December 1, 2023 • 25 mins
Holly and Tracy talk about the blackout that happened during the recording of their live show in Los Angeles. They then discuss their different activities during their time visiting Montserrat.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production
of iHeartRadio, Hello and Happy Friday. We had our live
show from the Ace Hotel, Los Angeles, South Bay. We
sure did shared this week. We think we are as
(00:26):
we record this still reviewing audio to see what's workable
from the live show and what isn't. Yeah, so we
still don't know how much you're going to get that's
actually from the event itself versus from us recording in
the studios that are in our homes. What a fun
night though, it was very fun. I wanted to make
sure to thank number one, to thank Marriott for sponsoring
(00:50):
the show. The Marriott AC Hotel where we had this
live event was really nice. The whole venue was great,
everyone we worked with was great. And then suddenly, in
the middle of recording the episode, there was a flash
and a pop and the power was out for the
(01:11):
whole neighborhood. And it stayed that way. It stayed that
way for a long time. I think when we left
after everything was over. Uh huh, our hotel was still
running on a generator. Yeah yeah, yeah, which I should say,
even before any of that happened, AC Hotel South Bay
was already being real flexible because originally we had at
(01:34):
the end of this event, we had a cocktail demonstration, right,
And originally it was supposed to happen on their rooftop bar, right,
but it rained that day, so the whole thing moved
inside downstairs to their lobby bar. And they were so
accommodating with that. Yeah, And it was a beautiful setup,
and I so like right out of the gate they
(01:54):
were already rolling with some wild times and then it
just got wilder for us. Yeah. Yeah, because La does
not have a lot of rainfall. That rooftop bar isn't
a bar that has an additional roof over it. I
know a lot of the rooftop bars that I have
been to in like Massachusetts or North Carolina or whatever,
like it's sort of an open air bar, but there's
(02:15):
also a roof, and this was more of an open space.
So having the event there in the rain was not
not feasible, not really feasible. So yeah, we had it
downstairs instead, Yeah, which was also very very fun. Yeah,
we had a great time. That was so fun. I
love making a drink and I love making a drink
with a big room full of people, and it was
really really great. I will say I was kind of
(02:37):
impressed and delighted with our listeners. I mean I always am,
but I have done an event like that at other
things that I was not hosting, but I was like
part of. And it went on. They go off the
rails really easily, where it's like once you say poor
the first ingredient and everybody's kind of doing their own
thing and it's all and our listeners would chat while
(02:58):
they were doing the ingredient and they would all be
ready to like be like, Okay, what's next, what's the
next step? Yeah, And so it was really lovely because
then when we all finished together, we got to toast together,
and that made me very happy in my heart. Yeah,
we had kind of prepared as we were doing our
walkthrough for the possibility of going off the rails immediately.
So when the power went out and it turned out
(03:18):
that we were not going to have the amplification of
our headset mics for people to hear us, I was like, oh,
I'm not sure how this is going to go. But
it went totally fine. Everybody, all the listeners, great fun.
I think folks had a great time. All. We had
a couple of other teams from iHeartRadio who were there
(03:39):
with us as part of event. All of our colleagues
also were great, so I wanted to shout out to
all of them. There are so many. I don't feel
like I even have everybody's names in my head. Yeah,
I would start naming them, but if I do, I'll
leave somebody out. Then I'll feel like a jerk. So
we're gonna skip that. Just know that we appreciate you all.
I do want to talk about some stuff related to
our our actual topic content. We never told anybody what
(04:05):
the Pierre Collins was. Oh no, we didn't. I have
a guess. I was assuming it was going to be
something that had Champagne in it. No, it has cognac.
Oh wow, So it to Tom Collins with cognac in it. Okay, delicious, listen,
I love a little coognac. There was also a thing
that I wanted to mention because we talk about the
(04:27):
origin of that Tom Collins hoax being attributed to a
minstrel performer named Harrigan. Huh. That is a confusing point
because that paper that we read from mentioned specifically that
it is a black performer. Okay, I could not find
(04:49):
any evidence of a black performer named Harrigan at that
time that would have been well known enough to have
the kind of pull that he could have gotten every
service person in New York City. And on the joke,
there was a performer named Harrigan who was white and
I believe appeared in blackface as part of his show,
(05:11):
And that may be where the confusion is. But just
in case you're ever like, wait, what is this scoop
with that? Or you know enough about minstrel history that
that raised a little question for you, there seems to
be confusion on the part of that paper, is my guess.
