WEBVTT - The Very Dust, Part 3 0:00:03.080 --> 0:00:07.120 Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, the production of iHeartRadio. 0:00:12.840 --> 0:00:14.800 Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. 0:00:14.920 --> 0:00:17.400 My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick, and 0:00:17.400 --> 0:00:21.440 we're back with part three in our series on dust. Now, 0:00:21.440 --> 0:00:23.640 if you haven't heard the previous episodes, you might want 0:00:23.640 --> 0:00:25.640 to go back and check those out first. This will 0:00:25.640 --> 0:00:27.400 probably make a little more sense if you have those 0:00:27.400 --> 0:00:30.760 in the pocket. In part one, we talked about how 0:00:30.800 --> 0:00:34.920 to define dust. We talked about our perpetual roommates, the 0:00:34.960 --> 0:00:39.639 pyroglyphid dust mites. We talked about atmospheric dust and its 0:00:39.680 --> 0:00:43.320 complex relationship to weather and climate. That was Part one. 0:00:43.600 --> 0:00:47.160 In Part two, we talked mainly about dust bunnies both 0:00:47.240 --> 0:00:51.080 within the home and in outer space, as well as 0:00:51.360 --> 0:00:55.240 how some historical attitudes toward dust dust in the home 0:00:55.600 --> 0:00:58.960 may have affected trends in interior design choices and even 0:00:59.000 --> 0:01:02.080 some literary themes and horror. And today we are back 0:01:02.120 --> 0:01:03.440 to talk more dust. 0:01:04.040 --> 0:01:08.319 That's right, and you know we're gonna so we mentioned 0:01:08.319 --> 0:01:13.440 how we'll eventually get to some magical mythological ideas religious 0:01:13.480 --> 0:01:16.679 ideas about dust that's still on the way. That's going 0:01:16.720 --> 0:01:19.679 to be a future episode. This particular episode, I'm going 0:01:19.720 --> 0:01:23.320 to continue looking at Victorian dust. We're gonna get a 0:01:23.319 --> 0:01:27.120 little philosophic, but we will also talk briefly about Dracula, 0:01:27.440 --> 0:01:29.920 but in a way that connects directly to what we're 0:01:29.959 --> 0:01:33.800 talking about here. So yeah, to kick things off, I'd 0:01:33.840 --> 0:01:36.160 like to just pick up more or less where we 0:01:36.240 --> 0:01:40.120 left off with the theme of Victorian attitudes toward dust, 0:01:40.720 --> 0:01:43.600 a topic that I've ended up finding far more fascinating 0:01:43.600 --> 0:01:46.679 than I expected. All Right, So in the last episode 0:01:46.760 --> 0:01:52.880 I briefly mentioned a source an article or paper by 0:01:53.000 --> 0:01:57.440 e Lean Cleary titled Victorian Dust Traps, and I went 0:01:57.480 --> 0:01:59.760 ahead and sought that out. It's collected in her book 0:02:00.160 --> 0:02:05.440 The Sanitary Arts, Esthetic Culture, and the Victorian Cleanliness Campaigns, 0:02:06.080 --> 0:02:09.359 which is in itself a very interesting book, highly recommended 0:02:09.360 --> 0:02:13.280 if anyone wants a deeper dive into the topic of 0:02:13.360 --> 0:02:18.840 Victorian cleanliness. Now, Victorian London was indeed a world in 0:02:18.880 --> 0:02:23.000 the throes of the Industrial Revolution. The Victorian period, of course, 0:02:23.200 --> 0:02:26.520 is so named for the reign of Queen Victoria the 0:02:26.600 --> 0:02:29.720 Rain in Question eighteen thirty seven through nineteen oh one, 0:02:30.440 --> 0:02:35.400 but her rule encompassed much of the industrialization of English life. 0:02:35.960 --> 0:02:38.880 So we have a period here marked by rapid advancements 0:02:38.919 --> 0:02:46.680 in industrial technology. Population swelled, a new business leader class emerged, 0:02:46.800 --> 0:02:51.240 challenging the aristocracy for that top spot over a swelling 0:02:51.320 --> 0:02:55.640 working class and virtually non existent middle class. So you 0:02:55.760 --> 0:03:00.160 had vast socioeconomic differences going on, impacting the manner in 0:03:00.200 --> 0:03:04.040 which the spoils and the horrors of industrialism were distributed 0:03:04.720 --> 0:03:08.200 to a large degree, because