Note: Transcripts may contain errors. If you wish to re-use all, or part of, a transcript, please contact CBC for permission. Please check the corresponding audio before quoting in print. Copyright © CBC 2021

The AIH Transcript for July 08, 2021

Hosts: Duncan McCue and Chris Howden

Prologue

DUNCAN MCCUE: Hello, I'm Duncan McCue, sitting in for Carol Off.

CHRIS HOWDEN: Good evening, I'm Chris Howden. This is “As It Happens”.

[music: theme]

CH: Tonight:

DMC: Power vacuum. After the president of Haiti is assassinated, politicians disagree about who should serve as head of state -- and the country's constitution isn't clearing anything up.

CH: History in the Unmaking. The head of BC's Chinese-Canadian Historical Society says hundreds of artifacts were lost when Lytton's Chinese history museum went up in flames -- and the human stories those objects told were lost as well.

DMC: Dressing down. The K'ómoks artist behind the Every Child Matters logo says he's sick of seeing it splashed across clothes made by for-profit retailers that haven't shown any commitment to reconciliation.

CH: Relatively surprising. A pair of art historians find 14 living people with the same Y chromosome as Leonardo Da Vinci -- and hope their research will help them understand the nature and the nurture behind the Renaissance great.

DMC: Grudge mismatch. A ketchup company publicly addresses the discrepancy between the number of wieners in a package and the number of buns in a package -- and a wiener professional speaks frankly about the problem.

CH: And... troubles brewing. Coors Light announces it's making a special beer using the very ice the Tampa Bay Lightning just won the Stanley Cup on -- which prompts anyone who watches hockey to do a spit take.

CH: “As It Happens”, the Thursday edition. Radio that's afraid that beer won't be anyone's first draught pick.

[Music: Theme]

Part 1: Haiti Politics, Every Child Matters Logo, Heinz Hot Dog and Buns

DMC: It's a beautiful design. And people... people obviously enjoy it and appreciate it. What were your hopes for it? How did you intend for... for it to be used?

AE: Well, originally, I just created it and put it online. And... and I often do that with... with a number of different movements. I've done it with Idle No More and No Pipelines. And... and so I decided I put this out as well as kind of a last-minute decision on the... on the morning of I designed it up and... and put it online. And it kind of went viral. And the next year, Phyllis (Jack) Webstad asked if they could use it for the Orange Shirt Society to help raise funds for the society and create awareness around residential schools? And so it kind of became very viral at that point. And so I... I definitely wanted other people to be able to, you know, share it online. And... and then non-profit Indigenous organizations, if they were to use it, then I thought that was great.

DMC: What have you been seeing over the past few weeks that's concerned you?

AE: The biggest concern is seeing a lot of for-profit companies selling... selling this design on their T-shirts and, you know, really trying to make money off of it. And that was not the purpose. I mean, I don't see any of that money coming to me. But more importantly, I don't see that money going to non... to Indigenous non-profit societies. And... and so I made a statement saying that, you know, if you were to use this design, I want 100 per cent of the profits to go to a non-profit society. And I just think that that's fair. And... and seeing these companies, and a lot of times they're just overseas companies, pop up online trying to market this design and sell it and really capitalize on... on the atrocities that we've seen and, you know, the finding of these... of these young ones.

DMC: And it's not just showing up on... on T-shirts. I mean, it's... it's showing up on, quote, "sexy V-neck dresses", and flags, and Hawaiian shirts. What have you been able to find out about the kinds of retailers that are... that are selling those products?

AE: Yeah, it is showing up on literally everything these days. And these are a lot of times they're... they're overseas companies, and they're... they're just kind of looking at trends. And they see this as a trend here in Canada and in North America. And they want to capitalize on it. So, you know, they're just trying to make a buck off of this. And... and so what I… one of the messages that I hope to convey is that I prefer the consumer to... to look into who they're buying from, and to ensure that 100 per cent of the profits are going to a non-profit Indigenous society.

DMC: On the other hand, Andy, I mean, on Canada Day, for example, right across the country, there were thousands and thousands and thousands of Canadians wearing orange. Isn't a good thing for... for the image to be out there and doing it's awareness-raising?

