New York - Excelsior!

Hi, this is Greg Mattola, director of Confessed Fletch, starring John Ham.

Now available on Paramount Plus, Blu-ray, Major Airlines, and my living room by appointment.

You are listening to ePluribus Motto with John Hodgman and Janet Varney.

And now here's Janet and John.

Why, thank you, Director Greg Mattola.

I'm Janet Varney.

And I'm John Hodgman.

Welcome to ePluribus Motto, the podcast all about celebrating the mottos and symbols and cupcakes and birds and mammals and non-mammals of every state in the union, no matter how strange or boring those things might be.

And this week, we're in that New York steedmind.

I'm so sorry.

But we are talking all about the state.

And not just New York City, the whole state.

We would never.

Never just the city, no.

We've got a ton of personal stories about New York as we break down its history.

Plus, gotta lift up that amazing, spectacular, incredible motto that Stanley helped make famous and share some fun facts about beavers while we're at it.

Hey, we're podding over here.

It's Janet Varney, and I'm John Hodgman.

Janet, you want to hear a funny story?

I always want to hear a funny story, especially from you.

First of all, everyone, thank you for your solidarity with the Strike.

Don't know if it's resolved by the time you listen to this.

In the year 2029,

when all actors have been replaced by bots.

This is not a good time to say that this is definitely AI.

We are AI versions of ourselves.

Oh, no.

Yeah.

You don't even know that.

You don't know that you're AI.

Oh, I thought, oh, Wowie, Zowie.

Yeah, okay.

This is starting to make sense.

I didn't realize I was living in a simulation, but of course I am because in real life, I would never wear these long, glossy leather-black coats all the time, these tiny little sunglasses.

And in real life, people live in a merigo.

In any case, I want to get to this story.

I was acting on a show with a very, very talented actor who is a woman, and we were shooting, and it was getting late, and the scene was very complex.

And we had to hit multiple different marks as we said our lines.

And my co-star in this scene was having difficulty doing this

because she has a, she described to me as a kind of physical dyslexia.

That was what's the term that she used.

She has a processing difference that makes it hard for her to, she's sometimes like when she reaches for a glass of water, she misses.

And she described herself as hilariously clumsy, but it is, you know, she experiences physically the world in a different way.

And particularly when she's moving around in space, it's sometimes challenging for her to remember her lines.

And also it's late at night, you know, after she flubbed a line, lightly, light flub, light flubbing.

She says, Hey, everybody, I just want to explain.

She's like, Everyone's around, right?

All cameras are on us.

I just want, and you know, the whole crew is there.

She says, I just want to explain that I have this

neurological processing difference

that makes it hard for me to remember my lines when I move around because I have this thing, and so that's why I've been, you know, having a hard time getting the lines.

And I'm sorry.

And all of a sudden, from the darkness behind the camera, I hear the voice of the woman who's operating the boom microphone says, just practice it.

I'm like, what?

And my co-star turns, she goes, what?

And again, the person says,

just practice it.

And that's when I realized, after I further paled and quailed, that I was hearing it wrong.

Because my co-star.

Oh, no.

My co-star says, yes, that's what it's called, dyspraxia.

And that's the name.

That's the name of

the condition that she has, dyspraxia.

But I thought the boom mic operator, who was wonderful, the whole crew was incredible.

But all of a sudden, I was just like, something has gone horribly wrong.

We are so, I've never been on a set that was so far off the rails that the boom mic operator was yelling, just practice it to someone, to an actor.

Just, hey, have you you tried learning, tried learning the script, dummy?

What made you think of this?

This wasn't recent.

Did something come up that made you?

Well, I saw the actor recently because she was in a play that I went to go see, and we were remembering it.

And we both fell on the floor laughing, remembering this.

And I also thought of it

because it's one of those stories that can only happen in New York.

Oh,

you're shooting in New York.

My friend, bro.

Only in New York, kids.

Only in New York.

What

an

opener.

I changed my mind.

I decided I wanted to say opener.

Had to change from A to An in a flash.

Was pretty

pretty obvious.

That's what I had done.

Could not master it.

Now, looking now, I would say that I burned probably about

10 minutes of tape there.

So we're 12 minutes from done.

Great.

Hey, only in New York.

You know what I mean?

Only in New York.

Need I say more?

I'll quickly list all the New York symbols.

We will not comment on our opinions about them, and we will end this episode.

In and out.

Excelsior.

Excel.

Janet Varney.

Here we are back again.

It's been a bit.

It's been a minute.

It's been a bit.

We had a little bit of a New York minute.

A New York minute is faster.

So I think if it had been a New York minute, we would have just finished recording.

Right.

It's been a Pasadena minute.

Yes.

It's been a Southern minute.

It's been a Charleston, South Carolina minute.

Charleston minute.

In fact, that was the last state we talked about, and that was several weeks ago for us.

But South Carolina is now in our distant past, both in our simulation and the listeners.

Yes.

For we move ever upward to.

It's not Ex Chelsier, it's Excelsior.

Excelsior.

Excelsior is how Stan Lee of Marvel Comics always said it.

Understood.

Excelsior.

Excelsior.

Excelsior.

Indeed.

It might be Exchelsior, though.

I don't know.

Honestly, I feel like I've heard people say exchelsior in a completely unrelated, non-New York context, and I couldn't possibly tell you what that was.

So please don't ask me.

I've never heard that before in my life.

I won't ask you.

And who's responsible for the exclamation mark?

Because I think people associate that as being somewhat more official than I believe the record shows it to be.

Is it official or no?

It's not official, but I feel like I see that exclamation mark fondly a lot.

Well, let me tell you, Janet, New York is a passionate state

with a crazy ring-a-ding town in its southeast, right there, the intersection of Manhattan Island, the Bronx, the Queens, the Brooklyn, and the Staten Island, and Bronx, Queens, Manhattan, Staten Island.

