Futility Closet - 146-Alone in the Wilderness

Starting point is 00:00:00 Welcome to the Futility Closet podcast, forgotten stories from the pages of history. Visit us online to sample more than 9,000 quirky curiosities from a natural nuclear reactor to an English polar bear. This is episode 146. I'm Greg Ross. And I'm Sharon Ross. In 1913, outdoorsman Joseph Knowles pledged to spend two months in the woods of northern Maine, naked and alone, using only what he was able to find in the forest. In today's show, we'll describe Knowles' adventures in the

Starting point is 00:00:37 woods and the controversy that followed his return to civilization. We'll also consider the roots of nostalgia and puzzle over some busy brothers. Just a reminder that Futility Closet is supported primarily by our listeners. We want to thank everyone who helps us be able to keep making the show. And this week, we also want to particularly thank some of our super patrons who have pledged $10 or more an episode through our Patreon page. So we are sending a special Futility Closet shout out to Logan and Reed Savory. If you want to join Logan, Reed and all our other wonderful patrons, please go to patreon.com slash futility closet or see the supporters section of the website. And I also want to thank

Starting point is 00:01:25 everyone who has sent in donations to the show, which are also really appreciated, including the one that we got recently that was expressly designated for buying catnip for Sasha. So thank you for those from all three of us. On the morning of August 4th, 1913, a 43-year-old newspaper artist named Joseph Knowles stood at the edge of the woods outside Eustis, Maine, east of the border with Quebec. Surrounding him were a crowd of reporters and onlookers. Knowles stripped off his brown suit and stood before them in an athletic supporter. He had pledged to spend two months in the wilderness of the Dead River using only his wits and what he found in the forest. He'd have no human contact. After he smoked the

Starting point is 00:02:04 last cigarette, two New York doctors looked him over and signed a statement. It said, On August 4, 1913, the undersigned observed Joseph Knowles disrobe and deliver his effects to Harry M. Pierce on the shore of Spencer Lake after submitting to our examination to see that he concealed no material of any kind that would aid him in any way. He entered the forest at 1040 a.m. alone, empty-handed, and without clothing. Knowles shook hands all around and stepped onto the trail. His last words to the onlookers were, see you later, boys. He later wrote, at the top of the incline, where in another moment I would be out of sight among the trees, I paused and waved once more to the waiting crowd below. Then I struck out straight along the trail. I had left civilization.

Starting point is 00:02:44 The woods were familiar to Knowles. He'd been raised in rural Maine and ten years earlier had Then I struck out straight along the trail. I had left civilization. The woods were familiar to Knowles. He'd been raised in rural Maine and ten years earlier had worked as a trapper and hunting guide. He considered himself an expert in wilderness survival and animal behavior. According to Jim Motavalli, who has written the most comprehensive account of all this, he could skin a bear, build a shelter, and make a fire. And he was very confident of success. He told the Boston Post, which was sponsoring the experiment, when I emerge in October, I shall be sufficiently clothed to walk the city streets. From cap to heels, I shall be fitted out with at least one outfit and may possibly have a variety to suit weather conditions. I shall go before medical experts for examination immediately after I come out of the woods. He planned to live off berries and wild vegetables until he could

Starting point is 00:03:24 find something more substantial to eat. He said, my first meat luxury will be frog's legs. The frogs are easy to catch, as all schoolboys know. My only requirement will be a club to secure them. He promised to send out regular dispatches on birch bark written with charcoal from his cooking fires. And now he's set to work. Knowles was a grade school dropout, the son of a disabled Civil War veteran. As a youth, he had run away from home and lied about his age to get jobs on cargo ships, on which he saw the world. Later, he enlisted in the Navy, and in 1903, he began working part-time as a newspaper illustrator in Boston. He later said that the idea for the Woodland Experiment had come to him in a dream, in which he found himself lost in the woods and worked out how he would survive, eating berries,

Starting point is 00:04:04 setting snares, and catching fish. A newspaperman had overheard him describing this dream, and eventually the Boston Post arranged to sponsor the experiment. That story has proven hard to corroborate. Most likely, he invented the idea in Boston and peddled it to various papers. In any case, it proved to be a good investment. The Post later reported that its circulation more than doubled during Knoll's adventure from 200,000 to 436,000.

