Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production
Speaker 1: of iHeartRadio, Hello and Happy Friday. We had our live
Speaker 1: show from the Ace Hotel, Los Angeles, South Bay. We
Speaker 1: sure did shared this week. We think we are as
Speaker 1: we record this still reviewing audio to see what's workable
Speaker 1: from the live show and what isn't. Yeah, so we
Speaker 1: still don't know how much you're going to get that's
Speaker 1: actually from the event itself versus from us recording in
Speaker 1: the studios that are in our homes. What a fun
Speaker 1: night though, it was very fun. I wanted to make
Speaker 1: sure to thank number one, to thank Marriott for sponsoring
Speaker 1: the show. The Marriott AC Hotel where we had this
Speaker 1: live event was really nice. The whole venue was great,
Speaker 1: everyone we worked with was great. And then suddenly, in
Speaker 1: the middle of recording the episode, there was a flash
Speaker 1: and a pop and the power was out for the
Speaker 1: whole neighborhood. And it stayed that way. It stayed that
Speaker 1: way for a long time. I think when we left
Speaker 1: after everything was over. Uh huh, our hotel was still
Speaker 1: running on a generator. Yeah yeah, yeah, which I should say,
Speaker 1: even before any of that happened, AC Hotel South Bay
Speaker 1: was already being real flexible because originally we had at
Speaker 1: the end of this event, we had a cocktail demonstration, right,
Speaker 1: And originally it was supposed to happen on their rooftop bar, right,
Speaker 1: but it rained that day, so the whole thing moved
Speaker 1: inside downstairs to their lobby bar. And they were so
Speaker 1: accommodating with that. Yeah, And it was a beautiful setup,
Speaker 1: and I so like right out of the gate they
Speaker 1: were already rolling with some wild times and then it
Speaker 1: just got wilder for us. Yeah. Yeah, because La does
Speaker 1: not have a lot of rainfall. That rooftop bar isn't
Speaker 1: a bar that has an additional roof over it. I
Speaker 1: know a lot of the rooftop bars that I have
Speaker 1: been to in like Massachusetts or North Carolina or whatever,
Speaker 1: like it's sort of an open air bar, but there's
Speaker 1: also a roof, and this was more of an open space.
Speaker 1: So having the event there in the rain was not
Speaker 1: not feasible, not really feasible. So yeah, we had it
Speaker 1: downstairs instead, Yeah, which was also very very fun. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we had a great time. That was so fun. I
Speaker 1: love making a drink and I love making a drink
Speaker 1: with a big room full of people, and it was
Speaker 1: really really great. I will say I was kind of
Speaker 1: impressed and delighted with our listeners. I mean I always am,
Speaker 1: but I have done an event like that at other
Speaker 1: things that I was not hosting, but I was like
Speaker 1: part of. And it went on. They go off the
Speaker 1: rails really easily, where it's like once you say poor
Speaker 1: the first ingredient and everybody's kind of doing their own
Speaker 1: thing and it's all and our listeners would chat while
Speaker 1: they were doing the ingredient and they would all be
Speaker 1: ready to like be like, Okay, what's next, what's the
Speaker 1: next step? Yeah, And so it was really lovely because
Speaker 1: then when we all finished together, we got to toast together,
Speaker 1: and that made me very happy in my heart. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we had kind of prepared as we were doing our
Speaker 1: walkthrough for the possibility of going off the rails immediately.
Speaker 1: So when the power went out and it turned out
Speaker 1: that we were not going to have the amplification of
Speaker 1: our headset mics for people to hear us, I was like, oh,
Speaker 1: I'm not sure how this is going to go. But
Speaker 1: it went totally fine. Everybody, all the listeners, great fun.
Speaker 1: I think folks had a great time. All. We had
Speaker 1: a couple of other teams from iHeartRadio who were there
Speaker 1: with us as part of event. All of our colleagues
Speaker 1: also were great, so I wanted to shout out to
Speaker 1: all of them. There are so many. I don't feel
Speaker 1: like I even have everybody's names in my head. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I would start naming them, but if I do, I'll
Speaker 1: leave somebody out. Then I'll feel like a jerk. So
Speaker 1: we're gonna skip that. Just know that we appreciate you all.
