Speaker 1: Hi, and welcome to everywhere. I'm your host, Daniel Scheffler.
Speaker 1: I was always traveling from the beginning, and my very
Speaker 1: young mother's belly mosying around southern Africa with Ron Stewart
Speaker 1: is a soundtrack to our life together. Maybe this is why,
Speaker 1: thirty plus years later, I have such a bush of
Speaker 1: hair in my head. I don't know. Perhaps more importantly,
Speaker 1: this is why I feel like travel is so much
Speaker 1: a part of who I am. Not in the obvious.
Speaker 1: Let's ask Daniel for some travel advice on where to
Speaker 1: eat in insert city here, but in a much deeper way.
Speaker 1: So May West was speaking to me when she said,
Speaker 1: and I paraphrase, good boys go to heaven, bad boys
Speaker 1: go everywhere. Today's travel commandment thou shalt know your starting point.
Speaker 1: I always say my birth mother is normal Gene, not
Speaker 1: quite Marilyn Monroe. But what she did do is travel
Speaker 1: with wild, abandoned topless, with the wind through her breasts.
Speaker 1: She was in Africa, and so it all felt so
Speaker 1: free to her. Okay, let's establish this right now. Africa's
Speaker 1: like that. It helps you lose those strange inhibitions you
Speaker 1: tend to hoard over time. Remember when you were just
Speaker 1: a wee lass or lad. You just tried everything twice
Speaker 1: and again if you wanted to, and you did it
Speaker 1: all without thinking about it too much. And here you
Speaker 1: are today and you're questioning whether to go to age
Speaker 1: old incredible Mexico because the media sparks fear in you
Speaker 1: over some border situation. There's something about that scarlet blood
Speaker 1: soil of Africa that stays in my being. I leave
Speaker 1: again and again, and somehow being born in Africa means
Speaker 1: you always get tugged home. That like umbilical cord, is
Speaker 1: so taught. I know it. When I get off the
Speaker 1: plane and I smell that air, it alters me every time,
Speaker 1: no matter where I've come from. It smells like the
Speaker 1: bush belt, like everywhere animals sweat for kunt. The clouds
Speaker 1: are extra enormous, And when the afternoon rolls in, just
Speaker 1: as you're thinking about a lovely tea time, they do
Speaker 1: a dance of storms. It's louder than what your ears
Speaker 1: think they can handle, and it's wetter than any rain
Speaker 1: you've ever felt. Big drops tossed to clean your soul,
Speaker 1: and they come with such a riotous frenzy, and all
Speaker 1: your ships washed away. The drool is always the same.
Speaker 1: I kick off my shoes and I find my feet
Speaker 1: banned the sand or soil or somewhere, and it immediately
Speaker 1: roots right there. My feet become the very beginning of
Speaker 1: life as we know it. It taps into centuries of
Speaker 1: humanity and all its cruelty and beauty. Only Africa can
Speaker 1: make you cry and laugh all at once. I'm not
Speaker 1: supposing that Africa doesn't have its problems, and I'm not
Speaker 1: suggesting that just because I was born on the continent
Speaker 1: that somehow miraculously I understand it better than But I
Speaker 1: don't know the Koi, sand or others that have been
Speaker 1: there before me. You have spent centuries reveling in it,
Speaker 1: protecting it. On the contrary, I'm a white boy from Africa.
Speaker 1: I can partially see both the sword and the shield.
Speaker 1: I read this beautiful line and in wild the Cheryl
Speaker 1: Strait book, and she was talking to Oprah and they
Speaker 1: were having this conversation and she said something like the
Speaker 1: wilderness has a clarity that included me. Okay, sure, granted
Speaker 1: she was talking about the Pacific Crest Trail, but that
Speaker 1: somehow stayed with me. Africa shows you exactly that ponder
Speaker 1: about that gorgeous sentence. Once more, isn't the thing we're
Speaker 1: all looking for and maybe the reason we even leave
Speaker 1: to journey across oceans and even now space. Just a
Speaker 1: little more inclusion, please, So I think my birth mother
Speaker 1: must have stuffed me with some of those liberty jeans.
Speaker 1: I'm always climbing up a land rover so I can
Speaker 1: watch the wild dogs play, or running up a hills
Speaker 1: so I can see the nearby islands or some open plains.
