0:01

The story I'm about to tell you is

0:03

a cautionary tale.

0:10

In October twenty four, I

0:13

made an appearance on The Tonight Show with

0:15

Jay Leno to promote my book

0:17

on presidential paste about them Come

0:19

out Here More Rocket lad. But

0:21

it's not my appearance on the show that

0:23

I regret. It's what happened

0:26

next. After

0:29

the taping, I went back to my hotel in

0:31

Universal City. I hadn't eaten

0:33

dinner, and the hotel restaurant was

0:35

offering a seafood buffet.

0:39

I can still see it now, a

0:41

sort of banquet table with tears

0:44

of crab legs. I'm pretty

0:46

sure there were oysters and

0:49

dominating the landscape, a

0:51

mountain of shrimp, a

0:53

glistening pink pyramid.

0:56

How could I resist? By

0:58

the time I was on that evening, that

1:01

bounty of shrimp was less of

1:03

a pyramid and more of a mound.

1:07

The next morning, I flew back East,

1:10

happy as a well clam, but

1:13

somewhere over the Midwest I started

1:15

experiencing turbulence and

1:18

inner turbulence. The

1:20

choppiness subsided only after

1:23

thirty six hours in and

1:25

out of bed, and I knew

1:27

what was to blame for my condition until

1:32

that point in my life, I was pro buffet,

1:35

and I thought, I can't believe that I did that.

1:37

Everyone was exhaling on the shrimp,

1:40

and I don't want to eat other people's

1:42

exhale.

1:43

Right, But probably that came

1:45

from bad shrimp, not a human breath.

1:48

It could have been other shrimp's breath. It

1:50

could have been other shrimp's breath. I mean, let's

1:52

talk about that. Everyone

1:56

can name something they'd like to see vanished

1:58

from the earth. I'm guessing famine,

2:01

disease, war top most

2:03

lists. But what are the things

2:06

just below those that you wish

2:08

would disappear me? I

2:11

have at least three, one

2:13

of which made the list that very night

2:15

in twenty oh four.

2:17

That kind of buffet, the sticky tongs

2:19

and the you know, you see somebody who just like

2:21

dug around to the back of the macaroni

2:24

and cheese try to get like the very best in the back,

2:26

and then it's all kind of growed it out, and it's,

2:28

oh yeah.

2:30

The second thing on my list. Well,

2:32

I've never complained when an audience has

2:34

applauded me like they did that night on Leno,

2:40

But there's a certain kind of intense,

2:42

exaggerated reaction that

2:45

over the last few years has become

2:47

all but meaningless.

2:49

Standing ovations are a bit like an avalanche.

2:51

Fun person stands and then a

2:54

few other people think, Oh, well, I guess we're

2:56

standing.

2:58

And please don't make me raise my voice

3:00

to tell you about the third thing on

3:03

my list that really works my nerves.

3:06

It's a blight on any neighborhood. It's

3:09

war without our permission.

3:13

On this podcast, we've paid

3:15

tribute to beloved entertainers

3:18

and courageous change makers, sitcom

3:21

characters gone without a trace, even

3:24

iconic college campus trees,

3:27

people and things that deserve

3:29

to live on in the collective memory.

3:31

But today I want to talk about

3:33

three things that I really just

3:36

wish would die already from

3:40

CBS Sunday Morning and iHeart.

3:43

I'm Morocca and this is

3:45

mobituaries this

3:53

moment things I wish would

3:55

die Buffets, standing,

3:59

ovation, and noise.

4:10

I was looking at this video

4:13

of a clan of hyenas

4:16

feasting on an elephant carcass, and I

4:18

thought, is there something in our nature

4:20

that makes us want to gather around

4:23

this trough of food and just go

4:25

for it?

4:26

Remind me not to go out to dinner with you?

4:28

Mo.

4:29

But is there an animalistic nature

4:31

to eating at a buffet? Probably, certainly

4:34

at some of the buffets I saw there is

4:36

that.

4:38

That's Kim Severson. She's

4:40

a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist who

4:42

writes about food and culture for The

4:44

New York Times. She's written

4:47

about the unexpected comeback

4:49

of the buffet. Let me ask you, didn't

4:51

we think the pandemic would kill

4:53

buffets?

4:54

Absolutely, that is absolutely

4:57

the surprise of the post pandemic

4:59

era. I just thought they would never come back.

5:02

Buffets did get creamed early

5:04

in the pandemic, but the Golden

5:06

Corral chain says their business

5:08

shot back up twenty percent

5:11

between twenty twenty one and twenty

5:13

twenty two.

5:14

Maybe the fact that people had

5:17

to be so distant from their food and other people,

5:19

they've overcompensated by really going

5:22

hardcore on the buffet. They're like, damn it, I

5:24

just want to get my prime rib and

5:26

my all you can eat crab.

5:28

Oh.

5:28

I'm sorry, I just don't want whooping cough

5:30

with my Waldorf salad.

5:32

Okay.

5:33

I can hear a lot of you saying what is

5:35

most problem with buffets? So

5:38

let me be clear. What makes me uneasy?

