Susan Magsamen & Ivy Ross

[0] Welcome, welcome, welcome to armchair expert.

[1] Experts on expert.

[2] I'm Dan Shepard.

[3] I'm joined by Monica Mouse.

[4] You're in a hurry.

[5] Well, I'm going to the gynecologist.

[6] I'm not going to get makeup.

[7] Yeah, and it's, we're running out of time.

[8] And you don't want to keep this man or female waiting?

[9] It's a female.

[10] Oh.

[11] Okay.

[12] That's neither here nor there.

[13] Today we have Susan Magsaman and Ivy Ross, neither of which are my gynaecologist.

[14] Okay, great.

[15] Susan is the director of.

[16] of the International Arts and Mind Lab at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and Ivy Ross is the vice president of hardware design at Google.

[17] They make a very fun pair.

[18] And they've got a great book called Your Brain on Art, How the Arts Transform Us.

[19] I have found myself reporting info they gave to us throughout the real world.

[20] This was a fun conversation and has made us both want to take up pottery.

[21] Yes, it has, which will soon learn is one of the best uses.

[22] of your left and right brain.

[23] Ding, ding, ding.

[24] Please enjoy Susan and Ivy.

[25] Wondry Plus subscribers can listen to armchair expert early and ad free right now.

[26] Join Wondry Plus in the Wondry app or on Apple Podcasts.

[27] Or you can listen for free wherever you get your podcasts.

[28] That's great to meet you.

[29] Welcome.

[30] Ivy, that's great to meet you.

[31] Rob!

[32] You're a cream time.

[33] Oh, my God, you're sweet boy.

[34] Oh, you got a fancy.

[35] Yeah, look at it.

[36] Do you think I deserve it?

[37] I don't.

[38] I'm not sure yet.

[39] I'll let you know.

[40] TVG.

[41] TVD.

[42] Are you girls visiting?

[43] San Francisco.

[44] From San Francisco.

[45] I used to live here, though, for many years.

[46] In Manhattan Beach and in Santa Monica.

[47] Where in Santa Monica?

[48] On 10th in Washington, right off Montana.

[49] I lived at Euclid and Broadway for 10 years.

[50] So are you bored over here now?

[51] No, no, no. In fact, there's some 7 -Elevens that provide some action.

[52] That's true, that's true.

[53] I lived there for 10 years in Santa Monica, moved like 1 ,000 feet that way into a different house.

[54] And was immediately like, oh, my God, I lived in a great city and didn't even know it.

[55] There's lots of food and art and lively, youthful, creative people wandering around.

[56] And in Santa Monica, I didn't see any of that.

[57] Wow, that's true.

[58] Very homogenized L .A. It is.

[59] Well, I grew up in the Bronx and New York, so I'm much more used to that cool.

[60] Grit.

[61] Action, activity.

[62] Ferber.

[63] Yeah.

[64] Yeah.

[65] I like it.

[66] I'm from Detroit, so.

[67] Oh, there you go.

[68] Yeah.

[69] I had no business in Santa Monica.

[70] So I'm from Baltimore.

[71] I know grit.

[72] Yes, yes.

[73] Fame.

[74] The wire, but it's a really art -based community.

[75] It's really a wonderful place.

[76] And so you both live?

[77] I live in San Francisco, Mill Valley.

[78] Is Mill Valley just on the other side of the bridge?

[79] Yeah.

[80] Okay.

[81] It goes Sausalito, Mill Valley.

[82] It's Marin.

[83] Yeah.

[84] I don't know if you ever saw Parent had that TV shot?

[85] Oh, sure.

[86] So we shot the pilot in Mill Valley at a house.

[87] The house was ultimately rebuilt here.

[88] But it was this house in Mill Valley, this kind of older house, and it had like eight redwoods in the backyard, impossibly beautiful redwoods.

[89] That sounds like Mill Valley.

[90] Yeah, and I just thought, wow, you can own a house that has these trees in the yard.

[91] It seems impossible.

[92] Yeah.

[93] Although the problem is at Sea Ranch, I have another house, and the tree just fell on the house.

[94] The redwood.

[95] A redwood fell on the house.

[96] Oh, my God, ripped through the balcony, the roof.

[97] It's a good thing no one was in there.

[98] Those redwood trees.

[99] And it fell up.

[100] It was weird.

[101] It was down.

[102] Oh, I got you.

[103] It fell up.

[104] Right.

[105] Like, come on.

[106] We had to do it the way the wind was blowing.

[107] But, yeah, redwoods are pretty powerful.

[108] That's intense.

[109] Yeah.

[110] And then you're, like, Mirr Woods is in your backyard.

[111] Yeah.

[112] Do you ever bump into, here we go.

[113] I got his name.

[114] Hold on.

[115] Mickey Hart.

[116] Lead singer of Metallica.

[117] Oh.

[118] He lives like in Mir Woods somehow, or his property is budding up too.

[119] Oh, really?

[120] Yeah.

[121] Do you ever see like a grimy guy in hot.

[122] Rod's driving around anything?

[123] Yeah, all the time.

[124] Is that, that's probably a thing up there.

[125] Mickey Hart's there.

[126] Bonnie Wright's there.

[127] It's a really beautiful artist community.

[128] Cultural creatives.

[129] Yeah, it's too close there.

[130] Is that the name?

[131] James Hatfield.

[132] That's his name.

[133] What?

[134] The name of your middle school.

[135] Oh, Muir was the name of my middle school.

[136] But after Marguerty Muir not.

[137] John.

[138] John Muir.

[139] Thank you.

[140] Margarety Muir, who's that?

[141] I was going to ask you that.

[142] That's a good question.

[143] It wasn't his wife for anything.

[144] Oh, boy.

[145] Oh, my God.

[146] I feel like there is a marker.

[147] You just made that person up.

[148] Maybe I've imagined that.

[149] She's a naturalist.

[150] A writer -venture.

[151] But not related to John Muir?

[152] Well, they should get together.

[153] That would make sense.

[154] They would have had the environment in common.

[155] Or the daughter of, right?

[156] Oh.

[157] That could be.

[158] We're solving this.

[159] We're figuring this out together as a team.

[160] So ladies, welcome.

[161] We rarely have two guests at a time.

[162] If you wouldn't mind introducing yourself just so people, will know your name and link it from susan mac saman and i'm the director of the international arts and mind lab at johns hopkins university school of medicine okay very and your husband's a neurologist there neuroscientist of johns hopkins okay great the fun thing to get into right now are you annoyed with the title johns hopkins as i am it seems like either a possessive of hopkins or plural johns why is it fucking Johns Hopkins.

[163] It is the bane of my existence.

[164] You does like it as well.

[165] Yeah.

[166] And it's really hard to spell and people mess it up all the time.

[167] And then they say John Hopkins and then you have to say, hey, no, it's John's Hopkins.

[168] And why is it, Johns?

[169] That was his name.

[170] His name was Johns Hopkins.

[171] The Hopkins is fine.

[172] We can live with that.

[173] We've got Anthony Hopkins.

[174] We've got some famous Hopkins.

[175] But the Sons John is interesting.

[176] John's Stamos?

[177] You know, they wanted him to be unique.

[178] And he was.

[179] Yeah.

[180] He lived up to it.

[181] Do we know historically if Johns was a common name back then?

[182] This is a really interesting sociological question.

[183] I don't know.

[184] I feel like it's not.

[185] I've never heard it other than.

[186] I've never heard it.

[187] Okay.

[188] And then Ivy, will you introduce yourself?

[189] Hi, I am Ivy Ross.

[190] Currently the vice president of Google hardware design, but more importantly, a child of wonder.

[191] Oh, wow.

[192] Good.

[193] I'm glad you made that distinction.

[194] Titals?

[195] Yes.

[196] I've heard of both Google and Johns Hopkins.

[197] That's right.

[198] Same.

[199] I know both.

[200] How long have you been at Google?

[201] It'll be nine years in May. And where did you come from prior to that?

[202] I was always a designer of consumer goods.

[203] So I was head of design for girls' toys at Mattel.

[204] Wonderful.

[205] I was Barbie's mom for a while.

[206] Oh, wonderful.

[207] Any hot products from the Barbie catalog you can tell me you were behind?

[208] Oh, my God.

[209] It was eight years worth.

[210] All the hot ones.

[211] Okay.

[212] I redid her body to be a slightly more contemporary shape.

[213] Uh -huh.

[214] Still anatomically, right, if we blow it up, it's still a little wonky.

[215] Yeah.

[216] But it's more reflective than it was.

[217] Yeah, her waist.

[218] Her boobs got smaller.

[219] Her waist got.

[220] You got it.

[221] Her waist got more oval as opposed to round.

[222] Oh, okay.

[223] And an interesting, fun fact is I tried to make her feet go flat so she could wear sneakers.

[224] But you can't do that.

[225] That's her identity.

[226] The high heel.

[227] You found the breaking point of the signature.

[228] What you couldn't do.

[229] Yeah.

[230] I imagine you were monkeying with stuff and it was like, this works, this works.

[231] Oh, hmm, something is fundamentally now wrong about her.

[232] And the feat was it.

[233] Yeah.

[234] And I was head of design for coach handbags and Calvin Klein men's accessories.

[235] So always consumer goods, but a variety of products.

[236] Because I have to love the product, but it's also more the method of creating.

[237] Meaning you only use a certain method, so if the product can fall within that method?

[238] No, I just mean I love creating, co -creating with others, having a vision and manifesting it together.

[239] I mean, a product.

[240] At the end of it?

[241] Yeah.

[242] So that product can be a variety of things like it has been throughout my career.

[243] It's that co -creation process.

[244] Design is about solving problems, so it's solving the problem in the most creative way possible.

[245] Yeah.

[246] Yeah, and hopefully in an effortless way, something that's unselfconscious of what you've solved.

[247] Yeah, it's kind of magical.

[248] Would I be right and guessing that there was zero interest in your line of work, pre -jobs, and then post -jobs, people took an enormous interest in industrial design?

[249] It seems to me like he brought that into the zeitgeist.

[250] Certainly in the technology field, but previously, in fact, my dad worked for someone named Raymond Lowy, who was a very famous industrial designer in the 50s.

[251] He designed the locomotive, the Marlboro Cigarette Package.

[252] Oh, wow.

[253] So that was an industrial design interest then.

[254] But in consumer electronics, definitely when, well, yes, Steve Jobs stepped in and Johnny Ives and they really helped amplify the industrial design, what it can do for a brand, material, all the sensorial nature of what aesthetics is.

[255] Yeah, to me, it seems like it was the first product I was aware of, obviously, you're already stating some historically that existed before.

[256] But it appeared that when he sat down with the engineers, the aesthetic was maybe number one above even function or at least tied.

[257] And I don't feel like there had been a product in my lifetime that seemed that design forward.

[258] Everyone uses the term that they are design driven.

[259] You can't ignore the function or something won't work.

[260] Am I imagining that or did that create this whole new awareness and interest in it?

[261] I think also it led a packaging revolution.

[262] Granted, I understand like couture products came in really well -designed boxes that they spent a lot of money on.

[263] But it's just for your average person buying a product.

[264] It was the first time like that box arrived and you're like, ooh, this is a different experience and where are the instructions and why is this so simple?

[265] Everything about it seemed at least like a huge paradigm shift.

[266] Is it super relevant?

[267] Like if you were to study design now in college, would you have full classes dedicated to this, or is I'm making much more out of it than it was?

[268] They did a great job of the packaging was like their brand.

[269] Opening a box was like walking into their store.

[270] We today always talk about the unboxing experience.

[271] And would I be right to guess that companies that never had a department worrying about the boxing or unboxing of it now have that?

[272] I think it definitely brought more attention to the power of that emotional first contact and initial impressions.

[273] how meaningful that can be in terms of your memory of receiving something.

[274] Like when you build the memory for this product, it'll be infused naturally with that part of the experience.

[275] And so it's as important as the product.

[276] Yep.

[277] That's the way we think about it.

[278] Okay.

[279] How do you two get together?

[280] Well, what you're talking about is so relevant to things like awe and wonder and the way we enter spaces, how you feel in spaces or how you feel when you pick up things or use things.

[281] So I run this lab at Hopkins and I'm very interested in how do you translate all these different types of research around the arts and aesthetics into practice.

[282] So sort of how do you become the steep jobs?

[283] How do you become the person that's using arts and aesthetics for all kinds of things?

[284] It could be for product development, but also I've been very interested in learning and health and well -being.

[285] How do you use these things to make us feel better to help us grow and to thrive.

[286] So five or so years ago, I wrote Ivy and said we are expanding this group.

[287] We have something called a Luminary Scholars Group that are people in the world that are already doing really cool things.

[288] You know a lot of them, the guy that wrote La La Land or Rudy Tansy, who's a neuroscientist at Harvard, who's studying light and sound in Alzheimer's, for example.

[289] But people are doing really cutting edge, unique things.

[290] So I wrote Ivy.

[291] I linked in her.

[292] Is he cold call?

[293] Oh, totally.

[294] That's my life.

[295] I'm totally about, you're interesting.

[296] I like to know more.

[297] But I had been following her career for over 25 years because I had developed a company called Curiosity Kits, which were hands -on learning materials and arts, sciences, and world cultures.

[298] It was like the original Kiwi -Co.

[299] Right.

[300] My great -grandfather invented the Ouija Board.

[301] Get out of here.

[302] And if anyone could be summons with the Ouija Board, I would hope it would be the inventor of the...

[303] No, I would imagine your great -grandfather would.

[304] have put a back door into accessing him directly if he invented it.

[305] I'll tell you a quick story.

[306] My great -grandfather invented Luigi -Bord with his brother.

[307] My great -grandfather believed you had the answers inside of you, and his brother believed that it was spirits, and so they always were in tension, which is not unlike intuition.

[308] What do you know and what comes to you from the outside?

[309] Yeah.

[310] So anyway, Ivy and I met, and I asked her if she'd be interested in learning more about the lab, and she was like, yes.

[311] And so we had a call that we thought would last a half an hour that lasted three.

[312] hours.

[313] It was just extraordinary.

[314] Her insights around the work was so fascinating.

[315] She was coming to it from an artist.

[316] I was bringing it from a translational researcher.

[317] We decided to get together and had a salon at her house in Mill Valley where we invited artists and researchers and thought leaders to come together and talk about this work.

[318] And to get it started, we asked people this simple question, have the arts ever changed your life in some way?

[319] And hours like, Later, people were telling these extraordinary stories about their children who had experienced mental health issues that had used art to really bring them back.

[320] Music for Alzheimer's patients, moms and dads, people that had used space to really change their lives in profound ways.

[321] It was really extraordinary.

[322] So we started working on some things together.

[323] I want to say right out of the gates.

