
Roman talks with The Memory Palace creator Nate DiMeo, whose new book brings his poetic history podcast to life on the page.
Loading summary
Mastercard Advertiser
Experiences make life more meaningful, and with Mastercard's priceless.com you can immerse yourself in unforgettable experiences in dining, sports, art, entertainment and more in over 40 destinations. From a round of golf with a legendary player to a cooking class with a celebrity chef, you can fuel your passions and create lasting memories. Explore experiences today@priceless.com exclusively for MasterCard cardholders. Terms and conditions apply.
Roman Mars
This episode is brought to you by PNC Bank. Some Things should be Boring like banking. Boring is safe and reliable. You don't want your bank to be surprising. Surprising is for podcasts about seemingly insignificant inventions that impact our lives, not banks. PNC bank strives to be boring with your money so you can be happily fulfilled with your life. PNC Bank Brilliantly boring since 1865 Brilliantly boring since 1865 is a service mark of the PNC Financial Services Group, Inc. PNC bank national association member FDIC this is 99% invisible I'm Roman Mars. Back in 2008, I started listening to a podcast called the Memory palace by my friend Nate DeMaio. It's a history show and it was unlike anything I'd ever heard before. Each episode wrapped a little known piece of history inside one of Nate's poetic essays. His stories have an uncanny ability to weave together facts and insight to help us imagine the real lives of historical figures and to call to mind forgotten moments from the past. In fact, the Memory palace is one of the early inspirations for 99% invisible. And now, after 15 plus years of making his podcast, Nate has a new book out called you guessed it, the Memory Palace. It's an anthology of some of his best stories from the show, plus a few new ones. We're going to play two of those stories in a little bit, but first I talk with Nate about making his podcast and writing his book. So you open the book with this line, something moved me once. And then you go on to describe all the ways that little bits of information have cut through the deluge of media that we're bombarded with every day. Why did you open the book this way?
Nate DeMaio
I think that that first line that you read that something moved me once. I trust the being moved. It's fundamental to what I do with the Memory Palace. But I think it's also fundamental of the way that I am. I think that at some point as a younger person I really became fascinated with question of why do I remember this thing. Like why out of all the days of one summer in 1989 when I was a Young kid, is this the trip to the ice cream store that I remember? And some of that is just this simple and to me, kind of like, lovely notion of we only remember memorable things. Like, we only remember the thing that kind of like snaps us out of our just sort of like normal day to day experience and grabs our attention. And so the question that I sort of asked myself over and over again when I'm writing these stories, but also just in my life in general, is like, why was this the thing that caught my eye? And I'm fascinated to try to figure out why, and then to also try to, like, share that wonder that you experience when you learn that incredible fact about the past or that incredible turning point, or just like simply really connected with a story of, you know, someone living in another time that you will never meet. And then trying to find a way to, like, share not just that story, but share that feeling that I felt try to find a way to put it all together and share it with a listener.
Roman Mars
And so knowing that the memory palace is designed perfectly to deliver the type of thing you want in a podcast, when you were translating this to turn it into memory palace, the book, what were some of the other considerations you were sort of juggling and thinking about? And what levers were you pulling in.
Nate DeMaio
Thinking about the podcast? I think about format all the time, you know, the ways that the podcast is different than radio. And so it was exciting to then go and think about the book and think about what happens to some of these familiar stories when they get put down on the page. Some of it was like, does this story hold up on the page? Is there something that only works because of the way the music works? Or is there something that only works because of the way that I am able to have total control of the way that this is paced because I'm going to say these words when I want to say them. And so, you know, part of the excitement was to try to figure out, like, how through prose, I could, you know, try to replicate some of those things. And so some of it was the kind of, like, delight of doing that. But the other thing was I also realized that there was a number of different types of stories that I could tell that I just can't tell, which is things that require you to look at stuff.
Roman Mars
And so could you give some examples of something that you couldn't tell as a radio story that just worked really well in the book, as a piece of written material?
