Secretly Incredibly Fascinating - Euros

Episode Date: August 12, 2024

Alex Schmidt, Katie Goldin, and special guests Jeremy Bent and Dimitry Pompée explore why the euro currency is secretly incredibly fascinating.Visit http://sifpod.fun/ for research sources and for this week's bonus episode.Come hang out with us on the SIF Discord: https://discord.gg/wbR96nsGg5Get tickets to see us LIVE at the London Podcast Festival this September: https://www.kingsplace.co.uk/whats-on/comedy/secretly-incredibly-fascinating/

Folks, highly relevant to a European topic, we are doing a live episode of CIF at the London Podcast Festival, where they don't use Euros, never have, but it's in Europe, it fits. There's a link in the description to get tickets, me and Katie would love to see you there. See you in England, in the UK, in London. Euros, known for being currency. Famous for being that European currency, the new one.

Nobody thinks much about them, so let's have some fun. Let's find out why euros, the currency, are secretly incredibly fascinating. ["The New World"] 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 very much not alone because I'm joined by my cohost Katie Golden.

Katie, hello. Hello. Hello. It's me, Katie. It is Katie. And we are joined by two wonderful guests in addition to ourselves. Jeremy Bent is a wonderful improviser. He's from Mission to Zyx from Tuning Out the News. Dimitri Pompei has writing credits across Disney, Netflix and more. And they are two of the co-hosts of the wonderful Maximum Fund podcast, Eurovangelists, here at ASAP. Welcome, Demetri and Jeremy. Welcome. Oh, thank you so much for having us. A pleasure to be here. I actually do listen to this show. So being on the show is very meta for me,

and I'm very excited about it. I don't listen to any podcasts, so I apologize. And then when you listen to this show, after you record it, you're listening to yourself listening to the show that you are in the future listening to. Well, so we'll have to do an episode of Your Evangelist where we talk about Demetri being on this podcast and then play a clip of him talking about listening to this podcast and then just keep the chain going. Step two question mark, step three, the singularity. Is that what the singularity is?

I don't really know, man. Just trying to keep up. No, and we were talking immediately before we rolled about how much I really like Eurovangelist and I have never experienced the Eurovision Song Contest outside of this very good Eurovangelist podcast. So it's fantastic. Everybody should check it out. And I would like to stress,

if you do not want to engage with Eurovision, but prefer to experience it only through the lens of our podcast, that is an acceptable take. That's a fine way to do it. I encourage tens, if not hundreds of thousands of people to do so. I will agree with that, but I'll also add on, if you know nothing about the context, you can listen to your evangelist. We'll get you hyped. We're in the lead up.

We're the early days getting to Eurovision 2025. The nations are starting to look for their new songs to represent them at Eurovision this year. This is a great time to jump in, learn some Eurovision history. We can take you on a ride. we'll teach everything you need to know. It's gonna be great, you're gonna love it. Ground floor. I actually recently got into Eurovision because I moved to Euro and-

Sure. And it is- That'll do it. I live in Italy now, I'm not Italian, but then I find myself feeling highly opinionated about Eurovision. What did you think of this year's Italian Eurovision song? Great question.

Okay, remind me. This is Angelina Manga's song, La Noia, The Boredom. Yeah, I wasn't actually that impressed. Yeah, that's a ready to go. I just love it. I wasn't that impressed this year, actually, to be honest, sadly. Wow, okay. Okay, we would, if this were my podcast,

we would be having a conversation right now. You know what, I'll re-listen to Italy's song because I'm trying to remember. I thought, was it a ballad? Am I not remembering that right? No. What was it? No thought it was it a ballad? Am I not remembering that right? No. What was it? That is not a ballad.

It is a- It's cumbia flavored dance bop. Okay, that sounds cool. I'm gonna re-listen to it. I might be thinking of the year before last year's Italian song. The year before's Italy song was not very good. Okay, that's probably what I'm, okay,

that was the one that, although Norway had an Italian Norwegian do a song that was good the year before. That's correct. Queen of Kings. That one I really liked. Okay, I'm sorry. I'm off by ear. I will re-listen. I'll give Italy's last year a shot. Give Angelina Mungo a chance, because she's got some good stuff for you. All right, great. Well, I'm very excited for this CIF topic for us because it's relevant to Europe.

It is the euro currency. And we always start by asking guests their relationship to the topic or opinion of it, Jeremy or Dimitri, either of you can start. How do you feel about the euro currency? I did a semester abroad in London when I was like 20. And you know, you used the pound and the conversion from pound to dollar at the time was like, you had to be constantly multiplying by 1.7 in your head and it was a little tricky to do.

And then also the pound went up and down against the dollar at the time. And so by the end of my time there, my money was worth less. It was very annoying. Whereas the euro is like, it's like just above the dollar, right? It's like a dollar 10 or something like that. It's just much easier to do that calculation and then also not have to do it. How much am I? It's like, what does things cost? You're like 10 euros and you're like, OK, yeah, OK.

It was. And it's, when you travel in Europe, once you get used to traveling in Europe, it's so easy to go from country to country and to not have to- Schengen area. Yeah, change a bunch of currency or like readjust to a new exchange rate. It's just, I'm pro euro is what I'll say.

Nice, how about you, Dmitry? Despite the fact that before we were a show, Eurovangelist did refer to people who are enthusiastic about the euro and the European Union. It took a few weeks for us to be the top result in Google and not an article about euro enthusiasts. I have no relationship with the euro. I've never used it.

The last time I had been out of America before going to Eurovision this year was nearly 30 years ago. I went to France to visit some family and they were still using the frunk back then. So I have never used the euro and I was excited to when I got over for Eurovision this year, which is held in Sweden. I stayed in Denmark, I went to Sweden, I commuted. I was like, all right, time to use the euro. Nope.

Both of those countries use the Danish Krone and the Swedish Krone. So didn't get a chance to use the euro at all. I have no relationship with it. Sorry, dude. Krono Blacked. Yeah. Yeah, I enjoy the Euro. I like having them for sure, because then I can buy stuff. So I'm pro me having Euros. And I've liked

them when I've used them, because yeah, it's very handy. I did get to visit Croatia shortly before they joined the Euro and they had a currency called the Kuna. It had a really cute animal on it called the European pine martin, because I guess the name Kuna was based on an old word for the pelts of pine martins. We were trading furs. I was like, oh, it's too bad they're not going to do pine martin money. But then when Croatia did their special design for some euro coins, they put

the pine Martin on that. So now there are euros with pine Martins. Croatia is doing a good job. It's great. Yeah. If you're wondering what a pine Martin is, it's kind of a little weasel like animal. They're cute. They're very cute. A very beautiful weasel. Not some guy named Martin who's just like hanging around pines. I am fine Martin.

