Judge John Hodgman - JJHO Presents: E Pluribus Motto!
Episode Date: October 22, 2024John Hodgman has a new podcast with Janet Varney! Every episode they’ll showcase a new state and explore its iconography– especially its often complicated, pretentious and Latin motto.Their first ...stop on their tour of every state, commonwealth and territory in the United States is Connecticut. Why Connecticut first? They’ll explain.Hear more about its legendary rich, sandy loam, the grape-filled seal, and its many attempts to create a state motto that sticks.Plus, Janet speaks with Amy Holden Jones, creator of the film Mystic Pizza. Amy will tell us about how her movie was directly inspired by Connecticut… and give her own suggestions for a new state motto.SUBSCRIBE TO E PLURIBUS MOTTO HERE! Or search "E Pluribus Motto" on your podcast app of choice. Produced by Julian Burrell.Senior Producer at MaxFun is Laura Swisher.Find E Pluribus Motto on Instagram and TikTok.And send us a voice memo, message or photo about an upcoming state to Emailpluribusmotto@maximumfun.org. Judge John Hodgman: Road Court is happening NOW! Get your tickets at maximumfun.org/events.
Transcript
Discussion (0)
Hi everyone, it's your judge John Hodgman sneaking into your feed with a special
surprise called E! Pluribus Motto. It's a brand new Maximum Fun podcast that I've
been recording in secret with your friend the wonderful Janet Varney of the JV
Club. In it, Janet and I go state to state, Commonwealth to Commonwealth,
District of Columbia to District of Columbia, talking about all of the
United Statesian state mottos,
starting this time with Connecticut, whose motto is,
quae transduit sestinit. What does it mean? You're about to find out. And if the
Latin motto of Connecticut sounds boring to you, well, you're wrong, because the
stories behind this and every motto, plus every state bird, beverage, slogan, song,
and muffin, are wild, wonderful, fascinating,
and sometimes even personal. I'm so happy to share this with you and I hope you'll join us for the
whole audio road trip from coast to coast. Just go to wherever you get your podcasts
and search for E Pluribus Motto, which is the name of the podcast. E Pluribus Motto. Follow,
subscribe, listen, but now settle into the backseat as
your mom and dad, Janet and John, drive the family car to our first stop, the Nutmeg State
itself, Connecticut, home of the first hamburger, arguably, and the first submarine, definitely,
and the seat of the secret world government, Yale, in this first episode of E Pluribus Motto.
I'm Janet Varney. And I'm John Hodgman. Welcome to E Pluribus Motto, the show dedicated to
celebrating the official mottoes, birds, snacks, and symbols of every state in the Union, no matter how strange or boring.
Janet, this is our first episode and we begin our journey across this country of ours in
Connecticut.
We'll learn all about the state's grape-filled seal, its legendary rich Sandilome, and its
many failed attempts to come up with an official state slogan that sticks. Plus, Mystic Pizza screenwriter Amy Holden Jones tells us how she fell in love
with Connecticut. What if it were a different state? No, it's Connecticut, we're recording.
We certainly are, John Hodgman.
And that means sometime in the future, someone might be listening.
It's possible, if not likely.
Hey, if you are one of these predicted listeners, this is E Pluribus Motto.
What is this podcast, Janet?
Well, this is a podcast that has been born
of a couple of different things, both MaxFun related.
You know, you and I had a wonderful,
possibly three hour conversation a couple years ago.
When you did my podcast, The JV Club, it was during-
Your podcast, let me just say that again.
The JV Club is a wonderful podcast hosted by you Janet Varney on the maximum fun
network and everyone should go subscribe to it now well thank you for that I
almost said side eye but side eyes bad no side I don't know side I I'm looking
you right in your eyes and saying it's a terrific podcast and you do a great job
hosting it well thank you And we had a wonderful conversation
a couple of years ago on it.
We did, and we talked not only about your experience
as a high school teenage era John Hodgman,
but a lot of other stuff came up in the process.
And one of the things that we were talking about,
and I wish I could tell you the context,
but that's the beauty of two people
who love to go off on tangents.
We were talking about state mottos and the fact that it would seem that many states have
mottos.
I realized I knew next to none.
And we just both had sort of a lively curiosity for, you know, what we might find if we started
to kind of dig into that.
But that was it.
We set it on a shelf along with five other fake podcasts that we talked about when you were on mine and
what it did is it came back around for Max Fund Drive. We figured, you know
what? What if we did it and we offered it up as a sort of a reward, a thank you to
the Max Fund listeners for supporting the network. Now it's happening. We are here. Now it's happening.
Talking about mottos.
And that's why we picked the cleverest name of a podcast
you could possibly imagine, E Pluribus Motto.
E Pluribus Motto, sub-motto, Hock Est Circa Turgam.
What does that mean?
It comes back around.
I just used the internet to find that. What I remember, Janet, is talking
with you, Lothie, some years ago. And saying to myself, I really liked talking to Janet about
anything. I feel the same about you. We should do it again within four years.
Yes. I think I had that same goal, I think four years from then. And record it. And during the Maximum Fund Drive,
Maximum Fund, of course, being your favorite podcast network,
where I also happened to host a podcast
called Judge John Hodgman.
I would have gotten there, but apparently I was taking,
I mean, I really took my sweet time
to get to Judge John Hodgman.
I had not name-dropped that. Yeah, yeah, you took a little
time side-eyeing, side-eyeing,
doing the reciprocal side-eye there.
Miss me with that side-eye, Janet Varney,
you could have said.
If I were 500 years younger, maybe.
But you were like, you want to do that state mottos thing
that we talked about?
And I said, yes, and here we are to do them
because do I love mottos in particular?
No, I don't care that much.
To be honest with you, I had no idea what you were going to say just then.
It could have got either way. I absolutely was ready for you to say,
of course I do, I'm John Hodgman.
This is the benefit of not talking to each other regularly for a couple of years.
You don't know me that well. You may not know that mottos mean nothing to me.
But I love weird facts. Do I think that it's amusing that every state and US territory, except for maybe one,
has a motto? Yeah, I think it's hilarious. I think it's like, why are we doing this? Why do we have a
state bird? Why do we have a state muffin? Why do we have a state anything? Couldn't agree more.
