Secretly Incredibly Fascinating - Dogs Playing Poker

Episode Date: May 16, 2022

Alex Schmidt is joined by comedy writer/podcaster Katie Goldin ('Creature Feature' podcast, @ProBirdRights) for a look at why "Dogs Playing Poker" is secretly incredibly fascinating. Visit http://sifpod.fun/ for research sources, handy links, and this week's bonus episode.

Hey folks, you're about to hear episode 94 of Secretly Incredibly Fascinating. 9 for some running a membership drive from now until episode 100. And I have a pretty simple request with this. Would you be willing to tip? And I'm talking about that super simple, easy $1 kind of tip. Like $1 for a barista giving you a coffee, $1 for a bartender giving you a beer, $1 for that valet or bellhop grabbing something at a hotel. And I'm talking about US dollars, but there's probably a similar amount in your currency, and it's probably a coin. Really, congratulations to all of you with

the coins, especially Canada. A loonie. Fantastic. Loons. What a bird. Really good. Point is, you've probably tipped a barista or a bartender $1 for giving you one drink that you consumed really fast. What if you tipped your podcasters in a similar way and gave them that tip for making a whole hour of podcast or whatever length? In this show's case, that hour has a bunch of moving parts. There's research and tight editing and guest booking and just a lot going into making that as awesome as it can be. I think it's a good system to do that kind of tipping for that kind of work. And a surprisingly small fraction of listeners, way less than 10% of listeners, are willing to provide that tip and do that thing. I'm running this membership drive to give you more benefits than ever. If you do that, visit sifpod.fun to see those benefits and to back this thing.

And thanks for listening. I'm thrilled about the run-up to episode 100, and I hope you please enjoy episode 94. Dogs playing poker. Known for being a gag. Famous for being art-ish Nobody thinks much about it So let's have some fun Let's find out why Dogs Playing Poker Is

Secretly incredibly fascinating Hey there, folks. Welcome to a whole new podcast episode, a podcast all about why being alive is more interesting than people think it is. My name is Alex Schmidt, and I'm not alone. I am also overjoyed because Katie Golden has returned. Katie Golden, an incredible comedy writer and podcaster. I hope you're already a fan of Katie Golden's podcast. It's entitled Creature Feature. It's over on iHeartRadio. It's the best and funniest podcast about animals. She's also the comedy writer behind At Pro Bird Rights on Twitter. It's the best and funniest podcast about animals. She's also the comedy writer behind AtProBirdWrites on Twitter. She's a writer for the Some More News channel on YouTube, and I'm thrilled every time she comes on this show. I also feel that this topic, which you

folks suggested and selected, it just tees up bringing her back. So thank you folks for setting that whole thing up. I really appreciate it. Also, I've gathered all of our postal codes and I've used internet resources like native-land.ca. I want to acknowledge that I recorded this on the traditional land of the Canarsie and Lenape peoples. I also want to acknowledge that in North America and in many other locations, native people are very much still here. That feels worth doing on each episode, and then my guest Katie Golden, she taped this show in the country of Italy, and as I understand it, her location has a context outside of that. Now as I said at the top of this episode, this is about dogs playing poker, which is a patron chosen topic. Many thanks to Michael Notkin for that creative and clever and

very fun suggestion. Also thanks to Pascal Olivier Labrecq for cheerleading it in the polls. Dogs Playing Poker is a perfect fit for this audio podcast. It's a piece of visual art that everybody has a concept of in their head. Previously, we've covered the painting American Gothic and the painting The Scream. I love how dogs playing poker perfectly fits that and is also totally different from that in ways we'll get into. And then one extra wonderful thing going on in this episode is that Katie Golden knows a tremendous amount about animals, like actual scientific information. And so she brings in amazing stuff about dogs and cats that I think really enriches it. I'm really excited for you to hear that, too.

Don't need more setup than that, so please sit back or paint me a beautiful oil-on-canvas rendering of Snoopies playing poker. I would love one. Either way, here's this episode of Secretly Incredibly Fascinating with Katie Golden. I'll be back after we wrap up. Talk to you then. Katie, I'm so excited we're doing this. This is amazing. And of course, I always start by asking guests

their relationship to the topic or opinion of it. How do you feel about dogs playing poker? This my this is my dog's playing poker face is that relevant still good still good topical uh i mean now it's like dogs playing lady gaga they're all doing a cover band or something there we go yeah now we're talking. Dogs. I love dogs. I have a dog. She doesn't play poker. I try to put the little cards in her hands and they just fall right down. But I do love the paintings. I love the kitschiness of it. I just, it is one of those things that I've always taken for granted. I've never actually thought about like, wait, why are there so many paintings of dogs playing poker? What is what is the social commentary behind it?

I've always just it is a law of the world that there are paintings of dogs playing poker just as the sun rises every day. And I've never questioned it. And now I'm really curious about it though when i think about it because it is i guess a little bit of a weird thing yeah i i had known it as a trope like i think about looney tunes a lot where it's from so long ago that a lot of the references are just things that as a kid i would have to be like i guess that's a reference and yeah these are like that to me i'm like yeah i guess i guess that's a thing and yeah these are like that to me i'm like yeah i guess i guess that's a thing people found funny like 100 years ago great yeah learning some of those like learning

some of the jokes in looney tunes can both be really interesting or really distressing based on what the joke is but yeah i mean uh uh it is it is interesting i think when there is something in culture, since you're like a baby, you don't really process it the same way you would if you were introduced to it as an adult, because you're just like, yes, dogs playing poker, just like a natural thing, a natural image. yeah like when i'm thinking about it it's like there's something that's supposed to be a joke about it but i don't know what the joke is other than haha animals doing people things which is admittedly always funny when i watch tiktoks with brenda my partner people don't know anytime there is a tiktok of an animal being made to dance or to do something vaguely human, we both know I'm going to like fall apart with joy. Like I'm not going to be able to it's going to be much funnier to me than it should be. And it's great. It's really good. Yeah. I once I once my when my dog was a puppy, she would sometimes sit funny, like kind of.

