Episode 634
with Bianca Bosker and Brittany Davis
Journalist and bestselling author Bianca Bosker (Cork Dork) takes us behind the scenes of the highfalutin art world with her new book, Get the Picture: A Mind-Bending Journey Among the Inspired Artists and Obsessive Art Fiends Who Taught Me How to See, before getting a lesson on masterworks from a four-year-old; and singer-songwriter Brittany Davis performs the single "So Fly" from their new album Image Issues. Plus, host Luke Burbank and announcer Elena Passarello reveal the uncharted industries our listeners would love to go undercover in.
Bianca Bosker
Journalist and author
Bianca Bosker is the New York Times bestselling author of Cork Dork and a contributing writer at The Atlantic. Her writing has appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and The Best American Travel Writing, and been recognized with awards from the New York Press Club, the Society of Professional Journalists, and more. Her new book, Get the Picture: A Mind-Bending Journey Among the Inspired Artists and Obsessive Art Fiends Who Taught Me How to See, is out now. Website • Instagram
Brittany Davis
Musician
For Brittany Davis, "sound is the way [they’ve] always seen my [their] world.” A Seattle native and born blind, this soulful, genre-breaking musician and producer began recording music at age thirteen while homeless. Davis was signed to Loosegroove Records in 2022, the Seattle label co-founded by Pearl Jam guitarist Stone Gossard, and received rave reviews on their debut EP, I Choose To Live. Now with their full length release from March 2024, Image Issues, Davis harnesses the energy of something quite divine and delivers it thoughtfully. Website • Instagram
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Luke Burbank: This episode of Live Wire was originally recorded in May of 2024. We hope you like it. Now let's get to the show. Hey, Elena.
Elena Passarello: Hey, Luke. How's it going?
Luke Burbank: It's going great this week. Mostly because it's time to play another round of station location identification examination. Are you ready?
Elena Passarello: Hold on. Let me get ready. Okay, now I'm ready.
Luke Burbank: That's your process?
Elena Passarello: Yes.
Luke Burbank: This is where I quiz Elena on somewhere in these United States where Live Wire's on the radio. She's got to figure out the place that I am talking about. And you can play along at home. This place is recognized as Hoop Town, U.S.A. because of a popular annual event called Hoop Fest. It's this huge three on three basketball tournament, and it, takes over 45 city blocks of the city and brings like a quarter of a million people into this place for Hoop Fest every year.
Elena Passarello: Is that maybe somewhere in Indiana?
Luke Burbank: You'd think. Right. Go a little bit west from Indiana. The name of this place. I know this is going to help or not, but the name of this place translates to children of the sun or Sun people. And it comes from the indigenous community that's inhabited the area for centuries. The name of this place.
Elena Passarello: Oh, so maybe like Tucson, Arizona.
Luke Burbank: I'll give you a hint. I've played in Hoop Fest.
Elena Passarello: Oh, okay. So it's, somewhere in Washington State, then? Maybe.
Luke Burbank: But maybe more Inland Empire.
Elena Passarello: If it's inland, it's got to be Spokane.
Luke Burbank: It's Spokane, Washington, where we're on KPBW, the home of Hoop Fest. Spokane, Washington. So thanks to everybody tuning in from Spokane. Elena, should we get to the show?
Elena Passarello: Let's do.
Luke Burbank: It. All right, take it away.
Elena Passarello: From PRX, it's Live Wire! This week, journalist Bianca Bosker
Bianca Bosker: Scientists are right there with artists and saying that art is a fundamental part of our humanity. As one biologist puts it, as necessary to us as food or sex.
Elena Passarello: With music from Brittany Davis.
Brittany Davis: Especially with music, I find it funny that it's something that you hear, something that you feel, but we're so caught up in what is being seen that we forget to pay attention to what we hear.
Elena Passarello: And our fabulous house band. I'm your announcer, Elena Passarello, and now the host of Live Wire.
Luke Burbank: Luke Burbank. Hey, thank you so much, Elena Passarello. Thanks to everyone for tuning in from all over the country for this week's episode of the show. It's going to be a fun one. We've asked the Live Wire listeners a question what industry would you like to go undercover in? That's sort of what Bianca Bosker or one of our guests did when she decided to immerse herself in the world of of fine art and high art to try to figure out what exactly was going on with it. We're going to get those audience responses to our question coming up in a little while. First, though, it's time for the best news we heard all week. This. This is our little reminder at the top of the show. There's some good news happening out there in the world. Elena, what's the best news you heard all week?
Elena Passarello: Okay, well, do you know about the Michelin Guide?
Luke Burbank: Oh, sure.
Elena Passarello: Like dining guide that, I guess, originally was put out by the tire company, but now it's like the global recognition of great dining.
Luke Burbank: I was hearing about Michelin stars and that being the, like, highest compliment a restaurant could get. And I knew there was the guy who was made up of tires. Yeah, was like two years ago that I learned those were related concepts.
