Welcome to you Stuff you missed in History Class from how Stuff Works dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm trac Vie Wilson and I'm Holly Frying. We're doing something a little different today. We have had some guests on the podcast lately, and today not only do we have a guest, we also have a whole additional podcast as a guest. It's a podcast that actually has a lot of parallels to ours. Both shows first came out in two thousand and eight. They're both with history hosts who aren't actually historians, and the both shows that tell stories from the past, but we do this in completely different ways. So with that, I'd like to welcome our guest, who is Nate Demayo of The Memory Palace. Hey, thanks for having me. I'm so glad you're here too. I'm very excited. I'm a big listener of you guys, so I'm excited to be here. Thank you so much. If you have never heard The Memory Palace the shows, the episodes of themselves are a lot shorter than ours. The They are little JEMs of stories accompanied by music, and somehow, even though they're simultaneously really short, they're also really thoughtful, and I think it's a lot better to just listen to one of these episodes than to listen to us talk about what they're like. So we're going to start by playing one of them. It's one that's particularly short, but it's also really particularly moving, and it follows along nicely with our recent episodes on animals. So let's get right to it. From the Maximum Fund Network, this is the Memory Palace from Nath to Mayo, and this is episode fifty fifty words, written about the Arctic bowhead whale after learning that it can live up to two years. There's a whale right now who may have escaped in Nantucketer's harpoon in eighteen fifty in a Japanese whaler in n who once heard the distant songs of fifty of her kind, then several thousands than hundreds, But who can hear twenty five thousand again singing in the warming water. When we started preparing for this interview, I really listened to a bunch of your old episodes, and one of the things I really love about your show is that it tells these odd, eccentric, kind of wacky stories you had just at that point put out a remastered version of Itty Bitty Bombs, which is about the scheme to use bats to drop bombs on Japan during World War Two, And it's another in the Wacky animal line. Where did you come up with this story? You know, it's uh, it has been a while, so where I found it is sort of lost in the cracks of history. But I suspect sort of like YouTube, um, I am sort of constantly, constantly on the lookout for I guess in some ways just sort of the the the thing that reaches out from you know, whether it's your Internet browser or some like larger history book or some novel or something that fact that kind of jumps out and grabs you and you know, either you know, makes you go holy cow. And that one, that one about the bomb the bat bombs, is certainly sort of a holy cow kind of thing. But that or that just kind of like makes you just you know, feel excited or sad or somehow moved. Like I am always kind of trawling for those things, and and like that's like an instinct that um, you know, not only sort of I mean I do that now professionally on some level with the podcast, but that is something that preceded the podcast, and I think because they've always kind of had that instinct of of like looking out for those little sort of flex of wonder in the world. UM. I think that's probably what led to the podcast at all. I think the flexi wonder should be your autobiography. So one of the things that we encounter in the show really often is that we will find different versions of the same story or facts that are really in dispute in some way. And a lot of times we tackle this in our show by talking about the disputes and how they came to be. That doesn't really work with your format. So when you find that kind of thing, what do you do? You know it is? That is the thing I startled about, and it's also the thing that I might get the most notes from listeners about you like it's fascinating. I recently, UH Pieces from the Memory Palace started to air semi regularly, if occasionally, and if not as frequently as I would like UM on NPRS weekend editions, Sunday and UM. They sort of apply this editorial process, which is the same one that when I was a reporter UM four NPR and in a different UH in a different public radio shows. Was applied to me as a reporter. Um, where you know, they fact check these things. They want to make sure that everything is in there. But as you guys, well know, you might learn something, Uh, you might learn some amazing fact and then you'll go in and you know, first of all, you'll find out it's not quite like that. It's kind of like this. But very quickly you discovered that there are three or four or five versions of that thing. And um that you know, I have noticed that, you know, while listening to your show, that you guys have the gift of being able to say, well, you know, this is a little bit disputed. This guy says this, this lady says this. I think we're probably landing somewhere in you know, in the middle. And you know, the truth is with my format because it is those sort of