And she still does this sometimes but like where she sort of sits on her butt sort of like she thinks she's a person and once she was on the couch and she had sat on the remote and turned the tv on and then i just walk in on her and she's sitting there like a human with a remote just like watching tv and i didn't like by the time i like tried to get my phone you know she she'd flopped over and looked at me like i was like what no i'm not a human i'm normal um but yeah she it is it is the pinnacle of comedy when an animal does something that is for people. It is the ambrosia that keeps society from falling apart, I believe. It's like those theories

that we formed towns and cities so we could grow things to make alcohol. We formed towns and cities and society to make animals do people things. That makes sense to me. Yeah. I mean, if you look at the evolutionary history of cats and dogs, it closely follows agrarian societies. So I believe it. Yes.

Yeah. Makes sense. Like we got to make we got to make sandwiches. So in bread, we got to cultivate wheat so we can put a dog's face through some bread. I'm going to Google pictures of that later. I know what you're talking about. And yeah, of course, you have your wonderful dog, Cookie. I have never owned a dog. And I find that I'm like, I like dogs and I find myself sort of outside of dog culture a lot.

Like I tend to not know breeds when I meet people's dogs. I feel like I'm not amazing at hanging out with them usually unless I've gotten to know the dog. I don't know. This is like, this is one of the points where I meet dog culture, where I'm like, great, wacky art. I'm here. Got it. Dog culture can be wild. And I love, I mean, let's be honest here i basically love all

animals but when i was a kid i basically asked my mom for every animal that could conceivably be a pet to have an own and uh but i i never had a dog growing up i had cats and i love cats but yeah i i dog like there's something and i mean, no offense to dog owners because I am one, but there's a way that dogs hijack our brains and make us completely lose touch with reality where it's just, it is the extent to which people will sometimes go to for like their dogs and myself included like oh she only likes this certain kind of thing uh she's a little princess and so i have to give her a little bedtime treat and of course i have to play her some music before she goes to bed uh because my life is now all about meeting all of the whims of this dog. And yeah, it is, it is, uh, yeah,

we, we, we lose a sense of proportion, I think, around dogs where it is difficult to remember that they are a dog and you are human sometimes. Right. Yeah. And cats, I think I'm pretty able to remember that it's an animal and not a fellow human more. Maybe it's because they need less walking. That's the main difference, I guess. They're better at boundaries, I think. Yeah, they're better at boundaries. Cats both, I mean, not all cats, of course, but cats both establish boundaries and sometimes, well, sometimes we'll respect your boundaries.

Whereas dogs don't understand boundaries. They don't exist. And they will try to assimilate. They will try to fuse their molecules with your molecules if possible. Like when my dog is scared, she will shove her face so close to mine. It feels like she's trying to like merge with me so that she can become, we can become like one horrifying organism. Like when Cookie was watching TV

was she watching the film Annihilation? Maybe that was a spark. Maybe that's where she got the idea. Natalie Portman, she's got the right idea. Come mother, let us become one when uh any on these paintings i i shared images of some of them we'll get into why there's more than one but i also found going into this that i did not have a super clear mental picture of any of them like i knew it as a trope more as a concept and like the actual paintings, I had to look at them

to encode what's in them. Like it's just like a broad idea to me mostly. Yeah. I mean, the, the image that I have closing my eyes is like dogs sitting around a table, like you said, various breeds. Uh uh usually there's a bulldog in it though and some of them are smoking maybe one of them has like that little dealer visor on which i don't really know what that is it's that little like visor that oh yeah dealers wear uh and then like and they are they're holding their cards um you, sitting up in little chairs. Yeah, and it's like the room is sort of indoors and sort of a dark room with one lighting source or something. And that's the general picture I have of it.

Yeah, right. It's one of those rooms where there's just one lamp overhead and then the walls are like a green or other dark color. Right. There's usually greens and reds in it. And speaking of there being multiple ones and stuff, let's get into the stats and numbers about dogs playing poker, a thing that I keep just being reminded is the episode topic and being excited about.

It's very fun to me. Thank you, Michael Notkin, for suggesting it on the Patreon. But on every episode, our first fascinating thing about the topic is a quick set of fascinating numbers and statistics. And this week, that's in a segment called... It's my podcast and all stats if I want to. Stats if I want to. Stats if I want to. Stats if I want to. You would stats too if it numbered for you.

Doot, doot, doot, doot, doot, doot. Nice. You nailed it. And that name was submitted by Johnny Davis. Thank you very much, Johnny. We have a new name for this every week. Please make him as silly and wacky and bad as possible. Submit to SifPod on Twitter or to SifPod at gmail.com.

And leading off the podcast with a lifespan set of numbers, 1844 to 1934. 1844 to 1934, that was the lifespan of the artist of all these paintings, Cassius Marcellus Coolidge. Never knew that name before researching, but he's the guy who did it. There's like one dude pumping out these paintings. Yeah, the whole set I sent you is just one guy. Wow. And he's the definite 100% originator of this as a famous thing. Maybe somebody painted

some dog playing cards before that, but he's where this comes from as a thing we know about. That's surprising to me. I would have thought it was like sort of one of those things where you get a bunch of different people doing it at once where you kind of have a meme and maybe there's an originator. But then it becomes kind of like a thing multiple people are doing and then it becomes difficult to find the originator. But yes. So it's like, like one guy sitting in his living room, just like, well, today's another day of painting dogs, playing poker. Pretty much. And at one point, like on a salary, like officially hired to do it, which we'll talk about. Yeah. It's it. Wow. It feels like if somebody invented a painting of a bowl of fruit, you know,

but that's just everybody. This one is one, one dude got really into it. Wow. And like looking at these paint, like two of the paintings, it's like the same dogs. And it looks like just like one moment in the poker game where they're looking very serious. And then another moment in the poker game where they're looking very serious. And then another moment in the poker game where they're looking very excited or aggravated when somebody wins. So yeah, that's interesting. Yeah, those are a two-parter by this same guy. And the first one is called A Bold Bluff. It's one of the dogs just has a pair of twos and pushed a lot of chips in.

