How The Louvre Works

I know it's me. You know, if you really go, you know, French with everything, it makes you sound like a church. Lu Is it Lua? Or is it lou? Lou? Is it lou? You'd say it like that. I'm gonna try as well, but I mean it's yeah, it's we're paying homage to the mother tongue. The museum. We're talking about the seat of culture and art. Yeah, for centuries now biggest busiest museum in the world. Yeah, and apparently it's gotten much busier in the last couple of decades. Yeah.

I saw eight point eight million visitors a year at this point, nine point eight and two thousand two thousand ten, it was nine point eight that was the high mark. Uh, two thousand thirteen it was nine point three million, Okay, so it's the correct the nine Yeah, but back in nine nine it was three million. So they're up like almost seven million people a year. Yeah. And I've seen seventy thousand works of art and thirty five thousand, so

I think they have thirty on display in seventy. They got a whole other half that they just sit on and swap out. They're whimsy exactly, They're French whimsy and uh, the French whimsy. Uh, the French whim that directs that now is a guy named Jean Luke Martinez, the French whim. Yeah. Well he's in charge of the whip, right, Yeah, and he's got his work cut out for him, because you know,

that whole recession hit everybody, including the loof. Yeah. It costs twelve euros for the permanent collection, thirteen for the Hall Napoleon. Right. It's closed Tuesdays, but it's open free to the public on Sundays for half the year. Yeah, and then I best Steal Day, which if you're listening to this when it comes out, it's coming up you can get into the loop for free. Yeah, I think it's free during the not I think from up until March, and then from April through like September. It's not free

because there's sort of like the big summer travel months. Yeah, and the stick to you And I think it's free if you're eighteen to under eighteen, and then eighteen to twenty five. If you're from the EU, I think you can get in for free. And if you're an artist or student, come right in. Yeah, for free. All right, So that's the podcast. We should probably say what we're talking about too, like the ten people out there who

don't know what the louvi is please. The louver Is Um a world famous art museum situated in Paris, and it's had a very long life. It was actually first built in I believe eleven ninety the Compecian ruler of France, Philippe august those Frenzy Uh. Philippe said, um, I was on the edge of town at the time. Yeah, he said, I need to protect my stuff, so I'm gonna build a medieval fortress, and so I'm gonna build a museum. These are the medieval times. I'll build a fortress and

later on people will call it a medieval fortress. That's right. It was just your standard fortress, had a moat, had to keep which will figure in later because they ended up finding that junk, which is kind of neat. It's very neat. I haven't seen it. I don't remember if I saw her while writing this at this article, like, I found pictures of it and came to think that I thought I sadly went to the front door and did not go inside. You didn't go in the louver. No,

pretty neat. I told you my whole backpacking trip. Like, we literally couldn't afford We were eating like apples for lunch. Uh, So we did not pay to go into almost anything. Right, Well, you're blowing all your money on dinner, huh, pretty much for lunch and sure for dinner. Yeah, Holland put a dent in our finances. You didn't go in, but at

least you wanted to write I did, um. So, like you said, it was a fortress for many years, and about a hundred and fifty years later, it was not on the edge of the city, which is not a good place for fortress to be in the middle of a city because Paris grew around it, and they said, you can't really have a fortress in the middle of city. It doesn't do us much good. So let's build a big wall around everything, around all of Paris. So now the Louver was a wall within walls. It stopped kind

of serving its purpose. Like you said, I think it served as like a prison for a while, that kind of thing. But then it was ultimately abandoned for a number of years. And then it happened a few times throughout history. It's been loved and neglected like time and time again. Actually fell into pretty bad disrepair at one point, Um the in the fourteenth century. I had it wrong in the article, but I went in and corrected it.

