Speaker 1: Guess what, mango? What's that? Well, so, I know I
Speaker 1: asked you if we could cover today's topic, but I
Speaker 1: didn't tell you exactly why, And that's because I wanted
Speaker 1: to save this story for you. So, uh, this actually
Speaker 1: happened in a town a Silicaga, Alabama, my home state
Speaker 1: of Alabama. And so this happen in nine A woman
Speaker 1: named An Hodges was taking a nap on her couch
Speaker 1: when a softball sized chunk of meteorite crashed through her roof,
Speaker 1: came through the ceiling, bounced off a radio, and smacked
Speaker 1: her right in the thigh. Sad? Is that but funny?
Speaker 1: To say? Why is this so much funnier that hit
Speaker 1: her in the thigh? It is, isn't it? Yeah, I
Speaker 1: can't handle it anyway. There are photos online of this
Speaker 1: giant bruise if you if you want to check this out.
Speaker 1: But so, there was an astronomer from Florida State. His
Speaker 1: name is Michael Reynolds, and he was talking about how
Speaker 1: rare this occasion would be. Says, you have a better
Speaker 1: chance of getting hit by a tornado, a bolt of lightning,
Speaker 1: and a hurricane all at the same time than getting
Speaker 1: hit by a media right that's amazing. And apparently there
Speaker 1: was a ton of contra versy after the fact about
Speaker 1: who got to keep this rock. So so the public
Speaker 1: demanded that the government give the rock back to Anne,
Speaker 1: and they finally complied, but then they were sued by
Speaker 1: the landlady, who claimed it was her since it fell
Speaker 1: on her property. What kind of person doesn't this woman's
Speaker 1: been hit by a meteorite, I am right, And so
Speaker 1: Anne's argument was, though, that God intended for it to
Speaker 1: hit me. After all, it hit me, That's what she said.
Speaker 1: And so they settled out of court, and the meteorite
Speaker 1: was eventually donated to the Alabama Museum of Natural History
Speaker 1: and it's still on display there. So I'll admit I
Speaker 1: had heard this story before, but what I didn't know
Speaker 1: is that there's actually a monument to it. It commemorates
Speaker 1: the whole bizarre happening, and it's in front of the
Speaker 1: town hall in Silicago. And so that's why we decided
Speaker 1: to do today's episode on nine weird statues and monuments
Speaker 1: around the world. Let's get started a their podcast. Listeners,
Speaker 1: Welcome to Part Time Genius. I'm Will Pearson, and as
Speaker 1: always I'm joined by my good friend man Guesh Ticketer
Speaker 1: and the man on the other side of the soundproof
Speaker 1: glass who's been standing perfectly still for what like the
Speaker 1: last forty five minutes. I think I even I saw
Speaker 1: him blink once, But that's about it. That's our friend
Speaker 1: and producer Tristan McNeil. And also joining us by phone
Speaker 1: today is our researcher Gabe Bluesier. Gabe, how's it going
Speaker 1: going well? Thanks for having me back. Guys. All right,
Speaker 1: Gabe has been trying to claim that the weather in
Speaker 1: l A today is is Chris. I'm not buying it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't think they've ever experienced Chris. But alright, Gabe,
Speaker 1: So you've done your research on some some monuments and
Speaker 1: statues around the world. Do you want to take the
Speaker 1: first one? Yeah? Sure, Actually I have another statue from
Speaker 1: Alabama to go along with yours. You guys bizarre statues
Speaker 1: out there, I guess, um. And this is actually it's
Speaker 1: a bullweevil monument in Enterprise, Alabama. And so this is
Speaker 1: a marble statue of a Greek woman holding a bowl
Speaker 1: above her head, and in the bowl there's this fifty
Speaker 1: pound bronze bull weevil, and the bull weevil was actually
Speaker 1: added about thirty years ago after the statue was originally dedicated,
Speaker 1: and it was erected because bullweevils have this history of,
Speaker 1: you know, destroying cotton crops in the South, which back
Speaker 1: in the day, it forced local farmers to kind of
Speaker 1: branch out and try a new crop instead, and that
Speaker 1: was peanuts. So Coffee County in Alabama became the largest
Speaker 1: producer of peanuts in the US. And it also ended
Speaker 1: up planting and prospering from potatoes, sugarcane, sorghum, and tobacco.
Speaker 1: And that's thanks in part to the bull weevil kind
Speaker 1: of you know, disrupting the cotton trade. So the dedication
Speaker 1: on the monument actually reads in profound appreciation of the
Speaker 1: bull weevil. And as far as anyone knows, it's the
Speaker 1: first and probably only monument to honor and agricultural pest.