short stories, um, and it is a narrative. Um, I can't quite do that same thing. Um, but I have found um sort of small ways to do that, and some is to simply come out and say it. You know. Uh, you know, we don't know precisely, um when this thing began, but we think it's around here, um, you know, and sometimes like the truth is the fact whether it's eighteen eleven or it's eighteen seven when something might have begun, UM doesn't ultimately doesn't matter that much because what the point is is that it's starting to say, before the before the Civil War or something like that, there are you know. It's essentially like what I'm looking for, um almost, you know. And I think it's the thing that that drives so much of the stories that I'm doing is beyond just looking for fun facts and beyond just looking for a kind of a ripping yard, like I am really looking for meaning, you know, like I'm looking for ways to connect the past to the present, you know, ways to um to move the listener, you know, to kind of like reconsider um, whether it's a historical moment or um a person they may have never met before, or a person that they've heard before, heard about before, but have never thought about in a certain context. And so if that's the goal, it's sort of finding meaning, and it's and it's you know, moving people, and it's like connecting their their current reality to the live reality of of the past. It's not that the facts don't matter, because I actually think it's because it is it is the meaning is sort of been um embedded within those facts. But you know, you can be very clear about like the ambiguity in that case, because you know, life is sort of filled with ambiguity. But what we're taking from, you know, the story of, for instance, UM, the first elephant, UM to continue with your animal theme, UM, which is a story that that I did and is particularly dear to me. UM. Whether it's the first elephant or not, And that is really in dispute, and I spent a long time trying to figure out whether it is the first elephant. UM. What really matters is there are tons and tons and tons and tons of people in eighteen o five in the United States who have never seen an elephant before, and first or second, or third or fourth, UM being the first elephant for some man in Boston or some you know, some woman in Charlotte, North Carolina. UM, that's the you know, that's where the story lives. It's in that encounter, it's in that novelty. And whether it is you know, truly technically historically novel, I'm less concerned with. So that actually kind of leads nicely into my next question, which is that we talked about this a little bit before we started recording that Sometimes when we're putting together an episode, it ends up as a two parter because we just find so many juicy details that are really fun to tell, uh, and we don't want to leave those out, and we have that leverage where we can kind of spend a little more time with it. So I'm wondering how you wrangle your research down to that super lean format and really getting across the message and the meaning without dropping too many details off. Yeah, well, I think it's mostly UM. I think the process really starts with UM, after the kind of research is done, and after I feel like I really understand um, both the story itself, UM say about the elephants, but also the context, the historical context um, you know, of what life was like then UM, so that I feel like I'm grounded and sort of able to to find a story to tell. UM. The real work comes in finding what that story is about. It's it's being that the about nous is something beyond subject right for me, It is, you know, finding the meaning. So like, there was a great uh story that I stumbled upon one time about this guy who was a serial impostor and you know, lived his life, um, you know, impersonating diplomats, impersonating businessmen, um, you know. And some of it was used for, you know, simply to get a good table to restaurant, you know. Some of it was to pull off sort of incredible scams. And he was a fantastic figure and UM lived this like very you know, broad big life. And you know, so on the one hand, I could kind of just go in and just like reel off the facts about this guy. Oh and then he pulled this scam and this is pretty amazing. And then he pulled this scam and this is pretty amazing. And then he was caught and this is what like life in jail is like for six months. Um. But instead, you know, I had to like kind of as I do with all the stories, you have to kind of like go in, dig in and and find out what I want to say. And for me with this story about the impostor, you know, it was like, well, what is driving this guy to be an impostor? Like what what might possibly be at the roots of you know, for someone who um, of the millions of lives that that one could have chosen, Um, why this route? And you know, kind of like finding this origin in a feeling of being slighted, which is very sort of explicit and something he would talk about. Um So it wasn't something that I was kind of imposing but then really trying to get into, like what must it be? You know, what do you what you're actually getting out of the impostoring? What you know? What