Yeah. Right. It's the Martin Lawrence to come. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. The Scandinavian Martin Lawrence.

Yeah. Well, and our first fascinating thing about this topic of the euro currency, it's a quick set of fascinating numbers and statistics. And this week that's in a segment called, I want to know, have you ever heard these stats on any other podcast? You know, you know, Alex, if you're looking to represent a country in Eurovision, San Marino is always open. They can take anybody at any time. And with a voice like that, I think you're gonna win. Yeah, you got a shot.

Has Liechtenstein ever been in Eurovision? They have not, but they keep wanting to, they keep teasing it. Alex. I'll also say Alex, San Marino uses the Euro. Yeah, and also in the bonus show, we'll talk about micro states among other things. So that's going to be fun in the bonus. But that very San Marino Credence Clearwater revival cover was suggested by

DVSNTT on the Discord. We have a new name for this every week. Please make a Missilian Wacky embed as possible. Submit through Discord or to sifpot at gmail.com. The first number is about 350 million people. About 350 million people. That's how many people live in a place that has officially adopted the Euro currency as of 2023. Dang. So a little more than we have in America.

That's right. Yeah. The Euro zone, it's often called. It's a group of 20 countries plus some micro-estates and other people. Its combined population is bigger than the United States and its population wealth and GDP are widely considered one of the top three economies in the world, along with the US and its dollar and the People's Republic of China and the Yuan.

Man, when you put it that way, if we could all just stop bothering each other about whose coffee is better, we could gang up on the US. I say this as an American, I am not a citizen here, but I- You cross a couple borders and all of a sudden, you're trying to plot our downfall, which you don't need to, We're well on our way. Just because they were doing a good job without, yeah. Yeah. Katie, when you started saying that, I thought it was going to be a we as an Americans

and then it was as in Europeans to get us. Oh no. Yes, of course. Double agent. I'm a double agent. The next several numbers here are about like the physical euro currency. We want you to be excited about handling this stuff when you get to Demetri Will someday. And they can always dream, dream.

I don't even know what one looks like. What's on the euro, Alex? Is this part of what you're going to tell me here? Well, it depends on where you are. Next number with this is eight because there are eight denominations of euro coins. They have a two euro coin and a one euro coin for whole euros, and then the currency subdivides into cents, sort of like US dollars.

So there's 50, 20, 10, five, two, and just one cent. And it turns out the way that's designed is really cool, partly because they focused on including visually impaired people. Yeah, I love this about this money. So it gets smaller as it gets less, which I love. It makes so much sense. These cents. Yeah, being able to like scrounge around and know just by feel, like, this is one euro or this is like a cent is really helpful. And I don't know why in the US our coins, like 10 cents is smaller than five cents.

The dime is the most confusing of the American coins. It's so confusing. Why so? Smaller than a penny. Yeah. Yeah. And our nickel is an absolute unit. And I don't know why they did that either.

Really? Not a high value coin, but boy, can you wing that bad boy. These American coins could be a whole episode too, but these euro coins, they increase in size as you go up. And also there's an extra special feature where they're grouped into different sets of colors. So if you have partial vision, that helps. And also there's an extra special feature where they're grouped into different sets of colors. So if you have partial vision, that helps. And then also the small coins have different groove patterns on their edges. So the two cent coin has an edge groove pattern that's distinct from the one and the five, same with the 20 cents coin edges versus the 10 and the 50. And then also the paper notes for euros are

also optimal for people who don't see well. They are different sizes, they're different colors, there's raised printing for the key numbers. That 50 euro note is like, you're not going to mistake that for the five euro note is what I'll say. You could hang glide off that 50 euro. Yeah, truly. That's a yoga mat. It's like. You know what I like about that, though? Even though it's designed for visually impaired people, everyone benefits when we do that, which is the way accessibility works in general. How many times have you found yourself giving a 20

when you meant to give a five? That happens to me a lot. I mean, obviously, I'm a big money baller, so I'm always handing out cash. Yeah, sure. You're always handing out cash. But like, how many times have you done that? Like if there was a physical differentiation between the bills, that helps everyone. Yes. Also, it's very satisfying to use coins more. Like, I know I love using coins. It makes me feel like I'm a goblin.

Like when I'm getting my coffee, I'm like, give me coffee and slap some coins on the bar. It's great. I just like, it makes things just feel so much more real. That's a very Dungeons and Dragons sort of transaction. Yes. Do you carry all your coins and like a big sack? I have like a sack.

I have a sack and I throw on the bar and it's like, caffeine me up! I feel like each European is carrying a shield, a weapon, and like three euro coins. Yeah. There's a lot of... And if I knock them down... There's a lot of cobblestones....30 feet of hemp and rope, a pack of thieves' tools.

It kind of is that way. I am in a bit of an older style city, so it really does feel that way. Sometimes you go down an alley and you like trip on some cobblestones and you like just drag yourself into a bread place and you slap down some coins. It's like, give me bread. I've hurt myself on the cobblestones. And the side quest continues. Yeah.

Exactly. I choose to believe that life in Europe is just a series of side quests, honestly. For shopping, yes. For sure. It's not like you go to Kroger's or Ralph's or something and there's just like everything there. You're like, bring my sack with me

and start accumulating goods. I go somewhere for cheese. I go somewhere for cereal, somewhere else for chocolate covered nuts. Like throughout our evolution, we were once some kind of like little shrew like squirrel animal. And then like having a sack and be like,

I'm gonna get my nuts from this store and I'm going to get my milk from this store. It just feels so good instinctively. And speaking of big spending, the next number here is seven, but eventually six. Seven but trending towards six. Benjamin Buttons. That's how many denominations of paper euro banknotes there are. Oh, okay. They are working on retiring one of them. What?

