WEBVTT - Interview - Nate DiMeo and The Memory Palace 0:00:01.320 --> 0:00:04.280 Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production 0:00:04.400 --> 0:00:15.360 of iHeartRadio. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Tracy V. Wilson, 0:00:15.480 --> 0:00:18.680 and Holly is not here today, so instead I have 0:00:18.720 --> 0:00:22.680 a very special guest, which is Nate Demeyo of the 0:00:22.760 --> 0:00:27.240 podcast The Memory Palace and also author of the forthcoming 0:00:27.280 --> 0:00:30.400 book The Memory Palace, which is coming out from Random 0:00:30.400 --> 0:00:34.680 House on November nineteenth. If you're not familiar with Nate's show, 0:00:34.760 --> 0:00:36.720 you will get a chance to change that in just 0:00:36.800 --> 0:00:39.360 a few minutes. Hi, Nate, Welcome to the show. 0:00:39.520 --> 0:00:41.880 I am so happy to be here. I'm a longtime 0:00:41.920 --> 0:00:42.600 fan of the show. 0:00:43.280 --> 0:00:45.839 I'm a longtime fan of your show. Also, you have 0:00:45.960 --> 0:00:50.720 been on our show once before. That was nine years ago, 0:00:50.800 --> 0:00:54.080 which is hard to believe. At that time you had 0:00:54.160 --> 0:00:58.680 sixty five episodes. Now there are more than two hundred 0:00:58.680 --> 0:01:01.800 and twenty episodes of your show from just looking at 0:01:01.800 --> 0:01:06.360 the website today. How are we both still doing this? 0:01:06.480 --> 0:01:09.400 I guess that's my first question. Does it surprise you 0:01:09.480 --> 0:01:12.280 that all these years later we're both still doing the 0:01:12.280 --> 0:01:12.760 same thing? 0:01:13.120 --> 0:01:14.920 You know, it does and it doesn't. On the one hand, 0:01:15.000 --> 0:01:17.640 you know, nine years so I was realizing that I 0:01:17.720 --> 0:01:20.440 am this is my fifteenth year of doing the Memory Palace. 0:01:21.200 --> 0:01:23.480 I'm about to enter my sixteenth year, and that is 0:01:23.520 --> 0:01:25.880 sort of insane. And it's been easy for me to 0:01:25.959 --> 0:01:29.800 keep track of that because it kind of started shortly 0:01:29.840 --> 0:01:32.160 after my daughter was born and I was like, oh, 0:01:32.200 --> 0:01:34.200 I need to make sure I have like a creative 0:01:34.200 --> 0:01:38.160 outlet that I'm like building and and she's she's about 0:01:38.200 --> 0:01:39.800 to turn sixteenth in a couple of weeks. So here 0:01:39.840 --> 0:01:42.720 we are. Wow. Yeah, But that's the thing that is 0:01:42.720 --> 0:01:47.360 actually more surprising than just its longevity is the notion 0:01:47.520 --> 0:01:49.520 that you know, nine years ago felt like we've been 0:01:49.520 --> 0:01:51.560 doing for a long time. It felt like we were 0:01:51.600 --> 0:01:54.320 really it did. It really did. But on the on 0:01:54.360 --> 0:01:59.240 the other hand, like I discovered fairly early on when 0:01:59.240 --> 0:02:02.080 I started to do the short narrative his you know, 0:02:02.280 --> 0:02:06.760 historical stories put them to music, kind of found a 0:02:06.840 --> 0:02:10.600 voice that was you know, factually accurate, but also a 0:02:10.639 --> 0:02:12.760 little bit dreamy and a little bit you know, focused 0:02:12.760 --> 0:02:16.440 on sort of wonder and uh and kind of just 0:02:16.480 --> 0:02:18.760 like the mystery of not just like the mystery of 0:02:19.160 --> 0:02:21.720 living in the past, but living in the present with 0:02:21.840 --> 0:02:24.520 the past, you know, the way that just for people 0:02:24.560 --> 0:02:27.400 who love historical stories like we do in thinking about 0:02:27.400 --> 0:02:30.920 it that just kind of like magic place that invoking 0:02:31.000 --> 0:02:33.360 the past and the people that live there kind of 0:02:33.360 --> 0:02:36.440 brings out in you. I really discovered fairly early on 0:02:36.480 --> 0:02:40.240 as I started doing this that setting aside, you know, 0:02:40.320 --> 0:02:45.200 careerism and setting setting aside deadlines, there was just something 0:02:45.240 --> 0:02:48.959 I found personally useful and kind of exciting about doing 0:02:49.000 --> 0:02:51.840 these stories and about like taking the time to to 0:02:51.880 --> 0:02:54.840 read about, uh, you know, these figures and forgotten moments 0:02:55.320 --> 0:02:58.520 and you know, you know, find words you know and 0:02:58.600 --> 0:03:01.239 find words in music, and the combination of those two 0:03:01.240 --> 0:03:04.440 things to like kind of share that sort of wonder 0:03:04.480 --> 0:03:08.560 that experiencing those things like brought out in me and 0:03:08.600 --> 0:03:10.960 share them with listeners and so like, as a result, 0:03:11.120 --> 0:03:13.320 like this just kind of feels like a thing. I 0:03:13.360 --> 0:03:15.120 feel like I found a thing that was useful to 0:03:15.120 --> 0:03:17.239 my life, and as a result, it feels like a 0:03:17.280 --> 0:03:18.840 thing I'm just kind of going to be doing in 0:03:18.919 --> 0:03:22.000 some capacity forever. Like I felt like I stumbled upon 0:03:22.720 --> 0:03:26.040 a venue in the podcast to like express these things. 0:03:26.160 --> 0:03:28.000 So on the one hand, like, yeah, sixteen years is 0:03:28.040 --> 0:03:30.320 a very long time, But in the other hand, it's 0:03:30.320 --> 0:03:32.160 a little bit of like, yeah, this is my life now, 0:03:32.280 --> 0:03:36.160 and it remains a big and vital part of it. 0:03:36.720 --> 0:03:39.240 I love that it sort of reminds me of how 0:03:40.040 --> 0:03:41.800 I used to say that the first thing I found 0:03:41.800 --> 0:03:44.040 that I was really good at was being in college. 0:03:45.080 --> 0:03:48.920 And when I was hired to write for the website 0:03:49.040 --> 0:03:52.560 HowStuffWorks dot com, which is a totally different website now 0:03:52.640 --> 0:03:55.360 than it was when they hired me, I was like 0:03:55.400 --> 0:03:57.640 being in college again, because I was spending all of 0:03:57.640 --> 0:04:00.640 my time learning something and then writing about what I learned. 0:04:01.280 --> 0:04:04.280 And now my job is still that, but now I 0:04:04.360 --> 0:04:07.640 say the thing into a microphone afterward, and so it 0:04:07.720 --> 0:04:10.720 continues to be sort of an evolution of the first 0:04:10.720 --> 0:04:12.160 thing that I found that I thought I was good 0:04:12.160 --> 0:04:13.160 at and also enjoyed. 0:04:13.440 --> 0:04:15.240 That's exactly right. And the truth of the matter, too, 0:04:15.520 --> 0:04:18.480 is there's also that aspect of like, at some point 0:04:18.520 --> 0:04:21.200 your spouse or your friend or the person at the 0:04:21.200 --> 0:04:23.000 bar gets a little bit tired of you saying, oh, 0:04:23.040 --> 0:04:27.200 I just learned this amazing thing and putting now you 0:04:27.240 --> 0:04:29.480 can put it out into the you know, one puts 0:04:29.480 --> 0:04:32.119 it out into the air in hopes that the people 0:04:32.160 --> 0:04:33.719 that will be excited will find it. 0:04:34.600 --> 0:04:37.599 Yeah, so stuff you Missed in History Class and The 0:04:37.640 --> 0:04:42.320 Memory Palace. These are both podcasts about history. Obviously, you 0:04:42.440 --> 0:04:44.880 and I and Holly, all three of us are taking 0:04:44.880 --> 0:04:48.480 an approach that a lot of people describe as thoughtful, 0:04:49.279 --> 0:04:51.800 but your shows are like a third the length of 0:04:51.880 --> 0:04:53.920 virus most of the time. The last time you were 0:04:53.920 --> 0:04:55.680 on the show, we talked about the fact that you 0:04:55.760 --> 0:04:58.719 have some episodes that are five minutes long, that Holly 0:04:58.720 --> 0:05:00.919 and I get into the same store and we wind 0:05:01.000 --> 0:05:04.919 up with two thirty to forty minute episodes. Something you 0:05:05.040 --> 0:05:08.520 talk about in your book that I think sort of 0:05:08.760 --> 0:05:12.960 highlighted the way that we are each approaching history in 0:05:13.000 --> 0:05:16.119 ways that are both similar and different. Is you talked 0:05:16.160 --> 0:05:19.200 about that all of the stories you cover on your 0:05:19.200 --> 0:05:23.640 show start with something that moved you. Holly and I 0:05:23.680 --> 0:05:27.360 often talk about starting with things that interest us. So 0:05:27.880 --> 0:05:31.400 sort of your show starts with kind of a thoughtful 0:05:31.480 --> 0:05:36.120 meditation on something that moved you, while Holly and I 0:05:36.200 --> 0:05:39.800 are more explaining all the things that we found interesting 0:05:40.839 --> 0:05:44.000 about a particular subject. So can you tell us a 0:05:44.040 --> 0:05:46.680 little bit about, like what has led you to focus 0:05:46.720 --> 0:05:49.920 so much on being moved by something and on that 0:05:50.040 --> 0:05:53.719 level of emotional impact in historical stories. 