11.20.25

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome. This is Rebeccashore for Radio Eye, and today I
will be reading the Smithsonian magazine dated November twenty twenty five.
As a reminder, RADIOI is a reading service intended for
people who are blind or have other disabilities that make
it difficult to read printed material. Please join me now
for the first article, which is part two of why

(00:25):
Paris designed its peculiarly popular grand graveyards to evoke a
celebration of life amid all the death by Peter Ross.
In the first part of our story, we learned that
Paris's cemeteries, especially pere Lechise, montmart and Montparnasse, are celebrated

(00:46):
not just as resting places for the dead, but as
vibrant spaces that evoke a celebration of life. These grand
graveyards were designed to be more than somber memorials. They
are landscaped, guard burdens, and cultural landmarks that attract millions
of visitors each year. Their influence extends beyond Paris, inspiring

(01:08):
the rural cemetery movement in the United States and even
the creation of urban parks like Central Park in New York.
The cemetery's unique blend of history artistry and natural beauty
has made them unlikely tourist attractions, where the stories of
the famous and the ordinary intertwine. Part one highlighted how

(01:31):
these cemeteries serve as living museums, with graves of renowned
figures such as Oscar Wilde, Edith Piaff, Jim Morrison, and
Simone de Beauvoirs, drawing visitors from around the world. Traditions
and rituals have developed around these sites, from offerings left
at graves to annual gatherings commemorating the dead. The presence

(01:55):
of animals like the cats cared for by volunteers adds
warmth and las life to the cemeteries, further blurring the
line between spaces of mourning and celebration. The cemeteries also
reflect evolving social values, as seen in the feminist tours
and commemorations that seek to honor overlooked women and reshape

(02:17):
public memory. Here now is Part two. The streets of
the Catacombs. This subterranean city cover more than one hundred
and eighty miles, of which the ossuaries form a tiny part.
In eighteen o nine, city authorities decided to allow the
public to visit this strange land of the dead, and

(02:40):
the catacombs, much as we see them now, were laid out.
Aurette seti si Lampierre de la mour. Helene Fermineaux, head
of communications for the Catacombs, read aloud the words carved
into the litel above the entrance. There was nothing actorly
in her intonation. The instruction was dramatic enough. Stop here

(03:05):
is the empire of death. We did stop, just for
a moment, then went on right away. We were among
the bones. They were stacked about five feet high. On
either side of us. Three layers of skulls divided walls
of femurs and tibias, their joint ends facing into the passage,

(03:26):
suggesting flowers or butterflies. The skulls were biscuit brown eye
sockets dark in the dim light. You can get right
up to them face to face, but touching is not allowed.
Stealing a sign, explains, carries a fine of fifteen thousand
euros and up to one year in prison. There were

(03:47):
lots of gaps where skulls over the past couple of
centuries had been stolen. Staff checked bags at the exit.
The corridors go on and on behind the walls called hags,
stretching more than a dozen yards into the darkness, is
a chaos of smaller bones. These are believed to represent

(04:09):
most of the population of Paris between the twelfth and
eighteenth centuries. The catacombs are a shadow version of Parlichise.
In the Great Cemetery you see no human remains, but
from the graves you learn something of the people buried there.
The ossuary presents the opposite, all the bodies, none of

(04:31):
the stories. The first impression is that all skulls look
the same, Fermeneus said, But when you are in the deep,
calm silence of the catacombs and you take the time
to look at them individually, you really see and feel
the differences. I find it full of emotion, because you
realize that each person has some joy and sadness in life.

(04:58):
We paused by a stretch of wall in which fourteen
heads had been arranged in the pattern of a heart.
Don't you think this one looks a little angry, she asked,
pointing to a skull with a distinctive frown. Perhaps it
is Robespierre, I said, the revolutionary leader was put to
death in seventeen ninety four. A lot of the people

(05:20):
who were guillantined during the terror are here from mineus,
said nodding, And the people who ordered their execution are
also here, so they are reunited in death, not as lovers,
but as people who hated each other. We came at
last to an area known as the Crypt of the
Passion of the Christ, the central feature of which is

(05:43):
a large barrel shaped pillar of bones. It was here
one midnight in April eighteen ninety seven that a secret
concert was attended by around one hundred patrons. An engraving
published in a newspaper at the time shows men and
toppers and women in floral hats seated among the skulls.