Speaker 1: I do want to talk about some stuff related to
Speaker 1: our our actual topic content. We never told anybody what
Speaker 1: the Pierre Collins was. Oh no, we didn't. I have
Speaker 1: a guess. I was assuming it was going to be
Speaker 1: something that had Champagne in it. No, it has cognac.
Speaker 1: Oh wow, So it to Tom Collins with cognac in it. Okay, delicious, listen,
Speaker 1: I love a little coognac. There was also a thing
Speaker 1: that I wanted to mention because we talk about the
Speaker 1: origin of that Tom Collins hoax being attributed to a
Speaker 1: minstrel performer named Harrigan. Huh. That is a confusing point
Speaker 1: because that paper that we read from mentioned specifically that
Speaker 1: it is a black performer. Okay, I could not find
Speaker 1: any evidence of a black performer named Harrigan at that
Speaker 1: time that would have been well known enough to have
Speaker 1: the kind of pull that he could have gotten every
Speaker 1: service person in New York City. And on the joke,
Speaker 1: there was a performer named Harrigan who was white and
Speaker 1: I believe appeared in blackface as part of his show,
Speaker 1: And that may be where the confusion is. But just
Speaker 1: in case you're ever like, wait, what is this scoop
Speaker 1: with that? Or you know enough about minstrel history that
Speaker 1: that raised a little question for you, there seems to
Speaker 1: be confusion on the part of that paper, is my guess.
Speaker 1: The other thing I want to talk about maybe my
Speaker 1: most coveted thing in the world right now. Okay, that
Speaker 1: nineteen twenty nine book that we mentioned, Cocktail de Perie
Speaker 1: is very hard to get. Even a pretty beaten up
Speaker 1: copy is going to run you eight or nine hundred dollars,
Speaker 1: oh my goodness, because I think there weren't very many,
Speaker 1: and they just are not in rapid supply, and the
Speaker 1: people that do have them are probably people that are
Speaker 1: really really into Cocktail and bar his Way and are
Speaker 1: not going to part with them. Right. Are there scans
Speaker 1: of it? Well? I found one okay, and it will
Speaker 1: be listed among our show notes. Okay, this show and
Speaker 1: it is spectacular because this is I'm trying to figure
Speaker 1: out where this is housed, because I kind of stumbled
Speaker 1: upon just the active live page scam where you can
Speaker 1: flip through the whole thing. Oh sure, and I will
Speaker 1: say this is one where you really want to flip
Speaker 1: through the whole thing because it's illustrated beautifully in you know,
Speaker 1: this art deco style. They have a great page turning
Speaker 1: noise that I don't normally love when things do that,
Speaker 1: but theirs is extra good and you just see the
Speaker 1: layout because this was also I presume sponsored by a
Speaker 1: lot of spirit brands, because there are things like you know,
Speaker 1: hand drawn ads for quantrolle and whatnot in it, and
Speaker 1: it's all quite beautiful and I'm obsessed with it and
Speaker 1: I just like looking at Even if you don't speak French,
Speaker 1: you don't really need to. It is all in French,
Speaker 1: but like you can translate these recipes pretty well, and
Speaker 1: it's just a good insight into how like cocktail books
Speaker 1: were working at the time. And I love it and
Speaker 1: I covet it now. So I will be that weirdo
Speaker 1: who's searching for a a copy that magically does not
Speaker 1: cost nine hundred dollars. Sure, but I love it. This
Speaker 1: is my new white Whale perhaps of books. It's just
Speaker 1: a I don't know, I just love it. It's adorable,
Speaker 1: it has some little notations in it, this copy. I'm
Speaker 1: into it. I'm super into all of it. And it's
Speaker 1: also just a good record of what was going on
Speaker 1: in Paris in the nineteen twenties in terms of, like
Speaker 1: it's party culture. So I'm in. I hope if you
Speaker 1: go looking for this you are as charmed by it
Speaker 1: as I am. You know. This was also an interesting
Speaker 1: episode in that we don't often talk about alcohol on
Speaker 1: the show. Right when we do, we try to talk
Speaker 1: about it. Historically, we don't advertise alcohol on the show. Sure,
Speaker 1: So this was a little bit of a tricky one
Speaker 1: to figure out the right path, and hopefully it was
Speaker 1: enjoyable and fun and thinking about how how these things
Speaker 1: come to be rather than the idea of getting drunk.
