April 25, 2019 • 26 mins
While the phrase 'weird flex' may be relatively recent, it turns out that this phenomenon itself is as old as human civilization. Join the guys with special guests Miles and Jack from The Daily Zeitgeist as they explore some of the strangest (and most petty) flexes in human history in the conclusion of this two-part episode.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Ridiculous History is a production of I Heart Radio. Yea,
(00:27):
and we're back. Thanks for tuning in. Welcome to part
two of Weird Historical Flexes, or, as we have come
to find, perhaps cruel historical Flexes. I'm Ben, I am Noel,
and that's our super producer Casey Pegram, who, to our knowledge,
has never eaten twenty tortoises. We are not venturing into
(00:47):
this alone, listeners. You recall from our previous episode we
had two of our favorite fellow podcasters on and they
decided to be kind enough to return for the second
part of this show. Let's well come the Daily Zeitgeist
Miles and Jack back on the air. WHOA. Thanks for
having to be told. They didn't really return so much
(01:08):
as just stayed in the same place, and we, you know,
the met through the magic of podcast, we didn't have
to go into a whole week. I'm so thirsty. Yeah,
we just sat in our seats on pause. Doesn't doesn't
Robert Evans have some like mountain dew that you guys
could have. Oh no, if if we touch his mountain dew,
we are in like we will actually be in harm's way. Okay,
sometimes don't touch we don't touch Evans is do ye.
(01:32):
Sometimes he sends me out of context text about that
and he's like, don't touch my mountain. And I didn't know.
I didn't know the number at first, so I was
very confused. No. One time I was driving with him
and we saw a person at a bus stop drinking
a mountain dew and he's like, rolled down your window,
roll down your window, and he stuck his head on
goes that's mine, and that person was so confused and
(01:53):
took it from and then drove off. So that's what
we're talking about when we can talk to talk about
Robert Evans uh what you call that his do do yeah,
Domnia do mania whatever you wan he uh yeah. Whenever
you're driving him somewhere, he never tells you when to stop.
He just rolls out of the car and like that
he's gone. It's it's it's crazy. It's funny that we're
(02:15):
talking about over and there's an open flapping door. That's
that's really dangerous for you and very disrespectful to your vehicle.
But you know, Robert is an interesting character. But speaking
of sugary beverages, I'm gonna do a sugary weird flex. Okay,
So when Ben first hit me to this one, it
was described in the article that I read in a
list on I O nine as displays of opulence in
(02:38):
the UK during the seventeen hundreds, being piles of sugar
just laying around the house like tony like like like
like scarface style, just like say, hey, check out my sugar.
This is how much money I have because I'm showing
you because I have piles of sugar all over the house.
(02:59):
And you know, we think of that in terms of
today that just means you're keeping a very messy kitchen.
But this was on display. But as it turns out,
it wasn't just piles of sugar, or it may have
been at first, but it actually evolved into these really
ostentatious sugar sculptures. Sweet get it, I do, Ben, I
(03:20):
do get it? Uh? And I said seven and actually
meant sixteen hundred. But what's a hundred? You know, what's
what's what's what's that between first drops in the bucket?
So here's the thing. Decorative sugar um was achieved by
using things like gum arabic and then it was mixed
into this kind of paste that you could sculpt into
these figures, and whether they were large sculptures that would
(03:44):
be on display constantly, or whether they were these kind
of small, little hardened, sugary baked confections that that could
then be eaten. And the most bizarre part of this
to me is the fact that they were called subtleties.
And they're not not subtle at all, right, that a
flex isn't meant to be subtle. A flexes, a flexuse,
it's in your face and like, check out this weird
(04:05):
thing that I'm doing, remark upon my wealth. But they
were called subtleties, and the smaller forms of them that
were these little creatures would be formed into things like
buildings or animals, and they were meant to be admired
before they were eaten. So they were eaten. They were eaten.
But here's the thing. It was all in the king class,
(04:26):
the nobles, nights and clergy, and you had to have
a whole lot of expendable sugar to make these things,
to be able to spare enough to actually kind of
like sacrifice them for these kind of weird little flexes
or giant flexes of the case might be um And
it was kind of this display of craftsmanship and also
(04:47):
culinary skills. But a lot of them actually were satirical
symbols or they had messages that were conveyed to the guests. UM.
And Henry the Five when he was when he received
his coronation ceremony, he did that very thing. Um. They
were symbols that kind of confirmed his privilege as the
(05:10):
basically a godlike power as the king, and also nights rights.
And it also highlighted the Um, this this whole concept
that you could it was almost this nihilistic idea that
you could take something that was artisanally created and that
was meant to be beautiful and you could remark on
it and then you know, admire it, but then devour it.
(05:33):
As It's very similar to your turtle story, Jack, where
it's like, Okay, we're gonna like note, you know, Darwin's
gonna make notes about how rare and beautiful these creatures
are and we should you know, take care of them.
And then I'm going to eat it just to show
that I am the master of my own destiny and
that no one is above me. Uh So that is
totally what happened here. Um. And then here's the thing
(05:55):
over time, UM, it became less of a completely upper
class thing because sugar became less expensive and it was
something that you know, lower class people could afford to.
But have you, guys ever heard of the artist Kara Walker. Yes,
actually you are the worst person. Now you're the best person,
(06:17):
next me. So, Kara Walker is a New York City artist,
m who does You may have seen some of her work.
