Futility Closet - 163-Enslaved in the Sahara

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 affectionate skeletons to an attorney's night before Christmas. This is episode 163. I'm Greg Ross. And I'm Sharon Ross. In 1815, an American ship ran aground in northwestern Africa, and its crew were enslaved by merciless nomads. In today's show, we'll follow the desperate efforts of Captain James Riley to

Starting point is 00:00:37 find a way to cross the Sahara and beg for help from Western officials in Morocco. We'll also wade through more molasses and puzzle over a prospective guitar thief. When Abraham Lincoln was asked to name the books that had influenced him most, he listed the Bible, the Pilgrim's Progress, and a book that's now largely been forgotten, An Authentic Narrative of the Loss of the American Brig Commerce by James Riley, which is the story of a harrowing adventure in the Western Sahara. James Riley had been captain of the Commerce, a 220-ton brig that set sail from Middletown, Connecticut in May 1815 with a crew of 11. They delivered a cargo of flour and tobacco to Gibraltar and then sailed south along the northwest coast of Africa toward the Cape Verde Islands,

Starting point is 00:01:24 where they hoped to take on a load of salt to carry back to Connecticut. As they made their way down the coast, Riley tried to save time by sailing close to the shore, and the ship lost its way in a fog. On the night of August 28th, Riley thought he heard a squall and discovered too late that the roar he heard was breakers. Before the crew could act, the ship ran aground on the African coast, on the edge of the Great Desert, which at the time was largely unexplored. There was no hope of saving the ship, but there was time to gather provisions, and the crew made it to shore in a 16-foot longboat.

Starting point is 00:01:52 They rested on the beach and then began gathering their belongings, which had been strewn across the shore. There were rumors of cannibals in this area, but they hoped to repair the boats and put to sea before they met anyone, hoping to find a European settlement or a friendly ship somehow. But as the sun rose, they noticed an old man walking down the beach about half a mile away from them. He was a Sahrawi, an inhabitant of Western Sahara and one of the poorest people on earth. The people of this region lived in almost unimaginably harsh conditions, but they considered themselves true believers and prayed to God to send Christians ashore as their property would rightfully belong to them. They would take what they could use, burn the rest, and enslave the Christians. The man approached and began to help himself to the wreckage on the beach. The castaways had no

Starting point is 00:02:32 weapons, so Riley made signs of peace and invited him to take what he wanted. He did so and made off with it and then returned with his whole clan. Riley was outnumbered, so he decided to let them scavenge their belongings. He drew the line only when they approached their own provisions. They had some bread, some salt meat, and some casks of water and wine. Riley stationed men with hand spikes around the camp, and he and several sailors quietly set to repairing the longboat. The nomads returned the following day and demanded that the castaways bring them more loot from the ship. There was a standoff on the beach, and Riley gave them a bucket of silver while his comrades escaped in the longboat, which had now been repaired. As Riley ran to join them, they seized a passenger named Antonio Michel, stabbed and bludgeoned him, and led him off across the dunes, and he was never seen again.

Starting point is 00:03:15 The men returned to the wrecked ship and tried to decide what to do. They decided finally to head out to sea, grim as that sounded, because they obviously couldn't return to shore. The longboat was crowded with 11 men, a keg of water, and a small amount of food and wine. It rowed low in the waves, some of which were 20 feet high, and it had no rudder. Riley had to steer it with a plank while the men bailed in 30-minute shifts. As the days passed, the men began to become feverish with dehydration and began to refill their water bottles with their own urine. By the fifth day, the idea of rescue had begun to seem just hopeless. They took another boat and steered back to the coast, which was now four days away.

Starting point is 00:03:51 When they reached the shore, the longboat's timbers just exploded on the beach. They'd hoped to find the wrecked ship again, hoping that somehow by now it had been discovered by civilized people who could help them, but in their nine days at sea, they had drifted down the African coast, and now, instead of a sandy beach, they faced immense cliffs. At dawn on September 8th, the 12th day since the shipwreck, they began to make their way along the beach, still hoping that they might reach the wreck on foot. In fact, and they couldn't know this, they were now more than 200 miles south of it. Or they also hoped that they might somehow flag down a passing ship. It took them two days to

