Futility Closet - 298-The Theft of the Mona Lisa

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 11,000 quirky curiosities from a spinning egg to a maximized sofa. This is episode 298. I'm Greg Ross. And I'm Sharon Ross. In 1911, the Mona Lisa disappeared from the Louvre. After an extensive investigation, it made a surprising reappearance that inspired headlines around the world. In today's show, we'll tell the story of

Starting point is 00:00:37 the painting's abduction, which has been called the greatest art theft of the 20th century. We'll also shake Seattle and puzzle over a fortunate lack of work. And just a quick programming note, we'll be off next week, so we'll be back with a new episode on June 15th. On August 21st, 1911, the head of the maintenance department at the Louvre arrived at the museum at half past six. The museum was closed for cleaning, as it was every Monday. He had arrived early to supervise some repairs. At 7.20, as he was passing through the Salon Carré with some colleagues, he pointed out the Mona Lisa as the most valuable picture in the world. When they passed through the gallery again at 8.35,

Starting point is 00:01:29 the painting was no longer there. The press had a running joke that the museum was so badly organized and run that someday someone would make off with the Mona Lisa, so he joked to his colleagues, they have taken it away for fear we would steal it. He didn't report the disappearance. Like everyone who noticed the painting's absence that day, he assumed that another worker had removed it for some good reason. Most likely, the museum's photographer had taken it to his studio. It was still missing at 9 a.m. the following morning when a painter, Louis Bérot, arrived and set up his easel. The museum had commissioned him to create a painting of the gallery, and he couldn't complete his work without the Mona Lisa. A guard told him it was being photographed, and Berrault asked him

Starting point is 00:02:05 to retrieve it. The guard went to the photographer, who said he knew nothing about it. The guard notified the museum's acting head, who called the police, and a hundred officers descended on the museum. The loss immediately made a huge scandal. Crowds gathered outside the Louvre, but were told only that it would be closed that day. Late that afternoon, the acting head of the museum made a brief statement giving the particulars of the discovery. After an hour of searching in the sealed museum, detectives had found the painting's frame in a stairwell. He said, the frame had not been damaged. The thief or thieves seem to have taken their time as the removal of the painting from its frame is not easy, and the frame is rather cumbersome.

Starting point is 00:02:51 How he or they entered and exited remains a mystery. Immediately, various theories sprang up. The curator of paintings and drawings warned that the thief might make a forged copy of the painting and return that to the museum. The prefect of police suggested that Louvre employees themselves might have done it to express their discontent with the museum, and others suggested that perhaps a lunatic had stolen the painting or that the theft had been commissioned by a criminal art collector. The police interviewed hundreds of people, including all of the museum's staff, but they got no promising leads. The Paris media had a field day highlighting the ineptitude of the museum and, through it, the conservative government, as well as the police department. One newspaper wondered whether it was all a practical joke, perhaps committed by a journalist seeking a sensational scoop, and it asked, how can a true thief possibly

Starting point is 00:03:34 profit from having stolen a painting so universally known? That was a pertinent question. Most art thieves don't carry their booty back to secret lairs to gloat over in private. Much of the appeal of art collecting lies in advertising one's taste and resources. The Mona Lisa was not as famous in 1911 as it is today, but it was too famous to shop among prospective buyers without attracting attention. The museum was closed for a week while a more thorough investigation took place. The guards claimed not to have seen any package leave the building, so the museum was searched top to bottom to be sure the painting wasn't still on the premises. That was a big job. The museum occupied 49 acres and displayed half a million objects, with far more in storage. To see how quickly the painting might have been stolen, the investigators

Starting point is 00:04:20 conducted experiments using a replica hung in its place. One person, who was familiar with how the paintings were hung and who knew how to handle framed art, got it out of the Salon Carré in six seconds. But a pair of men with no such knowledge required five minutes to get the framed painting free of the nails that supported it. That suggested that the thief had inside knowledge, but it didn't bring the police much closer to a recovery or an arrest. There was too little to go on. The investigators began even to consider museum visitors who had seemed especially passionate about the painting. The guards remembered one blonde man who had been seen admiring it on several occasions in the weeks before its disappearance. Police distributed a description of him. Leads came in from all over the world, but none of them proved useful. The