AE: Yeah, I think the solidarity of people wearing orange shirts is great, but I think that we can do more than... than just wearing an orange shirt. I think we can put our money where our mouth is and make sure that money goes to these non-profit societies like the Orange Shirt Society or the Indian Residential School Survivor Society. So that, you know, the money goes to actually help survivors of... of residential schools.

DMC: You mentioned the Orange Shirt Society, Phyllis Webstad, who founded Orange Shirt Day. She told APTN that she's working with the Orange Shirt Society to... to get a trademark for "Every Child Matters". Do you think that's the solution?

AE: I think it's definitely one... one part of creating a solution. But again, it comes down to the individual consumer as well to... to just become aware of who they're buying from and aware of where the money will go. And, at the end of the day, you know, wearing any orange shirt is on... on these, you know, like on Orange Shirt Day is really important. So I think it's... it's bringing everybody together and recognizing this. And... and sadly, you know, with what has been uncovered in the past couple of weeks, you know, Indigenous people across the country, we knew about these... these graves. And I think it's sadly the, you know, it's come to the forefront now. But conversely, Canadians across the country have become more aware of this. And I really think that that awareness is a path towards reconciliation.

DMC: Andy, Ǥilakas'la. Thank you.

AE: Thanks.

CH: Andy Everson is a member of the K'ómoks First Nation and the artist behind the "Every Child Matters" logo. You can find more on that story -- and some of our subsequent digging into the companies involved -- on our website at: www.cbc.ca/aih.

[music: horns!]

Heinz Hot Dog and Buns

Guest: Eric Mittenthal

CH: The hot dog. The bun. One cannot exist without the other. And yet, sometimes, it feels like the universe doesn't want them to be together. So often, they are separated by the vast distance in the supermarket. And then there is the added cruelty that wieners and buns are all different sizes. But worst of all for these star-crossed lovers: the number of hot dogs in a package and the number of hot dog buns in a package never match. Thirty years ago, Steve Martin's character in "Father of the Bride" had the same beef.

SOUNDCLIP

STEVE MARTIN: I want to buy eight hot dogs and eight hot dog buns to go with them. But no one sells eight hot dog buns. They only sell 12 hot dog buns. So I end up paying for four buns I don't need. So I am removing the superfluous buns.

CASHIER: I'm sorry, sir, but you're going to have to pay for all 12 buns. They're not marked individually.

SM: Yeah. You want to know why? Because some big-shot over at the Wiener Company got together with some big-shot over at the Bun Company and decided to rip off the American public because they think the American public is a bunch of trusting nitwits. Well, they're not ripping off that weight anymore because I'm not paying for one more thing I don't need. George Banks is saying no!

CASHIER: Who's George Banks?

SM: ME!

CH: Well, it turns out Heinz Ketchup is mad about it, too. Or pretending to be. The company launched a petition this week asking hot dog companies and bun companies to link up and start selling their products in the same quantities. Eric Mittenthal relishes this issue. He's the president of the U.S. National Hot Dog and Sausage Council. And we reached him in Boston.

DMC: Eric, have you ever pulled a Steve Martin-like freak out buying hot dogs and buns at the store?

ERIC MITTENTHAL: No, certainly I have never done that. If I'm... if I'm buying hot dogs and buns together, if I absolutely need to get the correct amount, I just buy a little bit of extra of each. They'll always get eaten.

DMC: So he's suggesting a bit of a conspiracy here between Big Hot Dog and Big Bun. You represent Big Hot Dog. Is he on to something?

EM: No, there's no conspiracy. It's really a situation of different industries growing up in different... differently. And so the hot dog, hot dogs are packaged by the pound. And so you have eight or 10 to a pound in a hot dog package -- most often 10. And buns are packaged based off of how they're baked. And so there's no…. there's there's no meetings of the minds between the two of them to... to organize a conspiracy. It really just happens to be the way that it makes the most sense to produce them.

