Mini-Stories: Volume 22

Performance changing gear, a Titanic era nurse with unbelievable resilience, and an ingenious art vending project reveal how innovation and endurance shape unexpected worlds.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Roman Mars?

  Instagram teen accounts have automatic protections on by default. Built-in content settings for the content teens can see, contact limits for who can contact them, and time management tools like daily time limits and sleep mode. Teens are automatically placed into teen accounts, and teens under 16 will need a parent's permission to change any of these settings to be less strict. Instagram will continue adding built-in safety features to help create age-appropriate experiences. Learn more about teen accounts and Instagram's ongoing work to protect teens online at instagram.com/teenaccounts. This episode is presented by Air France. Air France Business Cabin offers comfort from start to finish. Enjoy priority check-in and boarding, followed by access to peaceful lounges.

• 0:45Roman Mars?

  Onboard, savor menus created by renowned French chefs paired with wines and champagne selected by Smollet. Stay connected with free high-speed Wi-Fi. Then unwind in a fully adjustable lie-flat bed with a mattress topper developed with Sofitel MyBed, a signature touch of French hospitality. The art of travel elevated because Air France Business Cabin goes further in every detail to make your journey exceptional. 99% Invisible is presented by Acura. Curating and designing the perfect experience takes meticulous craft, an obsession with detail, and a love for innovation. Just like museum designers, Acura carefully considers every detail

• 1:29Roman Mars?

  to curate the most engaging, exhilarating, and rewarding experience for drivers. That craft isn't always something you can see, but it's something you'll feel, that flutter in your heart, the engine roars. Every Acura is designed with deliberate intention around how people actually use the vehicles. And that is precision-crafted performance. This is 99% Invisible. I'm Roman Mars.

• 1:58Roman Mars?

  Happy 2026, beautiful nerds. We are back and ready to kick off this new year with a fresh batch of mini stories. Usually, this is the place where I tease what's coming up on the episode, but in my attempt to wrest control over minis and get them back to their fundamentals, once again, we are continuing with this new, hopefully improved process that I mentioned in the previous minis episode. We have three producers, they're gathered here in a Zoom to tell me stories that I have not heard before. I am again, unprepared. So, let's get started. First up is producer Jacob Medina Gleason. Happy New Year, Jacob.

• 2:32Speaker 01

  Thanks, Roman. Happy New Year to you, too. So, I want to start 2026 off by talking about sports. I'm not the biggest sports fan. I'm a women's basketball fan, and that's pretty much it. But the Olympics are a few weeks away, and I have an Olympics-ish mini for you.

• 2:47Roman Mars?

  I love an Olympics-ish mini, so hit me.

• 2:50Speaker 01

  Okay, so this is a story about a controversial swimsuit. It's called the Laser Racer. This is a racing suit that Speedo launched back in 2008. And the thing that made the Laser Racer so controversial is that Speedo really took advantage of the fact that World Aquatics was pretty lenient on what could be considered fabric.

• 3:09Roman Mars?

  Okay, what do you mean by that?

• 3:11Speaker 01

  So, the suit was made of like, your pretty typical swimsuit material, but in some areas, like the abs and the lower back, the Laser Racer added a thin layer of polyurethane. And the addition of this rubbery material helps swimmers create less drag as they move through the water.

• 3:28Roman Mars?

  Well, interesting. So, I'm no physicist, but drag slows you down, and so if you want to get faster, you want less of it.

• 3:35Speaker 01

  Absolutely, yeah. It's why swimmers wear swim caps and why they're always freshly shaved.

• 3:40Roman Mars?

  Right. So, so any swimmer with a Laser Racer suit kind of immediately has this advantage in the pool. So, what did World Aquatics do about it? Because I imagine they want this stuff to be fair.

• 3:51Speaker 01

  Right. And that's the thing is that at first, they didn't do anything. It was the IOC, the International Olympic Committee, that had to step in and issue a ruling because the 2008 Summer Olympics were coming up. And as it stood, only swimmers with a sponsorship from Speedo were going to be able to wear the suit.

• 4:07Roman Mars?

  So, if you're wearing Mizunos or whatever, you're immediately at a disadvantage?

• 4:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, because this thing had a lot of hype even before the Olympics. So the IOC ruled that the suit would only be allowed if it was made available to all competitors. So that's what happened. The suit was made available to everybody regardless of sponsorship. And the 2008 Olympics came and records were made at an unbelievable rate.

• 4:31Roman Mars?

  Yeah. So this was the year that Michael Phelps won like eight gold medals.

• 4:35Speaker 01

  Yeah. And he did it in the Speedo Laser Racer. And he wasn't the only one breaking records. At the 2008 Olympics, there were 25 world records broken. And of the swimmers who medaled, more than 90% of them were wearing this suit.