Starting point is 00:04:22 find a way up the cliffs. Riley later wrote that when he finally climbed a bluff and looked inland, he saw only a barren plain extending as far as the eye could reach each way without a tree, shrub, or spear of grass that might give the smallest relief to expiring nature. The other men climbed up and saw it too, and they knew that this meant they must either accept slavery or perish. They were looking at the western edge of the Sahara, which occupies a third of Africa, 3,000 miles by 1,200. The relative humidity varies from 30% down to 5%, which is low enough to kill bacteria and mummify corpses. But there was nothing to do unless they wanted to lie down and die in that moment, so they kept marching. Eventually,

Starting point is 00:05:01 they found the remains of a fire where someone seemed to have been roasting mussels, and as darkness fell, a seaman named James Clark said, I think I see a light. It was an encampment of Sahrawis. They might be saved now, but it was known that the Sahrawis did not treat captives well. Riley convinced the men to wait until morning, since he thought it might be dangerous to approach the camp at night. At dawn, they saw that the nomads were gathered around a well. They took stock of their situation. They had no food or drink, no weapons, little clothing, no shelter, and no resources to draw on, so they decided to submit themselves to murderer slavery, which is what this amounted to. Riley told the men that if they were ever in their power, they must write to James Simpson,

Starting point is 00:05:39 the American consul general at Tangier, and tell him what had become of them and of the ship. He said, or write to any Christian merchant in Mogador, Gibraltar, or elsewhere. I addressed the consul at Algiers, Tunis, or Tripoli, if you hear those places mentioned. He told them that if they were enslaved, they must bear it obediently because fighting would only make it worse. Then they stood up and approached the well. The Sahrawis charged them and began to pull off their clothes, fighting over ownership of the men and threatening to kill them if they didn't submit. Half a dozen men vied for control of Riley, who was the biggest of them.

Starting point is 00:06:12 The fight lasted about an hour, and many Sahrawis were wounded. Eventually, different factions took control of different sailors. They gave them water, which was black and fetid. Riley said it tasted like stale bilge water. Then they finished their work at the well and set out in various directions with their captives. None of the men knew whether they'd ever see one another again. They'd been captured by members of the Ulaad Busba tribe. Over the next few days, these people traveled across the desert in scattered bands. The slaves had to keep up and perform lowly chores.

Starting point is 00:06:38 The sailors were so starved that they could barely keep going, but they were afraid of being beaten or left to die if they stopped. The small group of nomads were following parallel paths through the desert, so the Americans periodically ran into one another. And these apparitions were nightmares. One man was gnawing the flesh off his own arms, and Riley had to tie his hands behind his back. The first mate, George Williams, wandered up atop a camel that was stained scarlet with his blood. His skin had been cooked off by the sun. He begged them to tell his wife that with his last breath he prayed for her happiness. Seeing their exhaustion, the nomads gave them camels and asked the location of the longboat that had carried them to shore, and the sailors tried to give them the direction and the distance, and some nomads set off, leaving the sailors behind with the women who continued southeast

Starting point is 00:07:16 into the desert. Occasionally, Riley's party passed through a settlement, which brought on more tug-of-war over the captives. Finally, a tribal council was held to decide what was to be done with the men. Riley was traded to a new master, and they continued southeast, covering about 30 miles a day. On September 18th, another council was held, and Riley's group decided to return to the well by the sea, where the sailors had first been captured. Riley estimated that this was a distance of 300 miles, and he feared that he might not survive. His men were desperate now. He found a pair of them considering killing a child in order to eat him. Riley convinced them that the masters would keep their captives alive long enough to sell them. At length, two men rode into the camp. These were traders named Sidi Hamad and his brother Saeed. Riley knew that the best hope of an

Starting point is 00:07:59 enslaved sailor was to be ransomed to a western diplomat or a merchant, but he would need to reach some city in order to accomplish this, and traders like these two were more likely than nomads to help him since they were used to traveling great distances for commercial gain. To ransom a Christian, a Sahrawi had to bring him to Suwara, which meant crossing the desert past hostile Bedouin tribes, past the fortified Berber towns of the Sousse region, and past the operatives of the Sultan of Morocco. Once in Soira, they could engage with merchants or consuls to get the ransom. Rather than face all this risk, a Sahrawi would sometimes just sell a slave to a local buyer who would sell him on and so on. Riley presented himself to the traders and told them that he