0:05:54.360 --> 0:05:56.920 Yeah, I think that similar to your notion of like 0:05:56.960 --> 0:06:00.880 that the thing that that click for you was when 0:06:00.920 --> 0:06:02.560 you found a job that felt like you were back 0:06:02.560 --> 0:06:06.120 in college. For me, when I first got into journalism, 0:06:06.240 --> 0:06:08.599 there was just this sense of like I was a 0:06:08.760 --> 0:06:11.360 kid and then a young adult who was always like, oh, 0:06:11.400 --> 0:06:13.240 I'm one of those people who's kind of like good 0:06:13.279 --> 0:06:15.359 in a number of different things and interested in a 0:06:15.400 --> 0:06:18.600 ton of different stuff, and it's hard to choose. I 0:06:18.680 --> 0:06:22.760 was one of one of those people, and in journalism, 0:06:22.960 --> 0:06:25.320 and now the memory Palace like kind of allows me 0:06:25.400 --> 0:06:28.640 not to choose. It's like it puts the value on like, oh, 0:06:28.720 --> 0:06:30.359 I am interested in a lot of different stuff. And 0:06:30.400 --> 0:06:33.080 so yes, there is that interest that one might be 0:06:33.080 --> 0:06:35.960 interested in how bridges are constructed, and one might be 0:06:35.960 --> 0:06:38.839 interested in the invention of the zipper or or what 0:06:38.960 --> 0:06:41.880 happened at this battle or that battle. But the thing 0:06:41.920 --> 0:06:43.760 that I find when I go to museums and the 0:06:43.800 --> 0:06:46.719 things that I find when I read history is that 0:06:46.800 --> 0:06:51.839 like that over and over again. What that spark where 0:06:51.839 --> 0:06:53.320 I'm sort of like, oh, I do need to go 0:06:53.360 --> 0:06:55.279 tell this to my spouse, I do want to text 0:06:55.279 --> 0:06:58.279 my friend about that thing? Is that this thing has 0:06:58.520 --> 0:07:00.680 moved me, and like I mean that like in the 0:07:00.880 --> 0:07:04.279 in this straightforward sense like that it has like spurred 0:07:04.320 --> 0:07:09.120 some emotion. It has made me think nostalgically about old friends. 0:07:09.160 --> 0:07:13.440 It has taught me something about parenting. It has you know, 0:07:13.680 --> 0:07:15.680 just like like thrilled me with like, oh my god, 0:07:15.720 --> 0:07:18.160 I cannot believe that people live that way how you know, 0:07:18.280 --> 0:07:22.800 and reminded me that we live differently and that notion 0:07:22.880 --> 0:07:26.840 of being moved like to me, it's, uh, that's you know, 0:07:26.920 --> 0:07:28.480 that's what I look for in life. It's what I 0:07:28.520 --> 0:07:31.080 look for in a movie, is that I want to 0:07:31.360 --> 0:07:33.680 you know, come out and feel a little bit differently 0:07:33.720 --> 0:07:36.200 than I went in. And I just kind of had 0:07:36.240 --> 0:07:39.360 discovered that that was true of the past, that there 0:07:39.440 --> 0:07:42.120 was this kind of like magic that the that the 0:07:42.160 --> 0:07:44.600 past held for me, like that it was this kind 0:07:44.640 --> 0:07:47.000 of like imaginative space that you could go back and 0:07:47.040 --> 0:07:48.960 you could read about George Washington, or you could go 0:07:49.000 --> 0:07:51.440 back and you could read about you know, Shipwreck Kelly, 0:07:51.480 --> 0:07:54.520 the guy who became you know, famous for you know, 0:07:54.560 --> 0:07:58.160 sitting on tall objects for inordinate amounts of time, and 0:07:58.800 --> 0:08:01.360 that real space. These are these are real things that 0:08:01.480 --> 0:08:04.880 happen to real people. But what it really is doing 0:08:04.960 --> 0:08:08.200 is it's exciting your imagination. Like that, reading about history 0:08:08.560 --> 0:08:12.280 when it's good is no different than reading a than 0:08:12.320 --> 0:08:15.559 reading a novel. And I wanted to create a show 0:08:16.280 --> 0:08:19.440 that took that approach to history. And it doesn't mean that, 0:08:19.600 --> 0:08:21.680 you know, you know that, it doesn't mean that I'm 0:08:21.680 --> 0:08:25.480 any less serious about getting the fact straight. But I 0:08:25.520 --> 0:08:29.600 have always been very feeling forward when it comes to 0:08:29.800 --> 0:08:33.160 experiencing that stuff, and so the format that made the 0:08:33.200 --> 0:08:35.960 most sense to me was also very feeling forward, Like 0:08:36.120 --> 0:08:39.360 I want to create a show and write stories for 0:08:39.400 --> 0:08:43.360 this book about history that make you feel, things that 0:08:43.360 --> 0:08:46.959 that break your heart, that delight you. And yeah, and 0:08:47.960 --> 0:08:50.560 there's something you know when I when I read my 0:08:50.600 --> 0:08:52.520 own book, as I did recently with my audio, you know, 0:08:52.640 --> 0:08:55.360 with with sections of my audiobook, I'm like, boy, this 0:08:55.480 --> 0:08:59.240 is an earnest person. That's just it is the truth. 0:08:59.280 --> 0:09:02.760 Like it is a very feelings forward approach to history, 0:09:03.520 --> 0:09:08.440 in a very wonder focused approach, and it continues to 0:09:09.000 --> 0:09:11.440 delight and drive me from story to story. 0:09:12.040 --> 0:09:15.280 Well, let me please you to know that I started 0:09:15.559 --> 0:09:21.160 crying while reading your book about a story that not 0:09:21.200 --> 0:09:24.360 only did I already know but that we also have 0:09:24.559 --> 0:09:29.800 covered on our podcast, which was about Ruth Harkness and 0:09:29.920 --> 0:09:32.760 the first panda brought to the United States and just 0:09:32.800 --> 0:09:35.080 sort of the discussion of Ruth and who she was 0:09:36.000 --> 0:09:40.160 and thinking about what her interior world was like. As 0:09:40.200 --> 0:09:43.160 all of that was going on, I was sitting at 0:09:43.160 --> 0:09:45.400 my desk and realized, I was, like, I've been moved 0:09:45.400 --> 0:09:47.600 to tears by this thing that I already feel very 0:09:47.600 --> 0:09:48.719 intimately familiar with. 0:09:48.960 --> 0:09:50.839 That's in yeah, I know, I think that that. Really 0:09:52.120 --> 0:09:54.560 I think all the time about why we remember the 0:09:54.600 --> 0:09:57.640 things we remember, you know that like in some of 0:09:57.679 --> 0:10:00.160 it is, oh, I remember that experience I have at 0:10:00.200 --> 0:10:03.440 the park, that scary experience, because you know, our bodies 0:10:03.520 --> 0:10:05.840 are telling us to remember the trauma of that. But 0:10:05.880 --> 0:10:07.439 I also like think a lot about the kind of 0:10:07.520 --> 0:10:10.640 inverse of trauma, just that things that are so delightful, 0:10:10.760 --> 0:10:12.960 like things that like allow you to connect with with 0:10:13.080 --> 0:10:15.640 another human being, Like those are the other things you remember? 0:10:15.679 --> 0:10:19.240 You remember that you know, novel exciting day with a 0:10:19.320 --> 0:10:20.880 parent when they took you to the park when you 0:10:20.880 --> 0:10:22.800 weren't expecting to go to the park, or something like that. 0:10:23.240 --> 0:10:25.760 And I think all the time about like why it 0:10:25.920 --> 0:10:28.760 is that I remember, you know, certain events in my life. 0:10:29.080 --> 0:10:31.920 We are constantly like inundated with historical information like you do, 0:10:32.080 --> 0:10:34.840 like not just because we might be history buffs, but 0:10:35.080 --> 0:10:36.760 things pop up on the internet. I think you know 0:10:37.080 --> 0:10:39.120 things in your Instagram reel. There are all these like 0:10:39.200 --> 0:10:42.760 little you know facts about history, but there just aren't 0:10:42.800 --> 0:10:45.160 that many that are the ones that like make you 0:10:45.200 --> 0:10:47.800 suddenly tear up, or that you know again, make you 0:10:47.840 --> 0:10:50.000 want to, you know, turn to your spouse or text 0:10:50.000 --> 0:10:53.280 your friend. And I've come to really like trust those 0:10:53.280 --> 0:10:56.040 things and be fascinated by why those are the things 0:10:56.040 --> 0:10:58.840 that move me, Like why is it the story you 0:10:58.840 --> 0:11:02.400 know of Ruth Harkness and this woman going out to 0:11:02.440 --> 0:11:06.760 continue her husband's mission to find a panda, her recently 0:11:06.800 --> 0:11:10.560 deceased husband's mission to bring it live panda back to 0:11:10.600 --> 0:11:13.160 the United States, the first one you know that will 0:11:13.200 --> 0:11:17.640 leave China. And when those things