Frankenstein (2025)
Did That Really Happen?
This week we're traveling back to the 19th century with Guillermo del Toro's Frankenstein! Join us as we learn about syphilis, big-ass blunderbusses, the Evelyn Tables, Arctic expeditions, and more! Sources: An account of divers schemes of arteries and veins, dissected from adult human bodies, and given to the repository of the Royal Society by John Evelyn, Esq; F. R. S. To which are subjoyn'd a description of the extremities of those vessels, and the manner the blood is seen, by the microscope, to pass from the arteries to the veins in quadrupeds when living: with some chirurgical...
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The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman
Did That Really Happen?
This week we're traveling back to a full century of American history with The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman! Join us as we learn about naming of enslaved people, "paddy rollers", Black communities in East Texas, and more! Sources: Sparks, Elmer E, and Celia Black. Interview with Celia Black, Tyler, Texas. Tyler, Texas, November , 10, 1974. Pdf. https://www.loc.gov/item/afc1975009_afs17476/. Sparks, Elmer E, and Charlie Smith. Interview with Charlie Smith, Bartow, Florida. Bartow, Florida, None , 3, 1975. Pdf. https://www.loc.gov/item/afc1975023_afs17510/. Jennifer Davis, "A Voice from the...
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Perfume: The Story of a Murderer
Did That Really Happen?
This week we're traveling back to 18th-century France with Perfume: The Story of a Murderer! Join us as we learn about tanneries, the town of Grasse, infanticide, perfumers' guilds, and more! Sources: https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/perfume-the-story-of-a-murderer-2007 https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/perfume_the_story_of_a_murderer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perfume:_The_Story_of_a_Murderer_%28film%29 A.O. Scott, https://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/27/movies/27perf.html Tracey Rizzo (2004) Between dishonor and death: infanticides in the causes célèbres of eighteenth-century...
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Walker
Did That Really Happen?
This week we're going back to a weird, weird version of 19th-century Nicaragua with Walker! Join us as we learn about William Walker's ill-fated efforts in Sonora, the Filibuster War, the El Nicaraguense newspaper, and more! Sources: Monty Python's Flying Circus Sketch: "Sam Peckinpah's 'Salad Days'": https://youtu.be/XL54pji1nfA?si=o0UbrhVH1ewe3p3J Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walker_(film) Rotten Tomatoes: https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/walker Roger Ebert's Review: https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/walker-1987 Craig J Clark, "Alex Cox Says Goodbye--and Good Riddance--To...
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Freaky Tales
Did That Really Happen?
This week we're traveling back to 1987 Oakland with Freaky Tales! Join us as we learn about punk v. skinhead battles, Sleepy Floyd, Operation Ivy, and more! Sources: Southern Poverty Law Center, Timeline of the Racist Skinhead Movement: https://www.splcenter.org/resources/reports/timeline-racist-skinhead-movement/ Christopher Phelps, "Skinheads: The New Nazism," Marxists.org: https://www.marxists.org/history/etol/newspape/atc/10048.html Steve Knopper, "Nazi Punks Fuck Off: How Black Flag, Bad Brains, and More Took Back Their Scene from White Supremacists,"...
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Citizen X
Did That Really Happen?
This week we're traveling back to the Soviet Union of the 1980s with Citizen X! Join us as we learn about the people who hunted Andrei Chikatilo, the myth of eyes retaining the last image they see before they die, blood typing tests, leather jackets, and more! Sources: Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizen_X Monday Morning Critic Interview with Chris Gerolmo: https://youtu.be/OTgt3qA8bE4?si=KPSXouQ0xBQoTONS Rare Historical Photos: 1980s Soviet Fashion: https://rarehistoricalphotos.com/soviet-fashion-from-1980s/ Ebay, Vintage NKVD Coat:...
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Catherine Called Birdy
Did That Really Happen?
NOTE: Due to a technical mishap, there are some issues with Jamie's audio quality in this episode. We apologize and promise the issue will be fixed in our next episode. This week we're traveling back to the Middle Ages with Catherine Called Birdy! Join us as we talk about medieval birthing practices, book ownership, citrus, farts, why "butt trumpet" should become a widely used phrase, and more! Sources: Butt trumpet marginalia in the Rothschild Canticles, c. 1300, MS 404, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University,...
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Nickel Boys
Did That Really Happen?