And then the second painting is the other dogs being mad that he bluffed them with a pair of twos and one like he he really got into this it's not quite like a character universe or anything none of the dogs have names or like stories or anything it's just he he did really get into this thing he was it was what. Yeah. Cassius Marcellus Coolidge. Yeah. And it is interesting because like the expressions of the dogs aren't overly cartoonish. They are typically expressions dogs could make. They're all expressions I've seen a dog make, maybe exaggerated just ever so slightly. Of course, I haven't seen dogs wearing glasses but you know it is uh it is interesting we get it cookie has perfect vision we get it you can brag on it all you want but

oh she doesn't she actually has terrible vision oh i'm sorry yeah no no it's okay it's funny no i mean like she just like from the distance if if she sees someone she loves, but from a great distance, she gets angry until you get closer and then she gets very excited. Oh, what a flip. Yeah. Yeah, that's the thing. I have basically no experience living with dogs. Like I've met friends, dogs out and about, and most dog stuff is surprising to me. Also going into living with cats, my main experience was being a zoo tour guide. So like when we got our first cat, I would keep being like, oh, he's sitting like a lion. And my partner would be like, why is that your reference point? And I was like, well,

I've seen lions more than house cats. So that's what I understand. Yeah. I mean, you know, it's, it is interesting because like house cats, they didn't go through as thorough a domestication process as dogs did. So their behavior is much more similar to wild cats of various species than a dog's behavior will be to a wolf's behavior. Oh, I didn't realize. Yeah, there is obviously some domestication with cats because they don't generally try to run away or kill you. I mean, generally speaking, some of them do. Because I'm too tough, right?

It's because I'm too tough. I'm too formidable. Dogs are a little more drastically differentiated from their wild counterparts that makes sense okay yeah yeah because our other cat walks like a tiger to me all the time and uh and maybe that's true just miniature and and not for hunting yeah yeah they're i mean you know they are obviously a very species of of wild uh cats or big cats are going to be different in their behavior. Some are solitary, some are group, you know, social. But yeah, it is funny because you will see such similar behaviors.

Whereas when you look at wolves and dogs, even though some of their behaviors are similar, a lot of their behavior has been drastically altered through very thorough, thorough domestication. Man, yeah. Makes sense. And that's actually, it's, and you actually see like a physical difference with cats. Their ear cartilage is much stronger than that of dogs, which is an interesting thing because often domesticated animals, their ear cartilage actually becomes weaker and that's why their ears flop down. You'll see it in pigs and dogs and goats. It is because the neural crest cells that are responsible for a variety of things, including things like cartilage production,

are also responsible for the brain development of certain glands in the brain that produce hormones and neurotransmitters. And if this is altered so the dog is less aggressive and less scared, it also impacts the development of the ear cartilage and also things like melanin distribution. And so that's why dogs have spotted coats or interesting different coat coloration. And not all of them look just like they have like a, a wolf coat. Um, and cats have some of that, like obviously their coats are much differentiated from wild cats, but their, their ears, except for the Scottish fold cat, their ears are still pretty stand up straight because they didn't need as much.

They didn't need as much alteration in terms of their personality to sort of be safe around humans, essentially like their original, like making them a little less timid was basically all that needed to be worse with wolves. We needed to make sure that they weren't going to kill us. So, yeah. That's all amazing. And also, I'm wondering if it's partly because a lot of cats were supposed to keep working as hunters of vermin and stuff. And then dogs were more like, maybe you come and hunt with us to like be a sidekick. But otherwise, you can hang. Yeah, I mean, like we both cats and dogs were used for their their working ability.

Cats would protect our grain stores from rodents and dogs. There are a variety of things that dogs would do for us in terms of work, like helping us. I mean, herding animals was a huge thing um protection uh there were even like very weird specialized breeds that we don't have anymore like a little dog that was bred just for running in basically a giant hamster wheel in a kitchen to turn a spit roast. What? Yeah. Yeah. So this little dog was like, yes, specifically for running in a giant kitchen hamster wheel for turning the spit on a roast. And so we've been coming up with weird jobs for dogs for a long time.

And some dogs actually like now, like their ears do stick up because that ear cartilage gene was selected for their ears to be a little firmer. But we didn't have to selectively breed cats for them to just hunt rodents, sleep and drink milk and not run away from us. I mean, like maybe we did have to select for the ones that weren't scared of us. That was about it with wolves. we did have to select for the ones that weren't scared of us. That was about it with wolves. There's just a lot more. Cause like,

not only are you selecting for ones that aren't scared of you, you're also selecting for ones that aren't going to kill you. And who will being able to like herd a sheep, like imagine the, the steps it takes. And I feel like I've completely hijacked your podcast, but imagine the steps it takes to take a wolf who wants to eat that sheep to instead listen to you as, and then like herd the sheep, uh, without killing it, ignoring the instinct to

then kill the sheep and eat it. That is a lot more complex than trying to take a, one of these sort of wild progenitors of the cats just to be a little less timid, but still like hunt rats, do the same things, sometimes swat at us, but otherwise chill out, sleep and drink our milk. Right. Yeah. It's such specific, like I was going to call it human resources, but like it's such specific hiring needs for the job of all that different stuff. Human resources. Now we have heard you've been licking your crotch during meetings. We understand why you do this, but it presents a problem of professionalism, to be frank. Yeah.

And this is why we were able to domesticate dogs to the point where they can play poker. Yeah. dogs to the point where they can play poker yeah yeah also these these dogs are doing like human partying in the paintings they're doing a lot of drinking and smoking and playing cards but they're not doing smoking dog partying of licking your crotch and like pooping on a place you're not supposed to and you know like it's it's a very interesting version of Vice where it's like, can you believe he's having a brandy? And, well, he's not like taking a dump where I don't want. So that's pretty good. And yeah, and this guy, so people know the era, again, lived 1844 to 1934.