Starting point is 00:04:26 That's for a number of reasons. The 1900s was already the golden age of publicity stunts. People were sitting on flagpoles and going over Niagara Falls in barrels. But Knowles was also addressing the fear that city life was making men weak, intellectual, and dissolute. America had expanded to the Pacific and settled California and was now turning to industry. America had expanded to the Pacific and settled California and was now turning to industry. People worried that this had blunted our sense of self-reliance, that Americans had lost the resourcefulness of their ancestors, and this fear had inspired a new interest in nature.

Starting point is 00:04:57 Tarzan of the Apes had been published in 1912 and become a bestseller. Ernest Thompson Seton and Robert Baden-Powell were promoting scouting, and Jack London was writing tales about courage and survival in the wilderness. Teddy Roosevelt had said that modern man needed to avoid over-sentimentality and over-softness while living in cities. He wrote, unless we keep the barbarian virtues, gaining the civilized ones will be of little avail. Knowles promised that modern man could live off the land just as well as his ancestors. The Post Sunday editor said he'd undertaken the experiment, quote, to learn whether the human race has become so sissified that it could no longer combat the rigors and dangers which beset primitive man. In the woods now, Knowles set off over a small hill called Bear Mountain, headed toward Spencer Lake.

Starting point is 00:05:34 When he was alone, he threw away even the athletic supporter so that he was entirely naked. He saw a deer and paused. She looked good to me, he wrote later, and for the first time in my life I envied a deer her hide. I could not help thinking what a fine pair of chaps her hide would make and how good a strip of smoked venison would taste a little later. There before me was food and protection, food that millionaires would envy, and clothing that would outwear the most costly suit the tailor could supply. But he had no permit to kill deer, and anyway, he wrote later, my object is not to show how many wild creatures I can destroy, but rather how few I will need to supply me with the absolute necessities

Starting point is 00:06:08 of life and comfort. He set about organizing his life in the forest, and true to his promise, he made detailed descriptions of each day's activities, including charcoal sketches, and left them in a designated spot for the newspaper's editors to pick up. Soon the Post readers learned that he'd constructed a lean-to, made leggings of witchgrass, and built a dam across Little Spencer Stream to channel fish into a trap. On the fourth morning, he built a fire and cooked trout for breakfast. He wrote, the idea of going out of the forest had left me. I began to go about things as if I were a man of the forest itself. He complained of loneliness, but befriended an albino fawn and her mother. After a pause of 11 days, he provided a

Starting point is 00:06:45 drawing of a wildcat, and then the post ran a surprising headline, Knowles catches bear in pit and kills it with club. It wasn't yet bear hunting season, but he now had food and clothing, and the post could tease its readers with the idea that Knowles might now be hunted by game wardens. Knowles seemed increasingly comfortable in the woods. He roofed his lean-to with birch bark and installed a bed of fir boughs. He made a calendar and marked the arrival of his 44th birthday. He composed a letter to President Wilson saying that his object was to, quote, demonstrate that modern man is not only the equal of primitive man in ability to maintain himself,

Starting point is 00:07:17 but that civilization has so improved the human mind that he may add to primitive life accomplishments which our early ancestors never knew. in mind that he may add to primitive life accomplishments which our early ancestors never knew. Eventually, he killed a deer with his bare hands, adding to his crimes, and he also built fires without a guide, which was another violation. By September 28th, he was reluctant to simply walk out of the woods as he'd planned, as game wardens might lead him away in handcuffs. Instead, he decided to march 30 miles into Quebec, where the nearest sizable town was Lac-Mégantic. He moved along natural game trails, orienting himself by noting the moss growth on trees. On October 3rd, he reached the Canadian border, and the next day he emerged on the tracks of the Canadian Pacific Railroad, seven miles from

