February 19, 2025 • 57 mins
CBC is in Chicago on 2/27! Get your tickets here.
Yooo, who wants to drink some turpentine under a starry night with me? This week we hunkered down in the studio and read OG struggling artist Vincent Van Gogh's book, "The Letters of Vincent Van Gogh." Stretch your canvas as we discuss glamorizing peasants, immersive exhibits, eating overcooked quail, wholesale paint brushes, his dope Dutch sister-in-law Johanna Van Gogh-Bonger, the nostalgia of drawing, and brothels. Plus, we try to get to the bottom of what really went down in Brittany with Gauguin???
Support the show: https://www.patreon.com/cbcthepod
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Celebrity book.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
Fuck up. Introna painting was fucked today?
Speaker 1 (00:11):
Wait, Allison passed me the bunk. Okay, I actually kind
of liked Introni painting. I don't know. That was chill,
like that professor was. I don't know. I felt like
(00:32):
she was getting somewhere cool.
Speaker 2 (00:35):
Dude, did you smoke before class or something? Like I'm sorry,
just like dango snooze.
Speaker 1 (00:45):
Like, okay, I get it, I know, Like yes, do
you need to canonize more white man? But like he's
the original tortured artist like come on us and like
fucking caught off his ear like after he fought with
another artist, Like that's what art is? A ballot?
Speaker 2 (01:00):
Oh, I'm sorry, two white dudes fought in the field
in France, Like what is this my study abroad trip
like sophomore year, Like I'm sorry, like like I've learned
about these guys, Like give me some fucking bascot, Like
give me Felix Consols tores someone who had real fucking pain.
Speaker 1 (01:19):
I haven't even learned who Felix Conus is yet.
Speaker 2 (01:22):
My dude, dude, he's so lit. He piled fucking candy
in a.
Speaker 1 (01:27):
Gallery and that's heavy.
Speaker 2 (01:29):
But like but it was about like a disease.
Speaker 1 (01:32):
Like go back, look at the fucking orchard. It's like
look at the sunflowers. Like Fango's use of color, like
it was actually I know what you're saying, like the
brushstrokes are dope, it's newmanous.
Speaker 2 (01:46):
But I'm just kinda like like, Okay, you're in a room,
you're in a field, you're in Paris, Like shit, yeah,
I'd love to go to Paris, but like the torture, shit,
I don't buy it. And then we praise him and
make all these freaking exhibits.
Speaker 1 (02:01):
I think like he was onto like the beauty that
is everywhere, like the beauty that's.
Speaker 2 (02:08):
In us, Like are you crying?
Speaker 1 (02:11):
No, I'm not. Like look at my Fast and the
Furious two poster, like do you see the way the light?
It's the car, it's so beautiful.
Speaker 2 (02:21):
Like but what I'm saying like that's fucking art, like
that deals with like cars and like urbanism. I guess
I'm just like, Okay, so like Van go he's this guy,
he's like tortured, right, and then some like other dude
was like disguised the goat like eighteen.
Speaker 1 (02:41):
Hold no, no, Allison, like remember like it was this
brother's widow who was asking him the fuck up.
Speaker 2 (02:48):
Like, oh shit, do you think they're like hooking up?
Speaker 1 (02:52):
I think like it. I'm just saying, like, as like
woman approved a hug. How much did you pay for
this ounce? Again?
Speaker 2 (03:12):
Literally twenty five bucks? Uh yeah?
Speaker 1 (03:16):
Wait?
Speaker 2 (03:16):
Have you heard this band of tigra?
Speaker 1 (03:19):
Who's that knocking at the door. It's all your friends,
your filthy horse, your husband's gone, and we've got books
and a bottle of wine to kill.
Speaker 2 (03:27):
It's Hollywood, it's books, it's gossip.
Speaker 1 (03:30):
I'm shook. It's memoirs Martini.
Speaker 2 (03:35):
Celebrity Poop Club.
Speaker 1 (03:37):
Come read it while it's hot. Celebrity Poop Club, I
tell your secrets.
Speaker 2 (03:42):
We won't talk celebrity books.
Speaker 1 (03:45):
No boys are a loud celebrity book say it loud
and pound. Celebrity book Club.
Speaker 2 (03:53):
Buzz me in. I brought the queer foe.
Speaker 1 (03:55):
Hey, hey, best friend? Oh the fuck are you?
Speaker 2 (04:01):
Oh my god? I'm doing pretty good and I have
to say hashtag season maxing. I'm kind of look so
into the winter right now.
Speaker 1 (04:09):
I know, I'm so grateful for this berber cold.
Speaker 2 (04:13):
It's like last winter was just so I wasn't even
wearing any of my heaviest stuff. Now I'm wearing thrashed
from the thresh starlb in flannel lingeans.
Speaker 1 (04:23):
There's nothing like a Filena leaned pant.
Speaker 2 (04:27):
Hoodie, my heaviest jackets. You're in a thermal. I recently
have like gone thermal crazy.
Speaker 1 (04:32):
Thermals are so essential for layering.
Speaker 2 (04:35):
I feel like I've had none and now I have three.
Speaker 1 (04:37):
It's so much better to be rich with thermals rich
and thermal I to be scavengean.
Speaker 2 (04:43):
It just something hits different. And I'm sipping on a
dove hot coco from our weird Flavia office machine.
Speaker 1 (04:52):
Flavia sounds like a Roman emperor.
Speaker 2 (04:55):
This podcast brought to you by Flavia.
Speaker 1 (04:59):
And is it Flavy a full But isn't it.
Speaker 2 (05:01):
Also so like a pillow for vaginal dryness?
Speaker 1 (05:04):
Oh for sure. Talk to your Dodger about maybe with
Flavy as Flaviac.
Speaker 2 (05:09):
Yeah, so it doesn't sound too Labia. And it's a
woman like running on the beach with her like silver husband.
Speaker 1 (05:16):
Yeah, Flavias medication is always about having silver hair and
looking like Daniel dan Lois. I'm sitting on some English breakfastie.
Speaker 2 (05:26):
Damn, you're gonna be up for hours with.
Speaker 1 (05:28):
A little bit of full calorie milk.
Speaker 2 (05:30):
Full calorie milk, old milk, you know it. Have you
ever tried fair Life protein milk.
Speaker 1 (05:37):
I've tried fair Life. I'm not a huge fan of
the branding. It's a little bit too flat millennial design
for me.
Speaker 2 (05:45):
Well it's like made for like Jim bros.
Speaker 1 (05:48):
Oh okay, I guess now that I'm like really leaning
into my gim era, I should write check it out protein.
I just had Booth Brothers milk, which is i Vermont
brand Brothers.
Speaker 2 (05:58):
That's very like assassination. I do want to get the
legend of the Booth Brothers dry them milk.
Speaker 1 (06:05):
It is the creamiest, richest, butteriest milk you can imagine.
I'm selenic almost.
Speaker 2 (06:11):
Okay, It's like the milk nicle Kinman wishes she was
sipping and baby.
Speaker 1 (06:15):
Girl, Oh yeah, no, I mean it'll make you, baby girl,
you'll down a full glass of it.
Speaker 2 (06:19):
Was it almost cream like? Were you having like a
big milk mustache?
Speaker 1 (06:24):
Oh? Absolutely?
Speaker 2 (06:25):
Am Oh yeah, it's crazy when you have like real
ass cow milk compared to like garlic farms.
Speaker 1 (06:33):
Yeah, go, relic just doesn't same anymore as an adult
with a refined palate. I crepe deep duckadant dark milk
like chocolate milk both brothers is the dark meat of milks?
Speaker 2 (06:51):
Me wrong if you know you know both brothers milk
is dark meat. Before we get into a book now
that we're on the subject of poultry, because you know,
I feel like in our VIP lounge, I was like,
you were like, okay, season maxinge is in. I was like,
little birds are in eating little fowl.
Speaker 1 (07:08):
Yes, small fowl.
Speaker 2 (07:09):
Guess what I ate this weekend game?
Speaker 1 (07:11):
Hand quail oh demhing.
Speaker 2 (07:15):
Felt more decadent and like I felt like a little
tiny prince suckling on the tiniest the tiniest bone, little bone, like,
m you kid, just for me?
Speaker 1 (07:28):
Where was the quail?
Speaker 2 (07:30):
I went to Shay Josephine, which is a restaurant in
the Theater District dedicated to Josephine Baker. Oh, it's so
freaking fab.
Speaker 1 (07:37):
Beautiful and there's like old photos of her.
Speaker 2 (07:39):
No, it's a huge, massive old paintings of Justine Baker everywhere.
Speaker 1 (07:44):
Cool.
Speaker 2 (07:44):
Yeah, and it's like owned by one of that she
was very Angelina Jolie, one of the men she like adopted,
so it's an honorary son.
Speaker 1 (07:51):
I see. You mean it's not like she adopted an adult.
But now, I mean I feel like she.
Speaker 2 (07:55):
Probably did adopt him at like sixteen or.
Speaker 1 (07:57):
Something like that.
Speaker 2 (07:58):
But yeah, it's this like there's these huge paintings everywhere
and curtains and like a piano player and Kurt him curtons,
and yes, there are some photos, but yeah, I have
the quail and it was suck on my tuckle. It
was juicy because that was where's gonna be dry?
Speaker 1 (08:14):
Yeah, yeah, I And I was like shut with quail
also because it's easy to over roast a quail. It's
such a right and you think of that crispy, crispy
skin on the quail, and then you're getting to the bone.
You're getting the bone so quickly and you're just like okay.
Speaker 2 (08:28):
It was like, yeah, it was like scared quail.
Speaker 1 (08:35):
But I'm sure she had a wonderful life.
Speaker 2 (08:36):
I think she had a beautiful life and then she
was like flash frozen and sent to shade Josephine.
Speaker 1 (08:41):
Yeah, beautiful.
Speaker 2 (08:44):
And these gay guys next to me at dinner were
like can I as he you a question to one
of his dinner mates and he goes, Yeah, nine and
a half inches uncut.
Speaker 1 (08:51):
Stop. Okay, guys, And they were.
Speaker 2 (08:54):
Like sixty and I was like, this will be future me,
like hanging out with these gays, like hearing the joke
like for the hundredth times that year.
Speaker 1 (09:05):
Okay, oh god, well speaking of okay, guys, kind of
kind of not really, Yeah, although I do have some ideas. Yeah,
there's some elements that felt a little queer to me.
Speaker 2 (09:15):
Oh, he day for sure.
Speaker 1 (09:17):
Yeah, it just in terms of the chaos.
Speaker 2 (09:20):
Yes, let's say the name. Let's get into it. Okay,
you guys, you have heard of You've definitely heard of him.
He's a little more famous than Jeremy Meeks.
Speaker 1 (09:34):
You know him from some of his paintings, which have
fetched some of the highest prices at auction in art history.
Speaker 2 (09:41):
You know him from being the twisted sister that chopped his.
Speaker 1 (09:45):
Day on ear off in solidarity with our hearing impaired folks. Yes,
imagine if that's why he did that.
Speaker 2 (09:53):
No, was like insolidarity with my hearing impaired.
Speaker 1 (09:59):
You know him from.
Speaker 2 (10:02):
Some of his like immersive exhibits, the people always standing
in line for or No.
Speaker 1 (10:08):
You know him from the giant screensavers that his estate
is catching in on that you can find in cities
such as Chicago, New York City. We'll be coming soon. Yes,
I'm pleased. Buy tickets at the Lincoln our bio.
Speaker 2 (10:22):
Or the Lincoln. This little the podcast description.
Speaker 1 (10:24):
Yeah, come to the Immersive CBC show.
Speaker 2 (10:26):
In Chicago twenty four hours.
Speaker 1 (10:28):
Were we talking about? Of course we're.
Speaker 2 (10:30):
Talking about another painter, but kind of I always thought
of him his French Dame Vincent van van Go Go,
Vincent van Go, Vinny the oil painter. N then go.
Speaker 1 (10:45):
You're supposed to say like van Goug because it's like
he's Dutch. I feel like sometimes when you hear people
like whatever her story's talking about, and they're just like,
oh yeah van Goug and an answer him, they're kind
of like seeing Van Gug in this way. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (10:58):
No, this came up as I was reading it. My
lover to me says van Go and I was like, wait,
what are you talking about? She was like, I think
that's how Steven's gonna say it.
Speaker 1 (11:05):
Yeah, yeah, you can really gutturalize. But here at CBC
we're gonna go ahead and say Van Go because we're American. Sorry,
we're American literally the normal way to say yeah, and that's.
Speaker 2 (11:18):
You hear enough of us doing accents. And by the way,
what are we reading but his letters? And not just
Dear THEO, because that's an abridged there's many versions. Yeah,
there's a shorter version that's just Dear THEO. That's a
bridge letters to his brother. This is more letters though,
this is this is mostly still to his a.
Speaker 1 (11:35):
Lot of dear theos. This is the letters of Vincevanga.
We both are rocking in the Penguin classics vers.
Speaker 2 (11:40):
Shout out Penguin and shout out to I've never heard
of this hoe. But her name. She is the wife
of his brother.
Speaker 1 (11:47):
Theo, Johanna von Bonger. Her name is literally a Bonger.
Speaker 2 (11:54):
Bunger, Johanna von Bunger. And I like my milk chocolate stirred,
non shaped.
Speaker 1 (12:04):
And she was Theo's wife, and she kind of made
it her mission to burnish the legacy of her late
husband's brother, Vincent. And she was a real advocate for
publishing this correspondence, and largely due to her efforts, that's.
Speaker 2 (12:22):
Why we think of him as one of the greatest pictures.
Speaker 1 (12:25):
Of Yes, mister Celebritaci why you know him as people
thrown out one hundred two hundred million dollars for his paintings,
I mean insane crisis. Not that they're not gorgeous paintings.
Oh my god, of course it's so beautiful.
Speaker 2 (12:39):
When you were just a young lad, you went to
the MFA and you've got a first heart of the
addis you know, van.
Speaker 1 (12:45):
Go Vango Picasso, Picasso, van Go money.
Speaker 2 (12:50):
Money, What were your feelings one of those early feelings
about tho artists, you.
Speaker 1 (12:55):
Know, as eighteen, I remember being drawn to the Impressionists.
I love the color, the explosion of color, and I
saw myself as a little bit different, right, And so
I was drawn to their differentiation. And I said they
saw the world a bit differently, and I feel something
(13:16):
in myself that feels a little bit outside society looking in.
Speaker 2 (13:20):
As a romantic view. Maybe yes, oh this is not
what a room actually looks.
Speaker 1 (13:25):
Like, right, And so you know, specifically those French Impressionists. Again,
I always associated in Savanga with France, and he lived
in France for a very long time, painted a lot
in France. So it's not crazy to think. And then
we think of the Impressionists as like mostly being French
Go Gone.
Speaker 2 (13:39):
He was actually.
Speaker 1 (13:40):
Sison and and.
Speaker 2 (13:44):
We found out he was so inspired by the Dutch
re brand.
Speaker 1 (13:48):
Yeah wait, there's that line when he's writing that letter
to some other artists and he's like, have you heard
of from mir? I don't know if you know this guy.
