December 21, 2017 • 11 mins
From Iceland's hottest (cat-based) Reality TV Show to the feline that changed Nikola Tesla's career, Will, Mango and Gabe are all about cats on today's episode.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Guess what will what's that man go? So you know,
I'm pretty good at celebrating major holidays, like I always
take off for Christmas, I participated in Labor Day, I
I'll go look for a flag on Flag Day, all
the things. But this year, for some reason, we totally
forgot about National Cat Hurd's Day on December. Oh no,
(00:20):
you're kidding. Actually we've been talking about this for months.
That's so embarrassing, I know. But you know, hurting cats
is a bit of a joke, right, and you can't
actually heard cats, So the holiday is this sympathetic day
set up for anyone who has sort of an impossible
task ahead of them. But I was starting to look
into the idea of actually hurting cats, and what you
(00:42):
find in your research just that they have no interest
in it. Cats obviously never lived in packs, so hurting
doesn't come naturally to them. And also there was this
Japanese study that found that cats are very good at
recognizing their owner's voice, like they play it from them
and they actually recognize it. But if you're calling them,
they just don't care, like the study actually said that,
(01:04):
so they rarely move when they're called. That's pretty great.
Because National Cat Herder's Day was this week, we thought
we couldn't let it pass without at least sharing a
bunch of facts about cats. So why don't we dive in.
(01:32):
Welcome to part time Genius. I'm Will Pearson and as
always I'm joined by my good friend Man Guesh Ticketer
and sitting behind that soundproof glass wearing a rum Tom
Tugger shirt. Wow, that's impressive. From the musical Cats. Of course,
that's our Palin producer Tristan McNeil. Also on the line,
we've got our friend Gabe Louisier. Gabe, how are you doing?
Doing great? Guys? Thanks for having me on. Yeah. So
(01:53):
Mango and I are at a bit of a disadvantage
here because we're both dog people. So I'm curious, are
you a cat person? I am? Yeah, I am a
card carrying cat person. U. Yeah. You know, I appreciate
when I look at an animal. I like I like
that feeling of having something looking back at me, you know,
like that spark of intelligence there that you sometimes don't
(02:15):
get with a dog. I don't want you to read
too much into it, but I totally knew Gay would
be a cat person. Did Yeah? I totally knew gay
would be all right, well gay. Because of that, I
think we're gonna let you go first with your your
first fact about cats. What you got? Okay? Awesome? Um
So yeah, this goes right in line with the whole
(02:35):
intelligent cat thing. So unlike dogs, which are believed to
have been domesticated by kind of nomadic hunters during the
Ice age, um, they fed them scraps of wooly mammoth
to kind of keep them around and get them to
follow them on their hunting parties. So i'm dogs, though,
cats domesticated themselves, and all domesticated cats descend from this. Uh,
(02:57):
These Middle Eastern wildcats um, which in Latin are called
the felice silvestress or the cat of the woods. And
the cats weren't coaxed out of the woods by you know,
humans who wanted companionship or anything like that. They actually
invited themselves into our grain storehouses. And that was because
of all the abundance of mice in there, and the
(03:18):
relationship with humans just kind of grew out of that. Wow,
that's pretty cool. I've never heard that before. Yeah, I
didn't realize they let themselves into our house. That's almost
more terrifying. Yea is not making me less scared of cats. Well,
another fact that will not make me any less scared
of cats is that studies have actually shown that cats do,
in fact prefer women. You know, you see in pop
(03:38):
culture in other places, these cat ladies, And I guess
there is a reason for that. So in one study,
cats with female owners initiated more interactions than cats with
male owners, including approaching them more and jumping on their laps.