[324] So I am blue collar, chip on my shoulder, growing up, art is something elite people do.

[325] They have the free time.

[326] they have the leisure.

[327] They're making a big mountain out of it.

[328] They're using it as yet another way to delineate the socioeconomic classes.

[329] This is something for them.

[330] They're imagining it.

[331] A lot of knee jerk, it screams a leak to me from where I'm from.

[332] So I just want to be cognizant of the many people who might be like me starting this conversation.

[333] And in anticipation of talking to you guys, I was thinking about what much baggage I bring into art. And then I was thinking, you know ironically yes it's mostly enjoyed and certainly owned by wealthy people but almost universally created by poor people which i think is really telling i'm really glad you started there art has been rarefied it's been commodified it's been something that we think you have to be good at it to do it you have to have money to appreciate it but in fact art is our birthright like just stop there it's we're wired for art it's how we have come into this earth it's what really you're has made us human in so many ways.

[334] We bring the world in through our senses.

[335] In every way we express ourselves through arts is our human nature.

[336] And so it's been taken away from us in a way that really has left a lot on the table.

[337] And I think that's what we're really talking about in our work is that the art is something that we all do all the time anyway.

[338] We can do it without that stigma of what art is for commodity and for commercialization.

[339] You know, we went back and we really thought about when did the word art even come into being.

[340] And when you go back to indigenous tribes, they didn't have a word for art. Their culture was singing, dancing, painting.

[341] Storytelling.

[342] It was life.

[343] That's how we lived in nature, is doing these different art practices.

[344] And then over time that dissipated as we started to look toward being more productive in the Industrial Revolution.

[345] Specified labor.

[346] So I'm going to be a cobbler.

[347] You're a farmer.

[348] Dividing labor took you out of maybe what would have been a casual participation in, quote, art. And a more natural participation.

[349] And then art became this more rarefied something you bought or you obtained this level of artistic qualities.

[350] And the point is that we all were wired for art. It's imperative for our health.

[351] And I think what we've now seen is optimizing for productivity does not mean.

[352] make us a happy and healthy species.

[353] Right.

[354] So similar timeline, we'll say jobs, FMRI.

[355] There's a lot of things that are now on the table that were previously not on the table.

[356] So you could have been designing somewhere, and now I'm pointing at you, IV, you guys could have been talking in a language and talking about emotions that this elicits.

[357] But there might have been a lot of people on the outside going, this is horseshit.

[358] Who knows what's going on?

[359] And for the first time, we can actually look at a brain and we can see what's happening, what area of the brains are ignited with more blood flow.

[360] as certain things happen.

[361] So now there's this opportunity to bridge what has been an emotional experience into something that's a little more empirical and scientific and measurable and observable, which is exciting, which is why you guys are a great partnership.

[362] But what I like most about the book is you start with, forget art. And even the word aesthetic.

[363] That's a triggering word.

[364] It's a little lofty.

[365] Yeah.

[366] You break it down.

[367] It's like, hey, check this out.

[368] We've got five senses.

[369] Your five senses are at all times interacting with your surroundings and your world.

[370] And they're taking in information.

[371] They're trying to cobble together.

[372] What is this reality I'm a part of?

[373] And when you start really breaking down like what's happening chemically when you smell something and how you are actually not separated from the world around you, clearly, because you're smelling something 100 feet away, what's happening?

[374] And the fact that you now can observe in this fMRI, oh, this part of the brain is ignited during the olfactory experience, right?

[375] And recognizing that all of our senses seem to be predominantly centered in where our emotions are also emanating from and our memory, right?

[376] So that these senses, think of those as aesthetic.

[377] Can we say that?

[378] Absolutely.

[379] Totally.

[380] Anything you're bringing in, you're seeing, you're smelling, you're tasting, your hearing is all the aesthetic around you.

[381] And that we can observe the brain change biochemically as it receives different stimuli through any five of those senses.

[382] So when we start there, to me, that's a much more broadly appealing and inviting.

[383] And it's evolutionarily true.

[384] And so you start from this true baseline of how we engage and live in a world.

[385] And so then you start to think about, well, what are the things that make those sensorial experiences salient?

[386] And it's your background.

[387] It's your childhood experiences.

[388] It's the environments that you're in.

[389] All of those become your way of perceiving all of those sensorial things.

[390] So not everything can be salient, right?

[391] You can't attend to everything at the same time.

[392] But the things that come to you that you're like, oh my God, I'll always remember that.

[393] That's really based on your unique set of circumstances.

[394] And I think that's also really cool.

[395] So what's beautiful to you, I might say, oh, that's beautiful to me too.

[396] But it's beautiful for different reason.

[397] I forget who you're referencing in the book, but you talk about we could break beauty into three things.

[398] People, places and things.

[399] And weirdly, beauty as determined for people is kind of universal, more than we would like.

[400] We're going to always bias towards symmetry.

[401] We're going to respond.

[402] similarly to other people.

[403] And same with places and environments.

[404] But now when you get to things, it gets really fascinating.

[405] Will you tell us about why and how we respond so differently to things as opposed to people and places?

[406] Yeah.

[407] So this is the work of Anjan Chatterjee, who has been doing a lot of interesting work around theorizing this aesthetic triad.

[408] And what he talks about is that it's this combination of three things.

[409] One is your sensorial experiences.

[410] The second one is your culture and your context and the sort of ways that you come into the world come to something and then the third is the way that you identify reward or response to some kind of stimuli and it's those three things that make up your response to something being highly aesthetic and that could be beautiful could be ugly it could be any highly emotional response yeah and so it sort of just puts into context how we are uniquely wired to experience different things like you've got this great dog painting behind you I'm a dog.

[411] Well, I'm a dog person.

[412] And I'm like, wow, you know, I really get that attention.

[413] But somebody else might not be a dog person.

[414] And they'd be like, I'm afraid of that picture.

[415] Sure, I was attacked by a great name when I was eight in front of columns.

[416] But just noticing it is good for our brain.

[417] This idea that being confronted, and that's why we talk about not only making art, but being the beholder, just looking at it or taking in new images that we haven't seen before is really important for our brain's plastic.

[418] And so we want to put ourselves in new experiences all the time and have these experiences that exercise our senses and keep things dynamic.

[419] It's really important.

[420] Yeah, the book is wonderfully scientific.

[421] You're explaining neural pathways and you're talking about what the conventional thought was, I forget, activity equals something, but that's not entirely true.

[422] That for it to become a memory, it has to, I just read it and I should know it.

[423] Do you know what he's talking about and can fill it?

[424] Not yet.

[425] But we will.

[426] But when you form a neural pathway, explain that process.

[427] Basically, you're born with 100 billion neurons.

[428] You come into this world, like, ready to make connections, which I think metaphorically is actually extraordinary.

[429] So all of these salient experiences, these sensorial experiences, help to make those neurons connect to each other through synapses.

[430] And there's trillions and trillions of synapses that you make throughout.

[431] your life, those synapses create neural pathways.

[432] And those pathways are really important because they're the things that sort of connect all the different parts of your brain together.

[433] They're the things that help you create resiliency, creativity, help you really build that capacity for learning and memory.

[434] And the more you do that as a young child, total shout out for early childhood development and the arts, it really allows children to have more synapses, more neural plasticity, more neural pathways, and it's super important throughout your life for really protection and prevention and also ultimately intervention.

[435] So you have all these neural pathways in your brain that are being built all the time.

[436] There's a use it or lose it, which maybe is what you're thinking about where you're going to get it though.

[437] Okay.

[438] Not yet.

[439] I can feel it.

[440] Okay.

[441] I'm getting close.

[442] So if you aren't using those neural pathways or you're replacing them with stronger memories, those other neural pathways fade out and the other ones take place.

[443] So the idea is what Ivy was saying is that you want to keep building those kinds of salient experiences because they build strong neural pathways.

[444] I learned from Susan.

[445] I love this idea that the old ones get pruned out.

[446] Pruning.

[447] You know, some people stay surrounding themselves around the things they know.

[448] They're the most comfortable.

[449] But actually, you want to be out there having these new experiences so that you will create new pathways.

[450] And it could be walking in the woods.

[451] Salient experiences don't have to be in a museum or a concert.

[452] Hall.

[453] It's really one of those things that are aesthetic.

[454] And remember, aesthetic is not about beauty.

[455] It's taking things in through your senses.

[456] So we like to say that the natural environment of the woods is the most neurostatic place because you think about it, it has changes in temperature, sound, color, shape, smell.

[457] It is this multi -dimensional experience.

[458] And that's when we feel alive because all of our senses are on fire.

[459] Yes.

[460] And now here's where we get into the science of it, which is now that we can observe and monitor the different levels of cortisol, we can see which part of the brain is firing, amygdala is now offline, all these things we would want for relaxation or restorative states.

[461] We all know what it's like to be outside, and it's that maybe perfect 10 -mile -an -hour wind that's coming in it's spring.

[462] But to be able to now observe what happens in the body, and we have some goals of what your resting state should be or what your baseline of all these different chemicals are.

[463] It can get prescriptive.

[464] You can kind of go, oh, well, if you were to listen to music for 45 minutes, it's been measured.

[465] Let's kind of drill into what we've learned over the last 20 years of being able to look at monitor and measure things.

[466] We do know a lot about how the brain changes in the nature and environments or using other arts experiences.

[467] And we're starting to be able to think about things like dose and dosage.

[468] So in the medical terms, that's kind of how you think about pharmacological interventions.

[469] how much you give when you give it.

[470] And recently, there was a really interesting work being done by Mark Morris Dance Company, where they use dance for Parkinson's disease.

[471] And it used to be that you might go to a dance studio, get in a cab, or take a bus, or take a train to a studio, maybe once a week, because if you have Parkinson's, you have trouble with gait, you have a lot of difficulty moving around.

[472] So it's really hard to do it.

[473] During COVID, these folks could dance online on Zoom every day, sometimes multiple times a day, with their families or their friends who were zooming into, so throughout COVID, millions and millions of people danced who had Parkinson's all over the world.

[474] So retrospectively, what we're seeing now is that dose and dosage changed, their cognition got better, their gait got better, their sleep got better, their mood got better.

[475] And that's extraordinary, right?

[476] You know, we're starting to see that transfer into other kinds of things like autobiographical music and Alzheimer's and singing.

[477] And what that does in the moment when someone is experiencing that kind of stimulation where they're familiar with the music, the songs.

[478] I have a cousin that my husband and I sing with every week.

[479] And she has frontal temporal dementia.

[480] And last week we brought in her favorite Irish singer with a guitar.

[481] She like woke up.

[482] Everybody that lived with her, the residents all started to stroll in and sing at the same time.

[483] And for Some of them, they hadn't sung for years.

[484] I always say it's the closest thing to magic.

[485] I remember seeing a 60 minutes decades ago about someone with Alzheimer's or dementia, almost zero memory of anything that had happened earlier than five minutes before.

[486] They were a concert pianist in the full catalog of every song they had ever memorized is immediately at their disposal.

[487] Tony Bennett.

[488] So he has Alzheimer's.

[489] He can sing every song he ever sang, but that's really where he is most alive.

[490] And it's extraordinary.

[491] Isn't that because music is very close to your memory center in your brain?

[492] So what happens with Alzheimer's is the hippocampus is where you hold most of your memories.

[493] That begins to shut down because of amyloid and plaque.

[494] But there are other parts of the brain that come online.

[495] Like we have these backup systems.

[496] So there's music in other parts of the brain that are really coming forward, most likely in the language center and other parts of the brain.

[497] So we have these multiple systems that we can hack memory in the hippocampus.

[498] And there's something about singing, which makes sense in some ways because we learn language through rhythm, you know, A, B, C, D .D, you know, so it's part of, again, our birthright.

[499] It's how we're wired.

[500] Yeah.

[501] So in that case, it's just physically stored somewhere different in an area that's not degenerating.

[502] Mostly multiple places, yeah.

[503] And it's not degenerating.

[504] Do older memories live in different parts of your brain?

[505] For the most part, memories live in the hippocampus.

[506] Our hard drive.

[507] Yeah.

[508] And to put it in Ivy's terms.

[509] Yeah.

[510] There was a woman named Lonnie Sue.

[511] Johnson, who was a really great New Yorker cartoonist, like super smart.

[512] And she had encephalitis in her brain, and it bore out her hippocampus.

[513] So she couldn't draw.

[514] She couldn't talk.

[515] She couldn't remember anything.

[516] And researchers started to study her at Hopkins in that program.

[517] And what we were able to learn was that she could relearn how to draw.

[518] She never lost her ability to play piano, but she couldn't draw.

[519] And so her mom helped her learn how to redraw.

[520] So I think the capacity of, the brain and its ability to duplicate systems and regenerate.

[521] Well, you see in stroke patients all the time, right?

[522] They relocate entire motor control systems.

[523] It's epilepsy too.

[524] Yeah, the part of the brain is gone.

[525] They're like, all right, we're going to put it all over here.

[526] These Parkinson's dancers that I mentioned, they lose dopamine.

[527] So dopamine is the thing that messes them up.

[528] So they're not making more dopamine because their body can't, but they're using serotonin and other neurochemicals to be able to override the fact that they don't have this dopamine hit.

[529] So that's at our disposal.

[530] When you were talking about dose and dosage, even just 15 minutes of making art and cortisol is diminished.

[531] So there are really simple things that you can do to alleviate stress and anxiety in 15 minutes of coloring.

[532] Well, I like that you get the example in the book of pottery, which is going to be one of the rare situations where you're going to use your left and right brain at the same time because you're using both hands to create the art. equal dexterity.

[533] That's so cool.

[534] Yeah, it's the only thing we do equally as well.

[535] Does writing count?

[536] Yeah.

[537] It's expressing yourself.

[538] What's important is that we continually express ourselves.

[539] Whatever the medium is, writing, dancing, singing, whether you're good or not good at it.

[540] It's just to get that micro trauma out of the body.

[541] We interviewed in the book, there was a woman who created the company Art to Ashes, where she was training frontline fireman coming out of the fire to take a paintbrush and start to paint And then they would go home and they would be able to behave normally with their family versus bringing that trauma home with them.

[542] And certainly writing poetry, creative writing, that is super important to move through us what it is we have to say.

[543] And I think that's just not encouraged enough.

[544] Well, again, it sounds like a luxury.

[545] It sounds like an extracurricular activity.

[546] Yeah, I would love to go to a museum if I had an abundance of time or I'd love to paint or I'd love to to draw.

[547] It's just simply not prioritized as any kind of an essential activity for us.

[548] But you can hum in the shower.

[549] You can, me too, right?

[550] And you can write in a journal.

[551] You have to cook, right?

[552] You have to eat.

[553] There's this guy at University Texas, Austin, his name is James Panabaker.

[554] He's been studying writing for years.