The other thing I want to talk about maybe my
most coveted thing in the world right now. Okay, that
(05:34):
nineteen twenty nine book that we mentioned, Cocktail de Perie
is very hard to get. Even a pretty beaten up
copy is going to run you eight or nine hundred dollars,
oh my goodness, because I think there weren't very many,
and they just are not in rapid supply, and the
people that do have them are probably people that are
(05:56):
really really into Cocktail and bar his Way and are
not going to part with them. Right. Are there scans
of it? Well? I found one okay, and it will
be listed among our show notes. Okay, this show and
it is spectacular because this is I'm trying to figure
(06:17):
out where this is housed, because I kind of stumbled
upon just the active live page scam where you can
flip through the whole thing. Oh sure, and I will
say this is one where you really want to flip
through the whole thing because it's illustrated beautifully in you know,
this art deco style. They have a great page turning
(06:39):
noise that I don't normally love when things do that,
but theirs is extra good and you just see the
layout because this was also I presume sponsored by a
lot of spirit brands, because there are things like you know,
hand drawn ads for quantrolle and whatnot in it, and
it's all quite beautiful and I'm obsessed with it and
(07:01):
I just like looking at Even if you don't speak French,
you don't really need to. It is all in French,
but like you can translate these recipes pretty well, and
it's just a good insight into how like cocktail books
were working at the time. And I love it and
I covet it now. So I will be that weirdo
who's searching for a a copy that magically does not
(07:24):
cost nine hundred dollars. Sure, but I love it. This
is my new white Whale perhaps of books. It's just
a I don't know, I just love it. It's adorable,
it has some little notations in it, this copy. I'm
into it. I'm super into all of it. And it's
also just a good record of what was going on
(07:45):
in Paris in the nineteen twenties in terms of, like
it's party culture. So I'm in. I hope if you
go looking for this you are as charmed by it
as I am. You know. This was also an interesting
episode in that we don't often talk about alcohol on
the show. Right when we do, we try to talk
(08:06):
about it. Historically, we don't advertise alcohol on the show. Sure,
So this was a little bit of a tricky one
to figure out the right path, and hopefully it was
enjoyable and fun and thinking about how how these things
come to be rather than the idea of getting drunk.
Please drink responsibly. If you drink, will be a fun
(08:28):
ride for other people. I love this particular area of history.
I love talking about where cocktails come from and how
they've changed, and who invented them, and that most of
them are as you know, because we've talked about some
of them on Eponymous Foods before. It's contentious. There are
people who really believe one version or another and they
(08:48):
will fight about it online. So tread carefully if you
go wandering into any discussions. But it is a super
fun space and I really just I like how it
traces human history through the ways we have, you know,
engaged in social scenarios or tried to relax through the
imbibing of spirits or not. I still really love that
(09:12):
Jerry Thomas has a temperance section. Yeah, and I'm going
to call them temperance drinks going forward. We talked about
the monastery at Montserrat a bit. Yeah, you did different
(09:35):
stuff there than I did. I did totally different stuff
there than you did. Yeah you did the funicular, right, Yeah,
we we. This was one of two funicular trips that
we took on our trip to Barcelona. Took the funicular
up to the top of It's not the very top.
You can climb farther up from there. But when you
look at that finnicular from the ground, it looks terrifying,
(09:59):
like it looks like a sheer vertical climb, which it
does not feel that way really when you're on it.
But yeah, we took the funicular. We walked around at
the top. There's there are some like pilgrimage paths up there,
and we walked a bit and then we came back
down and we were going to get lunch. The restaurant
(10:22):
seemed to be having some issues that day. It looked
like maybe they were having some kind of plumbing struggle,
so the restaurant was closed the I don't think you
were at the same restaurant that well. There was also
a cafeteria that had a very long line, and so
we made a meal out of things that were sold
(10:42):
in this little like sort of tent market there where
people sold a number of locally made things. So there's
a cheese that's kind of like a ricotta that's served
with honey on it. I had some of that. I
had some candied almonds, and I had some of these
little fig cakes. And there are names for all of
(11:03):
these that I don't remember, and I did not look
up before we came to record this. It's called a
circle of flavor. Yeah, that's described them. I loved our
guide in Barcelona she was amazing. Unlike prior trips that
we've done, we had the same guide with us for
most of the things that we did the whole time.
(11:24):
There were a couple things that we had, like a
guide that was like for like, we had a different
right Segretta Familia has its own guide structure, so she
couldn't be our guide in there. Yeah, so we had
a different sogratta familiar guide, and we had an audio
tour at the Picasso Museum and not a like human
guide guiding us. But she was with us the rest
of the time and was great with some hilarious language
(11:49):
difficulties is not even the right word, the things that
translate a little bit differently than you would say them
if you grew up speaking English as your first language, exactly.
