Mishke (3:14)

All right? I have been following the Pope's condition, I was raised Catholic, and I was taught to keep tabs on the Pope as he moves through his life and does his good work. And he is struggling with that life of his. These days, the Catholic world is gripped with uncertainty as Pope Francis, who is 88 years old, remains in a Rome hospital because of a complex lung infection. That and some other serious ailments. He has been in critical condition in recent days. I think it's being called stable condition today. I'm not certain. Stable is a word I like a lot more. That's a more soothing word. Critical is a word I'm less comfortable with. Never have liked the term critical condition. I don't ever like to hear that. Whenever I hear someone is in critical condition, I just think they're gonna die. I need to get over that. But that's where my mind goes. Critical sounds like the precipice with the ground breaking up beneath you. At least in my overactive imagination, it does. Now, of course, many in critical condition do not die, but I think if they said things like, he's in really rough shape, I would tend to have more hope than when I hear someone is in critical condition. Critical sounds like one little thing goes wrong and it's curtains. Anyway, I got to thinking about all the different ways people talk about those who are still alive in a hospital. But nearing the great divide in movies and television, the layman's phrase you hear the most are the words, it doesn't look good. How's Charlie doing? It doesn't look good. When you hear that, you think, charlie's out of here. But of course, that's a lightweight statement. When you really look at it, it doesn't look good. It never looks good. When someone is rushed to a hospital, it looks sad or it looks uncomfortable or it looks painful to. No, it doesn't look good. But you hear someone in a film or a TV show say in some hospital waiting room, it doesn't look good. And the thinking is, that person is out the door. Critical condition would sound better than the words, it doesn't look good. Can't you just picture everyone you've ever seen in any movie or TV show saying those words? I'd like to know how many times that has been written into a script. Those words, hey, how's Ray? Doesn't look good. I know. It's been written more often than critical condition. Now, with hospitals, there are these set categories. You have critical condition, serious condition, fair condition, stable condition, good condition. But they also have a category called Undetermined condition. And that one really throws me. Undetermined condition. Somehow I think that might be. That might be the worst of all. His condition, Mrs. Buck humbler, is, well, a little something we like to call undetermined. We can't really figure out what's wrong. I mean, yes, he was wheeled in here. I saw the paramedics racing him down the hallway. But when we took a good hard look at him, we could not really figure out what the hell was going on. We looked. Oh, we looked. But it is just hard to say, ma'.

Elliot Stein (6:54)

Am.

Mishke (6:55)

So we've got him in a room way, way in the back of the intensive care unit there. A room we call the tough call area. It's. It's also where we stack the bedpans. Hospital gowns can.

Tommy (7:11)

He's a conundrum.

Mishke (7:12)

Undetermined is about the best we can offer you. Sorry. One bit of good news is he's at least not dying surrounded by loved ones. How do we know that we're not allowing loved ones in there? No, he's alone. He's alone with a lot of durable, easy to clean stainless steel containers and those weird fashion offerings that expose a patient's buttocks. Yeah, he's with all that. If he were conscious, he'd probably be laughing, so you can take some solace in that, I suppose. But of course he's not conscious and he may never be conscious again. Now, you might hear that and think bad news. Actually, we call that around here stable condition. Of course, the morgue calls their offerings stable condition as well. So it's all in the eye of the beholder, I suppose. Mrs. Buck humbler. I think hospitals should offer a condition that's actually worse than critical condition, but still offers a tiny, tiny bit of hope. Maybe they could call that condition halfway down the tunnel. Maybe that would be the term you'd want to go with. He's no longer in critical condition, Mrs. Hoffman.

Tommy (8:34)

Missed.

Mishke (8:34)

He's moving toward the light. We just removed him from the critical condition list and he. He's now listed as in that tunnel. He's drifting toward the light. He's having what we refer to as one of those near death experiences. You've heard about Those, in fact. Mrs. Hoffen. Miss. Now that I think about it, I should really get back there. I just wanted to give you a quick update. My guess is right about now. Let me check my watch.

Tommy (9:05)

Right about now.

Mishke (9:06)

Yeah. He's probably having that argument with some loving spiritual presence. That argument about going back or not. That's always a Tough spot to be in. Usually the near death experience folks don't want to come back. They prefer it over there. But sometimes the loving spiritual presence says they have to go back. You know about this, Mrs. Hoffenmist? Now, I know it's got a sting. They prefer to stay over there. That's what these near death folks report time and time again. And what a slam to their loving families, huh? I mean, you're here pining away for him, and he's trying to make a deal to skip out. And you thought. You thought you guys had a good marriage. No, no, no, no. Near death experiences are where you really learn the state of your marriage, and it is rarely good news. I don't want to go back. God, I like it here. But your wife. What about your wife? Hell, she'll be fine. How long's the grieving process? A year, tops. She'll get over it. There's another condition I want to talk about, and it's one I don't hear anymore. I referred to it on the last episode. It's the condition that most freaked me out. When I was a kid, I would hear about this condition, and it would leave me startled. When I was a little boy, Bobby Kennedy was shot. And he did not die right away like his brother Jack did. There was time for newspapers to come out with the headline, rfk in grave condition. I'll never forget that headline. I remember actually asking my dad about it. Now, grave condition used to be a condition hospitals used all the time. It was used to mean worse than critical. But think about it. Grave actually sounds way worse than in the tunnel. Grave sounds like in the ground. Who on earth picked that word? Get that guy a new career grave. You want to go with that? What condition is he in, Doc? Well, in the past, we called it tombstone condition or headstone condition, but that's been modified for sensitivity reasons. Of course, for the public, we now go with the term grave condition.

Tommy (11:42)

Yeah, he's in grave condition. My God.

Mishke (11:46)

No.