They are silhouette stuff exactly, and they're depicting anti bellum
culture and just the brutal, the brutality of racism. They're uh,
simultaneously kind of grotesque and they're beautiful, and they're also
kind of darkly comic, where there are these kind of
(06:38):
shadow figures in profile doing all of these various things
that would have happened during those times. She did an
art installation in New York City in Brooklyn actually at
the former site of the Domino Sugar factory um and
it was called a Subtlety, and it was a giant
sphinx that was already five feet tall and was created
(07:02):
with just tons of this sugar paste and was molded
into a massive sphinx like sculpture with the face akin
to kind of the really really stereotypical image of like
uh ant Jemima or like the Mammy kind of trope,
utterly racist and with kind of like a bandana on,
(07:26):
and then throughout the factory or all of these some
like kind of like hidden messages talking about how you know,
black people were sort of commodified and to cut cane
and to participate in the sugar trade and all of that.
So it's sort of taking this like old, kind of forgotten,
weird flex this the subtleties, which again, since sugar was
(07:47):
so rare, it was saying like, hey, I've got so
much money that I can take my expensive sugar and
make it into these like frivolous things that are then
devoured by my guests and this exactly, and I think
it's it's not there anymore. But it attracted about four
thousand UM viewers when it first went on display, and
it was a very popular exhibition for for quite some time. Um.
(08:11):
But yeah, what do you guys think about that? There's
a lot of unpacked there. Yeah, just piles of sugar
just uh make me nervous. As someone who grew up
in California where ants up here out of nowhere. Um,
and I was always raised to like even rinse out
cans or juice boxes because ants would show up and
I was caused a lot of anxiety. But also but
(08:32):
also hearing about the Kara Walker piece is good too,
you know because reminding people that yes, you may have
these opulent displays in your homes, but at what cost?
Who were the people whose blood was spilled to even
get these things to your house? Um? But yeah, I
think just like you know, piling stuff up is I've
got to say, I'm not as impressed, you know, just
a pile of a thing, you know, like gold statues
(08:54):
are like gold piles, sugar piles, sugar statues. I mean,
I think we could go a little bit further than that,
but I'll rate that. I'll give it a solid five
on the flex chart out of out of ten. Yeah. Yeah,
that's a five out of ten. That's a five out
of ten for me to uh yeah. Do we think
that they called them like was this around the time
(09:15):
that sarcasm was invented? Because the calling them subtleties is like,
so that sounds like the sort of thing that would
be invented when someone was like, wow, that's subtle. Yeah,
I think almost even naming it a subtlety. That's actually
the flex. Yeah you really go, oh that that that
bit of subtlety there. I also I also love, I
(09:38):
love the notion of this idea, of the invention of sarcasm.
I think that's just like that, all of a sudden,
it just you know, poofed into existence. People were like
smartasses just overnight. Uh. I think it's fantastic. But no, yeah,
and I completely agree it is utterly snark to call
these things subtlety, and even more leaning in to that
opulent display. It's like, oh, it's not it's no big,
(10:00):
it's nothing, you know, it's just you know, my opulence
and absurd obscene wealth and terribly cruel because we have
to also remember, to your point, Miles, especially at that time,
in the age of the subtleties, this was highly likely
to be uh, slave created sugar, you know what I mean.
So that's I would say, that's even less weird flex
(10:23):
more of a brutal one. I will say this, there's
something I wanted to add a little later. In the
sixteen hundreds, Um, there's actually a cookbook from a royal
cook in the in the court named Robert May and
he describes even taking this to the next level, where
there would be, for example, a stag made of sugar,
(10:44):
full size that bleeds wine when an arrow is removed
from it. That's like sticking in there um or. Or
you've got like a castle that actually fires live artillery
rounds made of sugar. Or you have something like like
a giant pie made of sugar that's filled with live
(11:05):
birds that then fly out when they crack open the
sugary crust. So does that take it? Does take it
up to a six or seven? Can I have a
point back, please, gentlemen? Thank you? Oh yeah, no, no, no,
that the cannon firing sugar. That's an eight. That's an eight. Yes,
lest we start to think we're too superior to history. Again, guys,
(11:28):
I did this in the last episode. I have to
take it back to the two and three year old
birthday parties. Yeah, I frequent for just my personal fun
on the weekends, but uh no, I have a three
year old son. You do have to dunk on your
son so many parties this weekend. He's not invited. But
(11:50):
I was at a birthday party very recently where they
had a probably you know, it was probably the size
of it was bigger than any dollhouse I've ever seen.
It was a cake that was, you know, taller than
two people standing on each other's shoulders. Uh. That was
(12:12):
in the shape of like a castle. Also it was
a Disney castle, obviously, And I overheard one of the
moms say, oh, get my daughter out of here. I
don't want her to see that cake because she didn't
want the competition for like her daughter's birthday. I was like,
that's so funny where something is such a flex that
(12:33):
you have to shield people's eyes because they could forever
ruin them exactly. I can't let them think this is normal.
I can't let them think this is normal. So we're
still creating subtleties. They're just a giant rich kid birthday
party cakes. I guess that's the new one. That's the
new subtlety. And this Okay, So so we we've got
(12:54):
we've got a pretty good track record of strange flexes now,
but we've been building up two and especially and especially
weird flex that's gonna come from you, Miles, So everybody listening,
if this was a somewhat uninteresting, your lackluster show for
for so far, then happen. Why are you still listening
(13:16):
first because you believe in us, then you believe it
Miles and more importantly, Miles, no pressure. But literally everything
is writing on you, my friend. Yeah. Well, I mean
I when we were when we were discussing doing this,
I had a few ideas, but I wanted to really
bring it into the history thing because recently when I
was in England, I went to the you know, the
(13:37):
history museum there and saw all the stolen history that
is in there. And my first idea was like, man,
the English really know how to flex on the rest
of the world, because they were like, I'll take your
history and I'll keep it here and you can ask
for it back, but it doesn't mean I'm giving it back. Uh.