Nate DeMaio
Yeah, absolutely. So stories that were about the history of photography and stories that over the course of the book explore what it is to look at photographs through time. And I come to those stories sort of in the same way, which is I just like, look at stuff and wait to be moved. And so one day I was looking through some big tome about the history of photography. And in it, you know, while I was learning about how the daguerreotype works and all that stuff, there was like a little photograph of these three men on the roof of a building in Nashville in like 1865. And one of the guys is standing in this gigantic contraption that looks a little bit like a telescope. And then there's a thing that says, oh, this is a solar camera. I'm like, what's a solar camera? Oh, it's a thing that was designed to enlarge other photographs, but to make them really big. And I was like, wow, I've never really seen a really big photograph from the 19th century. And then the wonder comes in where I discover why, which is that none of them exist anymore. That these people built these solar cameras, that they were a big deal for about 30 years. And because of the photographic process and the paper that they had to print them on, these people made these images that themselves were often apparently, like, not particularly precise because, like, as you blew them up, they'd start to like, warp and stuff like that. But they were very popular and they were in people's homes. People would have like these life size photographs of people they knew for a very short time, and not a single one exists anymore. And it's those sorts of things that started to, like, help me figure out what a memory palace story for the book could be.
Roman Mars
One of the things I love about a memory palace story is just how you capture all this humanity in the histories that you're telling. But, you know, emotions and feelings, these are the kind of details that are often absent from the historical record. So I'm curious how you think about working with that absence in your stories.
Nate DeMaio
Yeah, I think that what I'm really looking for are these, like, little details that make the people that I'm reading about feel like real people. That there's something about the way that this diarist or whatever it is has said something about the dress that was worn on this particular night that like, is then like, oh, you put on that dress because it's that kind of night. I've experienced that kind of night before. I've experienced the one where you need to impress the in laws, or I've experienced the one where you need to catch that person's eye, in my own way, in my own time, I felt. And in the feeling comes the confidence that I have to use that factual thing as an anchor and then open up questions because I'm never making declarative statements about this is what this person felt. But essentially saying, if you were in this situation, if you were having this kind of night in this kind of dress, don't you feel like we'd feel this way? And that's where the kind of conjuring act when the Mary palace is working well, that's where it lives. It's in the idea that just by hanging out on those spec details and calling them to mind, you're really kind of calling them to the imagination and you're creating this, like, space of internal kind of emotional possibilities that I think suddenly deepens these things that otherwise might be kind of thin.
Roman Mars
So I know that in the style of the Memory palace, the podcast, it is sort of anathema to describe a thing before the thing happens. But I want to play some episodes and if you want that experience, just go subscribe to the Memory Palace. Just listen to every one. You will love every single one of them. But here I was wondering if you could help me introduce some episodes so that we could give a little bit of the behind the scenes behind certain ones.
Guest Speaker
Sure.
Roman Mars
And I want to talk about below from above. It's a real like 99 PI. Like they're going to see something be built, or you can experience something be built. You have talked about in your notes to this episode that this was a very early inspiration from Memory palace, this telling this story. Why was that?
Nate DeMaio
One of the formative inspirations for me as a thinker was definitely the Ken Burns documentary based on the book about the building of the Brooklyn Bridge. The combination of seeing that at the right time, of being kind of fascinated by the human toil and toll that its construction took, but then also being kind of like a young person, kind of like driving to New York for the first time and being like, I'm going to walk over the Brooklyn Bridge. And then finding this thing that feels like medieval in the middle of the city and realizing that it had to be because that's how we made stuff then it's the only way we knew how, with rocks and digging. And then in walking over that bridge and realizing that, oh, this was the tallest place on earth, that wasn't like a church spire, that was man made, feeling that like, holy cow, like, what a thing it would have been. That feeling that holy cow has never left me about stories around the Brooklyn bridge. And was one of these things that hung with me that, like, yeah, someday I want to make someone feel holy cow about this particular story in the same way that I did?
Roman Mars
Okay, let's hear that story, and we'll talk a little bit more about it on the other side.
Guest Speaker
If you want to build a bridge, a long one, over a large body of water or some reasonably impressive chasm, you'll want to build a suspension bridge, one of those with the towers on either side sticking up from the water or hole in the ground with the cables swooping down and up and down and up between them. And if you want that bridge to work, to hold the cars and the trucks and the minivans to withstand a high wind, to keep standing during an earthquake or a tsunami, those towers need to stay still so the rest of the bridge can move a little bit. It's physics. Just trust me. Those towers need to be anchored deep within the ground. So you will need to dig holes, which is hard enough to do in some rocky chasm in the Pyrenees of the Poconos, but in water, it's a whole other thing. So if you want to build a bridge over water, over the east river, between Manhattan and Brooklyn, say, and it's 1870, just, you know, to pick a number at random, you need to find a way to dig underwater. So fill a bathtub and take a glass and flip the glass over and push the glass to the bottom of the tub. There's air in the glass. There's water in the tub, but it can't get inside. You get it? It's a diving bell. And picture tiny people in that glass chipping away at the porcelain or the vinyl at their feet with tiny picks and wee little shovels. Now, the air will run out of that glass, so you'll need a tube or a straw poking up through the top and up and out past the surface of water to let the good air in and the bad air out while they tap away. Those tiny people with their tiny tools digging at the bottom of your tub for some reason, and that's the idea.