Her command of English is just fine. I don't want
to make it sound like we're in any way, like
I don't speak Spanish that well, and I certainly don't
speak Catalonian. So she was amazing, But there were a
(12:11):
couple times where it was like, this is not quite
how we would say that. Yeah, I would say we
spent more time on the bus, like talking about the
English word for wingsuit because she told us the story
about a wingsuit diver who had famously done a dive
at Monserrat and also at some point died doing a dive,
(12:36):
but like that she didn't know the word for wingsuit
in English. I would say we spent more time on
that conversation on the bus, but we did clarifying the
statue conversation that you and I and I know at
least a couple of other people in the group were
all similarly intrigued by. So yes, yeah, it was very,
(12:58):
very fun. But yeah, I went. I went to the museum. Yes,
because they have a lot of signs for the museum,
most of which taut that it has a caravaggio, which
it does, but it only has the one, which is right. Again,
I don't own a caravagia, have no shade there. But like,
I feel like that under sells what that museum actually is,
(13:20):
because it's really quite an astonishing collection because there have
been so many people that are just like art collectors,
that have bequeathed their their stuff there that like, I mean,
I was just a gog and so I was like,
what is he? And while we were there, they also
had a secondary exhibit that was going on. That was
(13:42):
some of the art posters of like the poster work
of Picasso. Oh, okay, which I will I will confess upfront,
I had weird Picasso things on this trip, okay, because
I just you know, now that I know that he
was a jerk, his art is a little ruined for me,
all right, And so like the Picassa museum, I was like, oh,
(14:04):
like I just I was. I had a bad attitude
about it. It was like not great, and so I
didn't go look at the posters, but my good friend
Kristen did. But again that museum, though, is really really
beautiful and the staff is super nice. We just had
a great time, and there were several of us from
our little group that went there, and I really really
enjoyed walking around because it was like, it's just it's
(14:26):
a beautiful setup. The flow of it is quite nice.
It's multiple floors. That Johnsinger sergeant that they have is gorgeous. Yeah,
there was a lot of art that I was not
familiar with from artists by artists that were from Spain,
Barcelona and Catalonia in particular, that I am trying to
(14:47):
figure out how to maybe do, hopefully an episode about
but it's it's tricky. I will tell you. One of
the things that I was really struck by in general
on our trip, particularly in that museum, was the there
is so much history to Spain and Cataloonnia that we
don't ever get, No, we're really in English speaking countries,
(15:08):
Like I don't know if it is as we have
both encountered doing research on episodes since we have come back,
that like it's a little bit hard to grasp all
of the nuances of the way things have played out,
because there are a lot of long, ongoing conflicts that
aren't necessarily at fever pitch, but they just kind of
(15:30):
simmer constantly in the background that are a little bit
hard to grasp, like why something has or hasn't happened.
And I don't know if that has made it harder
for English language research or writing about it to happen. Yeah,
I mean, I hope there's more. But it really was
eye opening in that regard where it was like, there
is just so much about Spain and Catalonia that I
(15:52):
did not know had no grasp of, completely ignorant and
blind too. And one of those was how many amazing
artists have been part of their tradition that haven't really
some of them. You'll see their paintings in museums in
other parts of Europe or the US, but not enough
(16:13):
in my opinion, because there's some really incredible art that
I was not the least bit familiar with. Yeah, yeah,
I so one time years ago, I was at I
think it's just called the Philadelphia Art Museum, big Art
museum in Philadelphia. I have not googled the name of
it before coming in here to have this unscripted conversation.
(16:34):
And there was some Spanish art that I saw in
an exhibit there that I found so striking and I
was so captivated by, and I was like, I want
to do an episode on the person who made this
art after I get back home from this trip to Philadelphia.
And I similarly had just no success finding resources in
(16:58):
English about this part, yeah, or even for me media
enough resources that even if I managed to get them translated,
would really offer more than like six bullet points, right right, Yeah, Yeah,
we had very similar experiences regarding like that. We are
recording another episode in this recording session today that's going
(17:19):
to come out a little bit later that is literally
inspired by the fact that I was reading the signage
at the museum, a different museum, and was like, I'm
clearly missing key context here, like something that's so basic
that like the person who wrote these signs did not
think it needed to be explained. And yeah, it this more,
(17:42):
much more so than our trips to Italy or France.
This trip really highlighted like big holes in what our
education has focused on. I think, agreed, yeah, and I don't.
I don't know how how that gets fixed. I mean,
more people need to be researching and writing about Spanish
(18:04):
history and Catalinian history. But that's easy to say because
I'm like, not me. I'll do what we can do here,
but I don't have the linguistic knowledge or base to
be able to go a whole lot further. So there's
(18:31):
some other interesting things about Monsirat we did not talk
about in this episode. We mentioned briefly that it had
a history before the finding of the Madonna and the
building of that monastery, like the Romans had a temple
to Venus there, And I have to say, walking around
up there, that makes all the sense on earth that
(18:52):
it would be a temple to a Roman god, because
it is, as I said at the top of that episode,
you feel like you're on the top of the world.
