Russell Ihrig (00:00):
Coming up on Art Palace,

Julie Sunderland (00:03):
We're all afraid there's a right answer and we don't know what it is. And you're going to say there isn't a right answer, but as I give you my interpretation, you're either going to nod or shake your head or your body language is going to say to me, well, that's what the six-year-old said when they came.

Russell Ihrig (00:29):
Welcome to Art Palace, produced by Cincinnati Art Museum. This is your host, Russell Ihrig. Here at the Art Palace, we meet cool people and then talk to them about art. Today is a special bonus episode because September 30th is International Podcast Day, and so I thought it might be fun to listen to some outtakes from the past year. A lot of times I have to cut something just because I don't want the show to be too long, or it just feels like it's time to move on. This first clip is from my conversation with Julie Sunderland of Cincinnati Ballet and was definitely one of my favorite parts, but it just felt like we needed to get to the art sooner. Well, are you ready to go look at art?

Julie Sunderland (01:16):
Yes, totally can't wait. Please make it something abstract and unusual.

Russell Ihrig (01:21):
I know now that you've told me you've revealed your biases, I should change my theme and No, no, I was going to say, actually, I think you'll probably like what we're going to look at and I should pick something more difficult to mess with you, but I won't.

Julie Sunderland (01:34):
I'm very simple-minded. Don't

Russell Ihrig (01:35):
Push this very

Julie Sunderland (01:36):
Dark. Give me a chance.

Russell Ihrig (01:39):
Funny though. Okay, so now I'm going to, like we said, I'm good at digressions. So a lot of people, I feel like it's interesting. I feel like you would think simple-minded than what would be simpler than a panel of

Julie Sunderland (01:52):
Red,

Russell Ihrig (01:53):
Right?

Julie Sunderland (01:53):
Right. So yes, in reality, a panel of red, it hits you in some way. You appreciate it or you don't. But I know I'm not simple-minded enough to know. I know there's something going on there that people who are more well read and more educated know why these panels of red are so important and I want to know and I don't. Do I want to know enough to study before I come? No, but

Russell Ihrig (02:14):
No, I never want to know

Julie Sunderland (02:15):
That in that moment. But just like you, I could say, this is a double tour. This is a girl doing this. And then when you do a clap, but you don't care enough. But I still want to know. I know people know more,

Russell Ihrig (02:27):
I guess I feel like you can still, anyone can bring what they have with them. I think sometimes it's just accepting something for what it is. And that's hard, especially when it is when you have art that has for a long time been representing something else, and so you're looking at a representation of something and then at a certain point it kind of slowly morphs into being about just the thing and not a representation of the thing. And then you just have to deal with, its thinness,

Julie Sunderland (03:02):
But I'm bringing me, so I'm already changing. Its thinness just by me being me, the problem for the me is, is that there is answer's a right answer. We're all afraid there's a right answer and we don't know what it is. And you're going to say, there isn't a right answer, but as I give you my interpretation, you're either going to nod or shake your head or your body language is going to say to me, well, that's what the six year old said when they came, or that's not, no, but the six year olds say awesome stuff. The six

Russell Ihrig (03:31):
Year old say great stuff, they sometimes nail it. I've had kids say stuff that blew my mind that they were, they're looking at some piece and they say something that is so to the heart of the matter that I've actually not noticed because I'm all wrapped up in the art history of it.

Julie Sunderland (03:50):
That's

Russell Ihrig (03:51):
True, because you've got this narrative that you've been only looking at it through this one lens. And so when you see this, you see, oh, I understand how this fits into the history of western art and blah, blah, blah. And then some kid who doesn't know any of that says something about it that is so 100% true. And you go, oh yeah, duh. It was right there the whole time. So I

Julie Sunderland (04:12):
Don't know. That's what I mean. I

Russell Ihrig (04:13):
Think that's what everyone can look at it. I think a lot of times with those pieces that are initially challenging to people, they don't look at them long enough. That's a lot of it. It's very easy to sort of dismiss something very quickly and then just kind of move on because you don't get it and then you might never get it or you might never like it. But I think I've almost never had somebody look at a piece longer and they ended up liking it less. They've always come away appreciating it, I think on some level more than they did when they start. Maybe they didn't like it, but I think if the more they look and the more they think about it, the more they end up getting out of it. So let's go look at art.

Julie Sunderland (04:57):
Let's do it.