• 4:50Roman Mars?

  I mean, I remember that being a very exciting year for swimming. But did people suspect that the suit was causing too much of an advantage? Like, was the suit banned after that?

• 4:58Speaker 01

  It started to raise some flags for sure. But what happened next is that other companies caught on to the idea that like, hey, adding polyurethane to these suits, it kind of works. So they decided, okay, we're going to take it up a notch. And they said, we're going to do it to the whole damn thing. So I've got this picture for you of this so-called rubberized swimsuit. And you let me know if you'd wear that, Roman.

• 5:19Roman Mars?

  I mean, I probably could because it's like compression. So like, it would like suck in your gut. Like, it looks like they poured this man into this suit.

• 5:26Speaker 01

  Yeah. I don't know how you get into something like this. Like, really, really suck it in and just pray. But anyways, a lot of companies caught on to this and they did their full body version of the suit. And during the 2009 World Aquatic Championships, another 43 records were broken. And in 2009 alone, 147 records were broken.

• 5:48Roman Mars?

  Well, that's too many records at this point. That's a problem.

• 5:51Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's when World Aquatics finally decided that enough is enough. And they ultimately banned the suit.

• 5:57Roman Mars?

  But just to play devil's advocate here, which is a term I only learned the origin of when I talked to Jason for his many stories this year. You know, these suits, you know, if they become ubiquitous, wouldn't that just sort of even the playing field again? Like, you know, if everyone's wearing them, then the sort of differential advantage is gone.

• 6:14Speaker 01

  A hundred percent. And there are people in the world of swimming who feel that way, that this ban was too strict. It was maybe a bit of an overcorrection. But I think there was something about all those records falling so quickly that really freaked people out.

• 6:28Roman Mars?

  Yeah.

• 6:28Speaker 01

  It was like progress is good, but like too much of it is really jarring.

• 6:32Roman Mars?

  Yeah, I get that. I get that.

• 6:34Speaker 01

  And I have another tiny story here for you, Roman, about another controversial sports item. And this one will be more relevant when the Winter Olympics start in a few weeks. So let's talk about curling.

• 6:45Roman Mars?

  I always want to talk about curling. Let's talk about curling.

• 6:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, so I'll start out by saying upfront that I'm no curling expert. So if you are, please bear with me. But from my understanding, the brooms are used to sweep away debris and clear the path for the stone. Okay. And often you'd have two sweepers working to get the stone to where it needs to go. But in 2015, new broom heads completely changed the way that the game was being played.

• 7:12Speaker 02

  It all centers around high-tech fabrics used in curling brooms. It's believed certain broom heads manipulate the rock's path, speed, and even change or stop its direction. These could be performance-enhancing brooms. Yes, it's very possible.

• 7:27Speaker 01

  Performance-enhancing brooms.

• 7:29Roman Mars?

  I love it.

• 7:29Speaker 01

  Yeah. So these new heads, they kind of worked like microscopic sandpaper. And so the sweeper was able to more effectively control where the stone was going. And as a result, they didn't really need two sweepers like there had been before. And there was some outrage in the curling world, which led to the so-called sweeping summit in 2016, where they decided that this new broom head was not going to fly.

• 7:54Roman Mars?

  I love the idea of sweeping, so but that's incredible. Love it.

• 7:58Speaker 01

  And actually, Roman, in these Olympics 2026, we almost had another broom controversy. But thankfully, earlier this year, the curling world got out ahead of this one and banned a new set of brush heads. So the Olympics should be an equal playground with no huge equipment advantage from one team over another.

• 8:15Roman Mars?

  Thankfully, because I really like to watch curling just pure.

• 8:19Speaker 01

  Absolutely. A curly purist.

• 8:21Roman Mars?

  Exactly. Thank you, Jake. This is fascinating stuff. I appreciate it.

• 8:24Speaker 01

  Thanks, Roman.

• 8:33Roman Mars?

  Okay, next up on our Zoom is producer Joe Rosenberg. Joe, what do you have for me?

• 8:38Speaker 03

  So, Roman, you'll recall that I did a story about the Titanic last year. The ship, not the movie. And this mini-story is kind of a fun offshoot of that.

• 8:48Roman Mars?

  Okay, so this is like the Titanic coda that never was.

• 8:51Speaker 03

  Yeah, although, to be clear, no one needs to go back and listen to the Titanic episode to follow this story.

• 8:57Roman Mars?

  But they should, because it's a really good episode. It's a fun one.

