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Speaker 1: Pushkin.

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Speaker 2: Welcome to the bonus Holiday special Atlanta, theine edition of

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Speaker 2: Revisionist History, Part two. A word before we begin. There

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Speaker 2: is no overarching theme to what follows. No beginning, no middle,

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Speaker 2: no end, no single compelling through line. My editor Julia Barton,

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Speaker 2: who is normally lovely, actually got all grumpy about doing

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Speaker 2: this episode, so grumpy in fact, that I thought I

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Speaker 2: should let her put in her two cents before we

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Speaker 2: get going.

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Speaker 3: Okay, I thought about it.

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Speaker 4: Some more Happy holidays, Malcolm.

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Speaker 1: From here on out, you're on your own.

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Speaker 2: All right, all right, all right, here's my feeling. If

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Speaker 2: there is anything in the world that unites my fellow

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Speaker 2: revisionist historians, it is our endless appetite for wandering down

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Speaker 2: empty corridors and poking through the cobwebs of the half

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Speaker 2: baked and the marginal. By the way, do you have

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Speaker 2: anything better to do? No, you don't, and no do I.

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Speaker 2: I've been cooped up in my house for nine months,

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Speaker 2: and I'm moving my mind.

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Speaker 1: And dreaming of Atlanta.

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Speaker 2: So I'm just going to answer a few more random

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Speaker 2: questions from you, my listeners. Lucas Nicholson asks on Twitter,

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Speaker 2: what's your favorite memory of your father. Okay, As you know,

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Speaker 2: my dad comes up on the show every now and again.

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Speaker 2: I like to refer to him as the patron saint

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Speaker 2: of Revision's history, because, among other things, Graham Glabo was

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Speaker 2: a deeply mischievous man in a way that we strive

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Speaker 2: every day to emulate here at Pushkin. Oh, I should

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Speaker 2: point out, why do we call Pushkin Pushkin? Not because

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Speaker 2: we have some pretentious intellectual connection to the famous Russian poet.

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Speaker 2: Well kind of, it's half of it. The other half

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Speaker 2: is Graham Glabo named our family's first dog growing up, Pushkin,

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Speaker 2: a floppy eared Shepherd lab mix, and have always loved

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Speaker 2: the name. My dad also named his garden Rhodo Tiller

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Speaker 2: Alexander after Alexander the Great, and his garden cart Rufus

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Speaker 2: after the English king, King William the Second, otherwise known

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Speaker 2: as William Rufus. He really liked to name things. My

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Speaker 2: dad was English. In the nineteen fifties, he meets my mother,

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Speaker 2: they get married, and a few years later they move

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Speaker 2: back to Jamaica, where my mother is from, and my

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Speaker 2: father teaches mathematics at the University of the West Indies

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Speaker 2: UI as it's called in Kingston.

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Speaker 1: Jamaica.

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Speaker 2: Parenthetically, while he's there, who does he meet and try

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Speaker 2: to encourage to take mathematics? Donald Harris, father of future

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Speaker 2: Vice President Kamala Harris. Small world anyway, So my dad

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Speaker 2: is working on some crazily complex bit of math, and

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Speaker 2: this is before the Internet. Of course, if you needed

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Speaker 2: to read some crucial bit of scholarship, you had to

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Speaker 2: go to an actual library. And he realizes the closest

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Speaker 2: library that has the books he needs is at Georgia

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Speaker 2: Tech in Atlanta. So he writes the chair of the

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Speaker 2: math department at Georgia Tech, can I come and use

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Speaker 2: your library stay on campus for a bit while I

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Speaker 2: do my research? They say, of course. He starts to

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Speaker 2: plan his trip vote from Kingston to Miami, bus from

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Speaker 2: Miami to Georgia. This is nineteen fifty nine. Georgia Tech

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Speaker 2: is still a segregated institution and the administration realizes that

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Speaker 2: the head of the math department has just extended an

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Speaker 2: invitation to a professor from the University of the West Indies,

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Speaker 2: a place chock full a black people. Panic sweeps through

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Speaker 2: Georgia Tech. They start calling around other math departments. Does

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Speaker 2: anyone know a Graham Gladwell no one does, because my

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Speaker 2: dad is twenty five years old. He's a nobody. Finally,

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Speaker 2: just before my dad is about to leave Jamaica, they

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Speaker 2: manage to reach him by phone. Professor Gladwell, I have

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Speaker 2: an important question for you. Are you white? My father says, why, yes,

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Speaker 2: I am, and the Georgia Tech guy says, oh, thank god.

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Speaker 2: Now my dad doesn't say anything at the time, because

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Speaker 2: that's the way he was. I'll poker face. But when

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Speaker 2: he finally gets to Atlanta, a bunch of people from

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Speaker 2: the university take him out to dinner and he announces

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Speaker 2: to the group, gentlemen, I've just gotten married. I want

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Speaker 2: you to see a picture my lovely bride, and passes

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Speaker 2: a photo of Joyce gladwell sister around the table. I

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Speaker 2: think you can see why he's the patron saint.

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Speaker 1: Of Revision's history.

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Speaker 2: It's funny. I hadn't thought about that story for a

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Speaker 2: long time, but Lucas Nicholson's question inspired me to do

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Speaker 2: a follow up. So a few weeks ago, I called

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Speaker 2: up the dean of computer science at Georgia Tech, an

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Speaker 2: artificial intelligence researcher named Charles I isbel I'm going to

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Speaker 2: warn you this is a tangent, But as Himon Roth

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Speaker 2: said to Michael Corleone, tangents are the business we've chosen. Yeah,

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Speaker 2: tell me a little bit about your own are you

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Speaker 2: Are you from Atlanta?