particular thrills are you finding? And how does that connect with me? And I, like I would find and for me, the heart of that story is in this kind of sense that you know that daily life can be, you know, filled with toil and drudgery, and here was a guy who found a way for himself to gain that system. You know, he wasn't going off sort of playing fantasy baseball. He wasn't going off collecting you know, humble figurines. He was finding ways to, at least for a night, live different lives. And once I kind of hone in on that, the idea that this man is going to go live different lives, um or I hone in on the elephant story about you know this is this is not only about the novelty of seeing this sort of wonderful creature. It is also a creature who's alone and so much of the story should be about exploring what it would mean to be alone in an alien landscape, for the for the creature, for the elephant itself. Um. Then that extra stuff, like the the extra details that twists and turns um are kind of easy to cut away because they don't sort they sort of simply don't serve the story. You know. It's like taking Game of Thrones um and trying to turn it into a TV show, and then you're suddenly like, you know what, there's those that whole battle scene and there's that whole land over there that like, if we're really focusing on who's going to rest control of the Iron Throne or whatever it might be, then um, if this guy is not ever gonna get the Iron Throne, then maybe we don't need to talk about them. And so some of it is as simple as that, Like by finding the actual thread in the heart of the story, you can kind of hack off a few limbs, which I guess kind of keeps us in Game of Thrones territory as well. Do you ever start on research for an episode? And as I asked this question, and I can tell you this happens to me all the time. Uh, and then you'll find out that you actually want to talk about something else, perhaps that you stumble across during your research phase. Like do you ever let yourself switch horses midstream? Oh? Absolutely no, I mean that happens all the time. Um. And in fact, I actually I've kind of discovered that the best way for me to find stories um uh that can can really kind of have like a depth of meaning and like really kind of stand up is more than just kind of a factoid. Is sort of looking for an idea that seems cool, like, oh, you know, I didn't know this about, um, like the Quakers, and then I then you read about the Quakers, um, just kind of assume that, oh, the Quakers are interesting, there must be something interesting there. But in doing that research, you then find that, you know, the Quakers are less interesting than this one manufacturer of Quaker furniture, you know, like you like, It's often like I often find like, oh, here's an area that is interesting, um, but you start to dive in and then it turns out it is not the area itself that is interesting, but it is the little detail that takes you on that detour. Um. But the real bane of my existence is when you find the incredible factoid and it's so unbelievable, what a great story, and it turns out to actually be unbelievable. I'm I am struggling with that right now, um, with with a story that I was sure it was going to be like the centerpiece of my new season and it's kind of turned out to maybe not have actually happened, And that's a bummer. I have had that exact problem, yeah, for sure, specifically with a historical marker I found once that had an amazing story on it, and the amazing story, it turns out, is significantly inflated on the historical marker and elsewhere. We are going to take a brief break for a word from a sponsor. When we come back, we're going to talk a bit about how Nate arrived at doing a history podcast, because he, like Holly and I, is not a historian strictly speaking. So let's talk a little more generally about the world of history. So weirdly, right now, we have three podcast hosts talking to one another. None of us are historians. I don't know that you would call any of the three of us stereotypical history buffs. Yet we are dedicating large parts of our lives to working on history podcasts. So Nate, how did that happen for you? Um? Yeah, No, I definitely pushed back on the notion of being a history buff um and I and it has nothing to do with identity. Actually think that like history buffs are great, So you know, I would happily sort of take that claim, you know, claim that mantle if if I could rightly do so. Um. You know, I uh, I think that like I'm just sort of culturally omnivorous, you know. And the thing with history for me is that, like you when I really am sort of like scrolling through Twitter and you know, besides the things that I know that I want to learn about, you know, whether it is like my Los Angeles Clippers, you know, or certain political things, certain music things or whatever, you know, I am mostly just looking you know for something to kind of step into my life and you know, uh and thrill me on some level, like you know, give me something to think about, like something that will kind of change my day. And you know there are you know, for me, I think the thing that has brought me to history, Um, you know, isn't