Starting point is 00:05:04 painting wasn't on a steamer on its way to South America. It hadn't entered Belgium on a freight train. A visitor to a Paris antiques shop had been overheard asking hesitantly whether the owner would be interested in buying an old portrait of a woman. That went nowhere. Two fortune tellers offered to help. One decided that the painting had been destroyed, and the other said that it had never left the museum but had been removed from the wall by a young man with thick hair, a long neck, and a raspy voice. By August 26th, the investigating magistrate had concluded that the painting had been removed from the Louvre, almost certainly by a single thief. He had planned his work carefully and acted boldly. He'd almost certainly spent Sunday night in the museum, probably hiding

Starting point is 00:05:45 in a certain hall, and then around 7.30 a.m. on August 21st, he'd left his hiding place and moved into the Salon Carré. He removed the painting from its supports quickly and quietly, and then took it to a small service staircase that was known primarily to museum employees, where he removed the frame and left it in the staircase. Then he'd continued down the stairs, exited via the Court of the Sphinx, and apparently passed a guard post at the Visconti Court while the guard had gone for a glass of water. After that, he probably took the express train from Quai d'Orsay toward Bordeaux. It would be hard to trace him farther than that, as that train had made 14 stops on a nine-hour journey. This was progress of a sort, but still they had no leads and no suspects.

Starting point is 00:06:26 One newspaper suggested that a poster should be hung in all French museums that read, in the interest of art and for the safeguarding of the precious objects on display, the public is requested to be so kind as to wake the guards if they are found to be sleeping. Another showed Notre Dame with one tower missing, and the caption, couldn't this happen next? The Louvre remained closed for a week. When it reopened, its most popular exhibit was the empty space where the Mona Lisa had hung. Before the theft, the painting had been well known. The scandal had made it the single most famous artwork in the world. By August 31st, when the police were no closer to a recovery

Starting point is 00:07:00 or an arrest, a scapegoat was needed, so blame fell on Théophile Aumolle, director of French National Museums and the head of the Louvre. He'd been on holiday when the theft had occurred. He was fired, along with the museum's head of security and a number of guards. The theft remained the talk of the media until the sinking of the Titanic captured the world's attention in April 1912. By that time, few people thought the painting would ever be seen again. But in November 1913, a Florentine art dealer named Alfredo Geri received a letter from an Italian in Paris who said he'd stolen the Mona Lisa from the Louvre. He said he wanted to return to his country one of the artworks that had been stolen during the Napoleonic era. He said he

Starting point is 00:07:42 wouldn't ask for money, though he acknowledged that he was poor. The letter was signed only Leonard, apparently a reference to Leonardo da Vinci. The investigation was now two years old and had got nowhere. Jerry almost threw away the letter, but he decided to show it to Giovanni Poggi, director of the Uffizi Gallery in Florence. Both of them were skeptical, but they decided to answer it. Jerry wrote a reply saying that he was moved by the letter writer's patriotism and assuring him that he would outbid any other offer for the painting, but he said he and Poggi would have to examine it to be sure it was genuine and undamaged. He asked the writer to bring it to Italy. They met at Jerry's house in Florence on December 10th. Jerry wrote later, that Wednesday in the afternoon, a young man, thin, with a small black mustache,

Starting point is 00:08:25 modestly dressed, appeared at my office and said he was the possessor of La Gioconda and invited me to accompany him to his hotel to see the picture. He answered all my questions with much assurance and told me he wanted 500,000 lira for his picture. That's about 650,000 dollars today. I said I was prepared to pay this sum and invited him to return the next day at 3 p.m. At three the next day, Jerry and Poggi accompanied the young man to his room on the third floor of the Hotel Tripoli Italia. Jerry wrote, he locked the door and drew out from under his bed a trunk made of white wood that was full of wretched objects, broken shoes, a mangled hat, a pair of pliers, plastering tools, a smock, some paintbrushes, and even a

Starting point is 00:09:06 mandolin. He threw them onto the floor in the middle of the room. Then, from under a false bottom in the trunk, he took out an object wrapped in red silk. We placed it on the bed, and to our astonished eyes the divine Joconda appeared, intact and marvelously preserved. They took it to the window to compare it with a photograph they'd brought. It appeared to be the real Mona Lisa. The catalog number and stamp on its back matched their photo. Jerry and Poggi promised the man that he would get a generous reward, and Poggi asked whether they might take the painting to the Uffizi to verify its authenticity. Leonard agreed and wrapped it up again. When a scholar at the museum confirmed the painting's identity, they phoned the Minister of Public Instruction in Rome, who called Paris. At the hotel, Leonard was putting away his trunk