Nate DeMaio
You build a watertight chamber.
Guest Speaker
You find a way to keep the air circulating within that chamber, and you push it down to the bottom, and you start to build your tower on top of it while the people inside dig away. Meanwhile, the increasing pressure of the growing tower helps push the chamber, which is called a caisson, deeper and deeper into the hole. So if you are going to build a bridge over the East river in 1870, if you are Going to physically connect the island of Manhattan with Brooklyn on the opposite shore for the first time since the Pleistocene. If you are going to connect the two cities, open up a path for travel and trade and commuters and tourists in stroller pushing park slope parents, you are going to need to build a roadway that is 1600ft long, with cables swooping from stone towers that rise more than 275ft in the air. And you will need a caisson built of wood and metal, a cap sized ship of a thing. You will need to float it out to the middle of the river and sink it to the bottom, 80ft down and then start digging another 44ft on the Brooklyn side, 78ft on the Manhattan side, through mud and silt and stone until you hit bedrock. And you will need men to do the work. They were Irishmen and Italians and Germans, mostly new arrivals, new Americans who would pile into boats for the first shift on a January morning. We're just before dark for the second shift, or just before midnight for the third, and set out for the construction site a few hundred feet from shore where the stone tower was beginning to rise from the water. And they'd step off and out onto the rough boards of the pier and descend one by one into a hole into the darkness, a blast of heated air coming up from below, iron rungs beneath their boots, lunch pails clacking against the walls, men below and men above coughing and cursing, cracking jokes in unfamiliar tongues. And then they'd come to a hatch and turn a wheel and descend into an iron chamber and be sealed within. Down below, this chamber, further still on the river bottom, 5,000 pounds of pressure pushed on every square foot of the timber caisson. It would have crushed it and the workers within. Except pressurized air was pumped in. It balanced out the forces kept the walls from blowing out and letting the river in. And it kept the men alive. But those men needed to be acclimated first to the conditions they would find below. And so they were sealed into this iron chamber. And in would rush the pressurized air up from a hole in the floor, and with it the pain, this pressure, this pushing deep in your ears. Starting fast and pushing hard would be excruciating. And then it would slowly release, though sometimes it wouldn't, and you'd be stuck all day with it in your head, even after you'd heard a tapping at the bottom of the metal cell and the trap door at your feet had opened up and a man streaked with grime and mud and sweat poked his head up into the chamber and beckoned you down into the caisson, into another world at the bottom of the river and into the gloaming and the blue limelight flicker along the walls, rippling in the water that pooled in the mud and the muck between the boards and the planks that crisscrossed the river bottom, that creaked and splintered and sank beneath the feet of the men 225 at a time there in the caisson, the roof a few feet above their heads, pine beams sealed together with tar to keep the water out in the 60,000 pounds of rock, the Brooklyn Tower, from crushing them while they worked. It was hot, 80 degrees at least, even in January, and wet. They'd sweat through their clothes before they'd barely started swinging pick or lifting a shovel, scooping up silt in sediment, chipping away at boulders left there by receding glaciers millennia before, coming upon fossils, ferns and shells and strange things long gone from the earth. There was this smell which was kind of no smell. Something with the pressure in the air and your brain in that atmosphere seemed to trick the nose, which may have been for the best, what with the sweating men and smoke and the slime and the mud and no bathrooms, just a dark corner or a bucket or this box. They had, this contraption where you'd go in a trough and then every now and then everything inside would get whooshed up with the pneumatic tube and rocket the hundred odd feet to the surface where it would all aspirate in a foul cloud above the river. And your voice wouldn't work right either. Your words would come out thin and high like girls to their ears, which work well enough to hear the unrelenting clang of metal on rock, the grunts and lamentations of laboring men digging away at the river bottom, helping the caisson sink deeper and deeper, pushed down into the earth by the ever growing weight of the ever growing tower. Some weeks would go by and they barely would have sunk the thing six inches. All that digging, all that drilling, all that chipping, kicking sparks, all those times they had hit a stone and not known what lay below, if it would take you an hour to clear on your own, or if that was just what you and a dozen dudes would be doing for the next week or six, diving down blind into black pools, feeling around for dropped tools, eating your lunch from a tin on a rock in a box a hundred feet more below the surface of the East River. Sometimes a big boat, a steamer or freighter would pass by and the displaced Water would push against the sides of the caisson and the board would snap and water would jet in and the chamber would start to fill until men with hammers and pitch tar could plug it. Sometimes men would pass out or cry out at the pain in their ears and the pressure in their heads or their chest. Sometimes they would rise back to the surface, out from the heat and into the cold, rise up too fast without being