5:41

Are the entirely self served

5:43

buffets. They're sometimes known as

5:45

hot open food bars, where there

5:47

is no one standing between the food

5:50

and the mob, no food professionals

5:52

on active duty. That irks

5:55

me because, let's face it, people

5:57

myself included, revert to

5:59

our natural state when there's

6:01

not a lady in a hairnet brandishing

6:03

a ladle and glaring at us to mind

6:05

our manners.

6:07

And some people actually take little tastes along

6:09

the way with their fingers. Oh they do. Oh,

6:11

Oh, I'm so sorry.

6:12

Do you need a minute?

6:14

This is the only interview where I've needed a spit bucket.

6:17

I'm so sorry.

6:19

Am I being totally rational here? Of

6:21

course I'm not. Plenty

6:25

of full service restaurants, even

6:28

very popular ones, have food safety

6:30

issues. But when I'm holding a pair

6:32

of sticky tongs that one hundred other strangers

6:35

have touched and looking at a bin of gloopy

6:38

mystery meat, I start

6:40

imagining things. The look,

6:42

that glistening look of

6:45

congealed meat. It's

6:47

not about the taste or even the smell,

6:50

but it almost looks like what I imagine the La

6:52

Brea tar pits look like.

6:54

And this it's really just sells for a steak,

6:56

But how do you know? You don't know.

7:00

Of course, buffets are probably as old

7:02

as those tar pets. When in human

7:05

history, to self serve buffets

7:07

emerge.

7:08

We have to imagine that there have

7:10

always been occasions

7:13

in which a lot of food would be cooked and

7:15

put out and people would eat it. But I think as

7:17

a formal style of restaurant eating,

7:19

we can go to Sweden and the Smorgasboard.

7:23

Sweden hosted the Olympics in nineteen twelve,

7:25

and everybody was so thrilled that

7:28

they had this thing called Smorgasboard

7:30

that you could just go and help yourself.

7:33

Now, the Smorgas board wasn't for pegging

7:35

out originally for the upper

7:37

classes. It was more of a refined

7:40

spread, typically composed

7:42

of cheeses, cured meats, fish

7:44

like herring, flatbreads, and sweets.

7:47

You might remember us mentioning this Smorgas

7:49

board earlier this season, in

7:51

the Jim Thorpe episode he triumphed

7:54

at those nineteen twelve games. You

7:57

might also remember the Smorgas board from

7:59

the Buppet show More

8:02

Bizergh.

8:05

They're going to get that Swedish chef someday.

8:08

Who is the Smorgasboard of

8:10

Hell? Anyway,

8:13

the smorgasboard made a splash on American

8:15

shores. At the nineteen thirty nine

8:17

World's Fair in New York City. Visitors

8:21

were reportedly spellbound

8:23

by the vast rotating table

8:25

festooned with Swedish delicacies.

8:29

It was basically a giant lazy Susan.

8:31

And who doesn't love a lazy Susan? But

8:34

how did that evolve into the buffet

8:36

as we know it today, Well, it takes rout

8:38

as this will not come as a surprise to people.

8:40

But in Las Vegas in the forties and

8:43

there was this idea that somehow

8:45

we've got to keep people inside

8:47

the casino. The story

8:50

goes that a man named Herb McDonald,

8:52

the publicist for the l Rancho Vegas

8:54

casino, was working late one night

8:56

when he began feeling peckish. He

8:59

grabbed some che es and cold cuts from

9:01

the kitchen and laid them out on the bar to make

9:03

a sandwich. When some hungry gamblers

9:05

asked to partake, Herb

9:08

had an idea, and in nineteen

9:10

forty six he debuted his Bukaroo

9:12

buffet and all you can eat buffet

9:15

for one dollar.

9:17

This idea that you could keep gamblers

9:20

in your casino started off with

9:22

just some sandwiches, and then it became all

9:24

you can eat and everything you want and

9:27

you never have to leave the casino. And

9:29

they were very cheap. They were lost leaders and

9:31

remained lost leaders in Vegas for a long

9:34

time until the celebrity chef era

9:36

happened.

9:37

By the nineteen eighties, buffets

9:39

had spread across the country.

9:41

They were featured on cruise ships and in

9:43

fast food chains like Pizza Hut.

9:46

So if you want the whole hut and.

9:47

Nothing but you know what to

9:50

do. Fine

9:53

dining restaurants embraced them. My

9:55

first fancy buffet was at a hotel

9:58

on Easter Sunday Fay.

10:00

It turned out was a manifestation of

10:02

American values.

10:04

Americans love excess, right,

10:06

we love big things. We love

10:08

choice, and the buffets are the perfect example

10:11

of that.

10:11

Right.

10:11

You mentioned choice, and I want to play

10:14

a piece of a promotional video for

10:16

Sizzler that was produced in nineteen ninety one.

10:19

All across America, the

10:22

song three Rings.

10:25

The song is growing stronger

10:28

every day.