(06:04):
As a conductor leeds musicians. The program included Chopin's Funeral
March and Sonsane's Dons Macabre. The recital was echoed in
twenty twenty four when the American rock band Queens of
the Stone Age was granted permission to perform. They played

(06:25):
a short set of acoustic versions of their songs, recording
it for an ep Alive in the Catacombs and an
accompanying film. No fans were present, just the band and crew,
but the singer Josh Holm had a strong sense of
the dead. As an audience, it felt like trying to

(06:46):
entertain people who don't get much entertainment, to show love
to a group who are almost forgotten. He told me.
When we spoke by video call, people witnessed them with
fear and amazement, but no one's given them anything. That's
why our song choices were about family and acceptance and
overcoming difficulty. If he were dead in the dark, he

(07:09):
would find those themes comforting, so he offered his music
as a kind of consolation. When I was alone, I
got on my knees, shut my eyes, bowed my head
and made a vow, I'll do the very best that
I can possibly do to day. Holme was seriously ill
during the shoot. He has not disclosed the nature of

(07:31):
his condition, but he was treated for cancer in twenty
twenty two. While filming in the Catacombs, he was in
pain and had a dangerously high temperature at the end
of the chute. He took an emergency flight home and
within two hours of landing in Los Angeles was prept
for surgery. What was it like, I asked him, to

(07:53):
be inside a living and suffering body, when you were
surrounded by people beyond suffering. It was a luxury I
was thankful for. In the end, he replied, he felt
that it put him on the same frequency somehow as
the place and those buried there. I was witnessing people
whose struggle had ended, so my struggle, my pain, seemed less.

(08:18):
He found the catacomb's heartening rather than frightening. I never
focused on the dark side, home went on. The skulls
are almost like a light bulb. You don't stare at
a light bulb, you look at what it's illuminating. So
I didn't think about death. I thought about life illuminated.

(08:39):
The bell had tolled in Perlichaise, as it always does.
Before closing Benoir, Gallot unlocked the side door on Rue
de Rapot and invited me in. The last visitors had left,
The hour of the fox had arrived. Gallo, in his
early forties, is conservatory of pearlichse the man in charge.

(09:03):
He also shapes the way it is seen through his
popular Instagram account at L Underscore v I E Underscore
A U Underscore c I M E T I E
R E, and a recent book, The Secret Life of
a Cemetery. I love this place, he told me, and

(09:23):
I want to do my best for it. He lives
on the grounds with his wife, Colombe and their four children.
He has run perliches since twenty eighteen, but his relationship
with the place became truly profound on April twenty third,
twenty twenty, during the COVID nineteen lockdown, when he was

(09:45):
walking through the deserted cemetery and encountered a fox cub.
It looked at him. He looked at it. Galot found
himself experiencing an emotion that had been in short supply. Joy.
It was a key moment in my life, he recalled.
That was a very dark time, lots of stress. Burials

(10:08):
were up by forty percent, but we only had half
the usual number of people working here, and we did
not know what the full impact of the virus was
going to be. The cub somehow offered hope. Until then,
Gallot had never seen a fox in bear Lachise and
never expected to yet here it was bright of eye,

(10:31):
and when the cemetery keeper returned later with his camera
there were four cubs playing among the graves. A photograph
he took that evening ended up on the front page
of the daily paper La Parisienne. For me, it was
a symbol of recovery. He said. The return of the
foxes during lockdown was such a strong contrast. People at

(10:55):
that time were talking only of death, death, death, But
here were these baby foxes, and now people talked of
perlichise for a different reason. It completely changed the feeling
of working here. I felt that life would overcome around
ten foxes live in the cemetery. He believes the population varies.

