Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you missed in History Class A production
Speaker 1: of I Heart Radio, Happy Friday, Everybody. I'm Holly Fry
Speaker 1: and I'm Tracy V. Wilson. We finally talked about Louis
Speaker 1: de Geer this time did a little Overdoe. I feel yeah,
Speaker 1: particularly considering how much he really has changed our world.
Speaker 1: Would someone else have done that? Eventually, probably he gets
Speaker 1: the credit. Um, there was so much I had no
Speaker 1: idea about regarding his life story. Yeah, I knew nothing.
Speaker 1: I mean, I absolutely zero. It was so fun to
Speaker 1: research him. I certainly did not know that he was
Speaker 1: the party boy of Paris and seemed like the most
Speaker 1: fun person to I would love to hang out with
Speaker 1: that person. Um. I didn't really think about the fact
Speaker 1: that he was living at the time when the French
Speaker 1: Revolution began. I had not quite connected those dots. If
Speaker 1: you had asked me, woken me from a dead sleep
Speaker 1: and said, Holly, when was the gear alive, I'd be like,
Speaker 1: right after the French Revolution started or something like later,
Speaker 1: like a decade or two later. I just didn't Time
Speaker 1: is more compressed than we think Historically, that happens all
Speaker 1: the time, But this was one where I was like whoa. Yeah,
Speaker 1: his parents really loved Louis the sixteenth and Rantoinette. That
Speaker 1: is wild. Um, I marvel at his creativity, Yeah, marvel
Speaker 1: at it. Literally, all the stuff about the diorama really
Speaker 1: reminded me of when we were in Paris, and as
Speaker 1: one of like our it was not it was not
Speaker 1: what a thing that the group did. We had some
Speaker 1: solo time in Paris, um, and I went to the
Speaker 1: Van Go exhibition where the it's all projected up on
Speaker 1: the walls and you feel like you're sort of inside
Speaker 1: the painting, and so the descriptions of the diorama really
Speaker 1: reminded me of that, And honestly that exhibition was one
Speaker 1: of my very favorite things we did the whole time
Speaker 1: we were in Paris. So I understand, I think, uh,
Speaker 1: why people found it so appealing to Yeah, we um,
Speaker 1: we did that exhibition when it was here in Atlanta.
Speaker 1: Did you do the VR part of it? No, I
Speaker 1: can't do VR. I wasn't sure. Um, that was my
Speaker 1: favorite part of the whole thing. But I have a
Speaker 1: rabid love of VR soum, and thankfully my body cooperates
Speaker 1: with me in their mind does the opposite. Yes, I
Speaker 1: recall being on some amusement park rides, so we're a
Speaker 1: little troubling for it was very bad. I think there
Speaker 1: was I remember being in Iceland. There's a whale museum
Speaker 1: in Iceland, and I feel like there was a thing
Speaker 1: where you could put the headset on and you could
Speaker 1: look around and see whales, and I feel like that
Speaker 1: went okay, But a lot of what you were looking
Speaker 1: at was like empty ocean. You weren't surrounded by a
Speaker 1: lot of stuff, so it was not quite as there
Speaker 1: wasn't quite as much disconnect, that tiny little disconnect between
Speaker 1: what you're seeing and what how you're moving. Right, there's
Speaker 1: also just that thing where it is. VR is a
Speaker 1: lot like when you first put on a headset, unless
Speaker 1: it is something very very placid, like huge vast piece
Speaker 1: of ocean with whales, and even if it tracks pretty
Speaker 1: perfectly in terms of movement to visualization, your brain is
Speaker 1: still aware that like, okay, that looks far away, but
Speaker 1: it's also right up against my face, like there's a
Speaker 1: whole thing there that Sometimes I've never gotten um you know,
Speaker 1: nauseated or dizzy from it. But I have those moments
Speaker 1: where I'm like, oh, I almost feel a little like
Speaker 1: I would like to sit down for this experience for
Speaker 1: a minute. But I love it very much. Uh. Here
Speaker 1: is my confession. I have been spelling de garottype wrong
Speaker 1: for my entire life. My entire entire life. There's an
Speaker 1: E in there that I have not been including in it.