Speaker 1: And this is one I have actually seen. I can
Speaker 1: verify this one. So if you, if you ever happen
Speaker 1: to be passing through Enterprise, Alabama, make sure to check
Speaker 1: out the bowl weevil statue. Alright, so two facts about
Speaker 1: weird statues or monuments from Alabama. Mango, do you have
Speaker 1: one from Alabama? No, Russia. Okay, close, alright, what you got?
Speaker 1: So obviously there are a lot of monuments out there
Speaker 1: that celebrate you know, great men, tyrants, ballplayers, whatever. But
Speaker 1: I don't know if that many monuments that are there
Speaker 1: to bring warmth and comfort. But that's exactly what local
Speaker 1: artists intended when they created this monument to the radiator
Speaker 1: in Samara, Russia. Apparently it's in Russia because Russians claimed
Speaker 1: the quote hot box, as the radiator was originally called,
Speaker 1: was invented in St. Petersburg by this guy in Eft
Speaker 1: before he took it to Germany and then the US.
Speaker 1: But the best part of the whole thing is that
Speaker 1: the sculpture isn't just some radiator on a pedestal. It
Speaker 1: also has a cat sprawled out on a giant window
Speaker 1: sill over. Russians also invented cats, So I did. I
Speaker 1: didn't know that fact. That's really good. That's also not true,
Speaker 1: all right, I've got one coming from Paris. So this
Speaker 1: is a huge three D molding of the sculptor Caesar
Speaker 1: baldachinie Thumb, and this was put up in nineteen sixty five.
Speaker 1: It's over forty ft tall and weighs eighteen tons, and
Speaker 1: it's so out of place because it's actually right and
Speaker 1: kind of the business district there in Paris. And then
Speaker 1: you just turn the corner and there's this giant thumb. Well,
Speaker 1: it turns out it's not the only one of baldachinie
Speaker 1: thumbs out there in the world. Turns out you can
Speaker 1: find one at Olympic Park and Soul. There's another one
Speaker 1: in Germany, and a couple others, you know, of different
Speaker 1: sizes and uh and colors all around the world. Baldachinie
Speaker 1: thumbs just waiting to get hitchhiked, like exactly, alright, gay,
Speaker 1: what you got next? Alright, So for this one, we
Speaker 1: got to head over to Riverside, Iowa, which is a
Speaker 1: real town that has a monument commemorating the future birth
Speaker 1: of the fictional character Captain James T. Kirk from Star Trek.
Speaker 1: So I mean, according to the official Star Trek website,
Speaker 1: Kirk will be born in Riverside, Iowa on March two,
Speaker 1: in the year two thirty three. But that's kind of
Speaker 1: invented by the town itself, because the creator of Star Trek,
Speaker 1: Gene Roddenberry, he only ever specified that Kirk was born
Speaker 1: in a small town in Iowa. Riverside took advantage of
Speaker 1: that vague reference to you know, claim him as their own.
Speaker 1: And so if you go into the town, there are
Speaker 1: plaques denoting where Captain Kirk will eventually, you know, grow
Speaker 1: up and do this or that, and even where he
Speaker 1: will be conceived. Apparently this is this is a joke
Speaker 1: from a local bar owner. Wow, all right, that's pretty good.
Speaker 1: All right, mango, what's your next one? So? I wanted
Speaker 1: to talk about this Abe Lincoln statue. And obviously they're
Speaker 1: Abe Lincoln statues all over, but this one special because
Speaker 1: it's called Abe Lincoln talks to Perry Como. That's the
Speaker 1: name is as well. Actually it's not the statue's real name.
Speaker 1: The real name is the Return Visit and the statue
Speaker 1: is lookate outside the place where Lincoln spent the night
Speaker 1: putting his finishing touches on the getty's right address. But
Speaker 1: the whole idea behind the statue is to show a
Speaker 1: cool Lincoln chatting with modern day tourists. So the dude
Speaker 1: he's talking to is wearing a white cable knit sweater
Speaker 1: and a collared shirt and khaki cordroys. You know, the
Speaker 1: common man and Lincoln's just talking his ear off. But
Speaker 1: the dude looks like a young version of that singer
Speaker 1: Perry Como. So that's how the statue got nicknamed. But ice,
Speaker 1: that does sound so cool. Actually, I have a Lincoln
Speaker 1: statue fact as well. This is weird alright. So this
Speaker 1: one is the Lincoln Watermelon Monument in Lincoln, Illinois. And
Speaker 1: actually in nineteen fifty three, former Congressman Abraham Lincoln, he
Speaker 1: had not been president yet, he visited a town in
Speaker 1: Illinois to help christen the town name, which was to
Speaker 1: be Lincoln of course, and it was actually the only
Speaker 1: town to be named after Lincoln while he was still
Speaker 1: alive again, and this happened before he was even president.