And then as I looked into it more, I was like, Okay,
so this obviously it's a theme with how gigantic the
(13:59):
British and higher it was at one time. Um. But
then I found out that in Victorian England, one of
the great flexes if you were a person of means,
was to obviously Egypt. Domania was was huge in England,
especially after the Napoleonic Wars and things like that. Um.
But then it turned into a thing where going to
(14:22):
watch somebody just fully desecrate a mummy's body. Uh, mummy
unwrappings were a huge flex if you had the money
to go to a live mummy unwrapping. Now what is
the mummy unwrapping? That was question. Yes, Thomas Pettigrew, Uh
he was you know, he was like this surgeon and
and and a man of science. But then eventually the
(14:44):
Egyptian bug. He got bit by the egypt bug and
started thinking like man, you know, like what's like, what's
really going on under all those raps? And he decided, yes,
here we go. This is something I can do. I
can combine many things science. I can come combine people's
just obsession with the darkness of Egypt or just the
sort of otherness of Egypt and get them and sell
(15:05):
some tickets at the same time. So he wasn't the
first person to unroll a mummy in front of an audience,
but he was. He was the guy who kind of
mainstreamed it as being like a performance where people would
buy tickets to go and just watch this thing happen
live and in person. And can I stop you real quick?
Did he do it? Like where he just like on
(15:25):
Scooby Doo or he just pulls the one string and
then the mummy just spins out like a car with
cartoon sound effects, and there's actually almost well what's funny
is there was someone in France who was doing something
similar to which is a little more performative than just uh,
you know, sort of taking the bandages off. In France,
there were moments where they would take a a mummy
(15:46):
that was going to be de mummified and put it
like on this you know machine essentially that made it
look like the corpse was dancing as the bandages were
just ripped off the body, and people were like, yo,
that's cool, uh, making it a real kind of freaky performance. Um.
(16:07):
But in England, you know, England is more about, as
we said, the subtleties. So there they took it a
little more seriously, a little more dramatic by you know
saying really, you know, just overly elaborate monologues while then
you know, cutting off all of the bandages to demommify it.
When these mummy I guess d rappings as they called them,
(16:29):
while we're happening, the man behind it, Thomas Pettigrew, had
a few kind of dark aims with doing this one
of the theories that people have suggested that he was
really also like through de mummifying these people, was trying
to prove that ancient Egyptians were actually Caucasian African origin
by using like physiognomy to like measure the cranium and
(16:52):
things like yeah, yeah, sorry, phrenology right, or just to
basically be like, yeah, this is this is my fake
science to prove that the this old ancient empire was
actually in fact a Caucasian one. UM. But again found
this way of everybody would come by watch the mummy
get de wrapped, and it was just like the biggest thing,
(17:14):
and it got so big that even there's even a
secondary flex to the de rappings. There was the Duke
of Hamilton's at the time in eighteen fifty two UM
when one of his dying wishes was to have Pettigrew
actually mammify him and put him in an ancient Egyptian sarcophagus,
and he got his wish in eighteen fifty two. So
(17:37):
now we actually we've gone from people just being like,
let's just disrespect this ancient body to now let me
kick this ancient body out of the sarcophagus. Now let
me appropriate, Mamma fying me and put me in the sarcophagus,
and that's what happened, and then he did a mummy
unwrapping and scared everybody. I'm good on my birthday. That's
(18:00):
like Bonnaroo costume level appropriation. It's beyond oh yeah, oh wait, Coachella.
That's the one yo. Yeah. Yeah, he'd be like, I
mean he acquired a like an actual legitimate, ancient sarcophagus,
and of like a princess who wasn't named, but was like,
that's that will be my final vessel to rest in.
I say more power to him. Go ahead and mummify yourself.
(18:22):
That's sort of like a like a different version of
like go f yourself. Yeah, but get your own vehicle. Absolutely,
do you make build your own sarcopha guy? Guy just do?
Oh yeah. And what's so funny is like he's actually
because he's mummified in a sarcophagus, he actually made it
into the Encyclopedia of Mummies. Oh yeah, which to me
feels like a little bit of a you know, sort
of backdoor entry to getting into college. Reminds me of
(18:46):
Operation Varsity Blues a little bit, like did you earn
it really a person of means who who was able
to buy their own sarcophagus and inflex on people like that.
People are always trying to buy their way into the
Encyclopedia Mummies. Yeah, exactly. I mean it was a big problem,
especially in the eight I'm gonna give that one. At first,
I was like, man, this is clearly eight or nine.
(19:06):
But making appropriating someone in death for your own death,
that knocks it to attend to me the hubris alone,
not to mention that it is uh tickets are being sold.
It's it's completely commodifying and appropriating some very sacred ritual
in someone's culture that you clearly do not understand or
(19:27):
care to understand. You're just using it for the amusement
of the public, and so then you're also playing into stereotypes.
Everything bad about this. So I think we should have
two scales. I think we should have the weird flex
scale and the cruelty scale. We have been going back
and forth. Well, I will say, on the upside, one
(19:49):
good thing about this horrifically tragic story is that, uh,
in comparison, it makes the four of us look pretty
good because we we haven't done that it's true. Yeah, yeah, right,
nothing I mean, but I mean, I'm not gonna lie.