Starting point is 00:07:55 Mégantic. When he returned to civilization, he was greeted with bunting, brass bands, British and American officials, and four main game wardens who had come to escort him home. They fined him $205 for killing animals out of season, hunting and trapping without a license, and making an illegal fire, but this was nothing beside his new popularity. On a victory tour, he was greeted by crowds of 10,000 in Portland and 8,000 in Augusta, and in his hometown, children were led out of school to attend a celebration in the town square. After five days of celebrations in Maine, he went to Boston, where as many as 200,000 people, a third of the city's population, turned out to see him at various locations on a single day. He made all these appearances still clad in

Starting point is 00:08:35 his bear skin and displaying his new physique. During his two months in the woods, his weight had dropped from a pudgy 204 pounds to a lean 174. In Cambridge, a doctor examined him and said, if you want to see what the pink of condition means, just look at Mr. Knowles. He published a book about his adventure, Alone in the Wilderness, which sold 30,000 copies, rivaling Tarzan of the Apes on the bestseller list. And he was booked in vaudeville theaters around the country as a master of woodcraft, earning $1,200 a week. That's about $29,000 today. But by autumn, doubts were beginning to rise. In late October, the Hartford Courant wondered whether, quote, the biggest fake of the century has been palmed off on a credulous public. And on November 30th, the Post's rival, the Boston

Starting point is 00:09:15 Sunday American, published an expose accusing him directly of fraud. Reporter Bert Ford had spent seven weeks combing the woods around Spencer Lake and declared that Knowles had spent his two months fully clothed with an unnamed manager in a log cabin near Spencer Lake, with food and even female companionship delivered to him. Ford said that a trapper had supplied the famous bear skin for $12 and that it contained four visible bullet holes. In a front-page article on December 2nd, Ford said that he had discovered the pit in which Knowles had trapped and killed the bear. The pit was four feet wide and three feet deep. Ford wrote, It would have been physically impossible to trap a bear of any age or size in it.

Starting point is 00:09:51 Nearby, resting against a tree, was a moose wood club that Ford easily chipped with his fingernails. The Post filed a $50,000 libel lawsuit and stood by Knowles, who pointed out that he had been wearing his bear skin almost continuously since he'd emerged from the forest, and that it had no holes. He even led another bear into the woods in front of witnesses and clubbed it to death in the pit. Halon Taylor, a 15-year-old who saw him do this, said that Knowles then picked up a sharp piece of shale and removed the hide from one of the bear's legs in less than 10 minutes. He said, we were all impressed.

Starting point is 00:10:20 But on the way out of the woods, Taylor noticed what he called a nice, tight little log cabin, so new that the peeled logs hadn't even started to change color. Behind the cabin was a four-foot pile of beer bottles and tin cans. Taylor suspected that Knowles had stayed there the whole time. Knowles denied that he'd ever seen the cabin, but Taylor said, I lost all faith in him right there. I never saw Joe's bow and arrow or any of his tools, but I did see his basket. It had two bullet holes in it.

Starting point is 00:10:43 That bothered me before, but the lost pond camp clinched it. He was a fake. Twenty years later, in 1938, the New Yorker published an article claiming that the whole stunt had been dreamed up by a freelance writer named Michael McKeogh, who had heard Knowles boasting of his prowess as an outdoorsman. Inspired by the fact that Robinson Crusoe was still selling well after 200 years, he proposed a publicity stunt in which Knowles would spend two months living in the forest. When Knowles agreed, he sold the story to the newspaper and arranged for the two of them to spend the time at the cabin in the woods. Knowles called these charges ridiculous. He cited a pile of affidavits, signed statements, letters, and press notices that supported his story and said that the Post had originally hired Michio to write about the

Starting point is 00:11:21 experiment, but had fired him afterward, he said, for reasons well known to himself. Apparently there had been a falling out between them, but the details never emerged. Because there were no witnesses, we don't really know whether Knowles cheated. Everyone seems to agree that he was capable of living in the woods, but some suspected he had been too lazy to do it honestly. Perhaps stung by these doubts, Knowles undertook a second experiment the following year, this time along the Oregon-California border and overseen by a reporter, a University of California anthropologist, and the head of the Nature Study Department of the Los Angeles school system. Knowles entered the woods of northern California on July 21, 1914, saying he expected to come out again in a month. Though these woods were unfamiliar to him, he seemed to do well. One group of prospectors who caught sight of him after