It's so beautif and the view is so vast, and
it's just very striking. But here's the one that really
got me. And I couldn't find verification of this, but
it makes some sense knowing what we already do know
(19:16):
about this particular chunk of history, and it lines up,
which is that we know for a fact that Himmler
visited Montserrat when Franco was in power. The part that
is not verifiable is that he is rumored to have
been looking for holy relics for the Third Reich, particularly
the Holy Grail. Okay, we don't know. That's one of
(19:40):
those things that pops up on like you know, underground
Montserrat websites, like is the Holy Grail or really on
Monserrat that we know that Hitler in particular was very
fascinated by biblical relics and he kind of was thinking
he would use them as like some sort of retroactive
(20:03):
proof of divine provenance of the Third Reich. And so
this was presumably if they were looking for the Holy Grail,
they're hoping they would find another significant religious relic. It
would presumably be in service of that goal, but it
also just is like, yeah, yeah, Nazis. Yeah, I have
(20:26):
the Indiana Jones theme in my head now, of course
I always do. Just as a rule of thumb, we
didn't get into it because again I couldn't find a
I didn't have a lot of time to go down
this particular side street. But that secret police officer who
was murdered Manzanas was also, if not a collaborator, at
(20:55):
least sympathetic to and friends with Nazis. So that too,
is another element of nuance in that whole case, the ETA,
which is I kept finding myself as I was writing
that section, I'm like, I really we have to set
up why this is all happening. But am I talking
too much about this weird crime and murder case and
(21:17):
this terrorist organization? But without any of that context, that
sit in makes no sense right right right? And I
had even told you before we started recording the episode
that I was like, you know, this is this sit
in is kind of blipped through on lists of things
that have happened at at Monsterrat like it'll get mentioned,
but not necessarily. And I think part of it is
(21:39):
that it's hard to talk about it without going really
into a good bit of detail about like the timeline
and the process that played out there. Sure, but it
is also very fascinating to read. In this case, we
do have accounts in English some of the news reporting
from that time, because that was, you know, nineteen seventy
(22:01):
from American and British journalists who are like, what the
heck is going on here? Like this is messed up
and recognizing that like wait, this woman is here and
she's on trial, but there's no actual charge. As we
said in the episode, that did not go the way
Franco had anticipated, right. He thought they were going to
(22:23):
be like, yes, you will see my power, and it
was like what we see is not what you want
us say, right, which is kind of interesting. Anyway, Moncerot
really really struck me. I loved. Here's another thing I loved.
You know. We were there in the Basilica and it
was absolutely beautiful. I am often very struck by religious art.
(22:46):
I just think most of it is so incredibly beautiful
because there's so much sort of pressure on it from
the beginning to be that beautiful, because it has to
be worthy of its location and whatnot. But what I
really really loved particularly about that basilica was that they
have a lot of art within the basilica that is
more like museum pieces that are not necessarily what you
(23:12):
would think of, Like some of them are very modern,
some of them are. It just was very like the
little side chapels off of the main area where you
would get I don't know how many of those you
popped into, but like several of them kind of had
their own I don't know if you would call it
a vibe their decor convention, or it'd be like this
one is the very modern minimalist chapel, this one is
(23:34):
the very Rococo looking child like. It was just all
really really astonishingly cool and just images that I like,
I said, I had never seen. I was blown away
by the art. Blown away. Let's go back. I'll get
on a plane tonight. It was monserrat. I sure liked it. Yeah,
(23:56):
it was lovely. I sure liked it. Waiting on waiting
on my cava to arrive. Oh yeah. We went to
a vineyard where they make kava, which is in the
sloppiest way I can put it, a sparkling wine that
some people would probably compare to like their version of
champagne or prosecco. Sure, there's certainly more nuance to it.
(24:19):
But I ordered so much on the way out of
there and it hasn't come yet. So I'm waiting. I'm anticipating,
hoping for my cases of kava. When we left that
lovely little tasting that we had, I thought our departure
was imminent, so I got on the bus and then
(24:40):
I was on the bus for a while because people
were ordering a lot of kava, and I wound up
having to get off the bus and go pee again
before Yeah, I ordered a lot of kava. I hope
it comes here. I literally just held up the thing.
It was like dose dose dose, dose, dose, dose dose.
