WEBVTT - CLASSIC: The Nature of Ephemera, with Alex Williams 0:00:00.080 --> 0:00:06.080 Fellow Ridiculous Historians. This week's classic episode is incredibly special 0:00:06.240 --> 0:00:13.200 to us. Back in twenty nineteen or thereabouts, our good 0:00:13.240 --> 0:00:15.840 good friend of the show, a brother in arms to 0:00:15.920 --> 0:00:19.639 all of us, a guy named Alex Williams co created 0:00:19.920 --> 0:00:23.520 with his own brother, our super producer, Max Williams, a 0:00:23.560 --> 0:00:24.560 show called. 0:00:24.360 --> 0:00:31.400 Ephemera Indeed, And on this episode, we talked to Alex, 0:00:31.800 --> 0:00:35.520 the creator of Ephemeral, on the nature of his podcast, 0:00:35.800 --> 0:00:38.920 which is out there for you to enjoy, as well 0:00:39.280 --> 0:00:43.920 as a story about the Collier Brothers. 0:00:45.960 --> 0:01:14.119 Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio. Welcome to the show, 0:01:14.200 --> 0:01:18.120 Ridiculous Historians, Thanks so much for tuning in. Peak Behind 0:01:18.160 --> 0:01:22.280 the Curtain, it is officially summer in Atlanta. The humidity 0:01:22.360 --> 0:01:25.959 and the heat combined to drape the city in soup. 0:01:26.319 --> 0:01:29.319 It feels like walking through soup. So I am very, 0:01:29.440 --> 0:01:33.080 very glad to be here inside our air conditioned studio. 0:01:33.440 --> 0:01:34.959 My name is Ben, my name is Noah. 0:01:35.120 --> 0:01:39.000 The shipping container is icy cool today, and outside it 0:01:39.080 --> 0:01:41.479 is sort of there's this miasma, this sort of funk, 0:01:41.560 --> 0:01:45.720 this patina of awful hot, sweaty grossness that does kind 0:01:45.720 --> 0:01:48.560 of envelop the city and it happened overnight, didn't it. 0:01:48.560 --> 0:01:52.640 It just happened overnight. Yeah, it permeated, It permeated this 0:01:52.720 --> 0:01:56.360 fair metropolis of ours. I always forget about how dire 0:01:56.480 --> 0:02:00.960 this situation becomes when we hit summer in Atlanta, and 0:02:01.000 --> 0:02:03.440 you know this may mean that we're in here recording 0:02:04.160 --> 0:02:07.240 more episodes. We do want to start the show with 0:02:07.280 --> 0:02:11.639 a big shout out to our guest super producer Ramsey 0:02:11.720 --> 0:02:15.240 ram jams Yunt, So everybody give him a fine hello. 0:02:14.880 --> 0:02:16.959 Do we get does he get a sound effect. 0:02:18.919 --> 0:02:19.600 That sounded good? 0:02:19.680 --> 0:02:19.840 Yeah? 0:02:19.880 --> 0:02:22.440 It was very good. Good. I like it. And of 0:02:22.480 --> 0:02:25.720 course this does not mean that we will ever forget 0:02:26.080 --> 0:02:36.800 our wonderful our third amigo, right, super producer Casey Pegram. 0:02:34.800 --> 0:02:39.040 Gone, but not forgotten, gone, I say, but gone where Ben? 0:02:39.080 --> 0:02:41.079 We were talking about this? So I have a theory. 0:02:41.919 --> 0:02:47.360 Every year or so, Casey disappears and in France, someone 0:02:47.480 --> 0:02:50.560 else reappears, a very different person who happens to look 0:02:50.600 --> 0:02:53.680 a little bit like our dear friend Casey Pegram. This guy, 0:02:53.720 --> 0:02:57.320 we imagine, is a member of the criminal underbelly of Paris, 0:02:57.919 --> 0:02:59.760 known only by the name. 0:03:00.639 --> 0:03:03.720 Yeah, and he dons a completely different get up in 0:03:03.760 --> 0:03:06.440 the form of a very slick looking leather jacket, a 0:03:06.480 --> 0:03:09.840 single dangly cross earring on his left on his left ear, 0:03:10.200 --> 0:03:13.560 and sometimes he wears fingerless gloves and rides around one 0:03:13.560 --> 0:03:17.720 of those cool little mod motorbikes in the pictures. 0:03:17.840 --> 0:03:21.320 Yet, and we strongly suspect that he may have one 0:03:21.560 --> 0:03:25.040 or more secret families. It's true. 0:03:25.120 --> 0:03:25.400 None of this. 0:03:25.639 --> 0:03:27.600 We can neither confirm nor deny any of this. We 0:03:27.639 --> 0:03:28.880 are wildly speculated. 