Starting point is 00:12:02 five days reported that he'd made some rough shoes out of cedar bark and was carrying a string of fish. When they asked how he was doing, he waved the fish and disappeared into the undergrowth. He emerged from the woods on schedule, tired but victorious. One witness described him as a bronzed, soot-blackened figure clothed in deer skin, his flesh scarred, his hair matted, his beard half-grown, his eyes dazed, and his legs almost too weary to carry him another step. He led a film crew back into the forest to show them a lean-to he had built next to a mountain stream, with a supply of jerked venison, smoked fish, and berries. Before the cameras, he cut bark from a tree and wrote a message in charcoal. He boiled water in homemade dishes,

Starting point is 00:12:40 speared fish with a trident, and cooked them in a fireplace made of stone. If he'd hoped all this would repair his reputation, he was disappointed. World War I was just breaking out, and this dominated the world's attention. He undertook a final experiment two years later, entering the woods of upstate New York with a woman, the two of them accompanied by a pair of scientific overseers and by film cameras that would produce weekly news reports for the silent screen. They would be called the Dawn Man and the Dawn Woman. The press was interested mostly in the woman, 20-year-old Elaine Hammerstein, who had reportedly been chosen from among 40 contenders. They started in mid-September 1916, very late in the year,

Starting point is 00:13:15 in the Adirondacks, where average daytime temperatures were in the low 50s and much lower at night. According to the plan, the experiment would start when Jo decided that Elaine was ready, but this quickly looked hopeless. She needed 13 tries to start a fire, and she balked at killing wild animals. She said, To make matters worse, she was informed she'd have to eat frogs as the game laws forbade them to kill rabbit or deer. On September 25th, Knowles wrote, I think she's beginning to have doubts. I'm beginning to have doubts myself. She quit the test two days later, saying, my week's preparation has simply shown me

Starting point is 00:13:57 that I have not got the physical fitness necessary to make the test. It is more of a physical endurance test than I imagined it would be at first. That was basically it. As late as 1931, Knowles was still trying to get sponsorships for nature man experiments, but the novelty appeared to have worn off by then. He went back to illustration and died in 1942. Knowles had said, why do I go into the woods and live like this? To prove that it can be done by the man of today, to show that centuries of civilization have not robbed us of the resourcefulness of our forefathers. What he learned was that most of us don't want to go back in the woods. We may be cogs in the machine now, but it still beats the discomfort, anxiety, and danger that we faced in the wild. That's why we built a machine in the first place.

Starting point is 00:14:36 At the start of Tarzan of the Apes, when Tarzan's parents are first marooned in Africa, Lord Greystoke tells his wife, hundreds of thousands of years ago, our ancestors of the dim and distant past faced the same problems which we must face, possibly in these same Lord Greystoke tells his wife, sustenance which science has given us, but of which they were totally ignorant? What they accomplished, Alice, with instruments and weapons of stone and bone, surely that we may accomplish also. Then he's killed by an ape. We all expect our glasses to help us see better, but that's not always the case. Oftentimes, smudges, scratches, or even reflections on your lenses can obstruct your vision and be a huge distraction. Thankfully, Crizal no-glare lenses offer resistance to all of those things, giving you the clearest vision possible. That means no more fingerprint smudges from taking your glasses on and off, or scratches from cleaning your lenses on your shirt.