Which one? Who's getting the axe? Okay, so that's the question. Are they retiring a low value euro note and maybe replacing it with a coin, or are they retiring a high value euro note because it's sort of too risky to carry around like an a thousand euro note. I want like a big like five euro coin that's like almost the size of a cracker size,

just like here's five year. An Oreo sized coin, yeah. And that was a great question, Jeremy. They're retiring the highest one because of crime. Yeah. Oh, crimes. Because you're not going to plunk down 3,000 euros to buy like a computer or something.

You're probably just going to put it on a credit card. Yes. Yeah, it's not that people are stealing it. It's that people are apparently doing illicit transactions. Tax crimes. It's tax crimes. Yeah. Like the crime use of cash.

These are still legal tender. The seven paper note denominations are 5, 10, 20, 50, 100, 200, and then 500 euros. That's a lot. One bill. Which is also kind of the biggest bill of any common currency in the world. It's not an official thing, but it's one of the largest just notes that is floating around a lot of places. That's too much power for one person to have.

We should not be able to spend 500 euros all in one go by dropping a bill on a table. I don't like that level of responsibility. I believe the US used to print a $10,000 bill. I'm like, that's insanity. It did. And can I just say that I totally knew there was a 500 euro note because I have so many of them. Constantly.

Falling outrageously. Finding them in a couch. Yeah. Yeah. Like, oh, what's this in my pockets? Oh, all right. I'm constantly... Falling outrageously. Finding them in a couch. Like, oh, what's this in my pockets? All right. And the thing is, apparently there are a few hundred million of those 500-euro notes. They are out there. It's not like that weird $10,000 US bill where there were only a few. Yeah.

So is the plan to destroy them in general or just let them kind of fade out over time and after you stop making them? Like, what's the plan to get rid of these things? It's the fade out plan. Yeah. Okay. I do like that sounds fun though. Like have it like everyone just comes out, bring out your $500 note, trade it in for like, I don't know what it would be a a big sack of coins, and then you burn them. This is a big sack with the Euro symbol on it, like a bank robber. A bank robber in a tin tin carton. The most Belgian way. Because apparently, Euros are printed at 11 different facilities across Europe.

It's spread out. But around 2019, the various central banks and the one European central bank all agreed to stop printing 500 notes. They're still totally legal tender. You don't have to give them up or anything. But there's concerns about them in crime and in money laundering. And also according to the New York Times, these have a reputation for financing terrorism.

Ooh. Yikes. Well, you don't love that. I rescind my earlier comment. I do not have any 500-euro note. And the reputation's so big, the 500-euro note has picked up the nickname of Bin Laden. Wow. No.

Sort of like calling a $100 bill a Benjamin. People will call them a Bin Laden. Oh, boy. Yeah, but those are two very different men. Yeah, and the reason for those names is very different. Yeah. Very different. One's got his picture on it.

We get it. Yeah. And a good model for these is the US. The US stopped printing $1,000 bills, $5,000 bills, $10,000 bills, and then they just wear out or get exchanged over time. And so that's the future of the 500-euro note. That's the way it's going. Yeah. And so that's the future of the 500 euro note. That's the way it's going. Yeah, because most reasonable people don't want

that amount of money that could be blown away by a stiff breeze. Like, the wanting to have that note means potentially, it belongs in like a metal suitcase, not in your wallet. Yeah, it should be held by a model on a game show. It shouldn't be in your wallet. Yeah, it should be held by a model on a game show. It shouldn't be in your wallet. Yeah, it's too big of a bill to me, so it makes sense. And also with crime, the next number here is 17 million euros.

That's a lot of euros for crimes. Yeah, that's the value of stacks of counterfeit 50 euro notes that Italian police found in one van. Whoa. That's a lot. That's legitimately impressive. How was the room? Like, was it just stuff to the gills?

Like one guy scrunched in there trying to drive this thing surrounded by bills? Right, the guy is like the size of Mario before the mushroom, like the little one. Right, and then just bills like falling, like flying out of the truck as it's driving. You know, hear me out here, hear me out here. Okay. It's already hard enough to make a counterfeit dollar,

and our money is so much more simple than a euro is based on everything you've told me. If you're going to go through the effort of counterfeiting a euro or various dominations of the euro, just get a real job. The amount of effort you're putting into this cannot be worth it. Alex, it's 17 million euro in 50s, right? Right. Yeah, the value is 17 million. Okay, so that's, I'm trying to figure out how many bills that is, right?

It's like, don't be ashamed to use a calculator. No, no, that's all up here. I rapidly did, yes, 340,000 bills, so it fits. That's so many bills. There's no way for you to spend those in any way that looks reasonable for someone to be like, wow, another 50, huh? You're like, yeah, yeah, that's fine.

I'm like, yeah, it would be so hard to disseminate that many counterfeit bills at once. Exactly, that's what I'm saying. Oh yeah, there he is, there's Jervie again, exclusively using 50s. Man, what a cool and normal thing to do. Yeah, I paid for my house with this gym bag full of only $50 euro notes. It's like, what?

You know me, only 50s Jones, that's what they call me. Every time I go to the bank, I say, 50s please, nothing else. It turns out there was a foolishly optimistic belief about the rollout of the Euro versus counterfeiting because we'll talk later about the origin of the whole currency, but it's relatively modern and people said like, with all these design features and all our modern tech, we can make this like the least counterfeitable currency in the world.

We're just so modern. And no, people are aggressively counterfeiting it all the time. It's like every other money. You underestimate the ingenuity of counterfeiters is what I think. Yeah. Yeah.

And this one van was found by Italian police in 2014, which led to a much bigger sting against a syndicate called the Napoli Group, located in Giuliano, a town near Naples. And Italian law enforcement claimed that up to 90% of all counterfeit euros were being made by this one syndicate in the Naples area. Wow.

That also might partly play into stereotypes of Southern Italy being full of crime, but it was a claim that they found this humongous Europe-wide counterfeiting ring with this thing. They used all their creativity on counterfeiting euros and didn't have anything left for their gang name, really? The Napoli group? Come on. Well, consider this. anything left for their gang name, really? The Napoli Group? Come on.

Well, consider this. If you're gonna be a V Euro counterfeiting group in not just Italy, but Eurozone wide, you wanna have a name that sounds, you don't wanna be like. Fair. Right. Not some fly by night counterfeiting group.

Like a really established. No, the Napoli Group is like, okay, you know, like. Not some fly-by-night counterfeiting group. Like a really established. The Napoli group is like, okay, all right, we're gonna get our counterfeit bills from the Napoli group. Okay, that sounds respectable, all right. Yeah, if it's Grupo Napoli, like Grupo is often used as like a company, like Inc. or company or something. So like Grupo Napoli is sort of like.

