99% Invisible - 99% Invisible-60a- Two Storeys

Episode Date: August 23, 2012

While we’re gearing up for season 3, we present two pieces from two shows we love: First up, Language Bites from RTE Choice in Ireland. Language Bites is a series of 1-minute programs exploring the origins of popular phrases in … Continue reading →

This is 99% invisible. I'm Roman Mars. So earlier this month, we wrapped up the 99% of visible Kickstarter fundraising campaign. And it was amazing. We had 5,661 backers and raised over $170,000. Oh my, that was not what I was expecting. So the huge show of support for the program made news around the world. It was the highest earning journalism project in Kickstarter history. So we're gearing up for season three. And it won't be long. It's going to be in September, so just a few weeks, a couple weeks.

But I've got a few thousand envelopes to stuff, and we've got to get Sam unpacked and get everything sort of working in order and other work together. And rather than doing repeats or just making you wait for the new season, I'm gonna present stories from producers that I love, but who didn't actually produce these stories from 99% invisible, but when you hear them, I'm pretty sure you're gonna figure out why I thought

they'd be perfect for the show in terms of the subjects they cover and why I thought you'd love them too. Our first short story, very, very short stories from Ireland. It's a series called Language Bites. Language Bites. Story. Door is opening. Have you ever wondered why a level or floor on a building is called a story?

Door is closing. That's a word we associate with a level or floor and a building is called a story? Dorns clothing! That's a word we associate with a narrative or tale. And actually, it's not far off the origin of the word we associate with architecture. And its use takes us back to the 14th century. Where are we going? The word story comes from the ancient Greek word, Historia, meaning account of events. In the 1300s, architects are in the habit of decorating buildings with stained glass

and stone carvings or sculptures. These carvings were on the outside of the building, and they depicted actual stories. Some of them recounted ancient myths and legends. And on churches and cathedrals, they often depicted Bible stories. So you can see where this is going. The higher the building, the more stories it had. And eventually, the word story was used to refer to an entire floor or level. First story.

Language Bites is produced by Collette Cancella, sound designed by Lockwood Hart. The series was produced for and first broadcast on RTE Choice in Ireland. Our next short piece is from Nate Tomeo in Memory Palace. Nate produced episode number 27 of 9-Nen of Invisible Long ago, but his connection with the show does not end there. Nate was one of the first people I called when I started Night Epsen of Invisible because essentially, I wanted to do stories like he was doing on the subject of history, but I wanted to do them about architecture and design.

So if you're already familiar with Night Epsen of Invisible, you'll hear the shared DNA in our progenitor, The Memory palace. This story is called Damn. This is the memory palace, I'm Nate DeMail. In 1931, at the height of the depression, people began hearing that there were going to be jobs in Nevada. They needed men there to build an enormous dam that would be named after a president Herbert Hoover. 5,000 men, former commodities traders, former ops' traditions, packed up their families and drove to the desert. Some of them leaving behind the plywood and scrap metal shanty towns that were also named after Herbert Hoover. When they got there, they found that there were jobs,

but that the houses in schools and movie theaters that were supposed to be there hadn't been built yet. So they hammered some posts into the ground, and strung up some sheets that could keep the desert sought off their kids and their wives, and they went to work. 96 of those men died, when the harnesses that fastened them to the canyon wall, 800 feet in the air snapped. When the hearts of 50-year-old men who were used to selling women's hosiery were teaching geometry.

When their hearts gave out after working 10-hour shifts in 130-degree heat, chipping a mile-long tunnel beneath a desert inch by inch. When others fell into wet concrete, concrete had to be pulled out, not before they died, then before the concrete set, they became a permanent part of the large public works project. But not long after they finished the dam, orange grows, and al-Falfa fields, and baseball diamonds, and whole cities grew in the desert. There's a monument at Hoover Dam. There are these two enormous bronze angels that are supposed to embody the spirit of the

men who designed and built the dam, an American progress or whatever. But my favorite part of the monument, my favorite thing about the whole dam dam, is actually at the angel's feet. There's an Art Deco Astronomical chart there, done in is actually the angel's feet. There's an art deco-astronomical chart there done in Tarazo. And it's lovely. And there's some text there that tells you that on September 20th, 1935, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt dedicated the damn. The text goes on to explain that the chart on the ground shows the precise alignment of

the heavens and exactly 856 went FDR's book. The same moment that a flagpole that stands between the two angels was aimed straight at the heart of the sun. Because they were sure we would care. There's a separate section in the chart that supposedly depicts the precise astronomical location of an Egyptian pyramid when it was aligned Hoover Dam flagpole style with the yonder star that the frankincense toning wise men followed to get to the baby Jesus thereby ushering in the christian era.

It loves us because it means that so convinced were the makers of the Hoover Dam that what these men had just built was so world historic, so new epic usheringly awesome that a plaque wouldn't suffice. So they designed this chart, working with astronomers at the Naval Observatory at the Smithsonian. So thousands of years from now, even in an apparently post-English world, when the text right there next to the chart would somehow have been rendered useless. People, or perhaps aliens, could know. They'd be able to do the math and figure out the exact moment when FDR had a day clarin' as calendar to say a few words at the Hoover Dam.

Now the 35th largest hydroelectric plane in the world. And according to the state's tours and website, the ninth best thing to do in Nevada. Number 10 is golf. So that's the special 99% of visible for this week. Season 3 starts very, very soon, but I thought there would be more fun than playing a repeat or waiting a month for a new episode. We have 40 new episodes, a video episode, a new website, it's all coming this season on 99% of its book. If you haven't done it already or this the first

time you're hearing the show, go download the 60-something previous episodes, my name's an invisible that are actually produced by me. They're all short, they're evergreen meaning that they're as timely now as they were when I made them. And they're all good, they're pretty good. As a body of work, I'm quite I made them. And they're all good. They're pretty good. As a body of work, I'm quite proud of them. It's not better than others, but it's a, you know, it has a whole, a whole worth of time. So check them out.

We're going to have links to language bites and the memory palace on our website at 99% of visible.org. This program is a project of KALW, 91.7, local public radio in San Francisco, and the American Institute of Architects in San Francisco. You can find the show like the show and interact with me on Facebook. I tweet at Roman Mars, but you can always catch up with us online at 99personinvisible.org. Radio Tepio.

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