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Starting point is 00:16:16 Go to Crizal.com to learn more. That's C-R-I-Z-A-L.com and start living life in the clear. Just a warning that our listener mail segment this week will spoil the puzzles from episodes 143 and 144 if you haven't heard them yet. Stefan Goodrow wrote in about the puzzle in episode 143 that had Swiss soldiers climbing poles to relieve their homesickness. Hello again, Greg and Sharon. homesickness. Hello again, Greg and Sharon. I was familiar with the story of homesick Swiss mercenaries that figured into your lateral thinking puzzle, though I was unaware that they might have been prescribed climbing up a pole as a remedy. I knew of it as a word origin story because someone at the time coined a Greek derived term to refer to their condition. Its roots were from words meaning homecoming and pain, and the word was nostalgia. And Stefan is quite

Starting point is 00:17:06 right. Every source that I looked at had the same etymology for nostalgia, even though nostalgia is often more thought of as being a sentimental longing or wistful affection for a period in the past, but apparently it can also apply to places, which makes it very akin to homesickness. As Greg had mentioned after the puzzle, nostalgia was originally considered to be a neurological disease of essentially demonic cause by Johannes Hofer, the Swiss doctor who coined the word back in 1688. But I hadn't realized that it continued to be thought of as a disorder up until actually pretty recently.

Starting point is 00:17:40 In 1999, Constantine C.D. Keides, a professor of social and personality psychology, moved to the University of Southampton in the UK and found himself nostalgic for his previous home a few times a week. He mentioned this to a psychologist colleague of his and was told that he must be depressed. Sidi-Kaidis didn't think that he was, and this prompted him to pioneer the field of nostalgia research. and this prompted him to pioneer the field of nostalgia research. When C.D. Keides and other psychologists at the University of Southampton began studying nostalgia, they found that it was both common and similar all around the world, and that it could be found in children as young as seven.

Starting point is 00:18:21 Studies have shown nostalgia to help counteract loneliness, boredom, or anxiety, and it seems to make people more generous to strangers and more tolerant of outsiders. It also seems to help people feel that their lives have more meaning and it increases feelings of self-esteem. But the most surprising finding, to me anyway, was that it can literally make people feel warmer. A study in the Netherlands found that listening to songs made people feel not only nostalgic but also physically warmer. made people feel not only nostalgic, but also physically warmer. And that was followed up by some research in southern China that found that feelings of nostalgia were more common on cold days, and that people in a cool room were more likely to engage in nostalgia than people in warmer rooms. Not all the subjects in the cool room turned nostalgic during the experiment, but the ones who did reported feeling warmer. And if this is the case, then in addition to

Starting point is 00:19:04 the psychological benefits, nostalgia might have had a more specific evolutionary value to our ancestors. Why in the world would that be? Would nostalgia make you feel warmer? I mean, how do they even think to look at that? You know, I don't know. I mean, you know, people talk about the warm glow in your heart or something, and I guess it...

Starting point is 00:19:23 That's just astonishing. This mind-body link thing, it really makes you feel warmer. And one other interesting tidbit that I happened across while trying to learn a little more about nostalgia is that Google Books will show you the incidence of a word across time in what it calls lots of books. So searching for the term in English in books from 1800 to 2008, which is the broadest time range that it has, it shows that the word had extremely low usage rates for most of the 1800s. It starts to show a small increase in the later 1800s and then shows steady significant

Starting point is 00:19:57 increases from the 1920s to about 2000 when it begins to drop off a little bit. But in the 20th century, people were certainly at least writing about nostalgia a lot more than they had been in the 19th century. I don't know, maybe this fits in with your story and people were feeling that the rise in technology and urbanization was causing people to lose something that they used to have. Oh, that's interesting. Maybe they were just feeling cold. Maybe they were just feeling cold.