And we'll talk a lot about his dog painting career later, but Cassius Marcellus Coolidge, he was born and raised in Jefferson County, New York. That's the far northern tip of New York State. It's on Lake Ontario. It's on the Canadian border. And he's also very confusingly from a town there called Philadelphia, New York. Not Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. There's a Philadelphia, New York in New York State, which really seems like a mistake to me, but it's what's going on. And they just ran out of names there. They couldn't, they couldn't come up with it. It's

like, Oh God, we just don't have any more names. Do you think they'd mind if we use Philadelphia again? When, and before he became a full-time painter, Coolidge did a whole string of jobs. He tried to be a druggist. He was a cartoonist. And you might want to specify what a druggist is. Oh, like a pharmacist. Yeah, yeah. Right, right.

No, I know that, but it does sound a little bit like someone who goes around trying to get people to do drugs. But he, yeah, like pharmacist, cartoonist. He founded a bank. I think that was relatively easy to do in the 1800s. And he also founded a newspaper for the town of Antwerp, New York. None of that worked out. And then he took a trip to Europe in 1873, came back, moved to Rochester, New York, and set himself up as a painter. And he had no major formal training.

He just liked this. I love that. In today's society, you go to college, and then maybe after college, you don't know what to do next. So you go to Europe. Back in the day, you found a couple banks. You try to start your own currency, do some newspapers. And then you're like, I don't know, though. I'll go to Europe and then maybe come back and paint dogs.

Yeah. You just like mess around, try founding several businesses. If people have heard what's going to be last week's bonus show about Milton Hershey, who started the Hershey Chocolate Candy Company. Hershey who started the Hershey chocolate candy company. Like he repeatedly failed in business and like made ends meet as a manual laborer for a while, but then he just kept getting shots and eventually got a candy business going. Like the 1800s, you could just flail around and eventually something sticks. It seems like really easy economy. I would assume as, as long as you are at a certain, certain more secure place in the socioeconomic ladder that you could probably do that yeah yeah painting dogs playing poker was

something for the the privileged elite right it was for guys who got to be at that kind of poker game in between working. Yeah. Yeah. And we'll talk more about that guy. But the next number here is 2002. The year 2002. The number of dogs. No, sorry.

Go ahead. The number of dogs playing poker. What if it's like, you know, when there's a chess grandmaster and they play like a thousand games all at once just walking from table to table like there's one master dog who's playing poker like that like and i bet and i bet and i fold and i win so the year 2002 was this when it was outlawed for dogs to play poker? That was the year when an art museum in Virginia, they put out an April Fool's press release. And the April Fool's joke was that they were going to acquire dogs playing poker for their very real museum.

This was the Chrysler Museum of Art. Why would they toy with our emotions like that? Yeah. Why would they play with our hearts? Yeah. It turns out the guy, this was an art historian and director of the Chrysler Museum of Art in Norfolk, Virginia. His name's William Hennessy. He did a whole statement where he raved about how great these paintings are and said they're trying to acquire it. And then at the end of the statement, they said, hey, this was an april fool's joke also like the only joke part is that we're getting them all the positive stuff i said about the art is for real

i really like it i really think it's great oh that's good otherwise i'd be i'd be a little steamed i'm gonna tell you i'm gonna be honest i will defend these paintings they're a good time yeah i will start my own newspaper and my own art section and write an op-ed defending these paintings well and and the next number this is people valuing them very highly the next number is $658,000 US dollars. $658,000. Wow, is that how much one of these paintings costs? Yeah, in 2015, Coolidge Painting entitled Poker Game sold

for that much money at Sotheby's in an auction. And so just short of two-thirds of a million dollars. That's what somebody paid for one. Wow. Geez. That's amazing. I got some savings to do land and this is like a consistent recent phenomenon in 2005 there was another auction and it was for that pair of paintings where a dog bluffs and then a dog wins and that pair sold for over 590 000 us dollars like these are now highly highly valued

at least compared to what you would think i'm gonna need a lot more swear jars just filling them with euros the coins are the euro coins are worth more than us coins you know like that actually that's they are they are yes youS. coins, you know? Like, that actually, that's a better joke. They are, they are, yes. You can fill it faster, you know? Less jars? Exactly. That's right. I just have to learn more Italian swears, though.

That's the thing. Oh, yeah. You can have a swear jar, and then you can have a jar for that gesture where you, like, move your hand against the bottom of your chin towards somebody. Oh, yeah, the swear gesture. I was, someone was teaching, like, telling me about that gesture and then i was like about to make it like oh this and then they like grab my hand they're like don't do it oh what oh is that serious i know it is like a gag like these paintings but yeah i think they were kind of well i think it's serious you don't want to do it but it's sort of like flipping someone the bird. So I don't think you'll get arrested, but I don't think you should do it to people.

Makes sense, yeah. And the last number takes us into the first takeaway, and the number is 18. 18. That is the total number of paintings. The legal age a dog has to be to play poker. Sorry. In dog years, which is like two seconds in real time, right? Like they're ready to go. Get the puppies in there. You pop them out, they start playing poker. I've seen it.

They start playing before they open their eyes. Like when a mother dog has a litter, one of them's the dealer. Like they have a little dealer chip with them. He's born with a little dealer visor. That's where they get them. And 18 is the total number of paintings by Coolidge that are considered part of the Dogs Playing Poker series. Because again, this is a whole set of artists, not just one work. That brings us into takeaway number one.

The Dogs Playing Poker paintings were commissioned to sell cigars. Wow. I would not have guessed that. It's kind of random. I would have thought it would be to sell cigars. Wow. I would not have guessed that. It's kind of random. I would have thought it would be to sell like cards. Right. It's not, it's sort of an indirect, you know, some of the dogs have cigars, but they were commissioned as like funny art for cigar companies to give out on calendars and merchandise

and other stuff to, in a roundabout way, promote their cigars. That's interesting. It is true. When I see a dog do something, I want to copy it. So like if the dog's smoking a cigar, I want a cigar. If the dog's eating some poop, I want to eat that poop. It's very compelling.