while upper classes obviously enjoyed 0:03:08.200 --> 0:03:12.280 more freedom, everyone breathed the same air and ultimately the 0:03:12.320 --> 0:03:15.720 same dust and dust. You know, dust doesn't care who 0:03:15.760 --> 0:03:19.560 you are, dust doesn't care what part of society you 0:03:19.680 --> 0:03:23.600 come from. Now a lot has been written about Victorian sanitation, 0:03:23.800 --> 0:03:25.799 like that in and of itself is a huge topic 0:03:25.840 --> 0:03:29.919 because again the throes of industrialization, all these changes, changes 0:03:29.960 --> 0:03:32.960 in population, changes in technology. We've touched on some of 0:03:32.960 --> 0:03:35.640 these technologies in the past, especially on invention. You know, 0:03:36.400 --> 0:03:39.480 how are you going to keep everything sanitary? Like the 0:03:39.520 --> 0:03:44.200 story of sanitation is ultimately the story of any civilization 0:03:44.520 --> 0:03:48.160 or any empire, going way back in ancient times. Now. 0:03:48.200 --> 0:03:52.840 According to Lee Jackson, author of Dirty Old London that 0:03:53.560 --> 0:03:57.760 cided on MPR's Fresh Air in twenty fifteen, this other 0:03:57.880 --> 0:04:01.040 points out that by the eighteen nineties there were approximately 0:04:01.320 --> 0:04:04.839 three hundred thousand horses and a thousand tons of dung 0:04:04.960 --> 0:04:06.200 a day in London. 0:04:06.600 --> 0:04:07.640 That's just horse dung. 0:04:07.800 --> 0:04:09.680 That's just horse dung. We're not even getting into people 0:04:09.720 --> 0:04:13.120 or anything. That's just horses living and pooping in the city. 0:04:13.720 --> 0:04:19.000 And London's capacity for managing all of that was vastly insufficient. 0:04:19.360 --> 0:04:22.880 So in the streets the dung essentially became the mud, 0:04:23.200 --> 0:04:26.560 and naturally, if it's dry enough, that dung also becomes 0:04:26.600 --> 0:04:29.320 the dust of London, or part of the dust of London, 0:04:29.360 --> 0:04:32.520 to be clear. On top of that, the other points 0:04:32.560 --> 0:04:35.960 out that London was a quote city of cesspools, with 0:04:36.040 --> 0:04:38.599 each house typically hosting a believe it was like a 0:04:38.640 --> 0:04:41.960 six foot deep, four foot wide cesspool for all of 0:04:41.960 --> 0:04:44.880 the home's toiletry waste and I think various other wastes 0:04:44.920 --> 0:04:48.560 as well, but a keynote the toiletry waste. And then 0:04:48.560 --> 0:04:51.400 you had all of the coal lash produced by domestic 0:04:51.440 --> 0:04:55.360 households in addition to coal lash produced by industry. Now 0:04:55.720 --> 0:04:58.400 it was really fascinating. There was actually a system of 0:04:58.640 --> 0:05:02.560 dust yards and dust men. They would come to your 0:05:02.560 --> 0:05:05.240 house and haul off your dust or they would haul 0:05:05.279 --> 0:05:07.560 off dust from the street and so forth. And then 0:05:07.560 --> 0:05:09.920 there were the night soil men as well. These were 0:05:09.960 --> 0:05:11.800 the people who would arrive in the middle of the 0:05:11.920 --> 0:05:16.960 night to haul away your night soil from your cesspool. 0:05:17.880 --> 0:05:21.320 Because the stinch of these activities, especially the night soil 0:05:21.360 --> 0:05:25.400 removal here was legally deemed too odorous for daylight hours, 0:05:25.880 --> 0:05:27.960 so in the night they would come haul it away, 0:05:27.960 --> 0:05:29.839 put it in baskets, haulowed up out of that pit 0:05:30.200 --> 0:05:32.240 and take it out where it could be used in 0:05:32.279 --> 0:05:36.159 the countryside. The manure night soil it goes out to 0:05:36.200 --> 0:05:41.160 help ultimately grow more food for the growing population of London. 0:05:41.640 --> 0:05:45.200 I was reading an article by clearly A chill Me 0:05:45.520 --> 0:05:48.360 of ground Shore, who wrote a piece about the dust 0:05:48.400 --> 0:05:52.400 yards for this is in twenty fifteen for two Day's Conveyancer. 