DMC: You need to take me into more details here, though. Because, I mean, in Canada and the United States, the classic problem is... is that you got 10 hot dogs in one package, eight buns. So... so help us understand. I mean, why are they... they never in the same quantities.

EM: Yes. So buns are produced based off of the baking trays. And so typically, baking trays are in sets of four buns, which is why you'll find eight or 12 buns in the package. Hot dogs are packaged based off of the weight. And so typically, a hot dog package is a pound of hot dogs. And so what you'll find is most hot dog packages are ten hot dogs to a pound. You'll find some that are eight. There are even some that are six hot dogs to a pound but are a little larger. And so it's really just based off of that. It makes the most sense to bake buns in trays of four. It makes the most sense to package hot dogs by the pound. And so that's where you get the disparity that comes out sometimes.

DMC: As the representative of the U.S. National Hot Dog and Sausage Council, is it the weiner companies that need to adjust or is it the bun companies?

EM: Well, the hot dog is the star of the show. [DMC chuckles] The bun is an accessory to the hot dog. So we think it makes the most sense for the buns to adjust. But it's a great idea to come together and solve this great riddle for... for mankind.

DMC: Heinz Ketchup has been trying to drum up a little publicity with a petition to solve this. I guess the question is, why is it... why is it taking so long? Why hasn't this problem been solved?

EM: Well, I think, as I said, you know, it's one of those situations where you know you'll eventually eat all of what you buy, for the most part. You can always freeze the buns or the hot dogs if you have some extra. And so, you know, hot dogs are so beloved that we say... we say buy more of both, and you know you'll eat. Everybody will be happy. And that's problem solved.

DMC: What business do you figure a ketchup company has telling wiener and bun companies what to do?

EM: Well, ketchup is one of the top condiments for hot dogs. And so, a lot of folks enjoy ketchup on their hot dogs, particularly the kids. And so they have a lot of interest in making sure hot dogs are so sold. It's a lot more sales for ketchup as well.

DMC: There are some, though, in the anti-ketchup camp. And I understand that the founder of your council is one of them?

EM: That's right. We established a Hot Dog Etiquette Guide several years ago. And our etiquette rules say that for the ideal hot dog, if you are over the age of 18, that you should not put ketchup on your hot dog. And there are some in the U.S. -- this is based off of Chicago rules -- that would say that you should never, ever put ketchup on a hot dog. In the city of Chicago, they would kick you out if you ordered ketchup on a hot dog at any age. We're a little bit more moderate. We say that over the age of 18, no more ketchup. For the kids, it's OK.

DMC: You've been hearing about this... this bun and hot dog conundrum for... for quite a while. What kind of solutions have you been hearing from consumers about what they do with their extra hot dogs or not enough bun?

EM: throw a party! You know, that's... that's the best solution of them all. Buy extra hot dogs, buy extra buns, throw a party. Everybody will have fun. Everybody will be satisfied with the food. And that's a problem... problem you can solve very easily right there.

DMC: Have you done the math? If I mean, if I don't want to waste any food here, how many hot dogs do I have to buy? How many buns do I have to buy to get them all match up?

EM: Yeah. So if you do the math, if it's 10 hot dogs per pack and eight buns per pack, you need to buy a total of 40 of each. So you'd need to buy four packages of hot dogs and five packages of the buns. And that way, you're all squared away.

DMC: OK, putting that on my shopping list. And that is a big party! Last question. Is this… is this just a big publicity stunt, or are we... are you, Big Bun and Big Hot Dog, are you going to get together and solve this one for us?

EM: Never say never! I think it's a great... a great conversation starter for... for the entire industry. And I think we are always happy to have that conversation with the bun industry. They're certainly great friends of ours. And appreciate Heinz's efforts to... to bring us together.

DMC: A moment of reconciliation, perhaps in the future. Let's cross our fingers.

EM: Absolutely. Any time.

DMC: Thank you for joining us.

EM: Thank you.

CH: Eric Mittentahl is the president of the National Hot Dog and Sausage Council. We reached him in Boston.