It's actually kind of like almost condescending, a bitchy and
I think he's a little bit just of an artist
and that's why he says it like that. But I
was a little bit like, okay, maybe like dial down
the it.
Speaker 2 (14:07):
No, this whole book is him being a huge cunt,
but also just like so romantic and then vulnerable, but
also him just being so like, yeah, maybe you could
send me fifty francs and actually read my fucking letters.
Speaker 1 (14:22):
Yeah. I mean, this is why I'm saying that there's
this queerness to him, because so basically he never sold
a painting in his life until at the very end
of his life he like sells one painting, And this
is weird thing, but he's insanely prolific. He's painting around
the clock.
Speaker 2 (14:36):
Constantly drawing. Well, before we get into it, I just
want to remark on one thing of my impression of
him as a child, which is it's so interesting because
I think we both probably felt out of the box
of life. Yes, and you saw Impressionism as a kind
of like, oh, I'm like that, whereas I guess I
always viewed impressionism. I equaled it with classical music and
(14:56):
I're like, bo b, this is for fucking squares, my dudes.
Speaker 1 (15:02):
So you lumped impressionism and with like baroque painting with it,
just like all painting from the past.
Speaker 2 (15:06):
You were just like boring, I feel like baroque paintings.
I was a little bit more like, oh, this is
the crazy past and like we're being fab and royal. Yeah, Impressionism.
I more was like comparing it to like Cubism and
like early like moder like Warhole and modern.
Speaker 1 (15:21):
Arts, which is totally fair, and I think that's fine.
Speaker 2 (15:23):
And so I was like, I'm actually a little born
to Andy Warhol. Yeah, Casso, yeah, Jackson Pulla I color
but like primary and like crazier where impression and felt
too pretty.
Speaker 1 (15:33):
I guess for me, I one hundred percent agree, And
I think I like adopted that view as I moved
into adulthood and I began to see impressionism as more
boring and pretty and to like concerned with being pretty
and too concerned with just like just moving the needle
enough so that people being it was like, oh, so
you're still just painting a landscape and you're doing something
(15:54):
completely ineffensive, but like people are just a little bit
freaked out because your brushwork is kind of crazy.
Speaker 2 (15:59):
Oh I'm I'm so sketchy, But honestly, reading this now,
I'm kind of seeing your original impression. M Yeah, where
I'm just like he was so like pained by like
watching a peasant put potatoes in a sack, and like
there is more like well.
Speaker 1 (16:18):
And there's also sense that you know, we've talked a
lot about this when we cover artists and content creators Bengo. Yeah,
and you know this difference between people who are super
like hyper self aware and a little bit more pretentious
and calculated about the art they make and the people
who are just producing because it's like this emotional process
(16:41):
that just pours out of them. And I do think
he's the latter. I think like, A, he's so prolific,
he's making like hundreds and hundreds of paintings. B It's
like the way he talks about the paintings. It's so emotional.
He's like I was trying to capture like this peasant
with the sickle in the field and how hot it
was for them to be working that day, and like
how they must have been like baking in the sun.
(17:03):
But they're also so proud of their work and like
the potato eaters his like, which doesn't really look like him.
That one of his first Yeah, and a lot.
Speaker 2 (17:10):
Of the stuff early stuff doesn't look like him because
we think of him as so like Starry.
Speaker 1 (17:14):
Nights, Storry Knight and just like the Lions, and it's
like very just like classically Impressionist, but like he was
so into that painting because he was just like he
was into his own painting because he was like I'm
showing these peasants and they're eating the food that they.
Speaker 2 (17:26):
Made, like can you believe it?
Speaker 1 (17:28):
Like I mean it's also him doing this like poverty
cosplay where it's like he grew up like kind of
a perminal son of a vicar.
Speaker 2 (17:35):
He's some of like a reverend vicar and like they're
very like conservative you know, church folk, and he is
quite religious himself, but kind of in this more like
rebellious almost Pilgrim like way, I will say, well, yeah.
Speaker 1 (17:49):
I mean the dad is a Protestant and so they're
being so like Protestantia and he's like wait. At one
point he like calls like like renoir like a heathen
or something.
Speaker 2 (17:58):
Like renwall even well, and when you talk about the
stuff he puts out, Okay, I mean that makes sense
because he's being so like, oh, they're like drawing so
much pussy.
Speaker 1 (18:09):
Okay, but can I just back to your first impression
of art? Yeah, and like I know we're being like
but I'm like, see, I now think I'm more what
you thought originally.
Speaker 2 (18:17):
Where it's like we're switching.
Speaker 1 (18:18):
I appreciate some of the impressions work. I do think
Monet is like basically just like pretty, but yeah, money is.
Speaker 2 (18:24):
Straight up postcards. And I think van Go at least
was like I think, doing new things with perspective and
like color and brush work.
Speaker 1 (18:32):
The bedroom I think is really cool.
Speaker 2 (18:34):
I think the Bedroom's a dope painting and I think
you can much more see in van Go's work that
he is mad, mad mad.
Speaker 1 (18:42):
But I also think that old like baroque stuff is
like way cooler, and I'm like, cool, this is insane
and the past was mad and everyone was like murdering
each other and it's so sexy.
Speaker 2 (18:51):
I just saw this crazy ass painting this weekend about
like the fall of the Roman Empire, and it was
like all these like nude women on a cliff being
pushed off, and I was like I could look at
that for hours. Yeah, when you're walking through the Boston
MFA and you see an impression.
Speaker 1 (19:07):
Of them, You're like, let me grab a pillow.
Speaker 2 (19:19):
I've been to is it in France Money's Garden?
Speaker 1 (19:22):
Yeah? Is that in France?
Speaker 2 (19:27):
It's past Branson. Actually, I've been to Money's Garden. Going there,
of course, was utterly.
Speaker 1 (19:33):
You may remember it from season four of Emily in
Paris when she gets in a fight with Camie and
they both get wrenched in water.
Speaker 2 (19:44):
Emily if she's like more money or van go to me,
she's so like making a van go McDonald's collab cup. Yeah,
I'm like genius McDonald's take that.
Speaker 1 (19:57):
Yeah, that's the starry night, like h super size.
Speaker 2 (20:01):
And so it's like and if you see a lot
of like if this book has some of these like
cool like early drawings, and it is much more of
like you feel like you are watching in kind of
a freak watch town life.
Speaker 1 (20:14):
Yeah, because he was a lonely ass bitch and he
couldn't make friends.
Speaker 2 (20:18):
And his letters to THEO are throughout this entire book,
just this like desperation of like kinship and brotherhood. Yet
they are also THEO worked for like a gallery and
he funded Van Goo's entire life. Yeah, so Van Go
is always being like, could we make a schedule so
(20:39):
the money you're gonna send me?
Speaker 1 (20:40):
So here's it. Just an example. This is a letter
from September third, eighteen eighty two. I value your loyal
and effective help more than I can say. I think
give you so much. I should so like my work
to become vigorous, serious, virile, so that you too may
get some pleasure from it as soon as possible. Like
he's like, oh, I know, I'm so like shitty, Like
I really hope that you love it. One thing I
(21:01):
should like to bring to your attention as a matter
of importance, wouldn't it be possible to obtain paint panels, brushes,
et cetera at discount prices. I'm having the retail price
at the moment. Have you any connection with Payard or
someone like that. If so, I think it would be
much more economical at paint, say wholesale for instance, White, Okra, Siena,
(21:23):
and we could then come to some arrangement about the money.
Everything would be cheaper. It goes without saying do think
it over?
Speaker 2 (21:28):
And by the way, that slayed me because I was like,
this is after letter after a letter of him being
like I received your twenty five francs, like thank you
so much. I bought charcoal, Like how is mother?
Speaker 1 (21:41):
I hate her?
Speaker 2 (21:41):
And then this is like okay, well, let's actually talking
about a wholes.
Speaker 1 (21:46):
Yeah, like sisk, can we get a discount code. It's
very like what I said that the UCBC at checkout,
I got the white and the Okra.
Speaker 2 (21:55):
It's like yeah, so it would just be like oils brushes.
It's very like us about trying to buy like natural
wine wholesale just be like.
Speaker 1 (22:05):
Oh my god, wait, I love your bar.
Speaker 2 (22:07):
I actually didn't say an idea. Yeah, it would probably
be cheaper for all of us.
Speaker 1 (22:12):
Yeah, if I could, let's just remove the middle man
of you making money and just when you get those
twenty bottles for like costs for like fourteen because so
like no, and then like Payard is going to get
like promo basically yeah, he's like, no, you're gonna get
the paintings.
Speaker 2 (22:31):
Well, and this goes when he changes, of course, it
gets much more expensive. So he's drawing for I would say,
the first half of this book, and then he moves
to oil, which is a lot.
Speaker 1 (22:41):
More expensive, and drawings are impressive. I mean, I do
have to say, and this is what I think is
kind of like so classic like whatever, it's straight kai
but it's also just like Ridge and and queer where
it's like his fascination with the working class. It is
a little fetishistic.
Speaker 2 (22:56):
Well, absolutely, and I wonder it's like, is that our
generation and of being like third fourth generation, is it
queer or is it because it's like right, it's rigid
indie guy being like.
Speaker 1 (23:07):
I think it's just like classically bourgeois to be like
look at someone on a loom and be like, marvelly,
not their work.
Speaker 2 (23:15):
Well, and it's even more I would say of the time,
since like we're the first generation to like make less
than our parents, so in a way, like we're reverting
back to the working class.
Speaker 1 (23:24):
Right, and now our parents will be making paintings of
us podcasting, but it's.
Speaker 2 (23:28):
Like we're still like a lot of us have like
grown up with a lot of priv so we're like,
I'm actually a part of your community. So if I
like paint you being like a factory worker, we're kind
of one of the same because I'm a barista.
Speaker 1 (23:41):
Right, totally. No, I mean when I paint a tomaly lady, Yes,
the same boat.
Speaker 2 (23:48):
I just feel like he is of that mindset. He's like, well,
I'm a poor artist and I'm rejecting my parents.
Speaker 1 (23:54):
Because he actually says many times that he says he's
like the artist is more similar to the smith or
to the doctor than to someone who lives a life
of leisure. And he's saying that he thinks like art
should be a job and it is like a technically
demanding job that you just have to work at. And
I feel like the way that he was painting, that's
kind of true, like he was working a lot. However,
(24:16):
by and large, I would not say that the artist
is the same as a doctor.
Speaker 2 (24:20):
Well, okay, but like, how many books of doctors have
we read?
Speaker 1 (24:24):
Yeah, we haven't read a tool.
Speaker 2 (24:26):
We haven't read doctor oz No, So well depends on
the doctor.
Speaker 1 (24:31):
Well, would not just imply that, yeah, they're not the same.
Speaker 2 (24:34):
No, they're definitely not the same, because my point is
that artists work are sometimes maybe more important than the
medical field. Oh yes, and the conversation rather than the
general practitioner that says gurgle salt.
Speaker 1 (24:49):
Yeah, I'm on my r Okay, yes, but like society
needs the general practitionersough Also honestly, throughout all of his
doctors literally did nothing and were actually bad until look
so recently Andy was like dying and they were just
like blood lp mark. Okay, but I'm not saying that
like creative labor is not essential.
Speaker 2 (25:11):
In obviously, like is being like a conceptual artist like needed,
we need to like pay them by the state. That's
up for debate.
Speaker 1 (25:17):
Even in his estimation of the craft of art making
and specifically like painting, like he's doing like as being
something that just like is a technical skill that requires
a lot of dedication and requires like hours per day
and should be thought of as like a worker in
the same way. I'm also like it is self expression
in a way that other things are not. The doctor
(25:39):
is not expressing himself no in surgery, and if he is,
that's a problem.
Speaker 2 (25:43):
Yeah, if he's like, oh damn, like I sewed this
up in an amazing way. Though, I feel like the
surgeon who did my top surgery like did think he
was an artist, and that goes to surgeon's narcissism, which
is a whole other episode. Yeah, because he was still
the trump and being like, what an amazing job I did. Wonderful,
wonderful look at a beautiful chest. Yeah, like this he
(26:08):
was being like he.
Speaker 1 (26:09):
Was of chest. Yeah, look at my binder.
Speaker 2 (26:16):
Here's a passage where this tends to, which is his
observations of the working class and drawing, which I thought
was just a beautiful sentence. Once again, hard at work
at drawing. I sometimes think there's nothing nicer than drawing.
I do think drawing it's the first thing we learned
to do in the arts as children, and I feel
like it's so meditative and like I am nostalgic for
(26:39):
like drawing as a child.
Speaker 1 (26:41):
It's immediate connection to inner child. You know. It so funny.
Speaker 2 (26:45):
I was to sit down, put down your goddamn phone,
and like, just like let it go.
Speaker 1 (26:50):
I was thinking about this weekend I was skiing, and
for me, I learned just he as a child, and
so there's a nostalgia there, but you have to be
so present, especially when you're skiing moguls, because there's so
many things going on.
Speaker 2 (27:02):
I've never done a mogal. You've always been scared.
Speaker 1 (27:04):
Like you cannot be scrolling.
Speaker 2 (27:06):
While yeah mogul, put the phone down.
Speaker 1 (27:09):
It is like the most wildly present activity, like you
can only think about your next move.
Speaker 2 (27:15):
I for get worried when I see people post on
the mountains and.
Speaker 1 (27:19):
You see me post on the mountains. Yes, well I'm
not like video and as I'm on the mocal no
but downhill.
Speaker 2 (27:26):
Sometimes it makes me nervous.
Speaker 1 (27:29):
The thing is, though, it's that level of presence that
I do feel like drawing takes you back to, like
you say, meditative, which I think is true, right.
Speaker 2 (27:36):
But no, it's also focus.
Speaker 1 (27:38):
It's a separation from all distractions. And I'm sure maybe
because children are incredibly in touch with themselves.
Speaker 2 (27:46):
Oh my god, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1 (27:48):
But they don't have all the social anxieties, like the responsibilities.
Speaker 2 (27:51):
And even the is this good will this?
Speaker 1 (27:53):
Because that, like drawing, takes you back to that childlike
master of your domain.
Speaker 2 (27:59):
Con just like I like this color, I want to
draw this dog and yeah, and now dog is killing
yes and dark drawings. Obviously paint can be that way too,
but I think just drawings comes usually before painting, and
then he goes on and this is where he is
(28:20):
being like in the way we always talk about like
American photography of like the American like pastoral, like mall
closing down, and it's a drawing of like three old women.
This is part of that Pew's piece. There are other
heads of men in the background. Things like this are difficult, however,
and don't always work straight away. When they do work,
it's sometimes the end result of a whole series of failures.
(28:42):
Speaking of the orphan men, I was interrupted while writing
these lines by the arrival of my model, and I
worked with him until dark. He was wearing a large,
old overcoat, which lends him a curiously broad figure. I
think you may perhaps like this collection of orphan men
and their Sunday best and they're working clothes. Then I
got him sitting with the short pipe as well. He
has a nice bald head, large ears, and white side whiskers.
(29:05):
He's literally being like, sorry, why is this homeless man
in a huge overcoat? Like the inspiration for Armani's next line.
Speaker 1 (29:13):
Like it's so dear leak.