10:30

So this video is about five minutes

10:32

long. It's heavy on Americana.

10:35

There's a smiling construction worker,

10:38

a little girl swinging a baseball bat,

10:40

a golden retriever catching a frisbee.

10:43

It feels like a campaign ad. Sizzler

10:46

brings the choices that

10:48

you've been looking for, giving

10:52

you the right to choose. We're

10:54

offering much more. And

10:57

then the requisite key change as

10:59

the jingles swells into a Sizzler

11:02

an amney. There

11:07

are golden, huge shots of couples

11:10

and families dining. They

11:12

aren't simply happy, they're in ecstasy.

11:15

Some of them might actually be on ecstasy.

11:18

A woman is maniacally licking her

11:20

lips. A couple begins making

11:22

out at the Sissler. That's

11:25

what the freedom and choice of a

11:27

buffet will do to you.

11:39

Unbelievable. How fabulous

11:42

is that?

11:42

I keep thinking, like, oh my god, did I remember to register

11:45

to vote? Like it feels very

11:47

It's right, it's don't stop believing.

11:49

But a buffet commercial. You know, the

11:52

video may be over the top, but

11:54

Kim points out that the buffet restaurant

11:56

really is more than just a place

11:59

to eat.

12:00

I love them and I also can't stand them at the same

12:02

time. But the buffet became such a piece

12:04

of cultural currency for kids, and they can still

12:06

remember when their families were going to celebrate

12:09

something, they would all go to the hometown

12:11

buffet because you could feel celebratory

12:13

and it wasn't going to cost a lot of money. And

12:15

also for kids who were second generation,

12:18

their parents were immigrants, the buffet

12:20

became kind of a roadmap for how to eat in

12:22

America. And I think for those parents it

12:25

was like, Okay, we're going to go learn to eat

12:27

whatever the American food is. Here a

12:30

good friend of mine whose parents

12:32

came from Taiwana and she was raised in Ohio

12:35

by these first gen immigrants. The day

12:37

they all got their green cards, they went to the buffet

12:39

to celebrate.

12:40

Now I appreciate all of this, unless

12:43

you, the listener, think I'm a killjoy

12:46

or curmudgeon. I want to make one

12:48

point very clear. I

12:50

want to draw a distinction between

12:52

cafeterias and buffets. I

12:54

am very pro cafeteria.

12:57

Really, Okay, okay, what's the difference to you?

12:59

Then?

13:00

A cafeteria to me, is

13:03

where you have someone

13:06

policing the situation. So I loved

13:08

growing up there was I grew up in the Washington, DC area,

13:11

there was something called hot Shops cafeteria,

13:14

and at hot Shops we cook our chickens.

13:16

So They're always tendered, juicy and delicious,

13:19

and I have fond memories

13:22

of grabbing my tray feeling so

13:24

empowered, going along the line,

13:27

the carving station with

13:29

the side of roast beef, the individually

13:31

plated slices of lemon meringue

13:33

pie. I felt safe, and

13:36

I felt secure because there

13:38

were people with plastic gloves and hairnets

13:40

on the other side, and even if I could

13:42

grab something on my own, I

13:45

knew that there was a watchful eye. And

13:48

I feel like the buffet,

13:50

on the other hand, is small

13:53

de democracy brought to its extreme.

13:55

I'm not saying that I want a cafeteria police

13:58

state. I'm not saying that. I think

14:00

the key to it with the cafeterias that everything

14:02

was individually played. That's why I really

14:04

respond to that.

14:05

And there's a cleanliness factor for sure.

14:08

I'm sorry, I just don't want tuberculosis

14:10

with my chicken tetrazini. Ultimately,

14:16

I'm grateful to live at a time and in

14:18

a country with buffets and

14:20

cafeterias, because no

14:22

one wants to be told what they can and

14:25

can't eat.

14:27

You're a perfect example of that in a way. Right

14:29

you know what you want and what you don't want, and

14:31

what you will eat and what you won't.

14:32

Eat, And well, I know one thing I

14:35

don't want, heppatitis with my hash Browns.

14:37

I think that's fair. I think that's fair.

14:40

A final word. The producer of this

14:42

episode tells me she now has serious

14:45

second thoughts about eating at

14:47

her workplaces. Open food bar. You're

14:50

welcome, Liz. On the other

14:52

side of the break.

14:53

Whoo whoo, sing the trolley song

14:55

again, Yes, queen, Yes.

15:10

Do you remember your first standing

15:12

ovation? I'll never forget my first standing

15:14

ovation. This is my friend Eric

15:16

Meir. You might remember him from our episode

15:19

on Fanny Brice. Eric's a

15:21

culture critic with the Hudson Review, and

15:24

he's back to talk about the second thing

15:26

I wish would die, the obligatory

15:29

standing ovation.

15:31

It was e Liza Minellian concert

15:33

at the Airy Crown Theater in Chicago around

15:36

nineteen eighty. I

15:38

was a teenager who had seen

15:40

the movie Cabaret about six times,

15:42

and at the end of the concert, everybody

15:45

stood, and I thought to myself, oh

15:47

my god, she was so amazing that she

15:50

literally forced people onto their

15:52

feet, as if she levitated

15:54

them out of their seats. I had never seen

15:56

something like that before.