• 8:59Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah, no, I mean, hey, definitely. It's the Titanic. Everyone loves the Titanic. And just a quick side note, that I actually have like 10 Titanic offshoot stories. Because I found that if a story even just contains the word Titanic, suddenly magically, everyone is like, fascinating. You know, like, the pets of the Titanic. But, but really, I wanted to tell this particular side story because the Titanic episode never really had like, characters we follow on a journey. It was very technical. So today, I wanted to correct for that by telling the tale of a single remarkable person named Violet Constance Jessop.

• 9:37Roman Mars?

  Okay.

• 9:38Speaker 03

  And Violet Jessop's biography has the two things you want in a good story, which is a great fact pattern, and it culminates in an incredible climactic action set piece.

• 9:49Roman Mars?

  Okay.

• 9:50Speaker 03

  Because her life is like, it's like Groundhog Day meets Titanic.

• 9:55Roman Mars?

  Well, that sounds very ominous, because I know what happens on the Titanic. So, so please continue.

• 10:01Speaker 03

  Yeah, it is, it's crazy. And yes, scary things will be happening momentarily.

• 10:05Roman Mars?

  So, set the stage for me here. Who is Violet Constance Jessop, other than a woman with an incredible name?

• 10:11Speaker 03

  So Violet Jessop is born in 1887 in Argentina to Irish immigrant sheep farmers. She is the oldest of six children. And as a young woman, she dreams of becoming a nurse. But then, before she can chase that dream, her father dies and her mother gets sick. Meaning, very early on, Violet has to become the family breadwinner. And so, despite a lifelong fear of drowning, and the fact that she has never learned to swim.

• 10:40Roman Mars?

  And this fact won't come into play later at all. Okay, go ahead.

• 10:42Speaker 03

  Not at all, not one bit. Violet signs up to work as a stewardess on passenger ships.

• 10:49Roman Mars?

  Okay.

• 10:49Speaker 03

  And she eventually ends up working as a stewardess specifically for the White Star Line Shipping Company. And sure enough, in 1911, Violet is assigned to be a stewardess on the maiden voyage of the White Star Line's newest ocean liner, the largest ship in the world, designed by famous ship designer Thomas Andrews, sailing under the command of Captain Edward Smith, and described in the press as practically unsinkable. The RMS Olympic.

• 11:18Roman Mars?

  Oh, not the Titanic.

• 11:19Speaker 03

  Titanic hadn't been built yet, you know? Or it was being built. And you know, in reality, in this period in the 1900s, the shipping companies are coming out with larger and larger ships, like every five seconds. And so, at this moment in 1911, the quote-unquote "largest ship ever built" is the Olympic. And tell me if this sounds familiar, because on one fateful trip in September of 1911, on a transatlantic voyage from Southampton to New York, a giant crash and shudder runs through the length of the ship. Because the Olympic's steel-plated hull had been severely punctured on its starboard side below the waterline.

• 11:58Roman Mars?

  I mean, that sounds very familiar.

• 12:00Speaker 03

  Yeah, and what had happened was that the Olympic had actually collided with another ship, a British naval cruiser. And the damage to the Olympic was actually very serious. But thankfully, only two of her watertight compartments flooded, the rest stayed dry, and the Olympic stays afloat. And very luckily, no one is killed.

• 12:18Roman Mars?

  And so, what did Violet Jussop make of this near-death experience, or whatever it was?

• 12:23Speaker 03

  Right, yeah. We don't know her thoughts at this early stage of the story, but it's probably something like, "Man, to think I was a stewardess during a gigantic collision on a transatlantic voyage of the largest ship in the world. What a once-in-a-lifetime experience."

• 12:41Speaker 03

  But then, I think you see where this is going. Fast forward seven months to April of 1912, when Violet is again picked to be on the maiden voyage of the White Star Line's newest ship, the largest ship in the world, designed by famous ship designer Thomas Andrews, sailing under the command of Captain Edward Smith, and described in the press as practically unsinkable, the new sister ship of the Olympic, the RMS Titanic.

• 13:08Roman Mars?

  Wow.

• 13:09Speaker 03

  And the Titanic is actually basically identical to the Olympic, just a tiny bit bigger. And on the Titanic's inaugural transatlantic voyage from Southampton to New York, as Violet is in her cabin getting ready for bed and has finished reciting a prayer to protect the ship from fire and water, a giant crash and shudder runs through the entire length of the ship because its steel plated hull had been severely punctured on its starboard side just below the waterline.

• 13:36Roman Mars?

  Only this time it's an iceberg. At least there's a little bit of difference there. But I have seen a familiar pattern playing out.

• 13:43Speaker 03

  Yeah. And ironically, one of the reasons so many people on the Titanic thought she was going to be fine and delayed getting onto lifeboats was because the Olympic hadn't sunk, right?

• 13:55Roman Mars?

  Right.