Starting point is 00:09:50 when there was a knock at the door, and he opened it to discover the police chief of Florence flanked by two detectives. He was surprised, but offered no resistance, and they arrested him. At the police station, he said that his real name was Vincenzo Perugia, and that he'd been born in Dumenza, near Milan. He was a house painter by trade, and he'd worked as a handyman at the Louvre. He acknowledged the theft honestly and proudly and said that his only motive had been to right a historic wrong and return the painting to Italy. In this, he was simply mistaken. Napoleon hadn't taken the painting from Italy. Leonardo had brought it with him when he'd moved to France in the 16th century to become a painter in the court of Francis I. Perugia had thought that in stealing back the

Starting point is 00:10:29 painting he would be greeted in Italy as a national hero, and he seems to have been genuinely dismayed that he wasn't. In Paris, at first they refused to believe that the painting had been found. It had been gone for two years now, and there had been many false alarms. One curator, notified at dinner, said, no, no, no, such things no longer take place, and hung up the phone. It was only when the recovery was reported in the newspapers that it began to seem real. The public rejoiced at the restoration of the lost treasure, and the French ambassador in Rome thanked the Italian prime minister personally. The minister of public instruction announced formally, the Mona Lisa will be delivered to the French ambassador with a solemnity worthy of Leonardo

Starting point is 00:11:06 da Vinci and a spirit of happiness worthy of Mona Lisa's smile. Although the masterpiece is dear to all Italians as one of the best productions of the genius of their race, we will willingly return it to its foster country, which has regretted its loss so bitterly, as a pledge of friendship and brotherhood between the two great Latin nations. After the extensive investigation, Perugia's account of the actual theft was almost embarrassingly straightforward. In his work for the museum, he'd been asked in October 1910 to build a glass case to protect the Mona Lisa from vandalism. He had grown angry contemplating the great painting on

Starting point is 00:11:40 display so far from its home and resolved to return it to Italy. His job gave him a uniform and access to the service corridors, workshops, and stairwells of the Louvre. On the morning of the theft, he'd entered the museum and made his way to the Salon Carré. He understood how the paintings were displayed and managed to lift the Mona Lisa off its four iron nails without a sound. Then he retreated to a service stairwell, where he cut the painting out of its frame and wrapped it up. He exited into the Court of the Sphinx, passed the vacant guard post at the Visconti court, and disappeared into the street. The crime was so simple that art historian Noah Charney calls the investigation a marvel of ineptitude. The police had interviewed Perugia at least twice during their inquiry and had raised no suspicions.

Starting point is 00:12:22 The crime had been solved only when the criminal had turned himself in. Despite his confusion about the painting's history, Perugia briefly became a folk hero in Italy. People offered large sums of money to the Florence police for items of his clothing, his mandolin, even used paintbrushes. When the painting was put on display in the city, it drew 30,000 people on the first day, and the hotel where Perugia had first stayed changed its name to Hotel La Gioconda. The Mona Lisa visited Rome and Milan, inspiring similar transports, before it returned to Paris on a train car guarded by 20 policemen. On January 4th, it was back in its accustomed place in the Louvre, though now guarded more closely. At the trial, the main question was Perugia's motivation. Had he been trying to

Starting point is 00:13:05 right a historical wrong or only to profit? Perugia presented himself as a romantic nationalist. He described how he had fallen in love with the stolen painting, shunning his friends to commune with it in his rented room. He said, I shall never forget the evening after I had carried home the picture. I locked myself in my room in Paris and took the picture from a drawer. I stood bewitched before La Gioconda. I fell a victim to her smile and feasted my eyes on my treasure every evening, discovering each time new beauty and perversity in her. I fell in love with her. But documentary filmmaker Joe Medeiros,

Starting point is 00:13:37 who studied Perugia's life story and the original police interrogations, says, There is no evidence that Perugia took the painting because he fell in love with the Mona Lisa. There is abundant evidence that Perugia was looking to make money. Police Interrogations says, In the end, I discovered the man was not a conniving criminal, but a one-time thief, someone looking for his lottery ticket out of a working immigrant's life in Paris, where he had been ill and where he felt discriminated against. Searching Perugia's garret in Paris, police had found a diary dated 1910 in which he'd listed art collectors and dealers in Italy, Germany, and the United States. One of them was Alfredo Geri, so it does appear that he had been planning to sell something valuable since long before he stole the painting. The prosecutor had pressed for a sentence of three years. The judge essentially split the difference and gave him

Starting point is 00:14:33 one year and 15 days. Perugia told a reporter it could have been worse. In fact, he didn't even serve the full term. After seven months, his attorneys appealed, saying that prison life was unreasonably hard on their client. At the hearing, Perugia said, I took the Mona Lisa because it would enrich the Uffizi Gallery. I wanted it to come here to Florence, where it was painted. I insist on this point. Of the rest, little interests me. The board released him, and he passed again into obscurity.