16:04

Okay, first of all, it's a parent that you were

16:06

exactly the right person to bring in here to

16:08

talk about this, because you have this

16:10

memory from over forty years ago.

16:13

So what was motivating you to

16:15

stand up? Was it her performance

16:18

or everybody else standing?

16:19

It was everybody else standing because I didn't know

16:21

that was a thing that you could do at the

16:23

time. But I hadn't seen

16:25

a lot of theater other than community

16:28

theater and that kind of thing, and no one stood at

16:30

the stagecoach players. But

16:33

back in the seventies, people didn't

16:35

really stand, even if

16:37

they loved the show. There were exceptions, but it

16:40

required a certain kind of performance

16:42

and a certain kind of performer to get people on their

16:44

feet.

16:44

That, of course, is now all changed.

16:47

It certainly has changed. Today.

16:50

A standing ovation at the end of a theatrical

16:52

performance or at an awards show

16:55

has become almost routine. It

16:57

wasn't so long ago that a standing

17:00

ovation was extraordinary.

17:03

And let it be said that number eight cal

17:05

Ripkin Junior has reached

17:08

the unreachable Star.

17:10

The unreachable Star is a reference

17:12

to the impossible dream from

17:15

the musical Man of La Mancha. But

17:17

this standing ovation in nineteen eighty

17:19

five wasn't in a theater. It

17:21

was in a ballpark. For Baltimore

17:23

Orioles player Cal Ripkin Junior.

17:26

He'd just broken Lou Garrigg's

17:28

record for playing the most consecutive

17:31

Major League Baseball games ever two

17:34

thousand, one hundred and thirty one to

17:36

be exact. I

17:41

remember when this happened, and trust me,

17:43

you don't have to be a baseball fan to watch

17:46

tape of this and be moved by

17:48

the show of respect and admiration

17:51

for a man who'd shown such devotion

17:53

to his livelihood. The ovation

17:55

was completely organic, and at

17:58

twenty two minutes yep, twenty

18:00

two minutes, it was the longest

18:03

known standing ovation in American

18:05

public life. Contrast

18:08

this with a standing ovation a decade

18:10

later that matched the twenty two

18:12

minute Rippken record. In

18:20

twenty oh six, the audience at the

18:23

can Film Festival in France applauded

18:25

for about that long after a screening

18:28

of the movie Pans Labyrinth, but

18:31

the director, Guillermo del Toro

18:33

seemed less flattered and more

18:35

confused by the reaction.

18:38

It lasted long enough that

18:40

I didn't know what to do.

18:42

This standing ovation, like so

18:44

many, it can felt unfelt.

18:49

So I think what happened to Ken is something

18:51

that also we could maybe say

18:54

has happened in the theater, and that is that there's

18:56

a certain aspect of standing ovations that are performative,

18:59

where the audience wants to prove

19:02

to everyone around them that they are

19:04

appreciating what's happening and are

19:06

sort of part of the experience.

19:09

No doubt, audiences of the past

19:11

would be mystified by audiences

19:14

of today, and vice

19:16

versa.

19:17

We would probably look at audience behavior

19:19

one hundred and fifty or two hundred years ago, let

19:21

alone five hundred or two thousand years

19:23

ago, and not recognize what

19:26

was being done.

19:27

There's so much we don't know about.

19:29

Greek theater, but we get a

19:31

sense from contemporary descriptions

19:33

that there was an intense identification between

19:36

the audience and what was happening on stage. So there

19:38

would be a lot of sort of expressive

19:41

reaction, crying, wailing,

19:43

shouting and so forth. Wailing and shouting,

19:46

right, you know, because these were

19:48

very tragic stories often being told or else

19:50

riots laughter at the comedies. But

19:53

we don't have any sense of whether people

19:55

stood at the end or not. There's no document

19:58

of that kind of thing. Remember, in Shakespeare's

20:01

time, most of the audience stood for the entire

20:03

performance, so a standing ovation would have been

20:05

redundant.

20:06

Goodness God, it's sort of crazy that I

20:08

think. I mean, I know it would have been redundant. But

20:10

you know that Julius Caesar didn't

20:12

get a standing ovation, and the Gloria Estefan

20:15

musical On your Feet got a standing ovation, which,

20:17

by the way, I liked, I actually really liked it. Do

20:19

you think they by the way, do you think they titled it on

20:21

your Feet to get people on their.

20:22

Eata and sort of a self fulfilling prophecy.

20:25

It wasn't until the eighteenth century

20:28

that audiences began even clapping

20:30

in a theater. Around this time, in

20:32

Italy, opera fans probably

20:34

began standing for exceptional performances.

20:38

Theater historians tend to agree

20:41

that the standing ovation emerged in

20:43

its current form on Broadway in

20:45

the years after World War Two.