0:05:52.880 --> 0:05:56.839 And this article points out some interesting facts about the 0:05:56.920 --> 0:05:58.880 dust yards. And I have some other sources I'm going 0:05:58.920 --> 0:06:02.520 to refer to about the dust yards here, But in 0:06:02.560 --> 0:06:05.279 the eighteen fifties, the average amount of coal burn by 0:06:05.320 --> 0:06:08.479 each household in London was estimated at eleven tons per year. 0:06:08.560 --> 0:06:11.760 According to this article, coal lash was in demand by 0:06:11.760 --> 0:06:14.800 the brick industry for brickmaking, though it was also needed 0:06:14.800 --> 0:06:19.960 for fertilizer. Both of these needs were increased by urban expansion, 0:06:20.200 --> 0:06:23.080 so for food, for construction for all of those bodies 0:06:23.080 --> 0:06:26.560 in the city. So in order to help meet these needs, 0:06:26.600 --> 0:06:29.479 we actually see an early example of a large scale 0:06:29.600 --> 0:06:35.320 zero waste system, essentially a recycling program, though one that 0:06:35.400 --> 0:06:39.040 of course is driven purely by economics here and also 0:06:39.160 --> 0:06:43.320 one that is without any kind of modern health, environmental, 0:06:43.400 --> 0:06:47.080 or labor standards. So, for instance, children would work at 0:06:47.080 --> 0:06:49.040 these dust yards along with adults. 0:06:49.560 --> 0:06:52.479 And we know in many modern contexts, such as mining 0:06:52.600 --> 0:06:57.000 and certain types of industrial settings, occupational exposure to dust 0:06:57.240 --> 0:06:59.800 is a major health hazard and you have to take 0:07:00.080 --> 0:07:03.320 special precautions to, you know, if you're a worker in 0:07:03.360 --> 0:07:05.719 a cement factory or in a mine or something, to 0:07:05.760 --> 0:07:10.360 protect yourself from exposure to dust, to protect your lungs. 0:07:11.040 --> 0:07:13.200 And so I would imagine some of those risks were 0:07:13.240 --> 0:07:14.920 probably involved here as well. 0:07:15.080 --> 0:07:16.920 Yeah, absolutely, So we have to be we have to 0:07:16.920 --> 0:07:19.960 be careful about patting them on the back too much 0:07:19.960 --> 0:07:23.480 for this program because again a lot of these standards 0:07:23.480 --> 0:07:27.400 were not in place, and it was purely driven by economics. 0:07:28.240 --> 0:07:31.240 But still dust yards were in many ways recycling centers 0:07:31.240 --> 0:07:33.800 where the dust was hauled off to by the dustmen 0:07:33.920 --> 0:07:37.920 and the street sweepers. The dust yards entailed and organized 0:07:38.000 --> 0:07:42.040 sifting and separation of different elements in the dust, radiating 0:07:42.200 --> 0:07:46.520 out from like a central heap. I included an old 0:07:46.640 --> 0:07:52.040 like illustration here for you, Joe. You can find these 0:07:52.040 --> 0:07:55.000 online too, if you look up Victorian dust yard. And 0:07:55.120 --> 0:07:59.040 here we see examples of women out sifting through the dust. 0:08:00.160 --> 0:08:01.920 It looks like there is a child there as well. 0:08:02.000 --> 0:08:05.920 There's a man shoveling dust as well, and various animals 0:08:05.920 --> 0:08:06.520 milling about. 0:08:07.040 --> 0:08:10.720 I do not see masks no in the picture. However, 0:08:10.760 --> 0:08:12.400 it looks like a grand old time. They're just like 0:08:12.480 --> 0:08:15.680 hanging out with ducks and pigs, and everybody's yeah, it 0:08:15.720 --> 0:08:16.520 looks looks great. 0:08:16.720 --> 0:08:28.760 Yeah, it's a little more upbeat, I guess. Yeah. Now, 0:08:28.800 --> 0:08:31.680 going back to the writings of Cleary, she writes that 0:08:31.840 --> 0:08:35.000 these dust yards, along with various other things in and 0:08:35.000 --> 0:08:39.960 around London again product of industrialization and just life in general. 