move me, then I 0:11:17.679 --> 0:11:20.040 turn around to try to figure out, like, how can 0:11:20.080 --> 0:11:22.439 I also share this experience with someone else? And I'm 0:11:22.440 --> 0:11:24.080 glad that it seems like it worked in this in 0:11:24.120 --> 0:11:24.760 this case. 0:11:26.240 --> 0:11:29.600 My next question was going to be about how you 0:11:29.720 --> 0:11:33.560 decided which stories to put in the book, And I'm 0:11:33.600 --> 0:11:36.320 imagining that everything you just said was probably a big 0:11:36.320 --> 0:11:37.240 influence on that. 0:11:37.720 --> 0:11:40.480 Yeah, I think so. You know, I grew up really 0:11:40.600 --> 0:11:43.160 loving kind of anthology books, you know, whether it was 0:11:43.200 --> 0:11:45.000 just sort of like the Book of Lists or like 0:11:45.120 --> 0:11:47.920 Ripley's Believe It or not, like these like these books 0:11:48.160 --> 0:11:51.840 of these short little pieces of different types like just 0:11:51.920 --> 0:11:54.960 held such sway on my like young reader life. But 0:11:55.040 --> 0:11:57.400 that's not really a thing that exists as we as 0:11:57.400 --> 0:12:00.200 we become adults. Like there are magazines and magazines kind 0:12:00.240 --> 0:12:02.640 of have that can have that magic. But I wanted 0:12:02.679 --> 0:12:04.560 to kind of create one of those kind of like 0:12:04.600 --> 0:12:07.839 magic books that you get lost in. But ultimately that 0:12:08.040 --> 0:12:10.480 was one for adults that these were that these were 0:12:10.520 --> 0:12:13.480 going to be stories that had like heft and that 0:12:13.600 --> 0:12:16.319 had you know, depth, that you did have the ability 0:12:16.400 --> 0:12:18.559 to move you and to you know, potentially change you 0:12:18.679 --> 0:12:20.480 or change the way you think, you know, not just 0:12:20.480 --> 0:12:22.160 about the past, but things, you know, the way that 0:12:22.200 --> 0:12:23.920 you might live your life in the present, like you know, 0:12:24.000 --> 0:12:26.240 to be really kind of pretentious about it, but I 0:12:26.280 --> 0:12:28.280 also wanted to just simply have the power to kind 0:12:28.320 --> 0:12:31.200 of change your day that you have this book of 0:12:31.240 --> 0:12:34.440 these short stories that you can like I really for 0:12:34.480 --> 0:12:37.400 the first time in a long time. The Memory Palace, 0:12:37.559 --> 0:12:39.680 you know, has always just kind of been this, you know, 0:12:39.800 --> 0:12:42.840 nice evocative name. But I kind of wanted to create 0:12:42.880 --> 0:12:46.120 something that felt like wandering in through a museum, one 0:12:46.120 --> 0:12:48.120 that you could take at your own pace, you know, 0:12:48.160 --> 0:12:49.680 one that you could read a couple of stories and 0:12:49.720 --> 0:12:51.920 put down, you know, one that you could pick up 0:12:51.920 --> 0:12:54.880 in the middle and see a picture that grabbed you 0:12:54.960 --> 0:12:57.640 and just start there. Like I wanted to create like 0:12:57.679 --> 0:12:59.720 a book that was like a little bit of a 0:12:59.760 --> 0:13:02.520 port or something like that. And so as a result, 0:13:02.520 --> 0:13:06.080 it just kind of became this this you know, practical 0:13:06.160 --> 0:13:09.320 question of how many stories should be pre existing stories 0:13:09.320 --> 0:13:11.400 that people love from the podcast, how many of these 0:13:11.400 --> 0:13:14.679 stories should be new, how many stories should be you know, 0:13:14.920 --> 0:13:17.360 favorites that people who have listen, been listening for a 0:13:17.400 --> 0:13:20.800 long time, you know, will want to have the opportunity 0:13:20.840 --> 0:13:23.640 to kind of own and hold in their hands, you know, 0:13:23.679 --> 0:13:25.840 which is an opportunity that like, you know, as fans, 0:13:25.960 --> 0:13:27.959 as a person who loves your show, it's like I 0:13:27.960 --> 0:13:30.560 don't quite have like there is not that chance to 0:13:30.679 --> 0:13:32.880 just like, you know, in the same way that you 0:13:32.920 --> 0:13:35.280 know that there are episodes of yours that I love 0:13:35.559 --> 0:13:38.040 and in the same ways that I might love like that, 0:13:38.120 --> 0:13:40.960 I might have like loved a book, but there's just 0:13:41.400 --> 0:13:43.400 it would be nice to have that episode on my shelf, 0:13:43.559 --> 0:13:45.520 and it's been nice to give people the opportunity to 0:13:45.559 --> 0:13:48.360 do that. And so someone is like, which ones might 0:13:48.440 --> 0:13:51.400 people want to read and own and hold, Which one 0:13:51.440 --> 0:13:53.640 of these are simply just the best of what I've done, 0:13:54.240 --> 0:13:56.240 Which one of these frankly will work well on the page. 0:13:56.280 --> 0:13:59.760 There are some stories that are clearly audio stories from 0:13:59.800 --> 0:14:03.440 the podcasts that because they have you know, a bit 0:14:03.440 --> 0:14:05.400 of audio, or there's just something about the way the 0:14:05.480 --> 0:14:07.360 music needs to work, or there's just something about the 0:14:07.400 --> 0:14:10.360 way that I need to dictate pace with my voice 0:14:10.800 --> 0:14:13.360 that simply just don't hold up on the page or 0:14:13.400 --> 0:14:15.480 don't work as well on the page. So there are 0:14:15.520 --> 0:14:18.800 those considerations, and then there was you know, also considerations 0:14:18.840 --> 0:14:21.080 about what opportunities does a book present. And for me, 0:14:21.120 --> 0:14:23.800 a lot of that was visual, So I created you 0:14:23.840 --> 0:14:25.880 know a number of news stories that you know, hinge 0:14:25.960 --> 0:14:30.080 upon seeing images, which created you know, a whole set 0:14:30.120 --> 0:14:33.240 of stories that are about photographs, but also about the 0:14:33.280 --> 0:14:35.840 history of photography and about sort of the history of 0:14:35.920 --> 0:14:40.800 seeing in the history of living with visual records of 0:14:40.840 --> 0:14:44.360 our lives and our memories, which was its own opportunity. 0:14:44.640 --> 0:14:47.120 But then there was also a question that came from 0:14:47.160 --> 0:14:50.200 the publisher, which is essentially like, is this a chance 0:14:50.240 --> 0:14:52.000 that you have to kind of like let people under 0:14:52.040 --> 0:14:54.920 the hood who do like the show, like to kind 0:14:54.920 --> 0:14:57.320 of like let them know, like where these stories come 0:14:57.320 --> 0:14:59.960 from or that sort of thing. And every idea that 0:15:00.120 --> 0:15:03.360 pitched on that sounded like bad DVD commentary, you know, 0:15:04.360 --> 0:15:05.600 and it was just like no, no, no, I want 0:15:05.600 --> 0:15:09.080 to like like, I would be delighted if every Memory 0:15:09.080 --> 0:15:11.080 Palace listener bought this book. But the truth of that 0:15:11.360 --> 0:15:12.960 is like this is a great opportunity to get in 0:15:12.960 --> 0:15:15.880 front of people or are just readers and notion of 0:15:15.960 --> 0:15:18.320 like like, hey, this story that you just read about 0:15:18.360 --> 0:15:20.160 Ruth Darkness, let me tell you where that came from. 0:15:20.160 --> 0:15:23.240 Like that's not the way books work, Like they don't 0:15:23.240 --> 0:15:27.480 come with that sort of experience. But I ultimately, like 0:15:27.720 --> 0:15:31.520 did find as I was compiling the book and as 0:15:31.560 --> 0:15:34.880 I was you know, really engaging with the breadth of 0:15:34.920 --> 0:15:36.840 the work over the course of all of these years, 0:15:37.760 --> 0:15:40.600 I just kept having this feeling that like I'm kind 0:15:40.640 --> 0:15:44.720 of an odd duck, Like this is an odd passion 0:15:44.760 --> 0:15:48.280 that I have, and this is like a slightly skewed 0:15:48.280 --> 0:15:53.520 perspective on sometimes familiar things, or just that my curritorial 0:15:53.640 --> 0:15:55.760 vision about the things that move me and the things 0:15:55.760 --> 0:15:57.760 that interest me that I and the things I feel 0:15:57.840 --> 0:16:01.080 this weird need to share with people comes from a 0:16:01.160 --> 0:16:04.720 kind of strange person in strange consciousness, and like as 0:16:04.760 --> 0:16:06.320 a result, there's like I think it is kind of 0:16:06.360 --> 0:16:08.760 worth unpacking, and so so I end up kind of 0:16:08.800 --> 0:16:12.400 developing this series of memoir stories. It's kind of nested 0:16:12.400 --> 0:16:16.760 demoir stories that I think ultimately give the reader, whether 0:16:16.800 --> 0:16:19.800 they're new to the stories or not, the sense of 0:16:20.920 --> 0:16:24.200 what makes them tick through the lens of what makes 0:16:24.200 --> 0:16:26.240 me tick. I love all of. 0:16:26.200 --> 0:16:30.400 That, and I loved those final stories in the book. 0:16:30.400 --> 0:16:32.640 I was not expecting to have those and to have 0:16:32.720 --> 0:16:36.200 kind of a personal insight into sort of some of 0:16:36.240 --> 0:16:40.280 your thought process. We are going to take a quick break. 