Speaker 1: Please drink responsibly. If you drink, will be a fun
Speaker 1: ride for other people. I love this particular area of history.
Speaker 1: I love talking about where cocktails come from and how
Speaker 1: they've changed, and who invented them, and that most of
Speaker 1: them are as you know, because we've talked about some
Speaker 1: of them on Eponymous Foods before. It's contentious. There are
Speaker 1: people who really believe one version or another and they
Speaker 1: will fight about it online. So tread carefully if you
Speaker 1: go wandering into any discussions. But it is a super
Speaker 1: fun space and I really just I like how it
Speaker 1: traces human history through the ways we have, you know,
Speaker 1: engaged in social scenarios or tried to relax through the
Speaker 1: imbibing of spirits or not. I still really love that
Speaker 1: Jerry Thomas has a temperance section. Yeah, and I'm going
Speaker 1: to call them temperance drinks going forward. We talked about
Speaker 1: the monastery at Montserrat a bit. Yeah, you did different
Speaker 1: stuff there than I did. I did totally different stuff
Speaker 1: there than you did. Yeah you did the funicular, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: we we. This was one of two funicular trips that
Speaker 1: we took on our trip to Barcelona. Took the funicular
Speaker 1: up to the top of It's not the very top.
Speaker 1: You can climb farther up from there. But when you
Speaker 1: look at that finnicular from the ground, it looks terrifying,
Speaker 1: like it looks like a sheer vertical climb, which it
Speaker 1: does not feel that way really when you're on it.
Speaker 1: But yeah, we took the funicular. We walked around at
Speaker 1: the top. There's there are some like pilgrimage paths up there,
Speaker 1: and we walked a bit and then we came back
Speaker 1: down and we were going to get lunch. The restaurant
Speaker 1: seemed to be having some issues that day. It looked
Speaker 1: like maybe they were having some kind of plumbing struggle,
Speaker 1: so the restaurant was closed the I don't think you
Speaker 1: were at the same restaurant that well. There was also
Speaker 1: a cafeteria that had a very long line, and so
Speaker 1: we made a meal out of things that were sold
Speaker 1: in this little like sort of tent market there where
Speaker 1: people sold a number of locally made things. So there's
Speaker 1: a cheese that's kind of like a ricotta that's served
Speaker 1: with honey on it. I had some of that. I
Speaker 1: had some candied almonds, and I had some of these
Speaker 1: little fig cakes. And there are names for all of
Speaker 1: these that I don't remember, and I did not look
Speaker 1: up before we came to record this. It's called a
Speaker 1: circle of flavor. Yeah, that's described them. I loved our
Speaker 1: guide in Barcelona she was amazing. Unlike prior trips that
Speaker 1: we've done, we had the same guide with us for
Speaker 1: most of the things that we did the whole time.
Speaker 1: There were a couple things that we had, like a
Speaker 1: guide that was like for like, we had a different
Speaker 1: right Segretta Familia has its own guide structure, so she
Speaker 1: couldn't be our guide in there. Yeah, so we had
Speaker 1: a different sogratta familiar guide, and we had an audio
Speaker 1: tour at the Picasso Museum and not a like human
Speaker 1: guide guiding us. But she was with us the rest
Speaker 1: of the time and was great with some hilarious language
Speaker 1: difficulties is not even the right word, the things that
Speaker 1: translate a little bit differently than you would say them
Speaker 1: if you grew up speaking English as your first language, exactly.