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Speaker 5: Yes, Well, as you can tell by my accent, I'm

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Speaker 5: from Chattanooga, Tennessee. But my earliest memory is arriving in

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Speaker 5: Atlanta on a moving truck at the age of three.

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Speaker 5: So I think of myself as being from Ataint. Yeah.

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Speaker 2: And did you do your undergrad at Georgia Tech?

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Speaker 5: I did undergrad at Georgia Tech, and I did my

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Speaker 5: master's and PhD and mit.

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Speaker 2: Oh I see, so but you are you consider yourself?

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Speaker 2: You're in Atlanta?

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Speaker 1: And oh yes?

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Speaker 2: And through through is Bell then told me the following story.

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Speaker 5: We started the first online masters of science and computer

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Speaker 5: science from a large elite university. Give you a sense

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Speaker 5: of scale of that, we had zero students and as

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Speaker 5: of this past semester we have about eleven thousand. So

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Speaker 5: we went from zero to eleven thousand in less than

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Speaker 5: six years.

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Speaker 2: For around six and a half thousand dollars, you can

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Speaker 2: now get a Master's of Computer Science from Georgia Tech online,

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Speaker 2: as opposed to the forty six thousand dollars it would

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Speaker 2: cost you on campus, same professors, same course materials, same

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Speaker 2: academic standards.

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Speaker 5: So once you accept this larger idea, you start asking yourself, Okay, well,

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Speaker 5: if we want to educate everyone, if we want to

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Speaker 5: truly be accessible and live up to this idea, then

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Speaker 5: where can we go? Who can we talk to? So

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Speaker 5: I took a trip for somewhat unrelated reasons to Kenya

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Speaker 5: and visited Kenya, ended up visiting Nigeria and a few

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Speaker 5: other countries in Sub Saharan Africa and started meeting with

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Speaker 5: people there, and I came to the conclusion that this

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Speaker 5: is a population where you have a large amount of

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Speaker 5: untapped talent, people who are really interested in figuring out

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Speaker 5: how to get formal education in computing and in computer science.

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Speaker 2: Is Bill and his colleagues began traveling to Africa all

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Speaker 2: the time. Their goal is to make Georgia Tech the

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Speaker 2: world's number one educator of IT talent in Sub Saharan Africa.

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Speaker 2: Does it make a difference that you're an African American

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Speaker 2: when you're making this case for Georgia Tech in Africa?

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Speaker 5: I think it does certainly. The conversations I've had make

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Speaker 5: me think that it does. I think people are excited

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Speaker 5: that there's someone over here who wants to have those conversations.

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Speaker 2: Then I told Isbell the story about my dad. I

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Speaker 2: feel like there's something First of all, he would have

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Speaker 2: been so happy to hear about what's happening now at

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Speaker 2: Georgia Tech. But just this wonderful story about how, in

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Speaker 2: the space of sixty years the institution has gone from

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Speaker 2: turning its back on people even if they suspect them

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Speaker 2: of being black, to like opening up its doors to

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Speaker 2: sub Saharan Africa. I think that's I don't know, I

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Speaker 2: was moved.

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Speaker 5: Well, you know, I'm glad to hear you say that.

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Speaker 5: It's actually a remarkable thing, particularly when you put it

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Speaker 5: like that.

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Speaker 2: Today, Georgia Tech is one of the largest producers of

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Speaker 2: black engineers, Hispanic engineers, and Asian engineers in the country.

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Speaker 2: It has more black undergrads who go on to do

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Speaker 2: PhDs in computer science than any other American university.

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Speaker 5: Yeah, you know, I have these I talk to people

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Speaker 5: all the time, and you know, they asked me about

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Speaker 5: my life story and the things that I've gone through,

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Speaker 5: positive and negative, and and I was having this conversation

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Speaker 5: with some of the other day, and you know, I

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Speaker 5: was telling about, you know, interactions I've had with the

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Speaker 5: police in my younger days that didn't go very well,

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Speaker 5: and things people had said to me over the years.

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Speaker 5: And I started talking about what I was hoping was

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Speaker 5: going to happen for the future. And someone said to me, well,

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Speaker 5: you know, you seem very optimistic and hopeful. And I

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Speaker 5: thought about it, and I thought, you know, it's true.

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Speaker 5: In the end, I'm optimistic and hopeful. I do like

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Speaker 5: the idea that you know, within a generation, and it's

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Speaker 5: certainly a place like Atlanta. There's the reason why I

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Speaker 5: love the city.

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Speaker 2: And I saw on your website that you do I

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Speaker 2: don't know you still do, but hip hop reviews on

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Speaker 2: the side. I mean, this is the most Atlanta thing

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Speaker 2: I've ever heard in my life. The AI professor Georgia

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Speaker 2: Tech who does hip hop stuff on the side.

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Speaker 5: Yes, I've been a huge fan of hip hop's it's

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Speaker 5: the very beginning, well, certainly the modern hip hop Araasi's

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Speaker 5: the very beginning. I did an online hip hop award

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Speaker 5: show for about eight years. For a while there had

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Speaker 5: the first online black history database.

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Speaker 2: And I saw on your lab page everyone gets a

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Speaker 2: p funk Dame. Everyone gets a p funk name, p

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Speaker 2: Funk being, of course, the nickname of Parliament Funkadelic, the

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Speaker 2: legendary funk band started by George Clinton. On Isabel's laboratory website,

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Speaker 2: it reads the P in p funk stands for probabilistic,

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Speaker 2: as for the funk, it stands for many things as well.

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Speaker 1: It should.

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Speaker 2: Specific interpretations are left as an exercise for the reader.

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Speaker 2: You are atomic dog, you would have to be at home.

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Speaker 5: Of course, I'm atomic dog. What a there's no other option?

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Speaker 2: How much do I love Atlanta?