• 13:56Speaker 03

  And so they thought the Titanic wouldn't sink either.

• 13:58Roman Mars?

  That makes sense. I mean, like, the Olympic had survived this collision and with a gash along the starboard side, so, you know, could an iceberg be any worse?

• 14:06Speaker 03

  Right, exactly. It sounds less bad, if anything, right?

• 14:10Roman Mars?

  Yeah.

• 14:11Speaker 03

  But of course, the Titanic does in fact sink. And this time, a bunch of White Star officers and officials who had been on the Olympic in that first crash are also on the Titanic. And this time, they do not survive. They all go down with the ship.

• 14:26Roman Mars?

  But I hope Violet Jessup survives, right?

• 14:29Speaker 03

  She does, she does. She actually initially stays in her cabin, but a steward comes down and convinces her the ship is really sinking, and Violet gets out of there. She gets on a lifeboat. And so, by the skin of her teeth, Violet Jessup lives. At which point, she is like, "To think I survived the collisions of the Olympic and the Titanic."

• 14:48Roman Mars?

  Sister ships.

• 14:49Speaker 03

  Sister ships. Surely, life cannot get any crazier than this. But then, in 1914.

• 14:56Roman Mars?

  Oh, you were kidding me, Joe.

• 14:58Speaker 03

  I'm not kidding you. World War I breaks out and Violet fulfills her lifelong dream to train as a nurse with the Red Cross, which is the good news. The bad news is that she gets assigned as a medical stewardess on a White Star Line passenger liner, which has been converted for the war effort into the newest, largest hospital ship in the world. And the name of that ship is the HMHS Britannic, which is none other than the third and final sister ship of the Olympic and the Titanic.

• 15:34Roman Mars?

  This is crazy.

• 15:36Speaker 03

  I promised you Groundhog Day meets Titanic, and I deliver Groundhog Day meets Titanic. And once again, basically the exact same ship, just a little bigger, but like really the same. And this time, Britannic is declared to be even safer than the Titanic, because after the Titanic sank, they gave the Britannic a full double-layered hull. But of course, there's just one problem. Do you want to guess what that is?

• 16:01Roman Mars?

  Well, Violet Jessup is on board for one thing.

• 16:04Speaker 03

  Violet Jessup is on board. Violet Jessup has entered the chat, which is how it comes to pass. And I hate to say it, one morning in November of 1916, on a voyage from Southampton to Greece, a giant crash and shudder runs through the length of the ship because its steel-plated hull had been severely punctured on its starboard side below the waterline.

• 16:30Roman Mars?

  Okay, well, here we go. So what was it this time that they crashed into or whatever?

• 16:33Speaker 03

  Well, this time, they crashed into nothing this time. Well, or they did in a sense, because the Britannic had struck a mine, a German mine. And Roman, I promised you a big climactic action set piece, and here it is. Because we actually have some tape of an interview Violet herself gave many years later describing what happened.

• 16:53Speaker 04

  I was upstairs in the pantry getting this nurse her breakfast, and all the staff, medical staff, dozens of doctors, you see, and nurses, they were all in the saloon at breakfast, when suddenly...

• 17:09Speaker 04

  Crash. Right. Well, no sooner than that crash happened than everybody stood up from their table and disappeared. And it was so different to the Titanic where there didn't seem to be any panicky movement, you know.

• 17:25Speaker 03

  So famously on the Titanic, everyone had been, you know, kind of very unbothered by the crashing sensation and didn't believe anything was wrong. But this time around, of course, everyone knows what happened to the Titanic. Yeah. And but they're also like, you know, trained personnel on a medical ship in the middle of the war. And so Violet just races back to the cabin where she'd been helping this very sick nurse. And she helps get both herself and this ailing nurse into their coats and then into their life jackets. And they rush toward the lifeboats, but not before Violet goes to grab one highly critical item.

• 18:02Speaker 04

  After the Titanic, I used to, you know, moan that on the Carpathia, the Pacific South, I couldn't buy a toothbrush. And I couldn't live without cleaning my teeth, you see. And I must tell you this little joke about the family. Violet, the next time you go on a boat, for God's sake, if it's going to sink, put your toothbrush in your pocket.

• 18:26Speaker 03

  So while the ship is beginning to tilt and Violet is helping get this sick crewmate to the deck, she's like, wait one second, I just have to grab my toothbrush.

• 18:35Roman Mars?

  That is an amazing detail.

• 18:38Speaker 03

  I love it. I love it so much. It's it for me, it's the high point of this whole story.

• 18:41Roman Mars?

  Yeah.