0:08:40.080 --> 0:08:44.760 You had slums, you had docs, you had brickyards, all 0:08:44.800 --> 0:08:48.600 of this going on within London, and this helped to 0:08:48.679 --> 0:08:52.600 establish a kind of moral geography of city life. Again, 0:08:52.679 --> 0:08:56.679 morality here being very tied up with ideas of hygiene 0:08:56.679 --> 0:09:01.720 and cleanliness and of course class. So while there was 0:09:01.760 --> 0:09:05.120 in many respects just one London and certainly one atmosphere 0:09:05.120 --> 0:09:08.319 and one smoggy sky, there was also this kind of 0:09:08.400 --> 0:09:12.959 attempt to regulate the clean moral city within the industrial husk. 0:09:13.440 --> 0:09:16.400 And the home especially, she points out, was increasingly thought 0:09:16.440 --> 0:09:20.800 to constitute a quote self contained moral universe that can 0:09:20.880 --> 0:09:24.320 in some sense be hermetically sealed from the pre germ 0:09:24.440 --> 0:09:29.080 theory threats of miasma and spontaneous generation. And the home 0:09:29.520 --> 0:09:31.840 was a haven, a safe place where all that disease, 0:09:31.880 --> 0:09:35.199 all that horror could be shut out, or at least 0:09:35.280 --> 0:09:37.320 there's the hope that you're shutting it out, and maybe 0:09:37.400 --> 0:09:40.640 like the heartfelt belief that you were able to shut 0:09:40.679 --> 0:09:44.880 it out of your home, and probably like the immediate 0:09:45.640 --> 0:09:49.440 unreal geography surrounding your home. But then, as we touched 0:09:49.440 --> 0:09:52.360 on in the last episode, you get the growing acceptance 0:09:52.480 --> 0:09:54.480 of germ theory, and is this caught on in the 0:09:54.520 --> 0:09:57.959 public mindset. It changed all of this. It kind of 0:09:58.040 --> 0:10:02.160 inverted this view of where the health threats are to 0:10:02.280 --> 0:10:05.760 your way of life. So I want to read a 0:10:05.800 --> 0:10:08.479 bit here from cleary that I thought was very insightful. 0:10:08.800 --> 0:10:13.240 Quote Miismatic theories of bad air, foul smells, and spontaneous 0:10:13.240 --> 0:10:17.280 generation continued to dominate sanitary discourse in the eighteen seventies 0:10:17.280 --> 0:10:21.080 and eighties, but as germ theories entered circulation, the impenetrable 0:10:21.160 --> 0:10:25.680 Victorian home became an increasingly anxious fantasy rather than a 0:10:25.720 --> 0:10:30.440 reliable domestic construct. Sanitary geographies of the city turned inward, 0:10:30.760 --> 0:10:36.240 eventually producing analogous geographies of the over decorated, architecturally busy 0:10:36.360 --> 0:10:41.360 Victorian interior. Even purpose built environments could contain pockets of 0:10:41.400 --> 0:10:46.160 potential contamination and illness. In fact, the architectural flourishes and 0:10:46.240 --> 0:10:50.240 decorative fittings so identified with mid Victorian style became sites 0:10:50.400 --> 0:10:54.480 of suspicion and fear as the nineteenth century waned. In 0:10:54.559 --> 0:10:58.320 these new domestic geographies, I argue the decorative dust trap 0:10:58.679 --> 0:11:02.400 rivaled the urban fever nest as a primary locust of 0:11:02.480 --> 0:11:06.760 pollution anxiety, emerging as a contested site of cultural value 0:11:06.960 --> 0:11:10.040 and meaning in a variety of Victorian texts. 0:11:10.400 --> 0:11:14.880 Mmmm, okay, so explain that a little the dust trap 0:11:15.160 --> 0:11:17.840 mirrors the outside world. 0:11:18.280 --> 0:11:21.200 Yeah, So instead of having these pockets of town that 0:11:21.280 --> 0:11:23.840 you would avoid or kind of cut yourself off from, 0:11:23.960 --> 0:11:26.080 or even I guess I'm reading into it here but 0:11:26.160 --> 0:11:28.560 kind of pretend or not there, which I think is 0:11:28.600 --> 0:11:30.880 something that goes on in a lot of a lot 0:11:30.880 --> 0:11:33.960 of cities even to this day. But instead of just 0:11:34.080 --> 0:11:37.480 relying on that kind of a sanitary geography, as she 0:11:37.600 --> 0:11:40.680 terms it, suddenly you're applying that line of thinking to 0:11:40.760 --> 0:11:43.600 your own home and you're thinking about those dust bunnies 0:11:43.679 --> 0:11:46.720 under the bed, You're thinking about those corners in the 0:11:46.760 --> 0:11:50.400 house where dust is kind of swept to and it accumulates, 0:11:50.960 --> 0:11:56.080 or even like clearly brings an example up in the 0:11:56.080 --> 0:11:58.640 book of a just a Victorian text on how to 0:11:58.720 --> 0:12:02.480 hang like paintings or pictures of some sort in your house, 0:12:03.160 --> 0:12:06.880 even that exercise would have warnings about dust traps, about 0:12:07.640 --> 0:12:09.640 trying to do it in such a way as to 0:12:09.679 --> 0:12:11.720 not permit these dust traps to occur. 