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Speaker 1: All right?

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Speaker 2: Roger Nation twenty four asks on Twitter, why have you

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Speaker 2: never made an episode about Kanye West? His career trajectory

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Speaker 2: seems like the perfect fit for your podcast. Very very

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Speaker 2: good question, Roger Nation twenty four. Let's put it this way.

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Speaker 2: It's not for lack of trying, because no one likes

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Speaker 2: a celebrity hang more than me. I once met David

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Speaker 2: Hasselhoff in Sweden, of all places, got a selfie with him,

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Speaker 2: and if you look at the photo, I have this

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Speaker 2: big stupid grin on my face, like I'm the happiest

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Speaker 2: I've ever been in my life for the Hoff. But

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Speaker 2: I have a better story which also, and you're not

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Speaker 2: going to believe this involves my favorite city, Atlanta. So

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Speaker 2: a couple of years ago, when Kevin Durant was still

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Speaker 2: with the Golden State Warriors, they came to Atlanta to

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Speaker 2: play the Hawks, and after the game, Quavo of the

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Speaker 2: great hip hop group Migos comes up to Durant, and Durant,

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Speaker 2: who is like seven feet tall, leans down and takes

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Speaker 2: off his jersey and gives it to Quavo. One of

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Speaker 2: the greatest basketball players in the world, comes to town

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Speaker 2: and pays homage to the king of Atlanta hip hop.

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Speaker 2: The picture goes viral. It's a sensation. In fact, you

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Speaker 2: should look it up for yourself image Google Quavo and

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Speaker 2: Kevin Durant epic pop culture defining moment. Right now, while

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Speaker 2: you're at it, look to the right. You'll see a

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Speaker 2: bunch of people standing in the background. You might have

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Speaker 2: to zoom in a bit. There's a skinny guy wearing

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Speaker 2: a beige jacket, glasses, big head of curly hair. Now

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Speaker 2: who does that look like? Oh yeah, baby, I love Atlanta.

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Speaker 2: We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor,

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Speaker 2: We're back with more of your excellent questions. This one's

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Speaker 2: from Zoe Rattis. At the conclusion of each Revisionist History episode,

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Speaker 2: mister Glapple says original scoring by the next two words

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Speaker 2: could be Leuis Scarra, Louise Sierra, lou Wiscerra, or some

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Speaker 2: other combo I haven't thought of yet. I would like

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Speaker 2: to get in touch with this person, as I think

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Speaker 2: their talents are neat and as an aspiring scorewriter myself,

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Speaker 2: I hope they might share some fun with me about

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Speaker 2: how they came to be in this role. Thank you

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Speaker 2: so much, Zoe, Zoe. I am happy to tell you

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Speaker 2: his name is Luis Gera g u e r r A.

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Speaker 2: He's a musical genius, as should be a parent if

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Speaker 2: you've listened to any episode of this show, and I

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Speaker 2: will let him answer the rest of your questions himself.

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Speaker 6: Well, it's like I would double take to hear Malcolm

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Speaker 6: Gladwell and put musical genius with by my name in

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Speaker 6: the same sentences.

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Speaker 1: A little bit of a what.

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Speaker 6: So I mean that's with that said, my name is

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Speaker 6: Luis Guerra, you could also say Louis Gera. Totally fine.

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Speaker 6: I have two ethnic identities. Go on here, so I

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Speaker 6: do compose music for a living. I'm pushing into my

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Speaker 6: thirtieth year as like a full time musician. So I

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Speaker 6: started really young in my life. I grew up in

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Speaker 6: a family where all of us kids, there was four

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Speaker 6: of us, we were encouraged and required to play a

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Speaker 6: musical instrument, and I sort of jumped around the most.

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Speaker 6: So I start out on drums, went to piano, played

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Speaker 6: a little guitar, and then ended up playing bass, and

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Speaker 6: for whatever reason, stuck with the bass. It wasn't really

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Speaker 6: something that I wanted to do for a career. It

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Speaker 6: was more about, this is a great way to escape

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Speaker 6: things going on in my life. And so then you know,

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Speaker 6: long story short. I moved to Austin, Texas in the

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Speaker 6: early nineties, and artist, musician, whatever, a creative person, you

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Speaker 6: didn't need a lot of money to pay your rent

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Speaker 6: and your bills, okay, So as a young person, that

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Speaker 6: was a great place to actually like just jump into

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Speaker 6: a scene. And I also was a short order line cook,

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Speaker 6: and those two things sort of merged later on in

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Speaker 6: my life because I started realizing that as people would

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Speaker 6: come up and ask for their food to be made,

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Speaker 6: they would also sometimes come and ask for me to

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Speaker 6: make a piece of music, and you know, either one

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Speaker 6: I just would do it podcasting. I was like, I

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Speaker 6: didn't think a whole lot of it, honestly, and it

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Speaker 6: was just something that like I would, you know, occasionally

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Speaker 6: listen to a podcast when I go run or something.

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Speaker 6: But when this came up, I knew that this was

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Speaker 6: going to be a very serious project, and so I

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Speaker 6: was like, heck, yeah, that sounds awesome. The podcast would

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Speaker 6: it's things overlooked right and misunderstood, and I think there's

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Speaker 6: room to explore musical cliches, and so I'm feeling like

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Speaker 6: there's that's sort of the top level down I want

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Speaker 6: to take stereotypical ideas sort of that we're there predictable

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Speaker 6: and start inverting them and like not just remixing them,

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Speaker 6: you know, but actually like really playing with that. Maybe

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Speaker 6: there's three things that come to mind and how I

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Speaker 6: approach it. One, I wanted the music to be transparent.

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Speaker 6: I don't want it to stand out so that it's

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Speaker 6: just overshadowing, right and like overtaking and like wow, that's

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Speaker 6: a really great piece of music or that's a really

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Speaker 6: great sound, but then you forget whatever the topic was.

