Wide Unclasp'd

S1E12 - Episode 11 - The Winchester Rifle Museum

EPISODE NOTES Take a look at our Patreon [https://www.patreon.com/3MinModernist] Transcript by otter.AI [http://otter.AI] In the 1970s, Keith Kittel took over managing the Winchester house. It's a big job largely because in the 50 or so years since Sarah Winchester had passed, the house had fallen into something of disrepair. The large number of visitors who were continually going through the House didn't help matters, he really is deserving of the credit of reestablishing the house as we know it today. Well, at least as of the two early 2000s, before the sort of explosion and turning into a bigger tourist destination. Adding multiple tours and different attractions such as a shooting gallery kill was very much about accentuating the house and the Winchester story, not to mention the advertising. But one of the big elements that came about during his time was the Winchester rifle Museum. Now calling it a museum is a bit of a stretch, it was really just two and a half rooms, but you would walk in, and there were display cases full of the rifles, dozens of them, the earliest rifles, the rifles that inspired the Winchester Repeating rifle, and all the way on up through the history of the product, including occasionally getting updated so that there were more guns from the late 90s and 2000s. They were very simply presented, they were on as I remember wooden holders with a red background, there was a low display case that had a couple of the handgun. But this is just the simplest display methodology show the thing that is on the wall, and let it speak for itself. Now, as someone who's been to the house during this period, the hundreds of times, I would sometimes even just visit to walk through the museum. Because it wasn't a particularly contemplative space. It was a little cramped, it was basically a sort of winding hallway. And the story of the Winchester rifle was there told almost completely without words, it was the progression of the gun shown very simply, no cutaways, no great, AV just simple presentation of object. Now a museum guy, I have a connection with museological technique. And this is as simple as it gets. And that, in a way, it's sort of like a minimalist music, though, you're seeing the same thing over and over, you're coming to appreciate the incredibly subtle differences. And though they were behind cases, you could get very close, you were intimate with the pieces, you could go in and see the firing mechanism on the outside, you could see the lever, the trigger, the barrel, the site was all right there in front of you. There are a few examples of historical rifles predating the Winchester rifle, which were cool. In fact, I think that the oldest rifle I've ever seen was in that might be one older I saw it the met in New York. But this was a clear, clean, well presented collection simple. Honestly, it didn't need anything else. This is the type of thing I'm sad to see going to the wayside. In the current version of the house I'm I asked what the space is being used for. And they said just storage and some setup space makes sense. It's a good spot for that. But the transformation of the courtyard, moving a concession stand out there, putting in the shooting gallery. And if you consider the courtyard to also run down that tea that runs away from the bathrooms towards the main portion of the gardens, the axe throwing, it's all fine. I do miss the arcade. But the idea of the house as a representation of just the Winchester story is sort of lessened by it. The other prominent museological type display, I guess, was the Winchester products museum. And I'll talk about that in a future episode, because that still exists to a degree, there's so much more they could do to tell the story of the rifle. And I do wish they would do that in a space that is in the house. In fact, there are a couple of places that would truly benefit from that. I've often said that the best use they could make of the what they call it used to call the million dollar showroom now it's where the AV display that tells the story, the Winchester story, the best thing they could do is to turn that into his to make that the sort of gathering point for the two are what they do now in the space outside but instead, move it to you have to walk in through the short past the short door down that little hallway. So you would gather in the million dollar store room and there, they could make a great display of those rifles, Winchester products, various things while you're waiting for your tour, in essence, do what they do in Disneyland, make the weight actually a part of the attraction. It's not a perfect idea. No, but it has its charm so stay tuned for that. First episode where I will be talking about the Winchester products Museum. A little bit about the 100th anniversary of the passing of Sarah Winchester a lot going on so I don't know when or how or why, but it'll be soon by my drums. Thanks for listening to widen class. I'm Chris Garcia. Find out more at https://wide-unclasp-d.pinecast.co [https://wide-unclasp-d.pinecast.co]

