speaker 0:   0:00
Hey, key stoners, Welcome back to Keystone State of Mind. It's me stuff your tour guide to the dark side of Pennsylvania. I'm so sorry I couldn't get an episode out last week. I try to put out a new episode every week, but sometimes life just gets in the way and I just can't make it happen. And that's pretty much what happened last week. So huge Apologies. I'll make it up to you this week with a really cool story, but first I have some shout outs, Big thank you to Cam Can Love and J. R. 22 10 4 leaving the show of five star rating in a positive review on Apple podcasts and also big shout outs to Michael from Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, and to Nicole from Elmira, New York, for reaching out to me through Facebook Messenger to tell me how much they enjoy the show. So thank you guys so much. And way to be awesome Keys Donors. If you want to shout out on an upcoming episode of Keystone State of Mind, all you have to do is reach out to me. You can email me at stuff at chaos om the pod dot com. Get me on Facebook. We have a private Facebook group called Chaos, so I'm key stoners. There's also a Facebook page, Keystone State of Mind. You can find me on Instagram and Twitter. Just search Keystone State of Mind. I still have lots of stickers, so some your address and I will mail you some chaos. So I'm sticker swag. That's all the announcements I have for today. So let's get into the story right after we get into a Keystone state of mind. As always, I'll be enjoying an ice cold can of Keystone Light while I tell you today's story. In the mid 19 eighties, people began noticing strange and cryptic messages in the streets of Philadelphia, literally embedded in the streets, sometimes in the crosswalk, sometimes in the shoulder and sometimes in the middle of a busy city street, this strange form of street art became known as Toynbee tiles. At first, no one really took notice. No one really stopped to analyze the message and how it got there. But by the late nineties, when this phenomenon had been occurring for over a decade, a small group of Internet researchers began to unravel this mystery. The most dedicated of these researchers is Philadelphia based artist Justin Duer. Justin began noticing the tiles in his late teens and became obsessed with finding out what they meant and who put them there. His obsession with the Toynbee tiles lead to the creation of his documentary Resurrect Dead, The Mystery of the Toynbee Tiles, and that is my main source for this episode. Before I go any further into Justin, search for answers. I probably should explain what the's Toynbee tiles are, and I'm going to start with how they're made and how they're put into the street, and then we'll get into the message. The typical Toynbee tile is about the size of a license plate. It appears to be made from linoleum and asphalt crack sealant, and I think that's like the stuff that they the tar like stuff they put on the road to seal the cracks in the asphalt. Obviously, you definitely need to see these things to understand what I'm talking about. So I will share photos of Toynbee tiles in the chaos. So I'm keys donors Facebook Group this week, so you can see what I mean, But I will do my best to explain it right now. So the tiles air like in mosaic. Using linoleum, the artist would cut out letters to make words and then fill the empty space with a different color linoleum so the letters could be seen. The mosaic is made on tarpaper, so when it was finished, the artist could put the tar paper on the ground in the street. And as cars go over as time goes by as this weather down, the message could begin to be seen, and it's unclear how long it takes for the tile to be actually embedded into the street. It could take weeks or months before the tar on top is worn away enough to be able to see the message. Although the letters are crude and it's obvious that this was cut out Freehand by like an Exacto knife. They really are beautiful works of art. Some are very colorful. It's obvious that each title takes a great deal of time and care to create. So now let's talk about the message. Most Toynbee tiles say something along these lines that they vary a little bit, but mainly this is what they say. Toynbee idea in Kubrick's 2001 Resurrect Dead on Planet Jupiter. Okay, I'm going to say that one more time. Toynbee idea in Q Bricks 2001. Resurrect dead on planet Jupiter. Um, what? What the shit could that possibly mean? Well, let's dig into it a little bit. The first line, says Toynbee Idea. What's Toynbee? While the better question is, who is Toynbee? If I have any Jeopardy contestant listeners out there, you might already know who Toynbee is, but I certainly did not. What I found out was that Toynbee title researchers believe that this refers to British philosopher and historian Arthur J. Toynbee, 20 lived from 18 89 to 1975. His work focused on the philosophical aspects of civilizations throughout history. His most famous writing is a 12 volume work called A Study of History and his research. Toynbee concluded that the most successful civilisations were ones that the citizens were challenged creatively. Civilizations would fail when the leadership became more rigid, militaristic and tyrannical, and he also believed that this rise and fall of civilizations was cyclical and predictable. Twenties publications were very controversial at the time, and really one of a kind. There are a lot of other thinkers out there, at least in his time, that put this kind of message out. So Toynbee became very famous for that one work, especially although a study of history was his most famous work. Arthur Toynbee did write other books, including his autobiography, called Experiences, and this is Where Toynbee Tile researchers believed that this Toynbee idea mentioned in the tiles comes from. In his