0:12:12.160 --> 0:12:16.000 And the argument is that this view of the interior 0:12:16.040 --> 0:12:20.720 geography somewhat coincides with or is influenced by the emergence 0:12:20.720 --> 0:12:25.200 of germ theory, like the correct understanding that disease is 0:12:25.200 --> 0:12:28.280 to a large extent caused by tiny organisms that are 0:12:28.280 --> 0:12:30.640 invisible to the eye and all around us. 0:12:30.760 --> 0:12:33.640 Right, and of course we know that new information, even 0:12:33.640 --> 0:12:37.480 when it is accurate, it doesn't mean that reactions to 0:12:37.520 --> 0:12:43.240 set accurate information are always you know, completely as as 0:12:43.280 --> 0:12:44.960 on point, I guess you would say. 0:12:45.400 --> 0:12:49.480 You can respond to true information in an irrational way. 0:12:49.320 --> 0:12:51.400 Right now, not to say that anything that we've I 0:12:51.440 --> 0:12:54.240 certainly didn't find much in the way of anyone arguing, hey, 0:12:54.280 --> 0:12:56.040 let the dust build up in your house, it's good 0:12:56.040 --> 0:12:59.320 for you. But it does seem like there's a certain 0:12:59.320 --> 0:13:02.600 amount of sort of dust anxiety overreach at the time, 0:13:02.720 --> 0:13:06.760 or dust mania. But she also points out that this 0:13:06.800 --> 0:13:09.480 doesn't mean that dust was just seen as a threat. 0:13:09.720 --> 0:13:13.280 I mean, because again, dust is ubiquitous and and you also, 0:13:13.320 --> 0:13:16.640 I think, have this kind of like you know, modern 0:13:18.120 --> 0:13:22.000 fascination with the world. I mean, in the same sort 0:13:22.000 --> 0:13:24.760 of scientific awakening that is making it possible to understand 0:13:24.800 --> 0:13:29.760 what's going on with disease also with sort of illuminating 0:13:29.800 --> 0:13:33.560 this idea of learning more about the world around you. 0:13:33.679 --> 0:13:36.239 So she points out that dust, you know, is complex 0:13:36.960 --> 0:13:39.600 in the way that we view it. Even at the 0:13:39.679 --> 0:13:42.960 time quote when particles of dirt were illuminated by sunlight 0:13:43.320 --> 0:13:48.800 or other atmospheric conditions, victorians could simultaneously experience the transformative 0:13:48.840 --> 0:13:53.640 beauty and the contaminating agency of dust. And I'm going 0:13:53.720 --> 0:13:56.280 to turn to an example of that here in just 0:13:56.360 --> 0:13:56.880 a little bit. 0:13:57.040 --> 0:13:59.959 Well, I think I can experience that duality depending on 0:14:00.200 --> 0:14:03.000 the context in which I see the dust. For example, 0:14:03.480 --> 0:14:06.800 there are certain filmmakers that really love to show say 0:14:06.960 --> 0:14:11.000 maybe a strong beam of light cutting through a dark 0:14:11.120 --> 0:14:14.920 environment and you see little particles of dust floating in 0:14:14.960 --> 0:14:18.200 that Beam's It's a beautiful effect when achieved in film. 0:14:18.480 --> 0:14:21.200 If I see that same effect inside my house, it 0:14:21.200 --> 0:14:22.640 feels a little gross. 0:14:22.960 --> 0:14:26.360 Yeah, Or if it is beyond a particle and it 0:14:26.400 --> 0:14:29.600 becomes like visible cat here, Yeah, you know, it's like 0:14:29.680 --> 0:14:31.920 I'm trying to like take my contact that's the worst. 0:14:31.920 --> 0:14:33.840 I'm like, I've washed my hands, I'm going to take 0:14:33.840 --> 0:14:36.080 a contact out or put one in, and somehow I've 0:14:36.120 --> 0:14:40.480 already gotten the cat here attached to my finger, and yeah, 0:14:40.720 --> 0:14:42.680 that is floating around and is part of the whole 0:14:42.760 --> 0:14:43.800 dust bunny scenario. 