99% Invisible

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

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

On July 28, 1945, an airplane crashed into the Empire State Building. A B-25 bomber was flying a routine mission, chartering servicemen from Massachusetts to New York City.

Capt. William F. Smith, who had led some of the most dangerous missions in World War II in the European theatre, was the pilot. The day was foggy. Smith called LaGuardia Airport and requested a clearance to land. With nearly zero visibility, the tower suggested that Smith stay in the air. He ignored air traffic control and started a descent that took him over midtown Manhattan.

Just as he straightened out, the clouds broke up enough for him to realize he was flying among skyscrapers.
The bomber crashed into the Empire State Building, the tallest building in the world at the time. The collision killed Smith, two others on the plane, and eleven people who worked inside the building.

When the plane hit, parts of the engine flew ahead and severed the lifting cables of two elevators on the 79th floor. The elevators crashed to the sub-basement. In one of the elevators was a 19-year-old elevator operator named Betty Lou Oliver. She broke her pelvis, back and neck — but she survived.
This story was produced by Joe Richman and Samara Freemark for Radio Diaries. The Radio Diaries podcast is produced by Sarah Kramer. 

99% Invisible-99- The View From The 79th Floor

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

There is a beauty to a universal standard. The idea that people across the world can agree that when they interact with one specific thing, everyone will be on the same page-- regardless of language or culture or geographic locale. If you're in Belgrade or Shanghai or São Paulo, you can look at a sign and know instantly, without speaking a word of the local language, that this floor is slippery. That the emergency exit is over there. That that substance is poisonous, and you should not eat it.

The group behind those internationally recognized logos is called the International Organization for Standardization.One of the most recognizable ISO symbols in the International Symbol of Access. You might not know it by that name, but you've seen it.

The International Symbol of Access is everywhere--on parking spaces, on buttons that operate automatic doors, in bathrooms, on seats on the bus or at movie theaters. Anywhere there’s an indication of special accommodations made for people with disabilities.

The logo was created through a design contest in 1968, coordinated by an organization now called Rehabilitation International. The logo would have to be readily identifiable from reasonable distance, self-descriptive, simple, unambiguous, and practical. The winner was a Danish designer named Susanne Koefed--though her original design didn't have a head!

As the logo got absorbed into the built environment, and the politics of (dis)ability became more nuanced, some people started finding it a little lacking.
And so one group, the Accessible Icon Project, has created a new logo that they hope will ultimately replace ISO standard.

99% Invisible- 102- Icon For Access

At its peak, the Berlin Wall was 100 miles long. Today only about a mile is left standing.

Compared with other famous walls in history, this wall had a pretty short life span.

The Great Wall of China has been around for 2500  years. So have the walls of ancient Babylon—although its most famous part, the Ishtar Gate, is actually in a museum in Berlin.

But even though the wall dividing Berlin into East and West was only up for 30 years, it had a huge impact on the psyche of the city. It broke families in two. In the decade that followed, more than 2 million people fled from east to west. East Germany was losing its most skilled workers as they sought jobs--and to reunite with their families--across the border. And East Germany was losing face with every East Berliner who chose to defect.

And that’s why, in 1961, East Germany closed its border to West Berlin with a wall. But this isn’t a story about the design of the Berlin Wall. This is a story about one design to get through it—or really, underneath it. Ralph Kabisch, then a 20-something-year-old university student, was there.

99% Invisible- 104- Tunnel 57

Quatrefoil  is the name of the four-lobed cloverleaf shape. It's everywhere: adorning Gothic cathedrals, more modern churches, Rhode Island mansions, mission-style roofs in California, and decorating victorian homes from coast to coast. It's embroidered on bedding, plastered on wallpaper, and patterned on public garbage cans. 

The quatrefoil has been re-interpreted and re-contextualized in a phenomenon called "iconographical drift.” The associations with the shape are  constantly shifting depending on where it’s used, who is using it, and the purpose for which it is used.

But no matter where it’s turns up, it always implies the same thing:  fanciness.

99% Invisible-106- The Fancy Shape

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

There was a time when every street sign, every billboard, and every window display was made by a sign artist with a paint kit and an arsenal of squirrel- or camel-hair brushes.  Some lived an itinerant lifestyle, traveling from town to town, knocking on the doors of local shops, asking if they could paint their signs. 

This was the way things were until as recently as the 1980s, when everything was upended by the vinyl plotter.  Now, sign-making was faster, easier, and cheaper than ever before. Moreover, vinyl signs didn’t require any skill to make.  But over time, they  created an environment of anonymity and impermanence. Hand painted signs began to disappear. But not completely.

Our contributor Benjamen Walker spoke with Faythe Levine and Sam Macon about their new book and documentary film, Sign Painters, which profiles more than two dozen contemporary sign painters keeping the tradition alive. Benjamen also spoke with sign painter and cartoonist Justin Green, who draws the comic series Sign Game (among others).

Sam Greenspan also visited New Bohemia Signs in San Francisco to get their take on the sign painting scene.


99% Invisible-74- Hand Painted Signs

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-74- Hand Painted Signs

Roman Mars

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