Down the line, there are cases cases of cova. I
(25:03):
can't wait, all right. We hope that if you are
about to have a couple of days off as we
head into this weekend, that you can enjoy kava or
whatever beverage alcoholic or not is suitable for you and
your tastes and your age. Please don't please don't drink
if you're underage, and please drink responsibily. If you do
(25:24):
not have time off, we hope that you still manage
to get a little relaxation and just some me time
and take some deep breaths and find some peace in
your little part of the world. We will be right
back here tomorrow with a classic episode, and then on
Monday you'll have another brand new one. Stuff you Missed
(25:45):
in History Class is a production of iHeartRadio. For more
podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or
wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production
of iHeartRadio, Hello and Happy Friday. We had our live
show from the Ace Hotel, Los Angeles, South Bay. We
sure did shared this week. We think we are as
(00:26):
we record this still reviewing audio to see what's workable
from the live show and what isn't. Yeah, so we
still don't know how much you're going to get that's
actually from the event itself versus from us recording in
the studios that are in our homes. What a fun
night though, it was very fun. I wanted to make
sure to thank number one, to thank Marriott for sponsoring
(00:50):
the show. The Marriott AC Hotel where we had this
live event was really nice. The whole venue was great,
everyone we worked with was great. And then suddenly, in
the middle of recording the episode, there was a flash
and a pop and the power was out for the
(01:11):
whole neighborhood. And it stayed that way. It stayed that
way for a long time. I think when we left
after everything was over. Uh huh, our hotel was still
running on a generator. Yeah yeah, yeah, which I should say,
even before any of that happened, AC Hotel South Bay
was already being real flexible because originally we had at
(01:34):
the end of this event, we had a cocktail demonstration, right,
And originally it was supposed to happen on their rooftop bar, right,
but it rained that day, so the whole thing moved
inside downstairs to their lobby bar. And they were so
accommodating with that. Yeah, And it was a beautiful setup,
and I so like right out of the gate they
(01:54):
were already rolling with some wild times and then it
just got wilder for us. Yeah. Yeah, because La does
not have a lot of rainfall. That rooftop bar isn't
a bar that has an additional roof over it. I
know a lot of the rooftop bars that I have
been to in like Massachusetts or North Carolina or whatever,
like it's sort of an open air bar, but there's
(02:15):
also a roof, and this was more of an open space.
So having the event there in the rain was not
not feasible, not really feasible. So yeah, we had it
downstairs instead, Yeah, which was also very very fun. Yeah,
we had a great time. That was so fun. I
love making a drink and I love making a drink
with a big room full of people, and it was
really really great. I will say I was kind of
(02:37):
impressed and delighted with our listeners. I mean I always am,
but I have done an event like that at other
things that I was not hosting, but I was like
part of. And it went on. They go off the
rails really easily, where it's like once you say poor
the first ingredient and everybody's kind of doing their own
thing and it's all and our listeners would chat while
(02:58):
they were doing the ingredient and they would all be
ready to like be like, Okay, what's next, what's the
next step? Yeah, And so it was really lovely because
then when we all finished together, we got to toast together,
and that made me very happy in my heart. Yeah,
we had kind of prepared as we were doing our
walkthrough for the possibility of going off the rails immediately.
So when the power went out and it turned out
(03:18):
that we were not going to have the amplification of
our headset mics for people to hear us, I was like, oh,
I'm not sure how this is going to go. But
it went totally fine. Everybody, all the listeners, great fun.
I think folks had a great time. All. We had
a couple of other teams from iHeartRadio who were there
(03:39):
with us as part of event. All of our colleagues
also were great, so I wanted to shout out to
all of them. There are so many. I don't feel
like I even have everybody's names in my head. Yeah,
I would start naming them, but if I do, I'll
leave somebody out. Then I'll feel like a jerk. So
we're gonna skip that. Just know that we appreciate you all.
I do want to talk about some stuff related to
our our actual topic content. We never told anybody what
(04:05):
the Pierre Collins was. Oh no, we didn't. I have
a guess. I was assuming it was going to be
something that had Champagne in it. No, it has cognac.
Oh wow, So it to Tom Collins with cognac in it. Okay, delicious, listen,
I love a little coognac. There was also a thing
that I wanted to mention because we talk about the
(04:27):
origin of that Tom Collins hoax being attributed to a
minstrel performer named Harrigan. Huh. That is a confusing point
because that paper that we read from mentioned specifically that
it is a black performer. Okay, I could not find
(04:49):
any evidence of a black performer named Harrigan at that
time that would have been well known enough to have
the kind of pull that he could have gotten every
service person in New York City. And on the joke,
there was a performer named Harrigan who was white and
I believe appeared in blackface as part of his show,
(05:11):
And that may be where the confusion is. But just
in case you're ever like, wait, what is this scoop
with that? Or you know enough about minstrel history that
that raised a little question for you, there seems to
be confusion on the part of that paper, is my guess.
