Speaker 1: continues to be sort of an evolution of the first
Speaker 1: thing that I found that I thought I was good
Speaker 1: at and also enjoyed.
Speaker 2: That's exactly right. And the truth of the matter, too,
Speaker 2: is there's also that aspect of like, at some point
Speaker 2: your spouse or your friend or the person at the
Speaker 2: bar gets a little bit tired of you saying, oh,
Speaker 2: I just learned this amazing thing and putting now you
Speaker 2: can put it out into the you know, one puts
Speaker 2: it out into the air in hopes that the people
Speaker 2: that will be excited will find it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so stuff you Missed in History Class and The
Speaker 1: Memory Palace. These are both podcasts about history. Obviously, you
Speaker 1: and I and Holly, all three of us are taking
Speaker 1: an approach that a lot of people describe as thoughtful,
Speaker 1: but your shows are like a third the length of
Speaker 1: virus most of the time. The last time you were
Speaker 1: on the show, we talked about the fact that you
Speaker 1: have some episodes that are five minutes long, that Holly
Speaker 1: and I get into the same store and we wind
Speaker 1: up with two thirty to forty minute episodes. Something you
Speaker 1: talk about in your book that I think sort of
Speaker 1: highlighted the way that we are each approaching history in
Speaker 1: ways that are both similar and different. Is you talked
Speaker 1: about that all of the stories you cover on your
Speaker 1: show start with something that moved you. Holly and I
Speaker 1: often talk about starting with things that interest us. So
Speaker 1: sort of your show starts with kind of a thoughtful
Speaker 1: meditation on something that moved you, while Holly and I
Speaker 1: are more explaining all the things that we found interesting
Speaker 1: about a particular subject. So can you tell us a
Speaker 1: little bit about, like what has led you to focus
Speaker 1: so much on being moved by something and on that
Speaker 1: level of emotional impact in historical stories.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that similar to your notion of like
Speaker 2: that the thing that that click for you was when
Speaker 2: you found a job that felt like you were back
Speaker 2: in college. For me, when I first got into journalism,
Speaker 2: there was just this sense of like I was a
Speaker 2: kid and then a young adult who was always like, oh,
Speaker 2: I'm one of those people who's kind of like good
Speaker 2: in a number of different things and interested in a
Speaker 2: ton of different stuff, and it's hard to choose. I
Speaker 2: was one of one of those people, and in journalism,
Speaker 2: and now the memory Palace like kind of allows me
Speaker 2: not to choose. It's like it puts the value on like, oh,
Speaker 2: I am interested in a lot of different stuff. And
Speaker 2: so yes, there is that interest that one might be
Speaker 2: interested in how bridges are constructed, and one might be
Speaker 2: interested in the invention of the zipper or or what
Speaker 2: happened at this battle or that battle. But the thing
Speaker 2: that I find when I go to museums and the
Speaker 2: things that I find when I read history is that
Speaker 2: like that over and over again. What that spark where
Speaker 2: I'm sort of like, oh, I do need to go
Speaker 2: tell this to my spouse, I do want to text
Speaker 2: my friend about that thing? Is that this thing has
Speaker 2: moved me, and like I mean that like in the
Speaker 2: in this straightforward sense like that it has like spurred
Speaker 2: some emotion. It has made me think nostalgically about old friends.
Speaker 2: It has taught me something about parenting. It has you know,
Speaker 2: just like like thrilled me with like, oh my god,
Speaker 2: I cannot believe that people live that way how you know,
Speaker 2: and reminded me that we live differently and that notion
Speaker 2: of being moved like to me, it's, uh, that's you know,
Speaker 2: that's what I look for in life. It's what I
Speaker 2: look for in a movie, is that I want to
Speaker 2: you know, come out and feel a little bit differently
Speaker 2: than I went in. And I just kind of had
Speaker 2: discovered that that was true of the past, that there
Speaker 2: was this kind of like magic that the that the
Speaker 2: past held for me, like that it was this kind
Speaker 2: of like imaginative space that you could go back and
Speaker 2: you could read about George Washington, or you could go
Speaker 2: back and you could read about you know, Shipwreck Kelly,
Speaker 2: the guy who became you know, famous for you know,
Speaker 2: sitting on tall objects for inordinate amounts of time, and
Speaker 2: that real space. These are these are real things that
Speaker 2: happen to real people. But what it really is doing
Speaker 2: is it's exciting your imagination. Like that, reading about history
Speaker 2: when it's good is no different than reading a than
Speaker 2: reading a novel. And I wanted to create a show
Speaker 2: that took that approach to history. And it doesn't mean that,
Speaker 2: you know, you know that, it doesn't mean that I'm
Speaker 2: any less serious about getting the fact straight. But I
Speaker 2: have always been very feeling forward when it comes to
Speaker 2: experiencing that stuff, and so the format that made the
Speaker 2: most sense to me was also very feeling forward, Like
Speaker 2: I want to create a show and write stories for
Speaker 2: this book about history that make you feel, things that
Speaker 2: that break your heart, that delight you. And yeah, and
Speaker 2: there's something you know when I when I read my
Speaker 2: own book, as I did recently with my audio, you know,
Speaker 2: with with sections of my audiobook, I'm like, boy, this
Speaker 2: is an earnest person. That's just it is the truth.
Speaker 2: Like it is a very feelings forward approach to history,
Speaker 2: in a very wonder focused approach, and it continues to
Speaker 2: delight and drive me from story to story.
