Massachusetts - Ense Petit Placidam Sub Libertate Quietem
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Transcript
Hi, my name is John Hodgman.
And my name is Janet Varney.
And welcome to ePluribus Motto, the podcast all about celebrating every state
and commonwealth in the Union.
This week we spotlight my home commonwealth, Massachusetts.
It's got a complicated motto that came from a threatening guestbook entry and multiple songs vying to be recognized as state symbols.
Plus, we got more.
We're going to hear from Kate Lorch, the woman who struck a major political victory as a fourth grader.
Getting the state.
Commonwealth.
I will get that right one day.
Thank you, my friend, for never letting me get past it.
I will get that right.
Try and stop me.
What did Kate do when she was in fourth grade?
She got the Commonwealth unofficial muffin.
So grab yourself a hoodsie.
That's a little cup of hood milk brand ice cream that we used to get at the cafeteria when I was growing up in the Commonwealth.
And try not to do a Boston accent just yet, and maybe never, because I can't do one and I live there.
This is E.
Pluribus motto.
Welcome to the show.
I mean, you're going to hear them as separate shows, but for us, this is going to be a very special double header.
Yes, indeed.
As they say, in the baseball park, Fenway Park.
Oh, I see where you're going with this.
I see exactly where you're going with this.
And
that's just a little hint, a little tease.
Before we get into today's motto, what's special about this is that Janet and I are staring into each other's eyes.
It's awful.
Here in my office studio, I have set up two microphones, which has never happened before in this space.
What a wonderful trade-off we get to be here together.
And you might hear a bird chirping in the background because it's warm in Brooklyn.
And I left the window open.
Janet, it's so nice to see you.
Thank you for coming.
Last week, Janet told me all about the motto of the state called Rhode Island, Little Rhodey.
Little state, simple, not in a bad way.
Motto, simple, not in a bad way.
Little state, big stuffed clam for a heart.
Big stuffy.
10 out of 10 cohog-fisted stuffed clams.
Yes, indeed.
What did we give to Connecticut?
One?
One.
So this one is going to fall somewhere in the middle, probably.
It might.
I don't know.
Because today I am presenting to Janet Varney the state motto of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.
Janet, tell me three things you think of when you think of Massachusetts.
Okay.
Any three things.
First three things that come to mind.
Ben Affleck.
No, I'm not going to include him.
Oh, wow.
I'm going to bring a little bit of afflectation into, I wish I would have gone that right the first time, into what I'm saying.
America Runs on Duncan cannot have been told by more people that Massachusetts really owns Dunkin' Donuts and that no other state can claim Duncan the way
Dunkin' Donuts in the world, I believe.
Yeah.
It's in Quincy, Massachusetts, neighborhood of Boston.
There we go.
So I definitely think of Duncan.
And then I think of my trip because it was a very big deal when I was in, I guess, fifth grade.
My friend Meredith, my dear, dear friend from grade school, moved with her family to Pittsfield, Massachusetts.
Pittsfield, Massachusetts.
Mother worked for IBM.
Left Tucson, Arizona for Pittsfield.
I was heartbroken.
Our parents agreed that it would be fun for me to get on a plane all by myself to fly to Boston from Tucson to stay for a week or two with Meredith and her family.
In Pittsfield.
In Pittsfield.
You could not fly to Boston direct from Tucson.
You probably still can't.
I was a child flying by myself, and I do remember being very excited and scared, and that I made it all the way to the midpoint, which was probably Chicago.
And as the plane switched out, and I can't remember if I had to get off the plane or not, but I do remember being landed and safe on a mostly empty plane and going in and throwing up oh no yeah so i think that was nerves right because we were at that point standing still i think it was a witch's curse and it may have been a witch's curse i had not yet been to salem yeah that was very exciting to me because i was a child of the occult as many young people are yeah chasing after that high of wondering about psychic powers and so forth and we also went to the boston children's museum yes I remember walking up.
They were there on Museum Wharf at the time.
It was definitely on a wharf because it was pointed out to me that there were a bunch of men of war, or you say men of wars, jellyfishes, jellyfish floating in just there in the bay.
Funny, I'd never heard of the famous Boston men's of wars.
There they were.
As you can understand, it stuck with me as a kid from the desert.
This is the Children's Museum tour guide.
Yeah.
Oh, yeah, by the way, kids.
Yeah.
If you fell in that water right now,
I'm not going to do a Boston accent.
Go fuck yourself.
You'd be dead.
Can't do it.
But I loved that children's museum.
And one of the main things I remember.
Yes, the giant desktop.
I feel like there was like a giant mug
and a telephone and like a big pencil.
Yeah.
Giant milk bottle.
You remember that giant bottom?
Oh, no, I don't remember a giant milk bottle.
No, I don't remember a giant milk bottle.
How about that?
There's a hood.
How big?
Okay.
There's a big dairy company in New England called Hood.
And they have a giant milk bottle of Museum Wharf.
And there's an ice cream stand in the bottom of the.
Oh, so it's building size.
It's building size.
And there's an ice cream place.
A famous New England dairy treat that you would get at the cafeteria after school lunch would be a hoodsie, which is a little cup of ice cream.
Oh, yeah, I think we talked about hoodsies when you did my podcast, the JV Club with Random.