I think I got them all.

I cannot believe I haven't been adding the to the beginning of each thing.

I've said I live in the Bronx.

Well, I've never said that because I don't live in the Bronx, but I have said that you live in the Bronx.

But I should, I realize now I should be saying you live in the Brooklyn.

I live in the Brooklyn.

I just didn't know.

Hey, but New York City isn't all of New York, as I'm sure we're going to find out.

It's certainly not.

It's actually a sizable state considering some of the sizes of the states around it,

some of which we've already talked about.

There's a whole bunch of land up there that takes all the tax money that we generate in New York City and then refuses to let us run our own subway.

Have fun, New Yorkers, upstaters.

We have got to get some sort of musical sting that alerts people to political statements being made on this podcast.

We have got to prepare people so that they're not sideswiped and blinded by the kind of acerb

wit that we just heard from you about upstate New Year's City.

I've lived in New York for 30 years, so I can be a little bit of an asshole, you know?

I guess there's a New York accent.

Not sure.

Not sure.

That's why we put exclamation points in the end of everything.

Excelsior.

Exclusive.

This episode is so New York, I'm blowing out all the levels hard.

I apologize to audiophiles listening to this.

I'm blowing out the levels here.

Because we care over here.

Fourth most populous state in the U.S.

as of 2022.

Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.

Fourth most populous state.

I don't like you spreading me that news.

What's California, obviously, is more populous.

I'm going to say Texas.

I'm going to say California.

California, yeah.

What's the mystery one?

What is the mystery one?

Illinois?

I better look.

Well, I mean, Florida could be Florida.

Yes, number one, California.

Yes, number two, Texas.

Number three was one of our guesses mere moments ago, mere New York minutes ago.

It's got to be Florida.

Yeah, Florida.

That's because, and it says right underneath there, due to its large heron and gator populations.

I knew they were counting gators.

It says it.

You know, you know, that's why you get hazard pay when you're a census worker in Florida.

You know, that's exactly why.

You get time and a half because you got to count the gators.

Some people are trying to, they're lobbying for double time.

Do you know who Stan Lee is?

Stan Lee?

Are you worried that I don't know who Stan Lee is?

Just wanted to, I just didn't know whether you knew Marvels, the Marvels, the Stan Lee?

Yeah, the upstate New York to Jack Kirby's New York City.

But his motto when he would write the bullpen bulletins in Marvel, it was always Excelsior.

Ever upward.

Is that what it means?

Ever upward.

You are absolutely right.

We're going to talk a little bit more about the motto and the secondary motto.

Did you know that there was a secondary motto?

I did not know.

I promise you, I did zero research for this episode.

And yet I will tell you with great confidence that you do know the motto.

You just don't know that it is also considered the secondary motto of New York State.

Oh, but let me ask you this: before we get into all of that, Stan Lee is someone who comes up for you when you hear Excelsior, which is tied to New York, which means perhaps Stan Lee is one of, or Marvel is one of the things that comes to mind for you with New York.

Now, you pointed out you have lived there for 30 years,

and so I'm sure many things come up for you when you envisage New York State.

Give me a couple more that you think not only come up for you, but that you think may come up for other people when they think about New York State.

Well, I think most people think of the book True Believer, The Rise and Fall of Stanley by Abraham Reisman.

Obviously.

Who I think,

which is a terrific book that offers a much more nuanced portrait of Stanley.

And

I don't mean to poop all over Stanley.

You know, I just want to be clear about that.

I'm a Jack Kirby person.

Yeah.

Some other things I think about when I think about New York.

Well, obviously, I think about New York City where I've lived, but

everyone thinks about New York City.

New York City is a dream that almost everyone

in the English-speaking world dreams of.

Start spreading the news.

I'm leaving today.

Where are they going?

Not to Jacksonville.

Sorry, Florida.

They're going to New York.

When they sing, I love

they're not singing, I love Austin.

Sorry, Texas.

They're singing of New York.

But New York City

is its own.

That's quite a medley.

Yeah, that was good.

We did a good job.

But New York State, you know, as much as I was being a little bit sniffy about it, taking all that tax money and not giving it back to us for our subway system, there is a rivalry between New York State and New York City, but it is undeserved.

New York State is a grand and huge and beautiful and storied place.

So when I made a list of the things that I I think about when I think of New York State, I think of Buffalo Wings from Buffalo, New York.

Got it.

So far,

we're very comic book and food-centric thoughts of New York.

I think that's appropriate.

Not being from the East Coast, I still have a strong association with leaf peeping in New York.

Not to say that you can't do that in other northeastern states, but I think about the Adirondack Mountains, which before I knew how to say that, I absolutely thought it was like a Dirondack or something.

A Dirondack.

You know, and had to be told how to say it.

I feel like that happened deeper into my adult years than I'd like to admit, because no one I knew had ever been to the Adirondacks.

And I think it was in reference to a type of chair that I first learned when I was like 20 years old how you actually say it.

I also may have never tried to say it out loud because I had no reason to, but I think I would have misspoken.

One thing I think about when I think about New York is Fort Ticonderoga.

Fort Ticonderoga is a

revolutionary era fort on the southern shores of Lake Champlain, which separates New York from Vermont.

And we'll talk more about Fort Ticonderoga in perhaps another episode.

But it's a famous field trip destination.

But the reason I'm thinking of it is that Our good friend David Rees does a podcast with his very old friend John Kimball called Election Profit Makers.

in one of the more recent episodes they were talking about pencils as you will and john kimball without realizing it and not making a joke referred to ticonderoga pencils which is a very famous brand of pencil as yes it is yeah ticonderoga yeah That's okay because on a recent episode of The Daily, that host said infrared instead of infrared.

Oh, no, infrared.

But it's a small podcast, so I'm sure no one noticed.

I'd like to ask you what you think the shape of the state is.

I will tell you what comes up for me.

I hope no one thinks I'm promoting anything.

