March 15, 2012 • 31 mins
Imagine a work of art so beautiful that it causes heart palpitations and hallucinations. This Stuff to Blow Your Mind episode dives into the surreal world of Stendhal syndrome. What's the science behind this psychosomatic illness? Tune in to find out.
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind from how Stuff
Works dot Com. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind.
My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Julie Douglas. And
this episode is titled Stindall Syndrome Kicked in the Brain
by Art, which I should I should point out that
I I like, I think a lot of people first
(00:24):
heard the term Stendall syndrome in reference to the Dario
Argento Italian horror film sat Nate, which I'm not recommending
anybody see because when it when it comes to Dario
Argenta's work, generally your your best just watching Suspiria maybe
and then calling it a day, because it's just kind
of similar patterns from there on out. But Stendall Syndrome
(00:46):
the movie is a movie about, like most of his films,
about you know, a killer who likes to kill women.
And the woman in the scenario is played by Dario
Argenta's daughter as Argenta, And there's like one interesting scene
where she stares into a painting, gets dizzy, falls and
feels her so falling through the painting into the water,
(01:06):
and then she makes out with an animatronic fish, which
sounds about right, yeah, which is, which is a pretty
great scene because it's it's like a it's such an
animatronic fish, you know, like if you saw it in
the water, even if you weren't making out with it,
you would be like, that's totally not a real fish.
That's animatronic. But it's it's one of the best cross
species um, you know, makeout scenes in Italian cinema. You know,
(01:27):
I'm jumping ahead a little bit, but the the woman
who who actually named the syndrome Sandall Syndrome, has commented
on that film before and said that the some of
the ways in which she reacted to this painting that
she's uh but she's looking at, is actually pretty faithful
to the syndrome. Well, there you got the one scene
(01:47):
in the in the movie that's interesting is actually maybe
not that far removed from what we're going to talk
about today. But now I'm starting to think about a
bunship tourists in Florence, Italy, like thinking that they're making
out with fishes, yeah, or asking which painting did I
stare at to make me make out with a yeah? Yeah. Yeah.
The syndrome is of course named for the author Stendahl Um,
(02:09):
who's what was his real name on re Marie Bail
I believe, yeah yeah, died two uh and wrote the
classic novel Scarlet and Black, which I really don't remember
much about at all now, but I know I read
it in college and I was really impressed at how
good it actually was, because a lot of times you
end up reading like nineteenth century literature, you know, translated
(02:30):
French novel your you know, your expectations are not necessarily
that high, but but I remember being a very engaging book. Uh,
just maybe not all that memorable now. But when Sindahl
wasn't writing books, he was traveling and writing about those travels.
And when he was writing about his visit to Florence,
(02:51):
he mentioned having this episode really while staring at a
particular painting that he described your palpitations of the heart,
this feeling that the wellspring of life has dried up
inside him and he and he walked in fear of
falling to the ground. So he's having this intense kind
of psycho somatic episode just from looking at his painting,
(03:13):
like like he's and it's such an amazing idea you
can't help but fall in love with it, The idea
that you could stare at the painting, and he would
be it would so impress you, or it would have
this overwhelm it would just overwhelm you, like not only
mentally but actually physically. Yeah. And you know, I can
say for myself that I've looked at paintings before and
felt a little bit emotional, but I certainly have never
(03:36):
become weak need or made out with fish. I mean,
I'm pretty much in the same boat there. There have
been times when I've encountered art and it has really
I mean it's really been a moment where you're you're
blown away and you're just staring into it and uh,
and those moments really are cemented in your memory. I've
mentioned like seeing Irving Norman his work in San Francisco before,
(03:58):
and now that was a moment of I got to
see some of Salvador Dolli's larger pieces when they were
in in Atlanta. Some of those were mind blowing because
I've seen the pieces before, but never on that scale.
And there's something about seeing art in the museum and
seeing it physically that can really mess with you, you know.
Like likewise, of course Cyclorama here in Atlanta. First, when
you walk into psycologic by the way. Uh, yeah, it's
(04:20):
a Civil war painting and diorama. It's both, yes, and
it's and it's a circular painting so it has no end.
It's infinity. Yes, it's it is a painting and it
is a di arama. Yeah, I will say that much. Um.
But you know, we talked about your brain on art before,
and we talked about metaphor, and we talked about why
brain messes with your brain. Why brain misses with your brain.
