Speaker 1: Hello, puzzlers, Welcome to the Puzzler Podcast the accent color
Speaker 1: in your otherwise muted puzzle decors. I am your host,
Speaker 1: AJ Jacobs, and today our guests are the great Ben
Speaker 1: Thompson and Pat Larish, co hosts of the iHeart podcast
Speaker 1: Badass of the Week, which is a fascinating show where
Speaker 1: every episode they devote to a different badass from history,
Speaker 1: including Ninja's vikings, explorers, scientists, great leaders, you name it.
Speaker 1: Welcome Ben and Pat.
Speaker 2: Hello, thank you for having us on the show. We're
Speaker 2: very excited to be here.
Speaker 3: Yeah, thank you. Aj.
Speaker 1: Of course we're excited to puzzle with you. And at
Speaker 1: the end of the episode, I want to talk to
Speaker 1: you about some puzzle related badasses badasses. I was trying
Speaker 1: to emphasize bad asses. It's badass.
Speaker 2: You'll put a big gap between the bad and the asses.
Speaker 2: It generally works.
Speaker 1: Got it. Okay, So puzzle related bad asses not bad.
Speaker 2: Put the syllable. You can put the emphasis on either
Speaker 2: syllable though, it's still it'll still be fine.
Speaker 1: Okay. Good to know. Well, if it's all right with you,
Speaker 1: we'll start with a puzzle and then we'll get we'll
Speaker 1: talk about historical puzzle bad asses uh, and the puzzle
Speaker 1: in honor of your show Badass of the Week, we
Speaker 1: are doing a puzzle called blank ass. So all of
Speaker 1: the answers are words that end with the letters ass,
Speaker 1: like badass. So, for instance, if the clue were this
Speaker 1: is a good way to find out where true North is,
Speaker 1: that answer would be compass exactly. You can say compass
Speaker 1: or compass.
Speaker 2: I will actually pronounce.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's that sounds like something different.
Speaker 4: Okay, I like that would be weird.
Speaker 2: Okay, all right, I feel good about this. I'm not
Speaker 2: gonna lie a j I was a little anxious coming
Speaker 2: on the show when I'm gonna solve puzzles and sometimes
Speaker 2: they're a little tricky, and I had to have Pat
Speaker 2: come with me because I feel like maybe between the
Speaker 2: two of us we can solve a puzzle.
Speaker 1: But I'm confident. Plus I'm good with hims. Okay, you
Speaker 1: need a hint, all right. For the last fifty nine years,
Speaker 1: the soap opera Days of Our Lives has started with
Speaker 1: an image of this, Oh God, Oh, I was gonna
Speaker 1: give you more. But if you know it from this
Speaker 1: our glass, yes, yes, hour glass like sam hour glass.
Speaker 2: So you gave me a Days of Our Lives question.
Speaker 2: I was like, I'm dead.
Speaker 1: You gotta watch more soap operas? But no, all right,
Speaker 1: this is a type of green juice that you might
Speaker 1: see at a local health food store.
Speaker 2: Wheat grass.
Speaker 1: They've trademarked that over a jeopardy we are not allowed
Speaker 1: to uh, all right, well this this could be a
Speaker 1: vulture's favorite meal, something a vulture loves to eat. Carcas,
Speaker 1: carkass exactly, are cruising through it? All right? This material
Speaker 1: is used, according to Wikipedia, in aircrafts, boats, automobiles, bathtubs, enclosures,
Speaker 1: swimming pools, autos, septic tanks, orthopedic casts, external door skins,
Speaker 1: and insulation. That's the one I knew, insulation.
Speaker 2: Fiberglass, lesser par ass and then and then and then
Speaker 2: you said insulation, and I was like, oh maybe.
Speaker 1: There probably was back in the day. All right, a
Speaker 1: couple more, you're doing great. Examples of these of this
Speaker 1: include Elite, Imperial Comfort, First Business, Premium Economy, and.
Speaker 2: Coach class airline class.
Speaker 1: Exactly when did you get it at?
Speaker 2: What one?
Speaker 1: Because I tried to start with them.
Speaker 2: We started hard. Yeah, I was sweating it until you
Speaker 2: said first and then like business.
Speaker 1: Okay, yeah, yeah, I was. I looked it up, and yeah,
Speaker 1: like first class is just the start. There's a serial
Speaker 1: class and Imperial class.
Speaker 3: Class.
Speaker 1: Yeah exactly.
Speaker 2: I feel like we're gonna have to sell up more
Speaker 2: copies of Badass before I get to travel Imperial class anywhere.
Speaker 1: I mean, when you're at that class, just buy your
Speaker 1: own jet. This is what I said, all right, this
Speaker 1: is a type of coronary artery surgery. By exactly.
Speaker 3: I'm glad you didn't have to stop like quadruple or whatever.
Speaker 1: That's it. You did it, You did amazing, cruised right
Speaker 1: on through. All right. So now let's segue into a
Speaker 1: little more about puzzle related badasses through history, and just
Speaker 1: to give people a little more background, the show Badass
Speaker 1: of the Week covers badasses including Marie Curie, Ramsey's the
Speaker 1: Second Vlad the Impaler. So they can be bad badasses
Speaker 1: are good badasses, Is that right?
