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March 7, 2023 10 mins

Today's tour features something found everywhere, and another thing that can only be found in one impossible location.

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Speaker 1 (00:04):
Welcomed Aaron Manky's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of iHeartRadio
and Grim and Mild. Our world is full of the unexplainable,
and if history is an open book, all of these
amazing tales are right there on display, just waiting for
us to explore. Welcome to the Cabinet of Curiosities. It's

(00:36):
the dream of many a reader. A vast library stocked
with beautiful leather bound tomes in all sizes and colors,
and inside their stiff covers pages of cepia toned vellum
with the words of the greatest writers in history, like Austin,
Duma and Shakespeare. Rare book collections often have these volumes
in their own libraries, some behind glass, others in thick

(01:00):
But one book has eluded every reader and collector for
over one hundred years, and for good reason, because no
one can get to it. It had started life as
a series of poems written in the eleventh and twelfth
centuries by Persian polymath Omar Kam. In the mid eighteen hundreds,
of poet named Edward Fitzgerald decided to translate these quat
trains into a collection called the Rubiat of Omar Khayam

(01:24):
Rubiat is Persian by the way for Quatrain. Fitzgerald's book
became quite popular all the way into the twentieth century,
so much so that English bookstore owner John Stonehouse commissioned
a special edition of the collection for his own shop
in nineteen ten. He went to London bookbinder's Sangorski and Sutcliffe,
known for their impeccable quality and flair, for the dramatic

(01:45):
Stonehouse instructed co owner Francis Sangorski to do it, and
do it well. There is no limit. Put what you
like into the binding, charge what you like for it. Money,
in other words, was no object, because the amount that
the final product would bring would make it all worth it.
The front and back covers were made up hundreds of
layers of leather. One thousand jewels were inlaid on the

(02:07):
front and back within their own settings. Gold tooling adorned
the elaborate covers, while end sheets bearing images of peacocks,
skulls and Persian symbols were made for the inside. The
designs of these end pages were meant to represent life
and death. It was called the Great Omar, and it
was the definition of opulence and extravagance. At the time,

(02:27):
Stonehouse called it the finest and most remarkable specimen of
binding ever designed or produced at any period or in
any country. Completed in nineteen eleven, it represented the best
that Sangorsky in Sutcliffe had to offer. Now, the store
that Stonehouse managed, Southern's, put it up for sale at
the eyewatering price of one thousand pounds equivalent to about

(02:49):
one hundred and twenty thousand pounds today. But not everyone
was taken with a book. Many believe that its design
was ostentatious and tacky, and this only made it harder
to sell. But then a book the alert named Gabriel
Wells stopped into Southernds. He was visiting from New York,
and offered the shop eight hundred pounds for the Great Omar.
Stonehouse declined. The offer encountered at nine hundred pounds, but

(03:10):
they still couldn't come to an agreement. It was soon
decided that the Great Omar would go to New York
to be sold anyway where it might find more willing buyers.
The book was loaded onto a ship and was sent out,
although it ran into some trouble when US customs officials
required a hefty duty tax to be paid in order
for the tome to be released. Refusing to pay the fee,
the Omar made its way back to London, still unwanted

(03:33):
by any buyers or collectors. The bookstores owner, Henry Cecil
wanted it sold as quickly as possible. He had been
kept out of the loop on its creation, and demanded
that he recoup at least some of the money that
had been spent on making it, And so it went
up for auction at Sotheby's, where it sold for four
hundred and five pounds two Gabriel Wells. It was April
of nineteen twelve and the Great Omar was loaded onto

(03:54):
the next ship headed to its new home of New
York City. Sadly, just a few days into the trip,
the vessel struck an iceberg and sank to the bottom
of the Atlantic. That's right, The gold and jewel encrusted
rubiat of Omar Khayem now resides somewhere within the wreckage
of the unsinkable Titanic, seemingly lost forever. Many years after

(04:16):
the sinking, the plans for the Omar were discovered by
Sutcliffe's nephew, Stanley Bray, who had been hired as an
apprentice bookbinder. He thought it would be a good idea
to rebank the book, Jewels and all, and spent most
of the nineteen thirties cloning the work that his uncle
and Sangorsky had done. By the time it was finally finished,
though the Germans were flying over London, bombs dropped from

(04:37):
the sky, sending everyone fleeing. Bray did his best to
protect his new great Omar, wrapping it up and putting
it in a vault on four Street for safe keeping. Well,
as it so happened, four Street was the first place
the Germans bomb. That area was reduced to ash and
rubble in an instant Once the debris had been cleared away.
Sometime later, the vault was located and Bray's Omar was found.