Speaker 1: Well, let me please you to know that I started
Speaker 1: crying while reading your book about a story that not
Speaker 1: only did I already know but that we also have
Speaker 1: covered on our podcast, which was about Ruth Harkness and
Speaker 1: the first panda brought to the United States and just
Speaker 1: sort of the discussion of Ruth and who she was
Speaker 1: and thinking about what her interior world was like. As
Speaker 1: all of that was going on, I was sitting at
Speaker 1: my desk and realized, I was, like, I've been moved
Speaker 1: to tears by this thing that I already feel very
Speaker 1: intimately familiar with.
Speaker 2: That's in yeah, I know, I think that that. Really
Speaker 2: I think all the time about why we remember the
Speaker 2: things we remember, you know that like in some of
Speaker 2: it is, oh, I remember that experience I have at
Speaker 2: the park, that scary experience, because you know, our bodies
Speaker 2: are telling us to remember the trauma of that. But
Speaker 2: I also like think a lot about the kind of
Speaker 2: inverse of trauma, just that things that are so delightful,
Speaker 2: like things that like allow you to connect with with
Speaker 2: another human being, Like those are the other things you remember?
Speaker 2: You remember that you know, novel exciting day with a
Speaker 2: parent when they took you to the park when you
Speaker 2: weren't expecting to go to the park, or something like that.
Speaker 2: And I think all the time about like why it
Speaker 2: is that I remember, you know, certain events in my life.
Speaker 2: We are constantly like inundated with historical information like you do,
Speaker 2: like not just because we might be history buffs, but
Speaker 2: things pop up on the internet. I think you know
Speaker 2: things in your Instagram reel. There are all these like
Speaker 2: little you know facts about history, but there just aren't
Speaker 2: that many that are the ones that like make you
Speaker 2: suddenly tear up, or that you know again, make you
Speaker 2: want to, you know, turn to your spouse or text
Speaker 2: your friend. And I've come to really like trust those
Speaker 2: things and be fascinated by why those are the things
Speaker 2: that move me, Like why is it the story you
Speaker 2: know of Ruth Harkness and this woman going out to
Speaker 2: continue her husband's mission to find a panda, her recently
Speaker 2: deceased husband's mission to bring it live panda back to
Speaker 2: the United States, the first one you know that will
Speaker 2: leave China. And when those things move me, then I
Speaker 2: turn around to try to figure out, like, how can
Speaker 2: I also share this experience with someone else? And I'm
Speaker 2: glad that it seems like it worked in this in
Speaker 2: this case.
Speaker 1: My next question was going to be about how you
Speaker 1: decided which stories to put in the book, And I'm
Speaker 1: imagining that everything you just said was probably a big
Speaker 1: influence on that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think so. You know, I grew up really
Speaker 2: loving kind of anthology books, you know, whether it was
Speaker 2: just sort of like the Book of Lists or like
Speaker 2: Ripley's Believe It or not, like these like these books
Speaker 2: of these short little pieces of different types like just
Speaker 2: held such sway on my like young reader life. But
Speaker 2: that's not really a thing that exists as we as
Speaker 2: we become adults. Like there are magazines and magazines kind
Speaker 2: of have that can have that magic. But I wanted
Speaker 2: to kind of create one of those kind of like
Speaker 2: magic books that you get lost in. But ultimately that
Speaker 2: was one for adults that these were that these were
Speaker 2: going to be stories that had like heft and that
Speaker 2: had you know, depth, that you did have the ability
Speaker 2: to move you and to you know, potentially change you
Speaker 2: or change the way you think, you know, not just
Speaker 2: about the past, but things, you know, the way that
Speaker 2: you might live your life in the present, like you know,
Speaker 2: to be really kind of pretentious about it, but I
Speaker 2: also wanted to just simply have the power to kind
Speaker 2: of change your day that you have this book of
Speaker 2: these short stories that you can like I really for
Speaker 2: the first time in a long time. The Memory Palace,
Speaker 2: you know, has always just kind of been this, you know,
Speaker 2: nice evocative name. But I kind of wanted to create
Speaker 2: something that felt like wandering in through a museum, one
Speaker 2: that you could take at your own pace, you know,
Speaker 2: one that you could read a couple of stories and
Speaker 2: put down, you know, one that you could pick up
Speaker 2: in the middle and see a picture that grabbed you
Speaker 2: and just start there. Like I wanted to create like
Speaker 2: a book that was like a little bit of a
Speaker 2: port or something like that. And so as a result,
Speaker 2: it just kind of became this this you know, practical
Speaker 2: question of how many stories should be pre existing stories
Speaker 2: that people love from the podcast, how many of these
Speaker 2: stories should be new, how many stories should be you know,
Speaker 2: favorites that people who have listen, been listening for a
Speaker 2: long time, you know, will want to have the opportunity
Speaker 2: to kind of own and hold in their hands, you know,
Speaker 2: which is an opportunity that like, you know, as fans,
Speaker 2: as a person who loves your show, it's like I
Speaker 2: don't quite have like there is not that chance to
Speaker 2: just like, you know, in the same way that you
Speaker 2: know that there are episodes of yours that I love
Speaker 2: and in the same ways that I might love like that,
Speaker 2: I might have like loved a book, but there's just
Speaker 2: it would be nice to have that episode on my shelf,
Speaker 2: and it's been nice to give people the opportunity to
Speaker 2: do that. And so someone is like, which ones might
Speaker 2: people want to read and own and hold, Which one
Speaker 2: of these are simply just the best of what I've done,
Speaker 2: Which one of these frankly will work well on the page.