• 18:42Speaker 03

  And at this point, although everyone is rushing to the lifeboats, no one on the Britannic is sure yet whether the ship will ultimately sink or not, including Violet, because the ship's only tilting forward a little. But and and this is just a brutal piece of bad luck. During the voyage, the patients in the ship's hospital ward had complained about stifling heat. So against standing orders, the portholes on the side of the ship had been left open. And so after the explosion, even though only four compartments are flooded. Britannic tilts forward just enough

• 19:19Roman Mars?

  huh

• 19:19Speaker 03

  that more water from the ocean begins flowing through the open portholes and into the rest of the ship.

• 19:24Roman Mars?

  I mean, her bad luck truly cannot be stopped at this point.

• 19:28Speaker 03

  No, it's, it's, it's brutal. So while Violet is grabbing her toothbrush, the ship is beginning to sink faster and faster. But eventually she gets herself and her charge onto the deck and into the lifeboats. And almost everyone is now in the boats at this point, and they're still on the deck waiting for the orders to lower. But as the ship's angle gets worse, the officers in charge of two of the lifeboats panic and decide to lower their lifeboats just as soon as they're full, right away before any order is given. And one of those boats that lowers too early contains Violet Jessup.

• 20:09Speaker 04

  And as we touched water, everybody's done so. I was in the boat, I was in the boat. I said, why? I was doing that.

• 20:19Speaker 03

  And so Violet, perplexed, looks around to see what it was that everyone else was looking at that made them jump out of the boat. And what's happening is that the ship's gigantic bronze propellers are half out of the water, and they are still going at full steam. And they are sucking the two lifeboats towards them, and they are just chopping the lifeboats and everything in their path into bits.

• 20:42Roman Mars?

  Alright.

• 20:42Speaker 03

  So Violet is like, oh [BLEEP].

• 20:44Speaker 04

  When I was left alone in the sea, and I decided, um, which would it be better to be cut to pieces or drown? I mean, I had to make the decision.

• 20:55Speaker 03

  So Violet has this choice, you know, get cut to pieces or drown. And so Violet says, you know what? I'll take my chances with drowning. And she jumps over the side.

• 21:06Roman Mars?

  But I would assume that's okay, but you know, that she doesn't swim because like she must have a life jacket on, right?

• 21:12Speaker 03

  You would think, but it's at this point that Violet realizes she has made a rookie mistake.

• 21:19Speaker 04

  I had this lovely coat. Well, instead of putting the coat over the lifeboat, I put the lifeboat over the coat. I could kill the passengers if they did that. And so when I went into the water, I went down miles with the weight of, you know, clothes, and came up under the boat. And I got a terrible blow on the head. And you know, it did occur to me, if I get another like that, I'll be finished.

• 21:47Roman Mars?

  Oh, my God. This is terrifying. So she's like stuck underwater underneath the boat.

• 21:52Speaker 03

  She is stuck underwater underneath the boat. And she is still heading along with the boat toward the spinning propellers. And she's incredibly disoriented and she describes the noise as just being like beyond anything she'd ever heard. But she kicks her way clear of the bottom of the boat and clear of the suction of the propeller just as the lifeboat gets chopped to pieces.

• 22:16Roman Mars?

  Amazing. That's so incredible.

• 22:18Speaker 03

  Finally, she reaches the surface, still waterlogged in her coat with her nose just like barely out of the water until she sees another life jacket float by and she grabs it and manages to steady herself. So while she's clinging on to this life jacket in the water, Violet watches again as this time, the Britannic, the third and final sister ship of the Olympic and Titanic, itself sinks faster and faster into the water. And in some ways, this round is the most terrifying because the Britannic is sinking in much shallower seas than the Titanic had been. So in this case, the ship is actually longer than the ocean is deep.

• 23:01Speaker 03

  So the ship's stern is still sticking out of the water when its bow smashes into the ocean floor. And Violet watches as the whole ship just judders and groans. And writing about it later, she said, quote, "All the deck machinery fell into the sea like a child's toys. Then she took a fearful plunge, her stern rearing hundreds of feet into the air, until with a final roar, she disappeared into the depths, the noise of her going resounding through the water with an undreamt of violence."

• 23:36Roman Mars?

  That's incredible. So for all those people who were waiting on other lifeboats and people that were still on the ship, like, did they get off the ship when this happened, when it hit the ocean floor?

• 23:47Speaker 03

  Yes. Yes. So, very, very fortunately, before the ship sank, the captain had ordered the propellers to stop, so the other lifeboats could get away. And because the ship had only been on its way to pick up wounded, there's actually very few patients on board.

• 24:02Roman Mars?

  Oh.

• 24:03Speaker 03

  So, 30 people die, but it could have been far worse. And most of those who died were the ones in those two boats that Violet had been on. And so, once again, Violet Jessup is really lucky.

• 24:16Roman Mars?