S1E11 - Episode 10 - The Daisy Windows

EPISODE NOTES Visit the Patreon! [https://www.patreon.com/3MinModernist] Auto-Generated Transcript WideUnclaspd-The Daisy Windows Wed, 8/3 2:03PM • 16:13 SUMMARY KEYWORDS windows, daisy, tour, nature, house, santa cruz mountains, artistic representation, solid, portion, walking, statuary, divisible, thought, pictures, sarah winchester, room, tree, mikey, luna, find SPEAKERS Christopher Garcia   Christopher Garcia  Welcome to wide unclasp. I'm your host, Chris Garcia. This week, we're looking at two things. One, the daisy windows like I promised and to my most recent tour. early July, they added a new tour to the repertoire called Walking with spirits. And I didn't take this one I was with my youngest, and they were scared. But we did take the mansion tour, which was great led by Mikey, who had never had before, but is a very solid Tourguide Luna does sort of a more, I don't want to say energetic because Mike actually had a lot of energy and a lot of knowledge, maybe not as much as Luna, but definitely was super solid knew the whole thing forward and backwards, like he kind of have to, but also seem to have more, whereas Luna great was very, very much faster. I did get the point out also what Luna had pointed out to me last time, the original painted arrow from the original walking to her, never seen that the tour was good. Moved. Well, we did, he did sort of get bogged down at a couple of points. So we ended up having the group right before us because at that point, they were doing every five minutes. So there was a 145 we were the 150 there was a 155. So it was sort of a little tighter. But I got a story I had never heard about from the Halloween period. They had people the various tour guides stationed up on one of the hallways and they were doing jumpscares and stuff. And where he had been standing the previous nights he was actually down the hall from and for no reason anyone can tell one of the windows shattered inwards, and there were no trees, there was no rock or anything thrown. They couldn't they still can't figure out what caused that breakage. This is the first time I've heard of a window breaking. I have heard of window shaking. I have personally experienced one of them opening and closing. And I have heard a story of a window which when you look through it, you sort of see this hazy reflection that shouldn't be there. I've tried to find this window multiple times and I have yet to succeed. I've been told it's on the front portion of the house on the second floor, but I don't know where. So we will see the tour solid again great for kids. My seven year old enjoyed himself immensely. Walking around, just having a good time really enjoyed the video that played out in the million dollar store room back what it used to be called. They're not calling it that anymore. But ultimately, we did a lot we had about an hour to kill. So we did the gardens, which was fun, took a lot of pictures of fountains and so forth for future episodes. So statuary finally got good picture of the statuary, particularly the eagle that is in the little knock before you get into the final room. The final think it's a dining room or sitting room or entertaining room or some such ballroom, maybe the one with the low Italian at ceiling. It's it was a very good tour wasn't particularly hot yet. And I've done tours where it's been 100 degrees outside and it's unbearable, and there was about 85. So one of the things that the house that you notice when you walk through the house is the various breeze patterns. And I think this leads to a lot of the people who say they encountered cold spots. It's because the house is sort of designed with the Victorian idea of encouraging airflow of a certain type. And one thing I never heard was opening the glass.   Christopher Garcia  The glass that said into the floor of the skylights to bring in cold air from the basement. I never none of the tour guides I had ever had had explained that before. So this was solid. Ultimately, one of the more interesting tours have a beautiful day for a walk. And I very much like the summer house when it's very light. We were there at like one o'clock so it was almost like noon ish light, but you also have people who love it in the drizzle. And the last time we were there it was overcast and drizzly. But ultimately it was a great tour. And this was a tour where I left my little pumpkin in with Mikey and the rest of the crew while I sort of scurried around to the back of the daisy bedroom to get photos of all the daisy windows that I could. I counted 12 there the four main ones that you can actually get really up close to that I got wonderful pictures of all of them do We have 13 petals on the daisies. I then counted a total of 12 Daisy windows in the room. Now this is actually a point of contention with me, I think there are 13. But with the way that the room is positioned, you can only see 12 including a beautiful