Speaker 1: And then there are these endless mountains I'm hiking up
Speaker 1: to see what I can see from there. In fact,
Speaker 1: whenever I get to a city, besides for finding a
Speaker 1: poor over coffee specifically which I'll share more details with
Speaker 1: you in a moment, I try and find a rooftop
Speaker 1: or a hilltop or a uppy uppy situation to observe
Speaker 1: just what I'm dealing with. Let me demonstrate. So, think
Speaker 1: about a city like Santiago, chill Am. You hike a
Speaker 1: little mountain which is right downtown, and of course there's
Speaker 1: like an enormous religious statue looking down at you, possibly
Speaker 1: judging you, And this is where you can survey almost
Speaker 1: the entire city, and those incredible Andy's in the distance.
Speaker 1: So that's how I understand it, and I'm able to
Speaker 1: swallow it. Let's think about another place like um, Birmingham, Alabama,
Speaker 1: that has the Roman Guard of Fire Vulcan on a
Speaker 1: hilltop right downtown, gleaming down at the southern heyday glimmer
Speaker 1: of a hope city. That's the first thing I did
Speaker 1: as I arrived. I went to hold hands with this
Speaker 1: cast iron, burly bearded, bare bottomed man so that I
Speaker 1: could really see the city. Why, actually, I lie. The
Speaker 1: first thing I did as I got off the plane
Speaker 1: in Alabama was to go to a gas station in
Speaker 1: this tiny little town annexed to Birmingham for barbecue gas
Speaker 1: in a rub. I was eating flesh at this point,
Speaker 1: and I'm much more plant orientated at the moment. For
Speaker 1: all kinds of reasons. We could definitely debate. Life is
Speaker 1: simpler when you can drive a truck full of gas
Speaker 1: and eat a piece of meat. I was told by
Speaker 1: the man behind a smoker. But let's get back to
Speaker 1: the poor of a coffee. When I'm traveling. Before I
Speaker 1: arrived somewhere New, whether it's Atlanta, Alaska, or Australia, I
Speaker 1: put into the little Google search bar the following phrase
Speaker 1: pour over coffee, enter city here and I pressed searched.
Speaker 1: So the theory is that if they serve pour over
Speaker 1: from a Comax or maybe a V sixty and even
Speaker 1: an error press, they probably in lots of certainty take
Speaker 1: their beans seriously. So then you know, and this is
Speaker 1: what I know, is that I will find not only
Speaker 1: a fantastic cup of coffee, but probably people who also
Speaker 1: give a shit about their cup. And if we found
Speaker 1: naked coffee, I'm kidding, but seriously, of course, there's nothing
Speaker 1: I love more than bearing some skin. I'm not saying
Speaker 1: that I'm a nudist or anything, but since twenty three
Speaker 1: and me says I have some very serious German roots,
Speaker 1: we could do a whole episode dedicated to the German
Speaker 1: love for Barden Barda on a kleinder I of course
Speaker 1: proposed to my new Jersey Italian husband. In the nude.
Speaker 1: We were leisurely swimming off the coast of Sicily near
Speaker 1: some terribly old ruins and agrigento. There were Dover style
Speaker 1: cliffs over to the left and some fucking crazy Game
Speaker 1: of Thrones castles to the right, in a place called
Speaker 1: the lovely sounding Reservo naturale di ponta bianca in my
Speaker 1: best Italian. So think about it. Proposing while travel, Well,
Speaker 1: that makes sense, that's what you want to do in
Speaker 1: the nude. Even more sense. Whilst you're traveling. Maybe your
Speaker 1: guard is down a little and you're more open to something.
Speaker 1: The dog isn't waiting for you to take her out,
Speaker 1: and there's some magic ship that's about to happen. Well,
Speaker 1: travel gives you that little opening cranny in the universe
Speaker 1: to promise your whole heart to someone. And my Jersey
Speaker 1: boy is always busy. It's hard to get his full
Speaker 1: attention on anything. And I mean, let's not even try
Speaker 1: and get his undivided attention. But you know it, deserted
Speaker 1: soft heeably beach with waves quietly kissing your feet and
Speaker 1: inviting you in for a dip in the nude. Hell, yes,
Speaker 1: that held his attention. Not because it's dramatic and not
Speaker 1: because it's a selfie inducing moment, but because we were
Speaker 1: there together and the skies opened up and gave us
Speaker 1: this private moment to share our love discuss, and that's
Speaker 1: was the starting point, like no other Michael and I
Speaker 1: starting in life together, just like the one my bio
Speaker 1: mom had envisioned, and then a life was changed forever.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna pause this right here for a moment for
Speaker 1: our sponsors to weigh in, But do come back to
Speaker 1: hear more about where I've been scooting around this week.