0:14:43.880 --> 0:14:46.360 Of course, I'm trying to think, what who do I 0:14:46.400 --> 0:14:49.160 have in mind? Who there's like a director who really 0:14:49.200 --> 0:14:52.240 loves like a beam of light with dust floating in it. 0:14:52.280 --> 0:14:53.440 But I can't think of who it is. 0:14:53.880 --> 0:14:55.720 I mean, it's it's a motif you see from time 0:14:55.800 --> 0:14:57.880 to time, and it can be it'd be quite beautiful. 0:14:58.040 --> 0:15:02.040 There is this kind of sense of sort of revealing 0:15:02.080 --> 0:15:05.360 the particles of nature, you know, there's kind of like this, 0:15:06.080 --> 0:15:08.440 even even though we are not obviously looking at atoms 0:15:08.520 --> 0:15:11.120 or anything, you know, in that beam of light, there 0:15:11.200 --> 0:15:13.720 is this kind of like revelation. It's like, oh, there 0:15:13.720 --> 0:15:15.120 are smaller realms than this. 0:15:15.600 --> 0:15:18.840 Yeah, you're not literally seeing the smallest things. I mean, 0:15:18.840 --> 0:15:23.920 in the same way that consciousness of dust is equated 0:15:24.000 --> 0:15:27.800 to consciousness of germs. You're not literally seeing the germs, 0:15:27.800 --> 0:15:31.200 but it like reminds you that you're surrounded by things 0:15:31.280 --> 0:15:33.280 on a scale that's very small, and that most times 0:15:33.280 --> 0:15:34.920 you don't most of the time you don't see or 0:15:35.000 --> 0:15:35.560 notice them. 0:15:35.960 --> 0:15:39.120 Yeah, So you know, I don't think it's it's it's 0:15:39.160 --> 0:15:42.680 that much of a stretch to put ourselves in this mindset, 0:15:42.760 --> 0:15:47.320 this mindset where she says that that that these like 0:15:47.640 --> 0:15:51.880 the dusty corners of these homes were quote simultaneously places 0:15:51.920 --> 0:15:57.680 of artistic imagination and filthy accumulation. So I was like, okay, 0:15:57.720 --> 0:15:59.680 I need to throw in some examples of this, and 0:15:59.760 --> 0:16:02.560 I've leave, and she mentions a number. I already mentioned 0:16:02.560 --> 0:16:04.760 the picture hanging guide, and I was thinking, well, I 0:16:04.760 --> 0:16:07.720 need to probably bust out some Charles Dickens here. But 0:16:07.840 --> 0:16:11.360 then I discovered that there are examples of both attitudes 0:16:11.400 --> 0:16:16.160 toward dust in the Victorian horror classic novel Dracula by 0:16:16.200 --> 0:16:18.200 Bram Stoker from eighteen ninety seven. 0:16:18.560 --> 0:16:22.120 Okay, eighteen ninety seven would be very late Victorian, but 0:16:22.200 --> 0:16:24.040 still technically under the wire. 0:16:24.200 --> 0:16:25.960 It gets in under the wire, and I think, you know, 0:16:25.960 --> 0:16:30.440 it's definitely all that time and that culture. Okay, so 0:16:30.640 --> 0:16:32.920 I'm going to read a little from Dracula here. Didn't 0:16:32.920 --> 0:16:34.720 think I was going to get to do that. So 0:16:35.000 --> 0:16:39.040 anytime we get to discuss Dracula without warning, it's nice. 0:16:39.720 --> 0:16:42.520 So the first bit, this is from early on. This 0:16:42.600 --> 0:16:46.400 is in Dracula's castle. I was not alone. The room 0:16:46.680 --> 0:16:49.680 was the same, unchanged in any way since I came 0:16:49.720 --> 0:16:52.720 into it. I could see along the floor in the 0:16:52.760 --> 0:16:56.600 brilliant moonlight, my own footsteps marked where I had disturbed 0:16:56.840 --> 0:16:58.840 the long accumulation of dust. 0:16:59.200 --> 0:17:02.440 All right, so this this is Harker writing about being 0:17:02.520 --> 0:17:06.439 in draculus castle. We're here clearly that the dust is 0:17:06.600 --> 0:17:10.920 viewed as a kind of as a signal of something wrong, 0:17:11.240 --> 0:17:14.160 like that this is not a place that is occupied 0:17:14.280 --> 0:17:18.280 by living people, that it is only unnatural beings that 0:17:18.400 --> 0:17:21.040 dwell here, and that the way in which they dwell 0:17:21.119 --> 0:17:23.480 is not really life right. 