triangle one, which I could not get a picture of no matter how hard I tried. They are remarkable John Malin works. And these windows more than any other window in the entire house scream Tiffany, and John Malin was a no slouch in the area of window making. And we'll be talking more about Mellon, in particular later have recently discovered to be the guy who did the windows, who designed them after years of people saying it was Tiffany. And I'm still not 100% Sure, because there are a couple in there that look like 100% Tiffany windows. And we don't have a great record of all of the intakes. So there are arguments over what one thing or another. For example, one thing that I have been told and have not been able to disprove or prove is that the small railing there are two banisters that are at the base of the steps that were supposedly the back steps of the original farmhouse. The thought is those banisters were added later, possibly from pieces that are in the various store rooms, you can see this time we actually when me and my little guy walked around, we took pictures through some of the windows that have the rooms where you see the wooden pieces of the store rooms, and easily they could have come from there. But at the same time, they are 100% in line with everything else there. So I'm, I'm interested to find out more about those in particular pieces. The Daisy windows are remarkable. One would have almost certainly had the one to the very front of the daisy bedroom, which likely would have been I've been trying to figure out what went where when it was in use. So there's sort of a side room, there's a, there's sort of four sections, there's a small hallway type area, that's where the four major windows that you can get up close to are, there's the front area where the fireplace is. And you could imagine that being the sitting area, but at the same time, it would make more sense to have the bed in that portion. Because the warmth from the fire. Plus there would be less light coming in from the windows because of the very front section. Which borders I think it's pretty much right above the front door. And by the way, on the new tour, you go through the front door. Yeah. The the windows would have been put in so much light, that if you wouldn't have a good land that you would be, you know, woken up early. Now it could be that Mrs. Winchester was an early riser, which be cool. And if that was the case, she'd want that light to come in. Because the front windows are also beautiful. The thing about the daisy windows and there are 13 pedals, if that is where the 13th idea came from. It makes a lot of sense. The argument about the 13 comes a lot of different places. Here's some facts. 13 is a relatively scarce number in nature.   Christopher Garcia  It is relatively scarce in every aspect. It's prime, but it's also not easy Prime 1-2-3-5-7 Those are easy. 13 is much much harder as is 11. The tradition of the 13 pedaled Daisy, I am not sure if it has its basis in nature, or in artistic representation. Because there are lots of 13 Pedal daisies in artistic representations of various sorts. 13 has morphed over the years to be both good luck and bad luck. The Myth of course of October 13 be the day that the Knights Templar were hoodwinked and killed. The idea that 13 might have been a lucky number for some Friday the 13th All these questions come up, but it does seem to appear. Now maybe not everywhere. It has been attempted to appear. But there are definitely 12 windows in there that I could visually confirm. Would there have been a 13 because the room also not complete and we don't know what happened to some sections of the room it looks like portion of the walls are missing. So could there have been a 13th window but 12 is also an important number here. Now 12 is easily divisible into 360 30. Which makes it and of course when you divide that out, that's how you do the clock and the hour. There is of course, also the chandelier that has currently 13 but may have had 12 It originally and that may well be had she wanted it to have 13 She definitely could have ordered it with 13. I could also see a designer having a 12 candle chandelier and delivering it instead of a 13 that had been ordered. These things happen. Probably not to question. Are there 13 To the house? Yeah, they're the 13 drain hole thing. There's a 13 code hooks which may have been added. The idea is that after her death, they wanted to attach 13 to things. But here's where the good luck bad luck thing comes in. spiritual connections to 13 were not necessarily imbued at the time. There are definitely Thirteen's and a lot of different magical theorems. I do believe 13 in theosophy has some meaning. I looked into it a little bit there was some sort of nature wanderings musings, but I didn't really find anything solid spiritualist in third, spiritualism and 13 does also have some sway. I think what's more important though, is 13 as an aesthetic choice, as well as 12 and an aesthetic choice. Both of them have very interesting meanings one the tie to the clock, the tie to the months 12 exists as four groups of three three has meaning everywhere Of course, the law of thirds, and once you have 12 of something, it is easily divisible easily broken up 13 Is not that way. 13 is complicated. Was she the kind of person who visualized the world as a series of easily divisible and regroup double 12 would have been her number. But 13 is a different question. 