Speaker 1: Her command of English is just fine. I don't want
Speaker 1: to make it sound like we're in any way, like
Speaker 1: I don't speak Spanish that well, and I certainly don't
Speaker 1: speak Catalonian. So she was amazing, But there were a
Speaker 1: couple times where it was like, this is not quite
Speaker 1: how we would say that. Yeah, I would say we
Speaker 1: spent more time on the bus, like talking about the
Speaker 1: English word for wingsuit because she told us the story
Speaker 1: about a wingsuit diver who had famously done a dive
Speaker 1: at Monserrat and also at some point died doing a dive,
Speaker 1: but like that she didn't know the word for wingsuit
Speaker 1: in English. I would say we spent more time on
Speaker 1: that conversation on the bus, but we did clarifying the
Speaker 1: statue conversation that you and I and I know at
Speaker 1: least a couple of other people in the group were
Speaker 1: all similarly intrigued by. So yes, yeah, it was very,
Speaker 1: very fun. But yeah, I went. I went to the museum. Yes,
Speaker 1: because they have a lot of signs for the museum,
Speaker 1: most of which taut that it has a caravaggio, which
Speaker 1: it does, but it only has the one, which is right. Again,
Speaker 1: I don't own a caravagia, have no shade there. But like,
Speaker 1: I feel like that under sells what that museum actually is,
Speaker 1: because it's really quite an astonishing collection because there have
Speaker 1: been so many people that are just like art collectors,
Speaker 1: that have bequeathed their their stuff there that like, I mean,
Speaker 1: I was just a gog and so I was like,
Speaker 1: what is he? And while we were there, they also
Speaker 1: had a secondary exhibit that was going on. That was
Speaker 1: some of the art posters of like the poster work
Speaker 1: of Picasso. Oh, okay, which I will I will confess upfront,
Speaker 1: I had weird Picasso things on this trip, okay, because
Speaker 1: I just you know, now that I know that he
Speaker 1: was a jerk, his art is a little ruined for me,
Speaker 1: all right, And so like the Picassa museum, I was like, oh,
Speaker 1: like I just I was. I had a bad attitude
Speaker 1: about it. It was like not great, and so I
Speaker 1: didn't go look at the posters, but my good friend
Speaker 1: Kristen did. But again that museum, though, is really really
Speaker 1: beautiful and the staff is super nice. We just had
Speaker 1: a great time, and there were several of us from
Speaker 1: our little group that went there, and I really really
Speaker 1: enjoyed walking around because it was like, it's just it's
Speaker 1: a beautiful setup. The flow of it is quite nice.
Speaker 1: It's multiple floors. That Johnsinger sergeant that they have is gorgeous. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there was a lot of art that I was not
Speaker 1: familiar with from artists by artists that were from Spain,
Speaker 1: Barcelona and Catalonia in particular, that I am trying to
Speaker 1: figure out how to maybe do, hopefully an episode about
Speaker 1: but it's it's tricky. I will tell you. One of
Speaker 1: the things that I was really struck by in general
Speaker 1: on our trip, particularly in that museum, was the there
Speaker 1: is so much history to Spain and Cataloonnia that we
Speaker 1: don't ever get, No, we're really in English speaking countries,
Speaker 1: Like I don't know if it is as we have
Speaker 1: both encountered doing research on episodes since we have come back,
Speaker 1: that like it's a little bit hard to grasp all
Speaker 1: of the nuances of the way things have played out,
Speaker 1: because there are a lot of long, ongoing conflicts that
Speaker 1: aren't necessarily at fever pitch, but they just kind of
Speaker 1: simmer constantly in the background that are a little bit
Speaker 1: hard to grasp, like why something has or hasn't happened.
Speaker 1: And I don't know if that has made it harder
Speaker 1: for English language research or writing about it to happen. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, I hope there's more. But it really was
Speaker 1: eye opening in that regard where it was like, there
Speaker 1: is just so much about Spain and Catalonia that I
Speaker 1: did not know had no grasp of, completely ignorant and
Speaker 1: blind too. And one of those was how many amazing
Speaker 1: artists have been part of their tradition that haven't really
Speaker 1: some of them. You'll see their paintings in museums in
Speaker 1: other parts of Europe or the US, but not enough
Speaker 1: in my opinion, because there's some really incredible art that
Speaker 1: I was not the least bit familiar with. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I so one time years ago, I was at I
Speaker 1: think it's just called the Philadelphia Art Museum, big Art
Speaker 1: museum in Philadelphia. I have not googled the name of
Speaker 1: it before coming in here to have this unscripted conversation.
Speaker 1: And there was some Spanish art that I saw in
Speaker 1: an exhibit there that I found so striking and I
Speaker 1: was so captivated by, and I was like, I want
Speaker 1: to do an episode on the person who made this
Speaker 1: art after I get back home from this trip to Philadelphia.