autobiography, Toynbee argues that the idea that reviving dead molecules is scientifically and religiously possible and I have a little excerpt here from this book that speaks to that idea quote when after death, the body dissolves into its physical elements. These elements themselves are not annihilated. They are continuing to exist as parts of the physical universe, though no longer in this form and Bo. So that is what the Tyler could mean in the third line of the tiles resurrect Dead. So now we have little idea of what the first line means and what the third line means. So now, for the second line of the tile in Kubrick's 2001 this almost certainly refers to Stanley Kubrick's 1968 SciFi film 2001. A Space Odyssey Guys, I've never seen this movie. I know movie buffs are gonna want to slap me, but I didnt even watch it. Before this episode, I meant Teoh I was gonna, but it just it's not my thing. You know, sixties era sci fi movies. I just couldn't do it. Apparently, I'm really missing out because this is known as one of the most influential films of all time. As a matter of fact, in 1991 the Library of Congress deemed 2001 a Space Odyssey to be culturally, historically or aesthetically significant and was selected for preservation and the National Film registry. So I guess it's kind of a big deal. Maybe I'll watch it someday, but I probably won't. But I did research and read a little bit on the overview of this movie, and I know I'm going to offend some cinema files out there by giving this brief overview. But here it ISS, so I think the movie is set in 2001 and it's written from a 19 sixties viewpoint. So in the movie, humans have ah, based on the moon, and they are traveling to Jupiter because of some monoliths that they're trying to follow its message. And there's this computer called Hail that wants to kill everybody or something. And he did that. The computer did kill some people, and then they were able to be revived once they got to Jupiter. Well, that's a terrible description, and I have no idea what I'm talking about right now. But that's the best I could gather from, like the I M V D plot overview. I don't know if I could have explained it any better if I'd actually watch the movie, because from what I gather, there's like religious and existential overtones with the dangers of artificial intelligence. And there's obviously a lot toe unpack in this movie. I don't know if watching it once would have allowed me to be able to describe it any better. This might be no, it is hands down the worst description I've ever made on the show. So to the few of you who are still listening at this point on, that explains the second and the fourth lines of the Toynbee tile. So the Tyler was influenced by Arthur Toynbee and the movie 2001 a space odyssey to believe that dead molecules can be revived if we can get them to the planet Jupiter. I guess so. From this information that we have right now, we can conclude that there is a total lunatic. It lives in Philadelphia, this putting weird messages in the street. But there's a lot more to this story. These messages weren't just found in Philadelphia. They were found in major cities all over the United States and even in South America. And although the main message is always pretty much the same, their other messages to and they're known aside texts in the circle of researchers of the Toynbee tiles. But before I get into what the's side texts say, I want to talk a little bit about Justin doers, research and what he found out, because then I think the side text will make a little more sense. Justin and his team began researching where everyone does on the Internet, and they found a website called Toynbee dot net. This website was dedicated to research of the Toynbee tiles. Justin and his team reached out to the administrator of this website, and not only were they given all the back e mails and archives, but they were also eventually given ownership of this website, so they were able to totally take it over and dig through all the information that was there. In those old emails, they found mention of an article in The Philadelphia Inquirer from 1983 by a man named Clark Daly own. The team went to the Philadelphia Library and went through the microfiche of The Philadelphia Inquirer from 1983 and they found this article. It was very small, just a few lines. It appeared on March 13th 1983 and this is before any of the documented sightings off the first Toynbee tiles. I'm going to read the entirety of this article now. Call me sceptical, but I had a hard time buying James Marasco is concept that the planet Jupiter would be colonized by bringing all the people on earth who had ever died back to life and then changing Jupiter's atmosphere to allow them to live. Is it just me, or does that strike you is hard to swallow, too. Marasco says he's a social worker in Philadelphia and came across this idea while reading a book by historian Arnold Toynbee, whose theory on bringing dead molecules back to life was depicted in the movie 2001. A Space Odyssey. There are no scientific principles I've found that can make this possible, Marasco said, especially colonizing the planet Jupiter, which has a very poisonous atmosphere. The possibility of giving that plan an oxygen atmosphere is beyond even science fiction writers imaginations now that quote may sound as if Marasco doesn't believe it can be done, but that's not true. He thinks that between Toynbee and Stanley Hugh Brick, there's a way to pull it off. That's why he's contacting talk shows and newspapers to spread the message. He's even founded a Jupiter colonization organization called the Minority Association, which he says consist of Quote Me, Eric, Eric, Sister Who Does the Typing and Frank End quote. You may be hearing more from Marasco, and then again, you may not. Okay, so that was the article that