WEBVTT - The Krononauts 0:00:16.115 --> 0:00:26.035 Pushkin The Last Archive, A history of truth. 0:00:28.075 --> 0:00:30.955 Imagine there's a place in our world where the known 0:00:30.995 --> 0:00:36.475 things go, shelves stocked with proof, and all around the 0:00:36.515 --> 0:00:40.075 clutter of clues. I haven't been down here in the 0:00:40.115 --> 0:00:43.475 Last Archive for a while, but Jill's stopping by later, 0:00:43.715 --> 0:00:46.795 and I promised her i'd keep it clean, which, well 0:00:46.875 --> 0:00:49.715 for starters. There's a car in the middle of the room. 0:00:49.875 --> 0:00:53.315 Is that a DeLorean from Back to the Future. Cool? 0:00:53.995 --> 0:00:56.555 I'll deal with that later. May as well start small 0:00:56.595 --> 0:01:00.835 with this stack of old stencils. Welcome people from the future. 0:01:01.515 --> 0:01:03.275 March ninth, nineteen eighty two. 0:01:04.235 --> 0:01:04.595 Weird? 0:01:05.835 --> 0:01:08.355 And what's this sleigh doing over here? By these candles? 0:01:10.035 --> 0:01:15.555 There's a plaque and you factured by HG. Wells that 0:01:15.555 --> 0:01:18.715 it's turning on the date on the dial. It's changing 0:01:21.515 --> 0:01:26.315 February twenty twenty. Oh no, there's no going back now, 0:01:27.635 --> 0:01:32.955 So step across the threshold to a highway in California 0:01:33.515 --> 0:01:36.315 on February seventeenth of that cursed year. 0:01:42.035 --> 0:01:42.955 It's like we could. 0:01:42.795 --> 0:01:47.795 Be being pulled by Oxen right now, except who lives 0:01:47.835 --> 0:01:48.315 to Melbom. 0:01:48.715 --> 0:01:55.995 I actually think we'd be faster in February twenty twenty, 0:01:56.235 --> 0:01:59.675 I went to California with Jill Lapour, host emeritus of 0:01:59.715 --> 0:02:02.955 The Last Archive, and her youngest son Oliver. We rented 0:02:03.035 --> 0:02:07.875 a twenty seventeen red Camaro convertible for work like this 0:02:07.995 --> 0:02:10.595 is overpowered for our purposes because we're currently going to 0:02:10.835 --> 0:02:11.795 ten miles an hour. 0:02:13.315 --> 0:02:15.315 Yet, but we're going to pick up speed. 0:02:16.715 --> 0:02:21.195 You don't want it so cold in here, Oliver, don't 0:02:21.275 --> 0:02:21.715 do that. 0:02:21.955 --> 0:02:26.915 I'm so cold. You really not that cold. We were 0:02:26.915 --> 0:02:30.275 out in California because we were recording the final episode 0:02:30.355 --> 0:02:34.875 of our first season. The convertible was Oliver's idea, very California, 0:02:35.395 --> 0:02:37.395 but it wasn't really top down weather. 0:02:39.715 --> 0:02:40.475 Cold at all. 0:02:40.635 --> 0:02:42.915 You're just scared. The first episode of the season was 0:02:42.915 --> 0:02:48.115 in Vermont. Yeah, were you also contained presence. We were 0:02:48.155 --> 0:02:53.555 researching ideas about predicting the future, computers, big data, time capsules, 0:02:53.635 --> 0:02:56.035 that kind of thing. We wanted to see the place 0:02:56.115 --> 0:02:59.875 that future was being made, Silicon Valley, so we headed 0:02:59.915 --> 0:03:02.675 west in our red Camaro. We were on a quest 0:03:02.875 --> 0:03:07.475 to figure out who killed Truth, and. 0:03:08.515 --> 0:03:09.715 We're gonna go. 0:03:11.195 --> 0:03:14.915 Try to reconstruct some of that story to understand how, 0:03:17.515 --> 0:03:20.075 I don't know, all the world became California in the nineteen. 0:03:19.795 --> 0:03:23.715 Fifties, So that was a good explanation. The tape is 0:03:23.755 --> 0:03:31.395 totally unusual, blowing out my ears. The episode ended up 0:03:31.435 --> 0:03:35.155 being a lot about California archives and the fantasy of 0:03:35.195 --> 0:03:37.675 predicting the future. We spent a lot of time in 0:03:37.715 --> 0:03:41.315 the old church offices of the Internet Archive. But there 0:03:41.395 --> 0:03:43.595 was one other stop we made that trip that we 0:03:43.635 --> 0:03:46.635 didn't include in the final thing to dig for another 0:03:46.755 --> 0:03:56.595 forgotten piece of computer history, the Yahoo time capsule. Yeah, 0:03:56.635 --> 0:03:59.275 when was the last time you went to the Yahoo homepage? 