Elena Passarello: When I think of the Michelin star, I'm like, oh, or some kind of fine dining restaurant with white tablecloths and food that you make out of an eye dropper or something. But that's not entirely true. And the cool thing about the Michelin Guide is that there are now restaurants all over the world that have the stars. There are 15 eateries across Mexico that have Michelin stars, and now there are 16. But this is not necessarily what you would call a restaurant, this place that recently received the Michelin star. It's actually a taco stand in Mexico City that is a 100ft² in size. It's probably the smallest Michelin star eatery in the history of the guide. And it's this place called Tacos Al Khalifa de Leon. It's been around for like 50 years. It's had the same chef for about 20 years, and there's no place to sit. There's barely any place to stand. It's unlike this busy corner in a neighborhood of Mexico City, and most of the space of the taco stand is devoted to the grill, which is a whopping 680 degrees.
Elena Passarello: It's so hot in this tiny space that when a representative from Michelin came by to give them the star, the chef, Arturo Martinez, who's been there for 20 years, didn't put on the commemorative chef's coat. It was do a lot. He was like, sorry dudes, I got to keep this t shirt on. The coolest thing about this taco stand, I think, is that its menu is super duper simple. You get a freshly made like super freshly made tortilla with immediately cooked beef on it, a little bit of lime, a little bit of salt, and then over to the side are like two types of sauce, but they don't even sauce the taco. But it's so good and they think that the quality comes from the ingredients. Like the owner, Mario Hernandez, Alonso won't say where he gets his meat from, but apparently it's really, really good. And there's just there's always lines out the wires to go here, but now I think the lines are going to be even more because of this distinction. It's actually not even the first food cart to receive a michelin star. There was actually a street food vendor in Bangkok that got a star a few years ago, but this seems like a really special place. And of course, like, you know, like like you said about the gas station corndog, great food happens everywhere.
Luke Burbank: Exactly. I'm really glad to see that. That doesn't all have to be, you know, white tablecloth stuff. The best news that I saw this week came from Payson High School in Payson, Utah. Now, that name may not ring a bell for a lot of us because this is a, you know, smaller town in Utah. But it also was, I guess, where they filmed the movie Footloose. Hmhm Kevin Bacon all those years ago, some 40 years ago. And they're actually getting a new high school starting in 2025. So the students of Payson High in Utah realized that they had this dream. For years, it had been kicking around of trying to get Kevin Bacon to come back and visit the school. But when they realized this was the last year for the school to exist, the last prom they were going to have at the school.
Elena Passarello: Oh, the prom is so important to the movie, too.
Luke Burbank: That's right. Of course, this is about a school in a town where dancing is outlawed, and Kevin Bacon is a brash out-of-towner who teaches them the meaning of dancing like nobody's watching. That's right. Much to the horror of John Lythgoe.
Elena Passarello: That's right.
Luke Burbank: They realized if it was going to happen, it had to happen this year. And so they started pump, of course, putting up these TikToks where they were like doing like footloose dances, and they were reaching out through all of these different channels to Kevin Bacon. And amazingly, they were successful in getting Kevin Bacon to come to the school. He took a tour. They showed him his old locker or his character's old locker. They're moving to the new school as well.
Elena Passarello: There should be.
Luke Burbank: Right. And so the thing that's really interesting about this, though, is that it represented a real sort of accomplishment for these students. And this is something that the teachers at the high school are really celebrating and really proud of with students, because, you know, you're at this age, you're a teenager, you're kind of still figuring out what is my ability to sort of affect the wider world.
Elena Passarello: Right.
Luke Burbank: And these students had a goal: get Kevin Bacon to come to the high school, and they set about on a on a plan and they accomplished it.
Elena Passarello: They organized.
Luke Burbank: Yeah they did. And it's been it was like really informative for them and really rewarding. One of the students, Ruby Raff, who had been working on this for years, says that when Kevin Bacon walked on stage at the school and they played Footloose, she started crying. Because this has been such a long, long term project for them that was coming to fruition.
Elena Passarello: That's amazing. I, I was in that neck of the woods a few years ago. I was doing a reading at Brigham Young University, and my host was driving me to the event, and we passed these grain bins, and I was like, what's that? And he's like, oh, that's the grain storage where Kevin Bacon did his angry dance and Footloose, and he was like, you probably don't want to. And I had already opened the car door. Like it was like I was like, ran across two lanes of traffic. And then I made this poor man film me dancing angrily in, like, my business class.
Luke Burbank: Still one of the great movie soundtracks of all time. Candy logs students at Payson High School achieving their goals. That's the best news that I heard all week. You. All right. Let's welcome our first guest on over to the program. She's a New York Times bestselling author who is basically obsessed with obsession. Her first book, Cork Dork, sent her into the world of elite Somalis and fine wine. Her latest book explores fine art as she attempts to answer such questions as what the hell am I looking at? And who buys this stuff? The result is get the picture. A mind bending journey among the inspired artists and obsessive art fiends who taught me how to see. Kirkus calls the book delightful by a writer who could make dust sparkle. This is Bianca Bosker, who joined us on stage at the Patricia Research Center for the Arts in Beaverton, Oregon. Take a listen. Hi there.
Bianca Bosker: Hey. So nice to see you all. It's nice to be here.
Luke Burbank: So you are, originally from Portland. So this is sort of a bit of a homecoming for you.
Bianca Bosker: Yeah, this feels like my dream come true. So thank you for bearing witness. To what? It's a very historic event for me personally.
Luke Burbank: Were you, like an artsy kid? What was your relationship with a kind of edgy, contemporary art before you started this this project of really trying to understand it?