In the fourteenth century, UM, after the Louvid just been neglected for a while and unused, um the ruler Charles the five said, hey, this would make a pretty good palatial residence for me. So yeah, so I'm gonna take this ancient medieval fortress and turn it into the royal residence. And he did it. Charles the sixth did it, and then it fell out of fashion for another hundred years. Yeah, the loop just went back into a state of neglected. But it had taken a first step toward becoming the

Louver Museum. Going from fortress to residents had to have helped not just a residence, a residence for a king moderately. Yeah, yeah, they, I mean they tricked it out right. Then, like you said, it fell into disrepair and neglect for another century. Then it became fashionable again. It's like people just kept forgetting about the Louver, and then every couple of generations the new king would be like, oh, the lou I guess I'll move in there. Yeah, that's kind of how it happened.

Chase out the goats, bringing my tapestry. Uh. So after that hundred years, Francois one fixes it up even more. He brings in his decorator, and they got some architects and said, let's expand it, actually make it bigger and build new wings and remodel the old stuff. He flipped this, uh fortress. What's the name of the show? Uh? And he did a great job with that, and Louis the thirteenth and fourteen said, this is fantastic. I think we're gonna let's keep this up. Yeah, We're gonna kick it

up even higher. Um until oh, Versailles built, and that's actually way more awesome. So we're gonna live there now. Yeah, And wherever the king went, that's where all of them aristocrats went as well, Like they hung out the court hung out with the king, and so like if the king was hanging out on Versailles, it was terribly unfashionable to be sticking around Paris. Yeah, that's what happened to love.

It just fell out of fashion with the kings. Yeah, and when they went to Versailles, it was unfinished and they kind of left it that way, and then that was when it got kind of beat up. I mean they had it was basically abandoning a construction project in the middle, so they didn't have roofs over some of these rooms, but a lot of the louver had been

built out have been well appointed. And even though like by the time Versailles was built, it was left again in neglect the found nation for the building itself, the house had been built. Yeah, you know, I wonder when they're going to neglect it next. I don't know if it's gonna happen again. It might take the collapse of society for that to happen again. Yeah, Well maybe that'll happen. Here's open. Oh yeah, you pulling for the collapse? Yeah,

why not? You're looking for a roadlike situation. Yeah, I'd like to see how I do? How I fair? You want to meet Robert Duvall is what it is? Yeah? Pretty much? Is he did? No, it's Dennis Hopper doing just fine. Yeah. Man, he's married to a young lady dancing the salsa. He saws us. Yeah, he made a movie or tango. I think he made a movie about it. Ethan, that's Antonio benderis thinking he made a movie called Assassination Tango, which I have where he was like, I think he

was a hired killer who don't say it? Yeah no, uh huh man because of his love with the dango, Oh my goodness, and called that a passion project. Get slash box off his poison. Well, man alive. I'm gonna delete that from my memory bank. I wonder if he was like, you know, what hasn't been done yet? And no one around him said, and it hadn't been numb for a right, God bless him. Um. All right, so let's flash forward a little bit to the midst seventeenth century.

Did you get that date? Right? I did. It was just cyn uh. And this is when things kind of this is when the lou really started, made the initial transition towards the seat of culture in Paris, because they housed the three academies there that were form the academy. You take it, since you're all okay, um, there is the Academy de Scripture. Okay, so the Academy of Painting and Sculpture, Visual Arts. Yeah. Uh, the Academy Frances. That's

pretty easy. That's the official body of the French language. Yeah, which kind of holds the French language hosta like, the French language doesn't change unless this governing body says it does. Yeah,

it's all prescriptive ist. It's very prescriptive ist language, whereas here in the States you can just make up a word and put on the internet and if enough people use, it's an urban dictionary and it's a thing, and they're definitely prescription ists to like drive crazy, but t s. I wonder if they have a dictionary about that for French slang. Maybe yeah, I'll bet, but I'll bet the Academy Frances hates it. I'm sure you're ready for the

third one. I'm so ready This is the Academy days in scription a Bell letter UH, and apparently that is deals with humanities, history and philosophy. So they founded these in the mid seventeenth century to basically make frances h culturally significant and snooty as they could. Well they I mean, they're trying to protect their culture, is what they were.