It's just an honest answer.

I don't love the shape of this state.

I gotta tell you.

Okay, is it unsettling?

Long line.

It just feels mushy to me.

Do you know what I mean?

I do.

Let me tell you what I think it looks like because I don't think it's a positive thing, the thing that it conjures for me.

And I'd love to hear your thoughts.

I think it looks like Goofy's profile.

Wow.

Absolutely.

Now I see it.

Now

I see it.

I was like, I have a vague sense of what New York looks like, but I'm not.

I bet from what I remember, it doesn't look like anything in particular.

And then I pulled it up and all I could see was Goofy from the jump.

I was like, why do I have Goofy ready in my head?

One of the many famous characters of a struck company.

Yeah.

If you look at it, his eye is one of those northernmost finger lakes.

I wonder what lake that is.

It's Oneida Lake.

Okay.

Okay.

One Ida eye is in the name.

Yeah.

And his nose kind of sticks out over his snout and the nostril is buffalo.

Yeah.

And

then his snout sort of shallows out along the southern shore of Lake Erie, the shallowest of the Great Lakes, by the way.

And then kind of he goes back in this kind of dumb, goofy overbite all along the northern border of Pennsylvania.

And then he's got kind of a like a dopey waddle or double chin that goes all the way down to New York City.

And then obviously Long Island doesn't kind of fit into this exactly.

And then the dumb flat back of his head is the long border between Vermont, Massachusetts, and Connecticut.

Wow, how about that?

Oh, you really elevated that.

And I thank you for giving it its just rewards for pinning down certain areas as they relate to his dumb face.

So thank you very much for that.

Lake Oneida, of course, is named for the Oneida Native American people, one of the many Iroquoian tribes tribes that are the original people who lived in this land.

Thousands and thousands of years before any Europeans came over.

That's right.

Now, Oneida also gave the name to, this is one of the other things I was going to say when I think about upstate New York, to the Oneida Utopian Colony, which are you familiar with the Oneida colony?

Not at all.

Oh, the Oneida community, according to a website, was a perfectionist religious communal society founded by John Humphrey Noyes in 1848 near Oneida, New York.

I just wanted to get the basic details out there.

But what I remember about it is that it was one of many mid-19th century utopian communes that started experimenting with different ways of living.

Oneida was particularly known as a free love colony with so-called complex marriage, so people could be married to multiple people.

Great.

And then later on, after they stopped that,

They continued, like a lot of the utopian communities of the mid-19th century,

they made their money by different kinds of skilled craft.

The Oneida colony produced flatware and silverware, and there's still a brand of flatware called Oneida.

Oh, I know Oneida as a flatware.

I did not know the story behind where that flatware.

You know, Amana dishwasher, or, you know, like clothes washers.

There was an Amana colony somewhere in the Midwest as well.

I don't think they made electric clothes washers, but you know what I'm saying.

Yeah.

My favorite of such colonies, as you've described it, is the one that you will learn more about if you watch the very fine documentary, Spaceship Earth.

Love that group.

That is a group of Californians who ended up building

or getting the funding and built the Biosphere 2 in Tucson, Arizona.

Cannot recommend Spaceship Earth enough.

Really care about it.

I think that they were probably a lot more fun than the UNITA colony because I'm refreshing my memory now.

And it's like, yeah, here's under the heading mutual criticism, it says every member of the community was subject to criticism by a committee or the community as a whole during a general meeting to eliminate undesirable character traits.

Yeah, I think you just described the board of the Dakota.

Yeah, that's a very specific, very specific reference.

Oneida also gave name, by the way, to a great independent rock band called Oneida, which is what my brother-in-law, Rob Thatcher, is a member.

So there you go.

My goodness.

Wow, Oneida turned out to be replete with anecdotes and facts and figures.

The primary motto, absolutely Excelsior, ever upwards.

We talked about the exclamation mark.

The commercial or tourist slogan, I think many of us know to look for that, I, and then a red heart NY.

I

heart New York.

Very ubiquitous in New York, very charming.

And I'm not going to dip too deeply into this reference, but I will say especially prevalent during just sort of just after the World Trade Center bombings, the I Love New York was something that was adopted, and you would see it all over the United States.

You would see people wearing those shirts, and it was a sort of way of showing that kind of ongoing love and support that was happening across the United States.

I Love New York, is that the that's not the official song?

It's the official slogan, and then the song is the official song.

Yes, it is.

It is the official song.

So, what's bananas about that is that's a cool song.

It's not a dumb song.

It's a song that people remember, unlike most state songs.

Yes.

And additionally, it's very, relatively very contemporary because most of them were like brass band sousaphone oompa songs.

This was written by Steve Carmen in 1977.

Yeah.

And it was created as part of a marketing campaign to get people to visit New York and particularly New York City because New York City was a hellhole that had gone bankrupt.

Yeah, the 70s were not kind to New York or New York was not kind to the 70s, however you want to think about it.

Well, it was very good to Bob Fosse, put it that way.

It was very good to Bob.

Listen, there was still still interesting stuff going on.

Don't get me wrong for a New York minute, but it had problems.

And of course, the iHeartNY logo was dashed off in a New York taxicab by the Bronx native Milton Glazer, legend of graphic design, and also designer of the very famous and best DC Comics logo.

So it was modernized about 10 years ago, but we won't talk about that ever again.

I wonder how many just incredibly iconic logos were jotted off like on a cocktail napkin.

I feel like that's one of those sort of urban legends that turns out to be true about so many of them that you start disbelieving it because you're like, not another iconic logo jotted in

haste on the way to somewhere else.

I'm going to ask you a serious question, Jan and Varney.

Hit me.

Have you ever written a single idea down on a cocktail napkin?

I would say most of my ideas come when I'm signing someone's guest book.

That's really when my most beautiful and prized thoughts like the University of Copenhagen's visitors log.

That's right.