Speaker 1: Trade tables up. You're returning to everywhere land. That's my
Speaker 1: experience with Secily. Now I also like to think about
Speaker 1: it in terms of now and then, So I'm inviting
Speaker 1: my dear friend Holly onto the show to give us
Speaker 1: that then. Yes, so we're only going to focus on
Speaker 1: a little bit of them, because history, of course is
Speaker 1: very rich in Sicily. There is a lot to discuss
Speaker 1: and talk about. And this is going to sound perhaps
Speaker 1: a bit almost morbid compared to your story, but there's
Speaker 1: a reason I want to go there. I want to
Speaker 1: talk a little bit about its military history. Uh, there
Speaker 1: are ruins near where you proposed to your beloved. He
Speaker 1: saw them, maybe didn't fully process them. No, I was
Speaker 1: non processing mind elsewhere. Totally understandable. The Deluty Military Battery
Speaker 1: is there, and that has been there since early on
Speaker 1: in the twentieth century. It was built between nineteen fifteen
Speaker 1: and ninety three, so around World War One. But what
Speaker 1: we really want to talk about in terms of what
Speaker 1: makes Sicily important in world history. Is World War two.
Speaker 1: I thought you were going to say the wine culture,
Speaker 1: all the delicious press. Judo no, no, also very important
Speaker 1: on both points. But when Secily was invaded by the
Speaker 1: Allies on July tenth three, that was known as Operation Husky,
Speaker 1: it was a very very important moment in the war.
Speaker 1: It's one of those places that I think, again to
Speaker 1: Western ears, we think of this Lee is a very
Speaker 1: small part of the world, or a small part of Europe,
Speaker 1: but it was really pivotal that actually is considered by
Speaker 1: many historians to be one of the most important Anglo
Speaker 1: American campaigns of the war. For one, it was the
Speaker 1: first time that the Western Allies made an assault on
Speaker 1: what was called Fortress Europe in essence, and it also
Speaker 1: became this important experiential learning curve for the Allied forces,
Speaker 1: Like they took from that a lot of knowledge and
Speaker 1: a lot of experience and a lot of learning that
Speaker 1: they then could apply to the rest of the war
Speaker 1: going forward. But here is the thing that to me
Speaker 1: is always very very important whenever we talk about historical
Speaker 1: wars or any military action. It's really easy to lose
Speaker 1: sight of the fact that those are real people involved.
Speaker 1: We tend to talk about, you know, the dates and
Speaker 1: the names and how power changed, but there were young
Speaker 1: men there that didn't all make it out. The Allies
Speaker 1: had twenty three thousand casualties at Cecil. That is a
Speaker 1: lot of people. That is still the smallest number that
Speaker 1: I'm about to use in this quick statistics list. German
Speaker 1: forces had thirty thousand casualties, but the Italians had a
Speaker 1: hundred and thirty five thousand and a hundred thousand access
Speaker 1: troops were captured. So those were a lot of young men.
Speaker 1: But here's really why it ended up shifting part of
Speaker 1: the war, because at this point, by the spring of
Speaker 1: ninety three, Mussolini was in some trouble. Like his own
Speaker 1: people were, We're starting to rise against him. There were
Speaker 1: opposition groups that were forming. There were people that were saying, like,
Speaker 1: I really think we should make peace with the Allies.
Speaker 1: I really think we should broker some sort of situation
Speaker 1: and get out of this ward and wine to get
Speaker 1: that right. Let's all be cool. Who wouldn't prefer that.
Speaker 1: It's hard for me to understand why anyone would otherwise.
Speaker 1: But the problem was that there was a lot of
Speaker 1: German military presence in Italy at the time, so it
Speaker 1: wasn't like they could just easily go, Nope, we're voting
Speaker 1: on this, we have changed our minds, were washing our
Speaker 1: hands of this war. They couldn't. There were German forces
Speaker 1: literally everywhere, So that is sort of why this becomes
Speaker 1: so pivotal. Uh. Sicily had been part of Italy since
Speaker 1: eighteen sixties, so it was considered a very important part
Speaker 1: of the country. So before that it was ruled by
Speaker 1: the Bourbons and it was considered a different municipality. And
Speaker 1: then it actually merged with the Kingdom of Sardinia in
Speaker 1: eighteen sixty technically and then became part of the Kingdom
Speaker 1: of Italy officially in eighteen sixty one. This is why
Speaker 1: all the American Italians go to Scillate to uncover all
Speaker 1: this history. Yeah, and it's kind of like the heartland
Speaker 1: in many ways. And also we've discussed the delicious things
Speaker 1: that come from there. Right now, happily, put down those headphones.