We talked about your teenagers.
I might well have talked about that.
And I might well have talked about some of this because what I remember saying is there was a King Cone
truck that had soft serve in Pittsville, Massachusetts, which was also very novel and exciting to me.
And Meredith's house had a basement.
also very exciting.
And it smelled like a basement.
Absolutely.
And I felt one of my favorite books, aside from a written one time, as a grade schooler, was called A Diamond in the Window.
I've talked about it at length.
It's by Jane Langton.
Yeah.
And it takes place in Concord, Massachusetts.
And there is a multi-level house with a turreted window and like this sort of secret window that these kids find.
And so being in Pittsfield was the first time I had ever been on the East Coast, and certainly the first time I had ever seen homes like that.
And she lived in one.
So I did not want to leave.
Concord, Massachusetts is a real Massachusetts New England stereotypical town.
So many
Shotting around.
Battle of Lexington and Concord.
The shot heard round the world.
Shot heard round the world.
Where the minute men shot at some British soldiers and ran away.
What a scrubby little thing war was then.
And wouldn't it be great?
It's scrubby and scrappy.
I don't think there should be war, but if there's going to be, it's like you shoot a musket ball at a guy.
Yeah.
And like it hurts his arm a little.
I was going to say, good chance you miss.
Nothing had any aim to it.
Yeah, and then you just run away through the woods.
Yeah.
Yeah.
It'd be great.
Now, I'd like to ask you,
Do you feel a certain joy, a certain pressure, a little of both talking about a state like Massachusetts, talking about something that you're deeply connected to?
Yeah.
Did you feel excited or did you think, oh, this is a lot?
Or I need to represent this state?
I don't need to represent this state because we all know what it is.
Now, just a minute, man.
There's a lot of cliches that go along with Massachusetts.
I feel like that that started happening later on.
Like in my adulthood.
Okay.
Like I remember feeling very, very wounded when in 1989, the number, Another Summer, Sound of the Funky Drummer, the movie Do the Right Thing came out.
Yes.
And Gian Carlo Esposito's character, Buggin' Out,
is yelling at the Caucasian actor, John Savage, because he steps, he gets dirt on.
Yes.
And he's wearing a Celtics t-shirt.
And John Carlo Esposito's Bugging Out just lobs the most insulting insult that you can put at anybody when he says to John Savage, why don't you just move back to Massachusetts?
And I was like, oh, wow.
I didn't know how bad we were, honestly.
Yeah.
It was only after that that I started to tune into what the cliches of Massachusetts are, which are largely cliches of Boston.
Yes, they are.
Eastern Massachusetts more than they are Western Massachusetts.
Yeah.
But like all states and territories and places in this world, it contains multitudes.
So I'm just going to start out by talking to you about the motto, not the slogan.
Wonderful.
The slogan is: where basements smell like basements.
I'm going to give that 10 out of 10 basements straight away from personal experience.
But the motto is Latin, and here it comes at you.
Great.
Ense petit placidam sub libertate quietem.
Yes.
This phrase is often loosely translated into English as, by the sword we seek peace, but peace only under liberty, which
is terrible.
Terrible motto.
The first half sounds like the novel 1984 style war is peace.
We seek peace by the sword.
Second half sounds like someone wrote the first half and said it out loud and realized it sounded bad and then tried to fix it on the floor.
It's like,
by the sword, we seek peace, but
only under liberty
for all.
Yes, the hear me out is implied, but hear me out.
Now, Google translates it as the sword seeks a peaceful rest under liberty, which is not much clearer.
Yeah.
Because now it's the sword that's doing the seeking, and all it wants is a nap.
Don't try to make it about the sword.
Somebody's holding the sword.
You know what I mean?
Take responsibility for well, we're going to talk about somebody holding the sword in a minute.
Great.
But Wikipedia says the motto is a second half of a common saying.
Oh.
Manus hec inimica tyrannis ense petit placidum sum libertate quietum.
Oh, that's a regular saying.
Oh,
somewhere in there is an N with an apostrophe.
It means this hand, an enemy to tyrants, seeks with the sword a quiet peace under liberty.
And I believe Wikipedia, because it almost makes sense.
It is basically saying
we are resisting tyrants.
Yes.
We'll fight for peace with swords, but the only peace we will accept is liberty from tyranny.
That is the intention of the motto, even though it's fairly confused.
This common saying, manus hec inimica tyrannis ense petit placidum su liberte queetum, had been around for 115 years by the time the Massachusetts General Court adopted it as the official motto of the Commonwealth in 1775.
And you know who wrote it?
You might do.
I'll give you a hint.
Algernon Sidney.
Zero.
I've got zero.
That helps me, zero.
That's what it is.
That was the hint, the answer.
Even the hint didn't help me.
In 1660, famous English soldier/slash statesman, as he was called, and general shitsterer Algernon Sidney wrote this down.
Sidney had been a member of the Long Parliament of England during the English Civil War, not to be confused with the short parliament.
The long parliament was so-called because it lasted a relatively long time.
I think it was like 11 years.
All the parliaments were being constantly being dissolved.
Okay.
Because this was the emergence of the idea of representative government and the Magna Carta, and that it wasn't just the king ruling exclusively.
He had to rule in consultation with the parliament.