Grupo Napoli. Like Napoli. Yes, I've heard of their work. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Hey, where can I find them? Ironically, just outside of Napoli. Yeah, Giuliano, Italy. And the other amazing thing is people are so aggressively counterfeiting euros, a whole nother operation

did the coins. I know two euros is a lot of money relatively, but that same year 2014, Italian police busted a shipping container in the port of Napoli that came all the way from a counterfeit operation in China. They had built machines to mill counterfeit two euro and one euro coins, and the container held 306,000 coins worth less than a million euros. The police described them as perfect fakes that they only caught due to monitoring the wider logistical system and they said there's probably just like a lot of fake coins in Europe because

these are perfect. There's no other way to tell. It's sort of like if the biggest fake coin operation only impacts your economy by like a counterfeit amount that is less than a million euros. Right. You might just want to outsource the manufacturing of the coins at that point. Hey, what?

Right, bring them in. Yeah. Yeah. It's like these are actually better. These are better than our coins. These are more durable. They're just as good. Yeah. Well, we just as good. Yeah. Why, we couldn't tell.

Right. And they cost you how much? Wow. Wow. Yeah. One of your mints can take the rest of the year off or whatever. It's cool. Yeah.

Yeah, it's all right. And with coins, the next number is the year 2022. 2022. That is when the Central Bank of Estonia released a new two euro coin design celebrating Ukraine. That's lovely. Do you know what's on that design? Just out of curiosity. Yeah, apparently it's the words Slava Ukrainy, which means glory to Ukraine, and then a Ukrainian ear of wheat and also a girl

protecting a bird in her hand in a peace and tenderness message. This was 2022. It was a response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. One of the guys I live with is a coin guy, and he's always collecting weird, cool coins. I would like to see him get his hand on that one for me. That's awesome. I'm looking at it right now. That's an attractive euro. get his hand on that one for me. That's awesome. I'm looking at it right now. That's an attractive euro. Yeah. And they minted more than 2 million of them. So it's available. It's just in circulation. It's not some kind of collector thing. Yeah. I'll keep my eyes peeled. I haven't seen one yet, but to be honest with you, I'm not really paying attention to it when I'm getting my coffee. I'm just slapping those bad boys down. But yeah, no, every country gets to print out their designs for euros.

And I think they get to do new designs every so often. Yeah, correct. And of course, you know, Katie, because you're handling them. Yeah, that's the bills. So many of them. Right. Legally. So she claims. Mm-hmm.

Bills and the small coins are just universally the same, but the one and two euro coins are in my head like US state quarters. Everybody gets to make their own little designs on one side. This Estonian one was really special because it's one of the first times a country devoted their entire coin to a different country and one that is not yet in the European Union or the Eurozone. It was just like a message of European solidarity from Estonia. That's great. They gave up on having an Estonian coin for the year.

You know, those Estonians, they get it. It's as it's as true with the euro as it is with Eurovision. I mean, if you look at the map of Europe and you see just how close they are to Russia, I think they have a special appreciation for what Ukraine is doing and going through right now. So that makes sense to me. Truly. I did a trip with my mom and my uncle a few years ago where we went to Czech Republic at the time. Now we would call it Czechia and also Hungary.

It was so interesting because in Czechia, it's like they had very specific feelings about like all of their neighbors, usually related to like wars that happened like a hundred years ago. And then Hungary similarly was like, well, we don't like them. But all of them, every single country to a man was like,

oh yeah, but we hate Russia. And you're like, yeah, that makes sense. Like, oh, that all sort of adds up, I think. Yeah. Yeah. The Euro incorporates and reflects all those divisions. Like this Estonian coin was also minted at the mint in Finland, and Finland has its own feelings about Russian invasions and control in the past. Also, the

design was made by an art student who's enrolled at the Estonian Academy of the Arts, but they're a refugee from the Ukrainian city of Kharkiv. Also, according to the Smithsonian, there was a whole separate movement where German activists made flyers depicting a Eurobank note in the Ukrainian flags colors to represent German solidarity with Ukraine. This currency has such a meaning within it of European unity that in situations like this, it becomes a symbol, even though it's just money too. It's normal money that you use for stuff.

This goes to another, just as a point of comparison, it is such a pain in the to change anything on an American dollar. Like the over in Europe, they're changing the era all the time for celebrations or for, you know, commemorative events or marking ongoing conflict. Meanwhile, we're like, hey, maybe we should put someone who's not a president, but not Ben Franklin on a dollar. And it just caused a sorts of congressional inquiry. What are we doing, man? What are we doing? Harriet Tubman's progress is slow and I feel like it's going to take like

a hundred years of Democratic presidents to get her on that 20. Harriet Tubman is used to slow progress, let's put it that way. Yeah, that's true. Taft hasn't gotten a shot yet, guys. We can't let anyone else on there until we give Taft a shot. We gotta save Taft for that big, big $100 bill. That's like, the Taft should be the hundred, right?

That's just a big, fat bill, and you're like, yeah, Taft me up, baby. It should be thicker, like have some, you know. Yeah, it's like three times as thick as a regular billy. You're like, ooh, that's a taft right there. You can put one in your wallet and just like try to close it. You can't even fold it. Yeah, I'm just buying new pants.

I'm buying new pants. I don't care. I don't care. It's fine. Oh, my gosh. Well, it ends with paper note design. The next number is 1996. Because in the year 1996, an Austrian graphic designer named Robert Kalina won the contest to design the paper euro notes. He designed them.

Did he just like draw a rectangle and he's like, okay, done. Like this. There you go. Did he just draw a rectangle and he's like, okay, done. Like this. There you go. Paper. Oh, yeah. So he won that in a very strange and fun way, which we'll explore in takeaway number one. The paper euro notes depict a fictional group of bridges and then cause those bridges to

exist in real life. Whoa. Wow. Wow. The backs of the notes have pictures of bridges that were invented in order to be as universally European as possible. And then a Dutch artist built them in real life in a funny way. That's fun. and I like that.

So if you ever get paper euros like Katie over there, you can look at them and enjoy them. Which euro note is this? Is it the five? It's all of them. Oh, I see. Oh, yeah. They're all bridges.