Speaker 2: There are some stories that are clearly audio stories from
Speaker 2: the podcasts that because they have you know, a bit
Speaker 2: of audio, or there's just something about the way the
Speaker 2: music needs to work, or there's just something about the
Speaker 2: way that I need to dictate pace with my voice
Speaker 2: that simply just don't hold up on the page or
Speaker 2: don't work as well on the page. So there are
Speaker 2: those considerations, and then there was you know, also considerations
Speaker 2: about what opportunities does a book present. And for me,
Speaker 2: a lot of that was visual, So I created you
Speaker 2: know a number of news stories that you know, hinge
Speaker 2: upon seeing images, which created you know, a whole set
Speaker 2: of stories that are about photographs, but also about the
Speaker 2: history of photography and about sort of the history of
Speaker 2: seeing in the history of living with visual records of
Speaker 2: our lives and our memories, which was its own opportunity.
Speaker 2: But then there was also a question that came from
Speaker 2: the publisher, which is essentially like, is this a chance
Speaker 2: that you have to kind of like let people under
Speaker 2: the hood who do like the show, like to kind
Speaker 2: of like let them know, like where these stories come
Speaker 2: from or that sort of thing. And every idea that
Speaker 2: pitched on that sounded like bad DVD commentary, you know,
Speaker 2: and it was just like no, no, no, I want
Speaker 2: to like like, I would be delighted if every Memory
Speaker 2: Palace listener bought this book. But the truth of that
Speaker 2: is like this is a great opportunity to get in
Speaker 2: front of people or are just readers and notion of
Speaker 2: like like, hey, this story that you just read about
Speaker 2: Ruth Darkness, let me tell you where that came from.
Speaker 2: Like that's not the way books work, Like they don't
Speaker 2: come with that sort of experience. But I ultimately, like
Speaker 2: did find as I was compiling the book and as
Speaker 2: I was you know, really engaging with the breadth of
Speaker 2: the work over the course of all of these years,
Speaker 2: I just kept having this feeling that like I'm kind
Speaker 2: of an odd duck, Like this is an odd passion
Speaker 2: that I have, and this is like a slightly skewed
Speaker 2: perspective on sometimes familiar things, or just that my curritorial
Speaker 2: vision about the things that move me and the things
Speaker 2: that interest me that I and the things I feel
Speaker 2: this weird need to share with people comes from a
Speaker 2: kind of strange person in strange consciousness, and like as
Speaker 2: a result, there's like I think it is kind of
Speaker 2: worth unpacking, and so so I end up kind of
Speaker 2: developing this series of memoir stories. It's kind of nested
Speaker 2: demoir stories that I think ultimately give the reader, whether
Speaker 2: they're new to the stories or not, the sense of
Speaker 2: what makes them tick through the lens of what makes
Speaker 2: me tick. I love all of.
Speaker 1: That, and I loved those final stories in the book.
Speaker 1: I was not expecting to have those and to have
Speaker 1: kind of a personal insight into sort of some of
Speaker 1: your thought process. We are going to take a quick break.
Speaker 1: When we come back, we'll get to hear a show
Speaker 1: from your podcast. The next thing that you all are
Speaker 1: going to hear on the show today is one of
Speaker 1: Nate Demeyo's episodes of the Memory Palace. It is called
Speaker 1: the Temple of Dender, and we will.
Speaker 2: Just let that go. This is the Memory Palace. I'm
Speaker 2: Nate de Mau at the start of a timeline of
Speaker 2: the history of the Temple of Dender. There's a story
Speaker 2: that goes that Caesar Augustus, the first Roman Emperor, the
Speaker 2: adoptive son of Julius. Caesar, after defeating Antony and Cleopatra
Speaker 2: and taking over Egypt, wanted to keep his new subjects
Speaker 2: in line, so he built a number of temples up
Speaker 2: and down the Nile to the local gods. It was
Speaker 2: a way to show the folks so that the new
Speaker 2: boss wasn't so bad, he wasn't going to force some
Speaker 2: weird new religion down their throats. And it was a
Speaker 2: show of largesse, a splash of cash on a public
Speaker 2: works project. He picked Dender, or his people picked Dender,
Speaker 2: just north of Aswan, because there was a smaller temple
Speaker 2: there already to two princes who drowned nearby in the Nile,
Speaker 2: and had, through some mechanism of belief that held sway
Speaker 2: for a relatively brief time in ancient Egypt, become gods.
Speaker 2: And so the people of Dender had been used to
Speaker 2: going to that spot already to make offerings to deities,
Speaker 2: to ask for bountiful harvests and mild flooding and healthy
Speaker 2: suns who wouldn't drown. And so the Romans signed off
Speaker 2: in that location for Ahmadas structure. And a few years later,
Speaker 2: around ten BC, there was this temple dedicated to Isis
Speaker 2: in Osiris and the two princes. And there were men
Speaker 2: there who had cut sandstone from a cliff face and
Speaker 2: a quarry, who'd carved it into blocks, who dragged them
Speaker 2: across the desert, who'd hefted them on their shoulders, who
Speaker 2: were sat upon them, still warm beneath them, as sunset
Speaker 2: cooled the air, and a breeze shook the reeds as
Speaker 2: they floated in a flat bottom boat down the nile
Speaker 2: where two princes had once drowned and become gods. And
Speaker 2: there were men who stacked those blocks, who chiseled them
Speaker 2: into columns and lintils and falcon faced gods, set them
Speaker 2: in place just so sat and ate in the shade
Speaker 2: of a wall they built with those blocks, and who
Speaker 2: would think from time to time as their lives went on,
Speaker 2: and they would see the temple, see it change colors
Speaker 2: with each change of the lead, or shimmer in the
Speaker 2: heat and the horizon, or see it half submerged by
Speaker 2: the nile flooded again. They'd see this temple and think
Speaker 2: and built that I was here, and tell their kids,
Speaker 2: who'd say, my father built that he was here, maybe
Speaker 2: their grandkids. Until eventually the Temple of Dender was just
Speaker 2: landscape and landmark sandstone eroding at the next points in
Speaker 2: the timeline. The story goes that travelers, explorers and soldiers
Speaker 2: and wealthy dilettants discovered the Temple of Dender over and
Speaker 2: over again, saw it in the distances. They came around
Speaker 2: to bend in the river as their caravans crested a hill,
Speaker 2: and they stopped for a spell, watered their horses or
Speaker 2: their camels, rested for a bit in the shade of
Speaker 2: its walls, and carve their names. You can see them there.