And yeah, this is a bunch of background I didn didn't know at all but none of these paintings are technically called dogs playing poker that's just a descriptive term we've all invented and also not all of them specifically depict that just most of the set does that but there's there's several key sources for this and the rest of the show a piece piece for artsy.net by Jackson Arn, a piece for mymodernmet.com by Emma Taggart, Mental Floss piece by Christy Puchko, a piece for 10x10 Magazine by Annette Ferrara, and then a book called Poplorica, a popular history of the fads, mavericks, inventions, and lore that shaped modern America. That's by Martin J. Smith and Patrick J. Kiger. And those are the main things the whole way. I'm just doing them all at once.

But there's this guy, Cassius Marcellus Coolidge. In the 1870s, he starts basically his own business as a painter. And the sources are a little unclear, but at some point pretty early, he starts painting dogs doing human things. He likes doing this even before he got paid to do it for cigar companies. Really into it. Do what you love. Yeah. I wonder if he went to European countries because in general, Europeans do kind of treat

their dogs more as people like here, here in, uh, in Italy. Well, yeah. I mean, like here in Italy, people take their dogs everywhere into restaurants, into grocery stores. They're just like, you know, hey, and then here's, I've seen dogs in little denim jackets. It's, they are, you know, treated as citizens, I believe. No, yeah, I had no idea. Like, yeah, I associate dog people culture with like tying them up outside and then having a specific dog park where you see the same people and dogs most days. That's that's what I think of as like the stuff people do.

Yeah, no, I mean, like here there's not there aren't really dog parks, at least here in Turin. It's more you take your dog to a park where people are going generally. A lot of people unleash their dogs and then they just kind of like scamper about. But they're typically extremely well behaved. So it's not like too much of a problem. They're very polite. So it seems like it's very interesting. It's a very interesting dog culture.

Definitely not what I grew up with in the U.S. But like, so my dog, I do not let her off the leash because if I did, like she would. Well, I don't think she would run away from me, but it definitely if she got spooked, she would she would just start running in a direction until she got stopped by some kind of barrier. But a lot of people are just off-leash all the time, and it's no big thing. It's much more lax in some ways,

and yet the dog's behavior tends to be much more polite. There's not as much franticness about the dogs. They tend to be more calm. If I might offer some constructive criticism though, it's a, there is a more, more poop on the ground. People do, do pick it up. I've seen a lot, uh, a lot of, a lot of people do pick up their dog's poop. Uh, that, that is very common, but sometimes they don't. And it, it can be, uh, you know, you gotta watch out. Get some of those people on a leash, am I right?

Jeez Louise. Well, so 1870s, Coolidge starts painting professionally. He just decides he's that. And then 1894, so many years into this, he paints what ends up being the forerunner of the whole series. It's simply titled Poker Game. It's the one that's sold for that huge auction price in the future. And it's a painting of four St. Bernard breed dogs playing a poker game. And then about a decade later, the dates actually conflict in my sources, but either 1903 or 1906,

Coolidge gets a commission to do lots more of that type of painting. And he gets hired by a publishing company called Brown and Bigelow. And then what that company does is they sell merchandise with funny art on it to companies. And so he gets hired to work for this publisher who then sells calendars and other stuff with his paintings on it to cigar companies. And so he does this whole set of paintings, mainly of dogs playing poker games specifically. That's fascinating. It's just, he's found such a niche here. He likes painting dogs playing poker. The people want more paintings of dogs playing poker and they're not satisfied with just one. They want more. And people are willing to pay him to keep making

different paintings of dogs playing poker. That's right. Yeah. It's basically advertising supported media. Like it's no one is buying these paintings from him really but the advertising of hey look at this funny picture it makes you think about cigar buying that's working and so they keep printing it on merchandise if that makes sense and also that's how it gets put everywhere all over the u.s is just the campaign keeps working you know i'd enjoy this humorous painting of dogs playing poker they're dogs though they shouldn't be playing pokerous painting of dogs playing poker. They're dogs, though. They shouldn't be playing poker. But here they are playing poker in this painting.

But I sure would enjoy it more if I had a nice, refreshing cigar. Yeah, that's what like white men all over America were saying in bars like all the time. Yeah. They were like, this is fantastic. Like President Taft or whoever. Yeah. Saying I enjoy this is fantastic. How amusing. Like President Taft or whoever is saying, I enjoy this. Great. It's how risible these dogs acting like a person would. Yeah.

And there's also, there's an amazing idea in one of these sources. It's that artsy.net piece by Jackson Arn. that artsy.net piece by Jackson Arn. And he suggests that Coolidge was just born at the right time, born in the right place to do weird advertising when that was just starting out. He says that between 1880 and 1920, advertising spending by U.S. companies grew from $200 million to $3 billion. And also the first modern ad agency opened in the 1860s. Like, right when Coolidge is being just a very weird painter, he's there to get scooped up by the first modern and modern to me means weird ad companies. Yeah, that is really interesting. It's hard to not take for granted just this sort of, uh, ever presence of advertisement is so it is everywhere. We are constantly flooded with ads. You know, you cannot,

even if you try to escape your media, like TV, phone, uh, you know, it's just outside you, you walk around, there's tons of advertisement. advertisement. So it's interesting to think about how this may not have always. I mean, it wasn't always the case and that there was an actual period of time where advertisement became kind of exploded. And we have these dogs to thank for that. Thanks a lot, you dogs playing poker. Yeah. Dogs to thank for that. Thanks a lot, you dogs playing poker. Yeah, I do. I wish somebody had studied like exactly how much this increased weird advertising because it feels like it's the forerunner of the Geico Gecko is the thing I kept thinking of yeah like it's just funny that there's a lizard for this insurance company like it's just funny that there are these poker dogs for cigars it's just enjoyable to have in your head compared to other stuff we really haven't changed at all i mean there's the affleck

duck that is you know it is a duck yeah that's insurance and and we pee our pants laughing at that. Yeah. And, you know, yeah, just some kind of animal mascot. Like, hey, that animal shouldn't know about car insurance, but it does. Oh, I want it. Basically. Yeah, it's worked forever. This was one of the first ones.