[555] You can write a secret down and never tell anybody, never let anybody see it.

[556] Rip it up, burn it, throw it away.

[557] And it will actually reduce your cognitive load and reduce your stress.

[558] Wow.

[559] Wow.

[560] gotten something out of you.

[561] And that's basic.

[562] Okay.

[563] I've been talking about it a lot this year.

[564] I often write stuff because I recognize I'm a trial judge in my head.

[565] So you and I are going to have a fight.

[566] We're married, Susan.

[567] And I'm preparing my case.

[568] You're going to point out that I didn't bring in the trash and I got to have an answer for that.

[569] And this is going on for so long.

[570] At some point, I'm like, you know what?

[571] I'm going to write all this on a piece of paper because then I know it's safe.

[572] The obsession is I'm going to forget one of these details in my defense of myself.

[573] and then I'm going to be bested.

[574] And so I've got to keep going over it and over it.

[575] And that, to me, is rumination.

[576] It's reminding yourself of your exhibits in your court trial that's coming up.

[577] It doesn't have to be with a partner.

[578] It can be anything, a job.

[579] And I go, just put it there.

[580] Just write it all down, right?

[581] The whole list, all your points.

[582] Great, now we just go back to that thing if we need to.

[583] The obsession that I'll forget is for at least me, the fuel of rumination.

[584] It lightens the load.

[585] It frees you up to think about other things, which is a core plus of things.

[586] Yes, yes.

[587] Yeah, that's almost connected to these manifestations.

[588] I have a friend who's super into manifesting, and she's like, you write what you want on this bay leaf, and then you burn it, and it's this whole thing.

[589] But now when I hear this, I'm like, oh, what it is is really just this thing you're stuck on that you want.

[590] You can put it down and kind of give it away.

[591] Give it to the gods.

[592] Stay tuned for more armchair expert, if you dare.

[593] What's up, guys, it's your girl Kiki, and my podcast is back with a new season.

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[610] You talked at the very beginning about demystifying and I think de -rarifying art. There are so many things in our world right now, you know, at Ukraine, look at the youth mental health crisis, look at all of the things that we deal with every day.

[611] You call it microtramas.

[612] I love that term.

[613] We all are experiencing something.

[614] Could be learning differences, neurodiversity, whatever.

[615] And if there's something that you're wired for that could help you in the moment, I think that's the thing that we want people to take away from this, is that this is not stuff that you have to wait for.

[616] This is available to you now.

[617] Also, you don't have to make time for it.

[618] We found out that doodling is actually really good for your brain in terms of focus and concentration.

[619] So while you're watching something or doing something else, just start to doodle.

[620] So it's not like you have to create additional time for some of these things.

[621] Right.

[622] Okay, so you guys created something.

[623] I find this so fascinating.

[624] It's in Milan.

[625] There's this big convention that happens yearly pre -COVID.

[626] And you guys teamed up and you created this multiple room experience where people would walk through.

[627] They would wear monitors that were measuring some biometrics, some heart rate and some other things.

[628] And I'll let you guys explain what happened.

[629] I find this to be very unpredictable.

[630] Yeah, no, it was super exciting.

[631] It was actually the first time I think the public had an experience of this idea of neuroaesthetics.

[632] The Google Design Studio goes to Salone in Milan, which is where 400 ,000 people from around the world come who are interested in design.

[633] But this was really an experience to show what.

[634] design and aesthetics, which is the sensory part, does to your physiology.

[635] So we created something just for the exhibition that Susan's lab worked on with Google an algorithm that was able to detect based on certain metrics when your body was most at ease or least stress.

[636] We worked with an architect, Suchi Reddy, where we created three different living rooms, but with very different aesthetics, different colors, textures, music, smell, artwork, furniture.

[637] And we asked people no talking, no phones, no technology, just be in each room for five minutes.

[638] You could touch things.

[639] It was called a space for being.

[640] And in fact, in between each room, we had a pallet cleanser of a little foam room that you walk through to strip you of all of your senses.

[641] And at the end of it, we had people take the band off and we downloaded their information, which we then showed that we deleted afterwards, in an effort to show them in which room their body was most at ease or least stress, which we had said in the beginning, this will be a failure if at least 50 % of the people, the room that their mind liked the best was the same as their body liked the best.

[642] But sure enough, that was not the case.

[643] In 56%, the room, the room, that someone cognitively would walk in and say, oh, I love this room.

[644] Now, that could be because it reminded them of a friend's room or something they saw in a magazine, having no idea how their body was feeling about that room.

[645] So more than not, the body was feeling differently than the mind was thinking.

[646] And so the exercise was really to show people a couple of things.

[647] First of all, your body is feeling all the time.

[648] We are embodied beings.

[649] So we are constantly sensing.

[650] and that we are often not in tune to how our body is feeling because our mind is overriding it.

[651] So it was really interesting because everyone thought there was a answer for what was the right room.

[652] Well, I was going to say, so the first discovery, which is awesome, is that people, if asked what their body was most comfortable, and they would have been wrong 56 % of the time, which is great.

[653] It's like Malcolm Gladwell.

[654] You thought this, but it was that.

[655] Secondly, and equally exciting, no consensus over which of the three rooms was most enjoyable for him.

[656] human beings.

[657] No, because it was very personal.

[658] They say 95 % of what we take in goes into our unconscious and only 5 % is in our conscious mind.

[659] So we are taking in data and information and feeling that we're not even aware of.

[660] And so our body is using this data from our past to decide whether we're comfortable here.

[661] Yeah, essentially.

[662] And so that was the other huge aha.

[663] People loved the discovery of that.

[664] And then they had a ton of questions.

[665] And of course, the press said, well, is Google going to make a band that does this?

[666] I said, I don't want to have to wear a band to tell me how I feel.

[667] This was done for you to understand that we are feeling all the time, sensing all the time.

[668] And so we have agency over what we surround ourselves with.

[669] A varying degree.

[670] Yeah, even if you're stuck someplace, even if you imagine something in the room that you can have or a picture of it.

[671] I mean, there's always ways to bring other things.

[672] To improve.

[673] Absolutely.

[674] Yeah.

[675] God, could you wear it while you were talking to people and then you'd know who you were most comfortable around, like on dates?

[676] Totally.

[677] Like, that's a dating.

[678] That's a product.

[679] So my first thought after reading this was interesting.

[680] This would fall into the end of a visualized medicine approach where you should really have your genome mapped, maybe even your epigemone figured out.

[681] Everything figured out.

[682] And then we would know what's the best way to treat you.

[683] Similarly, you could find out what the ideal environment for yourself is.

[684] and what's interesting is like what if we all had that test done and I said to my wife what if you have opposite environments like a couple and I was even thinking like right now when my wife and I get in debates over style in the house the reigning principle is she's got style I don't it's likely we have a different baseline maybe it's not about style as much as like my body doesn't feel at ease in here fuck whatever magazine it came out of this is the fact so what a curious state that would be if couples knew their aesthetic preferences and how would they compromise would there be a room for him and a room for her?

[685] Isn't that how the man cave got started?

[686] I guess you're right.

[687] Probably.

[688] Without us even knowing why.

[689] Do they feel calm in there?

[690] Yeah.

[691] Oh, that leather.

[692] Or comfortable.

[693] Well, the three rooms, it distributed equally a third, a third, a third.

[694] It did.

[695] And one room was very calm, almost a man cave.

[696] It was very calming, the first one.

[697] Yeah, very primitive.

[698] Primitive.

[699] Reddy tones.

[700] Low lighting.

[701] I mean, everything was done.

[702] Intentionally, lighting was another thing.

[703] It was very differentiated.

[704] Like a Houston's restaurant?

[705] I do like that.

[706] That's cozy.

[707] And one was very light and bright with sort of citrus smells and almost Brazilian LED lighting.

[708] And then the third was luminescent.

[709] High ceilings.

[710] It smelled like charcoal.

[711] It was really sort of amazing.

[712] And people really thought about it a lot.

[713] Well, there was a journalist who experienced it.

[714] And she went away and she was really, really confused how she would have said room number three was her favorite.

[715] Well, she preferred one and three and in fact her body preferred two and she really dug into why that could be and she comes from latin america where there's a lot of colorism and she's darker my presumption she didn't actually state that but that growing up the elevated environments that were explicit in one and three she was not welcome in right but she mentally and through her own journey in life became an art critic and one who feels very comfortable around high -end art. But her body knew she didn't belong in there.

[716] Right.

[717] Yeah, well, her body, she said she was happiest when she was playing, and it was a very playful environment.

[718] So her body was saying, I'm comfortable here because it's where she played, and she was happiest.

[719] But she really wanted to aspire to these other rooms.

[720] Yeah, that would have been to transcend the shackles of the classism.

[721] Exactly.

[722] So that's where this idea of.

[723] our past is stored in our body.

[724] And it's fascinating.

[725] As I already told you, I've got all this classism, blue color, struggling things.

[726] I would even say the appreciation for machinery has got to be a kind of socioeconomic.

[727] I'm into cars and stuff.

[728] None of my artistic friends are.

[729] And they're like, I don't get it.

[730] Like, you guys look at that truck.

[731] Something happens to you.

[732] What is happening?

[733] Like, it's a high off the ground?

[734] Like, they can't comprehend it.

[735] And I'm like, no, no, where I'm from?

[736] That means everything.

[737] There's so much that you're looking at that you're missing.

[738] But that's a salient experience.

[739] I mean, that's why I think even with children, my dad was great.

[740] I would show interest in something and he would find ways to get me go deeper in that interest, not try and take it away from me or say that's not what you should be interested in.

[741] Because when we feed ourselves these things that are making new connections, it gets us excited.

[742] He wanted you to find the quintessential ingredient so that you could chase the ingredient elsewhere, maybe.

[743] Child of wonder.

[744] You said it.

[745] But no, I totally understand the excitement over certain things like a car or a piece of machinery.

[746] I just think you should go be around that machinery in that car.

[747] Well, let me ask you, maybe.

[748] This is one I just was aware of, and I was with my best friend all last week we were skiing.

[749] And we were watching the show, George Jones and Tammy Wynette.

[750] It's great, highly recommended, George and Tammy.

[751] And a good deal of the show, he's right.

[752] writing this era -specific John Deere tractor.

[753] It's probably a 78 John Deere riding lawnmower.

[754] In the simplicity of design, I was like, it's Art Deco.

[755] That lawnmour was giving me so much pleasure every time they showed them riding it.

[756] The shape, the sound of it.

[757] Yeah.

[758] The beauty, the simplicity, the beauty of the engineering of it.

[759] Am I leaving out any of the conclusions you guys came to by having these three rooms in that experiment?

[760] And then do you have plans for widening that or replicating that?

[761] I mean, obviously, the biometric reading is getting better and better and better.

[762] More devices are on the verge of getting approved.

[763] Yeah, and I think it's what we do with that information.

[764] I mean, in this case, we just did this.

[765] It was an experiment to really let people know.

[766] I think Jill Boltey -Taylor said this.

[767] We are feeling beings that have learned to think, not thinking beings that feel.

[768] And so that is a huge awakening in my mind in that we walk around thinking that we're these intellectual thinking beings that maybe feel once a while, and sometimes we're told not to feel.

[769] And the truth is we are feeling beings.

[770] We were designed that way first.

[771] The thought comes after all this data that comes in through the senses.

[772] The feelings, then the emotion, then the thought, right?

[773] And so sometimes we talk before we feel.

[774] It usually doesn't work out so well.

[775] One thing that I would add is in this work over the last four or five years.

[776] It's true that there's a lot of research and there's a lot of practice and design.

[777] But researchers and practitioners don't necessarily work well together.

[778] And that's a big thing that we're working on right now together is how do you bridge this translational space so that it's bidirectional.

[779] You're learning from each other and end users, right?

[780] So it's not just, I'm designing this for you, but we're designing this together.

[781] And I think the more we start to figure out how do we marry these disciplines.

[782] These fields are so siloed and they don't come together.

[783] But if they did, we could solve a lot more problems.

[784] And so in this fall, we're having an event in Washington, Washington, D .C., where we're bringing researchers and practitioners together to talk about translational design.

[785] And what does that really look like?

[786] If you're intentionally creating spaces for health, for well -being, for learning, what does that really do?

[787] And how can you make that really impactful?

[788] You couldn't measure it in the past.

[789] You would just have a theory.

[790] You'd build the product or you'd build the space.

[791] Well, measurement was sales.

[792] Yeah.

[793] Here was a weird one I picked up in there.

[794] Curve spaces behind us.

[795] Tell us about that.

[796] Oh, Dax hates round stuff.

[797] But do you notice the garage that's being built out there?

[798] Remember the whole thing?

[799] My whole workbench is a big curve now.

[800] Now you love it?

[801] No, I love that because I have it.

[802] I only hate things I don't have.

[803] Because you're changing so fast.

[804] I only hate things I don't have.

[805] I'm going to write that down.

[806] I only hate things I don't have.

[807] Could be a bumper sticker.

[808] I mean, I like that.

[809] Well, it makes so much sense.

[810] We interviewed Neil Wilson before he passed away, who was evolutionary biologists, studied ants, studied bees, started to study people.

[811] And one of the things that he looked at was this idea around space.

[812] And what we know is that we feel most comfortable when something's got our back, right?

[813] A curve space has our back and we're looking out over the horizon.

[814] We're safest that way.

[815] And I think that makes sense.

[816] Like almost enveloped behind it.

[817] Yeah, as opposed to a straight edge or a wall.

[818] He pointed out that we've lived 99 .2 % of our time in nature.

[819] It's only 0 .8 % that humans have been on this earth.

[820] that we've lived the way we're living.

[821] And so it's our true nature to be in nature.

[822] And so those things that are softer or a curve will make us feel better.

[823] But we really wrote this book because people need to know that they can do these simple art activities to really help their health and well -being.

[824] And right now there's such a crisis in mental health.

[825] And mental health is even bigger than physical health.

[826] Yeah, number one leading cause of disability worldwide.

[827] The fact that we can And understand, it's not frivolous, but singing, dancing, drawing a stick figure, taking out a lump of clay is really imperative for our health and well -being.

[828] And we can all do that.

[829] It's simple.

[830] You don't have to be talented.

[831] And that science is validating it and not minimizing it to say, oh, that's cute or that's sweet.

[832] I think that's the other thing that's really important right now.

[833] Other medical systems seem to be a little ahead of us.

[834] I'll read, you know, the NHS in England has stopped prescribing antidepressing.

[835] presence for low grade depression and they'll write you a prescription to a gym membership and the NHS pays for that.

[836] Are there in practice any places that have been prescribing art treatment?

[837] You're right.

[838] Around the world, there are some really amazing models.

[839] There's something right now for women that have postpartum depression that's using singing and swaying with babies and been really well studied.