properly decompressed. Get the bends, get air bubbles, little nitrogen bubbles in their blood, which is as painful as it sounds. And sometimes men wouldn't really recover. One day a fire broke out and it looked like the side of the caisson was going to blow in and the roof cave in and the tower come down and crush everyone inside. But it didn't. And the men came back to work the next day and went down into the hole, into that alien world. And again the next day, and again and again. Think of a man who dug, who swung a pick, who bent to hoist a shovel full of river bottom, who hefted buckets of stone. Think of his shoulders and chest, triceps and lats like stone. Think of his head on a pillow packed with straw in a boarding house at the end of the night. No aspirin, no ibuprofen or Vicodin or heating pads, just pain. Think of those shoulders and arms and joints within of bursitis and micro tears, fraying tendons, rotator cuffs. No treatment, no insurance. Think of years living in that body after months working in that caisson. And think of a Day in 1871 when the man in that body steps up through the hatch and into the air, cold on his skin, when he knows that the job is done, that he is done with the river bottom for good. There was a parade when they opened the bridge on a spring day in 1883. A perfect day, they say, 14 years after they'd started construction, 14 years after the first men had gone down into the Brooklyn caisson, eight years after the last men climbed out of the one on the Manhattan side and they'd poured concrete down into the hole and sealed it up. 50,000 people came in from out of town, came in off boats from Connecticut and Massachusetts and Jersey. The President came up from D.C. people sold souvenirs, bands played. There was bunting. It was a day for bunting and little flags in little girls hands. There were speeches and photographs and fireworks and a quarter of a million people walking the bridge in its first 24 hours, marveling at the thing, this thing they'd watched grow for years for half their lives, for all their lives, depending, they could now walk from Manhattan to Brooklyn, see those towers up close, see their city from high up, higher off the ground than most of them had ever been, see seagulls and seabirds and terns turning beneath their feet. 250,000 people, the governor, the mayors, various dignitaries, prominent business owners, a who's who of people no one remembers now marveling at the thing in the river so far beneath their feet. And with them somewhere there in the crowd, men who could look down at the river and know just what lay beneath it.
Roman Mars
I love that story so much. Just so people know, your book, the Memory palace, you're making an audio book of it, and you've asked different people to read the story, so there's something new for the audiobook. And I'm reading the story, which is one of my favorites, so I'm so happy about that. But one of the things that strikes me about hearing it again is that you. You never say the name Roebling, the civil engineer who designed the Brooklyn Bridge, and you also don't say the name of his wife, who is the person who finished it when Roebling couldn't. Could you talk me through that decision? Like, what's the story that you wanted to tell?
Nate DeMaio
This is a story. I mean, I could have told a story about Rowling. That story about a dude doing dude things, for sure. You know, he's a guy, he's got a wife, he's got a job to do, he gets sick. It's like. It's an incredible story.
Roman Mars
It is.
Nate DeMaio
Yeah, absolutely. Like, it's. If I were. If someone were to ever, you know, ask me to write my Titanic, I would find some way to write some story about some immigrant kid in Brooklyn and some beautiful young woman in Manhattan, and somehow they get wrapped up in the story of the construction of the Brooklyn Bridge. Like, it's an amazing story. But if the Memory palace is interested in anything, it is that place where real people with real bodies live. And I've seen pictures of the caissons, and I've seen Ken Burns documentary trying to recapture that. But I realized that the best way to capture that is in the imagination to try to place people as best as I can inside a caisson. And not just inside a caisson, but inside a caisson and then out again. Like, the fact that this is your work, that this is what you need to do, the terror of it is just astounding to me. So somebody's like, let me just. Let's come back and let's remind people what this is really like. But once you start doing that kind of, like, act of active, empathetic imagination and trying to really put yourself into it, it's like all these other things come out like, oh, my God, Then they're doing this at a time before, like, ibuprofen. They are. That they are working this hard with no one paying for their retirement. There's, you know, it's. It really is incredible. And it is when you really dive in and it's not just put yourself in these shoes, but just, like, try to, like, imagine, you know, the human experience as you know it, like, through the lens of these conditions and through the lens of this time. You know, it's one of the most powerful things. I don't mean it's the most powerful thing that I achieved through these stories because who knows? But it's one of the most powerful things that I simply do that every couple of weeks when a Memory palace episode comes out or I'm sitting down to write a story for this book, for it to work right, it requires me to stop my day and consider, like, these fundamental truths that we will all die one day, that our moment is fleeting, and that other people are other people, and that it's worth thinking about them and it's worth trying to get people to connect in the same way and maybe feel that that thing that I've always kind of found personally useful.