Russell Ihrig (05:08):
The next clip is from the episode I recorded with one of our docents, Zohreh Zand for our exhibition, a shared legacy folk art in America. Zohreh told me she thought we could record in about 20 minutes, but in reality we talked for an hour and 40 minutes. This was actually one of my favorite parts. And the last clip, we get into big discussions about the nature of art, but since we weren't really talking about any piece in particular, I had to cut it because it just wouldn't have made sense. As an audio guide, definitely you can tell this is not a self-taught artist. This is somebody who studied this for a while. And yeah, that's probably a good time to bring up the very and very fuzzy definition of folk art.

Zohreh Zand (06:00):
Yeah, exactly.

Russell Ihrig (06:01):
Which I think it makes folk art maybe hard for people to get into because it's really hard to explain what it is. And even to us, it's hard to explain what it is.

Zohreh Zand (06:12):
It is. I looked it up again because folk art means the people's art. In German, they say also folk. K, exactly. Literary translated,

Russell Ihrig (06:24):
And

Zohreh Zand (06:25):
The Germans call it also, now I say only in German because we have got a lot of German artists here. They say, and it says S K means home, and not necessarily your house as a home, but your surrounding as a home. So what you learned at your home to beautify your home. And that became a tradition and a trademark for your surrounding. And people who came over to America from Europe, they brought part of the home with them

Russell Ihrig (06:55):
And

Zohreh Zand (06:55):
Continued the tradition in beautifying the home in a way and objects which they would be using on a daily basis, so to say. So they try to make it nice like the weather or hard like the draw here. And I mean the paintings on the wall, anything, I mean,

Russell Ihrig (07:17):
Yeah. To me, I guess where I go is it's stuff that seems always a little bit outside of maybe the academic traditions of art.

(07:28):
So even if say this where somebody is trained, we don't necessarily think of something like carousel figures as part of capital A art in those sentences. So it's something that's just a little bit outside of what we consider typically that's sort of academic art, but ultimately somebody put a lot of thought into it, somebody put a lot of care into it. There's a lot of creativity that goes into all of these things and it still is art. And so I guess where it gets fuzzy is that there are pieces that we consider to be folk art that were made by people who do have academic training, and we're kind of making choices to intentionally look.

Zohreh Zand (08:11):
Yeah, folk art influenced many famous painters. For example,

Russell Ihrig (08:17):
Picasso

Zohreh Zand (08:17):
One was one of them.

Russell Ihrig (08:20):
So there's always those things that make the whole definition a little fuzzy, but for me, that separation of it from what we think of as the tradition of it has to have a little bit of a break from that. And that's why I think it's interesting. I always love that we're going to do it ourselves. Let's cobble it together and let's make this thing. And I find all of those choices that they make to be really charming.

Zohreh Zand (08:52):
It's charming

Russell Ihrig (08:53):
And it's kind of fun to see how somebody makes the best of what they've got.

Zohreh Zand (09:00):
It brings the soul out. I mean, what do you think? It's not structured. I mean, you have to do it this way and this way and that way. This is more, you have got more freedom. You're free to do whatever you want to. And often it really hits a nail. I mean, it's really neat and whimsical and nice,

Russell Ihrig (09:20):
But I think that's also, and I think that specifically the reason I like it is probably the reason some people really don't like it because when I'm looking at it, I think a lot of people probably look at some of these pieces, some of these paintings, some of these sculptures even and just say, yeah, but they're doing it wrong. That's not how you're supposed to do that. That's not how you're supposed to paint that. That's not how it's supposed to work. And I guess, and that's kind of what I like about it, is that it is, it's kind of transgressive in this weird way. And I know that maybe that sounds strange to be like folk art. I don't know. Folk art is transgressive, but I kind of feel like that's the underlying appeal of it

Zohreh Zand (10:01):
All

Russell Ihrig (10:02):
Is that it's kind of transgressive against the way we expect a painting to look. It's breaking the rules, and that's fun about it.

Zohreh Zand (10:10):
It brings the message right to the point, so to say you see right away what they want to say. It's like poetry, I would say the freestyle and the ones which you have to go by all the rules and regulations. I mean, this kind of poet, a poem has to be this way and can't be any other way, but this one is more free.

Russell Ihrig (10:33):
And by letting go of those rules, you find something that's a little more whimsical and a little more fun. And yeah, I don't know. So much of this work has so much character

Zohreh Zand (10:46):
And for me who is not an artist, that appeals a lot because I can associate with it a little much

Russell Ihrig (10:52):
Better. Oh, really?

