SPEAKER_09: Hey, it's Will Friedle.And Sabrina Bryan.And we're the hosts of the new podcast, Magical Rewind.
SPEAKER_00: You may know us from some of your favorite childhood TV movies like My Date with the President's Daughter.
SPEAKER_09: And the Cheetah Girls movies.
SPEAKER_00: Together we're sitting down to watch all the movies you grew up with and chat with some of your favorite stars and crew that made these iconic movies happen.
SPEAKER_09: So kick back, grab your popcorn, and join us.Listen to Magical Rewind on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Brought to you by State Farm.Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there.
SPEAKER_10: Credit scores, down payments, interest rates.Car buying can be a numbers game, but you don't have to be a math expert to get the keys to your dream car.Just use Kelley Blue Book My Wallet on AutoTrader.Crunch your numbers and get personalized results so you know exactly how much you'll pay each month for your car.It's like having a magic wand for your wallet.Presto!The car you've been wanting is now within reach.So hit the road and leave your calculator at home.AutoTrader.
SPEAKER_05: Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio.
SPEAKER_10: Hey, and welcome to the podcast.I'm Josh, and there's Chuck, and Jerry's here too.And we're just doing our usual, chatting it up here on the podcast that we like to call Stuff You Should Know.
SPEAKER_03: That's right.I'm pretty excited about this one.
SPEAKER_10: Yeah, this is your pick, right?
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, this is one I've been wanting to do for a long time.
SPEAKER_10: Well, here we are, Charles.
SPEAKER_03: Here we are.
SPEAKER_10: Well, I'm glad you're excited.I'm excited, too.It's a pretty cool topic.The Eames, Charles and Ray Eames, Ray and Charles Eames, depending on how you want to say it.It doesn't matter because any way you slice it, they were equals.Yeah.
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.And, you know, if you don't know who we're talking about, we should probably say so right off the bat.They are or I guess I should say were a married couple who kind of I don't know if they changed the face of design, but they were certainly very influential people. And design and, you know, they did all kinds of things in their career, but what they're most known for is their design of simple, eye pleasing and back then affordable furniture.
SPEAKER_10: Yeah, I'm not even sure it was particularly affordable back then, but that was definitely their goal.They wanted to make the best for the most for the least.That really tied into the ethos that they were working in, which was immediately post-war economic boom America.
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I saw that there, and this was in their great documentary, Eames, colon, The Architect and the Painter from 2011, filmmakers Jason Cohn and Bill Jersey.I've seen it twice now.
SPEAKER_10: It's an American Masters one, isn't it?
SPEAKER_03: I don't know.I think it is.PBS may have picked it up, but I don't think it originally was, but I'm not sure.I got you.But I saw it back in 2011, I guess, and then watched it again yesterday and today.But they said that it was definitely sort of middle to upper middle class people who could afford to buy their stuff at the time.But it wasn't for the lofty, super rich people.
SPEAKER_10: Right.But it also wasn't for your average Joe Schmo with a mortgage and all that, right?Well, some stuff was.Okay.So you said that they didn't necessarily change the face of design. I don't know.I'm not 100% sure.I guess looking back with hindsight, the way that people treat them today, they're revered like gods.
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, for sure.
SPEAKER_10: But I guess maybe at the time, contemporaneously, they were part of a larger push.They worked with Eero Saarinen.He was a hugely influential architect and designer.They worked with Charles Nelson, a hugely influential designer.They were part of this vanguard, I guess.Yeah. of new modernist design, again, using kind of like industrial, readily available, mass-producible materials, but applying really like legitimately artistic talent and vision and design to the whole thing.
SPEAKER_03: You know, I had no idea until just now that Charles Nelson Reilly also worked in design.
SPEAKER_10: He did.He said, I can't even do it.I can't do it in person.Yumi probably could.One of her dogs is named Charlie, named after Charles Nelson Reilly when she was a kid.
SPEAKER_03: Oh, man.I mean, if that's not a joke for her, I mean, Gen X is the low end of that joke.
SPEAKER_10: Did you see his one-man show? No.They did a documentary of his one-man show that he did before his death, and it's good.Very touching, poignant.I'd have to see that.Charles Nelson Reilly with a little bit of his guard down.I'd like to see that.Yeah, check it out.But let's say we go back to the beginning, and we'll let everybody else decide whether they change the face of design or not.
SPEAKER_03: All right.We'll start with Bernice Alexandra Kaiser.And if you're like, who the heck is that?Her family called her Ray-Ray. And that eventually just got shortened to Ray.
SPEAKER_10: Sure.Everybody got sick of that hyphen.
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.She was born in Sacramento in 1912.And she ended up being interested in a lot of things, as did her future husband, Charles.But she was largely an artist and largely a painter, even though she was into engineering and obviously design and all kinds of stuff like that.But she was basically a painter and would eventually study under a gentleman named Hans Hoffman, very famous German expressionist. And was a bit of a rabble rouser in the art community early on and that she was like she was in a group called American Abstract Artists that would do things like picket if they didn't, you know, have art shows that represented different kinds of artists.
SPEAKER_10: Yeah, apparently militancy toward modernist ideas was kind of a through thread for people who were into modernism.Like they really were in the face of tradition and bucking that whole thing.And part of that was kind of like a militant approach to it, which I guess includes picketing art galleries, right?
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
SPEAKER_10: But she was part of that movement before Pollock and de Kooning.Is it de Kooning or Kooning?
SPEAKER_03: I think it's de Kooning.
SPEAKER_10: Yeah.Before those guys even, like a decade before those guys came into it, she was part of like that first wave.So she was legit abstract artist.And then her husband, who was born five years previously, I think in 1907 in St.Louis, Missouri, just missed the World's Fair.
SPEAKER_03: Oh, when was that?1904. 1904. Well, he might have gone.
SPEAKER_10: Have you ever seen Meet Me in St.Louis?
SPEAKER_03: Oh, wait.Four years, three years prior.Sorry.That would be impossible.Right.I was like, they could have taken a three-year-old.
SPEAKER_10: Yeah, but they couldn't have taken a negative three-year-old.
SPEAKER_03: No, they tried.
SPEAKER_10: I guess.Technically, I guess they did if that sperm had just stayed in the same place and it was the same egg.And they just were frozen in time, essentially, reproductively.Oh, boy.Yeah. At any rate, he was born in St.Louis in 1907.And he wanted to be an architect essentially out of the gate.He studied architecture at Washington University in St.Louis.
And he got kicked out.He left slash got kicked out after about two years of study because he was also a militant modernist.And at the time, the training he was receiving was not.That's how it's described as Beaux-Arts.And it was not modernist at all.And they were like, get out of here, you hippie.
SPEAKER_03: Beaux-Arts. So that did not stop him, though.He was like, you know, I'm still going to be an architect.Like, how often does anyone say, let me see your degree?