Speaker 1: Let's go. You don't really have to ask me thrice,
Speaker 1: but don't ask me a second time because we got
Speaker 1: to finish this segment. So when uh, this invasion happened.
Speaker 1: What was happening in Rome was that this was really
Speaker 1: such a hard hit on Italy, particularly again considering those
Speaker 1: casualty numbers, that Mussolini's government began to just collapse. And
Speaker 1: so two weeks after the Allies invaded Sicily on July,
Speaker 1: he was forced to resign by the Fascist Grand Council.
Speaker 1: He was actually arrested that day, And in essence, this
Speaker 1: removed Italy from the war, from the They're Little Access
Speaker 1: agreement and they were no longer part of it, and
Speaker 1: that meant one more country that the Allies were not fighting,
Speaker 1: So that made it very very important. What's really really lovely, though,
Speaker 1: is that there has been this waiting for the loveliness
Speaker 1: to comes. Loveliness coming. Military history is often really dark,
Speaker 1: but I think very important. You can't turn away from
Speaker 1: those things because they are part of our shared history. Uh.
Speaker 1: In the twenty teens and efforts started to make it
Speaker 1: into a nature preserve. At this point, like you saw them,
Speaker 1: the military buildings there have all largely collapsed or you know, crumbled.
Speaker 1: So environmental groups convened in Palermo in they actually asked
Speaker 1: the Italian Army to also be part of these because
Speaker 1: they wanted to make sure that the military history of
Speaker 1: the area was documented, just as they were preserving all
Speaker 1: of the natural things that have grown there. They also
Speaker 1: want to make sure we don't lose any of that
Speaker 1: in the process. But what I really love about your
Speaker 1: story and why this is so important to me to
Speaker 1: talk about these unfortunate things that happened there and these
Speaker 1: young men that lost their lives there, is that because
Speaker 1: this is a place that has seen blood and pain
Speaker 1: and horror, and yet you have found it to be
Speaker 1: a place that is nothing but beauty and charm and magic.
Speaker 1: And you add to that by sharing your love with
Speaker 1: someone else there and then in turn sharing it with us.
Speaker 1: So to me, like these are the moments that redeem
Speaker 1: the ugliness of humanity, is that people find a way
Speaker 1: to get through that and then build something else beautiful
Speaker 1: in those same spots. Holly, I know you're crying, but
Speaker 1: I'm going to cry, but that's how I feel. I mean,
Speaker 1: when I proposed to Michael, it wasn't planning for it
Speaker 1: to be necessarily on a military area, But now that
Speaker 1: you told me this, my proposal to him and I'll
Speaker 1: love together is somehow more meaningful to me like somehow,
Speaker 1: like the two of us, two men in the freedom
Speaker 1: of the century, can come and be together. And I
Speaker 1: love found at a place which is wasn't about love,
Speaker 1: was about fear and about hatred. Yeah, you have made
Speaker 1: this place for a lot of young men died into
Speaker 1: a place where young men shared love. And to me,
Speaker 1: that's what makes it magical. That's what makes traveling the
Speaker 1: way you do such a beautiful thing. Like you can
Speaker 1: heal these spaces where bad things have happened in some
Speaker 1: ways and in absolute the same vein the place can
Speaker 1: heal you. That's why I find myself trying to leave
Speaker 1: my house and pack a bag and climb on another
Speaker 1: flight is in fact the possibility that I could get healed.
Speaker 1: And then there's this beautiful synergy where that place now
Speaker 1: is so unbelievably beautiful that it also heals you in return,
Speaker 1: and you kind of create this this beautiful um infinity
Speaker 1: of sort of a healing energy that goes back and forth.