13 isn't chaotic, but it's harder. You can do 12 Honestly, the one of the easiest things to do is to find 12 You can do it with a straight edge and a compass. It's not hard. 13 is hard, and the exacting nature of Sarah Winchester would make 13 doable, even without connections to anything otherworldly. If you want to display your skill. Don't do the perfection of the easy, do even the attempt of the difficult 13 is difficult. So I could see it as being sort of a show off II thing. 13 is everywhere. The Daisy and the light was perfect for the daisy windows by the way, if you get the chance to go there are the four right, when you go into the room, you'll go through the doorway and then there's a sort of the small hallway go there there the four that are right there, look very closely at them. They are beautiful, absolutely gorgeous. And then look at the ones in front, the front edge of the house looking outwards. Because what you will see through them, depending on your height is either the sky or the garden. And it's beautiful. It really is. It's a framing of nature with nature, and in the time would have been even more spectacular because there would have been more trees the Parkland would have gone straight across.   Christopher Garcia  We tend to forget that Sarah Winchester was building the house surrounded by orchard surrounded by nature. So when you are seeing through something like a window, where there are elements of nature, she's designing it to be an aspect of what she's seeing through the window. That's a beautiful thing and something she would have definitely thought about heavily. Something that Mikey mentioned on our tour that I had never thought of before. mentioned that the big condo complex, which is an absolute eyesore monstrosity had blocked off viewing the sunset over the Santa Cruz Mountains from the fourth floor that one little portion they still have, which made me realize back when it was still seven storeys, she could have easily gone up to the top and had the most spectacular Vista looking over her grounds. She definitely before it blew down could have seen the light tower in downtown San Jose, or at least its illumination, she would have been able to see the sunset over the Santa Cruz Mountains. This idea that I think we need to be more aware of is how do we experience the house as she did and that's incredibly difficult to do in today's modern area. So it's the first time I've ever been on the tour where they talked about the old movie theaters, which I was very interested in particularly the century 23. And mentioning the old olive tree that was there that may have been one of Sir Winchesters original olive trees it was it's a very old tree, and a very annoying tree. I've dealt with it a few times. But I think the point that I took away from this one, this trip and the daisy Windows is that she was interested in the natural world, and how the house interacted with it. That's an important aspect that I had never thought of, and I'm really waiting to dig into this more. Thanks for listening to wide on class. We'll be back in a couple of weeks with an episode. I think I'm going to do the one on the 9085 documentary two times from now, and the next one will likely be on the walking with the spirits tour, which I am taking with my wife in two weeks. So stay tuned. Thanks for listening to white unclasp Find out more at https://wide-unclasp-d.pinecast.co [https://wide-unclasp-d.pinecast.co]

S1E9 - Episode 9 - Sylvia Browne

EPISODE NOTES Was Sylvia Browne the real deal? Yes. Was she a fraud? Yes. Is this all complicated and tied to a bunch of weird things that will be covered in the podcast over time? Yes. I look at Sylvia Browne as a phenomena, tie in personal stories, a look at Alastair Crowley's one true magick trick, and more! You can follow our patreon at https://www.patreon.com/3MinModernist [https://www.patreon.com/3MinModernist] Transcript WideUnclaspd-SylviaBrowne Wed, 8/3 2:04PM • 12:09 SUMMARY KEYWORDS sylvia browne, talk, sylvia, cents, pocket, house, mediums, saratoga, matter, honestly, ability, figure, weird, crash, collective unconsciousness, happen, fraud, parapsychology, sprinklers, dad SPEAKERS Christopher Garcia   Christopher Garcia  Welcome to wide unclasped. I'm Chris Garcia. Today is going to be very house light for a couple of reasons. When I come back, I'm going to talk about the daisy windows in the daisy bedroom, and a lot of stories. But I wanted to talk about Sylvia Browne. And some of you may not cotton to Sylvia, I have a certain love and respect for her. Because of my dad who knew her fairly Willie would guess, enough that she remembered him when we talked last time. But what's interesting is that Sylvia was the real deal. 100% She had a gift.   