Speaker 2 (29:15):
It's really dear ah leak, Like, oh my god, Orphan
style the nineteen twenties was so amazing.
Speaker 1 (29:21):
His use of pain is a little it's like you say,
like versus trying. It's like you have to use a lot,
and he constantly talking about impasting, and it's like, I
think it just means like using a shit ton of
paint and it's like it starts to just get like
thick and dry. Yeah, and so you really have to
like commit. And then you're like, okay, like what color
(29:41):
am I making this? And then when he is being like, oh,
I'm making the tree a dark Prussian blue, that is
kind of like a crazy choice as opposed to making
the tree like brown, right, and people are being like whoa, whoa.
Speaker 2 (29:54):
Like you're not just doing real stuff, which I guess
is again like what he was like being I'm a freak,
like I'm making a tree blue. Can you believe it? Yeah,
which is in a way also kind of like the
first like psychedelic.
Speaker 1 (30:08):
Because he says this thing at some point where he's like,
in a way, I'm glad that I never learned painting Hey,
I know he underlines learned in all probability, I would
have then had to learn to ignore such effects as this.
Now I can say to myself, this is just what
I want. If it is impossible, it's impossible, but I'm
gonna try it, even though I don't know how it
ought to be done. I don't know myself at a pain do.
(30:29):
I just sit down with the whiteboard in front of
the spot that appeals to me. I look at what's
in front of my eyes, and I say to myself,
that whiteboard has got to turn into something. This has
actually just been so like Monday motivation, just like.
Speaker 2 (30:39):
Yeah, he's being literally like messy bun put on some
gangster rat. Get it get just like when I see
a blank calendar, that's actually an inspiration for me. And
that's why I take out my try colored stickies.
Speaker 1 (30:52):
Because he's kind of saying like, yeah, I guess I'm sorry.
I'm in insane savant, like I never learned how to paint.
It's just like shit, I'm just fucking weird because like
they never told me what not to do. Fuck the teachers.
Speaker 2 (31:05):
No, He's like, fuck the teachers. Throughout this entire book.
He's really not talking to his parents because his brother
gets like an actual job. It's kind of classic where
it's like you respect the brother at a job because
it's like at a gallery and he's getting paid, but
the parents are like, don't become an artist?
Speaker 1 (31:23):
Can I ask?
Speaker 2 (31:23):
Though?
Speaker 1 (31:23):
Like Vincent's making like dope work. The brother literally works
at a gallery, and yet why isn't it being shown
a Why is it being shot at literally that gallery?
B I'm sure he knows a gazillion other galleries in
Paris and Amsterdam and London. Why isn't he like, oh,
let me like send this Gallerius to your fucking studio
and like why why is it taking jo? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (31:47):
Like no wonder Sometimes you're like damn, Vinny, like you're
actually being so mean to your brother who's straight up
supporting you. But then I'm also just like, yeah, I
would be mad. Yeah, you're just kind of being like,
here's twenty five francs so you can like paint your
little chairs.
Speaker 1 (32:02):
And like I feels like probably going on studio visits,
like with fucking Saison, just being like mmm love this, Yeah,
we're gonna show this at the.
Speaker 2 (32:10):
Salon, And I feel like, Okay, if we can purchase
like entourage, Like.
Speaker 1 (32:13):
I feel like, of course we can.
Speaker 2 (32:18):
Yeah. I feel like it's like THEO is like one
of Ari's assistants and is so like getting up the
courage all year to like present his boss with like
one of his brother's drawings. And I was like, oh, hey,
like do you want to take a look at this?
And I just thinks it's awkward, yeah, and he's like, oh.
Speaker 1 (32:35):
I mean I get it obviously. Sometimes, like we've all
been in a situation where somebody kind of asks you
for something and they're like, hey, do you know this person?
Like I feel like people ask me that a lot
about like oh, like I want to like get pressed
or something, and they're like do you know this writer?
Like would you want to put me in touch with
somebody like this here or there? And I'm sometimes I'm
like sure, but sometimes I'm like.
Speaker 2 (32:56):
No, Well, sometimes you don't want to give all your
cards exactly.
Speaker 1 (33:00):
I don't want to spend my political capital on this
person who frankly, maybe I just don't think that their
art is that worthy. And so I do feel like
maybe THEO thought that a little bit about Vincent. Yeah,
but he wasn't a total believer in the work.
Speaker 2 (33:13):
Because he's always sending THEO there were paintings. But then
I thought it was cool that Van go even though
he had like such utter confidence to keep on going
and like keep on going into insane asylums and practicing
and many times he's like, oh, I know, my drawing's
not there. Like he's like, I'm not. He's a very
like believer in like you actually have to like paint
and draw every d the process and like do it
(33:36):
every day.
Speaker 1 (33:36):
I mean that's very not gay of him.
Speaker 2 (33:39):
Yeah, to me, he's like so crazy straight guy.
Speaker 1 (33:42):
I think he is crazy straight guy.
Speaker 2 (33:44):
I as someone who went to the School of the
Art Institute of Chicago.
Speaker 1 (33:48):
Where will be on February twenty seven that Sleeping Village.
Get your tickets now with the link in our bio.
Speaker 2 (33:53):
That's right. Anyway, I went to school with a lot
of male painters and they were like tortured, and I
was always a little bit like.
Speaker 1 (34:01):
Why, what's the matter, And it was like color canvas,
paint and they're always stretching. I mean some of those
guys are legitimately alcoholics, which is a disease. Yes, although
Van Goh actually literally got epilepsy from drinking too much absinthe,
which is insane. No, he's.
Speaker 2 (34:22):
Doing turpentine like he's being very Jerry Springer. A show
I worked on in the City of Chicago would be
The twenty seventh when it was like alcoholics would be
on and it would be like, oh, this person's drinking
like straight up mouth washed to get wasted.
Speaker 1 (34:36):
He was more in that category.
Speaker 2 (34:38):
Moving on to love for just a moment. Oh yeah,
speaking of heterosexuality. Yeah, so this is also very like
straight painter. He fell in love with this woman, Key Voss,
who was his cousin. Yeah, straight up his cousin.
Speaker 1 (34:52):
So it had so straight painter. Okay, what's weirdness? The
parents were so like disapproving of this, but it was
like the nineteenth century and it was like, actually so
normal to be marrying your cousins. But I thought it
was because like her parents were just priven because they
were like, you're poor.
Speaker 2 (35:07):
Yeah, thought he was a poor and sketchy. So he's
writing to THEO and he's like, I need to tell
you something, which is kind of gay, and so he's like,
I wanted to let you know that I feel so
much desired.
Speaker 1 (35:16):
Gossip is gay with key Voss.
Speaker 2 (35:18):
The summer, and then I can find no other words
for it. It is just as if key Voss were
the closest person to me and I the closest person
to kie Voss, And those are the words I spoke
to her. But when I told her this, she replied
that her past and her future remained as one to her,
so that she could never return my feelings.
Speaker 1 (35:35):
She was literally like no, says I'm good.
Speaker 2 (35:37):
She was not now, so not never.
Speaker 1 (35:40):
He does not take this rejection. Well, then this is insane.
So he goes to Amsterdam to try and see her
where she is like from So this is a later letter.
Now this is like, I don't know. A couple months later,
another letter to THEO. I'm like, THEO just must be
spending all day reading these fucking waters the substack and.
Speaker 2 (36:00):
Never ends well because later on he's like, the letters
fall off when he gets married. But we'll get into that.
Speaker 1 (36:06):
Forgive me if I repeat myself. But I don't know
if I've already written to you exactly what happened to
me in Amsterdam.
Speaker 2 (36:12):
It's very like you texted me that yesterday.
Speaker 1 (36:14):
He was like, okay, so here's what went down. On Amsterdam.
I went there thinking perhaps the no never ever will thaw,
the weather is so mild, just being like, maybe she's
gonna come around.
Speaker 2 (36:24):
Yeah, He's like maybe it's just about like persistence and
like girls are into that to like kind true to
a point.
Speaker 1 (36:32):
And so one five in evening, I trudged along the
Kaiserkrocks looking for the house, and indeed I found it.
It's a little bit like he's never been to her parents'.
Speaker 2 (36:40):
House before, and it's like and he's the show up.
Speaker 1 (36:43):
Yeah, but it's also like a little bit like borderline stalker.
And naturally I rang the doorbell and was told that
the family were still at dinner. But then I was
told to come in all the same and all of
them were there, including Jan and that very learned professor,
except for Key. And there was a plate in front
of each person, but no extra plate. This small detail
(37:06):
struck me. They had wanted to make me think that
he wasn't there and had taken away her plate, but
I knew that she was there, and I thought it
all a bit of a farce or charade. And I'm like, oh, okay, proenoid.
Speaker 2 (37:19):
Down staring at these plates, being like, oh, she was there,
but then she was like, take away my plate.
Speaker 1 (37:24):
I'm going upstairs, So like she left the table and
then they like put the plate in the kitchen, so
he wouldn't think that like room, So if there had
been an extra plate in a person, you would have
been like, she's there. But then the no plate, you're
also like, oh, they just took away the plate. It's
like you're being crazy.
Speaker 2 (37:40):
He's being completely insane.
Speaker 1 (37:42):
And like even if she was hiding in her bedroom,
that just means she doesn't want to see you and
you're being cuckoo.
Speaker 2 (37:47):
Well she's not being like oh my god, you showed up.
Like it's not holiday movie where it's like like a
just no point. Does it even sound like there was
even a flirtation. Yeah, And he's telling THEO and he's being.
Speaker 1 (37:59):
Like, no, but I'm obsessed with he's and.
Speaker 2 (38:01):
He's been like I don't regret any of it. And
he's like, I like wish for you to have this
sort of love.
Speaker 1 (38:08):
Oh yeah, which is.
Speaker 2 (38:09):
Like also so sad. He's like I wish you to
have this obsessive love.
Speaker 1 (38:13):
That to me was a little bit him trying to
be like hey, like what's going on with you true, yeah,
a little bit like him being you get yeah, like
so like have you ever like had like penetrative sucks before,
like kind of hoping that he will be a little
bit revealing.
Speaker 2 (38:29):
I think he's you know, because sometimes you're like, I don't.
Speaker 1 (38:31):
Think he was dating anybody at that point, even though because.
Speaker 2 (38:33):
THEO doesn't get with Johannah.
Speaker 1 (38:35):
Miss Bonger, if you mask me, yeah.
Speaker 2 (38:37):
Till much later. And so I think that is his
way because maybe that would be like two forward for
a man of that time to be like are you
with the lady?
Speaker 1 (38:47):
Yes, like bring me news, But then what suple bosoms?
Speaker 2 (38:51):
You may have rested upon all these letters like it's
blah blah blah my charcoal blah blah blah by me
paintings wholesale, and he rarely like is like what's up?
Speaker 1 (39:02):
Well, but that's that thing of like classic narcissist who
knows when to inject one little thing to be like
oh and like wait chica, like how are you doing?
Okay anyway? Wait okay. The most insane, egregious example of
that it's at the end. So when THEO has a
son and names it after Vincent, names it like VILLEM
(39:25):
or whatever, which is I guess like a derivation of Vincent.
But it's right after Vango has basically gotten his first press,
there's this one article that's written about him, and so
THEO sent him an article that's in this French magazine
and it's like about Vincent.
Speaker 2 (39:40):
And imagine what birth was?
Speaker 1 (39:42):
I mean to finally, at like thirty six, to just
like finally have a blog post about you, like when
paper magazine is just like you check out this artist
and you're like, oh my god, the way like.
Speaker 2 (39:50):
Thirty at that time was might as well been sixty.
Speaker 1 (39:53):
Yeah no, And like this paper mag article launches and
he's like, so gassed up the who But then also
Theodos had a baby. So he writes THEO, going, my
dear Theory, I just receive your good news that you're
a father at last, that Joe is over the most
critical period, and finally that little boy is doing well.
This has done more good and giving me more pleasure
that I can put into words, bra Vo, and how
(40:13):
pleased mother will be. So what I have been longing
for so much in so long time has happened at last.
No need to tell you that my thoughts have often
turned to you over so late, how brave and calm
she was the movin or peril. It touched me very much. Well,
it all helps a great deal and making me forget
these last days when I was ill. At such times,
I no longer knew where I am, and my mind wanders.
Next paragraph, I was extremely surprised by the article on
(40:36):
my paintings you sent me. No need to tell you that.
I hope to keep thinking that. I don't paint like that,
but I do gather from it. Now I ought to
be painting from the article is absolutely right in the way,
and then it's literally nine more paragraphs about the article.
Speaker 2 (40:46):
He was like, wait, do you remember that part in
the article when it says this, He's like, by the way, congrats.
Speaker 1 (40:51):
No, he literally does, like a line by line breakdown,
just like one paragraph.
Speaker 2 (40:56):
Congrats you think about some people in your life.
Speaker 1 (40:59):
Absolutely, it does make you think about certain people in
your life.
Speaker 2 (41:03):
Yeah. I was kind of just saying, okay, yes, no, right,
I wasn't talking about you.
Speaker 1 (41:07):
I thought it was me.
Speaker 2 (41:09):
I mean, no, you would like so send an Etsy gift.
Speaker 1 (41:13):
No, I'm obsessed with babies.
Speaker 2 (41:14):
Yeah, so in the kind of there's like some biographical
parts in this book between the letters and then also
talks about how van Go like gets so mad when
THEO gets married, and like, you know, his letters are
a little more few and far between because it's like, well, damn,
how can you keep up with this though, and all
of his letters and it's like, sorry, he has to
(41:35):
have some sort of life himself. Yet so heartbreaking. When
van Go kills himself in a field, THEO gets note
from the doctor. Comes Van Go dies in Theo's arms,
so beautiful, and then THEO I think he was having
health problems himself.
Speaker 1 (41:54):
He had a little something we like to call syphilis.
Speaker 2 (41:57):
Yeah, from Johanna or not Joe.
Speaker 1 (42:01):
He may not have been barling Banger when he got
the sef.
Speaker 2 (42:06):
And that's private and that's up to Joe.
Speaker 1 (42:09):
He also has a long incubation period.
Speaker 2 (42:11):
He could have gotten that from just like deach John Furtenberg.
Speaker 1 (42:15):
Yeah, six two brothels were everywhere because you know, so Vincent,
like six months before the gunshot, he had cut off
his ear after a fight with Gogan, and then he
went to a brothel and presented the ear to one
of the ladies of the night at the brothel.
Speaker 2 (42:34):
Fucking freak. Yeah, he's so sketchy. His thing with Gogant
was very also like art school romance, where they were
like besties and like we're always going to Brittany or
somewhere to the paints with each other. And it was
still like wine and turpentine and absynthe.
Speaker 1 (42:54):
And hips and Quail quail and like and a brothel.
Speaker 2 (42:58):
But then it's also so like our guys Rail.
Speaker 1 (43:01):
And a brothel over coat Rail and a brothel.
Speaker 2 (43:04):
It's like, okay, on like the ninth bottle of coate drone. Yeah,
they're like, I actually hate that brushstroke and he's like, bitch,
give me the scissors.