[840] It's now being moved into other countries and the World Health Organization is helping to move that forward, which I think is sort of extraordinary.

[841] working better than antidepressants.

[842] In this country, we spend a lot more money on research for things like Alzheimer's than we do on the arts to address symptoms of Alzheimer's.

[843] We spend $3 billion a year on research for Alzheimer's, and we spend a little bit over $100 million to fund the entire NEA.

[844] So we're really behind in this country.

[845] We're taking arts out of schools, not putting them back into schools where we know it's not about enrichment.

[846] It's about social, emotional development, collaboration, getting along.

[847] There are some movements here that are extraordinary in arts and health that are starting to grow in a public health way, as much as in an education way.

[848] Hospitals are starting to use arts, both in design but also in programs.

[849] It's seen some great work in palliative care, a lot of work in pain, also in trauma.

[850] And we've met with some really interesting people who talked about not post -traumatic stress, but ongoing trauma and ongoing stress and how the arts can be really helpful in burnout.

[851] And that's showing up.

[852] I think because we're in such a crisis point, it's looking to things that you might have said, oh, I'll get to that, and now looking at things like the arts in this country more seriously.

[853] We also have a proclivity for high tech.

[854] Don't get defensive, Ivy.

[855] I have no reason to get defensive.

[856] When people find out that there are low -tech solutions for things that have existed forever, we just are so biased towards technology.

[857] It's what's made us the head.

[858] hegemonic society on planet earth.

[859] You know, we have a basis for it.

[860] But it's like, wait, move your body for an hour.

[861] That's going to be better than any pharmacological answer.

[862] That can't be.

[863] Well, I always like to say it's not either or it's and both.

[864] So technology is allowing the folks with Parkinson's to dance with people all over the world.

[865] And, you know, we believe progress is technology, which technology is just anything manmade.

[866] But we need to go back a little and think about our birthright, which.

[867] which is to express ourselves and to do these arts.

[868] There's some amazing things.

[869] Even online, people are taking art classes and being taught by some of the best people in art all over the world because they have access now.

[870] Right, right.

[871] So I think it's the combination of that, which is allowing some of these things to happen.

[872] But yes, I do think there's a time for everything and there's a time for screen time, and then there's a time to dance around your house.

[873] Yeah.

[874] Have there been any studies that evaluate doing art?

[875] on a device versus doing art with tangible.

[876] Oh, interesting.

[877] Well, I know that there has been studies looking at art on a screen versus in person.

[878] So there's benefit in both.

[879] For example, live music is always better than recorded music.

[880] But there's lots of ways to get art. One of the things we've been looking at is what's called adherence.

[881] So we know that people that are doing different arts actually will take their medication more frequently than if they haven't been.

[882] If you don't have a reason to live, if your mood is so down, who cares?

[883] And so there's an interesting correlation where obviously says it's yes and.

[884] Sometimes you can take medication and have some kind of aesthetic arts experience.

[885] Also in virtual reality and augmented reality, there's some really interesting things that are happening in that space.

[886] There's something called Snow World where people that have had burns are using this snowy, wintery virtual reality headset as they're changing bandages.

[887] And what's happening is they're taking less opioids and they're actually having less pain during those procedures, but also it's lasting beyond that.

[888] And so the theory is that distraction is at play here.

[889] I love the word distraction because it's so undervalued.

[890] And it sounds like a pejorative.

[891] Right.

[892] But in fact, it's really cool to be distracted sometimes.

[893] Yeah, yeah.

[894] It's necessary.

[895] It's necessary.

[896] And so this distraction, you can't focus on two things at one time.

[897] And virtual reality is so salient.

[898] So that's an example where I'll take it.

[899] Drawing on a tablet is the same thing as drawing on a piece of paper.

[900] That's a great example.

[901] That's exactly what I was thinking of because I just got one of those pens to draw on mine and I can't decide if I like it as much or not.

[902] Yeah, I mean, that's personal choice.

[903] Like what's your tool or your medium?

[904] But it's the same brain hand connection.

[905] It's just a different tool.

[906] I mean, these are so important, right?

[907] These fingers, these hands, how we use them, what we use them for.

[908] It's our defining characteristic of being primates.

[909] We've got to celebrate these things.

[910] Yeah.

[911] Have there been any studies on since a defunding of the arts in general in public schools versus the depression rate and suicide rate, really, of young people?

[912] I feel like that might correlate somehow.

[913] It definitely correlates.

[914] And even before the pandemic, youth mental health was on the rise.

[915] And during the pandemic, it just totally exacerbated it.

[916] And now kids are trying to reintegrate into these social situations where they've been out of it.

[917] it for several years.

[918] And there's a lot of reentry issues and really significant struggles.

[919] And in California, actually, you have this thing called Proposition 28 that's bringing arts back into the schools, not for enrichment or not because you're going to be a great pianist.

[920] Yeah.

[921] But because they really see it as being essential to helping you learn better.

[922] That's what it's all about.

[923] It's about framing.

[924] I can see where someone's arguing, like, well, they're going to know arithmetic or they're going to know how to draw a still life.

[925] They better or no arithmetic.

[926] It's all because it's just frame wrong.

[927] It seems like the point of it would be to become a great artist as opposed to just be in touch with your senses and put your mind in a nice state for some hour of the day.

[928] Art is in service for what?

[929] I think that's a really important question.

[930] Is it in service because it makes you a whole healthy person and math is good too?

[931] Or does art have to be for math?

[932] For a while we are like, oh well, music will make you better at math.

[933] Yeah, music is math.

[934] Yeah.

[935] That's so true.

[936] As a defensive music is if we need one.

[937] But, you know, that goes back to what's really success and happiness, right?

[938] Yeah, yeah.

[939] And originally we thought success meant getting a great job.

[940] And sure, that's all important.

[941] You have to put food on the table.

[942] But the idea that that's what I'm saying, productivity would make us happy, has been wrong.

[943] Some of these things that we need to be taught in school about our senses, our feelings, expressing ourselves, doing the arts, is as important as math and history.

[944] And we need those tools in the toolbox.

[945] In the 70s, you know, when the Sputnik happened and.

[946] And the United States sort of knee -jerk shutdown reaction was we got to do math, we got to do engineering, we got to do STEM.

[947] And I think for all the right reasons, we made really bad decisions that are now part of this mental health problem that you're talking about.

[948] We took out humanities.

[949] We took out the heart of who we are to make sure that we didn't fall behind as a country.

[950] And in fact, we have fallen behind as a country.

[951] So, you know, it was an experiment that has not worked.

[952] Yeah.

[953] Yeah, it's going up against the great fear that we.

[954] won't be number one.

[955] I mean, that's what you're battling.

[956] Good luck.

[957] That's a deep one.

[958] Do you think modern human is in a perpetual state of aesthetic fatigue?

[959] 200 ,000 years?

[960] There's no light bulb.

[961] All of a sudden, neon signs, LCD monitors on sunset boulevard that are 80 feet wide.

[962] Does it set the bar at a place that we're kind of overrun with stimuli and then we're fatigued?

[963] I wonder what all that heightened aesthetic stimulation has done to us.

[964] I'm really a proponent of sensory literacy.

[965] How do we know what is good for us and how much is enough and how do we have agency for how much we do take in?

[966] I'm an introvert and I need a lot of downtime from all of the sensorial stuff because I don't gain my energy that way.

[967] I've learned that.

[968] I'm a twin.

[969] My sister's an extrovert.

[970] I'm like, come on back.

[971] But we have to be teaching sensorial literacy because the world may keep making things.

[972] There's not a whole lot we're going to do about neon signs and all that.

[973] But what you can do to manage your own life and your children's life and your family's life and the environments that you're in, you have the agency in that.

[974] And I think it's important.

[975] I love deep silence.

[976] I think that's an aesthetic experience.

[977] Yeah, I just read this fascinating article about the quietest place on earth.

[978] Did you read that?

[979] I just saw that.

[980] Some kind of sound engineering company own this sound deprivation tank.

[981] It turns out Microsoft actually has one that's quieter.

[982] I've already got a call in to get me in that thing because you're supposed to go crazy if you sit in there for 30 minutes.

[983] The urban legend was people go crazy because it's so quiet.

[984] You hear your blood circulating.

[985] You hear your heart pump.

[986] But of course, I want to do it so bad.

[987] And that sounds incredible to be able to hear inside your body for the first time.

[988] Well, solitary in prisons is the similar thing where you are by yourself and you may have sound, but people go crazy and solitary.

[989] What is the tolerance for lack of sensorial experience?

[990] Yeah.

[991] One of my sound teachers was working Dr. John Boyer at Bellevue, and they had one of those, he would sit in it, and he would hear the sound of his own nervous system.

[992] Yeah.

[993] And that's where he started to get, no pun intended, in tune with understanding that we're all vibrating atoms and frequency and started to work with tuning forks.

[994] This is the guy who carries around at A and a C and a G, I'm the one in the book that carries the CMG when people are stressed to kind of get them back into homeostasis.

[995] But he's one of the early pioneers using tuning forks.

[996] But it was because he heard his own nervous system and said, how do I get it more quiet or get it back into homeostasis?

[997] I think it's called an anachonic chamber or something.

[998] Yeah.

[999] He sat in.

[1000] But Susan and I talk about stimulation.

[1001] We did actually here in Venice, an artist installation called Chromasonic where you walk in, and it's this beautiful, almost womb -like egg form, and they've taken music and equated it to different colors.

[1002] And so you lie down, and for a half hour, it goes through beautiful tones and music, and you keep your eyes open, and the colors correspond to the tones.

[1003] You're feeling the correlation.

[1004] Now, that was only two senses, right?

[1005] Visual.

[1006] and sound.

[1007] And we walked out of there and we were in a different state.

[1008] We were so present because all that monkey mind that you talk about where we dig ourselves deeper into a hole, when you have those sensorial experiences, we were just stripped of that.

[1009] It overpowered the racket.

[1010] Totally.

[1011] And your mind just wants to go to this beautiful place where these two senses are like on steroids.

[1012] We talk about in the book at the end, the art of the future, but these kinds of experiences, hopefully we get to a place instead of just all the neon lights, we're going to understand this better.

[1013] And so we're going to start to create places where people can go and have these kind of experiences to get to full health.

[1014] And they can learn about themselves.

[1015] It'd be kind of diagnostic.

[1016] Yeah, absolutely.

[1017] Actually, I've done it twice now, and I had two very different experiences.

[1018] And I think it was because of where I was at each time myself.

[1019] But I think we're going to start to understand these sensory experiences and play with them, like this translation between seeing, what we're hearing.

[1020] I thought you were going to say they paired tones and colors for 20 minutes and then they had you close your eyes and played just the tones and then you would probably see the colors.

[1021] That would be my guess.

[1022] You could play with that.

[1023] Okay.

[1024] I'm on the team now.

[1025] Yeah, you are.

[1026] Go for it.

[1027] They have a lot of anecdotal information because they're not studying it right now, but they've had a lot of different types of people come into this space.

[1028] And I think the general sense was they felt less stressed, often more energized.

[1029] And color is so basic to us as humans.

[1030] You guys should check it out.

[1031] It's really an amazing experience.

[1032] Wait, where is it at?

[1033] It's in Venice, California called Chromosonic.

[1034] And how long is it going for?

[1035] It's like a permanent installation.

[1036] Yeah.

[1037] You have to buy tickets to go in it.

[1038] It's like 30 minutes.

[1039] I want them for free.

[1040] Yeah.

[1041] I love to buy it.

[1042] But no, no, but you should go.

[1043] It really speaks to what we're talking about in terms of the sensory.

[1044] It's on steroids.

[1045] Almost drug induced without the drugs.

[1046] Well, we study set -and -setting at Hopkins and music for psychedelic experiences, and this was a set -and -setting experience without the drugs.

[1047] That's the best way I can describe it.

[1048] And I think, you know, we're all craving.

[1049] It's why plant medicine has become popular.

[1050] We're kind of craving what can we do to get ourselves out of ourselves?

[1051] Yes.

[1052] And so what I love about some of these experiences and these art experiences is you don't need these substances in a lot of cases.

[1053] to feel that and get to that place.

[1054] Stay tuned for more armchair expert if you dare.

[1055] Well, Schrooms inhibits the corpus callosum and your brain can't communicate with your sense of self as easily, and that's why it erodes.

[1056] Is that how that work?

[1057] Yeah, that's my understanding.

[1058] I don't think it's fully understood, but that's one theory as an induction to being able to sort of disassociate and then reassemble and integrate.

[1059] Yes.

[1060] I've done shrooms a couple thousand times just to let you know as an extra agit.

[1061] So you know more than I do.

[1062] Well, just I remember reading like eight years ago, they found out there was lasting positive effects for those who had done with strategic.

[1063] I was like, well, that's wonderful.

[1064] It makes you sustainedly more creative.

[1065] Well, let me ask you a question.

[1066] Did you listen to music when you did them?

[1067] Oh, God, yeah.

[1068] That in MDMA.

[1069] Like, as soon as I was on Accessie, that's what we're doing.

[1070] We're listening to music the entire time.

[1071] So if you listen to those same pieces of music now, will it open those pathways?

[1072] That's a great question.

[1073] I won't get that visceral euphoria, but I definitely, Jamarquai, shout out, big time XSEC playlist was Jamarquay.

[1074] When I listen to those songs, I have the memory and it's an altered state, right?

[1075] It's not like a typical memory of dancing one night.

[1076] I definitely have the full multifaceted memory of the experience.

[1077] I can't tap into the euphoria, but it did imprint augmented, which is fascinating.

[1078] Which is fascinating.

[1079] It is, right?

[1080] It is fascinating.

[1081] Yeah.

[1082] We could do a whole other thing on drugs.

[1083] I forced Monica to take mushrooms.

[1084] Forced.

[1085] Yeah, without my consent.

[1086] No, I'm kidding.

[1087] No, no. But I was really against it and that I did.

[1088] We had Michael Pollan.

[1089] He's so convincing.

[1090] None will go do shrooms after talking to Michael Pollock.

[1091] I had done it by the time we talked to him.

[1092] But in the wake of his book.

[1093] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[1094] Well, we're not going to have to twist your arm to dance or sing.

[1095] Well, in public, are we?

[1096] You'll have to do it in public.

[1097] Like this is personalized medicine.

[1098] On my own.

[1099] In the car.

[1100] Yes.

[1101] I'm all about it.

[1102] I want to tell them this.

[1103] It has nothing to do with your brain on art or the book or anything else.

[1104] But should we tell them about Xanthum gum?

[1105] I feel like it would appeal to you guys.

[1106] Maybe they'll know what happened.

[1107] Okay.

[1108] Monica will not sing on this show.

[1109] I try to get her to sing all the time.