And that feeling of like, we need to identify ourselves. We need to have a personality.
We're a state. Of course we need a motto. It's just so dumb and alternately charming
and irritating that it felt like we had to explore it.
It's very effective, isn't it?
It's like young high school John Hodgman
growing his hair long and wearing a fedora
and a Doctor Who scarf and walking around with a satchel.
My motto is, I'm interesting.
I have a personality. Especially since so many states are kind of
who cares. But anyway, we all care about our hometowns. We all care about the places that
we live. And the motto's in the state things reflect to a degree, the pride of place that
people have, even in boring places like state name redacted because I don't
want to offend any listeners. We're going to do this in an interesting order isn't that right
Janet Varnie? Yeah we figured instead of doing it by you know you could do it alphabetically sure.
You could do it sure you could do it alphabetically. Some people might expect well of course
you would do it in the order of states as they were admitted into the union of these United States.
Sure, the arbitrary dateline by which we created
imaginary borders around lands that had been the homes
of millions of people for thousands of years
until we took them.
You can't be saying we did horrible things.
You can't be saying that the early settlers
of the United States who came in unbidden
did terrible things.
We'll call them settlers.
The early gentle.
I'm just gonna take a little rest here.
The gentle passers-by who were invited to stay
by themselves.
Obviously the arbitrary admission of the states
to the Union is insulting to humanity.
Correct.
But you came up with a wonderful rubric
which is very specific to our show.
Yeah, let's lean into this sort of weird fragility of it's important for us to have a motto
and find out which states felt like they had to do it first. Because as I began to discover
when I was looking to see, if you could sort of expect, well, when this state became part
of the union, it of course named itself and gave itself this motto and etc. That's not
the case. From what I am seeing, there may be some parallels there, but I was also surprised
to see some early states take a real long time to decide they too need to be part of
the motto club. So I don't know how that's going to unfold because I did a cursory glance
and then I thought, no, I want us to be as surprised as possible all along the way
So we're gonna go state by state Commonwealth by Commonwealth in the order in which the state mottos
That are currently in use were
Adopted or written or inscribed on a seal or whatever you would say about them
It's kind of a suspenseful grab bag
I would say I would agree and I would say know, obviously, because we're talking about something
as sacred as a state and its motto, should I assume that we're going to treat each motto
with honor, dignity, and non-judgmentally? I would say no.
That's correct. No. A lot of them are stupid. Some of them
are offensive. I think maybe...
Some of them are impossible to parse. Some of them are offensive. I think maybe... Some of them are impossible to parse.
Some of them are terrific.
Yes.
Some states have more than one.
Well, when we get to those states, those will be special five-hour long episodes, I'm sure.
But the point is it's going to be a surprise every time because no one has memorized the
order in which the state mottos were adopted.
So imagine, if you will, the set of a 1979 game show with a big analog
randomizer on it and Janet will you pull this lever to reveal which state is
coming up first? You bet I will John. Here we go. Sound effect of a lever
pulling. Connecticut! Connecticut! And right out of the gate, John, and I am going to drop this
character now that I'm stopping with the lever. Okay, why, and I don't expect you to know
this, but I am curious, why don't we pronounce that little second C in there? I mean, it
looks like the word connect. Why don't we pronounce that little second C in there? I mean, it looks like the word connect.
Why don't we say connecticut? Well, because it's not the word connect. It's a corruption of the
Mohegan word quinnitucket and the Nimpuk people's words quinnitec, both meaning beside the Long
Tidal River, aka the Connecticut River, aka known to the original people as the Great River. Hey,
have you ever been to Connecticut?
I went to a very small town in Connecticut by a lake.
My understanding is that there are several lakes
in Connecticut, could not remember or tell you
which town or which one it was.
I went and stayed with a friend.
And the thing that I remember about it
that I was so charmed by being from the West
and not a charming little area that has lots of vegetation and fruit growing.
What I remember is driving down a country road and seeing that someone had put out a bunch of,
oh, let's say berries, and a little jar that was like an honor jar that said, take a basket of
berries, please leave us a dollar. There was no one to be seen. And I just thought that was very
sweet and charming.
So that's a very specific memory I have of Connecticut. I've also done a Comic-Con or two
there. And I hate to say it, but because I'm not from the Northeast, it's one of the states that I
sort of tangle up with other Northeastern states and may even get confused about which places where. Well, in fact, there are one, two, three, four, five states that it is historically tangled
up with a region called New England, and that is my home region.
As you know, I'm from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.
Even I have forgotten in the past that Connecticut is part of New England because it is so associated
with the tri-state area of New York and New Jersey, and it is especially
associated as being an affluent white bedroom community of New York City, right there on
the Metro North train.
And it is that and it is also other things.
So let's get into it.
The region, of course, known as Connecticut, was first inhabited by a number of different
Native American peoples before their lands were invaded and occupied by English colonizers.
Among them were, and still are, the Nimpuk people, the Tungsees, the Shakhtakoke, the
Podunk, the Wangung, the Mahonasset, the Quinnipiac, the Matabessik, the Niantic, and the Pequots,
and the Mohegan.
Among others that I may have forgotten, I look forward to your letters and let me know. These are their lands. Connecticut, we are starting
with because it is first in Motto Dum, having established the first motto in the colonies.
This was before there were even, it was before the Revolutionary War. In the year of our God or whatever 1639. Okay.
Quetranstulet sustenet was first inscribed
upon an illustration of a ribbon decorating
the first seal of Connecticut.
Who chose this motto?
Who knows?
Someone who spoke Latin.
What Wikipedia says is that seal was quote unquote,
brought from England. I don't know,
physically brought from, I don't know. The person bringing it over from England was Colonel George
Fenwick in 1639 and along with this motto that first seal featured an illustration of 15
transplanted grape vines. So many grapes! Do you think it's because Connecticut has a thriving wine industry?
I don't know that it does. It doesn't. It probably has some wines there. Probably someone's making
wine in Connecticut. You can send me those letters too. Right now I have to tell you something which
is that I'm haunted by not having taken Latin in high school. Was not an option for me at my public
high school in Tucson, Arizona. Will you read it again and I will try again. This is not fun. I will try to translate my guess as to what it might be
Okay, Janet Varney for a bonus spin of the wheel. Can you translate?