0:04:00.195 --> 0:04:02.435 I'm going to guess that it was sometime before two 0:04:02.435 --> 0:04:06.195 thousand and six. Back then, Yahoo had been the biggest 0:04:06.195 --> 0:04:10.235 website on the Internet for years. Millions of people visited 0:04:10.275 --> 0:04:15.355 its homepage every month, totaling billions of views. Then one 0:04:15.435 --> 0:04:19.675 day a portal appeared on that homepage to a time capsule. 0:04:20.995 --> 0:04:24.155 Yahoo had hired an artist to make an anthropological account 0:04:24.235 --> 0:04:27.475 of the Internet. In two thousand and six, users could 0:04:27.515 --> 0:04:30.275 upload photos, videos, text whatever they wanted. 0:04:30.835 --> 0:04:30.915 This. 0:04:31.435 --> 0:04:34.115 I know it just sounds like any social media, but 0:04:34.195 --> 0:04:38.915 the Yahoo time capsule was before Twitter, TikTok, snapchat, Instagram, 0:04:39.115 --> 0:04:41.875 when Facebook was just a thing on some college campuses. 0:04:42.355 --> 0:04:45.715 This Yahoo thing felt new and exciting, and billions of 0:04:45.755 --> 0:04:48.795 people would have seen it. Hundreds of thousands of people 0:04:48.875 --> 0:04:53.035 made entries. Then, a little under a month after it opened, 0:04:53.475 --> 0:04:57.075 the portal closed. The contents of the capsule were beamed 0:04:57.155 --> 0:05:00.755 vlaser into outer space, downloaded on a Mac Mini hard drive, 0:05:01.035 --> 0:05:04.915 and sent to the Smithsonian. Yahoo planned to open it 0:05:05.115 --> 0:05:08.835 fourteen years later, on the twenty fifth anniversary of the 0:05:08.955 --> 0:05:12.155 day the company was incorporated, at a moment in time when, 0:05:12.395 --> 0:05:15.555 of course Yahoo would still be on top and everything 0:05:15.635 --> 0:05:19.155 would be normal and cool. They put a date in 0:05:19.235 --> 0:05:25.835 the sand March of twenty twenty. I read about all 0:05:25.875 --> 0:05:29.115 this in January of that year, and it sounded hilarious 0:05:29.155 --> 0:05:31.635 to me. We thought maybe we could see them open 0:05:31.675 --> 0:05:34.195 it on our trip out west, except it seemed like 0:05:34.235 --> 0:05:37.595 everybody at Yahoo had just forgotten about it. I kept 0:05:37.635 --> 0:05:41.315 emailing Verizon, Yahoo's new parent company, but they didn't respond 0:05:41.395 --> 0:05:44.155 at first. When I reached the original artist, he said 0:05:44.155 --> 0:05:45.955 nobody had been in touch with them about the opening. 0:05:46.515 --> 0:05:48.755 And then weeks after we got back from that trip, 0:05:49.155 --> 0:05:56.475 lockdowns began. The world changed dramatically overnight. Nothing planned in 0:05:56.515 --> 0:05:59.515 the before fell right anymore. We dropped the idea of 0:05:59.555 --> 0:06:03.355 the Yahoo Time capsule changed our episode. We moved on, 0:06:03.715 --> 0:06:07.595 The world moved on, but for some reason in the 0:06:07.635 --> 0:06:13.835 corner of my mind and stop thinking about it. Welcome 0:06:14.075 --> 0:06:16.835 to the Last Archive, the show about how we know 0:06:16.915 --> 0:06:19.395 what we know, how we used to know things, and 0:06:19.435 --> 0:06:22.155 why it seems sometimes lately like we don't know anything 0:06:22.195 --> 0:06:26.515 at all anymore. I'm Ben that of Haffrey. For our 0:06:26.635 --> 0:06:29.955 season finale, I want to reckon with that time capsule 0:06:30.475 --> 0:06:32.555 and something that I think a lot of us experienced 0:06:32.635 --> 0:06:36.115 during the first year of the pandemic. Time started to 0:06:36.155 --> 0:06:40.235 feel different. And I know I wasn't the only one 0:06:40.235 --> 0:06:42.995 feeling this way, because all of a sudden, everyone around 0:06:43.075 --> 0:06:46.115 me was watching and reading all these time bending