I mean, France had become very like this seed of culture around Europe especially, but also around the world thanks to the Age of Exploration, and they were like, let's let's codify this's cement it and they did. But they moved those three academies into the Louver, like no one's over there. So almost awesome, right exactly, So almost as literal as figurative language can get. They moved the seat

of world culture into the loop. So that, combined with the fact that the Louver was pretty awesome and decked out, really laid the groundwork for the modern period to come along. Yeah, and I didn't realize this, but they once academies moved in, they started what would end up being sort of like

an ex art exhibition with the UH. And they basically would have an exhibition a salon, and they would trot out these cultural artifacts and people would come see them and I guess someone said, hey, this is kind of like a museum, right, and they said that's a great idea and it should be free. Yeah, And and these

were all really huge ideas. The fact, I mean these were from the king's collection, and the reason that these academies were able to get their hands on it and put them on exhibit for the public for free was because the monarchy was like, yeah, please don't depose me. It's cool. It's cool word democracy now. But I'm just here being rich. So everybody, whatever you want to do,

if you want to show people, that's cool. And that's how the Louver as a museum was born, was from this French revolution, coexisting with the monarchs art collection and showing it to people for free. That's right. As Louis twenty six bowl he said, he wanted to be a place for gathering together all the monuments of the sciences and arts. Just don't cut my head off, that's right. Um. And so at that point it was like we said it was free for all they wanted it to that

was the people to gather there. Yeah, and this is what is when it was officially established as the French National Museum, and they did cut Louis head off, so it didn't work. No, it was had a couple of names. It was the Music Francais at first in the Music Central the Arts, and then the Music de Antichrist muse. Napoleon, Yeah, he came along after the French Revolution deposed the monarchy

and said, let's try something different. How about I'll be the emperor, that the king the emperor, and I'll try to conquer as much of the world as I can. And it was pretty successful at it. But being French and coming from a France where the Louve existed already, now that all these different academies and the idea of France owning art. When he would go conquer the land, and we're talking substantial lands here like Austria, Spain, uh, Italy, I think Italy was where he got a lot of

the art. He would say, sign this treaty and buried in the treaty was you we give France control of all the art. And so Napoleon would go in and conquer. And then the director of the Louver at the time, a guy named um oh what was his last His last name is Dinon um yeah, he was. He was the curator basically that he would send around and he would be like, I'd like this, and I'd like this. Yeah.

After Napoleon's armies conquered a place the treaty was signed, Dinon would go in and just grab stuff for the loof. This would look great on that south wall, don't you think. And Napoleon said the Mona Lisa would look great in my bedroom, which is where you put it, didn't. Yeah. Yeah, we'll get more into the Mona Lisa more later on because it has a pretty interesting history. Well, before we keep going on any of this, Chuck, I think we

should take a message break. I'm starting to steam up, alight, it's so good, all right, steamy? Yeah, wipe off those glasses. I'm not wearing glasses. Your contacts are fogging up. I've never seen that happen. Um, So we're the modern history now, right, I would guess. So we should say that Napoleon was eventually exiled and he his museum music to Napoleon was changed finally officially to the MUSICI de louve Um, which it has has been since. And I think eighteen fifteen

is when that happened. Um, and then yeah, in in modern times, we should say that Napoleon gives a good example of one of the ways that the louver um acquired a mass so many pieces in its collection. Punder sure we talked about Egypt Egyptology, a lot, a lot of that stuff ended up at the Louver until Egypt said I'd like that back. Yeah, and even then the

lu said, well how about some of it? Um. And remember the guy who the Frenchman who cracked them the Rosetta Stone and we did the Rosetta Stone episode, Tom Hanks Campion, Campion or Champion. Yeah. Uh, he was the loose director of the egypt collection. Oh yeah, yeah, that makes sense. Yeah, it really does, because I mean, very