0:16:40.840 --> 0:16:43.440 When we come back, we'll get to hear a show 0:16:43.480 --> 0:16:55.560 from your podcast. The next thing that you all are 0:16:55.600 --> 0:16:57.960 going to hear on the show today is one of 0:16:58.120 --> 0:17:01.280 Nate Demeyo's episodes of the Memory Palace. It is called 0:17:01.800 --> 0:17:04.680 the Temple of Dender, and we will. 0:17:04.400 --> 0:17:07.920 Just let that go. This is the Memory Palace. I'm 0:17:08.000 --> 0:17:13.040 Nate de Mau at the start of a timeline of 0:17:13.119 --> 0:17:16.320 the history of the Temple of Dender. There's a story 0:17:16.320 --> 0:17:19.920 that goes that Caesar Augustus, the first Roman Emperor, the 0:17:20.000 --> 0:17:24.560 adoptive son of Julius. Caesar, after defeating Antony and Cleopatra 0:17:24.720 --> 0:17:28.200 and taking over Egypt, wanted to keep his new subjects 0:17:28.200 --> 0:17:31.520 in line, so he built a number of temples up 0:17:31.520 --> 0:17:34.399 and down the Nile to the local gods. It was 0:17:34.440 --> 0:17:36.040 a way to show the folks so that the new 0:17:36.080 --> 0:17:38.840 boss wasn't so bad, he wasn't going to force some 0:17:38.880 --> 0:17:41.760 weird new religion down their throats. And it was a 0:17:41.800 --> 0:17:45.000 show of largesse, a splash of cash on a public 0:17:45.000 --> 0:17:48.560 works project. He picked Dender, or his people picked Dender, 0:17:49.280 --> 0:17:52.560 just north of Aswan, because there was a smaller temple 0:17:52.560 --> 0:17:56.040 there already to two princes who drowned nearby in the Nile, 0:17:56.760 --> 0:17:59.480 and had, through some mechanism of belief that held sway 0:17:59.560 --> 0:18:03.000 for a relatively brief time in ancient Egypt, become gods. 0:18:04.000 --> 0:18:05.840 And so the people of Dender had been used to 0:18:05.880 --> 0:18:08.760 going to that spot already to make offerings to deities, 0:18:08.760 --> 0:18:12.399 to ask for bountiful harvests and mild flooding and healthy 0:18:12.400 --> 0:18:15.400 suns who wouldn't drown. And so the Romans signed off 0:18:15.440 --> 0:18:18.280 in that location for Ahmadas structure. And a few years later, 0:18:18.520 --> 0:18:23.840 around ten BC, there was this temple dedicated to Isis 0:18:23.840 --> 0:18:26.720 in Osiris and the two princes. And there were men 0:18:26.800 --> 0:18:29.240 there who had cut sandstone from a cliff face and 0:18:29.280 --> 0:18:33.439 a quarry, who'd carved it into blocks, who dragged them 0:18:33.440 --> 0:18:37.000 across the desert, who'd hefted them on their shoulders, who 0:18:37.000 --> 0:18:40.000 were sat upon them, still warm beneath them, as sunset 0:18:40.040 --> 0:18:42.640 cooled the air, and a breeze shook the reeds as 0:18:42.640 --> 0:18:44.720 they floated in a flat bottom boat down the nile 0:18:44.760 --> 0:18:48.000 where two princes had once drowned and become gods. And 0:18:48.040 --> 0:18:51.120 there were men who stacked those blocks, who chiseled them 0:18:51.119 --> 0:18:55.560 into columns and lintils and falcon faced gods, set them 0:18:55.560 --> 0:18:58.320 in place just so sat and ate in the shade 0:18:58.359 --> 0:19:01.200 of a wall they built with those blocks, and who 0:19:01.200 --> 0:19:04.080 would think from time to time as their lives went on, 0:19:04.240 --> 0:19:07.400 and they would see the temple, see it change colors 0:19:07.400 --> 0:19:10.560 with each change of the lead, or shimmer in the 0:19:10.600 --> 0:19:13.639 heat and the horizon, or see it half submerged by 0:19:13.640 --> 0:19:17.320 the nile flooded again. They'd see this temple and think 0:19:17.720 --> 0:19:21.679 and built that I was here, and tell their kids, 0:19:22.080 --> 0:19:25.879 who'd say, my father built that he was here, maybe 0:19:25.920 --> 0:19:29.800 their grandkids. Until eventually the Temple of Dender was just 0:19:29.920 --> 0:19:41.560 landscape and landmark sandstone eroding at the next points in 0:19:41.600 --> 0:19:45.639 the timeline. The story goes that travelers, explorers and soldiers 0:19:45.680 --> 0:19:49.439 and wealthy dilettants discovered the Temple of Dender over and 0:19:49.480 --> 0:19:52.760 over again, saw it in the distances. They came around 0:19:52.800 --> 0:19:55.840 to bend in the river as their caravans crested a hill, 0:19:56.200 --> 0:19:59.159 and they stopped for a spell, watered their horses or 0:19:59.200 --> 0:20:01.879 their camels, rested for a bit in the shade of 0:20:01.920 --> 0:20:05.800 its walls, and carve their names. You can see them there. 0:20:06.640 --> 0:20:09.719 The first one is in an ancient script. Some tagger 0:20:09.760 --> 0:20:12.919 scraped it in like two thousand years ago, but you 0:20:12.920 --> 0:20:15.480 can still make it out. And then there's someone named 0:20:15.560 --> 0:20:20.680 Dravetti in eighteen sixteen, and in El Pulidi in eighteen nineteen, 0:20:21.119 --> 0:20:25.520 Leonardo Luigi Leandro. We don't know, but we can still 0:20:25.560 --> 0:20:29.800 almost see him there mustachioed, sweating through wool and linen, 0:20:30.560 --> 0:20:32.800 chipping his name in the soft stone of this temple, 0:20:33.680 --> 0:20:37.040 that there was an antiquities dealer or thief, depending on 0:20:37.080 --> 0:20:39.159 how you want to look at it, from Baltimore. His 0:20:39.280 --> 0:20:42.640 name's there too. And there's a New Yorker, Lewis Braditch, 0:20:42.920 --> 0:20:45.240 who came upon this minor temple on his way to 0:20:45.240 --> 0:20:48.119 see better sights. It took a few moments out of 0:20:48.119 --> 0:20:51.080 his grand tour one day in eighteen twenty one to 0:20:51.160 --> 0:20:55.000 carve his name and say to history, I was here. 0:21:01.440 --> 0:21:03.960 The story goes that the Nile flooded too high, over 0:21:04.040 --> 0:21:06.800 and over again for millennia. That was the way of 0:21:06.840 --> 0:21:09.480 the Nile. And there is a point on the timeline 0:21:09.520 --> 0:21:12.200 in about nineteen fifty four when there were twenty three 0:21:12.240 --> 0:21:15.199 million people in Egypt and the flooding was brutal, and 0:21:15.240 --> 0:21:17.000 there was only one crop that year, and there was 0:21:17.000 --> 0:21:19.359 a food shortage that threatened to become a famine but 0:21:19.480 --> 0:21:22.399 didn't quite. And so the government decided to raise the 0:21:22.440 --> 0:21:24.800 height of the Aswan Dam and make a lake that 0:21:24.800 --> 0:21:27.399 could help irrigate enough land to ensure three crops a 0:21:27.480 --> 0:21:30.760 year and food for those twenty three million, but that 0:21:30.920 --> 0:21:33.680 lake would drown the Temple of Dender in many other 0:21:33.760 --> 0:21:37.600 archaeological sites far more significant. Hundreds of tombs and towns 0:21:37.640 --> 0:21:41.840 and forts in Abu symbol the great Temple of Ramses, 0:21:41.880 --> 0:21:44.920 the second, the one with the four seated pharaohs carved 0:21:44.920 --> 0:21:47.879 into the hillside. You know that one, I bet. The 0:21:47.920 --> 0:21:50.320 Egyptian government went to the UN which was brand new 0:21:50.359 --> 0:21:53.200 back then, and asked the nations of the world for help. 0:21:54.320 --> 0:21:57.480 In fifty countries gave money to save it and save 0:21:57.600 --> 0:22:00.760 as much of this history as they could. Aghanistan gave 0:22:00.800 --> 0:22:04.480 two grand Togo, newly independent, gave eight hundred and fifteen 0:22:04.520 --> 0:22:07.320 dollars in thirty cents as one of its first acts 0:22:07.320 --> 0:22:10.760 in the international stage. President Kennedy went to Congress and 0:22:10.800 --> 0:22:14.119 made an impassioned speech asking them to help preserve the 0:22:14.200 --> 0:22:18.080 antiquities and to seize their own moment in history and 0:22:18.160 --> 0:22:21.720 make their mark. And the United States donated twelve million dollars, 0:22:22.720 --> 0:22:25.680 and that money paid for cranes and trucks and chisels 0:22:25.720 --> 0:22:29.720 and contractors and archaeologists and day laborers to dismantle and 0:22:29.800 --> 0:22:32.640 box and store as many tombs and temples as possible 0:22:33.359 --> 0:22:36.320 like this one here before the waters rose and rose. 0:22:41.200 --> 0:22:43.640 There is a point on the timeline mark November twenty second, 0:22:43.720 --> 0:22:47.119 nineteen sixty three, when a young president was shot in 0:22:47.119 --> 0:22:48.960 the back of a car and fell onto his young 0:22:49.000 --> 0:22:51.760 wife beside him, and then was shot in the head 0:22:51.800 --> 0:22:56.560 while it lay on her shoulder, and he died. And 0:22:56.600 --> 0:23:00.880 then a couple of years later, after everything, after LBJ 0:23:01.520 --> 0:23:03.880 one hand on a Bible in one in the air 0:23:03.920 --> 0:23:06.119 on Air Force one with Jackie beside him in the 0:23:06.119 --> 0:23:12.320 pink Channel, still bloodstand, after jack Ruby and Oswald, after 0:23:12.440 --> 0:23:17.240 John juniors saluting, after all of it, the Egyptian government 0:23:17.280 --> 0:23:19.600 offered the American government a temple as a thank you 0:23:19.680 --> 0:23:22.800 for helping save so much from the flood. Other countries 0:23:22.800 --> 0:23:25.639 would get stuff too, but the United States gave the 0:23:25.640 --> 0:23:28.879 most money, so it would have first pick. And the 0:23:28.920 --> 0:23:31.680 story goes that Jackie was asked to make the choice 0:23:31.720 --> 0:23:33.840 because saving the temples and the like had been a 0:23:33.880 --> 0:23:36.840 cause so dear to her late husband. That story is 0:23:36.880 --> 0:23:39.879 not entirely accurate, but that's how the story goes. And 0:23:39.920 --> 0:23:42.199 it goes on to say that she chose Dender. She 0:23:42.320 --> 0:23:45.399 chose this temple because it was the most beautiful, and 0:23:45.560 --> 0:23:48.760 jack would have loved it the most. And what she wanted, 0:23:49.440 --> 0:23:51.879 what she wanted for this temple, what she wanted for 0:23:51.960 --> 0:23:55.439 her husband, now two years dead, was to rebuild it 0:23:55.480 --> 0:23:59.080 in Washington, d c amidst the foe Greco Roman temples 0:23:59.080 --> 0:24:02.439 to Lincoln and Jeffrey, the fake Egyptian obelisk that is 0:24:02.480 --> 0:24:05.960 somehow supposed to evoke Washington. She wanted to use this 0:24:06.040 --> 0:24:10.199 real temple to Isis and Osiris, and to two princes 0:24:10.240 --> 0:24:13.440 who'd drowned too young in the river and became gods, 0:24:14.480 --> 0:24:17.000 as a memorial to the man she had once met 0:24:17.000 --> 0:24:19.840 at a dinner party at a mutual friends place, and 0:24:19.840 --> 0:24:22.400 then fallen in love with and set out to spend 0:24:22.440 --> 0:24:30.960 the rest of her life with. And then the story 0:24:31.000 --> 0:24:33.280 goes that the Metropolitan Museum of Art had hired a 0:24:33.320 --> 0:24:37.440 new director. His name was Thomas Hoving. He was thirty six, 0:24:37.520 --> 0:24:39.760 which was remarkably young for a job like that in 0:24:39.800 --> 0:24:43.359 a place like this, especially that, but it was nineteen 0:24:43.400 --> 0:24:46.200 sixty seven, you can find it on the timeline there, 0:24:47.000 --> 0:24:49.439 and he was charged in part with harnessing the spirit 0:24:49.480 --> 0:24:52.080 of that age and making them met a little less 0:24:52.080 --> 0:24:55.840 stodgy within reason, certainly less sleepy people who have been 0:24:55.880 --> 0:24:57.760 around the museum for a long time, will tell you 0:24:57.800 --> 0:24:59.800 stories about coming here to look at art on summer 0:24:59.800 --> 0:25:02.760 hote afternoons when school was out, when tourists were in 0:25:02.840 --> 0:25:06.760 town and have whole wings to themselves. And Thomas Hoving 0:25:06.800 --> 0:25:10.159 wanted to change that. He wanted crowds now. At the 0:25:10.160 --> 0:25:12.840 same time, President Johnson was deciding what to do with 0:25:12.920 --> 0:25:16.600 this gift from Egypt. He had already ruled out Jackie's 0:25:16.600 --> 0:25:20.200 idea for a memorial. He wanted no part in deifying 0:25:20.240 --> 0:25:25.240 his predecessor. Instead, he wanted a kind of contest. He 0:25:25.320 --> 0:25:27.959 had museums and cities tell him why they thought they 0:25:28.000 --> 0:25:30.600 were the best place in America for an Egyptian temple, 0:25:31.960 --> 0:25:35.040 not much of one, admittedly didn't come with any mummies 0:25:35.119 --> 0:25:38.800 or anything. Wasn't even all that old. But there were 0:25:38.800 --> 0:25:42.440 proposals from all over. The Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, 0:25:42.520 --> 0:25:46.800 the Smithsonian, Memphis, Tennessee, and Cairo, Illinois pitched their respective 0:25:46.840 --> 0:25:49.960 downtowns because they were named after cities in Egypt and 0:25:49.960 --> 0:25:53.240 would not be cool. And now you listening to this 0:25:53.320 --> 0:25:55.639 story about a temple at the met while maybe looking 0:25:55.680 --> 0:25:57.960 at that same temple at the Met, have a pretty 0:25:57.960 --> 0:26:00.520 good hunch how all this turns out. But the story 0:26:00.520 --> 0:26:03.240 here is that Hoving made a choice. He too knew 0:26:03.320 --> 0:26:06.840 this wasn't much of a temple. There were already dozens 0:26:06.840 --> 0:26:10.120 of objects in the Museum's Egyptian art department far more important. 0:26:10.480 --> 0:26:12.360 He knew that it would cost a fortune to bring 0:26:12.400 --> 0:26:15.960 it here. He knew it had questionable esthetic and historic value. 0:26:16.480 --> 0:26:18.920 But he also knew that you and I wouldn't really care, 0:26:20.240 --> 0:26:22.040 and he wanted to leave his mark on the history 0:26:22.080 --> 0:26:24.720 of the med You wanted to say I was here. 0:26:28.240 --> 0:26:30.440 There's a black stripe that stretches along a section of 0:26:30.480 --> 0:26:32.439 the timeline of the history of the Temple of Dender. 0:26:33.240 --> 0:26:36.400 It delineates the period of protracted competition and debate over 0:26:36.400 --> 0:26:38.960 who would get to have it. But that section is 0:26:38.960 --> 0:26:42.800 super boring, so we'll skip over it. But there's one 0:26:42.840 --> 0:26:45.560 part of that story worth telling, and we'll mark it 0:26:45.560 --> 0:26:49.800 with its own little dot. When Thomas Hoving ran into 0:26:49.800 --> 0:26:53.879 some particularly thorny obstacle in the process, he called Jackie Kennedy, 0:26:54.280 --> 0:26:57.120 who was just about to get remarried, and Hoving asked 0:26:57.119 --> 0:26:59.480 her if she could help, if she could put in 0:26:59.520 --> 0:27:01.800 a word with President Johnson on behalf of the met, 0:27:02.600 --> 0:27:05.560 she said, and Hoving said he wrote it downward for word. 0:27:06.359 --> 0:27:07.800 I want it to be built in the center of 0:27:07.920 --> 0:27:11.000 Washington as a memorial to Jack. I don't care about 0:27:11.000 --> 0:27:14.960 the MET. I don't care about New York, she said. 0:27:15.840 --> 0:27:24.800 I don't care if the temple crumbles into sand. The 0:27:24.840 --> 0:27:27.280 story goes that the Temple of Dender sat in pieces 0:27:27.320 --> 0:27:28.840 on an island in the middle of the Nile for 0:27:28.840 --> 0:27:31.520 almost twenty years. Then it was packed up into six 0:27:31.640 --> 0:27:34.960 hundred and sixty one crates, sent up the river tamed 0:27:34.960 --> 0:27:37.879 by the dam by then, and loaded onto a Norwegian 0:27:37.920 --> 0:27:41.359 freighter and borne across waves to New York. That was 0:27:41.440 --> 0:27:45.600 nineteen sixty eight. It sat around for nearly a decade. 0:27:45.800 --> 0:27:48.800 They built a plastic dome outside the museum where conservatives 0:27:48.800 --> 0:27:51.000 could work on it and keep it out of the elements. 0:27:51.280 --> 0:27:53.080 They were mostly waiting for a new wing to be 0:27:53.119 --> 0:27:57.199 built in a room here with a high ceiling in 0:27:57.240 --> 0:28:00.760 a wall of glass looking out onto the park, specifically 0:28:00.800 --> 0:28:04.119 to house the Temple of Dender, And then curators and 0:28:04.200 --> 0:28:07.280 teamsters and workmen brought it inside and put it back together. 0:28:08.520 --> 0:28:11.600 They are still around, a lot of them still saying 0:28:12.000 --> 0:28:16.680 surely to themselves to their kids, to the grandkids, now 0:28:17.359 --> 0:28:28.240 that they built this, that they were here. And there's 0:28:28.280 --> 0:28:31.479 another point on the timeline, another part of the story. 