Thirst Trap

Curiosity is everywhere you look, from the tap to the television. It's all about being receptive.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:04):
Welcome to Aaron Manke's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of
iHeartRadio and Grimm 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.

(00:36):
On Christmas Eve of two thousand and nine, Gurgile Barkie
was looking desperately for a way to keep his three
year old daughter entertained. There was lots of work to
do to ensure a magical Christmas morning, and Barkie was
eager to get his daughter to settle down. Like many families,
Barkie's household had run through all the usual Christmas movies.
Barkie flipped across dozens of television channels, all playing this

(01:00):
same three holiday films, until he finally came across one
plane something different. One channel had just begun playing the
nineteen ninety nine movie Stuart Little. Not very festive, but
at least it was something Barkie's daughter hadn't seen, and
just as he was about to return to his Christmas
morning preparations, his daughter asked him to sit and watch
it with her. Barkie fought off a groan fine he

(01:23):
would watch this ten year old movie featuring a talking
mouse instead of attending to his growing to do list.

Speaker 2 (01:29):
It was Christmas, after all.

Speaker 1 (01:31):
When Barkiy agreed to spend this time with his daughter,
he had no way of knowing that he would be
rewarded with the best Christmas gift he could have ever
asked for, not quality family time, though we can assume
he was grateful for that as well. No, Barkie's reward
came in the form of Stuart Little's living room, specifically
one painting on the living room's far wall. Barkie leapt

(01:52):
from his seat. He dove for the remote before remembering
that the movie was playing on cable and he had
no way to pause or rewind it. For a moment,
he was rush and then the painting appeared again on screen,
and again and again. You see, gurgilely, Barkie wasn't just
an exhausted dad trying to make Christmas magical for his family.
He was also a researcher for the Hungarian National Gallery

(02:15):
and an expert in the paintings of Robert Barney, a
Hungarian expressionist painter from the early twentieth century who was
famous for several works, but most notably for Sleeping Lady
with Black Vaz, and that particular work, Sleeping Lady with
Black Vaz, depicted Baroney's second wife in repose.

Speaker 2 (02:33):
He had completed the.

Speaker 1 (02:33):
Painting around nineteen twenty five, and records show that it
was sold in nineteen twenty eight. Since then, the painting
had been lost to time. Researchers, including Barkie, suspected that
this was due to the political upheaval in Hungary during
the period. The buyer and their family may have purchased
the painting and then left Europe shortly afterwards.

Speaker 2 (02:53):
The question then.

Speaker 1 (02:54):
Became, how did a painting last see in nineteen twenty
eight wind up on the set of Stuart Little Before
the movie had ended, Barkie got right to work. He
bombarded the production staff of the movie with emails and
voicemails asking how and where they had found the painting.
It was the best Christmas present for an art historian,
Barkie said, and then nothing. For two long years, his

(03:19):
requests for information went unanswered. Doubt crept in. Could the
painting that he saw in Stuart Little have been just
a replica. Barkie watched the film over and over to
be sure, and came to the conclusion that it must
be the real thing. After all, barony was no worldwide phenomenon,
and the painting was not well known outside of Hungary. Finally,
he received an email from the assistant set director of

(03:42):
the movie. She had purchased the painting at an antique
shop in Pasadena. She told him the set team felt
that it fit the elegant esthetic of Stuart Little's house,
and when the movie wrapped, she had asked to take
it home, and the painting had hung in her Washington,
d c. Bedroom ever since. She invited Barkie to come
in person and confers firm the identity of the painting.
Within a few months, he flew from Hungary to Washington

(04:05):
and met up with this assistant set director near the
National Mall. As soon as he laid eyes on the painting,
he was sure it was the real thing. There's only
one thing left to check, he told the woman. Barkie
strode to a nearby hot dog vendor and asked to
borrow a screwdriver.

Speaker 2 (04:20):
The vendor was happy to oblige.