Tommy (11:46)

Can I see him?

Mishke (11:49)

No. No, you can't. I literally mean we buried him already in a grave. What? Yeah, yeah, we got it taken care of overnight. He's not even in the tunnel. Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no. He had that argument with a loving spiritual presence, and he won. He won the argument. He was allowed to stay. And he said you'd be fine. He said after a year of living hell, you'd come out of it. And he said you'd understand. He said not to worry about him. He's gonna be okay. He ran into his old girlfriend who died in that motorcycle accident back in college. Boy, was she happy to see him. So he said, he's good. Don't worry about him. Oh, there isn't actually the ability to have sex in the afterlife, so don't think that it's more like a melding of hearts. Very loving, very joyful. Nothing too erotic. So put your mind to rest there. And again, as he recommended, get on a dating site and see what you can find for yourself. Speaking of condition, the only thing that keeps this show in any kind of condition to continue breathing is advertising. So let's get to it.

Tommy (13:12)

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Michael Loonan (14:19)

I've slipped away now to a place filled with quiet streets filled with stars shining blues in the night A ghost guitar moans out some old haunted tune and the sky burns tonight with a cold devil moon Tonight there's a cold devil moon.

Tommy (14:47)

And Elliot Stein is visiting with me.

Mishke (14:50)

He's a journalist at the BBC and he has written a book that fascinates me because it's wholly unlike any book I've read. It's about real people, real worlds, real places. But the book offers a series of stories that seem unreal, that seem to be from another magical time in history, a time long gone. And these stories are indeed from another time, and they're also from today. They're both. His book is Custodians of Wonder. The custodians are who he writes about. The wonder is what you feel reading about these people. Eliot Stein has traveled the world looking for people who are the last living souls preserving something old, those hanging on to something in a sort of rebellion against the relentless onslaught of time and modernity and doing so at great sacrifice often. I welcome Eliot Stein to the show. Elliot, you traveled to 10 countries on five continents seeking out people who were keeping alive the last of something. And just saying those Words keeping alive the last of something. I can feel the weight. So many practices have disappeared from this earth, and in all those instances, there had to be a last person still hanging on before it disappeared altogether. We don't know many of those last people. The last person speaking a certain language, for instance. We're constantly losing things to the ages. So much disappears as the years go by, replaced by something more modern. You find something powerful in those who are out there hanging on. Something about that fascinates you, moves you, intrigues you, mystifies you, draws you in. What is that?

Elliot Stein (16:56)

Well, thank you so much for that stunning introduction, Tommy. I really appreciate that. I feel like you've captured the spirit of the book really well. We, we so often hear stories about the first person to do something. The pioneers, the innovators, the ones who, who move us forward. But it occurred to me that so often there's, there's rarely a whisper for the last person to carry on a tradition. And so what I was trying to do with this book was to really sort of document these, these age old customs, these practices, these bits of knowledge, and honor them while these final custodians are still alive. Because I feel like when these small, beautiful, irrational things that people do vanish, a small part of our humanity vanishes with it.

Mishke (17:40)

In reading your book, the reader is able to travel around the world with you. The night watchman in Sweden, you write in your book. Night watchmen have existed in some form since the dawn of time, back to the days when people first learned to become afraid of the dark. Studies have shown that our earliest ancestors likely slept outdoors in large groups, taking turns staying awake, so that one person was always keeping an eye out for potential dangers lurking in that darkness. In fact, it has long been claimed that the world's oldest profession isn't women of the night, but these men of the night, the night watchmen. And you find and deliver to the reader a night watchman. Still at it.

Elliot Stein (18:33)

His name is Roland Borg, and he is by all intents and purposes, the world's last night watchman. When most listeners today hear the term night watchman, you're really thinking about this kind of medieval term. In medieval ages, when people effectively moved away from tiny shires and fiefdoms to, to towns and settled there to sell crops. Night watchmen became incredibly important because you had, in addition to disease and, and, and crimes, the most dangerous thing during this time were fires. And people forget, in an age with thermostats and brick homes, once upon a time you needed a fire for Everything for light, for heat. And with wood built structures, these things could quickly engulf not just your home, but an entire village in town. So the night watchman's job was incredibly important. And today, if you go to Europe, there are many places that have watchmen, reenactors who you pay for a tour. They clutch a lantern, they wear a cape, and they, quote, unquote, make their rounds. But these aren't obviously real night watchmen. And the only place that this still exists in its original form is in a city that most people have probably never heard of. It's called Ystad, Sweden. It's in the southern tip of Sweden, facing the Baltic Sea. And there, every night for the last five to 600 years, a lonely figure has climbed 14 stories to the top of a bell tower, looked out north, south, east, and west. And when he does not spot a fire, he pushes a trumpet out the window and flutes this haunting, reverberating sound across the rooftops, signaling that all is well. And he does this every 15 minutes. The hours are bad, the pay isn't good, but this individual does this for a sense of serving the community. And for the last 100 years, the person who's been up in that tower has been a member of the Borg family. For the last 50 years, it's been Roland. Before that, it was his father, Fritz, and before that, it was his grandfather, Helmer. And they stay in this uninsulated little hovel. And for one week in November, in the frigid Swedish nights, I was able to spend my nights with Roland, watching, observing, listening, interviewing. And what made this so rich and fascinating for me is that almost no one has met Roland or really talked about this, because ironically, for the last 40 years, this church tower that has been used as a fire lookout has been deemed a fire hazard by the modern fire department. And it's been effectively sealed off from the outside world. No one's been able to go up and visit Roland, but when he found out kind of what I do and what I was interested in doing, the city made a rare exception and allowed me to go up there. And I got very much the sense in spending a lot of time with Roland that he probably felt like his time as the night watchman and perhaps his tradition was coming to an end. And it was really his last chance to share his life story with the outside world.