sort of this sense of like you know, good Lord, we need to look back, so we don't you know, kind of repeat the mistakes of the past, or you can't understand the present without understanding the past. UM. I have found that, you know, in in my life, and particularly sort of in my younger life, UM, that I was kind of empowered by having a historical understanding. You know. For me, I grew up um in Rhode Island, and Rhode Island can be a very parochial place and you know it is it is forty five minutes by fifty minutes. It's a tiny little place, um, and it is served by you know, a set of stations that are in Providence that cover the state of Rhode Island and and not very much else. And so it has this very kind of like insular feeling. And you growing up there, UM, I didn't really have the sense that, um, that sort of exciting lives were available to me. And it wasn't that like my parents weren't encouraging, And it wasn't that I didn't see people on TV or read read people who had written books, or read about people in magazines, or see bands that came through town and thought like, oh, they like, oh, look there's more that I can go out there and do. On some fundamental level, I did not understand that they were real people, you know that like that that was something that there was exciting lives that I too could have. And I kind of learned that in a way by from history, like I remember very specifically, you know, like reading you know, biographies of different people like Calvin Tompkins biography of of the artist Marcel Duchamp was really formative to me, and reading um American Visions by Robert Hughes, the big survey of American art. The thing that I sort of took away from that was over and over and over again that these people who were making history um were just as whether it was vain or or you know, could just do such dumb things, or or had very human and very sort of you know, had very human appetites that would get them into trouble all the same sorts of things that were happening to me and everyone I knew on some level, um, you know, had happened to Abraham Lincoln. And it was a very simple and very well duh kind of uh realization, but it was it was one that I needed to have and I and so I would read these books, I learned about people, but I would also learn um, getting this sort of sense of history of that like the times between things were often very short, and that you know, for instance, the time between the Civil War and the time between uh, you know, the turn of the century is at this point a span of a span of time that I have lived myself, and yet there's such radical change. And when you start to realize that, um, you realize it gives you a sense of your present day as historical and as as filled with change and as also um I think importantly for me, like filled with the potential. You know, it's like if the world changed so much between n and nineteen seventy one, then you know, as we have seen on Madmen recently, then like then you know, so too can the world of the future. And I've always found that really sort of exciting. And I've always found going back into the past and in sort of relearning that lesson UM has been really valuable. And then the other thing, like, because I think what we do, what you guys doing, what I do, is we're interested in these things that kind of fall through the cracks, and they're the stuff that you have missed in history class, um, you know. And for me, like I'm aware that in in our current day, we are constantly missing stuff as well. You know. It's that that if you are really interested in you know, Republican politics, or you are really interested in the Atlanta Falcons, you know, or collecting baseball cards or whatever it might be, then you're missing a whole lot of life. And in history there are always those people and always those corners that um, you know, not only are sort of worth unearthing, and not only are worth kind of engaging with and and can be sort of exciting and like you know, wonderful in the literal sense, like you know, can fill you with wonder it all. For me, it is always a reminder that that is happening right now, you know, in in my awaking life too, that I can sort of engage more and look around more, um you know. And and in a lot of ways, that's the kind of experience I want someone to have with the memory Palace. I want them to be like, Wow, this thing in the past has happened, um, but you know, by connecting it to our present, I kind of want them to come out and look at our you know, their present moment in their neighborhood and their family. Um and the news with with sort of wide dies. So having grown up in New England, New England is home to sort of enormous history. It's if you want to go somewhere in New England and not be surrounded by history, you kind of have to work at it. It's big, big, especially in the course of American history, huge, huge historical events. But a lot of your episodes focus on things that are really small, and this sort of ties onto your what you just said, what is it about the small that really appeals to you? Because I think that you know, no, I mean the stories are short. I mean they're almost like fetishistically