[music: jazz]

Tampa Bay Ice Beer

CH: Your friend just won an arm-wrestling championship. You're thrilled, and you're thirsty. But then your friend walks over with two pints and says, "Great news! They just squeezed the sweat out of my shirt to make this special beer!" That sounds like a weird combination of celebration and punishment. And now you know how Tampa Bay Lightning fans feel. As you probably know, last night, the Lightning won their second Stanley Cup in a row, defeating the Montreal Canadiens. Whereupon Coors Light immediately announced a commemorative product: The press release explains, quote, "During the Final, Coors Light quietly scraped and collected the actual ice from the rink [in Tampa] and transported it all the way to its hometown brewery in Golden, Colorado to craft the game-winning Champions Ice brew." Unquote. So, you mean the ice lots of stuff fell on, including bodies and bodily fluids? That seems not potable. But Coors Light North American marketing director Chris Steele says, "A little bit of the blood, sweat, and tears hard won on that ice will be in every can -- and don't worry, we've purified the ice to meet our brewing standards." Well, too late, Mr. Steele: you already said that first part. So we'll take a beer without blood, sweat, or tears. Because I know you're telling Lightning fans it's fine to drink -- but something in your ice tells me it's not.

[music: upbeat]

Part 2: Lytton Chinese Museum Lost, Leonardo Lineage Study

Lytton Chinese Museum Lost

Guest: Sarah Ling

CH: It's been a week since fire ripped through the small community of Lytton, British Columbia. And the loss is unfathomable. Tomorrow, residents will take a bus tour to see the damage. But we know that two people have been confirmed dead; most of the homes in the community are gone; and a charred, desolate landscape -- littered with burned-out cars -- has been left behind. A local museum has also been lost. Pictures show the Lytton Chinese History Museum was reduced to rubble. Sarah Ling is the president of the Chinese Canadian Historical Society of BC. She visited the museum multiple times. We reached her in Vancouver.

DMC: Ms. Ling, what's been lost with the destruction of the Lytton Chinese History Museum?

SARAH LING: Well, the loss of the Lytton Chinese History Museum is certainly devastating for our society. As you may know, the owner Lorna had poured in years of her time to really create a wonderful collection of Chinese belongings and artefacts to... to honour that rich history that exists in the interior. And so, we're certainly mourning the loss of not only hundreds of artefacts, but the stories and sentiments that go with those pieces.

DMC: What did that space mean to you?

SL: Well, I really enjoyed visiting the museum over the years. I'm part of the Chinese Canadian Historical Society, and we've always brought members over to not only learn about the history of the Chinese in the interior, but their relationship, for example, with the local Indigenous communities of the Tl’kemtsin Nation. And so for me, it was just a really fitting place to think about the contributions of Chinese Canadians all across the province. And we often think about the large urban centres. But there are so many stories in places like Lytton. And coming from northern BC, I could relate to that on a personal level, too.

DMC: You mentioned the hundreds of artefacts that were lost. Can you give me some examples of some of the things that were found there?

SL: In the museum, Lorna had many different exhibits. Part of the artefacts pay tribute to the rich history of railway and gold rush workers. But she also showed what it was like for them to be so far away from their homelands. And so she showed many of the items that would have been in their homes, their new homes here in Canada. She also spent a lot of time to research the original joss house that was in the exact same location. And so to recreate the architecture and look and feel of that joss house really shone through when you walked into the space.

DMC: You're talking about the building itself. What is a joss house for those who don't know?

SL: A joss house is a Chinese temple. And so, in the early 1900s, where the museum stood, a joss house was really the heart of the Chinese community of the few that were living in Lytton. And I imagine that it would attract Chinese labourers from the surrounding centres as well.

DMC: You mentioned the owner, Lorna Fandrich, a couple of times. Why did she want to start this museum?

SL: Well, from what I know, Lorna had heard about the history of the property once she had acquired that lot. And she figured it would be really neat to recreate the joss house that was there. And so she really made it a passion project with her husband, Bernie. And coming from the Historical Society, we think that's a really ambitious project to take on as someone who's approaching their retirement. And what's more remarkable is that they are not of Chinese heritage themselves. And so for them to honour the history of the community that is rooted there is... is quite impressive.