0:03:28.919 --> 0:03:31.400 It's all true, though. Put the pieces together, people. 0:03:31.160 --> 0:03:33.400 All right, we're gonna have to let Casey have his 0:03:33.480 --> 0:03:35.520 day in court here and defend himself. But you know, 0:03:35.720 --> 0:03:38.720 Casey's not here. We're joined with Ramsey helping us to 0:03:38.840 --> 0:03:41.960 pick up the slack. Here. Casey's doing his double life. 0:03:42.160 --> 0:03:43.880 But that's not the only person that we have on 0:03:43.920 --> 0:03:44.800 the show today, is it. 0:03:44.840 --> 0:03:45.040 Man. 0:03:45.240 --> 0:03:48.840 That's absolutely true. This is a special episode that I 0:03:48.920 --> 0:03:53.200 know we were both very excited about. We have in 0:03:53.320 --> 0:03:58.200 our network a brand new podcast that we're we're all 0:03:58.520 --> 0:04:01.440 huge fans of, since you really huge fans of, and 0:04:01.640 --> 0:04:06.360 it happens to be created by one of our close 0:04:06.440 --> 0:04:09.920 friends who you may have heard mentioned on our show 0:04:09.960 --> 0:04:12.800 or other shows before. Folks, Let's give it up for 0:04:13.040 --> 0:04:16.920 Alex Williams, the brains behind the podcast. We call a 0:04:17.080 --> 0:04:19.640 femeral because that's the name of the podcast. 0:04:20.440 --> 0:04:23.360 Hi Alex makes us call it then, just by virtue 0:04:23.360 --> 0:04:25.160 of having titled it and being a very good title 0:04:25.160 --> 0:04:26.320 and a very fine podcast. 0:04:26.320 --> 0:04:27.000 Thank you for being here. 0:04:27.200 --> 0:04:30.040 What a flattering introduction. I'm very happy to be here. 0:04:30.080 --> 0:04:32.560 Well, here's the thing. We've been working with you for 0:04:32.680 --> 0:04:35.040 quite some time now. We've kind of seen you grow 0:04:35.480 --> 0:04:38.160 and develop and become more and more of a badass 0:04:38.200 --> 0:04:40.880 in what the pros referred to as the podcast space 0:04:41.200 --> 0:04:45.159 and making wild gesticulating quote fingers when I say that. 0:04:45.680 --> 0:04:47.000 You really have to. But here's the thing. 0:04:47.040 --> 0:04:49.200 You really took another level in terms of making not 0:04:49.240 --> 0:04:53.200 only a history podcast, but something that I've referred to 0:04:53.200 --> 0:04:55.919 when I describe it to friends as something akin to 0:04:56.080 --> 0:05:01.440 like poetry meets sound, collage meets some music, concrete meets history, 0:05:02.360 --> 0:05:04.760 And I think it's just a really beautiful piece of work. 0:05:04.800 --> 0:05:07.560 And I'm just beyond stoke that it's on our network 0:05:07.560 --> 0:05:09.120 and that you're the guy behind him. 0:05:09.160 --> 0:05:10.640 So we'd like to ask you. 0:05:10.800 --> 0:05:12.360 That was such a good pitch. I don't know if 0:05:12.360 --> 0:05:13.760 I could pull that up, but that was great. 0:05:13.839 --> 0:05:15.680 He's good. Well, now it is your turn, so we'd 0:05:15.720 --> 0:05:18.280 like to ask you some questions about ephemeral, about your 0:05:18.680 --> 0:05:23.799 your inspiration behind it. But first, yeah, with that excellent 0:05:23.800 --> 0:05:28.039 description that Noel just just recited, what how would you 0:05:28.080 --> 0:05:31.599 describe it? How do you describe it when when someone's like, hey, 0:05:31.640 --> 0:05:32.800 what's this thing you're working on? 0:05:33.240 --> 0:05:36.880 I start stammering and sweating, and I try to make 0:05:36.920 --> 0:05:39.320 it as concise as possible as thinking of a quick 0:05:39.360 --> 0:05:45.159 pitch in bed the other night. It's something like a 0:05:45.240 --> 0:05:48.120 show about fleeting moments and the things they leave behind. 0:05:48.560 --> 0:05:51.240 M I like that because that's what epemera is, right. 