Speaker 1 (43:16):
No, it got really awkward because like he's with Gogang
and then what does he say this like very short
letter he writes right at the end of like they're
kind of fighting. Then Gogan leaves and he goes. I
think that go Gown was a little disenchanted with the
good town of Arl, the little yellow house where we work,
and above all with me and short. I think that
(43:38):
he'll either simply leave or he'll simply stay. I've told him.
But they get over and wig up the pros and
cons before doing anything. Gogan is very strong, very creative,
but he needs peace precisely because of that. Will he
find it elsewhere if he doesn't find it here? I
wait his decision with absolute equanimity, with a good handshake, Vincent.
And then it's like the next day he caught up.
Speaker 2 (43:56):
His ear and he's trying to be so like, oh,
I don't know, last weekend was fun. Yeah, I do
wish him the best. He might be a little upset
with me, but onward and vin go. He at one point,
I mean before the death, he does find love, but
like he doesn't really love her.
Speaker 1 (44:18):
Wait that like pregnant woman? Yeah with CN, oh, that
like old pregnant woman that he paints It was.
Speaker 2 (44:23):
The way matters stand with CN is that I'm generally
attached to her, and she to me that she is
my loyal helpmate. Imagine being all to loyal.
Speaker 1 (44:31):
She think seems like literally homeless. And he was like,
I'll feed you if you like pose for me.
Speaker 2 (44:36):
Yeah, and then they like did fuck? Who goes everywhere
with me? And who is becoming more indispensable to me
by the day. I feel less passionate for her than
I did for Key Voss left here, But the kind
of love I have for Ciena is the only one
I'm still capable of after the disappointment of that first passion.
She and I are two unhappy people who keep each
other company and share a burden. And that is precisely
(44:56):
what And happiness is making way for happiness, and the
unbearable is becoming unbearable. It's just kind of like we're
both just like super depressed. And she's like sad.
Speaker 1 (45:07):
And old and homeless, and and I'm like completely mentally
insane and like still my cousin and.
Speaker 2 (45:14):
Poor, I hate him, jealous my brother's wife, and like
I'm still holding onto an ear and a brothel. But
I guess it's like good to like order takeout.
Speaker 1 (45:24):
With some Yeah. And they were just kind of having
this like grub up relationship.
Speaker 2 (45:32):
Oil painting and chill.
Speaker 1 (45:34):
Yeah, being like seabiscuits again, ships more ships, biscuits. Sure.
Speaker 2 (45:41):
The parents were even more like damn, what are you
up to? YEA, Like now you're doting this home bostwoman,
go to.
Speaker 1 (45:49):
Church, dns.
Speaker 2 (46:02):
What does she with?
Speaker 1 (46:03):
What does she eat? Okay, what does she eat? He's
so spartan, He's like coffee, biscuits, water absence.
Speaker 2 (46:10):
Okay, I have to read this part where he's in
the insane asylum and he's talking about how everyone else
is like eating, and he's kind of looking down at
as like, oh, you're eating to like waste time. But
I took this as like everyone being gassy. He goes,
the poor wretches here have absolutely nothing to do, not
a book, nothing more to distract them than a game
of bullet or a game of droughts, have no other
(46:33):
daily distraction than to stuff themselves with chickpeas and roco beans,
lentils and other groceries and colonial produce and sent amounts
of stated hours. As the digestion of these food stuffs
offers certain difficulties, they fill their days in a manner
as inoffensive as it is costly.
Speaker 1 (46:48):
I was just like, so they're farting up a storm.
I took that, or they're like shitting down the latrines.
Speaker 2 (46:55):
Maybe, I guess I kind of took it as like
in the lentils could be like gassy, way, but it's
like and pees together, It's like.
Speaker 1 (47:04):
It was gas and then all that colonial produce that
they're not used.
Speaker 2 (47:07):
To colonial produce. Yeah, and I think it's like they're
serving then he's having one green bead.
Speaker 1 (47:13):
But I guess at one point he brags, he goes,
fortunately my stomach is recovered, because he was like, after
one of his episodes, he was like, to such an
extent that I lived for three weeks of the month
on ship's biscuits with milk and eggs.
Speaker 2 (47:22):
Can you, I mentione, how dry those biscuits are?
Speaker 1 (47:25):
Yeah? He once you soak them in milk though.
Speaker 2 (47:28):
Sound tasty? Yeah, You're like, I like dark biscuits, dark biscuscuits,
light milk, light milk. How does he live? Padded walls? Yeah,
it's padded cell with window of a beautiful garden.
Speaker 1 (47:40):
Yeah. Well, and then famously starry night he was looking
out the window of his insanea tount himself in the
night and being like that's gorgeous and making a little
sketch and then painting during the day.
Speaker 2 (47:53):
So he likes snad and day. He loves the time
giving window.
Speaker 1 (47:57):
He's giving window, he is giving time of day.
Speaker 2 (48:00):
I'm like, Okay, if he lived in modern times.
Speaker 1 (48:04):
I guess I'm like, would he be like more of
a hoarder if you were an artist today? And would
it be so like just cigarettes and like gatorade bottles.
Speaker 2 (48:13):
I can't, yeah, but it wouldn't be horor would be
like I think it would be the meme mattress on
the mattress on floor books, Gatorade one like vodka bottle.
Speaker 1 (48:23):
And I think that he still would be basically like
because I was thinking of how he hasn't sold anything
at all, and I'm like, God, if you could just
get on Instagram, you could have a link tree and
people could be like, Oh, here's my work. But I
also think that he would be the kind of strikeuy
who would just be like, I don't really fuck with Instagram.
Speaker 2 (48:40):
No. He would have a flip phone. Yeah, he'd be that.
I'd be like, oh yeah, and he'd get an iPhone
for Christmas and he'd be like I don't fucking want
this and be like okay, and his mom would be like,
what if you set up an Etsy? Yeah, and like
maybe like Johanna would actually be setting up an Etsy
for him.
Speaker 1 (48:58):
And he'd be like, you don't fucking get it, mom.
Speaker 2 (49:00):
They're trying to turn it into post girls already.
Speaker 1 (49:04):
But does he wear chor coat?
Speaker 2 (49:07):
Yeah? Is he like o G French blue chort?
Speaker 1 (49:09):
Because I think he's also a little bit into the
kind of like, Oh, no, I think he's which was
chort coats. Yeah, and he's not being so like cravat
and no, it's like maybe he's like suspenders.
Speaker 2 (49:24):
I don't think he's in like he's kind of ate
a chortcoat on this.
Speaker 1 (49:27):
I mean, yeah, this famous self portrait, he's in a
chortcoat and I think underneath but people like didn't have
belts back then, like he did have suspenders.
Speaker 2 (49:36):
You live now, I feel like you'd wear a belt
that'd be like a bicycle bungee cord tied around pants.
Speaker 1 (49:43):
You think he's that like Portland could be just being
like I don't know, I just sucking something.
Speaker 2 (49:47):
I found it, Yeah, just hold it up.
Speaker 1 (49:49):
Maybe I think I think he's a little bit more like, oh,
I took this from my dad and wearing my dad's belt.
Speaker 2 (49:54):
I hate my dad. I hate my dad, but I
have but it's like a beautiful leather belt. Yeah, that too.
I think he would go two faces. Yeah, and I
see like a little bit of a wide canvas pant
for sure.
Speaker 1 (50:07):
Would he have like a little pony or No, No,
he's kind.
Speaker 2 (50:10):
Of shorn less, like little creepy pony that's too new agy.
Speaker 1 (50:15):
But like low weird little like rattail on most.
Speaker 2 (50:18):
Oh, I could see him as rattail or like having
an accidental like bullet, because he would definitely cut his own.
Speaker 1 (50:23):
Hair, yes, and it's hard to get the back and.
Speaker 2 (50:26):
Be like choppy bead head shoes like cool French leather
shoes that like are actually kind of from like a bespokerye.
But he would just see it as a local persons.
You don't think he would, Oh, I'm just talking about then,
But I feel like it was like just a place
you would go to be.
Speaker 1 (50:44):
I think he'd be like so maryls and asex now
like yes, yeah.
Speaker 2 (50:48):
And but in this way where someone if his dress
your shoes, they'd be like, oh, where'd you get those?
You'd be like, I don't know, man, I just like
stumbled into the shop in Portugal and they they made
these shoes for me, and they're like beautiful.
Speaker 1 (51:00):
Ex girlfriend and she's my cousin.
Speaker 2 (51:03):
My ex girlfriend cousin like knows this guy who got
the wholesale like Portuguese leather like mohair loafers.
Speaker 1 (51:11):
Who are you in the book?
Speaker 2 (51:15):
You know. I was looking at good Gal's work and
I was like drawn to it. Yeah, I was drawn
to it, and like because it was being a little
more like nightlife and like cafe.
Speaker 1 (51:23):
Go Gan spent a little more time on his works
because Bengo really like busted through. He was just like Boom,
I'm done, Boom, I'm done.
Speaker 2 (51:30):
Which I also kind of relate with, and like, Okay,
made a drawing.
Speaker 1 (51:33):
Because I do think you have that confidence and that
ability to stop and say it's done. It's done.
Speaker 2 (51:38):
Yeah, It's like you're more like you could you could
tweak forever.
Speaker 1 (51:41):
Yeah, because I think I'm actually more go gown that
sense if we're just looking at the two Yeah.
Speaker 2 (51:47):
Like I think I'm more van Go and being like
I drew a chair of an old man.
Speaker 1 (51:53):
An old man say, but I also see my you know,
I can be a gatekeeper in the sense that the okay.
Speaker 2 (51:58):
Are you theo, well, you are a support of the arts,
Like I could also see you being like I will
give you thirty two francs, but I'm not gonna like
intro you to the senator. Yeah, you are a philanthropist.
That's a little me and I'm van Go yeah, and
I am just being like, how cool did that old man, Yeah, sorry,
(52:22):
my new favorite person.
Speaker 1 (52:23):
What do I give this one? I have to say, like,
I do think that he drones on and on and
on and on.
Speaker 2 (52:30):
I was a little slow to get into it, but
then I kind of locked in.
Speaker 1 (52:34):
I don't know. I find the letters to be like, hey,
this a bridge version. Even with how a bridge, it
is like.
Speaker 2 (52:39):
They're a little more bridged.
Speaker 1 (52:41):
And I feel like they also included a lot of
maybe boring letters, but could have kept out some of
the more interesting ones.
Speaker 2 (52:46):
Yeah, I would have loved like maybe this is out there, like, okay,
what are his most sassy letters? And maybe, like I'll
pitch that to Penguin Classics.
Speaker 1 (52:56):
I just find his writing style to be a little
long winded, and he like takes a while to stay
stuff and kind of repeats himself and like goes in
these circles.
Speaker 2 (53:05):
And there's some beautiful lines here, but it's a little
like give me Franks, give me Franks. Look at this drawing,
and then they are like moments of genius. And it's
always interesting to kind of see the time that he's in.
Speaker 1 (53:21):
Like, I sincerely hope that you won't conclude from this
letter that I'm presumptuous have to think that would be
possible to do something straight away with these first studies,
seeing once interpreted certain remarks I made that way although
I had met nothing of the sort anyway. I used
to be able to tell better than I can now
what something was worth and if it could be sold
or not. Now it's daily brought home to me that
I no longer know about that sort of thing, and
I'm more interested in studying nature than the price of pictures.
(53:42):
It's like you could have said that in one sentence,
as opposed to take an entire paragraph to just be like, uh,
I feel like I'm, you know, not asware of whether
or not something is commercially viable anymore, because I'm more
interested in like nature and like the actual subject material.
Speaker 2 (53:57):
What I did like about this is how like fucking
so he was about his parents. Look, I did love
seeing that of him just being like mom and dad,
I will return when they stop being such annoying ass Protestants.
Speaker 1 (54:11):
Yeah, I like that, even though he is also being
so like I'm so Christian.
Speaker 2 (54:16):
That part I was a little bit like, dude, chill,
chill with the God stuff.
Speaker 1 (54:20):
I give this three out of five severalty years because
I just like I wish it were a diary.
Speaker 2 (54:24):
No, it's hard, and then to go from like peace,
I'm sir Picasso or no, sorry, diego.
Speaker 1 (54:30):
Letters like yes, people should write letters, but letters are
a weird way of like archiving your life because like
you're performing this like for this very specific audience of
one and like brother, your brother, and I feel like
it ends up being less like honest than.
Speaker 2 (54:46):
Which is interesting because it's how he sees himself towards
his brothers another way of looking at it.
Speaker 1 (54:52):
True, but I think like a diary is more honest,
but even also a memoir in some ways, even if
you're being like fanciful about your own kind of like
like mythology, like is some more honest away because you're
like putting all the pieces together in a letter. You're
trying to be like, oh, I'm only winding with this.
One person will be interested.
Speaker 2 (55:11):
Yeah, when it's like what actually is THEO interested? I
give it three point two like insane asylum chickpea meals
out of five. Like to kind of see his anger
as someone who came to I guess impressionism as kind
of this more like pretty genre. I think I liked
seeing his anger.
Speaker 1 (55:28):
In the writing. Yep. And then now you see the
passion in the breast trucks, in the breast trucks.
Speaker 2 (55:33):
And I will go to the starry night whatever like
that's on the.
Speaker 1 (55:36):
Story, fire on the canvas, Yeah, and I'll go get
a moment. Storry Knight is a member of their permanent collection.
Speaker 2 (55:44):
I love that museum, yeah, but I love the Art
institud of Chicago better. And you can find us there
February twenty seven.
Speaker 1 (55:51):
In the city, not the not the museum.
Speaker 2 (55:53):
Yeah you guys. Wow, what a journey through time and
painting and art. Think you as always from the bottom
of my heart for listening. Love you best, do you fear.
(56:15):
I want to tell you about a painter I met
in Amsterdam. Her name was Christina Everett Well. She is
the executive producer of a group of artists a gallery show.
It's quite amazing. I would love for you to connect
me with them. She had a helpmate named Darby Masters
who was a producer and she is a fine woman.
I've been closed in here some of my drawings. Could
(56:37):
you give them to Darby Masters? Now onto more important information.
There's a supervising producer in Brittany his name is Abuzafar.
I would like to stay at his house, so if
you could arrange that, that would be amazing. And I
know there's an engineer who worked there who could supply
(56:58):
me with canvases and teach me how to stretch canvas,
named the Heath Fraser. But by the way, I've enclosed
another drawing for you to give to this man who
owns a cafe in Nie Stephen Phillips Horst. He is
a pianist of sorts and he will be putting on
a show and he sings a theme song for Celebrity
Book Club. So please give him him my drawing. I
(57:20):
would like it displayed in his cafe. Next order of business.
Last weekend, I at a beautiful weekend with the Prolile
Project's crew. I'm not sure if they're a little mad
at me though, because I let's just say this, I
vomited all my food up on the weekend. I got
a little too drunk on turpentine and now I am
a little embarrassed. So if you would mind sending them
(57:44):
twenty four francs, my apologies, Thank you very much.
Celebrity book.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
Fuck up. Introna painting was fucked today?
Speaker 1 (00:11):
Wait, Allison passed me the bunk. Okay, I actually kind
of liked Introni painting. I don't know. That was chill,
like that professor was. I don't know. I felt like
(00:32):
she was getting somewhere cool.