Speaker 2: The first one is in an ancient script. Some tagger
Speaker 2: scraped it in like two thousand years ago, but you
Speaker 2: can still make it out. And then there's someone named
Speaker 2: Dravetti in eighteen sixteen, and in El Pulidi in eighteen nineteen,
Speaker 2: Leonardo Luigi Leandro. We don't know, but we can still
Speaker 2: almost see him there mustachioed, sweating through wool and linen,
Speaker 2: chipping his name in the soft stone of this temple,
Speaker 2: that there was an antiquities dealer or thief, depending on
Speaker 2: how you want to look at it, from Baltimore. His
Speaker 2: name's there too. And there's a New Yorker, Lewis Braditch,
Speaker 2: who came upon this minor temple on his way to
Speaker 2: see better sights. It took a few moments out of
Speaker 2: his grand tour one day in eighteen twenty one to
Speaker 2: carve his name and say to history, I was here.
Speaker 2: The story goes that the Nile flooded too high, over
Speaker 2: and over again for millennia. That was the way of
Speaker 2: the Nile. And there is a point on the timeline
Speaker 2: in about nineteen fifty four when there were twenty three
Speaker 2: million people in Egypt and the flooding was brutal, and
Speaker 2: there was only one crop that year, and there was
Speaker 2: a food shortage that threatened to become a famine but
Speaker 2: didn't quite. And so the government decided to raise the
Speaker 2: height of the Aswan Dam and make a lake that
Speaker 2: could help irrigate enough land to ensure three crops a
Speaker 2: year and food for those twenty three million, but that
Speaker 2: lake would drown the Temple of Dender in many other
Speaker 2: archaeological sites far more significant. Hundreds of tombs and towns
Speaker 2: and forts in Abu symbol the great Temple of Ramses,
Speaker 2: the second, the one with the four seated pharaohs carved
Speaker 2: into the hillside. You know that one, I bet. The
Speaker 2: Egyptian government went to the UN which was brand new
Speaker 2: back then, and asked the nations of the world for help.
Speaker 2: In fifty countries gave money to save it and save
Speaker 2: as much of this history as they could. Aghanistan gave
Speaker 2: two grand Togo, newly independent, gave eight hundred and fifteen
Speaker 2: dollars in thirty cents as one of its first acts
Speaker 2: in the international stage. President Kennedy went to Congress and
Speaker 2: made an impassioned speech asking them to help preserve the
Speaker 2: antiquities and to seize their own moment in history and
Speaker 2: make their mark. And the United States donated twelve million dollars,
Speaker 2: and that money paid for cranes and trucks and chisels
Speaker 2: and contractors and archaeologists and day laborers to dismantle and
Speaker 2: box and store as many tombs and temples as possible
Speaker 2: like this one here before the waters rose and rose.
Speaker 2: There is a point on the timeline mark November twenty second,
Speaker 2: nineteen sixty three, when a young president was shot in
Speaker 2: the back of a car and fell onto his young
Speaker 2: wife beside him, and then was shot in the head
Speaker 2: while it lay on her shoulder, and he died. And
Speaker 2: then a couple of years later, after everything, after LBJ
Speaker 2: one hand on a Bible in one in the air
Speaker 2: on Air Force one with Jackie beside him in the
Speaker 2: pink Channel, still bloodstand, after jack Ruby and Oswald, after
Speaker 2: John juniors saluting, after all of it, the Egyptian government
Speaker 2: offered the American government a temple as a thank you
Speaker 2: for helping save so much from the flood. Other countries
Speaker 2: would get stuff too, but the United States gave the
Speaker 2: most money, so it would have first pick. And the
Speaker 2: story goes that Jackie was asked to make the choice
Speaker 2: because saving the temples and the like had been a
Speaker 2: cause so dear to her late husband. That story is
Speaker 2: not entirely accurate, but that's how the story goes. And
Speaker 2: it goes on to say that she chose Dender. She
Speaker 2: chose this temple because it was the most beautiful, and
Speaker 2: jack would have loved it the most. And what she wanted,
Speaker 2: what she wanted for this temple, what she wanted for
Speaker 2: her husband, now two years dead, was to rebuild it
Speaker 2: in Washington, d c amidst the foe Greco Roman temples
Speaker 2: to Lincoln and Jeffrey, the fake Egyptian obelisk that is
Speaker 2: somehow supposed to evoke Washington. She wanted to use this
Speaker 2: real temple to Isis and Osiris, and to two princes
Speaker 2: who'd drowned too young in the river and became gods,
Speaker 2: as a memorial to the man she had once met
Speaker 2: at a dinner party at a mutual friends place, and
Speaker 2: then fallen in love with and set out to spend
Speaker 2: the rest of her life with. And then the story
Speaker 2: goes that the Metropolitan Museum of Art had hired a
Speaker 2: new director. His name was Thomas Hoving. He was thirty six,
Speaker 2: which was remarkably young for a job like that in
Speaker 2: a place like this, especially that, but it was nineteen
Speaker 2: sixty seven, you can find it on the timeline there,
Speaker 2: and he was charged in part with harnessing the spirit
Speaker 2: of that age and making them met a little less
Speaker 2: stodgy within reason, certainly less sleepy people who have been
Speaker 2: around the museum for a long time, will tell you
Speaker 2: stories about coming here to look at art on summer
Speaker 2: hote afternoons when school was out, when tourists were in
Speaker 2: town and have whole wings to themselves. And Thomas Hoving
Speaker 2: wanted to change that. He wanted crowds now. At the
Speaker 2: same time, President Johnson was deciding what to do with
Speaker 2: this gift from Egypt. He had already ruled out Jackie's
Speaker 2: idea for a memorial. He wanted no part in deifying
Speaker 2: his predecessor. Instead, he wanted a kind of contest. He
Speaker 2: had museums and cities tell him why they thought they
Speaker 2: were the best place in America for an Egyptian temple,
Speaker 2: not much of one, admittedly didn't come with any mummies
Speaker 2: or anything. Wasn't even all that old. But there were
Speaker 2: proposals from all over. The Museum of Fine Arts in Boston,
Speaker 2: the Smithsonian, Memphis, Tennessee, and Cairo, Illinois pitched their respective
Speaker 2: downtowns because they were named after cities in Egypt and
Speaker 2: would not be cool. And now you listening to this
Speaker 2: story about a temple at the met while maybe looking
Speaker 2: at that same temple at the Met, have a pretty
Speaker 2: good hunch how all this turns out. But the story
Speaker 2: here is that Hoving made a choice. He too knew
Speaker 2: this wasn't much of a temple. There were already dozens
Speaker 2: of objects in the Museum's Egyptian art department far more important.