Zohreh Zand (10:53):
But maybe from somebody who is really trained. And so as you said, sees the flaws first. I don't see the flaws first.

Russell Ihrig (11:02):
That's interesting to hear because actually I feel like coming from the position as an artist, I find it very freeing because I think, yeah, it's nice to see somebody be throwing away the rules in a way. I think that's really refreshing. But I feel like a lot of people who come to a museum to see art, a lot of times their thought is they want to see something they can't do. And that's a really big thing you come up against a lot is that anything that dips close to their own abilities is seen as less valuable. And I always think that's so revealing. But

Zohreh Zand (11:41):
On the other hand, when you see this, you challenge and say, maybe I could do it. And it challenges you to do it because you think maybe it's not that difficult and you will try.

Russell Ihrig (11:54):
Yeah. I mean, again, I don't agree with that assessment. I always think, to me, that boils down to this idea of I don't think work ethic should be tied up in art and whether we think something is good or not, which is this idea that, well, somebody must've worked really hard on this, so it must be good. And I don't think that's true, because I think you can work really hard at something that's an utter failure.

(12:17):
You can work really hard at very bad things, and you can work not a lot on something. That's great. And I've experienced this a lot in my work that the things I've struggled with and oh, this is so hard and I work so hard on it. And then I've made another piece that's sort of effortless. And a lot of times people really love the effortless one more, and it's hard for you to see past your own work ethic and go like, oh, but I worked way more on this thing and it doesn't really matter because the people don't know what you did and they've just got this thing. And there's a lot of pieces. I think when people look at paintings and they see this really perfectly rendered face and this really perfectly rendered body, that's a way of saying, this person worked hard

Zohreh Zand (13:06):
And

Russell Ihrig (13:06):
They can translate that work ethic into quality. That is my benchmark of what makes something good, is that somebody worked really hard at it. And I can see that because it looks just like the thing.

Zohreh Zand (13:18):
But mind you, then again, in modern art, we see it differently. I mean, there is this art where scholars say, oh my God, that's beautiful. And the ordinary person looks at it and says, how come I don't see anything in there? How do you call it art?

Russell Ihrig (13:35):
I think that's the same argument. I think it's the same thing. It's because they're looking at it and they don't see any work ethic. The idea of painting something like a color field painting that's just looking at one color all across a canvas for the most part feels like no work at all to most people.

(13:58):
And of course, I could make the argument, well, it is harder than you think because if I gave you a bunch of paint and you could try to make this canvas, you would find that it's really hard to make a perfectly flat canvas, which is true. It is hard. It's not easy to do that. But I don't think that's the point either. I don't think that's what the artist was trying to do in that instance. I don't think they were making a painting that's all yellow to make me go like, wow, they must've really worked hard on this. So that's being disingenuine about what the real goal of that art is to me. And I feel like the thing I always come back to in talking about those works is that I think it's better to appreciate art, you would appreciate music, and that you just kind of say, well, yeah, but I don't think people listen to a symphony and say, but I don't get it.

(14:51):
That's just not even a part of their vocabulary. And it's about expectations. We are more comfortable with music. We listen to music enough that we know how to sit down and just go, let it wash over us and just kind of take it in and live in it in the moment. And it's about expectations. And I think a lot of people have trouble getting over that with art where they can't just sort of say, I'm just going to experience this as color and just sort of think about it and what the artist has actually given me here, and what am I going to do with that? And that's really hard. And the other thing is that I think people also come to an institution like a museum or a gallery with the expectation that they have to like everything.

Zohreh Zand (15:32):
No.

Russell Ihrig (15:33):
So that's the other thing that keeps them back is that there's this expectation of like, well, I'm here. This is an art museum. I have to all this stuff. And it's like, no, you don't. Nope, you don't have to. And know what, you don't also have to be set in your ways about anything either. You might not like something today and it tomorrow.

Zohreh Zand (15:53):
Exactly.

Russell Ihrig (15:54):
Which happens to me all the time.

Zohreh Zand (15:56):
I might have gone by this chest and not look at it, but then when I paid attention to the birds, I started to love it.

