stories

We have one cardinal rule on 99% Invisible: No cardinals. Meaning, we deal with the built world, not the natural world.

So, when I read Jon Mooallem’s brilliant book, Wild Ones: A sometimes dismaying, weirdly reassuring story about looking at people looking at animals in America, I didn’t think we'd ever do an episode of 99% Invisible about it. I just read it for fun.

But then I saw Jon perform stories from the book live with musical accompaniment from the band Black Prairie. And that changed everything.

What you need to know about Wild Ones is that it's not a book about nature. It’s a book about how we fit nature into our lives. Wild Ones is about the cutesy stuffed animals, the eco-tours, and the byzantine methods of conservation that evolve when our experience with wild life goes from something natural to something designed. Human-animal interaction has become a designed experience and the story of that transition, as the title of the book suggests, is sometimes dismaying and weirdly reassuring.

99% Invisible-91- Wild Ones Live

I love those moments when you're walking in your neighborhood and suddenly nothing is familiar. In a good way.

Sean Cole began seeing his neighborhood, actually the whole city of New York, with new eyes because of one artist who is trying to do nothing less than draw all the buildings in New York.

James Gulliver Hancock's drawings are intricate, but still a little cartoony. Little squiggles and dots hover above the roofs, as though they're saying "look out!" or maybe "ta-da!"

Cole became infected with Hancock's worldview and began to appreciate all the tiny details the artist would highlight.

99% Invisible-92- All The Buildings

The story goes like this: Theophilus Van Kannel hated chivalry.  There was nothing he despised  more than trying to walk in or out of a building, and locking horns with other men in a game of "oh you first, I insist." But most of all, Theophilus Van Kanel hated opening doors for women.

He set about inventing his way out of social phobia. And that's how, 1888, Theophilus Van Kannel was awarded US Patent #387571 A for a "Storm-door structure," which would soon become known as the revolving door.

99% Invisible-93- Revolving Doors

There is an allure in unbuilt structures: the utopian, futuristic transports, the impossibly tall skyscrapers, even the horrible highways, all capture our imagination with what could have been. Whether these never built structures are perceived as good or bad, they still had an effect on the environment that does exist. We talk with Allison Arieff, John King and Andrew Lynch about the amazing things we missed out on and the bullets we dodged in the history of the unbuilt in San Francisco and New York City.

Season 4 Kickstarter:
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1748303376/99-invisible-season-4-weekly

99% Invisible-94- Unbuilt

Listen to an excerpt of Alex Segura's SECRET IDENTITY, read by Aida Reluzco.

It’s 1975 and the comic book industry is struggling, but Carmen Valdez doesn’t care. She’s an assistant at Triumph Comics, which doesn’t have the creative zeal of Marvel nor the buttoned-up efficiency of DC, but it doesn’t matter. Carmen is tantalizingly close to fulfilling her dream of writing a superhero book.

That dream is nearly a reality when one of the Triumph writers enlists her help to create a new character, which they call “The Lethal Lynx,” Triumph's first female hero. But her colleague is acting strangely and asking to keep her involvement a secret. And then he’s found dead, with all of their scripts turned into the publisher without her name. Carmen is desperate to piece together what happened to him, to hang on to her piece of the Lynx, which turns out to be a runaway hit. But that’s complicated by a surprise visitor from her home in Miami, a tenacious cop who is piecing everything together too quickly for Carmen, and the tangled web of secrets and resentments among the passionate eccentrics who write comics for a living.

Alex Segura uses his expertise as a comics creator as well as his unabashed love of noir fiction to create a truly one-of-a-kind novel--hard-edged and bright-eyed, gritty and dangerous, and utterly absorbing.

Buy the audiobook

Secret Identity by Alex Segura, audiobook excerpt

The very fact that you are reading this sentence, contemplating whether you want to listen to this podcast, means that you are living out a fantasy from a previous generation's cyberpunk novel.

However you made it here, however you got these words into your brain, you did so by diving through data streams first cooked up by delirious engineers downing late-night coffees, wandering deep within rows of data tape unspooling from jerky, spinning platters.

We've been dreaming of this life for a long time, since before the vacuum tubes and punchcards of the '40s, and now that we are here, some people are worried that the tech will, at best, make us lazy, and at worst make us stupid.