Roman Mars
More stories from the Memory palace and Nate DeMaio after the break. Lumen is the world's first handheld metabolic coach. It's a device that measures your metabolism through your breath. Your metabolism is your body's engine. It's how your body turns the food you eat into fuel that keeps going. Because your metabolism is at the center of everything your body does. Optimal metabolic health translates to a bunch of benefits, including easier weight management, improved energy levels, better fitness results, better sleep, all of it. All you need to do is breathe into your lumen first thing in the morning, and you'll know what's going on with your metabolism, whether you're burning mostly fats or carbs. And then Lumen gives you a personalized nutrition plan for that day based on your measurements. I found it's a great way to get information. It's a great motivator. It's a great way to attack your day with gusto. If you want to stay on track with your health this holiday season, go to Lumen Me invisible to get 15% off your lumen. That's L U M E N me Invisible for 15% off your purchase. Lumen makes a great gift too. Thank you Lumen for sponsoring this episode.
Edward Jones Advertiser
What does it mean to be rich? Is it having more stories to share or time to give? Is it being able to keep your loved ones close or travel somewhere far away? At Edward Jones we believe the key to being rich is knowing what counts. Your dedicated financial advisor will take a comprehensive approach to your financial strategy to help support what truly matters to you. Edwardjones.com findyourrich Edward Jones Member, SIPC this.
Roman Mars
Podcast is sponsored by Squarespace. Squarespace is the all in one website platform for entrepreneurs to stand out and succeed online. Whether you're just starting out or managing a growing brand, Squarespace makes it easy to create a beautiful website, engage with your audience and sell anything from products to content to time, all in one place. All on your terms. You can get 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain at squarespace.com invisible now introducing Design Intelligence from Squarespace combining two decades of industry leading design expertise with cutting edge AI technology to unlock your strongest creative potential, Design Intelligence empowers anyone to build a beautiful, more personalized website tailored to their unique needs and craft a bespoke digital identity to use across one's entire online presence. I use squarespace to create Roman mars.com something like 13 years ago and it's still the way people contact me for their show and I do almost nothing to maintain it. Go to squarespace.com for a free trial and when you're ready to launch squarespace.com invisible to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. Article believes in delightful design for every home and thanks to their online only model they have some really delightful prices too. Everyone who's listened to the show for years knows how in the bag I am for article furniture. I love it. I have a ton of it in my home. But our sound engineer Martin Gonzalez just redid his whole living room with article. He sent me a picture and it was almost comical how much article furniture he stuffed into his Brooklyn apartment so I'm going to let him tell you what he thinks.
Martin Gonzalez
I'm sitting here enjoying my brand new article living room set. I replaced my junkie free and craigslisted furniture with a very nice set from the Seni collection. I got a sofa, love seat and chair all in matching volcanic gray were delivered right to my door. All I did was pop open the boxes and screw some legs on. I am so much more excited to have people over now that I'm not embarrassed of my furniture. I did in fact use this offer code that Rowan is about to tell you.
Roman Mars
Article is offering our listeners $50 off your first purchase of $100 or more. To claim, visit article.com 99 and the discount will automatically be applied at checkout. That's article.com 99 for $50 off your first purchase of$100 or more. So we're back talking with Nate DeMaio about his new book, the Memory palace, and we're featuring a couple of stories from the show today. So, Nate, I wanted to play one more piece from the book. And while lots of Memory palace stories are short, this is the first story in the book and maybe like the shortest of the bunch. So why is it first? And what do you think would be interesting for people to know before they hear it?