Bianca Bosker: Yeah, well, I will say that when I was growing up here in Portland, I was, kind of a pale weirdo who was very into art.
Luke Burbank: Oh. So, kid in Portland?
Bianca Bosker: Yeah. Yeah.
Elena Passarello: A resident.
Luke Burbank: Well, you describe most of our audience to this day.
Bianca Bosker: But then something changed. I mean, for a lot of my adult life, I felt like I didn't know how to do art. Like art. And I were not on speaking terms. Maybe like some of you here, although it seems like a very cultured crowd. You know, I would go to one of these galleries or museums with their impeccable white walls and intense lighting and squeaky floors and hushed rooms, and you turn a corner to find a bunch of people gravely contemplating a sculpture of, you know, limp vegetables on a stained mattress. And I really felt like, you know, everyone got the punchline except me. And I felt alienated, intimidated, unsure, uncomfortable. And, it really wasn't until a few years ago that I began to have a deep worry that by turning my back on art, I was missing out on something big. And so I tried to reconnect and I went out. I started, you know, going to galleries and museums, and a lot of the time the art was still not recognizable to me as art. But the people fascinated me. You know, I'd never met a group of people willing to sacrifice so much for something of so little obvious, practical value. You know, artists who treated 100 year old paintings like they were as necessary as, like, a long. And I was really surprised to learn that scientists are right there with artists and saying that art is a fundamental part of our humanity. As one biologist puts it, as necessary to us as food or sex and, at the same time, you know, these. Whoa.
Elena Passarello: Yeah. Yeah, I like that.
Luke Burbank: They're cheering for food, honestly. This is a public radio crowd.
Bianca Bosker: But yeah. And these people, you know, they behaved like they'd access these trapdoors in their brains. Like they had this expansive approach to life that made my life feel totally claustrophobic by comparison. And to be fair, they pitied me. You know, they told me that I lacked visual literacy, which they said was, you know, downright dangerous in a world so saturated with images.
Luke Burbank: I was I was really surprised in the book, to read that when you decided, okay, I want to immerse myself in this world. I want to be basically an unpaid intern. That and I want to kind of document it that people were not interested. People in the art world are not interested in including you in until, like letting you work at the gallery because it seems like and I don't say this critically, but the whole idea of being an artist, of owning a gallery is to gain attention for the work. Why did people not want attention from you?
Bianca Bosker: I mean, you and me both, man, I was surprised, like, you know, I think naively, I think based on everything the art world advertises about itself, I expected to find this group of, you know, open minded iconoclasts who wanted to embrace as many people and the warm hug of art as possible. Maybe this is just my Pacific Northwest upbringing, you know, coming out. But yeah, like I started poking around, like trying to get answers to what I thought were just innocent fundamental questions like, how do you do art? Like, why does it matter? And instead of answers, I got threats, warnings, you know, people telling me that what I wanted to do, which was essentially to, you know, go and work in the art world and share what I learned. But that was impossible. Maybe even dangerous.
Luke Burbank: We need to take a quick break. And I don't want to get into your foray into this art world, and particularly this one gallery where you started out. First, though, we're going to take a short break here on Live Wire. We are in Beaverton this week talking to Bianca Bosker about her new book. Get the picture back with more in just a moment. Welcome back to Live Wire. I'm your host, Luke Burbank, here with Elena Passarello. This week we are at the Patricia Research Center for the Arts, and we are chatting with the journalist Bianca Bosker about her book Get the Picture, which explores the world of fine art. So you you decided that the best way to learn about this kind of intimidating thing, which is, I guess you could say, contemporary art. So you're asking these different galleries if you can come and work there for free. Finally, somebody says, okay, it is a guy named Jack. It's A315 Gallery is the very.
Bianca Bosker: Cool gallery in Brooklyn kind of out of the way spot for the in the know very hip. Yeah.
Luke Burbank: Okay. And this is where the book takes a real hard turn from what I was expecting. I thought, this is going to be the story of how this plucky gallery owner teaches you to live, laugh and love. When it comes to art.
Bianca Bosker: You don't know the art world.
Luke Burbank: He, I have to say, sounds like in the book like a pretty, terrible person. Or at least not very nice to you. What happened?
Bianca Bosker: Well, look, I think that, I learned a lot. I grew a lot as a person. And.
Luke Burbank: I see two ex-wives who describe our marriages exactly the same terms.
Bianca Bosker: And, look, I think that as I started, you know, painting walls and writing press releases, I felt like I was being initiated into what I can only describe as the strategic snobbery that the art world uses to keep people out. And, at first, though, I did need a makeover. My boss informed me one day that, I hate to break it to you, he said, but you're not the coolest cat in the art world, so having you around, it's just like lowering my coolness. So, you know, it's a new a new wardrobe, right? Severe haircut? No jewelry.
Luke Burbank: Are you taking notes when he's saying that? Or is that the kind of thing you just remember.