few people knew more about it than that guy. Um. So along the way in the nineteenth century, the Louver was not just a museum, but it was also a a kind of a working studio where people would artists would great artists would go and study and practice and paint and sculpt which is pretty neat um Impressionists especially have still have a lot of work there and all

the old stuff is still there. And it wasn't until when they said let's split this up because there's a fancy new museum across the river, muse a day or say, And they said, why don't we just do it chronologically and said anything after you guys can have. I guess that that's the modern collection UM, and anything else old we're gonna hang on too. And so the the Louve kind of said, we're going to keep all the Hellenic

Roman um Renaissance. Renaissance is huge, all that stuff, and and we should say, um, these collections that the Louve got its hands on, UM, it wasn't just from plunder. A lot of it was from the kings that had amassed their royal collections that were basically taken from them for the French people during the French Revolution UM, most notably Francois the First, and he was the French king during the height of the Renaissance, and he used to

accept donations to his collection from artists themselves. So like the michael Angelo was the slave the sculpture michael Angelo gave that to France Fis the First. So like a lot of these pieces in the Lews collection like are like they belong there. Some were plundered from Egypt, some were plundered from during the Holocaust, and then some were bought to like Napoleon bought a collection from the Italians for like twelve million francs. Yeah, which is a lot

of dough. But um, that was the borgeous collection. Uh, close to seven pieces from Greece and Rome. I guess it was worth the money. That wasn't his money anyone, he didn't care, right, Yeah, it's like I just stole all this money. I don't not just give it to you for that stuff from from Italy. Ironically enough, Uh, World War two came along, which posted a real challenge to art in general. Um, I haven't seen the monuments men. Have you seen that? No, I haven't heard. It's not

very good, despite the fact that it should be. You know, I've heard the same thing, like all these great people are in it, and it's still not very good. But it's supposedly. Um, the Rape of Europa, the documentary that it's based on, is supposed to be very good. Unsurprisingly. Yeah, that's usually the case, but not always. Ill and I also have to say this has nothing to do with the Louf. But have you seen The Art of the Steel? Yes? God,

is such a good documentary, super good about Philadelphia or Pittsburgh, Philadelphia. Yeah, how the city like stole an art collection? Yeah, I mean it's super interesting. It's just go see it. I think it's on Netflix that I think you can get it anywhere. It's just a really good documentary. Yeah, agreed. Art documentaries, man, there's nothing scizzily or there's a lot of good ones. Actually. And I'm not even like super art guy. You know I'm not either. I'm just trying

to pronounce French here. Well I say I'm not super art guy. I love museums and I just don't have the schooling. You don't talk about it. I just know what I like to look at, you know what I'm saying. Yeah, you know who is good at that? If you don't

know what you're doing but you want to learn. There's an old PBS series called Sister Wendy, and she was this nun bride of Christ lifelong right, who was one of the foremost experts in art criticism and understanding art and was also exceptionally good at explaining it in lay terms. And you just watch this lady's like shows and she's pointing out stuff in paintings that you're like, I didn't even realize that there was there visually, let alone what

it meant. And she's just so good at explaining. So if you want to know more about art, especially classic art, um, but don't know what you're doing, she's a great place to start. And I guarantee it's all over the youtubes and stuff for free, because I'm excited now, sister Wendy. All right, you'll love her, sweet man. PBS. They just get it right, don't they. Yes, they do, go um All right, So where were we World War two? Nazis? Yeah, the Nazis they invaded Paris, of course, and they emptied

up the Louver and I'm sorry. Before they invaded, the French people said we need to get rid of this stuff, so they gave it to a bunch of rich people who hid them at their various vacation homes. And it worked pretty well. They couldn't take everything, obviously that they moved all the stuff out of the louver. The French did, and then when the Nazis came and found an empty louve, they said, well, we're plundering a lot of art around