Starting point is 00:14:59 The greatest lasting consequence of his crime is that it changed how the world sees the Mona Lisa. Leonardo had painted it in the early 16th century, and it wasn't until the 19th that critics had begun to regard it as a model of Renaissance Florentine painting. It was the publicity surrounding Perugia's theft that made it instantly recognizable around the world. There's one particularly pernicious myth connected with this story that I want to flag. It's very often said that the theft had been commissioned by an Argentine criminal named Eduardo de Valfierno as part of an inventive

Starting point is 00:15:29 plot. Valfierno supposedly had prepared six forgeries of the painting, and once the theft had made news, he sold these to nouveau riche art collectors around the world, representing each forgery as the stolen original. That would be clever if it had really happened, but it didn't. The story was invented by a writer named Carl Decker and retailed as fact in a 1932 issue of the Saturday Evening Post. Since then, it's been reproduced absolutely everywhere, which makes it hard to spot as false. It's in one of my own books, I'm embarrassed to say. I mention it here in an effort to try to stamp it out. There's no danger today that a modern Vincenzo Perugia will repeat the crime of a hundred years ago. The Mona Lisa remains on display to visitors at the

Starting point is 00:16:10 Louvre, but today she regards her admirers from a distance through a bulletproof barrier, a memorial in a way to Perugia's theft. Former FBI agent Robert K. Whitman says, you have to stay behind a stanchion and the painting has a plexiglass case over it, limiting the viewing experience. Anytime you display an artwork or a valuable, be it Mona or the Liberty Bell, you run a risk. Futility Closet really relies on the support of our listeners. We want to thank everyone who Thank you. Closet, or see the Support Us section of our website. And thanks again to everyone who helps support Futility Closet. We just wouldn't still be here without you. The main story in episode 292 was about Henry Ford's attempt to build a rubber tree plantation in the Amazon rainforest. Ian Bruce wrote, Hello, Futilitarians. I'm a little behind as I only listen to podcasts in the car, and well, I'm not in the car as much lately for some reason. The Amazon has been the graveyard

Starting point is 00:17:33 of dreams for over 400 years. See, for example, Lope de Aguirre, a great potential topic for you, certainly with the high mortality rate you often have in your pieces. But your Fortlandia piece reminds me very much of the Jardim project, a brainstorm of billionaire entrepreneur Daniel Ludwig. In 1967, Ludwig bought 1.6 million acres of Amazon forest from the government of Brazil on the Jardim River, a tributary of the Amazon. He seduced himself into an insane project by a more or less sane logic.

Starting point is 00:18:03 I'm the son of three generations of paper makers, so as a child I learned at the dinner table about the economics of converting cellulose from its natural form, trees, into paper. It takes about 80 years to grow a usable tree in Maine or Wisconsin or Quebec. It takes around 20 years or so to grow one in Georgia or Louisiana. Ludwig thought he could grow usable cellulose in 10 years or less and do it economically enough to overcome long transportation lines and other disadvantages. He built his paper mill on barges in Japan and had it towed to the Amazon. He built a city, planted food crops to feed his workers, and pretty much did what Henry Ford did,

Starting point is 00:18:40 planted the wrong trees the wrong way in the wrong place. The trees didn't grow as fast as expected, they were attacked by insects, the soil was wrong, where it hadn't been washed downriver by the development, and the trees were hard to harvest and transport. Ludwig packed it in in 1981, handing off the project and its debt to Brazilian investors. An old joke among economists and business people has it that Brazil is the country of the future, always has been, always will be. Harsh, but there's some evidence for it in things like Fordlandia and Jardim. Keep up the good work. So Daniel K. Ludwig was a self-made American billionaire who left school after the eighth grade and managed to parlay a $5,000 loan he

Starting point is 00:19:22 got when he was 19 into an international shipping and real estate empire. In 1967, Ludwig bought an area of the Amazon rainforest that was larger than the state of Connecticut for $3 million, or about $23 million today. And while growing trees for cellulose had been the initial impetus for the project, in the end he spent over a billion dollars constructing an industrial, mining, forestry, and agricultural complex to produce a variety of products, including paper, clay, aluminum, rice, and beef. Like Ford, Ludwig constructed modern settlements in the Amazon, including hospitals, schools, roads, supermarkets, electricity, phone lines, and piped water, plus a railroad and airports. And as Ian noted, he floated a 17-story pulp mill around the world from Japan. The Jari project was ultimately such a disaster for Ludwig that it said that he