Bianca Bosker: On the way home taking take notes? I got the notebook out. I'm like, yeah. Yeah. You know, I actually needed a personal. I needed a little bit of work. You know? I need to tone down my superficial enthusiasm. I began anything beautiful? Dojo call anything beautiful, right. That grave insult. The the art world has very, very negative relationship with the B-word. And, you know, but, even but even language, I mean, really, you know, I was coached to nick certain words from my vocabulary, right? So, like, a piece is not sold, it is placed, encouraged to become fluent in art speak, which is, of course, you know, this way of speaking where everything is more complex. The words are bigger than they need to be. So, an art critics, indexical marks of the artist's body would be finger painting to you and me. And these were just, you know, part of the, I think, deliberately erected barriers to entry that, exist to keep out the, the Joe Schmo, which is my boss's term for general public. And there is a kind of a logic to it in their minds, I think. Right. These things kind of they build mystique. They concentrate power in the hands of the gatekeepers, and they preserve art as this sort of, you know, exclusive purview of a self-anointed view.
Luke Burbank: But the other problem is, other than a very, very, very small percentage at the tippy top of this pyramid, no one is making any money off of this. As you write in the book, like the people working are not getting paid or are getting paid far too little. The gallery owners are generally going out of business. The the artists themselves are often not getting paid. Like the economics of this don't seem to work very well.
Bianca Bosker: Yeah. I mean, look, I think there is an incredible passion, right, that that fuels this. And I will say that for me, I was really interested and focusing on the sort of up and coming, emerging side of this world, you know, and to me, that is like the highest stakes, but least covered part of it. And, you know, I really wanted to understand, how does an artwork go from being the germ of an idea in someone's studio to this masterpiece that we find over in museums? Because all the decisions that affect an artwork are also decisions that affect us, right? Our ideas of what art is, who makes it, why we should bother to engage with it. And I will say that, you know, there are there are the people that described the strategic snobbery and try and keep the military it at arm's length. But but there is really a rebel alliance of artists, of galleries, of curators who believe that art, even, you know, the cutting edge art of brutalized furniture or whatever it is, is for everyone that art is not a luxury, it is a necessity. And that really everything you need to have a meaningful experience of art is right in front of you.
Luke Burbank: This is live wire radio. We're talking to Bianca Bosker about her new book. Get the picture? Let's discuss the work of Mandy All Fire, or how Bianca Bosker of Portland, Oregon ended up having her face set on for seven minutes by a but influencer.
Bianca Bosker: Did. Yes. Yes. So, so some. All fire, is an artist that I first learned about because another artist, invited me to go to an opening, and I didn't know anything about Mandy's work except what this artist had shared in a text, which was just the press release. And according to the press release, Mandy Alpha had a very prestigious resume, you know, MFA performing in some of the top arts venues in the country. But for the last two years she had been performing on Instagram as a but influencer. Again, your listeners are far too culture to know what that is. So I will explain. But but influencer is essentially an influencer who has, you know, hundreds of thousands, if not millions of followers, that they have gained by posting revealing photos of their.
Luke Burbank: But I will mention that the history of my Instagram feed will never be the same. And it was purely for research purposes. Oh is. But I have gone down to algorithmically a real other side of Instagram this week.
Bianca Bosker: And so according to the press release, Mandy had invited her followers to come to the gallery for a live face ID and, and she was going to sit on their faces until and I quote, they couldn't take it anymore. And so I read this and I was like, we have gone too far. Like, this is too much like I, you know, I can sort of I was getting at this point in my journey, I was like, I think I can get behind the like the weird avant garde stuff that kids are doing. But this is no, this is too much. And, yeah, before I knew it, there I was. And, you know, darkness was descending and I was like, staring up at her, her bare thighs, and.
Luke Burbank: And she's sitting, like, physically really on you or hovering or whatever.
Bianca Bosker: No, no, no, I mean, you know, she's like, imagine, imagine you have a nearly naked stranger just roosting on my face this way, the best way that I can describe it. And, you know, as you can imagine, like, I couldn't stop thinking about her work.
Luke Burbank: And, I can't stop thinking about her work. I wasn't even there.
Bianca Bosker: And I will say that, you know, I think part of it was like, you know, my process is really immersive. Hers is really immersive. But also, also, I think that.
Luke Burbank: The, the immerser has become the immersee.
Bianca Bosker: And, I think also, you know, it raised really perplexing questions around what is art. And I have to say, like, she she brought me into this place that I'm just so grateful for. And she think she helped me understand that my definition of art was so narrow and really the byproduct of a rather arbitrary distinction made by status conscious Europeans. And like the 1760s. And I think our idea of what art is these days is, basically the result of these Europeans declaring that there was one category of fine art, like, you know, sculpture, painting, poetry, architecture and everything else was craft. And art has essentially, like waved smugly at that pigeon craft ever since an art could move our souls. But craft was just utilitarian.
Luke Burbank: And as you point out in the book, and this will come as no surprise to anyone who's looked at any moment of history. It mostly was the white males were making the art and everybody else was making this craft or whatever.
Bianca Bosker: Right? Right, exactly. And I think that, you know, Mandy was really a path for me to seeing art everywhere, just really expanding my experience of it. And it was really working with artists that not only helped me to learn how to savor art like an artist, but also just to learn the way that I think art. The reason that scientists consider it fundamental part of our humanity is that it helps us fight the reducing tendencies of our minds. You know, our brains are these trash compactor isn't. And we had these filters of expectations that are preemptively sorting, dismissing, categorizing all the raw data coming in even before we get the full picture and art. It introduces a glitch into our brains. It is a glitch that is a gift. It is one that helps our minds jump the curve. And you don't need any, you know, velvet ropes or made up language to do that. And so I think that, you know, Mandy and the other artists I worked with taught me how to look at the world with this art mindset.
