HBM159: Final Haircuts

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Scissors in front of a pile of grey and black hair.  Digital render by Jeff Emtman. Scissor model by sweedboy69 used under a Creative Commons Attribution license.  

 

Rocky Villanueva in his Berlin apartment. Photo by Jeff Emtman.

During a moment of personal turmoil, Rocky Villanueva gets an email from a long-time client.  His client is in his final weeks of life, and is getting his last wishes taken care of.  One of those wishes: to look like himself when he dies.  

Rocky says that many hairdressers and barbers have similar experiences: helping their clients through the last stages of life and letting them look the way they want to look for a final time.

Rocky packs his haircutting tools and bikes across Berlin to spend an hour with his client, giving him a haircut and receiving advice on love and grief. 

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Producer: Jeff Emtman
Music: The Black Spot, Serocell, Phantom Fauna

Sponsor: The Summer Diary of a Lady Artist

The Summer Diary of a Lady Artist is a fictional illustrated diary of an artist navigating love and hatred.

The Summer Diary of a Lady Artist is now available at all online book stores.

 

HBM156: Heavy Load-Bearing Body

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Four model cows examine a depression in the ground. Digital Render by Jeff Emtman.

 

Berlin’s Schwerbelastungskörper is a massive concrete structure that, today, is hidden in plain sight between a railroad and an apartment building.  It’s one of just a dozen remaining pieces of Nazi Architecture in Berlin.  And it’s not much to look at. It was built in 1941 as a test structure for a triumphal arch that Hitler wanted to build in that spot. 

Content Note: Language and discussion of war / genocide

The Schwerbelastungskörper (“heavy load-bearing body”) is the arch’s test structure.  It weighs about 12,650 metric tonnes, or about 28 million pounds, and it’s the equivalent weight of one of the four massive legs of the never-built arch.

This plan was abandoned as World War 2 accelerated.  And the structure remained, slowly sinking into Berlin’s marshy soil, providing proof of the arch’s impossibility. 

In this episode, HBM host Jeff Emtman visits the Schwerbelastungskörper, records some impulse responses in the structure’s single room and reflects on his discomfort in finding beauty in another Nazi structure nearby, Tempelhof Airport (now a public park and refugee camp). 

Also mentioned on this episode: The Berlin Airlift, Austrian Tyrol, The Little Mermaid (1989), and Der Herr Der Ringe (Lord of the Rings movies dubbed in German).  

 
 

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Producer: Jeff Emtman
Music: The Black Spot

 

HBM006: Clever Hans

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Please note: This is a very early episode of Here Be Monsters that aired in 2012. This episode no longer appears on the official HBM feed. However, you can still download it here.

On this episode, Kathy Johnson of the Medicine Horse Project explains the nature of equine intelligence in regards to Clever Hans, the a famous German horse who could count, spell, and answer questions. Pictures right here.