the world, so let's just use the louve as our repository. Yeah, and they literally like six massive rooms in the Louver were like packing and shipping of art. It became a warehouse essentially. Um and they called that the Louver sequestra San Wait, that's just English sequestration and um, yeah, that's that was a pretty dark time, I would say for

the Louver. It was. It was also a very shady time too, because um, in the nineties, there was a Puerto Rican journal list Um I don't remember his name, but I read a good interview with him, it's in the Lots More Information section of this article, who basically started doing some sniffing around. So he heard at some party that like of Nazi art that was looted had never been returned, and he was like, what that's that's astounding.

It's a terrible number. Just sort of looking in and more and more and more, and a lot of that art that had been brought into the Louver by the Nazis hadn't made its way back out after the Nazis were defeated. Oops. So the Loops collection had a substantial amount of Nazi looted art from you know, Jewish families that have been killed in the Holocaust that might still

have some survivors and the museum. And it's not just the Loop, but you know, it's a dark spot on a lot of European museum's history that in the art world in general, that a lot of art that was stolen by the Nazis was nobody made any any attempts to return it after the war. They just kind of

held onto it. That's despicable. Well, as journalists from Puerto Rico got to the bottom of it, called the Loup out and and the nineties, the Louver started being like, oh crazy, yeah, we do have let's find the owners the rightful air. So they started giving them back. But there's still apparently plenty of of um pieces in the Louver, among many other museums. Again, uh, the Holocaust start is

what they call it. Yeah, are alluded not to the art. Yeah, that's weird that it took this guy from it took Jimmy San Juan, beat reporter from Puerto Rico. Well, you know, it seems like museums, what do we talk about recently went museum, We talked about repatriation. It seems like museums are rightfully taking a beating in popular opinion because from from you know, the nineteenth to the twentieth century. In

the middle of the twenty century with Nazi looting. There are a lot of shady things that museums did and just no one talked about and they out away with it. And I think taking them to task now and getting things right is is a good thing. I think that there's a right way to acquire artifacts and pieces of art, and stealing them from war is not one of them. No war plundering, that's not on your list, all right, I agree? Uh yeah, Another dark part of the loose history.

In one the Paris Commune, there were a socialist group and basically staged a revolt and did they burn down part of the loop. They burned down the palace Detuler, the Tuleries one of those two um and in it was a lot of furniture, some art, and it was part of the louver. But apparently it was just by sheer miracle that the Loup itself didn't also burn to the ground, and they rebuilt part of the Tuleries um.

But the it was apparently like more of an attack on the vestiges of the monarchy, which was the Tillery's palace still smacked of so they weren't necessarily trying to get at the art. No, not not as far as I understand. But it was a big deal because the Louver was very close by, and I think they did lose a decent amount of art and stuff. All right. The Mona Lisa has had a bit of a history. Um, it wasn't always on display at the Louver. Um. One time it was stolen. Well, he said it was in

Napoleon's room for a while. It was in his bedroom for a little poster Jordan Dunking, that's right. Uh. And then in nineteen eleven it was stolen. Um. Apparently the the security at the Loop back then sucked. Yeah. Well you were saying like it was almost like an art studio, uh, some parts of it. Yeah, Yeah. I think that there's a lot of access. Yeah, and there was a lot of like a lack of Daisic latitude towards security. Yeah. And so there was a big fat body security guard

named Maximilian Pepaldine. He left work, came back two days later, because it was he left them that did before that they closed. And he said when he came back there were four iron hooks and rectangular shape, several shades deeper than the surrounding area, and no Mona Lisa. No. For a while they thought it was Picasso and Apolloniere, and they had a group of like young artists who just

thumb their nose at things like the Louver. They were tough, they were toughs, and they didn't like the establishment, the art establishment, so they thought they might have actually stolen the Mona Lisa as a like an act of protest. Right. What's crazy is when they went to like search these guys apartments, they found two stolen pieces from the Louver Picassa's apartment, so they weren't too far off. But no Mona Lisa wanted out to be an Italian estodian at