SPEAKER_10: It's true.
SPEAKER_03: It seems when you're designing a house.I know.So even though he didn't technically have the professional, you know, school credentials finished, he started practicing with a guy named Robert Walsh. He was very good at it early on, and everyone was like, this guy, you know, did you see his degree?I didn't see his degree, but I'm not going to ask because you should see the way he draws up a house.
SPEAKER_10: Yeah, he would hand off his drawings with, this probably won't fall down.
SPEAKER_03: I think that was Frank Lloyd Wright.Oh, okay.1929, he got married for the first time to a woman named Catherine Warman.They were college sweethearts, I guess, and had a daughter who would end up being the only sire to child for Charles Eames.He never had a kid with Ray.Her name was Lucia. And he was doing such a good job that there was an architect.You mentioned his son, Eero Saarinen earlier.But the architect, the father, I guess, Eliel Saarinen, said, hey, I like what you're throwing down there.Why don't you come on out to Michigan?
Yeah. to the Cranberry Academy of Art in Bloomfield Hills.And why don't you become, well, first of all, come out for a fellowship.But as you'll see, Charles Eames was a very ambitious guy.And before you know it, he was the director of the industrial design program there.
SPEAKER_10: Yeah, he was supposedly thinking he was just going to go there and take it easy and kind of regather, regroup.And they're like, no, you're too talented.You need to head all this up at Cranbrook, I believe.
SPEAKER_03: Right, which is very key because that is where Ray Ray ended up.
SPEAKER_10: Yeah, working together at Cranbrook, they got into one of their early materials, probably the material that made them famous, at least initially, but still is kind of associated with their design, plywood.Plywood.They were like, plywood.We're going to start making things out of plywood.Just watch.And I think at the time, plywood doesn't have quite the connotation that it does now, like the stuff you just kind of lay over your attic rafters and crawl on.Like it was a little more high tech than that.Yeah. but not that much more.So the idea of taking plywood and turning into a beautiful organic design that also was functional too, it was kind of groundbreaking.
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, for sure.Arrow and Charles and then Ray assisted on this project, entered a chair into Museum of Modern Arts 1941 Organic Design and Home Furnishings Competition.And they won, even though this chair was technically a failure.They were, you know, they realized the reason they love plywood is that they could bend it in two different directions.
SPEAKER_10: They won because they found love.Yeah.
SPEAKER_03: Probably so.But you could curve wood pieces that weren't plywood, but what you couldn't do is curve a wood piece and then curve it again in a different direction.Right.But they found that with plywood, you basically could, but it was pretty early on in this process.So their chair where the back met the seat would splinter, which is no good, but they ended up covering it in fabric to hide that.Right. Something that you'll see, they did not like fabric later in their designs.They thought it was sort of old-fashioned, it was expensive, and they were trying to make stuff a little more affordable.But they covered this thing in fabric to hide that, and they won the competition.But the chair was, even though it won the competition, it was a failure in that it could not be mass-produced, basically, as is.
SPEAKER_10: Yeah, I saw another stage of their plywood bending molding design was that they figured out that they could bend it even further if they cut like a slit in the middle of it.
SPEAKER_03: Oh, okay.
SPEAKER_10: And they would make it almost like a keyhole slit so it looked like a design element, but really it was allowing them to mold it a little further than before.
SPEAKER_03: Very smart.
SPEAKER_10: This is what they were doing throughout like the late 20s and through the whole 30s and into the 40s.They were experimenting with bending plywood to their will.
SPEAKER_03: Come here, plywood.
SPEAKER_10: Yeah.So that was, I think, did you say Ray helped on that particular one?
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, she worked with them and that's where they, you know, fell in love.
SPEAKER_10: Yeah.So Charles and his first wife, Catherine, divorced, I think after about 11 or 12 years of marriage.And he went after Ray pretty much immediately after.And they got married in 1941.And right after they got married in 1941, they did what any self-respecting artist was doing at the time.They looked westward and got into some jalopy or other and drove out to California.Yeah.
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, they're like, forget it, New York.We're going to L.A.
SPEAKER_10: Also, I should say, I'm presuming they drove, but knowing me and the streak I'm on lately, they definitely flew, and everyone knows that they flew except me.
SPEAKER_03: Oh, come on. So they went to L.A.I'm with you, man.They drove their butts to California.
SPEAKER_10: Thanks, Chuck.You're so supportive of me and I appreciate it.
SPEAKER_03: Like the Beverly Hillbillies.Charles was on top in a rocking chair.
SPEAKER_10: And Ray had the shotgun in her lap.
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.Can you imagine?I mean, that... That setup was very unsafe.There's a gun in a lap.There's an elderly woman in a rocking chair on top of a truck.Exactly.
SPEAKER_10: Yeah.But that's the hillbilly way.They don't care.They'll look danger in the face and laugh all the way to California.
SPEAKER_03: So they get to California.They started making connections, obviously, pretty quickly out there to the Southern California modernist scene, which was just getting going, pretty hopping.A very key person they met and befriended was a guy named John Intenza, who published Arts and Architecture magazine.And they ended up designing 26 different covers over like a five-year period.That's a lot.That's about half.Yeah.I'm not a big math guy, but is it a monthly?
SPEAKER_10: Yeah, if it was monthly, that's 60 issues over that five years.And if they did 26, it's almost half of them.
SPEAKER_03: As soon as I said, was it monthly, I immediately panicked that the name that I had just said was Arts and Architecture Monthly.
SPEAKER_10: No, you didn't.It's just Arts and Architecture Quarterly.
SPEAKER_03: All right.Oh, quarterly?So they designed a bunch of those covers.Intensa became a big sort of supporter of theirs.And they also met a guy, an architect named Richard Nutra, who said, hey, I designed these killer apartments in Westwood, the Strathmore Apartments, and you should live in one of them because Orson Welles will live there, too.
SPEAKER_10: Yeah.Strathmore makes me think of like some new skyscraper, but it was like a two-story house-ish structure, I think divided into three apartments.And they're still on the market these days.
SPEAKER_03: They're very nice looking.
SPEAKER_10: They are.They're very cool.So they just started making connections right off the bat, but they weren't really making any money.And Charles ended up... Well, they were doing two things.They were spending all of their free time working at home in their apartment, which they converted into like a working studio.Bending plywood.There's a legendary machine called the Kazam machine that no one seems to know exactly how it worked. But they used it to mold plywood, to bend plywood.Part of it involved a heavy balloon and a bicycle pump that would provide the shape that it would be molded against.
But somehow it also used electricity.So Charles climbed an electrical pole and tapped into the electricity.Very, very unwise thing to do.And luckily he survived.But that's how broke they were.They were stealing electricity to power their Kazam machine in their studio where they were still working on plywood designs.