Luke Burbank: Well, one of the things that you write about in the book, by the way, we're talking to Bianca Bosker about her latest book, Get the picture? The more that you sort of immerse yourself in this world, the more that you found yourself really seeking out and craving art that was challenging for you, art that you did not understand, which it sounds like was different than the way your brain was interpreting this stuff when you started. And that's how a lot of people that spend a lot of time around this art become what's happening kind of, on a brain level with that.
Bianca Bosker: Yeah. Well, I think that, you know, this journey for me was I mean, it upended my life. I mean, both in a literal sense, where, you know, there was a long period of time where I was basically a deadbeat to everyone that I knew and cared about. But also in the sense that I began to realize the way in which looking is an adventure. Right. And I think that when I started, I think my taste gravitated towards what, the gatekeepers might refer to as couch art. Which is sort of synonymous with colorful painting. And I, you know, I began to see the charms of what they would refer to lovingly as like, nephew art, right? The sort of art that doesn't play nicely at a dinner party. And I will say that, you know, I worked with an artist, Julie Curtis, who helped me understand taste not as a destination, but as a journey. Right? As this. It's not. I always thought of taste as like you had to have the right taste. Right. And, you know, I realize it's less about arriving at the right answer, that it is about constantly exposing ourselves to new tastes. Because with new tastes come a new personality, you know, a new self. And so I think that for me, you know, art is I think I came to this place where I think it is. You know, ultimately, you know, it's a choice. It is a fight against complacency. It is a decision to live a life that's richer, more complex, more beautiful, and more mind blowing. And that's so exciting. And I think that that is reflected in sort of what is happening in our brains and what it does to us, even though it's a physical level.
Luke Burbank: Have any of the people that you wrote about, particularly that first gallerist, read the book and gotten back to you? And in a in a sense, have you not confirmed their worst suspicions about what you were going to do with this book?
Bianca Bosker: Actually, I've been really thrilled. Like, I can't tell you how many messages I've gotten, from readers that have been really wonderful in love and lovely people in the book as well. But also it's been very special to hear from artists who have told me that they feel very seen, and also that they want everyone in their lives to read this book. They feel like it will help them understand who they are. And I do think that, you know, there are the ways in which the book is critical, but I do think of it as ultimately a love story. You know, I mean, by the end, you know, I like I feel like I crave art at a physical level. That was not my experience before. I always viewed art as this luxury. Right? I mean, I can't, you know, clothe you, feed you, or be used to kill predators. And and now, you know, it's become kind of inseparable from me, from getting more out of life, from sort of appreciating the chaos, the nuance and the beauty of the world around us.
Luke Burbank: This is Live Wire. We are talking to Bianca Bosker, about her latest book: Get the Picture. Now, of course, in the research for this book, Bianca, you really immerse yourself in fine art through the perspective of art aficionados and experts and gallerists. But of course, we here at Live Wire, we were were of the people and for the people. We believe that art is for everybody, including somebody associated with our show who has been described as an outsider artist in that she likes to do most of her art outside. Her name is Poppy. She is four years old. She is the daughter of our executive producer, Laura Hadden. And, here is the exercise that we have whipped up for you, art. In our Bianca Bosker. We asked Poppy to look at and then describe a number of very famous works of art. And we would like to present her assessment of these very famous pieces of art, and then see if you can figure out what Poppy age four, is talking about.
Bianca Bosker: Okay. Interesting. And so there are like?
Luke Burbank: These are what's on your computer when you take it out of the box before you put your upper.
Elena Passarello: College dorm poster.
Luke Burbank: Powerful college dorm energy. Thank you Elena. Okay. So first we're going to play Poppy's description. Then I'm going to translate Poppy's description. Then we're going to see if you can guess what she's talking about okay. Here is a famous piece of art number one described by Poppy, age 4.
Poppy: It looks like a night time storm with a haunte witch tower castle.
Luke Burbank: Okay, that is, of course, a nighttime storm with a haunted witch tower Castle.
Bianca Bosker: Oh, wow. I, first of all. Poppy is currently my favorite art critic. And, I have to say, Van Gogh's Starry Night.
Luke Burbank: You are absolutely right. Thank you. Poppy. Well done, well done. Very, very good. Was it the, the nighttime storm or the witch Tower Castle?
Bianca Bosker: I don't know, but it is a witch tower.
Luke Burbank: Pretty witchy. Yeah. I don't know if I even remembered there was a witch tower castle in it. I was thinking more of the swirl. Yeah, yeah. All right. Good. You are one for one. Very impressive. All of your work has not been for naught. Here is art piece number two, as described by Poppy. Here you go again. I will translate, although you'd be surprised how quickly you pick up her patter.
Poppy: Well, I see someone in this picture up at the hills and she is wearing a really fancy style.
Luke Burbank: We did also give her a little bit to drink before and that. Yeah, it's just, you know, it's about free range and your children here in Portland. I will translate that, someone at the hills, and there's an ocean. And she is wearing a very fancy style.
Bianca Bosker: Wow. It's not Mandy Onfore.
Luke Burbank: No, we we we we keep Poppy far away from that side of Instagram until she's at appropriate age.
Bianca Bosker: The fancy, fancy style.