The State Seal of New York features, and this is a busy seal.

I will say for a busy seal, I still find it to be very clean and quite lovely.

What we see on the state seal, I'm going to read from, I think this is actually the, this is Wikipedia, but I think this might be the official kind of

description of the banner, but I can't write.

A banner below shows the New York state motto, Excelsior, Latin forever upward, and the secondary motto,

E pluribus unum.

Motto.

Oh, really?

The other one.

Latin for out of many, one.

Out of many.

That is the secondary.

That's the afterthought motto of New York State.

I'll tell you something.

E pluribus unum, since we're talking about it.

That's a hot motto.

That's what I call a hot mot.

I like that.

I like that one a lot.

Yes.

That makes you

that gives you something to think about, something to aspire to, something interesting out of many, one.

It's like, it's a concept and it tells a story.

I love it.

And it can also just be used to describe a jigsaw puzzle.

Now,

moving on.

Please.

The seal.

Allegorical figures of liberty on the left and justice on the right support the shield and an American eagle spreads its wings above on a world globe.

Liberty's left foot treads on a crown, a symbol of freedom from the kingdom of Great Britain, and holds a staff topped with the uh-oh, I forgot to look up how to say thank you.

The Phrygian cap.

It could be Phrygian, but I think it's Phrygian.

The famous

it's a symbol of freedom and the pursuit of liberty.

Justice is blindfolded and holds a sword in one hand and a scale in the other, symbolizing impartiality and fairness.

The center shield displays a masted ship and a sloop on the Hudson River, bordered by a grassy shore and a mountain range with the sun rising behind it.

Now, that is a lot of stuff, but again, it's a pretty good good-looking seal.

I think that's a hot seal.

I like that seal.

It's a pretty good-looking seal.

Two hot knots and a good seal.

And I like the picture of the sailing boats on the Hudson.

Very bucolic.

Yes, indeed.

And this beautiful mountain behind those nice two boats.

I don't know, it's probably a real mountain.

I don't know if it's this mountain, but it reminds me of Storm King Mountain, which is a beautiful mountain.

It also,

where there's an incredible sculpture garden.

And, of course, the Storm King Mountain School of Painters came out of people drawing and painting the landscapes of the Hudson Valley around the Storm King Mountain.

The Storm King Mountain being directly across the Hudson from the village of Cold Spring, where I got married.

Oh,

made a personal tidbit.

Made a personal tidbit.

A little tidbit there.

A little tidbit.

The Storm King Sculpture Garden, I associate with Andy Goldsworthy, but there's more than just Andy Goldsworthy stuff there.

There's a lot, right?

There's lots and lots of stuff.

All is massive outdoor sculpture, and you can just walk around and have a good time with it.

It's terrific.

Yeah.

It's very cool.

I'm going to backtrack a little bit and just point out that New York was one of the original 13 colonies.

You mentioned the Iroquois, the Algonquins, certainly another group of Indians, Native Americans

who lived there in the early 1600s.

The Dutch, the traveling shipping Dutch, established New Netherland in like 1621.

That included Fort Nassau.

That's present-day Albany.

And New Amsterdam, many people know.

Now, was Roy Orbison in the Traveling Dutchman?

Was he even New Testament?

No, the Traveling Dutchman is Christopher Guest's tribute-slash parody band.

Oh, okay.

That is making fun of the Traveling Wobries.

Got it.

New Amsterdam, previous name for New York City.

That's correct.

In 1664, England went ahead and...

grabbed that up and renamed it the province of New York, went ahead and snatched that away.

Sure.

And during the American Revolutionary War, the colonists established independence in the state of New York, became one of those 13, well, and the colony of New York became one of the 13 colonies of the United States.

There's a very complex and very interesting history surrounding the peoples in the New York region before, during, and after the Europeans came in.

As you mentioned, there were stopped by.

The Europeans stopped by.

Stopped by.

Paid a visit.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And

when you mentioned Oneida, I thought about my friend Claude.

Always used to say you can tell

a place destroyed by what it decides to name its streets and lakes.

Right.

It either names their names their lakes after the invaded,

and then they'll often name the streets after the invader.

Exactly.

Their streets and their public institutions are named usually after the invaders and the moneymakers.

like Astor Place or Stuyvesant High School.

But go on.

See?

No, no, that's so.

I would say, you know, this is not that podcast, but it's a fascinating history and it's worth checking out.

Do some reading.

It's just a fascinating area.

And obviously, there was so much going on and it was the hub for so much at that time.

And prior to that time, it's really fascinating.

I wish we had time to cover everything that New York has to offer by way of historical knowledge, but we can't do it here because that's not what we're here to do.

Look, you know, it's goofy geography.

Means what we're here to do is describe it as goofy.

Means that New York was always a cosmopolitan place because what you have, when you look at goofy there,

you have this massive highway of water called the Hudson River.

Yes, indeed.

That feeds into the St.

Lawrence Riverways all the way up into Quebec.

Plus, you got that Lake Erie that I'm talking about.

And wherever there are bodies of water, there is trade and commerce, even and truly long before a white person ever set foot on this continent.

And so, anywhere there is commerce and trade, there is interplay between civilizations and exchange of information, and things thrive.

And that's just geography is often fate.

There is a reason why, for lack of better and more reductive terms,

what we call liberal communities tend to, and this is not just in the United States, tend to cluster around bodies of water that historically have allowed trade and interplay with other cultures.

Whereas more conservative communities throughout all kinds of nations tend to be those that are interior, where the priority is not

exchange of ideas and goods with cultures, but instead self-sufficiency and just, you know, not distrust, but wariness of outsider influence.

So New York was always going to be a cool place because it got all this waterways going through it, including those finger lakes, which I, I mean, I've never been to a finger lake, but it sounds gross.

That's all I'm going to say about the finger lakes.

Yeah, that's so well said.

I loved everything you've just said.