Que trans to lit susten it
Let us cross and survive on tulips
Let us cross and survive on tulips. Ah, so not even close.
So, okay, all right, I thought maybe you were going to let me think maybe I was right for a while,
but no, you want me to know right away that I'm wrong and you want me to sit in despair until I find out what you mean.
No, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to be so mean.
Listen, to be very clear, we flipped a Connecticut state quarter and I got the job of presenting Connecticut to you this time.
Next time, you're going to present a state or territory to me.
And then we're going to vice versa it all the way until it's done.
But yes, you're going to have to just hold tight on the translation of the motto for
just a teeny tiny bit.
Because this seal was brought over with the motto on it by George Fenwick in 1639.
It featured 15 different transplanted grapevines as an illustration. And having completed this
illustrious chore of bringing over a seal and co-founding the Sabre colony in the mouth of the
Connecticut River, George Fenwick sold the Sabre colony and the seal to the Connecticut colony, different place, and then
Fenwicked off right back to England in 1645 and died. But the seal lived on. It was revised
in 1711 when the Connecticut colony council ordered that a new stamp shall be made and
cut of the seal of this colony, suitable for sealing upon wafers? Okay, that's what they
said.
I need to say something, I'm so sorry.
And listen, it's our first episode.
So we're really learning what our,
we have our vibe as friends,
we have our vibe as one being the guest
on the other's podcast.
We don't have a co-hosting a podcast together rhythm yet.
Am I doing a bad job?
You're doing a wonderful job,
but when you say
things like the seal lived on and I'm already imagining a marine life seal, you
keep getting my hopes up. I have to keep reminding myself that the seal that was
brought over across the seas was some sort of plaque or something. Not a seal going
and clapping? It wasn't an actual seal.
So I just needed to say that out loud.
I needed to hear myself say it.
Connecticut is a maritime place for sure.
I don't know if there are seals in that Long Island sound.
I have to assume that at some point we will hit a state that not only has a state seal,
but also has a state seal.
Whatever will we do then, John? I think we're going to have a lot of fun. What whatever will we do then John? I think we're gonna have a
lot of fun. What will become of us then? The Connecticut colony in 1711 revised
the seal made two major changes. First the seal would become more oval in
shape. It was round. After days of debate, after days of debate and skipped meals, it was finally decided
it would be more oval-ly.
That's right.
Second, less grapes.
Gone were 12 of those grapevines, leaving only three largely interpreted to represent
the three original English invader colonies of the Connecticut region.
The Sabruk colony, as I mentioned,
down at the mouth of the Connecticut River
on the Long Island Sound.
The Connecticut colony headquartered up north in Hartford,
which is now Connecticut's capital.
And the New Haven colony back down on the Long Island Sound
a little bit west of Sabruk
and headquartered in New Haven, Connecticut.
Birthplace of Yale University,
my alma mater,
and the hamburger.
Did you know that?
I don't believe I did.
A lot of people don't believe it,
and maybe it's not true, but we'll talk about it later.
Okay.
Why so much grape love in the nutmeg state?
Perhaps a clue comes from that motto.
Qui, trans tuat sustinet, is from the Latin,
meaning he who transplanted sustains or he who transplanted
still sustains or he who transplanted continues to sustain. This is why they don't teach Latin
because it's very ambiguous. Okay so when I guessed I feel like I guessed well other than that I was trying to be adorable and I translated Tulet to
Tulip but in other ways I wasn't that far off. He, capital E, sustains and an 1889 state librarian Charles J. Hoadley, H-O-A-D-L-Y. Yes, the
judgment was thick when you said it the first time. Who was born aspiring to
become the state librarian of Connecticut. Hoadley wrote, quote, the vines
symbolized the colony brought over and planted here in the wilderness.
We read in the 80th Psalm, thou hast brought a vine out of Egypt, thou hast cast out the heathen
and planted it such that he who brought over the vine continues to take care of it.
Qui trans tullit sustinet.
Yeah, I'm all ready to rank this motto.
I've got a ranking in mind.
I like it.
No, I also, I too am struggling, struggling with this.
Can you picture Connecticut in your mind?
I shouldn't say, I shouldn't admit what shape
I think any state is unless it's one
that involves the four corners
because I feel very confident I know what shape those states are state is unless it's one that involves the four corners because I feel very
confident I know what shape those states are and perhaps Florida and California but I'm gonna guess
that it's sort of a rectangle a horizontal rectangle. Yes. It is? You are absolutely right.
Ding ding ding ding ding. I'm not gonna hear that ding sound very often during this podcast so I
need to savor it. It's a squary state. Okay Okay. Right? And it's more squarie than any other state of New England, which is part of the,
I think, in a weird way, part of the reason why it has a reputation for being boring.
Oh, really?
Yeah, because it's full of squares.
Yeah. No, I know. You didn't have to...
Connecticut has a reputation for being boring. But it's actually quite rural. It's actually
quite maritime. It's got a fair amount going on.
And here's something that you need to know about Connecticut.
So on the West, you've got New York.
On the North, Massachusetts.
On the East, Little Roadie, Rhode Island.
And then its whole Southern border pretty much
is coastline, the Long Island Sound.
And bisecting Connecticut almost right down the middle
is that long tidal river for which the state is named,
the Connecticut River, which runs from Quebec up in Canada
down through Vermont, sort of dividing Vermont
and New Hampshire, and then down through Western Massachusetts
and then cutting Connecticut in half
till it spits out into Long Island Sound.
And the Connecticut River Valley, you're gonna like this.
The Connecticut River Valley is notoriously fertile land.
It has a rich sandy loam.
I love a sandy loam.
Would you say the words rich sandy loam?
Rich sandy loam.
Rich sandy loam, you're absolutely right, Janet.
Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding.
There are three great words that go great together.
And this is my next door neighbor, Rich Sandy Loam.
It's Rich and Sandy Loam.
It goes by Sandy.
They live in Old Saybrook.
In this Tigris of New England, this Fertile Crescent of New England grew two of Connecticut's
great industries.
One literally growing, one not so literally growing.
You know what those two early great industries were?
I know neither of them involved wineries or grapes.
Tobacco and guns.
Oh!
Connecticut was the South.
America!
Was the original the South.
It sure was. Because that rich sandy loam
grows some of the finest tobacco in the world.