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's pretty much it. Yeah, we cover the full
Speaker 2: range of figures. You know, a lot of people talk
Speaker 2: about badass and kind of what defines a badass, because
Speaker 2: what do Marie Curie and Vlad the Impaler have in common?
Speaker 2: They are both badass, and I don't think that kind
Speaker 2: of without explaining too much about them, people would be like, yeah,
Speaker 2: it's pretty badass, discovering radius, discovering radioactivity, impaling your enemies
Speaker 2: on a pike, that's badass.
Speaker 5: And so there you go.
Speaker 2: We decided that the common thread amongst all of them
Speaker 2: is the determination and the drive they had to accomplish
Speaker 2: what they were trying to accomplish, regardless.
Speaker 1: Of how that's a good way, regardless.
Speaker 2: Of whether that was a good thing or a bad
Speaker 2: thing that they were trying to get to take care of.
Speaker 2: They didn't give up, which is the lesson.
Speaker 1: Angela Duckworth would be very proud of Lady Impaler that
Speaker 1: he has such grit yes to nacitess and commitment.
Speaker 2: You cannot deny that he was committed to what he
Speaker 2: was doing.
Speaker 1: He was committed to the bit and Ben, you've been
Speaker 1: doing it on writing Badass of the Week articles for
Speaker 1: quite some time.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, it's you know, now that I'm thinking about it.
Speaker 2: The first Badass was posted in April of two thousand
Speaker 2: and four, So that means like the twentieth anniversary is
Speaker 2: coming up really soon, Yeah, like in a week or something. Yeah,
Speaker 2: on that, I should probably do something for that.
Speaker 1: Exactly, and Pat you teach classics. You have a PhD
Speaker 1: and you teach classics and rhetoric at Boston University Academy.
Speaker 1: Can you tell me what is your favorite rhetorical device.
Speaker 3: I don't need to tell you what my favorite rhetorical
Speaker 3: device is. We can skip this one.
Speaker 1: Oh I think you're using a rhetorical device. Is that right?
Speaker 1: Was that a wait? Was that a rhetorical question?
Speaker 6: Was where you draw attention to the fact that you're
Speaker 6: skipping over something so cool shading? Yeah, it's kind of like, Okay,
Speaker 6: I'm not going to mention your debt. I'm not going
Speaker 6: to mention the other skivy things you did, you know,
Speaker 6: I'm not going to mention like I'm gonna leave it
Speaker 6: to my listener's imagination that sort of thing. So yeah,
Speaker 6: it's yeah, it's like it's either lamp shading or like
Speaker 6: like two degrees off of lamp shading. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that was great. I love learning that rhetorical device.
Speaker 1: All right, Well, now let's turn to I mean, you
Speaker 1: guys have covered hundreds of badasses. Tell me, are there
Speaker 1: any puzzle related bad asses that you can highlight for us?
Speaker 2: Well, one that comes to my mind when we want
Speaker 2: to talk about like great puzzle Badasses. Is a guy
Speaker 2: named Juan poohol Garcia. He was a double agent Spanish guy.
Speaker 2: He was a double agent working for the SOE, the
Speaker 2: British Special Secret Service during World War Two. And his
Speaker 2: story is really interesting because basically, when he was living
Speaker 2: in Spain and Spain was allied with the Germans during
Speaker 2: World War Two. They stayed neutral, but they were a
Speaker 2: neutral fascist country. He wanted to help out because there
Speaker 2: were Nazis in Spain doing their thing, and so he
Speaker 2: offered his services to the British to say, hey, why
Speaker 2: don't I spy for you guys. I can send you
Speaker 2: some info on what the Germans are doing. And the
Speaker 2: British said no, no, thank you. So then he went
Speaker 2: to the Germans and was like, let me help you.
Speaker 2: I can. I have a whole network of agents in
Speaker 2: England that I can recruit and that can start reporting
Speaker 2: about things happening in England. And the guest said, okay,
Speaker 2: sounds great. And so Wan Puul ol Garcia, he's this
Speaker 2: very ordinary looking guy. He's got these round glasses and
Speaker 2: this beard, and he bought guide books of places in
Speaker 2: England and he just started making up stuff and sending
Speaker 2: it to the Gestapo. And he created this entirely fictionalized
Speaker 2: network of like a dozen agents that were working for him,
Speaker 2: and he would literally mail this stuff from his house.
Speaker 2: He'd say, all know, there's I've got a DHL agent
Speaker 2: who flies the letters to meet the intel to me
Speaker 2: and then I mail it to you from my house.
Speaker 2: And then at some point the British figured out what
Speaker 2: was going on and they start intercepting these reports and
Speaker 2: they're like, well, number one, what a what? All this
Speaker 2: guy's information is wrong? So but also who is he?
Speaker 2: Why is why is he you know, reporting on us?