Is all this new technology improving our thinking or dampening it? Are all these new communication tools turning us into navel-gazing human/brand hybrids, or are we developing a new set of senses that allow us to benefit from never severing contact with the people most important to us?

That's the topic of this episode of the You Are Not So Smart Podcast, and to answer these questions we welcome this episode's guest, Clive Thompson, who is the author of Smarter Than You Think: How Technology is Changing Our Minds for the Better. As the title suggests, he disagrees with the naysayers, and his book is an impressive investigation into why they are probably (thankfully) wrong. Thompson is a journalist whose work can be found published in Wired, The Washington Post, and the New York Times Magazine. You can learn more about him at his website, CollisionDetection.Net.

After the interview, I discuss a news story about research into how the way you walk can encourage or discourage criminals to attack you.

In every episode, before I read a bit of self delusion news, I taste a cookie baked from a recipe sent in by a listener/reader. That listener/reader wins a signed copy of my new book, “You Are Now Less Dumb,” and I post the recipe on the YANSS Pinterest page. This episode’s winner is Joye Swan who submitted a recipe for chewy rosemary sugar cookies. Send your own recipes to david {at} youarenotsosmart.com.

013 - Technology - Clive Thompson

Elevators are old. They would have to be. Because it is in our nature to rise.

History is full of things that lift other things. In ancient Greece, and China, and Hungary, there were systems of weights and pulleys and platforms designed to bring nobility--or their meals--to new heights.

And somewhere below were draft animals, or even people, tasked with turning a wheel to bring these early elevators up and down. One man even spent the year of 1743 in a chimney in order to turn a lever to raise King Louis XV on a platform so the king wouldn't have to walk up a single flight of stairs.

These elevators were dangerous. Ropes would snap, and then anything getting raised or lowered would plummet to the ground. Fall one story and you break your leg--fall two stories you break your neck. And this fear of falling kept building heights low. People only wanted to ascend as high as they could walk. The tallest buildings for most of the 19th century were churches, or lighthouses--buildings made up primarily of empty space.

And then came Elisha Otis.

Nate Dimeo from the memory palace provides our stories today. It's a fantastic monthly program everyone should subscribe to.

99% Invisible-98- Six Stories- The Memory Palace

The audiobook of The Colour of Magic is read by Colin Morgan (Merlin; Testament of Youth; Belfast). BAFTA and Golden Globe award-winning actor Bill Nighy (Love Actually; Pirates of the Caribbean; Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows) reads the footnotes, and Peter Serafinowicz (Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace; Shaun of the Dead) stars as the voice of Death. Featuring a new theme tune composed by James Hannigan.

'It was octarine, the colour of magic. It was alive and glowing and vibrant and it was the undisputed pigment of the imagination....'

Somewhere between thought and reality exists the Discworld, a magical world not totally unlike our own. Except for the fact that it travels through space on the shoulders of four giant elephants who in turn stand on the shell of an astronomically huge star turtle, of course.

Rincewind is the world's worst wizard who has just been handed a very important job: to look after the world's first tourist, upon whose survival rests the peace and prosperity of the land. Unfortunately, their journey across the Disc includes facing robbers, monsters, mercenaries, and Death himself.

And the whole thing's just a game of the gods that might send them over the edge....

You can listen to the Discworld novels in any order, but The Colour of Magic is the first book in the Wizards series. The Colour of Magic is the first book in the Discworld series and was published in 1983. Some elements of the Discworld universe may reflect this.

The Colour of Magic by Terry Pratchett, read by Colin Morgan, Bill Nighy and Peter Serafinowicz

Après une enfance miséreuse mais pas malheureuse dans la Marseille de l’après-guerre, Daniel Nieto devient un as du hold-up et finit sous les verrous. En 1976, il profite d’une permission pour s’enfuir en Italie. Il gravit les échelons du crime aux côtés du Jacques Mesrine local. Puis embrasse la carrière de kidnappeur.

Enlèvement à l’italienne
Rome. Fin des années 1970. Daniel Nieto, un braqueur marseillais, est en cavale dans l’Italie des années de plomb où le rapt est une véritable industrie. Il devient kidnappeur et enlève la fille d’un riche industriel du cinéma. Une relation contre-nature se noue entre l’otage et son geôlier. Elle sera fatale à ce dernier.