The other thing I want to talk about maybe my
most coveted thing in the world right now. Okay, that
(05:34):
nineteen twenty nine book that we mentioned, Cocktail de Perie
is very hard to get. Even a pretty beaten up
copy is going to run you eight or nine hundred dollars,
oh my goodness, because I think there weren't very many,
and they just are not in rapid supply, and the
people that do have them are probably people that are
(05:56):
really really into Cocktail and bar his Way and are
not going to part with them. Right. Are there scans
of it? Well? I found one okay, and it will
be listed among our show notes. Okay, this show and
it is spectacular because this is I'm trying to figure
(06:17):
out where this is housed, because I kind of stumbled
upon just the active live page scam where you can
flip through the whole thing. Oh sure, and I will
say this is one where you really want to flip
through the whole thing because it's illustrated beautifully in you know,
this art deco style. They have a great page turning
(06:39):
noise that I don't normally love when things do that,
but theirs is extra good and you just see the
layout because this was also I presume sponsored by a
lot of spirit brands, because there are things like you know,
hand drawn ads for quantrolle and whatnot in it, and
it's all quite beautiful and I'm obsessed with it and
(07:01):
I just like looking at Even if you don't speak French,
you don't really need to. It is all in French,
but like you can translate these recipes pretty well, and
it's just a good insight into how like cocktail books
were working at the time. And I love it and
I covet it now. So I will be that weirdo
who's searching for a a copy that magically does not
(07:24):
cost nine hundred dollars. Sure, but I love it. This
is my new white Whale perhaps of books. It's just
a I don't know, I just love it. It's adorable,
it has some little notations in it, this copy. I'm
into it. I'm super into all of it. And it's
also just a good record of what was going on
(07:45):
in Paris in the nineteen twenties in terms of, like
it's party culture. So I'm in. I hope if you
go looking for this you are as charmed by it
as I am. You know. This was also an interesting
episode in that we don't often talk about alcohol on
the show. Right when we do, we try to talk
(08:06):
about it. Historically, we don't advertise alcohol on the show. Sure,
So this was a little bit of a tricky one
to figure out the right path, and hopefully it was
enjoyable and fun and thinking about how how these things
come to be rather than the idea of getting drunk.
Please drink responsibly. If you drink, will be a fun
(08:28):
ride for other people. I love this particular area of history.
I love talking about where cocktails come from and how
they've changed, and who invented them, and that most of
them are as you know, because we've talked about some
of them on Eponymous Foods before. It's contentious. There are
people who really believe one version or another and they
(08:48):
will fight about it online. So tread carefully if you
go wandering into any discussions. But it is a super
fun space and I really just I like how it
traces human history through the ways we have, you know,
engaged in social scenarios or tried to relax through the
imbibing of spirits or not. I still really love that
(09:12):
Jerry Thomas has a temperance section. Yeah, and I'm going
to call them temperance drinks going forward. We talked about
the monastery at Montserrat a bit. Yeah, you did different
(09:35):
stuff there than I did. I did totally different stuff
there than you did. Yeah you did the funicular, right, Yeah,
we we. This was one of two funicular trips that
we took on our trip to Barcelona. Took the funicular
up to the top of It's not the very top.
You can climb farther up from there. But when you
look at that finnicular from the ground, it looks terrifying,
(09:59):
like it looks like a sheer vertical climb, which it
does not feel that way really when you're on it.
But yeah, we took the funicular. We walked around at
the top. There's there are some like pilgrimage paths up there,
and we walked a bit and then we came back
down and we were going to get lunch. The restaurant
(10:22):
seemed to be having some issues that day. It looked
like maybe they were having some kind of plumbing struggle,
so the restaurant was closed the I don't think you
were at the same restaurant that well. There was also
a cafeteria that had a very long line, and so
we made a meal out of things that were sold
(10:42):
in this little like sort of tent market there where
people sold a number of locally made things. So there's
a cheese that's kind of like a ricotta that's served
with honey on it. I had some of that. I
had some candied almonds, and I had some of these
little fig cakes. And there are names for all of
(11:03):
these that I don't remember, and I did not look
up before we came to record this. It's called a
circle of flavor. Yeah, that's described them. I loved our
guide in Barcelona she was amazing. Unlike prior trips that
we've done, we had the same guide with us for
most of the things that we did the whole time.
(11:24):
There were a couple things that we had, like a
guide that was like for like, we had a different
right Segretta Familia has its own guide structure, so she
couldn't be our guide in there. Yeah, so we had
a different sogratta familiar guide, and we had an audio
tour at the Picasso Museum and not a like human
guide guiding us. But she was with us the rest
of the time and was great with some hilarious language
(11:49):
difficulties is not even the right word, the things that
translate a little bit differently than you would say them
if you grew up speaking English as your first language, exactly.