Mishke (21:41)

What was your feeling up there when you were first up there that first night? There's very little he has up there. It's not like a luxurious spot, and it's cold and is it true he's also afraid of the dark?

Elliot Stein (21:56)

When he first took over the position from his father, the first several years he was apprenticing, he was with his father. His father then passed, but it was when he was only up there by himself that he first realized that he was afraid of the dark. And he's not the first person. There are. I mean, to your great question of the atmosphere up there, it's spooky. It's dark, it's creaky. You hear the wind howling outside on the roof that his father hammered by hand. And there are these old, old, centuries old records of night watchmen getting completely terrified up there and leaving. There's. There's tales of a headless woman who haunts the tower. It's. It's creepy, it's spooky. But to your good question of kind of what I felt and what I was, what I was thinking, I mean, you know, in an age of CCTV and fire alarms and police departments and fire departments, there's no real practical purpose that you need this profession, that you need this tradition. And part of me is thinking, why does the city still pay for this? But then the more time that I spent in Ystad, I noticed these beautiful small things that really started to make sense to me. So I was there in a very cold time of year in November, and you'd have these beautiful pastel cottages that kind of make up the city, and. And every day that I would stroll through them, you know, the windows would be closed. But then as night would fall and the temperature would drop, and I was getting ready to go up to the tower with Roland, I would notice that time and time again, people cracked their windows open. And they told me, everyone, that we actually can't sleep unless we hear the night watchman's horn. One of the women who was there told me, look, without the night watchman, Ystad would just be any other old medieval place. This is what makes Istad isd. And I think you could say the same thing for all of the traditions in this book. These are the things that effectively make a place a place. Without the night watchman ISD is just a medieval city with the night watchman, ISD is what it is. And it's these irrational, beautiful things that we do that. That give a place its character and make it different from everywhere else. And so while we don't necessarily need these things, the world is a richer place because of them.

Mishke (24:19)

This is also from that same chapter, long before we were warm and cozy in our beds. There were real dangers lurking in the darkness. And each of our lives today is the result of millions of invisible choices, sacrifices and miracles from the past we'll never know about. And of course, even in this particular case, I mean, we mentioned how often he says, everything's okay, everything's okay, everything's okay. Sometimes things are not okay. The night watchman has saved lives. The night watchman has, in this case as well, proven to be worth his pay. He goes long stretches with everything being okay, but it's not always okay.

Elliot Stein (25:07)

That's one of the great ironies in this chapter. This kind of once upon a time tradition that seems to have no meaning or value or sense other than for sentimental reasons in recent years has actually become incredibly important. And not to spoil the chapter, but effectively, one of the most hardened criminals in Swedish history has been terrorizing this town. And so Roland, this kind of mythical night watchman figure, has been thrust into the forefront of this and has. Has not only saved lives, but has been relied upon by fire departments that, that once deemed his lookout tower a fire hazard. He's been called upon by police, and he's been very much a protagonist in this centuries old tradition that seems to no longer have a place in modern Swedish society, but very much does.

Mishke (26:00)

I have an address in front of me, and I love that there is an actual address. It's an address I could send a letter to if I wanted to, and my letter would arrive. A mailman would deliver the letter, as one would expect. But the mailman across the sea in Germany would deliver my letter to a tree, to a tree in the forest. Not a house to be found anywhere around, not. Not an apartment building. It's a tree in the forest. And the mailman would deliver it because the address is legitimate, because the destination is real. A destination that many people have scribbled out on their envelopes. The tree receives a thousand letters a year, but the letters aren't to the tree. Six days a week. For about a hundred years now, rain, snow or shine, a postman has walked through the forest, climbed a ladder, and placed the letters in that tree. How did this start?

Elliot Stein (27:08)

It's a modern fairy tale. So I used to live in Germany, and a chance encounter led me to hear whispers about this. And that's how this started. But as you've said, for more than 100 years, six days a week, a German postman has crunched through the forest and delivered letters to this tree. And the way that it started was once upon a time, the daughter of the forest keeper and it's called the Dodaur Forest in the northern tip of Germany, fell in love with the son of a chocolate maker. And their love was forbidden. So what they would do is they would leave love letters to each other in the knothole of this tree. These two individuals later married. And there's a famous picture in this region of Germany of the wedding under the branches. And so from that moment, as word spread that these two forbidden lovers had found love and wed under the branches, people started writing love letters to the tree in hopes that somebody who would pass by crunching through the forest would find it and write them back as a way to find love. It's kind of the earliest form of tinder. And so today, 100 some years later, this tradition has gone well beyond Germany. And now every year, as you said, a thousand people from around the world, lovestruck singles, write letters to this tree in hopes that whoever goes through the forest might find it, write them back and they would fall in love. And this tree is actually responsible for more than 100 marriages. So the story that I'm focusing on is not only the history of the tree, but of its most dedicated servant, the mail carrier, who when he first took this job, was a disgruntled divorcee who had sworn off love. And the story in this book is how he himself found love through the tree. But beyond that, when I say it's a modern day fairy tale, the tradition itself is really a window into the culture of the place. Germans have a very, very special relationship with, with the forest. If you ask any German person, they will tell you that deep inside of themselves, Germans are forest people. And so many of the fables, so many of the, from the Brothers Grimm to Snow White, which are German fairy tales, they take place in the forest. And so the story itself is about this remarkable tradition. But more so it's about who Germans are and how their psyche, their soul, is deeply connected to the woods and how it has shaped them.