Speaker 1: It sure does exist. Well. I don't know how many
Speaker 1: times in my life I've had to write out the
Speaker 1: word garattype, but I had to write it at least
Speaker 1: two times when sending an email to you, and both
Speaker 1: times I had left out that E and couldn't figure
Speaker 1: out what I had done wrong and just had to
Speaker 1: write click on it and have Outlook tell me how
Speaker 1: to fix. Yeah, I am. I'm oddly reassured that you
Speaker 1: have had the same problem. It's just an extra vowel
Speaker 1: that doesn't seem like we need it. Yeah, I understand
Speaker 1: that goes there. UM. One of the things that's also
Speaker 1: very interesting in talking about the Gear, and particularly the
Speaker 1: end when he was monetizing this invention, uh, is the
Speaker 1: shifting way that he is characterized with regard to Nieps's
Speaker 1: family and particularly his son, because some are like, well
Speaker 1: to Gear just put his name on everything, and like
Speaker 1: he ran the show in terms of making all the deals,
Speaker 1: and others are like, yeah, but he didn't leave them out.
Speaker 1: He still cut them a deal where they would make
Speaker 1: money off of it forever at a time when their
Speaker 1: family really needed the money. And I we have so
Speaker 1: little information about his inner life and the way he
Speaker 1: thought about things and the way he was processing that
Speaker 1: it is all left up to interpretation. So it's very
Speaker 1: fascinating to watch how different people perceive his behavior. Yeah. Well,
Speaker 1: and I totally understand being hurt. That's something your father
Speaker 1: worked on and then your father died, like was then
Speaker 1: named after the other person with with no mention of
Speaker 1: your father, Like, I get that totally. Um. But then
Speaker 1: we talked about like multiple pieces of it that really
Speaker 1: were to Gear's work. It seems like the two of
Speaker 1: them were really necessary to have it happen. Yes, Like
Speaker 1: I can see multiple sides to it, Yes, And I
Speaker 1: think that is why, like you'll read different, different ones,
Speaker 1: different you know, kind of characterizations from Louis de Gear.
Speaker 1: There are only a few pictures of Louis de Gear
Speaker 1: taken by other people. Will talk in that upcoming episode
Speaker 1: about about portraiture and how that kind of came to be,
Speaker 1: But it is very interesting. He looks like a sweet
Speaker 1: little dude, because of course he was in his sixties
Speaker 1: by the time those pictures are being taken in a
Speaker 1: lot of cases late fifties, so um. But yeah, it's
Speaker 1: a I really We always talk about what somebody who
Speaker 1: invented a thing historically would think of the world today,
Speaker 1: and I just can only imagine the VR level meltdown
Speaker 1: he might have walking down the street and watching people
Speaker 1: just take pictures of themselves cavalierly over and over, be like,
Speaker 1: what is what's happening? Well? And and when I was
Speaker 1: getting a Deguara type of him to send to you
Speaker 1: in the email where I couldn't spell de garat type,
Speaker 1: I got really confused because it you know that it
Speaker 1: lists the subject, it also lists who took the picture.
Speaker 1: And for some reason in my head it was definitely
Speaker 1: going to be a self portrait. It did not because
Speaker 1: I had not read our forthcoming episode yet we're going
Speaker 1: to talk more about self portrait. I just sort of
Speaker 1: assumed that the Garrett took a Degara type of himself.
Speaker 1: At some point he seemed to have no interest in
Speaker 1: taking his own picture, which is probably indicative of that
Speaker 1: slight shyness that gets mentioned sometimes. Sure. Uh, and like
Speaker 1: the fact that he didn't want to give the presentation.