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Speaker 6: The other one is I wanted to support and evolve

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Speaker 6: and be interesting, so that if you actually do find

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Speaker 6: yourself thinking about the music, you're like, well, what is that?

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Speaker 6: What's the sound? What's going on? And then the other

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Speaker 6: is like, I want it to be flexible. I do

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Speaker 6: imagine this music could be performed live. I've thought about

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Speaker 6: Revision's History. I had this team of producers is like

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Speaker 6: a band. We've been in this band for five years,

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Speaker 6: you know, and sometimes the band gets bigger and more

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Speaker 6: producers step in and they're like, we're all supporting Malcolm,

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Speaker 6: who's the front man. So how do I shape the

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Speaker 6: music to sound to match Malcolm's voice on Revision's History. Well,

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Speaker 6: it's a little trick in composing for media, but every

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Speaker 6: speaker has some sort of tonality to their voice. So

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Speaker 6: if I can find that, then I can actually make

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Speaker 6: things sound more harmonious. But if I wanted to create tension,

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Speaker 6: then I can actually like create you right in a

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Speaker 6: key to be sort of juxtaposed or to clash specifically

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Speaker 6: with the voice. So for malcol voice, there's a few

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Speaker 6: tonal centers that I do. If you listen to Revision's

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Speaker 6: History music, there are tonal centers that I pick frequently

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Speaker 6: that really I feel like support his voice. So there's

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Speaker 6: a mysterious element to this, Right, I want to pull

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Speaker 6: from the cliche that I'm referencing, but I also want

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Speaker 6: it to be done in a revision's history sort of way.

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Speaker 6: So in this situation, there's marimba, right, But a marimba

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Speaker 6: to me, with like a certain amount of delay and

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Speaker 6: reverb is going to put the listener into this zone

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Speaker 6: even if they don't know what, they're going to immediately

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Speaker 6: feel like, hmm, what's going on here?

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Speaker 2: You know?

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Speaker 6: And so it's a device, if you will. And I

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Speaker 6: think that's what composers do. Every day's a new adventure

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Speaker 6: at studio.

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Speaker 1: I can't.

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Speaker 6: I mean, it's I don't know, it's a fun job.

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Speaker 6: I could think of worse things to be doing.

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Speaker 2: Thank you, Louise for five years of making me sound fantastic. Okay,

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Speaker 2: back to listener mail bag. And I have to warn you,

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Speaker 2: you know how like a fleeting moment can inspire a

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Speaker 2: whole novel that takes years to complete. This one is

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Speaker 2: kind of like that. Jonathan Walfitz asks on Twitter, what

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Speaker 2: do you do when you feel like you've reached a

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Speaker 2: dead end in a story. Very very good question, Jonathan.

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Speaker 2: This actually happened to us last season when we were

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Speaker 2: in the middle of doing the episode about the tangled

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Speaker 2: provenance of van Go's Vaz with Carnations. Here's a little

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Speaker 2: piece of that story. In nineteen fifty six, Kirk Douglas

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Speaker 2: started a movie about van Go called Lust for Life.

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Speaker 7: Few people know the real story of this intense, strong

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Speaker 7: willed man. Now his tumultuous career is revealed for the

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Speaker 7: first time with frankness and intimacy, with all that lust

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Speaker 7: for life.

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Speaker 2: If you look at the corner of the movie poster

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Speaker 2: for Lust for Life, there it is Vaz with Carnations.

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Speaker 2: If by then gets it sold it. He didn't hang

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Speaker 2: on to his van Go the way he did his

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Speaker 2: other treasures. It wasn't for him. The painting passed to

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Speaker 2: the heiress to the Kmart fortune, Katherine Kresgy, who, among

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Speaker 2: other things, was once married to a Swedish baron. She

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Speaker 2: convinced him to leave London and come live with her

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Speaker 2: in her native Detroit. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the Swedish baron's order

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Speaker 2: for Miss Gresgy did not survive the move to Michigan.

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Speaker 2: When Kresgy died in nineteen ninety, she willed Vaz with

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Speaker 2: Carnations to the Detroit Institute of Arts. She gave it

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Speaker 2: without restriction, meaning the Dea, as it's known, could do

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Speaker 2: with it what they wanted, sell it, trade it. They

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Speaker 2: didn't have to make it part of their permanent collection.

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Speaker 2: Kresgy clearly didn't care any more for the painting than

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Speaker 2: Gets did, and neither did the Dia. They put it

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Speaker 2: in her basement for twenty years. Vincent van Goh painted

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Speaker 2: many remarkable canvasses. This is not one of them. While

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Speaker 2: we were reporting this epit, we had to solve a problem,

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Speaker 2: which was we didn't know whether the van Go was

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Speaker 2: a fake. So I said to my producer, Elouise Linton,

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Speaker 2: can we find out? Thinking foolishly, it would be easy.

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Speaker 2: Eloise starts with a curator at the Detroit Institute of

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Speaker 2: Arts named George, who went on the record years ago

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Speaker 2: to say that he thought Vaz with Carnations was a fake.

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Speaker 4: I call his home in Maine. He doesn't answer. I

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Speaker 4: leave a message. I call again. His wife picks up.

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Speaker 4: I tell her what I'm asking about, and she says

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Speaker 4: they're going on a trip and if I call back.

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Speaker 1: They won't be there.

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Speaker 2: This was the beginning of the pandemic. April, Eloise and

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Speaker 2: I had started having these zoom calls where we shared

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Speaker 2: our frustrations.

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Speaker 8: That's one little weird fact. Number One, he's retired, he's

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Speaker 8: living in Maine. He doesn't want to talk about a

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Speaker 8: painting that he neither liked nor thought was real.