short, right, you know, like like you know, there are times in which the you know, the artistic challenge becomes like, you know, how quickly can I get from point A to point point B with um point a being you know nothing about a subject, to point B being like you have been moved to tears or who have been elated by a subject and you're caring about something you didn't care about before. Um, you know. And so some of it is like a I'm looking to kind of pack that punch. Then it's a little bit harder to pack war in peace, you know, into five and a half minutes UM. But moreover, like I think that the small is is the thing that you connect with. You know. It's like it's it's hard to connect with, um, you know, with troop movements, and it's hard to connect with supply lines in the battle, But it's not hard to connect with a soldier who is you know, trying to gear themselves up to charge up a hill. You know, it's not hard to connect with you know, another soldier who can't gear themselves up and is running the opposite direction. And you know, I So I think that you know that smallness UM. I think it this occurs in literature, it occurs in film, like you know, by finding these specifics, um, these specific details and these specific stories. UM. You know that is the way that you can kind of enter the world of kind of like big ideas and capital H history UM, through like the power of the kind of like lower case H story. So is there a topic that you have always wanted to delve into but you haven't quite found the right angle on it yet that's kind of lurking and maybe your periphery as one day I'm gonna tackle that one. Yeah, I think so, I mean I think I think there are tons you know, um uh you know, and some of it, some of it comes down to the fact that, like you look into this story and then you realize there's less of a story there than you thought, or that there's a bunch of interesting facts but they don't cohere. And so right now I'm sitting in um, you know, essentially like a you know, remade garage UM where I'm talking to you guys, and where I work a lot, and there's a board over there, and it's got tons and tons of ideas. Um. You know, there's there are lots and lots of different you know, story topics up there, um and a lot of them have been on that board for a really long time, and they're just waiting for, um, the about nous to appear, you know what I mean, Like they're they're waiting for that thing that turns you know, a story about billboard advertising, Like that's an interesting thing. I'm kind of interested in what it was like to see the first billboards um into the point you know, it's like finding like, yeah, I'm sure I could. I know, I can look up a bunch of information about billboards and say, well, when billboards first started to hear people are really excited about it, and then they got tired of it or whatever. The arc of the life of the billboard might be. Um, but until I can kind of find that thing that um first of all interests me beyond like, oh that's interesting, um and actually kind of like moves me or thrills me or makes me sad or whatever it might be. Um Like, until I can really connect with it, it's going to sort of stay on the board. So yeah, there are there are things that that I've kind of wanted to do for years but have not been able to crack. All of your billboard talk suddenly makes me think of that Tom Waite's song Burma Shave, and now it's never going to leave my head. Um. Well, that's that's it. You could you could do worse than which, yeah, it's not a complaint. I'm just I recognize that this is my soundtrack for the day. Um. Have you ever been pretty deep into production on an episode and ended up tossing it entirely? Yes? Yeah, no, absolutely, I mean that doesn't happen that you know. The truth is, and you know I'm about to begin on June twenty one, releasing the show in seasons UM with weekly episodes for the summer, and then I'll take some some brief break and then I'll be back with weekly episodes for another you know, uh period as yet to be determined. But for the most part, because I was doing a lot of juggling, um with other uh career things, Um, the show had just kind of come out whenever, and you know, whenever I got around to it, whenever I finished something, and so in a lot of ways, they didn't have that luxury Like if I was kind of like working on a story for a while, um, you know, it might be like a month, um, you know between episodes, and then it might be six weeks between episodes, and it would be very hard um for me to to shift gears. But sometimes I would kind of have to um hopefully that would have happened when I was like, oh, you know, it is even better this thing. This thing. The reason why this this story is not you know, coherent and is not um yet presentable is because it's not a story, or it's because I really can't crack it. And um, so yeah, there have been times that I've had to kind of abandoned ship. UM. But I've also, um, there's also been a couple of stories that I've actually done that I've actually produced and put music to and you know kind of labored over and um, they also just kind of stunk. And UM, I think that because I was doing stories so so infrequently, then