Man, I don't look at my money enough. You just spent it too quick. I'm too excited for the bread and the cheese. So many quest items. You can't stop for that. Yeah. That is pretty wild, though. Imagine like building the Washington

monument in response to the dollar bill. It's like, oh, wow. OK, that looks awesome. Let's get one of those. Yes, these are so interesting because they just look totally like architecture that would exist. I guess when I look at it, I just assumed that they were based on something that already existed. Yeah. And this was very early in the European Union project and they were concerned about

the money being too representative of any one country. Right. Sure. Okay. They were like, nobody gets to be the main money country, so nobody gets to be on it at all. What's the thinking? Imagine that. Yeah. And so many key sources for this takeaway, including Antlers Obscura for their bridge pictures and more. Also the Associated Press, How Stuff Works, Reuters, and a wonderful

piece by the writer, Kirk Colstead for the blog of 99% Invisible, which is a great podcast too. There was a design contest starting in the early 1990s. The two themes they would accept are either just totally abstract designs or a theme called Ages and Styles of Europe. Just Ages and Styles of Europe was the pitch. I think I'm subscribed to that magazine. So I actually found, I just did a quick, cause I wanted to see Robert's original designs.

Yeah. And I found a hundred page PDF of like dozens of submissions to the design contest, all following that theme. a hundred page PDF of like dozens of submissions to the design contest all following that theme. And it's actually really cool. It's really interesting to see what people came up with. Cause some of them are, it's like, oh, it's sort of a, you know, European art styles. And you're like, okay, this makes sense.

And then some of them are purely abstract. And you're like, oh, that is a bizarre ass bill that we could have had, I guess. They're really cool. Here, I'll link it in the chat. Oh, yeah, please do. Cause yeah, they were like, what's generic? Shapes and colors, obviously.

Shapes, colors. Kalina is still alive. He said in an interview that one of the first things he ruled out is people. Because any leader's face is specific to a country and there's no truly anonymous human face. It ends up just being something people will associate with someplace. And then he hit on an idea of, for seven euro notes, he could do seven different architectural styles from across history. he could do seven different architectural styles from across history. And so the notes go forward in time as you go up in amounts.

It starts with a classical bridge for the five year old and then Romanesque, Gothic Renaissance Baroque. Then the 200 euro note is something called the age of iron and glass. And then the 500 euro note is modernism slash 20th century. Skipped right over Germany 1930 to like 1945 though, just before you pass that one. Yeah, also skipped over some Italian architecture in that time period. By the way, there is still a lot of fascist architecture

here in Italy and it is always striking. You go from this beautiful brick-like amazing building with arches and phalanges, I don't know architecture terms, but then you get a white cube with a stern man looking at you and you're like, ah. They're like, oh, okay. I know what was here. Like a man's face and it's mad at me. I'm looking at some of these designs. We came so close to having crab money. I'm so mad. There's a crab on a hundred. There's also a funicular, which is fun, but man, I would give anything to have crab money, like to have crab on my money. Give me some crabs you'd say.

Yeah. When you're heading out for a night on the town. I got a pocket full of crabs. Pocket full of crabs? Young, dumb, and a pocket full of crabs. I have popular expression. The Napoli boys would use that like code. Like I got some crabs coming in tonight.

Yeah, we got a new ship for the crabs. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Incredible. Huge missed opportunity. You know, oddly there's good news along those lines because this... Are we getting crab money? This portion of the show will be out of date in like three or four years. Apparently the European Central Bank is taking new submissions for paper money. It's been like 25 years.

Crabs, crabs, crabs, crabs, crabs, crabs. The two broad themes they're taking submissions on are rivers and nature. There's fresh water, there's fresh water crabs. Technically crabs can exist in either of those themes. Yeah, it could be crab money. Crab money. It could be that thing where everything becomes crab shaped in nature, but with euros.

Yeah, the inevitable carcinization of currency. It had to happen. I am clearing my schedule to start drawing up some crabs. Yeah, they hope it'll roll out 2026 and it might get delayed. But yeah, Katie, you'll have... I think you mean you'll hope it'll scuttle out in 2026. I wish this was a visual podcast because I'm doing a really good panel right now. It's very good.

It's all pincers in the windows. I feel like I'm in a room with crabs right now. The universal goal remains and when Kalina did these bridges, even though you could legitimately say, where's a classical bridge? I'll do a picture of it. He instead consulted with architects to generate completely generic versions of those styles that do not exist anywhere in Europe. So it would be totally international. And so he did that and he won the contest, they made the money. But also,

you know, everybody looked at Euros so much, they said, hey, this bridge is pretty, can I go see it? It doesn't exist. No, you can't. And then in 2013, a Dutch artist named Robin Stam heard about a new housing development that would be surrounded by a small canal. He got permission from the development and from the European Central Bank to make seven pedestrian bridges to cross the canal that are each shaped and colored like the different euro note denominations.

Oh, that's fun. Which is awesome. Apparently, they're particularly weird in the case of the 500 euro note because that depicts a suspension bridge like a giant Golden Gate bridge. And then his version is a tiny pink bridge over a canal. The money needs to say bridges not to scale. Yeah. Yeah, this is for our dogs.

Right, right. It's a bridge for the dogs. I had to look up that bridge and it is exactly as you described it. Oh, thanks. Where you're like, this is, most of them I think actually look very nice and that one looks a little absurd.

It's basically, yeah. Oh my God. So yeah, so the bridge is on, the notes are fake, and then they made them happen in real life and they will also change someday. So it's a real artifact of European unity. It's great. Therefore, if we put fake animals on the money, they will have to make those happen as well. Genetically.