(11:19):
Not all cubs survive, and the adults live only so long.
Gallott is more attached than he would like. He worries
for them and is sad when they die. He can
identify individuals and wonders whether they recognize him. Yet he
is careful to respect their nature. I never give them

(11:40):
food and am always discreet. I see a fox sleeping
on a tomb I take two pictures and sneak away.
I want them to keep their wildness. Between six in
the evening and eight in the morning, there are no
human interactions, and that's good. Let them live their lives.
We would walk together, he said, and try to seize

(12:03):
some foxes. No promises. Pere laches. After hours was transformed,
The staff had gone, the gates were locked, Paris lay
unseen beyond the trees and walls, its presence indicated by
sirens and church bells. The painstaking tap of stone cutter's

(12:23):
chisels had given way to the ratitat tat of a
woodpecker's beak. We kept to the curb, moving in single file,
placing our feet so as not to kick stones or
crunch leaves. Very beautiful, Galo murmured about the evening light
on the statues. For him, pear Laches is a living place. Certainly,

(12:46):
it is full of life, the foxes, the wild flowers,
the necrophagus trees that grow around headstones and devour them.
Before working here, Galot had little appreciation of such. Now
he is familiar with the different species of flora and fauna,

(13:06):
and has learned to cope with his phobia of birds,
to the extent that he seemed thrilled by a j
flashing blue from branch to branch. But pere Lechise is
also living in the sense that people continue to be
laid to rest there. Around one thousand coffins are buried
each year. Grief is the pulse of a cemetery, the

(13:29):
beat beneath one's feet. Gallot and I had been out
for forty minutes and see no sign of a fox.
Then he whispered, ahhui, see la veeu briscard. He knew
this animal, leveeu Briscard, the old veteran. The name suggests
a grizzled soldier who was seen it all, perhaps five

(13:53):
years old, a little dark around the eyes and snout.
It walked with the parade ground swagger as if it
owned the place, and climbed up on a grave. Gaillot
likes the idea that this may have been the first
cub he encountered during lockdown. He raised his camera. The
fox seemed to pose for a moment, mouth open, and

(14:17):
then eased himself down from the stone slab and trotted off.
The conservatur admires these fleet creatures, the quick among the dead,
raising their families in parlichaise as he is. Our safari concluded.
We walked to higher ground and sat on a bench

(14:37):
overlooking Paris. Dusk was settling on the rooftops and spires.
We could see him on Parnas's Tower, near Simone de
Bevoir's lipsticked grave and the dome of the Pantheon, where
Voltaire and Rousseau are entombed during the pandemic, when the
gates closed to everyone but those attending funeral processions. Galeau

(15:01):
came to this spot with his wife and kids, and
he holds those moments of castaway intimacy as a fond memory.
The city before them, the sky above and below their
feet in the ossuary, the bones of thousands of Parisians.
You have a good job, I said, yes, he replied,

(15:22):
it is a privilege. Galeot does not believe in destiny
and cannot say how long he will be at perliches
but he feels he is in the right place. The
man who helps the world see the cemetery, the cemetery
that helps the man truly see the world. Accompanying this

(15:43):
article fun fact a heartless burial. The Polish composer Frederic
Chopin is among the one hundred and fourteen famous people
buried at Perlichees Cemetery, but his heart, at his request,
was removed before he was laid to rest and installed
at a church in his hometown of Warsaw. Next. Audi

(16:09):
Murphy was an idol of the silver screen that came
after he was the most decorated American hero of World
War two, he single handedly held off two hundred and
fifty German troops and six tanks, saving an entire company.
And that was just the start of what he accomplished
in his too short life. By Jeff MacGregor. Every story

(16:35):
about Audi Murphy is a story about America. On January
twenty sixth, nineteen forty five, just outside Holtzwege in northeastern France,
Army second Lieutenant Audi Murphy climbed onto a burning tank
destroyer and single handedly held off six tanks and two
hundred and fifty attacking Germans. Wounded and bleeding, he he