And Connecticut, particularly around Windsor, Connecticut,
was a prime growing area for shade tobacco,
known as Connecticut shade tobacco,
which is prized for cigar wrappers.
And then along the Connecticut River in Hartford,
Samuel Colt built the first Colt firearms factory. The Colt Armory, as well as this historic mansion
called Armsmere. No. Which Armsmere was the name of his house. Let's not talk any more about that.
Let's not talk any more about that. What I want to talk to you about is this rich sandy loam, which is known as Windsor soil.
Windsor soil.
And wherever you search Windsor soil on the internet, because it's named for Windsor,
Connecticut, the town in Connecticut, where it was first, I guess, noted for its richness
and sandiness. And loaminess.
And its loamitude.
Uh-huh.
Anytime you put in, and I challenge our listeners to do it now, go type in, in quotation marks,
Windsor Soil, and you will be told that Windsor Soil is
the unofficial state soil of Connecticut.
I am so pleased that it's not official. As far as I can tell,
no official state soil, which is a real disappointment. And I don't know why they
don't just go ahead and make it official. We don't know that much about what it takes to enact the law
stating, I mean, all the steps that go in, all the debates, we know how long it took for them to decide to make this the seal more oval. Okay. They probably learned their lesson from that they thought we were they lost weeks to that. And maybe they just thought we can all agree. It's not official, but
It's not official, but. But there are a bunch of official state things
in Connecticut and let's talk about them.
I'm gonna read out some of the official state things.
Okay.
There's some official business.
Okay.
This segment shall be called official state shit.
Great.
OSS.
OSS.
The OSS.
State motto we know as quetranslutate sustenant.
He who transplanted sills sustains.
State slogan doesn't have one.
Don't believe what you read in Wikipedia.
Hodgman did the real research.
Okay.
Is there an unofficial state slogan?
Like there was an unofficial one? There was an official state slogan until 2019,
which was still revolutionary.
Still revolutionary.
No one loved that one.
Really, the square people living in a square state
didn't love still revolutionary?
Yeah, yeah.
No one really associates.
I mean, like even if you loved the Revolutionary War,
it's not like, oh yeah, Connecticut. They're still at it. Most recently, most people remember
what was introduced in 2001, Connecticut, full of surprises.
Okay, I have heard that. I have heard that. You've heard full of surprises, really?
Somehow I've heard full of surprises and had not heard still revolutionary.
That didn't last for very long.
And then there was also, that was 2001,
Connect in Connecticut, which kind of is hard to do
because you're emphasizing the silent C.
No, if you're gonna do that,
you gotta connect in Connecticut.
Real fun is closer than you think.
Weird.
Yes.
That's a weird pickup line in a bar hey John is it yeah real fun
is closer than you think I know it's basically yeah it really feels like you
ready to settle for me I'm Connecticut no we're not Maine no you don't even
realize that I'm in New England but I'm Connecticut it's closer than you think I
feel like that is only directed at Manhattan. I feel like that is a slogan designed to lure
people into Connecticut to buy houses, reminding them that they're just a couple of stops away
on the train. Yeah, real fun.
Hey, you love living in, in the most
cosmopolitan city in the United States,
specifically the borough of Manhattan?
Yeah.
Having all that fake phony fun.
Well, you get a taste of some real fun.
It's closer than you think.
We have a combination subway and
Dunkin' Donuts on the Merritt Parkway.
Oh, you ready for this?
Don't try to make it about Dunkin'
Donuts when you're going gonna be talking about Massachusetts.
I think the same motive was behind Connecticut
so much so near.
I do not believe there will be this many other failed slogans
in other states.
This feels like a lot to-
It's hard to put a finger on Connecticut.
Yeah, I guess so.
That could be the motto right there.
How about instead of
still revolutionary you keep the still and make it still deciding. Connecticut a
state of ambiguity. Come join an unconscious state. And then my favorite
one was better yet Connecticut which almost rhymes. That's definitely my
favorite because that is the worst. It might as well be lost abet, Connecticut. Poor Connecticut, poor wealthy Connecticut.
We know that the most southern part of it is almost all water. How about getting wet,
Connecticut? Getting wet in Connecticut.
How could that be misconstrued? It couldn't be.
Yeah, get wet in Connecticut. Yeah, maybe some combination of put a finger on Connecticut,
get wet now, it's starting to sound bad. It's only just now starting to sound bad.
Just then, just in that moment. Let me tell you some other state stuff.
Great. What they call the living insignia, the state bird fish flower, et cetera, Dullesville.
American Robin is the state bird, who cares?
Yeah.
Unless you love Robins.
Yeah.
I don't think of that being particularly special.
State fish, the American shad.
Are all of these animals going to be picked
because they have the word American in them?
The American shad has been described according to this
as the fish that fed the American nation's founders.
Boo.
Boo.
Boo.
Sorry Shad.
Nation was here before you guys ate Shad.
Sorry Shad.
Stole stuff.
State flower, the Mountain Laurel, it's a pretty flower
but it is quite a range.
There may be some repetition in some of these down the line.
Also, it's not a flat state, but it's not considered a mountainous state.
The insect is the European mantis.
That makes no sense.
But it's cool.
Praying mantis, basically, I guess.
Is there an American mantis?
European mantis, mantis religiosa means praying mantis.
It's an insect in the mantid family.
Well, you really caught me up short with that question.
I'm sorry. I think that's going to happen a lot on the flip side. I do love a praying mantis.
I find them eerie and wonderful, and I see a fair amount of them in my own backyard.
It's fascinating. There is a moment when a praying mantis, you're
looking at the praying mantis and it's staring straight ahead and it decides to
turn and look at you and it's extremely unsettling.
I'm all for praying mantis as well but as I'm quickly scouring the praying
mantis Wikipedia page to answer your question, it is confirmed it is the
official state insect of Connecticut even though it is an introduced species.
What does ct.gov, Connecticut's official state website, have to say about this?
European mantis is not native to Connecticut.
Harmless to humans.
What gave it away?
Probably not a significant factor in biological control. Mantis are beneficial insects for farmers.
Reproduced. It doesn't say why they chose it.
It became the state insect on October the 1st, 1977.