0:05:51.279 --> 0:05:55.040 Epemera is sort of a remnant of a thing that 0:05:55.160 --> 0:05:57.839 no longer is around, I guess kind of or the 0:05:57.880 --> 0:06:00.560 idea of things being ephemeral means that they're fleeting or 0:06:00.560 --> 0:06:02.839 that they're here today, gone tomorrow, but they do leave 0:06:02.839 --> 0:06:04.920 behind some kind of residue if you know where to look. 0:06:05.040 --> 0:06:05.200 Right. 0:06:06.720 --> 0:06:10.040 Yeah, So the word itself is kind of tricky. In 0:06:10.080 --> 0:06:15.040 the textbook, epemera might just mean paper. 0:06:15.360 --> 0:06:19.800 Right, broadsides, tickets, pamphlets for museums. 0:06:19.320 --> 0:06:25.200 Basically anything printed, hand printed, you know, printing press, computer printed. 0:06:25.880 --> 0:06:28.880 That wasn't meant to be saved. But then it gets 0:06:28.920 --> 0:06:30.600 into the issue of like, how do you determine whether 0:06:30.680 --> 0:06:32.640 something was meant to be saved or not? 0:06:33.000 --> 0:06:37.160 Right, Like, for instance, a train schedule from the early 0:06:37.360 --> 0:06:41.160 nineteen hundreds. Now, the ones that are around are considered 0:06:41.560 --> 0:06:44.560 thing to be things that of historical value, right, But 0:06:44.800 --> 0:06:48.000 when they were printed, they were thought to have a 0:06:48.160 --> 0:06:51.920 definitive and very short lifespan or span of utility. 0:06:52.640 --> 0:06:55.560 One of the really classic examples is the stamp. The 0:06:55.600 --> 0:06:57.919 episode I'm working on that will come up. Mondays about this, 0:06:58.279 --> 0:07:00.480 well Monday, that might that might not be the Monday. 0:07:00.520 --> 0:07:02.560 It'll come out on an it'll come out on a Monday. 0:07:02.560 --> 0:07:04.279 I don't know when this will come out. But a 0:07:04.320 --> 0:07:05.960 stamp is a really classic example. 0:07:06.040 --> 0:07:06.240 Right. 0:07:06.320 --> 0:07:09.200 So you've written a letter to your friend Noel, and 0:07:09.240 --> 0:07:11.600 you've stamped it, and you've put in the mailbox and 0:07:11.640 --> 0:07:13.960 he gets it and he rips it open and reads 0:07:13.960 --> 0:07:17.080 the letter and he's, you know, overwrought with emotion. Whatever 0:07:17.120 --> 0:07:21.720 he throws out or hopefully recycles the uh, and that's it. 0:07:21.760 --> 0:07:24.440 But Noel happens to have a great stamp collection, right, 0:07:24.760 --> 0:07:28.320 and I've sent him, you know, uh inverted Jenny stamp 0:07:28.320 --> 0:07:31.320 from the nineteen thirties, and so he is overwrought with emotion, 0:07:31.400 --> 0:07:34.800 not because of my great pros, but because this is 0:07:34.880 --> 0:07:37.200 a great addition to his stamp collection. 0:07:36.920 --> 0:07:39.280 Because he is a philetist or philitist? 0:07:39.400 --> 0:07:40.040 Is that it is? 0:07:40.200 --> 0:07:42.360 How's it? How it's pronounced? You a p h I 0:07:42.760 --> 0:07:46.400 L A T I s t one who collects stamps. 0:07:46.440 --> 0:07:47.800 What's the root word of philetist? 0:07:49.880 --> 0:07:52.400 Sorry, it could also be one who filets, you know, 0:07:52.440 --> 0:07:55.200 That's what I would think, because that's how the British 0:07:55.200 --> 0:07:57.840 pronounced fil a. They pronounce it phill it really they 0:07:57.880 --> 0:07:59.200 do a hard t stund at the end of it. 0:07:59.200 --> 0:08:01.800 I always find that very interesting because sometimes the Brits 0:08:01.800 --> 0:08:03.640 seem like they really own the word, and sometimes they 0:08:03.640 --> 0:08:05.840 just feel like they're mispronouncing and just to be cute, 0:08:05.920 --> 0:08:09.720 cute sort of like aluminium, Like that's not the word, Brits. 0:08:09.800 --> 0:08:12.240 Come on, it's illuminum. You're adding syllables in there that 0:08:12.280 --> 0:08:12.960 don't belong. 0:08:15.400 --> 0:08:18.679 Place the American English. To be fair, we can't really 0:08:18.720 --> 0:08:21.920 criticize the people who are doing it. First. That's also fair. 0:08:21.960 --> 0:08:24.640 Ben If they want to add an extra pe on shop, 0:08:24.800 --> 0:08:27.559 then that's kind of their call. Uh yeah, to answer 0:08:27.600 --> 0:08:31.480 that question about etymology. It's interesting because it comes from 0:08:32.040 --> 0:08:38.760 French and Greek. So uh itelia means exemption from payment. 