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, it used heating coils, so that had to have been what took all the juice.Sure.And, you know, applying heat to bend something is a pretty tried-and-true method, so I don't know about the air pump.The balloon, I can picture.Uh-huh.But I don't know what that bike pump did.It blew up the balloon.Yeah, and if you look at the Kazam machine, it looks almost like a teak lounge chair that hasn't been finished yet.
SPEAKER_10: Exactly.Exactly.It's dancing right along the line of a wicker wheelchair, so I'm not a big fan of it.
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, like I would have come in like a dummy and said, you're trying to design a chair with this thing.Look at it.Just sit in it.That's right.You've got your chair.
SPEAKER_10: But they call that the Kazam machine as a reference to Alakazam because you would put in like plywood and glue and something magically different would appear.
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, Kazam with a exclamation point.Yeah, for sure.After Kazam, not after machine.
SPEAKER_10: That's right.Although they should have used two and been like, Kazam, machine.
SPEAKER_03: Well, that would conjure something very deadly, so.I guess so.
SPEAKER_10: So, like I said, they were pretty broke.And Charles ended up taking a job at MGM designing sets, I believe.Could not for the life of me find out what films he actually worked on.But while there, he was not happy about that.He wrote to a friend that all hope for the future is lost, but I get a regular paycheck. So he was also taking materials that he found from his work back home to use in their home studio.But he also made, I think, a lifelong friend in director Billy Wilder.Yeah.
SPEAKER_03: Great.
SPEAKER_10: Yeah.Billy Wilder.Isn't he, Chad, our director from the Stuff You Should Know TV show's favorite director?
SPEAKER_03: Oh, is he?
SPEAKER_10: I think Chad said The Apartment is his favorite movie of all time.
SPEAKER_03: It's a great one.That's what our pal Scott Aukerman chose for Movie Crush.
SPEAKER_10: Okay.Yeah, there you go.
SPEAKER_03: One of the great movies.And Billy Wilder did all kinds of great movies.
SPEAKER_10: You had me at Sunset Boulevard.
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, exactly.
SPEAKER_10: So the Eames Shays, the reason Billy Wilder figures into it aside from like, wow, there's the name drop right there.The Eames Shays, which is a very famous, well, Shays Lounge, decked out in leather with like a pillow to go under your calves and everything.To me, It looks like what your psychologist would use while they gave you a gynecological exam.It's like a cross between a couch in your shrink's office and an exam table in your doctor's office.
SPEAKER_03: Oh, well, just a word of advice.If your psychologist is trying to give you a gynecological exam, that's so good.Exit.
SPEAKER_10: Stage left quickly.Yeah. So, yes, thank you for taking my joke and turning it really dark.
SPEAKER_03: Well, you know, just want to make sure everyone understood clearly.
SPEAKER_10: But the reason Billy Wilder inspired the Aimee Shays is that he would take naps on sets.And apparently there was one that – God bless him. that Charles Eames witnessed where Billy Wilder was taking a nap on a 6-by-12-inch plank that stood up on two sawhorses.That's where he was napping.
SPEAKER_03: That's no good.
SPEAKER_10: No.So Charles was like, I need to help my friend here.
SPEAKER_03: All right.I think that's a good time for a break.You got Billy Wilder asleep in the corner on one of those curvy psychologist chaises.
SPEAKER_10: No, this one's straight.It's not the other one.The curvy one's the le chaise.
SPEAKER_03: Oh, really?Because I saw the chaise was the curvy one.No?
SPEAKER_10: There's two.One, the curvy one is called Le Chaise.The Eames chaise, the original Eames chaise, it looks like one of their aluminum group leather upholstered chairs, but laid out essentially flat.
SPEAKER_03: Oh, Billy Wilder should have stuck around.
SPEAKER_10: I'm telling you, my description of it was like spot on.
SPEAKER_03: In my head, though, it made more sense for the curvy one, your description.
SPEAKER_10: Yeah, I guess so, if you wanted to be really comfortable.
SPEAKER_03: All right, we'll take a break, and we'll be right back.Learning stuff with Joshua and Charles Stuff you should know
SPEAKER_10: At the start of the new year, every small business owner is asking themselves the same question.What's the one move you can make that'll take your business to the next level in 2024?Well, LinkedIn Jobs knows that your success all depends on the team you surround yourself with, right?
SPEAKER_03: That's right.That's why LinkedIn Jobs has created the tools to help find the right professionals for your team faster and for free.Because LinkedIn isn't just another job board.LinkedIn has a vast network of more than 1 billion professionals, which makes it the best place to hire.
SPEAKER_10: Yeah, and when you have that many quality candidates, hiring is easy.So easy, in fact, that 86% of small businesses get a qualified candidate within 24 hours.
SPEAKER_03: LinkedIn also knows that small businesses are wearing so many hats and might not have the time or resources to hire.And thankfully with LinkedIn, the process is intuitive, quick, and easy.
SPEAKER_10: It's why small businesses rate LinkedIn jobs number one in delivering quality hires versus leading competitors.Post your job for free at LinkedIn.com slash SYSK23.That's LinkedIn.com slash SYSK23 to post your job for free.Terms and conditions apply.
SPEAKER_03: Maybe you've stayed in an Airbnb before and thought to yourself, this actually seems pretty doable.Maybe my place could be an Airbnb.It could be as simple as starting with a spare room or your whole place when you're away.You could be sitting on an Airbnb and not even know it.Maybe there's a big tournament in town and lots of fans will be visiting. You could Airbnb your home or extra room and make some extra money while people are in town.Whether you could use extra money to cover some bills or for something a little more fun, your home might be worth more than you think.Find out how much at Airbnb.com slash host.
SPEAKER_10: Hey, everybody, it's time to talk about Squarespace, and in particular, Squarespace's Fluid Engine, a next-generation website design system only from Squarespace.It makes it easier than ever for anybody to unlock unbreakable creativity.
SPEAKER_03: That's right.That's because you start with a best-in-class website template.Then you customize every design detail with reimagined drag-and-drop technology for desktop or mobile.You can stretch your imagination online with Fluid Engine, built in and ready to go on any new Squarespace site.
SPEAKER_10: Yep, you can use your site to easily sell custom merch through your online store.You can upload, organize, and access all your content from one place with your asset library.And those amazing website templates are all flexible with designs for every category and use case.
SPEAKER_03: That's right.So just go to squarespace.com slash stuff for a free trial.When you're ready to launch, use the offer code stuff to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain. All right, so World War II rolls around, and this was a bit of a shift for everybody in the world, probably, but certainly for the Eames family.Southern California was and still is very big in defense manufacturing, and the military said, hey, this plywood stuff is really something.Have you seen this plywood?We like to, you know, it's lightweight.It can be bent in two different directions, I hear, if you have a Kazan machine. And we're into it.And they knew a guy named Wendell Scott, an old friend of Charles's who was a Navy doctor.