So it is true, I'm still scared of cat all right, mango,
what's your fact? So? I think one president who would
(03:59):
have just agreed with your fact that cats prefer women
is Old Silent cal Coolidge. Yeah. So he had a
number of White House cats, including Timmy, Blackie, Smokey and
Tiger a k a. Tigy, who was also his favorite
and Heat often just parade around the White House with
Tiger draped around his neck. But the craziest part is
(04:19):
what chaos that caused when Tiger was missing in so
Coolidge first sent out his staff to look, and then
he sent the DC police, and then he sent the
Secret Surface. Yeah, he basically treated like a crisis and
when they eventually found him Tiger was equipped with this
new collar that said my name is Tiger. I live
at Pennsylvania Avenue. Somebody had put that on it. No,
(04:44):
that's what that's what Coolidge insisted. Wow, that's pretty great.
All right, Well, there was actually a pretty great quote
about cats from Tesla. So it turns out that Tesla
was inspired to research electricity after his cat shocked him.
So he had a cat named Macaque. And there's a
great letter that he wrote in nineteen thirty nine. It
(05:04):
was a letter to a twelve year old and the
letter says this, in the dusk of the evening, as
I stroked maccaques back, I saw a miracle that made
me speechless with amazement. Maccaux back was a sheet of light,
and my hand produced a shower of sparks, loud enough
to be heard all over the house. My mother seemed charmed.
Stop playing with this cat. She said he might start
(05:26):
a fire. But I was thinking, abstractly, is nature a
gigantic cat? If so, who strokes it's back? I cannot
exaggerate the effect of this marvelous night of my childish imagination.
Day after day I have asked myself, what is electricity?
How crazy? Is that. I can't get enough of that.
I love tesla quotes. I also just want a shirt
(05:48):
that says macaques back. That may be for Tristan next
time we do you want to on cats? All right? Man?
Go you got another one. So perhaps as important as
Tesla's interaction with cats is a new Icelandic reality show
called Keeping Up with the Cartassians cat Asians I guess.
(06:09):
The show is in partnership with the Icelandic Cat Protection
Society And basically it's just a bunch of fuzzballs roaming
around the meow manner and uh sitting in their bunk
beds and eating snacks in their kitchen and it's a
live feed. But it's actually raised the profile of sheltered
cats in Iceland, and it's up the number of adoptions
by making celebrities of the show stars. Wow. That seems actually,
(06:31):
that seems like a pretty positive thing. I like that spoof. Okay, Gay,
what's your next one? All right? So I want to
tell you about a particularly heroic cat, and it's it's
actually the only cat that's ever won the Dicken Medal.
And the Dicken Medal is an award. It's a British
award that was started to honor, you know, animal contributions
to the military. So it's this bronze medallion with an
(06:52):
inscription that says for gallantry, we also serve and the
medal was it's been awarded more than fifty times for
military service between nineteen and nineteen forty nine, and the
biggest recipient was actually pigeons. They've gotten it thirty two times,
and yeah, dogs got it eighteen times. And actually there
were three horses that have received it, but just one
(07:14):
single cat and his name was Simon, and he served
aboard the Royal Navy's HMS Amethyst in nineteen forty nine. Uh,
and that was a time when it came under a
heavy fire in a one hundred and one day siege
known as the Yankse Incident. And during the skirmish, Simon
contributed by protecting the food stores from rat infestation, and
(07:36):
although he was injured during the fighting, Simon continued to
fight and kill the rats, and after besting a particularly
bold and vicious rat, Simon was promoted. He received the
rank of able sea Cat, which is the feline equivalent
of able seamen, and sadly, Simon did die three weeks
after the ship returned to doc but he was buried
(07:58):
with full military honors and he received hundreds of pieces
of posthumous fan mail. That's a pretty great story, all right. Well,
speaking of cats with official titles, did you know that
Downing Street actually has an official chief mouser to the
Cabinet Office. So the British employee a cat to keep
ten Downing Street free of mice and actually the position
(08:19):
outlast the actual Prime minister's position. So when David Cameron
left office and Theresa May came in, she kept the
services of Larry, the brown and white tabby cap that
served as Cameron's chief mouser. Alright, Gay, what's your last
fact of the day? All right? So I have to
tell you about some mail cats. And I don't know
how we missed this on the Postal Service episode, but
(08:42):
there was actually a time where they tried to get
cats to deliver mail in Belgium. This was in the
eighteen seventies. A city in Belgium hired thirty seven cats
to deliver the mail, and messages are actually fastened around
their necks in these like waterproof bags, so you know,
citizens could communicate with sch other across the City and
the world eagerly watched the experiment, with the New York
(09:04):
Times reporting quote, unless the criminal class of dogs undertakes
to waylay and rob the mail cats, the messages will
be delivered with rapidity and safety. So and I don't
know about that actually, because one cat did make it
from his home in less than five hours, but other
to a day to make it back to their own houses.