Speaker 2: So they get in touch with him and he's like, okay,
Speaker 2: remember how you rejected me for that job. Like I've
Speaker 2: created a top secret network. I've I've They've sent me
Speaker 2: in a Enigma machine, like we're doing all this stuff.
Speaker 2: And he had this secret network and the British oka
Speaker 2: are like, okay, will give you better info to send
Speaker 2: to the Gestapo. And they credit him with like being a.
Speaker 1: Big part of that wrong info, right, all.
Speaker 2: The wrong info. So he's sending the Gestapo all this info.
Speaker 2: The big thing for him was that he was a
Speaker 2: big part of convincing the Gestapo that the Normandy landings
Speaker 2: were not gonna happen at Normandy, that d D was
Speaker 2: going to be at cala instead of at Normandy. And
Speaker 2: they believed it, and he wrote a letter. He was
Speaker 2: a genius. He wrote a letter to the Germans the
Speaker 2: day of the Normandy landings June sixth, nineteen forty four.
Speaker 2: He has a letter postmarked It's not at Calais, it's
Speaker 2: at Normandy. Look out, get to hope and get this
Speaker 2: in time. And they gave him the Iron Cross. The
Speaker 2: Germans gave him the Iron Cross for like hero is
Speaker 2: the to the Reich. And then he was also like
Speaker 2: it was his second award for bravery in the war,
Speaker 2: because the British had already given him Order of the
Speaker 2: British Empire.
Speaker 1: So what a genius. Yeah, I am so grateful to
Speaker 1: him for messing with their minds. Yes, yeah, everything is fake, yes,
Speaker 1: lighting Yeah, that is wonderful. And the and the puzzle
Speaker 1: connection is he used the Enigma machine and he used codes.
Speaker 2: He had an Enigma machine, and just his whole life
Speaker 2: was a puzzle, right because he had all of these
Speaker 2: agents that were up doing things, all of this fake information.
Speaker 2: But his life was basically a puzzle because he had
Speaker 2: to make sure all that stuff matched up every day.
Speaker 2: Is him trying to manage, Like just organizing his imaginary
Speaker 2: spy network was a puzzle for him. I imagine.
Speaker 1: Oh, it's like fan fiction but with extremely high stakes.
Speaker 2: Yes, exactly, well, love it.
Speaker 1: Well, thank you both. You are terrific, And everyone check
Speaker 1: out Banass of the Week the website and also the podcast.
Speaker 1: And for the puzzlers at home, we do have one
Speaker 1: other blank ass, which is knuckles, tacks or rings might
Speaker 1: be made of this material. Knuckles, tax or rings might
Speaker 1: be made of this. Come back next time for the answer,
Speaker 1: and of course tell your friends review us. We love
Speaker 1: the reviews. It helps to get the word out so much.
Speaker 1: And we'll see you soon for more puzzling puzzles that
Speaker 1: will puzzle you puzzling.
Speaker 4: Hello, puzzling friends, This is Chief puzzle Officer Greg Pliska
Speaker 4: here with one more extra credit for you. The answer
Speaker 4: from our previous show, we played a funish puzzle with
Speaker 4: Erica Okrant in which every answer was a made up
Speaker 4: language a word that ends with a language suffix but
Speaker 4: isn't in fact a language. Now, all the puzzles on
Speaker 4: the show ended with ish, but the extra credit I
Speaker 4: gave you has a different language ending. Here's the clue.
Speaker 4: It's a soft cow's milk fromage, or it's a language
Speaker 4: spoken by people who are born feet first. The answer,
Speaker 4: of course is bree cheese using the esse suffix, and
Speaker 4: that would be brief ease. A breach birth is when
Speaker 4: you're born feet first.
Speaker 7: So whether you speak bree cheese or eat bree cheese
Speaker 7: or we help, you're listening to the Puzzler podcast. Thanks
Speaker 7: for playing along with the team Here at The Puzzler
Speaker 7: with Aj Jacobs, I'm Greg Pliska, your chief puzzle Officer.
Speaker 7: Our executive producers are Neelie Lohman and Adam Neuhouse of
Speaker 7: New House Ideas and Lindsay Hoffman of iHeart Podcasts. The
Speaker 7: show is produced by Jody Averragan and Brittany Brown of
Speaker 7: Roulette Productions, with production support from Claire Bidegar Curtis. Our
Speaker 7: associate producer is Andrea Schoenberg. The Puzzler with AJ Jacobs
Speaker 7: is the co production with New House Ideas and is
Speaker 7: distributed by I Shop Castrated. No no no Sorry, I
Speaker 7: meant to rearrange the letters.
Speaker 4: Distributed by iHeart Podcasts.
Speaker 5: If you want to know more about puzzling puzzles, please
Speaker 5: check out the book to the Puzzler by AJ Jacobs,
Speaker 5: a history of puzzles that The New York Times called
Speaker 5: fun and funny. It features an original puzzle hunt by
Speaker 5: yours truly, and is available wherever you get your books
Speaker 5: and puzzlers. For all your puzzling needs, go visit the
Speaker 5: puzzler dot com. See you there,