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Speaker 9: Next, what was next? What happened next?

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Speaker 2: Then Eloise tries a prominent art journalist who'd written extensively

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Speaker 2: about Bengo. As soon as she mentions Vaz with Carnations,

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Speaker 2: the guy disappears. Then she just starts calling up big

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Speaker 2: name Bengo experts, one after another, same thing.

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Speaker 4: I told him I was thinking about Days of Carnations,

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Speaker 4: and he stopped replying, and then I followed up two

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Speaker 4: weeks later because someone had recommended.

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Speaker 10: I talked to him and.

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Speaker 4: He said that he would speak to me this morning,

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Speaker 4: and then when I called his office, they said he

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Speaker 4: wasn't there, and then I emailed him and he never responded.

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Speaker 2: Understand, this is not the Mona Lisa we're talking about.

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Speaker 2: Vaz with Carnations is a third rate. Maybe Bengo. It

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Speaker 2: spent much of its life over the past few decades

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Speaker 2: in the basement of the Detroit Institute of Arts and

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Speaker 2: also understand that we're doing this reporting while the entire

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Speaker 2: world is at home. Do you know how easy it

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Speaker 2: is to get people to talk during lockdown. It's been

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Speaker 2: the most fantastic stretch of reporting in my thirty five

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Speaker 2: years in journalism. I could get the Pope on the

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Speaker 2: phone if I want it, because he's sitting in his

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Speaker 2: palazzo like everyone else doing nothing but watching Italian Netflix.

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Speaker 2: Everyone was available except art people.

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Speaker 8: I talked to the lawyer on the other side of

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Speaker 8: that controversy and he says insists everything has to be

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Speaker 8: on background, and then sends me this long email in

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Speaker 8: which he tells me something that it's like totally obvious,

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Speaker 8: like I could have gotten off Wikipedia and says, you

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Speaker 8: can use that, but only on background.

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Speaker 9: This is this random painting which isn't any good, which

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Speaker 9: we thought was fake for years and years and years,

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Speaker 9: and the whole world doesn't want to talk about it,

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Speaker 9: not even till little old us. Yeah, who knows what

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Speaker 9: I mean.

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Speaker 4: I can't understand why unless we're just being part of

401
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Speaker 4: me thinks that we're just alone and quarantined and becoming

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Speaker 4: paranoid or something.

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Speaker 2: Finally, Eloise finds a Ango expert named David Brooks who

404
00:23:20,236 --> 00:23:21,236
Speaker 2: spells it out for us.

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Speaker 11: Yeah, everybody kind of walks on eggshells when it comes

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Speaker 11: to the fakes topic, and rightfully so. I don't really

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Speaker 11: say much about it, and the Vango Museum is always

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Speaker 11: very careful. For example, I'll even say to my friend,

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Speaker 11: my contact at the Vango Museum, such and such work.

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Speaker 11: I mean, people have questioned it, what do you think?

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Speaker 11: And my friend will say, we have no opinion. We

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Speaker 11: simply can't express an opinion unless they're officially called on

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Speaker 11: to do an investigation and to properly study the work.

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Speaker 11: They're Switzerland. They just remain neutral, and that's a smart move.

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Speaker 11: It makes life easier for them.

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Speaker 4: Why why is it such a use I think you

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Speaker 4: called it a firecracker topic.

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Speaker 9: It is.

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Speaker 11: It's a firecracker topic, and again one that I've avoided

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Speaker 11: over the years because I just don't need the grief.

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Speaker 2: The art world is a collection of people with a

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Speaker 2: great deal of knowledge about art who, on the question

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Speaker 2: of fakes, whether knowledge might be useful, declined to use

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Speaker 2: their knowledge. Then, don't want to be the one who

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Speaker 2: reigns on someone's parade by telling them that their prized

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00:24:31,076 --> 00:24:33,516
Speaker 2: van Go was actually painted by like some dude in

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Speaker 2: Cleveland in the nineteen seventies. This is like doctors who

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Speaker 2: are happy to tell you that you're healthy, but would

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Speaker 2: rather not break the news to you that you're sick.

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Speaker 2: So finally Eloise tracks down a data scientist at a

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Speaker 2: university in Holland named Eric Postma.

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00:24:50,396 --> 00:24:53,716
Speaker 10: I was working on in the old days of computer vision,

433
00:24:53,756 --> 00:24:57,436
Speaker 10: before the time of deep learning. There was this challenge

434
00:24:57,476 --> 00:25:01,676
Speaker 10: to recognize visual texture, and I was I had a

435
00:25:01,756 --> 00:25:04,636
Speaker 10: visitor to Ango Museum there was a kind of Impressionist

436
00:25:04,796 --> 00:25:08,836
Speaker 10: paintings exhibit, and then an idea to create a data

437
00:25:08,836 --> 00:25:12,356
Speaker 10: set from paintings because they all have these different visual textures.

438
00:25:12,876 --> 00:25:17,476
Speaker 2: Basically, Postma trains his AI program to match the patterns

439
00:25:17,516 --> 00:25:23,276
Speaker 2: of authenticated ven goes against unverified ven goes. So Alois

440
00:25:23,476 --> 00:25:26,356
Speaker 2: sends him an image of us with carnations, and a

441
00:25:26,436 --> 00:25:29,036
Speaker 2: few weeks later he calls with the results.

