The Footnotes: Since this episode was a total bear, I read a lot about and by Sidis while trying to wrestle it into submission. There’s a perfectly readable, proper biography called The Prodigy that’s out of print but probably at your local library. Turns out the Sidis fanatics (and they are legion) think the author is pretty harsh on W.J., but, you know, sure. To dive right into the deep end: run, don’t walk, to Sidis.net, a lovingly curated compendium of most things Sidis. Scans of many of his books and articles. Links to outside articles. It’s not one stop shopping, but it’s like the directory at the mall. Don’t be scared off by the fact that the web-design looks like someone clicked on the “Crazy Conspiracy Theory” template. It’s really well put together.

The Ephemera: If you do read some of his actual writings, Sidis comes off rather well. However singular and odd his interests and, I suppose, obsessions, are he writes clearly (he’s not raving) and he’s often kind of funny in a super-dorky way. “Notes on the Collection of Transfers” is unreadable. But that’s only because no one can care about transfers as much as the author does. I defy you to. But, that said, Sidis comes off like a genial, almost charming tour guide to the world’s most boring museum. It’s hard not to like the guy.

There’s a lot written about Weyman. The most fun things to read are the original newspaper accounts (there’s a fun one from the Milwaukee Sentinal on google books; you can find his obituary on NYtimes.com). But the most comprehensive thing I read was from a New Yorker profile from 1968 (which, incidentally, spends pages on literally psychoanalyzing Weyman).

I’ve read a lot about the ’04 Olympics (in order to write this article for Slate). I’ll recommend two things: a book about the anthropological exhibits called Anthropology Goes to the Fair. But most fun is a first hand account by one of Hick’s coaches that’s available in all of its absurdity here: aafla.org/6oic/OfficialReports/1904/1904lucas.pdf

There’s a ton about Jones’ body (incidentally, this is the story I’ve gotten the most “I knew this story, but I like how you told it” sorts of emails about). For some reason, I was particularly charmed by a webpage straight out of Portsmouth, NH (R.I.P Yoken’s). They’ve got pictures of the preserved, dead Jones there too.

You can read lots and lots about Minik Wallace. (So much so that I felt a little lame about doing it). There’s even a quite good American Experience documentary. However, special commendation has to go out to Kenn Harper, a First Nations author (I believe) from up Canada Way, who not only wrote the (seemingly) definitive Give Me My Father’s Body: The Life of MInik, the New York Eskimo” and was the guy who got Minik’s father Qisuk’s bones repatriated. Amazing.

I love this story. I think my version’s pretty good, but the I love the story of John R. Brinkley. So much good stuff had to be left out to keep this podcast tight. There was a big biography that came out a few years ago called Charlatan that is very comprehensive. But I’d like to give a special shout out to a book called “Border Radio: Quacks, Yodelers, Pitchmen, Psychics and Other Amazing Broadcasters of the American Airwaves.” Hell, I’ll even give it an Amazon link. Because it is good (and tells all about Brinkley and the other people who followed his lead and broadcast from Mexico) and because one of its co-authors, a guy named Bill Crawford, gave me one of the best days I had in the last several years when he and a friend/colleague drove me down from Austin, past Brinkley’s Mansion in Del Rio, and down across the border to Acuna (where I interviewed the blind, current manager of a station that descended from Brinkley’s). Then back later that day through the high desert where we came up around this bend and I looked out and saw herds of animals grazing at sunset and learned that they were all Indian and African gazelles and Ibix and whatnot brought in to be hunted–turns out only native Texas animals are included in seasonal hunting laws. After which, I no longer mess with Texas.

The Hoover Dam is rad. The sculpture is rad. The star map is super rad. And super ridiculous. Go see it. If it’s been awhile since you’ve gone to the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation’s website, here’s an article about the sculpture.

This piece was premiered (if you will) as a live reading at Issue 2 of Pop Up Magazine in San Francisco. It was very fun.

Couple of notes: first, this escape inspired the movie The Great Escape. They of course, made it an allied escape. And, having produced this episode, I can relate: not only does no one want to sit through an hour and a half about clever Nazis, I found it a little weird empathizing (for the purposes of writing the podcast) with homesick members of the Third Reich–but I just love the thing about the river. I love that they screw themselves. Other thing: the captain in the story was eventually caught in Phoenix, though he lived successfully on the lam for some time. The kicker, however, is if you drank a St. Pauli beer back in the heyday of their questionable/skeezy “you never forget your first girl” ad campaigns with the buxom german barmaid, you helped pay Captain Wattenberg’s salary. He was the head of the St. Pauli brewery for decades.

You can read about Acoustic Kitty (yes, that’s actually what they called the project) all over the place–there were lots of news articles when the files were declassified several years ago. However, my favorite thing on the web is an actual declassified document. Even after the cat dies and the mission’s a total failure, the scientists clearly feel pretty awesome: despite being “convinced that the program would not lend itself to [their] highly specialized needs,” they declare victory in the quest to train a cat to go short distances, even if they can’t control to where, and proclaim it “a remarkable scientific achievement.” To which I say: way to go. You spent millions of 1966 dollars. Sliced open live animals. Inserted wires and microphones and zapped them with electrical charges and now they can go short distances. U-S-A! U-S-A! U-S-A!

I’ve loved this story for years and years. I was spurred into doing it for the podcast after flipping through David Milner’s book, Perfecting Sound Forever.