0:08:39.360 --> 0:08:43.600 The French philo means loving, so it's loving exemption from payment, 0:08:44.840 --> 0:08:46.600 which is weird, right. 0:08:46.640 --> 0:08:48.880 No, but it's it makes sense, But don't ask me 0:08:48.920 --> 0:08:49.600 to explain it. 0:08:50.559 --> 0:08:53.559 Well, we can learn more about this. What what did 0:08:53.600 --> 0:08:57.559 you what are you exploring on this episode concerning stamps? 0:08:57.840 --> 0:09:01.280 Oh, well, it's not it's all over. It's much more 0:09:01.320 --> 0:09:04.000 than you know. One of the things that we're doing 0:09:04.080 --> 0:09:07.119 is actually taking the word apart in this in this episode, 0:09:07.600 --> 0:09:13.560 so ef eemera comes from the root words epi meaning 0:09:13.760 --> 0:09:20.360 honor of, like epicurius, epidermis, and hemera meaning day. It's 0:09:20.400 --> 0:09:23.920 like a Latin Greek combination word. And so it starts 0:09:23.960 --> 0:09:27.680 being used by people in you know, the Age of Enlightenment, 0:09:27.679 --> 0:09:31.880 I guess, to describe things that only last for a day, 0:09:32.360 --> 0:09:35.080 that may fly, you know, a certain species of plants 0:09:35.120 --> 0:09:39.440 that flower and wither in a day. And then you know, 0:09:39.440 --> 0:09:42.800 it becomes with time more broadly used to describe things 0:09:42.800 --> 0:09:46.240 that don't last a long time, you know, or fleeting. 0:09:46.600 --> 0:09:50.000 And that's where you start getting into trouble because like 0:09:51.280 --> 0:09:53.360 in in a you know, the metrics of like a 0:09:53.440 --> 0:09:56.120 human life. You know, maybe like one hundred years at best. 0:09:56.679 --> 0:09:58.800 Something that doesn't last for long means something different than 0:09:58.920 --> 0:10:04.680 like geologically right, like melting polar ice caps or ephemeral 0:10:04.679 --> 0:10:05.440 At this point. 0:10:06.480 --> 0:10:08.840 Or was it? Who was that philosopher said all as ephemera? 0:10:09.600 --> 0:10:11.760 How have I never heard that? I've never heard of that. 0:10:11.920 --> 0:10:15.079 Maybe it's maybe it's a philosopher Marcus Aurelius. 0:10:15.120 --> 0:10:18.400 Okay, there we go, all this ephemeral, both what remembers 0:10:18.440 --> 0:10:19.559 and what is remembered. 0:10:19.840 --> 0:10:20.400 There we go. 0:10:20.520 --> 0:10:22.760 How have I never used that quote for something? 0:10:23.120 --> 0:10:26.040 Your tagline, ye should hang out on the show more often. Man, 0:10:26.320 --> 0:10:31.479 I'm full of vaguely remembered one liners from ancient philosophers. 0:10:31.880 --> 0:10:34.840 So I mean, I guess ephemeral ephemerah, by its nature 0:10:34.960 --> 0:10:37.880 is sometimes a little hard to describe, as is the show. 0:10:37.960 --> 0:10:39.760 It's not something that you can just encapsulate in a 0:10:39.840 --> 0:10:42.720 quick elevator pitch. So I put forth that we listened 0:10:42.760 --> 0:10:44.240 to a little bit of a clip that can then 0:10:44.280 --> 0:10:45.319 set up a discussion. 0:10:45.320 --> 0:10:46.360 What do you say, Oh? 0:10:46.440 --> 0:10:49.040 Sure, Oh, let's do the call your brothers, Yes, sir? 0:10:49.880 --> 0:10:52.960 As a kid, Franz Litz's father would tell him scary 0:10:53.000 --> 0:10:56.559 stories before bed. Only these stories were true. 0:10:57.520 --> 0:11:02.959 My father was a scientists engine inventor who had never 0:11:03.000 --> 0:11:07.600 really had much use for fairy tales. He preferred real 0:11:07.640 --> 0:11:12.160 life grotesqueries to fiction, and so at bed time I 0:11:12.200 --> 0:11:17.120 would listen raptly to his urban horror stories. The most 0:11:17.120 --> 0:11:21.920 macabre tale was one of the Collier Brothers, the hermit 0:11:22.160 --> 0:11:23.400 hoarders of Harlem. 