Starting point is 00:20:29 In episode 144, we heard about H.H. Holmes, America's first documented serial killer. Justin Sabie wrote, Thank you for the excellent piece about H.H. Holmes. There have been quite a few documentaries about H.H., but my favorite work was from the Baltimore Rock Opera Society, who did a feature-length rock opera called Murder Castle with catchy but intense songs and a breathtaking scenery setup that covered both the hotel and the World's Fair. It was fun for me remembering parts of the stage production as I followed along with

Starting point is 00:20:55 the podcast. Futility Closet is my Monday morning commute companion. Thank you. I hadn't thought about making that story into a rock opera, but it sounds like it was very good. And just in case you don't have a chance to see the rock opera version of the story, there is a chance that you'll get to see a movie version. Will Grew Mullins wrote to say, Excellent and succinct story on H.H. Holmes this week. A few years ago, I attended a lecture by Eric Larson, author of The Devil in the White City, when he was about to release his book, In the Garden of Beasts, Love, Terror, and an American Family in Hitler's Berlin. He spoke about the reporters who were in Berlin in the 1930s, and how one, I forget which,

Starting point is 00:21:37 went on to have a cameo as a reporter in The Day the Earth Stood Still. In the question and answer segment, I asked him that if a movie of the devil in the white city were ever made if he would try to get a cameo in it he said that the film rights had been optioned by leonardo leonardo dicaprio but he had no idea if the film were in the offing anytime soon and asked the crowd if he should try to have a cameo the loud applause may have convinced him to try and if it, I'll take credit for that. According to IMDb, it's still in development hell since 2015. That would make a, if it was done well, that would make a really good movie.

Starting point is 00:22:12 Yeah, that really would if it was done well. I'll be interested to see if it ever happens. And Chris Lear also wrote in about episode 144. Hi, Greg and Sharon. I'm recovering from your last show, which was the most macabre ever. Hopefully putting the murder castle together with a fatal fireworks disaster and a driver who's just been shot dead means those are all out of the way at once. And we're going to have a couple of fatality free shows to look forward to. free shows to look forward to. I was reminded of a firework story that is non-fatal but still interesting and which turns out to have happened twice at least. A 20 to 30 minute firework show going off entirely in 30 seconds or less. This happened in Oban, Scotland on 5th November 2011 and more spectacularly in San Diego on 4th July 2012.

Starting point is 00:23:06 Both events are on YouTube. Both were caused by errors in computerized ignition systems, and I reckon they made a more memorable show than the one planned. And we will admit that until Chris wrote into us, we hadn't even realized what a grisly episode 144 had been. Whatever that says about us. I edited that. I had no idea. Last week we covered, let's see,

Starting point is 00:23:30 war and women being chained up. And this week so far we've only clubbed some animals to death, right? So that's all pretty good for Futility Closet. And hopefully it has given Chris a chance to recover. Sasha's up here on the table with us trying to get on. Yes.

Starting point is 00:23:46 I don't know if you can hear the purring, but we can. And for anyone who wants to see some spectacular and non-fatal fireworks accidents, we'll have the YouTube videos that Chris sent in the show notes. See if Sasha approves of that. So thanks so much to everyone who writes in to us. We appreciate all the email that we get, whether it's puzzles or comments on stories, suggestions for features, or feedback on the show. Unfortunately, not everything we get makes it onto the show, I guess for different reasons. Not all of the puzzles always work out, and we can't read all the emails that we get on the show. Also, thanks very much to everyone who's sending in ideas for feature stories, just for the main stories for the show.

Starting point is 00:24:24 I'm increasingly self-conscious that people have sent some in and have waited month after month and haven't heard them. The reason is that there are so many coming in, which is a great problem to have. When you send in a story idea, I put it into this file I keep, and I just checked. It's 80 pages long now. But please keep sending them in.

Starting point is 00:24:38 We read everything we get, and we're very grateful for everything you sent. Yes, definitely. Keep them coming. You can send them to podcast at futilitycloset.com. It's Greg's turn to try to solve a lateral thinking puzzle. I'm going to give him an odd sounding situation and he has to try to figure out what am I actually talking about with asking only yes or no questions.

Starting point is 00:25:01 This puzzle comes from Rod Geiler. Here's the whole puzzle, right? Because if you blink, you're going to miss it. It sounds scary already. Yes or no questions. This puzzle comes from Rod Geiler. Here's the whole puzzle. Ready? Because if you blink, you're going to miss it. Sounds scary already. A man pulls some strings following which his brother speaks to thousands. That's it. Very simple.