Mishke (29:40)

The woods connection to the German people was something I have never come across before. My ancestors on both sides are from Germany and I've been around Germans all my life and I didn't know about this and I found it just fascinating. The forest is the German soul. You write in custodians of wonder. 33% of Germany is covered in woods. Germany is home to more than 90 billion trees and has nearly three times as much protected land as the US proportionate to the country's sizes. The Germans, I didn't know this either, believe that Father Christmas comes not from The North Pole, but from somewhere deep in the forest. And German is filled with delightfully descriptive expressions of melancholy that have no English equivalent. A yearning for something unattainable. Forest loneliness, this quintessentially German concept. An enlightened sense of self that can only be achieved when you're alone in the woods. There's one story, I don't know if you'll remember it, the woman in East Germany. How she got together with someone.

Elliot Stein (31:02)

There was a woman who lived atop a mountain in eastern Germany back when eastern Germany was. Was cleaved off from the West. And the only reason that she was able to get a television station from the west is because she was on top of this mountain. And so there was a game show that came on the air, and it was all about this tree. And at the end of the game show, they flashed the address where you can write to the tree, which is called the Bridegroom's Oak. And she wrote to it out of curiosity, but also just to get a pen pal to hear someone from the west and to hear what life was like in the West. So a farmer who had had trouble finding love in ballrooms and beer gardens plucked the letter from the knothole, and he wrote her back. And his first impression was that her penmanship was so perfect that she must be a perfect woman. So it took years of the two of them writing to each other. They were pen pals, they were friends. And then they finally arranged a time to meet, but he was from the west, she was from the East. And much like the original love story, their. Their love was forbidden. So he had to find a creative way to get into the east. And he did so by pretending to be her cousin. And they would talk over the phone using secret code because the Stasi police would be listening in. And they arranged this whole scenario where he went over to the east, and that's when they fell in love. But the wall was still up the. The Berlin Wall. So after the Wall came toppling down, they met for a second time and later married, and they're still living together. I went to their home and met them. I saw the original letter. And they, to this day, go back to the tree at least once a year just to make sure that it's still there.

Mishke (32:45)

The post office has placed a ladder there. Is there a kind of mailbox attached to it?

Elliot Stein (32:52)

The tree, it's a knothole where a branch used to be. It's a 500-year-old oak tree. So maybe a century or so ago, this. This branch fell off, so there's a little hole and it's, it's a. If you were to stick your hand in there, it probably goes up to about your elbow, big enough to hold dozens of letters.

Mishke (33:09)

The only rule with this mailbox, if you will, is that if you open a letter and you don't want to answer it, you put it back in the tree for someone else to find. I imagine people wandering into this forest. Some just to look to see if this is real. Some looking for love, reaching in, reading something and saying, I'm writing this person back and we'll see if some magic happens. And it has happened time and time again. The only tree in the world with its own mailing address. 500 years old. Wonderful, wonderful story. There's another place I want to go. One of the most mysterious stories in your book, your trip to India. For hundreds of years under the COVID of darkness, a single family has been mixing metals together in a way that only they fully understand. They spend their time several days creating a rare metal alloy mirror, an actual mirror. The exact proportion of copper and tin and trace elements like ammonium chloride have been this tightly guarded secret, passed down orally generation to generation in one extended family. And there currently are maybe 12 people left on earth who know how to make this mirror. What's so magical about this mirror? It delivers a 99.999% perfect reflection of the face of what is looking into the mirror. The mirror is used in India. And this is what truly intrigues me, to examine one's soul. Now, before I get to the examine one's soul part, let people know why the mirror they're looking into in their bathroom right now is different, is not as great a reflection, as clear a reflection.

Elliot Stein (35:06)

This is something that I never knew anything about before I researched this story. But chances are, if you were listening to this, and this is certainly true in my case, the mirror that you have at home is glass. And glass is obviously not reflective. I mean, it's what we use windows and windshields for. It's a clear surface. So the reflective part is a vacuum sealed thing on the back. And so when light goes through the glass and it hits this reflective surface on the back and then goes through the glass again, it produces a slight distortion. And what that means is that the version of yourself that you're looking at is slightly different than how other people see you. Instead, whenever we need a perfect, perfect reflection, whether it's for NASA satellites, for surgeries, we use a metal mirror. And it's one thing to create A perfect metal mirror in a lab. It's another thing to create a perfect metal mirror in a thatched roof mangrove forest on the bank of a river. And that's what this extended family in southern India has done. It's called the Aramula Kannadi. Aramula is the name of the tiny pilgrim village. Kannadi is in the local language, means mirror. And for hundreds of years, as you've said, this extended family of alchemists has been mixing different metals together to create this ALLOY that is 99.99% perfect. And not only does it reveal your true reflection, but in Hindu rites, it's traditionally used as an instrument of introspection to examine one's Soul. And only 26 people today know the exact metal mirror formula.

Mishke (36:43)

Of those, less than half could actually do it.

Elliot Stein (36:47)

Correct? Yep. Over the course of this research, I somehow became the 27th person to know the exact proportions of copper, tin, and trace elements, which I will never reveal. But only of this 26, 27 number less than half know it. So as you said, about only 12 are actually practicing it. And that's because to make this mirror, it takes five days. It's. It's incredibly hot, it's incredibly time consuming, similar to a night watchman or to a tree in the woods with its own address. There's no practical purpose for this. I mean, you can get a mirror on Amazon. Right. But it's what this represents, and it's the window into what a community believes that makes this so profound and marvelous.

Mishke (37:30)

Yeah. With so much of this stuff, they don't have to do it. There could be a more modern way to do this. We could have more technologically advanced approaches. It reminds me of something Norman Mailer said many years ago. Advancements in technology make life more convenient. That should never be confused with making life more pleasurable.

Elliot Stein (37:56)

I couldn't agree more. That's a beautiful, beautiful quote.