(09:26):
So yeah, the experiment was short lived. That's great. I
don't know how we missed that one for that episode,
but thanks for bringing that one to our attention. Alright, mango,
you get the last fact of the day. Yeah, it
feels like we're on a bit of a government trend
with like Belgium and Dowling Streets. I'm actually gonna do
one on Abe Lincoln. And this is a rumor I
(09:46):
had heard a while back that he was a huge
cat lover because his famous account of Mary Todd Lincoln
getting asked if her husband had any hobbies and her
only answer was one word cats. But it turns out
there are actually other accounts of him liking cats as well.
And there's a Treasury official from the time, this guy
Menzel be Field, and he wrote in his memoirs, President
Lincoln quote possessed extraordinary kindness of heart when his feelings
(10:10):
could be reached, which sounds like a little bit of
shade there. But he also wrote he was fond of
dumb animals, especially cats. I've seen him fondle one for
an hour. I mean, of course, this is a time
before iPads an iPhone, so maybe people had more time
for their cats then. But but Lincoln was a cat lover. Wow,
I did not know that. Is that? Are you wearing
a cat shirt? I just noticed that under your jacket.
(10:34):
That's impressive. I fig interesting. Couldn't be the only one. Yeah, Gabe,
I know you had some good facts, but I am
so thrown by this, knowing that Mango and I are
both dog lovers, and he's got a cat on his shirt.
So I think I'm gonna have to give him the
crown for this one. Is that okay? By you? Fair enough?
Fair enough? Alright? Well, it was great catching up with you, Gabe,
and thank you guys for listening. We'll be back with
(10:55):
a full length episode tomorrow.
Guess what will what's that man go? So you know,
I'm pretty good at celebrating major holidays, like I always
take off for Christmas, I participated in Labor Day, I
I'll go look for a flag on Flag Day, all
the things. But this year, for some reason, we totally
forgot about National Cat Hurd's Day on December. Oh no,
(00:20):
you're kidding. Actually we've been talking about this for months.
That's so embarrassing, I know. But you know, hurting cats
is a bit of a joke, right, and you can't
actually heard cats, So the holiday is this sympathetic day
set up for anyone who has sort of an impossible
task ahead of them. But I was starting to look
into the idea of actually hurting cats, and what you
(00:42):
find in your research just that they have no interest
in it. Cats obviously never lived in packs, so hurting
doesn't come naturally to them. And also there was this
Japanese study that found that cats are very good at
recognizing their owner's voice, like they play it from them
and they actually recognize it. But if you're calling them,
they just don't care, like the study actually said that,
(01:04):
so they rarely move when they're called. That's pretty great.
Because National Cat Herder's Day was this week, we thought
we couldn't let it pass without at least sharing a
bunch of facts about cats. So why don't we dive in.
(01:32):
Welcome to part time Genius. I'm Will Pearson and as
always I'm joined by my good friend Man Guesh Ticketer
and sitting behind that soundproof glass wearing a rum Tom
Tugger shirt. Wow, that's impressive. From the musical Cats. Of course,
that's our Palin producer Tristan McNeil. Also on the line,
we've got our friend Gabe Louisier. Gabe, how are you doing?