Starting point is 00:20:12 transferred ownership of it in 1982 for no money and even offered a bonus of $20 million to whoever would take it and its massive debt off of his hands. Forbes reported in 2013 that the project had yet to turn a profit, and that two Brazilian-owned banks had poured at least another $350 million in taxpayer money into it to try to salvage it. From the accounts I read, it seems that the Jari project suffered from a number of problems, including poor decisions, such as neglecting soil tests and thus not realizing how nutrient-poor much of the soil actually was, and Ludwig's management style, which has been described as erratic and volatile.

Starting point is 00:20:50 The Washington Post reported in 1981 that since its groundbreaking in 1967, Jardim had had two dozen directors and four dozen sector heads. Ludwig had also battled Brazilian nationalism and bureaucracy, including disputes about what land he actually owned, the Brazilian government's refusal to take over the Jari settlements to run them, even though it had done so in other similar cases, and the government not allowing many of Ludwig's plans to go through, such as importing a second cellulose factory from Japan or building a hydroelectric plant, and suspending a planned sale of 500 million tons of

Starting point is 00:21:26 bauxite ore to the Alcoa Company. Ludwig's many disputes with the Brazilian government seemed to arise partly in reaction to nationalist resentment against a foreigner, and also to Ludwig himself, whose obsessive secrecy had given rise to many wild rumors of what was really going on at Jardim. to many wild rumors of what was really going on at Jardim. The UPI reported in 1982 that the sort of suspicions that dogged Ludwig were reflected in the comment of one high Brazilian official who said, I don't trust Daniel Ludwig because he is a shipowner

Starting point is 00:21:56 and all shipowners are descendants of pirates. Hard to argue with that. Aaron Noxon wrote about the puzzle in Episode 292, and this will include a spoiler. Hi, Sharon and Greg. First of all, thanks for putting out this interesting podcast that I have been using to fill time while isolating recently. Episode 292 featured a puzzle about fans at a concert causing an earthquake. I was reminded of the Seattle Seahawks American football team who are famous for similar events, notably during the Beast Mode run by

Starting point is 00:22:30 Marshawn Lynch in 2011. Interestingly, while the concert fans sound like they were encouraged to jump up and down, this one seems to be more natural, as it were. Here's a link that references it. As for pronouncing my name, I make a game of forcing people to struggle with my family name. Through my whole childhood, I don't think I ever had a teacher get it right on the first try, so I would just accept that somewhere in the middle of the alphabet, the teacher would struggle and I'd raise my hand. That's what happens when an old name goes through at least three different languages in two different language families. So basically, give it your best shot. But if you really want to pronounce it the way I do, I'll write it in IPA for you at the bottom of the email.

Starting point is 00:23:09 Thanks again for the always interesting podcast. So definitely thanks for the International Phonetic Alphabet Guide to Your Name, Aaron. I'm truly not crazy about having to just make a wild guess on how to pronounce names. Sometimes there really is just no telling how to pronounce them correctly, so I do feel for your teachers. As for the story that Aaron sent, that was pretty amusing. In 2011, Seattle Seahawks running back Marshawn Beastmode Lynch made a stunning 67-yard touchdown run that clinched a playoff victory for the Seahawks over the reigning Super Bowl champions, the New Orleans Saints. The jubilant Seahawks fans jumped up and down and stomped their feet so much that they generated enough seismic energy that the vibrations were actually recorded a block or so away at a station of the Pacific Northwest Seismic Network, or PNSN. This event, known as the Beastquake,

Starting point is 00:24:02 actually prompted seismologists to start setting up equipment in and near the stadium in advance of Seahawk Games in order to record the vibrations caused by the fans. Besides the interest of the public in seeing these seismic readings, which are basically visual representations of the fans' excitement, this practice also allowed for practical lessons for the seismologists, such as testing new software and training in, for example, rapid instrument installation that could be helpful in the event of an actual earthquake. From what I found, these seismic readings from Seattle sporting events were still taking place