time 0:06:46.275 --> 0:06:50.235 travel stories, everything everywhere, all at once, Out of Range, 0:06:50.355 --> 0:06:53.795 Sea of Tranquility, Outlander, This Time Tomorrow, anything in the 0:06:53.835 --> 0:06:56.755 Marvel multiverse. It's like we're living in a time travel 0:06:56.795 --> 0:07:01.755 golden age. But why, you know how? On this podcast, 0:07:01.795 --> 0:07:05.835 we've always been chasing that question who killed Truth? Today 0:07:06.075 --> 0:07:13.675 I've got a different question, what happened to I'm One 0:07:13.675 --> 0:07:16.715 of the weirdest things about time travel stories is they 0:07:16.715 --> 0:07:20.035 haven't been around very long. The science fiction writer HG. 0:07:20.155 --> 0:07:23.115 Wells basically started the genre in eighteen ninety five with 0:07:23.155 --> 0:07:26.035 his book The Time Machine. I read it a few 0:07:26.115 --> 0:07:28.595 years ago, but if I'm being honest, I've known about 0:07:28.635 --> 0:07:30.795 it since I was eight years old, because it was 0:07:30.835 --> 0:07:32.795 on an episode of Wishbone. 0:07:34.315 --> 0:07:40.195 What's the story Wishbone's Dream. 0:07:40.275 --> 0:07:43.235 If you've never seen Wishbone, it's a PBS children's show 0:07:43.275 --> 0:07:46.875 where a talking dog reenacts literary classics. Most of what 0:07:46.915 --> 0:07:49.715 I know about the classics I learned first on Wishbone. 0:07:50.155 --> 0:07:53.755 So if we're talking time travel, I'm thinking season one, 0:07:54.075 --> 0:07:58.755 episode twenty three, Bark to the Future, an episode written 0:07:58.835 --> 0:08:01.955 by a young Morocca. The dog plays the time traveler. 0:08:03.795 --> 0:08:06.155 The hero of our story is a man who will 0:08:06.155 --> 0:08:09.675 defy convention. He is a man who will use to 0:08:09.675 --> 0:08:11.875 technology to redefine travel. 0:08:13.595 --> 0:08:16.075 In Bark to the Future, as in The Time Machine, 0:08:16.235 --> 0:08:18.715 an inventor claims he's got a new machine that can 0:08:18.755 --> 0:08:23.195 move through the fourth dimension time. I was probably in 0:08:23.235 --> 0:08:25.795 the second grade when I saw this. I love time 0:08:25.835 --> 0:08:28.595 travel stories now, but this, I think was the first 0:08:28.595 --> 0:08:31.235 one I ever came across. Wish Bon. It turns out 0:08:31.355 --> 0:08:34.355 was sticking pretty closely to the nineteenth century source material, 0:08:34.915 --> 0:08:38.155 just with dogs not people. This by the way is 0:08:38.195 --> 0:08:39.075 the dog's voice? 0:08:39.635 --> 0:08:44.035 Have I really traveled to the year eight hundred, two thousand, 0:08:44.435 --> 0:08:47.475 seven hundred and one. 0:08:49.155 --> 0:08:51.515 People like to say there are only something like seven 0:08:51.595 --> 0:08:55.275 plots for every story. Plots people have been reusing since forever. 0:08:55.675 --> 0:08:58.795 You know them Rags to riches, the hero's journey, overcoming 0:08:58.835 --> 0:09:01.515 the monster, the quest. Okay, maybe it's all a little 0:09:01.555 --> 0:09:05.875 schematic exactly seven, but still it's weird to have this 0:09:05.995 --> 0:09:09.275 big new story time travel come out of nowhere in 0:09:09.315 --> 0:09:13.155 the eighteen nineties. People have explained that in a few ways, 0:09:13.715 --> 0:09:16.435 but what it all amounts to is that at the 0:09:16.475 --> 0:09:19.595 turn of the century the eighteen nineties, when HG. Wells 0:09:19.675 --> 0:09:22.275 was writing, people had a sense that they were living 0:09:22.275 --> 0:09:25.755 in a historic time, not just because the twentieth century 0:09:25.795 --> 0:09:29.755 was starting, but also because industrialization seemed to have sped 0:09:29.835 --> 0:09:32.795 up the pace of history. Things were changing so fast. 0:09:33.275 --> 0:09:36.755 Suddenly there were machines for everything. Why not a time 0:09:36.875 --> 0:09:41.675 machine for time travel? It didn't seem so crazy, especially 