Speaker 2 (00:35):
Dude, did you smoke before class or something? Like I'm sorry,
just like dango snooze.
Speaker 1 (00:45):
Like, okay, I get it, I know, Like yes, do
you need to canonize more white man? But like he's
the original tortured artist like come on us and like
fucking caught off his ear like after he fought with
another artist, Like that's what art is? A ballot?
Speaker 2 (01:00):
Oh, I'm sorry, two white dudes fought in the field
in France, Like what is this my study abroad trip
like sophomore year, Like I'm sorry, like like I've learned
about these guys, Like give me some fucking bascot, Like
give me Felix Consols tores someone who had real fucking pain.
Speaker 1 (01:19):
I haven't even learned who Felix Conus is yet.
Speaker 2 (01:22):
My dude, dude, he's so lit. He piled fucking candy
in a.
Speaker 1 (01:27):
Gallery and that's heavy.
Speaker 2 (01:29):
But like but it was about like a disease.
Speaker 1 (01:32):
Like go back, look at the fucking orchard. It's like
look at the sunflowers. Like Fango's use of color, like
it was actually I know what you're saying, like the
brushstrokes are dope, it's newmanous.
Speaker 2 (01:46):
But I'm just kinda like like, Okay, you're in a room,
you're in a field, you're in Paris, Like shit, yeah,
I'd love to go to Paris, but like the torture, shit,
I don't buy it. And then we praise him and
make all these freaking exhibits.
Speaker 1 (02:01):
I think like he was onto like the beauty that
is everywhere, like the beauty that's.
Speaker 2 (02:08):
In us, Like are you crying?
Speaker 1 (02:11):
No, I'm not. Like look at my Fast and the
Furious two poster, like do you see the way the light?
It's the car, it's so beautiful.
Speaker 2 (02:21):
Like but what I'm saying like that's fucking art, like
that deals with like cars and like urbanism. I guess
I'm just like, Okay, so like Van go he's this guy,
he's like tortured, right, and then some like other dude
was like disguised the goat like eighteen.
Speaker 1 (02:41):
Hold no, no, Allison, like remember like it was this
brother's widow who was asking him the fuck up.
Speaker 2 (02:48):
Like, oh shit, do you think they're like hooking up?
Speaker 1 (02:52):
I think like it. I'm just saying, like, as like
woman approved a hug. How much did you pay for
this ounce? Again?
Speaker 2 (03:12):
Literally twenty five bucks? Uh yeah?
Speaker 1 (03:16):
Wait?
Speaker 2 (03:16):
Have you heard this band of tigra?
Speaker 1 (03:19):
Who's that knocking at the door. It's all your friends,
your filthy horse, your husband's gone, and we've got books
and a bottle of wine to kill.
Speaker 2 (03:27):
It's Hollywood, it's books, it's gossip.
Speaker 1 (03:30):
I'm shook. It's memoirs Martini.
Speaker 2 (03:35):
Celebrity Poop Club.
Speaker 1 (03:37):
Come read it while it's hot. Celebrity Poop Club, I
tell your secrets.
Speaker 2 (03:42):
We won't talk celebrity books.
Speaker 1 (03:45):
No boys are a loud celebrity book say it loud
and pound. Celebrity book Club.
Speaker 2 (03:53):
Buzz me in. I brought the queer foe.
Speaker 1 (03:55):
Hey, hey, best friend? Oh the fuck are you?
Speaker 2 (04:01):
Oh my god? I'm doing pretty good and I have
to say hashtag season maxing. I'm kind of look so
into the winter right now.
Speaker 1 (04:09):
I know, I'm so grateful for this berber cold.
Speaker 2 (04:13):
It's like last winter was just so I wasn't even
wearing any of my heaviest stuff. Now I'm wearing thrashed
from the thresh starlb in flannel lingeans.
Speaker 1 (04:23):
There's nothing like a Filena leaned pant.
Speaker 2 (04:27):
Hoodie, my heaviest jackets. You're in a thermal. I recently
have like gone thermal crazy.
Speaker 1 (04:32):
Thermals are so essential for layering.
Speaker 2 (04:35):
I feel like I've had none and now I have three.
Speaker 1 (04:37):
It's so much better to be rich with thermals rich
and thermal I to be scavengean.
Speaker 2 (04:43):
It just something hits different. And I'm sipping on a
dove hot coco from our weird Flavia office machine.
Speaker 1 (04:52):
Flavia sounds like a Roman emperor.
Speaker 2 (04:55):
This podcast brought to you by Flavia.
Speaker 1 (04:59):
And is it Flavy a full But isn't it.
Speaker 2 (05:01):
Also so like a pillow for vaginal dryness?
Speaker 1 (05:04):
Oh for sure. Talk to your Dodger about maybe with
Flavy as Flaviac.
Speaker 2 (05:09):
Yeah, so it doesn't sound too Labia. And it's a
woman like running on the beach with her like silver husband.
Speaker 1 (05:16):
Yeah, Flavias medication is always about having silver hair and
looking like Daniel dan Lois. I'm sitting on some English breakfastie.
Speaker 2 (05:26):
Damn, you're gonna be up for hours with.
Speaker 1 (05:28):
A little bit of full calorie milk.
Speaker 2 (05:30):
Full calorie milk, old milk, you know it. Have you
ever tried fair Life protein milk.
Speaker 1 (05:37):
I've tried fair Life. I'm not a huge fan of
the branding. It's a little bit too flat millennial design
for me.
Speaker 2 (05:45):
Well it's like made for like Jim bros.
Speaker 1 (05:48):
Oh okay, I guess now that I'm like really leaning
into my gim era, I should write check it out protein.
I just had Booth Brothers milk, which is i Vermont
brand Brothers.
Speaker 2 (05:58):
That's very like assassination. I do want to get the
legend of the Booth Brothers dry them milk.
Speaker 1 (06:05):
It is the creamiest, richest, butteriest milk you can imagine.
I'm selenic almost.
Speaker 2 (06:11):
Okay, It's like the milk nicle Kinman wishes she was
sipping and baby.
Speaker 1 (06:15):
Girl, Oh yeah, no, I mean it'll make you, baby girl,
you'll down a full glass of it.
Speaker 2 (06:19):
Was it almost cream like? Were you having like a
big milk mustache?
Speaker 1 (06:24):
Oh? Absolutely?
Speaker 2 (06:25):
Am Oh yeah, it's crazy when you have like real
ass cow milk compared to like garlic farms.
Speaker 1 (06:33):
Yeah, go, relic just doesn't same anymore as an adult
with a refined palate. I crepe deep duckadant dark milk
like chocolate milk both brothers is the dark meat of milks?
Speaker 2 (06:51):
Me wrong if you know you know both brothers milk
is dark meat. Before we get into a book now
that we're on the subject of poultry, because you know,
I feel like in our VIP lounge, I was like,
you were like, okay, season maxinge is in. I was like,
little birds are in eating little fowl.
Speaker 1 (07:08):
Yes, small fowl.
Speaker 2 (07:09):
Guess what I ate this weekend game?
Speaker 1 (07:11):
Hand quail oh demhing.
Speaker 2 (07:15):
Felt more decadent and like I felt like a little
tiny prince suckling on the tiniest the tiniest bone, little bone, like,
m you kid, just for me?
Speaker 1 (07:28):
Where was the quail?
Speaker 2 (07:30):
I went to Shay Josephine, which is a restaurant in
the Theater District dedicated to Josephine Baker. Oh, it's so
freaking fab.
Speaker 1 (07:37):
Beautiful and there's like old photos of her.
Speaker 2 (07:39):
No, it's a huge, massive old paintings of Justine Baker everywhere.
Speaker 1 (07:44):
Cool.
Speaker 2 (07:44):
Yeah, and it's like owned by one of that she
was very Angelina Jolie, one of the men she like adopted,
so it's an honorary son.
Speaker 1 (07:51):
I see. You mean it's not like she adopted an adult.
But now, I mean I feel like she.
Speaker 2 (07:55):
Probably did adopt him at like sixteen or.
Speaker 1 (07:57):
Something like that.
Speaker 2 (07:58):
But yeah, it's this like there's these huge paintings everywhere
and curtains and like a piano player and Kurt him curtons,
and yes, there are some photos, but yeah, I have
the quail and it was suck on my tuckle. It
was juicy because that was where's gonna be dry?
Speaker 1 (08:14):
Yeah, yeah, I And I was like shut with quail
also because it's easy to over roast a quail. It's
such a right and you think of that crispy, crispy
skin on the quail, and then you're getting to the bone.
You're getting the bone so quickly and you're just like okay.
Speaker 2 (08:28):
It was like, yeah, it was like scared quail.
Speaker 1 (08:35):
But I'm sure she had a wonderful life.
Speaker 2 (08:36):
I think she had a beautiful life and then she
was like flash frozen and sent to shade Josephine.
Speaker 1 (08:41):
Yeah, beautiful.
Speaker 2 (08:44):
And these gay guys next to me at dinner were
like can I as he you a question to one
of his dinner mates and he goes, Yeah, nine and
a half inches uncut.
Speaker 1 (08:51):
Stop. Okay, guys, And they were.
Speaker 2 (08:54):
Like sixty and I was like, this will be future me,
like hanging out with these gays, like hearing the joke
like for the hundredth times that year.
Speaker 1 (09:05):
Okay, oh god, well speaking of okay, guys, kind of
kind of not really, Yeah, although I do have some ideas. Yeah,
there's some elements that felt a little queer to me.
Speaker 2 (09:15):
Oh, he day for sure.
Speaker 1 (09:17):
Yeah, it just in terms of the chaos.
Speaker 2 (09:20):
Yes, let's say the name. Let's get into it. Okay,
you guys, you have heard of You've definitely heard of him.
He's a little more famous than Jeremy Meeks.
Speaker 1 (09:34):
You know him from some of his paintings, which have
fetched some of the highest prices at auction in art history.
Speaker 2 (09:41):
You know him from being the twisted sister that chopped his.
Speaker 1 (09:45):
Day on ear off in solidarity with our hearing impaired folks. Yes,
imagine if that's why he did that.
Speaker 2 (09:53):
No, was like insolidarity with my hearing impaired.
Speaker 1 (09:59):
You know him from.
Speaker 2 (10:02):
Some of his like immersive exhibits, the people always standing
in line for or No.
Speaker 1 (10:08):
You know him from the giant screensavers that his estate
is catching in on that you can find in cities
such as Chicago, New York City. We'll be coming soon. Yes,
I'm pleased. Buy tickets at the Lincoln our bio.
Speaker 2 (10:22):
Or the Lincoln. This little the podcast description.
Speaker 1 (10:24):
Yeah, come to the Immersive CBC show.
Speaker 2 (10:26):
In Chicago twenty four hours.
Speaker 1 (10:28):
Were we talking about? Of course we're.
Speaker 2 (10:30):
Talking about another painter, but kind of I always thought
of him his French Dame Vincent van van Go Go,
Vincent van Go, Vinny the oil painter. N then go.
Speaker 1 (10:45):
You're supposed to say like van Goug because it's like
he's Dutch. I feel like sometimes when you hear people
like whatever her story's talking about, and they're just like,
oh yeah van Goug and an answer him, they're kind
of like seeing Van Gug in this way. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (10:58):
No, this came up as I was reading it. My
lover to me says van Go and I was like, wait,
what are you talking about? She was like, I think
that's how Steven's gonna say it.
Speaker 1 (11:05):
Yeah, yeah, you can really gutturalize. But here at CBC
we're gonna go ahead and say Van Go because we're American. Sorry,
we're American literally the normal way to say yeah, and that's.
Speaker 2 (11:18):
You hear enough of us doing accents. And by the way,
what are we reading but his letters? And not just
Dear THEO, because that's an abridged there's many versions. Yeah,
there's a shorter version that's just Dear THEO. That's a
bridge letters to his brother. This is more letters though,
this is this is mostly still to his a.
Speaker 1 (11:35):
Lot of dear theos. This is the letters of Vincevanga.
We both are rocking in the Penguin classics vers.
Speaker 2 (11:40):
Shout out Penguin and shout out to I've never heard
of this hoe. But her name. She is the wife
of his brother.
Speaker 1 (11:47):
Theo, Johanna von Bonger. Her name is literally a Bonger.
Speaker 2 (11:54):
Bunger, Johanna von Bunger. And I like my milk chocolate stirred,
non shaped.
Speaker 1 (12:04):
And she was Theo's wife, and she kind of made
it her mission to burnish the legacy of her late
husband's brother, Vincent. And she was a real advocate for
publishing this correspondence, and largely due to her efforts, that's.
Speaker 2 (12:22):
Why we think of him as one of the greatest pictures.
Speaker 1 (12:25):
Of Yes, mister Celebritaci why you know him as people
thrown out one hundred two hundred million dollars for his paintings,
I mean insane crisis. Not that they're not gorgeous paintings.
Oh my god, of course it's so beautiful.
Speaker 2 (12:39):
When you were just a young lad, you went to
the MFA and you've got a first heart of the
addis you know, van.
Speaker 1 (12:45):
Go Vango Picasso, Picasso, van Go money.
Speaker 2 (12:50):
Money, What were your feelings one of those early feelings
about tho artists, you.
Speaker 1 (12:55):
Know, as eighteen, I remember being drawn to the Impressionists.
I love the color, the explosion of color, and I
saw myself as a little bit different, right, And so
I was drawn to their differentiation. And I said they
saw the world a bit differently, and I feel something
(13:16):
in myself that feels a little bit outside society looking in.
Speaker 2 (13:20):
As a romantic view. Maybe yes, oh this is not
what a room actually looks.
Speaker 1 (13:25):
Like, right, And so you know, specifically those French Impressionists. Again,
I always associated in Savanga with France, and he lived
in France for a very long time, painted a lot
in France. So it's not crazy to think. And then
we think of the Impressionists as like mostly being French
Go Gone.
Speaker 2 (13:39):
He was actually.
Speaker 1 (13:40):
Sison and and.
Speaker 2 (13:44):
We found out he was so inspired by the Dutch
re brand.
Speaker 1 (13:48):
Yeah wait, there's that line when he's writing that letter
to some other artists and he's like, have you heard
of from mir? I don't know if you know this guy.
It's actually kind of like almost condescending, a bitchy and
I think he's a little bit just of an artist
and that's why he says it like that. But I
was a little bit like, okay, maybe like dial down
the it.
Speaker 2 (14:07):
No, this whole book is him being a huge cunt,
but also just like so romantic and then vulnerable, but
also him just being so like, yeah, maybe you could
send me fifty francs and actually read my fucking letters.
Speaker 1 (14:22):
Yeah. I mean, this is why I'm saying that there's
this queerness to him, because so basically he never sold
a painting in his life until at the very end
of his life he like sells one painting, And this
is weird thing, but he's insanely prolific. He's painting around
the clock.
Speaker 2 (14:36):
Constantly drawing. Well, before we get into it, I just
want to remark on one thing of my impression of
him as a child, which is it's so interesting because
I think we both probably felt out of the box
of life. Yes, and you saw Impressionism as a kind
of like, oh, I'm like that, whereas I guess I
always viewed impressionism. I equaled it with classical music and
(14:56):
I're like, bo b, this is for fucking squares, my dudes.