Speaker 1: But while he was visiting there, he poured watermelon juice
Speaker 1: on the ground to baptize it. I don't really know why.
Speaker 1: There are other reports that he spit watermelon seeds on
Speaker 1: the ground to christen it. I've never heard of using
Speaker 1: waters homies exactly to do this, but anyway, in nineteen
Speaker 1: sixty four, the local kawanas and Lions and rotary clubs
Speaker 1: all united in order to commission this steel sculpture of
Speaker 1: a watermelon in order to mark this historic event. It's
Speaker 1: such a strange thing, but I want to check this out. Soide,
Speaker 1: that's pretty great, alright, Gabe, your last fact of the day.
Speaker 1: What do you have? Al Right? So this this was
Speaker 1: a really weird one. And uh it's a monument to
Speaker 1: rats and mice that have been used in DNA research.
Speaker 1: And uh, it's it's found over in Russia, and it
Speaker 1: was made by an artist named Andrei Karkovich. And the
Speaker 1: statue it depicts an anthropomorphic mouse wearing glasses and a
Speaker 1: little lab coat and he's he's knitting with strands of
Speaker 1: DNA and uh it sits near Russia's Institute of Psychology
Speaker 1: and Genetics, and the institute actually collected fifty thousand dollars
Speaker 1: and donations to fund this statue. And according to them,
Speaker 1: it commemorates lab animals who have been killed as a
Speaker 1: part of our ongoing attempts to understand and the nature
Speaker 1: and workings of d N. A. Wow, that's very sweet
Speaker 1: to remember them in that way. And you said this
Speaker 1: is in where where did you say this in Russia? Yeah?
Speaker 1: I didn't say on purpose, but no votes Cerberus. Okay,
Speaker 1: Well that was a good final fact from you, Gabe. Okay, Mango,
Speaker 1: you got one more? Yeah, definitely. So I guess we're
Speaker 1: all on some sort of Russia kick because they have
Speaker 1: the best statues. But have you guys ever heard of
Speaker 1: the Enema statue? And Zilla's no votes? I have not.
Speaker 1: But the Monument to Animals features a giant animal bulb.
Speaker 1: It's five ft and eight hundred pounds of bronze. Uh,
Speaker 1: and it's held up by three tiny angels. And so
Speaker 1: the angels are based off this bott of Chelly painting.
Speaker 1: And while the sculpture claims the work was designed with humor,
Speaker 1: the spot director who commissioned it disagree. Then if arts
Speaker 1: in the eye of the beholder, there's no irony hiding
Speaker 1: and all that bronze. Wow, so we we We've covered
Speaker 1: one that was dedicated to the radiator, and then the
Speaker 1: one Gay did with about the the lab mice and rats,
Speaker 1: and and now the Enema. Wow. What a collection of statues.
Speaker 1: That's that's pretty great. All right? Well, my last one
Speaker 1: happens to be about one statue that is in the
Speaker 1: world's largest sculpture park, or at least the world's largest
Speaker 1: sculpture park made by a single artist. There are two
Speaker 1: hundred and twelve bronze and granite sculptures there in the
Speaker 1: Vigilance Sculpture Park in Oslo, Norway. Now there is one
Speaker 1: specific one that's worth looking up, and it's called man
Speaker 1: attacked by Genie. And I actually didn't know the plural
Speaker 1: of genie. Just has two eyes at the end, you
Speaker 1: know this, I didn't even know how to pronounce it
Speaker 1: at first when I was looking at it. But this
Speaker 1: is why you need to look it up, because it's
Speaker 1: apparently this guy that's being attacked by these genie. But
Speaker 1: at the same time, what it really looks like is
Speaker 1: just this naked man heroically fighting off four toddlers. So
Speaker 1: you're gonna have to check this out. So anyway, well
Speaker 1: those are our facts of the day. But before we go,
Speaker 1: we need to decide decide who's one today. What do
Speaker 1: you guys think that meteor in the thigh? Thank god,
Speaker 1: just the word thigh, I think. Okay, I'm gonna give
Speaker 1: it to myself on that. Yeah, you can take the
Speaker 1: crown home. That's right, all right, Well, thank you guys
Speaker 1: for listening. We'll be back with a full length episode tomorrow.