Mishke (38:00)

This is the chapter having to do with the making of the mirror. Mirrors have always held a certain power over us. They can determine our happiness, influence our behavior, frame our perception of reality. Their name comes from the Latin word meaning to marvel or wonder at, and from the first person who caught a glimpse of themselves in a pool of water. Humans have forever been fascinated by their own reflections. We are one of the very few species to recognize ourselves in a mirror. And no other object is as intimately tied to our own self awareness. Peering into a looking glass allows you to simultaneously examine two things that you couldn't otherwise. You can see yourself and you can see how the world sees you. Throughout history, this ability to see the unseen has lent mirrors an air of magic and mystery. And it was when I read that that I felt for the first time the beginnings of what they must feel in India with this mirror, with the power of this mirror. Somebody says in India in your book, when you make a mirror, you have to be mentally and physically pure. If you give yourself to the universe and you shed your ego, you will see him, capital H, staring back at you. It takes the mirror to a whole different level.

Elliot Stein (39:30)

Yeah. One of the most beautiful things for me as a. You know, I was raised Quaker and Christian. One of the most beautiful things for me in this chapter was to really understand how important mirrors are in Hindu holy rites and to understand that one of the core ideas of Hinduism is to reveal the God within yourself. And so a mirror as a tool of introspection to examine that is a really, really profound thing. And where this story takes place, there's an annual, massive, massive pilgrimage. And at the culmination of this pilgrimage, you climb up a series of steps on the top of a mountain, and what do you see? You see a mirror. And there's an expression in Malayalam, the local language, that says, he is within you. And so what better tool to represent this than a mirror?

Mishke (40:19)

I won't give this away. People can read the book and find out for themselves, but obviously people listening would be wondering, well, did he look in the mirror? What did he see? And you people can get the book and find out, but you do write. You spent a lot of time trying to build up the courage to look into this mirror. Whatever they had told you about it, whatever you had been taking in, in your stories, in the answers to the questions you were asking and what you were observing, that mirror grew in power to the point where you were taking your sweet time getting to the point where you wanted to actually see your own reflection.

Elliot Stein (41:04)

Yeah. You know, it's when you have a mirror before you that is said to reveal your truest self. It's. It's not something that, at least for me, I kind of take lightly. There's. There's a certain certain weight, certain depth, certain certain profoundness to that. And so. So much of my time in, in India with these custodians was. Was watching them make it and, and learning about the history and process of it. But it's not the kind of thing that I would quickly look at myself and examine my own. My own soul. And I don't want to give away the ending of the book, but it's something I think about quite often.

Mishke (41:46)

I'll take a break here and be back in just a minute.

Tommy (41:58)

Hey, four eyes. You mind if I call you that?

Mishke (42:01)

It used to be a slam. It used to be a term of derision. But you bought those glasses at Spectacle Shop, didn't you?

Tommy (42:09)

And that changes everything. It's been voted best eyewear shop in.

Mishke (42:13)

Minnesota the last four years in a.

Tommy (42:14)

Row by readers of the Star Tribune.

Mishke (42:17)

Greater variety of designer and vintage frames than anyone else in this region of the country.

Tommy (42:22)

And the most perfect, personable, lovely, caring.

Mishke (42:25)

People you'll ever work with. So attuned to you and you alone that they make an appointment with you.

Tommy (42:31)

And you come in and work with.

Mishke (42:33)

Them one on one. They're focused on you and you only.

Tommy (42:36)

And they know more about glasses than.

Mishke (42:38)

You thought it was possible to know. There's a whole world that opens up to you at Spectacle Shop.

Tommy (42:44)

Walk in on Grand Avenue in St. Paul. Hennepin Avenue in Minneapolis. St. Louis Park, New Brighton.

Mishke (42:50)

Spectacle Shop.

Tommy (42:52)

An eyewear world of wonders.

Mishke (43:05)

The last place I want to go, I want to get on a. On a plane and take off with you to. To one other place before we wrap up. I think the Inca of South America are one of the most mysterious and extraordinary peoples ever to walk the Earth. I have been to Machu Picchu, high up in the Andes, there in Peru, and I've looked at their engineering feats. Scientists are still absolutely baffled as to how the Inca built that city, Machu Picchu, without steel, without mortar, without wheels, thousands of feet high atop a mountain. Scholars still have no clue how people who didn't have the technology of a wheel could have pushed big rocks up that steep Andean mountainside. And although the Incas lacked steel tools, they were somehow able to fit these stones so tightly together and have looked at them that it is difficult to fit a piece of paper between them. This is why the buildings are still standing. This, despite being built at the top of a mountain and on an earthquake fault line. But that is not the engineering feat that you focus on in Custodians of Wonder. Tell me about the last Inca Bridgemaster.

Elliot Stein (44:24)

One of my favorite chapters actually just gives me goosebumps even thinking about it. But as you've so correctly said, the Inca were one of the world's most extraordinary empires. And the way that they created this incredible, incredible 2 million square kilometer civilization that extended from southern Colombia all the way down to Argentina was through an extraordinary road system. They would pave stones, they would bore tunnels through the Mountaintops. But where they couldn't connect from one ravine to another, they wove suspension bridges out of grass. And so this road system in history rivaled only the Roman road system. Unlike the Roman road system though, which followed a relative uniform topography, the Incas world extended from, from kind of the snow capped peaks of the Andes down to the, the steamy basins of the Amazon. And so at the height of their of their rule, 200 of these suspension bridges stretch across their universe. Today there's only one, it's in the southern highlands of Peru. And in an astonishing tradition that has been maintained for more than 500 years because the Inca collapsed 500 years ago, male members of this one family have learned how to transform straw like pieces of grass into a grass woven suspension bridge that is stronger than steel. And every year, because these things need to be maintained and they decompose. The world's last Inca bridgemaster reweaves with 1,100 people living at the roof of the world, a new grass woven suspension bridge. And he risks his life by dangling 75ft above a rushing river to create this 29 meter long, 100 foot long suspension bridge. And lots of people have died doing this. The whole idea of this chapter, the whole idea of this book, the whole reason I wrote this is to really examine what is it that compels more than 1,000 people to risk their lives every year on the roof of the world to create this bridge, to do these things that nobody's telling them to do, nobody's dictating that they do these things. What is it that compels people to carry on these rights when they no longer serve a practical purpose? But watching him weave this bridge was one of the most awe inspiring things I've ever seen.