  Yeah. Well, it depends on how you look at it. We're also very, very unlucky.

• 24:19Speaker 03

  No, yes, exactly.

• 24:20Roman Mars?

  I like your way better, but...

• 24:23Speaker 03

  Thank you. But, and, you know, some good luck continues, because she eventually is picked up by another boat and pulled to safety, and when she gets to shore, she does, in fact, brush her teeth with her toothbrush, which apparently never left her side. And that's how Violet Jessup manages to survive the three disasters of the White Star Line's three sister ships: the Olympic, the Titanic, and the Britannic. And after that, she went on to write a beautifully written memoir, only to be published after her death, under the title "Titanic Survivor."

• 24:59Roman Mars?

  Well, it's only like the half of it, or the third of it, actually. Like, Titanic Survivor is really underselling the whole story.

• 25:05Speaker 03

  Uh, yeah. I mean, it is quite possibly the most under-informative title of all time. But I also just have to say, as a final note, Violet Jessup is not the only person this happened to, surviving all three of these ships. She's kind of the glamorous one, but there was one other guy. His name was Arthur Priest. He was a boiler room stoker for the White Star Lines. And we don't know much about him, but he actually outdoes even Violet, because he survived, get this, four ship sinkings and two major collisions.

• 25:40Roman Mars?

  Another one of these people where you can't tell if they're the luckiest person around you or the unluckiest person in the world.

• 25:46Speaker 03

  Exactly. Like, is their glass of luck half empty or half full? We'll, we'll never know.

• 25:50Roman Mars?

  But I think the, the lesson of Violet Jessup is like, you know, you don't know if your next ship is gonna sink. The best you can do is just grab your toothbrush and just keep your head above water.

• 25:59Speaker 03

  Yeah, I think that's right. I mean, like even, even if you don't know how to swim.

• 26:02Roman Mars?

  She didn't know how to swim, Joe.

• 26:04Speaker 03

  It had to do with like, she was, she had tuberculosis when she was young. There was a lung thing. It's not her fault.

• 26:10Roman Mars?

  Well, that's amazing. What a great story, Joe. I really appreciate it. This is fun.

• 26:14Speaker 03

  Thank you so much, Roman.

• 26:17Roman Mars?

  Stay tuned. We have one more mini story after the break.

• 26:26Roman Mars?

  Support for this episode comes from Amazon Business. When it comes to your business, procurement shouldn't be a guessing game. Whether you're running a small business or managing a large organization, Amazon Business offers smart purchasing experiences designed to meet your unique needs. Smart tech, smarter decisions. Streamline your buying process, save time and money, and gain valuable insights. Amazon Business empowers you and your team to buy with confidence. Learn more at amazonbusiness.com. Ready to give your home a style refresh? Article makes it easy to create a stylish, long-lasting home at an unbeatable price. They offer a curated selection of mid-century modern coastal and Scandi-inspired pieces that will make a perfect addition to your

• 27:11Roman Mars?

  home. All Article collections are carefully curated, focusing solely on high-quality, meaningful pieces that will stand the test of time. And with Article's 30-day satisfaction guarantee, you can shop with confidence. I'm trying to think of any of the Article furniture I haven't talked about at this point. I have couches, I have dining room sets, I have sideboards, I have, what do you call that, a media center thing that you put a TV on? Side tables, end tables, chairs. All of them are still in heavy use in my house, and all of them have held up great. Article is offering our listeners $50 off your first purchase of $100 or more. To claim, visit article.com/99 and the discount will be automatically applied at checkout. That's article.com/99 for $50 off your first

• 27:56Roman Mars?

  purchase of $100 or more.

• 28:00Roman Mars?

  This fall, LL Bean is celebrating the moments people look forward to all year. The first school drop off, the first sweater weather day, and the first chilly evening around the fire pit. For over 100 years, LL Bean has been part of these traditions. Crunching leaves in Maine-made Bean boots, cheering from the sidelines in Scotch plaid flannel, and walking the dog in a rugged field coat. So grab the layers and people you love and get outside. Visit llbean.com to shop the fall collection. LL Bean, be an outsider.

• 28:35Speaker 05

  To the millions of small business owners out there, we appreciate you. We see your early mornings, late nights, and all the hard work in between. And with the US Bank Business Essentials Card, you don't have to go it alone. With unlimited 2% cash back on every purchase, because we know your communities count on you to be here, there, everywhere. So yeah, we don't just appreciate you, we support you. The creditor and issuer of this card is US Bank National Association, pursuant to a license from VCA USA Inc. Some restrictions may apply.

• 29:06Roman Mars?

  We are back. And last but not least, it's our digital director and 99% Invisible City co-author Kurt Kohlstedt. Hey Kurt.