Luke Burbank: Again, a four year old's read on a very famous painting involving somebody, a woman who is wearing fancy style. In, in the hills there is an ocean I'm told.
Bianca Bosker: The Mona Lisa doesn't have an ocean, does it?
Luke Burbank: First thought. Best thought. It is, in fact, the Mona Lisa.
Bianca Bosker: Oh my God.
Elena Passarello: It's sort of an ocean,.
Luke Burbank: Right?
Bianca Bosker: I never thought of an ocean that's amazing.
Luke Burbank: Telling you the eyes of a child. All right, here's another one. You're doing great. You're two for two so far. Here is another very famous. This one is actually, during soundcheck, we were playing these in Atlanta. You were pointing out that this is a very interesting description of a very well known painting that maybe we hadn't thought about it in this way. Here we go.
Poppy: It's painted cheese with a bunch of tiles on it, and two people are in it and there's flowers around it and there's a black background.
Luke Burbank: That is, it's painted cheese with a bunch of tiles on it and two people in it, and there's flowers around it and a black background.
Bianca Bosker: Wait a minute. I mean, I will say my my initial with the first one I thought of like Mondrian. But go ahead.
Luke Burbank: Maybe this will help?
Poppy: It's painted cheese with a bunch of tiles on it and two people in it. And there's flowers around it and there's a black background.
Elena Passarello: Oh yeah.
Luke Burbank: That, that illuminate anything?
Bianca Bosker: Wait, what was it? Okay. Painted cheese, some tiles—
Luke Burbank: Yes, painted cheese. Anybody have any ideas?
Elena Passarello: And flowers around it and a black background.
Luke Burbank: The stakes are very low. So you can yell it out.
Bianca Bosker: Flowers around in two people.
Audience: It's The Kiss.
Luke Burbank: The audience is right. It is The Kiss. [Bianca: Oh wow.] By Gustav Klimt. [Bianca: Wow.]
Elena Passarello: Cheese.
Bianca Bosker: Wow. Yeah. I wasn't going to get that. Well, I mean, again, I think the clear winner here is Poppy. Yeah, obviously.
Luke Burbank: Yeah, yeah. Okay, let's do a couple more here real quick. Here's here's another famous piece of work interpreted by a four year old, now honorary staff member of Live Wire, Poppy.
Poppy: People in a room playing with beach items or rocks.
Luke Burbank: People in a room playing with beach items or rocks. People in a room playing with beach items or rocks.
Elena Passarello: This was a challenge.
Luke Burbank: This one's tough.
Bianca Bosker: People on a room playing with items or rocks.
Luke Burbank: Like a, I don't know, like, around 12 items. 12 people in a room yeah, around a table.
Bianca Bosker: Oh, yeah. So the Last Supper?
Luke Burbank: Yeah, that's exactly right. It's the Last Supper.
Bianca Bosker: Yes. Yes, totally. I will say this reminds me this. You know, this actually brings together two of my passions, which are. So I don't know if you know the phenomenon of meat rocks, but I am obsessed with meat Rocks.
Luke Burbank: Please expand.
Bianca Bosker: They are, rocks that look like meat. And if you go to, I think it's like the National Museum of Taiwan. One of their, like, national treasures is a little rock on a gold pedestal in its own room with like, more spotlights. And we have on us here, and it just looks like a piece of pork belly. And it's incredible. And this has made me obsessed. Now, whenever I go to the beach, I just look for something that looks like a steak on the ground and it's like.
Bianca Bosker: But she's not wrong. These are sort of meat rocks. [Elena: The Last Supper is meat, rocks] Yeah. Not. I mean, you would really break a few teeth on those restaurants, you know, like.
Luke Burbank: I will tell you, I would 100% get the, like, headphone art tour of Poppi. Yeah, yeah, just narrating all of the pieces in the, like, portrait gallery. Okay. Last one, here we go. This is, this is a good one. Here we go.
Poppy: Oh, my.
Luke Burbank: Finally. Yes. Take a moment to drink in with your ears. The world weariness that only a four year old being interviewed by her mother on an iPhone can feel. After four questions. Here we go. This is Poppy's next description.
Poppy: Oh, my. Somebody clam surfing and people flying out of the ocean, jumping in the clam and soemone is saying, is like, wait for me, wait for me.
Luke Burbank: Somebody clam surfing and people jumping out of the ocean saying, wait for me, wait for me.
Bianca Bosker: Jumping out of the ocean.
Elena Passarello: Clam surfing.
Bianca Bosker: Isn't this some clam surfing?
Bianca Bosker: Okay.
Luke Burbank: Clam surf. I think the clam surfing is a big—
Bianca Bosker: Surfing. The clam surfing should make it pretty obvious, right? Like I should have. Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Okay. It's the. It's a Botticelli's Venus.
Luke Burbank: It is exactly Botticelli's Venus.
Elena Passarello: She's clam surfing.
Luke Burbank: Classic clam surfing.
Elena Passarello: Wait for me. Wait for me! Wait, wait. Who's going wait for me, wait for me? Those, the winds? The two winds?
Luke Burbank: Who knows. tActually, Poppy is our next guest, so she can fully explain it. In the meantime, great job on the book and on the quiz. Bianca Bosker, everybody.