Speaker 1: I really believe he was like, oh my tummy and
Speaker 1: ran away, like I don't. I have to suspect even
Speaker 1: if he did feel unwell, I think it was probably
Speaker 1: nervousness rather than than actually having some malady. But that's
Speaker 1: again purely speculative. But I I really loved researching this
Speaker 1: one because we just I invoke his name so often
Speaker 1: in our work and outside of it, and yet I
Speaker 1: didn't know very much about him, so it was pretty delightful.
Speaker 1: We finally talked about history's most handsome photographer, Robert cornelie
Speaker 1: Is this week. He's been on my list for a while. Yeah,
Speaker 1: because that picture of him does pop up pretty frequently.
Speaker 1: And again we said it in the episode, he doesn't
Speaker 1: very handsome. Um, but I did not mention it in
Speaker 1: the episode because I thought it would be funnier here.
Speaker 1: There is another portrait that he took of himself that
Speaker 1: you can find online. It's not nearly so handsome. It's
Speaker 1: like he just kind of looks like I'm not I
Speaker 1: don't want to judge anybody's appearance, but he's very striking
Speaker 1: in the first one, and then the next one he
Speaker 1: just kind of looks like a nice nerdy dude like dad. Well,
Speaker 1: just for me personally, the first one is enhanced a
Speaker 1: lot by having like a demeanor that really just does
Speaker 1: seem like Mr Darcy comes out of the mist like that.
Speaker 1: It is so Jane Austen evocative. It's not even funny.
Speaker 1: It's like, you know, it's it's from a little a
Speaker 1: little later than she actually lived and wrote, but still, uh,
Speaker 1: it really conveys that tone to me. Yes, I actually
Speaker 1: had originally written of it in the outline is saying
Speaker 1: it looks like something out of a Jane Austen novel.
Speaker 1: And then I was like, I'm a little worried people
Speaker 1: will think I'm saying that that was the same time,
Speaker 1: and I didn't that. I didn't write a way around it.
Speaker 1: And I just was like, like a romance novel for you,
Speaker 1: that's great, that's great. Um, yeah, it's it's really interesting.
Speaker 1: I also love how if you sift through papers of
Speaker 1: the day talking about his studio, it seems like everyone
Speaker 1: was so worried that it was scary to sit still
Speaker 1: and have your picture taken. Because it is also very reassured,
Speaker 1: like You're gonna be fine, It's fine, And I just
Speaker 1: think of all of the things like that people do
Speaker 1: in their day to day lives. Even then, that would
Speaker 1: have been much more, i don't know, difficult, harrowing, stressful
Speaker 1: than just sitting quietly for a few minutes. And I
Speaker 1: say that as a prof senal wiggler, I cannot keep
Speaker 1: still very long at all. But I don't think I
Speaker 1: would have found it frightening, although it would have been
Speaker 1: totally new. So maybe it's like when we were talking
Speaker 1: about the snowflake pictures and and how sometimes he would
Speaker 1: exhale and it would cause all of his work to melt.