• 29:13Speaker 06

  Hey Roman. You know, I remember when we started doing minis and my like, small contribution was calling them like minis volume one and volume two and volume three, because you get it? Like volume, like audio, but also addition. And I just thought that was so clever. Anyway, I am here to talk about a type of machine called an Art-O-Mat, as in an automat but with art. I've got a picture of it here.

• 29:44Roman Mars?

  Okay, so it's like a big glitzy box. It kind of looks like a cigarette dispenser, like an old time cigarette dispenser, but a little fancier and nicer.

• 29:50Speaker 06

  You're exactly right. If you look closely, you can see that there are these 10 telltale columns for, you know, 10 different brands of cigarettes. But in the converted Art-O-Mat, each column corresponds to a different artist. So you insert $5, you pick a column, you pull this lever, you see the stack shift, and you hear this like big thunk as the thing that you want like lands in the dispenser. It's just very gratifying as like a tactile experience.

• 30:21Roman Mars?

  That's so cool. So tell me about these packs of art. What is contained in a pack of art?

• 30:25Speaker 06

  Well, so- I have one of these Artimat's at my local cat cafe and I went there and I picked up a funky hole punch flip book, a painting of a chicken and a woodblock flower print. And those may all seem like very different kinds of art, but they all have one thing in common, their size, because each artwork has to fit in this very specific set of dimensions. And we're talking precisely three and a quarter inches long by two and an eighth inches wide by seven eighths of an inch thick.

• 30:59Roman Mars?

  Very specific. I mean, but you know, cigarette packs aren't the exact same size. You can get like filterless cigarettes that are smaller. So why do these have to be the same size?

• 31:07Speaker 06

  Yeah, there are definitely exceptions, but those dimensions are the most common size and it's what's called the king sized hard pack.

• 31:16Roman Mars?

  Oh, yeah.

• 31:16Speaker 06

  And some of that like convergence around that size has to do with legislation. For example, back in the day, they created this minimum per pack of 20 cigarettes, which sounds kind of weird, right? Like it is a thing so legislate, but the idea was that it would make it more expensive for like youths to buy cigarettes. And so, you know, you'd get less kids smoking.

• 31:40Roman Mars?

  I get it.

• 31:41Speaker 06

  And then of course, with the advent and spread of vending machines, cigarette companies wanted to conform. You know, there's this incentive because if all the other brands have packs that fit and yours don't, your brand is going to get left out of this very lucrative sales venue.

• 31:59Roman Mars?

  Yeah, because this is where underage children buy their cigarettes.

• 32:04Speaker 06

  Yeah. I mean, I remember those being on the outsides of buildings and thinking, I could use my, my lunch money for this.

• 32:11Roman Mars?

  Right. So where did this idea of the Artimat come from? Is this just at your cat cafe or is it more widespread?

• 32:18Speaker 06

  No, it's, it's more widespread. It actually started with this artist named Clark Whittington, who back in the nineties, he had this idea to make art more accessible by vending it out of machines, like you would with junk food. And then he moved to Winston Salem, also known as Camel City, which is the hometown of RJ Reynolds Tobacco Company. So here he is in the heart of big tobacco land. But at a time when there are more and more regulations restricting cigarette vending.

• 32:52Roman Mars?

  As there should be.

• 32:54Speaker 06

  Yeah, I mean, yeah, it wasn't like a bad thing. And so Whittington, you know, sought out a disused machine and he converted it to spit out Polaroid prints that he tacked to blocks of wood and made like part of this local art show. And that was the very first Artomat.

• 33:14Roman Mars?

  Well, this sounds very cool, very clever. And I'm sort of wondering though, you know, some of our rules on this show when it comes to telling design and clever stories is that this sounds a little bit like a doo-wop.

• 33:25Speaker 06

  Yes, yes. The old dude with a project. Yeah, that old tripwire.

• 33:31Roman Mars?

  So for people who don't know, I kind of have a rule about these things we call dude with a project. Cause like, we wanted to cover everyday design that you encounter and that you don't notice. And dude with a project type design stories are often just like, you know, clever fancy things that people put out in the world, maybe as a provocation, that's a design provocation. Maybe it's something beautiful or artistic, but it just was a thing that I felt other design, you know, shops covered well and we didn't need to cover. So why would you want us to cover Artomat?

• 34:02Speaker 06

  Yeah. Well, I think you are 100% right that that is like definitionally what we're talking about here. Like this started as a dude with a project.

• 34:13Roman Mars?

  Yeah.

• 34:13Speaker 06

  But these Artomats, they've gotten a lot bigger as a project and frankly, a lot more interesting because that one machine led to another and another. And now decades later, there are over 200 Artomats around the country, even a few internationally, and they have works by over 400 different artists.