And some kings didn't like this and would dissolve it.
Right.
But the long parliament, this was Algernon Sidney's jam.
Okay.
Who was a parliamentarian through and through, loved it,
loved the idea of representative government of some form or another.
And he was a member of the Long Parliament during the English Civil War.
And the English Civil War, of course, Oliver Cromwell's army defeated the forces of British King Charles I.
Yes.
And then they executed the king in 1648.
Now, Sidney, Algernon Sidney, did not love the idea of executing the king,
but he didn't mind it too much because, as I mentioned, he didn't like kings in general.
At least he didn't like the concept of an absolute monarchy that derived its power from divine right.
Sure.
And not, say, an elected parliament, especially one that had Algernon Sidney in it.
That was his favorite form of government, I think.
Understood.
Now, it turns out Cromwell didn't love the idea of parliament much more than Charles I did.
He became the Lord Protector in the Protectorate, which is what the nation was called after King Charles I was beheaded.
Cromwell dissolved Parliament in 1653, and Algernon had to be forcibly removed from the the chamber
because he loves Parliament so much.
He had to sit in.
Yeah.
So he stewed around for a while in retirement, working on his unpublished book, like so many retired weird dads.
His unpublished book, My Catchy Phrases.
My Catchy Phrases.
I worked at Writers' House Literary Agency with Hannah Tinty.
So both of us were very,
very used to getting unpublished manuscripts by retired dads.
Oh, sure.
That it was their dream to finally write their Hamfisted Spy thriller or their incredibly boring memoir of their purpose.
Which is charming a bit from the outside, but must have been eye-rolly from the inside.
It was very cute, but it was hard to let these dads down.
Yeah.
But this manuscript was neither of those things.
It wasn't a spy thriller.
It wasn't a memoir.
It's called Discourses Upon Government.
And in this then unpublished manuscript, he mused up on such ideas that people have a right to choose their own form of government.
And then if government is not doing a good job, those people can give it the boot.
Disagreed.
Ideas Ideas that ended up being pretty influential to a bunch of wealthy merchants and farmers and free-thinking kite enthusiasts and anti-tax people.
Yes, indeed.
And other people who got drunk on Sam Adams' lager in Boston and New England about a century later.
So, the discourses, sometimes referred to as the textbook of the American Revolution, it must be the source of Massachusetts's motto, correct?
I think that seems like it fits.
I would think so, too, but we're both wrong.
Okay, great.
Sorry, LG.
That saying, I'm not going to say it again.
You already heard it five times, and you know.
Well, I grew up with it.
Long and last.
Of course, you grew up with it.
Everyone was always saying it.
Even got to Tucson after a while.
On the Playground.
It comes from a guest book that Algernon Sidney signed.
No, it doesn't.
A guest book.
What?
Where?
The Visitor's Log at the University of Copenhagen.
Okay.
He signed that.
This hand, enemy to tyrants by the sword, seeks peace with liberty, which is how I'm all going to sign everyone.
I was going to say, when I look, well, I look back with deep shame on most of the times I've written like comfy bed, cute mugs.
Yeah.
Exactly.
That's my signings.
Also, Death to Tyrants.
And P.S.
I think Algernon Sidney felt the world needed to hear his thoughts wherever he might be able to fart them out
on the paper.
He was pretty fond of his own writing.
All right, this part I wrote.
I'm going to just say it.
It's hard to say.
Whilst Algernon Sidney was enjoying a post-Copenhagen guest book mic drop vacation
in Rome, Guess what?
Here comes King Charles II, the sequel.
Oh, the sequel.
And the restoration of the Stuart monarchy.
Yeah.
Now, this put Algernon Sidney in a tight spot because, remember, he defended the execution of Charles I,
and Charles II wasn't too into that.
And Sidney was targeted for assassination two times as he fucked around Europe.
Okay.
And Sidney.
Wait, what happened?
So the first time they didn't work, and they were like, ugh, whatever.
And then he was like, no, I do want him assassinated.
Someone came at him with knives two times and they pushed him away or whatever.
So he responded to the first attempt with another guest book, truth palm.
No.
Sit sanguinis alter justorum.
Let there be revenge for the blood of the just that he wrote in the visitor's book at the University of Geneva.
No,
you're lying to me.
This was his jam.
This is what he liked to do.
This is like old-timey geocaching.
Exactly.
Where can I go next?
And you know what happened?
Word got to Charles II saying, you don't want to know.
Whisper, whisper, guest book.
Whisper, whisper, gossip.
Guest book at the University of Geneva.
Yeah.
Let there be revenge for the blood of the just.
And, you know, Charles II was like, this guy, he's too good.
He's too good.
Yeah.
I give up.
Oh, what?
I resign the throne.
Based on a guest book law.
Yeah.
And I establish a representative.
constitutional monarchy and a representative government like you want.
No, of course not.
I fucking arrested the dude.
Yeah.
In 1683, he was accused.
No assassination.
Part of...
No,
finally, they got him because he did go back to England and they got him.
All right.
And they arrested him, accusing him of being part of the Rye House plot to assassinate Charles II.
Now, was he part of the Rye House plotters?
This was never proven.
No.
A lot of people feel that
he was unjustly accused, even though he it's...
on the record that he was taking money from France this whole time to destabilize.