Nate DeMaio
This is the first story and it is often one that, like, for instance, if I am writing an email to someone that I want to interview me and they don't know the show, I might send them this one. Because the truth of the matter is I think it does a lot of things that the Memory palace does. So why not give someone something that is concentrated and punchy that will tell you what you're in store for? And this story about Samuel Morse, this is a story that really speaks to the concision at all costs thing. Like, I love short things that, you know, I like. You know, one of the most formative things I ever saw, you know, was a UFCW hall in Santa Barbara, California. I saw a band called Portraits of Past, a hardcore band from Santa Cruz, California, play for 11 minutes, and they were amazing. They played like five songs and they were done. And I just realized that not only was did it have the energy I wanted and the emotionality that I wanted, and all this just, like, good stuff of youth and and wonder. There was just real magic in getting in and getting out. Like, how little can I tell someone about this event but still get them to feel deeply, still get them to be outraged or tearful, you know, or make them want to go hug their kid a little harder.
Roman Mars
Yeah, totally. And this story about Samuel Morse definitely does that. So let's hear it and we'll have a little more to say on the other side.
Narrator
Samuel Finley Brees Morse spent the first 35 years of his life learning to paint at Andover, at Yale, in London, at the Royal Academy, he studied the works of the masters, to learn how Michelangelo built bodies that seemed to pulse and shudder out of mere oil and shadow and Crosshatch, to learn how Raphael summoned the spark of inner life with a single stroke of pure white and the dusky ochre of a noblewoman's eye. To learn how to create illusions of space and distance, to learn how to conjure the ineffable through the mere aggregation of lines and dots and stretch canvas. He learned how to paint.
Nate DeMaio
And in 1825, Morse was living in.
Narrator
New Haven, Connecticut, with his wife, Lucretia and two young sons. And a third child was on the way. Do any day. One night, a courier delivered a message. The city of New York wanted to pay Morse $1,000 to paint a portrait of the Marquis de Lafayette. The hero of the Revolution was coming to Washington to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the start of the war. And he would sit for Morse if the painter could leave right away. So he packed his easel and his brushes and his paints and clothes that were good enough to wear when meeting a man like Lafayette. And he kissed his pregnant wife. And he left that night. On another night a week later, Morse was in his rented studio in Washington, preparing for the arrival the next morning of his distinguished subject. He heard a knock on the door. And there was a courier, breathless and dirty from a hard ride on hard road, handing him a note that was five words long. Your dear wife is convalescent. He left that night. He rode for six days straight on horseback and in the backs of juttering wagons, wrapped in blankets against the cold wind of October nights. And when he made it to New Haven and ran through fallen leaves up to the house on Whitney Avenue, he learned that his wife was dead. In fact, she had died before the courier had knocked on his door in Washington. In fact, she had already been buried some morning while he was on the road, while he was racing home to be by her side and sit with her while she got better. Samuel Finley Brees Morse spent the next 45 years of his life trying to make sure no one would have to feel the way he felt that night ever again. Samuel Finley Brees Morse spent the next 45 years inventing the telegraph to turn real space and real distance into illusion. And developing Morse code, dots and lines that could transmit the stuff of real lives and of dying wives.
Roman Mars
I mean, you're right. This does is heartbreaking. It is a very short story. And there is a kind of surprise reveal, even though it is not a hidden thing. You did. You said the name Samuel Morse, but you gave all of his middle names to maybe throw you off a little bit.
Nate DeMaio
That is the technique. Yeah.
Roman Mars
So it's kind of set up as a mystery, even though it's not required to be a mystery for it to be effective. And what you talk about in the story is the feeling of Samuel Morris grief over the loss of his wife and how that feeling could have propelled the invention of Morse code, which is not the thing most people talk about.
Nate DeMaio
Yeah, I think that so much of my work, but so much is just my life in general feels like it is. Thinking about the gap between history as it's told and life as it's experienced. Right. And that is our own stories. Right. You know, we. We once had a bad breakup, and we tell the story of that breakup to, you know, to different audiences for different reasons, and somewhere in the telling is the truth. But what is missing? Those, like, days of misery or those. Like that. That terrible feeling you have in your stomach when, you know, like, something's got to change and it doesn't? I mean, that's where we live, is in those feelings. And so this is a story that is ultimately kind of about that thing. It's like, here we've created this code and this technology that allows us to communicate in new ways and ushers in a whole new era, and other technology will be built on it, and everyone will be able to do this thing and communicate across distances, you know, from now on forever. But underlying it is pain. Underlying it is art. Underlying it is life. It's a quintessential memory palace story, because it's like, this is what I think about all the time.
Roman Mars
Yeah. Yeah. So you've done the podcast for 15 years. The book is brand new. What do you hope people feel when they hear the show or when they pick up the book? What's the goal? What are you trying to reach?