And of course, its relation to the Revolutionary War was extremely significant.

About a third of the battles of the American Revolutionary War happened in New York.

When I think of New York, again, as a kid from Arizona who did not go to New York for any real time during my childhood, the places that I went were Vermont and Massachusetts, principally when I went to the East Coast, I did not go into New York City, but I did, as a fifth grader, participate in a play.

I'm trying to remember what the name of the play was.

What I do remember is that it took place leading up to and on Ellis Island.

It was a play about, it was a musical that I'm sure was very inexpensive because we're a very poor public school.

That was about an immigrant family that was immigrating to the United States.

And so it was their time on the ship.

I know the name of the play.

You do?

Hamilton.

Again, not Hamilton.

Probably would have associated those two things and said them.

I'll remember what it is.

It's like outward bound or like

freedom, maybe.

Freedom, maybe.

Yeah.

And I was cast as the mom because I was tall.

So I frequently was cast as the adult character.

And I do remember that I had a solo part in one of the songs.

And it was a song dedicated to the officers on Ellis Island who were responsible for deciding whether or not you would pass through, whether or not you would be accepted into this country of America.

And I got to say,

what was your line?

Don't you hack, hold it back.

One little cough, and they'll send you off.

Better not sneeze, don't you wheeze, or they might think you have a rare disease.

Pulled for applause.

Did you get chills?

Yeah, I have one thing to say:

just practice.

No, it was terrific.

Just say that to me?

It was terrific.

It was terrific.

Say that to me?

It was terrific.

Then I was very envious because the girl who played my daughter got to sing this beautiful song that was like, like, Lady

of Liberty

Standing There Be.

It was like the very

torch lights the way

to freedom's door

to a land without oppression.

But then it was also a sort of a bitter story because they do find out that the streets are not lined with gold in America.

No, they were lined with tuberculosis.

It was a hard-hitting musical.

But I do think of Ellis Island.

And since the early 19th century, New York was really the largest port of entry for immigration into the United States.

Ellis Island opened in 1892 and was...

What we call unforced immigration.

Unforced immigration.

Voluntary immigration.

Sure, absolutely.

And then in 1924, the National Origins Act was passed, which was one of many fun

take backs, takesy backsees, sure, of the United States going, well, we don't want everyone.

Hold on.

Yeah, wait a minute.

Wait, we said nothing about the Irish.

Yeah, I don't remember.

Was I, did I not say I didn't want the Irish?

So, um, again, complicated.

Hodgman, we're getting so wrapped up in the history of New York that we haven't even gotten to the state symbols yet, but we will get to them when E.

Plaribasmato is back right after this.

Hey, BBs, our first bulletin board of the week is Mega Brain Comics.

Mega Brain is the only black-owned comic book store in New York State.

They cater to local and online customers.

They have a deep focus on historically represented people in the LGBTQIA and BIPOC communities, as well as women, people with disabilities, and the neurodivergently spicy.

Now, comic shops are something of an endangered species, as you might know.

So, Mega Brain would appreciate a visit when you're in Hudson Valley's Red Hook, New York.

You can also find them on Instagram at Megabrain Comics or on Blue Sky at megabrain.besky.social.

That's megabrain.b sky.social.

And if that wasn't enough, listeners of the show can visit their website, megabraincomics.com, and use the code EP Motto, that's EP Motto, at checkout for 10% off your order.

Thank you, Megabrain Comics.

We love you.

And remember, find out more about getting a bulletin board for your small state or Commonwealth-sized business, or maybe even regional, even township, even village business.

Go to maximumfund.org/slash bulletin board.

All the details are there for you to find.

All right, we're over 70 episodes into our show.

Let's learn everything.

So, let's do a quick progress check.

Have we learned about quantum physics?

Yes, episode 59.

We haven't learned about the history of gossip yet, have we?

Yes, we have.

Same episode, actually.

Have we talked to Tom Scott about his love of roller coasters?

Episode 64.

So, how close are we to learning everything?

Bad news.

We still haven't learned everything yet.

Oh, we're ruined!

No, no, no, it's good news as well.

There is still a lot to learn.

Woo!

I'm Dr.

Ella Hubber.

I'm regular Tom Lum.

I'm Caroline Roper, and on Let's Learn Everything, we learn about science and a bit of everything else too.

And although we haven't learned everything yet, I've got a pretty good feeling about this next episode.

Join us every other Thursday on Maximum Fun.

Welcome back to Eplur of Asmado.

Hodgman, it's time to get into the symbols of New York because I wanted to save time because there's some really fun state symbols.

And I really, this might be the most I have researched the state symbols.

I really went down a rabbit hole where I was going to resource after resource, finding out when things were passed into legislation, why there was significance in New York State for some of these, because some of that information was harder to find.

That sounds great.

Yeah.

And so I mentioned that.

Well, we'll just leave the tape rolling, and I'll be back in 45 minutes.

Okay, cool.

See ya.

Excelsior!

Don't.

We'll start with, I think these are just in maybe alphabetical order.

No, they're not.

Okay, the official butterfly is the red-spotted purple and white admiral.

It is a

real fun butterfly.

I guess it's not one I've seen a ton of.

If you want to pause, everyone, to take a look.

The thing is, is that when you look at it,

none of those colors really make sense with what you are actually seeing.

Red-spotted admiral.

It's a beautiful butterfly.

Yeah, the lamentus arthemis, the red-spotted purple or white admiral.

It has been studied for its evolution of mimicry and for several stable hybrid wing patterns.

I love a stable hybrid wing pattern.

I know you do.

I thought that when I immediately, when I read about it, I thought, you know, who's going to love this?

Yeah, this is a beautiful butterfly.

I love it.

Isn't that nice?

Yeah.

The state bird, the eastern bluebird, that was made official in 1970.

The eastern bluebird is a songbird, and it's described as having a short tail, chunky body, large round head, short black bill, reddish-orange chest, and blue wings and tail.