I didn't have the luxury of having one that's stunk, you know, because it's like if people had waited around, like I didn't want to kind of bridge, you know, betray their faith in me and betray the fact that they waited around for something that wasn't actually good um or um. If something was gonna sit on my website as like the most recent episode and someone was just gonna like if you're if you know, if you told your spouse like, oh you gotta check out the Memory Palace. These stories a great and like some clunker of a story I was sitting on on the front page and that was the only one they're going to listen to then, you know, and it was going to sit there for weeks and weeks and weeks. Then that would be weeks in which I was kind of like, you know, hurting my ability to hook a listener on this odd little podcast that I do. Uh, I know that feeling. I think we've all been there. Um, do you have a favorite time period or historical figure, Like I know you say you're not a history buff, but you've certainly been exposed to a lot of it as a cultural omnivore. And does that guide your decisions on what topics to cover, Like, for example, I am really into Queen Victoria, So I am always a little trepidacious about covering Queen Victoria. One because I know I'll be a fan girl, and two because I know I can't stay objective. So do you ever have any of those? Yeah, I mean I have a few, right, And I think that I think if you you know, if you listen to you know, if if as all of you should do, listen to all sixty five episodes, Um, you'll see certain sort of themes pop up, right, And some of it is that I am drawn to, you know, the period between like eighteen eighty and nine. Um, you know, when essentially modernity is being created. You know, there's like I find that period really amazing, in part because there are so many things that we are beginning to see for the first time. Um, that we have in our daily life, whether it's the telephone, whether it's you know, recorded music, whether it's you know, movies, whether it's the weekend. You know, like these things are being invented during that period. And so I'm constantly, you know, interested in that moment of first encounter with new technologies, before the kind of you know, before the shine kind of goes away. Um. Yeah. So you know I think that that you know, that period, you know, is is you know, filled with like it's like it's this period in which they're kind of like inventing modernity. Um. And also like there are all these fascinating failures of like you know that really point to like different ways in which we could you know, have still lived if if only, uh, you know, this fat had caught on, or if only um, you know, this person had succeeded in what they were trying to do, you know, both for good and for ill. And so I'm fascinated. I'm fascinated by that period in particular, And and some of the people that operate in there, like you know P. T. Barnum, who proceeds it a bit and then kind of stretches into that period, is just everywhere. You know, there isn't a time when we're like it's hard to like come up with you know, a like an interesting like crazy musical act or or or or um, you know, person in a freak show or you know that doesn't engage with Barnum at some point. Um, And that stuff is fascinating. But because I do kind of go to that well, um, you know pretty frequently. I think I had some of your Queen Victoria problem where I'd be like, oh am, I doing this too often. UM. But I think for me, UM, I think for a long time, the Memory Palace, you know, it's only essentially now becoming kind of professionalized, and um, you know, even though I don't sort of intend to change it. Um, you know what, I for a while it was just kind of like an art project. It was just this thing that I did that that people liked. And so in treating it like an art project, I was always sort of like out trying to um, you know, trying to create like kind of an interesting, you know, creative experience for myself and sort of like you know, push push each episode like a little bit further or a little bit differently. And so I have come to realize that it's kind of okay to keep returning to certain wells because like if you know, if you were if you know, if as like if you were a novelist or you're a filmmaker, like at some point you're interested in the stuff that you're interested in, you know, and you're gonna you're gonna, you know, you've got to trust that, um, your audience, you know, has connected with your work because they're interested in in your on your take, and so UM, I've kind of like, you know, I don't want to repeat myself and I don't want to to do things over and over again. But if I'm if I keep being sort of engaged with certain ideas or certain stories in a certain area, then on some level there's like still more work for me to do there. Um, and the well hasn't run dry, and hopefully it hasn't run dry for the listener either. We're going to take another brief moment for another word from a sponsor, and then when we come back, we have a few other questions and then we will wrap up. So, Nate, in addition to all of your other work, one of the other projects you have worked on is Pondy the