Starting point is 00:08:39 had a friend in the north, and if they bought him and his shipmates and delivered them to the realm of the Sultan of Morocco, the friend would pay him a large sum of money. In fact, he didn't know a soul in Suwara. Hamad said that if they were lying, he would cut his throat. He said he couldn't take everyone, but suggested that he would take Riley. Hamad looked prosperous, but Riley learned that he too was desperate. He and Saeed were deeply in debt to Hamad's father-in-law, Sheikh Ali, and were trying to gather money by trading in the desert. He seemed sympathetic when Riley described his five children to him. He was surprised to see Hamat get emotional. Hamat said, men who have beards like me ought not to shed

Starting point is 00:09:14 tears, and walked away. Riley knew that most of the castaways from the commerce were camped within a few miles. He urged Hamat to buy as many of them as possible. Hamet said it would be impossible for two men to conduct four Christians through an 800-mile gantlet of bandits, Bedouin tribes, and warlords to Suera. But Riley judged that Hamet was bold and humane and would not abuse his slaves. He convinced him finally to buy four sailors, in addition to himself. Finally, Hamet had nothing left to trade. Riley knew he would be leaving behind six shipmates even as it was, but there was no help for it. In fact, as they were breaking camp, Seaman Archibald Robbins rode up. He and his master had ridden all night to get there, only to learn that Hamet had nothing more to trade.

Starting point is 00:09:54 Riley embraced Robbins, who was weeping, he wrote, in the very depths of sorrow at his own calamities. He told him, do your best to stay healthy and to encourage the others. If I make it, I will do everything I can to retrieve you. Swear I'll lay north-northeast, but Hamet led them due east into the desert. After 200 miles, their water skins were empty, and they were forced to drink camel urine. But at length, they reached the dry riverbed Hamet had been heading for, and he revealed a spring hidden among the boulders, and the sailors drank this gratefully. They could never have survived without Hamet's knowledge. The western Sahara was the size of Colorado and had only about a hundred known sources of potable water. Riley and Hamet now trusted one another, having worked together to get this far, but they were still deep in the

Starting point is 00:10:33 desert more than a month's journey from Suara. Now Hamet led them northward, making his way among wells and springs and navigating by the sun and stars amid dunes hundreds of feet high. Finally, one night the sailors heard a distant rumbling in the north. They feared that this was an oncoming hurricane of sand, but eventually realized it was the sea. They were back at the Atlantic near the wreck of the commerce. With 150 miles to go, the main danger was not the environment, but Sahrawi clans that might attack the party or steal the captives.

Starting point is 00:11:01 So they teamed up with a band of travelers led by a trader named Hasar. By splitting up by day and reassembling by night, they made their way through this dangerous territory. The journey was showing its toll. Riley and his men had lost half their body mass. Riley went from 240 pounds to 120, and some of his men weighed 40 pounds at the end of the ordeal.

Starting point is 00:11:18 40 pounds? That's hard to believe. For a grown man, yeah. And walking through the district. Part of the problem is that before they'd even reached the coast the second time, they'd spent nine days in a boat without food. That was before this whole thing even started.

Starting point is 00:11:31 Aaron Savage, the second mate, was so exhausted that he could barely walk. The Arabs wanted to kill him. They thought he was deliberately slowing down so that their enemies could attack. Riley explained that Savage had only fainted from exhaustion and illness, and it turned out that the Arabs had no knowledge of fainting. Riley noticed tears in Hamed's eyes. He needed to sell the slaves to pay his father-in-law, but he had also grown to feel sympathy for them. He ordered that the sailors ride on camels, but Riley insisted he would go on foot.

Starting point is 00:11:55 Hamed said, Come and walk with me, Rais. Leave the camels to the others. Good Riley, you will see your children again. By that evening, they had reached cultivated land at last. They camped at a farm next to a heap of barley straw. Riley later wrote that a bed of this was softer and sweeter than a bed of down strewn over with the most odoriferous flowers. In the morning, the group approached the city-state of Wednoon, the south frontier of the Sultan's realm. They were now just a week's travel from Suara. But even here, the danger was grave. Wednoon made an active business of exploiting

Starting point is 00:12:24 travelers by extortion, trade, and ransom. Many middlemen broke the hearts of Christians emerging from the desert, buying them and working them to exhaustion before selling them again. Hussar traveled separately with the camels to divert attention while the sailors and the busbah traders followed the beach. As they rounded one bend, four men confronted them with scimitars, but just as they were about to attack, two of Hussar's men ran into view with muskets, and the bandits withdrew.