Christopher Garcia  Also Sylvia was a fraud.   Christopher Garcia  This is what's maddening. And when I talk about the Warrens, which I'll do ad nauseam. I'll get into why those two things are actually connected. Because the truth is she had sight. And I don't know if it's like she always talked about it with her guidance, so forth. And she was not always right, of course. And I think this is actually part of the problem was that at times she caught glimpses of things. I'm not saying 100% all mediums are true. Most are garbage. But there's something there's something weird, maybe it's a collective unconsciousness. Maybe it's spirit guides, who knows. And frankly, who cares. For me, this isn't a great example of something that I've never been able to explain me and a bunch of friends of mine, I think it was my birthday. We went out and I felt weird. We'd had pizza. So it wasn't that but I just I kept saying over and over, something's about to happen something strange. And while we were walking by what used to be my middle school, a car comes careening around the corner, and the sprinklers had been on so the road was wet. And it fishtailed literally in front of us hit the center median, jumped up in the air about five feet landed and then took off. And afterward that feeling that I had that something was going to happen was gone. I honestly think that's what most mediums are is moments like that, that are connected by putting the pieces together.   Christopher Garcia  But I also don't think it's reliable.   Christopher Garcia  And I think when you built a reputation on those things, that you start to try to, well, okay, you could try to force it. Or you could just lie. Either way. I 100% believe that that's what Sylvia Browne was the clearest example I have of her powers. And I really don't want to say powers, but I don't have a better way to put it up her ability. was the last time I saw her. I ran into her at a I think she was at a signing up in somewhere. Maybe it was Campbell, might have been at Westgate or something like that. But I got to our table and we talked for a bit and she said, you know your dad's very proud of you. And I'm like, Well, you knew dad, and you know he's dead. So you obviously are trying to use that. But we talked for a few minutes. And it was really nice. Actually, I always liked her. I know a lot of people thought she was hardcore unpleasant. And I do not doubt them for a minute. But she was always nice to me. This happens to me a lot. So at the end, I'm about to walk away and she calls and says, you still don't believe Do you. You're still skeptical. I said, Yeah, I am. She said, You've got 37 cents in your pocket. And you're gonna give it to someone named Juan. I said Good job, Jeff and took off. And as soon as I was outside, I looked in the pocket of the jacket I was wearing cuz I was wearing this white jacket that I wore all the time. And I looked in it, and I had 37 cents. Exactly. I had gotten it earlier in the day. I believe it's 711. So I put the money back in my jacket and I put it on my seat and I drove home a few days later I go to the Safeway in think the one off of De Anza Boulevard in Saratoga. And every year around Christmas, they have a bell ringer. So the Bell Ringer was ringing and I just said oh, I'm gonna put my hand in and give him some change because one, I don't like change of any sort. And I tossed the 37 cents in my pocket into the can. And then I looked and the guy had a name tag, Juan.   Christopher Garcia  Now you can make all sorts of connections there. How did she know that? I had 37 cents on my wall. My pocket.   Christopher Garcia  Well that's if you're going to make a guess figuring you have a quarter nickel, a quarter, a dime and a couple of nickels and a couple of pennies. My money numbering is off. If you know that, you know it's a pretty standard number, it's not a, you know, if she had honestly said you have $27.02 in your pocket, I would have said, Never, I wouldn't even bother looking honestly, because I never had $27 cash on me. But the 37 cents, it's a guess you could make. But then there's something about the one thing you're gonna give it to a man named one. I did. We were nowhere near that safe way. So she couldn't have known Oh, there's a guy named Juan and Saratoga then you obviously go to this. That's weird, that wouldn't happen. She accessed something that allowed her to see those things. And they're both innocuous, it doesn't really matter that I have 37 cents in my pocket. Except to her and me, for the matter of the transaction of belief between us. I honestly think that's where most psychical things happen is in the moments of banality, when it makes it easier to guess, if you think about it, but the reality is, it doesn't really matter on most of these things. You know, the couple of wavy lines and triangle in the testing you do, that makes some sense to me, because it's this idea that you're interacting with someone else, specifically, you're interacting with someone who knows what the thing is. Now, I've seen a lot of people do this sort of cyclical test where you have it on, you have the thing down, you flip, you say what card it is, and you flip it over. And I've never seen that work more than like 40% of the time, which is actually not a bad rating. If you think about it. I've seen people do it with individuals and get it like 70% of the time. And there are ways you do you know, you could see it in the eyes, blah, blah, blah.   