Russell Ihrig (16:07):
I'm like this with a lot of decorative arts. And it's funny because I've realized on this podcast, I've talked a lot about decorative arts. It's actually really bizarre how many times decorative arts keep coming up. But I think actually it's fun for me because they are the pieces like this chest of doors we just looked at that I would've not thought a lot about. I would've probably walked by it. And so by you forcing me to sort of look at these decorations on this, I see a lot more in it. And I do appreciate this sort of growing flower motif and everything that's happening, something I definitely wouldn't have thought of or have really paid much attention to.

Zohreh Zand (16:47):
And that shows again that the artist on here were thinking of something, had something in mind.

Russell Ihrig (16:52):
Oh yeah.

Zohreh Zand (16:53):
And now we are trying to figure out most likely his or her story.

Russell Ihrig (16:58):
Yeah. I say this, I've said this probably, I don't know if I've said on the show before, but I feel like by working at a museum, it has made actually way more, it has made me surprisingly less snobby

Zohreh Zand (17:11):
About

Russell Ihrig (17:11):
Art, and it has made me actually accept a lot more things as art than ever before just because I think ultimately at the end of the day, you're like, well, somebody made this. Somebody put effort into it. And it was a creative endeavor. And to me that then it's art. And I think that's another thing is people have trouble. The idea that once something is art, that is a standard of a measurement of quality. Being art isn't a measurement of quality, it's just simply what it is. So it's just like, yeah, it's art. Now we have to talk about whether we like it, what we think it means, all of that stuff. But just being art is actually a pretty low bar to pass. It's like

Zohreh Zand (17:54):
Food, some food you like, some food I don't like, and some food we all, it's exactly. And we grow the palette for it and so on. So

Russell Ihrig (18:04):
Actually that's a really great comparison too. I agree. Food is actually perfectly a really beautiful analogy that I think about sometimes too, because it's just like when you're a kid, you, what do you eat? Chicken nuggets and french fries and your palate is not terribly sophisticated and you don't like a lot of things. Well, I accept I was a kid who ate everything, but most kids, but that was less about sophistication and more of just about being bottomless pit. But then as you grow older, you try more things and every once in a while you go back and try something. I used to love this as a kid. I remember as some garbage food that we would have around the house, like Twinkies or something. Oh, this was so great. And then you try and go, well, that wasn't very good. It's like your taste of change. Yeah, it changes and art's like that too. You might like something a lot when you're younger and you're kind of going on a journey with what you're looking at, and then by the end you have changed and what you used to, it's the same. It hasn't changed, but you're a changed person and your views on it are different now.

Zohreh Zand (19:16):
And that's why I believe a museum is great. Our museum here, we have got all these different exhibitions every time, a different taste and different thing. So when we come constantly and see every time, so we grow, we start to learn about other, how do you call it, other artwork, and it teaches us something and then we can decide, okay, no, I don't like this. I mean, I don't like Barack style, for example, and I love folk art, for example. It depends, but it gives us the opportunity to come back again and again and see different exhibitions and grow our palette. Yeah.

Russell Ihrig (19:53):
Yeah, absolutely. Well, we have talked so long and we haven't even gotten to the next piece.

Zohreh Zand (19:58):
We have to skip all the other ones moving. I know. We're like,

Russell Ihrig (20:00):
Okay, well, let's just zoom ahead. In the recent episode with artist Matt Kors, we spent about two minutes discussing the Netflix reality show Terrace House. In reality, this conversation was about 20 minutes. Even if you're not into Terrace House, it leads to some interesting conversations about language and culture. At the beginning of this clip, we were talking about our memories of visiting the art museum as children. I do remember my brother bringing me when I was really little, which been before the renovations,

Matt Coors (20:49):
And

Russell Ihrig (20:49):
I don't remember anything about it other than we also went to the Natural History Museum and I was much more interested because it had a cave,

Matt Coors (20:56):
Right? Yeah.

Russell Ihrig (20:57):
I used to love that cave

Matt Coors (20:58):
And the planetarium had a Yeah, totally. Yeah. And we also would go to the zoo a lot. That was a staple of grade school field trips.

Russell Ihrig (21:08):
And because I'm a real creature of the Night, I was all about the nocturnal house

Matt Coors (21:11):
There too. Oh yeah. I love the nocturnal

Russell Ihrig (21:13):
House. Anything with a fake cave is where I want to be.

Matt Coors (21:17):
Yeah, I've always known that you were just fascinated by Caverns Russell.