Her command of English is just fine. I don't want
to make it sound like we're in any way, like
I don't speak Spanish that well, and I certainly don't
speak Catalonian. So she was amazing, But there were a
(12:11):
couple times where it was like, this is not quite
how we would say that. Yeah, I would say we
spent more time on the bus, like talking about the
English word for wingsuit because she told us the story
about a wingsuit diver who had famously done a dive
at Monserrat and also at some point died doing a dive,
(12:36):
but like that she didn't know the word for wingsuit
in English. I would say we spent more time on
that conversation on the bus, but we did clarifying the
statue conversation that you and I and I know at
least a couple of other people in the group were
all similarly intrigued by. So yes, yeah, it was very,
(12:58):
very fun. But yeah, I went. I went to the museum. Yes,
because they have a lot of signs for the museum,
most of which taut that it has a caravaggio, which
it does, but it only has the one, which is right. Again,
I don't own a caravagia, have no shade there. But like,
I feel like that under sells what that museum actually is,
(13:20):
because it's really quite an astonishing collection because there have
been so many people that are just like art collectors,
that have bequeathed their their stuff there that like, I mean,
I was just a gog and so I was like,
what is he? And while we were there, they also
had a secondary exhibit that was going on. That was
(13:42):
some of the art posters of like the poster work
of Picasso. Oh, okay, which I will I will confess upfront,
I had weird Picasso things on this trip, okay, because
I just you know, now that I know that he
was a jerk, his art is a little ruined for me,
all right, And so like the Picassa museum, I was like, oh,
(14:04):
like I just I was. I had a bad attitude
about it. It was like not great, and so I
didn't go look at the posters, but my good friend
Kristen did. But again that museum, though, is really really
beautiful and the staff is super nice. We just had
a great time, and there were several of us from
our little group that went there, and I really really
enjoyed walking around because it was like, it's just it's
(14:26):
a beautiful setup. The flow of it is quite nice.
It's multiple floors. That Johnsinger sergeant that they have is gorgeous. Yeah,
there was a lot of art that I was not
familiar with from artists by artists that were from Spain,
Barcelona and Catalonia in particular, that I am trying to
(14:47):
figure out how to maybe do, hopefully an episode about
but it's it's tricky. I will tell you. One of
the things that I was really struck by in general
on our trip, particularly in that museum, was the there
is so much history to Spain and Cataloonnia that we
don't ever get, No, we're really in English speaking countries,
(15:08):
Like I don't know if it is as we have
both encountered doing research on episodes since we have come back,
that like it's a little bit hard to grasp all
of the nuances of the way things have played out,
because there are a lot of long, ongoing conflicts that
aren't necessarily at fever pitch, but they just kind of
(15:30):
simmer constantly in the background that are a little bit
hard to grasp, like why something has or hasn't happened.
And I don't know if that has made it harder
for English language research or writing about it to happen. Yeah,
I mean, I hope there's more. But it really was
eye opening in that regard where it was like, there
is just so much about Spain and Catalonia that I
(15:52):
did not know had no grasp of, completely ignorant and
blind too. And one of those was how many amazing
artists have been part of their tradition that haven't really
some of them. You'll see their paintings in museums in
other parts of Europe or the US, but not enough
(16:13):
in my opinion, because there's some really incredible art that
I was not the least bit familiar with. Yeah, yeah,
I so one time years ago, I was at I
think it's just called the Philadelphia Art Museum, big Art
museum in Philadelphia. I have not googled the name of
it before coming in here to have this unscripted conversation.
(16:34):
And there was some Spanish art that I saw in
an exhibit there that I found so striking and I
was so captivated by, and I was like, I want
to do an episode on the person who made this
art after I get back home from this trip to Philadelphia.
And I similarly had just no success finding resources in
(16:58):
English about this part, yeah, or even for me media
enough resources that even if I managed to get them translated,
would really offer more than like six bullet points, right right, Yeah, Yeah,
we had very similar experiences regarding like that. We are
recording another episode in this recording session today that's going
(17:19):
to come out a little bit later that is literally
inspired by the fact that I was reading the signage
at the museum, a different museum, and was like, I'm
clearly missing key context here, like something that's so basic
that like the person who wrote these signs did not
think it needed to be explained. And yeah, it this more,
(17:42):
much more so than our trips to Italy or France.
This trip really highlighted like big holes in what our
education has focused on. I think, agreed, yeah, and I don't.
I don't know how how that gets fixed. I mean,
more people need to be researching and writing about Spanish
(18:04):
history and Catalinian history. But that's easy to say because
I'm like, not me. I'll do what we can do here,
but I don't have the linguistic knowledge or base to
be able to go a whole lot further. So there's
(18:31):
some other interesting things about Monsirat we did not talk
about in this episode. We mentioned briefly that it had
a history before the finding of the Madonna and the
building of that monastery, like the Romans had a temple
to Venus there, And I have to say, walking around
up there, that makes all the sense on earth that
(18:52):
it would be a temple to a Roman god, because
it is, as I said at the top of that episode,
you feel like you're on the top of the world.