Starting point is 00:24:34 at least into 2019, and as of 2017, it seemed that the beast quake still reigned for the most shaking that had occurred during a football game. It was noted in a 2015 article that the Seattle Sounders soccer fans wanted seismic measurements made of their games too, as they thought that they would likely top the Seahawks fans. And it looks like they did get a chance to put that theory to the test in 2019 when sensors were placed for a Sounders game and a member of the PNSN team posted, while American football and soccer are very different sports, the fan enthusiasm for each turns out to be quite comparable from a seismic point of view. Seahawk touchdowns and sounder goals generated shaking of roughly the same levels, though touchdowns had a longer build-up

Starting point is 00:25:15 since a long touchdown run could last for several tens of seconds and a soccer goal can occur suddenly without much build-up. It appears that this whole fan quake phenomenon has been known about for some time, as the PNSN Post mentions that there are numerous examples of fan-generated vibrations being picked up by seismographs for both American football and real football, or soccer, with one of the earliest known reported cases being the Gol del Terremoto, or Earthquake Goal in Argentina in 1992. The Post also says, one of the most unusual reports was from Cameroon in 2006, when widely distributed, very sensitive research seismographs showed slight wiggles all at the same time as important goals were scored by the national team. In this case, it was attributed to people all over the country

Starting point is 00:26:03 watching the match on TV who jumped up and down all at the same time. That's really interesting. And they're right, too. It's sort of, in that game, the goals can be quite unexpected or sudden, so you'd think you'd get a stronger reaction. Thanks so much to everyone who writes to us. Your comments and follow-ups add so much to our show. So if you have anything that you'd like to add,

Starting point is 00:26:25 please send that 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 figure out what's going on, asking yes or no questions. This puzzle comes from Ian Hoffey with a little rewording from me. A man walks into a convenience store on his way to work. While checking out, the clerk inquires how the man's business has been, and he replies that business has been slow.

Starting point is 00:26:56 Both the clerk and the man seem happy about this. At the end of the day, the man goes back by the same store. Again, the clerk asks how his day has been, and the man again replies, slow. Again, the clerk and the man are happy about this. Why? Okay, could this have happened if the two had never met before? Yes. So it's not that they knew each other and there was some backstory? They know each other, so he knows who the man is, but there isn't a backstory. Well, I guess what I'm getting at is, could he tell what the man's business was just by looking at him? He might be able to, yes. So this might have happened cold. Sure. Okay. By slow, most people would mean that there's not a lot of activity. Is that what's meant here? Yes. That's not some clever use of the word slow. He raises turtles.

Starting point is 00:27:47 It's very slow. Okay. Does it matter that this happens in a convenience store? Not necessarily. So it's just this guy has, I guess, an unusual occupation, and he meets someone who asks him how business is. Yeah, and he says slow. Yes. And they're both happy about it.

Starting point is 00:28:03 Both the clerk and the man are happy. The clerk is happy as well. The clerk is happy to hear that business is slow. Happy for the man? Happy in general. But not happy for his own sake as a convenience store clerk, would you say? Yeah, I'd say that's correct. Okay. All right. So this guy has a job that you can divine by looking at him. You might be able to, yes. Yes. Oh, is it something, is he like in like a rescuing profession, something like a firefighter? Yes. Yeah, he's a paramedic or another emergency responder. So he would probably wear a uniform so you could tell.

Starting point is 00:28:37 And Ian himself is a paramedic and said, I realized that myself and many of my coworkers live day to day in a situation perfect for the creation of a lateral thinking puzzle. Yes, because you want to hear that their business has been slow. That's great news. So thanks so much to Ian for helping to save lives in both the puzzle and in real life. And if anyone else has a puzzle they'd like to have us try, please send it to us at podcast at futilitycloset.com. Just a reminder that we'll be off next week. In the meantime, if you'd like to become one of our awesome supporters of our show and check out some bonus content,

Starting point is 00:29:11 like outtakes, extralateral thinking puzzles, more discussions on some of the stories, and peeks behind the scenes, please see our Patreon page at patreon.com slash futilitycloset, or the support us section of the website at futilitycloset.com. While you're at the site, you can also graze through Greg's collection of over 11,000 quirky curiosities. Browse the Futility Closet store, learn about the Futility Closet books, and see the show notes for the podcast with links and references for the topics we've covered. If you have any comments or feedback for us, you can always email us at podcast at futilitycloset.com. Our music was written and performed by Greg's amazing brother, Doug Ross. Thanks for listening, and we'll be back in two weeks.

Futility Closet - 298-The Theft of the Mona Lisa

There aren't comments yet for this episode. Click on any sentence in the transcript to leave a comment.