0:11:23.520 --> 0:11:27.160 There in their four story brownstone at the corner of 0:11:27.200 --> 0:11:30.079 Fifth Avenue one hundred and twenty eighth Street, the brothers 0:11:30.080 --> 0:11:33.560 sealed themselves up through the Great Depression, both world wars, 0:11:34.000 --> 0:11:36.439 and as Harlem shifted from a rich white suburb to 0:11:36.520 --> 0:11:38.280 a poor black slum. 0:11:38.800 --> 0:11:42.280 It was there in that brownstone that they amassed one 0:11:42.320 --> 0:11:46.680 of the world's legendary collections of urban junk. And in 0:11:46.720 --> 0:11:49.079 the end, the Collier brothers had one hundred and eighty 0:11:49.160 --> 0:11:53.640 tons of junk stored in their brownstone. And so I 0:11:53.720 --> 0:12:01.640 got this image of this horror house. Things like pattered toysmis, trees, chandeliers, 0:12:01.760 --> 0:12:06.319 rusted bicycles, broken baby carriages, ford model t moldering oak chess, 0:12:06.440 --> 0:12:10.359 fourteen pianos who added babies and fromaldehyde. 0:12:09.720 --> 0:12:13.960 And newspapers, hundreds of thousands of newspapers. 0:12:14.640 --> 0:12:19.520 It was a collection so extraordinary that their accomplishment, such 0:12:19.520 --> 0:12:24.880 as it was, confirms like a New yorkers worse nightmare, 0:12:25.640 --> 0:12:29.200 that they're crumpled people living in crumpled rooms where they're 0:12:29.240 --> 0:12:34.000 crumpled possessions, the crowded chaos of the city refracted in 0:12:34.080 --> 0:12:38.319 their homes. It's not that New Yorkers hoard more than 0:12:38.360 --> 0:12:41.840 other people, so they have less room to hoard in. 0:12:43.640 --> 0:12:47.439 So the call your brothers c. L. L. Ye Er 0:12:48.360 --> 0:12:51.200 were just as they're described in that clip, right, they're 0:12:51.240 --> 0:12:53.359 what we would call compulsive hoarders. 0:12:54.559 --> 0:12:57.280 Yeah. I don't know the history of the term hoarder 0:12:57.280 --> 0:13:01.720 if we're applying a modern term and acariness, but yes, 0:13:02.320 --> 0:13:05.720 hacrats I suppose maybe is like an older term. Yeah, 0:13:05.760 --> 0:13:07.200 but horder's certainly. 0:13:07.280 --> 0:13:10.120 Could you tell us a little bit more about these brothers. 0:13:11.040 --> 0:13:15.360 So there's really one book on them, and it's by 0:13:16.040 --> 0:13:20.800 a fantastic, exquisite writer named Franz Lids who grew up 0:13:20.840 --> 0:13:23.280 hearing you hear his voice in the clip. He grew 0:13:23.360 --> 0:13:27.280 up hearing these stories from his father as bedtime stories, 0:13:27.320 --> 0:13:30.360 as scary stories that he wouldn't tell. He would tell 0:13:30.400 --> 0:13:33.680 Franz these stories, but not Franz's sister. For whatever reason, 0:13:33.720 --> 0:13:36.520 I thought that was interesting, and so when Franz grew up, 0:13:36.559 --> 0:13:39.760 he decided to learn everything that he could because no 0:13:39.760 --> 0:13:41.920 one had really written anything, you know. Besides, they were 0:13:41.960 --> 0:13:46.839 sort of part of the urban legends of Harlem and 0:13:46.880 --> 0:13:47.600 of New York. 0:13:47.600 --> 0:13:50.160 To the point where it was almost a cautionary tale, 0:13:50.240 --> 0:13:54.079 like even the New York Fire Department would I believe. 0:13:54.120 --> 0:13:57.880 They had a term that they used called Collier's mansion 0:13:57.960 --> 0:14:03.040 syndrome that referred to extra instances of extreme clutter in 0:14:03.200 --> 0:14:06.160 apartments that were fire hazards. So it almost became, as 0:14:06.160 --> 0:14:08.120 the name of the book implies, called ghost y men. 0:14:08.400 --> 0:14:11.600 These these guys almost cast kind of a specter over 0:14:11.760 --> 0:14:14.600 this particular region to the point where they were so 0:14:14.679 --> 0:14:18.800 embedded in the cultural and oral tradition storytelling like ghost stories, 0:14:18.920 --> 0:14:21.280 that became this kind of cautionary tale almost right. 