It's so beautif and the view is so vast, and
it's just very striking. But here's the one that really
got me. And I couldn't find verification of this, but
it makes some sense knowing what we already do know
(19:16):
about this particular chunk of history, and it lines up,
which is that we know for a fact that Himmler
visited Montserrat when Franco was in power. The part that
is not verifiable is that he is rumored to have
been looking for holy relics for the Third Reich, particularly
the Holy Grail. Okay, we don't know. That's one of
(19:40):
those things that pops up on like you know, underground
Montserrat websites, like is the Holy Grail or really on
Monserrat that we know that Hitler in particular was very
fascinated by biblical relics and he kind of was thinking
he would use them as like some sort of retroactive
(20:03):
proof of divine provenance of the Third Reich. And so
this was presumably if they were looking for the Holy Grail,
they're hoping they would find another significant religious relic. It
would presumably be in service of that goal, but it
also just is like, yeah, yeah, Nazis. Yeah, I have
(20:26):
the Indiana Jones theme in my head now, of course
I always do. Just as a rule of thumb, we
didn't get into it because again I couldn't find a
I didn't have a lot of time to go down
this particular side street. But that secret police officer who
was murdered Manzanas was also, if not a collaborator, at
(20:55):
least sympathetic to and friends with Nazis. So that too,
is another element of nuance in that whole case, the ETA,
which is I kept finding myself as I was writing
that section, I'm like, I really we have to set
up why this is all happening. But am I talking
too much about this weird crime and murder case and
(21:17):
this terrorist organization? But without any of that context, that
sit in makes no sense right right right? And I
had even told you before we started recording the episode
that I was like, you know, this is this sit
in is kind of blipped through on lists of things
that have happened at at Monsterrat like it'll get mentioned,
but not necessarily. And I think part of it is
(21:39):
that it's hard to talk about it without going really
into a good bit of detail about like the timeline
and the process that played out there. Sure, but it
is also very fascinating to read. In this case, we
do have accounts in English some of the news reporting
from that time, because that was, you know, nineteen seventy
(22:01):
from American and British journalists who are like, what the
heck is going on here? Like this is messed up
and recognizing that like wait, this woman is here and
she's on trial, but there's no actual charge. As we
said in the episode, that did not go the way
Franco had anticipated, right. He thought they were going to
(22:23):
be like, yes, you will see my power, and it
was like what we see is not what you want
us say, right, which is kind of interesting. Anyway, Moncerot
really really struck me. I loved. Here's another thing I loved.
You know. We were there in the Basilica and it
was absolutely beautiful. I am often very struck by religious art.
(22:46):
I just think most of it is so incredibly beautiful
because there's so much sort of pressure on it from
the beginning to be that beautiful, because it has to
be worthy of its location and whatnot. But what I
really really loved particularly about that basilica was that they
have a lot of art within the basilica that is
more like museum pieces that are not necessarily what you
(23:12):
would think of, Like some of them are very modern,
some of them are. It just was very like the
little side chapels off of the main area where you
would get I don't know how many of those you
popped into, but like several of them kind of had
their own I don't know if you would call it
a vibe their decor convention, or it'd be like this
one is the very modern minimalist chapel, this one is
(23:34):
the very Rococo looking child like. It was just all
really really astonishingly cool and just images that I like,
I said, I had never seen. I was blown away
by the art. Blown away. Let's go back. I'll get
on a plane tonight. It was monserrat. I sure liked it. Yeah,
(23:56):
it was lovely. I sure liked it. Waiting on waiting
on my cava to arrive. Oh yeah. We went to
a vineyard where they make kava, which is in the
sloppiest way I can put it, a sparkling wine that
some people would probably compare to like their version of
champagne or prosecco. Sure, there's certainly more nuance to it.
(24:19):
But I ordered so much on the way out of
there and it hasn't come yet. So I'm waiting. I'm anticipating,
hoping for my cases of kava. When we left that
lovely little tasting that we had, I thought our departure
was imminent, so I got on the bus and then
(24:40):
I was on the bus for a while because people
were ordering a lot of kava, and I wound up
having to get off the bus and go pee again
before Yeah, I ordered a lot of kava. I hope
it comes here. I literally just held up the thing.
It was like dose dose dose, dose, dose, dose dose.
Down the line, there are cases cases of cova. I
(25:03):
can't wait, all right. We hope that if you are
about to have a couple of days off as we
head into this weekend, that you can enjoy kava or
whatever beverage alcoholic or not is suitable for you and
your tastes and your age. Please don't please don't drink
if you're underage, and please drink responsibily. If you do
(25:24):
not have time off, we hope that you still manage
to get a little relaxation and just some me time
and take some deep breaths and find some peace in
your little part of the world. We will be right
back here tomorrow with a classic episode, and then on
Monday you'll have another brand new one. Stuff you Missed
(25:45):
in History Class is a production of iHeartRadio. For more
podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or
wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
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