Mishke (46:45)

Are they able to articulate an answer to that question?

Elliot Stein (46:50)

What people there would tell me is that yes, we have this modern steel bridge here, but we feel a certain energy using the grass woven one. We feel a certain energy and power walking on the old Kapakn, the Inca built royal road that we don't feel walking on a modern asphalt one. It's something that they feel their ancestors, they feel the apus, which means kind of the mountain spirits that they believe in. They believe that this royal road is a living, breathing power that has a certain sway over them.

Mishke (47:21)

For people who are wondering about the suspension bridge, it's important to say this. A grass woven suspension bridge is what you have in your mind and that is what it is. But you have to get this image in your mind as well, they were built so strong that 100 men on 100 horses could have been on this bridge without it collapsing. It's almost impossible to fathom this from something woven from grass. It's just extraordinary.

Elliot Stein (47:56)

The Spanish had never seen anything like this when they arrived. I mean, there were no incredibly long suspension bridges in Europe. And there's so many Spanish chroniclers, and I include this in the chapter, who write that they were so utterly terrified going across these bridges that they would. They would crawl on their hands and knees, they would cry. But the genius thing about them is that the Inca understood that you could cut these things quickly when advancing armies approached and then reweave them. There's a wonderful MIT professor named John Ochendorfer who actually did lots of calculations about how strong these things were. And that's where I get the figures that you just mentioned. But it makes you wonder, and I certainly felt this, being there and watching this, how many different trial and errors had to happen? Were people first thought, you know, what to get from here to there? Let's weave a bridge out of grass. And how do we exactly do that? But again, just like so many chapters in this book, this specific tradition is really a window into the entire Inca worldview. The Inca wove their entire world out of grass. That's how they made clothing, it's how they made armor, it's how they made boats. They actually wove straw woven boats that were larger than Columbus's ships. And so, of course, this makes sense. When you're weaving your entire world out of fiber, your natural instinct is, well, how do we make a bridge? Let's weave it.

Mishke (49:18)

Your knowledge of how strong this supposedly was, how it was built for armies, was perhaps the only reason you were able to walk across it. But given what I read in your book, it wasn't comfortably walking across it. It sounded terrifying. You sounded terrified walking across it.

Elliot Stein (49:40)

I was completely terrified. You're going over a rushing river. You know that people have died doing this. It's a suspension bridge, so it sways back and forth in the wind like a hammock. And every step that you take, it bounces and it bounces back. And I describe it in the book. It's almost like trying to tightrope across a waterbed. It was so difficult, and you're clenching the handrails for dear life. And really, the only thing that gave me solace and kept me going was knowing that the Inca and their descendants have been doing this for hundreds and hundreds of years. But it's not something that I did lightly.

Mishke (50:17)

Wonderful book. Elliot Stein. Thank you so much you put in. I can't imagine the effort you put in throwing yourself into places wholly foreign. Obviously a labor of love, but a labor nonetheless. Wonderful work.

Elliot Stein (50:31)

Thank you so much for having me, Tommy. I really appreciate it. And thank you so much for your generous, kind words. Thank you.

Mishke (50:50)

I would like to talk about a man I've never talked about before, nor have I been in any room where he has been talked about, nor have I seen any media outlet talk about him, any talk show. I haven't heard any celebrity mention him. He simply has not existed. In the same way some hermit in a cave deep in a wooded area of the Appalachians has not existed. They may be there, but nobody knows about it. I'm speaking about Dolly Parton's husband, Carl, who just died. 60 years. They were married 60 years. And I never knew. Now, I knew about Beyonce's husband. I knew about J. Lo's various love interests. I can even tell you who Roseanne Cash married. But I did not know Carl, and hardly anybody did.

Tommy (51:53)

60 years.

Mishke (51:54)

Dolly Parton and Carl were married. But here's how you know. This guy did not get out much. According to all I read, Carl was last photographed in public in 2019 outside Carl and Dolly's Tennessee home. And that was the first time in four decades he had been spotted. This is what I read. This was the first time paparazzi had caught him outside in four decades. That is called laying low. Is there a wider gap between a public and private life than the gap between Dolly Parton and Carl? That's extraordinary. We caught him outside in 2019. Yeah, we got a photo. Prior to that, Sasquatch had been seen more. Dolly met Carl the very day she moved to Nashville at the age of 18. She met him at the Wishy Washy Laundromat.

Tommy (52:53)

And.