Doing great? Guys? Thanks for having me on. Yeah. So
(01:53):
Mango and I are at a bit of a disadvantage
here because we're both dog people. So I'm curious, are
you a cat person? I am? Yeah, I am a
card carrying cat person. U. Yeah. You know, I appreciate
when I look at an animal. I like I like
that feeling of having something looking back at me, you know,
like that spark of intelligence there that you sometimes don't
(02:15):
get with a dog. I don't want you to read
too much into it, but I totally knew Gay would
be a cat person. Did Yeah? I totally knew gay
would be all right, well gay. Because of that, I
think we're gonna let you go first with your your
first fact about cats. What you got? Okay? Awesome? Um
So yeah, this goes right in line with the whole
(02:35):
intelligent cat thing. So unlike dogs, which are believed to
have been domesticated by kind of nomadic hunters during the
Ice age, um, they fed them scraps of wooly mammoth
to kind of keep them around and get them to
follow them on their hunting parties. So i'm dogs, though,
cats domesticated themselves, and all domesticated cats descend from this. Uh,
(02:57):
These Middle Eastern wildcats um, which in Latin are called
the felice silvestress or the cat of the woods. And
the cats weren't coaxed out of the woods by you know,
humans who wanted companionship or anything like that. They actually
invited themselves into our grain storehouses. And that was because
of all the abundance of mice in there, and the
(03:18):
relationship with humans just kind of grew out of that. Wow,
that's pretty cool. I've never heard that before. Yeah, I
didn't realize they let themselves into our house. That's almost
more terrifying. Yea is not making me less scared of cats. Well,
another fact that will not make me any less scared
of cats is that studies have actually shown that cats do,
in fact prefer women. You know, you see in pop
(03:38):
culture in other places, these cat ladies, And I guess
there is a reason for that. So in one study,
cats with female owners initiated more interactions than cats with
male owners, including approaching them more and jumping on their laps.
So it is true, I'm still scared of cat all right, mango,
what's your fact? So? I think one president who would
(03:59):
have just agreed with your fact that cats prefer women
is Old Silent cal Coolidge. Yeah. So he had a
number of White House cats, including Timmy, Blackie, Smokey and
Tiger a k a. Tigy, who was also his favorite
and Heat often just parade around the White House with
Tiger draped around his neck. But the craziest part is
(04:19):
what chaos that caused when Tiger was missing in so
Coolidge first sent out his staff to look, and then
he sent the DC police, and then he sent the
Secret Surface. Yeah, he basically treated like a crisis and
when they eventually found him Tiger was equipped with this
new collar that said my name is Tiger. I live
at Pennsylvania Avenue. Somebody had put that on it. No,
(04:44):
that's what that's what Coolidge insisted. Wow, that's pretty great.
All right, Well, there was actually a pretty great quote
about cats from Tesla. So it turns out that Tesla
was inspired to research electricity after his cat shocked him.
So he had a cat named Macaque. And there's a
great letter that he wrote in nineteen thirty nine. It
(05:04):
was a letter to a twelve year old and the
letter says this, in the dusk of the evening, as
I stroked maccaques back, I saw a miracle that made
me speechless with amazement. Maccaux back was a sheet of light,
and my hand produced a shower of sparks, loud enough
to be heard all over the house. My mother seemed charmed.
Stop playing with this cat. She said he might start
(05:26):
a fire. But I was thinking, abstractly, is nature a
gigantic cat? If so, who strokes it's back? I cannot
exaggerate the effect of this marvelous night of my childish imagination.
Day after day I have asked myself, what is electricity?
How crazy? Is that. I can't get enough of that.
I love tesla quotes. I also just want a shirt
(05:48):
that says macaques back. That may be for Tristan next
time we do you want to on cats? All right? Man?
Go you got another one. So perhaps as important as
Tesla's interaction with cats is a new Icelandic reality show
called Keeping Up with the Cartassians cat Asians I guess.
(06:09):
The show is in partnership with the Icelandic Cat Protection
Society And basically it's just a bunch of fuzzballs roaming
around the meow manner and uh sitting in their bunk
beds and eating snacks in their kitchen and it's a
live feed. But it's actually raised the profile of sheltered
cats in Iceland, and it's up the number of adoptions
by making celebrities of the show stars. Wow. That seems actually,
(06:31):
that seems like a pretty positive thing. I like that spoof. Okay, Gay,
what's your next one? All right? So I want to
tell you about a particularly heroic cat, and it's it's
actually the only cat that's ever won the Dicken Medal.