Speaker 2: He knew that it would cost a fortune to bring
Speaker 2: it here. He knew it had questionable esthetic and historic value.
Speaker 2: But he also knew that you and I wouldn't really care,
Speaker 2: and he wanted to leave his mark on the history
Speaker 2: of the med You wanted to say I was here.
Speaker 2: There's a black stripe that stretches along a section of
Speaker 2: the timeline of the history of the Temple of Dender.
Speaker 2: It delineates the period of protracted competition and debate over
Speaker 2: who would get to have it. But that section is
Speaker 2: super boring, so we'll skip over it. But there's one
Speaker 2: part of that story worth telling, and we'll mark it
Speaker 2: with its own little dot. When Thomas Hoving ran into
Speaker 2: some particularly thorny obstacle in the process, he called Jackie Kennedy,
Speaker 2: who was just about to get remarried, and Hoving asked
Speaker 2: her if she could help, if she could put in
Speaker 2: a word with President Johnson on behalf of the met,
Speaker 2: she said, and Hoving said he wrote it downward for word.
Speaker 2: I want it to be built in the center of
Speaker 2: Washington as a memorial to Jack. I don't care about
Speaker 2: the MET. I don't care about New York, she said.
Speaker 2: I don't care if the temple crumbles into sand. The
Speaker 2: story goes that the Temple of Dender sat in pieces
Speaker 2: on an island in the middle of the Nile for
Speaker 2: almost twenty years. Then it was packed up into six
Speaker 2: hundred and sixty one crates, sent up the river tamed
Speaker 2: by the dam by then, and loaded onto a Norwegian
Speaker 2: freighter and borne across waves to New York. That was
Speaker 2: nineteen sixty eight. It sat around for nearly a decade.
Speaker 2: They built a plastic dome outside the museum where conservatives
Speaker 2: could work on it and keep it out of the elements.
Speaker 2: They were mostly waiting for a new wing to be
Speaker 2: built in a room here with a high ceiling in
Speaker 2: a wall of glass looking out onto the park, specifically
Speaker 2: to house the Temple of Dender, And then curators and
Speaker 2: teamsters and workmen brought it inside and put it back together.
Speaker 2: They are still around, a lot of them still saying
Speaker 2: surely to themselves to their kids, to the grandkids, now
Speaker 2: that they built this, that they were here. And there's
Speaker 2: another point on the timeline, another part of the story.
Speaker 2: The Times wrote it up. One day they were rebuilding
Speaker 2: the temple, scaffolding, hard hats, ancient dust catching the light
Speaker 2: through the windows, and work just stopped because Jackie Onassis
Speaker 2: and her daughter Caroline, who was just about to turn eighteen,
Speaker 2: came into the room. Jackie lived a block away. It
Speaker 2: was nineteen seventy five. It had been twelve years since
Speaker 2: her husband had been shot in the head while it
Speaker 2: lay on her shoulder. The Times didn't record what she
Speaker 2: said or know what she felt, of course, just that
Speaker 2: she looked around a while and signed autographs to the workers.
Speaker 2: And the timeline stretches on with a point marking the
Speaker 2: opening reception in nineteen seventy eight. Champagne flutes wide lapels.
Speaker 2: There's a point placed at Hoving's death in two thousand
Speaker 2: and nine. Dender is mentioned right near the top of
Speaker 2: his obituary. There are new placards in the wall opposite
Speaker 2: the park. The old ones had yelled with age, we'll
Speaker 2: mark a point for their arrival. The curators are very
Speaker 2: proud of them. They are filled with all sorts of
Speaker 2: details that will help the curious visitor place this temple
Speaker 2: in its proper historical context to understand what distinguishes it
Speaker 2: built as it was in the so called Roman period
Speaker 2: thirty b c. To six forty eight D from temples
Speaker 2: of earlier epics. Those epics traditionally be being distinguished by
Speaker 2: various things. There's a point for the teachers telling school
Speaker 2: groups the story explaining how this minor temple comes from
Speaker 2: the tail end of what we think of as ancient Egypt,
Speaker 2: the golden sarcophagus is and mummies and stuff, the time
Speaker 2: when the old gods were on their way out, and
Speaker 2: explain that we are closer in time to its construction
Speaker 2: right now by almost five hundred years than the construction
Speaker 2: of the Pyramids and the Sphinx were to the men
Speaker 2: who built this temple and sat in its shade. But
Speaker 2: you can just tell that. The story when the kids
Speaker 2: get home will be, mom, I saw the place where
Speaker 2: they put the mummies, and good for them. Mark a
Speaker 2: point for the night when one of those kids sleeps
Speaker 2: in dreams of Dender. Mark a point for the selfie
Speaker 2: taken at arm's length. The tourists saying I was here.