Nate DeMaio
Both. You know me, but you also know the show. And, like, I really am an earnest person, and there is, like, something about seeing the totality of these people's lives I just find personally useful. Like, I find it, like, centers me or something, and it, like, keeps me. Keeps me honest or snaps me into a certain type of, like, mindfulness for, as, you know, overused as the word is. And in these stories, like, I hope a person picks up the book. I hope that they're having kind of a weird day, and I hope that it sparks that little bit of wonder. I hope it, like, kind of brings them back to their present moment and hangs with them in the same way that these things that I discovered once. I hope that my stories are those things, and I hope they hang with them and they want to tell their spouse about them and that they linger in the same way that these really formative experiences did for me.
Roman Mars
Well, Nate DeMaio, thank you so much for the podcast Memory Palace. Thank you so much for the book the Memory Palace. Thank you for inspiring me and talking with me. I really enjoyed it.
Nate DeMaio
Literally right back at you on all of those things. You just shove in 99% invisible, you shove in Roman Mars and right back at you.
Roman Mars
99% invisible was produced this week by Jason De Leon, edited by Nina Patak with additional production help from our intern Taylor Cedric, mixed by Martin Gonzalez, music by Swan Real and George Langford. Kathy Tu is our Executive producer, Kurt Kolstead is the digital Director. Delaney hall is our Senior editor. The rest of the team includes Chris Berube, Emmett Fitzgerald, Christopher Johnson, Vivian Lay, Lashma Dawn, Joe Rosenberg, Gabriella Glatney, Kelly Prime, Jacob Maldonado Medina and me, roman Mars the 99% invisible logo was created by Stephen Lawrence. We are part of The Stitcher and SiriusXM podcast family now headquartered six blocks north in the Pandora Bill in beautiful uptown Oakland, California. You can find us on all the usual social media sites as well as our brand new Discord server where over 5000 people are talking about the power broker and architecture and a bunch of other stuff. There's even podcast recommendations, book recommendations. There's a link to that as well as every past episode of 99pi@99pi.org Robert Half research indicates 9 out of 10 hiring managers are having difficulty hiring. If you have open roles, chances are you're feeling this too. That's why you need Robert Half. Their specialized recruiting professionals engage their skills with their award winning AI to connect businesses of all sizes with highly skilled talent in finance and accounting, technology, marketing and creative, legal and administrative and customer support at Robert Half. They know talent. Visit roberthalff.com today.
Sling Advertiser
Do you ever watch TV and think, wow, I'm really good at this? You're right. With rewards on sling, watching 30 minutes of TV daily gives you chances to win up to $10,000 in cash and other monthly prizes. Sign up for Sling or Stream for free with Sling Free Stream to get rewarded for watching TV. Sling lets you do that. Visit sling.com to learn more and get started. No purchase necessary for it. We're prohibited by law. Visit sling.com for more details.
Mastercard Advertiser
Meet the next generation of podcast stars with SiriusXM's Listen Next program presented by State Farm. As part of their mission to help voices be heard, State Farm teamed up with SiriusXM to uplift diverse and emerging creators. Tune in to Stars and Stars with Issa as host Issa Nakazawa dives into birth charts of her celeb guests. This is just the start of a new wave of podcasting. Visit statefarm.com to find out how we can help prepare for your future. Like a good neighbor. State Farm is there.
Podcast Summary: 99% Invisible – "The Memory Palace…Book!"
Release Date: November 12, 2024
Host: Roman Mars
Guest: Nate DeMaio
In the episode titled "The Memory Palace…Book!", Roman Mars engages in an insightful conversation with Nate DeMaio, the creator of the acclaimed podcast The Memory Palace. DeMaio discusses his transition from podcasting to authoring a book that compiles some of his most compelling stories, alongside new additions. This discussion delves into the nuances of storytelling, the challenges of adapting audio narratives to the written word, and the emotional depths that history can reach when personal elements are interwoven.
Creating a Story that Moves
Nate DeMaio reflects on the inception of The Memory Palace and its profound impact on listeners:
Nate DeMaio [02:15]: "I think that that first line that you read that something moved me once. I trust the being moved. It's fundamental to what I do with the Memory Palace."
He emphasizes the importance of selecting moments that transcend ordinary experiences, allowing listeners to connect deeply with historical narratives through emotional resonance.
Transitioning to a Book Format
Roman Mars inquires about the challenges Nate faced when adapting his podcast content into a book:
Roman Mars [03:56]: "Knowing that the memory palace is designed perfectly to deliver the type of thing you want in a podcast, when you were translating this to turn it into memory palace, the book, what were some of the other considerations you were sort of juggling and thinking about?"