This week we're traveling back to the 1960s with Nickel Boys! Join us as we learn about the horrific excavations of the Dozier School, the circulation of MLK speeches, Mexican-American identity in the South, and more! Sources: David Canfield Interview with RaMell Ross and Aunjanue Ellis-Taylor, Vanity Fair: https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/story/nickel-boys-telluride-exclusive-awards-insider?srsltid=AfmBOor0GmWj9WdElwUsFDSFjin9iJFcXiJGYeKF1ZkLFVGHvogkPHAI How Nickel Boys Was Filmed in First-Person POV:...
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Marie Antoinette
Did That Really Happen?
This week we're going back to 18th century France with Marie Antoinette! Join us as we learn about Marie' and Louis' not great sex life, giving birth in public, Marie's journey to France, scandalous pamphlets, and more! Sources: Cara Mia DiMassa, "That Austrian Woman," Los Angeles Times (2001). https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2001-oct-21-bk-59630-story.html Antonia Fraser, Marie Antoinette: The Journey (audiobook) John Hardman, Marie-Antoinette: The Making of a French Queen (Yale University Press, 2019) https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctvnwbx1c Charlotte Hodgman, "16 things...
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Joy
Did That Really Happen?
This week we're traveling back to 1970s Britain with Joy! Join us as we learn about the real people who invented IVF, including Patrick Steptoe, Jean Purdy, and Matron Muriel, as well as how papers like the Daily Mirror covered the whole thing. Sources https://www.theguardian.com/film/2024/nov/10/screenwriter-jack-thorne-ivf-joy-film-netflix https://deadline.com/2024/10/joy-movie-thomasin-mckenzie-shines-as-test-tube-baby-pioneer-in-joy-1236115393/ https://time.com/7178799/joy-true-story-jean-purdy-netflix/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joy_(2024_film) Litynski GS. Patrick C. Steptoe:...
info_outlineThis week we're traveling back to 1890s New England with The Lighthouse! Join us as we try to figure out what the heck is going on in this movie, and along the way learn about seagull myths, how lighthouses work, New England dialects, Davy Jones, and more!
Sources:
"Seagulls," A Dictionary of English Folklore, Oxford Reference Dictionaries, available at https://www.oxfordreference.com/display/10.1093/oi/authority.20110803100450456;jsessionid=0C830965CCC27A471D73ABD544FFA75D
Fletcher S Bassett, Legends and Superstitions of the Sea and of Sailors in All Lands and in All Times (1885). Available on Google Books.
Etymology Online, available at https://www.etymonline.com/word/Davy%20Jones
https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Folk_lore_Record/zW0AAAAAMAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=davy+jones+locker+folklore&pg=PA66&printsec=frontcover
Thomas L. Cromwell, Jr., "Ye Olde Englysshe 'Ye'" American Speech 24:2 (1949) 115-19. https://www.jstor.org/stable/486618
Herman Melville, Moby Dick, https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/2701/pg2701-images.html
Wiki: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lighthouse_(2019_film)
Rotten Tomatoes https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_lighthouse_2019
Vanity Fair, "Willem Dafoe Rewatches Spider-Man, The Lighthouse, Platoon & More | Vanity Fair" https://youtu.be/88MCNN0abIU?si=ZDLA7om0MmdMYjBy
GQ, "Robert Pattinson Breaks Down His Most Iconic Characters | GQ," https://youtu.be/pz52gPH3ou4?si=J3SfP1S8lpCrc_Ix
Eric Grundhauser, "When the Lights Go Out: 8 of the World's Loneliest Lighthouses," Atlas Obscure (25 August 2015). https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/when-the-lights-go-out-8-of-the-worlds-loneliest-lighthouses
Sean Kirst, "Dark Past Haunts Lighthouse Thursday, October 31, 1996," The Soul of Central New York: Syracuse Stories by Sean Kirst (Syracuse University Press, 1996). https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt1ht4w1r.33
Michael Brian Schiffer, "The Electric Lighthouse in the Nineteenth Century: Aid to Navigation and Political Technology," Technology and Culture 46:2 (2005): 275-305. https://www.jstor.org/stable/40060849
D. Alan Stevenson, "The Development of Lighthouses," Journal of the Royal Society of Arts 80: 4130 (1932): 224-42. https://www.jstor.org/stable/41358948
"Beacons of Safety," Scientific American (1926). https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2307/24976807
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Point_Sur_Lighthouse
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/new-brunswick/saint-john-n-b-home-to-foghorn-inventor-1.941959
"Yellow Gals (Doodle Let Me Go)" http://balladindex.org/Ballads/Hugi380.html
"Doodle Let Me Go (Yaller Girls)" https://mainlynorfolk.info/lloyd/songs/doodleletmego.html