Oh, wow. Very exciting possibility. And folks, that's so many numbers and a big takeaway. We are going to take a quick break, then come back with some more takeaways about where this currency came from and how weird it gets. Hey folks, really quick request. If you like this show and if you like any other podcast on earth, please say so with a rating and a review. It helps us and it helps any other show you like. I'd like to speak on their behalf too. It's free, it's easy, it's particularly

available on Apple podcasts. Spotify added a star system where you don't write anything, but especially Apple podcasts, if you can leave a star rating and write a word or two about why you like the show, that means the whole world and is really helpful. And also thank you to everyone who has already done that, because you can only do it one time. So that's why I try to keep these requests really rare, usually only two or three times a year. Thank you to everybody who's already done that. Thank you for spending time listening to this request. And please rate and review

if you have not already. Thank you. Hey, do you have a favorite episode of Star Trek? If you do, you should also have a favorite Star Trek podcast. Greatest Trek is about all the new streaming Star Trek shows and it's a great companion to The Greatest Generation, our hit show about back catalog Star Trek that you grew up with. It's a comedy podcast by two folks who used to be video producers so it's a serious mix of comedy and insight that fits right into the Maximum Fund network of shows. And Greatest Trek is one of the most popular Star Trek podcasts in the world. So if you're following Lower Decks, Prodigy,

or Strange New Worlds, come hang out with us every Friday as we roast and review our favorite Star Trek shows. It's on MaximumFun.org, YouTube, or your podcasting app. From the twisted minds that brought you the adventure zone, balance and amnesty and graduation and either see and steeplechase and utraspace and all the other ones. The McRoy brothers and dad are proud to reveal

a bold vision for the future of actual play podcasting. It's called the Adventure Zone versus Dracula? Yeah, we're gonna kill Dracula's ass. Well, we're gonna attempt, we haven't recorded all of it yet. We we're gonna kill Dracula's ass. Well, we haven't recorded all of it yet. We will attempt to kill Dracula's ass, the Adventure Zone versus Dracula. Yes, a season I will be running using the D&D fifth edition rule set,

and there's two episodes out for you to listen to right now. We hope you will join us. Same bat time, same bat channel. For bats. I see what you did there. And we are back, and we're back with takeaway number two. The spark for the euro currency was a too late attempt to end wars between France and Germany through coal mining. The spark for making a unified European currency was France and Germany have fought so many wars, what if we make an exchange mechanism for them to cooperate on coal mining?

That led to a European Union under Euro currency. Wow. European history is great. We just learned in a Eurovangelist episode that one of the last straws of Serbia and Montenegro splitting as a country was a huge fight over who was gonna represent them in Eurovision in the 2000s. And obviously there had been tension before that,

but this was something where they were like, no, we're not sending anybody, we're gonna send our own rep next year. And you're like, okay. It's just like, there's always a new conflict happening because of national pride or sectarian differences. And the solutions are always things like, hey, let's make an international singing competition

or hey, let's make a currency that works for all of us. So these two will stop fighting over coal. And for the most part, these odd solutions kind of work. Yeah. Yeah, really like, yeah, the simplest and most beautiful thing about the euro currency and the European Union is that Europe fought wars against itself for like a thousand years and now it doesn't. Like, oh, great, really good. And this start of the Euro currency was almost a little of an accident. Sources here are two pieces for JSTOR Daily by Livia Gershon and Matthew Wills, also an

amazing history.com rundown by Aaron Blakemore and a New York Times obituary of European leader Jacques Delors. They talk about how there was a treaty in 1951, so shortly after the Second World War, and it was signed by just six countries. It was Italy, the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, and most importantly, France and West Germany, because Germany is also divided for the Cold War. Right. They're fighting between themselves. Not only are they're not only they are fighting against France,

they're fighting against themselves. Incredible. Right, right. I also love that Luxembourg signed it. Like, Luxembourg's getting- We are relevant. It's like, we also fight wars, and you're like, how, but really, how many wars were you dragged into by somebody else? How often did Luxembourg be like, we are going to war, you know?

Look, man, as a fellow small stater, you know it's not the size of the nation state. It's the size of the heart that they have, man. Demetri and I, it's worth mentioning, are both from New England, and I am from Rhode Island, the smallest state. Oh, for a second I thought you were from San Marino or something, I was like, whoa, okay.

Very lean. Is Rhode Island the San Marino of America? Maybe, who knows. A lot of crabs there too though. A lot of crabs, very popular. Clams a little more popular. Once crabs is money, things will turn around for a while. Yeah.

Yeah. Things will turn around for a long time. This treaty, because it's not many countries and some of them are Luxembourg, but the whole point was to create a very niche industrial organization that was called the European Coal and Steel community. And this created a common market for just coal and steel between just these six countries. And according to JSTOR Daily, the entire point was to merge coal mining operations in the Ruhr River Valley and in basically the zone that France and Germany have fought over for like a thousand years. There wasn't a unified Germany before that, but like France and Prussia blowing each other up all the time was partly for

that zone and partly for the coal. I also find this kind of tragically humorous because they did it after Napoleonic Wars, Franco-Prussian War, two world wars. And during the cold war, when that was kind of the more pressing thing. So it was kind of too late. Like that was not the time. If you'd done this a hundred years ago, you would have just had a lot of trouble. Yeah, like they got around to it after it's the closing the barn door thing. You mean we share a coin? You feel never sharing coin? Yeah, yeah.

And so this also only creates a common market for coal and steel, and that's all it did. And then from there, people who want a more unified Europe turn that into a foundation for all these amazing things, the European Union and the Euro. They later in the 1950s made a treaty for a common economic market in general with those countries that merged with a atomic research sharing organization and added more members. And by 1970, there was a commission of the European communities asking for a report on can we have one unified currency. And so that's just a few decades after World War II. They're saying, can Europe have a currency? Let's think about it.

Give peace a chance, man. I love this. I love this. It's awesome. Not to get back to the original meaning of Euro-evangelist, but it is interesting to think about, obviously, it's like countries have their own sort of national pride and that sort of thing. But then also a country is now like, okay, so I sort of have to pin the economic wellbeing of my country on these like eight other countries as well. And you're sort of like, well, yeah, but don't you also want those countries to be doing okay at the very least? Like if every country around you has their economy crash, even if your currencies are separate, that will also have an impact on how you live. So like maybe it's good if their currency is a little more stable.

It does dispel somewhat the illusion of this like, oh, well, yes, I share like four borders with four other countries and we all walk around all the time, but yeah, no, we're totally independent. Yeah, we're separate. We're separate. We all do, yeah, we do our own thing and nobody has to.

I mean, it's very America with states rights where it's like everyone gets to do what they want. And it's like, well, that doesn't really make sense a lot of the time. The more you try to advocate for this individuality in this interconnected world in which we live, we can't get away from each other, no matter how isolationist you want to be. Things that are happening over across Europe impact us every day. And the sooner we realize that, we can we can we can we can find ways to, yes, retain our original identities and still work together for the common good. Even if that means starting off with a coal consortium between six nations, you know, it's got to start somewhere.