Russell Ihrig (21:27):
That's what I'm all about. I think we've established now on the podcast that my aesthetic is informed by the film Labyrinth and is mostly about cobwebs and glitter,

Matt Coors (21:38):
And

Russell Ihrig (21:39):
That's the foundation. And then also a love of Fake Caverns is also in there too. I feel like these two things are probably

Matt Coors (21:48):
Related.

Russell Ihrig (21:49):
I think there's some fake caves in Labyrinth as well,

Matt Coors (21:52):
A love of fake caverns. Yeah, there are definitely fake caverns in Labyrinth.

Russell Ihrig (21:59):
Oh, oh, many. Yeah. Yeah. So I started watching Aloha State the other day. Oh, really? Terrace House, Aloha State, I should say. Excellent.

Matt Coors (22:13):
My wife and I tried to watch some new episodes of Aloha State last night, only to find that they have not been released yet, and we were

Russell Ihrig (22:19):
Pretty disappointed. So they're still putting out more,

Matt Coors (22:22):
As far as I know. The weird thing is the first season of Terra's House, it was just all barfed onto Netflix all at once, and the whole thing was there, and you could just binge watch all

Russell Ihrig (22:34):
40 episodes or however, over 40,

Matt Coors (22:37):
I think there's a lot. But then Aloha State, they're doing some strange thing where they release, they release it in little chapters, so it's like series one

Russell Ihrig (22:49):
Series? Yeah. It says part one, part two, part three. So they're up to three I saw on there,

Matt Coors (22:53):
Which I think is kind of stupid on their part because I feel like that's going to kill the buzz that was around the show. I think there were a lot of people kind of talking about like, oh, this show is so fun and addictive, and then they're killing it by making people wait to watch. And I feel like I don't hear people talking about it that much anymore.

Russell Ihrig (23:11):
I do wonder if they would've been better off just waiting longer and just releasing it all at once, or even maybe putting it in two bigger chunks of maybe this parceling it out in eight

Matt Coors (23:24):
Parts.

Russell Ihrig (23:24):
Actually, the reason I started watching too is probably because I thought it was done. I thought, I thought that was it for Aloha State? I

Matt Coors (23:31):
Don't think so, because the last I remember, I mean, it's been a busy summer and we haven't watched in a couple months,

Russell Ihrig (23:37):
But

Matt Coors (23:37):
The last I remember there was some cliffhanger or a new housemate arrived, and then that was the end of series three or two or three or something like that. And then we were just sort of waiting to

Russell Ihrig (23:50):
See more.

Matt Coors (23:51):
I assume they're staggering it now because they're kind of making it and releasing it as it's made.

Russell Ihrig (23:58):
And it seems like, at least from boys and girls in the city, it seemed like there was a pretty quick turnaround in Japan, at least,

Matt Coors (24:08):
Where

Russell Ihrig (24:09):
You would see

Matt Coors (24:11):
Them watching the

Russell Ihrig (24:12):
Show, watching themselves, which was so strange. So they would be sitting at that iMac watching the episode that happened five weeks ago or something like that was really quick turnaround.

Matt Coors (24:24):
So I'm a little unclear on what the timing is. Even in Japan, the cast members, there's a lot of hype and people watching the show as they're making it in Japan, I guess. And then a new member will show up and then they'll show them in the room watching. They're like, oh, I just got caught up on what happened before I got here, which is just kind of weird. So it's tough to suss out what's the timeframe and when it's being made versus when are new people arriving and all that stuff.

Russell Ihrig (24:57):
So far, I've liked the differences in Aloha State. I like that it has its own kind of identity, at least in the first bit. I've enjoyed it. I don't know. It is different because the people are younger, I've noticed, I feel like, and that can be both annoying in some of them,

Matt Coors (25:18):
The

Russell Ihrig (25:19):
Case and some of them adorable.

Matt Coors (25:21):
Right,

Russell Ihrig (25:21):
Right.

Matt Coors (25:22):
Yeah. My wife and I have a mixed, so my wife is Japanese, and we have kind of a mixed reaction to season two, Aloha State as it's known.

Russell Ihrig (25:34):
Yes.

Matt Coors (25:36):
I feel like, and I think she kind of feels this way too, that they are hing to the popularity in the United States of the first series.

Russell Ihrig (25:48):
Oh, I totally think so.