442
00:25:29,356 --> 00:25:31,716
Speaker 10: To make it very concrete, I take blocks of two

443
00:25:31,796 --> 00:25:34,636
Speaker 10: hundred and fifty six by two hundred fifty six pixels

444
00:25:35,036 --> 00:25:37,836
Speaker 10: and I look at each block in the in the

445
00:25:37,916 --> 00:25:41,636
Speaker 10: image and compared and try to classify that as real

446
00:25:42,356 --> 00:25:46,036
Speaker 10: fango or none vango. And what I see in many

447
00:25:46,676 --> 00:25:49,276
Speaker 10: paintings that I know are fango's I always see, Okay,

448
00:25:49,316 --> 00:25:52,876
Speaker 10: it's about seventy to eighty percent of the surface is

449
00:25:52,916 --> 00:25:57,276
Speaker 10: classified as fango, but in this particular case, it's fifty

450
00:25:57,276 --> 00:26:01,676
Speaker 10: to fifty. It's really fifty to fifty. I replicated that

451
00:26:01,756 --> 00:26:04,596
Speaker 10: several times I changed the data set. Normally I would

452
00:26:04,636 --> 00:26:10,836
Speaker 10: like to have multiple copies of reproductions, but this suggests

453
00:26:10,836 --> 00:26:12,876
Speaker 10: to me that it's not clearly if I'm GO and

454
00:26:13,516 --> 00:26:17,156
Speaker 10: not clearly a non FuMO. It's something in between, which

455
00:26:17,196 --> 00:26:19,716
Speaker 10: is not very helpful, of course, but it's the first

456
00:26:19,716 --> 00:26:21,716
Speaker 10: time that I have such a clear code whey, where

457
00:26:21,716 --> 00:26:24,116
Speaker 10: it's really balanced. It's really fifty to fifty.

458
00:26:24,796 --> 00:26:26,596
Speaker 2: I mean, how perfect is that?

459
00:26:27,276 --> 00:26:27,996
Speaker 1: Fifty to fifty.

460
00:26:28,596 --> 00:26:31,636
Speaker 2: Then Postma comes back to us and says, actually, upon

461
00:26:31,756 --> 00:26:34,956
Speaker 2: re analysis, I think the flowers are real, but maybe

462
00:26:34,996 --> 00:26:38,436
Speaker 2: the background is not. We spared you all this in

463
00:26:38,436 --> 00:26:41,836
Speaker 2: the original episode because we found a better story to tell,

464
00:26:42,276 --> 00:26:44,196
Speaker 2: but at least you know how I came to the

465
00:26:44,196 --> 00:26:48,116
Speaker 2: conclusion that I did, which is the art world is nuts.

466
00:26:48,956 --> 00:26:52,236
Speaker 2: The only person who would actually discuss the authenticity of

467
00:26:52,316 --> 00:26:55,556
Speaker 2: oz wasn't someone in the art world. It was a

468
00:26:55,636 --> 00:26:59,076
Speaker 2: data scientist, for goodness sake, an outsider who uses AI

469
00:26:59,196 --> 00:27:03,276
Speaker 2: to analyze pixels, and poor Eric Postma is left spending

470
00:27:03,316 --> 00:27:07,276
Speaker 2: his days dealing with crazy art world types clutching would

471
00:27:07,316 --> 00:27:09,156
Speaker 2: be masterpieces.

472
00:27:09,156 --> 00:27:11,716
Speaker 10: Even people that wanted to put their painting in my computer.

473
00:27:11,876 --> 00:27:15,596
Speaker 4: Literally, what do you mean, oh that physical painting?

474
00:27:16,196 --> 00:27:16,596
Speaker 1: Yeah?

475
00:27:16,596 --> 00:27:18,956
Speaker 10: They called me, so, yeah, I'm my painting. Can I

476
00:27:18,956 --> 00:27:21,236
Speaker 10: put it in your computer? I said, yeah, what do

477
00:27:21,276 --> 00:27:23,836
Speaker 10: you mean? I can bring it to you? And is

478
00:27:23,876 --> 00:27:25,556
Speaker 10: there an opening in your computer that I can put

479
00:27:25,596 --> 00:27:28,436
Speaker 10: it in? The Really people were strange people.

480
00:27:29,356 --> 00:27:33,076
Speaker 2: Pretty sure this will be my last episode on the

481
00:27:33,156 --> 00:27:44,636
Speaker 2: Art World. We're back with more of your insightful listener questions.

482
00:27:45,796 --> 00:27:50,196
Speaker 2: Aaron Klanderman at Clandera asks love to hear more about

483
00:27:50,196 --> 00:27:54,596
Speaker 2: your running obsession. Smiley face, what's your routine? Got some

484
00:27:54,596 --> 00:28:01,236
Speaker 2: good shoe recommendations? Okay, Ultra shoes, tracksmith gear. My favorite

485
00:28:01,236 --> 00:28:03,476
Speaker 2: thing in the world is group track workouts. But sadly,

486
00:28:03,516 --> 00:28:06,476
Speaker 2: since COVID, my only running partner has been the thirteen

487
00:28:06,556 --> 00:28:09,036
Speaker 2: year old son of my friends, who is super speedy

488
00:28:09,316 --> 00:28:12,276
Speaker 2: and completely plays me. Pretends he's all exhausted and then

489
00:28:12,356 --> 00:28:16,836
Speaker 2: destroys me on the final interval. Speaking of Tracksmith, you

490
00:28:16,876 --> 00:28:19,036
Speaker 2: may have heard some of their ads on Revisionist History.

491
00:28:19,236 --> 00:28:21,076
Speaker 2: I'm a huge fan of their stuff, wear it all

492
00:28:21,076 --> 00:28:24,036
Speaker 2: the time. And a few weeks ago, the founder of

493
00:28:24,036 --> 00:28:27,076
Speaker 2: Tracksmith asked me could he convince me to write the

494
00:28:27,196 --> 00:28:29,876
Speaker 2: copy for an ad they were making, And I said sure,

495
00:28:30,196 --> 00:28:31,996
Speaker 2: because I don't know if you know this, but my

496
00:28:32,076 --> 00:28:34,916
Speaker 2: ambition coming out of college was to be a copywriter.