DMC: And did she have any museum training?

SL: Not that I'm aware of, no.

DMC: It is remarkable. And to hear about a museum in such a small community as well. And I guess a museum that was educating people about the often hidden or forgotten history of Chinese Canadians in that part of the province. What are... what are some things that people may not know about... about Chinese Canadian contributions?

SL: I think part of the hidden history of a Chinese Canadian history would be the relationships that were forged with the local Indigenous peoples. And I think certainly in the community of Lytton, that relationship is strong and... and appreciated by the local Nation. And so I think that is one of the unique aspects of the History Museum there is to reflect on the ways in which those two communities could come together at a time when discrimination and other hardships were quite overwhelming

DMC: and even the links of intermarriage that ended up happening between the two communities.

SL: Certainly.

DMC: Sorry. As far as the story, as far as the building itself, and Lorna Fandrich, I mean, do we know how she's doing, and her family fleeing from the fire?

SL: Her family is safe and they have evacuated to regions nearby. Now, Lorna does want to take some time to reflect on what might be the future of the Lytton Chinese History Museum. She was fortunate that the fire bypassed her rafting company building, Kumsheen Rafting. But in terms of the museum, our society and many other organizations have reached out offering and pledging our support. We are going to launch a fundraiser next week. And we will be splitting the proceeds between the museum as well as the Lytton First Nation. And so whether that might be the sustainability of her digital collection or a rebuild of the physical site, we will let her decide how that pans out.

DMC: It just seems like such a loss to lose all of those artifacts. But.. but were there... was there a digital collection? And does there need to be more done for small museums in terms of preserving their archives?

SL: Well, we're fortunate that Lorna had the foresight. And so she did digitize all of the 1,600 artefacts. And fortunately, the server is secure and lives outside of the town. And so she's confirmed that the server is safe and that we'll be able to make sure that collection is accessible again on their website. But there are many members of our society and people from across Canada and beyond who took photos during their visits to the region. And so one idea is to crowdsource from the community other photographs, and really make this a larger effort to build upon the work that this museum has started

DMC: As you start your fundraising efforts, what are people telling you about what the museum meant to them?

SL: Well, so many people have reached out already asking what they might do to offer their support? I think we have an equal, if not larger, amount of people who are mourning the fact that they never got to visit Lytton. It has been on their... their list of things to do post-COVID. But for those that made the visit, I think it was one of the highlights of their time in the interior.

DMC: Ms. Ling, thanks so much for telling us about the museum.

SL: No, happy to chat with you, Duncan.

CH: Sarah Ling is the president of the Chinese Canadian Historical Society of BC. We reached her in Vancouver.

[music: sombre piano]

Mumilaaq Qaqqaq On Residential Schools

CH: Today, NDP MPs Mumilaaq Qaqqaq and Charlie Angus had a message for Canada's attorney general. They called on David Lametti to appoint an independent special prosecutor to investigate crimes committed against Indigenous people. Ms. Qaqqaq called for investigations at residential schools, day schools, sanitoriums -- and everywhere where, quote, "Indigenous children and peoples have faced decades of violence and abuse at the hands of the genocidal partnership between the federal institution and the churches." Unquote. Mumilaaq Qaqqaq also talked about the legacy of residential schools.