Matt Coors (25:49):
And by moving it to Hawaii so that to try to get more Americans interested in the show. And also there's been so much English spoken on season on Aloha State. It's like most of the cast members, I mean, at least half of them seem like they were fluent in English or they spoke pretty good English. And it seems to be like,

Russell Ihrig (26:14):
And I'm still on the first six, it seems like out of that six, only two don't speak English very well. And

Matt Coors (26:24):
Even then

Russell Ihrig (26:25):
They have some handle on it, and most of the people have, I think it's still interesting though, because if you're thinking about Hawaii and its position and how it is this mixed bag that has a lot of Japanese influence, that it's kind of interesting that the cast is this weird. Most of them are of mixed nationalities and they come from all over the place. So I remember the first guy that gets there, he looks like really American, but he's the one that actually doesn't speak

Matt Coors (27:00):
English

Russell Ihrig (27:01):
Very

Matt Coors (27:01):
Well.

Russell Ihrig (27:03):
And I like that they've so far, and maybe they drop it, but I kind of watching the language stuff happen where they're,

Matt Coors (27:13):
They stop speaking Japanese and start speaking English, you mean?

Russell Ihrig (27:16):
I do thinking about why they, certain things get said in which language, and sometimes I'm always conscious of are they saying this so this person doesn't pick up on it? I don't know if that's much of it. I think usually it's more just the characters who are English as their first language will just

Matt Coors (27:34):
Drop

Russell Ihrig (27:34):
Into English more often. But I also, there's a scene between Avian and Naomi where they're making a phone call and Avian is trying to help her get a job. Oh

Matt Coors (27:48):
Yeah, I know exactly what you're talking

Russell Ihrig (27:49):
About. And she's literally cyrano whispering things in her ear. It's so good. And I love that. I love that stuff where they're helping each other out with the language. At that point, it becomes a part of the show and it doesn't feel just as pandery to me. But I did totally have that same thought of, I bet this is a choice made largely due to the popularity the show has gained in the us.

Matt Coors (28:15):
Yeah, for me, it's kind of a double-edged sword. On one hand, mean my Japanese is not that great, but I really like watching shows that are in Japanese and especially set in Japan. So I kind of enjoyed season one, boys and Girls in the City

Russell Ihrig (28:38):
Because it's due plug. That's right,

Matt Coors (28:41):
Right. Check it out everybody. I kind of liked that season because it just seemed like it was more immersive or something. I'm watching a bunch of mostly Japanese young people speaking Japanese to each other in Japanese setting. And so I like that because I feel like maybe I'm getting, I dunno hearing the language a little bit more and I'm learning a little bit more about it. On the other hand, I will say that when my wife and I watch shows that are in Japanese, I mean the subtitles have to be on so that I can figure out what's going on because I can only pick up words and phrases here and there at this stage. And it can be a little frustrating because I find that I just spend all my time reading and I'm pretty visual person, so I love to see what's happening in the actual room or in what the characters are actually doing. And so I'm constantly just, I feel like I'm reading a book or something instead of watching a TV show. So it's kind of a two-sided thing.

Russell Ihrig (29:47):
I think it does make you care. My reaction to it when I started watching Terrace House was also the same, where I was like, I feel like I'm paying so much more attention to every little phrase somebody says because I have to read it, that I'm giving these things a lot more weight than I might give them in English. The subtitles make me pay attention to the language more than I would

Matt Coors (30:12):
In

Russell Ihrig (30:12):
Any other instance where I would just be like, oh, yes. And people went to a cafe and they talked and

Matt Coors (30:17):
Yeah, actually I'm always asking my wife about certain words, and maybe this is one spot where the subtitles are actually kind of good for me. Whether or not she can answer my question depends. But for example, I noticed that a lot in interactions within the house, a lot of the cast members would say it would be translated as That's insane, or something like that. They say, oh, that's insane. A lot more than, I mean in English in the United States, people might say that. I might say, oh, that's insane Russell, but it seems like it pops up a lot in the show. And so I don't remember what her response was, but I remember asking my wife, what is the word that they're translating to insane? And does it really mean that? And is this a common slang? Is that common slang for people in Japan or younger people in Japan? So that kind of stuff pops up a lot. The translation's really interesting to see how it's translated. Every now and then, my wife will say, yeah, that's not a very good translation. Okay, yeah, that makes sense. It's kind of interesting to see what phrases get translated to what things and what doesn't make as much sense in English and

Russell Ihrig (31:34):
What carries over. That happens as well in our house too, if we watch anything Brazilian, something gets translated weirdly and he's like,

Matt Coors (31:44):
That's

Russell Ihrig (31:44):
Not really what they just said. I guess it's okay. Or sometimes the harshness level, if it's like an insult or

Matt Coors (31:55):
Something

Russell Ihrig (31:56):
That's a little off, that can be hard to kind of get perfect.