Speaker 2: Another for the security guard saying no flash please, for
Speaker 2: the ggillanth time that day. One for the toddler eyeing
Speaker 2: the pool with the papyrus, with his parents warning him
Speaker 2: away lest he be drowned and deified. Mark a point
Speaker 2: for each change in the light and how they change,
Speaker 2: how the temple looks, and mark a point for you
Speaker 2: here now. This episode is written and produced and stuffed
Speaker 2: by me Nate Demeyo of The Memory Palace podcast, and
Speaker 2: executive produced by Lemore Tomer, general Manager of Live Arts
Speaker 2: at the met with research assistants from Andrea Milln and
Speaker 2: engineering assistance from Elica Dudley. My residency is made possible
Speaker 2: by the Metropolitan Museum of Arts chester Dale Fund. The
Speaker 2: Memory Palace is a proud member of Radiotopia, a network
Speaker 2: from PRX which receives support from the Knight Foundation and
Speaker 2: from its generous listeners. Learn more about The Memory Palace
Speaker 2: at the Memory Palace dot org and subscribe on iTunes,
Speaker 2: Google Play, or wherever you listen to podcasts.
Speaker 1: So now that everyone has heard the Temple of Dender,
Speaker 1: something I found very interesting about this episode of your
Speaker 1: show is the fact that it was at it was
Speaker 1: done as part of your residency at the MET and
Speaker 1: I remember when that residency happened. I thought it was
Speaker 1: such a cool opportunity to combine museum with an audio
Speaker 1: production and to put all of these things together. And
Speaker 1: now this has moved into a new medium of a book,
Speaker 1: and it gave you the opportunity to follow up the
Speaker 1: episode with another chapter basically of the book that is
Speaker 1: parts excised from that story. Do you want to talk
Speaker 1: about that a little bit, how that evolved.
Speaker 2: Yeah? Absolutely, you know, I absolutely love being the artis
Speaker 2: and residence of the Metropal Museum of Art. And it's
Speaker 2: still like it's it's still the off chance that I
Speaker 2: get to go these days is a West Coaster. Boys,
Speaker 2: it's still really cool to see a little plaque that
Speaker 2: says the name of a thing that says the name
Speaker 2: of one of the episodes that I produced, and then
Speaker 2: my name like then like American born nineteen seventy four,
Speaker 2: as though it's just like any other artwork, and that
Speaker 2: it met It's incredible, And I really, you know, in
Speaker 2: doing these stories about like the stuff that moves you,
Speaker 2: there's just like nothing sort of more kind of magical
Speaker 2: than some of these incredible spaces that they've created in
Speaker 2: the Met, and so you know, to create a story
Speaker 2: about you know, to be listened to ideally in one
Speaker 2: of those spaces, but also that is something that's so
Speaker 2: iconic to the museum. And then to kind of like
Speaker 2: draw out the sort of like wonder in the mundanity
Speaker 2: of that story is really where the Memory Palace lives.
Speaker 2: Like the notion that this can be this run of
Speaker 2: the mill, you know, minor temple, but that has been
Speaker 2: imbued with such meaning over the years is a thing
Speaker 2: that just I find enduringly fascinating. And when I was
Speaker 2: walking around the Met looking for stuff to do stories
Speaker 2: about and talking to the curators about it, and there's
Speaker 2: no there's nothing more fun in the world than talking
Speaker 2: to an expert about the thing that they love and
Speaker 2: so revealed. To get to do that was such a thrill,
Speaker 2: and I was like, oh, cool, So I'm going to
Speaker 2: do this story about this American painting, and I'm going
Speaker 2: to do this story about these objects, and that I'm
Speaker 2: going to do a story about the Temple of Dender
Speaker 2: and I just wanted to be really straightforward. I want
Speaker 2: to call it the Temple of Dender, and I was told, yeah,
Speaker 2: you can't do that the way a minute I thought
Speaker 2: I was like the Arts of Residence. I thought that, like,
Speaker 2: you know, I had free rein to do whatever I want, Like, yeah,
Speaker 2: of course, if you're in too, do whatever you want,
Speaker 2: that's fine. But you can't actually just call a thing
Speaker 2: the Temple of Dender, because it turns out, as many
Speaker 2: people know at this point, that that and I did
Speaker 2: not that that the Temple of Dender in every mention,
Speaker 2: in every uh you know, in every publication that the
Speaker 2: MET does in this and this would fall under that category,
Speaker 2: had to buy buy a contractual agreement, uh say that
Speaker 2: it was the Temple of Dender in the Sackler wing,
Speaker 2: of the Sackler Gallery, of the Sackler whatever, sponsored by
Speaker 2: the Sackler family, you know who made their money, uh,
Speaker 2: you know, first in medical antiseptics, but then selling drugs
Speaker 2: directly to using doctors to sell drugs directly to patients.