Speaker 1 (15:02):
So you lumped impressionism and with like baroque painting with it,
just like all painting from the past.
Speaker 2 (15:06):
You were just like boring, I feel like baroque paintings.
I was a little bit more like, oh, this is
the crazy past and like we're being fab and royal. Yeah, Impressionism.
I more was like comparing it to like Cubism and
like early like moder like Warhole and modern.
Speaker 1 (15:21):
Arts, which is totally fair, and I think that's fine.
Speaker 2 (15:23):
And so I was like, I'm actually a little born
to Andy Warhol. Yeah, Casso, yeah, Jackson Pulla I color
but like primary and like crazier where impression and felt
too pretty.
Speaker 1 (15:33):
I guess for me, I one hundred percent agree, And
I think I like adopted that view as I moved
into adulthood and I began to see impressionism as more
boring and pretty and to like concerned with being pretty
and too concerned with just like just moving the needle
enough so that people being it was like, oh, so
you're still just painting a landscape and you're doing something
(15:54):
completely ineffensive, but like people are just a little bit
freaked out because your brushwork is kind of crazy.
Speaker 2 (15:59):
Oh I'm I'm so sketchy, But honestly, reading this now,
I'm kind of seeing your original impression. M Yeah, where
I'm just like he was so like pained by like
watching a peasant put potatoes in a sack, and like
there is more like well.
Speaker 1 (16:18):
And there's also sense that you know, we've talked a
lot about this when we cover artists and content creators Bengo. Yeah,
and you know this difference between people who are super
like hyper self aware and a little bit more pretentious
and calculated about the art they make and the people
who are just producing because it's like this emotional process
(16:41):
that just pours out of them. And I do think
he's the latter. I think like, A, he's so prolific,
he's making like hundreds and hundreds of paintings. B It's
like the way he talks about the paintings. It's so emotional.
He's like I was trying to capture like this peasant
with the sickle in the field and how hot it
was for them to be working that day, and like
how they must have been like baking in the sun.
(17:03):
But they're also so proud of their work and like
the potato eaters his like, which doesn't really look like him.
That one of his first Yeah, and a lot.
Speaker 2 (17:10):
Of the stuff early stuff doesn't look like him because
we think of him as so like Starry.
Speaker 1 (17:14):
Nights, Storry Knight and just like the Lions, and it's
like very just like classically Impressionist, but like he was
so into that painting because he was just like he
was into his own painting because he was like I'm
showing these peasants and they're eating the food that they.
Speaker 2 (17:26):
Made, like can you believe it?
Speaker 1 (17:28):
Like I mean it's also him doing this like poverty
cosplay where it's like he grew up like kind of
a perminal son of a vicar.
Speaker 2 (17:35):
He's some of like a reverend vicar and like they're
very like conservative you know, church folk, and he is
quite religious himself, but kind of in this more like
rebellious almost Pilgrim like way, I will say, well, yeah.
Speaker 1 (17:49):
I mean the dad is a Protestant and so they're
being so like Protestantia and he's like wait. At one
point he like calls like like renoir like a heathen
or something.
Speaker 2 (17:58):
Like renwall even well, and when you talk about the
stuff he puts out, Okay, I mean that makes sense
because he's being so like, oh, they're like drawing so
much pussy.
Speaker 1 (18:09):
Okay, but can I just back to your first impression
of art? Yeah, and like I know we're being like
but I'm like, see, I now think I'm more what
you thought originally.
Speaker 2 (18:17):
Where it's like we're switching.
Speaker 1 (18:18):
I appreciate some of the impressions work. I do think
Monet is like basically just like pretty, but yeah, money is.
Speaker 2 (18:24):
Straight up postcards. And I think van Go at least
was like I think, doing new things with perspective and
like color and brush work.
Speaker 1 (18:32):
The bedroom I think is really cool.
Speaker 2 (18:34):
I think the Bedroom's a dope painting and I think
you can much more see in van Go's work that
he is mad, mad mad.
Speaker 1 (18:42):
But I also think that old like baroque stuff is
like way cooler, and I'm like, cool, this is insane
and the past was mad and everyone was like murdering
each other and it's so sexy.
Speaker 2 (18:51):
I just saw this crazy ass painting this weekend about
like the fall of the Roman Empire, and it was
like all these like nude women on a cliff being
pushed off, and I was like I could look at
that for hours. Yeah, when you're walking through the Boston
MFA and you see an impression.
Speaker 1 (19:07):
Of them, You're like, let me grab a pillow.
Speaker 2 (19:19):
I've been to is it in France Money's Garden?
Speaker 1 (19:22):
Yeah? Is that in France?
Speaker 2 (19:27):
It's past Branson. Actually, I've been to Money's Garden. Going there,
of course, was utterly.
Speaker 1 (19:33):
You may remember it from season four of Emily in
Paris when she gets in a fight with Camie and
they both get wrenched in water.
Speaker 2 (19:44):
Emily if she's like more money or van go to me,
she's so like making a van go McDonald's collab cup. Yeah,
I'm like genius McDonald's take that.
Speaker 1 (19:57):
Yeah, that's the starry night, like h super size.
Speaker 2 (20:01):
And so it's like and if you see a lot
of like if this book has some of these like
cool like early drawings, and it is much more of
like you feel like you are watching in kind of
a freak watch town life.
Speaker 1 (20:14):
Yeah, because he was a lonely ass bitch and he
couldn't make friends.
Speaker 2 (20:18):
And his letters to THEO are throughout this entire book,
just this like desperation of like kinship and brotherhood. Yet
they are also THEO worked for like a gallery and
he funded Van Goo's entire life. Yeah, so Van Go
is always being like, could we make a schedule so
(20:39):
the money you're gonna send me?
Speaker 1 (20:40):
So here's it. Just an example. This is a letter
from September third, eighteen eighty two. I value your loyal
and effective help more than I can say. I think
give you so much. I should so like my work
to become vigorous, serious, virile, so that you too may
get some pleasure from it as soon as possible. Like
he's like, oh, I know, I'm so like shitty, Like
I really hope that you love it. One thing I
(21:01):
should like to bring to your attention as a matter
of importance, wouldn't it be possible to obtain paint panels, brushes,
et cetera at discount prices. I'm having the retail price
at the moment. Have you any connection with Payard or
someone like that. If so, I think it would be
much more economical at paint, say wholesale for instance, White, Okra, Siena,
(21:23):
and we could then come to some arrangement about the money.
Everything would be cheaper. It goes without saying do think
it over?
Speaker 2 (21:28):
And by the way, that slayed me because I was like,
this is after letter after a letter of him being
like I received your twenty five francs, like thank you
so much. I bought charcoal, Like how is mother?
Speaker 1 (21:41):
I hate her?
Speaker 2 (21:41):
And then this is like okay, well, let's actually talking
about a wholes.
Speaker 1 (21:46):
Yeah, like sisk, can we get a discount code. It's
very like what I said that the UCBC at checkout,
I got the white and the Okra.
Speaker 2 (21:55):
It's like yeah, so it would just be like oils brushes.
It's very like us about trying to buy like natural
wine wholesale just be like.
Speaker 1 (22:05):
Oh my god, wait, I love your bar.
Speaker 2 (22:07):
I actually didn't say an idea. Yeah, it would probably
be cheaper for all of us.
Speaker 1 (22:12):
Yeah, if I could, let's just remove the middle man
of you making money and just when you get those
twenty bottles for like costs for like fourteen because so
like no, and then like Payard is going to get
like promo basically yeah, he's like, no, you're gonna get
the paintings.
Speaker 2 (22:31):
Well, and this goes when he changes, of course, it
gets much more expensive. So he's drawing for I would say,
the first half of this book, and then he moves
to oil, which is a lot.
Speaker 1 (22:41):
More expensive, and drawings are impressive. I mean, I do
have to say, and this is what I think is
kind of like so classic like whatever, it's straight kai
but it's also just like Ridge and and queer where
it's like his fascination with the working class. It is
a little fetishistic.
Speaker 2 (22:56):
Well, absolutely, and I wonder it's like, is that our
generation and of being like third fourth generation, is it
queer or is it because it's like right, it's rigid
indie guy being like.
Speaker 1 (23:07):
I think it's just like classically bourgeois to be like
look at someone on a loom and be like, marvelly,
not their work.
Speaker 2 (23:15):
Well, and it's even more I would say of the time,
since like we're the first generation to like make less
than our parents, so in a way, like we're reverting
back to the working class.
Speaker 1 (23:24):
Right, and now our parents will be making paintings of
us podcasting, but it's.
Speaker 2 (23:28):
Like we're still like a lot of us have like
grown up with a lot of priv so we're like,
I'm actually a part of your community. So if I
like paint you being like a factory worker, we're kind
of one of the same because I'm a barista.
Speaker 1 (23:41):
Right, totally. No, I mean when I paint a tomaly lady, Yes,
the same boat.
Speaker 2 (23:48):
I just feel like he is of that mindset. He's like, well,
I'm a poor artist and I'm rejecting my parents.
Speaker 1 (23:54):
Because he actually says many times that he says he's
like the artist is more similar to the smith or
to the doctor than to someone who lives a life
of leisure. And he's saying that he thinks like art
should be a job and it is like a technically
demanding job that you just have to work at. And
I feel like the way that he was painting, that's
kind of true, like he was working a lot. However,
(24:16):
by and large, I would not say that the artist
is the same as a doctor.
Speaker 2 (24:20):
Well, okay, but like, how many books of doctors have
we read?
Speaker 1 (24:24):
Yeah, we haven't read a tool.
Speaker 2 (24:26):
We haven't read doctor oz No, So well depends on
the doctor.
Speaker 1 (24:31):
Well, would not just imply that, yeah, they're not the same.
Speaker 2 (24:34):
No, they're definitely not the same, because my point is
that artists work are sometimes maybe more important than the
medical field. Oh yes, and the conversation rather than the
general practitioner that says gurgle salt.
Speaker 1 (24:49):
Yeah, I'm on my r Okay, yes, but like society
needs the general practitionersough Also honestly, throughout all of his
doctors literally did nothing and were actually bad until look
so recently Andy was like dying and they were just
like blood lp mark. Okay, but I'm not saying that
like creative labor is not essential.
Speaker 2 (25:11):
In obviously, like is being like a conceptual artist like needed,
we need to like pay them by the state. That's
up for debate.
Speaker 1 (25:17):
Even in his estimation of the craft of art making
and specifically like painting, like he's doing like as being
something that just like is a technical skill that requires
a lot of dedication and requires like hours per day
and should be thought of as like a worker in
the same way. I'm also like it is self expression
in a way that other things are not. The doctor
(25:39):
is not expressing himself no in surgery, and if he is,
that's a problem.
Speaker 2 (25:43):
Yeah, if he's like, oh damn, like I sewed this
up in an amazing way. Though, I feel like the
surgeon who did my top surgery like did think he
was an artist, and that goes to surgeon's narcissism, which
is a whole other episode. Yeah, because he was still
the trump and being like, what an amazing job I did. Wonderful,
wonderful look at a beautiful chest. Yeah, like this he
(26:08):
was being like he.
Speaker 1 (26:09):
Was of chest. Yeah, look at my binder.
Speaker 2 (26:16):
Here's a passage where this tends to, which is his
observations of the working class and drawing, which I thought
was just a beautiful sentence. Once again, hard at work
at drawing. I sometimes think there's nothing nicer than drawing.
I do think drawing it's the first thing we learned
to do in the arts as children, and I feel
like it's so meditative and like I am nostalgic for
(26:39):
like drawing as a child.
Speaker 1 (26:41):
It's immediate connection to inner child. You know. It so funny.
Speaker 2 (26:45):
I was to sit down, put down your goddamn phone,
and like, just like let it go.
Speaker 1 (26:50):
I was thinking about this weekend I was skiing, and
for me, I learned just he as a child, and
so there's a nostalgia there, but you have to be
so present, especially when you're skiing moguls, because there's so
many things going on.
Speaker 2 (27:02):
I've never done a mogal. You've always been scared.
Speaker 1 (27:04):
Like you cannot be scrolling.
Speaker 2 (27:06):
While yeah mogul, put the phone down.
Speaker 1 (27:09):
It is like the most wildly present activity, like you
can only think about your next move.
Speaker 2 (27:15):
I for get worried when I see people post on
the mountains and.
Speaker 1 (27:19):
You see me post on the mountains. Yes, well I'm
not like video and as I'm on the mocal no
but downhill.
Speaker 2 (27:26):
Sometimes it makes me nervous.
Speaker 1 (27:29):
The thing is, though, it's that level of presence that
I do feel like drawing takes you back to, like
you say, meditative, which I think is true, right.
Speaker 2 (27:36):
But no, it's also focus.
Speaker 1 (27:38):
It's a separation from all distractions. And I'm sure maybe
because children are incredibly in touch with themselves.
Speaker 2 (27:46):
Oh my god, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1 (27:48):
But they don't have all the social anxieties, like the responsibilities.
Speaker 2 (27:51):
And even the is this good will this?
Speaker 1 (27:53):
Because that, like drawing, takes you back to that childlike
master of your domain.
Speaker 2 (27:59):
Con just like I like this color, I want to
draw this dog and yeah, and now dog is killing
yes and dark drawings. Obviously paint can be that way too,
but I think just drawings comes usually before painting, and
then he goes on and this is where he is
(28:20):
being like in the way we always talk about like
American photography of like the American like pastoral, like mall
closing down, and it's a drawing of like three old women.
This is part of that Pew's piece. There are other
heads of men in the background. Things like this are difficult, however,
and don't always work straight away. When they do work,
it's sometimes the end result of a whole series of failures.
(28:42):
Speaking of the orphan men, I was interrupted while writing
these lines by the arrival of my model, and I
worked with him until dark. He was wearing a large,
old overcoat, which lends him a curiously broad figure. I
think you may perhaps like this collection of orphan men
and their Sunday best and they're working clothes. Then I
got him sitting with the short pipe as well. He
has a nice bald head, large ears, and white side whiskers.
(29:05):
He's literally being like, sorry, why is this homeless man
in a huge overcoat? Like the inspiration for Armani's next line.
Speaker 1 (29:13):
Like it's so dear leak.
Speaker 2 (29:15):
It's really dear ah leak, Like, oh my god, Orphan
style the nineteen twenties was so amazing.
Speaker 1 (29:21):
His use of pain is a little it's like you say,
like versus trying. It's like you have to use a lot,
and he constantly talking about impasting, and it's like, I
think it just means like using a shit ton of
paint and it's like it starts to just get like
thick and dry. Yeah, and so you really have to
like commit. And then you're like, okay, like what color
(29:41):
am I making this? And then when he is being like, oh,
I'm making the tree a dark Prussian blue, that is
kind of like a crazy choice as opposed to making
the tree like brown, right, and people are being like whoa, whoa.
Speaker 2 (29:54):
Like you're not just doing real stuff, which I guess
is again like what he was like being I'm a freak,
like I'm making a tree blue. Can you believe it? Yeah,
which is in a way also kind of like the
first like psychedelic.