Now countries have to like hyperfix it on certain like cultural things where it's like France is like our butter is so much better than anyone else's instead of like bombing England. They're like our butter is so superior to anything you could ever even fathom. And fairness, it's very good butter. England. They're like, our butter is so superior to anything you could ever even fathom. And fairness, it's very good butter. The French butter. No, no, it's fair. It's fair. It's fair. Yes, it's very good. And this European economic project just happened very quickly. The other dates of the history of it are that in 1989, a French politician named Jacques Delors became a leader of the

growing what became the European Union, partly because the French president didn't want him in France's government. He was like, you're irritating, go to Europe. Not a bad job. Yeah. And then Delors proceeded to steer 12 countries into a 1992 treaty, laying the official groundwork for a European Union and a Euro currency all at once. They named it the Euro in 1995. They electronically created it for a bank exchange system in 1999. Then in 2002, it was physical currency. They put out 8.1 billion Euro notes to circulate across the eurozone, which then grew from there.

You know, I'm going to blend our two shows for a minute because that 1992 date that you just mentioned is the reason why the 1990 winning song of Eurovision is called In Sieme Together, 1992. The song is all about this Italian fellow who is so hyped for the European Union to become a thing because he has lived through the various conflicts and wars of Europe. And he's like, this European Union they keep telling me about, this is what's going to bring us together in CMA. And he's just the whole song is about like, we have gone through so much.

And this finally there's some light at the end of the tunnel. 1992 is going to be such a great year for us as European people and as a global community. It was a very impactful year. So glad it was one of your talking points or touch strikes or what does the section call them? Sorry. Oh, stats numbers, etc. Takeaways, takeaways. Stat summers, stat summers, take aways, take aways. I've never heard that before. What an amazing, I had never, it seems like it really was such a cultural moment. I love that Eurovision captured it so well. That's so cool.

Eurovision is one of those things where when I first got into it, I was like, it's just a bunch of goofy songs and sometimes some boring ballads. And then it turns out almost all the boring ballads are about like really significant and moving moments in European history. And you're like, oh, okay, that's why they're boring. I don't know anything about European history. You're boring, you're fine boring. And then a lot of them, you hear the lyrics and you're like, oh, cool, that's a good song. Why don't I sing you a song about inflation?

You're ashamed. And you're like,'re like, you can dance to this song about inflation. Wow. That's so exciting. Yeah. Back to some more numbers here. The next number is 1990. Because the year 1990, that is when the leader of Ireland documented Margaret Thatcher saying wild stuff about the concept of a euro.

Margaret Thatcher was not into it at all. And not secretive about it. She just, there's some- A bunch of sons of b****s. Kind of, yeah. Because this was a conversation in 1990 and then they just like took minutes of the meeting and it was unsealed in 2020 by the Irish government. Irish leaders are called the Taoiseach. She met with Taoiseach Charles High and she told him that the Euro currency idea was ridiculous.

She called it a quote, rush of blood to the head. She also claimed that cultural differences. What does that mean? A bit of a rush of blood to the head. I don't know, I guess it means giving her a headache. I know, I think of that as a Coldplay album, so I don't really know where she was going. You stood up too fast.

Yeah, I don't know what that is supposed to mean. Maybe you should drink some Gatorade, Margaret. Yeah, I don't know what that is supposed to mean. Maybe you should drink some Gatorade, Margaret. Maybe you have poor circulation, Margaret. Because it's like right when Germany's reunifying and stuff, so I think she felt like just everything was changing too fast. But she also claimed that cultural differences would cause the currency to fail. And her main example was quote, the Italians will continue to not pay taxes, which is just prejudicial nonsense.

Oh my God. Yeah. It's, you know, I mean, on the other hand. Her biggest claim in this meeting was that the European integration effort was similar to the Soviet Politburo. Really didn't love this stuff. Wow. I think the important thing is the Eurozone and the Euro itself remain strong and Margaret Thatcher is dead. So happy days are here again. Yeah, and her main opposition to the whole project was the currency thing. She told the

Taoiseach that what Europe should do is just stick to a bunch of different currencies where the British pound and the German Deutschmark are the most prominent ones. Of course she'd say that. Yeah, that's great for the UK and Germany. Yeah. Right. Classic Marge. Two years later, her successor, Prime Minister John Major, signed that 1992 treaty that set things in motion. But he also maintained carve outs so the UK never needed to use the euro and it never did. But also Thatcher was still so mad about it, she supported a group of

MPs from her and Major's party to stab him in the back and temporarily gridlock the whole British government. And her opinion on the euro was and kind of is pretty mainstream in Britain. There was also a situation in 2014 where Scotland held an independence referendum, but they tried to leave the UK, stay in the EU, and keep using British pounds. Basically both the EU and the UK said, no, you can't. No. That's too many asks. You got to commit to one side or the other.

Yeah. Scotland's like, we're not British, but we do like the pound. Confusing. Yeah. Yeah, and exit polls showed that the main reason the referendum failed is the currency stuff. Come on, Scotland, plaid money.

You could make plaid money. Oh, think about it. Think about it. The other thing that a lot of people think along with Thatcher is there was a lot of concern about the euro being a single currency for a lot of separate financial countries, right? Like it's a unified currency,

but a bunch of different banks are involved in what happens with it. Right. And when you research the euro, you find a lot of doom saying around the year 2010, because Greece is in the euro zone, they had a financial crisis and there was concern that it would end the euro completely because Greece wanted bailouts and help and then they got that but with austerity and the upshot of all that chaos is the Euro's still here and Greece is still in the Eurozone.

It was really financially traumatic for them, but it also seems to show that the Euro survives stuff like that despite what people like Thatcher were concerned about. It's almost like distributing risk across multiple countries increases the stability of the key currency. That belief has been a really recent one. As recently as 2015, the country of Lithuania joined the European Union and the Eurozone. The following day, the value of the Euro dipped. I'll link supposed experts for sites like the Atlantic saying that this is a clear reason

the Euro is about to die. It's like Greece all over again, but it keeps not dying. And today it's the second most popular reserve currency for governments. It's considered very stable. I love the idea that one day it'd be like, this is it. This is the end for the euro. It's sure it's been going for 20 something years. This is it.

It can't possibly go past this. And you're like, give it a second. Relax. Breathe. Right. Yeah. can't possibly go past this and you're like, give it a second, you know what I mean? Relax. Breathe, right. Yeah. Yeah. Especially once we make crabs, put crabs on them.