He really was basically like jill stein if he wasn't an official part of that organization i
it's like general flynn yeah exactly taking money from putin but i just stir stir stuff up that doesn't necessarily mean i yeah they didn't have a human witness against algernon sydney animal witness no
guess what book witness
this dummy had written all this seditious stuff down in his book discourses upon government
he's all there in writing They found his manuscript.
Dude, this is what happened.
And they're like, this proves that
you hate the king.
And Sidney was like, well, that's just stuff that I wrote for lulz.
This all feels like he literally says, you're taking it out of context.
And they're like, no.
And they beheaded him.
He's arguably the first person in history to be literally canceled for not deleting his tweets.
Yeah.
That's exactly this.
Very familiar.
Very familiar.
Now, shape of the state.
This is the thing that I always loved growing up.
To me, Massachusetts looks like a little United States of America.
It's a little cracky.
It's a mini-me.
It's a little mini-me.
Look at you, tiny United States.
Isn't that a funny coincidence?
I don't know how I think it is.
Unless they were like, here's what we foresee the entirety of this country looking like.
Yeah, let's make it look like the entire continent.
So
this part, this Cape Cod, this withered arm.
Sorry, George, your cabin's out.
Or Florida, which we've been exploring for a long time.
And then over in the West, it's just monsters.
Dairy monsters.
They put monsters there.
No, this is.
I never noticed that before, but it makes sense.
I mean, it does kind of look like a tiny.
From the western border, the Berkshire Mountains, Pittsfield, Massachusetts, and the hilltowns of the Connecticut River Valley, then across the blasted, joyless plains of Worcester.
Massachusetts' own mordor, as far as I'm concerned, to the hub of the universe itself is what they called Boston, of all things, the hub of the universe.
This little provincial capital, the hub of the universe.
I mean, there are a lot of colleges there or whatever.
Yeah.
And then all the way to the little tippy tip of Cape Cod, Provincetown.
You ever been to Provincetown?
No.
I went there for the first time.
It's great.
Want to go?
That's what it looks like.
So there you go.
Massachusetts.
Shall we get into some of this?
Uh, the state stuff?
I'd love to.
This is all official.
Okay.
State flower.
This is on the nose.
Is it?
Yeah.
The Massachusetts laurel.
Well, when you think about Puritans coming
to infest the new nation with smallpox.
Yes.
I know all of this ties into a flower.
The Mayflower.
The Mayflower.
Ding, ding, ding.
All right.
That's the state flower of Massachusetts.
Okay.
So what you're saying is they named a flower after their boat versus like, oh my God, what a weird coincidence.
Our boat is the same name as this flower that happens to be here in this new place that we've just settled.
Here's what William Francis Calvin has to say on his website, or whoever wrote this.
The Mayflower is also commonly known as the ground laurel.
I was right when I said laurel.
There's a lot of laurels out there.
It's a really good guess.
AKA the trailing arbitus.
Oh.
It grows in woods, preferring sandy or rocky soil.
By the way, Massachusetts has an official soil.
You never know what the state's going to have.
Unlike the rich sandy loam of Connecticut, which is the unofficial soil of Connecticut.
Correct.
Massachusetts has an official soil.
Okay.
God, I'm always so interested in watching.
The Paxton soil series.
Oh, the series.
Yeah.
The official soil series.
Okay.
Anyway, that's the official soil of Massachusetts.
But whether, which came first, the boat or the flower?
I don't know.
Maybe someone else can tell me.
Okay.
All right.
I love that soil series.
You know, a lot of people are like, maybe we only needed one.
Maybe we didn't need the sequels.
Yeah.
I think it tells an overarching story.
I agree with you.
And I would say to that, I would say, oh, I'm sorry.
Are you also offended by the World Series?
Perfect example of one of of the great series
state bird is not the cardinal but the robin chickadee dee dee
that's my imitation of a chickadee chickadee dee dee yeah chickadee deeper when I was growing up
all right also goes
chickadee dee dee
yeah no that's the Massachusetts Yoo-hoo I'm sorry
I'm not I have it's been a while since I read any of my Gary Larson which is how I know everything about nature so
State fish.
Of course, we named a cape for it.
Cod.
Cod.
And do you.
I like cod.
You like cod?
I'm not going to complain about cod.
Pretty bland.
Yeah, but when you're a kid and you don't think you like fish because fish tastes fishy, I mean, that's a great step towards fishier fish.
You can get like buttery cod that, as cooked Japanese style is one of my favorite, like baked Japanese dishes.
So good.
By the way, did you know that Cape Cod is an island?
I didn't.
Yeah.
What I remember about Cape Cod is that that is the approximate location that Daryl Hanna's species comes from in the movie Splash.
In Splash?
That's right.
That's why I wanted to go there because I was like,
yeah, that's where the mermaids live off Cape Cod.
But you've never had a camera.
And they've been known to save a life or two.
You've never been to Cape Cod.
I've never been to Cape Cod.
Cape Cod was originally a Cape, which is a peninsula,
but then they cut a channel into it.
And it's specifically, and of course I know this by heart.
Well, the Sagamore Bridge goes over it.
And so the canal has to be called the Cape Cod Canal.
Yeah, that's why you know it by heart.