Greatest Town in America from Parks and Recreation, which is a show so close to my heart. I love it so much. I do too. I just adore it was a good show. That's so great I wept like a child. How did putting together fictional history for that book compare to the process of working on real history for your show? Um? Yeah, so, uh you know, I got I got so. I got the opportunity to write that book because of the podcast. You know, Um Mike Sure, the creator of the show, Um and Greg Daniels, the other creator of the show. We're um kicking around the idea of creating one of those Arcadia Press books. Those are those books that have this sort of Sepia tone, like any town, USA, like any neighborhood in any major city has like one of these books. Um and uh, so they thought it'd be fun to make up a fake one for Pawny and uh, Mike Sure was a fan of the Memory Palace and he's like, oh, I know Nate and he's a funny guy. Um, you know, he'll get what we're doing. But maybe you can also come up with sort of a plausible backstory and um uh you know, historical backstory and so that it started at that, and then the more we kind of talked and the more we kind of like riffed, it kind of grew and grew and grew, um to be sort of like a larger book with larger scope. But um, I found it incredibly liberating to make stuff up. You know, I mean worked as a journalist, having worked as a journalist, and you know, and now is like a you know, a historian like you know, in a sort of journalistic mode in a way like that like I, you know, kind of use where that hat when I when I kind of like dig dig into the past, like I kind of apply the same sort of standards um in this historical work. Um, you know, to honestly to be able to like go in and in some ways like apply the lessons that I've learned from history, not only in the historical stuff, but also like I just got in this mode and doing the memory palace of like of thinking about people in certain ways of thinking about you know, um they're sort of like Craven needs and thinking about their their their failed attempts you know, to make you know, to sort of achieve you know, a level of importance and you know, I think that show in particular is engaged um with that all the time. You know, it is this sort of like very kind of like open hearted, um you know, saying, you know, despite the kind of ridiculous and us of the people of Pawnee, Indiana. Um you know, I I like, I know for a fact, having spent time in that writer's room, having having written an episode of the show, being friends with it with its creator like I you know, and and anyone who watches the show will know, uh you know within a half an hour that um, they're both aware of the ridiculousness of the people there, but ultimately aren't we all ridiculous and aren't we all kind of uh interesting and fun because of it? And you know, ultimately, if there's a real crossover, I think, um between the sensibility of that show um uh you know, which obviously hasn't more canmedic take um than uh, you know, a story about the brutalities of of war, for instance, that I might you know, cover in the Memory Palace. But it is that same sort of sense that you know that people are inherently weak, people are inherently kind of ridiculous, but life, you know, throws very challenging things that at them and at us and that um you know, finding um, those things that make us sort of, um, you know, not just human, but make it sort of like worth being human and make it kind of fun being human. Um. Are are the aspects um that I'm sort of looking for in the Memory Palace. UM. You know in each of these stories, no matter how sort of distant in time um or uh, you know, sort of difficult the subject matter. I know that you like for people to come into your episodes without a lot of explanation in advance. Uh, but you were working on your first series of of the Memory Palace. Can you give us a hint of what we might expect from it? You know? Um A, I do want you to kind of come into things cold. UM. So I'm not gonna sort of blow it, but I can tell you this that UM I was. I knew that I wanted to do it in seasons, and you know, I was like, well, I mean and some of that was just practical. It was like, well, in the past, this is how I got the work done. Now, if I'm gonna do more episodes, how am I going to get the work done? How's this going to work, and I thought that was something I could pull off. But the second I got excited about it, um beyond this sort of like practical concerns and like building an audience through um, you know, by making sure they knew that there was gonna be something new every Monday or whatever it might be. The thing that got me um excited about it was a dumb, romantic notion that it seemed fun that there might be someone out there who remembered the summer of two thousand fifteen as the summer that they listened to the Memory Palace a lot. I just like that idea, Like I like that there'd be some weird nerd kids somewhere, um who you know, like the Memory Palace. These stories kind of soundtracked. Uh, they're weird summer job and like the summer before they went off to college, or the summer they were back from college and living with their parents and things were