And it always makes me so sad when they describe the females as drab.

Drab gray blue with duller reddish chest.

Not worth talking about, it says right here in print.

Really?

Not worth talking about.

It doesn't say that.

That would be amazing.

And its song is described as a rich warbling whistle broken into short phrases.

And I actually had on my Audubon, very handy Audubon app,

I have

the song that I can play for everyone.

So, because one of the things that I love is trying to phonetically spell out what you think

that a bird song sounds like.

So, this is the common song.

Start spreading the news.

Amazing.

It sounds just like the song.

I like that.

That's a good song.

That's described as to wheat to do.

To eat to do.

To eat to do.

To wheat to do.

To wheat to do.

That's described as, I'm flying over here.

Yay, I'm flying over here.

Yay, I'm chirping over here.

Delightful, delightful.

Now, this is one of those states that has, and this is occasionally you'll see this with the state symbols, but not all the time.

I think I've come across one other one in my studies so far.

It's got a state dog.

But in this case, New York does not have a specific dog breed.

New York State's official state dog is a working dog.

A working dog?

A working dog.

Any kind of working dog?

I don't know.

I'm pulling this up from the actual legislation.

The working dog shall be the, and this was from Governor Cuomo in December of 2015, slipped it in before the dawn of 2016.

The working dog shall be the official dog of the state.

For the purposes of this section, working dog shall mean A.

guide dog, a police work dog, a war dog, a hearing dog, a service dog, a working search dog, a therapy dog, or a detection dog as those terms are defined by section 108 of the Agriculture and Markets Law, or any dog that has met such definition during its life, or B, any dog that is trained to herd and/or protect livestock or control bird and/or wildlife populations and is actually or has been used for such purposes.

I, oh my God, or dog or whatever.

Look, I love all dogs.

All dogs go to heaven.

You know, obviously.

Dogs are terrific.

But it's like,

this is some real

dog copaganda.

Like, yeah, fire dogs and police dogs are the state dogs of New York.

No one messes with us.

New York's bravest dogs.

You can be a therapy dog.

Yeah, that's not.

You can be a hearing dog, a service dog.

That's not what Cuomo.

You know that's not what Cuomo meant.

You can herd or protect livestock.

Yeah, yeah, but you know what he meant.

Hero dogs, military dogs, dogs in uniform.

That's what he meant.

Canine unit dogs.

That's what he was going after.

There's real fetishization in the state of New York and elsewhere, but in New York and particularly New York City, of fetishization or, you know, like heroification of New York's bravest and finest firefighters and cops, and they have jobs to do.

And I'm glad there's a civilization because if I'm an asthmatic

and I would die in an anarchial system.

But yeah, I don't need these cop dogs.

Como was looking for cop points there, I think, is what was going on.

I love all those dogs, and let's hear it for the service dogs, let's hear it for the therapy dogs, let's hear it for all the working dogs.

I believe in you, but that's just

Albany pandering right there.

I'll tell you what.

While the dog is a mammal, there is also an official state mammal.

Do you know who it is?

Absolutely, it is who it is.

It's Mr.

Beaver, of course.

The North American Beaver.

The North American Beaver.

That's its responsible for trade.

I happen to have the Audubon collection of beaver calls.

Here's the North American beaver call.

So timely.

Hey, I'm chewing over here.

I'm gnawing over here.

Hey, I'm damming over here.

Go gnaw yourself.

Gnaw me, gnaw you.

But to your point earlier, beaver indeed was very, very important in the trading process.

So complex history, even behind the beaver, an animal,

because of what traders wanted to do with those beaver pelts, they wanted to trade them.

They wanted to make them into soft clothing stuff.

Yeah.

Beaver was,

yep,

we went ahead and almost eliminated all the beavers

because of that until finally we decided, hey, let's not do that anymore.

Let's protect them.

Let's get them back.

Let's populate some more beavers.

Beavers bounced back.

They They bounced back.

I'm bouncing back over here.

Great fortunes were made

on beaver pelts.

They were highly valued by everyone living in the region, no matter their background, because beaver fur is warm.

They made exploration possible, for better or for worse.

They made great fortunes possible for better or for worse.

When you think about John Jacob Astor, what do you think?

A guy

sitting on the deck of the Titanic drowning?

Yes, but also,

but also,

one of the first great American fortunes, and by great I mean large,

and it was based on beaver pelt trade.

And John Jacob Astor was the namesake.

Once again,

the people with the money get the things named after them.

John Jacob Astor is the namesake, or it is the namesake, Astor Place in New York City.

And when

you stop for a moment in the New York City subway, in the Astor Place platform, you will see many, many mosaics and art and carvings of beavers in there for that reason, because of John Jacob Astor's connection with the beaver trade.

And then you'll notice that the place stinks and the subways don't run fast enough and there aren't enough trains because Albany controls the purse strings.

Boo.

Look, I have a relationship with Albany.

Great town, I'm sure.

If not for John Jacob Astor, we would never have the famous song about the subway.

John Jacob Astor Subway Place.

His name is my name, too.

Features some art of beavers.

All right, now that we've properly paid tribute to John Jacob Astor, I mean, I feel like he's probably had tribute paid to him enough, but we have a second bulletin board message.

Hinterlands Bar.

Hinterlands Bar is a cozy little watering hole nestled in the heart of Kensington, just a few blocks from Prospect Park, Brooklyn.

Hinterlands Bar is owned by Stuart Wellington.

Yes, Max Funds owns Stuart Wellington from the Flophouse.

Relax, grab a drink with friends, play a few rounds of trivia, say hi to Stu for me.

Follow them on Instagram at hinterlands underscore bar and stop by the next time you're in Brooklyn.

People say not to judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree.

Which is why here on Just the Zoo of Us, we judge them by so much more.