0:09:41.715 --> 0:09:44.115 since a lot of those machines had made it possible 0:09:44.155 --> 0:09:46.555 to travel at speeds that just a few decades before 0:09:46.635 --> 0:09:53.515 had been impossible, like travel by train. Trains collapsed distance 0:09:53.675 --> 0:09:57.875 and altered people's sense of time. For instance, it used 0:09:57.875 --> 0:10:00.195 to take about ten days to get from London to 0:10:00.315 --> 0:10:04.715 Edinburgh by horse drawn stagecoach, but by the late nineteenth century, 0:10:04.875 --> 0:10:08.395 you could board a train in London, stop for lunch 0:10:08.435 --> 0:10:13.395 in York, gossip about the Royal Baccarat scandal of eighteen ninety, 0:10:14.355 --> 0:10:16.475 and step off in Edinburgh a mere eight and a 0:10:16.515 --> 0:10:22.075 half hours later. The speed of travel changed how people 0:10:22.155 --> 0:10:26.075 thought about time, and not just because trains moved quickly. 0:10:28.755 --> 0:10:32.595 Imagine the world before the nineteenth century, before trains and 0:10:32.595 --> 0:10:37.355 telegraph lines and telephones. Back then, time was a local thing. 0:10:38.075 --> 0:10:41.155 You'd set your clock to the town clock. Depending on 0:10:41.195 --> 0:10:42.875 where in the world you were. You might even have 0:10:42.915 --> 0:10:46.595 an entirely different calendar. But there was no sense that 0:10:46.675 --> 0:10:49.075 whatever time it was in one town should match up 0:10:49.115 --> 0:10:52.675 exactly with the time in another town. Until trains and 0:10:52.715 --> 0:10:55.635 telegraphs and all sorts of machines started to connect those 0:10:55.675 --> 0:10:58.875 towns together for trade and travel, and it became necessary 0:10:59.035 --> 0:11:03.755 to standardize time across them. Public time became an absolute, 0:11:04.275 --> 0:11:10.155 precise thing, But as soon as time became rigid began 0:11:10.315 --> 0:11:14.635 to unravel. Einstein came up with his theory of special relativity, 0:11:14.715 --> 0:11:17.475 in part through a thought experiment about clocks on trains, 0:11:18.115 --> 0:11:21.235 and then all this renegotiation of time fueled the time 0:11:21.235 --> 0:11:24.835 travel genre from HG. Well's right up to Bark to 0:11:24.875 --> 0:11:29.595 the Future, stories about the malleability of time and the 0:11:29.635 --> 0:11:32.555 feeling of being in history. 0:11:33.155 --> 0:11:38.795 This is the problem of time. I'm hungry now, but 0:11:38.915 --> 0:11:40.235 snack time is lighted. 0:11:41.115 --> 0:11:43.395 I'm not saying that. As an eight year old sprawled 0:11:43.435 --> 0:11:45.755 on the floor after school, I was thinking about how 0:11:45.755 --> 0:11:48.675 the time travel genre was a way of metabolizing rapid 0:11:48.715 --> 0:11:52.075 historical change. But you can't watch one of these stories 0:11:52.155 --> 0:11:56.635 without thinking about time just a little differently. These stories 0:11:56.835 --> 0:12:00.475 chip away at that standardized public time, and they restate 0:12:00.515 --> 0:12:03.035 a feeling most of us have privately that was more 0:12:03.035 --> 0:12:07.195 publicly shared centuries ago. Time isn't a rigid straight line 0:12:07.275 --> 0:12:09.475 that works the same for you as it does for me. 0:12:11.755 --> 0:12:15.395 Wishbone is a thirty minute long show. Back in the nineties, 0:12:15.515 --> 0:12:19.515 watching it was to me a major event. Rewatching now, 0:12:19.675 --> 0:12:21.635 it felt like it passed in the blink of an eye. 0:12:22.235 --> 0:12:24.795 Part of that's just getting used to hour long prestige TV, 0:12:25.435 --> 0:12:27.555 but most of it is that when I was eight, 0:12:27.835 --> 0:12:31.875 afternoons felt the way days do to me now. So 0:12:31.915 --> 0:12:34.675 there's a history of a feeling about time baked into 0:12:34.715 --> 0:12:39.275 time travel stories, something personal. I wanted to figure out 0:12:39.315 --> 0:12:42.635 what that was, and I found my answer by doing 0:12:42.635 --> 0:12:46.155 a kind of time travel myself to a party for 0:12:46.275 --> 0:12:51.115 time travelers on March ninth, nineteen eighty two, in Baltimore. 