Yeah, it's worked forever and this was one of the first ones yeah it's great our brains are so easily hacked by animals it's it's it is unfair when then as far as the number of paintings goes so coolidge paints his own forerunner in 1894 he gets paid to do 16 paintings for brown and Bigelow. Also, after the campaign's over, he did at least one other painting we know of. It was in 1910. It was called Looks Like Four of a Kind, where he's finished the gig. He's just continuing to do some of these. So it seems like there was at least a little of a market for more dog paintings from Coolidge. Like these apparently became famous enough and well-liked enough that in his lifetime when he was in his 60s, he could sell the originals for a lot of money.

And Mental Floss says he sold one of them for $10,000 in 1910s money, which is a lot of money now. Like Google tells me it's about 300 grand. Like that's for real cash yeah so he said he lived to see these become famous and popular you know wow it's good that these are not like some kind of posthumous like he never got the appreciation but it is yeah darkly funny to me that guy who paints dogs playing poker lived a good life it was not posthumous you know vincent van gogh nope no nothing for you buddy that wow that is the exact guy i thought of with this yeah

that yeah because i think i this also had me thinking about what are the few paintings that are in people's heads enough that you can do an audio podcast about it and starry night is probably one of them by van gogh and yeah yeah he had a very different life from cassius marcellus coolidge who yeah who is an obscure person to us but his work lives on and he was famous and paid for it when he was around. I mean, that is, I'm, that is the dream. Like he deserved it. And I'm glad an artist got treated that way. It is just, it is, it's, there's something about that where like, if you, you paint these, you know, pretty consistently kitschy, but wonderful paintings of dogs playing poker and you're recognized and celebrated and you have a good life uh but a lot of painters do not get to experience that

it is interesting yeah and and also like i think i misstated a little bit like his paintings became super famous and then his his name never did really like as a human he never got super fit like he but he got to make a living at it and he and um yeah but like at one point his daughter went back to the town of philadelphia new york and like tried to get people to learn that hey the the guy lived here and this is his name and like brought one of the paintings to be put in the library there like he he as a human never got famous for this, like work for hire he did. Right. But the work got super famous and people did seek him out to buy originals.

So that's pretty good. I mean, it is probably because as soon as you see one of these paintings of these, these little rascally dogs playing poker. It's so goddamn funny. And you laugh so hard. And you do pee your pants a little bit when you laugh so hard at this. Because the dogs, get this, are playing poker. And they're dogs.

That it is hard to learn the name of the artist because you are too busy gasping for air, wheezing, tears and snot running down your face, laughing because these dogs are these dang old dogs. Canines are playing poker. Yeah. Not to be too much of a neuroscientist on the show, but as people know, I'm a famous neuroscientist. And the memory lobe of the brain is right next to the pee pants lobe of the brain. It's actually very hard to activate both of those at the same time. Exactly. Exactly.

Exactly. You cannot, you, it's too overwhelming of an experience for the brain to make sense of this because it's dogs, your brain. Okay. It's a dog. I get it. And you're like, wait, but these dogs, they're playing poker. What?

And then you pee your pants. what and then you pee your pants it even oddly i'm thinking of the american gothic episode because it was a while ago but if people remember like part of the discourse around that painting has been that basically it can't be that good of a painting because there's humor in it and this is a much more extreme version of that like there are people saying this just definitely can't be a for real piece of art because look at the dog and it's holding cards and stuff it can't do that i mean that's silly you know i don't want to gatekeep art uh end of sentence it's it's dogs it's a painting of dogs playing poker i'm sorry if you don't think that's art, but it is. Yeah. And it is actually like oil on a canvas. That's a thing worth clarifying. Like he did actually paint it in the medium that lots of paintings happen in, you know?

Yeah. Like, you know, you can have some like, uh, you know, painting of pain and suffering and shapes or whatever. But, oh, I'm sorry. You think these dogs playing poker doesn't count as art? But some cube looking sad is art? How was I thinking of Picasso, too? Wow, this is amazing. We're locked in.

This is great. Yeah, I was thinking of Guernica and a big wall. We're summarizing. Picasso is just like a cube that looks sad. Yeah. Yeah. Cubes playing poker.

I guess it has to be abstract cubes playing poker or else it's not art. Really hard to see the cards. Really, really wonky. You can you can see the other person's hand like it's in so many dimensions you know yeah it's pretty easy ironically the cards are actually small humans next thing here is a big trumpet sound for a big takeaway before that we're gonna take a little break we'll be right back I'm Jesse Thorne. I just don't want to leave a mess.

This week on Bullseye, Dan Aykroyd talks to me about the Blues Brothers, Ghostbusters, and his very detailed plans about how he'll spend his afterlife. I think I'm going to roam in a few places. Yes, I'm going to manifest and roam. All that and more on the next Bullseye from MaximumFun.org and NPR. Hello, teachers and faculty. This is Janet Varney. I'm here to remind you that listening to my podcast, The JV Club with Janet Varney, is part of the curriculum for the school year. Learning about

the teenage years of such guests as Alison Brie, Vicki Peterson, John Hodgman, and so many more is a valuable and enriching experience, one you have no choice but to embrace because yes, listening is mandatory. The JV Club with Janet Varney is available every Thursday on Maximum Fun or wherever you get your podcasts. Thank you. And remember, no running in the halls. Speaking of painting stuff, the next takeaway here I think is very surprising. Takeaway number two. The dogs playing poker artist might have invented a whole nother prominent kind of silly art. There's like a whole nother thing he did that I wish I had a fuller picture of the rest of his career.