Speaker 1 (04:22):
Barkie then unscrewed the protective backing from the antique frame
and ran his eyes over the underside of the canvas,
and there it was. In the lower corner was the
stamped date nineteen twenty eight, the last time it was exhibited.
Before the painting was purchased, the lost painting had been found.
The assistant set director sold the painting about a year

(04:44):
later to a private collector for two hundred and eighty
five thousand dollars. For his part, Barkie gained fame and
notoriety in the art historian community, and even published a
book about Barony's works, including the.

Speaker 2 (04:57):
Story of his discovery.

Speaker 1 (04:59):
Barkie says getting to help solve the mystery is reward
enough for him, but he added, with a twinkle in
his eye, I do watch movies very differently now. In

(05:22):
the early morning hours of May twenty first of nineteen
twenty four, just outside the small town of Lone Pine, California,
a sudden explosion lit up the desert night. When police arrived,
they found that the blast had blown a massive hole
in the Los Angeles Aqueduct, which carried water from the
farmland of Owens Valley all the way to the city
of Los Angeles, two hundred miles away. Southern California was

(05:45):
in the middle of a long drought, and thanks to
this act of vandalism, millions of gallons of precious water
had already spilled out onto the sand. The police reckoned
that it would have taken at least five hundred pounds
of dynamite to cut through the iron and conquer creed
of the aqueduct, which meant that they had a major
criminal plots on their hands. Immediately, the LA Mayor put

(06:06):
up a ten thousand dollars reward for information leading to
the suspects in the bombing, and detectives were sent into
nearby towns to investigate. But even though it seemed like
everyone in Owens Valley knew exactly who was responsible for
the blast, nobody would say a peep to them. The
bombers were heroes. The residents of Owens Valley had been
unhappy about the aqueduct from the beginning. It had been

(06:28):
built more than a decade prior to help the booming
city of Los Angeles keep up with its growing water demand.
By so much of their local water supply being siphoned
off and sent to the city, the farmers and ranchers
in Owens Valley were struggling. Land dried up crops, wilted
farmers lost their profits, and the local economy began to fail. Finally,

(06:49):
the people of Owens Valley had decided that enough was
enough and it was time to fight back, and amazingly,
that bombing outside Loan Pine was just the beginning of
what became known as the Kel Water Wars. A few
months later, dozens of Owens Valley residents drove out to
that same area and commandeered the aqueduct by force. They

(07:09):
opened the spillway gates and let the water flow out,
threatening to let it keep spilling until the City of
Los Angeles came out to settle their grievances, and they
stayed there for days, resisting the sheriff's orders to leave,
until the city of La agreed to negotiate with them.
Over the next few years, there were more and more
bombings and acts of sabotage. The Los Angeles Water Department

(07:30):
had to hire armed guards with machine guns to protect
the aqueduct twenty four to seven. The battles continued until
nineteen twenty seven, when the main bank in Owens Valley
suddenly went belly up. The bank's co owners, Wilfred and
Mark Watterson, and I know the last names. Ironed is
not lost on me, had been helping to organize and
fund the rebellion, and without them, the resistance collapsed. The

(07:53):
Waterson brothers were charged with thirty six counts of embezzlement
and grand theft, and during their trial they admitted that
they had stolen money from the bank to fund the
water wars against Los Angeles.

Speaker 2 (08:04):
The brothers were both.

Speaker 1 (08:05):
Sentenced to ten years in prison, making them the only
people who ever faced criminal charges.

Speaker 2 (08:11):
For the water Wars.

Speaker 1 (08:12):
It was a hard fought battle, but in the end,
Owens Valley was no match for the bustling city of
Los Angeles. The city kept buying up land and water,
and by the next year, the once green landscape of
Owens Valley had completely turned to sand. The farmers and
ranchers who lived in the area were forced to sell
their land and move away, and meanwhile, Los Angeles kept

(08:33):
growing and city officials kept doing whatever it took to
survive and thrive in the barren deserts of southern California.
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.

(08:56):
The show was created by me Aaron Mankey in partnership
with how Stuff Works. I 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 Theworldoflore
dot com. And until next time, stay curious.