I'm every night when I when I envisioned my future,
it's having so much wealth that I could also buy
(20:11):
a money and just unwrapid right, I'm gonna be honest.
I was gonna say, okay, so yes, this is what
we had instead of horror movies back then. But also
this is something I could totally see working as a
flex in the modern world. Like if I was at
a party and someone was doing that, I'd be like,
that makes sense, and I'm impressed. If they were like
defiling the historic object, it's like, I don't know, it's
(20:34):
still it's still just wildly insane and it's weird. We
also have unboxing videos, but I guess back then, right,
they didn't have the same sort of values where like
we should actually preserve history, like oh, y'all got to
see what I just stole from Egypt real quick watch
we unwrapped this money, whereas now it would be like,
(20:56):
because you're just merely destroying something of such value, It's
like it's like, look at this os from the Ming Dynasty.
I'm about to just toss off the freeway off ramp.
That would be pretty cool. I could see it at
a like Hollywood party of some like CIA agent or
something like that, somebody who's cartoonistly a terrible person. I'm
pretty sure, Like when they wanted to open that mummy
(21:17):
that sarcophagus like last year, and people like, what's the mummy?
What's the water in that sarcophag? People like, I want
to drink the mummy water that. I'm pretty sure Nick
Cage had a mummy at one point, so that's probably
available because I think he I think there's like a
serious Knick Cage garage sale going on, so surely he
had a mummy as well. I'm just conjecturing here, but
(21:39):
I'd like to believe that he's a He's a he's
an odd character. Um geez, guys, this was a lot
less fun than I thought it was gonna be. And
that is not on you. That is just on history itself. History. Yeah,
we think time, I mean yeah, no, no, I had
a great time. I had a great time. But these
(21:59):
stories were most of them were kind of bummers. I
would say the least bummery one was Ben's uh decorative
hobo story, and even that was pretty ornamental hermits. I'm sorry,
I'm sorry, decorative. You can't try to like appropriate what happened.
Don't you accuse appropriation, sir? I would never, I would never.
(22:19):
It all depends on what your flavor is a flex.
I mean, Jack's was about animal cruelty, reflexing on the animals. Yes,
subtlety is was about slavery. Uh, the mind was about colonialism,
empire and the desecration of people's cultures. Um, and then
the other one was about taking advantage of the destitute
you know, your bum son. Yeah, and I guess now,
(22:43):
I guess nowadays the flexes are better because now we're
just saying, like, yeah, I actually like I went to
high school with Chris Rocks kid and I beat him
in basketball. So there's that, all right. But okay, I'm
gonna tell people that's a true story about you. Now.
Are you cool with that? Just back me up if
it comes up in conversation. Oh yeah, it's one of
(23:04):
the many lies I do, so don't worry. It's well.
Despite despite being kind of depressed right now, I'm also
really happy we got to do this and I did
all things consider, have a really good time having you
guys on this show and maybe we can make this
a regular thing. I think there's obviously way more historical
weird flexes that we can dig into and and do
this again. Um, thank you guys so much. I'm gonna
(23:25):
do I got more in my back pocket right now,
let's do it. Yeah, I'm gonna I'm gonna actually take
it a step further and I'm gonna try to make
some new weird historical flexes for the future that will
hopefully not be as terrible as these four turned out
to be. But guys, I know everybody listening is saying, well, uh,
(23:46):
we enjoyed the hell out of hanging out with Jack
and Miles. Where can they find you before you come
back on this show? You, guys can find us at
The Daily Zeitgeist. It's a podcast that we do, as
the name would suggest, daily every weekday, Monday through Friday.
It's an hour rundown of just everything that's happened in
(24:06):
the zeitgeist, pop culture news. Uh, those are kind of
the two big ones. Politics, politics, you know, all of
all of it. Uh Yeah, And you can find me
on Twitter at Jack Underscore. O'Brien. You you can find
me on Twitter and Instagram at Miles of Gray g
r A Y and I want to give you guys
a shadow to uh to make sure that all our
(24:28):
listeners know this. You heard correct, folks. That's a daily podcast, uh,
Casey Nolan, I do this about two times a week.
So I I am beyond impressed that you guys not
only did your regular show but also came here to
do a show with us. So thank you. That's amazing pleasure.
(24:49):
We're big fans. We're thrilled to do it. Yeah, and
it's uh, you know, and our show isn't as thorough
as yours is. Again, we like to consider our show
a second rate, pot second podcast. Just do it a lot,
that's all. So so check out check out the guys
on Instagram and Twitter if you want a closer look
at the second best garden Gnome collection in East Los Angeles. Uh.
(25:13):
That that's a good callback if you listen to both episodes,
which you should in the mean type, we're calling it
a day. We want to give a very late thanks
and shout out to our super producer, Casey Pegrham. We'd
like to thank Alex Williams who composed our theme, Gabe Lozier,
who helps us out with research, and I'm just miss Christopher.
I'm gonna give him another shout out. Christopherrosciots, Jonathan Strickland,
(25:36):
the quister you Ben, I'd like to thank you for
being a friend and a confidante and all the things
that are in the Golden Girls theme song. And of
course thanks again to Miles and Jack. Thanks to everyone
for checking this out. Hey, you know what folks tell
us about your favorite weird historical flexes or even just
very very petty things committed by historical people of note.
(26:00):
And who knows, maybe this will be a running thing
and we can include some of them in a future episode.