20:48

So what happens in the nineteen sixties,

20:50

and I have to reference our friend Ethan

20:52

Warden here, who has written about this quite a bit. There's

20:55

a new phenomenon of what we might

20:57

call the big Lady shows, where musicals

21:00

in particular are built around

21:03

specific star performers, and

21:06

the early examples of that are, of course shows

21:09

like Hello Dolly or Mame, where

21:12

we see a phenomenon

21:14

of people buying tickets because

21:17

you have to see Carl Channing and Hello Dolly,

21:19

or you have to see Angela Lansbury in Maine.

21:31

In the years before these big Lady shows,

21:33

the curtain call that's when performers

21:36

take their bows was short and

21:38

to the point.

21:39

Up through the nineteen fifties, even shows like

21:41

My Fair Lady that were massive hits,

21:43

there's about two and a half minutes of curtain call

21:46

music, which means that everybody

21:48

came on the leads, took

21:50

a few solo bows, and everybody got

21:52

off pretty quickly.

21:54

There's not enough time to stand up for Julie

21:56

Andrews and Richard Burton and Robert Gulay and correct

21:59

Camelot exactly.

22:01

But by the time you get to Hello Dolly, there's

22:03

a fully staged curtain call. And this is something

22:06

that the director, GOWERT. Champion, really

22:08

wanted to do. It's not just everybody's

22:11

shuffle on, bow bow, bow, shuffle

22:13

off.

22:25

It's a choreographed

22:28

curtain call with music that

22:30

is deliberately written to build

22:32

the tension up until the moment

22:34

that Caryl Channing comes down those

22:37

stairs one more time for

22:39

that final bow.

22:41

Producers began doing what they could

22:43

to guarantee a standing ovation.

22:46

And I actually know this because

22:49

we have a mutual friend, Bart, who was

22:51

hired straight out of college by

22:54

the producers of the Hello Dolly revival

22:57

in nineteen ninety five with

23:00

Carol Channing, with Carol Channing her final

23:02

Dolly performances, to sit in the

23:04

second row at every

23:07

single performance and start the standing

23:09

ovation.

23:10

At the end.

23:10

So he was a plant.

23:12

He was a plant.

23:13

He stood, and then

23:15

it becomes a cascading phenomenon,

23:17

which standing ovations are a bit like an avalanche

23:20

quicksidebar.

23:21

Along with ovation inflation has

23:24

come a new way of vocalizing

23:26

appreciation for a performance. No

23:28

more Bravo or encore.

23:31

Now, no matter what kind of show you're seeing,

23:34

you're likely to hear woo.

23:37

The WU is a fairly recent

23:39

phenomenon.

23:39

And it's horrible. I

23:42

mean, it is just awful, the

23:44

WU phenomenon. It's a scourge.

23:46

I think the woof phenomenon is something that comes

23:49

from audiences

23:51

who attend as much

23:53

pop music as they do theater these days,

23:55

and they've brought that sensibility into

23:58

the theater.

23:59

Not long ago, Eric went to a performance

24:01

of a small chamber musical serious

24:04

in tone, and still.

24:07

There was a significant portion

24:09

of the audience and I'm gonna stereotype

24:11

them as being people under the age of thirty who

24:14

were wooing or even

24:17

saying yes in

24:19

the middle of the numbers, being

24:21

performed like a yazz queen kind

24:23

of thing, Right, yeah, or you

24:25

know, saying it that kind of thing. You're

24:27

kidding me, right, And let me clarify

24:30

that I in no way endorse

24:33

wooing during the performance of

24:35

the song after

24:38

the singer has finished. Wooing

24:40

is acceptable to me. But

24:43

wooing a high note to the middle of the song,

24:45

I do find obnoxious.

24:46

A wooing a high note. That's horrendous

24:48

to do that. Now,

24:51

let's venture beyond theater on

24:53

television. The Oscars are handy

24:55

barometer of how commonplace standing

24:58

ovations have become. I

25:00

still remember the nineteen eighty five

25:02

Oscars telecast when

25:05

Jack Lemon introduced Lord

25:07

Lawrence Olivier to present the

25:09

Best Picture winner. Olivier

25:11

wasn't receiving an award, but his very

25:14

presence brought the crowd to

25:16

its feet. Olivier himself

25:18

was overcome and forgot to

25:20

name the nominees.

25:22

And the winner for this is.

25:26

I'm adeus.

25:29

Nowadays, of course, it seems

25:31

like there's usually about six or seven

25:33

standing ovations at each Oscar

25:36

ceremony.

25:37

Will Smith got a standing ovation after he hit

25:39

someone.

25:39

That what he did indeed, and I sort of feel like, you

25:41

know, the appreciation is the award. You

25:43

don't need the standing ovation as well. You're holding

25:45

an Oscar in your hand. That's the win to

25:48

me.

25:48

The corollary to the standing ovation is

25:50

the exclamation point and the

25:53

use of it.

25:54

That is something that is certainly a factor

25:56

of our digital age that I became

25:59

really aware of how often I was using

26:01

exclamation points in emails.