Speaker 1 (30:08):
Because he says this thing at some point where he's like,
in a way, I'm glad that I never learned painting Hey,
I know he underlines learned in all probability, I would
have then had to learn to ignore such effects as this.
Now I can say to myself, this is just what
I want. If it is impossible, it's impossible, but I'm
gonna try it, even though I don't know how it
ought to be done. I don't know myself at a pain do.
(30:29):
I just sit down with the whiteboard in front of
the spot that appeals to me. I look at what's
in front of my eyes, and I say to myself,
that whiteboard has got to turn into something. This has
actually just been so like Monday motivation, just like.
Speaker 2 (30:39):
Yeah, he's being literally like messy bun put on some
gangster rat. Get it get just like when I see
a blank calendar, that's actually an inspiration for me. And
that's why I take out my try colored stickies.
Speaker 1 (30:52):
Because he's kind of saying like, yeah, I guess I'm sorry.
I'm in insane savant, like I never learned how to paint.
It's just like shit, I'm just fucking weird because like
they never told me what not to do. Fuck the teachers.
Speaker 2 (31:05):
No, He's like, fuck the teachers. Throughout this entire book.
He's really not talking to his parents because his brother
gets like an actual job. It's kind of classic where
it's like you respect the brother at a job because
it's like at a gallery and he's getting paid, but
the parents are like, don't become an artist?
Speaker 1 (31:23):
Can I ask?
Speaker 2 (31:23):
Though?
Speaker 1 (31:23):
Like Vincent's making like dope work. The brother literally works
at a gallery, and yet why isn't it being shown
a Why is it being shot at literally that gallery?
B I'm sure he knows a gazillion other galleries in
Paris and Amsterdam and London. Why isn't he like, oh,
let me like send this Gallerius to your fucking studio
and like why why is it taking jo? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (31:47):
Like no wonder Sometimes you're like damn, Vinny, like you're
actually being so mean to your brother who's straight up
supporting you. But then I'm also just like, yeah, I
would be mad. Yeah, you're just kind of being like,
here's twenty five francs so you can like paint your
little chairs.
Speaker 1 (32:02):
And like I feels like probably going on studio visits,
like with fucking Saison, just being like mmm love this, Yeah,
we're gonna show this at the.
Speaker 2 (32:10):
Salon, And I feel like, Okay, if we can purchase
like entourage, Like.
Speaker 1 (32:13):
I feel like, of course we can.
Speaker 2 (32:18):
Yeah. I feel like it's like THEO is like one
of Ari's assistants and is so like getting up the
courage all year to like present his boss with like
one of his brother's drawings. And I was like, oh, hey,
like do you want to take a look at this?
And I just thinks it's awkward, yeah, and he's like, oh.
Speaker 1 (32:35):
I mean I get it obviously. Sometimes, like we've all
been in a situation where somebody kind of asks you
for something and they're like, hey, do you know this person?
Like I feel like people ask me that a lot
about like oh, like I want to like get pressed
or something, and they're like do you know this writer?
Like would you want to put me in touch with
somebody like this here or there? And I'm sometimes I'm
like sure, but sometimes I'm like.
Speaker 2 (32:56):
No, Well, sometimes you don't want to give all your
cards exactly.
Speaker 1 (33:00):
I don't want to spend my political capital on this
person who frankly, maybe I just don't think that their
art is that worthy. And so I do feel like
maybe THEO thought that a little bit about Vincent. Yeah,
but he wasn't a total believer in the work.
Speaker 2 (33:13):
Because he's always sending THEO there were paintings. But then
I thought it was cool that Van go even though
he had like such utter confidence to keep on going
and like keep on going into insane asylums and practicing
and many times he's like, oh, I know, my drawing's
not there. Like he's like, I'm not. He's a very
like believer in like you actually have to like paint
and draw every d the process and like do it
(33:36):
every day.
Speaker 1 (33:36):
I mean that's very not gay of him.
Speaker 2 (33:39):
Yeah, to me, he's like so crazy straight guy.
Speaker 1 (33:42):
I think he is crazy straight guy.
Speaker 2 (33:44):
I as someone who went to the School of the
Art Institute of Chicago.
Speaker 1 (33:48):
Where will be on February twenty seven that Sleeping Village.
Get your tickets now with the link in our bio.
Speaker 2 (33:53):
That's right. Anyway, I went to school with a lot
of male painters and they were like tortured, and I
was always a little bit like.
Speaker 1 (34:01):
Why, what's the matter, And it was like color canvas,
paint and they're always stretching. I mean some of those
guys are legitimately alcoholics, which is a disease. Yes, although
Van Goh actually literally got epilepsy from drinking too much absinthe,
which is insane. No, he's.
Speaker 2 (34:22):
Doing turpentine like he's being very Jerry Springer. A show
I worked on in the City of Chicago would be
The twenty seventh when it was like alcoholics would be
on and it would be like, oh, this person's drinking
like straight up mouth washed to get wasted.
Speaker 1 (34:36):
He was more in that category.
Speaker 2 (34:38):
Moving on to love for just a moment. Oh yeah,
speaking of heterosexuality. Yeah, so this is also very like
straight painter. He fell in love with this woman, Key Voss,
who was his cousin. Yeah, straight up his cousin.
Speaker 1 (34:52):
So it had so straight painter. Okay, what's weirdness? The
parents were so like disapproving of this, but it was
like the nineteenth century and it was like, actually so
normal to be marrying your cousins. But I thought it
was because like her parents were just priven because they
were like, you're poor.
Speaker 2 (35:07):
Yeah, thought he was a poor and sketchy. So he's
writing to THEO and he's like, I need to tell
you something, which is kind of gay, and so he's like,
I wanted to let you know that I feel so
much desired.
Speaker 1 (35:16):
Gossip is gay with key Voss.
Speaker 2 (35:18):
The summer, and then I can find no other words
for it. It is just as if key Voss were
the closest person to me and I the closest person
to kie Voss, And those are the words I spoke
to her. But when I told her this, she replied
that her past and her future remained as one to her,
so that she could never return my feelings.
Speaker 1 (35:35):
She was literally like no, says I'm good.
Speaker 2 (35:37):
She was not now, so not never.
Speaker 1 (35:40):
He does not take this rejection. Well, then this is insane.
So he goes to Amsterdam to try and see her
where she is like from So this is a later letter.
Now this is like, I don't know. A couple months later,
another letter to THEO. I'm like, THEO just must be
spending all day reading these fucking waters the substack and.
Speaker 2 (36:00):
Never ends well because later on he's like, the letters
fall off when he gets married. But we'll get into that.
Speaker 1 (36:06):
Forgive me if I repeat myself. But I don't know
if I've already written to you exactly what happened to
me in Amsterdam.
Speaker 2 (36:12):
It's very like you texted me that yesterday.
Speaker 1 (36:14):
He was like, okay, so here's what went down. On Amsterdam.
I went there thinking perhaps the no never ever will thaw,
the weather is so mild, just being like, maybe she's
gonna come around.
Speaker 2 (36:24):
Yeah, He's like maybe it's just about like persistence and
like girls are into that to like kind true to
a point.
Speaker 1 (36:32):
And so one five in evening, I trudged along the
Kaiserkrocks looking for the house, and indeed I found it.
It's a little bit like he's never been to her parents'.
Speaker 2 (36:40):
House before, and it's like and he's the show up.
Speaker 1 (36:43):
Yeah, but it's also like a little bit like borderline stalker.
And naturally I rang the doorbell and was told that
the family were still at dinner. But then I was
told to come in all the same and all of
them were there, including Jan and that very learned professor,
except for Key. And there was a plate in front
of each person, but no extra plate. This small detail
(37:06):
struck me. They had wanted to make me think that
he wasn't there and had taken away her plate, but
I knew that she was there, and I thought it
all a bit of a farce or charade. And I'm like, oh, okay, proenoid.
Speaker 2 (37:19):
Down staring at these plates, being like, oh, she was there,
but then she was like, take away my plate.
Speaker 1 (37:24):
I'm going upstairs, So like she left the table and
then they like put the plate in the kitchen, so
he wouldn't think that like room, So if there had
been an extra plate in a person, you would have
been like, she's there. But then the no plate, you're
also like, oh, they just took away the plate. It's
like you're being crazy.
Speaker 2 (37:40):
He's being completely insane.
Speaker 1 (37:42):
And like even if she was hiding in her bedroom,
that just means she doesn't want to see you and
you're being cuckoo.
Speaker 2 (37:47):
Well she's not being like oh my god, you showed up.
Like it's not holiday movie where it's like like a
just no point. Does it even sound like there was
even a flirtation. Yeah, And he's telling THEO and he's being.
Speaker 1 (37:59):
Like, no, but I'm obsessed with he's and.
Speaker 2 (38:01):
He's been like I don't regret any of it. And
he's like, I like wish for you to have this
sort of love.
Speaker 1 (38:08):
Oh yeah, which is.
Speaker 2 (38:09):
Like also so sad. He's like I wish you to
have this obsessive love.
Speaker 1 (38:13):
That to me was a little bit him trying to
be like hey, like what's going on with you true, yeah,
a little bit like him being you get yeah, like
so like have you ever like had like penetrative sucks before,
like kind of hoping that he will be a little
bit revealing.
Speaker 2 (38:29):
I think he's you know, because sometimes you're like, I don't.
Speaker 1 (38:31):
Think he was dating anybody at that point, even though because.
Speaker 2 (38:33):
THEO doesn't get with Johannah.
Speaker 1 (38:35):
Miss Bonger, if you mask me, yeah.
Speaker 2 (38:37):
Till much later. And so I think that is his
way because maybe that would be like two forward for
a man of that time to be like are you
with the lady?
Speaker 1 (38:47):
Yes, like bring me news, But then what suple bosoms?
Speaker 2 (38:51):
You may have rested upon all these letters like it's
blah blah blah my charcoal blah blah blah by me
paintings wholesale, and he rarely like is like what's up?
Speaker 1 (39:02):
Well, but that's that thing of like classic narcissist who
knows when to inject one little thing to be like
oh and like wait chica, like how are you doing?
Okay anyway? Wait okay. The most insane, egregious example of
that it's at the end. So when THEO has a
son and names it after Vincent, names it like VILLEM
(39:25):
or whatever, which is I guess like a derivation of Vincent.
But it's right after Vango has basically gotten his first press,
there's this one article that's written about him, and so
THEO sent him an article that's in this French magazine
and it's like about Vincent.
Speaker 2 (39:40):
And imagine what birth was?
Speaker 1 (39:42):
I mean to finally, at like thirty six, to just
like finally have a blog post about you, like when
paper magazine is just like you check out this artist
and you're like, oh my god, the way like.
Speaker 2 (39:50):
Thirty at that time was might as well been sixty.
Speaker 1 (39:53):
Yeah no, And like this paper mag article launches and
he's like, so gassed up the who But then also
Theodos had a baby. So he writes THEO, going, my
dear Theory, I just receive your good news that you're
a father at last, that Joe is over the most
critical period, and finally that little boy is doing well.
This has done more good and giving me more pleasure
that I can put into words, bra Vo, and how
(40:13):
pleased mother will be. So what I have been longing
for so much in so long time has happened at last.
No need to tell you that my thoughts have often
turned to you over so late, how brave and calm
she was the movin or peril. It touched me very much. Well,
it all helps a great deal and making me forget
these last days when I was ill. At such times,
I no longer knew where I am, and my mind wanders.
Next paragraph, I was extremely surprised by the article on
(40:36):
my paintings you sent me. No need to tell you that.
I hope to keep thinking that. I don't paint like that,
but I do gather from it. Now I ought to
be painting from the article is absolutely right in the way,
and then it's literally nine more paragraphs about the article.
Speaker 2 (40:46):
He was like, wait, do you remember that part in
the article when it says this, He's like, by the way, congrats.
Speaker 1 (40:51):
No, he literally does, like a line by line breakdown,
just like one paragraph.
Speaker 2 (40:56):
Congrats you think about some people in your life.
Speaker 1 (40:59):
Absolutely, it does make you think about certain people in
your life.
Speaker 2 (41:03):
Yeah. I was kind of just saying, okay, yes, no, right,
I wasn't talking about you.
Speaker 1 (41:07):
I thought it was me.
Speaker 2 (41:09):
I mean, no, you would like so send an Etsy gift.
Speaker 1 (41:13):
No, I'm obsessed with babies.
Speaker 2 (41:14):
Yeah, so in the kind of there's like some biographical
parts in this book between the letters and then also
talks about how van Go like gets so mad when
THEO gets married, and like, you know, his letters are
a little more few and far between because it's like, well, damn,
how can you keep up with this though, and all
of his letters and it's like, sorry, he has to
(41:35):
have some sort of life himself. Yet so heartbreaking. When
van Go kills himself in a field, THEO gets note
from the doctor. Comes Van Go dies in Theo's arms,
so beautiful, and then THEO I think he was having
health problems himself.
Speaker 1 (41:54):
He had a little something we like to call syphilis.
Speaker 2 (41:57):
Yeah, from Johanna or not Joe.
Speaker 1 (42:01):
He may not have been barling Banger when he got
the sef.
Speaker 2 (42:06):
And that's private and that's up to Joe.
Speaker 1 (42:09):
He also has a long incubation period.
Speaker 2 (42:11):
He could have gotten that from just like deach John Furtenberg.
Speaker 1 (42:15):
Yeah, six two brothels were everywhere because you know, so Vincent,
like six months before the gunshot, he had cut off
his ear after a fight with Gogan, and then he
went to a brothel and presented the ear to one
of the ladies of the night at the brothel.
Speaker 2 (42:34):
Fucking freak. Yeah, he's so sketchy. His thing with Gogant
was very also like art school romance, where they were
like besties and like we're always going to Brittany or
somewhere to the paints with each other. And it was
still like wine and turpentine and absynthe.
Speaker 1 (42:54):
And hips and Quail quail and like and a brothel.
Speaker 2 (42:58):
But then it's also so like our guys Rail.
Speaker 1 (43:01):
And a brothel over coat Rail and a brothel.
Speaker 2 (43:04):
It's like, okay, on like the ninth bottle of coate drone. Yeah,
they're like, I actually hate that brushstroke and he's like, bitch,
give me the scissors.
Speaker 1 (43:16):
No, it got really awkward because like he's with Gogang
and then what does he say this like very short
letter he writes right at the end of like they're
kind of fighting. Then Gogan leaves and he goes. I
think that go Gown was a little disenchanted with the
good town of Arl, the little yellow house where we work,
and above all with me and short. I think that
(43:38):
he'll either simply leave or he'll simply stay. I've told him.
But they get over and wig up the pros and
cons before doing anything. Gogan is very strong, very creative,
but he needs peace precisely because of that. Will he
find it elsewhere if he doesn't find it here? I
wait his decision with absolute equanimity, with a good handshake, Vincent.
And then it's like the next day he caught up.
Speaker 2 (43:56):
His ear and he's trying to be so like, oh,
I don't know, last weekend was fun. Yeah, I do
wish him the best. He might be a little upset
with me, but onward and vin go. He at one point,
I mean before the death, he does find love, but
like he doesn't really love her.