Starting point is 00:25:16 A man pulls some strings. Following which his brother speaks to thousands. Okay. This is true? Mm-hmm. Is the man's identity important? I mean, is this someone I've heard of? Yes.

Starting point is 00:25:26 All right. By strings, you mean literally strings. You don't mean figuratively he bribes City Hall. I'll say literally strings. A man literally pulls strings and his brother speaks to thousands. Following which his brother speaks to thousands. By brother is meant his actual brother. There's no trick there.

Starting point is 00:25:42 It's not a ventriloquist dummy. Correct. Man pulls some strings. The wording sounds really careful here. Aren't they always? No, with the sounds. I'm so paranoid now this whole game. A man pulls some strings.

Starting point is 00:25:57 What was it? After which? Following which. Following which. You could say after which. I would agree to that too. But there's a causal connection there. The pulling of the strings permitted or caused his brother to... No.

Starting point is 00:26:07 No. That makes it even weirder. A man pulls up strings following which his brother... Speaks 2000s. All right. Let's just work on the second half of that. Okay. Do I know his brother's identity?

Starting point is 00:26:21 You do. These are famous brothers. I don't know. I've heard of these brothers. You've heard of them. Both of them. Semi-famous, maybe. Speaks to thousands of people.

Starting point is 00:26:32 Yes. Does he speak to them directly? Like, are they present? Or is he doing this, like, on the radio? Somewhat like that. Television? No. Somewhat like radio.

Starting point is 00:26:47 Yes. That's the closest. closest yes that's closer than television um speaks to that i feel like i'm this is going to be one of those like when you see it at least seem really obvious uh maybe we'll see speaks to thousands of people. Yes. Yeah. All right. Would it help me to pursue what he's saying to them? Nope.

Starting point is 00:27:20 I keep bouncing around between the two brothers. Right. Work out how he's speaking to the thousands. Well, there's some technological. Yes. I would agree to that. Mechanism in between them that's somewhat like radio. Yes.

Starting point is 00:27:33 Radio is the closest. Is it live? No. Is it like a phonograph recording? It's not live. It's not live. But it's a recording of some kind? It's a recording, yes. So his brother speaks.

Starting point is 00:27:44 Yes. I feel like I'm really close to this already, but I can't think of it. His brother speaks and his voice, at least, is recorded. Yes. And then thousands of people are able to hear the recording. Later, yes. Later. Yes.

Starting point is 00:27:57 Pull some strings. Pull some strings. So it's just the whole trick here is that some kind of technology, some invention, So it's just the whole trick here is that some kind of technology, some invention connected with recording voices. Is it a phonograph? Is that what it is? No, no. Tape?

Starting point is 00:28:17 Would it help me to know what time period this is? It's the present day. Pull some strings. A man, read it again. A man pulls some strings, following which his brother speaks to thousands. It's Doug and me. It is Doug and you. That's really good. It took me, just for the record, listeners, it took me three minutes and 49 seconds to figure that out.

Starting point is 00:28:42 And Rod says, I know it looks really lame and everyone will be shouting obvious, but as Greg seems a modest man, I doubt he'll get it straight away. So thank you so much, Rod, for that puzzle. And if anyone else has a puzzle they'd like to send in for us to try, please send it to us at podcast at futilitycloset.com. And if you want to specify which one of us should get the puzzle to give to the other person, go ahead and put that in the subject line. That's our show for today. If you're looking for more quirky curiosities, check out the Futility Closet books on Amazon or visit the

Starting point is 00:29:18 website at futilitycloset.com where you can sample more than 9,000 Oblactating Omniana. At the website you can also see the show notes for the podcast with links and references for the topics in today's show. If you like our podcast and want to help support it, please see the supporters page of our website. You can also help us out by telling your friends about us or by leaving a review on iTunes or other podcast directories. If you have any questions or comments about the show,

Starting point is 00:29:43 you can reach us by email at podcast at futilitycloset.com. Our music was written and performed by Greg's string-pulling brother, Doug Ross. Thanks for listening, and we'll talk to you next week.

Futility Closet - 146-Alone in the Wilderness

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