Speaker 1: That sounds a little hippi or dippier than I usually get,
Speaker 1: but I think to build on really your whole message, right,
Speaker 1: Like you have the opportunity when you travel to heal
Speaker 1: places with your own love like that's part of what
Speaker 1: makes humanity great, as a counterpoint to all the things
Speaker 1: that can sometimes make humanity not so great. So thank
Speaker 1: you for adding love to the world, and to that
Speaker 1: part of the world in particular. I love that you're
Speaker 1: crying everything. You can throw a glitter in the air
Speaker 1: and yell kittens, and I'll probably cry, But this is
Speaker 1: to me very meaningful. Let's take a break to him
Speaker 1: from our sponsors, and we'll be right back with more
Speaker 1: travel from everywhere. The time has come from everywhere. Now
Speaker 1: where were we? Welcome back? I was in Washington, d C.
Speaker 1: Recently interviewing Stephanie Stebsh, the director of the Smithsonian American
Speaker 1: Art Museum. We spent the morning chatting about using art
Speaker 1: as a way to better understand America, and I could
Speaker 1: listen to her for the rest of my life. Hi, Stephanie,
Speaker 1: Hello Daniel. It is so lovely to be in d
Speaker 1: C with you. Thank you for having me. I wish
Speaker 1: I could offer you a perfect day. Yesterday was a
Speaker 1: perfect day for the cherry blossoms. It's true. I saw
Speaker 1: some cherry blossoms, and I'm thrilled to be in DC
Speaker 1: at this time of the year. I've never done it before.
Speaker 1: So well, once you see the cherry blossoms that it
Speaker 1: suggests a return visit, sort of like seeing Mount Fuji
Speaker 1: tells you that you're going to return to Easter. Tell
Speaker 1: me exactly what you do in d c stefinitely. I
Speaker 1: work at the Smithsonian, which is best described in Forward
Speaker 1: Everything under the Sun, And if you know the Smithsonian,
Speaker 1: it's a sun symbol, so that works well for us.
Speaker 1: But in truth it is the largest museum and research
Speaker 1: complex in the world. And in the family of Smithsonian museums,
Speaker 1: of which there are nineteen, I run two of them.
Speaker 1: Can we back up one second, I want to talk
Speaker 1: about crafting. Before moving to America, I had never crafted anything.
Speaker 1: For me, Crafting is this very American thing. Tell me
Speaker 1: a little bit about crafting as an American thing. Well, Daniel,
Speaker 1: I think language is important. So when we talk about craft,
Speaker 1: craft can be both a noun the object, the crafted object,
Speaker 1: and it also can be a verb the way you're
Speaker 1: using it. And I would say today, in particularly, we're
Speaker 1: living in the midst of a maker's movement like Etsy
Speaker 1: Etsy craft beer, you know, handcrafted bread's artisanal. Back to
Speaker 1: the making of the hand. And if you know your history,
Speaker 1: which I imagine you do, Uh, there was the industrial Revolution,
Speaker 1: and there was a counter revolution. So just as things
Speaker 1: were becoming mechanized and and you made the same which
Speaker 1: in many ways was an innovation in and of itself,
Speaker 1: to repeat in making the exact same kind of object,
Speaker 1: there was a counter movement led by artists, of course,
Speaker 1: to go back to the handmaid, to go back to
Speaker 1: the human scale. And that, of course took place mostly
Speaker 1: in the realm of craft, whether it was a wallpaper
Speaker 1: by William Morris, or crafted objects and furniture like good
Speaker 1: stuff Stickley here in the United States, or pottery or
Speaker 1: iron work. That was a moment at the turn of
Speaker 1: the nineteenth century. Now, of course, we live in a
Speaker 1: moment where once again I would say, we almost don't
Speaker 1: know how things are made anymore. So some days I
Speaker 1: want to go back to the handmaid. It is meditative,
Speaker 1: it is quiet, and we even see it in the
Speaker 1: industrial world. Have you been to a Nike store recently?