Probably some Ben Lorch's younger sister of Connecticut
just was nuts for a mantis and pushed for it.
European mantis, I love that bug.
I don't get why it's Connecticut.
You ready for the living insignia, the state
mammal of Connecticut? State mammal.
State mammal. Should I guess?
You can guess. Remember how you were talking about Get Wet, Connecticut?
Yes. Okay.
Remember how we were talking about Connecticut has a maritime history?
Yes.
It was an early boat building capital.
Yes.
Because of its long shoreline among the Long Island Sound.
Yes.
State mammal.
Why were they building ships?
Whaling.
What?
You're right.
I am?
Yeah.
Ding ding ding.
There it is.
It's a whale.
It's a whale.
Well, I'll tell you what, there's not,
I mean, there are a lot of mammals in the ocean,
but I feel like I had it okay.
They're all whales though.
That's what I'm saying.
The little corpuses and.
Well, I mean, seals are mammals.
Seals, yeah, right, mammals.
But I'm, real strong chance it was gonna be a whale.
The hints that I gave you were state mammal,
long coast line, what were they building ships for
in the 18th century, whaling.
So we're talking
about which whale. Let me give you a hint. In my opinion, the best whale. Because you know why?
Because it looks like a whale. Oh, okay. Unlike a lot of whales,
which look like barnacle-encrusted deformities. This one, if you ask a child to draw a whale,
they're gonna draw this whale.
Is it the blue whale?
No. No, no.
I forget which whale's which.
I'm not talking about a baleen whale that has a filter.
I see, that's what I'm trying, okay.
I'm talking about a whale that's got a big mouth
and goes, um, um, um, um, um.
No, I know what you're, yeah, yeah, yeah.
I know what you are describing.
Teeth, it's got big teeth.
Because that's what Pinocchio goes into.
Right, Monstro the whale and Pinocchio. And I think that Monstro the Whale and Pinocchio,
I think, is an amalgam of different kinds of whales because the whale I'm thinking of,
it has a very specific coloring to it. It's very, very identifiable and particularly linked to a very classic piece of American literature called East of
Eden.
No, East of Eden was set in Connecticut actually on Tobacco Farm.
But you were going to guess what?
It almost sounded like you said Beast of Eden, which I do like it.
Mo better blues, the movie by Spike Lee.
Yes.
No, that's not it, but you're closer.
Moby Dick.
Moby Dick ding ding ding ding ding.
I think that whale was white,
but that's what was unusual about it.
Eh, they're white and pale and gray in color.
Sperm whales, come on.
Oh, the sperm whale. Best whale.
God, I could think of so many whale names
and sperm whale, arguably the one I would remember best.
I couldn't remember.
I love a beluga. Give me a beluga whale.
The beluga whales are incredible.
I have one closing question about the sperm whale. Is it so named because it looks like
sperm?
No, it is named for the waxy substance in a cavity in its head called spermaceti.
One of my favorite pastas. one of my favorite pastas.
Absolutely.
No one to this day really knows
what the spermiceti is doing up in that head of that whale.
They don't know for sure.
It is believed that it might be a resonating substance
aiding an echolocation.
Wow.
And they also believe that it might work as a kind of ballast,
that the whale can affect the temperature of the spermaceti depending on how much water it takes in
through its blowhole. And you know, another thing that uses ballast to move up and down in the water
is a manmade object called a submarine, a submarine,
man-made object called a Submarine, a Submarine, which includes one of Connecticut's two state ships,
the USS Nautilus, which was the first nuclear-powered submarine. Connecticut builds a lot of military craft, including submarines. This one was built in Groton, including helicopters,
which is what I used to call helicopters when I was a little kid. Igor Sikorsky of Connecticut
built the first practical helicopters in Stratford, Connecticut. And Pratt & Whitney makes airplane
engines there, primarily starting around World War II.
The other state ship of Connecticut is the Freedom Schooner Amistad, which is a replica
of the ship La Amistad, which was the slave ship that was taken over by its captives who
were put on trial by the owners of the ship trying to get them back as slaves in New Haven, Connecticut.
And eventually the Supreme Court
acknowledged that they were human beings.
It was one of the catalyzing factors
in the abolition movement in the Northeast.
So there's that as well.
But I also wanted to point out
that two of the oldest large wooden ships
that are still seaworthy are in New England. One of them is in the
Commonwealth of Massachusetts. We'll see who gets to talk about that fun fact. The second
oldest is the Charles W. Morgan, which was built in 1841 and it's an American whaling
ship that may have gone after some of these sperm whales. And it is still seaworthy and
it is available for your visiting pleasure in
Mystic Connecticut at the Mystic Seaport. Mystic Connecticut is the home of a big
big sort of living museum including a replica old-timey shipping town that you
can go and visit you can get on this boat or whatever but I'm mainly bringing
up Mystic because of Mystic Pizza. I'm glad you brought that up because earlier
on I was actually
going to ask if the rich sandy loam is what made the pizza taste so good.
No, it's the breakout performance of Julia Roberts. I was going to say Annabeth Gish, thanks.
With Matt Damon as the younger brother or something. I think he was in that one too. Do not remember him at all in that movie.
I've never seen Mystic Pizza,
but it is still there in Mystic, Connecticut,
and people still go there.
But is it the most famous pizza in Connecticut?
Is it?
Maybe because of the movie, but does it deserve to be?
Possibly not.
No.
Well, it might be the most famous pizza from Connecticut,
but it is certainly not the most famous Abitz in Connecticut.
Abitz being the traditional Italian American Southern Connecticut community way of pronouncing
pizza.
Did not know this.
Feel like I should have.
Two of the most famous pizza places in the pizza world community are in New Haven, Connecticut.
Frank Pepe's and Sally's, two rivals
basically next door to each other in the Worcester Square area of New Haven,
Connecticut. Very thin crust, cooked in super hot ovens and Connecticut, you know,
like I had an advantage in this one, Janet, because I do have a lot of
familiarity with Connecticut. Being a New Englander, Connecticut was a place
where I lived when I went to college in New Haven at Yale University and and it's the place where I first cast a presidential vote
for Bill Clinton in 1992. It was the first place I was registered to vote and
yet for all that time, the time that I was going to college, I never went to
Frank Peppi's or Sally's because they're a little far away from campus. I was a
Yorkside pizza guy and I stand by that today.