SOUNDCLIP

MUMILAAQ QAQQAQ: We see suicide as, unfortunately, almost the normality in Nunavut. I have many friends and family that I have lost or that have attempted... we all have in Nunavut. That is from colonization. That is from residential schools and attempted genocide. That is from people not learning how to love as parents and teach their children love in return. Could you imagine communities filled without love because the children were taken away for education? This continues to carry out in ways that are horrid for communities. And those connections are very clear, and the Canadian government has done an extremely, phenomenally excellent job at hiding that history until now. Enough is enough. Charlie and I are here to help call on what is right, to call on that truth. Because Canadians need to know that Indigenous people can't do this alone anymore. The lack of basic human rights is disgusting in this country for the first peoples of it. I am standing here talking about [long pause] children in the ground well people suffer because they don't have a safe place to live. One in three people in Nunavut live in an overcrowded home. One in three women experience violence in the North. Seven out of 10 children in Nunavut go to school hungry. Could you imagine your child going to go hungry after yourself or your parents and your grandparents experienced all this horrible stuff I had just mentioned? And we continue to cry for help for basic. And here I am talking about basic justice. Basic human rights. Children continue to experience sexual assault at alarming rates due to intergenerational trauma and these institutions that the Canadian government put in place. There are clear connections. We are not asking for more, we are asking for same. A place to live that is safe, being able to drink water and bathe oneself and afford to feed oneself and those you love. We're asking for basic, after being put through a horrid history that continues to play out. And I hope today is just the beginning of those conversations because I think Canadians understand why there is a need to be upset, but this is just the tip of the iceberg.

CH: That was NDP MP Mumilaaq Qaqqaq today. The attorney general's office told CBC News that the minister, David Lametti, does not have the power to initiate criminal investigations. That's an exclusive power of the police. A national Indian Residential School Crisis Line has been set up to provide support to anyone affected. That 24-hour hotline number is: 1-866-925-4419.

[music: Sombre guitar]

Leonardo Lineage Study

Guest: Jesse Ausubel

CH: I don't know what your cousins have been up to lately -- but 14 people recently learned that their cousin painted a little something called "The Mona Lisa". That cousin was, of course, Leonardo Da Vinci. Mr. Da Vinci's relatives have been identified by a pair of Italian art historians who went looking for people who shared Leonardo's Y-chromosome. It's part of an endeavour known as the Leonardo Da Vinci DNA Project. Jesse Ausubel is the head of the project. Mr. Ausubel is a professor at Rockefeller University, and we reached him in Woods Hole, Massachusetts.

DMC: Professor Ausubel, how do people react when they find out they're related to one of humanity's greatest geniuses?

JESSE AUSUBEL: Happy. I would say close to ecstatic in some cases. And, of course, people try to connect in personal ways. One of the likely descendants is a pilot, likes to fly aeroplanes. Leonardo, of course, was famous for his fascination with flight and the possibility of human flight. Another is a visual artist, a painter. And, of course, having a connection to Leonardo as an artist is thrilling.

DMC: Leonardo didn't have any kids. So how do you figure out who might have inherited the same Y-chromosome?

JA: Leonardo was the only child of his father and his mother. They were not married. She was a peasant girl, perhaps even a slave. His father's family is... is... the origins are well known and documented in the... in the new report. Now, it's important to say the father on a written document is not always the biological father. We're happy that we have 14 possible descendants. We hope all 14 will turn out to be biologically related. If some of them are not, then it raises the question of whether there was, so to say, a travelling salesman who may have intervened. But the hope is that the descendants will share the Y-chromosome in particular, a particular part of the genome which passes through the male line. And that changes very little as generations and centuries go by. So the Y-chromosome of Leonardo's father would have been passed to Leonardo himself, but it would have been passed to the other 17 half-brothers and sisters that Leonardo's father had with the four wives who followed the relationship with Leonardo's mother. So it's this Y-chromosome that would be in common, even though Leonardo himself had no direct descendants.

DMC: What is it that you're hoping to learn by identifying Leonardo Da Vinci's DNA?

JA: Leonardo had extraordinary visual acuity, extraordinary eyesight, both in space and time. If you blow up the drawings he made, including very small drawings, you can magnify them 10, 20, 50 times, and they're still perfect. So the spatial resolution that he had in his eyesight was fantastic. And similarly, the temporal resolution, he saw birds in flight. He saw dragonflies in flight. He saw the motion of water. These are things that most of us can't see. So he saw in ways that, let's say, the best baseball player or the best soccer goalie might see. So one of the real things that we might learn is what one of the most important outliers in human history for visual acuity. What genetics characterize that individual?

DMC: As I listen to you describe the whole process, Professor, it's almost like an art history class and then cross it with an episode of... of a police forensics show. What kind of people do you have working on your... on your Leonardo Da Vinci project -- DNA project?

