Overview

Excavated from a waterlogged archaeological site on the shores of subtropical Florida by legendary anthropologist Frank Hamilton Cushing in 1896, the Key Marco Cat has become a modern icon of heritage, history, and local identity. This book takes listeners into the deep past of the artifact and the Native American society in which it was created. Austin Bell explores nine periods in the life of the six-inch-high wooden carving, beginning with how it was sculpted with shell and shark-tooth tools and what it may have represented to the ancient Calusa--perhaps a human-panther god. Preserved in the muck for centuries on Marco Island and discovered in pristine condition due to its oxygen-free environment, the Cat has since traveled more than 12,000 miles and has been viewed by millions of people. In this fascinating account, Bell traces the clues to the Cat's mysterious origins that have emerged in its later lives. Captivating listeners with the miracle and beauty of this rare example of pre-Columbian art, Bell marvels at how an object originally understood to hold cosmological power has indeed transformed the people and places around it. The Nine Lives of Florida's Famous Key Marco Cat is the story of a timeless masterpiece of staggering simplicity that has prevailed over impossibly long odds.

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Austin J. Bell is curator of collections for the Marco Island Historical Society and a consulting scholar at the Penn Museum. He is the author of Marco Island. Stephen Graybill was recently in HBO's Big Little Lies, opposite Shailene Woodley, Reese Witherspoon, and Nicole Kidman; in Framed, opposite Jordi Vilasuso; in the second season of Game Shakers; and opposite Denise Richards in the feature film Altitude. He has been seen in HBO's The Wire, Law & Order: SVU, Law & Order, Six Degrees, All My Children, As The World Turns, and The Girl's Guide to Depravity. On stage he's appeared with Primary Stages, Drama Dept, NY Theater Workshop, F*It Club (world premieres by Kate Gersten, Mark Schultz, Lucy Boyle, and Nick Jones), Studio 42, Shakespeare Theatre DC, and Woodshed Collective in their acclaimed immersive theater production of The Tenant. He has worked on over fifty audiobooks, was awarded the Readers Choice Award of ""Narrator of the Year,"" and his narrations have fans saying he's ""even better than reading the story."" He won a Gold Clio Award and a Silver Effie for his work in the award-winning commercial in Vaseline lotion's ""Sea of Skin"" Campaign (BBH), and his work in promos has included Brian Williams's NBC Nightly News with Edward Snowden. Stephen has produced and written a number of films independently: LA Awake directed by Spencer Grammer and starring Natalie Dreyfuss, On The Hook, Spring Training, and Easter Island. He's written a number of biopics, on topics ranging from Edgar Allan Poe to World War II. He has founded, developed, and financed the producer of a number of other projects as well.

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