They got together for a visit.He saw this Kazam machine and he said, wait a minute, we've been using these metal leg splints for war and these things are no good.They're not good for protection in the field.We need metal for other things.And we think that you might be able to, or I think you might be able to build some better wooden splints out of bending plywood.
SPEAKER_10: Yeah, so that's exactly what they did.They recruited a friend that Charles had made at MGM, a theater designer named Margaret Harris.And together with them and Intenza, they're pretty much their benefactor by this point in Los Angeles, they created a wooden splint. For the U.S.Navy, that was lightweight.It had strategic holes in it that made it extra lightweight, but also you could run straps through to strap the leg to the splint.They were stackable, very, very important.So it was mass-producible.It was extremely mobile.It was lightweight, but it also looked kind of nice.
I mean, as far as leg splints go, it's an attractive leg splint.
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, it was called the Transportation Egg Splint, Egg Splint of my Lord.
SPEAKER_10: Transportation Eggs Benedict.
SPEAKER_03: Leg splint, and they made $5,000.The Navy ordered 5,000 of these things.So all of a sudden, they had a little money coming in.
SPEAKER_10: Yeah, because at $10 per, that's what they charged, which they could have.That'd be a million dollars, a million-dollar order.
SPEAKER_03: That's a lot of dough.
SPEAKER_10: And that's not my math.I just went ahead and converted it to today's dollars.That's what I made.
SPEAKER_03: Oh, okay.I was about to say, oh, boy, here we go.5,000 times 10 is a million. So such money that they were able to form a company called the Plywood.I'm sorry, the Ply formed wood company.They had a little office in Venice Beach at the time, and they sold that thing.They didn't want to be in that business, really.So they built it and they sold it to a company based out of Michigan called Evans Products.Charles worked there for a little while, headed up the molded plywood division there. And then the big, big change in their life came in 1943 when they opened up what they called 901, which was their office.
It's still there today at 901.Now it's Abbot Kinney Boulevard.Back then it was West Washington Boulevard in Venice.
SPEAKER_10: Gotcha.So, yeah, the leg splint thing was not just a little boondoggle we went on.The reason it was important was they made a bunch of contacts.They got a lot of business experience.They got a little money.And they essentially, that's what gave them the foundation to move up from being broke theater designers who were just kind of working in their apartment to legitimate furniture designers who now had their own business and office.Yeah.
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.I mean, they got equipment, too, and materials.They were pretty set up there at 901.For sure.And if you watch the documentary or just know about 901, it was a bit of a kind of a crazy wonderland to work at.Some of the designers there said it was like working at Disneyland.It was fun.There weren't sort of regular routines.There weren't stuffy staff meetings. It was just one of those places where, you know, long before, you know, every tech office in the world was like, let's have a ping pong table and, you know, Skittles all over the place.
They had a sort of a classy version of that in 1943, which was not how offices worked back then, even creative offices.
SPEAKER_10: Yeah, as we'll see, one of the things they're also known for is they made a line of toys.And the reason they also kind of forayed into toys is because at least to Charles, but I think also to Ray as well, Charles often gets the quotes, but they were in such sync that I assume in a lot of cases Ray probably felt at least similar, if not the same.But in this instance, Charles had some quote about how play is actually serious business. that that's the kind of thing that unlocks curiosity.Just doing an activity simply for the activity's sake just kind of resets the brain and the mind.So I'm not at all surprised to hear that their office was like that because that's just what they seem to do.They would just do stuff, learn by doing all the time.
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, another reason they went into things like toys and then later filmmaking, as we'll see, is he didn't, as great as his reputation was, he didn't want to be chair guy.
SPEAKER_10: Sure, plus he really liked toys. Yeah, but he was so good at chairs.Right.Well, that's the thing.Like when you hear the word Eames, like almost probably 80% of the time, if not more, the next word is chair.
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
SPEAKER_10: Because the chairs that they designed are so iconic.And the first one that they hit the market with, so they opened the office in 1943.Yeah. By 1946, they had a chair in mass production.At first with that Evans products, but eventually Evans is like, we don't really know what we're doing.We're more the leg splint producers.Maybe you guys should talk to Herman Miller.And that's what they did.They came up with the Eames chair wood, the ECW.Nowadays, it's called the LCW, the lounge chair wood.
And it's molded bent plywood on a plywood base.And it is gorgeous.And it's actually super comfortable without a lick of padding on it.
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.They figured out if you mold something just right to where the human body can function well in it, and they were into form, but they were very much into function.They did not want some weird fancy looking thing that's not fun or comfortable to sit on ever.
SPEAKER_10: Yeah, Ray had a quote, and I assume Charles probably felt the same way, is that what works is better than what looks good.The looks can change, but what works, works.And there's a ton of wisdom in there.
SPEAKER_03: That was actually Ray.That's what I said.Oh, oh, oh.Okay, I didn't get the joke.
SPEAKER_10: I made a reference to the joke where I went on some horrible tangent earlier about, yeah.I was about to do it again, so thank you for saving everyone.
SPEAKER_03: So Herman Miller, you mentioned, this is a big deal because the Herman Miller Company out of Michigan was great at making furniture.They were producing modernist furniture.Oh, boy, did we already have a big mistake with Charles Nelson?
SPEAKER_10: I don't know.I guess maybe I said Charles.
SPEAKER_03: All right.Well, George Nelson is who we're talking about, a very iconic designer.In fact, in my little studio here, I'm looking at a George Nelson clock.
SPEAKER_10: Which one?
SPEAKER_03: Uh, the one that is rounded wood.Uh, yeah.
SPEAKER_10: Like the balls on the end, the ball clock.
SPEAKER_03: Uh, I mean, it's, it's, it's like a, someone took a round ball made of wood and then sliced the first, uh, third of it off.And that's a clock face.
SPEAKER_10: I gotcha.Okay.Yeah.We have the eye clock.
SPEAKER_03: The eye clock.I think I know which one you're talking about.
SPEAKER_10: It looks like an eye and the like the numbers, it doesn't have numbers, but you know, like the little lines that go to the numbers, it has those, but they're in some crazy weird spread out positions, but they still keep time.It's really amazing.But yeah, George Nelson is very well known for creating a lot of super 50s clocks.
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I don't think any of his clocks had numbers, if I'm not mistaken, because he was kind of like, you don't need a number if you know what a clock looks like and how to read it.Yeah.And, you know, that's another reason this one's fun for us because both of us love this stuff.
SPEAKER_10: Yeah.So for George Nelson, go look up Nelson clocks.Look up Nelson bubble lamps.Probably seen those before.The Nelson platform bench and then the swag leg desk. Those are some of his best designs.But in addition to being a designer himself, he was one of those A-plus people who recruited other A-plus people to work with him.And one of the groups of A-plus people he recruited were the Eames.And they started working with George Nelson at Herman Miller, essentially as like independent contractors, just probably exclusively sending their designs to Herman Miller to be produced.Yeah.