ran in The Philadelphia Inquirer in 1983 and right now I just want to know that the Philadelphia Inquirer is not like the National Enquirer. It's not like, you know, Batboy gave birth to three headed lizard baby. The Philadelphia Inquirer is an actual newspaper that generally Prince fax. So let's break down this message a little bit. This man named James Marasco, is involved with the minority association, and the minority association has, like five members. It's Marasco, a guy named Eric Eric, Sister who does the typing and a guy named Frank. That's basically the entirety of this minority association. And the minority association believes that we can resurrect our dead on the planet Jupiter. If Onley we can find a way to create an atmosphere on the planet Jupiter for these people to survive as humans. And James Marasco reached out to Clark, Daly owned the writer in this newspaper to try to get his message out. That's the plan. But Clark daily on is like, um, you sound like a fucking lunatic and I'm gonna pass. Thanks, Justin, do er in his team did uncover that this minority association in this supposed guy, James Marasco, I tried to reach out to all kinds of media, and basically everybody told them to go pound sell you fucking crazy people. And I say this supposed guy, James Marasco, because Justin and his team also found out that this was not his real name. There was a man named James Marasco that was a social worker in Philadelphia, but he knew nothing about this, and he actually died, like in the late nineties while the Toynbee tiles were still being placed. I know this is a lot to digest, but let's go back to the article. The message in the article that James Marasco, or whatever his real name is is trying to get across as a lot like the message in the Toynbee tiles. It's pretty much identical, right? So what Justin and his team discovered is that the Tyler tried to reach out to the media to get his message out and was shot down time and again. Of course, you shot down. Who the fuck is buying this random bullshit of taking our dead people toe Jupiter? That's ridiculous. But in the Tylers mind, this is riel and it could work. And it could be the answer to all of humanity's problems, based on what Justin and his team discovered. Next, we can see that the Tyler or the leader of the minority Association, who are probably one in the same when he didn't get anywhere with the mainstream media. He turned to shortwave radio, and he didn't just put out his own little radio station for people to listen to. When they chose, he actually began hacking into people's television sets at home, and I know this sounds wild. How could he do that? We have to remember. This is the early eighties. People didn't have cable, they had bunny ears, they had antennas. And so a person driving around in a car with a large antenna transmitting radio frequencies as they drive by. They can then transmit that frequency rate to the antenna on the television or on the radio. If someone's at home watching TV or listening to the radio, a short wave transmitter can transmit that message to the antenna on the television. So, of course, there's no video. But there's audio, and people in the Philadelphia area in these smaller neighborhoods reported having their news interrupted. It'll at the 11 oclock news with these messages of resurrecting the dead on Jupiter. So this guy is apparently riding around with a transmitter in his car, trying to get his message out to the people. This didn't work either because the residents of Philadelphia are listening to this nonsense. They're annoyed that their news is interrupted. And as matter of fact, numerous people called the television network to say, What are you doing? I'm getting interference here like What's wrong with your station? So this guy's failing, like on every level of trying to get people to understand that we can resurrect our dead on planet Jupiter. Nobody's buying it. This is when he turns to the tiles in the street. He knows nobody's gonna listen to him. But if he puts this message out as many places as he can right in the street for everyone to see, then maybe people will get it. But by this time he's pissed. He's disgruntled and he's paranoid, and we know his state of mind from what is known as the Manifesto tile. This is a giant message that was placed at the corner of 16th and Chestnut streets in Philadelphia, and I'm gonna read this in its entirety and just keep in mind that this dude carved this entire fucking thing out of linoleum as I'm reading at Okay, Before I start reading this, there are some offensive words in here But I'm quoting these that this isn't from me. This is coming from the Toynbee. Tyler. Here goes the manifesto tile quote. John Knight, owner of The Philadelphia Inquirer. Hellion Jew whose hated this movements guts for years, takes money from the Mafia to make the Mafia look good in his newspapers. So he has the Mafia in his back pocket. John Night sent the Mafia to murder me in May 1991. Journalist, all of them gloated to my face about my death and Knight Ridder's great power to destroy. In fact, John Night went into hellion binge of joy over Knight Ridder's great power to destroy. I secured House with blast doors and fled the country. In June 1991 NBC attorneys, journalists and security officials at Rockefeller Center fraudulently under the Freedom of Information Act all orders of NBC executives got the U. S. Federal District Attorney's office and got the FBI, Teoh Interpol to establish task force that located me and Dover, England. When back Home Enquirer got union goons from their own employees union to send down a sports journalist who, with a baseball bat bashed in lights and windows of neighborhood cars as well as men outside my house. They're stationed there waiting for me, NBC, CBS Group W. Westinghouse Time, Time