Une série documentaire de Marine Vlahovic
Enregistrements: Août 2020 à mai 2022 - Entretiens: Marine Vlahovic - Montage : Marine Vlahovic et Sara Monimart - Réalisation : Marine Vlahovic et Samuel Hirsch - Musique originale & mixage: Samuel Hirsch - Illustration : Zaven Najjar - Production : Arte Radio

Enlèvement à l'italienne (1/7): Voyage en Italie

Finding inner peace is difficult... especially when you're sitting next to Harvey Keitel. This story was produced by Pejk Malinovski as a Falling Tree production, and originally aired on BBC Radio 3.

Everything, Nothing, Harvey Keitel

Two stories: a short one about a girl and her brother; a longer one about a girl and her face.

Subscribe in iTunes (itunes.com/truestory) or check out www.truestorytime.org

Subscribe in iTunes

Please Be With My Face

A young man contemplates infinity in the middle of a boat dance. [explicit content]

Host Your Own

People Made This

Was there a beginning of time?  Could time run backwards?  Is the universe infinite or does it have boundaries?  These are just some of the questions considered in an internationally acclaimed masterpiece by one of the world's greatest thinkers. It begins by reviewing the great theories of the cosmos from Newton to Einstein, before delving into the secrets which still lie at the heart of space and time, from the Big Bang to black holes, via spiral galaxies and strong theory. To this day A Brief History of Time remains a staple of the scientific canon, and its succinct and clear language continues to introduce millions to the universe and its wonders.

A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking (audiobook extract) read by John Sackville

A story of love and horror. Part 1 of 3.

Weather: "Riches and Wonders" by Eliza Rickman & Jherek Bischoff
http://elizarickman.com/ & http://jherekbischoff.com

ADDED USA TOUR DATES of "All Hail" (Apr 2018). 
Plus shows in Australia (Feb 2018)
http://welcometonightvale.com, click on live shows

Music for this episode: Joseph Fink
http://josephfink.bandcamp.com

Music for other episodes: Disparition
http://disparition.info

Logo: Rob Wilson
http://robwilsonwork.com

Written by Joseph Fink & Jeffrey Cranor. Narrated by Cecil Baldwin. 
http://welcometonightvale.com

Follow us on Twitter @NightValeRadio or Facebook.

Produced by Night Vale Presents. 
http://nightvalepresents.com

Welcome to Night Vale

121 - A Story of Love and Horror, Part 1: "Barks"

This hour of Radiolab, a look behind the curtain of how memories are made...and forgotten. Remembering is an unstable and profoundly unreliable process--it’s easy come, easy go as we learn how true memories can be obliterated, and false ones added. And Oliver Sacks joins us to tell the story of an amnesiac whose love for his wife and music transcend his 7-second memory.

Memory and Forgetting

Two Storeys: Language Bites and the memory palace

While we’re gearing up for season 3, we present two pieces from two shows we love:

First up, Language Bites from RTE Choice in Ireland. Language Bites is a series of 1-minute programs exploring the origins of popular phrases in the English language. It’s presented by Colette Kinsella and sound designed by Lochlainn Harte. This episode is about the origin of the word “storey” (or in American English “story”) when used to refer to a level of a building. There are 80 episodes in the series and I just adore them. They are in heavy rotation on the radio stream/station I curate for PRX called Public Radio Remix.

Our second selection is from Nate Dimeo’s brilliant show, the memory palace. Each episode of the memory palace features pointedly short, surprising stories about the past. It’s sometimes heartbreaking, sometimes hysterical, and often a wonderful mix of both. It was also a huge inspiration in the creation of 99% Invisible. This episode is about the beautiful sculpture and star map commemorating the Hoover Dam.


99% Invisible-60a- Two Storeys

A tiny radio show about design, architecture &amp; the 99% invisible activity that shapes our world.

http://99percentinvisible.org/

New episodes every Wednesday.

On the radio on 91.7 KALW in San Francisco. Fridays at 7:35am and 4:30pm, Saturdays at 8:35am.  And public radio stations across the country.

Created by Roman Mars.


99% Invisible-60a- Two Storeys

Roman Mars

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