0:14:21.680 --> 0:14:25.800 Yeah, there's there's also a racial element to that too. 0:14:26.240 --> 0:14:29.240 The two brothers, Langley and Homer, moved with their parents 0:14:29.680 --> 0:14:34.400 from Manhattan to the budding community of Harlem in the 0:14:34.720 --> 0:14:38.400 eighteen nineties sort of an economic boom time, and Harlem 0:14:38.480 --> 0:14:42.280 is this new, rich, fancy suburb for people that want 0:14:42.320 --> 0:14:44.040 to get out of dirty New York, you know, get 0:14:44.040 --> 0:14:47.920 out to gentrification basically. Yeah, well those oldest time well 0:14:48.000 --> 0:14:53.560 it actually the economy crashes and there's a big bust 0:14:54.080 --> 0:14:57.800 and all of these rich families like move out, and 0:14:57.840 --> 0:15:00.040 there's all this empty space in Harlem. And then and 0:15:00.720 --> 0:15:04.760 there was overtly racist practices taken on by the landowners 0:15:04.760 --> 0:15:08.240 and harlve lifelines. Sure literally things that were called like 0:15:08.440 --> 0:15:12.240 Negro surcharges, I see. And they would take these big, 0:15:12.280 --> 0:15:16.280 beautiful brownstone mansions, like the Collier brothers lives in a 0:15:16.320 --> 0:15:21.000 four story brownstone mansion and divide them up into you know, six, seven, 0:15:21.040 --> 0:15:26.360 eight nine rooms, fill them up, overcharge African Americans to 0:15:26.440 --> 0:15:30.200 live there. But so anyways, the Collier Brothers were some 0:15:30.240 --> 0:15:32.840 of the few white residents at that point too. So 0:15:34.760 --> 0:15:37.160 legend is that neighborhood kids would chuck rocks at their 0:15:37.160 --> 0:15:40.440 windows and stuff and call them ghosty men, both referring 0:15:40.480 --> 0:15:43.560 to like their sort of creepy hermit never come out 0:15:43.600 --> 0:15:45.480 of the house. Is there someone dead in there? 0:15:46.640 --> 0:15:47.000 Yeah? 0:15:47.040 --> 0:15:50.040 And also you know, perhaps a racial connotation. 0:15:56.280 --> 0:16:00.680 It's interesting too because there's a parallel story reminds me of, 0:16:00.720 --> 0:16:05.160 which is the Masols film Gray Gardens, where it's you know, 0:16:05.280 --> 0:16:08.000 this mother and daughter that live in a very they 0:16:08.000 --> 0:16:11.040 come from affluence. They live in this very similarly decrepit 0:16:11.400 --> 0:16:14.080 kind of mansion out in you know, the burbs, away 0:16:14.080 --> 0:16:17.080 from New York City, and they're completely kind of delusional 0:16:17.200 --> 0:16:19.840 and sort of exist in this strange bubble together. And 0:16:19.880 --> 0:16:21.880 that sort of what ended up happening with the Collier brothers, 0:16:21.880 --> 0:16:24.120 where they got to a point I believe one of 0:16:23.960 --> 0:16:27.240 the Homer I believe was like a child prodigy and 0:16:27.280 --> 0:16:29.680 like ended up getting some advanced degrees and did really 0:16:29.680 --> 0:16:31.760 well for himself for a time, and then they ended 0:16:31.840 --> 0:16:34.560 up just kind of withdrawing completely from society. And that's 0:16:34.560 --> 0:16:37.280 when the extreme hoarding that we're talking about started to begin. 0:16:37.560 --> 0:16:40.160 And that's also where the legend stuff kind of comes in, Right. 0:16:40.360 --> 0:16:44.920 They really both were prodigies. Romer had advanced degrees from 0:16:44.920 --> 0:16:47.120 Colombia and like admiralty law. 0:16:47.040 --> 0:16:50.200 And what even is that? First of all, is it 0:16:50.240 --> 0:16:54.200 like maritime stuff are similar? Yes, And I believe also 0:16:54.320 --> 0:16:56.160 one of them was quite a talented pianist. 0:16:56.280 --> 0:17:01.160 Is Langley played at Carnegie Hall and was followed by 0:17:01.320 --> 0:17:06.399 the famous pianists at the time, Padrewski, but Paaterewski quote 0:17:06.400 --> 0:17:09.639 got better notices than Hey, so he gave up the piano. 