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The Memory palace is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. You are listening to this podcast so I know that you've got a curious mind. And here is a helpful fact that you might not know yet. Drivers who switch and save with Progressive save over $900 on average. Pop over to progressive.com answer some questions and you'll get a quick quote with discounts that are easy to come by. In fact, 99% of their auto customers earn at least one discount. Visit progressive.com and see if you can enjoy a little cash back. Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates national average 12 month savings at $946 by new customers surveyed who saved with Progressive between June of 2024 and May 2025. Potential savings will vary this episode of the Memory palace is brought to you by Shopify. The Memory palace is a business, but do you fire up your podcast app and say to yourself can't wait to engage with this business? No, you come to hear a story. I am good at telling stories. I am not all that great at running the business part that makes the stories go and I have the folks of Radiotopia here to help me out. There are so many people who are out there in my shoes. They are artists, they make little figurines, they make shoes, they are great at the art part. But the artist sensibility is often not the business person's sensibility. And for so many of the people who are thriving out here in these Internet streets making a living, making things they love, they can do that because of Shopify. Shopify is the commerce platform behind millions of businesses around the world from household names like Skims and Aviator Nation and Momofuku. Literally. I bought something at Momofuku not long ago, was delighted to see that Shopify button. Shopify is there for all non businessy business owners out there. Shopify is the commerce expert with world class expertise in all the things you might not have the time or the energy for learning. While you design those shoes, while you paint those pet portraits, while you make that line of de wrinkling overnight eye cream that smells like fresh cut grass on the fourth of July or whatever. Start your business today with the industry's best business partner, Shopify and start hearing. Sign up for your $1 per month trial today at shopify.com memory. Go to shopify.com memory that's shopify.com memory. This is the Memory Palace. I'm Nate demeo. When he came to he had no idea what had happened. He was in the hospital, his head was killing him and he was seeing double. Whether he fell and in so doing, knocked down the shelf and with it the tomato cans that rolled out across the floor of the Heinz factory, or whether it was the shelf with the tomato cans falling that had knocked him down, no one knew. But it hardly mattered. Bob Switzer had a broken skull. He had brain damage, internal bleeding, memory loss. His optic nerve was frayed and nearly severed. One of his eyes was now pointing in the wrong direction. He was 19 years old. He. He had just finished his freshman year at Berkeley. And instead of spending his days working in the warehouse, he would spend his summer, the summer of 33, in the basement below his father's pharmacy, in the dark, to keep his eyes out of the sunlight while they healed. Meanwhile, his little brother Joe was having the best time. He had just graduated from high school, he had lots of friends, and honestly, with his big brother out of commission, he didn't have to wait in line to borrow their parents car anymore. So, so that was great. And he was always going to parties, both because he was the extroverted Switzer brother, outgoing and a good hang, and because he was kind of in high demand. People wanted him at their parties because he was really into magic, which was cool then, I guess. It was a different time. But he had this whole sleight of hand routine and he had the pattern down. Joe was a showman. He would perform wherever and whenever he could. And he started to get ambitious, started thinking about making a real go of it. He could always fall back on chemistry, like his old man, the pharmacist, like his brother, who had been studying the subject before the tomato cans came tumbling. But he started thinking big. He started to build and act. And he may have been the funny brother, more outgoing than the bookish, introverted Bob, but he was just as bright. And he threw himself into his studies, learning how the great stage magicians, your Dantes, your Harry Blackstones, pulled off their illusions. And he became fascinated with the black arts, which is a term of art. He was not some sort of dark wizard. Black art tricks rely on darkness and dark materials. Black silks or velvets to control the appearance and disappearance of objects. And there was one technique that had totally entranced the young magician. Some performers had been using black lights, the same UV bulbs that can make one's white T shirt glow in a rave can do the same for stage props. Balls and rings and doves and things. It was cool, but it wasn't that cool. The objects would appear, but they didn't really pop. They were kind of Dull, they cast shadows. Someone might paint a white skeleton on a black bodysuit and dance around in front of a black curtain and in a dark room, click the black light on and there would appear a white painted skeleton. But no one thought it was a skeleton