(05:00):
The covers looked to be in fine shape. The protective
wrapping and the safety of the vault appeared to have
saved this second edition from destruction. Unfortunately, looks, as they
often are, were deceiving, because as soon as the book
was opened, it was clear that the pages and much
of the leather had been melted by the heat from
the blasts. It seems that no matter how Hard Sangorski
in Sutcliffe and Bray tried a bejeweled version of the

(05:23):
Rubaiyat of Omar Khayem was never meant to exist. Some
say the book was cursed. Others, such as Sir John Fortescue,
King Edward, the Seventh Librarian within Windsor Castle, would call
it the most eminent failure perhaps that I ever saw.
Sought after in popular books often come with that age
old compliment I couldn't put it down. But for this book,

(05:44):
at least, the opposite has always been true. No one
can pick it up. Our favorite movies have a tendency

(06:05):
to stick in our brains forever. We incorporate memorable lines
into everyday conversations, we shiver every time the music swells
during the climax, and we happily press play on our
remotes when we need something to make us feel better
after a bad day, whether it's the terrifying two notes
of John William's Jaws theme or the way Humphrey Bogart
tells Ingrid Berman to get on that plane at the

(06:27):
end of Casablanca. The movies that shape our lives are
as much a part of us as our DNA, but
there's one line that's been uttered in over four hundred
films and television shows, and that number keeps growing. Although
it's not really a line of dialogue, it's more of
a pained yell. It first appeared in the nineteen fifty
one Western Distant Drums, starring Gary Cooper. In the film,

(06:49):
which takes place during the Second Seminal War of eighteen forty,
a group of soldiers helped get several prisoners to safety
by trekking through the floor to everglades. The sound is
heard as the party navigates a swamp and one of
the men is devoured by a hungry alligator. According to
the stories, the scream that the character lets out as
he's been eaten was recorded by American singer Cheb Woolly,

(07:11):
and Woolley went on to appear in a number of
high profile films, including High Noon, The Outlawed, Josie Wales,
and Hoosiers, but he is perhaps best known for his
hit novelty song The Purple People Eater, released in nineteen
fifty eight. What Woolley didn't realize at the time was
that his scream would endure well beyond his death in
two thousand and three, in fact, it might not last

(07:32):
us all. The recording was cataloged by the studio as
man getting bit by an alligator and he screams, which
doesn't exactly roll off the tongue. It wouldn't gain its
common name until after its use in a nineteen fifty
three film called The Charge at Feather River. This was
another Western one in which a character named Private Wilhelm
screamed after being shot in the leg by an arrow.

(07:55):
This now iconic moment tied the sound effect to the character.
In almost twenty five years later, it would gain its
much shorter and memorable name, the Wilhelm Scream. But why
did it take nearly a quarter of a century for
the Wilhelm scream to catch on? For that, we turned
to a man named Ben Bert. Bert was a Hollywood
sound designer who only had two films under his belt

(08:16):
when he was tapped to join a little science fiction
movie called Star Wars in nineteen seventy seven. Unlike other
sci fi films of the past, which relied on electronic
sounds to give them a futuristic feel, Bert developed an
ear for more natural sound effects. For example, these sound
a lightsaber makes is a combination of an idline film
projector and the feedback emitted by a broken television. But

(08:38):
for one scene in the picture, where a stormtrooper falls
to his death, Bert needed a sound effect that was
perfect for the moment, and so he turned to Private
Wilhelm's faded scream from The Charge at Feather River. The
Wilhelm scream became Bert's signature, an indication that he had
worked on a film's sound design. You can hear it
in the Indiana Jones movies, the Star Wars sequel and prequels,

(09:00):
and even nineteen eighty eight's Willow, all of which Bert
had had a hand in. But a funny thing happened
after Bert first used the scream, it took on a
life of its own. Since nineteen seventy seven, the Wilhelm's
scream has become a staple of the motion picture industry,
appearing in hundreds of movies and TV shows like Disney's
Toy Story, The Lord of the Rings trilogy, and Sam

(09:22):
Ramie's Spider Man from two thousand and two. It also
became something of an easter egg for film buffs everywhere.
In fact, at a two thousand and six screening of
the Charge at feather River. A large portion of the
audience erupted with applause when Private Wilhelm's leg was punctured
by the arrow. They weren't happy that he was injured.
They were just glad to hear his iconic scream in

(09:43):
all its blood curdling glory. I hope you've enjoyed today's
guided tour of the Cabinet of Curiosities. Subscribe for free
on Apple Podcasts, or learn more about the show by
visiting Curiosities podcast dot com. The show was created by
me Aaron Manke in partnership with how Stuff Works. I

(10:06):
make another award winning show called Lore, which is a podcast,
book series, and television show, and you can learn all
about it over at the World Offlore dot com. And
until next time, stay curious.

Aaron Mahnke's Cabinet of Curiosities News

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