Starting point is 00:12:47 Hamed said to Riley, Those were cutthroats. They would have murdered me and Saeed, and they would have taken you to where you would have had no hope of ever seeing your homes and your families again, if Allah had not sent us the men. Would you fight to save my life? Riley said, I would. No one will kill you while I am alive if it is in my power to prevent it. Hamed said, Good Riley, you are worth fighting for. Allah is with you, or I am alive if it is in my power to prevent it. Hamet said,

Starting point is 00:13:05 Good Riley, you are worth fighting for. Allah is with you or I would have been killed back there. As they neared Suara, Hamet said he would leave the sailors in an isolated village and enter the city alone to negotiate the ransom. He said to Riley, If your friend will fulfill your engagements and pay the money for you and your men, you shall be free. If not, you must die for having deceived me. Again, Riley knew no one in the city, but he wrote a letter and addressed it to English, French, Spanish, or American consuls there. He explained how he and his crew had been wrecked and captured and promised that his bankers would immediately send the ransom money. He wrote, myself and four of my crew are

Starting point is 00:13:39 here nearly naked in barbarian slavery. I conjure you by all the ties that bind man to man, by those of kindred blood and everything you hold most dear, and by as much as liberty is dearer than life, to advance the money required for our redemption. Should you not relieve me, my life must instantly pay the forfeit. He wrote, my present master, Sidi Hamet, will hand you this and tell you where we are. He is a worthy man. And then he just waited with the other sailors. And after an agony of anxiety, a messenger brought back a note. It was from William Wilshire, the British consul general. It said, My dear and afflicted sir, I have this moment received your note by C.D. Hamet, the contents of which I hope

Starting point is 00:14:13 you will be perfectly assured have called forth my most sincere pity for your sufferings and those of your companions. Wilshire came to meet them shortly and told Riley, Welcome to my arms, dear sir. This is truly a happy moment. They stayed with the consul for several weeks and Riley made arrangements to provide for his shipmates who were still missing in the desert but might be ransomed in the future. Hamed stayed with them too for a time. Altogether, they had traveled 800 miles together. Riley said he left Hamed with feelings of regret and shedding tears for he had been a kind master and to him I owed under God my life and deliverance from slavery. Het, for his part, told Riley that he had behaved immorally and cruelly before he encountered Riley in the desert. When he saw Riley naked as a slave and learned that he had family,

Starting point is 00:14:54 God softened his heart, and he did all he could to lighten the burden of his afflictions. He had endured hunger, thirst, and fatigues for Riley, and he said that seeing him free had given him the high pleasure of knowing I had done some good in the world. They shook hands at parting. Riley returned to the U.S. and published his narrative of the adventure in 1817, which was an enormous success. By 1860, it had been reprinted 18 times and sold almost a million copies around the world. Henry Thoreau and James Fenimore Cooper both praised it, and Lincoln often referred to it even during his presidency. After his experiences in the desert, Riley became an outspoken abolitionist. When his book appeared,

Starting point is 00:15:30 most of the United States still tolerated slavery, and some mariners in New England were involved in the slave trade. He wrote, my proud spirited and free countrymen still hold a million and a half nearly of the human species in the most cruel bonds of slavery, many of whom are kept at hard labor and smarting under the savage lash of inhuman mercenary drivers, and in many instances enduring besides the miseries of hunger, thirst, imprisonment, cold, nakedness, and even tortures. I will exert all my remaining faculties and endeavors to redeem the enslaved and to shiver in pieces the rod of oppression, and I trust I shall be aided in that holy work by every good and every pious, free, and high-minded citizen in the community, and by the friends of mankind throughout the civilized world. He founded the

Starting point is 00:16:09 village of Wilshire, Ohio, and named it for William Wilshire, the man who had bought him his freedom. Riley's narrative was one of the most popular books of the 19th century, but it was strangely forgotten after that until the American author Dean King happened across a copy in the library of the New York Yacht Club, of all places. After a lot of additional research, he published his own account of the adventure in 2004 in a book called Skeletons on the Zahara. I should add, Archibald Robbins, the sailor who had ridden up at the last minute only to discover that Hamet couldn't afford to buy him, eventually did reach Zahara himself a year and a half after Riley and was ransomed by the same consul, and in fact published a book about that later. C.D. Hamet, after ransoming Riley, returned by the same consul, and in fact published a book about that later.