0:28:32.320 --> 0:28:35.440 The Times wrote it up. One day they were rebuilding 0:28:35.440 --> 0:28:40.080 the temple, scaffolding, hard hats, ancient dust catching the light 0:28:40.160 --> 0:28:45.480 through the windows, and work just stopped because Jackie Onassis 0:28:45.520 --> 0:28:48.600 and her daughter Caroline, who was just about to turn eighteen, 0:28:49.720 --> 0:28:53.480 came into the room. Jackie lived a block away. It 0:28:53.560 --> 0:28:56.640 was nineteen seventy five. It had been twelve years since 0:28:56.640 --> 0:28:58.440 her husband had been shot in the head while it 0:28:58.520 --> 0:29:01.800 lay on her shoulder. The Times didn't record what she 0:29:01.880 --> 0:29:05.040 said or know what she felt, of course, just that 0:29:05.120 --> 0:29:15.720 she looked around a while and signed autographs to the workers. 0:29:16.840 --> 0:29:19.840 And the timeline stretches on with a point marking the 0:29:19.880 --> 0:29:24.440 opening reception in nineteen seventy eight. Champagne flutes wide lapels. 0:29:25.280 --> 0:29:27.640 There's a point placed at Hoving's death in two thousand 0:29:27.640 --> 0:29:30.640 and nine. Dender is mentioned right near the top of 0:29:30.680 --> 0:29:34.280 his obituary. There are new placards in the wall opposite 0:29:34.320 --> 0:29:38.880 the park. The old ones had yelled with age, we'll 0:29:38.920 --> 0:29:41.920 mark a point for their arrival. The curators are very 0:29:41.960 --> 0:29:44.840 proud of them. They are filled with all sorts of 0:29:44.840 --> 0:29:47.640 details that will help the curious visitor place this temple 0:29:47.720 --> 0:29:51.640 in its proper historical context to understand what distinguishes it 0:29:52.040 --> 0:29:54.240 built as it was in the so called Roman period 0:29:54.560 --> 0:29:57.480 thirty b c. To six forty eight D from temples 0:29:57.520 --> 0:30:01.520 of earlier epics. Those epics traditionally be being distinguished by 0:30:02.280 --> 0:30:06.800 various things. There's a point for the teachers telling school 0:30:06.800 --> 0:30:10.200 groups the story explaining how this minor temple comes from 0:30:10.200 --> 0:30:12.479 the tail end of what we think of as ancient Egypt, 0:30:12.960 --> 0:30:16.240 the golden sarcophagus is and mummies and stuff, the time 0:30:16.280 --> 0:30:18.560 when the old gods were on their way out, and 0:30:18.600 --> 0:30:21.200 explain that we are closer in time to its construction 0:30:21.880 --> 0:30:26.000 right now by almost five hundred years than the construction 0:30:26.080 --> 0:30:28.920 of the Pyramids and the Sphinx were to the men 0:30:28.960 --> 0:30:33.400 who built this temple and sat in its shade. But 0:30:33.520 --> 0:30:35.800 you can just tell that. The story when the kids 0:30:35.800 --> 0:30:38.560 get home will be, mom, I saw the place where 0:30:38.560 --> 0:30:42.560 they put the mummies, and good for them. Mark a 0:30:42.600 --> 0:30:44.720 point for the night when one of those kids sleeps 0:30:44.760 --> 0:30:49.200 in dreams of Dender. Mark a point for the selfie 0:30:49.200 --> 0:30:52.440 taken at arm's length. The tourists saying I was here. 0:30:53.680 --> 0:30:57.240 Another for the security guard saying no flash please, for 0:30:57.280 --> 0:31:01.520 the ggillanth time that day. One for the toddler eyeing 0:31:01.560 --> 0:31:05.280 the pool with the papyrus, with his parents warning him 0:31:05.280 --> 0:31:11.520 away lest he be drowned and deified. Mark a point 0:31:11.560 --> 0:31:15.120 for each change in the light and how they change, 0:31:15.160 --> 0:31:19.800 how the temple looks, and mark a point for you 0:31:20.840 --> 0:32:28.680 here now. This episode is written and produced and stuffed 0:32:28.680 --> 0:32:31.800 by me Nate Demeyo of The Memory Palace podcast, and 0:32:32.000 --> 0:32:36.120 executive produced by Lemore Tomer, general Manager of Live Arts 0:32:36.120 --> 0:32:39.280 at the met with research assistants from Andrea Milln and 0:32:39.320 --> 0:32:43.600 engineering assistance from Elica Dudley. My residency is made possible 0:32:43.600 --> 0:32:46.720 by the Metropolitan Museum of Arts chester Dale Fund. The 0:32:46.800 --> 0:32:50.200 Memory Palace is a proud member of Radiotopia, a network 0:32:50.240 --> 0:32:53.560 from PRX which receives support from the Knight Foundation and 0:32:53.640 --> 0:32:57.240 from its generous listeners. Learn more about The Memory Palace 0:32:57.280 --> 0:33:00.600 at the Memory Palace dot org and subscribe on iTunes, 0:33:01.040 --> 0:33:13.600 Google Play, or wherever you listen to podcasts. 0:33:18.640 --> 0:33:21.880 So now that everyone has heard the Temple of Dender, 0:33:22.120 --> 0:33:26.560 something I found very interesting about this episode of your 0:33:26.600 --> 0:33:29.680 show is the fact that it was at it was 0:33:29.720 --> 0:33:34.120 done as part of your residency at the MET and 0:33:34.320 --> 0:33:37.080 I remember when that residency happened. I thought it was 0:33:37.120 --> 0:33:42.240 such a cool opportunity to combine museum with an audio 0:33:42.360 --> 0:33:45.200 production and to put all of these things together. And 0:33:45.240 --> 0:33:47.960 now this has moved into a new medium of a book, 0:33:48.720 --> 0:33:52.080 and it gave you the opportunity to follow up the 0:33:52.200 --> 0:33:56.040 episode with another chapter basically of the book that is 0:33:56.160 --> 0:33:59.480 parts excised from that story. Do you want to talk 0:33:59.480 --> 0:34:01.560 about that a little bit, how that evolved. 0:34:02.120 --> 0:34:05.320 Yeah? Absolutely, you know, I absolutely love being the artis 0:34:05.320 --> 0:34:07.000 and residence of the Metropal Museum of Art. And it's 0:34:07.000 --> 0:34:10.600 still like it's it's still the off chance that I 0:34:10.600 --> 0:34:14.160 get to go these days is a West Coaster. Boys, 0:34:14.200 --> 0:34:16.600 it's still really cool to see a little plaque that 0:34:16.760 --> 0:34:18.960 says the name of a thing that says the name 0:34:19.000 --> 0:34:21.880 of one of the episodes that I produced, and then 0:34:22.120 --> 0:34:25.080 my name like then like American born nineteen seventy four, 0:34:25.120 --> 0:34:26.960 as though it's just like any other artwork, and that 0:34:26.960 --> 0:34:31.319 it met It's incredible, And I really, you know, in 0:34:32.000 --> 0:34:34.560 doing these stories about like the stuff that moves you, 0:34:35.400 --> 0:34:38.759 there's just like nothing sort of more kind of magical 0:34:39.280 --> 0:34:41.920 than some of these incredible spaces that they've created in 0:34:41.960 --> 0:34:45.600 the Met, and so you know, to create a story 0:34:46.280 --> 0:34:48.600 about you know, to be listened to ideally in one 0:34:48.600 --> 0:34:50.400 of those spaces, but also that is something that's so 0:34:50.560 --> 0:34:53.319 iconic to the museum. And then to kind of like 0:34:53.480 --> 0:34:56.960 draw out the sort of like wonder in the mundanity 0:34:57.000 --> 0:34:59.919 of that story is really where the Memory Palace lives. 0:35:00.120 --> 0:35:03.600 Like the notion that this can be this run of 0:35:03.640 --> 0:35:08.120 the mill, you know, minor temple, but that has been 0:35:08.160 --> 0:35:10.759 imbued with such meaning over the years is a thing 0:35:10.760 --> 0:35:14.520 that just I find enduringly fascinating. And when I was 0:35:14.840 --> 0:35:17.800 walking around the Met looking for stuff to do stories 0:35:17.800 --> 0:35:21.000 about and talking to the curators about it, and there's 0:35:21.120 --> 0:35:23.520 no there's nothing more fun in the world than talking 0:35:23.560 --> 0:35:25.640 to an expert about the thing that they love and 0:35:25.719 --> 0:35:29.000 so revealed. To get to do that was such a thrill, 0:35:29.080 --> 0:35:31.120 and I was like, oh, cool, So I'm going to 0:35:31.160 --> 0:35:33.719 do this story about this American painting, and I'm going 0:35:33.719 --> 0:35:36.160 to do this story about these objects, and that I'm 0:35:36.160 --> 0:35:37.840 going to do a story about the Temple of Dender 0:35:38.160 --> 0:35:40.000 and I just wanted to be really straightforward. I want 0:35:40.040 --> 0:35:42.839 to call it the Temple of Dender, and I was told, yeah, 0:35:42.880 --> 0:35:45.799 you can't do that the way a minute I thought 0:35:45.800 --> 0:35:47.600 I was like the Arts of Residence. I thought that, like, 0:35:47.680 --> 0:35:49.440 you know, I had free rein to do whatever I want, Like, yeah, 0:35:49.480 --> 0:35:50.799 of course, if you're in too, do whatever you want, 0:35:50.800 --> 0:35:53.799 that's fine. But you can't actually just call a thing 0:35:53.840 --> 0:35:56.719 the Temple of Dender, because it turns out, as many 0:35:56.760 --> 0:35:59.759 people know at this point, that that and I did 0:35:59.800 --> 0:36:02.560 not that that the Temple of Dender in every mention, 0:36:03.239 --> 0:36:06.160 in every uh you know, in every publication that the 0:36:06.200 --> 0:36:08.840 MET does in this and this would fall under that category, 0:36:09.320 --> 0:36:15.279 had to buy buy a contractual agreement, uh say that 0:36:16.120 --> 0:36:18.359 it was the Temple of Dender in the Sackler wing, 0:36:18.800 --> 0:36:22.920 of the Sackler Gallery, of the Sackler whatever, sponsored by 0:36:22.920 --> 0:36:26.839 the Sackler family, you know who made their money, uh, 0:36:26.880 --> 0:36:30.800 you know, first in medical antiseptics, but then selling drugs 0:36:30.800 --> 0:36:35.960 directly to using doctors to sell drugs directly to patients. 