Speaker 1 (44:18):
Wait that like pregnant woman? Yeah with CN, oh, that
like old pregnant woman that he paints It was.
Speaker 2 (44:23):
The way matters stand with CN is that I'm generally
attached to her, and she to me that she is
my loyal helpmate. Imagine being all to loyal.
Speaker 1 (44:31):
She think seems like literally homeless. And he was like,
I'll feed you if you like pose for me.
Speaker 2 (44:36):
Yeah, and then they like did fuck? Who goes everywhere
with me? And who is becoming more indispensable to me
by the day. I feel less passionate for her than
I did for Key Voss left here, But the kind
of love I have for Ciena is the only one
I'm still capable of after the disappointment of that first passion.
She and I are two unhappy people who keep each
other company and share a burden. And that is precisely
(44:56):
what And happiness is making way for happiness, and the
unbearable is becoming unbearable. It's just kind of like we're
both just like super depressed. And she's like sad.
Speaker 1 (45:07):
And old and homeless, and and I'm like completely mentally
insane and like still my cousin and.
Speaker 2 (45:14):
Poor, I hate him, jealous my brother's wife, and like
I'm still holding onto an ear and a brothel. But
I guess it's like good to like order takeout.
Speaker 1 (45:24):
With some Yeah. And they were just kind of having
this like grub up relationship.
Speaker 2 (45:32):
Oil painting and chill.
Speaker 1 (45:34):
Yeah, being like seabiscuits again, ships more ships, biscuits. Sure.
Speaker 2 (45:41):
The parents were even more like damn, what are you
up to? YEA, Like now you're doting this home bostwoman,
go to.
Speaker 1 (45:49):
Church, dns.
Speaker 2 (46:02):
What does she with?
Speaker 1 (46:03):
What does she eat? Okay, what does she eat? He's
so spartan, He's like coffee, biscuits, water absence.
Speaker 2 (46:10):
Okay, I have to read this part where he's in
the insane asylum and he's talking about how everyone else
is like eating, and he's kind of looking down at
as like, oh, you're eating to like waste time. But
I took this as like everyone being gassy. He goes,
the poor wretches here have absolutely nothing to do, not
a book, nothing more to distract them than a game
of bullet or a game of droughts, have no other
(46:33):
daily distraction than to stuff themselves with chickpeas and roco beans,
lentils and other groceries and colonial produce and sent amounts
of stated hours. As the digestion of these food stuffs
offers certain difficulties, they fill their days in a manner
as inoffensive as it is costly.
Speaker 1 (46:48):
I was just like, so they're farting up a storm.
I took that, or they're like shitting down the latrines.
Speaker 2 (46:55):
Maybe, I guess I kind of took it as like
in the lentils could be like gassy, way, but it's
like and pees together, It's like.
Speaker 1 (47:04):
It was gas and then all that colonial produce that
they're not used.
Speaker 2 (47:07):
To colonial produce. Yeah, and I think it's like they're
serving then he's having one green bead.
Speaker 1 (47:13):
But I guess at one point he brags, he goes,
fortunately my stomach is recovered, because he was like, after
one of his episodes, he was like, to such an
extent that I lived for three weeks of the month
on ship's biscuits with milk and eggs.
Speaker 2 (47:22):
Can you, I mentione, how dry those biscuits are?
Speaker 1 (47:25):
Yeah? He once you soak them in milk though.
Speaker 2 (47:28):
Sound tasty? Yeah, You're like, I like dark biscuits, dark biscuscuits,
light milk, light milk. How does he live? Padded walls? Yeah,
it's padded cell with window of a beautiful garden.
Speaker 1 (47:40):
Yeah. Well, and then famously starry night he was looking
out the window of his insanea tount himself in the
night and being like that's gorgeous and making a little
sketch and then painting during the day.
Speaker 2 (47:53):
So he likes snad and day. He loves the time
giving window.
Speaker 1 (47:57):
He's giving window, he is giving time of day.
Speaker 2 (48:00):
I'm like, Okay, if he lived in modern times.
Speaker 1 (48:04):
I guess I'm like, would he be like more of
a hoarder if you were an artist today? And would
it be so like just cigarettes and like gatorade bottles.
Speaker 2 (48:13):
I can't, yeah, but it wouldn't be horor would be
like I think it would be the meme mattress on
the mattress on floor books, Gatorade one like vodka bottle.
Speaker 1 (48:23):
And I think that he still would be basically like
because I was thinking of how he hasn't sold anything
at all, and I'm like, God, if you could just
get on Instagram, you could have a link tree and
people could be like, Oh, here's my work. But I
also think that he would be the kind of strikeuy
who would just be like, I don't really fuck with Instagram.
Speaker 2 (48:40):
No. He would have a flip phone. Yeah, he'd be that.
I'd be like, oh yeah, and he'd get an iPhone
for Christmas and he'd be like I don't fucking want
this and be like okay, and his mom would be like,
what if you set up an Etsy? Yeah, and like
maybe like Johanna would actually be setting up an Etsy
for him.
Speaker 1 (48:58):
And he'd be like, you don't fucking get it, mom.
Speaker 2 (49:00):
They're trying to turn it into post girls already.
Speaker 1 (49:04):
But does he wear chor coat?
Speaker 2 (49:07):
Yeah? Is he like o G French blue chort?
Speaker 1 (49:09):
Because I think he's also a little bit into the
kind of like, Oh, no, I think he's which was
chort coats. Yeah, and he's not being so like cravat
and no, it's like maybe he's like suspenders.
Speaker 2 (49:24):
I don't think he's in like he's kind of ate
a chortcoat on this.
Speaker 1 (49:27):
I mean, yeah, this famous self portrait, he's in a
chortcoat and I think underneath but people like didn't have
belts back then, like he did have suspenders.
Speaker 2 (49:36):
You live now, I feel like you'd wear a belt
that'd be like a bicycle bungee cord tied around pants.
Speaker 1 (49:43):
You think he's that like Portland could be just being
like I don't know, I just sucking something.
Speaker 2 (49:47):
I found it, Yeah, just hold it up.
Speaker 1 (49:49):
Maybe I think I think he's a little bit more like, oh,
I took this from my dad and wearing my dad's belt.
Speaker 2 (49:54):
I hate my dad. I hate my dad, but I
have but it's like a beautiful leather belt. Yeah, that too.
I think he would go two faces. Yeah, and I
see like a little bit of a wide canvas pant
for sure.
Speaker 1 (50:07):
Would he have like a little pony or No, No,
he's kind.
Speaker 2 (50:10):
Of shorn less, like little creepy pony that's too new agy.
Speaker 1 (50:15):
But like low weird little like rattail on most.
Speaker 2 (50:18):
Oh, I could see him as rattail or like having
an accidental like bullet, because he would definitely cut his own.
Speaker 1 (50:23):
Hair, yes, and it's hard to get the back and.
Speaker 2 (50:26):
Be like choppy bead head shoes like cool French leather
shoes that like are actually kind of from like a bespokerye.
But he would just see it as a local persons.
You don't think he would, Oh, I'm just talking about then,
But I feel like it was like just a place
you would go to be.
Speaker 1 (50:44):
I think he'd be like so maryls and asex now
like yes, yeah.
Speaker 2 (50:48):
And but in this way where someone if his dress
your shoes, they'd be like, oh, where'd you get those?
You'd be like, I don't know, man, I just like
stumbled into the shop in Portugal and they they made
these shoes for me, and they're like beautiful.
Speaker 1 (51:00):
Ex girlfriend and she's my cousin.
Speaker 2 (51:03):
My ex girlfriend cousin like knows this guy who got
the wholesale like Portuguese leather like mohair loafers.
Speaker 1 (51:11):
Who are you in the book?
Speaker 2 (51:15):
You know. I was looking at good Gal's work and
I was like drawn to it. Yeah, I was drawn
to it, and like because it was being a little
more like nightlife and like cafe.
Speaker 1 (51:23):
Go Gan spent a little more time on his works
because Bengo really like busted through. He was just like Boom,
I'm done, Boom, I'm done.
Speaker 2 (51:30):
Which I also kind of relate with, and like, Okay,
made a drawing.
Speaker 1 (51:33):
Because I do think you have that confidence and that
ability to stop and say it's done. It's done.
Speaker 2 (51:38):
Yeah, It's like you're more like you could you could
tweak forever.
Speaker 1 (51:41):
Yeah, because I think I'm actually more go gown that
sense if we're just looking at the two Yeah.
Speaker 2 (51:47):
Like I think I'm more van Go and being like
I drew a chair of an old man.
Speaker 1 (51:53):
An old man say, but I also see my you know,
I can be a gatekeeper in the sense that the okay.
Speaker 2 (51:58):
Are you theo, well, you are a support of the arts,
Like I could also see you being like I will
give you thirty two francs, but I'm not gonna like
intro you to the senator. Yeah, you are a philanthropist.
That's a little me and I'm van Go yeah, and
I am just being like, how cool did that old man, Yeah, sorry,
(52:22):
my new favorite person.
Speaker 1 (52:23):
What do I give this one? I have to say, like,
I do think that he drones on and on and
on and on.
Speaker 2 (52:30):
I was a little slow to get into it, but
then I kind of locked in.
Speaker 1 (52:34):
I don't know. I find the letters to be like, hey,
this a bridge version. Even with how a bridge, it
is like.
Speaker 2 (52:39):
They're a little more bridged.
Speaker 1 (52:41):
And I feel like they also included a lot of
maybe boring letters, but could have kept out some of
the more interesting ones.
Speaker 2 (52:46):
Yeah, I would have loved like maybe this is out there, like, okay,
what are his most sassy letters? And maybe, like I'll
pitch that to Penguin Classics.
Speaker 1 (52:56):
I just find his writing style to be a little
long winded, and he like takes a while to stay
stuff and kind of repeats himself and like goes in
these circles.
Speaker 2 (53:05):
And there's some beautiful lines here, but it's a little
like give me Franks, give me Franks. Look at this drawing,
and then they are like moments of genius. And it's
always interesting to kind of see the time that he's in.
Speaker 1 (53:21):
Like, I sincerely hope that you won't conclude from this
letter that I'm presumptuous have to think that would be
possible to do something straight away with these first studies,
seeing once interpreted certain remarks I made that way although
I had met nothing of the sort anyway. I used
to be able to tell better than I can now
what something was worth and if it could be sold
or not. Now it's daily brought home to me that
I no longer know about that sort of thing, and
I'm more interested in studying nature than the price of pictures.
(53:42):
It's like you could have said that in one sentence,
as opposed to take an entire paragraph to just be like, uh,
I feel like I'm, you know, not asware of whether
or not something is commercially viable anymore, because I'm more
interested in like nature and like the actual subject material.
Speaker 2 (53:57):
What I did like about this is how like fucking
so he was about his parents. Look, I did love
seeing that of him just being like mom and dad,
I will return when they stop being such annoying ass Protestants.
Speaker 1 (54:11):
Yeah, I like that, even though he is also being
so like I'm so Christian.
Speaker 2 (54:16):
That part I was a little bit like, dude, chill,
chill with the God stuff.
Speaker 1 (54:20):
I give this three out of five severalty years because
I just like I wish it were a diary.
Speaker 2 (54:24):
No, it's hard, and then to go from like peace,
I'm sir Picasso or no, sorry, diego.
Speaker 1 (54:30):
Letters like yes, people should write letters, but letters are
a weird way of like archiving your life because like
you're performing this like for this very specific audience of
one and like brother, your brother, and I feel like
it ends up being less like honest than.
Speaker 2 (54:46):
Which is interesting because it's how he sees himself towards
his brothers another way of looking at it.
Speaker 1 (54:52):
True, but I think like a diary is more honest,
but even also a memoir in some ways, even if
you're being like fanciful about your own kind of like
like mythology, like is some more honest away because you're
like putting all the pieces together in a letter. You're
trying to be like, oh, I'm only winding with this.
One person will be interested.
Speaker 2 (55:11):
Yeah, when it's like what actually is THEO interested? I
give it three point two like insane asylum chickpea meals
out of five. Like to kind of see his anger
as someone who came to I guess impressionism as kind
of this more like pretty genre. I think I liked
seeing his anger.
Speaker 1 (55:28):
In the writing. Yep. And then now you see the
passion in the breast trucks, in the breast trucks.
Speaker 2 (55:33):
And I will go to the starry night whatever like
that's on the.
Speaker 1 (55:36):
Story, fire on the canvas, Yeah, and I'll go get
a moment. Storry Knight is a member of their permanent collection.
Speaker 2 (55:44):
I love that museum, yeah, but I love the Art
institud of Chicago better. And you can find us there
February twenty seven.
Speaker 1 (55:51):
In the city, not the not the museum.
Speaker 2 (55:53):
Yeah you guys. Wow, what a journey through time and
painting and art. Think you as always from the bottom
of my heart for listening. Love you best, do you fear.
(56:15):
I want to tell you about a painter I met
in Amsterdam. Her name was Christina Everett Well. She is
the executive producer of a group of artists a gallery show.
It's quite amazing. I would love for you to connect
me with them. She had a helpmate named Darby Masters
who was a producer and she is a fine woman.
I've been closed in here some of my drawings. Could
(56:37):
you give them to Darby Masters? Now onto more important information.
There's a supervising producer in Brittany his name is Abuzafar.
I would like to stay at his house, so if
you could arrange that, that would be amazing. And I
know there's an engineer who worked there who could supply
(56:58):
me with canvases and teach me how to stretch canvas,
named the Heath Fraser. But by the way, I've enclosed
another drawing for you to give to this man who
owns a cafe in Nie Stephen Phillips Horst. He is
a pianist of sorts and he will be putting on
a show and he sings a theme song for Celebrity
Book Club. So please give him him my drawing. I
(57:20):
would like it displayed in his cafe. Next order of business.
Last weekend, I at a beautiful weekend with the Prolile
Project's crew. I'm not sure if they're a little mad
at me though, because I let's just say this, I
vomited all my food up on the weekend. I got
a little too drunk on turpentine and now I am
a little embarrassed. So if you would mind sending them
(57:44):
twenty four francs, my apologies, Thank you very much.
Popular Podcasts
The Breakfast Club
The World's Most Dangerous Morning Show, The Breakfast Club, With DJ Envy And Charlamagne Tha God!
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
Decisions, Decisions
Welcome to "Decisions, Decisions," the podcast where boundaries are pushed, and conversations get candid! Join your favorite hosts, Mandii B and WeezyWTF, as they dive deep into the world of non-traditional relationships and explore the often-taboo topics surrounding dating, sex, and love. Every Monday, Mandii and Weezy invite you to unlearn the outdated narratives dictated by traditional patriarchal norms. With a blend of humor, vulnerability, and authenticity, they share their personal journeys navigating their 30s, tackling the complexities of modern relationships, and engaging in thought-provoking discussions that challenge societal expectations. From groundbreaking interviews with diverse guests to relatable stories that resonate with your experiences, "Decisions, Decisions" is your go-to source for open dialogue about what it truly means to love and connect in today's world. Get ready to reshape your understanding of relationships and embrace the freedom of authentic connections—tune in and join the conversation!