SPEAKER_03: That's right.And could you imagine if we didn't have little slip-ups?We would have never gotten a Charles Nelson Reilly sidebar.
SPEAKER_10: Man, you just found the silver lining to that thousand emails.
SPEAKER_03: So, and that's a good lesson to people to never stop the podcast right in the middle to email us a correction.Sometimes we catch things.So they're working together now.They're working for Herman Miller.This is a sort of a match made in heaven because they had the smarts and the experience to like mass produce and pump out these great designs on Herman Miller's side.They had these amazing designers now working for them. And they, like you said, you know, from the beginning, they were trying to create these sort of simple, stylish, but, you know, practical pieces.And as we'll see, you know, things that would end up going in schools and bus stations and stuff like that.
SPEAKER_10: And airports.So if you go to an airport today and you see like that long row of chairs that you just sit in while you're waiting at the gate, and they're all connected by metal, they have a leather back, a leather seat, and two, you know, arms.
SPEAKER_02: Mm-hmm.
SPEAKER_10: That's an Eames design.I can't remember the sling group chair is what they're called.And they're still in production.So if it's not an actual legitimate Eames set of chairs, it's a knockoff of it.That's how ubiquitous their stuff is.It was like everywhere.Like most of the stuff we're talking about, if you can't bring it to mind, I will bet that if you go look it up, you've probably seen it before.Yeah.
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I mean, their stuff is either literally all over the place or just in spirit in a lot of places, just ubiquitous in America.
SPEAKER_10: Yeah, for sure.
SPEAKER_03: Maybe elsewhere, but I don't get to travel much.
SPEAKER_10: I know.I haven't traveled that much either.It's always for tour.
SPEAKER_03: For Ray's side, she was an amazing artist, a great painter.She ended up working and adding a lot of fun and design elements to the things that were happening.If you watch a documentary, you definitely get the sense that she. She's the one that kind of held it all together.She had a great attention to detail.So as far as the company functioning as a company and not just a fun house of kids designing things, as far as the staff goes, She kind of kept things on the rails and also provided a lot of fun and color and textural detail.And, you know, if you watch interviews, you know, with them over the years on YouTube, she's always standing behind Charles, of course, and she doesn't say much on camera.It's always him.And his name is the one that's up there.
And it gets a little frustrating, but... The fact of the matter is it was just a time in the 1950s where even though Charles would say things like, anything I can do, Ray can do better than me.It's just how it was then.She took a bit of a backseat, unfortunately.
SPEAKER_10: Yeah, and there's no other way to put it.That's just how it was.There's a very famous clip of them on an NBC show called Home that was hosted by the actress Arlene Francis.And in this clip, it's like, I think, nine or 11 minute segment on the show.Yeah, it's robust.Yeah, it is.They debuted one of their famous chairs, which we'll talk about in a second, the Eames Lounge chair.But Arlene Francis is even like... Almost cattily dismissive of Ray.And Ray is just sitting there, like, has to have a big smile on her face because that's what you're expected to do.
But she was just sidelined, just pushed to the side in this interview.Despite, yeah, over the years, like, Charles was being like, no, this woman's not behind me.She's right next to me.Like, we're equals.We're partners.We do this together.Society was just like, that's not true.Stop lying.
SPEAKER_03: She was kind of like, I'm paraphrasing, but the overall vibe was... in the brief time she was allowed to speak was, tell me how you support your husband, that kind of thing.
SPEAKER_10: Exactly, yeah.
SPEAKER_03: Oh, so they're making all kinds of things, collapsible sofas, fiberglass shell chairs.Those were very, very famous.If you look up there, and I think this one won a design award for MoMA as well in 1950, their molded fiberglass armchair.Look that thing up and you'll say, oh, that chair.Yeah.
SPEAKER_10: Yeah, the one that I've sat in in every school cafeteria ever, at the bus station.If you see a seat that's plastic and kind of molded to fit your form, that was the Eames fiberglass armchair.
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, absolutely.And again, sans upholstery, they would end up using leather, as we'll see here in a second.But most of this early stuff was like aluminum, molded fiberglass.Don't forget plywood.Plastic, plywood, wire mesh, stuff like that.
SPEAKER_10: Yeah, which to me, that's what I don't like about their design.It has too much of an industrial flavor, which is exactly what they're going for.They were trying to show, like, you can come up with beautiful design that's affordable using mass-produced materials.And so that's what they were doing.But it just looks a little industrial to me.And then it has that veneer of, like, 50 years, which makes industrial products, like, somehow creepy.Yeah. So some of their actual vintage stuff I'm not crazy about, but there's a really cute segment on Antiques Roadshow.If you want to see one of the Eames storage units, one of their earliest ones.If you look up Herman Miller Storage Unit, Fort Worth, there's like a five or six minute segment where this woman is told that something she paid $15 for is worth like $20,000.
Oh, wow.I love Antiques Roadshow.
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, it's a great show.And another thing that was great about their designs with these chairs in particular is that they were stackable.I think they may have learned from that egg splint that if you make something stackable, that's very handy if you have to clear a cafeteria for a school play or dodgeball.
SPEAKER_10: Right.Exactly.So that was their genuinely affordable breakthrough.And they actually kind of, from what I can tell, left molded plywood largely behind.That's not entirely true, but they really went, you know, full bore on molded fiberglass and then plastic because it really did fulfill a lot of the purposes they wanted, including affordability.Like that first chair of theirs, Time Magazine named it the chair of the century. Before the century was even halfway through.Like that's how much of a splash it made.And they were making it for like the average person to be able to buy.But it was still in today's dollars like a $525 like single chair.
You know what I mean?So it wasn't exactly affordable.When they started to get into fiberglass and plastic, then they were making chairs that the average person could afford.Right.
SPEAKER_03: I wonder if like when they made that announcement, how many chair designers and builders were just like, well, what's the point?And just threw their chair into the fireplace.
SPEAKER_10: They're like, I guess I'll go into toys.Damn it, they're into toys too.
SPEAKER_03: So you said they moved away from plywood, but not before this iconic chair that you mentioned briefly earlier.
SPEAKER_10: That's why I corrected myself.
SPEAKER_03: The Eames Lounge, which was molded plywood.It was fabric.The very first one that was introduced on that show was rosewood plywood and black leather.And this is the one that made them famous.It came with an ottoman, or I guess, I don't even know if you had to buy it separately back then. It's a gorgeous chair.I mean, they're the ones they sit on on Shark Tank.They are copied heavily.I imagine the knockoffs are not nearly as good, but I don't own one, but I've always wanted one.And I think one day I might have to splash down for one.
SPEAKER_10: There's this one that I covet that was owned by Orville Redenbacher, which just somehow makes it even more like mid-century amazing.