Speaker 1: I have. They now have a counter and many of
Speaker 1: them that invite you to make your own exactly. Now,
Speaker 1: some people are terrified that I would like just the
Speaker 1: regular choices. Others are excited to be invited to create
Speaker 1: their own versions, and I think it speaks a little
Speaker 1: bit too identity America as very distinctive, as you know
Speaker 1: in your travels. Uh, one place feels very different than
Speaker 1: another place, and yet it can feel the same. Right
Speaker 1: we have, We've shared malls across the country. Sometimes it's
Speaker 1: comforting to travel again as I did as a child,
Speaker 1: and know there would be the comforts of a holiday
Speaker 1: in everywhere you went there was a happy sameness. Or
Speaker 1: even McDonald's, I know the menu, and again with every movement,
Speaker 1: I think there's always a happy counter movement, and then
Speaker 1: suddenly you felt, well, shouldn't I be seeing something that's
Speaker 1: unique to this place, whether again it's food or fashion
Speaker 1: or architecture. And that's why I'm such a big fan
Speaker 1: of when you travel you should go to museums. I
Speaker 1: fully agree we should talk about that a lot, indeed,
Speaker 1: and not just art museums, which talk about the creativity
Speaker 1: of a place, of a region, of a moment. But
Speaker 1: I like going to um Charlotte, North Carolina and going
Speaker 1: to the Museum of the New South and learning about
Speaker 1: how air conditioning forever change to the South, not something
Speaker 1: I thought about before I had gone into that museum
Speaker 1: and saw fabious exhibition on that topic. Well, isn't that
Speaker 1: the point of your museum? This very museum we're in,
Speaker 1: like it inspires you to travel America and beyond in
Speaker 1: ways that you may not have thought about. People travel
Speaker 1: and they don't realize that museums are ecilitarian. It's for everybody.
Speaker 1: There's nothing to be scanned of of a museum. I
Speaker 1: certainly think so. I always um am fascinated by the
Speaker 1: house in which the museum sits. There's a great movement
Speaker 1: to create new museums, and they often are in brand
Speaker 1: new buildings with fabius architecture, often signature architecture, and of
Speaker 1: course also museums are set in history buildings. That's our case.
Speaker 1: We sit in the old Patent Office, which is actually
Speaker 1: one of the most spectacular buildings, a great example of
Speaker 1: Greek Revival architecture. But more importantly, it's the house of
Speaker 1: American ingenuity, and the driving force of America in many
Speaker 1: ways is entrepreneurship, is creating new things, is mechanization, is
Speaker 1: um making improvements. So of course you'd expect to see
Speaker 1: a few patents that we have still kept here in
Speaker 1: some of the wonderful shelves of the old Patent Office building.
Speaker 1: One of my favorites to point out to people is
Speaker 1: an effort to improve the mouse trap. Why do you
Speaker 1: think people don't understand museums? People travel to all over
Speaker 1: the world, and you're like, yeah, I should go to
Speaker 1: the museum, and it's almost an obligation, like, oh, like,
Speaker 1: I guess i'm here in Barcelona, let me go to
Speaker 1: the product or oh, I'm in South Africa, I should
Speaker 1: see the Holocaust Museum in Cape Town or the Apotheid Museum.
Speaker 1: And and my whole thing is, don't see it as
Speaker 1: an obligation. Don't see it like a whole day adventure.
Speaker 1: Go for an hour, go for ten minutes, go and
Speaker 1: explore in a way that's yaws, opposed to the museum
Speaker 1: telling you how. And that's like, I don't know if
Speaker 1: you guys have been to museum. Heck they do, I've
Speaker 1: heard about them, but I would have to go in disguise. Okay, great,
Speaker 1: let's do it. So when we have a date in
Speaker 1: New York or Los Angeles, and you'll be in disguise
Speaker 1: and you should experience that. It's one of the most
Speaker 1: amazing ways to see in a museum because people, I
Speaker 1: think as travelers are confused about how to interact with
Speaker 1: the museum. Well, you know, if you think about the
Speaker 1: history of museums, museums were not for everyone. Not everyone
Speaker 1: was invited in, the hours were limited. One of the
Speaker 1: great revolutions of the French Revolution was actually throwing open
Speaker 1: the doors of the loof of extending the hours so
Speaker 1: that the working person could come experience that they're a museum.
Speaker 1: And what are museums? We are storehouses many ways. What
Speaker 1: we really are our treasure houses of things that people
Speaker 1: care for. So this is the American Museum of Art.
Speaker 1: What is American art? Uh, it's a big definition, it's
Speaker 1: a varied definition. So we at the Smithsonian American Art
Speaker 1: Museum have a special duty. We cherish forty four thousand
Speaker 1: works of art across four centuries, across all media. So
Speaker 1: we have from folk art to photography, We have craft
Speaker 1: to something called time based media, so things made with
Speaker 1: video and and lights and l ed s. We obviously
Speaker 1: have paintings and sculptures, with prints and drawings. We have
Speaker 1: a definition of America that doesn't really reach all of
Speaker 1: the America's Some museums have a broader definition. And you
Speaker 1: and I spoke earlier about boundaries, again, how do you
Speaker 1: define America? But it really is about the American experience.