(17:00):
stood at a fifty caliber machine gun for more than
an hour defending his unit. His actions saved the entire
company and stopped the German advance. By the end of
the war, Murphy had won around thirty decorations, including the
Medal of Honour, two Silver Stars, two Bronze Stars, three

(17:21):
Purple Hearts, the Distinguished Service Cross, and the French Cua
de Guerre. Rising from buck private to first lieutenant, he
became the most decorated and arguably most famous soldier of
World War II. An estimated three hundred thousand Texans turned
out for his homecoming parade. Audi Leon Murphy was born

(17:47):
into a dirt poor family near Kingston, Texas, around nineteen
twenty five. His parents had twelve children, and he dropped
out of school to support the family after his sharecropper
father abandoned them. As a boy, he often hunted for
their food. He became a marksman early out of hunger

(18:09):
and necessity. When the United States entered World War II,
he wanted to enlist in the Marines, but was too young,
about to turn seventeen. Even after his sister helped falsify
a birth certificate, the Army and Marines rejected him as
under weight, a mere one hundred and ten pounds and

(18:31):
too short around five foot five. In nineteen forty two,
he was mustered into the Army. He served with the
third Infantry Division, which was mainly attached to the seventh Army.
So Murphy started in North Africa and fought his way
through Sicily, Italy, France, and finally Germany. An accompanying photograph

(18:56):
depict an olive drab wool Eisenhower jacket size thirty six
that clothed Murphy during the European campaign. The irregular stitching
around the blue and white striped third Infantry Division service
patch proves the jacket was his. He would have sown
it on himself, says Frank A. Blaizig, Junior Curator of

(19:19):
Modern Military History at the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History,
and the jacket appears to be identical to the one
he wears in photographs taken during the war. Murphy's stitching
is crude, Blaizich says, but he has his insignia properly
aligned and properly spaced. He certainly wants to present a

(19:42):
proper appearance in uniform. Along with his fame, Murphy also
came home from the war with post traumatic stress disorder,
or combat fatigue as it was known. He became an
insomniac and said he could only sleep with a loaded
pistol under his pillow. He would advocate on behalf of

(20:04):
veterans mental health for the rest of his life. He
also embarked on a new pursuit after the war. James
Cagney saw Murphy on the cover of Life magazine and
invited him to Hollywood, signed him to a performance contract,
got him acting lessons, and helped launch a prolific career

(20:25):
that landed Murphy in more than forty feature films and
TV series. The best of these is arguably The Red
Badge of Courage, adapted from the novel by Stephen Crane.
But Murphy's most indelible performance was as himself Into Hell
and Back nineteen fifty five, which is based on his

(20:46):
best selling autobiography and stood for almost twenty years as
Universal Pictures biggest box office hit. Over those years, Murphy
played many roles, a reluctant gun run, a pilot, a spy,
a boxer, but the classic western was his most natural theater.

(21:08):
Few things in this world feel as reassuring as an
Audie Murphy horse opera, with his clean shaven probity, the
harmless choreography of stunt violence, the simple triumph of good
over evil, the chaste school marm kiss as the credits roll.
He's a better actor than you'd think. His drawl is soft,

(21:31):
his face pale and smooth and imperturbable as a pre
Raphaelite saint. He can handle a gun or a punch line,
low key, handsome, polite and composed. He can play the
hero or the heel. But you'll notice his smile never
quite reaches his eyes. There's something a little hurt and

(21:52):
haunted in every expression. Murphy wrote poems and popular songs too,
even charting a hit in nineteen sixty two with Shutters
and Boards. His star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame
is at sixteen o one Vine Street. Every story about
Audie Murphy is a meditation on American fame and bravery

(22:17):
in nearly every mythology. As Joseph Campbell, the famous scholar
of myth reminds us, the hero saves what is almost
lost and then becomes lost himself, forever changed, never quite
returning home, he remains outside the society he defends. Audi