whole nother thing he did that I wish I had a fuller picture of the rest of his career. But this one big piece of news is like he should be famous for two whole things, not just this. You must tell me. And this is all the same sources first takeaway. But all of my sources say that Coolidge, who did the dogs playing poker paintings, is also credited as the inventor of what's called a photographic caricature. It's also been called a comic foreground. inventor of what's called a photographic caricature it's also been called a comic foreground i i've heard it called a face hole you know like it's a big piece of wood with a hole in it you put your face through and then there's a funny body somebody painted below and your friend takes a picture oh my god he did that too apparently What? Yeah, right

I feel dizzy That's amazing So me putting my face through a hole to look like Snoopy That's because of him? And I feel like it's a bigger deal than the dogs playing poker But I found it through looking at this That's a huge deal Yeah

Oh my god It's amazing because you can You go, it's a big wooden board and this is, this is an explanation for the zoomers. This was before we had Instagram filters. We had to use wooden boards with paintings on them. Um, and you stick your face, you stick your face through this hole and it, you can look like you have big muscles or you're wearing a bikini bathing suit or you're snooping the dog yeah it's hilarious and this is what we had to do before we had instagram and tiktok filters i'd never thought of it that way it's like every snapchat one where

you can put stuff on your face and it tracks your face as you move. But it's for the rest of your body. Yeah. Wow. Yeah. Zoomers thought they invented it. No. Cassie's Coolidge.

Yeah. And like with this whole episode, I really think I've found the best sources on the dogs playing poker guy. And also, I would not say they are incredibly like they're not from academic journals, really. They're not like there's not scholarship scholarship on this guy. But all of the information I could get all agreed at some point some year, probably before the dogs playing poker. He invented this thing and made at least some of his painting business money making some of these because, you like carnivals circuses they all want it yeah it didn't make it into the american journal of dog gambling habits that's too bad right and yeah and one reason this seems true to me is the the limited biographical information about

this guy there's kind of a humongous gap between like the start of his early adulthood and the start of the dog paintings. Like from 1860s when he's a young adult to the start of the 1900s when he starts making real dogs playing poker money. Like those 40 years he did something for money. And I know about the failed banks and newspapers and stuff, but this had to have been part of the economic puzzle for keeping him afloat. I see. I see. Just makes sense. Yeah, I mean, he had to train his mind, his body. He had to seek great thinkers from other countries.

Right, right. And then it took him 40 years to be like, wait, dogs, but they're playing poker. And then he ascended to a new consciousness. Yeah. A eureka moment that no one appreciated when he told them, I'm sure. They were like, I mean, you can paint that. I'd have to see it, I guess. I don't know. Okay.

Yeah. You just like, like you look into his eyes and you see a dog playing poker painting and you zoom into the dog's eye and then that becomes the universe. Yeah, because his reading any biographical stuff about him, just other weird stuff pops up. Like, I don't I don't have more information than what i'm about to say but all of my sources say that you like invent penicillin or something like what else did this guy do yeah he was president coolidge also that's just the thing about him no it's not true um that guy is those little tabs on cans? He made those. Because the dogs on the face holes, those are the only two big things. But every biographical thing about him says that he tried to write a hit comic opera at one point.

And the comic opera, he finished it. And all I know is that it was about a mosquito infestation in New Jersey. That's the entire thing I know about this. I don't know anymore. But he just did that too. I love this man. Yeah. I love it.

I wish that had become like an opera. An opera about a mosquito infestation. Oh my God. This is so, it's so good. How do you not put that on Broadway? Right nearby. So it's so good. How do you not put that on Broadway? Right nearby. We had a genius and we let him slip through our fingers.

Like so many dogs trying to hold cards in their paws. You know, that's us. And very last takeaway here before the bonus show takeaway number three the dogs playing poker series might be satirical or modern people might be saying that to pump up the monetary value of the paintings i don't know for sure which it is, but there are some people with some claims that these paintings were like on purpose satires of middle class American men. Because they could be. I mean, I guess it seems, I mean, I'm not an art historian or a poker historian or a dog historian i guess i mean closer closest to dog historian uh it's still not one of those but it does seem like guy goes to europe clears his

head and thinks dog's playing poker funny dog's playing poker funny. Dog's playing poker funny. And that was it. Like, that's what it is to me. But, you know, hey, look, I'm a rube, so what do I know? I can't analyze the chiaroscuro of these paintings, the play of light upon the St bernard's nose and be able to intuit some kind of deep biting satire of middle-class americana that's above my pay grade yeah it is like one of the reasons it's hard to square whether this is satire or not is that it is it they're fully oil paintings but there's just not amazing brushwork or whatever going on you know i i feel like we ascribe bigger ideas to art that is more technically impressive you know like we'll say oh this person has the skills to paint absolutely anything so this must be smart even if it's's just like a Rothko where it's one big

color or something, you know, we're like, but they're good at art. So it's smart. This guy, he doesn't seem to be that amazing at using a paintbrush. Yeah. But if you do look at one of these, you do see that the bulldog is holding a card between his toes, his little dog tootsies. And so that does seem to indicate a level of cheating in the game, which could be a commentary on the way that society has cheated. I can't, I can't complete the thought. I tried really hard to do it and my brain stopped because I was like dogs playing poker funny and then peed my pants. That's the human brain, folks. That's what it does. That's what happens.

No, I'm like, let's get into it. There are people who have completed that sentence. And yeah, and the one you pointed to, it's one called A Friend in Need, and it's one of the most famous ones because one dog is slipping another dog an ace under the table. He has successfully depicted cheating. And Smith and Kiger's book, they cite Sotheby's art specialist Alison Cooney, who describes the paintings as, quote, a humorous, ironic take, a jab at middle-class America, end quote. There's another expert named Alan Fossil, who writes for the auction house Doyle, New York. He compares Coolidge to Norman Rockwell, and also compares him to the painter who did one of the first Uncle Sam depictions, whose name is James Montgomery Flagg.

first Uncle Sam depictions, whose name is James Montgomery Flagg. And then their book also cites another expert who claims that the painting A Friend in Need, where dogs are cheating at poker, is a direct reference to a 1647 painting by a French Baroque artist named Georges Delatour, titled The Cheat with the Ace of Diamonds. This expert claims that like, oh, Coolidge captured the composition of that painting, and he's referencing it because he's a true fine artist. But most of these experts also work for auction houses where they're making a bunch of money selling these. And so I don't trust it. Follow the money.