SPEAKER_03: Can you imagine eating popcorn in that thing watching a movie?
SPEAKER_10: So, yeah, there's this guy who is like, you know, he refurbished an atomic ranch.It's on the magazine, the internet magazine Atomic Ranch, but the kind of like mid-century space age house he refurbished.And he has that Orville Redenbacher knockoff.It's actually a knockoff. of the Eames Lounge.He has it, and he said they eat popcorn in it.
SPEAKER_03: Amazing.
SPEAKER_10: I think so, too, and I don't know why.I don't even know how I first heard about it, but I covet that particular chair.It's great.
SPEAKER_03: You know, one day, Josh, I'm going to really root for you to get that chair.
SPEAKER_10: Thank you.I can't wait until that day starts.Let's talk about that chair a little bit.Oh, sure. Okay, well, here I go.So the chair itself was different.It was molded plywood, like you said, but it was upholstered in leather, like I think also you said, but it was meant to be exceedingly comfortable.And the way that Charles put it is it's supposed to have the warm, receptive look of a well-used first baseman's mitt.
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, I sat in them.
SPEAKER_10: Which definitely gets that across.No, they're super-duper comfortable, especially if you remind yourself, like, I'm actually sitting on upholstered plywood here.
SPEAKER_03: Right.
SPEAKER_10: They have become so iconic and so associated with the mid-century modern aesthetic.And in particular, it's almost like a signal or a code for someone who is a powerful captain of industry, like a mover and a shaker of that era if you're doing like a period piece.So much so that when – is it Matthew Wiener who was the showrunner for Mad Men?Yeah.
SPEAKER_03: Weiner.
SPEAKER_10: Weiner?Weiner Sloth?He said, we're not using the Eames lounge in our show.It's just such a cliche.It shows up everywhere.And Mad Men is like, of course it's going to show up in Mad Men.So he very wisely was like, nope, we're not doing that.But he went with a different Eames set, the Eames Aluminum Group, which is equally cool, but in a different way.Yeah.
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, yeah.I definitely like the other one better.But this was more of an office chair.You've seen it before as well.No padding on the arms, but it was it's like a ribbed, ribbed leather.I promise you look this thing up and you'll go, oh, that thing.Exactly.That held Don Draper's butt for however many years.
SPEAKER_10: And also, I mean, depending on how hip your workplace is, you might have a knockoff of this in your office.Like it's really, that's something that happens in design a lot.Somebody comes up with an iconic design and then everybody rips it off.That's just the part of the industry.
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.All right.I feel like that's another break point, yay?
SPEAKER_10: Yeah.Yeah.
SPEAKER_03: All right, Hepcat, we're going to be right back after this, and Josh will pick up after the break with toys.
SPEAKER_01: Learning stuff with Joshua and Charles Stuff you should know
SPEAKER_03: Maybe you've stayed in an Airbnb before and thought to yourself, this actually seems pretty doable.Maybe my place could be an Airbnb.It could be as simple as starting with a spare room or your whole place when you're away.You could be sitting on an Airbnb and not even know it.Maybe there's a big tournament in town and lots of fans will be visiting. You could Airbnb your home or extra room and make some extra money while people are in town.Whether you could use extra money to cover some bills or for something a little more fun, your home might be worth more than you think.Find out how much at Airbnb.com slash host.
SPEAKER_10: You know, in today's world, it seems the best treatment is reserved only for a few.Well, Discover wants to change that by making everyone feel special.That's why with your Discover card, you'll have access to 24-7 live customer service as well as $0 fraud liability, which means you're never held responsible for unauthorized purchases.Finally, no matter who you are or where you are in life, you'll feel special with Discover.Learn more at discover.com slash credit card.Limitations apply.
SPEAKER_03: Hey, everyone.We all know that experiences are what people love the most about travel.So that's why we want to talk to you about Viator.It's a website and app where you can book travel experiences like maybe taking a food tour in a great European city.
SPEAKER_10: Yeah, Viator offers everything from simple tours to extreme adventures with over 300,000 bookable experiences in 190 countries.You put all that together, that means there's something for everyone.
SPEAKER_03: That's right.Plus, Viator's travel experiences have millions of real traveler reviews, so you have all the information you need to book the best activities for your trip.
SPEAKER_10: And when you book a travel experience with Viator, there's always flexibility and support with free cancellation, payment options, and 24-7 service.
SPEAKER_03: So download the Viator app now and use code VIATOR10 for 10% off your first booking in the app.One app over 300,000 travel experiences that you will remember.Do more with Viator.
SPEAKER_10: All right, Chuck, let's talk toys.Because like I said, they considered play serious business because of what it could do to unlock you.And they were playful people for sure.Yeah.Before we talk about toys, let's put that on the back burner for a second and talk about their architecture work.Because remember, Charles was a crypto pseudo architect for a while, an outlaw architect, I guess.
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
SPEAKER_10: And this was an age where you could... work with other amazing designers and architects.And remember, they were friends already with Eero Saarinen.So they worked with him on at least one house called Case Study House No.9.And that's a pretty famous house, but it is nothing compared to Case Study House No.8, which is in fact the house that Ray and Charles Eames designed and ended up living in.
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, the case study houses, we'll say what it is, but I've had this on my list for like 10 years to do.
SPEAKER_10: Oh, it's so neat.Yumi took it there.
SPEAKER_03: It's beautiful.But what, to that house?Yeah, it's really neat.But the case study program was a program sponsored by Art and Architecture Magazine where they – built these houses.I think there were 36 designs, not just the Ames, all sorts of architects.Over the course of like 21 years, they built 26 of these houses and 18 of them are still as is.A handful have been destroyed, which is awful.
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
SPEAKER_03: And maybe more awful, a handful of them, when you look up, like the list says something like, you know, renovated, I'm paraphrasing, but basically renovated so much that you can't even tell it's what it was.Gotcha.Yeah, for sure.But we're going to do one on the case study houses in that program.It was pretty amazing.But out of this came case study eight, where, like you said, the Eames lived in the Pacific Palisades. It was initially called the Bridge House because it was going to be cantilevered out over this big grassy meadow toward the sea because you could see the ocean there.And Charles at one point reconsidered along with Ray and they said, hey, we're doing that thing that you're not supposed to do in architecture, which is take this beautiful area and just like plunk a house down in the middle of it. And he fell in love with that meadow, and he decided to change the complete design of it, instead of cantilevering it out over this meadow, make the meadow this big, beautiful front yard, basically.And they came up with, they scrapped the ridge house and came up with the design for number eight, which was this very beautiful, square, flat-roofed, colorful, amazing house.