And the Dicken Medal is an award. It's a British
award that was started to honor, you know, animal contributions
to the military. So it's this bronze medallion with an
(06:52):
inscription that says for gallantry, we also serve and the
medal was it's been awarded more than fifty times for
military service between nineteen and nineteen forty nine, and the
biggest recipient was actually pigeons. They've gotten it thirty two times,
and yeah, dogs got it eighteen times. And actually there
were three horses that have received it, but just one
(07:14):
single cat and his name was Simon, and he served
aboard the Royal Navy's HMS Amethyst in nineteen forty nine. Uh,
and that was a time when it came under a
heavy fire in a one hundred and one day siege
known as the Yankse Incident. And during the skirmish, Simon
contributed by protecting the food stores from rat infestation, and
(07:36):
although he was injured during the fighting, Simon continued to
fight and kill the rats, and after besting a particularly
bold and vicious rat, Simon was promoted. He received the
rank of able sea Cat, which is the feline equivalent
of able seamen, and sadly, Simon did die three weeks
after the ship returned to doc but he was buried
(07:58):
with full military honors and he received hundreds of pieces
of posthumous fan mail. That's a pretty great story, all right. Well,
speaking of cats with official titles, did you know that
Downing Street actually has an official chief mouser to the
Cabinet Office. So the British employee a cat to keep
ten Downing Street free of mice and actually the position
(08:19):
outlast the actual Prime minister's position. So when David Cameron
left office and Theresa May came in, she kept the
services of Larry, the brown and white tabby cap that
served as Cameron's chief mouser. Alright, Gay, what's your last
fact of the day? All right? So I have to
tell you about some mail cats. And I don't know
how we missed this on the Postal Service episode, but
(08:42):
there was actually a time where they tried to get
cats to deliver mail in Belgium. This was in the
eighteen seventies. A city in Belgium hired thirty seven cats
to deliver the mail, and messages are actually fastened around
their necks in these like waterproof bags, so you know,
citizens could communicate with sch other across the City and
the world eagerly watched the experiment, with the New York
(09:04):
Times reporting quote, unless the criminal class of dogs undertakes
to waylay and rob the mail cats, the messages will
be delivered with rapidity and safety. So and I don't
know about that actually, because one cat did make it
from his home in less than five hours, but other
to a day to make it back to their own houses.
(09:26):
So yeah, the experiment was short lived. That's great. I
don't know how we missed that one for that episode,
but thanks for bringing that one to our attention. Alright, mango,
you get the last fact of the day. Yeah, it
feels like we're on a bit of a government trend
with like Belgium and Dowling Streets. I'm actually gonna do
one on Abe Lincoln. And this is a rumor I
(09:46):
had heard a while back that he was a huge
cat lover because his famous account of Mary Todd Lincoln
getting asked if her husband had any hobbies and her
only answer was one word cats. But it turns out
there are actually other accounts of him liking cats as well.
And there's a Treasury official from the time, this guy
Menzel be Field, and he wrote in his memoirs, President
Lincoln quote possessed extraordinary kindness of heart when his feelings
(10:10):
could be reached, which sounds like a little bit of
shade there. But he also wrote he was fond of
dumb animals, especially cats. I've seen him fondle one for
an hour. I mean, of course, this is a time
before iPads an iPhone, so maybe people had more time
for their cats then. But but Lincoln was a cat lover. Wow,
I did not know that. Is that? Are you wearing
a cat shirt? I just noticed that under your jacket.
(10:34):
That's impressive. I fig interesting. Couldn't be the only one. Yeah, Gabe,
I know you had some good facts, but I am
so thrown by this, knowing that Mango and I are
both dog lovers, and he's got a cat on his shirt.
So I think I'm gonna have to give him the
crown for this one. Is that okay? By you? Fair enough?
Fair enough? Alright? Well, it was great catching up with you, Gabe,
and thank you guys for listening. We'll be back with
(10:55):
a full length episode tomorrow.
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