Luke Burbank: That was Bianca Bosker right here on Live Wire. Make sure to check out her latest book, Get the Picture: A mind bending journey among the inspired artists and obsessive art fiends who taught me how to see. This is Live Wire. Of course. Each week we ask our listeners a question in honor of Bianca's kind of quasi undercover experience of immersing herself in this world of art that was kind of new to her. We asked library listeners, what is an industry that you would like to go undercover in? Elena has been collecting up those responses. What are you seeing?
Elena Passarello: Okay. We got a lot of good ones here. Pam would like to go undercover in her own industry. She says I'd like to go undercover and mess up some stuff, and then no one would know that it was me.
Luke Burbank: You know, just like a consequence free environment.
Elena Passarello: Yeah, I would like to do that, too. I'd like to be in my own industry, but not be held responsible for some of the decisions that I want to make.
Luke Burbank: Right? Just kind of like get to exist in, like, the truest. Like Rousseau's noble savage, just like, unaffected by rules. The feedback of your colleagues. Just get to see what would happen if you could just do your thing.
Elena Passarello: Brought a margarita machine to the faculty meeting, for example. Just off the top of my head.
Luke Burbank: What's another industry that one of our listeners wants to go undercover in?
Elena Passarello: Claire says, I feel like the personal assistant industry. Being an assistant to powerful people sounds like an interesting and stressful environment that I would love to go undercover in, because I imagine the drama is unmatched.
Luke Burbank: I would take that job, but only so I could quit it dramatically. Have you ever quit a job like dramatically, Elena?
Elena Passarello: No, have you?
Luke Burbank: Oh, yeah. Multiple. Like I've taken bad jobs just so I could quit them. It's so empowering.
Elena Passarello: Have you ever uttered the phrase take this job and shove it?
Luke Burbank: No, but a version of that one time I was being chastised by a supervisor over, the fact that I was on the phone during my shift, and I literally took out a quarter from my pocket and I said, I think I cost the company around $0.15. Here's a quarter. You can keep the change. No. And then walked out of storable Extra space at the University Village in Seattle.
Elena Passarello: I didn't know that you had this kind of, stick it to the man-atism in you.
Luke Burbank: Well, no I've lost it in my in my dotage. When you're young, it was very invigorating. So if you have the privilege and the chance to do it, I recommend quitting a job very dramatically.
Elena Passarello: Well, then I have something to tell you right now. Mr. Burbank.
Luke Burbank: Wait, no, no, no, not this job. Please, we need you Elena because we need you to tell us the next undercover operation that one of our listeners wants to be a part of.
Elena Passarello: Oh, I love this one from Maxine. Maxine says I want to go undercover in the world of celebrity styling. I'd love to know if it's as luxurious as it looks. I don't know if that's the job or like the hair and makeup of some of these superstars.
Luke Burbank: I'd be tempted to just mess with them, see how far I could push it in terms of telling them this is the next cool look.
Elena Passarello: I just want to know what they look like when they walk in. Unless they look amazing. And then I don't want to know at all.
Luke Burbank: Right, exactly. That only works when they look much more like the rest of us do. All right. Thank you. To everyone who had a response to our listener question. We've got one for next week's show coming up in just a few moments. First, though, we have to take a very, very short break. But do not go anywhere. When we return, we'll hear some music from the wonderfully talented Brittany Davis. Stay with us. This is Live Wire. Welcome back to Live Wire from PR.X I'm Luke Burbank here with Elena Passarello. Okay, before we get to our musical guest, a little preview of next week's show, we are going to be talking to the columnist and celebrated author, Eric R. Thomas. He's got a memoir out. It's called congratulations. The Best Is Over, but it is much less depressing than the name would indicate. Eric actually figured out a couple of things. One, that, baking cupcakes was a cry for help. And also, he really sort of had a breakthrough in how to find the joy in the middle ness of life, not the really high parts of life or the really low parts of life, but the kind of middle part, which it turns out, is what most of life is made up of. Right? Then we're going to hear from Ian Karmel, the hilarious comedian, the proud son of Portland. He is going to make the case that Arby's is a farm to table restaurant. Plus, we got some music from the indie band Non-binary Girlfriend, and we would like to get your answer to our listener question. Elena, what do we asking the listeners for next week's show?
Elena Passarello: Whoo, doggy! This was going to be good. We want to know what is the most surprising difference between you and your partner.
Luke Burbank: Okay. And if you want to use a fake name, that's fine. If you'd like to respond to that question, hit us up on social media. We're at live wire radio pretty much everywhere. All right. Our musical guest this week has been called a potent expression of hope by NPR's All Songs Considered. And they're out with a new full length album, which is titled Image Issues. Take a listen to Brittany Davis, who joined us on stage at the Patricia Valley and Research Center for the Creative Arts in Corvallis, Oregon.Brittany, welcome to the show.
Brittany Davis: Oh, thank you for having me.
Luke Burbank: When we first had you on the show, I think it was during the pandemic. And so we were on zoom with you and and it was amazing. But it was kind of this weird thing because we're like, looking at you over this program that's designed for people to have, like a business conference meeting. So we weren't getting the full impact of your live performance. But I know now you've been doing a lot of live shows. You played South by Southwest. That's right. What is it like for you doing a lot of stuff now, kind of in real life in these rooms, when a lot of your early stuff was, was doing it kind of virtually.