0:12:52.315 --> 0:13:06.755 That party after the break In nineteen sixty HG. Wells's 0:13:06.835 --> 0:13:10.715 The Time Machine was adapted into a blockbuster film. It's 0:13:11.075 --> 0:13:13.635 not a good movie, but it was a big movie 0:13:13.915 --> 0:13:16.395 and a lot of people saw it, including a little 0:13:16.435 --> 0:13:20.515 boy named Richard trisno Elsbury. It was his bark to 0:13:20.555 --> 0:13:21.475 the future. 0:13:22.395 --> 0:13:25.435 And the movie like totally blew my mind. I was 0:13:25.515 --> 0:13:26.715 like seven years old. 0:13:27.675 --> 0:13:30.195 Richard grew up in a quiet, middle class home in 0:13:30.235 --> 0:13:34.075 Baltimore in the nineteen sixties. His dad worked for the irs. 0:13:34.475 --> 0:13:36.795 His mom was a part time secretary who wanted to 0:13:36.795 --> 0:13:39.915 be an artist. Richard was a dreamy kid and a 0:13:39.915 --> 0:13:44.595 bit obsessive. He kept thinking about that movie, especially the 0:13:44.675 --> 0:13:47.195 first time the time traveler gets his machine to work. 0:13:47.675 --> 0:13:50.355 The traveler jumps just a couple hours into the future, 0:13:50.755 --> 0:13:55.195 and everything looks the same, except the candles he lit 0:13:55.235 --> 0:13:58.595 just before he left have all burned down to the Wick. 0:13:59.235 --> 0:14:01.475 I would like lyon bade awake at night and think 0:14:01.515 --> 0:14:04.515 about the candles burning Dad, and it was it was 0:14:04.595 --> 0:14:05.795 just spectacular, you know. 0:14:08.075 --> 0:14:11.035 Richard wanted to know if time travel would ever be possible. 0:14:11.755 --> 0:14:14.675 One day he had a realization, what if we were 0:14:14.675 --> 0:14:18.235 a few lifetimes away from the invention of a time machine. 0:14:18.315 --> 0:14:21.195 If someone invented time travel in the future, they could 0:14:21.235 --> 0:14:24.675 go whenever and wherever they wanted, but they very likely 0:14:24.715 --> 0:14:27.035 would not come check in with Richard and Baltimore in 0:14:27.075 --> 0:14:30.155 the nineteen sixties. How could he get them to come 0:14:30.195 --> 0:14:33.395 to him? And then he had an idea. 0:14:34.155 --> 0:14:37.675 Suppose we invited people from the future to come visit us. 0:14:37.715 --> 0:14:42.275 And it seemed very logical to me, and now it 0:14:42.355 --> 0:14:43.795 still seems logical to me. 0:14:44.635 --> 0:14:48.035 This idea became a lifelong obsession, and it grew in 0:14:48.115 --> 0:14:52.875 his mind into something totally wild, a party for time travelers. 0:14:53.275 --> 0:14:56.595 Maybe if Richard made the party big enough, fun enough, 0:14:57.075 --> 0:15:00.795 absolutely legendary enough that it got into the historical record 0:15:00.835 --> 0:15:04.355 and centries on people were still reading about it, well, 0:15:04.795 --> 0:15:07.555 he might wind up with some surprising guests. 0:15:07.755 --> 0:15:09.035 It's a logical idea. 0:15:10.075 --> 0:15:13.555 Richard thought about this for years when he grew up 0:15:13.595 --> 0:15:16.515 and graduated art school. He was part of Baltimore's wacky 0:15:16.555 --> 0:15:19.755 conceptual art scene in the nineteen seventies. He was living 0:15:19.835 --> 0:15:22.355 in a Rundown twenty room mansion with three or four 0:15:22.395 --> 0:15:26.875 other artists, throwing parties, parades, making weird art, wearing black 0:15:26.915 --> 0:15:31.075 trench coats with oversized red buttons, and always he was 0:15:31.115 --> 0:15:34.915 thinking about his time travel party. He decided to set 0:15:34.915 --> 0:15:35.275 a date. 0:15:35.595 --> 0:15:38.035 So, first of all, the date was chosen because of 0:15:38.075 --> 0:15:42.835 an astronomical event called a syzygy that was known to 0:15:43.355 --> 0:15:46.595 becoming in nineteen eighty two, which was an alignment of 0:15:47.075 --> 0:15:50.115 a lot of planets and was going to be in March. 