0:17:10.040 --> 0:17:12.760 So, you know, it can always be discouraging to work 0:17:12.800 --> 0:17:16.000 that grind of the music industry, regardless of the era 0:17:16.040 --> 0:17:22.280 in which you live. Let's talk a little bit about 0:17:21.240 --> 0:17:28.640 what this timeline of degradation looks like. Because while they 0:17:28.680 --> 0:17:33.399 were infamous in their neighborhood and their community, especially as 0:17:34.119 --> 0:17:37.240 things started to get worse and worse for them mentally 0:17:37.359 --> 0:17:42.320 and you know, Homer got a stroke, they started becoming 0:17:42.359 --> 0:17:47.480 more and more reclusive. Right. They didn't reach national attention 0:17:47.720 --> 0:17:51.200 until nineteen thirty eight, when the New York Times reported 0:17:51.240 --> 0:17:53.960 a false story about them and said that they had 0:17:54.160 --> 0:17:56.640 turned down an offer of one hundred and twenty five 0:17:56.680 --> 0:17:58.119 grand for their house. 0:17:58.960 --> 0:18:04.240 Yeah, there's a lot of strange sort of tabloid a. 0:18:04.280 --> 0:18:06.399 New York had eleven newspapers in those days. There was 0:18:06.480 --> 0:18:08.880 lots of lots of things that sort of bounce around 0:18:08.880 --> 0:18:10.920 in an echo chamber, I suppose. So there's a lot 0:18:10.920 --> 0:18:12.879 of strange leads that you can follow with the Collier 0:18:12.880 --> 0:18:15.800 brothers that you never really get an answer to. I 0:18:15.840 --> 0:18:18.840 should say that Homer quits his job, Langley stops playing 0:18:18.840 --> 0:18:21.520 the piano, their father has moved back to Manhattan. At 0:18:21.520 --> 0:18:23.440 some point, they stay in the house with their mother 0:18:23.520 --> 0:18:26.520 and really sort of start shuddering in in their you know, 0:18:26.600 --> 0:18:28.320 in their sort of mid twenties. 0:18:28.080 --> 0:18:29.280 And then their mother passes away. 0:18:29.359 --> 0:18:31.679 She passes away and is buried in some sort of 0:18:31.800 --> 0:18:36.480 bizarre kind of cult like ceremony. She just whisked out 0:18:36.480 --> 0:18:39.040 of a window one night and taken to a seminary 0:18:39.080 --> 0:18:42.800 that's very far away on foot. And it's never in 0:18:42.840 --> 0:18:46.840 the paper or anything. There's no obituary. She's she's just 0:18:46.960 --> 0:18:48.800 gone one day, and they wanted to keep it private. 0:18:48.840 --> 0:18:52.879 I suppose after that they more or less had no 0:18:53.080 --> 0:18:54.480 contact with the outside world. 0:18:54.640 --> 0:18:59.080 I believe Homer lost his eyesight and became essentially legally blind, you. 0:18:59.119 --> 0:19:01.360 Know, and he I'm gonna illustrate it for you here, 0:19:02.440 --> 0:19:05.000 had rheumatism and was doubled up like this with his 0:19:05.119 --> 0:19:06.240 knees below his chin. 0:19:06.520 --> 0:19:09.480 So for the description, just since we're an audio show, 0:19:10.000 --> 0:19:15.560 Alex has assumed a somewhat fetal esque position with both 0:19:15.640 --> 0:19:19.439 legs folded up against his chest and his arms folded 0:19:19.440 --> 0:19:20.560 around holding his legs. 0:19:20.560 --> 0:19:22.879 Oh I made this part, that's all you. No, the 0:19:23.000 --> 0:19:27.040 arms is just me, that's my thing. But so the 0:19:27.080 --> 0:19:29.399 poor guy. Yeah, and in his thirties this happened. I 0:19:29.440 --> 0:19:35.440 believe lost his eyesight. Langley became his brother's keeper, and 0:19:35.600 --> 0:19:37.640 I mean, I really do think they were. They loved 0:19:37.680 --> 0:19:40.360 each other and were very dutiful to each other. Langley 0:19:41.280 --> 0:19:44.800 devised this scheme of feeding his brother one hundred oranges 0:19:44.840 --> 0:19:48.720 a day in orders who regained his eyesight. That's one 0:19:48.720 --> 0:19:51.760 of the poll quotes we have left of Langley Collier. 0:19:52.720 --> 0:19:58.600 And he saved him newspapers, hundreds of thousands of newspapers 0:19:58.600 --> 0:20:00.480 when he could read again, when he could read again, 0:20:00.760 --> 0:20:07.600 which is heartbreaking and sweet. These newspapers obviously are yellowing, rotting. 