0:36:36.120 --> 0:36:39.359 And they made so much of their fortune. I'm selling 0:36:39.400 --> 0:36:44.640 oxygon to people. Not only was this a key component 0:36:44.840 --> 0:36:48.680 to the history of the Temple of Dender that I 0:36:48.719 --> 0:36:52.279 could never quite find a way to tell even you know, 0:36:52.600 --> 0:36:56.319 with the residency of the Met there, which is something about, uh, 0:36:56.719 --> 0:36:59.160 the story began to overwhelm it in which didn't feel 0:37:00.600 --> 0:37:03.680 it just didn't feel right to the kind of magic 0:37:03.719 --> 0:37:06.360 of that place and the magic frankly of what the 0:37:06.400 --> 0:37:08.879 Met has built there. And so I was like, oh, 0:37:08.920 --> 0:37:12.480 I feel like this, this now needs to be a 0:37:12.520 --> 0:37:15.520 thing that like becomes part of the story because it's 0:37:15.600 --> 0:37:18.360 very clear, and it kept sort of trying to shoehorn 0:37:18.400 --> 0:37:21.200 it into the story and it just everything kept falling apart, 0:37:22.000 --> 0:37:25.399 and I realized that it needed its own addendum, It 0:37:25.480 --> 0:37:28.239 needed its own sort of moment and the kind of 0:37:28.280 --> 0:37:31.040 like shifting sun of the gallery of the Met. And 0:37:31.120 --> 0:37:33.000 it was one of these kind of cool opportunities that 0:37:33.320 --> 0:37:35.719 the book provided, like that to be able to kind 0:37:35.760 --> 0:37:38.719 of return to that story, to tell how the Sacklers 0:37:38.760 --> 0:37:42.839 became involved, and to tell ultimately, you know, how activists 0:37:43.440 --> 0:37:47.080 led by Nandgoles and the artists were able to you know, 0:37:47.200 --> 0:37:49.520 change the history of that, to put their own mark 0:37:49.560 --> 0:37:53.279 on that room and put their own mark in, you know, 0:37:53.320 --> 0:37:55.799 their own place in the timeline. It felt like kind 0:37:55.800 --> 0:37:57.560 of a real gift to the book. And also just 0:37:57.560 --> 0:38:00.000 to be able to frankly restore the very simple title 0:38:00.200 --> 0:38:02.080 this is always supposed to be the temple vendor, and 0:38:02.320 --> 0:38:03.399 and it now candy again. 0:38:12.960 --> 0:38:17.440 Has there been any other thing or person or whatever 0:38:17.480 --> 0:38:20.520 that you've covered on your show that you have later 0:38:20.640 --> 0:38:24.320 wanted to have some kind of a dendum to clarify 0:38:24.400 --> 0:38:28.160 anything about it at any nuance anything like that, You. 0:38:28.120 --> 0:38:30.000 Know, not too often, because the truth of the matter 0:38:30.120 --> 0:38:33.800 is like like for a Memory Palace story to feel finished, 0:38:34.480 --> 0:38:36.359 then I kind of need to figure out what it 0:38:36.400 --> 0:38:38.120 means to me, Like it really comes down to that, 0:38:38.520 --> 0:38:43.279 Like that one, you know, finds a story about, you know, 0:38:43.320 --> 0:38:45.640 as we both do, as we trawl or we just 0:38:45.680 --> 0:38:48.520 stumble upon exciting things, and one finds a story about 0:38:48.560 --> 0:38:52.520 Ruth Harkness and Interpanda. And on the one end, it's 0:38:52.520 --> 0:38:54.680 a very it's a very easy story to make cool 0:38:54.719 --> 0:38:56.520 because it's a very cool story. There are like lots 0:38:56.560 --> 0:39:01.480 of interesting facts and exciting incident. But the question always, 0:39:01.520 --> 0:39:03.239 you know, I have this, I have a list. It 0:39:03.360 --> 0:39:06.000 is dozens and dozens and dozens of potential topics long. 0:39:06.040 --> 0:39:07.640 I'm sure you guys have the same kind of file. 0:39:08.440 --> 0:39:11.640 And I look at it sometimes and I'm like, how 0:39:11.680 --> 0:39:13.760 come there's absolutely nothing I want to tell a story. 0:39:13.520 --> 0:39:16.600 About I have the exact same experience. 0:39:16.239 --> 0:39:18.000 Like, and also you're just like, why did I ever 0:39:18.160 --> 0:39:23.000 care about that thing? Then, over time, sometimes like something 0:39:23.160 --> 0:39:27.120 frankly often like occurs in your life and you'll say like, oh, 0:39:27.360 --> 0:39:30.280 I realize that this is a story about having aging parents, 0:39:30.480 --> 0:39:32.520 or oh, I realize that this is a story about 0:39:32.560 --> 0:39:34.839 an ambition of a certain type of thing that I'm 0:39:34.880 --> 0:39:38.719 currently now feeling this is about. And so I wait 0:39:38.840 --> 0:39:41.080 for that feeling. I wait for, like, this is the 0:39:41.120 --> 0:39:43.239 thing I want to say about the world to pair 0:39:43.320 --> 0:39:46.360 up with one of those stories. And so suddenly, like 0:39:46.480 --> 0:39:49.239 Ruth Harkness, the story you know, comes a little bit 0:39:49.280 --> 0:39:52.080 about like these times in your life when you let 0:39:52.120 --> 0:39:55.120 yourself like go on an adventure, and that can be 0:39:55.760 --> 0:39:58.279 a true adventure like Ruth goes on, or it can 0:39:58.320 --> 0:40:01.440 be just like, oh, I pursued this thing that took 0:40:01.520 --> 0:40:03.480 me beyond what I thought it might be capable of, 0:40:04.160 --> 0:40:05.840 and that you go and do that thing and it 0:40:06.360 --> 0:40:08.200 kind of fills your life in a certain way and 0:40:08.480 --> 0:40:12.640 and everything feels right. And I was very moved by 0:40:12.640 --> 0:40:16.160 the fact that she, you know, as her life falls apart, 0:40:16.200 --> 0:40:19.319 as frankly often it happens in these stories that you know, 0:40:19.800 --> 0:40:22.520 when one thing about history is get the whole span 0:40:22.560 --> 0:40:25.480 of the life. And I am very interested in what 0:40:25.520 --> 0:40:27.560 happens to people after they do the thing we know 0:40:27.640 --> 0:40:30.160 them for, and how they reckon with it and how 0:40:30.200 --> 0:40:32.920 it lives with them. Ruth's story is one of these 0:40:32.960 --> 0:40:35.600 things where you know, you think back to it and 0:40:35.640 --> 0:40:38.879 I'm so interested in, like, oh, like things felt right 0:40:38.960 --> 0:40:40.759 for her for a while and then they don't. And 0:40:40.800 --> 0:40:43.200 there's something I find a lot of sort of particular 0:40:43.200 --> 0:40:46.960 sadness it was worth exploring in there. But that said, 0:40:47.040 --> 0:40:50.479 so when the memory Palace feels done, it feels done, 0:40:50.520 --> 0:40:51.880 like it feels like, oh, I've said the thing I 0:40:52.040 --> 0:40:54.840 need to say, and there might be like extra stuff, 0:40:55.120 --> 0:40:56.640 but I kind of wish I could get in there, 0:40:57.080 --> 0:40:59.520 and there might. But that usually means so let's wait 0:40:59.560 --> 0:41:02.520 for another time to like tell that other aspect, let's 0:41:02.520 --> 0:41:05.200 wait for a different meaning as opposed to like, let's 0:41:05.200 --> 0:41:08.040 just get some more information in there. Does that make sense? 0:41:08.560 --> 0:41:08.959 It does? 0:41:09.080 --> 0:41:11.560 It definitely does. And I think that's sort of one 0:41:11.560 --> 0:41:16.160 of the things that's reflective of differences between the way 0:41:16.200 --> 0:41:18.200 your show works and the way our show works, because 0:41:18.239 --> 0:41:21.760 ours is often a very this happened, and then this happened, 0:41:21.800 --> 0:41:26.879 and then this happened. Chronological story, and so occasionally there 0:41:26.920 --> 0:41:29.520 will be a discovery about one of the things that 0:41:29.560 --> 0:41:33.200 we thought happened that didn't really happen, or you know, 0:41:33.560 --> 0:41:38.040 a realization somebody will find, you know, some previously unknown 0:41:38.080 --> 0:41:40.959 document that reveals new insight. 