0:15:50.435 --> 0:15:52.715 And then I selected a night of the full moon, 0:15:52.755 --> 0:15:55.035 which would be March ninth of nineteen eighty two. 0:15:55.955 --> 0:15:57.715 Once he had the date nailed down, he had to 0:15:57.715 --> 0:16:00.475 figure out how to get that date into the historical record. 0:16:00.915 --> 0:16:03.715 I love this part, the pad cap rigor of it. 0:16:03.715 --> 0:16:06.435 It's like sort of a joke, but then not really 0:16:06.515 --> 0:16:07.235 a joke at all. 0:16:07.875 --> 0:16:10.075 But that was kind of a nature of what we 0:16:10.075 --> 0:16:15.235 were doing, was trying to figure out possible placements in 0:16:15.435 --> 0:16:20.315 history that could somehow end up in an archive somewhere. 0:16:21.195 --> 0:16:24.835 Artist Doug Retzler he was part of an organization Richard 0:16:24.875 --> 0:16:28.475 started to manage all this, the Chrononautic Society. 0:16:29.515 --> 0:16:33.955 Richard had created a stencil welcome people from the Future 0:16:33.995 --> 0:16:36.115 of March nineteen eighty two. 0:16:36.515 --> 0:16:39.435 They used that stencil to spray paint the date everywhere, 0:16:39.835 --> 0:16:42.275 including the National Archives in Washington, DC. 0:16:43.435 --> 0:16:46.955 And so we went down there and we were about 0:16:47.035 --> 0:16:51.715 to spray it onto the base of the sculpture that 0:16:51.835 --> 0:16:56.355 was outside of that and we were apprehended by the 0:16:56.475 --> 0:16:59.715 National Archives Police and detain. 0:17:00.875 --> 0:17:03.515 They wanted to get in the news. They wanted the 0:17:03.555 --> 0:17:05.555 story of the party and that date to be in 0:17:05.555 --> 0:17:08.275 the historical record, and they had people working around the 0:17:08.275 --> 0:17:11.755 country trying to spread the word. In nineteen eighty Richard 0:17:11.755 --> 0:17:14.475 bought an ad in Art Forum magazine inviting people from 0:17:14.515 --> 0:17:16.755 the future to come to a party on March ninth, 0:17:16.875 --> 0:17:20.155 nineteen eighty two. It said welcome people from the future 0:17:20.195 --> 0:17:23.995 in huge letters. An influential la art magazine called Wet 0:17:24.035 --> 0:17:27.995 Magazine ran an article titled future Humans Read This, giving 0:17:27.995 --> 0:17:30.595 the date and inviting future readers to come back to 0:17:30.675 --> 0:17:34.155 nineteen eighty two in Boogie. Richard even wrote a letter 0:17:34.235 --> 0:17:37.635 to famed astrologist Linda Goodman, who reprinted it in her 0:17:37.635 --> 0:17:40.835 best selling book, Linda Goodman's Love Signs, which is still 0:17:40.835 --> 0:17:45.035 in print. She called it a perfect example of aquarian thinking. 0:17:46.355 --> 0:17:49.315 There were plans for parties in Los Angeles, New Mexico, 0:17:49.435 --> 0:17:52.675 and Montreal, but Richard still needed a venue for the 0:17:52.675 --> 0:17:55.955 main event in Baltimore, and he got his chance when 0:17:55.955 --> 0:17:58.875 a new bookstore came to town and decided to set up 0:17:58.915 --> 0:18:03.875 shop in a glamorous, abandoned old beauty parlor Second Story Books. 0:18:04.995 --> 0:18:10.395 The place was a go to destination for a let's say, 0:18:10.595 --> 0:18:13.915 evolving counterculture. 0:18:14.795 --> 0:18:18.075 Alan Steipeck, owner of the store, which was staffed entirely 0:18:18.115 --> 0:18:20.315 by Richard and his conceptual artist friends. 0:18:20.955 --> 0:18:24.755 I was the wrong person to own a store with 0:18:24.955 --> 0:18:26.915 this kind of culture. 0:18:27.955 --> 0:18:31.675 The artists became a problem for Alan. They're always throwing parties, 0:18:31.715 --> 0:18:34.395 sleeping in the art installations, or stealing his books. 0:18:34.875 --> 0:18:37.355 There were two separate cultures trying to run a store 0:18:37.355 --> 0:18:41.995 and concert and that concept. It was like having kazoos 0:18:42.035 --> 0:18:43.115 and violins. 