0:17:24.040 --> 0:17:25.399 And so I was looking into this a bit more, 0:17:25.440 --> 0:17:28.080 and I found an excellent paper that gets into this 0:17:28.160 --> 0:17:31.280 and other related topics. This is from Lily s May 0:17:31.440 --> 0:17:34.960 from nineteen ninety eight. It's titled Foul Things of the 0:17:35.080 --> 0:17:38.560 Night Dread in the Victorian Body. And so we have 0:17:38.640 --> 0:17:42.760 another passage here, and this is also from Draculus Castle 0:17:42.800 --> 0:17:44.720 from the same point of view. I thought I would 0:17:44.720 --> 0:17:47.280 watch for the Count's return, and for a long time 0:17:47.400 --> 0:17:50.840 set doggedly at the window. Then I began to notice 0:17:50.960 --> 0:17:53.199 that there were some quaint little specks floating in the 0:17:53.280 --> 0:17:56.240 rays of the moonlight. They were like the tiniest grains 0:17:56.280 --> 0:17:59.359 of dust, and they whirled around and gathered in clusters 0:17:59.359 --> 0:18:01.879 and a nebulus sort of way. I watch them with 0:18:01.920 --> 0:18:04.439 a sense of soothing and a sort of calm stole 0:18:04.480 --> 0:18:08.040 over me. I lean back in the embrasure in a 0:18:08.080 --> 0:18:11.240 more comfortable position, so that I can enjoy more fully 0:18:11.520 --> 0:18:12.640 the aerial gamboling. 0:18:13.200 --> 0:18:15.280 Oh, I would not have remembered this moment at. 0:18:15.160 --> 0:18:17.199 All, but yeah, but it's like a nice little you know, 0:18:17.280 --> 0:18:20.159 caught up in the moment, just sort of noticing dust 0:18:21.440 --> 0:18:23.280 and out of context that it's been a long time 0:18:23.320 --> 0:18:27.480 since I've read Dracula in full. I am not sure 0:18:27.480 --> 0:18:30.280 if this is meant to be just dust or if 0:18:30.280 --> 0:18:33.400 this is some hint of the Count's doing. But as 0:18:33.400 --> 0:18:36.320 we'll discuss, we can easily wrap all of this up 0:18:36.440 --> 0:18:37.200 under the same heading. 0:18:38.560 --> 0:18:41.960 But it's funny that in Dracula's Castle the dust is 0:18:42.040 --> 0:18:45.600 clearly meant to show a lack of life that there is, 0:18:45.920 --> 0:18:50.080 that this castle is not currently occupied by living beings 0:18:50.440 --> 0:18:53.439 who and it's and the fact that everything is covered 0:18:53.440 --> 0:18:58.119 in dust is a sign of disuse and decay and unnaturalness. 0:18:58.560 --> 0:19:03.320 At the same time, dust is overwhelmingly associated with life 0:19:03.320 --> 0:19:05.920 and activity of the city of the period. 0:19:06.240 --> 0:19:09.240 Yeah. Yeah, and maybe this is what we get a 0:19:09.240 --> 0:19:14.320 glimpse of in this this second quotation here, Yeah, where 0:19:14.400 --> 0:19:17.960 it sounds lively. You know, he's talking about it in 0:19:18.040 --> 0:19:23.119 terms of motion and in life and interaction. Okay, so 0:19:23.160 --> 0:19:26.040 those are both from Dracula's Castle, but we also glimpse 0:19:26.119 --> 0:19:28.920 dust in London as well. This is from Lucy's perspective 0:19:29.040 --> 0:19:31.880 much later on in the book. The air seems full 0:19:31.880 --> 0:19:35.560 of specs floating and circling in the draft from the window, 0:19:35.920 --> 0:19:38.760 and the lights burn blue and dim. What am I 0:19:38.840 --> 0:19:41.600 to do? God shield me from harm this night? I 0:19:41.600 --> 0:19:43.800 shall hide this paper in my breast, where they shall 0:19:43.840 --> 0:19:45.879 find it when they come to lay me out. My 0:19:45.960 --> 0:19:48.840 dear mother gone. It is time that I go to Goodbye, 0:19:48.920 --> 0:19:52.000 dear Arthur. If I should not survive this night, God 0:19:52.119 --> 0:19:54.119 keep you, dear, and God help me. 0:19:54.760 --> 0:19:57.760 This is interesting in the air being full of dust 0:19:57.880 --> 0:20:01.480 almost it's like an indicat that death is imminent. 