Starting point is 00:16:45 Sidi Ahmed, after ransoming Riley, returned to the desert, and word eventually came that he'd been stoned to death there. The evidence suggests that he had found William Porter, an able seaman from the commerce, and was trying to transport him to Suara. Porter eventually did reach the consul himself and found his freedom, but of the 12 men who were shipwrecked on the commerce, five never emerged from the desert. Futility Closet is supported primarily by our fabulous listeners. We really wouldn't be able to commit to the amount of time that the show takes to make if it weren't for the donations and pledges we get. If you'd like to contribute to the celebration

Starting point is 00:17:30 of the quirky and the curious that is Futility Closet, you can find a donate button in the support us section of the website at futilitycloset.com Or if you'd like to join our Patreon campaign, you'll get access to our activity feed, where you'll find outtakes, extra discussions on

Starting point is 00:17:45 some of the stories, more lateral thinking puzzles, and updates on Sasha, the official Futility Closet podcast. You can check out our Patreon campaign at patreon.com slash futility closet, or see the link at the website. And thanks again to everyone who is a part of Futility Closet. Larry Fentz wrote, In episode 136, you talk about the Boston molasses disaster. Here in my town, Loveland, Colorado, in 1990, we had a similar, though much less disastrous disaster. Approximately 582 gallons of molasses made a huge mess after a valve froze on a tank, causing the tank to buckle. There were no casualties, but some school and business closures. Give my regards to Sharon Gregg and, of course, Sasha. And according

Starting point is 00:18:38 to an article from a local newspaper that Larry very helpfully sent the link to, in February 1990, a pickup truck in Loveland hit a patch of some ankle-deep sludge and ended up in a ditch. At first, they didn't know what it was, and the police called in the fire department's hazardous materials team, who were able to work out that they feared toxic substance was actually molasses. I guess you don't normally expect to find ankle-deep molasses on the roads. A half-mile-long stretch of ground was covered in the sticky stuff, and the roads were closed for almost two weeks. As we've mentioned before, it's rather a mess to try to clean up molasses. I guess you don't expect to find ankle-deep molasses anywhere.

Starting point is 00:19:19 I guess you don't. I guess that's a good point. So they didn't really know what it was when it first showed up. And this makes the third molasses incident that we've heard about added to the one that we had covered from the Netherlands in episode 138. Until recently, I hadn't known there was even one molasses disaster. Apparently, there have been at least three. Cattle Smulders wrote in about the Hermit of Zalfeldin that we talked about in episode 154. I wonder if he has any idea that he is such a well-discussed hermit. Cattle said, Dear Sharon and Greg, The story about the modern-day Hermit of Zalfeldin and that the job is now taken stirred my interest because the man hails from my region in Belgium and because I passed by Zalfeldin just last year. I don't know the man any better than you region in Belgium, and because I passed by Southvelden just last year. I don't know the man any better than you do, so not at all, but he did become a bit of a news item

Starting point is 00:20:11 at the time. Below is a link to an English language clip about him dating to early May from the news website of the Flemish VRT television network. The original language is Dutch, one of the three official languages in Belgium. The others are French and German. Meet Stan van Otrecht atop his Austrian mountain. You can also hear the correct pronunciation of his name in the clip. And that was a very tactful way for Cattle to let me know that I had not done a great job of pronouncing van Otrecht. I had only been able to find a German pronunciation and had hoped that that would do, as I wasn't sure which language he spoke. But thanks to Karel, we now know that von Utrecht

Starting point is 00:20:50 is Flemish. And according to the video that Karel sent, he is actually the first non-Austrian hermit of Saalfelden in 350 years. So we'll have that link in the show notes for anyone who wants to see the new hermit and get a peek inside his little dwelling. As Cattle said, he hasn't actually met the hermit himself, so if anyone else finds themselves in that area, do let us know if you actually get to meet the hermit. He actually seemed really nice on the video. And while we're on the subject of mispronouncing things, some of our listeners let us know that the Korean business conglomerates that I had mentioned in episode 160 are pronounced chaebol, no matter what the Google dictionary told me.

Starting point is 00:21:30 And the mathematician that we discussed in episode 159 would probably pronounce his name more like erdush, not the more Americanized version that we were using. We do try with the foreign words and names, but I'm sure we'll still get some wrong in the future.