I don't. I don't buy it. Big dogs playing poker. Yeah. Right in the pocket of big dog playing poker. Yeah. poker yeah right in the pocket of big dog playing poker yeah i mean i can't imagine like again i feel like and this is no no offense to cassius coolidge who i think is a genius i think the thought process behind these paintings even if it's a reference to another painting is people playing poker. Okay. But if it's dogs doing it, it really funny. Like, and like, maybe there's a painting and it's a satire that painting where it's like,

all right, but now dogs are doing it. Huh? Huh? It's pretty funny, right? Because it's dogs. I think that's right. And the other main evidence people point to for maybe there's something more here is that like in this commission series the majority are dogs playing poker but several of the paintings are dogs doing other human stuff and in particular stuff that like turn of the century middle class American men would have been doing. Like, cause also I, in my head, I just presume all these dogs are male. He's not clear about it, but the other paintings are of dogs being in bars. He doesn't detail the dogs like intact testicles or anything like that. Yeah.

Right. Just, I'm thinking of Georgia O'Korgia but but you know what i mean like yeah there's no uh there's no verification of genitalia yeah like the but the painting the other paintings in the series are dogs uh fixing a car and dogs in a court of law being lawyers and dogs watching other dogs play baseball and it's very specifically male spaces of that time. Dogs shouldn't be doing those things. And yet they are. It's, uh, yeah, but I, I do, I, I still feel deeply that it's, it doesn't, it sounds to

me again, it's like dog lawyers. That's funny. Right. If a dog was a lawyer, right. And he worked like dog lawyers. That's funny. Right. If a dog was a lawyer. Right. And he worked pro bono. That would be funny. So.

Right. Like, is it and is it like a smart joke, like in BoJack Horseman where animals do stuff or is it just this funny picture? Like there's there's a relatively lively discourse to these to this day about the artistic value of the paintings. And a lot of it's coming from people trying to make money. But also, you know, maybe they're also right. I can't really say for sure. Who knows? I don't know. We're just we're such we're such simple creatures.

We see an animal doing something they shouldn't be doing and we laugh. And that's we need more of that. We don't be doing and we laugh and that's we need more of that we don't it doesn't need to be deeper than that it's a very uh i had a comedy writing teacher once who said that all of comedy is a service industry like you're there to provide something people laugh at and if they're not laughing you're wrong like it's the customer's right you need to do it right And this guy met a customer need. Yeah. They needed art people like.

They needed it to move cigars. He succeeded. Great. You know? Yeah. And I don't think we need to gussy it up with some deep, deep secret meaning that this great Dane actually stands for some kind of, you know, some kind of American, I don't know. Right.

It just doesn't, I mean, like I, I'm cool. I'm good too with like, I'm good too with satire and paintings that have these deeper meanings. I think that's very valuable, but again, it could, you know, it's like the famous Freudian saying, sometimes dogs playing pokers and then also smoking cigars is just dogs playing pokers and smoking cigars. Now, I really want Freud to have one of these in his office. He's doing his groundbreaking and ultimately probably wrong psychology. And then there's this funny painting over the couch.

He'd probably be upset that there wasn't more like paintings of the dogs playing poker with their testicles, like in full view. Right. Just as the dog is neutered, you have neutered your mind. folks that is the main episode for this week my thanks to katie golden for sharing about her cat like dog and listening to stories of my dog like cat and just bringing the whole thing together scientifically and artistically and humorally and everything else. Humorally isn't really a word. It just came out of me as I was talking. Anyway, I said that's the main episode because there is more secretly incredibly fascinating stuff available to you right now. If you support this show on Patreon.com. Patrons get a bonus show every week where we explore one obviously

incredibly fascinating story related to the main episode. This week's bonus topic is the concept of cats playing poker, followed by the story of the only cat ever to go to space. You get two stories this week. Visit SIFpod.fun for that bonus show, for a library of more than seven dozen other bonus shows, and to back this entire podcast operation. And thank you for exploring Dogs Playing Poker with us. Here's one more run through the big takeaways. Takeaway number one, the Dogs Playing Pok poker paintings were commissioned to sell cigars. Takeaway number two, the dogs playing poker artists might have invented a whole nother prominent kind of silly art, the face hole. And takeaway number three, the dogs playing poker series might be satirical, or people

might just be saying that to pump up their value. might be satirical, or people might just be saying that to pump up their value. Those are the takeaways. Also, please follow my guest. She's great. Katie Golden tweets as at ProBirdWrites. She also tweets as herself, Katie Golden. That's G-O-L-D-I-N. And then she hosts the Creature Feature Podcast weekly on iHeartRadio. If you liked this at all, if you enjoyed this episode, even the tiniest bit, like 1%, less than 1%, less than 0.1%, you're going to like Creature Feature a lot. And please check it out. She is the host, producer, everything else of the funniest and best scientific show about animals. Many research sources this week. Here are some key ones. A great article from artsy.net by Jackson Arn. A great book titled Poplorica, a popular history

of the fads, mavericks, inventions, and lore that shape modern America. That book's by Martin J. Smith and Patrick J. Kiger. Plus more from Mental Floss, My Modern Met, GQ, CNN Money. Kyger, plus more from Mental Floss, My Modern Met, GQ, CNN Money. Find those and many more sources in this episode's links at sifpod.fun. And beyond all that, our theme music is Unbroken Unshaven by The Budos Band. Our show logo is by artist Burton Durand. Special thanks to Chris Souza for audio mastering on this episode. Extra, extra special thanks go to our patrons.

I hope you love this week's bonus show. And thank you to all our listeners. I'm thrilled to say we will be back next week with more secretly incredibly fascinating. So how about that? Talk to you then.