0:20:02.000 --> 0:20:05.600 Yeah, yeah, almost, like there's almost kind of like a 0:20:05.640 --> 0:20:10.400 fairy fire kind of vibe to it, you know. Now. 0:20:10.480 --> 0:20:12.880 Later on in the novel, as pointed out by May 0:20:13.560 --> 0:20:17.239 in that write up, Dracula's London layer is said to 0:20:17.320 --> 0:20:22.240 have walls quote fluffy and heavy with dust, which I like. 0:20:22.320 --> 0:20:26.800 It's almost like there's a strong sense that Dracula's presence 0:20:26.840 --> 0:20:30.640 alone makes the place dustier than it could have logically been. 0:20:31.359 --> 0:20:33.960 And then, of course you know what happens at the end. 0:20:34.280 --> 0:20:38.160 Dracula is staked Dracula is slain and quote his whole 0:20:38.200 --> 0:20:40.359 body crumbled into dust. 0:20:40.760 --> 0:20:43.040 This would go back to that theme we talked about 0:20:43.040 --> 0:20:46.840 at the beginning of the first episode, how most often 0:20:46.960 --> 0:20:50.120 in literature it seems that imagery of dust is used 0:20:50.160 --> 0:20:55.000 to signify a kind of worthlessness. And yeah, so when 0:20:55.000 --> 0:20:58.359 a body in a story crumbles into dust, it seems 0:20:58.440 --> 0:21:02.480 to it seems to indicate it almost a magical signal 0:21:02.520 --> 0:21:03.360 of good riddance. 0:21:03.960 --> 0:21:06.000 Yeah, yeah, so we definitely have that going on. There's 0:21:06.000 --> 0:21:08.960 no denying that you know from dust you came, does 0:21:09.040 --> 0:21:12.440 you become? And this creature of on life is now 0:21:12.480 --> 0:21:17.720 reduced to dust. And yet May stresses that throughout that, Okay, 0:21:17.760 --> 0:21:19.439 we have this time period in which we have all 0:21:19.480 --> 0:21:24.480 these attitudes about dust, and we also have the titular 0:21:24.560 --> 0:21:28.199 vampire here, who is an infectious creature. And much has 0:21:28.240 --> 0:21:31.240 been written comparing like the infectious nature of vampires to 0:21:31.359 --> 0:21:37.200 various pathogens, sometimes to syphilis and other maladies, and May 0:21:37.240 --> 0:21:41.159 stresses that quote terror of contamination by minute particles of 0:21:41.160 --> 0:21:45.920 corruption is thoroughly reinforced in Stoker's novel. I was looking 0:21:45.960 --> 0:21:47.840 around briefly at screen grabs, and I'm like, what is 0:21:47.880 --> 0:21:52.439 the dustiest Dracula movie that we have, And I'm not 0:21:52.480 --> 0:21:54.639 sure offhand. You know, he turns into dust at the 0:21:54.720 --> 0:21:57.199 end of a lot of these movies. But I was wondering, like, 0:21:57.200 --> 0:21:59.560 which one has the dustiest sets. Now I feel like 0:21:59.600 --> 0:22:01.040 I'm gonna have keep an eye open for that. 0:22:01.680 --> 0:22:05.400 I feel like the Todd Browning Dracula emphasizes dust in 0:22:05.840 --> 0:22:10.359 Legosi's castle. There's less dust that I recall once they 0:22:10.480 --> 0:22:11.720 move on back to London. 0:22:12.400 --> 0:22:16.080 Yeah, And I'm not sure about the ninetiese version from 0:22:16.119 --> 0:22:19.919 Francis Ford Coppola. I do. I am long overdue to 0:22:20.000 --> 0:22:22.560 rewatch that one, But if I were to guess, I 0:22:22.600 --> 0:22:26.879 would maybe expect some fine dust in the castle. But 0:22:27.240 --> 0:22:30.280 maybe they end up avoiding it in London because there's 0:22:30.320 --> 0:22:32.800 like a sense I feel like they probably shot London 0:22:32.800 --> 0:22:37.359 with a certain air of modern gleaming there. But then again, 0:22:37.359 --> 0:22:39.000 if you end up going into a crypt, what's the 0:22:39.000 --> 0:22:41.159 first thing you're at least tempted to do? Set wise, 0:22:41.359 --> 0:22:44.160 that's dust everything, right, give it that n nice Gothic air. 0:22:44.520 --> 0:22:47.720 We could quite possibly do the Copola Dracula on Weird House. 0:22:47.760 --> 0:22:51.359 It is weirder than it needs to be, and I 0:22:51.400 --> 0:22:53.720 don't know, there are things about that you could argue 0:22:53.760 --> 0:22:55.879 are not good, but I think it's a heck of 0:22:55.920 --> 0:22:56.720 a good time. 0:22:57.160 --> 0:22:59.160 Yeah, and there's greatness within it for sure. 0:22:59.400 --> 0:22:59.880 Yeah. 0:23:00.240 --> 0:23:05.280