Until then, we'll see you next time. For more podcasts
for my heart Radio, visit the I Heart Radio app,
Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Ridiculous History is a production of I Heart Radio. Yea,
(00:27):
and we're back. Thanks for tuning in. Welcome to part
two of Weird Historical Flexes, or, as we have come
to find, perhaps cruel historical Flexes. I'm Ben, I am Noel,
and that's our super producer Casey Pegram, who, to our knowledge,
has never eaten twenty tortoises. We are not venturing into
(00:47):
this alone, listeners. You recall from our previous episode we
had two of our favorite fellow podcasters on and they
decided to be kind enough to return for the second
part of this show. Let's well come the Daily Zeitgeist
Miles and Jack back on the air. WHOA. Thanks for
having to be told. They didn't really return so much
(01:08):
as just stayed in the same place, and we, you know,
the met through the magic of podcast, we didn't have
to go into a whole week. I'm so thirsty. Yeah,
we just sat in our seats on pause. Doesn't doesn't
Robert Evans have some like mountain dew that you guys
could have. Oh no, if if we touch his mountain dew,
we are in like we will actually be in harm's way. Okay,
sometimes don't touch we don't touch Evans is do ye.
(01:32):
Sometimes he sends me out of context text about that
and he's like, don't touch my mountain. And I didn't know.
I didn't know the number at first, so I was
very confused. No. One time I was driving with him
and we saw a person at a bus stop drinking
a mountain dew and he's like, rolled down your window,
roll down your window, and he stuck his head on
goes that's mine, and that person was so confused and
(01:53):
took it from and then drove off. So that's what
we're talking about when we can talk to talk about
Robert Evans uh what you call that his do do yeah,
Domnia do mania whatever you wan he uh yeah. Whenever
you're driving him somewhere, he never tells you when to stop.
He just rolls out of the car and like that
he's gone. It's it's it's crazy. It's funny that we're
(02:15):
talking about over and there's an open flapping door. That's
that's really dangerous for you and very disrespectful to your vehicle.
But you know, Robert is an interesting character. But speaking
of sugary beverages, I'm gonna do a sugary weird flex. Okay,
So when Ben first hit me to this one, it
was described in the article that I read in a
list on I O nine as displays of opulence in
(02:38):
the UK during the seventeen hundreds, being piles of sugar
just laying around the house like tony like like like
like scarface style, just like say, hey, check out my sugar.
This is how much money I have because I'm showing
you because I have piles of sugar all over the house.
(02:59):
And you know, we think of that in terms of
today that just means you're keeping a very messy kitchen.
But this was on display. But as it turns out,
it wasn't just piles of sugar, or it may have
been at first, but it actually evolved into these really
ostentatious sugar sculptures. Sweet get it, I do, Ben, I
(03:20):
do get it? Uh? And I said seven and actually
meant sixteen hundred. But what's a hundred? You know, what's
what's what's what's that between first drops in the bucket?
So here's the thing. Decorative sugar um was achieved by
using things like gum arabic and then it was mixed
into this kind of paste that you could sculpt into
these figures, and whether they were large sculptures that would
(03:44):
be on display constantly, or whether they were these kind
of small, little hardened, sugary baked confections that that could
then be eaten. And the most bizarre part of this
to me is the fact that they were called subtleties.
And they're not not subtle at all, right, that a
flex isn't meant to be subtle. A flexes, a flexuse,
it's in your face and like, check out this weird
(04:05):
thing that I'm doing, remark upon my wealth. But they
were called subtleties, and the smaller forms of them that
were these little creatures would be formed into things like
buildings or animals, and they were meant to be admired
before they were eaten. So they were eaten. They were eaten.
But here's the thing. It was all in the king class,
(04:26):
the nobles, nights and clergy, and you had to have
a whole lot of expendable sugar to make these things,
to be able to spare enough to actually kind of
like sacrifice them for these kind of weird little flexes
or giant flexes of the case might be um And
it was kind of this display of craftsmanship and also
(04:47):
culinary skills. But a lot of them actually were satirical
symbols or they had messages that were conveyed to the guests. UM.
And Henry the Five when he was when he received
his coronation ceremony, he did that very thing. Um. They
were symbols that kind of confirmed his privilege as the
(05:10):
basically a godlike power as the king, and also nights rights.
And it also highlighted the Um, this this whole concept
that you could it was almost this nihilistic idea that
you could take something that was artisanally created and that
was meant to be beautiful and you could remark on
it and then you know, admire it, but then devour it.
(05:33):
As It's very similar to your turtle story, Jack, where
it's like, Okay, we're gonna like note, you know, Darwin's
gonna make notes about how rare and beautiful these creatures
are and we should you know, take care of them.
And then I'm going to eat it just to show
that I am the master of my own destiny and
that no one is above me. Uh So that is
totally what happened here. Um. And then here's the thing
(05:55):
over time, UM, it became less of a completely upper
class thing because sugar became less expensive and it was
something that you know, lower class people could afford to.
But have you, guys ever heard of the artist Kara Walker. Yes,
actually you are the worst person. Now you're the best person,
(06:17):
next me. So, Kara Walker is a New York City artist,
m who does You may have seen some of her work.