skeleton. You could see the painted image, but you couldn't help but also see that there was a guy in a black suit there too. But Joe wondered what would happen if the skeleton were brighter. What if it really glowed? It wouldn't just be cooler to look at. The illusion would work better. The contrast would be more extreme, would force your eye to focus on the bright white and the not. The black background would trick your brain to seeing a skeleton, not a guy dressed as a skeleton. He thought maybe there was a way to make the light brighter. But he wasn't an electrical engineer or a physicist. Between his pharmacist father and his chem major brother, he knew more about chemistry than your average teen. And he even had some pretty good ideas about ways to make a brighter white. But man, they got complicated quick. And he was busy. He had stuff to do. He had a life. But his brother didn't. And so, while Joe Switzer was cruising around the East Bay in his dad's car whenever he wanted, doing magic tricks and having the time of his young life, Bob Switzer was sitting alone day after day in a darkened basement, slowly, painfully recovering from a traumatic brain injury. He would be down there for months. He had plenty of time to do his little brother's bidding. He started mixing chemicals. And one night he emerged from his sarcophagus and climbed up the stairs to the moonlit pharmacy. And he started shining a UV light at everything on the shelves. And he noted which of the chemicals and compounds glowed more than others. And later, back in the basement, he started mixing and titrating. I'm picturing test tubes. There was probably a Bunsen burner involved. Dunno. When he emerged after two months in the basement, his recovery over but not complete, he was able to handle the daylight, but he would see double. His whole life, he had invented day Glo paint. They didn't realize it at first, the Switzer brothers. All they cared about was that when they put some murine eye drops in some white paint and then some rubbing alcohol, the boric acid in the eye drops made the white paint glow a remarkable fluorescent yellow. And Joe, ever the showman, put it to work. He debuted this whole new act at a big west coast magic convention based on Javanese shadow puppets. Had a guy in a black suit dance as A glowing demon. Joe's theory about tricking the eye was totally right. And then the guy had his head cut off. You know, magic. And then another color paint comes out, looking like a spray of blood. And with the black light, at least in that room, to that audience in 1933, 34, it looked amazing. And Joe Switzer was riding high. He was born for the spotlight, but practical. Bob was back at work, mixing and tinkering and turning out new colors all the time that had the remarkable quality of glowing in the daylight, of absorbing the invisible rays of ultraviolet light and reflecting them back as visible light. Joe was great at naming colors. Aurora pink, rocket red, Saturn yellow, blaze orange. And he started finding all these fun places to use them, got them a contract painting whimsical scenes in the lobbies of movie theaters. Figured out a way to make Day Glo frosting for birthday cakes. But they would find their greatest business success in things that were distinctly Bob Switzer. In more visible road signs, buoys that would show up in the sun. And then the war came, and the military found all sorts of uses, letting pilots find landing strips in the nighttime, demarcating territory that had been cleared of landmines. Over time, it made the brothers rich, and they rode that success for decades, weaving through Dayglo traffic cones and passing some magic buses. In the late 60s, psychedelics and Dayglo paint were a natural pairing, never one to be outdone. Joe Switzer drove around town for years in a Ford Thunderbird with a Day Glo paint job, and he would step out in suits of fluorescent satin. He died at only 58 in 1973, a time when Dayglo was everywhere. I do not know how he died. There is no formal obituary, but a funeral notice in his local paper that noted his role in the development of Dayglo with some civic pride. And so Bob Switzer was left to steer the company without his brother. And he did it well. He retired a wealthy man and died of Parkinson's at the age of 83. His obituary in the New York Times says that he was a family man. He loved his boat and the outdoors, which are better than a basement. He was remembered as a careful and sober businessman. He was no showman, but he shone in his way in the right light. Sa. Foreign. This episode of the Memory palace was written and produced by me, Nate DeMaio in May of 2026. This show gets research assistance from Eliza McGraw. It is a proud, proud member of Radiotopia, a network of independent listener supported podcasts from prx a not for profit public media company. You can follow me on Facebook and Twitter Hememory palace, on Instagram and threads at the Memory Palace Podcast and on Bluesky where I am Nate Demeo as I am out here in the rest of the real world. If you want to drop me a line, you can do so@natehemorypalace.org and keep an eye out for my book of Memory palace stories and memoir which is just out in paperback. It makes a great present and now a more affordable, more flexible present for all your parent related holidays and kid related graduations and spring birthdays and beyond. Talk to you again. Radiotopia from prx.