26:03

But it's an arms race, and I

26:05

don't like, you're great.

26:08

Next time I email you, I don't want

26:10

to not use an exclamation point because

26:12

I would worry that you think I'm

26:14

upset at you or for something.

26:16

The exclamation point is the new period, and

26:18

the double exclamation point is the new exclamation

26:20

point. You have to use two or three now

26:22

to indicate that you really are

26:25

exclaiming this and not just

26:27

stating it.

26:28

What can we do about this?

26:31

It's that

26:33

rock has started to roll down the hill, and there's no

26:35

way to get it to stop.

26:36

I think likewise, there

26:39

may be no standing up to

26:41

the standing ovation.

26:43

Times change, and the way we express

26:45

appreciation evolves with time,

26:48

and so we are at a stage

26:50

now where the standing ovation is obligatory, and

26:52

we can choose to fight that or just

26:54

to accept it. And I've

26:56

come to a place of acceptance.

27:00

I don't love it in my heart, but I

27:02

accept it with my brain.

27:04

You've opened my mind, though, Okay, but

27:06

I'll never be okay with wooing.

27:09

No, this was amazing.

27:11

Whoo coming

27:14

up, it's gonna get a little

27:16

loud. Hey

27:27

there among the number two train headed

27:29

uptown right now, I

27:31

said, mail, which.

27:33

I'm sure.

27:37

It's no surprise that New York City,

27:39

the city I call home, is a noisy

27:41

place. This

27:44

is my piece of work,

27:48

so it should come as no surprise that

27:50

the third thing I'd like to die is

27:52

noise. Maybe

27:55

it's getting older, maybe it's my tinatus

27:58

that ringing in my ears, But more

28:00

and more I value quiet. Honestly,

28:03

if the library opened to a restaurant, I'd

28:05

be the first to make a reservation. But

28:08

I also realized that noise is

28:10

subjective.

28:11

I don't think there's a universal definition

28:14

of noise. It depends on where you are,

28:16

who you are, and when you're doing the

28:18

listening.

28:19

That's Mark Smith. He's a history

28:22

professor at the University of South

28:24

Carolina, where he specializes

28:26

in something called sensory history.

28:29

He teaches his students not just

28:31

what the past looked like, but

28:33

what it smelled, tasted, and sounded

28:36

like. And oh, how I wish I'd been

28:38

able to take his course when I was in college.

28:41

Okay, so sound is often associated

28:44

as a positive thing, right. Noise

28:46

is considered to be sound out of

28:48

time. That is to say, something that you could

28:51

hear during the day happens

28:53

at two o'clock in the morning and it suddenly becomes

28:55

noise. And that's what noise ordinances

28:57

are usually about.

28:59

Now there's nothing about people grumbling

29:01

about noise, and we've got

29:03

seven decades of CBS news archives

29:06

to prove it. There's

29:09

the burglar alarm in Maryland that went

29:11

off for five days.

29:13

I'm taking eight hundred milligrams of motor

29:15

and that puts me right to sleep because you hear it constantly.

29:18

And the New Orleans jazz residents

29:20

who sued their city for get this

29:23

loud street jazz.

29:25

Just imagine your own house if you wake

29:27

up and there's a large brass band out

29:29

there, and it's there every day, eight

29:32

to ten hours a day, seven days

29:34

a week. Back in the eighties,

29:36

when boomboxes were booming, there

29:38

was the campaign for radio free zones.

29:41

In New York. There are fines

29:43

for violators up to fifty dollars.

29:45

I've been coming here every day, my radio man, my take

29:48

Santana's greatest hits.

29:49

You know it's a cave and play it.

29:51

And later on the valiant fight

29:53

against leaf blowers in northern

29:55

California.

29:57

It's a blight on any neighborhood. It's

30:00

war without our permission.

30:04

Quick aside, that voice you just heard

30:07

is Julie Newmar TV's original

30:09

Catwoman.

30:10

This is my night to Howe back then, because

30:13

tonight you are the mice and I am

30:15

the cat.

30:16

And then there's the Virginia dog who

30:18

was sentenced to death for barking.

30:21

They were just bark, bark, bark, bark, balks.

30:26

I don't believe it.

30:27

That's the CBS eving news for this Friday day and

30:29

rather reporting from New York and hoping you have a good weekend.

30:32

Don't worry. The ruling was overturned

30:34

and backs went free. But what do

30:36

we know about what kept people awake

30:39

before sound recorded history?

30:41

I suspect for most of human history, the

30:44

loudest noise before the

30:46

modern era that anybody would have heard would

30:48

have been thunder.

30:50

That's Mark Smith, again, our sensory

30:52

historian. I asked him to take

30:54

us back in time. What about

30:56

the sounds that the early settlers

30:59

in a manner America from Europe heard.

31:02

So bells, for example, can

31:04

be found in the earliest colonial

31:07

villages, and those bells are marking

31:10

Western civilization as they hear

31:12

it onto this new world.

31:15

But beyond the physical limits

31:17

of that township or that village

31:20

was a howling wilderness known as

31:22

the rant. This

31:25

is a place yet to be discovered.