The Sagamore, of course, was obviously a borrowed Native American name.
Sure.
It was also the name of our high school newspaper.
Ah, the Sagamore.
That's right.
Christine Connor, our friend
editor-in-chief.
The Sagamore Current would have been a fun name.
The Cape Cod Canal Current.
Yeah, the canal is called Cape Cod Canal.
And this became a point of some controversy, as they say, in Algernon and Sydney
when we discussed this on the Judge John Hodgman podcast, because there is no Cape Cod is completely surrounded by water.
It is an artificial island.
We did that.
We did that.
We did that.
Cod Island.
It should be called Cod Island.
Wow, that should now be called Code so much.
Isn't that weird?
Going out to Cod Island this weekend?
It's so unappealing.
We should put it like that.
That just makes it sound like there's a bunch of cod flopping around on the island.
So the Commonwealth of Massachusetts has
two official state songs.
Okay.
Well, actually, I take it back.
I realize there are more.
The official song of the Commonwealth is All Hail to Massachusetts, which is just a boring song.
No offense, Arthur Marsh, who wrote it.
And it's relatively new.
It was adopted in 1981.
I don't know why that surprises me.
It's always surprising when it no, sorry, no shade, Arthur.
Right.
But when it, when a kind of crummy or slightly bland song is not 100 years years old it's not 200 years old it's like no this is fresh hot off the press what's interesting is that and i didn't make this connection but the the official folk song of massachusetts
i'm listening now i like this is the song massachusetts words and music by arlo guthrie okay now we're talking like famous pittsfield uh resident if i'm not mistaken cool i think that's where alice's restaurant is oh that does sound familiar i just want to make sure before i get the letters
uh You can get anything you want at Alice's Pittsfield Restaurant.
And that's the song, Master.
Alice's Restaurant in the Berkshire Stockbridge.
Stockbridge, everybody.
Same.
You may put down your poison pens.
Put down your ats.
Stop damning me in guest books around Europe.
I made a small mistake.
And it says here are permanently closed, which is news to me because it had been operating until recently.
Stockbridge, Massachusetts, of course, featuring the song Sweet Baby James by James Taylor.
Too many songs, I'm getting confused.
Okay, sorry.
Berkshire's legend James Taylor.
That is the song my dad would sling me to sleep every night, and the song I self-soothed with when I was in college having panic attacks.
So is the turnpike from Stockbridge?
Bridge to Boston.
Though the Berkshires seem dreamlike on account of that frosting.
And again, an apostrophe.
Got to have an apostrophe.
It's the only way to sing about dogies.
It's true.
Let's take a listen to Arlo Guthrie's screen, Massachusetts.
Arlo Guthrie.
And that's a house upon a hill
that keeps us from the chill.
And by the grace of God, we will be in Massachusetts.
Okay, first thoughts, other than that it's just more slick and produced than I thought it would be, it sort of sounds like it it could be the theme song to a TV show they were hoping would be as popular as Cheers
and was not.
Honestly, if the theme for Cheers was the official song of Massachusetts,
would anyone have a problem with that?
No one would mind that at all.
No one would be minding that at all.
Sometimes you want to go to the hub of the universe.
And one of the things that I just noticed here for the very first time is that both All Hail to Massachusetts and Arlo Guthrie's Massachusetts were adopted officially on July the 6th, 1981.
Okay.
So clearly,
they wanted to get Arlo Guthrie's song in, but they didn't have an official boring song yet.
Right, right.
How much money do you think Arlo Guthrie gave to William F.
Galvin?
He was a member of
the House of Representatives in the state at that time.
Yeah.
But here's something that you might not know.
The state has no official rock song, and this is a travesty.
I don't know if I'm...
Okay.
We'll see how many states have official rock songs.
I think Ohio has one.
Yeah.
Probably by the Ohio players.
Is that a rock band or an RB band?
I don't know, but
I have been known to try to come up with fake Bruce Springsteen songs.
And I feel like there are a lot of states that we could try to write a snippet of a Bruce Springsteen song about because everybody wants Bruce to write it to
tip of the hat.
No one in Massachusetts wants Bruce Springsteen to write official state rock song.
They don't.
And in fact, the official rock song song of Massachusetts has already been written.
It's Roadrunner by Jonathan Richmond and the Modern Lovers.
Okay, I know who Jonathan Robertson.
In 2013, Martin Marty Walsh, then
mayor of Boston, began his campaign to make Roadrunner the official rock song of Massachusetts.
Okay.
I was personally enlisted
by one of his advisors
to spread the word on this.
Okay.
So far, no luck.
So
it hasn't quite
galvanized.
Oh, wowie, Zowie.
Jonathan Richmond of the Modern Lovers recorded the song in 1972.
It literally says, I'm in love with Massachusetts in the song.
Oh, okay.
And former Boston Mayor Marty Walsh proposed that the song be given the honor, excuse me, in 2013 when he was a state rep, continued during his tenure as mayor to get it passed.
Did not care about any other piece of legislation, did not care about, that's why he was there.
I literally can't comment on that.
Okay, I understood.
Understood.
In regards to
the state rock song efforts,
it was stymied in the legislature by
a group of legislators who preferred a different song to be the state rock song.