[1110] She won't do it.

[1111] I sing all the time.

[1112] Terrible voice.

[1113] I just do it.

[1114] Me too.

[1115] I'm that same way.

[1116] I'm with you.

[1117] I'm with you.

[1118] I don't care.

[1119] I always say that.

[1120] I don't care.

[1121] I always say that.

[1122] I'm away.

[1123] And we have some work to do.

[1124] So we get on the phone and do some work to do some work.

[1125] maybe some recording and then she goes well you'd be happy to know i've been singing in my apartment by myself and i said oh my god what are you singing and she said i made up a song about xanthum gum and i said can you sing it to me she's like no i'm not absolutely not going to sing it to you i'm like just fucking sing me the song we'll not sing it we get off the phone i'm sitting there five minutes later i call her i said was this the song xanthum gum da da da da da da da da da da zanthum gum she screamed like out of by like Like, oh, what do you, are you recording?

[1126] Like, she, I mean, what made more sense is that I had tapped her apartment with some microphones.

[1127] I'm still skeptical that maybe he did.

[1128] That was the song.

[1129] Zantham gum to the tune of Hollywood.

[1130] And I worry that, like, is that.

[1131] People think it's a show business thing?

[1132] Oh, no. No, but like, is that a go -to song people do that too?

[1133] Like, is it way more pedestrian than we think?

[1134] if you were going to guess that that was the song?

[1135] She said, no, right?

[1136] No, but you're in sync.

[1137] I think it's synchronicity is what I'm picking out.

[1138] You're connected.

[1139] You two are very connected, and you're here in Hollywood.

[1140] It makes perfect sense.

[1141] Yes, there's only one way to sing the anthem gum.

[1142] Let's do it now.

[1143] I wonder if also you had sang that a few days before or something, and it was like embedded.

[1144] It could have been inception.

[1145] I implanted that song, but I still stand by that being maybe a real life miracle I would I love that.

[1146] Okay, so your brain on art, how the arts transform us, is the book.

[1147] We learn all the science of what's happening in your brain.

[1148] We learn about all the senses.

[1149] We learn about some experiments you've done.

[1150] And then ultimately, the prescription is dedicate some time in your life.

[1151] Yeah, just like we've learned to exercise now, most of us.

[1152] It's been drilled into us through science, has told us.

[1153] Same thing with how important sleep is.

[1154] We really want to see a world where people are 20 minutes a day doing some art activity.

[1155] You don't have to be good at it.

[1156] You could pick your activity.

[1157] But we believe that people would be happier, healthier, less stressed.

[1158] And actually, there's statistics that one art event a month and you'll live 10 years longer.

[1159] What?

[1160] So imagine that.

[1161] To attend?

[1162] Well, attend or make.

[1163] Or make.

[1164] Wow.

[1165] I prefer make.

[1166] You're going to make one art event a month?

[1167] I'll come.

[1168] All in 10.

[1169] Well, my journal kind of counts, right?

[1170] I write a page a day.

[1171] It does count.

[1172] So I'm already going to live 10 years, aren't?

[1173] You better catch up, girl.

[1174] Yeah.

[1175] We talk about this thing called an aesthetic mindset.

[1176] It's four things.

[1177] One is curiosity, being playful and exploratory.

[1178] We love playful.

[1179] And a lot of people aren't playful.

[1180] I know.

[1181] I hate those people.

[1182] Well, we can't hate them.

[1183] No, I do.

[1184] Why are we here?

[1185] Let's play.

[1186] They're trained to think it's frivolous.

[1187] Yeah.

[1188] Well, we're told not to play, right?

[1189] Exactly.

[1190] Well, you know, the opposite of play is not work.

[1191] People think it is, it's depression.

[1192] There you go.

[1193] I knew we were right.

[1194] Number three is sensorial experience is just being aware of your senses around you and then making or beholding, right?

[1195] So if you did those four things, just kind of had that mindset, we think that that really equals health and well -being at a very different level.

[1196] Can I hit you with my armchair anthropological explanation for all this?

[1197] Absolutely.

[1198] Okay, we're slowly coming to learn.

[1199] You just mentioned one of them.

[1200] Exercise seemed like an activity for the vein.

[1201] 25 years ago, I was like, I don't know.

[1202] Who puts jazzercise?

[1203] I don't know, yeah.

[1204] Jane Ponda, who's, you know, these people, and they're vain, and they want to look good.

[1205] And it's just Cardinal saying, well, now we have all the information.

[1206] If you're literally going to pick a single thing in your life for your mental health, it's probably moving your body an hour a day.

[1207] It's so imperative.

[1208] So the anthropological explanation of that is really simple, which is we were designed to be active to go forage and then we got rewarded through our biochemistry for that activity that we understand we were designed to move we know why we eat incorrectly we were supposed to overeat when there was something in season because we needed surplus calories for when there was nothing slowly we just acknowledge how we lived and why we have to do certain things well similarly this art thing is part of the foraging and the hunting and the everything involved art you were making and weaving baskets You were making your own arrows.

[1209] You were making stone tools.

[1210] There was an artistic endeavor daily to meet your needs.

[1211] Absolutely.

[1212] There was storytelling to communicate, drawing in the caves to tell your story.

[1213] Dancing to celebrate, to create ritual, to have deep meaning, right?

[1214] I mean, all that was part of everyday life.

[1215] Drumming.

[1216] That's what I'm saying.

[1217] This is our birthright.

[1218] And I love progress, but I also think every so often we have to go back and see where we came from.

[1219] There's some stuff that feels vest.

[1220] that we're going to have to cater to our whole existence as humans.

[1221] Like, we may have transcended the need.

[1222] We can go to the grocery store.

[1223] Neither of us have to forage, right?

[1224] Right, right.

[1225] That's fine.

[1226] But we're going to have to satiate that, or we're not going to feel like we're functioning in the way we were supposed to.

[1227] It goes back to the way we were designed.

[1228] We were wired to do these things.

[1229] You have to make some clothes for yourself.

[1230] There was so much art happening just to protect yourself.

[1231] There was no word for it because that's just the way you lived.

[1232] Yes.

[1233] And so there's something about that that's ingrained in us that we've lost, that we just need to take back.

[1234] Yeah.

[1235] Well, and even things like tattooing, right, or body adornment, all those things are ways of expressing who you are.

[1236] Yeah.

[1237] That's art. Hair.

[1238] I mean, hair is a big thing.

[1239] The biggest.

[1240] Oh, that's right about that.

[1241] In between.

[1242] You know, it's really funny.

[1243] Whenever I get a haircut, I always ask the person, just really make it playful.

[1244] Oh, really?

[1245] Yes, I want it real playful.

[1246] Is it different every time?

[1247] Well, just I want some pieces sticking out.

[1248] I don't want uniformity.

[1249] I want maximum playfulness.

[1250] Is the wind blowing on him?

[1251] I don't know.

[1252] And I love the definition of play is doing something different than you do all the time without a desired outcome.

[1253] And that's the key because we're so driven toward outcomes.

[1254] When you play, you're just playing.

[1255] There is no end game in mind.

[1256] It's process only.

[1257] Yeah, exactly.

[1258] And that's how innovation and discovery happens.

[1259] And we forget that.

[1260] And so that's why it's so important to play.

[1261] Yeah, I'm with you.

[1262] I am captain play.

[1263] I want to do it like 80 % of my day.

[1264] Oh, that is fun.

[1265] Well, Ivy, Susan, this has been really, really wonderful.

[1266] I hope everybody reads your brain on art. And I look forward to everything that's coming.

[1267] I mean, to be honest, you must be more excited than you've ever been as a designer, Ivy.

[1268] Just the notion that you could enter into an objective with data.

[1269] Like, okay, 38 % of people like this, we're going to make three different products.

[1270] and we're going to nail it for these people, and we know we have the biomark.

[1271] There's a whole new era of design coming our way, isn't there?

[1272] Well, it just validates.

[1273] I mean, I started as an artist, and I became a designer.

[1274] Susan and I connected because this idea that now science is validating what we have known intuitively is extremely validating.

[1275] And it just makes what I do in the world and how I am in the world that much more pleasurable.

[1276] Yeah.

[1277] But it's not going to be a recipe where a little bit of blue, a little bit of blue, a little, little bit of curvature, oh, and add that bioluminescent light, and you're going to do this.

[1278] What's so cool about it is this is like an ingredients list where you can pick the things that you want for an outcome, but it's always going to be different because designers and architects and artists are by nature creative.

[1279] So what I love is that we may have more for you to pull off of the pantry for these amazing things that could be created at all levels of society.

[1280] Yeah, I guess I just think it would be really interesting to be.

[1281] designer at this moment knowing that you could measure in some way the efficacy of what your intention was.

[1282] Yeah, the impact matches the intention.

[1283] Yeah.

[1284] I mean, I know that when the team and I design, I'm the orchestra conductor, they are designing a product.

[1285] We now talk about how do you want that person to feel when they look at that object or see that object?

[1286] And then when those products go into consumer testing, the researchers come back with a word cloud and the designers get so excited when what comes out of someone's mouth when they see that speaker or that phone or that object matches that designer's emotional intent.

[1287] Getting that kind of feedback is terrific.

[1288] But what I want most is for everyone to have the joys of creativity and expressing themselves and to lead happy and healthy lives.

[1289] Our sweetest, cutest, cutest friend Amy Hansen has recently discovered pottery and she's They're like five days a week.

[1290] I almost said the worst thing.

[1291] She's really good at it, even though that's not important, but she is really good at it.

[1292] But to see her and then now our friend Charlie has joined her.

[1293] And now I'm like, fuck, I got to get pottery in a high school.

[1294] After you guys are talking, I'm like, I should get into pottery.

[1295] Yeah.

[1296] I'll be frustrated.

[1297] I got to buy futures in clay.

[1298] There's going to be a pottery revolution.

[1299] Okay.

[1300] Susan, Ivy, so great meeting you.

[1301] I can't wait to see what other fun things you do.

[1302] And if you ever do one of these weird rooms again, I want to come.

[1303] come okay can you keep us updated for sure i can't even imagine it's so much fun to think about what we're going to do together and what we can yeah thank you this is a lot of fun maybe you can barbie's mom maybe incorporate some barbies i really love that your instinct was to put sneakers on her that's very fashion forward sneakers are in yeah now when the body shape was reduced was there any negative outcome in sales actually no you know we did a lot of testing and those days, you know, this idea of, especially to little girls, what makes a Barbie doll a Barbie doll, it was this, I forget how tall she was, like 12 .5 inch fully fashioned woman.

[1304] We showed them different body types.

[1305] They didn't really care about the body.

[1306] It was the fact that it was a full figured woman within that height.

[1307] It's a full story.

[1308] It is.

[1309] The nude Barbie's not a story.

[1310] I'm being sincere about story.

[1311] Like you put her in a waitress outfit.

[1312] There's a whole story there.

[1313] That's what Barbie does.

[1314] She has an occupation.

[1315] The whole idea was the imagination or projection that she could be anything that you wanted her to be you know what did you want her to be sometimes adults would project what they thought was critical here yes and at the end of the day because they're sexualizing Barbie but the kids not right it's very simple yeah there was never any movement to get male action figures to be less muscular or is there can by the way in my household do you guys want to hear how ken speaks yeah barbie i don't want to go in the water i only ride And Jensky's Barbie, where is the Jensky?

[1316] So I have to play with my daughters.

[1317] And Ken is very stuck up.

[1318] He exudes that to me again.

[1319] Even though you don't, you don't not look like Ken. Oh.

[1320] And that's a, that is a compliment.

[1321] I'm a tall white guy with broad shoulders.

[1322] Yeah, he's hands.

[1323] We actually, you know, we had a tattoo Barbie.

[1324] We did not have a tattooed Ken. Oh, really?

[1325] Missed opportunity.

[1326] To tattooed bar.

[1327] Did Kay have a friend?

[1328] I feel like Barbie did.

[1329] Yeah, like Josh or something.

[1330] I don't know, it wasn't Josh, but...

[1331] Oh, Kyle's here.

[1332] Hi, Kyle.

[1333] Oh, no, that was a girl, Skipper.

[1334] Skipper.

[1335] That's Barbie's sister.

[1336] That's Barbie sister, sorry.

[1337] Her sister, yeah.

[1338] I always connected with the sister or the friend.

[1339] I never connected with the actual.

[1340] That's interesting.

[1341] Yeah, I know, I know.

[1342] Followed that path.

[1343] To the bank.

[1344] It's all right there.

[1345] That's right.

[1346] I think that's what you meant to say.

[1347] That's exactly right.

[1348] Well, wonderful meeting, you guys.

[1349] I look forward to a future where we take our exploration of artist series as we would, our physical health or any other thing we're coming to recognize as essential and not auxiliary.

[1350] Yep.

[1351] If we exercise, sleep and art. There we go.

[1352] Making art, easy.

[1353] Beholding art. There you go.

[1354] Thank you.

[1355] All right.

[1356] Good luck with everything.

[1357] Thank you.

[1358] Monica Padman.

[1359] See, it is a fire hazard.

[1360] We're living, we're working in a fire hazard currently.

[1361] The door won't open.

[1362] Don't say that because OSHA, they'll shut us down.

[1363] Is that what you want?

[1364] Yeah.

[1365] You want us to get shut down?

[1366] Yeah.

[1367] We've had enough challenges.

[1368] We don't need to get shut down.

[1369] We've faced a few challenges.

[1370] Apologies to everyone about that.

[1371] Yes.

[1372] Um, we don't really control it, but I still want to say sorry.

[1373] Of course.

[1374] We're sad that we can't currently put up episodes.

[1375] Armchair's not in my feet, anonymous.

[1376] I'm sure anonymous is not in your feed yet that Spotify's working on it currently.

[1377] We have, I did some anecdotal survey.

[1378] I did a survey.

[1379] Okay.

[1380] People I know.

[1381] Most have it.

[1382] Uh -huh.

[1383] You still don't charge.

[1384] Charlie doesn't, Charlie doesn't have Thursdays.

[1385] Aye, aye.

[1386] Yeah.

[1387] I'm going to go again, real time update.

[1388] We're going to assume.

[1389] No, it's not.

[1390] And I'm going to shut the app.

[1391] I'm going to shut the app.

[1392] It's shut.

[1393] I'm going to reopen it.

[1394] It's loading.

[1395] Okay.

[1396] That's your best shot.

[1397] I know.

[1398] You think.

[1399] Good armchair.

[1400] That's my favorite show.

[1401] No. No. Shetty first episode.

[1402] Okay.

[1403] Because Jordan just texted saying rollouts at 100%.

[1404] Can you let me know if folks are.

[1405] still seeing the issue.

[1406] Dax still doesn't have it.