Speaker 1: Artists capture something about the now and the contemporary that
Speaker 1: is also hopefully universal, and that's why it speaks to
Speaker 1: us across time, across materials, and it invokes hopefully wonder
Speaker 1: sometimes upset, and that's okay as well. We try to
Speaker 1: help our visitors understand a little bit of the time
Speaker 1: in which the art was created. We often try to
Speaker 1: talk about process and uh. Again, I think artists speak
Speaker 1: to us through their own creativity and um. When they
Speaker 1: do it very very well, they stop us in our
Speaker 1: tracks and they create something that's unforgettable and that sparks
Speaker 1: hopefully some combination of reflection and inspiration and a sense
Speaker 1: of wonder. That is the American experience. I mean, I
Speaker 1: chose to come and live here in search of that,
Speaker 1: and to me, part of that is the American dream.
Speaker 1: Like the idea year of Americana, apple Pie Cowboys, it's
Speaker 1: very limited, and I think that we're expanding. I'd like
Speaker 1: to think we're expanding as much as there's a current
Speaker 1: administration that's tightening on this very limited experience. I think
Speaker 1: that we as a nation of immigrants and people that
Speaker 1: have been here from the beginning, as a combination of
Speaker 1: these wonderful people, we want to expand their definition in
Speaker 1: order to enrich our experience, the American experience. My best
Speaker 1: friend touch down this morning for the first time in
Speaker 1: his life to America, and he landed in New York
Speaker 1: and his first impression was everyone feels part of the world.
Speaker 1: And it was such a He's Dutch, and it was
Speaker 1: such a beautiful thought that I had, like I live
Speaker 1: in it, so I forget, but I was like, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's exactly America from here and everywhere. Yes, And in
Speaker 1: many ways we think of America as a young country,
Speaker 1: which of course does not take into consideration that native
Speaker 1: peoples who were here for centuries and centuries. What we
Speaker 1: also have to think about America is in terms of
Speaker 1: the founding of modern America is its place in the
Speaker 1: rest of the world. And so I think there was
Speaker 1: initially a bit of an inferiority complex, a sense that
Speaker 1: the grandeur of Europe, these great castles and cathedrals, and
Speaker 1: these artistic and intellectual contributions that came from Europe and
Speaker 1: I think that was a little daunting initially in America,
Speaker 1: until the Americans in many ways realized or or came
Speaker 1: to understand this notion of American uniqueness. And it begins
Speaker 1: with the landscape. It begins with the power and majesty
Speaker 1: of Niagara Falls, a subject matter that was much painted
Speaker 1: and photographed, So this sense of natural wonder and bed
Speaker 1: and then captured by artists. And then you repeat this
Speaker 1: sense of wonder when you march across the country from
Speaker 1: the coastlines to the um Yosemite to the Grand Canyon.
Speaker 1: I love the way Ken Burns has described the American
Speaker 1: National Park. He says, it's a uniquely American idea to
Speaker 1: take lands and forever make them private for the enjoyment
Speaker 1: of all, for the benefit of wildlife, for understanding our
Speaker 1: or nature, and coming back to a place to refresh ourselves.
Speaker 1: And that's a pretty radical idea because coming to America
Speaker 1: was Wow, look at these endless timber forests, look at
Speaker 1: these oars, look at all these um resources to exploit
Speaker 1: to build with, whether it's ships or or skyscrapers. And
Speaker 1: so to stand back and say no, this belongs to
Speaker 1: us all. That's a wonderful sense of um, common need
Speaker 1: and comm and purpose that is so beautiful. Those are
Speaker 1: the things that I think about America, and I think
Speaker 1: a lot of people forget. And that's why you have
Speaker 1: to travel, right, Daniel, exactly, the I must travel as
Speaker 1: a great Diana Freedland said. Indeed, and early on the
Speaker 1: railroads understood that they would have an evolving purpose. Yes,
Speaker 1: they would have to connect this great country. They would
Speaker 1: have to determine places of settlement. Being on the railroad
Speaker 1: was being connected. And then later on the railroads needed
Speaker 1: to bring not only um materials across country, but they
Speaker 1: would need to bring people. They would need to invite
Speaker 1: people to explore, to put down routes, to grab land
Speaker 1: and and make their fortune. This kind of manifest destiny
Speaker 1: of the country. And it also frankly spread people out
Speaker 1: across the country as they're pouring onto our shores, whether
Speaker 1: it was on the west coast with Chinese or on
Speaker 1: the east coast with the Irish who arrived before the Germans.