They are silhouette stuff exactly, and they're depicting anti bellum
culture and just the brutal, the brutality of racism. They're uh,
simultaneously kind of grotesque and they're beautiful, and they're also
kind of darkly comic, where there are these kind of
(06:38):
shadow figures in profile doing all of these various things
that would have happened during those times. She did an
art installation in New York City in Brooklyn actually at
the former site of the Domino Sugar factory um and
it was called a Subtlety, and it was a giant
sphinx that was already five feet tall and was created
(07:02):
with just tons of this sugar paste and was molded
into a massive sphinx like sculpture with the face akin
to kind of the really really stereotypical image of like
uh ant Jemima or like the Mammy kind of trope,
utterly racist and with kind of like a bandana on,
(07:26):
and then throughout the factory or all of these some
like kind of like hidden messages talking about how you know,
black people were sort of commodified and to cut cane
and to participate in the sugar trade and all of that.
So it's sort of taking this like old, kind of forgotten,
weird flex this the subtleties, which again, since sugar was
(07:47):
so rare, it was saying like, hey, I've got so
much money that I can take my expensive sugar and
make it into these like frivolous things that are then
devoured by my guests and this exactly, and I think
it's it's not there anymore. But it attracted about four
thousand UM viewers when it first went on display, and
it was a very popular exhibition for for quite some time. Um.
(08:11):
But yeah, what do you guys think about that? There's
a lot of unpacked there. Yeah, just piles of sugar
just uh make me nervous. As someone who grew up
in California where ants up here out of nowhere. Um,
and I was always raised to like even rinse out
cans or juice boxes because ants would show up and
I was caused a lot of anxiety. But also but
(08:32):
also hearing about the Kara Walker piece is good too,
you know because reminding people that yes, you may have
these opulent displays in your homes, but at what cost?
Who were the people whose blood was spilled to even
get these things to your house? Um? But yeah, I
think just like you know, piling stuff up is I've
got to say, I'm not as impressed, you know, just
a pile of a thing, you know, like gold statues
(08:54):
are like gold piles, sugar piles, sugar statues. I mean,
I think we could go a little bit further than that,
but I'll rate that. I'll give it a solid five
on the flex chart out of out of ten. Yeah. Yeah,
that's a five out of ten. That's a five out
of ten for me to uh yeah. Do we think
that they called them like was this around the time
(09:15):
that sarcasm was invented? Because the calling them subtleties is like,
so that sounds like the sort of thing that would
be invented when someone was like, wow, that's subtle. Yeah,
I think almost even naming it a subtlety. That's actually
the flex. Yeah you really go, oh that that that
bit of subtlety there. I also I also love, I
(09:38):
love the notion of this idea, of the invention of sarcasm.
I think that's just like that, all of a sudden,
it just you know, poofed into existence. People were like
smartasses just overnight. Uh. I think it's fantastic. But no, yeah,
and I completely agree it is utterly snark to call
these things subtlety, and even more leaning in to that
opulent display. It's like, oh, it's not it's no big,
(10:00):
it's nothing, you know, it's just you know, my opulence
and absurd obscene wealth and terribly cruel because we have
to also remember, to your point, Miles, especially at that time,
in the age of the subtleties, this was highly likely
to be uh, slave created sugar, you know what I mean.
So that's I would say, that's even less weird flex
(10:23):
more of a brutal one. I will say this, there's
something I wanted to add a little later. In the
sixteen hundreds, Um, there's actually a cookbook from a royal
cook in the in the court named Robert May and
he describes even taking this to the next level, where
there would be, for example, a stag made of sugar,
(10:44):
full size that bleeds wine when an arrow is removed
from it. That's like sticking in there um or. Or
you've got like a castle that actually fires live artillery
rounds made of sugar. Or you have something like like
a giant pie made of sugar that's filled with live
(11:05):
birds that then fly out when they crack open the
sugary crust. So does that take it? Does take it
up to a six or seven? Can I have a
point back, please, gentlemen? Thank you? Oh yeah, no, no, no,
that the cannon firing sugar. That's an eight. That's an eight. Yes,
lest we start to think we're too superior to history. Again, guys,
(11:28):
I did this in the last episode. I have to
take it back to the two and three year old
birthday parties. Yeah, I frequent for just my personal fun
on the weekends, but uh no, I have a three
year old son. You do have to dunk on your
son so many parties this weekend. He's not invited. But
(11:50):
I was at a birthday party very recently where they
had a probably you know, it was probably the size
of it was bigger than any dollhouse I've ever seen.
It was a cake that was, you know, taller than
two people standing on each other's shoulders. Uh. That was
(12:12):
in the shape of like a castle. Also it was
a Disney castle, obviously, And I overheard one of the
moms say, oh, get my daughter out of here. I
don't want her to see that cake because she didn't
want the competition for like her daughter's birthday. I was like,
that's so funny where something is such a flex that
(12:33):
you have to shield people's eyes because they could forever
ruin them exactly. I can't let them think this is normal.
I can't let them think this is normal. So we're
still creating subtleties. They're just a giant rich kid birthday
party cakes. I guess that's the new one. That's the
new subtlety. And this Okay, So so we we've got
(12:54):
we've got a pretty good track record of strange flexes now,
but we've been building up two and especially and especially
weird flex that's gonna come from you, Miles, So everybody listening,
if this was a somewhat uninteresting, your lackluster show for
for so far, then happen. Why are you still listening
(13:16):
first because you believe in us, then you believe it
Miles and more importantly, Miles, no pressure. But literally everything
is writing on you, my friend. Yeah. Well, I mean
I when we were when we were discussing doing this,
I had a few ideas, but I wanted to really
bring it into the history thing because recently when I
was in England, I went to the you know, the
(13:37):
history museum there and saw all the stolen history that
is in there. And my first idea was like, man,
the English really know how to flex on the rest
of the world, because they were like, I'll take your
history and I'll keep it here and you can ask
for it back, but it doesn't mean I'm giving it back. Uh.