[1407] I just watched him shut the app down, restart it.

[1408] I mean, well, I could restart my phone.

[1409] Should I try that?

[1410] I guess, but like, not everyone's going to do that.

[1411] That's the problem.

[1412] I have mixed feelings about this.

[1413] It's a big ask.

[1414] Part of me is like, it's not a big ask.

[1415] You know, like, one of the suggestions was sign out and sign back in.

[1416] I'm like, I'm not doing that.

[1417] I know.

[1418] That's what I felt like personally.

[1419] I'm not doing that.

[1420] But then I also thought, live.

[1421] has become really convenient.

[1422] Of course.

[1423] You know, like, you can just hear stuff.

[1424] Anytime you want to hear it.

[1425] Mm -hmm.

[1426] And, yeah.

[1427] But for me, it's more about we can't tell people to do that.

[1428] Right.

[1429] So we're in a bad cycle.

[1430] Cats 20.

[1431] That's the ish.

[1432] I'd be okay saying, hey, we know this really is like, but we need you all to restart your app, but there's no way for us to tell every single person.

[1433] Whoever can hear us say that doesn't have the issue.

[1434] Exactly.

[1435] Yeah.

[1436] Including me, but I can hear it, even though I have the issue.

[1437] Yeah, because you have personal access to me. Did you ever read Catch 22?

[1438] I didn't.

[1439] Oh, boy.

[1440] It's wonderful.

[1441] Yeah, it's one of the funniest books.

[1442] But I don't know if people realize it's a comedy.

[1443] Like, it's a hysterical book.

[1444] It was my mom and dad's 40th anniversary yesterday.

[1445] I saw the cute picture you posted.

[1446] Yeah.

[1447] They went to Jose Andre's restaurant.

[1448] Oh, they did?

[1449] Vegas, yeah.

[1450] Oh, they were in Las Vegas?

[1451] Yeah, they're in Vegas.

[1452] Oh, my God.

[1453] Yeah.

[1454] for their anniversary.

[1455] Where are they staying?

[1456] The win.

[1457] Yeah.

[1458] How was D .C.?

[1459] D .C. was great.

[1460] You went to Kamala Harris's house?

[1461] Yes.

[1462] Where does she live?

[1463] The vice president's residence.

[1464] Yeah, yeah.

[1465] I got that.

[1466] Like, what's it, is it an apartment?

[1467] Is it a standalone home?

[1468] What's the address?

[1469] Oh, I mean, public.

[1470] Yeah, it is.

[1471] It's a home, of course.

[1472] Well, I don't know.

[1473] It could be a brownstone.

[1474] D .C.'s got brownstone?

[1475] Not for those people.

[1476] Okay, so it's a home and has a yard.

[1477] Yeah, there was a pool in the bag.

[1478] Oh, my God.

[1479] How close is it to the White House?

[1480] Close.

[1481] Can she walk to work?

[1482] I did take an Uber.

[1483] No, I don't think so.

[1484] I don't think she would.

[1485] For security reasons.

[1486] But could she?

[1487] I mean, I get.

[1488] Are you going to walk to work or no because of security reasons when your house is done?

[1489] No. You're not going to walk to work.

[1490] No, I'm going to have security.

[1491] Okay.

[1492] Drive me. I walk to work now.

[1493] I know, and you live much further away than you will.

[1494] No, she could, but wouldn't.

[1495] Like, not even for security reasons.

[1496] It would just be.

[1497] far.

[1498] It's too far.

[1499] I took an Uber.

[1500] Is it a nice house?

[1501] Yes, it's beautiful.

[1502] I mean, I didn't get a full tour of the house.

[1503] Yeah.

[1504] Okay.

[1505] But it was really cool.

[1506] She hosted an event with glamour to celebrate international women's month.

[1507] Okay.

[1508] Women's History Month.

[1509] Okay.

[1510] Oh, yeah, yeah.

[1511] Careful.

[1512] It was International Women's Day recently.

[1513] It was women's history month.

[1514] It was really cool.

[1515] Who was there?

[1516] Who'd you see?

[1517] CMVC.

[1518] CMBC.

[1519] Um, there were, there were so many awesome women there.

[1520] Meg the Stallion was there.

[1521] Nancy Pelosi was there.

[1522] The Polos.

[1523] Who else?

[1524] Susan Rice was there.

[1525] Lots of people.

[1526] And then like fashion people.

[1527] Monica Padman.

[1528] Sally Christensen who runs Argent the suit company.

[1529] You did the modeling for it?

[1530] I did her work friends thing, which is a cool thing she does.

[1531] Anyway, she was there, which was fun for me because I had a buddy.

[1532] Yes.

[1533] You needed that.

[1534] Coming after Austin, I was really like, oh God, I'm going to have to go back to another city.

[1535] myself not really in the mood for that right now right it was such a blessing that she was there but did you have those same austin feelings or were you better in dc dc's of good solo town yes okay did you hit any hot restaurants i did you looked over at wabi yeah they already texted rob from the restaurant uh -huh went to a amazing restaurant called bresca what is it bresca yeah and i for women's month no not bresta oh my god oh my god oh my god I need to get my head right.

[1536] It's been a while since you've been badgered, hasn't it?

[1537] A little bit.

[1538] I just spent a lot of time with women.

[1539] Uh -huh.

[1540] They're being nice and supportive.

[1541] And now I'm in a space with two men.

[1542] Uh -huh.

[1543] And it's a different type of vibe, you know?

[1544] Sure, sure.

[1545] So.

[1546] You know, I'm really outnumbered in life, so I can relate.

[1547] Yeah.

[1548] And not to bring up a sore subject.

[1549] Yeah.

[1550] But one time, me, you, Kristen, and the kids were in Turks and Kekos.

[1551] Yeah.

[1552] And this was actually a long time ago at this point.

[1553] And me and you got in a huge fight there.

[1554] You sure did.

[1555] We talked about Turks and Kekos lot, but I don't know that we talked about the fact that we got in a huge fight.

[1556] Yeah.

[1557] That ultimately the result was that you shared and it was totally understandable, that you felt outnumbered in a way, not with the kids obviously at that point but me and her you and Kristen yeah because you're both women and you have a similar point of view yes and on the topic that was being argued about you had a shared point of view as well and understandably that got to you and you know I did actually it's funny that we're bringing this up because I did actually think about this the other day okay in relation to I don't even remember what it was but something came up here it was a gendered conversation And I felt like that.

[1558] This feels not all that fair when there's two men in the room and me. And then I remember that Turks and Kekos thing.

[1559] Yeah.

[1560] It's like, yeah.

[1561] I mean, it just is hard when there's not an even.

[1562] What you get, I guess what you hope for is that when you're in some kind of debate, at least someone else recognizes what you're saying is valid.

[1563] Yes.

[1564] Right?

[1565] And when it's, when there's, you're so low, it's just, It is a weird feeling.

[1566] When you're the only person speaking to represent a group, it's very hard.

[1567] And I'm pretty triggered there, I think, also for many reasons.

[1568] Yeah.

[1569] So, Bresca.

[1570] Bresca.

[1571] It was really good.

[1572] I did the tasting menu.

[1573] Oh.

[1574] Which is all that was offered, but I was glad because it was so good.

[1575] Well, it was the wildest thing you ate that you wouldn't have normally ordered and you said, well, this is really good.

[1576] there was this like carrot sort of a carrot soup yeah and it was so good i probably would have ordered it because it sounded like something i would like but it was so good what do you think made it so good what was proprietary about the carrot soup savory and sweet and warming and cookies the raisins and the almonds yeah the raisins the really added something the ripping and the tarin yeah exactly the wild women the wild women it was not as Thick as a moose.

[1577] A runny moose.

[1578] Ew, that sounds unappetitizing it.

[1579] They have a beautiful carrot runny moose over there.

[1580] Have you had their runny moose carrot flavor?

[1581] It was delicious.

[1582] I mean, I had duck.

[1583] Oh, was it greasy?

[1584] No. The right amount of grease.

[1585] Yeah, it was delicious.

[1586] People love saying that about duck.

[1587] That's a greasy bird.

[1588] Oh, yeah, that's what everyone said.

[1589] Very oily.

[1590] Oh, right.

[1591] I guess there's duck fat.

[1592] That's a thing you can cook with.

[1593] Yeah, duck fat fries.

[1594] Okay.

[1595] Okay.

[1596] So any...

[1597] Chocolate with the goose?

[1598] Oh.

[1599] But it's like it was...

[1600] Chocolate goose.

[1601] It was a...

[1602] Bitter chocolate.

[1603] Thank you.

[1604] Yes, it was bitter.

[1605] So it was good.

[1606] And then I got some M &Ms from the president.

[1607] Oh.

[1608] Sprinkled on the duck.

[1609] No, sorry.

[1610] This is...

[1611] Now you're over at Kamala's.

[1612] Yep.

[1613] I've had Kamala's.

[1614] And they had a bowl of M &Ms?

[1615] No. Kamala's right hand.

[1616] Her Gary.

[1617] Okay.

[1618] That's from Veeb?

[1619] Yes.

[1620] Tony Hale.

[1621] Her right hand, her name's Opel.

[1622] She is friends with Sally.

[1623] So we all had lunch.

[1624] Oh.

[1625] Which was awesome.

[1626] And Opel gave me some M &Ms that she carries in her purse.

[1627] They're in like a presidential box.

[1628] Oh.

[1629] And they're to give out to children, I can only presume.

[1630] Or little girls from Georgia.

[1631] Yes.

[1632] Little babies who eat grass.

[1633] And I was so thrilled.

[1634] Oh, I bet.

[1635] And do you have the.

[1636] Now you have the decorative, memorative box, commemorative M &M's box.

[1637] No one can eat them.

[1638] It's like when Bill gave us those Diet Coke.

[1639] Yes.

[1640] Can't drink those.

[1641] No, I could be dehydrating and they'll stay unopened.

[1642] Yeah.

[1643] I'll die with it in my hand.

[1644] That's right.

[1645] So that was really exciting.

[1646] I realized that about myself.

[1647] I mean, we already know this about me, but we went for lunch to this restaurant there called The Diplomat.

[1648] And what Sally said, this is a very swivel -headed place.

[1649] See and be seen.

[1650] Like going to the Ivy.

[1651] Exactly.

[1652] I had never heard that phrase and I liked it.

[1653] Swivelhead.

[1654] It was really cute and there was I liked it.

[1655] But as soon as I sat down, I thought, what am I going to buy here?

[1656] Like, not food -wise.

[1657] Like, how am I going to commemorate this?

[1658] Do they have mugs?

[1659] Do they have matches?

[1660] Do they have pens?

[1661] What can I take from this moment?

[1662] Yeah.

[1663] I was really starting to look.

[1664] Let it, like, run the show.

[1665] Yeah, it was consuming you.

[1666] Uh -huh.

[1667] The most important thing at that point was walking away with some memorabilia.

[1668] Yes.

[1669] Uh -huh.

[1670] I've seen you get that way.

[1671] Yeah.

[1672] Yeah.

[1673] You like a teacup at a place and then you're like, can they don't, do they sell these?

[1674] Yeah.

[1675] Yeah.

[1676] Yes.

[1677] And I had to ask.

[1678] I asked if there were mugs that had the name of the restaurant on it.

[1679] Because I had a mug, but it had no name.

[1680] Uh -huh.

[1681] And I thought this isn't commemorative.

[1682] No. He said, no, we used to.

[1683] Worse thing.

[1684] could have possibly said to me we used to but we don't anymore oh but are you sure can you check you know there was nothing uh but the m &Ms helped okay good good and was the food good there or just people watching but i see so for me i wouldn't know anyone that's why i loved it there i loved it so much because it was an industry town yeah but an industry that i'm not a part of and I loved that.

[1685] I could just be a voyer, not care, really, like not be invested in who anyone was, but no, like other people were in.

[1686] I don't know.

[1687] I just loved that.

[1688] Yeah.

[1689] Like, what if you saw AOC eating with Mitch McConnell at the...

[1690] That would never happen.

[1691] Right.

[1692] But what if you saw that and be sawn?

[1693] If I saw him that, yes.

[1694] I would be like, I'm having a seizure in D .C. Right.

[1695] Cool.

[1696] Yeah.

[1697] Okay, so while I did that, you were in Atlanta, did you, everyone needs to know, did you go dancing?

[1698] Okay, listen.

[1699] I'm going to back up and say it went south by.

[1700] Right.

[1701] Did you stay at the hotel?

[1702] I say that?

[1703] Nobody saw it.

[1704] Someone there was staying there.

[1705] And I inquired about how hustly and bustly it was.

[1706] Yeah.

[1707] We didn't stay.

[1708] We flew in and then flew out.

[1709] Oh, right.

[1710] Because we went to Atlanta directly from there.

[1711] So that was lovely and fun.

[1712] Southway.

[1713] Still going on.

[1714] It was weird for me to.

[1715] be there.

[1716] Having already heard your story from the previous week.

[1717] Yes.

[1718] Like, this is a long festival.

[1719] These people have been working their asses off.

[1720] Exactly.

[1721] Okay.

[1722] So Atlanta, night one, nothing.

[1723] Okay.

[1724] Night two, what's the name of the restaurant?

[1725] Holman and Finch.

[1726] We discovered Holman and Finch.

[1727] It was in a little plaza, really close to the hotel, like three blocks away, had the burger.

[1728] It was insane.

[1729] It's the best.

[1730] As I was eating it, I was like, we're definitely going to eat this again.

[1731] But after that burger, after we left, I was like, oh, let me back up.

[1732] I made the decision like, I'm going to eat this burger with the bun this weekend.

[1733] I'm just going to take my medicine.

[1734] So it was already like, I'm going to fuck up this weekend.

[1735] Yeah.

[1736] And so leave that restaurant.

[1737] And now I'm, I want dessert, which I never want dessert.

[1738] Yeah.

[1739] And we went into a bar in the hotel that was blasting music pretty loud.

[1740] It was a scene.

[1741] It was a club?

[1742] No, I asked the hostess, is dancing permitted?

[1743] Oh.

[1744] Because I might.

[1745] Wow.

[1746] Okay.

[1747] I didn't.

[1748] Oh, okay.

[1749] Because no one was, and there is no real area.

[1750] Okay.

[1751] But I was allowing myself to feel like I was at a nightclub.

[1752] Okay.

[1753] Real loud music, people and people watching, I'm meeting this chocolate cake with syrup all over it.

[1754] Oh.

[1755] And I'm dancing in my seat a lot.

[1756] Okay.

[1757] Was Kristen with you?

[1758] Yes.

[1759] Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[1760] Okay.

[1761] As, you know, I don't know how late it was at that point.

[1762] Maybe nine or ten.

[1763] It's not like it's that late.

[1764] Yeah.

