Loading summary
Transcript21 lines
- [00:07]
Nate DeMaio
Hey, folks, it is Nate. Before we get started, I want to ask you to consider two things. I'm talking to you today at kind.
- [00:14]
Eliza McGraw
Of a pivotal moment in the history.
- [00:16]
Nate DeMaio
Of this history project that you know as the Memory Palace. Here's the first one. On November 19th, I have a book coming out, and I am delighted about that. For years, I have wanted to collect the sorts of stories that I do in this podcast in a book, like something that you can hold in your hands, give as a gift, and something that could live on your shelf. As a kid, I grew up loving these old paperback collections of Ripley's Believe it or not, also things like where the Sidewalk Ends, the poetry book by Shel Silverstein. It's collections of short pieces that you could turn to again and again. You could find new things every time you took it off the shelf and maybe find that they connect differently this.
- [00:58]
Eliza McGraw
Time now that you're that little bit.
- [00:59]
Nate DeMaio
Older or a little bit changed since last time you read it. And I want to make one of.
- [01:05]
Eliza McGraw
Those books, you know, but for adults.
- [01:08]
Nate DeMaio
That might have a little bit of that same magic. And I'm excited now to see that if that magic trick works. And so I am here today, days before its release on November 19, to encourage you to order the book, to help it jump out of the gate with some momentum so other readers might find it, especially people who don't listen to the show like you do. So that is thing one and thing two is deeply related.
- [01:33]
Eliza McGraw
This show, book or no book, successful.
- [01:37]
Nate DeMaio
Book or flop, will go on. And it will go on, thanks to listeners like you. Each year, we at Radio Utopia ask you directly to support the work that we do. We are one of the rarest, and I am more convinced all the time in this time of increased media consolidation and corporate nonsense and private equity raiders, that independent media is vital. I look around my industry and I see layoffs and cost cutting at big podcast companies. I see terrific shows getting worse because some corporate suit says they need to come out more often the episodes and more often that the people can make them or at least make them well. Or these shows are just shutting down because some investor needs someone to cut some bottom line to meet second quarter estimates. And that doesn't happen at Radiotopia. At Rodeotopia, what shows sound like, how often they come out, is up to people like me. The people make them. And whether those shows survive and thrive, it's up to you, honestly. Listener support provides the foundation of each of these shows, including mine.
- [02:40]
Eliza McGraw
It allows me to keep the lights.
- [02:41]
Nate DeMaio
On at the Memory palace, even in times like these when ad revenue is vanishing. It has allowed me in this last stretch, which has been fairly rough, honestly.
- [02:50]
Eliza McGraw
To wait out the storm.
- [02:53]
Nate DeMaio
It is thanks literally to listeners like you. So if you would like to join the tiny fraction, the select group, the elite squad who contributes, if you want to do it this time, in this moment, for this show and for the uncertain times here in these United States, it is a perfect time to join them and join us. You can donate to help this show and the work that Radiotopia is doing, the fight we are fighting in this very strange landscape. We are very proud of what we have built together and we would love you to be a part of it. So donate today if you can at Radiotopia fm. Donate and thank you so much.
- [03:43]
Eliza McGraw
This is the Memory palace. I'm Nate DeMaio A brief note written after reading that the Social Security Administration has removed a number of jobs from a list it had been using in the processing of disability claims, which is as bureaucratic and complex as it sounds. But the gist is when Americans apply for financial assistance from the government because they are unable to work due to a disability or debilitating disease or injury. One of the key factors the Social Security Administration uses when figuring out whether to provide benefits or not is whether there is work out there that the applicant can do so. If you had a catastrophic back injury, say, that meant you couldn't keep working as a forklift operator in the warehouse of a tractor and heavy equipment parts supplier in Kansas when you applied for disability benefits, someone at the Social Security office or a computer program at the Social Security office would determine whether you, with your changed circumstance, could reasonably find a new career. Too often, however, claims were being rejected unfairly based on the supposed availability of jobs that people simply could not reasonably get. But as of June of 2024, thanks to an expose in the Washington Post and rulings in court cases brought by labor lawyers on behalf of people who had been improperly screwed over out of disability checks, the Social Security administration has removed 157jobs from its list of possible alternate occupations. Some of the jobs were removed because they were deemed too niche or required too much highly specific expertise. And so imagine Kansan forklift operator, your claim can no longer be rejected because you are not out looking for work as a scuba diver job number 379.384010, nor for job 961.667010, an artist model, nor 413-161-014 reptile breeder nor maxillofacial surgeon, nor industrial organization psychologist, nor historian of the