Starting point is 00:21:46 On the topic of getting to see a hermit and hermitage, Jason Cutler found a recent article on Agafia Lykov with photos and a video documentary from 2013 of her and her home in Siberia. in episodes 119 and 122 about how her family had disappeared deep into the taiga in 1936 to avoid religious persecution and how she has been the only surviving member of that family for almost 30 years now. In the photos and video that Jason found, you can really see how hard and primitive her life is and you get to see her at 70 sawing wood and carrying a large log for her fire down a snowy slope, trudging out to get water and hear her talk about trying to scare off bears. And you also get to see her with her cat and her dog, which was kind of cute. One small fact that I found to be interesting was that although the Lykov family believed science to be godless, horrible and soul crushing and thus to be strenuously avoided,

Starting point is 00:22:45 horrible and soul-crushing, and thus to be strenuously avoided, they often had complex pieces of technology from the Soviet space program literally falling into their backyard. Another thing that really struck me about the video was that although Agafia is obviously a strong and capable woman, there's an almost childlike innocence about her in certain ways too, which I guess makes sense given her very limited interaction with most of the world and even with very many people. But she does say that it's now getting very hard for her to keep up running her household, given her age and that her health isn't as good anymore. And since she just can't imagine living in the city, I don't know what's going to happen to her. Her life is just unending work in very difficult conditions, but she feels like she really doesn't belong anywhere else.

Starting point is 00:23:28 I'm trying to remember that story. I think she was born in the forest, right? She was. She wasn't one of the originals, so she'd never known another life. Right. That's all she's ever known was living first with her family and then in pretty much isolation deep in the taiga. For 70 years.

Starting point is 00:23:40 Yeah, for 70 years. So the couple of times that she's gone to a city, it's just been very, very... She hated it. I remember that. Yeah. Yeah. She felt it was unhealthy and the cars really bothered her. And I mean, after the taiga, a city is going to seem very, very strange.

Starting point is 00:23:56 And given her family's beliefs, you know, that science is evil and technology is evil, you could see that that... So I don't know what's going to end up happening to her. It sounds though now, at least that she has some connection to people. So if she does, you know, it's kind of tenuous.

Starting point is 00:24:13 It's, it's very difficult to get out to where she lives. Like it's even with like helicopters and stuff, the weather is often so rough that it's very difficult for people to be there in a consistent kind of way. But yeah. so if anybody hears any more updates on her, please let us know. Dan Cash sent in a follow up to episode 160. Hey, guys, Sasha, this one's for you. I was listening to the last podcast about the Birmingham

Starting point is 00:24:38 sewer lion and it brought back an old and dusty memory. The ironic fact that the first person to be killed by a tiger in Britain was a barmaid at a pub called The White Lion. When the menagerie came to town, she, Hannah Twinoy, would take delight in teasing the tiger. The keeper tried to warn her, but to no avail, so Brer Tiger, much as I would expect any tiger would, escaped his cage and ripped her to pieces. Hannah was buried in the local abbey, but history doesn't record what happened to the understandably grumpy tiger. And I had joked last episode that I'm waiting for someone to tell us that there's a song about the Birmingham sewer lion.

Starting point is 00:25:16 I haven't come across that yet, but when I looked into the story that Dan sent, I did find a song about Twinoy and the tiger, as well as a charming little video of the story done in the style of paper cutout silhouettes. And Greg had actually posted the epitaph that's on Twinoy's 1703 tombstone on the Futility Closet website back in 2005. In bloom of life, she snatched from hence, she had not room to make defense. And Steve Winters wrote, your wonderful podcast offerings. Today, I decided to get systematic about it and went all the way back to the very beginning to listen to your very first podcast from more than three years ago. I discovered in it a description of decimal time, which is funny because it's something I had been thinking about myself for quite a long time. In fact, totally coincidentally, I had just succeeded

Starting point is 00:26:20 in putting up a decimal clock on my website last Thursday. I hadn't realized that the leaders of the French Revolution had come up with the same idea a long time before I did, but I guess I'm not surprised. Anyways, feel free to enjoy the clock, and I will keep enjoying your podcasts. And Steve sent in a link to his decimal clock, so check the show notes for that if you're curious to see one. It really would simplify things if we did switch to decimal time and perhaps some other calendar system like the ones we had discussed all the way back in episode one. Maybe that'll finally catch on.