[1765] Seven in your body.

[1766] Yes.

[1767] So that was, I guess, Friday night.

[1768] And then Saturday, I'm disappointed I haven't found a dance spot.

[1769] Oh, you're, okay.

[1770] Even though it had only been a couple hours.

[1771] Yeah, I just, I'm like, last night was probably the night.

[1772] I should have done it.

[1773] Okay.

[1774] So then I'm looking, because, Because I'm eating like an asshole, I haven't had eggs and toast in forever.

[1775] And I'm like, I'm going to eat over -easy eggs and toast.

[1776] And I'm going to eat a lot of them.

[1777] Poached.

[1778] On that note, a lot of people have written to say that I've definitely said soft -boiled.

[1779] So I just want to be honest about that.

[1780] Oh, thank you for being honest about that.

[1781] So I'm looking for a cafe.

[1782] There's a waffle house kind of close.

[1783] And so I'm like, I want to go to Waffle House that I know I'm going to get exactly what want there.

[1784] But then another part of me is like you're in a you're in a foodie town like go somewhere else.

[1785] So I see him pretty close to the hotel and really highly rated a place called feathers and fins.

[1786] Oh shit.

[1787] I've never heard of it.

[1788] I got to go there.

[1789] Listen to me. Hold on.

[1790] It's really close to the hotel.

[1791] We walk in there at noon on a Saturday.

[1792] There's a security guard.

[1793] He pats me down.

[1794] I go, there have been some shootings in here.

[1795] He goes, no, we're just trying to make sure that we don't have And I'm like, okay, great.

[1796] Good, good job.

[1797] Walk into this restaurant, which is a breakfast spot.

[1798] There's a DJ.

[1799] Wow.

[1800] And it is packed.

[1801] Nice.

[1802] At noon, I am on fire.

[1803] I am so happy to be there.

[1804] Yes.

[1805] I'm dancing at the host stand.

[1806] It's already got me. I'm already dancing.

[1807] Are other people dancing?

[1808] No, okay.

[1809] I see your face.

[1810] Okay, go on.

[1811] No, hold on.

[1812] There's a. a DJ on a platform.

[1813] Okay.

[1814] That's, yeah, that's an invitation.

[1815] We ask for two and he says, do you have a reservation?

[1816] It's noon.

[1817] Yeah.

[1818] At a breakfast spot.

[1819] And I said, no, we don't.

[1820] And he's like, all right, let me look.

[1821] He went and looked around.

[1822] He's like, I mean, the earliest you're going to be able to sit down is a half hour.

[1823] Wow.

[1824] So, and this is regrettable.

[1825] We're like, okay, thank you.

[1826] I don't want to wait a half hour.

[1827] Then I'm hungry.

[1828] Yeah.

[1829] So we left.

[1830] Oh.

[1831] We shouldn't have left because we ended up walking to a place that was another 10 minutes away.

[1832] And then my time you walked 10 minutes back, I don't think we saved any time.

[1833] And I was loving the vibe in there.

[1834] It was incredible.

[1835] I can only imagine what the place is like at dinner.

[1836] It was, you just don't, this doesn't exist in L .A. I've never heard of it.

[1837] That vibe, noon on a Saturday, everyone's dressed to the nines.

[1838] There's a fucking DJ people are eating chicken and waffles.

[1839] And it is a party.

[1840] Well?

[1841] And I missed out on it.

[1842] But I was, I loved it in there.

[1843] Where did you guys end up down?

[1844] Then we went to some other place with a French name, and it was fine.

[1845] Was it Lucian Books and Wine?

[1846] It was.

[1847] How on earth did you know that?

[1848] Well, by the way, I gave Chris on a list.

[1849] Oh, we weren't going off that.

[1850] It was just what I had looked up in the area.

[1851] Cafes near me. Oh, really?

[1852] So Fish and Finn was before it, and then that.

[1853] Okay.

[1854] Crazy that you just said that.

[1855] I fucking love that place.

[1856] Okay.

[1857] So much.

[1858] I gave Chris and the list that had both Lucian Books and Wine and Holman and Finch on it.

[1859] Okay, but not Fish and Finn.

[1860] No, I've not heard of that.

[1861] Finn and feathers.

[1862] Finn and feathers.

[1863] Shout out, even though you didn't let me eat there.

[1864] You have me a big shout out.

[1865] And also, you don't need any help.

[1866] The place is booked.

[1867] I'm going there next time.

[1868] I'm home.

[1869] It's incredible.

[1870] I'm excited.

[1871] Okay, so I love that place.

[1872] Last time I was there, I went, I went with my girlfriends.

[1873] And it's so cute because it's like half a bookstore.

[1874] And the books are coffee table books, beautiful coffee table books.

[1875] like cool books and I bought like $700 worth of books okay when I went there I do you think every location has the amount of books because I didn't really see there's only that's so standalone restaurant oh it is yeah that is where we went Lucia that is insane yeah Lucia I don't know okay wait what are you worried about what are you worried about there weren't enough books I didn't seem really many books it looks like there's books and wine and then there's restaurant at Italiano.

[1876] Oh, did you go to restaurant Italiano?

[1877] This was like a little...

[1878] In Duluth?

[1879] No, that's where I'm from.

[1880] No, no, no, no. Well, there's one there, and then there's Downtown.

[1881] There's books and wine.

[1882] Books and wine is where you went.

[1883] On Peachtree Road?

[1884] Yes, that's near the four seasons.

[1885] Oh, shit.

[1886] I mean, it's not a ton of books.

[1887] It's when you walk in on the right side, there's all these, but yeah, that's it.

[1888] I guess I just didn't, I don't know.

[1889] I think you were upset because of feathers and fins.

[1890] I was like, This vibe blows compared to what we just laughed.

[1891] No, what we just laughed.

[1892] Careful.

[1893] We just left.

[1894] It's got like big bookcases.

[1895] It doesn't have cases, but it has like, they're all on a wall.

[1896] Yeah, it's beautiful.

[1897] You'd love it, Rob.

[1898] It's up your alley.

[1899] I don't know.

[1900] It doesn't look terribly familiar.

[1901] But anyways, we're getting too bogged down there.

[1902] That's what I was concerned about them.

[1903] It's definitely called Lucia's.

[1904] Maybe there's another Lucius.

[1905] It's not Lucia's.

[1906] Luccius.

[1907] Oh, God.

[1908] Lucy's?

[1909] You went to Lucy's No, I didn't Lucy's house I remember pronouncing It was a big deal Just like it is now Okay, that's how I remember Were you on Eater?

[1910] How'd you find it?

[1911] Was I an E?

[1912] No, I was dead sober Oh No, I went to fucking Google Maps cafes near me And then I look at the reviews And they got stars And then I start going On the highest stars And they had a lot of reviews And a lot of good stars And it was good It was a cafe Lucia Yeah That's not a Different place 4 .2 stars Damn You can understand the confusion it's lucia and also no wonder there weren't books because that's not a book way gotta be the same thing though right no lucias it's not lucia what is it i don't know i think you not know and tell me it's wrong that's okay because i don't know if it's pronounced lucian or lucian oh then in yes oh no books and wine it's all one thing this did not have an end at the you would have Kristen would have liked it.

[1913] So she would have been saying, oh.

[1914] Yeah, no, we did our crossword puzzles and kind of missed out on anything.

[1915] Okay.

[1916] Yeah.

[1917] Listen, you did not go to the right place.

[1918] It's clear I didn't.

[1919] Yeah, because that picture did not.

[1920] I'm glad we figured that out because it sounded like you were.

[1921] Underwhelmed.

[1922] Yeah, and it's not fair.

[1923] And this place was great.

[1924] I'm not saying there's anything wrong with this.

[1925] But when you leave fin and feathers, everything's going to blow compared to that.

[1926] Not Lucene books and wine.

[1927] You went there.

[1928] You really liked it.

[1929] Okay.

[1930] We have a lot to do because I have a gynaecologist appointment that I've been trying to get into for 10 to 20 months.

[1931] Yes.

[1932] We've got to get that thing looked at.

[1933] We got to look at.

[1934] I mean, I really do think because I haven't had a pap smear in a few years because they only do it every three years now.

[1935] Don't laugh.

[1936] You're going to the dentist every six weeks.

[1937] Well, no, I'm more thinking about how often you're at the dentist.

[1938] It just seems to me your teeth are just like these pieces of wood.

[1939] No, no, no. Gum health affects your heart.

[1940] I know, I know.

[1941] And Alzheimer's.

[1942] I know, I know.

[1943] Listen, if you're going to have someone in your teeth every six weeks, I think you should have someone in your vagina more than once every three years.

[1944] Insurance says three years for pap smears.

[1945] Trust me, if I could be getting them more often, I would be.

[1946] Look under the hood.

[1947] I mean, I just got a new insurance post sag.

[1948] So I can get a new one.

[1949] And I'm going to, because before I do egg freezing again, I want a new one.

[1950] I need to see an updated version of what's going on.

[1951] Right, right.

[1952] You said it's a mustached man. Yeah.

[1953] You went through the headshots of all the doctors.

[1954] Yes, and I specifically picked one with the mustache.

[1955] With a womb broom.

[1956] Yep.

[1957] They often know best.

[1958] Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[1959] Yeah, you got to get to the gyno.

[1960] Okay.

[1961] Oh, got to get to the gyno.

[1962] So you have a story you've been wanting to share for the last 10 hours.

[1963] You went to a birthday party yesterday and you want to talk about.

[1964] it.

[1965] Oh, yes.

[1966] Thank you.

[1967] Thank you.

[1968] So it was, it was Aces' ninth birthday party.

[1969] Yes.

[1970] He wanted to see Shazam.

[1971] Yes.

[1972] And I want to be careful here because I want the film industry to thrive.

[1973] Oh.

[1974] And I want exhibitors to thrive.

[1975] Yeah.

[1976] So I just, I want to be careful here.

[1977] Don't call out the theater then.

[1978] I'm not going to.

[1979] Okay.

[1980] But also the technology.

[1981] I'm going to have to call out the technology.

[1982] I know.

[1983] I already did.

[1984] We've already done it on here.

[1985] Okay, so I'd never been to a movie in 4D, they call it.

[1986] Yep.

[1987] And, you know, I sit down and I, probably the exact same experience you had, I'm like, oh, why is there a button that says water on or off?

[1988] That's curious.

[1989] And then I start kind of putting it together.

[1990] Okay, this thing's going to vibrate a little bit.

[1991] Well, then they give you a little taste of it in one of the previews.

[1992] Sure.

[1993] And, okay.

[1994] It's so startling.

[1995] It's insane.

[1996] It's insane.

[1997] There isn't a ride at Disneyland That even I could say is one third of his violent as this thing is It's just like someone It's like you're sitting on a lawn chair with a jackhammer Underneath of it And it's just banging you And there's even a little, it punches you in the back Did you get far enough in the movie where you got punched in the back?

[1998] No, because we saw Top Gun and as we, again, we've already talked about it But we left, I really think six minutes in I wanted to leave so bad you can't I can't imagine, but it was a birthday party and my kids weren't as frustrated.

[1999] But that's why I think this might be great for kids.

[2000] Right.

[2001] It is for kids.

[2002] Like, this shows our age, I think, which is really upsetting.

[2003] I didn't even find that the fucking jumping and jostling and violent rattling was even really linked to anything.

[2004] It's just like when there was action, they started fucking vibrating the shit out of you and jostling you.

[2005] But it didn't seem to sink up nicely with anything.

[2006] And then you got little, you got little, um, air valves next to your ears, like when there's gunshots, so you're like, okay, but it doesn't make sense because it's coming from behind me. The bolts were coming from in front of me on screen.

[2007] It blows my hair around.

[2008] I love playful hair, but also I got to fix it now.

[2009] Oh.

[2010] And then did you turn water on or off?

[2011] Well, once I was so unhappy with the air being blasted in my ear and fucking up my playful hair.

[2012] And I was also getting consumed.

[2013] I'm too tall for it where your feet would go.

[2014] my feet were up too high so then i have them on the ground but then the chair's bouncing up and down two feet off the ground and i'm thinking my ankle going to get caught between the floor in this descending chair oh and then i'm just thinking how many injuries are there kids get out of their seat they're on the ground the fucking thing's bouncing up and down with the metal i'm surprised you didn't have to sign a waiver that's exactly what christin said when we left she's like how could they not because people will get hurt or like throw up i just pictured like an 80 year old man in there Not knowing what he's getting into Broken bones And heart attack It was It was insane Wow I tried to film everyone Because Molly and Charlie and Erica Were one row above us And off to the right And I glanced over at one point And they looked fucking ridiculous You know like those old machines You'd see that were supposed to make your belly Smaller It's just a big tire that went around your belly And shook your whole body Like when they showed all those old -timey workout videos and there's like a huge band that goes around the person's back and tummy and it's just like br -br -br -br -m -l -mom -brum -brum -brum -brum -d that's what they look like they were out they looked insane everyone's like the like their bangs were in front of their and so once i got a load of that i'm like oh my god i got to film this i mean this is preposterous but then my phone would turn on the light when i'd try to film oh so i'm this i'm the idiot in the movie with a fucking light black it was a big disaster and uh anywho i don't want to infer that i didn't believe you because i did but even with believing you it's impossible to imagine what that experience is like you have to really experience it i i it's worth buying a ticket even to just stay five minutes just to understand what it is like it is so bizarre it really is something but ding ding ding while we're on the topic, we went to the movie in Atlanta.

[2015] We went to the movies.

[2016] There was an I pick right by the hotel, which I love the I pick.

[2017] Yeah.

[2018] And we saw Cocaine Bear.

[2019] And I didn't really know anything about Cocaine Bear, obvious other than the title.

[2020] Did you know Elizabeth Banks directed it?

[2021] By the time I sat down, I did, but the artwork and stuff, I didn't know that.

[2022] Okay.

[2023] This movie is fucking tremendous.

[2024] It is a 10 out of 10.

[2025] Wow.

[2026] It is incredible.

[2027] I'm so happy for her.

[2028] Wow.

[2029] It is such a triumph in every single way.

[2030] It's like a horror gore movie with a bear.

[2031] It's so funny.

[2032] It's insane.

[2033] And the, in gory and scary and pop -outy.

[2034] And it is incredible.

[2035] Couldn't believe how fucking great it was.

[2036] Screaming, laughing.

[2037] Oh, I love that.

[2038] Thank God I wasn't getting bounced around during all of it.

[2039] Because I could have ruined it Maybe don't see that in 4D No, go see Cocaine Bear though It is brilliant That's awesome I want you to watch it so bad I will Oh we're gonna have a viewing We're gonna get our hands on it Oh cool We want everyone to see it Okay great Yeah I saw Navalny Yes Which is on HBO Max If anyone has yet to see it Which I think a lot of people have seen it Especially now since it won the Oscar It was so good so well done.