They had never considered having a state rock song before Marty Walsh.
But suddenly.
Yeah, they got what they wanted, which is that no one gets what they want.
The Massachusetts way.
There is still no state rock song, although I believe there is a bill working its way through the state legislature now.
Do you want to listen to it?
Yes.
Very British sounding, very British rock, Brit rock sounding.
A New Englander through and through.
Yes, he is, but we can agree that even even his count off sounded extremely British.
He's like, a wong, a two, I'm from New England.
This is the song that you want to listen to while you're driving around.
I don't disagree.
I liked it.
On the way to the stop and shop with the radio on.
It's a great song.
But is it the state's official polka song?
No.
Oh, good.
The official polka song is Say Hello to Someone from Massachusetts by Lenny Gomulka and is approved the official polka of the Commonwealth in 1998.
And And the people there are friendlier than ever.
Sort of fit right in here's what you've got to do.
Say hello to someone in Massachusetts.
Tip your hat to every lady that you meet.
Sure.
Big Polish-American community in Greenfield, Massachusetts.
That's western Massachusetts, where I used to spend quite a bit of time.
But let's wrap things up with the state muffin.
Thank
God.
Now I am really excited about the state muffin.
Great.
Because
it is the corn muffin.
Yes.
Which makes sense.
Yes.
But I may have mentioned to you before that I had a vague memory that my old high school pal, Ben Lorch, had a younger sister who was instrumental in bringing the corn muffin.
the honor of becoming the state muffin of Massachusetts.
Yes.
And I have not spoken to Ben Lorch in a long time.
I finally tracked down Ben Lorch.
Great.
Okay.
Guess what Ben's doing now?
Please tell me he makes muffins for a living.
Ben Lorch, my old friend from high school, is now the founder and director of the Berlin School of Podcasting in Berlin, Germany.
If you're listening to a podcast in Germany, you know that's got Ben Lorch's fingerprints on it.
Oh, my.
He's training and teaching young podcasters of Berlin how to do the biz.
What he writes is, indeed, your memory is correct.
My sister Kate's fourth grade class lobbied the Massachusetts state legislature to make the official state muffin of Massachusetts corn.
It is a story of intrigue and a prolonged legislative battle.
And I said, can I talk to you for the podcast?
Or can you give me your memory?
Can you read your memories into a thing?
Yeah.
She said, I'm flying to the East Coast today to see our mom and sister.
I will try to gather my thoughts on the plane.
What I can tell you this, I will tell you more, but for now I can say.
My husband Dennis wants me to inform you that a year or so after our victorious bill was signed by Governor Dukakis and received national attention on CBS Morning News with Maria Shriver,
another bill sailed through the state legislature banning lobbying by school groups for official state items.
The corn muffin made it through the door and then Massachusetts slammed the door shut.
Eventually, Kate Lorch's plane did land and we were able to connect.
Here's a bit of our conversation about how the corn muffin became the official Massachusetts Commonwealthian muffin in 1986 after a joint effort from Kate's fourth grade class.
Jay Sugarman was my fourth grade teacher, and he had this idea to make the corn muffin the official state muffin of Massachusetts.
But all 22 of us or whatever were in on the effort.
And I am just a representative today of my fourth grade class.
I appreciate it.
Well, you're the one that I have the contact information for.
Yes, of course.
And I'm happy to put you in touch with the rest of them later.
That won't be necessary.
I think you're going to do a great job.
Tell me how you said that this was.
Jay, Mr.
Sugarman, or did you call him Dr.
Jay?
Mr.
Sugarman, yes.
How did this come about?
This is Mr.
Sugarman's idea or what?
Well, Mr.
Sugarman invited Eleanor Meyerson, who was our representative
for the great state of Massachusetts, and she happened to go to Runkel.
Okay.
That was the elementary school.
And so she came and talked to our class about how a bill becomes a law early in the year.
And I'm not sure how it got concocted that we ought to make the corn muffin the official state muffin of Massachusetts.
But according to these documents, that is what transpired next.
So there's article after article.
We got a lot of press.
So the document, the binder you're showing me is clips of your press coverage of your efforts.
Yes, press coverage, letters, letters to senators, letters from senators.
There's a speech in here that my mom probably wrote that is in my handwriting.
That you delivered?
Yes, yes,
to the House Ways and Means Committee, I believe.
So we lobbied at you know first we had to go in front of the committee and four fourth graders gave short speeches about why the corn muffin should be the official state muffin oh wow yeah
that and
sugarman didn't get up there at all no he used you as human shields to push through his idea Yes, fourth grade human shields.
It was in front of the state administration committee on March 19th, 1986.
I remember feeling nervous that maybe we wouldn't win the lobby of the corn muffin being the official state muffin but you know i think our cuteness really helped yeah i could imagine you'd be you'd be very scared to go up there under the golden dome of the state house and plead your case now only to lose but but you didn't well no we didn't lose that's that's not a spoiler that's history yes would you feel comfortable sharing the text of your speech to the massachusetts house ways and means means committee with Of course.
Hi, I'm Kate Lorch, age nine, and a relative of English settlers who came to Holliston Mass in 1632, 12 years after the Mayflower.
My great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great, great grandfather, Henry Leland, would be proud to know how our class hopes to honor corn and the part it played in the relationship between the Native Americans and the settlers.