I still prefer that York side pizza.
I think there's something to be said though for those two rivals living side
by side with only a thin crust separating them.
You know what I mean?
Yeah.
I took my hat to Frank Pepe's and Sally's.
They're fine.
You know what?
The pizza's really good, but it's fine.
It's pizza.
All pizza is good. Louis' Lunch in New Haven, Connecticut on Crown Street. It's been at
that location at least since 1900. It was opened as a, well, actually they had to move
it down the block at some point. It's about the size of a garden shed. Okay. It's like a brick garden shed that is plopped now in the middle of a parking lot.
Originally established 1895.
They claim to have invented the hamburger sandwich.
Okay.
In the United States.
Have they backed up why it's called the hamburger sandwich?
So you know, that's really an interesting question.
I don't know, traditionally within the food writing world,
it's kind of received wisdom
that it's named for Hamburg, Germany,
but that it may have been a German American invention.
The Lassen family that has owned and operated
Louis Lunch from the beginning
may have some German ancestry.
They claim to have made what they call their hamburger in 1900 before anyone else, indeed
20 years before the hamburger bun was invented.
The United States Library of Congress, though, recognizes Louise Lunch as the inventor of
the hamburger in the United States.
That's largely due to lobbying by Connecticut's
U.S. representative Rosa DeLauro,
whom I voted for when I lived there.
So, you know, it's corrupt.
That was, I was gonna say,
that was the top of her list of things to do.
The top of her priorities.
It's highly disputed.
There are a lot of people who don't like
Louise Lunch saying they invented the hamburger.
But if you were wondering,
how could they invent the hamburger
before there was a hamburger bun invented,
it's because it's served on toast. And to burnish the bona fides that this thing was,
they were the first to invent it, it's hard to recognize it as a hamburger.
I see. Again, we don't understand the complexities of laws and states and how they get enacted,
but I will say this. No.
If you had told me, and that's all very interesting, but if you had told me that the hamburger
bun had preceded the hamburger, now that's something I'm interested in.
They anticipated the hamburger by years and it was just sitting on the shelf waiting for
someone to invent the hamburger.
It's still there and it's still a very good hamburger.
It's probably the best hamburger you can have in a Connecticut parking lot, I would say.
And you can get a little Fox on Park birch beer, which is very delicious.
And remember how I told you about submarines?
Submarines?
Yeah.
I'm excited to hear more about submarines.
Another very famous submarine to come out of Connecticut was called the
Turtle. It was the first confirmed combat submarine in the United States. You remember
that slogan about Connecticut, still revolutionary? Well, let me take you back to the September
6th, 1776. Oh, shoot. Well, earlier actually, 1775, a young Yale graduate named David Bushnell
from Westbrook, Connecticut, comes up with an idea of a submersible boat. Why? Well, his main interest
is underwater explosions. A pretty hot hobby to have, particularly in the 1770s. Naturally. How can I make gunpowder explode underwater?
Sure enough, David Bushnell figured out a way to do it.
And he realized if you could attach an underwater bomb to the hull of, let's just say randomly,
one of the British ships that were forming a blockade of the whole Eastern seaboard
at that point.
Gosh, you'd really have something there,
but what you would need is a submersible boat
to sneak up on it.
So he created a little capsule,
I presume made of bronze and heavy wood.
In many ways, now that I think of it,
it looks like a nutmeg,
which is the official spice of Connecticut.
That doesn't sound like it's on a list.
That sounds like it's an assumption.
We'll circle back to the nutmeg
and then I'm really gonna leave alone.
But the turtle looked like a giant nutmeg.
It looked like a big old nut, a big old brown nut.
To be clear, it did not look like a turtle.
He thought that the top, the small amount of this thing
that was floating above the surface to let in natural light because it had windows in it.
Oh, pretty.
That might be confused for a turtle and therefore they wouldn't come and shoot at it or, you
know, musket fire at it or whatever.
Okay.
Big turtle.
Because a human being, specifically not David Bushnell but a Continental Army infantryman
named Ezra Lee, was put into this thing and it was propelled by propellers that
were a big innovation, underwater propellers that were powered by both his feet and his
hands peddling.
Stop making this so cute.
It's a violent, ugly thing war.
It was the original tiny home in a lot of ways.
It was the original tiny home.
If you had to madly scramble all your limbs
just to stay alive, then yes, it's the original tiny home.
The idea that that was happening in 1776,
I feel comfortable being surprised by.
It didn't go very well.
We talked about the turtle?
It took Ezra Lee.
The turtle?
Yeah, piloting the turtle about two hours
to get over to the Eagle,
which was the British ship that he wanted
to attach a bomb to.
It took him two hours to get over there.
It was rated to have air for 30 minutes.
By the time he survived,
but by the time he got there,
he was so groggy with CO2 poisoning, he couldn't get that thing attached
and had to bail out.
And then the turtle was being transported somewhere
and the ship it was being transported on was sunk
and we don't know where it is today.
The turtle.
Search for the turtle.
The turtle, it's what you deserve.
The turtle is what you deserve.
And then Nutmeg, of course, Connecticut is the Nutmeg state.
No one really knows why Connecticut is associated with nutmeg.
It did not have a particularly major part of the spice trade.
It's not like people went nuts for nutmeg in Connecticut.
They were not all, you know, huffing nutmeg because nutmeg has psychoactive properties.
Yeah, I know.
Yeah, you got to be careful.
You got to be careful when you're huffing your nutmeg.
Yeah.
You might hallucinate instead of it having the normal
effect you're looking for when you're huffing it.
According to my research, the official nickname
for Connecticut is the Constitution State,
but the nutmeg state is the unofficial.
It's almost like the Rich Sandy Loam of nicknames.
And no one knows why, other than the speculation
that so-called Yankee traders,
T-R-A-D-E-R-S, people would, Yankee peddlers were going around selling fake nutmeg to people
who didn't know what nutmeg was.
A popular newspaper column in the 1830s, and you're going to enjoy this, this is a Nova
Scotian satirical newspaper
column making fun of the maritime provinces of Canada and also New England.
2 regions that have a lot to do with each other.
I love the existence of that at all. It's wonderful.
Yeah. The satirical newspaper column was called
The Sayings and Doings of Samuel Slick of Slickville.