Starting point is 00:26:51 Maybe it'll finally catch on, right? So thanks so much to everyone who writes in to us. We always appreciate hearing from our listeners. So if you have any comments, questions, or feedback, please send it to podcast at futilitycloset.com. It's my turn to try to solve a lateral thinking puzzle. Greg is going to give me an odd-sounding situation, and I have to try to work out what's going on, asking only yes or no questions. This is from listener Dan White.

Starting point is 00:27:20 He writes, a local museum is currently hosting a traveling exhibit from the National Guitar Museum. As I strolled through examining the display cases that lined the walls, I was surprised and delighted to find my all-time favorite guitar when I had played on numerous occasions. And it occurred to me that if the case was open, I could walk out the front door with it in full view of everyone and no one would stop me. Why? Okay. The listener wrote this in saying this was a guitar he had played in the museum? Yes. This is true? Yes. So the listener is a guitar player? Yes. Is he a famous guitar player? No. No. Okay. Or he looks like a guitar player. No, I'm confused. Okay. The listener was saying he was writing this in the first person. I saw my all-time favorite guitar. Meaning a guitar he had played? No, a guitar he'd heard someone else play? Okay. Not a guitar he had heard someone else play, a guitar he had played.

Starting point is 00:28:18 A guitar he had played? Yes. And that was in this museum? Yeah. Okay. Had he given the guitar to the museum no okay is your you said this is from dan white this is a guitar dan white had played yes okay you're smiling weirdly and i don't know what to interpret that to mean i like this one um okay all right i'm trying to understand this dan white had a guitar and somehow no yes dan white had a guitar owned a guitar no didn't own a guitar this is a very tricky thing this is a very tricky answer questions about okay let's back up. Dan White knows how to play the guitar. Not necessarily. Dan White portrayed as an actor and portrayed someone playing a guitar. Excellent guess.

Starting point is 00:29:15 I'm trying to back up enough to get you to say a definite yes on something here. That last guess is partly right. I'm sorry to be so vague, but you'll understand when we get to the end. Okay. Let's start again. Dan White is a person. Yes. A human being. Actually, as far as I know. He seems to be. You can type. A human being. Okay. Yeah. And there's one of him. Yes. He's one person. Yeah. He may or may not play the guitar. That's right. But you said something. You want to read the wording again? A guitar that he had played? What was it? A guitar?

Starting point is 00:29:48 I was surprised and delighted to find my all-time favorite guitar, one I had played on numerous occasions. Okay. He played this guitar on numerous occasions. Yes. Yes. Or at least pretended to be playing the guitar on numerous occasions. Yes.

Starting point is 00:30:03 Would that be closer to say that he was pretending to play it? I think I'm going to say yes to that. Okay. Does it matter whether it's an acoustic or an electric guitar or anything like that? No. No. So it could be any kind of guitar? Yes.

Starting point is 00:30:16 Okay. Any kind of guitar? Yes. That would be used for making music? Yes. Did this guitar make music? No. Ah, okay. music. Yes. Did this guitar make music? No. Ah.

Starting point is 00:30:27 Okay. So it comes down again to him pretending it was like air guitar? Yes, that's it. Are you serious? The National Guitar Museum has an air guitar on exhibit. It's an empty display case with a sign that says the air guitar is an imaginary guitar

Starting point is 00:30:44 that is played as if it were a physical instrument. While many instruments encourage imaginary playing, notably horns, drums, and piano, pretending to play the guitar has become a pursuit that is almost as pervasive as playing the instrument. Oh my goodness. So there was nothing in the case. It was just air. It's just an empty case with a sign. Oh my goodness. That's what makes it hard to answer questions about, but I really like that puzzle. Thank you, Dan. Thank you. And if anybody else has a puzzle they'd like to send in for us to try, you can send it to us at podcast at futilitycloset.com. And if you want your puzzle to be read by one of us in particular, you can go ahead and put that in the subject line.

Starting point is 00:31:21 That's our show for today. If you like this podcast, be sure to tell your friends about it. And if you want to be part of the Futility Closet community, see the supporters page at the website or pick up some Penguin-themed swag at the store. If you have any questions or comments for us, you can reach us by email at podcast at futilitycloset.com. Our music was written and performed by Greg's talented brother, Doug Ross. Thanks for listening, and we'll talk to you next week.

Futility Closet - 163-Enslaved in the Sahara

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