• 34:37Roman Mars?

  So it's a dude with a big project.

• 34:39Speaker 06

  Yeah, it's a dude with a big project. But it's not just that. Cause you know, for his part, Whittington figured out that he couldn't just do it on his own.

• 34:47Roman Mars?

  Yeah.

• 34:47Speaker 06

  So he created this organization to also oversee the Artomats.

• 34:52Speaker 06

  Because frankly, it just like, yeah, it outgrew his ability to manage. And so today, there's a lot of work by various people that goes into reviewing and collecting these blocks of art, pairing machines with venues, keeping them stocked, keeping them in working order. And if you think about it, they have this sort of bigger and richer design story about reuse behind them. And you know me, I'm a big sucker for adaptive reuse, whether it be in architecture or vending machines.

• 35:26Roman Mars?

  Well, I'm sold. This sounds like an interesting dude with an interesting project that sort of brings out some of the things you might not notice and add some sort of color around the built world in an interesting way. So if people are interested in the Artomat, where can they find out more?

• 35:43Speaker 06

  Artomat.org. And the site has stuff like a map of these vending machines around the country. It's a really good map. And the people who run the places with these machines are often really cool to talk to you. And so it just, yeah, it gives you an excuse to go somewhere and like interact with this thing and learn something new and, you know, maybe get a painting of a chicken while you're at it.

• 36:07Roman Mars?

  I'm always into buying art. People that, if you have any money left over at any moment in your life, you should always buy art. And why not buy it from a cigarette machine?

• 36:16Speaker 06

  Why not? Better than cigarettes.

• 36:19Roman Mars?

  Much better than cigarettes, that's for sure. Thank you, Kurt.

• 36:23Speaker 06

  You're very welcome, Robin.

• 36:30Roman Mars?

  99% Invisible was produced this week by Jacob Medina Gleason, Joe Rosenberg, and Kurt Kohlstedt, edited by Jason DeLeón, mixed by Martín González, music by Swan Real, fact checking by Graham Heisha. Special thanks to Jesse Billingham for the recording of Violet Jessup. Kathy Too is our executive producer. Delaney Hall is our senior editor. The rest of the team includes Chris Berube, Emmett Fitzgerald, Christopher Johnson, Vivian Le, LaSham Adon, Kelly Prime, Talon and Rain Stradly, and me, Roman Mars. The 99% Invisible logo was created by Stefan Lawrence. We are part of the SiriusXM Podcast family, now headquartered six blocks north in the Pandora Building in beautiful Uptown Oakland, California.

• 37:15Roman Mars?

  You can find us on all the usual social media sites as well as our own Discord server. There's a link to that as well as every past episode of 99PI at 99pi.org.

• 37:32Speaker 07

  We know life is busy. That's why saving money should be effortless. With Atlantic Union Bank's Roundup Savings, every time you use your debit card, your purchase rounds up to the nearest dollar and automatically goes into savings. So whether you're grabbing coffee, filling the tank, or picking up groceries, you're saving without even thinking about it. It's just one of the ways Atlantic Union Bank makes managing your money easy. Learn more at atlanticunionbank.com or stop by a branch today. Atlantic Union Bank, any way you bank.

• 38:02Speaker 08

  Fidelity Active ETFs have the flexibility to shift and transform as markets do the same. So instead of just riding an index, they can seek to outperform it by adapting to market conditions and pursuing new opportunities as they emerge. And while you get the potential outperformance of an actively managed fund, you can still buy and sell it on your terms, just like any other ETF. Markets can change in real time. Make sure your ETF can too. Learn more at fidelity.com/activeetfs. Before investing in any exchange traded fund, you should consider its investment objectives, risks, charges, and expenses. Contact Fidelity for a prospectus, an offering circular, or if available, a summary prospectus containing this information. Read it carefully. While Active ETFs offer the potential

• 38:47Speaker 08

  to outperform an index, these products may more significantly trail an index as compared with passive ETFs. ETFs are subject to market fluctuation and the risks of their underlying investments. ETFs are subject to management fees and other expenses. Fidelity Brokerage Services, LLC, member NYSE, SIPC.

• 39:02Speaker 09

  Tyler Reddick here from 2311 Racing. And Bubba Wallace. You know what's the worst part of a race? A rain delay. Sitting around waiting for the track to dry is dull. But instead of waiting, we hang out with Chumba Casino. Social casino slots, bingo, solitaire, plenty of fun to keep us entertained. So why let a rain delay slow you down? Play now at chumbocasino.com. Let's chumba!

• 39:26Speaker 10

  No purchase necessary. VGW Group void where prohibited by law. CTNCs 21+, sponsored by Chumba Casino.