(22:37):
Murphy was a war hero and a movie star, and
a veteran with PTSD and a prescription sleeping pill habit,
who couldn't sleep, who raised and raced quarter horses, who
gambled and lost and spent too much, who did his best,
and was as human as you or me. He was

(22:59):
killed in a plain crash in nineteen seventy one. By then,
Audie Murphy was much too old to die so young.
He was forty five. His grave at Arlington National Cemetery
remains one of its most visited. Millions did their duty
in the Second World War, but Murphy's kind of courage

(23:20):
was singular even then. The jacket reminds us of this
that he was an ordinary man who rose to the
most extraordinary challenge of his time. Fun fact Addie Murphy's
humble Hollywood beginning before to Hell and Back became a hit.

(23:40):
Murphy lived like a struggling actor in Hollywood, at one point,
residing in a tiny converted garage that he affectionately called
my cigar box. Next, after motorcycle daredevil Evil Knieval failed
to clear thirteen buses on a jump attempt, there was

(24:00):
only one thing to do, try fourteen. A wreck at
London broke his bones but not his spirit, so he
got back on his two wheeled horse and sailed through
the Ohio sky with half the country watching by Ilana's Share.
By the mid nineteen seventies, after a decade of stunt's

(24:21):
professional daredevil, Evil Knieval was more famous for crashing than landing.
Many of his exploits put him in the hospital for weeks,
and when he limped out, every kid in America and
their worried parents would be waiting to see what he
did next. A bid to expand his fame, in May
nineteen seventy five brought Knieval across the Atlantic, where he

(24:46):
tried and failed to clear his stars and stripes painted
Harley Davidson XAR seven fifty over thirteen buses in London's
Wembley Stadium. Just five months later, on October twenty fifth,
was with his semi heeled bones barely knitted together beneath
his star spangled leathers, Knieval mounted again to conquer an

(25:08):
even bigger jump. It was a day of cold drizzle
at King's Island Amusement Park in Ohio, but the crowds came,
not none the less twenty five thousand people or more.
The cameras were fixed on Knieval as he revved his
engine and squinted at the steep ramp that would send
him skyward over a row of fourteen buses. As he

(25:31):
made his ramp warm ups, he seemed to hesitate, but
after his fourth approach to the ramp, just when Knieval
appeared to have lost his nerve, he gave a thumbs up.
Then he reset his bike and pinned the throttle, and
was traveling at roughly ninety five miles per hour by
the time he hit the air as Knievl began his

(25:53):
latest dispute with gravity. He said afterward his bike's front
wheel came up in the air so high that if
the jump had been any longer, he would have flipped
over backward at the far end. With his bike losing
altitude and the crowd breathless, Knieval touched the rear wheel
down safely and rode along the landing ramp to abulian applause.

(26:18):
He had cleared one hundred and thirty three feet, a
world record, and landed so hard he'd broken the bike's frame. Knieval,
for a change, was uninjured. The jump would stand as
the longest and most successful of his career. The King's
Island Jump also took place in front of Knieval's biggest audience,

(26:38):
thanks to the crew from a b c's Wide World
of Sports, which beamed it into waiting households all over
the country. The episode remains the most fewed in the
show's history. With his epic rides, Knieval, who survived his
stunts and died in two thousand seven at age sixty nine,

(26:58):
inspired to day's high flying mortar cross tricks and sporting
events like the X Games. His showmanship paved the way
for stunt led productions such as Johnny Knoxville's Jackass. His
approach to life resembled his jumps. Wild, risky, bold, and thrilling.
Knieval left us with the reminder that sometimes you simply

(27:21):
have to rev up and take the leap. Fun fact
was he actually named Evil Knieval Robert Kanievl got his
devilish nickname in nineteen fifty six after he stole a
motorcycle and ended up in jail. Knieval met another inmate
named William Knofel, known in the jail as Awful Canoeful.

(27:46):
In some versions of the story, a jailer gave Knieval
his moniker. In other versions, Knieval bestowed it on himself.
This concludes readings from the Smithsonian Man magazine for to day.
Your reader has been Rebecca Shore. Thank you for listening,
and have a great day.