JA: You're right that it's a great detective story. And some of the people who worked on it, in fact, worked on identifying victims of 9/11 or people who died in the Spanish Civil War and were put in common graves and were not identified at the time. So we do have people who have those skills. And overall, the project is an attempt to bring together biology and art. And this latest set of work by Alessandro Vezzosi and Agnese Sabato putting together this extraordinary genealogy, extending 690 years through more than 20 generations. It's a beautiful piece of traditional scholarship and indispensable for the project because to make an identification. You always need to compare two things. If you want fingerprints or voice, you have to have something to match against something else. So we hope to be able to get DNA of Leonardo himself off, let's say, pages of his notebooks, which are in libraries and museums. But how would we know that that DNA is from Leonardo Da Vinci? Well, if it matches the DNA of the descendants of his half-brothers, then we know it's Da Vinci DNA. It's not the DNA, let's say, of one of his assistants, or someone who happened to handle the sheet of paper 10 years ago or even 100 years ago.

DMC: Hmm, that's fascinating! I mean, what made you want to use that kind of technology to dig deeper into the life of Leonardo Da Vinci?

JA: I mentioned the interest in... in vision. That's... there are certainly several aspects, biomedical aspects, that are interesting. The second is ancestry. People are interested in their own histories that way. And we'd like to know more about the ancestry of kind of somebody as extraordinary as Leonardo. The third motivation has to do with attribution, authentication. One of the ways to get evidence about whether a work could be associated with a particular artist is DNA evidence, in the same way, that genetic evidence, DNA evidence, has come into trials in courtrooms for crimes of various kinds. It may be possible to use DNA evidence in a very positive way to affirm the authorship of a work of art.

DMC: You've been at this project for a while. What makes you so personally excited about what you've found now?

JA: Leonardo is infinite. Leonardo is like the stars in the sky, or like the oceans in that way. In the English-speaking world, we are used to the idea that as part of one's education, one reads Shakespeare, let's say. In Germany, people read Guta. In Russia, they read Tolstoy. If you grow up in Italy, you'll be acquainted with Leonardo. But I, as a young person, I knew the Mona Lisa existed, but I hadn't delved into his notebooks or other parts of his work. And, for me, this project introduced me to him. And again, you start, and it's like it's... it's like Shakespeare, you know, it's just infinitely rich. And it's just an endless source of... of enlightenment and beauty and insight. So I would say every hour that one spends with him is a pleasure.

DMC: It's a pleasure to talk with you about it. Thanks for joining us.

JA: Thank you, Duncan.

CH: Jesse Ausubel is the head of the Leonardo Da Vinci DNA Project. We reached him in Woods Hole, Massachusetts.

[music: Instrumental]

Comic Book Store Lawsuit

CH: The submission is … graphic. And novel. But not really comic. And while filing your lawsuit to the court in comic book form is funny -- it's funny unusual; not funny ha-ha. Because the tale that comic tells of a beloved shop and its battle with a towering faceless villain is genuinely scary. Our hero is T.J. Johnson, owner of the Third Planet Sci-Fi Superstore in Houston, Texas. He's got issues. Lots of them... inside the store, of course. But also with his neighbour -- the Crowne Plaza Hotel. As recounted in the comic book commissioned for the court, the store is a Houston institution. But for years, it has been menaced by guests at the nearby hotel -- who throw a lot of stuff off their balconies. Stuff wouldn't want to land on you or your business. Water glasses. Dinner plates. A lot of fire extinguishers -- but also things that are on fire. The store's roof was so damaged after fire extinguishers rained down upon it that later, when rain rained down upon it, several rare editions were lost. Mr. Johnson is seeking financial compensation, and a year-long closure of the hotel -- which, frankly, should be filed under Fantasy. But given how drawn out a lawsuit can be it's probably a good thing that Mr. Johnson's side of the story has been drawn out. And that he's managed to score a little of the comics relief he's looking for.

Back To Top »

Provide Transcript Feedback

CBC would like to acknowledge the support of the Broadcasting Accessibility Fund.

July 08, 2021 Episode Transcript

More Stories Like This