Speaker 2: And they made so much of their fortune. I'm selling
Speaker 2: oxygon to people. Not only was this a key component
Speaker 2: to the history of the Temple of Dender that I
Speaker 2: could never quite find a way to tell even you know,
Speaker 2: with the residency of the Met there, which is something about, uh,
Speaker 2: the story began to overwhelm it in which didn't feel
Speaker 2: it just didn't feel right to the kind of magic
Speaker 2: of that place and the magic frankly of what the
Speaker 2: Met has built there. And so I was like, oh,
Speaker 2: I feel like this, this now needs to be a
Speaker 2: thing that like becomes part of the story because it's
Speaker 2: very clear, and it kept sort of trying to shoehorn
Speaker 2: it into the story and it just everything kept falling apart,
Speaker 2: and I realized that it needed its own addendum, It
Speaker 2: needed its own sort of moment and the kind of
Speaker 2: like shifting sun of the gallery of the Met. And
Speaker 2: it was one of these kind of cool opportunities that
Speaker 2: the book provided, like that to be able to kind
Speaker 2: of return to that story, to tell how the Sacklers
Speaker 2: became involved, and to tell ultimately, you know, how activists
Speaker 2: led by Nandgoles and the artists were able to you know,
Speaker 2: change the history of that, to put their own mark
Speaker 2: on that room and put their own mark in, you know,
Speaker 2: their own place in the timeline. It felt like kind
Speaker 2: of a real gift to the book. And also just
Speaker 2: to be able to frankly restore the very simple title
Speaker 2: this is always supposed to be the temple vendor, and
Speaker 2: and it now candy again.
Speaker 1: Has there been any other thing or person or whatever
Speaker 1: that you've covered on your show that you have later
Speaker 1: wanted to have some kind of a dendum to clarify
Speaker 1: anything about it at any nuance anything like that, You.
Speaker 2: Know, not too often, because the truth of the matter
Speaker 2: is like like for a Memory Palace story to feel finished,
Speaker 2: then I kind of need to figure out what it
Speaker 2: means to me, Like it really comes down to that,
Speaker 2: Like that one, you know, finds a story about, you know,
Speaker 2: as we both do, as we trawl or we just
Speaker 2: stumble upon exciting things, and one finds a story about
Speaker 2: Ruth Harkness and Interpanda. And on the one end, it's
Speaker 2: a very it's a very easy story to make cool
Speaker 2: because it's a very cool story. There are like lots
Speaker 2: of interesting facts and exciting incident. But the question always,
Speaker 2: you know, I have this, I have a list. It
Speaker 2: is dozens and dozens and dozens of potential topics long.
Speaker 2: I'm sure you guys have the same kind of file.
Speaker 2: And I look at it sometimes and I'm like, how
Speaker 2: come there's absolutely nothing I want to tell a story.
Speaker 1: About I have the exact same experience.
Speaker 2: Like, and also you're just like, why did I ever
Speaker 2: care about that thing? Then, over time, sometimes like something
Speaker 2: frankly often like occurs in your life and you'll say like, oh,
Speaker 2: I realize that this is a story about having aging parents,
Speaker 2: or oh, I realize that this is a story about
Speaker 2: an ambition of a certain type of thing that I'm
Speaker 2: currently now feeling this is about. And so I wait
Speaker 2: for that feeling. I wait for, like, this is the
Speaker 2: thing I want to say about the world to pair
Speaker 2: up with one of those stories. And so suddenly, like
Speaker 2: Ruth Harkness, the story you know, comes a little bit
Speaker 2: about like these times in your life when you let
Speaker 2: yourself like go on an adventure, and that can be
Speaker 2: a true adventure like Ruth goes on, or it can
Speaker 2: be just like, oh, I pursued this thing that took
Speaker 2: me beyond what I thought it might be capable of,
Speaker 2: and that you go and do that thing and it
Speaker 2: kind of fills your life in a certain way and
Speaker 2: and everything feels right. And I was very moved by
Speaker 2: the fact that she, you know, as her life falls apart,
Speaker 2: as frankly often it happens in these stories that you know,
Speaker 2: when one thing about history is get the whole span
Speaker 2: of the life. And I am very interested in what
Speaker 2: happens to people after they do the thing we know
Speaker 2: them for, and how they reckon with it and how
Speaker 2: it lives with them. Ruth's story is one of these
Speaker 2: things where you know, you think back to it and
Speaker 2: I'm so interested in, like, oh, like things felt right
Speaker 2: for her for a while and then they don't. And
Speaker 2: there's something I find a lot of sort of particular
Speaker 2: sadness it was worth exploring in there. But that said,
Speaker 2: so when the memory Palace feels done, it feels done,
Speaker 2: like it feels like, oh, I've said the thing I
Speaker 2: need to say, and there might be like extra stuff,
Speaker 2: but I kind of wish I could get in there,
Speaker 2: and there might. But that usually means so let's wait
Speaker 2: for another time to like tell that other aspect, let's
Speaker 2: wait for a different meaning as opposed to like, let's
Speaker 2: just get some more information in there. Does that make sense?
Speaker 2: It does?
Speaker 1: It definitely does. And I think that's sort of one
Speaker 1: of the things that's reflective of differences between the way
Speaker 1: your show works and the way our show works, because
Speaker 1: ours is often a very this happened, and then this happened,
Speaker 1: and then this happened. Chronological story, and so occasionally there
Speaker 1: will be a discovery about one of the things that
Speaker 1: we thought happened that didn't really happen, or you know,
Speaker 1: a realization somebody will find, you know, some previously unknown
Speaker 1: document that reveals new insight.