dramatic arts, nor impersonator of popular characters or public figures, nor hog confinement systems operator. Noble professions, all but ones which can no longer be used as a barrier between government assistance and its rightful claimants. The agency's decision will help many people today and in the future, and it marks an official end of sorts to dozens of ways of working that sustained and framed and dictated the rhythm of lives of so many people in the past. People who photographed documents such that they could be stored and cataloged on microfilm, people who processed those microfilm reels, who knew the difference between the processing of microfilm versus other photographic methods, the particulars of chemical formulas, of lighting and drying times, knew whatever gadgets and props, catalog bought or handmade, that they used in their work to keep film strips clean while they dried or to attach them to spools or lay them in boxes or wherever they were when they went from the lab to the sales office to a library, Steps lost now, like the specific smells and sounds that filled those people's days, that maybe they stopped noticing after a while, that if they could somehow suddenly experience now might madeline them back to that lost time, all those hours and weeks spent maybe decades when that was their job, when that was how they spent their time, a time that's gone now, like the scent of the glue and the feel of the newspaper articles beneath one's fingers, the specific heft of the binder that the cutter and paster of press clippings would put those clippings in, and all the little distinctions, all the untransportable expertise they learned on that job, all the little tricks of that trade that is not a trade anymore, people still people who prefer the sound of analog recordings to digital ones or who just work for those who do. Some people still whine magnetic tape, but it is likely that no one, not a single person in the world still holds job 726.685010 Magnetic tape winder maybe anyone who spent their Life with job 521.687086 does not miss the manual sorting of nuts. But who am I to say there may have been meditative pleasures in all the sifting and separating as there may have been in the hand blanching of almonds, both jobs now done almost exclusively by machines. It has been a long time since someone, when asked at a dinner party what they do, responded that they adjust the pins required by certain calculating devices used in the banking industry. And maybe that is for the best. Maybe that was the most mind numbing soul sucking of jobs. Maybe it is better to be the person who runs the machine that removes loose threads from mittens and gloves than one of the people who used to do that work by hand, ungloved hand, people called puller throughs. Maybe it is safer or less tedious. But maybe it was better before. Maybe it was kind of nice. Maybe the person beside them on the bench always had the best stories, maybe became their kid's godmother. Let this bureaucratic change mark an overdue endpoint to jobs long since vanished from the American landscape. Maybe have a moment of silence for the pneumatic tube operators, those men and women who knew the whoom and whoosh of the document or the envelope of cash, the stack of canceled checks sent from one place to another through vast networks of tubes filled with pressurized air. Who knew the thunk and the clack of the container that held those memos and messages when they arrived at their destination, missives that one day would be faxed, then emailed, then slacked, then whatevered. In New York City alone there were once 56 miles of pneumatic tubes. You can still find them in use now and then, connecting bank tellers and pharmacists to customers. But they are no one's life. And so they have taken job 239.687014 off that list. And they have taken off the professional projectors of celluloid film who were once legion, who now barely number enough to fill one of the theaters into which they cast their magic tick off the dance hall hosts and hostesses, the addressers of envelopes, telegraph agents, airline radio operators, wire transfer clerks, the makers of wooden models and 17 professions related to the building maintenance and repair of clocks and watches. These were full time jobs once done by hand, dexterous and steady and tired at the end of the day, changed at the end of a career. Jobs that stopped really existing at some point as life changed and time slipped away, as it does no matter how well it is kept. This episode of the Memory palace was written and produced by me, Nate DeMaio in June of 2024. The show gets research assistance from Eliza McGraw. It is a proud member of Radiotopia, a network of independent artist owned podcasts from prx, a not for profit public media company. I have a Memory palace book coming out on November 19, 2024 from Random House.
- [11:31]
Nate DeMaio
I'm extraordinarily excited about that and if you want to keep up to date.
- [11:35]
Eliza McGraw
On the podcast, on the book launch.
- [11:37]
Nate DeMaio
On live appearances as they get scheduled.
- [11:40]
Eliza McGraw
You could follow me on Twitter and Facebook at Thememory palace, on Instagram and threads at Thememory Palace Podcast, and in.
- [11:48]
Nate DeMaio
My recently launched newsletter where I'm writing about each episode and some stuff related to the book, which you can find.
- [11:56]
Eliza McGraw
At themorypalacepodcast.substack.com and you are always welcome to drop me a line@nate themorypalace.org and I will talk to you again.
- [12:19]
Nate DeMaio
Radiotopia from PRX.