Speaker 1: And I similarly had just no success finding resources in
Speaker 1: English about this part, yeah, or even for me media
Speaker 1: enough resources that even if I managed to get them translated,
Speaker 1: would really offer more than like six bullet points, right right, Yeah, Yeah,
Speaker 1: we had very similar experiences regarding like that. We are
Speaker 1: recording another episode in this recording session today that's going
Speaker 1: to come out a little bit later that is literally
Speaker 1: inspired by the fact that I was reading the signage
Speaker 1: at the museum, a different museum, and was like, I'm
Speaker 1: clearly missing key context here, like something that's so basic
Speaker 1: that like the person who wrote these signs did not
Speaker 1: think it needed to be explained. And yeah, it this more,
Speaker 1: much more so than our trips to Italy or France.
Speaker 1: This trip really highlighted like big holes in what our
Speaker 1: education has focused on. I think, agreed, yeah, and I don't.
Speaker 1: I don't know how how that gets fixed. I mean,
Speaker 1: more people need to be researching and writing about Spanish
Speaker 1: history and Catalinian history. But that's easy to say because
Speaker 1: I'm like, not me. I'll do what we can do here,
Speaker 1: but I don't have the linguistic knowledge or base to
Speaker 1: be able to go a whole lot further. So there's
Speaker 1: some other interesting things about Monsirat we did not talk
Speaker 1: about in this episode. We mentioned briefly that it had
Speaker 1: a history before the finding of the Madonna and the
Speaker 1: building of that monastery, like the Romans had a temple
Speaker 1: to Venus there, And I have to say, walking around
Speaker 1: up there, that makes all the sense on earth that
Speaker 1: it would be a temple to a Roman god, because
Speaker 1: it is, as I said at the top of that episode,
Speaker 1: you feel like you're on the top of the world.
Speaker 1: It's so beautif and the view is so vast, and
Speaker 1: it's just very striking. But here's the one that really
Speaker 1: got me. And I couldn't find verification of this, but
Speaker 1: it makes some sense knowing what we already do know
Speaker 1: about this particular chunk of history, and it lines up,
Speaker 1: which is that we know for a fact that Himmler
Speaker 1: visited Montserrat when Franco was in power. The part that
Speaker 1: is not verifiable is that he is rumored to have
Speaker 1: been looking for holy relics for the Third Reich, particularly
Speaker 1: the Holy Grail. Okay, we don't know. That's one of
Speaker 1: those things that pops up on like you know, underground
Speaker 1: Montserrat websites, like is the Holy Grail or really on
Speaker 1: Monserrat that we know that Hitler in particular was very
Speaker 1: fascinated by biblical relics and he kind of was thinking
Speaker 1: he would use them as like some sort of retroactive
Speaker 1: proof of divine provenance of the Third Reich. And so
Speaker 1: this was presumably if they were looking for the Holy Grail,
Speaker 1: they're hoping they would find another significant religious relic. It
Speaker 1: would presumably be in service of that goal, but it
Speaker 1: also just is like, yeah, yeah, Nazis. Yeah, I have
Speaker 1: the Indiana Jones theme in my head now, of course
Speaker 1: I always do. Just as a rule of thumb, we
Speaker 1: didn't get into it because again I couldn't find a
Speaker 1: I didn't have a lot of time to go down
Speaker 1: this particular side street. But that secret police officer who
Speaker 1: was murdered Manzanas was also, if not a collaborator, at
Speaker 1: least sympathetic to and friends with Nazis. So that too,
Speaker 1: is another element of nuance in that whole case, the ETA,
Speaker 1: which is I kept finding myself as I was writing
Speaker 1: that section, I'm like, I really we have to set
Speaker 1: up why this is all happening. But am I talking
Speaker 1: too much about this weird crime and murder case and
Speaker 1: this terrorist organization? But without any of that context, that
Speaker 1: sit in makes no sense right right right? And I
Speaker 1: had even told you before we started recording the episode
Speaker 1: that I was like, you know, this is this sit
Speaker 1: in is kind of blipped through on lists of things
Speaker 1: that have happened at at Monsterrat like it'll get mentioned,
Speaker 1: but not necessarily. And I think part of it is
Speaker 1: that it's hard to talk about it without going really
Speaker 1: into a good bit of detail about like the timeline
Speaker 1: and the process that played out there. Sure, but it
Speaker 1: is also very fascinating to read. In this case, we
Speaker 1: do have accounts in English some of the news reporting
Speaker 1: from that time, because that was, you know, nineteen seventy
Speaker 1: from American and British journalists who are like, what the
Speaker 1: heck is going on here? Like this is messed up
Speaker 1: and recognizing that like wait, this woman is here and
Speaker 1: she's on trial, but there's no actual charge. As we
Speaker 1: said in the episode, that did not go the way
Speaker 1: Franco had anticipated, right. He thought they were going to
Speaker 1: be like, yes, you will see my power, and it
Speaker 1: was like what we see is not what you want
Speaker 1: us say, right, which is kind of interesting. Anyway, Moncerot
Speaker 1: really really struck me. I loved. Here's another thing I loved.