SPEAKER_10: Yeah.So apparently Ray was a fan of Mondrian.And you can tell because these are two giant squares made of glass and steel.And then they have panels in some places where you might have a window.And those panels would be colored like yellow or blue or red or white, like a Mondrian painting. But they were the ones, I don't know if this house is the one that introduced it.It's possible.The idea of like soaring ceilings of huge open space floor plans.It's a modernist masterpiece. But one of the things that's so great about it is that Ray decorated it to the hilt with art objects, gifts from friends, paintings, sculptures, folk art, weavings, everything you can think of.
It was just such a busy room.There's like leopard skin rugs and just weird stuff everywhere. And this was entirely counter to the trend at the time, which was if you're a modernist, you're also minimalist.You can't extract one from the other.And she did.And that was a huge contribution to modernism because a lot of people are turned off, including me, are turned off by minimalism. Like, can't stand it.It's an awful, awful way to live, I think.And she was like, hey, you can be modernist and not be minimalist, you know.So she's credited with that as being probably her greatest contribution, solo contribution to modernism is the design choices she made in that house.
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, whimsical and warm.I love it.It's pretty amazing.Like you said, they also did case study house number nine on the same lot as number eight.Intenza himself would live in number nine.And he also designed his old buddy Billy Wilder's house.He said, hey, I love that flat board that you gussied up for me.Can you make me a flat house? And he said, sure.And so this house in Beverly Hills where Billy Wilder and his wife Audrey Young lived is another gorgeous, you know, flat-roofed sort of square boxy brilliant design.
SPEAKER_10: Yeah.It's very cool.And they also planted eucalyptus trees all around it.And I think – At least on one of them, there's swings that you can swing on when you're there.When we went, we just showed up.We didn't make reservations, and there was no one there.So we had the place to ourselves.We weren't able to go inside, but, you know, we peeked in the windows and all that.
SPEAKER_03: It's all windows.You could see the whole thing.
SPEAKER_10: I know.You really could.It was neat, though.It's definitely worth visiting, Chuck.I think you'd love it.
SPEAKER_03: Oh, totally.There are so many things in L.A.that I was either unaware of or too broke to do that I try to do those things when I go back now.Nice. So Ray is busy also working on side gigs, designing textiles and fabrics and patterns.A couple of her most famous ones that Waverly Products picked up is called Sea Things, S-E-A Things, which is whimsical and fun, just like she was, little starfish and sort of amoeba-like things.Yeah. And then she was very famous for something you still see a lot today called the Eames Dots, which is this design that are dots with interconnected lines.It's simple stuff, but iconic.
SPEAKER_10: Yes.If you're into West Elm stuff, you have seen this design before or some version of it for sure.Toys?Toys.I think it's time to talk about toys.In particular, they had one called The Toy. And it was a set of like these vinyl panels that you would frame with dowels and then connect to other panels with other dowels.And they were either square or triangle.I think they're about three feet across. And the whole point of it was you can build all sorts of structures out of it.
You can use it to build the wings of a theater and pretend you're on a stage.You were intended to use your imagination, even though in the instructions it shows you some ideas and how to build some stuff.But it was a toy for everybody, like for all ages.And that was, I think, the first one they came up with.
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, that was in 51.They had the House of Cards as well, which is produced in 52.It's a deck of cards.The patterns on them are beautiful.All the cards are different things.It's not like just a single pattern deck.But they had notches.It's a house.You build it.So they had notches so you could build it into these very easy-looking square structures the way the notches are built.
And I was like, I'm going to buy one of those for my old pal Josh.Yeah.
SPEAKER_10: Oh, thanks.
SPEAKER_03: I went to – it's not coming.Don't worry.I went to Etsy.An original pack is $3,200.So?Hey, man, that's a lot of money for a deck of cards.Yeah, it is.
SPEAKER_10: So, okay, well, then you can get me one of their musical towers instead.
SPEAKER_03: Ah, yes.They were very well known for this being in their office.It's still there today.It is a vertical xylophone, and you drop a ball down it.Yeah, like Plinko.Yeah, and it just sort of bounces its way down, hitting different notes on the way down, which is just super fun.
SPEAKER_10: Yeah, and all the notes are rearrangeable, too, which is just sweet.There's only three of them in existence, so I presume it might even be more than a House of Cards toy.
SPEAKER_03: You can buy me that.
SPEAKER_10: So in addition to toys, to furniture, the Eames were they were just creative, creative people through and through.And they saw design everywhere.They had a collection of almost a quarter of a million slides.And they would create these slideshow or multimedia presentations juxtaposing like a shell with like a interstate overpass and be like, look at how similar this is. They were just into all that kind of stuff.And so they found a lot of fulfillment in like another phase, kind of like the end phase of their career together, which was coming up with movies, exhibits and presentations, essentially.
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, so they found work in a few different ways.They ended up being sponsored, or I guess hired, by corporations, notably IBM was one of them, to create kind of industrial films here and there, multimedia projects.It wasn't like how you can get your hand caught in a printer or anything like that.All kinds of different stuff, very creative things.One of the most famous films they made, probably the most famous, It's called Powers of 10.They did a prototype film in 1968 called A Rough Sketch for a Proposed Film Dealing with the Powers of 10 and the Relative Size of Things in the Universe.Shot at Miami in black and white and then made a final version.They worked on this thing for a long time.It's based on a book by a Dutch teacher named Kies Boca called Cosmic View, Colon, the Universe in 40 Jumps.
But the final version they shot on the shores of Lake Erie.I'm sorry.Boy, I almost screwed that one up.Lake Michigan in Chicago.The final version was in 77.It was in color.It was called Powers of 10, colon.A film dealing with the relative size of things in the universe. And what that all means is they start with a simple overhead shot of this couple next to Lake Michigan having a picnic.And then it just keeps zooming back by powers of 10, narrated the whole time by a gentleman, MIT physics professor named Philip Morrison.
And Cameron Crowe, the director, very much inspired by Billy Wilder, He opens Jerry Maguire with a very similar thing, and I guarantee you he took this from the Eames project.
SPEAKER_10: Oh, yeah, I'm sure.Like, it was, yeah, it's just neat.And if you think of it, you're like, yeah, of course, it's like somebody was going to stumble on this sooner or later.But I don't know how much that is just because they put it out there initially.But they would zoom out, I think, all the way until it was like 10 to the – 10th power, 15th power, something like that.So the entire known universe was encompassed and then zoomed all the way in.Back to that guy laying on a picnic blanket in Chicago and then threw his skin into like a proton and a carbon atom, I think.
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, super cool.It's nine minutes on YouTube.It's very, very much worth watching.
SPEAKER_10: Yeah, you could watch it 10 times in an hour and a half if you wanted to.Yeah. But it is very cool.And it is on YouTube and it is definitely worth watching.And that's definitely what they were known for.But they made, I think, 125 films.And like I said, they made exhibits for museums, some of which are still around right now.They just did all sorts of really cool things.Like if they had an idea, they would explore any medium that they thought best got it across.They were just not afraid of taking risks.