Brittany Davis: Oh, that's a really good question. One thing is for sure, the visual always eludes me. So it's not like.
Luke Burbank: It wasn't a huge drop off for you?
Brittany Davis: So you know, like, just being being honest, just having the moment to myself, you know, like, okay, I'm going to be in a room with people. You know, it's a little different because I could feel all of your energy. I could feel all of the aura. I could feel all of the attention and attention, on the work that's being done. Not necessarily on me, but the work that's being done, the message that's being conveyed. And I think that's way, way more special than just having a video phone call thing. I don't know.
Luke Burbank: The idea behind this new album is that you wanted to create an audio movie for people. What? What does that mean for you?
Brittany Davis: So one of the things that I find funny about the music industry in the arts industry is that especially with music, I find it funny that, you know, it's something that you hear is something that you feel, but we're so caught up in what is being seen that we forget to pay attention to what we hear. And one of the things that, you know, I always knew that music was my first language, and I just was like, people want to know who I am. People want to know what I. What I stand for. This is it. You know, pure sound here. Delivery system. It's faster than a lot of different means of, of of communication. And in certain cases, because there's things that we hear that we never forget. You know, we always remember what it sounds like. We can forget what some looks like. You know, I had a friend who. Funny, she went blind at 25. She's 45 now. She still remembers herself at 25. What she look like. And so when I was making this album, I was like, you gotta understand, I don't have any kind of visual reference of this world and myself in it and how I exist individually. And so, like, it's kind of like it's sometimes it can be frustrating trying to communicate my ideas. Visually. When? I've never seen and never had the ability to accomplish the fullness of my goals and being expected, especially as a woman, to be esthetically, pleasing or, you know, bring forth some type of visual, like, yeah, we can we can see the concept of what she's trying to do. You know what? I'm seen. That's really difficult for me. And so when I made this album, that's what I was trying to do, was just wrestle that bare. Yeah. Figure out how to get him to where I can look him in the eye and say, look, this is it.
Luke Burbank: Yeah. I'm curious, what song are we going to hear?
Brittany Davis: We're going to hear. So Fly.
Brittany Davis: So Fly?
Brittany Davis: Yeah, yeah.
Luke Burbank: All right. This is Brittany Davis on leave. Where? Oh, you.
Brittany Davis: I am Sonic Divinity, coming straight from the planet. The same size as. First was China, then was a. And I was that river. See, I'm not all of her sickness. And as I looked in the mirror. Yeah. She added I think just by looking it could get any clearer. I looked at the reflection and with deep introspection I started to hear she say, you're so beautiful, so lovely. I so love so fly. So beautiful. So lovely. You know why it's so beautiful. So lovely. So mum. And so fly. So beautiful and so lovely.
Brittany Davis: The world. And I live with no limits.
Brittany Davis: Every game I win it. And I free with no limits. Cruise control I came to steal your show with that song. Blow. Come on, get on the floor. Come on, let's go. See, I'm so taken by you. Got to take the make for making. Yeah, I knew it was you. I knew it was you. See, I'm so taken by you to take the make for. Make it. Yeah. See, I never knew. I'm so beautiful. So lovely, so lovely. So far, so beautiful. So lovely. You know why I. So beautiful. So lovely, so lovely. I so fly, so beautiful. I so lovely. Oh, no. I'm a couple of a double dose of a double. Dooba dooba dooba dooba dooba dooba dooba dooba dooba dooba dooba dooba dooba dooba dooba dooba dooba dooba dooba dooba dooba dooba dooba. The book dooba dooba dooba dooba dooba. Am so beautiful. So lovely, so lovely. So fly and so beautiful. So lovely. Oh, you know why I so beautiful, so lovely. So lovely. Sunflower. So beautiful. So lovely. I know why I. So beautiful, so lovely, so lovely. So fly. So lovely, so beautiful, so lovely. So fly. So beautiful. So lovely, so lovely. So flying I so beautiful, so lovely, so lovely.
Brittany Davis: So fly. Come on. You. Oh. Oh!
Luke Burbank: Whoa. That's Brittany Davis right here on Live Wire. Their album Image Issues is available now. One more time for Brittany Davis. That's going to do it for this week's episode of the show. A huge thanks to our guests, Bianca Bosker and Brittany Davis.
Elena Passarello: Laura Hadden is our executive producer, Heather De Michele is our executive director and our producer and editor is Melanie Sevcenko. Eben Hoffer is our technical director, and our house sound is by D. Neil Blake. Tre Hester is our assistant editor. Rosa Garcia is our operations associate. Jackie Ibarra is our production fellow, and Becky Phillips is our intern. Our house band is Ethan Fox Tucker, Sam Tucker, Ayal Alves, and A Walker Spring who also composes our music. This episode was mixed by Molly Pettit and Tre Hester.
Luke Burbank: Additional funding provided by the Marie Lampe charitable foundation Live Wire, was created by Robyn Tenenbaum and Kate Sokoloff. This week we'd like to thank members Catherine Sick of Portland, Oregon, and Aubrey Fleck of Vancouver, Washington. For more information about our show or how you can listen to our podcast, head on over to Live Wire radio.org. I'm Luke Burbank for Elena Passarello and the whole Live Wire crew. Thank you for listening and we will see you next week.
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