Mishke (52:54)

And I am not joking about that. The Wishy Washy Laundromat. You pull into Nashville, your clothes need washing, you're 18 years old. You head to the Wishy Washy. There you spot Carl. He's barely 21, a fella who throughout his life would be an asphalt paving guy. That's what Carl was, an asphalt paving guy. Carl said he saw Dolly at the Wishy Washy and knew she was the one for him. You know, people don't meet at Laundromats anymore. Those days are over. I did some research on where people meet now. Went straight to my favorite source for that kind of thing, Cosmopolitan magazine. No, no, no, no. I don't read the girly Cosmo. Were you thinking of that one? The girly Cosmopolitan? No, the Cosmopolitan magazine I read is put out by a trucking company. Or is it an asphalt paver? I can't remember. The publisher is a. Is a big fellow though. A guy named Tank. Tank Magunsky or something. He's a retired military fella. He changed one letter in the magazine title to separate it from the girly version. He spells his Cosmopolitan Ian instead of Ayen. I think he still has articles about how people meet though. As well as those articles with the headline 10 Sex Moves Every woman needs to Know. But the articles are all written by Tank. 72 year old retired military man. Good guy. No, I'm. I'm BSing you folks. I went straight to the regular old Cosmopolitan to find out about how people meet these days. I found a copy of the magazine hidden under a guy's backpack at the YMCA in the men's locker room there. The guy said it wasn't his, but I said, oh yeah? Then tell me how it got there, fella. We came to blows over it. We had to be held apart. It got ugly. But I got the magazine anyway. Here's what it said in Cosmo about how people meet these days. Most common places couples meet. 28% of couples say they met in some kind of educational setting. In high school, college, some workshop they were taking, some community ed course, some education setting. 27% said they met through an online dating service or dating app. 19% of couples surveyed met through a friend. 11% met their significant other at work. Other popular places where couples met at a bar, on Facebook, through church and at a gym. But no one, no one who was surveyed met at a laundromat and certainly not the Wishy Washy. It's been years since any couples have met at the Wishy Washy. Decades, really. Annabelle and Emma can still be found there on weekends. They're looking, but they say they've had no luck finding a mate. They mostly run into old Lucas and Woodrow, the janitorial team there that cleans both the Wishy Washy and the spinny spin. Annabelle and Emma say all the asphalt paver guys have their own washers and dryers now. It's kind of a drag. Carl was the last really big catch anyone can remember, and that was 60 years ago. Take me back to the Wishy Washy. When Dolly was 18, when Carl with three bucks could fill his truck with gasoline. Back when he drove the streets looking for that one and found her folding her giant bra in the setting sun. It was at the Wishy Washy that Dolly saw his face and she knew he'd spend his lifetime avoiding the human race. But he would not avoid his duty cleaning all her clothes. He'd haul her bra in his pickup truck and clean it with a car wash spray hose. Hey there, Carl. You found your meaning. You found your purpose in that cleaning. When I was doing my research on where couples have met, where they meet these days, I found an article that talked about the strangest ways couples have met. The most unusual settings. Couples answering surveys had some rather odd stories to tell about how they met. Here's a couple that met because they ran to the same spot during a drive by shooting. Here's one who says I was donating blood and I hit it off with the lady next to me when our blood bags smacked into each other. Here's another. I asked her out to lunch after we moved a corpse that we had just wrapped up. We were both nurses, in case you're wondering. Someone else says my dog got her dog pregnant. She was mad at first, but got over it. This one's disturbing. We were lifeguards. We got together when we suddenly both had free time after the pool suddenly closed early due to someone pooping in it. We owe our relationship to incontinence, this woman says. We both joined a group to play Dungeons and Dragons together. He was a halfling rogue. I was a human barbarian. In the first session, he climbed on my shoulders to spear some foe on the throat and then on my next turn I attempted to assist him up onto the roof of the small hut. I don't know what I'm reading here, this woman says. I was new in town, didn't know many people. I put an ad on Craigslist looking for someone to go do weird stuff with with, like put googly eyes on random things. He answered the ad. Another woman. We had Spanish class together and we were both shy. So when we were supposed to pick partners for projects, we were always the last two who didn't have partners. And so we were paired together. I can spend hours thinking about the serendipity of the way people meet and how important that moment is to their lives. Who you end up spending the rest of your life with. The randomness of it all, that sort of thing is extraordinary to me to contemplate this most important of meetings that changed everything. Everything. And it so often almost doesn't happen. Most of the time it almost doesn't happen. One little thing changes and it doesn't happen. And your Whole life is different. I can lie in bed at night thinking about that and kill a couple hours. The rest of you are sleeping. I'm doing the heavy lifting thinking about all that. I will take a break here and be back with you shortly.

Michael Loonan (60:35)

Hey, Mishki. I'm playing some music on your show.

Mishke (60:40)

Mishky. Well, Michael Loonan from the Looney Bin Band. It has been a long, long time.

Michael Loonan (60:51)

Mishke, I'm on your show. Doesn't this sad little tune of mine blow? I know you hate it. Feel free to grade it. I'm a bad musician singing terribly on your show.

Mishke (61:02)

I wish I were happier to hear you. I realize you have some things going on upstairs there. Splinters in your windmill or whatever.

Michael Loonan (61:10)

But he hates the sound and would love to pop me. But he can't do one single thing to stop me. Cause he's stuck in the middle of a show and the program has lost its flow. I'm a bad musician.

Mishke (61:26)

Back to the old KSTP days. Michael Loonan and the Loony Bin Band used to deliver all sorts of wonderful music live from Mental Health 7 at Regions Hospital. Who knows, he may be a part of this show from time to time, whether I like it or not. Well, I think it's time to go to the phones. I think it's time to go to the phones. Time for some interaction.

Tommy (62:07)

Hello, Jeremy, how are you?

Jeremy (62:11)

Not too bad. How are you doing today?

Tommy (62:13)

Alive and free and with it.

Jeremy (62:17)

Hey, Misky, what was your first memory you've ever had?

Tommy (62:23)

What an unusual question. And right out of the chute.

Jeremy (62:26)

What's the first memory you've ever had or can recall? The earliest memory?

Tommy (62:31)

I think it was just saying to myself, God, amniotic fluid is weird.

Jeremy (62:39)

I always wonder. I have a niece and nephew that are 5 and 3 and I wonder if any of the memories right now, they're going to remember when they're close to 50.