Matt Coors (32:00):
Yeah, absolutely.

Russell Ihrig (32:01):
Because, oh, well this word, it translates the same idea, but the harshness of that word is different in the language.

Matt Coors (32:09):
It's

Russell Ihrig (32:09):
More insulting in either or, so it seems harsher here or there.

Matt Coors (32:14):
Yeah. I've had this conversation with my in-laws a bunch of times too. When we go to Japan to visit my wife's family. There have been a number of times where I bring up some aspect of Japanese culture that I've seen translated a certain way or explained a certain way. And I'll have a conversation with my father-in-law about it who is a retired linguistics and communications professor, and he is fluent in English, but he's taught Japanese and English at different times and he really loves language. And I've had so many conversations with him where I'll bring something up and he'll say, what? And I'll say, well, yeah, this is how I've heard it translated. And he'll say no, and just shake his head and say, that's not quite right.

(33:05):
The Bacho poems, Basho, the famous Japanese poet with the book, which I've seen the title, I can't remember what it is in Japanese, but I've seen the title rendered like the Narrow Road to the Interior or the Narrow Road to the North or The Road to the North and things like that. And it's the book of poems basically that chronicle his walking journey in this big loop all around Japan. And I remember my father-in-law talking about it and me saying, oh yeah, isn't it called the Narrow Road to the interior? Or something like that. And he was like, that's not really a good translation. It doesn't really make sense. So that kind of stuff pops up a lot when I'm talking to them.

Russell Ihrig (33:54):
Yeah. Well, this has been Terrace House cast. Thank you for joining us.

Matt Coors (34:01):
That's right.

Russell Ihrig (34:02):
I have no idea how much of that I can actually use.

Matt Coors (34:04):
That was insane. Russell

Russell Ihrig (34:08):
Imagining the subtitles below.

Matt Coors (34:10):
Right.

Russell Ihrig (34:12):
Well, one of the things though about, I mean, it felt so good. I took a big break between the first season and this one, and it was so lovely to have that panel back and see them all there. And I'm like, oh, they're all there. And I was just so happy to have them back as my

Matt Coors (34:34):
Running

Russell Ihrig (34:34):
Commentary on the action of the show.

Matt Coors (34:40):
That show would not be nearly as enjoyable if you didn't get to have these breaks where you watch the panelists all joke about the show.

Russell Ihrig (34:48):
Well, and I wonder too, it feeds the part of me that is always interested in commentary on what I've seen. So the fact that I listen to podcasts about other television shows I watch, it's almost like this one takes care of it all in itself. You watch it and then you have your little TV buddies come in and talk about it, and then you go back. And it's the same kind of way they talk about it too, where they're sort of breaking down what has happened and analyzing it and making jokes about it. They also provide a great kind of cultural, they help, I think, for me, because I don't always know what is and isn't normal.

Matt Coors (35:32):
Yeah, definitely.

Russell Ihrig (35:33):
And so especially in the first season when I was watching it, they were really helpful in just gauging the normalcy of dating customs, which seem to have pretty rigid structures to them, at least in they seem to move at a very predictable rate and steps, and people sort of, I don't know. All the members of the show would always sort of like, we went to this park and then we held hands. There's all these steps that somebody goes to. And so I was always fascinated by this. I would just think everyone seems like so Victorian almost about this and there,

Matt Coors (36:15):
How

Russell Ihrig (36:15):
Reserved it strikes us. But then it was nice to have the panel who would just be reacting either normally or if somebody kind of broke. I think there was one where somebody held hands way too early

Matt Coors (36:31):
And they

Russell Ihrig (36:31):
Were all kind of shocked by it.

Matt Coors (36:33):
Was it Aman? And, yeah, I think so. Yeah, I know what you mean. It's tough to tell how much of that is, I mean, I would assume that the pace of a relationship is not that regulated for just an average Japanese couple or something. But so it's tough to tell how much of that is coming from the show. But I mean,

Russell Ihrig (37:01):
In the same way that the Bachelor has its own weird rules of dating that are not exactly an Americans actual dating customs, but it's like there's this, well, this is the way the show works. You do this, then you do that, then you do this, and anything that kind of breaks the formula, it's like, but that's not how the show works,

Matt Coors (37:23):
Which brings us back to games and the rules

Russell Ihrig (37:25):
Of the game. Right,

Matt Coors (37:26):
Exactly. Yeah. I mean, that panel of people reacting to what happens on Terrace House, though they are a really interesting kind of cultural

Russell Ihrig (37:39):
Window.