And then as I looked into it more, I was like, Okay,
so this obviously it's a theme with how gigantic the
(13:59):
British and higher it was at one time. Um. But
then I found out that in Victorian England, one of
the great flexes if you were a person of means,
was to obviously Egypt. Domania was was huge in England,
especially after the Napoleonic Wars and things like that. Um.
But then it turned into a thing where going to
(14:22):
watch somebody just fully desecrate a mummy's body. Uh, mummy
unwrappings were a huge flex if you had the money
to go to a live mummy unwrapping. Now what is
the mummy unwrapping? That was question. Yes, Thomas Pettigrew, Uh
he was you know, he was like this surgeon and
and and a man of science. But then eventually the
(14:44):
Egyptian bug. He got bit by the egypt bug and
started thinking like man, you know, like what's like, what's
really going on under all those raps? And he decided, yes,
here we go. This is something I can do. I
can combine many things science. I can come combine people's
just obsession with the darkness of Egypt or just the
sort of otherness of Egypt and get them and sell
(15:05):
some tickets at the same time. So he wasn't the
first person to unroll a mummy in front of an audience,
but he was. He was the guy who kind of
mainstreamed it as being like a performance where people would
buy tickets to go and just watch this thing happen
live and in person. And can I stop you real quick?
Did he do it? Like where he just like on
(15:25):
Scooby Doo or he just pulls the one string and
then the mummy just spins out like a car with
cartoon sound effects, and there's actually almost well what's funny
is there was someone in France who was doing something
similar to which is a little more performative than just uh,
you know, sort of taking the bandages off. In France,
there were moments where they would take a a mummy
(15:46):
that was going to be de mummified and put it
like on this you know machine essentially that made it
look like the corpse was dancing as the bandages were
just ripped off the body, and people were like, yo,
that's cool, uh, making it a real kind of freaky performance. Um.
(16:07):
But in England, you know, England is more about, as
we said, the subtleties. So there they took it a
little more seriously, a little more dramatic by you know
saying really, you know, just overly elaborate monologues while then
you know, cutting off all of the bandages to demommify it.
When these mummy I guess d rappings as they called them,
(16:29):
while we're happening, the man behind it, Thomas Pettigrew, had
a few kind of dark aims with doing this one
of the theories that people have suggested that he was
really also like through de mummifying these people, was trying
to prove that ancient Egyptians were actually Caucasian African origin
by using like physiognomy to like measure the cranium and
(16:52):
things like yeah, yeah, sorry, phrenology right, or just to
basically be like, yeah, this is this is my fake
science to prove that the this old ancient empire was
actually in fact a Caucasian one. UM. But again found
this way of everybody would come by watch the mummy
get de wrapped, and it was just like the biggest thing,
(17:14):
and it got so big that even there's even a
secondary flex to the de rappings. There was the Duke
of Hamilton's at the time in eighteen fifty two UM
when one of his dying wishes was to have Pettigrew
actually mammify him and put him in an ancient Egyptian sarcophagus,
and he got his wish in eighteen fifty two. So
(17:37):
now we actually we've gone from people just being like,
let's just disrespect this ancient body to now let me
kick this ancient body out of the sarcophagus. Now let
me appropriate, Mamma fying me and put me in the sarcophagus,
and that's what happened, and then he did a mummy
unwrapping and scared everybody. I'm good on my birthday. That's
(18:00):
like Bonnaroo costume level appropriation. It's beyond oh yeah, oh wait, Coachella.
That's the one yo. Yeah. Yeah, he'd be like, I
mean he acquired a like an actual legitimate, ancient sarcophagus,
and of like a princess who wasn't named, but was like,
that's that will be my final vessel to rest in.
I say more power to him. Go ahead and mummify yourself.
(18:22):
That's sort of like a like a different version of
like go f yourself. Yeah, but get your own vehicle. Absolutely,
do you make build your own sarcopha guy? Guy just do?
Oh yeah. And what's so funny is like he's actually
because he's mummified in a sarcophagus, he actually made it
into the Encyclopedia of Mummies. Oh yeah, which to me
feels like a little bit of a you know, sort
of backdoor entry to getting into college. Reminds me of
(18:46):
Operation Varsity Blues a little bit, like did you earn
it really a person of means who who was able
to buy their own sarcophagus and inflex on people like that.
People are always trying to buy their way into the
Encyclopedia Mummies. Yeah, exactly. I mean it was a big problem,
especially in the eight I'm gonna give that one. At first,
I was like, man, this is clearly eight or nine.
(19:06):
But making appropriating someone in death for your own death,
that knocks it to attend to me the hubris alone,
not to mention that it is uh tickets are being sold.
It's it's completely commodifying and appropriating some very sacred ritual
in someone's culture that you clearly do not understand or
(19:27):
care to understand. You're just using it for the amusement
of the public, and so then you're also playing into stereotypes.
Everything bad about this. So I think we should have
two scales. I think we should have the weird flex
scale and the cruelty scale. We have been going back
and forth. Well, I will say, on the upside, one
(19:49):
good thing about this horrifically tragic story is that, uh,
in comparison, it makes the four of us look pretty
good because we we haven't done that it's true. Yeah, yeah, right,
nothing I mean, but I mean, I'm not gonna lie.
I'm every night when I when I envisioned my future,
it's having so much wealth that I could also buy
(20:11):
a money and just unwrapid right, I'm gonna be honest.