0:41:40.960 --> 0:41:42.920 That did happen in this book now that I think 0:41:42.960 --> 0:41:45.320 about it, you know, But it was not one of 0:41:45.360 --> 0:41:47.160 those things where I'm like, oh great, here's an opportunity 0:41:47.200 --> 0:41:49.480 to revisit this story or add to it. It was like, oh, shoot, 0:41:49.520 --> 0:41:51.800 I have to reckon with this. And that is the 0:41:51.920 --> 0:41:54.640 story of Hercules was an enslaved you know, a person 0:41:54.760 --> 0:41:59.400 enslaved by George Washington. When I did that story originally, 0:41:59.560 --> 0:42:02.960 like too that fifteen or something like that, the end 0:42:03.000 --> 0:42:08.880 of the story hinged upon the wonder and strangeness and 0:42:09.000 --> 0:42:12.640 kind of magic of the notion that after his escape, 0:42:12.640 --> 0:42:15.640 like people lose track of him, and that you know, 0:42:15.880 --> 0:42:17.920 in that he can kind of only live on in 0:42:17.960 --> 0:42:21.000 our imagination on some level, this real person who has 0:42:21.040 --> 0:42:24.440 become this thing. And if that's the case, then like 0:42:24.600 --> 0:42:28.960 let's make sure that we hold him in a similar 0:42:29.000 --> 0:42:31.320 way in our imaginations that we hold George Washington and 0:42:31.440 --> 0:42:34.960 let's hang his you know, his memories and sort of like, 0:42:35.040 --> 0:42:37.319 you know, the crime of the ownership of this man 0:42:37.440 --> 0:42:40.000 on George Washington, and let's like let's keep that going 0:42:40.239 --> 0:42:42.640 and like, let's we have the ability to kind of 0:42:42.640 --> 0:42:44.319 control what we take from the story, and this is 0:42:44.320 --> 0:42:46.399 what I'd like you to take. And it turns out 0:42:46.400 --> 0:42:49.000 that six months after I released that episode, they figure 0:42:49.000 --> 0:42:51.040 out where he went. And I did not know that, 0:42:51.200 --> 0:42:53.480 Like I just I missed the news because it was 0:42:53.520 --> 0:42:56.759 not at proper front page news. And during the fact 0:42:56.800 --> 0:42:59.799 checking process, someone's someone's like, excuse me, it's like oh, 0:43:01.400 --> 0:43:04.480 And so so there was this real question about like, oh, 0:43:04.520 --> 0:43:07.759 this thing needs an entirely different ending, and this is 0:43:07.760 --> 0:43:09.840 a story I like, and there's a real value in this, 0:43:09.920 --> 0:43:12.719 and there's value within the kind of like construct of 0:43:12.760 --> 0:43:14.640 this book to have this type of story in there. 0:43:14.960 --> 0:43:17.560 At this particular moment, I'm like, oh, but then one 0:43:17.600 --> 0:43:20.480 has to find not just a different ending, you know, 0:43:20.520 --> 0:43:23.480 it's not it's not it's not a language question, it's 0:43:23.480 --> 0:43:27.280 a meaning question. How does this change the meaning? And yeah, 0:43:27.320 --> 0:43:31.640 and it was a it was a surprise challenge, but 0:43:31.719 --> 0:43:35.040 one that again. So it was kind of lovely to 0:43:35.560 --> 0:43:38.000 immerse myself again sort of in that moment and kind 0:43:38.000 --> 0:43:40.120 of see like, oh, have I did what I got 0:43:40.120 --> 0:43:42.200 out of it? Then not only does it hold up 0:43:42.480 --> 0:43:44.799 under these new facts, but does it also hold up, 0:43:44.960 --> 0:43:48.520 you know, several years later as I have changed. Yeah, 0:43:48.560 --> 0:43:49.719 it was exciting to revisit it. 0:43:50.520 --> 0:43:53.080 So is there anything that you want to make sure 0:43:53.239 --> 0:43:57.200 that people really know about this book or your podcast, 0:43:57.760 --> 0:43:59.279 what you're working on, any of that. 0:44:00.120 --> 0:44:01.680 I like to think of what I do in terms 0:44:01.719 --> 0:44:05.800 of like writing these short stories that every two weeks 0:44:06.920 --> 0:44:10.040 I'll be the podcast and then you know, more often. 0:44:10.080 --> 0:44:12.600 When I was working on this book, I've discovered that 0:44:12.640 --> 0:44:15.359 I really have this like it's almost it's almost become 0:44:15.360 --> 0:44:18.120 like a yoga practice, where like it just does me 0:44:18.239 --> 0:44:20.640 good to think about the past. It does me good 0:44:20.640 --> 0:44:23.680 to think about the way that lives go, and it 0:44:23.680 --> 0:44:25.400 does me good to remember that we're all going to 0:44:25.520 --> 0:44:29.600 die someday and then our time is short. And I've 0:44:29.760 --> 0:44:32.040 just find such value in sort of like writing these things, 0:44:32.080 --> 0:44:34.920 and I really do think about like the value of 0:44:36.280 --> 0:44:39.479 the stories themselves, and in what I kind of want 0:44:39.640 --> 0:44:41.080 someone to get out of and the truth is like 0:44:41.640 --> 0:44:43.960 I kind of wanted people to get what I put 0:44:44.000 --> 0:44:47.319 into it. I don't mean that like the sweat. I 0:44:47.440 --> 0:44:49.080 just mean that, like I like to think of these 0:44:49.120 --> 0:44:52.520 stories as having the ability, when they work well, to 0:44:52.640 --> 0:44:56.040 kind of like inject like a little shot of feeling 0:44:56.200 --> 0:44:58.800 into one's life. Like we are all and I certainly 0:44:58.840 --> 0:45:01.640 am just like wrapped up in the kind of like 0:45:01.880 --> 0:45:04.239 in the just whirr and sputter of the every day. 0:45:05.000 --> 0:45:07.719 And I want each of these stories to kind of 0:45:07.760 --> 0:45:10.239 just have the ability to kind of like shift your 0:45:10.280 --> 0:45:12.359 day a little bit, if that makes any sense. Yeah, 0:45:13.000 --> 0:45:15.840 And again, I want this to be the like I 0:45:15.880 --> 0:45:18.040 want the podcast to kind of be like the thing 0:45:18.120 --> 0:45:21.280 that can like to bring like sort of like genuine 0:45:21.360 --> 0:45:24.640 wonder in like the strangeness of the world into like 0:45:24.960 --> 0:45:28.319 the span of a dog walk. And I want, you know, 0:45:28.520 --> 0:45:31.640 this book to be this thing that like sits on 0:45:31.680 --> 0:45:34.160 your shelf or you have in your pocket book or 0:45:34.200 --> 0:45:37.040 you have you know, in your carry on bag that 0:45:37.120 --> 0:45:39.719 like you know that at each turn you're going to start, 0:45:39.760 --> 0:45:41.759 you don't know where you're going to go, but that 0:45:41.880 --> 0:45:43.560 you'll be like that things will be a little different 0:45:43.560 --> 0:45:46.040 on the other end of the story, I. 0:45:45.960 --> 0:45:49.400 Love all of that. Having read this, this is really 0:45:49.680 --> 0:45:53.000 it's It's such a lovely book, and I think it's 0:45:53.120 --> 0:45:56.359 the exactly the kind of book that I would if 0:45:56.400 --> 0:45:58.880 I had not just read the entire thing preparing to 0:45:58.920 --> 0:46:02.160 talk to you about it. Definitely the kind of book 0:46:02.160 --> 0:46:04.719 that I would have nearby for when I had a 0:46:04.800 --> 0:46:08.160 moment and needed a moment to sort of reset my 0:46:08.280 --> 0:46:11.799 brain and my perspective. Also, every time I hear the 0:46:11.840 --> 0:46:14.640 words this is the Memory Palace, I'm Nate Demeyo, I 0:46:14.719 --> 0:46:19.200 feel comforted, even though I know there is a chance 0:46:19.239 --> 0:46:21.640 that what I'm about to hear is going to be heartbreaking. 0:46:23.280 --> 0:46:27.680 So take that as you will. Listeners, I said earlier, 0:46:27.719 --> 0:46:30.120 you have been on our show once before. If folks 0:46:30.160 --> 0:46:33.120 are listening right now and are thinking, I want to 0:46:33.160 --> 0:46:35.919 hear this other episode where they talked to Nate Demeyo, 0:46:36.040 --> 0:46:39.200 Holly and I both interviewed you on June tenth of 0:46:39.280 --> 0:46:43.440 twenty fifteen. That's when that came out, so long ago. 0:46:44.120 --> 0:46:47.160 And your book is being published by Random House on 0:46:47.400 --> 0:46:50.680 November nineteenth of this year, which is twenty twenty four, right, 0:46:51.120 --> 0:46:55.400 that's correct, So if you haven't heard The Memory Palace before, 0:46:55.480 --> 0:46:58.279 you can find the Memory Palace on anywhere you get 0:46:58.280 --> 0:47:01.359 your podcasts, same with us. I'm with Stuff you miss 0:47:01.400 --> 0:47:04.239 in History Class anywhere you get your podcasts. Thank you, 0:47:04.280 --> 0:47:07.040 thank you, Thank you so much, Nate for talking to 0:47:07.080 --> 0:47:10.080 me today. I hope everyone has enjoyed listening to you 0:47:10.160 --> 0:47:12.520 and listening to your show today. 0:47:12.960 --> 0:47:13.719 Thank you so much. 0:47:19.120 --> 0:47:22.240 Stuff You Missed in History Class is a production of iHeartRadio. 0:47:22.560 --> 0:47:27.200 For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, 0:47:27.320 --> 0:47:31.360 or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.