[2040] It's incredible.

[2041] So fucking, I saw it in D .C. on Friday night.

[2042] And if you don't know, and I'm sure, again, I'm sure you do.

[2043] But it's the Russian opposition leader who was poisoned by Putin.

[2044] And then.

[2045] Regroups in Germany or Switzerland or somewhere in Germany.

[2046] And fucking reenters the country.

[2047] I know.

[2048] But also catches them by like, frank.

[2049] calling them basically.

[2050] Yes.

[2051] And then decides to reenter the country and has been in prison ever since.

[2052] He is, I can't believe there's really a human on earth.

[2053] I know.

[2054] The integrity.

[2055] Of him and the willingness to fight.

[2056] It's incredible.

[2057] It really is incredible.

[2058] Truly.

[2059] Oh, God.

[2060] And he's so attractive to.

[2061] He is.

[2062] Did you not find yourself like so attracted to him?

[2063] Yes.

[2064] Yeah.

[2065] He's just a babe.

[2066] You know, he's doing the right.

[2067] thing and even and of course I thought of you because I thought oh Dax probably wishes he could do this leave and then get poisoned but then be the victor and then reenter even though everyone's like daddy no no but even the daughter did not say daddy no that also was so sad and sweet she was like no he needs to do that and it's the right thing God I'd be so mad at my dad yeah she's just she's donating him she is history to the cause yeah it's heartbreaking And they're such a beautiful family.

[2068] Oh, when the wife and him are getting pulled away.

[2069] It's all, I mean, it is so intense.

[2070] It is.

[2071] So good.

[2072] The documentarian did such a good job.

[2073] Yeah.

[2074] But also, I saw it in D .C. And I really felt sort of moved by that.

[2075] Like, oh, wow.

[2076] We have so many problems in this country.

[2077] We're so polarized.

[2078] There are so many issues.

[2079] But we don't have.

[2080] this and thank god thank god yeah like it really made me grateful me too yeah a lot of the things can feel trivial it's like when when the the press is so routinely attacked and i'm a part of that i have many issues with modern day press yeah even new york times i don't like how they necessarily reported relative to the rest of the world their coverage of covid it was 78 % of With some astronomical number were negative, whereas in the world community, it was 50 -50.

[2081] That bothers me. You know, I expect the New York Times to reflect the World Health Organization and the rest of the world.

[2082] It's reporting.

[2083] That bums me out.

[2084] But all that to say, God does it need to be safeguarded and protected?

[2085] Because it's really the only way that we don't end up with that, with some despot that can fucking poison people.

[2086] That's who catches them as the press.

[2087] Yeah.

[2088] Then that's what happened here, too.

[2089] Great talk.

[2090] Good recommendation.

[2091] Just watch it.

[2092] Watch it.

[2093] And then go see Cocaine Bear.

[2094] Yeah.

[2095] Well, then go watch the whale.

[2096] That's what we watched.

[2097] Oh, wow.

[2098] That's an experience.

[2099] Okay.

[2100] I do have some facts.

[2101] And one of them is really important.

[2102] Okay?

[2103] Really important.

[2104] You said accidentally Margaret E. Muir.

[2105] And then we were like, oh, I must have just said that.

[2106] Who's that?

[2107] And we were like, maybe she is related to John Muir or something.

[2108] And then we were laughing, blah, blah, blah.

[2109] I found on Twitter, Muir Middle School, Muir Middle School, that's where you went, right?

[2110] Yes.

[2111] This is the Muir Middle School account.

[2112] Oh, their own Twitter account.

[2113] Their Twitter account.

[2114] Oh, my God, that's great.

[2115] There's a picture of an elderly lady.

[2116] Uh -huh.

[2117] And it says Margaret Muir.

[2118] Look it!

[2119] A lifelong Milford resident taught for 52 years in HVS.

[2120] I don't know what that means.

[2121] Um, heating and cooling.

[2122] No. HVAC.

[2123] Here on Valley Schools.

[2124] Okay.

[2125] There we go.

[2126] Wow.

[2127] She was 107 when she passed away in 2003.

[2128] Oh my God.

[2129] So you were talking about this lady.

[2130] Oh my God.

[2131] They named it after a local woman.

[2132] I love it.

[2133] I thought you said it was named after John Muir.

[2134] No, I said it's named after my school's named after Margaret E. Muir.

[2135] Wait, but when we were talking during this, there was a whole discrepancy about John Muir.

[2136] Yeah, because I said, oh, named after, she said something Muir, she went to something Muir.

[2137] Yeah.

[2138] And I said, oh, named after Margaret E. Muir, and she said, Margaret E. Muir.

[2139] No, John Muir.

[2140] And then I was like, oh, who is Margaret E. Muir?

[2141] It's because my school was named that.

[2142] Okay, I thought you said, oh, wow, okay.

[2143] That was confusing.

[2144] But all right, her.

[2145] Okay, great.

[2146] So I didn't imagine that my school was named.

[2147] She was a lifelong Milford resident.

[2148] That's wild.

[2149] We should have named our daughter's Margaret E. Newark.

[2150] Whoa.

[2151] Yeah, that's crazy.

[2152] Oh, wow.

[2153] Just on Twitter.

[2154] Oh, my God, there you go.

[2155] Yeah.

[2156] That's a big victory for Twitter and Elon Musk.

[2157] You know, we give them a lot of shade.

[2158] We don't.

[2159] How, that's not Elon Musk's feather.

[2160] Okay.

[2161] So Metallica, James Hetfield.

[2162] Yeah.

[2163] Muir Woods.

[2164] Right.

[2165] He turned up over 1 ,000 acres of land as open space that will end up with the Marin Agricultural Land Trust.

[2166] after the county board of supervisors signed off on the deal Tuesday.

[2167] This was in 2018.

[2168] Well, he donated a bunch of his land?

[2169] Yes.

[2170] That's big of them.

[2171] Yeah.

[2172] Because you were saying he lived in the woods.

[2173] Like in the redwoods, yeah.

[2174] He turned over that.

[2175] Oh, wow.

[2176] Further the mission of preserving Marin's farmland.

[2177] Marin, Marin's farmland.

[2178] Excuse me. That's embarrassing.

[2179] Mark Marin.

[2180] Mark Marin's farmland.

[2181] Johns.

[2182] The reason his name is Johns.

[2183] Hopkins is?

[2184] Uh -huh.

[2185] Is because he's named for his great grandmother, Margaret Johns.

[2186] the daughter of Richard Johns.

[2187] Oh, God.

[2188] Johns, that's why.

[2189] I don't like it.

[2190] Even though I now know the etymology of it.

[2191] I don't like it.

[2192] Johns.

[2193] Okay.

[2194] Also, qualities of physical beauty, according to Wikipedia, but according to studies.

[2195] I do like really quick, though.

[2196] I do like mics, Jersey mics.

[2197] Sure.

[2198] But that's.

[2199] Possessive.

[2200] Yeah.

[2201] But we can pretend it's plural.

[2202] Okay.

[2203] We do say, that's what we say.

[2204] Yeah.

[2205] Isn't that what we said?

[2206] I think you remember always that.

[2207] We love mics.

[2208] We love mics.

[2209] We do.

[2210] I haven't had it in a while.

[2211] It's about all the mics in New Jersey.

[2212] Jersey mics.

[2213] Jersey's mics.

[2214] Jersey's mics.

[2215] Okay.

[2216] Eight pillars of beauty.

[2217] Okay.

[2218] Youthfulness.

[2219] Not voting well for us since we can't do 4D anymore.

[2220] Symmetry.

[2221] Oh, sure.

[2222] The golden rule.

[2223] Averageness.

[2224] Hmm.

[2225] That's confusing.

[2226] Sex hormone markers.

[2227] Body odor, motion, skin complexion, and hair texture.

[2228] Boiling, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding.

[2229] Yeah.

[2230] So, but although this says some physical features are attractive in both men and women, particularly bodily and facial symmetry, although one contrary report suggests that, quote, absolute flawlessness with perfect symmetry can be disturbing.

[2231] but I keep hearing about the golden ratio something about the ratio where your noses to your forehead yeah that makes sense like proportional I have the most asymmetrical face because being yes listen this is objectively true I was breached so when I came out if I should do pictures of me as a baby I look like an eggplant my mother will tell you that one side of my face is completely pinched like this because my face was jammed into the pelvis and I came out and I think they thought I was going to like really have a tough road ahead.

[2232] Fixed itself largely, but that's why my nostrils are totally asymmetrical.

[2233] And when I smile, one side goes way up and the other one's out, this is all a result of being squished.

[2234] Because when I look at Lincoln's face, I go, oh, that's what my face would look like if I were born breach.

[2235] She doesn't have any of the asymmetrical things I have.

[2236] Interesting.

[2237] The heterogeneity in my face.

[2238] And you don't think your face, like most people's faces don't.

[2239] Like, how do I say?

[2240] Tell me about most people's faces.

[2241] They, they don't stay the same as when they were a baby.

[2242] Things get, like, you know, they change and evolve and because your face is really malleable as a baby.

[2243] But if one side of the face is three times bigger than the other side, sure, it's going to lessen over time, but you're not going to make up that.

[2244] Look how different shape my nostrils are.

[2245] This is very rare.

[2246] It's not rare.

[2247] Most people don't have symmetrical faces.

[2248] That's why it's considered a sign of high beauty.

[2249] That's why I'm going this mustache shot so you can't.

[2250] see my nostrils because you want to be an OB.

[2251] Yeah.

[2252] That's really what you.

[2253] Dr. Wombbrum.

[2254] Okay.

[2255] Symmetry may be evolutionarily beneficial as a sign of health because asymmetry signals past illness or injury.

[2256] I guess sort of what you're saying.

[2257] Yes.

[2258] People knew I was in the, I was upside down in the womb room.

[2259] One study suggested people were able to gauge beauty at a subliminal level by seeing only a glimpse of a picture for 100th of a second.

[2260] Wow.

[2261] Yeah, we're good at it vivid color in the eyes and hair well think about it this way too remember we were i don't forget who we had on but we're talking about the mirror image of the body internally like your inside's ever kind of a mirror image and in fact that's what's really curious about cancer doesn't ever end up in the spleen was it but if you look at the liver which is the opposite organ that's the same it's weirdly yeah so i think if your face isn't symmetrical reasonable believe that inside your organs have grown asymmetrically, too.

[2262] Like, I can see revolutionarily, it's a signal that things didn't grow in a mirror image of each other.

[2263] I mean, yeah.

[2264] Your face is totally symmetrical.

[2265] It's homogeneous.

[2266] Thank you.

[2267] I disagree, but I have been told.

[2268] I don't want to, I'm going to keep talking.

[2269] No, hold dead still.

[2270] I don't know which side is which.

[2271] If I drew a line in the middle, you could not tell.

[2272] I have been told that, which is very complimentary.

[2273] The problem with me is, the problem with my face is...

[2274] Can't wait to hear from your point of view what the problem is.

[2275] No, really.

[2276] And I have to go.

[2277] Yeah.

[2278] If you take the individual pieces, like if you're just looking at symmetry, it's like, oh, it's pretty symmetrical.

[2279] If you just look at, like, my eyes, they're okay.

[2280] My lips are okay.

[2281] Like, if you look individually...

[2282] No one's going to use the word you just used, but go ahead.

[2283] The way it all got thrown at my face, it didn't work out.

[2284] Okay.

[2285] That's your take on it?

[2286] It's weird if you isolate.

[2287] You're saying your face is less than the sum of its parts.

[2288] Yes, actually, yes.

[2289] Okay, that's, I disagree with you.

[2290] And I'll look at other people's faces often.

[2291] And I think, wow.

[2292] That's a mess individually, but honestly, yes.

[2293] Yeah, but collectively, that's a nice, it's like a Picasso.

[2294] Not a mess, but I look individually at the features, and I think.

[2295] think, okay, I mean, it's fine, it's fine, fine, fine, it's fine, fine, average, and then somehow together, it's, like, perfect looking.

[2296] Yeah.

[2297] So I find that extremely unfair, and the reason for my hard work and success.

[2298] Well, Rob and I are grateful that you have this body dysmorphia and warped view of yourself because you'd probably suck at this job if you thought otherwise.

[2299] I feel upset because we have to go.

[2300] I have to go get my pap smear.

[2301] Your vagina's burning a hole in your pants.

[2302] I can't wait to get this mustache -mustagioed man. You know, Carrie was really horny.

[2303] I told you this before.

[2304] I think she was horny during pap smears.

[2305] Well, I don't think she'd mind me saying this, but she thought her gynecologist was so hot.

[2306] Oh, my God.

[2307] That's a disaster.

[2308] That's a disaster?

[2309] Yeah, because was she like, wet?

[2310] I mean, that's scary.

[2311] Or flattering to the doctor.

[2312] No, I don't think there's.

[2313] No man is going to be upset.

[2314] No, we don't like that.

[2315] We want our gynecologists to not have...

[2316] Not her, she want her gynaecologist to get on top of her.

[2317] I hate to tell you.

[2318] Did they ever have sex?

[2319] No, but I thought this was...

[2320] I found it to be very erotic that she had this fantasy about this guy.

[2321] It's not, though.

[2322] It's so critical.

[2323] Not if you don't want that, it's terrible.

[2324] No medical professional should ever...

[2325] Oh, my God.

[2326] Okay, I'm being clear about that.

[2327] But she was horny for him.

[2328] And in that case, for her, I'm like, how sexy for her?

[2329] I do have a friend who has a hot doctor, and I do think about that.

[2330] Like, I would never want to see him as my doctor.

[2331] Because he would make you nervous.

[2332] Yeah.

[2333] It peps me every three months.

[2334] And you're like, my farts have stung for three months.

[2335] Oh, my God.

[2336] Right.

[2337] You could never go in there and go, something's weird.

[2338] My farts have been smelling really weird for three months.

[2339] You would never tell your hot doctor.

[2340] Never.

[2341] You just go there to report to him like, just wanted to pop in.

[2342] I lost six pounds.

[2343] But I'd have to get, like, a wax or, like, I'd have to like everything would need to be perfectly manicured before I went in for the like it'd just be a lot of red tape before I went in there but you could it's how you frame it you could feel like getting ready for a date could feel fun like oh he's gonna love yeah you're wearing like um super crazy lingerie to get your mammogram oh yeah we're leaving it out stockings on still stockies oh my god garter belt oh wow your betty hill sketch from the 80s Okay, well, this was fun.

[2344] Yeah, I can't wait to hear a report on the doctor.

[2345] For the pap?

[2346] Yeah, on the pap updates.

[2347] Okay.

[2348] All right.

[2349] I love you.

[2350] Post results on social.

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