We rate animals out of 10 in the categories of effectiveness, ingenuity, and aesthetics, taking into consideration each animal's true strengths, like a pigeon's ability to tell a Monet from a Picasso or a polar bear's ability to play basketball.

Guest experts like biologists, ecologists, and more join us to share their unique insight into the animal's world.

Listen with friends and family of all ages on maximumfun.org or wherever you get podcasts.

And with that, John Hodgman, I have one more shout to beavers.

I also have a final shout-out to beavers, too, but you do yours.

Well,

I was just going to say that they have, they really exert influence on their habitats.

And that is something that you will hear about from the agricultural side and from people who have land that who depend on streams or their own ponds.

It's like, uh-oh, guess what?

Human beings aren't the only creatures that love to dam up areas and flood others to our liking.

And that is something that beavers do.

They're little terraformers.

They're little terraformers.

They create their little dams and create this environment, which actually does help a lot of species, but certainly it creates some flooding and some issues for people.

And if you want to hear a bunch of really interesting facts about beavers, beavers, you can go ahead and go to the maximumfund.org and listen to our Max Fund Sibling podcast, Secretly Incredibly Fascinating, which I was a guest on, and we talked about beaver facts at great length.

How about that?

It's interesting.

The state reptile.

Do you know what the state reptile is?

You do only in that I did an illustration.

Shout out to listener, Maximum Fund supporter Dan Van Wormer, who asked me to do some images of some state symbols of the state of New York and I went ahead and chose the snapping turtle.

Oh, I hope you chose correctly.

That's a state reptile.

That is a state reptile.

And did.

Snappy turtles, don't mess around.

Don't have teeth.

Really know how to snap.

Really know how to snap.

If you're going to Google one image off this episode to terrify you, just Google Snapping Turtle.

They are scary.

They look prehistoric.

Yeah.

They are one of those special reptiles that really show you the link

to

another time.

The

freshwater state fish

is the freshwater brook trout.

Okay.

Also known as the speckled trout, brookies, or speckles.

But not speckies.

Hey, that is, hey, I'm speckling over here.

But not speckies, right?

Because that's a substitute.

I've seen so much in Boston.

Not Spuckies, Speckles.

I love a Speckle Spucky.

If you want to give me a Smoked Speckle Spucky, I'm going to be very happy indeed, my friend.

uh we're out of the smoked speckled bucks but then there's also a saltwater fish and this made me laugh somehow the striped bass is the salt the state saltwater fish before that before 2006 there was just one state fish and it was the uh brook trout and the brook trout got bumped over to freshwater fish so that we could introduce the saltwater yeah bass the striped bass apparently it was very important to add that um sari to the trout what Who was behind that?

Big bass?

Big bass.

You remember 2006 how everyone was like, bass this, bass that?

That's when everyone was buying those.

They would go to the drugstore and buy that singing bass.

He would walk past and be like, I heard it through the grapevine.

That's what's going on here.

Yep.

The striped bass is also the state fish of Maryland, Rhode Island, and South Carolina.

It's a popular fish.

Let's not lie.

Bass fishing is very popular.

Yeah.

I mean, there's a company, I think, called Bass

based around this sport.

Yeah.

The insect.

The nine-spotted ladybug.

I love the specificity of that.

Yeah, the nine-spotted ladybug brought into legislation in 1989.

Basically, a Cornell University entomologist, through creating this database that anyone can contribute to and take photos of different ladybugs, there were about 5,000 species of ladybugs who were also known as ladybird beetles.

Yeah, sure.

400 of which, those species of ladybugs, are in the U.S.

And there was even a poem about ladybugs.

Ladybugs are so revered for eating dangerous pests that eat your crops, eat your veggies, get into your veggie garden.

And I have myself have bought and released ladybugs in my own yard.

Do it in the evening so that birds don't eat them so that they have a chance to like settle in.

Right.

There's even a poem, a children's poem about ladybugs.

And like other turn of the century children's poem, it's super depressing.

Yeah.

Ladybug, ladybug, fly away home.

Your house is on fire.

Your children will roam except little Nan, who sits in a pan weaving gold laces as fast as she can.

I'm going to say, I don't think ladybugs sit in pans weaving gold laces.

I don't think that's biologically possible.

I think that's the pupae.

or pupae that have not yet become ladybugs and therefore cannot escape like the rest of the ladybugs children who are young but can still get out of town when their crop's burning.

Got it.

The tree is the sugar maple,

famous for New York maple syrup.

New York produces a lot of maple syrup.

Yeah.

It's not the most famous maple syrup, but it does make a lot of it.

It's out there.

They're beautiful trees.

You can definitely leaf peep some sugar maples.

They're fine.

They get the job done.

Hey, I'm working over here.

I'm a blue-collar tree.

I live in New York.

What?

Hey, the sap's running over here.

You're going to tap me or what?

Get a load of this sap.

The lilac bush.

Apparently, we cared enough about that to bring it into legislation again in that famous year of 2006 when everyone was buying

singing basses and lilac bushes.

Lilac bush, wow.

The state flower is the rose.

Just a rose.

Just any old rose will do.

Any rose.

You know what?

That's, I think, very symbolic of New York because it's just sort of like, you know what?

We got nothing to prove.

Rose.

State flower?

Rose, the best one.

Yeah.

How about that?

That's ours.

What do you want?

Did you know that the rose is also the national flower?

Because I didn't.

I did not know that.

The national flower.

Yeah, again.

That's fucking manifest destiny.

Yeah, the best flower, please.

We'll take it.

Ours.

I don't think the rose is the best flower.

Anyway.

Well, that's what I'm saying.

It's not the best flower, but it is.

It is the most on the nose.

It's most on the nose.

Typically perceived as being a status flower.

More like on the rose.

Right.

All right.

State gemstone, the garnet.

There are a lot of garnets that can be found in the Barton mines.

Those are up in the Adirondacks or Adirondacks, as some say.