I was gonna say, okay, so yes, this is what
we had instead of horror movies back then. But also
this is something I could totally see working as a
flex in the modern world. Like if I was at
a party and someone was doing that, I'd be like,
that makes sense, and I'm impressed. If they were like
defiling the historic object, it's like, I don't know, it's
(20:34):
still it's still just wildly insane and it's weird. We
also have unboxing videos, but I guess back then, right,
they didn't have the same sort of values where like
we should actually preserve history, like oh, y'all got to
see what I just stole from Egypt real quick watch
we unwrapped this money, whereas now it would be like,
(20:56):
because you're just merely destroying something of such value, It's
like it's like, look at this os from the Ming Dynasty.
I'm about to just toss off the freeway off ramp.
That would be pretty cool. I could see it at
a like Hollywood party of some like CIA agent or
something like that, somebody who's cartoonistly a terrible person. I'm
pretty sure, Like when they wanted to open that mummy
(21:17):
that sarcophagus like last year, and people like, what's the mummy?
What's the water in that sarcophag? People like, I want
to drink the mummy water that. I'm pretty sure Nick
Cage had a mummy at one point, so that's probably
available because I think he I think there's like a
serious Knick Cage garage sale going on, so surely he
had a mummy as well. I'm just conjecturing here, but
(21:39):
I'd like to believe that he's a He's a he's
an odd character. Um geez, guys, this was a lot
less fun than I thought it was gonna be. And
that is not on you. That is just on history itself. History. Yeah,
we think time, I mean yeah, no, no, I had
a great time. I had a great time. But these
(21:59):
stories were most of them were kind of bummers. I
would say the least bummery one was Ben's uh decorative
hobo story, and even that was pretty ornamental hermits. I'm sorry,
I'm sorry, decorative. You can't try to like appropriate what happened.
Don't you accuse appropriation, sir? I would never, I would never.
(22:19):
It all depends on what your flavor is a flex.
I mean, Jack's was about animal cruelty, reflexing on the animals. Yes,
subtlety is was about slavery. Uh, the mind was about colonialism,
empire and the desecration of people's cultures. Um, and then
the other one was about taking advantage of the destitute
you know, your bum son. Yeah, and I guess now,
(22:43):
I guess nowadays the flexes are better because now we're
just saying, like, yeah, I actually like I went to
high school with Chris Rocks kid and I beat him
in basketball. So there's that, all right. But okay, I'm
gonna tell people that's a true story about you. Now.
Are you cool with that? Just back me up if
it comes up in conversation. Oh yeah, it's one of
(23:04):
the many lies I do, so don't worry. It's well.
Despite despite being kind of depressed right now, I'm also
really happy we got to do this and I did
all things consider, have a really good time having you
guys on this show and maybe we can make this
a regular thing. I think there's obviously way more historical
weird flexes that we can dig into and and do
this again. Um, thank you guys so much. I'm gonna
(23:25):
do I got more in my back pocket right now,
let's do it. Yeah, I'm gonna I'm gonna actually take
it a step further and I'm gonna try to make
some new weird historical flexes for the future that will
hopefully not be as terrible as these four turned out
to be. But guys, I know everybody listening is saying, well, uh,
(23:46):
we enjoyed the hell out of hanging out with Jack
and Miles. Where can they find you before you come
back on this show? You, guys can find us at
The Daily Zeitgeist. It's a podcast that we do, as
the name would suggest, daily every weekday, Monday through Friday.
It's an hour rundown of just everything that's happened in
(24:06):
the zeitgeist, pop culture news. Uh, those are kind of
the two big ones. Politics, politics, you know, all of
all of it. Uh Yeah, And you can find me
on Twitter at Jack Underscore. O'Brien. You you can find
me on Twitter and Instagram at Miles of Gray g
r A Y and I want to give you guys
a shadow to uh to make sure that all our
(24:28):
listeners know this. You heard correct, folks. That's a daily podcast, uh,
Casey Nolan, I do this about two times a week.
So I I am beyond impressed that you guys not
only did your regular show but also came here to
do a show with us. So thank you. That's amazing pleasure.
(24:49):
We're big fans. We're thrilled to do it. Yeah, and
it's uh, you know, and our show isn't as thorough
as yours is. Again, we like to consider our show
a second rate, pot second podcast. Just do it a lot,
that's all. So so check out check out the guys
on Instagram and Twitter if you want a closer look
at the second best garden Gnome collection in East Los Angeles. Uh.
(25:13):
That that's a good callback if you listen to both episodes,
which you should in the mean type, we're calling it
a day. We want to give a very late thanks
and shout out to our super producer, Casey Pegrham. We'd
like to thank Alex Williams who composed our theme, Gabe Lozier,
who helps us out with research, and I'm just miss Christopher.
I'm gonna give him another shout out. Christopherrosciots, Jonathan Strickland,
(25:36):
the quister you Ben, I'd like to thank you for
being a friend and a confidante and all the things
that are in the Golden Girls theme song. And of
course thanks again to Miles and Jack. Thanks to everyone
for checking this out. Hey, you know what folks tell
us about your favorite weird historical flexes or even just
very very petty things committed by historical people of note.
(26:00):
And who knows, maybe this will be a running thing
and we can include some of them in a future episode.
Until then, we'll see you next time. For more podcasts
for my heart Radio, visit the I Heart Radio app,
Apple podcast, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Ridiculous History News
Hosts And Creators
Ben Bowlin
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