And I didn't realize that about them. And I didn't know anything about them until I met Yumi.And then I started to learn about, you know, furniture design and all that.And then from researching this, I got to know them better.And I just think they're – I admire them a lot more than I did before I started researching this just because they were so varied in their pursuits.I just think they're neat.Yeah.
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, absolutely.And, you know, it was a great love story on one hand, but we do need to just sort of mention kind of the darker side, which is when I was talking to you about this, you made a joke about like people buried in their basement or something.Not that dark.Okay. But, you know, when you run a design concern, your name is the one that's on it.Sometimes it was Charles and Ray, usually just Charles.But they had a whole team of people that worked on this stuff, these young designers that worked for them that, you know, they never got any credit.And they kind of talked about that.Some people felt exploited.Some were like, yeah, we were exploited, but we also exploited their names.
Because we worked for the hottest design firm and it was sort of a give and take.And that's just sort of the deal.Your name doesn't go up there if you're on the team that creates the thing that the person whose name is on the, you know, the placard on the office door, they're going to get the credit. Still happens a lot.People are better these days about giving credit down to staff.Back then, not so much.And then the other thing is Charles very, very sadly had some affairs.Notably, he had a pretty heavy love affair with a woman named Judith Wexler, who he was so far into it that he was like, I want to sell 901. I want to get divorced.I want to move to New York.
I want to marry you.I want to have a baby.And she broke it off because she said she couldn't do that to Ray because they were friends as well.
SPEAKER_10: Man, the middle century.
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.You know, Ray knew about the stuff.It was a time where divorce wasn't as popular and it was tough for her.She apparently dealt with it very privately.But, you know, they stuck together until the end.
SPEAKER_10: Yeah, man.Yeah.Wow.I didn't know about that either.
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, but worth mentioning until, you know, Charles died in 1978.
SPEAKER_10: Yeah, something sweet about that is Ray died exactly a decade later on August 21st, 1988.And she spent that decade basically archiving and organizing and documenting all the work they did together.And then I guess she realized or felt like her work was done and said, Ray, out.
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, she passed from cancer.He died of a heart attack on a consulting trip in St.Louis.And, you know, they were very beloved.The people he didn't have any employees that sounded like they didn't absolutely love them.I think some of them were a little salty about credit here and there.But to a person, they were all like it was a magical time.They were magical people.And it was just a great thing all the way around.
SPEAKER_10: Well, I'm definitely – I'm glad we included the dark side then.You can't whitewash that stuff, you know.It's true.You got anything else, Chuck?
SPEAKER_03: I got nothing else.Look forward to Case Study House podcast.
SPEAKER_10: Okay.Podcast or short stuff?
SPEAKER_03: I think we could probably stretch that one out to a full – no problem.Because, hey, what's better than sitting around and listening to a show describe the way something looks?
SPEAKER_10: That's right. Let's do it.And since Chuck and I just negotiated whether that episode would be a short stuff or a full length episode, it's time for listener mail.
SPEAKER_03: All right, I'm going to call this a reminder to Sandwich.This is from Aaron Burke.Hey, guys, recently found your show?I've gotten into it.I started to listen to the most recent, and then I thought, well, maybe I should have the whole experience and start at the beginning.These early episodes are a little unsatisfying because I know the finely tuned show that you've achieved after 1,500 episodes.My question is, what would you recommend? For new listeners, start at the beginning, work backwards, go to episode 177.As of now, I'm starting at day one.And that is from Aaron Burke.
And Aaron, I let Aaron know which episode this is going to be on so he could hear it.But what we recommend is sandwiching.That is, listen to the latest one and then listen to the earliest one and then work forwards and backwards until you meet in the middle.
SPEAKER_02: Mm-hmm.
SPEAKER_03: For the reasons of compare and contrast, it's fun to hear the show now and how much has changed.But also, you don't want to miss out on announcements and live show stuff and, you know, changes that happen, although there's really not many.
SPEAKER_10: No.No, there's no changes whatsoever these days.
SPEAKER_03: But we think the sandwich method is pretty fun.
SPEAKER_10: Yeah.It's been the recommended version or method for the whole time, I think, essentially, right?
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.But, you know, do it how you want.That's what we think.Sure.
SPEAKER_10: Yeah, to each their own, right?
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
SPEAKER_10: So who was that?
SPEAKER_03: Aaron Burke.
SPEAKER_10: Aaron, however you listen to the entire catalog of Stuff You Should Know, we hope you enjoy every single minute of it.And if you want to be like Aaron and get in touch with us and ask us for some advice of some sort, do it.You can send it in an email to stuffpodcasts at iheartradio.com.
SPEAKER_06: Stuff You Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio.For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app.Apple Podcasts are wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
SPEAKER_10: You know, in today's world, it seems the best treatment is reserved only for a few.Well, Discover wants to change that by making everyone feel special.That's why with your Discover card, you'll have access to 24-7 live customer service as well as $0 fraud liability, which means you're never held responsible for unauthorized purchases.Finally, no matter who you are or where you are in life, you'll feel special with Discover.Learn more at discover.com slash credit card.Limitations apply.
SPEAKER_04: Okay, picture this.It's Friday afternoon when a thought hits you.I can spend another weekend doing the same old whatever, or I can hop into my all-new Hyundai Santa Fe and hit the road.With available H-Track all-wheel drive and three-row seating, my whole family can head deep into the wild.Conquer the weekend in the all-new Hyundai Santa Fe.Visit HyundaiUSA.com or call 562-314-4603 for more details.Hyundai, there's joy in every journey.2024 Santa Fe, available early 2024.
SPEAKER_08: You deserve to treat yourself, so turn your tax refund into a U-Fund and give yourself a Straight Talk Wireless Extended Silver Unlimited plan and get a new Samsung Galaxy A14 on them.You can get a great everyday value on wireless with Straight Talk's Unlimited plan starting at $25 a line per month for four lines.You'll save so much, you'll be enjoying that refund all year long.It's the refund that keeps on refunding.Find Straight Talk at straighttalk.com or at your local Walmart store.
SPEAKER_07: Taxes and fees not included.Offer valid through 4-14-24 while supplies last.Online only.Must purchase a straight talk extended silver unlimited plan to qualify.Limit of five phones per customer.Family plan discount with four lines all on the silver unlimited plan.Not combinable with auto pay discount.
SPEAKER_10: FX's Shogun, the official podcast available now.Every legend begins with a story. Listen and explore episode by episode the story of war, passion, and power set in feudal Japan.Join host Emily Yoshida each week with the creators, cast, and crew in this exclusive companion podcast.They dive deep into the twists and turns of the plot, go behind the scenes, and explore the real-life history that informed the limited series based on James Clavel's best-selling novel.Search FX's Shogun wherever you listen to podcasts.