0:18:43.635 --> 0:18:46.315 I completely fell in love with recreating the crazy world 0:18:46.315 --> 0:18:49.235 of this bookstore. I have to admit, so indulge me 0:18:49.315 --> 0:18:51.675 for a minute. It's like if Empire Records were an 0:18:51.715 --> 0:18:55.115 episode of the X files set at MoMA, but in Baltimore. 0:18:55.635 --> 0:18:57.595 I spoke to a bunch of people who worked at 0:18:57.715 --> 0:19:00.875 or hung out around the shop, including the artist Lori Stepp, 0:19:01.155 --> 0:19:03.515 who seemed to confirm the kazoos and violins thing. 0:19:04.235 --> 0:19:05.715 I mean, what did you expect, you know? 0:19:06.795 --> 0:19:09.875 Despite the chaos for a beautiful moment, the store was 0:19:09.955 --> 0:19:13.035 at the center of the Baltimore arts scene. Alan Ginsberg 0:19:13.115 --> 0:19:15.995 read there, so did a lot of famous poets and artists. 0:19:16.315 --> 0:19:19.435 John Waters, the director, was always hanging around. It was 0:19:19.435 --> 0:19:21.715 on national lists as one of the best bookstores in 0:19:21.715 --> 0:19:24.595 the country. The Mayor of Baltimore would start the city's 0:19:24.595 --> 0:19:27.795 parades from there, and it was totally beautiful. It had 0:19:27.875 --> 0:19:31.275 thirty foot high ceilings, twin staircases up from the ground 0:19:31.315 --> 0:19:34.435 floor to a balcony, an art gallery on the second floor, 0:19:34.755 --> 0:19:37.075 and twelve foot high gilt mirrors all over the place. 0:19:37.515 --> 0:19:40.995 It was perfect. And when Alan Stipeck decided to open 0:19:41.035 --> 0:19:45.835 a bar in the basement, Richard saw his golden opportunity. 0:19:45.955 --> 0:19:48.755 He suggested that the bar's opening night should be on 0:19:48.915 --> 0:19:53.075 March ninth, nineteen eighty two, the night of his Time 0:19:53.115 --> 0:19:54.315 Traveler landing party. 0:19:54.795 --> 0:19:58.315 I do remember thinking serving alcohol to poets wasn't a 0:19:58.315 --> 0:19:59.075 great idea. 0:20:01.795 --> 0:20:04.835 Alan agreed to host the Time Traveler party, and Richard 0:20:04.835 --> 0:20:08.195 got to work planning the most legendary party of Baltimore's history. 0:20:10.115 --> 0:20:14.675 Years of thinking Richard's big day was finally arriving the syzygy. 0:20:14.915 --> 0:20:17.235 The alignment of the planets was actually a big deal, 0:20:17.315 --> 0:20:20.355 not just for Richard. It was like y two k light. 0:20:20.795 --> 0:20:23.635 There'd been a best selling book called the Jupiter Effect 0:20:23.915 --> 0:20:26.395 that predicted that the alignment of the planets would lead 0:20:26.395 --> 0:20:30.995 to a whole bunch of natural disasters earthquakes, floods, nuclear meltdowns. 0:20:31.515 --> 0:20:34.755 The local news in Baltimore covered the astrological angle by 0:20:34.795 --> 0:20:38.195 going to the director of the planetarium, doctors or Poli, 0:20:38.555 --> 0:20:40.195 and asking for his expert opinion. 0:20:40.835 --> 0:20:42.395 As you can see, the planets are not in a 0:20:42.435 --> 0:20:43.035 straight line. 0:20:43.035 --> 0:20:46.195 They're in kind of a crazy zigzag line across the sky. 0:20:47.435 --> 0:20:48.955 There's nothing unusual about it. 0:20:49.155 --> 0:20:52.035 But who cares. Even the newscasters wanted to believe. 0:20:52.635 --> 0:20:55.555 But if Zirpulli and the majority of astronomers in the 0:20:55.555 --> 0:21:01.075 world are wrong, well we'll see tomorrow, Bill Sider, you've 0:21:01.075 --> 0:21:01.595 seen too. 0:21:02.395 --> 0:21:04.315 A few of the crononauts drove out to a Mesa 0:21:04.355 --> 0:21:07.115 in New Mexico for the big night. Crews around the 0:21:07.155 --> 0:21:10.475 world started setting up their spin off parties, but most 0:21:10.475 --> 0:21:13.275 of the team was in Baltimore. Richard and the staff 0:21:13.315 --> 0:21:16.635 of Second Story Books got the flagship party started, and 0:21:16.675 --> 0:21:21.955 when evening came around, the scene was unprecedented. 