Matt Coors (37:41):
One thing that I always notice is that there will be a lot of references to where certain cast members or people on the show or panelists are from, and how that relates to their personality, which is a real Japanese thing.

Russell Ihrig (37:58):
So

Matt Coors (37:58):
There are a couple of panelists who actually maybe two or three, maybe half of the panelists, they're from Osaka and Osaka is known. I mean, this is my impression of it, and what I'm told by my wife and my family is Osaka is the town that's like, they love food. And there are a lot of comedians from Osaka, and it's kind of like people there are supposed to be boisterous and

Russell Ihrig (38:21):
Kind

Matt Coors (38:21):
Of zany. And so those two, the two men, the older men who are comedians who are panelists on the show, I think they're maybe both from Osaka. So anyway, so references to that pop up on the show and someone will say, oh, you're from such and such, so you would say that. And everyone will laugh, and I'll have to turn to my wife and she'll say, oh, they mean that that person sounds like a person from Osaka or from Kyoto or whatever.

Russell Ihrig (38:48):
I remember in Boys and Girls in the City, there was one of the women was from a place where everyone just kept talking about how blunt everyone is. It was like that they were known for being direct and blunt. And so that was always used to explain her behavior usually.

Matt Coors (39:10):
Yeah, right. Yeah. And I forget who that was.

Russell Ihrig (39:14):
I can't remember her name now, where

Matt Coors (39:15):
Exactly she was from, but there are lots of, that whole regional thing is, I mean, it's everywhere, but it's so pronounced in Japan, I guess maybe because I don't know. There are a lot of people in a relatively smaller space, and so localities and what's good from that place is very pronounced. I mean, in the United States, peaches come from Georgia and we know we can get good cheese in Wisconsin or something like that. And so we have that too. But I'm always struck by how pronounced it is in Japan. If you want green tea, really good green tea is from this area. And the people over there are so refined and they love to wear Kimmons. The people over there are so funny and loud. Yeah, it's like a big talking point.

Russell Ihrig (40:07):
Yeah. I love those when you see it reflected in other places and

Matt Coors (40:13):
It feels

Russell Ihrig (40:14):
Maybe a little more artificial or something when you're not in it.

Matt Coors (40:17):
Yeah, sure.

Russell Ihrig (40:18):
If you weren't raised in it, you just sort of like, but that can't be true for all

Matt Coors (40:23):
You just

Russell Ihrig (40:23):
Say. But I remember when I was visiting Brazil and we had the same kind of experience, which is there's a lot of similarities between their stereotypes about the north and the south of the country that mimic hours, except they're reversed because it's almost like a temperature thing somehow. I don't know. But it's the same thing, whereas they think of people from the north, they have this very attitude about them as being slow and what we think of as kind of a southern thing,

Matt Coors (40:55):
A more easygoing pace and that kind of

Russell Ihrig (40:57):
Stuff. Yes. It's very laid back that country life.

Matt Coors (41:04):
So

Russell Ihrig (41:04):
It's a lot of those ideas of like, oh, they're from this area. Well, and then when you get further south, it's like you're in New York or something. Sound Paul. Very

Matt Coors (41:19):
Cosmopolitan.

Russell Ihrig (41:19):
Oh yeah. It's very, they're ideas of them are very, oh, they're very reserved and they're not as big and outgoing and they're

(41:33):
So, they have all these ideas about different and from each city and region thinks has a lot of ideas about the others. Right, right. Well, we haven't even talked about the Art Academy once. Oh yeah. Thank you for listening to Art Palace. We hope you'll be inspired to come visit the Cincinnati Art Museum and have conversations about the art yourself. General admission to the museum is always free, and we also offer free parking special exhibitions on view right now are Ana England Kinship William KenRidge, more sweetly Play the Dance and Aila Kaga. All the flowers are for me. For program reservations and more information, visit cincinnati art museum.org. You can follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Snapchat. We also have a new Facebook group for Art Palace, so come join it and hang out with us. Our theme song is Efron Musika by Balal. And as always, please rate review us and subscribe on iTunes. I'm Russell, and this has been Art Palace produced by the Cincinnati Art Museum.