the place. Yeah, Vincenzo Perugia, and he was a repatriot's trying to repatriated the old fashioned way pretty much. He's like, this belongs in Italy and so I'm gonna steal it and take it there. Uh. He got caught trying to sell it in Florence. Um. But for a little while after he was caught and before it went back to Italy, they actually did display it at the Effusi Gallery in Florence and took it on a little tour of Italy, so a little victory lap. Yeah, exactly, So he was

fairly successful. Uh. And then he did get it displayed in its home country. But supposedly they got the uh Mona Lisa like directly from Da Vinci is what they said. I don't know if that's true. And it's not painted on canvas, so you can't like roll it up and stick it up your shirt sleeve. It's like painted on him on a wood block birch. Yeah, I didn't realize that. I haven't even seen it. It's really small white poplar. Is that a birch? No, it's white poplar. I got

it right in the article wrong just now. So yeah, it was a custodin. He stole it and tried to sell it. That was where he aired, just trying to get money for it. But the problem is is uh, well, it's not a problem. It's just a weird thing. The Mona Lisa has attracted all sorts of strange attention. UM. As recently as I think two thousand nine or ten, a Russian woman who was touring Paris bought a UM coffee mug from the Louver gift shop and threw it at the Mona Lisa where it shattered on the Yeah,

because it's behind class. Yeah, the Mona Lisa is behind bulletproof class. So that mug wasn't gonna do anything. But but it's like, even if you know that it's not going to do anything, that's a weird thing to do. People have thrown acid at it. People have thrown red paint at it. Stones don't get it um. One guy shot himself in the head, committed suicide in front of it. It's try to find more on that, but I couldn't. It's a very it's a it's a weird thing. There's

this thing called Stendall syndrome. Did you see that. Stendall syndrome is this idea where you are confronted with so much great art, like supposedly, if you travel to Florence, some people are so overwhelmed by the beauty of the art surrounding them that they faint. Other people are so overwhelmed that they act irrationally and want to destroy it or something like that. Some people have been known to copulate,

uh when confronted with great art. And some of these cities, like the Morning apparently, but there's this thing called Stendall syndrome. I don't know the veracity of it, but it is a thing. I wonder what that thing is. I just got back from Max Funcan, which is there's a drive up to go to Lake Arrowhead, which is where it is where you drive up the side of a mountain for like five thousand feet straight up windy roads, not

straight up. But I had that thing where like you're driving and you're like, I could just drive right off this thing, off this club. And I talked to a bunch of people there, and a bunch of people said, yeah, me too, like what is that? I I don't know. Not everybody has it, though we talked a lot about it, actually because a lot of people identified with it and we were trying to figure it out as a group what that is. And I don't know. I think I ended up it. Uh maybe like a power thing, like

I know that I could do this. So you have that urge because it's not suicidal, No, no, it's strictly an urge and you are aware, like you know, maybe I shouldn't drive you close to this because part of me is saying like, well would happened? You know, it's always has to deal with death though, because when I see a cop with a gun always, I could grab that thing right now. I could just grab it and shoot something. That's how I feel about ice cream sandwiches.

You can just grab it, need it, you know. It's I mean, I don't think it's related to end I'll syndrome. I think some people identify them and have some more information though, But there are people out there serious. Remember Chris, the programmer who used to work here. I asked him the same thing, because you know, I used to smoke, you know, and smoke out on that deck and every

once while just lean over the side. Yeah, and then I have to like get back away from it, like whoa, you know this is I don't want to just some part of my brain to go and like throw me over. That's the fear. It's like some part of your brains is gonna take control. And maybe that's right. And I mentioned it to him and he looked at me like I was totally crazy. He's like, no, I've never felt that way. I think that was in Louis H. Parker. Posey talked about jumping off the building when he was