The Native Americans gave the settlers corn and taught them how to grow it and use it for food, like muffins.
I hope to pass this bill in memory of the Native Americans and the settlers.
Thank you.
Sincerely, Kate Lorch.
I hope you dropped the microphone after that, particularly like muffins.
That was,
I mean, there's a lot of writerly craft in there.
The great, great, great, great, great, great, great.
I mean, it's just like,
I just melting hearts in that state house.
It's like
That's like the senators bursting into tears when Mr.
Rogers is talking to them.
I love that piece.
Stagecraft.
Yes.
And then like muffins, boom.
I do remember counting back, like my mom working with me to figure out, okay, well, it was grandpa's, grandpa.
Yeah.
Very nice.
I did learn
that after
your effort succeeded,
legislature quickly passed to ban children from coming to the state house to lobby for muffins ever again in the future.
Is that right?
Yes.
I believe that they banned school groups from doing lobbying in order to learn how a bill becomes a law.
They want you to just watch the video.
Maybe they're more interested in
making sure that social security checks come out on time and that sort of thing.
And maybe they maybe they want to go to the bar.
You know what I mean?
But
it's Massachusetts.
It's after hours.
Yeah.
All right.
Well, I'm glad.
I think that that's, I think that's crummy.
I think the kids should be going to the state house all across this United States and territories all the time to get in the faces of these elected representatives and pitch their muffins and see how it works and remind those reps who they work for, fourth graders.
That's right.
Well, I'm not happy about that.
That outcome is not good, but all the other outcomes are great.
Kate Lorch, thank you very much for taking the time to talk.
It was so fun and my pleasure, John.
It's great to see you.
Yes.
That's a beautiful thing.
And I feel like it speaks to a lot of what we're learning about how something becomes an official state anything, which is it often involves school children never giving up.
And how schoolchildren have been annoying state and Commonwealth legislatures for decades to get this stuff written into the law.
May they whine.
Wrong may they whine.
Here's their motto.
Try and stop us.
Exactly.
There was even more that I spoke with Kate about in her adventure, including how her class's efforts were nearly undone by an intense rival cranberry muffin lobby group.
If you're a Maxim member, you can hear our entire conversation available now in your bonus content feed.
And if you're not a member, you can become one.
Just go to maximumfund.org/slash join to get started right away as low as $5 a month.
Now, Janet, we've held off long enough.
Yeah.
Shall we rank the motto of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts?
I say we shall, sir.
I say we shall.
But first of all, we got to figure out what item we want to use to rank it.
How many items in the ranking do we want to give it?
A Massachusetts footloa.
A Massachusetts cape, otherwise known as an island.
Why don't we say
Provincetown Fried Clams?
Although we already did clams for Rhode Island.
This is the problem with New England.
What about the ice cream?
Oh, hoodsies.
Hoodsies.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
How many hoodsies?
How many out of ten hoodsies?
Ense petit placidum sub libertate quietum.
By the sword we seek peace, by peace only under liberty.
And the count of three will both say our ranking of how many hoodsies
after three.
One, two, three.
Two hoodsies.
Okay.
I don't know why I said three.
Two is the correct one.
Well, I gave it two because I appreciate, well, I think it is too long and I don't appreciate the violence implied, I do have to give a little something for the word piece, at least being part of it.
It's awkward but uninspiring, and I couldn't even remember it.
And we just recorded the episode.
It does not deserve free.
It does not deserve free.
You give it a two, I give it a three, we'll average it out.
2.5 hoodsies out of 10.
2.5 hoodsies for the days when you can't quite finish that.
third hoodsie because you've already eaten two two two hoodsies so two and a half hoodsies would mean, because they're usually split down the middle.
You got chocolate and vanilla.
Oh, no.
Did someone get part chocolate and part vanilla?
Did they just eat?
No, my question is, you get to that half a hoodsie, which are you going to eat finally, the vanilla or the chocolate?
I'm going to turn it in the direction where I can have a spoonful of chocolate and vanilla at the same time.
It's not legal.
Let's say it's not legal.
Chocolate or vanilla?
It's a simple question.
I guess I'm going to eat chocolate first.
Vanilla.
We'll get along well.
Great.
You can share a hoodsey.
Great.
There are lots of other interesting things about Massachusetts, including, and if you go to
William F.
Galvin's homepage, the Secretary of Commonwealth of Massachusetts, you can read about it.
And if you do,
I would encourage you to read about the official heroine of Massachusetts, who is Deborah Sampson, who fought in the War of Independence, as they call it sometimes
under the name of Robert Shirtliff.
Oh!
Hid her gender assigned at birth in order to fight.
A really interesting story and lots of other stuff.
If there's stuff that we have missed,
make sure to write to us at emailpluribusmato at maximumfun.org.
When we come back,
okay, fine.
We'll hear a little tiny bit of my horrible impersonation of a Boston accent.
Oh, I'm sure I can do better, worse than you.
That's after this break when ePluribus Matto continues.
Fucking right, kid.
Hey, John and Janet.
My name is Ben Silver, and as John can attest, I have a giant tattoo of the great state of Connecticut on my chest, which makes me eminently qualified to offer just two small corrections and two little fun facts related to the episode.