Warner, Fox, Universal, all of them Cole of the Hellion Each were much worse than Knight Ridder ever waas mostly hellion juice. When K. Y. W. An NBC executives told John Night, the whole coven gloated on how their Soviet pales had found a way to turn it into. Ah, and that's it. That's where it stops. It's not completed. There's more to it somewhere. And what the actual fuck? What does that even say? First, I have to point out that Knight Ridder is the company that owns News media in Philadelphia. So it's night k n i G h t Hyphen Ritter, our i d D R. This is a corporation that owns media in the Philadelphia area. That's who he's referring to when he says Knight Ridder. Other than that, I guess he's saying that all of the news media, the national media, is after him trying to silence him and trying to kill him, and they even have the FBI and Interpol in on this, trying to silence his message. But dude, fucking carve this into linoleum and put it in the middle of the street on a busy corner in Philadelphia. That is some dedication to his cause. I got to say, even if it is completely ass sign So now I can talk about these side text because they'll make more sense, I guess, if that's even fucking possible at all. But this gives you an idea of the mindset of this guy who is laying these titles in the street. And once again there's offensive terms here. But here's the 1st 1 Communist hit men failed to murder me twice to murder my mother, so they got a faggot cell. Here's another one. Now Galileo's Cole of the Hellion is now searching for super hell. Hell beyond hell, as Toynbee says, more than one. How to get more reward. And here's another. You must lay tile alone as hellions Join up and mass to give you beatings in. A lot of these side texts do say things like You must lay tile for one reason or another, but I don't think personally that the Tyler is giving that as an order to someone else. I think he's telling himself that I think it's like a compulsion. He must lay tile. And he is expressing that in his tiles that he has to. He is being told by a force to lay these tiles. So remember a little while ago when I said that these tiles were laid in major cities all over the U. S. And in South America Well, there was one specific tile that was laid in Santiago, Chile, that was very different from all the rest. It did not have the regular Toynbee tile message. It had an actual physical address. This address was for a row home in a residential neighborhood of Philadelphia. This home belonged to a man named Severina. No, Virna, known to his friends as city just endure. And his team, with the camera rolling, actually went to this address. The door was bolted with numerous padlocks. They knocked on the door and no one answered. When they spoke to the neighbors, they found out that city was a recluse. He no longer had a car. But when he did have a car, I didn't have a passenger seat or a passenger side floor board. And it also had a giant antenna. The filmmakers had never been able to figure out how the Tyler could get the tile in the middle of a busy street without anyone noticing. There was even one tile there was placed in the middle of the road in front of the Holland Tunnel in New York City. Just a Z. You enter the tunnel. Nobody could figure out how the Tyler could pull this off with no one seeing him until it came to light. That city did not have a passenger seat or a passenger side floor board. Then it made perfect sense. If he was sitting in traffic, he could just put it out through through that missing floorboard right into the street. They were made in such a way that all he had to do was set it down and the other vehicles would do the rest. Another very interesting thing that the researchers found when they went to Civvies neighborhood was that there were little test tiles all around, just just very small ones that didn't really say anything. They were seemed to be just a test to see how it would work. And the thing about the Toynbee tiles is that they won't ever be completely eroded away. They won't go away completely until the roads are repaved. So it's very possible the city was always trying to perfect his craft and continue to evolve his technique and would just test it out in the streets of his neighborhood. And they just hadn't been paved over yet. So after learning all of this, we can almost definitively say that Severina Virna is James Marasco. He's the head of the minority association, and he is the 20 Tyler. But there's just one little thing the filmmakers just endure and his team spoke to. Several knows Mom, and she said the city has a lung condition that prohibits him from traveling. She said that he's never been to South America, and he's never been out of Philadelphia. So is he just really good at hiding his travels, or does he have a help her? I'm pretty sure we'll never know. So what do I think? You know, I always have to put my two cents in. I think that a well meaning man with a psychological illness put way too much shock in a 19 sixties sci fi movie. In the abstract ideas oven, early 20th century philosopher you guys got to tell me what you think. Can we resurrect our dead on planet Jupiter? How much am I missing out by not watching 2001. A Space Odyssey. If you want to know more about the Toynbee tiles, I totally recommend watching the documentary resurrect dead The mystery of the Toynbee tiles. I'll include the link in the show Notes. As far as I know, you can only find it on YouTube right now. It was at one time on Amazon prime, and I'm not sure why has been taken down Is from 2011 totally worth watching. Check it out. If you don't have any thoughts on the Toynbee tiles, feel free to send me your Keystone State stories or your keystone light stories. I always love those. Stay safe, guys. Stay healthy. Stay home if you can. And whatever you dio stay Keystone. My friends