Christopher Garcia  Sylvia Browns place in the Bay Area parapsychological world was interesting because she has as many detractors as she did, supporters, she didn't do a lot in how she knew my dad was he did a lot of parapsychology sort of study. She did the over the famous overnight at the Toys R Us which I'll talk about at some point. She did, I believe she did one at the Winchester house as well. I know for a fact that there's a house in Santa Clara, that she was invited to come to to try and figure out what it was. And she said, flat out it was a demon that was attached to the family. Could it have been? Well, I happen to know the kid. And there was definitely poltergeist activity all over that house. I never witnessed any with my eyes, I did hear I was we were actually playing upstairs and I heard a crash from the kitchen and the only other person in was his sister who was in her room and went down and you know, the classic pullout drawer of silverware goes crashing to the floor. Her investigation, she didn't really give many details, but said it's definitely a demon. It's definitely attached to the family. And it is in the house only because you are in the house. She doesn't matter approach it the way, you know most ghost hunters or demon slayers or whatever would she just identified what it was. And I don't think she even tried to communicate with it, which I think is the stupidest thing that psychics and mediums do is try to communicate, or at least to present the idea that they are communicating with some sort of higher plane. I've lost some of you I know. It is difficult to be a believer who also believes that a lot of it is phony. And who has this idea that a thing can be two things. And Sylvia Browne is the best example of that. She did help out on several cases over the years. And she also blew a number of other cases. She made grandiose claims that never happened. I personally heard her say that there would be an earthquake on I believe January 15 1993. That didn't happen. But at the same time, she had something was it useless? Possibly. Like There's that famous Christopher Walken sediment life bit of mundane? Psychic, you're gonna get the coffee, the coffee is gonna be hot.   Christopher Garcia  There may be some of that to it. It may be that the ripples out from major events aren't what attached to whatever it is that people who are sensitive can detect. Maybe it's only the little things maybe it's only the personal things. I do believe that Sylvia Browne and several other psychics had some of abilities, but I also think for the most part, they had to Trump them up to keep the illusion going. And the problem is we always try to attune to either they were successful once and everything else was just misunderstandings, or they were wrong once and everything's a fraud. It's obviously in between the two. Like, I can't say Aleister Crowley was the greatest magician of all time. But the story of him walking behind the guys taking on his gait, exactly a few steps behind him. And then after a few few steps, Crowley crouched down, and the guy in front of them's feet to shut out from under him. Now, this could be a form of biofeedback, it could be a form of touching into his portion of the collective unconscious, and then using that, but I don't believe 99.95% of the stuff that Crowley reportedly was able to do. So if you browse the same way, I know Silvia visited the house more than once. I believe her overnight there was covered, I believe, I'm 95% sure it was for KTVU. Channel two, she did a lot of stuff with him, but it might have been for channel 11. But I will say she's a difficult figure, and was not very pleasant to a lot of people. But I do hope that we examine her phenomenon, because she really was a phenomenon and see what it says to us about people who have an ability even if it's not the universal ability that they claim. Thank you for listening to wide unclasp we'll be back in a few weeks. I really want to do the episode about the days in Windows, but I gotta go on the tour again. So I might take my little Benji aka Bella, aka pumpkin. Thanks for listening to widen class. Find out more at https://wide-unclasp-d.pinecast.co [https://wide-unclasp-d.pinecast.co]

S1E8 - Bob's Big Boy

# Episode Notes

S1E7 - Episode 7 - Count Five and A Ghost Story

EPISODE NOTES ACIDROCK 1960S PARANORMAL GHOST WINCHESTERMYSTERYHOUSE Find out more at https://wide-unclasp-d.pinecast.co [https://wide-unclasp-d.pinecast.co]