Nate discusses the intricacies of maintaining narrative integrity without the auditory elements that podcasts naturally possess, such as music and pacing.
Preserving Story Integrity
Adapting stories from an audio format to a written one posed unique challenges. Nate shares his approach to ensuring that stories remain compelling without their auditory counterparts:
Nate DeMaio [04:45]: "Some of it was like, does this story hold up on the page? Is there something that only works because of the way the music works?"
He meticulously evaluates each story's adaptability, ensuring that the essence and emotional impact are retained in the written form.
Incorporating Visual Elements
Certain stories, particularly those involving visual history like the evolution of photography, benefited from the textual expansion:
Nate DeMaio [04:53]: "So stories that were about the history of photography and stories that over the course of the book explore what it is to look at photographs through time."
The book format allowed DeMaio to delve deeper into visual histories, providing descriptive details that enriched the narrative experience.
Emotional Depth in Storytelling
Roman Mars highlights the importance of human emotions in historical narratives:
Roman Mars [06:27]: "Emotions and feelings, these are the kind of details that are often absent from the historical record. So I'm curious how you think about working with that absence in your stories."
Nate responds by focusing on the minute details that breathe life into historical figures, enabling listeners and readers to empathize with them:
Nate DeMaio [06:44]: "I'm really looking for these, like, little details that make the people that I'm reading about feel like real people."
By anchoring stories in relatable emotions and experiences, DeMaio bridges the gap between past and present, making history accessible and emotionally engaging.
The Construction of the Brooklyn Bridge
One of the standout stories discusses the monumental effort behind building the Brooklyn Bridge, illustrating the human toil and engineering marvel:
Guest Speaker [08:27 - 11:37]: "If you want to build a bridge... men would pass out or cry out at the pain in their ears and the pressure in their heads or their chest... it was hot, 80 degrees at least, even in January, and wet. They'd sweat through their clothes before they'd barely started swinging pick or lifting a shovel."
This narrative not only details the technical challenges but also humanizes the laborers who endured harsh conditions, offering a glimpse into their daily struggles and triumphs.
Samuel Morse and the Telegraph
Another poignant story delves into the life of Samuel Morse, revealing the personal tragedies that fueled his groundbreaking invention:
Narrator [30:57 - 33:58]: "Samuel Finley Brees Morse... On another night a week later, Morse was in his rented studio... 'Your dear wife is convalescent.'... but she had already been buried... Samuel Morse spent the next 45 years inventing the telegraph to turn real space and real distance into illusion."
This tale underscores the interplay between personal loss and technological advancement, illustrating how Morse's grief propelled him to create a communication revolution.
Connecting Through Shared Humanity
Nate DeMaio emphasizes the universal emotions that underpin his stories, making historical events relatable:
Nate DeMaio [22:43]: "It's about the feeling of Samuel Morse's grief over the loss of his wife and how that feeling could have propelled the invention of Morse code."
By highlighting these emotional undercurrents, DeMaio ensures that listeners and readers find personal connections within historical narratives.
The Power of Storytelling
Roman Mars reflects on the effectiveness of succinct storytelling:
Roman Mars [34:16]: "It's set up as a mystery, even though it's not required to be a mystery for it to be effective."
This approach captivates the audience, allowing them to uncover layers of meaning and emotional depth as the story unfolds.
Nate DeMaio shares his aspirations for both the podcast and the book, aiming to spark wonder and emotional introspection in his audience:
Nate DeMaio [35:54]: "I hope that they spark that little bit of wonder. I hope it... brings them back to their present moment and hangs with them in the same way that these things that I discovered once."
His goal is to create lasting impressions that resonate beyond the stories themselves, fostering a deeper appreciation for the intertwining of personal experiences and historical events.
Roman Mars concludes the episode by expressing gratitude and admiration for DeMaio's work, highlighting the mutual inspiration between the two creators.
Emotional Storytelling: Integrating personal emotions into historical narratives enhances relatability and engagement.
Adaptation Challenges: Transitioning from audio to written formats requires careful consideration to maintain narrative integrity.
Humanizing History: Focusing on individual experiences and details brings historical events to life, bridging the past with the present.
Storytelling Craft: Conciseness and strategic narrative structures can effectively evoke deep emotions and connections.
This episode offers a profound exploration of how stories from the past can be revitalized through meticulous storytelling, evoking both intellectual curiosity and emotional resonance. Nate DeMaio's dedication to uncovering and sharing these nuanced historical tales serves as an inspiration for creators and history enthusiasts alike.