The first correction is that Connecticut actually is known for its grapes.
The climate is inhospitable to growing the big, juicy grapes you would want to buy in the grocery store, but it is perfect for growing these ugly little grapes that make great wine.
In fact, you can drive across the state following the Connecticut Wine Trail, which is a beautiful scenic route.
The second correction is that Yale University was not founded in New Haven, Connecticut.
It was founded in 1701 in Saybrook, Connecticut.
In 1716, the university trustees voted to move to New Haven, which was actually the first city planned in the New World instead of just being a haphazard colony.
Thanks.
I love the podcast so far and I can't wait for the other states.
What's up, people of the world?
It's Mark and Hal from We Got This with Mark and Hal.
The show that settles those pointless arguments that you and your friends have.
Should you put ketchup on a hot dog or liquid, foam, or bar soap?
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You can listen to it right now on maximumfun.org or wherever you get your podcasts.
Hello, sleepyheads.
Sleeping with Celebrities is your podcast pillow pal.
We talk to remarkable people about unremarkable topics, all to help you slow down your brain and drift off to sleep.
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The store's name is constantly in your heart because yardsticks become part of the family.
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Night night.
John, I think everyone, and by everyone I mean me, has been very patient.
I would love for you to regale us with your very best, or at least second best, Boston accent.
Even my second best is the world's worst, but I'll I'll do it.
I'm going to share the backstory of politician William Francis Galvin.
But before you listen, I want to be very clear.
For whatever reason, growing up in Boston, I never developed nor could do a Boston accent.
It is not my accent.
This is cultural appropriation at its wicked worst.
But first, I'm going to channel my friend Amy Radford's kitchen manager when she worked on Cape Cod, when he had to answer the question,
what do we use as a butter substitute?
All right, for a butter substitute, we use a product called Whirl.
It melts better, and it's goddamn delicious.
Galvin, William Francis Galvin, began his political career in 1972 as an aide to the Massachusetts Governor's Council after graduating from Boston College, thanks to his connection with Councillor Herb Connolly, whom Galvin had campaigned for.
He was the Democratic nominee for Massachusetts State Treasurer in 1990, but was defeated by Republican Joe Malone.
It was during this this election that he was given the nickname the Prince of Darkness, in reference to his habit of working late into the night and making legislative deals behind closed doors.
See what I'm talking about?
Kept the lights on.
Calvin has been an active participant in the National Association of Secretaries of State, serving first as chairman of the Standing Committee on Securities, then as co-chairman of the Committee on Presidential Primaries.
Here comes the big wrap-up.
At one point during the administration of Governor Mitt Romney and Lieutenant Governor Kerry Healy, Galvin became the acting governor of Massachusetts when both Romney and Healy were out of the state.
During the administration of forming acting governor Jane Swift, Galvin automatically became acting governor whenever Swift left the state, since there was no lieutenant governor in office at the time.
But when Swift gave birth to twins in 2001, she chose to keep full executive authority and did not hand over the governorship at any point to William Francis Galvin.
The end.
He, what a lucky that guy has been
secretary of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts since 1995.
This makes may sound melodramatic.
I am afraid he's going to come after us.
I feel pretty good about my act.
How do you feel about that?
That was great.
I thought it was great.
It's all right.
I feel like I'm getting it.
I thought it was really good.
It's goddamn delicious.
Goddamn delicious.
Goddamn delicious.
God damn.
I didn't do the god.
I mean, I've had to audition for a couple of things that were supposed to be Boston, and I always feel so apologetic.
I feel, you know, always like.
The trick is because most people, it's pah, the con, havid, yad, but there's certain things like like
wasp ofta or scallop oh ofta yeah some of the a's are long some of them are short whatever i don't even know what i'm talking about anymore that's it
we did it that is the end of this episode of e pluribus motto the show is hosted by janet varney along with me john hodgman And it is a production of Maximum Fun.
The show was edited and produced by Julian Burrell along with senior producer Laura Swisher.
Our music was created by Zach Berba.
And E, Pluribus Moto artwork is provided by the wonderful Paul G.
Hammond.
We'd love to hear from you and your thoughts on Massachusetts or any of the states we've visited so far.
Or Commonwealths.
Okay, Janet, fine.
You can find the show on TikTok and Instagram at ePleuribus Moto and by email at emailpluribusmato at maximumfun.org.
Next time, it will be Janet's turn to present another Commonwealth, this one the Commonwealth of Virginia.
And Janet will explain the difference between flat bottoms and round bottoms.
No time for round bottoms, cause we are the flat bottoms of the world.
Buddy, you're a flat bottom state and you got a big peak, but you don't look flagger.
And you got peaks on your peak and really fat bottom.
The Commonwealth of Virginia.
Fucking Commonwealth of Virginia, kid.
Don't get used to this accent for Virginia.
Until next time, here's our motto: try to stop stop us.
It's the motto of every podcast, honestly.
Is it bad that I want to say that the plural of Commonwealth is Commonwealths?
Commonwealth.
Commonwealths.
Keep saying it.
Commonwealth.
Say it until it has no meaning anymore.
I'll say it.
That happened long ago.
Commonwealth.
Commonwealth.
Commonwealth.
Commonwealth.
Commonwealth.
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