Speaker 1: It's the same kind of thing, like like if when
Speaker 1: when I'm getting a mammogram and the text says stop breathing,
Speaker 1: I immediately just want to breathe so bad. And if
Speaker 1: I got to sit there in a portrait chair and
Speaker 1: not move at all, I'm probably going to be like, now,
Speaker 1: my nose itches the most it has ever itched in
Speaker 1: my life. Oh yeah, that's definitely true. Although if I'm
Speaker 1: in a situation where I have to um breathe a
Speaker 1: little or as shallowly as possible, I have a whole
Speaker 1: counting thing I do in my head that helps, But
Speaker 1: I do initially have that old gracious everything itches. I'm somebody,
Speaker 1: Oh no, I can't, Everything's gonna misfire. I think I
Speaker 1: have restless leg syndrome. Right this get like I just
Speaker 1: I understand completely. My workaround has been to learn to
Speaker 1: count my breath on the inhalein exhale, which works great
Speaker 1: for me. I really really love, obviously, because I have
Speaker 1: talked about it a lot lately. Um, the art of photography,
Speaker 1: and one thing that working on these two episodes kind
Speaker 1: of in tandem made clear to me. And it's obvious,
Speaker 1: but like how fundamentally important photography is to our everyday
Speaker 1: lives in ways we don't even think about. Like everybody
Speaker 1: likes to point out, like, oh, Robert Bernelia has invented
Speaker 1: the selfie, and it's like yes, but like do you understand,
Speaker 1: Like you're take moving pictures out of the equation, take
Speaker 1: television out, take film out, et cetera. So much of
Speaker 1: our lives is dependent on being able to take and
Speaker 1: look at pictures, whether that's online, whether that is a
Speaker 1: reference material in a book, whether that is you know,
Speaker 1: if you want to buy a house, you usually want
Speaker 1: to see pictures of it before you even step foot
Speaker 1: in it. Like so much of what we do every
Speaker 1: single day is about captured images. That I just had
Speaker 1: that moment where I was kind of blown away by
Speaker 1: the progression and then in a microcosmic sense, by how
Speaker 1: quickly people started to innovate. Yeah, in eighteen thirty nine,
Speaker 1: like in that one year where it was like, this
Speaker 1: is our gift to the world that people weren't really
Speaker 1: because I just improved it yesterday, like it was like
Speaker 1: flipping a little card, and like a week later it
Speaker 1: was a different thing entirely, um, which to me is
Speaker 1: just mind blowing. I love it. I love it. Thank
Speaker 1: you all of you photography people that developed all of
Speaker 1: these processes, because I love photographs and I used them
Speaker 1: all the time, right, I take pictures of recipes and
Speaker 1: cookbooks so I can go to the store and have
Speaker 1: the list of that having to write all of the
Speaker 1: ingredients on a separate piece of paper. Simple stuff like that.
Speaker 1: That is you know, at the heart traces all the
Speaker 1: way back to to gear and people like Cornelius who
Speaker 1: were hastening the way that all worked and the digital
Speaker 1: age would blow their minds. As I've gotten older, sometimes
Speaker 1: when I need to read tiny, tiny type on like
Speaker 1: a medicine bottle or something, I'll take a picture of
Speaker 1: it on my phone and zoom right in. Oh. Yes,
Speaker 1: all the time, all the time. So I hope uhone
Speaker 1: does not mind me waxing rhapsodic about how amazing all
Speaker 1: of this is, because it's, like I said, it's part
Speaker 1: of every single, every single day of my life. Certainly,
Speaker 1: I'm sure there are people that don't look at imagery
Speaker 1: all the time. I think it might be difficult to
Speaker 1: locate them, but I'm sure they're out there. But I
Speaker 1: think for most of us the opposite is true. We're
Speaker 1: always always engaged with the visual medium, and particularly photography.
Speaker 1: Game changer did to gear have any idea. No, I
Speaker 1: do not think he thought it was great and cool.
Speaker 1: But I don't know that he went to his grave going,
Speaker 1: you know what, I changed the world? Doubt it. Doubt it.
Speaker 1: With that in mind, we hope that you have a
Speaker 1: fabulous weekend, whether you're trying to change the world or not.
Speaker 1: If you have time off, I hope it is smooth
Speaker 1: this silk, and that it is RESTful and fun. And
Speaker 1: if you don't. I'm so sorry, but I hope everything
Speaker 1: goes also smooth the silk and is maybe even fun,
Speaker 1: and that everyone is a delight to you and no
Speaker 1: one is a crab. We will be right back here
Speaker 1: tomorrow with a classic, and then Monday there will be
Speaker 1: a new episode and a new topic and we'll go
Speaker 1: through all of this again. Stuff you missed in History
Speaker 1: Class is a production of I heart Radio. For more
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