on a date with her and Louis. Yeah, uh yeah, it's interesting, but that ties back into to bring it full circle, when the Mona Lisa was stolen though, as a professor at the Sore Bone that worried that it was a sexual psychopath who would defile the Mona Lisa and be areous ways sexually. Um so I guess that ties back into the syndrome you were talking about stend All. Yes, they thought he could take pleasure in mutilating, stabbing, or defiling her and then return her when he was quote

through with her. That's disturbing on many levels. So the Mona Lisa's pretty much inarguably the most um famous resident of the Louver, but there's plenty of other ones too. There's the Venus Demila, Yeah, she's not bad. The winged victory of Samoth thrace Um quote of Hammurabi. Yeah, that's about as historically significant as it gets. And there it is, just sitting there in the Louver. Oh, we we didn't really ever get around to it. Like the pyramid by

I am Pa when was that the eighties? Um at this this class pyramid that's basically like now the symbol for the Louver. It's it's an entrance. Um, but it goes all the way down to the foundation of the louver. And when they were excavating for it, Um, they uncovered the moat and the medieval keep from like twelve thirty so cool, uh, and they preserved it. It's on display.

You can check it out. Really beautiful. I like it when the building itself is a part of them, like it is part of the art, like the Google him you know, same deal. Um. And then at the end of this thing, I said, like you you have to see the artwork and the louve yourself to really experience it. And it comes off as kind of flip, I think, but I really mean it. That is a as a bucket list thing. I feel silly for going up to the front door and leaving. You know, you can always

go back. How's a kid go back? I will, okay, I will, all right, okay, alright, kid, you're ready, Yes, you're done. I'm done. Okay. Um, if you want to learn more about the Louver, you can type that word l O U v R E in the search part house to works dot com and I said search bar,

which means chuck. Is time for Facebook questions. This is when I have no good listener mail, and so I got a Facebook burn on everybody sending an email recently, and I tell folks to ask us questions and we go through, and we're gonna do this for the next couple of episodes and we'll just read as many as we can get to have to buckle in. I'm gonna go first here. Jonathan Harrop says, whatever happened to the TV show? I enjoyed it? Is it a sore subject. We had one season of a show and that was it,

but it was not renewed. But we hope to do TV again one day and so wish us luck. And it's not a source subject. It's a hilarious subject. It is pretty funny. I mean, have you seen how much makeup I'm wearing in it? And it was just awesome. But a bunch of people asked about the TV show and we appreciate that we had fun make it. Yeah, we still hear from people who are like, it's great. I finally I bought one on itune bring it back. We're like, we're totally powerless to bring it back. What's

act like? Yeah? Uh, here's one from Sarah Angelica Paiewanski. The sounds made up chicken or beef pork. Oh, I was gonna say both, but I say all three now, all right, all three wrapped up in a some sort of role. I love it. Patrick Scott says, what happened to the message break music written by a listener? Patrick? We we're just mixing things up. It might come back again one day. It has come back. Remember, Oh is it back now? Yeah? Here there Jerry's hitting it. Sometimes

it came back like a few episodes back. All right, hit it, Jerry? Did we just play that? I think? So? How do we pick the topics? Chuck? This from Dino is ill doogally? It's a sidically a sidically it's close to that, but with eyes and case instead of the normal Okay, go ahead take it. Oh well, there's uh we always use almost always every once in a while, if we have the time, UH, we might tackle the

subject that like is not on how stuff Works. But for the most part, the best majority of the articles that form the basis of the podcast episodes are from how stuff Works. So will either somebody will right in and say, why don't you guys do one on this? Ye? Sometimes there's suggestions yeah, and then we'll do those more frequently. There's this awesome little random article button that's your go to,

isn't it. Yeah, that's what I do. I'll just sit there and click and click, and you know it's never failed me yet. Yeah. I keep a running list basically, anything that seems interesting that's not just like what we've been doing. We try to mix it up. Yeah, we do try to mix it up, all right. This is from Esther Alona. She wants to hear about childhood aspirations. Um. I kind of always wanted to write me too, and ended up doing that me too. Um, for while there,