0:21:21.795 --> 0:21:26.675 So it was like, we're here, and I believe that 0:21:26.795 --> 0:21:29.115 the Mayor came by that day. 0:21:29.835 --> 0:21:34.635 The Mayor brought in searchlights helped them up to try 0:21:34.675 --> 0:21:38.715 to catch the the interplanetary travelers as they came down 0:21:38.755 --> 0:21:39.235 to Earth. 0:21:39.995 --> 0:21:42.395 It was crazy. It was full of people. 0:21:42.955 --> 0:21:45.715 So I was on the top of this mesia lighting 0:21:45.795 --> 0:21:50.075 flares and documenting the star and the different venuses rising. 0:21:50.675 --> 0:21:54.315 There was a nude couple who claimed that they were 0:21:54.355 --> 0:21:55.035 Adam and Eve. 0:21:55.675 --> 0:22:00.515 I was getting really nervous because we couldn't really tell 0:22:00.555 --> 0:22:01.395 who was doing what. 0:22:02.315 --> 0:22:06.475 Jello all over the floor and people were like writhing around, 0:22:06.515 --> 0:22:08.635 and Kirby had a television set on. 0:22:08.755 --> 0:22:11.635 The where the people from the future, where we see 0:22:11.675 --> 0:22:12.715 our future selves. 0:22:13.715 --> 0:22:16.755 Not only did the may of thick around, but he 0:22:16.835 --> 0:22:20.875 stayed there the whole night and led a conga line 0:22:21.595 --> 0:22:26.715 of people up the stairs of the Washington Monument at 0:22:26.795 --> 0:22:27.675 Quall for flop. 0:22:29.155 --> 0:22:31.835 The New York Times sent a reporter to cover this madness, 0:22:31.955 --> 0:22:34.515 and I swear to you I am not making this up. 0:22:34.835 --> 0:22:37.875 The Times reporter at the Time Traveler party was named 0:22:38.955 --> 0:22:43.075 Benjamin Franklin. They ran out of alcohol, the party just 0:22:43.195 --> 0:22:48.115 kept going. It was amazing. Except so did any time 0:22:48.155 --> 0:22:49.475 travelers come to the party. 0:22:50.595 --> 0:22:53.755 We don't know. I mean, you know, there wasn't any 0:22:53.755 --> 0:22:56.955 indication that there definitely was time travelers there. 0:22:57.595 --> 0:22:59.875 That was Richard. Again. When I talk to the Second 0:22:59.875 --> 0:23:03.435 Story bookstore management about this, they had a slightly different take. 0:23:04.355 --> 0:23:09.155 I will say, just for the mostly for Ben's sake, 0:23:09.875 --> 0:23:13.275 that I'm totally open to the idea that the time 0:23:13.315 --> 0:23:16.995 travelers erased all of that from our memories. 0:23:17.915 --> 0:23:22.235 Okay, so probably no time travelers. But the party was incredible. Still, 0:23:22.515 --> 0:23:24.915 good things never last, and a little more than a 0:23:24.995 --> 0:23:28.995 year later the store closed. It was just untenable kazoos 0:23:29.035 --> 0:23:31.915 and violins. But when I talked to Richard about the 0:23:31.915 --> 0:23:34.395 whole thing, I wasn't so much after whether or not 0:23:34.435 --> 0:23:37.635 the experiment worked, as I was trying to understand why 0:23:37.675 --> 0:23:40.075 so many people were drawn to it and what he 0:23:40.195 --> 0:23:43.315 meant by it. It seems to me like you're not 0:23:43.435 --> 0:23:46.315 a person who's necessarily like, time travel is real and 0:23:46.355 --> 0:23:48.235 this will prove it. You're more a person who's like, 0:23:48.275 --> 0:23:50.435 why have we closed our minds to so many things? 0:23:51.515 --> 0:23:54.835 Is that that's a that's a pretty correct statement. Yeah, 0:23:55.075 --> 0:23:57.755 I see it. It's fun and funny, but it's also 0:23:58.755 --> 0:24:02.155 kind of dead serious. I think that the limitations that 0:24:02.195 --> 0:24:07.555 people have on their thinking, on their imaginations keeps us 0:24:07.595 --> 0:24:12.515 sort of you know, and trapped in a lot of 0:24:12.875 --> 0:24:16.235 pretty lousy stuff in this world, you know. And if 0:24:16.235 --> 0:24:20.075 they felt if they felt more self empowered to use 0:24:20.115 --> 0:24:24.675