Wow.
The original story according to the sayings and doings of Samuel Slick of Slickville was
quote, that eternal scoundrel, Captain John Allspice of Nahant used to trade to Charleston
and carried a cargo there once of 50 barrels of nutmegs.
Well, he put half a bushel of good ones into each end of the barrel and the rest were filled
up with wooden nutmegs.
These are big seeds.
You know what I mean?
These are big seed pods. So like the real thing, no one could tell the difference until you bit down on one with your
teeth. And John Allspice never thought of doing that until he was first bit himself. Does that
explain anything? Absolutely not. But Connecticut is known as the Constitution State, it's also known as the Nutmeg State, it's also known as the state with, in my opinion,
so far in this series, the worst motto
of the United States and territories.
It's not great.
It's not great.
You ready to rank it?
I'm ready to rank it.
A scale of one to 10 fake nutmegs.
10 being the best. 10 being the best.
10 being the most suitable, the most inspiring,
like genuinely like, I love this motto.
I wish I would make this the motto for my life.
I wish I could name my child this motto.
I wish I could name my child Excelsior.
It's a pretty hot name for a thing.
I was gonna say you picked one that's,
you picked one that's pretty good.
Yeah, I don't wanna spoil which one that is.
And one nutmeg being offensive and awful
and uninspiring.
Unforgivable.
Do you have a number of nutmegs in your mind?
Oh, I definitely do.
It's setting the bar.
So let's say it together.
I'm gonna count to three. And then after three,
we're both going to say X nutmegs. Yes. One, two, three. One nutmeg. Fake or real, it's a bad nutmeg.
You have a terrible motto, Connecticut, though I enjoy you as a state quite a bit. I like going
there and eating your pizza and your lobster rolls.
And I love the legacy of the Hartford Whalers, the only professional sports team,
even though I hate sports, I love extinct hockey teams and they're the best.
They're the best in the league of extinct hockey teams.
But you got a one nutmeg motto.
One nutmeg motto.
Is there anything we could offer up
to the state of Connecticut?
The seal lived on is one of them.
The seal isn't a seal would be another one.
The seal lived on.
I guess we already nixed Get Wet in Connecticut.
Since they got rid of Still Revolutionary,
in 2019, Connecticut, as far as I can tell, is still on the hunt.
Yeah.
Still on the hunt for a new slogan.
So we have actually an opportunity to give it a new slogan.
Yeah.
If we wanna work on it.
Okay, all right.
Connecticut, this waxy substance is not sperm.
That's the motto or the slogan? I'm thinking of an alternate motto. Because
what's the difference between a motto and a slogan? A motto has to be on the official
state seal, right? Yeah. But they're usually in Latin. Yes. They're usually part of this
neo Hellenic, neo classical attempt to try to connect United States history with the democracy of
Athens and sort of an older tradition of democracy. And so they try to make it sound makes, it's
all aspirational. It's trying to make the United States seem sort of older and founded
in high ideals instead of simply being a rapacious capitalist experiment.
Right.
It can't be funny.
Right.
Per se.
It's got to be, uh, stuffy.
It's got to be sober and stuffy and crummy.
Okay.
Whereas a slogan can be fun and it's impermanent, right?
You can change it.
It's like better yet Connecticut.
Apparently you can change it a lot.
Um, heck, substantiate set a non est S sperma. This substance in the whale is not sperm.
Lot of words for a seal, Hodgman. Lot of words for a seal. Well, what do you got, Farney?
I have told you all about Connecticut. What have you learned that you think could be inspiring?
Any of these stories that are feel good stories?
I mean, it makes weapons of war.
Yeah, no, listen, I want it to be something
about the rich, sandy loam.
Rich, sandy loam.
I feel like the earth, we could still find something
sort of with, if you'll forgive me, gravitas,
because it's about the very ground upon which we walk. It's fertile,
so something...
Pete Recognizing that the land gives birth and sustenance to the people.
Anna Yeah, like thanks to the fertile valley.
Pete Is better than the current motto, which is being like, thank me for coming here.
Anna Destroying everyone.
Pete And planting my vines where people used to live.
Yeah.
Divus haranosum.
Rich sandy loam.
That's what Google Translate says.
That's lovely.
That's a lovely motto.
All right, there you go, Connecticut.
That fits on a seal real nice.
Your alternate motto is Divus haranosum and your new slogan. Well, we gotta. Your alternate motto is Devis, Hara Nosam, and your new slogan...
Well, we gotta come up with it.
Connecticut, still deciding.
Settled yet? Connecticut.
I love a question mark and a slogan. Love a question mark.
After a break, Janet Varney speaks with the screenwriter who put Mystic Connecticut on the map for the very first time. E Pluribus Motto is back after this.
Jumbotron, Jumbotron, Jumbotron. This episode is brought to you by KTC Marketing, Connecticut's finest female-owned marketing
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They're like the Connecticut-style lobster roll of marketing.
Small, warm, buttered, packed with flavor.
You'll be hungry for more.
From branding that pops to websites that shine, content that clicks, and social media that slaps harder than a Yale undergrad trying to get into a secret society. That
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Funny story. KTC makes your brand as legendary as the New Haven pizza rivalry that's between
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once we get to your home state, go to MaximumFun.org slash Bulletin Board for more details.
We're going to be doing all the states and districts. Guam, we want to hear from you.
Go to MaximumFun.org slash Bulletin Board. Hey, Janet. Hey, John. This is Tyler calling from the almost New England estate of Connecticut.
I'm a Latin teacher and I know it's hard to believe that there's a Latin teacher in Connecticut
who listens to a Max Fun podcast, but I want to talk about our great state motto. For one
thing, it's nice to have a state motto in Latin. I love seeing it when I'm getting on
the train into the city, when I'm going to see a Broadway show or a live podcast at the bell house.
But yeah, he who transplanted still sustains. There's some interesting grammar going on
in the Latin. We got that relative clause acting as the subject of the sentence, qui
trans tu lit. Qui is a masculine nominative singular relative pronoun. Trans tullit is the third
person singular perfect form of the verb transfero, literally meaning to bring across. Then that
last word sustinet is the main verb of the clause that's in the third person singular
present tense. And that comes from the verb teneo, to hold. And that prefix on it, suh,
comes from sub, meaning
under. So if you hold something from under, you are holding it
up. In the original connotation, it's got this sort of God
meaning, meaning the guy who brought people to Connecticut from Europe is going to sustain them for the future.