0:20:07.840 --> 0:20:11.520 Sure they're you know, it's a four story, humongous mansion. 0:20:13.119 --> 0:20:19.160 Langley made them into arches and tunnels and made an 0:20:19.200 --> 0:20:23.000 inner framework for their mansion out of newspapers and all 0:20:23.080 --> 0:20:24.840 kinds of other to tris. I mean, there's really no 0:20:26.400 --> 0:20:29.240 I have incredibly long lists of this stuff that I've 0:20:29.280 --> 0:20:30.800 I've pulled from different sources. 0:20:30.920 --> 0:20:35.960 Oh yeah, let's see baby carriages, rusted bikes, Because apparently 0:20:36.359 --> 0:20:42.600 Langley was so Homer never sought medical help for his rheumatism. 0:20:42.680 --> 0:20:43.680 Is that correct? 0:20:43.960 --> 0:20:45.960 Well, it's hard to say. It's hard to be absolute 0:20:45.960 --> 0:20:48.119 about anything. I mean, you know, like I said, we 0:20:48.119 --> 0:20:50.600 have the one book and either there there's there's things 0:20:50.600 --> 0:20:51.520 that we just want to never know. 0:20:51.640 --> 0:20:53.680 Best we have for primary source because it sounds like 0:20:53.720 --> 0:20:56.320 a lot of the headlines of the time, the contemporary 0:20:56.359 --> 0:21:00.439 papers you mentioned were just reporting stuff that would sell papers. 0:21:00.560 --> 0:21:02.800 Uh, there was we don't actually don't talk about this 0:21:02.800 --> 0:21:05.439 in the episode, but there's one reporter, Helen Warden is 0:21:05.440 --> 0:21:08.040 her name. Langley sort of took a liking to her. 0:21:08.200 --> 0:21:10.639 She was waiting outside of his apartment or outside of 0:21:10.640 --> 0:21:13.080 the brownstone one day around midnight he came out to 0:21:13.119 --> 0:21:15.080 make his nightly rounds. He would walk around the city 0:21:15.080 --> 0:21:19.560 and just drag a cardboard box with a string behind him, Yeah, 0:21:19.640 --> 0:21:24.800 and fill it up with just whatever stuff he came across, 0:21:24.960 --> 0:21:28.360 all kinds of things. She met him out there one 0:21:28.440 --> 0:21:35.080 one night at the at the outside the brownstone, and 0:21:35.160 --> 0:21:39.840 he just sort of started unloading information on her. She 0:21:39.920 --> 0:21:42.440 made mention of maybe visiting inside the house one day, 0:21:43.119 --> 0:21:45.840 and he's and that's when he stopped and took off. 0:21:46.359 --> 0:21:49.240 Oh, Wow. Yeah, and this is this is interesting because 0:21:49.359 --> 0:21:53.240 around this maybe around this is after the time when 0:21:54.000 --> 0:21:57.800 Langley began not going out until midnight, right, and then 0:21:57.840 --> 0:22:02.119 returning home with junk. I So one of the things 0:22:02.160 --> 0:22:06.120 that people familiar with this story probably always mentioned. It's 0:22:06.160 --> 0:22:08.919 certainly a thing that I bet producers would mention when 0:22:08.920 --> 0:22:12.840 they're talking about fictional adaptations, will be the booby traps. 0:22:13.440 --> 0:22:15.720 Were the booby traps real? That's a question people. 0:22:15.720 --> 0:22:16.720 They were very real. 0:22:17.000 --> 0:22:17.879 That's the big kicker. 0:22:17.920 --> 0:22:23.120 I mean talking about this labyrinthine infrastructure of garbage essentially, right. 0:22:23.320 --> 0:22:25.480 I mean it was like walled up kind. 0:22:25.320 --> 0:22:28.000 Of every window, every door full. 0:22:28.160 --> 0:22:31.760 And they rigged it so that things would literally, if 0:22:31.760 --> 0:22:34.399 they were intruders or dare we say, some sort of 0:22:34.440 --> 0:22:38.160 like tomb raider type situation, people would get got. 0:22:38.840 --> 0:22:41.280 They just they really wanted to be left alone. I mean, 0:22:41.480 --> 0:22:45.359 there certainly is some paranoia and some fear built into 0:22:45.400 --> 0:22:47.119 that collection collecting habit. 0:22:47.480 --> 0:22:51.000