Mishke (62:49)

What was the best memory you ever had from your life?

Jeremy (62:54)

In high school, I was playing the trumpet in our orchestra and every time we had to play the Messiah, rehearsed for the holiday concert, I had a riff that I had to play that I always messed up. And when the concert came around, it was the only time I nailed it. I think that was the happiest I was.

Tommy (63:17)

Wow, that's really extraordinary. In a life of how many years? How old are you now?

Jeremy (63:23)

49. I'll be 50 in May.

Tommy (63:26)

And that high school memory of nailing the trumpet in the Messiah, just nailing.

Mishke (63:32)

That sound is the happiest moment of your entire existence.

Jeremy (63:37)

I don't have any wife or kids, so I can't say the birth of a child or my wedding day.

Tommy (63:43)

Would you like to be married?

Jeremy (63:45)

The older I get, the more I think I should have really paid attention to courtship and all that with the gals when I was younger, but I thought trying to earn money was more important. And the older I get, the more I realize that I was a little off with that.

Tommy (64:00)

It's not too late. You're a relatively young man.

Jeremy (64:03)

Yeah, Yeah. I got a second chance in life, you know, I overcame colon cancer.

Tommy (64:09)

You overcame colon cancer?

Jeremy (64:12)

Yeah. Then about a month ago, I went into the hospital for a few days. Both my portal veins into my liver were completely obstructed due to a genetic mutation from my mom's side of the family. But I'm all right on that now, too. So I gotta figure something out. Tommy here to take advantage. There's a reason why the good Lord's keeping me around. I just gotta find out what it is.

Tommy (64:35)

Have you ever thought about going on one of these online dating services?

Jeremy (64:40)

I heard comedian put it great one time saying it's like going to the animal shelter to find a rescue pet. Lot of bottom of the barrel. At least the sites I've been to.

Tommy (64:52)

Wait a minute, wait a minute, wait.

Jeremy (64:54)

A minute thing, too. Tommy. I'm in southern Minnesota, so the pool isn't as rich to draw from as, like, a metro area.

Tommy (65:03)

You know, I got a tree in Germany you could write to and magic could happen. There's a tree in Germany, in the forest, where people who want to find love send letters. They describe themselves, say what they're looking for, and other people, sometimes people from around the world, go digging into this tree and pull out these letters. And that tree has been responsible for about a hundred marriages. And the tree has only been used about 100 years. It's a 500-year-old tree in the forest. Mail men actually deliver mail to this tree. But if I sent you the address, would you send a letter there and we could see what happens?

Jeremy (65:46)

Sure. Definitely.

Tommy (65:48)

I think this would be a grand experiment.

Jeremy (65:50)

I know a little bit of German, too, so I can maybe write it in German as well.

Tommy (65:55)

Well, this is too perfect. I would love it if you would do me a favor of just writing a letter. You got nothing to lose. Just describe yourself. Say, you know, kind of what you told me, that you spent too much time early on thinking about money, and now you're realizing you should have been thinking about courtship. Be a straight shooter. Be an honest guy. Wear your heart on your sleeve. Put it in the letter, send it to this tree. I'll give you the address and let's see what happens. Let's see who gets a hold of you. This could be the most important moment of your life writing this letter.

Jeremy (66:27)

Hey, I'm up for it.

Tommy (66:29)

I'll send that to you. I'll text that to you, that address, and we'll see how it goes.

Jeremy (66:34)

Well, that sounds great, Mishke. Good talking to you, buddy.

Tommy (66:37)

Good talking to you as well. So long.

Mishke (66:40)

Well, we're going to experiment with the tree in the woods. In Germany, there is a small but noticeable trend of parents using weapons inspired or just aggressive names for their sons, including caliber shooter, trigger weapon. Inspired. Monikers that parents have chosen for their sons also include blade cannon brand related names like Remington, Colt, Ruger, Winchester, and names like cutter and dagger. Also among names with an aggressive edge that are being chosen for sons. BabyNames.com founder Jennifer Moss says parents are drawn to weapon names for their sons because they feel threatened by recent cultural shifts toward broader acceptance of gender identities. Assigning these overtly aggressive names is one way that they can address the fear that their son might have less than masculine traits, she says. So these parents assign a name that has been traditionally associated with aggression, hoping to instill those characteristics into their male offspring. Now, if the parents are wanting to fill their sons with masculine aggression to ward off them dipping their toes in anything that smacks of femininity, might they also be naming their daughters with the idea of keeping them as far away from anything masculine as possible? Might they be naming their daughters. I don't know. Fluff, Fluff, Fluffy, Soapy bubble. What are they naming their daughters? Dan? This here is my daughter. Pink tissue paper. And that's my boy there. His name is Total global thermonuclear war. We're just on our way to get some ice cream. Well, nice to meet you kids. Great names, both of you.

Tommy (68:40)

Who are the gals over there?

Mishke (68:43)

Oh, those are their cousins. That's satin, dainty doily, Frilly lace, pale pink chiffon, and Fragile flower petal. Now, fragile flower petal is. Has been exhibiting some, well, I guess I'd call them tomboy characteristics of late. And that's a little frightening to her parents. So they may be changing her name soon. They've told me they may have to get drastic too, to ward off a turn that may be irrevocable. Seems Fragile Flower petal has been throwing the football around with some of the fellas down the block. So I think she might be getting a name change as soon as this weekend. Her folks say they're gonna go with the name feminine hygiene product. Seems extreme, I know, but they're pretty sure the fellas will kick her off the football team when they hear that's her new name. We'll see. Well, folks, another podcast has come and gone, and the weeks just keep marching on by, don't they? Change is the only constant in this universe. I made that up. You can quote me. I'll talk to you again next week if you feel like coming back for more. Thanks for listening.