Speaker 1: You know. We were there in the Basilica and it
Speaker 1: was absolutely beautiful. I am often very struck by religious art.
Speaker 1: I just think most of it is so incredibly beautiful
Speaker 1: because there's so much sort of pressure on it from
Speaker 1: the beginning to be that beautiful, because it has to
Speaker 1: be worthy of its location and whatnot. But what I
Speaker 1: really really loved particularly about that basilica was that they
Speaker 1: have a lot of art within the basilica that is
Speaker 1: more like museum pieces that are not necessarily what you
Speaker 1: would think of, Like some of them are very modern,
Speaker 1: some of them are. It just was very like the
Speaker 1: little side chapels off of the main area where you
Speaker 1: would get I don't know how many of those you
Speaker 1: popped into, but like several of them kind of had
Speaker 1: their own I don't know if you would call it
Speaker 1: a vibe their decor convention, or it'd be like this
Speaker 1: one is the very modern minimalist chapel, this one is
Speaker 1: the very Rococo looking child like. It was just all
Speaker 1: really really astonishingly cool and just images that I like,
Speaker 1: I said, I had never seen. I was blown away
Speaker 1: by the art. Blown away. Let's go back. I'll get
Speaker 1: on a plane tonight. It was monserrat. I sure liked it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it was lovely. I sure liked it. Waiting on waiting
Speaker 1: on my cava to arrive. Oh yeah. We went to
Speaker 1: a vineyard where they make kava, which is in the
Speaker 1: sloppiest way I can put it, a sparkling wine that
Speaker 1: some people would probably compare to like their version of
Speaker 1: champagne or prosecco. Sure, there's certainly more nuance to it.
Speaker 1: But I ordered so much on the way out of
Speaker 1: there and it hasn't come yet. So I'm waiting. I'm anticipating,
Speaker 1: hoping for my cases of kava. When we left that
Speaker 1: lovely little tasting that we had, I thought our departure
Speaker 1: was imminent, so I got on the bus and then
Speaker 1: I was on the bus for a while because people
Speaker 1: were ordering a lot of kava, and I wound up
Speaker 1: having to get off the bus and go pee again
Speaker 1: before Yeah, I ordered a lot of kava. I hope
Speaker 1: it comes here. I literally just held up the thing.
Speaker 1: It was like dose dose dose, dose, dose, dose dose.
Speaker 1: Down the line, there are cases cases of cova. I
Speaker 1: can't wait, all right. We hope that if you are
Speaker 1: about to have a couple of days off as we
Speaker 1: head into this weekend, that you can enjoy kava or
Speaker 1: whatever beverage alcoholic or not is suitable for you and
Speaker 1: your tastes and your age. Please don't please don't drink
Speaker 1: if you're underage, and please drink responsibily. If you do
Speaker 1: not have time off, we hope that you still manage
Speaker 1: to get a little relaxation and just some me time
Speaker 1: and take some deep breaths and find some peace in
Speaker 1: your little part of the world. We will be right
Speaker 1: back here tomorrow with a classic episode, and then on
Speaker 1: Monday you'll have another brand new one. Stuff you Missed
Speaker 1: in History Class is a production of iHeartRadio. For more
Speaker 1: podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or
Speaker 1: wherever you listen to your favorite shows.