Speaker 1: So the Germans were sent across country and to settle
Speaker 1: the Midwest. So again, artists were part of that storytelling
Speaker 1: of bringing people together to understand. Mm I see a
Speaker 1: lighthouse that must be New England. That must be the coast.
Speaker 1: M I see a barn, I see fields, that must
Speaker 1: be the Midwest. They kind of gave us the language
Speaker 1: for understanding America. That's why I want everyone to come here.
Speaker 1: I feel like if you understand that and then you
Speaker 1: sent yourself out on America, your whole experience will be different.
Speaker 1: I mean, I feel that I feel for the first
Speaker 1: time that I'm part of something. I may not have
Speaker 1: been born here, but I immigrated here and I feel
Speaker 1: part of that fabric. Daniel, you haven't touched upon this,
Speaker 1: but I think it's a little bit implied in the
Speaker 1: sense of America and when you travel, when typically encounters
Speaker 1: the national flag. When you come to America, you encounter
Speaker 1: the stars and stripes every rewear everywhere, and then other
Speaker 1: things that the world thinks of as Americans. So car culture,
Speaker 1: American car culture is unique. The scale of the place,
Speaker 1: again back to landscape, suggests that we can have oversized
Speaker 1: cars that are open that invite you to to breathe
Speaker 1: in as you criss cross the country on on endless
Speaker 1: stretches of road artists who are drawn to cars to
Speaker 1: road trips. I also think that there are subsets of
Speaker 1: American car culture that we should always be attentive to.
Speaker 1: How do people share their identity in the choice of
Speaker 1: their hub caps, or in choice of music, or in
Speaker 1: choice of color, wheel size, or adornment. We think about
Speaker 1: the limits of travel because of discrimination. The Oscar Award
Speaker 1: winning movie Green Book that was a reality for many
Speaker 1: people in terms of their not being welcome and having
Speaker 1: to make route and having a kind of a coded
Speaker 1: book for travel. Certainly women don't always feel safe traveling.
Speaker 1: The lgbt q I A plus community struggle with those
Speaker 1: things still today. I don't know if you've seen Um
Speaker 1: Killer Mike. They've got to show that they were doing
Speaker 1: together on Netflix and basically the premises they were going
Speaker 1: to spend twenty four hours in Atlanta only supporting black
Speaker 1: African American businesses, meaning everything they do had to be
Speaker 1: owned or the CEO of had to be African American,
Speaker 1: so no phone, they struggled to find a hotel, they
Speaker 1: had to stay at an amb and B they couldn't
Speaker 1: get into a car because no car company has a
Speaker 1: black CEO or owner. And I've been thinking about doing
Speaker 1: an l g b t q I A plus version
Speaker 1: of this at least you can use your iPhone right exactly,
Speaker 1: and I could definitely you find a gay owned hotel
Speaker 1: in New York. But the idea of that to replicate
Speaker 1: that on a journey when you travel, I think is
Speaker 1: genius and that gives you a small window into that
Speaker 1: is how travel used to be. Well, that's how the
Speaker 1: experience was for African American screen book and etcetera. Right,
Speaker 1: And it's the diversity of America that makes it a whole.
Speaker 1: It is this notion that we strive hopefully for a
Speaker 1: better union, that the American story is not complete. There
Speaker 1: are unwritten chapters, there are overlooked chapters, there are dark
Speaker 1: chapters that we must reckon with. And then there's a
Speaker 1: question about what is your contribution to the American story,
Speaker 1: and we celebrate American creativity. Whether your work will end
Speaker 1: up at the Smithsonian American arm Museum, I don't know.
Speaker 1: Time will tell. Thanks to spending the morning with me, Stephanie.
Speaker 1: This has been such a delight. Thank you. Thanks for
Speaker 1: hanging out. Connect with us on Instagram at Everywhere Podcast,
Speaker 1: Twitter and Everywhere pond, or on the website at everywhere
Speaker 1: podcast dot com. I'm Daniel Shaffler. Signing off, I'll be
Speaker 1: seeing you everywhere.