weird and lonely or alternative the year they met that girl and everything was amazing and and uh and somehow the Memory Palace would be part of the background of that. So there was the romance that of it. But the other thing is you start to realize that like, oh, these stories are all going to be coming out in the summer, and um, so I think you're gonna find some warm weather stories. I think you're gonna find things. I think you'll hear things, um that uh, I think makes sense on the iPhone of that you know guy on the road trip or that person at the shore, or that person sort of stuck in their sort of office when it's sunny outside. Um. And also I do know, um because I've unless this thing falls apart because I can't pull it off, I know that there's there's at least one episode that is that is a very distinct twist on a topic that you guys have covered. That was one that you're like said that people have begged you to do it. So it is a very popular topic. And I'll leave it at that. I'm intrigued. I'm too now, I'm all excited. I know we have at least two episodes in the archive or we have specifically said there's one on the Memory Palace on this subject. Go listen to it. One of them is the New England Vampire Panic, and the other is the Lunar Beaver Lunar Beavers, Lunar Beavers, the whole Moon Hopes, which that for us grew into two episodes. It didn't it. Yeah, it's because I can't stop. I get really excited with the weird stuff, so weird. Yeah, why did that one grow for you? Because there are so many delicious weird details like the whole Oh and then we saw these bat people worshiping at this triangular thing and it's like, how could you leave that out there? And then the characters were good, like they were really good. They were Yeah, it's so good. There's a lot of delicious wildness to that one. I loved that episode of the Memory Palace also. Yes, Like as soon as as soon as Holly handed me the outline for that, I was I was like, there's a memory bolls on this and it's so great. Oh you say it right here. Yes, we we're big fans of the Lunar Beavers. Yeah. So is anything else on the horizon for you that you want to talk about or anything else that you want to add? Well, you know it's I'll tell you that. You know you guys have have um had the sort of great I assume great pleasure because you have you know, it seems like a pretty good give you guys have of being able to really focus on this and like really, uh, you know, I know that you're doing it, um every week and know know that you're um you know have to sort of like both have to have to look for stories, but also that you get to look for stories and get to like, you know, follow your curiosity and do that stuff. And um, you know, so I'm really about to do that for the first time. And UM. So not only will people be getting sort of more episodes, UM, one thing that I've been wanting to do for a while, UM is to uh do live shows, which I know you guys are getting your went in and um, so that's been really fun for me. I had like kind of a background and kind of being in bands, and um, it's been a long time since I've had the sort of opportunity to perform. And I've done like single stories here and there, um in kind of like variety show context and it's been really fun. And so it's so I am in the midst of planning like a proper show, like a like something that can that can hold people's interest in and uh you know give people like kind of like a cabinet of wonder experience um at a live show and so um, so this summer I'll be playing in Seattle and playing in Portland and then in l a in in the early fall, and then I'm hoping to do like a proper like tour tour in with my you know next season, um sometime in uh late fall. That sounds amazing. Indeed, So your season is starting on June twenty one, right, yeah, runs to the whole summer. Yeah. So people can find the Memory Palace on iTunes. There's also the Memory Palace dot us. Really give a listen. It's great. You can, you can plow through the entire archive, uh and get all kinds of just wonderful gems of stories. They're great. Thank you so much, Thank you so much for being on show, Nate. Great. I'll be listening to you guys. We will be back to our regularly scheduled listener mail next time. We wanted to save that time to listen to a little of the Memory Palace this time around. But if you would like to write to us, we're a history podcast at how Stuff Works dot com. We're also on Facebook at facebook dot com slash missed in History and on Twitter at miss in History. Our Tumbler is missed in History dot tumbler dot com and we're on Pinterest at petrist dot com slash missed in History. You can come to our parent company's website, which is how stuff works dot com and learn about many, many things. Or you can come to our website, which is missed in History dot com and find an archive of all of our episodes show notes for the episodes Holly and I have done. You will have links to the memory Palace if you would like to just find something and click on it. From there, you can do all of that and a whole lot more at how stuff works dot com or mtemistry dot com for more on this for thousands of other topics, is it how stuff works dot com. M