497
00:28:35,436 --> 00:28:38,516
Speaker 2: I applied to twenty eight ad agencies and got twenty

498
00:28:38,516 --> 00:28:40,796
Speaker 2: eight rejection letters, which I put on the wall of

499
00:28:40,836 --> 00:28:44,316
Speaker 2: my dorm room. So I'm a frustrated ad guy deep down.

500
00:28:44,756 --> 00:28:47,996
Speaker 2: That's my core identity, which is why I sometimes go

501
00:28:48,356 --> 00:28:51,036
Speaker 2: a little crazy on the ads I do for Revisionist History.

502
00:28:51,956 --> 00:28:55,756
Speaker 2: Do you remember Horace Throgbottom of the law firm throg Bottom,

503
00:28:56,076 --> 00:28:59,476
Speaker 2: throg Bottom and Throgbottom. That was a character I cooked

504
00:28:59,516 --> 00:29:06,956
Speaker 2: up with my producer Jacob Smith for zip Recruiter. Really

505
00:29:07,156 --> 00:29:08,276
Speaker 2: and where do you work now?

506
00:29:09,236 --> 00:29:09,476
Speaker 11: Started?

507
00:29:09,516 --> 00:29:11,876
Speaker 9: I'm a partner at a throg Bottom and throg Bottom.

508
00:29:12,436 --> 00:29:14,436
Speaker 2: Horrse, my man, let's drink to.

509
00:29:14,396 --> 00:29:15,556
Speaker 9: Your future chinchin.

510
00:29:18,996 --> 00:29:22,836
Speaker 2: If your horse cab at throg Bottom the first It's

511
00:29:22,956 --> 00:29:25,476
Speaker 2: easy to figure out who to hire. But if your

512
00:29:25,556 --> 00:29:29,116
Speaker 2: last name is in throg Bottom, you need zip recruiter.

513
00:29:29,996 --> 00:29:32,636
Speaker 2: The point is the head of some little startup who

514
00:29:32,636 --> 00:29:35,116
Speaker 2: makes my favorite running stuff comes to me and says,

515
00:29:35,236 --> 00:29:37,036
Speaker 2: do you want to help? Out of course I'm going

516
00:29:37,116 --> 00:29:40,076
Speaker 2: to say yes. So here it is the video of

517
00:29:40,076 --> 00:29:42,836
Speaker 2: this is a couple of runners, including the great Mary Kine,

518
00:29:43,156 --> 00:29:49,676
Speaker 2: running through darkened, lonely streets. You could always stay in bed,

519
00:29:51,116 --> 00:29:55,556
Speaker 2: pull up the covers, pour a stiff drink, order in worry.

520
00:29:57,676 --> 00:29:59,676
Speaker 2: You could always let someone else take on the world.

521
00:30:01,436 --> 00:30:05,356
Speaker 2: Actors playing heroes, pounding soundtrack, that thing where they take

522
00:30:05,396 --> 00:30:11,756
Speaker 2: on great risks, only it's all made up. But then

523
00:30:12,036 --> 00:30:17,836
Speaker 2: who would you be? Or you could say to the world,

524
00:30:18,596 --> 00:30:28,396
Speaker 2: I have all I need. I have movement, breath, lungs, daydreams,

525
00:30:33,276 --> 00:30:46,276
Speaker 2: I have running. Running is a gift. It's so emotional.

526
00:30:46,756 --> 00:30:51,156
Speaker 2: It's like the email Malcolm Gladwell, is anyone still listening

527
00:30:52,316 --> 00:30:57,276
Speaker 2: at Harsha Shroud asks higher percentile your mild time for

528
00:30:57,436 --> 00:31:00,876
Speaker 2: your age group or your l SAT score. There were

529
00:31:00,876 --> 00:31:04,636
Speaker 2: actually a bunch of questions like this at Production Labs.

530
00:31:04,756 --> 00:31:08,436
Speaker 2: Writes hello from Germany, what did you score on the

531
00:31:08,596 --> 00:31:12,516
Speaker 2: l SAT in the Puzzle Rush episode. I get this

532
00:31:12,596 --> 00:31:13,396
Speaker 2: question all the time.

533
00:31:13,476 --> 00:31:13,676
Speaker 1: Now.

534
00:31:14,156 --> 00:31:17,676
Speaker 2: Back in season four, my then assistant Camille Baptista, and

535
00:31:17,716 --> 00:31:22,036
Speaker 2: I took the ELSAT not to become lawyers, no, just

536
00:31:22,036 --> 00:31:25,876
Speaker 2: to see whether a young, brainy whipper snapper like Camille

537
00:31:26,436 --> 00:31:29,756
Speaker 2: was a match for a savvy, grizzled veteran like me.

538
00:31:30,756 --> 00:31:33,556
Speaker 2: And at the end of a two episode arc with

539
00:31:33,716 --> 00:31:37,116
Speaker 2: so much ridiculous build up, I refuse to reveal what

540
00:31:37,196 --> 00:31:40,756
Speaker 2: our scores were, which apparently left many in the revisionist

541
00:31:40,836 --> 00:31:46,036
Speaker 2: history universe up in arms. But wait, the whole point

542
00:31:46,036 --> 00:31:48,756
Speaker 2: of the episode was the standardized tests like the el

543
00:31:48,796 --> 00:31:52,476
Speaker 2: SAT don't tell us anything meaningful. If you tell someone

544
00:31:52,516 --> 00:31:57,316
Speaker 2: your score, you're complicit in the scam. Don't ask, don't tell.