Those will be, those will be eternal. Once you got that crab cash, good luck. Yeah. Maryland will petition to join the EU. And then you got that crab currency dragging all the other currencies back down into the bucket to conflate my crab metaphors. And all money is crabs.

And very last number and part of our main show here is just a really bizarre story. The number is 2014. Because I mentioned that Lithuania joined the Euro 2015. In 2014, two Lithuanian college students performed a bizarre pyramid funeral for the previous Lithuanian currency. A bizarre pyramid funeral. Yeah. They spent about five years gathering more than one million, essentially Lithuanian pennies, like the one cent coin of the Lithuanian currency and constructed a gigantic pyramid of the more than one million Lithuanian.

It's called Alita, but the centus coin in Lithuania. Was this for college credit or did they just like give up on school to build a penny pyramid? Apparently they majored in physics. Oh, okay. You could write a paper on that. I guess a stable pyramid. That's my best guess. How much does that cost?

A million pennies in Lithuanian money? I don't have the exchange rate or whatever, but they basically just solicited donations of it. Because, you know, it's money, but it's pennies. How many of those pennies do you think they pocketed? Apparently none, because they set themselves a deadline of, OK, New Year's Day 2015, the Euro changeover happens. So we want to build this before that. And then after they spent three weeks physically constructing this pyramid in public in the museum of money attached to Lithuania's central bank, then they disassembled

it and donated the coins to a children's charity while they still had monetary value and were still worth something. That's nice. How did they disassemble it? Just like pick up the pennies again? And yeah, the Guinness Book of World Records says it's the largest coin pyramid ever built. And the students said they chose this tribute for the artistic style and also because it evokes the funeral pyramids of Egyptian pharaohs. And so it helped them, I'm sure they don't mean this in a serious way, but it was like a way of processing the end of the currency they grew up with and the imposition of the Euro.

So we buried some animals alive. Yeah, they are in the coin pyramid. buried some animals alive. Yeah, they are in the coin pyramid. I do just want to say Guinness book of world records is wild because you just have to pick something no one would think really to do. Like the biggest pile of toenails from a single family and you'll get a Guinness record for that. Yeah. You really had that ready to go, Katie. Well, big news, big announcement.

Oh, she's been working. Ha ha ha ha ha. Hey folks, that's the main episode for this week. I truly want to say another very big thank you to Demetri Pompe and Jeremy Bent, who are two of the co-hosts of that wonderful podcast on MaxFun. It's called Eurovangelis. Like I said on the main show, I have not experienced the Eurovision Song Contest outside of enjoying their podcast, and I love their podcast.

It is just all the exact moments and drama and a whole new world to me in a way that's really joyful and done by very funny people. And you heard how funny they are on this show. So maximumfun.org has that show, Eurovangelis, along with us and lots of other great stuff. You know what else is great? The outro that we're in right now. It's got fun features for you such as help remembering this episode with a run back through the big takeaways. Takeaway number one, the paper euro notes depict a fictional group of bridges and then caused those bridges to exist in real life. Takeaway number two, the spark for the euro currency was a too late attempt to end wars between France

and Germany through cooperative coal mining. And then the whole rest of the show is so many numbers, mainly because it's money, there's a lot of numbers in it. Everything from how counterfeitable euros are, despite people's hopes, to the amazing denominations Money. There's a lot of numbers in it. Everything from how counterfeitable euros are, despite people's hopes, to the amazing denominations and accessible design features that help everybody, to the euro's role in the fight for Ukraine, to the disdain for the euro among British Prime Ministers and Scottish voters and more, to the future of the euro as a currency in Europe and the world.

Those are the takeaways and stats and numbers. Also, I said that's the main episode because there's more secretly incredibly fascinating stuff available to you right now. If you support this show at MaximumFund.org, members are the reason this podcast exists. So members 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 some of the most surprising countries and places that use the

euro currency. Visit sifpod.fund for that bonus show, for a library of more than 17 dozen other secretly incredibly fascinating bonus shows, a catalog of all sorts of max fun bonus shows, and special eurovangelists audio in there too. It's special audio. It's just for members. Thank you to everybody who backs this podcast operation. Additional fun things, check out our research sources on this episode's page at MaximumFun.org. Key sources this week include a lot of scholarly blogging and writing from JSTOR Daily, in particular by Livia Gershon and Matthew Wills. Wonderful looks at those Euro banknote bridges from

Atlas Obscura and 99%invisible. And this is easily the most a SIF episode has ever linked off to the websites of European Central Banks. Not just the European Union Central Bank, also national member central banks. They have wonderful coin designs to show you. We'll link them. That page also features resources such as native-land.ca. I'm using those to acknowledge that I recorded this in Lenapehoking, the traditional land of the Munsee Lenape people and the Wapinger people, as well as the Mohican people, Skatigok people, and others.

Also Katie taped this in the country of Italy. Jeremy taped this on the country of Italy. Jeremy taped this on the traditional land of the Gabrielino or Tongva and Keech and Chumash peoples. Dimitri taped this on the traditional land of the Manahoke and Piscataway peoples. And I want to acknowledge that in my location, Jeremy's location, Dimitri's location, and many other locations in the Americas and elsewhere, Native people are very much still here. in the Americas and elsewhere, native people are very much still here. That feels worth doing on each episode, and join the free SIFT Discord where we're sharing stories and resources about native people and life.

There is a link in this episode's description to join that Discord. We're also talking about this episode on the Discord. And hey, would you like a tip on another episode? Because each week I'm finding is something randomly incredibly fascinating by running all the past episode numbers through a random number generator. This week's pick is episode 125 that's about the topic of ball bearings. Fun fact, ball bearings from the World War II aviation industry helped perfect and popularize ballpoint pens.

So I recommend that episode. I also recommend my co-host Katie Goldin's weekly podcast, Creature Feature, about animals, science, and more. Our theme music is Unbroken, Un-Shaven by the BUDOS Band. Our show logo is by artist Burton Durand. Special thanks to Chris Souza for audio mastering on this episode. Special thanks to the Beacon Music Factory for taping support. Extra extra special thanks go to our members and thank you to all our listeners.

I am thrilled to say we will be back next week with more secretly incredibly fascinating. So how about that? Talk to you then. Music Maximum Fun A worker owned network of artist owned shows supported directly by you.