31:27

This is a place to be feared. This is a place to

31:30

retreat from or impose

31:32

your will over.

31:37

Okay, well, the howling wilderness

31:39

that you're describing sounds terrifying.

31:42

It sounds like something out of Game of Thrones.

31:44

First of all, they're just like that.

31:46

This border territory between

31:48

their very probably very small villages

31:51

at this point and the vast

31:53

unknown. Is it wind, is

31:56

it animals? What is it that they're hearing?

31:58

Well, it's all of the above. The topography

32:00

of the place is quite different to many

32:03

European countries. When

32:05

you go to a place, you make comparisons,

32:08

and that comparison is going to be inevitably

32:11

hostage to the time that you make it.

32:13

So, for example, tornadoes

32:16

existed in colonial America right

32:18

when these settlers were first arriving. But

32:22

they couldn't possibly say that those

32:24

tornadoes sounded like a freight

32:26

train, could they did? They say it sounded like satan.

32:30

It's demonic, but it could also be

32:32

the wrath of God. It

32:35

must have been absolutely nerving

32:38

at a very deep emotional level to

32:40

hear what America sounded

32:42

like.

32:43

When trains did begin crisscrossing

32:45

the country in the eighteen twenties and thirties,

32:48

the sounds were just as startling

32:50

as thunder.

32:51

People didn't quite know what to make of them. I

32:54

mean, here you have a sound of movement

32:56

cutting through the countryside, and

32:59

it's terrifying at first for some people, Now

33:01

what is that? And then when the whistle goes

33:03

off. It's unnerving, but

33:06

very quickly people begin to embrace

33:08

that sound as a kind

33:10

of progress. And then after that, the

33:12

sound of the train becomes

33:15

quickly incorporated into the fabric

33:17

of American nostalgia, especially

33:19

a steam engine.

33:24

So it goes from scary to a sign

33:26

of progress to something

33:29

almost romantic.

33:30

I think so. I think that's the point. Yes,

33:33

this is an example of attaching meaning

33:35

that changes over time. When we hear bells

33:38

today, we think of them as quaint,

33:40

right, They kind of rally people to church,

33:44

But they didn't always sound quaint to

33:46

certain people. And if

33:48

you're an enslaved person on a southern

33:50

plantation, a bell has nothing

33:52

quaint about it. It is the

33:55

sound of labor, it is the

33:57

sound of obedience, it is the

33:59

sound of There is

34:01

no standard definition of

34:03

the meaning of a bell. It's very much who you are.

34:06

In the late eighteen nineties, urban development

34:09

made cities very loud places.

34:12

In response, a new progressive

34:14

movement took shape. One of its targets,

34:17

noise Reformers made

34:19

to the case that loud noises were bad

34:21

for the nervous system.

34:23

I think probably the most powerful

34:25

expression of this comes during the First World

34:27

War, where you have people

34:30

who are in fact, not just deafened,

34:32

but psychologically damaged by

34:35

not just what they see, not just

34:37

what they smell, but what they hear

34:39

in that war. And obviously

34:42

it's the screams of your compatriots

34:44

being shot, but it's also the

34:47

unprecedented volume of

34:50

munitions going off. Nobody

34:52

had heard noises that loud before

34:54

got.

34:54

To be in a trench in World War One, and

34:57

the sounds you must have heard.

34:59

So you hear the shell before

35:01

it hits, and that's what you're hearing

35:03

is possible imminent death.

35:06

The twentieth century gave rise

35:08

to sounds that today we take for granted.

35:13

The first automobiles were very

35:15

noisy, and then we

35:17

chok to the skies.

35:20

The plane flying oh La area is a thing

35:22

that people have gotten to a point.

35:23

The way children wake up in the middle of the night's screaming.

35:26

That's from a nineteen sixty two CBS

35:28

News special host Walter

35:31

Cronkite interviewed then Federal

35:33

Aviation Chief Nijeeb Halliby.

35:36

Would you say, mister Halliby, that we're just going to

35:38

have to learn to live with the noise of the jet

35:40

age? Well, you know, we've always learned to live with

35:42

noise. The automobile, which was a

35:45

frightening looking machine, making a terrible

35:47

noise when it first appeared. Certainly,

35:50

the construction noise of a pneumatic

35:52

hammer is much higher

35:54

than that of a distant jet

35:57

airply in our helicopt So

35:59

I think one of the prices

36:01

of progress and power is

36:04

going to be a level

36:06

of noise. If it's dangerous

36:10

to health and life, it should not be

36:12

tolerated. But if it's just irritable,

36:15

I'm afraid that's one of the prices of

36:17

so called progress.

36:18

The balance between progress and

36:20

noise pollution was tested

36:22

as never before by the introduction

36:25

of the Concord. Writing

36:27

on it was the height of luxury living

36:30

under its flight path wasn't so

36:33

pleasant? That

36:37

sound you just heard is sonic

36:39

boom we have in our archives. I

36:41

only just watched it. A CBS news

36:43

report from nineteen seventy from

36:46

Wales about the Concord and

36:48

the sonic boom of the Concord disturbs

36:52

one elderly woman because it reminds

36:54

her of the bombing during World War Two.