But I do like the sort of more active version of the motto that I've interpreted in my head.
He who has been able to move and travel efficiently is able to keep up a liveliness and an economy.
I think that that sort of less religious, less colonial interpretation of the phrase
provides us industrial New Englander types a sort of
hopeful message. I hope you enjoyed listening to this entire message that I left you. Goodbye.
Welcome back to EPLERBISMOTO. Janet Barney, who do we have to give us the final word on
the Nutmeg State, aka Connecticut?
Well, John Hodgman, I'm so glad you asked because earlier in the show you brought up one of the movies I absolutely loved growing up, Mystic Pizza.
And I wondered if the state's loamy soil had anything to do with the quality of its pizza.
You were clearly in the tank for Yorkside pizza. Obviously, you cannot be trusted. So the e-pluribus motto team reached out to screenwriter Amy Holton-Jones to see if she
would be kind enough to chat with me.
And luckily, she agreed.
So here is the screenwriter on her 1988 film that was named after the Mystic Pizza Eatery.
And she told me about how she first came across the restaurant.
It was the early 80s and I was traveling with my husband Michael Chapman and he was a New
Englander and we were headed from New York City to Maine to visit his parents who lived in
Ellsworth and we were charting our route with the help of a book called Road Food which
still exists which is a guide to local takeout drive-in, you know,
take out, drive in, you know, food for the people all over the United States. And we were not looking for pizza, actually. We were looking for fried clams. And the book waxed
on episodically about clams at the Sea Swirl in Mystic, which still exists, by the way.
And as we were headed past it, we passed down Main Street and I saw the sign Mystic Pizza.
I thought, wow, that's a great title.
What's the film?
Wow.
That's how it sort of started.
Mystic Pizza is a lot about a moment in your life where you either make your own life or
you join with a guy and absorb his life. And I was trying to say don't do that,
you know, be yourself among among other things. So I was born from the title and
I've fussed around with it for several years after that and wrote the screenplay.
Do you feel, as many people argue, that there is something very special happening
with the pizza in Connecticut, not just in
New York. And do you have a theory as to what it might be that makes a pizza so good if
you do feel that way?
I don't feel that way. In fact, I kind of feel the opposite about the Mystic Pizza.
I know that you guys feel that the thin crust pizza the New Haven thing that that's
You know way better and I would say that that's high brow pizza thin crust pizza and that it's more truly Italian and
The mystic pizza is all-american and it's less pure. It's less demure if you will
it's a carbo and fat loaded and kind of an everyman pizza, more like America itself in
some ways than the thin crust pizza is.
It's got to stick to your ribs if you're going to go out there on the open sea and fish and
battle the elements.
So here we have this sort of revolution.
I think of it as being this revolutionary type of screenwriting that you're doing.
Very feminist, wonderful. We have the state of Connecticut who had the slogan that they immediately
had to toss aside at some point, still revolutionary. Just reminding everybody, we're still revolutionary.
It is a state that has tried on a lot of different slogans. Now, a slogan being a little more commercial
than the official state motto, the official state motto, key, translucent, sustenance,
he who transplanted still sustains. John and I are not a huge fan of that motto, especially
when we bumped up against some really beautiful, very just calm ones like Unity. You know,
it's hard to turn your nose up at Unity, but this Latin one's a little clunky. Do you,
in your experience of living in Connecticut and your experiences
there and interacting with people, do you have any pitches
for a good slogan for Connecticut?
Well, cheaper than New York, less stuck up than Massachusetts.
That comes to mind I guess
Yeah, I guess birthplace of lime isn't probably a good idea
You know what sometimes you got a lean in
There's isn't there a town called asbestos. I mean you don't choose you don't necessarily choose your partner at the dance
Don't blame us foros. I mean, you don't choose, you don't necessarily choose your partner at the dance.
Don't blame us for ticks. I mean, where the ocean meets the sky would probably be my choice,
but that might be somebody else's already. You know, if it is, it's odd, but he who transplanted
still sustains oddly works for me because I was a transplant to
Mystic Pizza and it continues to sustain me. And then do you have a sense of what
the shape is? Now the shape you can describe it as you know the literal kind
of shape. Sometimes when we have a really fun shape of a state you can say
something like this looks like Goofy's profile. I don't know that we can get there with the state of Connecticut but does it the
shape call up anything for you? Yes it looks to me like half of a grilled cheese
sandwich with one side nibbled off. Yes! Who nibbled off that side? Did it happen in the
kitchen before it came out to the table or did it happen at the table?
I don't know, but it's also stall it and then it's got this stuff going on on the edges.
Yeah, it's nibbled.
Connecticut, it's been nibbled.
Amy Holden Jones has had a storied career in film and television since Mystic Pizza came out.
Most recently, she created and wrote the Fox show The Resident, which you can now watch on Netflix. And you can find her on Instagram and Twitter at AholdenJ.
And my full chat with Amy is available now for MaxFun members. Just go check your bonus
feed and if you're not a member yet, go to MaximumFun.org slash join to get started.
E! Pluribus Motto is hosted by Janet Varney, along with me, John Hodgman, and is a production
of Maximum Fun.
The show was edited and produced by Julian Burrell, along with senior producer Laura
Swisher, iCall her Lala Swishtime.
Our music was created by Zach Berba and E! Pluribus Motto artwork was provided by the
great Paul G. Hammond.
We'd love to hear from you.
You can find the show on TikTok and Instagram at E! PluribusMotto and via email at emailpluribusmotto
at MaximumFun.org. That's emailpluribusmotto, one word, at MaximumFun.org. Tune in next week as we
head to Rhode Island and I stumble upon a bit of New England history John never learned about at
his fancy New England school. I don't know about the New England vampire panic.
We'll also hear from one of my idols, Julian Fellowes, creator of HBO's The Gilded Age
and a little show called Downton Abbey.
I mean it interests me that the most successful people in America at that time chose an island
with the motto hope.
Until next time, remember our motto, when you're choosing loam,
make sure it's rich sandy loam,
won't you?
Won't you?