Speaker 2: That did happen in this book now that I think
Speaker 2: about it, you know, But it was not one of
Speaker 2: those things where I'm like, oh great, here's an opportunity
Speaker 2: to revisit this story or add to it. It was like, oh, shoot,
Speaker 2: I have to reckon with this. And that is the
Speaker 2: story of Hercules was an enslaved you know, a person
Speaker 2: enslaved by George Washington. When I did that story originally,
Speaker 2: like too that fifteen or something like that, the end
Speaker 2: of the story hinged upon the wonder and strangeness and
Speaker 2: kind of magic of the notion that after his escape,
Speaker 2: like people lose track of him, and that you know,
Speaker 2: in that he can kind of only live on in
Speaker 2: our imagination on some level, this real person who has
Speaker 2: become this thing. And if that's the case, then like
Speaker 2: let's make sure that we hold him in a similar
Speaker 2: way in our imaginations that we hold George Washington and
Speaker 2: let's hang his you know, his memories and sort of like,
Speaker 2: you know, the crime of the ownership of this man
Speaker 2: on George Washington, and let's like let's keep that going
Speaker 2: and like, let's we have the ability to kind of
Speaker 2: control what we take from the story, and this is
Speaker 2: what I'd like you to take. And it turns out
Speaker 2: that six months after I released that episode, they figure
Speaker 2: out where he went. And I did not know that,
Speaker 2: Like I just I missed the news because it was
Speaker 2: not at proper front page news. And during the fact
Speaker 2: checking process, someone's someone's like, excuse me, it's like oh,
Speaker 2: And so so there was this real question about like, oh,
Speaker 2: this thing needs an entirely different ending, and this is
Speaker 2: a story I like, and there's a real value in this,
Speaker 2: and there's value within the kind of like construct of
Speaker 2: this book to have this type of story in there.
Speaker 2: At this particular moment, I'm like, oh, but then one
Speaker 2: has to find not just a different ending, you know,
Speaker 2: it's not it's not it's not a language question, it's
Speaker 2: a meaning question. How does this change the meaning? And yeah,
Speaker 2: and it was a it was a surprise challenge, but
Speaker 2: one that again. So it was kind of lovely to
Speaker 2: immerse myself again sort of in that moment and kind
Speaker 2: of see like, oh, have I did what I got
Speaker 2: out of it? Then not only does it hold up
Speaker 2: under these new facts, but does it also hold up,
Speaker 2: you know, several years later as I have changed. Yeah,
Speaker 2: it was exciting to revisit it.
Speaker 1: So is there anything that you want to make sure
Speaker 1: that people really know about this book or your podcast,
Speaker 1: what you're working on, any of that.
Speaker 2: I like to think of what I do in terms
Speaker 2: of like writing these short stories that every two weeks
Speaker 2: I'll be the podcast and then you know, more often.
Speaker 2: When I was working on this book, I've discovered that
Speaker 2: I really have this like it's almost it's almost become
Speaker 2: like a yoga practice, where like it just does me
Speaker 2: good to think about the past. It does me good
Speaker 2: to think about the way that lives go, and it
Speaker 2: does me good to remember that we're all going to
Speaker 2: die someday and then our time is short. And I've
Speaker 2: just find such value in sort of like writing these things,
Speaker 2: and I really do think about like the value of
Speaker 2: the stories themselves, and in what I kind of want
Speaker 2: someone to get out of and the truth is like
Speaker 2: I kind of wanted people to get what I put
Speaker 2: into it. I don't mean that like the sweat. I
Speaker 2: just mean that, like I like to think of these
Speaker 2: stories as having the ability, when they work well, to
Speaker 2: kind of like inject like a little shot of feeling
Speaker 2: into one's life. Like we are all and I certainly
Speaker 2: am just like wrapped up in the kind of like
Speaker 2: in the just whirr and sputter of the every day.
Speaker 2: And I want each of these stories to kind of
Speaker 2: just have the ability to kind of like shift your
Speaker 2: day a little bit, if that makes any sense. Yeah,
Speaker 2: And again, I want this to be the like I
Speaker 2: want the podcast to kind of be like the thing
Speaker 2: that can like to bring like sort of like genuine
Speaker 2: wonder in like the strangeness of the world into like
Speaker 2: the span of a dog walk. And I want, you know,
Speaker 2: this book to be this thing that like sits on
Speaker 2: your shelf or you have in your pocket book or
Speaker 2: you have you know, in your carry on bag that
Speaker 2: like you know that at each turn you're going to start,
Speaker 2: you don't know where you're going to go, but that
Speaker 2: you'll be like that things will be a little different
Speaker 2: on the other end of the story, I.
Speaker 1: Love all of that. Having read this, this is really
Speaker 1: it's It's such a lovely book, and I think it's
Speaker 1: the exactly the kind of book that I would if
Speaker 1: I had not just read the entire thing preparing to
Speaker 1: talk to you about it. Definitely the kind of book
Speaker 1: that I would have nearby for when I had a
Speaker 1: moment and needed a moment to sort of reset my
Speaker 1: brain and my perspective. Also, every time I hear the
Speaker 1: words this is the Memory Palace, I'm Nate Demeyo, I
Speaker 1: feel comforted, even though I know there is a chance
Speaker 1: that what I'm about to hear is going to be heartbreaking.
Speaker 1: So take that as you will. Listeners, I said earlier,
Speaker 1: you have been on our show once before. If folks
Speaker 1: are listening right now and are thinking, I want to
Speaker 1: hear this other episode where they talked to Nate Demeyo,
Speaker 1: Holly and I both interviewed you on June tenth of
Speaker 1: twenty fifteen. That's when that came out, so long ago.
Speaker 1: And your book is being published by Random House on
Speaker 1: November nineteenth of this year, which is twenty twenty four, right,
Speaker 1: that's correct, So if you haven't heard The Memory Palace before,
Speaker 1: you can find the Memory Palace on anywhere you get
Speaker 1: your podcasts, same with us. I'm with Stuff you miss
Speaker 1: in History Class anywhere you get your podcasts. Thank you,
Speaker 1: thank you, Thank you so much, Nate for talking to
Speaker 1: me today. I hope everyone has enjoyed listening to you
Speaker 1: and listening to your show today.
Speaker 2: Thank you so much.
Speaker 1: Stuff You Missed in History Class is a production of iHeartRadio.
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