36:56

It was like a bomb going off, a blast

36:59

and it shook me up.

37:00

I was very flattened because I was bombed.

37:02

In the war.

37:04

Then when a young woman

37:06

she sounds like a teenager, actually a girl, is

37:09

interviewed, she says it was a little

37:11

scary first, and how she loves it because it's really

37:13

really cool because it's associated, my god

37:15

with a supersonic jet.

37:18

I was only frightened the first time. I

37:20

wasn't frightened the second time.

37:21

Do you think the concord should go on flying over here?

37:23

Yes?

37:24

You like the concord? Yes, nice

37:27

fast time.

37:29

Yeah, that's a perfect example because

37:31

the child doesn't have the memory of the war. If

37:33

you experience the Second World War,

37:36

how you understand sounds during

37:38

it and after it are going to be really different

37:40

as opposed to being born in the nineteen eighties or nineteen

37:43

nineties.

37:44

The US government limited concord

37:47

service after cities issued numerous

37:49

noise complaints. As

37:51

for the sounds of today, any

37:53

advice on how I should think about that

37:56

jackhammer on the way to.

37:58

Work, Let's imagine there

38:00

are no jackhammers. Think about the state

38:03

of your streets and your roads. Unless

38:05

we develop a technology that's quieter to

38:08

repair the roads, then you're going to have to

38:10

deal with it. So mo I would say this, go

38:12

around the block a different way perhaps, or

38:15

just recognize that the street is better for that

38:17

temporary engagement with noise that you

38:19

had to endure, as unpleasant as it

38:21

is.

38:23

But there are certain sounds

38:25

that are just noise. The

38:28

dirt bikes, the illegal ATVs

38:31

that roar up Sixth Avenue in

38:33

the middle of the night and wake me up.

38:39

I just I cannot find the upside.

38:41

I can't find a way of redefining

38:43

those noises.

38:44

Yeah, I think most people would agree with you, and that's

38:46

probably why there's a noise ordinance prohibiting it.

38:48

Right.

38:49

However, for the person riding

38:51

the ATV or the dirt bike, this

38:54

is the sound of protest, This is the sound

38:56

of youth, This is the sound of whatever they think

38:58

it is. Now they might I've been a distinct

39:00

minority. But that's kind of the point

39:02

about the context, right, and

39:05

who's doing the listening, and who has the authority

39:07

to say no, that's noise.

39:09

Jackhammer's good, illegal dirt

39:11

bikes bad.

39:12

That's fair enough.

39:15

I get it. One person's noise

39:17

is another person's music. Likewise,

39:20

one person's steaming, gurgling

39:23

bin of Cooties is another person's

39:25

buffet, just as one person's.

39:27

Coerced standing ovation is

39:30

another person's inspired, authentic,

39:33

and spontaneous woo fast. It's

39:36

all about context and changing

39:38

mores and look, I'm willing

39:40

to go with the flow, So don't be

39:42

surprised to see me as your

39:44

favorite hard rocking all you can

39:47

eat joint.

39:48

I'll be the one wiping down the tongs.

39:53

I certainly hope you enjoyed this mobituary.

39:56

I may I ask you to please rate and review our

39:58

podcast. You can also Mobituaries

40:01

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40:03

you could follow me on the social media platform

40:05

formerly known as Twitter at Moroka.

40:08

Here are all new episodes of Mobituaries

40:11

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40:14

and check out Mobituaries. Great

40:16

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includes plenty of stories not in the

40:25

podcast. This

40:27

episode of Mobituaries was produced

40:29

by Liz Sanchez, who wishes

40:32

hiking with loud music would die.

40:34

Our team of producers also includes

40:37

Chloe Chobol, who wishes the

40:39

girl Boss mentality would die,

40:41

and Me Morocca with engineering

40:44

by Josh Han who wishes parachute

40:47

pants would die. Our theme music

40:49

is written by Daniel Hart. Our

40:51

archival producer is Jamie Benson,

40:54

who wishes gender reveal parties would

40:56

die, and fact checking from Annie

40:58

Cronenberg, who wish which is elaborate

41:00

bachelorette trips would die. Mobituary's

41:04

production company is Neon Hummedia.

41:06

Indispensable support from Alan

41:08

Pang, who wishes asparagus

41:11

soda, Yes, asparagus soda

41:13

would die, and everyone at CBS

41:15

News Radio special thanks to

41:17

Steve Razis, Rand Morrison,

41:20

and Alberto Robina. Executive

41:22

producers for Mobituaries include

41:24

Megan Marcus, who wishes espresso

41:27

martinis would die, Jonathan

41:29

Hirsch, who wishes judging other people's

41:31

vocal fry would die, and

41:34

me Moroka.

41:35

The series is

41:36

Created by Yours Truly and well

41:38

you already heard what I wish would

41:40

die.