I wanted to teach. So for the follow up question, what would you do if you weren't doing this? I could be a teacher. For me, it was always writing ever since I was a little kid. As a matter of fact, I don't feel like i'm writing enough. Yeah, but we are both professional writers, right, which is pretty cool? Prose baby, Um, let's see, do you hear someone from Stephen Gardner Jr. Haven't heard this one before, Chuck. Do we like each other off of the air? Yes, of

course we do. Of course we do, which I can't clearly if you've seen our TV show. You know, we're not actors. He says that the MythBusters don't. Apparently we've heard that before too. I've never I don't know if that's true. I don't think that's necessarily true either. I think that um to work that closely with somebody, or this closely with somebody, just many years to plot and plan and contrive. It's not like we just come into work and they're like, you know, what do we have

to do today? Somebody hands us like the syllabus, and then we do it and leave like like we managed this, Brandy, and we do it together. It's right. So we have to like each other, respect, mutual respect, I think to respect respect, Ryan Mitchell, are there any podcasts one of you wants to do the other refuses? I mean, week to week. There might be a I don't want to

do that one. But I don't think anyone said like I refused to do because we're kind of ideologically on the same page, right, So I don't think there was an there's anything that one of us would really want to do that the other would just refuse to do. I can't think I would. Yeah, I think you're right. I can think of plan we wouldn't do. But none that one of us that there would be conflict over, you know, except for that one. I still can't believe it. Yeah, sorry,

uh chuck. What vegetable do you refuse to eat? This is from Christina Flores. I'm not I don't eat mushrooms. Oh yeah, I'll eat him and then like halfway through, however, whatever mustions I'm meeting, I'm like, that's a bad idea. Yeah, yeah, it's a texture. It's all texture for There's some delicious mushrooms out there, I'm sure. And I used to eat him as a kid, raw, like lick them and put a little salt on him and just eat it. Yeah, and I it's still good. But so what what's your

answer for me? I know you have Brussels sprouts. I know I likes Yeah, I like Brussels sprouts. I hate peas and I've always hated peas. Yeah, but she hate broccoli. I think he's just taste bad. That's what I was thinking. Broccoli tastes terrible too. It's like Dr Hibbert said, it's poison to humans and it tries to warn us with its terrible taste. I love broccoli, loves broccoli. I'm just saying I'll make it for you anytime, like, don't let me hold you back. All right? I got one more. Uh,

this is from Paul Palmley. Which one of your episodes should I have the DJ play at my wedding this Saturday? Thinking magleb or fecal transplant? But I defer to your stage guidance Maglev. Yeah, don't bore people with that one. I would go with cannibalism. Oh, that's a good one. Good wedding material. I would go with. UM. My standby is always um. Is it legal to sterilize addicts through weddings? Do that and play that for everybody and make sure

everybody sits down and it's quiet throughout the whole thing. Yeah, nothing, I do, Chuck. What is that smell? Is that from Michelle Morgan, Mazoo and all these people have made up names? I think that smell is Josh, that's the good smell. What's the bad smells? No, it's the fecal transplant episode,

That's what that is. Uh. If you want to give us some questions to answer on Facebook, we like to troll for them every once in a while, not trolling the bad way troll like, Hey, anybody have some questions. That's what I like fishing trolling. Yeah, you can hang out with us on Facebook dot com at uh facebook dot com, slash Stuff you Should Know. You can tweak to us too at s y s K podcast. You can send us an email to Stuff Podcast at how stuff Works dot com. That's our new old email that

works again, so please make note of it. UH and as always, hang out with us at our home on the web, Stuff you Should Know dot com for more on this and thousands of other topics. Is it how stuff Works dot com