545
00:31:58,436 --> 00:32:01,396
Speaker 2: But we did get one very charming email on the

546
00:32:01,436 --> 00:32:06,636
Speaker 2: subject from Joan Riddle Steinmann, who teaches choir at Paradigm

547
00:32:06,716 --> 00:32:10,396
Speaker 2: High School in Salt Lake City. Steinmann wrote a whole

548
00:32:10,516 --> 00:32:14,116
Speaker 2: song inspired by our l SAT episodes. I'm not kidding.

549
00:32:14,436 --> 00:32:18,436
Speaker 2: It's called a SCANTRONA day keeps all learning at bay.

550
00:32:19,156 --> 00:32:21,076
Speaker 2: She said she was coming to New York with her

551
00:32:21,156 --> 00:32:23,916
Speaker 2: choir and could they perform it for us. This is

552
00:32:23,916 --> 00:32:28,916
Speaker 2: what she wrote we twenty four singers, four parent chaperones,

553
00:32:28,956 --> 00:32:32,836
Speaker 2: myself and our school principal would love to sing to him,

554
00:32:32,916 --> 00:32:36,196
Speaker 2: meaning me we can meet him outside a coffee shop

555
00:32:36,636 --> 00:32:41,996
Speaker 2: or anywhere and sing the song a cappella. Sadly, because

556
00:32:41,996 --> 00:32:45,476
Speaker 2: of COVID, the meeting never happened, so we're going to

557
00:32:45,556 --> 00:32:46,836
Speaker 2: play the song for you now.

558
00:32:50,756 --> 00:32:56,276
Speaker 9: B C DCAC.

559
00:32:59,836 --> 00:33:06,196
Speaker 7: DCB Please mark etes.

560
00:33:06,876 --> 00:33:11,676
Speaker 3: Ictg Hoy, Stuff Katan g, Martin Elsa.

561
00:33:11,516 --> 00:33:15,076
Speaker 2: And staff A SCANTRONA Day is part of Steinmann's musical

562
00:33:15,356 --> 00:33:19,436
Speaker 2: Solve for X, which you can check out at Solve

563
00:33:19,596 --> 00:33:23,236
Speaker 2: for x musical dot com. You want to get on

564
00:33:23,276 --> 00:33:27,916
Speaker 2: my good side, write me songs, Joanes Steinmann, you are

565
00:33:27,996 --> 00:33:33,516
Speaker 2: a genius, proof that sometimes good things happen outside of Atlanta.

566
00:33:33,916 --> 00:33:38,556
Speaker 6: Fav and just market every time.

567
00:33:39,236 --> 00:33:43,116
Speaker 2: That's all, ladies and gentlemen, stay safe, have a wonderful

568
00:33:43,196 --> 00:33:47,516
Speaker 2: holiday and see you for season six of Revision's History

569
00:33:48,156 --> 00:34:10,036
Speaker 2: in twenty twenty one. Revisions His He is produced by

570
00:34:10,316 --> 00:34:14,236
Speaker 2: Mia LaBelle and le Mingestu with Jacob Smith, Eloise Linton,

571
00:34:14,476 --> 00:34:18,756
Speaker 2: Kobe Guildford and ann An Aim. Our editor is Julia Barton.

572
00:34:19,036 --> 00:34:23,476
Speaker 2: Original scoring by the Great Luis Kara Ge You E

573
00:34:23,956 --> 00:34:28,156
Speaker 2: R R A mastering by Flawn Williams. Special thanks to

574
00:34:28,196 --> 00:34:32,396
Speaker 2: the Pushkin Crew head a Fine, Carlei Migliori, Maya Knig,

575
00:34:32,516 --> 00:34:38,276
Speaker 2: Maggie Taylor, Eric Sandler, Jason Cambrell, Martine Gonzalez, and of

576
00:34:38,316 --> 00:34:41,676
Speaker 2: course l Hafe Jacob Westbrook.

577
00:34:42,716 --> 00:34:43,556
Speaker 1: I'm mocol Bubble.

578
00:34:50,836 --> 00:34:52,316
Speaker 9: Put your pencils down.

579
00:34:54,916 --> 00:34:55,116
Speaker 3: Now.

580
00:34:55,156 --> 00:34:59,076
Speaker 2: I have to sing Little Feed, But I've forgotten and

581
00:34:59,156 --> 00:35:01,036
Speaker 2: I realized that what I thought with the lyrics to

582
00:35:01,076 --> 00:35:04,036
Speaker 2: Little Feed, we're not the lyrics A little feet. I

583
00:35:04,076 --> 00:35:05,876
Speaker 2: thought it was, Oh Atlanta, I hear you calling.

584
00:35:06,036 --> 00:35:06,436
Speaker 1: It's not.

585
00:35:08,356 --> 00:35:09,076
Speaker 2: You don't know the song?

586
00:35:10,036 --> 00:35:10,516
Speaker 9: You guys?

587
00:35:11,036 --> 00:35:12,116
Speaker 2: Do you guys know the song?

588
00:35:14,836 --> 00:35:15,796
Speaker 7: What?

589
00:35:15,796 --> 00:35:19,396
Speaker 2: What's the what's the Are you serious, Eloise?

590
00:35:19,476 --> 00:35:21,636
Speaker 11: Do you know it? Oh?

591
00:35:21,676 --> 00:35:28,076
Speaker 2: My god, came up hold on, I.

592
00:35:27,996 --> 00:35:34,556
Speaker 3: Said, Oh Atlanta, Oh Atlanta, I got.

593
00:35:34,396 --> 00:35:40,316
Speaker 2: To get back. Well, we'll do this later, I said.

594
00:35:42,076 --> 00:35:48,156
Speaker 3: I said, Oh Atlanta, oh Atlanta, I got to get

595
00:35:48,276 --> 00:35:50,116
Speaker 3: back to you, all right,