Taconda.

Right.

That is home to the world's largest garnet mine.

Most...

people maybe know what a garnet looks like, but it is red, sort of ruby-like.

You might think something is a ruby, but it's actually a garnet.

And it was mined mostly as an industrial abrasive.

Yeah, it's a good abrasive.

Great for polishing glass, great for polishing metal, but you can find gemstone quality.

If you don't have any silica sand,

you want to use some garnet.

Get some garnet in there.

Which, by the way, I guess when we were little, we used to collect sand rubies in sandboxes, and I'm realizing now that that was probably garnet.

You probably had a shoebox full of garnets.

Oh my god, shoebox full of garnets.

The river sand garnet occurs as a placer deposit, it says here.

This is life-changing for me.

Okay.

Hey, what is your birth month?

I'm amethyst.

I'm February.

Oh, January is garnet, it turns out.

Yeah, how about that?

Gashed garnet.

I want to give a shout out to a family that my mom was friends with when I was younger.

The parents were scientists and they named all of their children after gems or minerals that start with a letter G.

So they had galena, they had garnet.

Glendonite.

No, they did not have a kid named Glendonite, but I'm very sad that they didn't.

Gold?

That's not too bad.

No, and they didn't have a gold.

They probably thought that gold would be treated better than everybody else.

Godefreit.

Galicite.

Gerstdorfite.

Geality.

Geality.

Did I say Globberite already?

I like Glenda like.

Globorite?

Yeah.

No, you didn't.

Globberite.

You made the right choices.

This is funny because this came up recently in a weird text chain I was having with John Darnell of the Mountain Goats.

We were talking about, I don't know know how this particular gemstone came up, but it's called Goose Creekite.

Oh.

Goose Creekite, according to superbminerals.us.

Goose Creekite is one of the rarer zeolites and one of the most unusually named minerals in the world.

I would say so.

Yeah.

It's named after the quarry from where it was first described, Luck Goose Creek Quarry in Loudoun County, Virginia.

Shout out to Loudoun County.

And according to Christology, you know, like a

healing woo-woo crystal website,

it can be useful in the treating of a dysfunctional thymus.

Just so you know, Cooskreekite.

I'm realizing I don't know what my thymus does.

It's also a terrific name for a child.

Cooskreekite.

I want to acknowledge the, I'm not going to get into the fossil or the shell.

Don't be mad.

Don't at me or do at me.

It's okay if you feel strongly about those.

I do want to shout out the second state in a very short list of states that we have covered so far, naming milk as the official beverage of the state.

So, New York State ranks third for the amount of milk produced.

I guess that seemed to be.

There's a lot of dairy farms in New York.

They went ahead and doubled down on those dairy farms by naming state stack of New York yogurt.

Now,

what I want to say is I'm sad because I felt like I was going to get a bunch of information from a Newsday article titled, It's Official, Yogurt is New York State Snack.

And then I went, and it's not up anymore.

So I can't read you anything from that, but I feel like the title in that case maybe says enough.

Let me tell you about a little town in New York, Cooperstown,

home of the baseball hall of fame.

You know, I don't know whether baseball was invented in Cooperstown,

but it's definitely that is that is a baseball hall of fame.

So, you know, when we're talking about snacks, we're talking about peanuts and cracker jack.

Right off the top, those two are better than yogurt.

Yogurt.

Put your yogurt here.

I don't know who was putting

in yogurt.

I don't know.

The yogurt.

I didn't know the New York yogurt mafia had its hands that far into Cuomo's pockets

along with the big canine unit.

But yeah, that's no good.

That's no good.

Deep pockets.

Apple muffin, unsurprisingly, steakfruit apple.

Stupid.

No such thing.

1987 official.

Non-existent muffin.

Guess who?

Guess who brought that in?

Kate Lorch.

Apple official muffin through the efforts of students throughout New York State in 1987.

Probably because the Apple is the

official, and we got a lot of money.

That's definitely a real muffin.

A lot.

You know how that got cooked up?

A bunch of fourth graders went to the Oak Room for a three-martini lunch and wrote down the idea for an apple muffin on a cocktail napkin.

Yep.

That's how deals are made in New York.

That's how it's done in New York.

It's Excelsior.

I dare you to suggest a better motto.

I think I don't have one.

I think we should just go straight to rating it.

One out of ten beaver lodges.

One out of ten beaver lodges.

Excelsior.

Excelsior?

With one being bad

and 10 being ever upward.

Yeah.

Can you even go higher?

New York, I say, can't go higher than 10.

That's the top.

Exactly.

Couldn't agree more.

Very pleased.

Simple, elegant, enthusiastic, aspirational, Excelsior.

You are dynamite.

Great job with your motto, New York State.

Good job.

Couldn't support it more.

That is the end of this episode of ePlurivist Motto.

The show is hosted by John Hodgman, along with myself, Janet Varney, and it is a production of maximum fun.

The show was edited and produced by the great Julian Varel, along with senior producer the great Laura Swisher.

Our music was created by the great Zach Burba and ePluribus Moto artwork was created by Paul G.

Hammond, the great.

We'd love to hear from you and your thoughts on New York or any of the states we visited so far.

Please know that your emails are getting read and we're just loving them.

You can find the show on TikTok and Instagram at ePluribus Moto and via email at emailpluribusmato at maximumfun.org.

And if you want to submit pictures of the states we have coming so that we can include them in our episode art, you can send them to, you guessed it, Pluribus Motto at maximumfun.org.

You might see it show up in your podcatcher when that state's episode airs.

And speaking of upcoming states, next week is all about the sights, sounds, and tastes of Vermont.

The state flavor shall be maple from the Vermont Sugar Maple Tree.

I had to say right now, I don't know if we're going to come across another state flavor.

Until then, remember our motto:

Has any state taken huzzah?

Maximum Fun, a worker-owned network of artist-owned shows, supported directly by you.