(04:43):
Art misses with your brain so much because we are
seeing these metaphors in action, and they're encouraging us to
see the world in a new way, and all of
a sudden you have unrelated objects, um, directly compared, and
that somehow gives birth to a new idea or feeling.
And someone who was a master at this with Picasso, Um,
you know, he portrayed the bombing of Guernica, for example,
(05:06):
with the imagery of a bull, a horse and a
light bulb, and it's all in black and white and gray.
And somehow you look at this painting and you really
feel like the desperation, you feel the sort of stakes
that these people were dealing with at that time. Um,
and in the tragedy of war. Right And and certainly
there's not not all art, but a lot of our
deals with pretty weighty subject matter. Um, you know, the
(05:28):
state of humanity, war, death, love, sex, you know. And
then you you stare into a piece that captures these
emotions well, um, and sometimes even in a subversive fashion.
You know than than you know, it's gonna have an
effect on you. Right And actually V. S ram Machandre
and we talked about it again in that podcast. He
talked about cubism and he talked about why it does
(05:51):
what it does to us. Um, you know, it kind
of dissenters us. It's because the fusiform genres in our
brain there ourselves in in the fusiform gyuss that only
respond to certain views of a face. And then they
are so called master face cells that respond to all
views of face. And normally you only have one view
of the face that would be presented at a time,
(06:13):
and we're used to that sort of perspective, right, But
in a cubist painting, for example, you have the presence
of multiple views and that causes multiple single views to
be shooting off in your brain. So you have all
this firing going on. You're hyperactivating the master face cells
uh in the fusiform gyus, and you're exciting the limbic system.
(06:34):
So they're they're definitely. I mean it's not just that
something is beautiful or grotesque to such a degree that
you're taken by I mean, your brain is actually firing
as as it's looking at this image. And so it
would make sense that it's not just Stendal that who
would have this, um, this sort of episodic experience. But um,
(06:55):
but but other tourists actually, and other tourists do experience this. Mean,
that's the thing. It's that Stendall syndrome is not just
this interesting story from one author's life, but it happens
time and time again, and it leads some scientists to
ask what's up with this? Now, not a lot of scientists.
And that's one thing that's important to note here, because
ultimately Stendall syndrome is not a public menace to whatever
(07:21):
extent it is actually a thing. It's just people were
overwhelmed by art, and in some of the more intense
alleged cases of Stendall syndrome, the worst is that it
might make them a little violent and may be prone
to attack of painting or trying right which we'll talk about.
Nobody's crying to government and saying we need more funding
to find out what Stindell syndrome is about. Right right there,
I'm sure that when you when you land in Florence, Italy,
(07:45):
that you know you're not count it right right about. Hey,
you're you're going to swoon in front of a painting.
It's perfectly normal. Um. But there there was a there
is a psychiatrist name Graziella Macrini, and she started to
see a correlation between this this disorder with tourists that
were coming through the emergency room doors where she worked.
(08:05):
And she she was like, why why is it after
the viewing of artwork that these people are collapsing. So
over a ten year period from nineteen eighty six, she
studied this and she documented more than one cases of
Sendall syndrome. And what she says is that when you
encounter the cultural riches of a famous Italian city, uh,
(08:27):
you know, like Florence, and you're looking at my calling
Jelos David that statute which is you know, so iconic, um,
and you are tired and you're hot. Uh. Some tourists
could actually experience giddiness, confusion, breathlessness, panic attacks, and then
faint to the floor. Right. These effects can last for
minutes to day's And what's what I find most telling
(08:51):
about that summary there is that it's it takes in
more than just looking at the artwork. It's not just
because like to tell a piece that I've always found
really impressive, rem Brand's Philosopher and Medica in Meditation. Not
not Philosopher and Medication, that's a different piece altogether, but
Rembrandt's Philosopher and Meditation is a very like I look
(09:12):
at it just one of these pieces that suction. I mean, it's,
you know, the master work with the spiral staircase and
this gloomy individual looking out at you. If I were
to look at that without having any preconceived notion, I
you know, I might say it's a pretty cool painting,
and you know, and I'm having certain experiences staring into it,
but feeling this way about the painting, which I've never
seen in real life. If I were to go to
(09:32):
a museum and see this actual work on the wall,
I would be bringing these expectations with me. I would
be bringing my past reverence for the work with me
to the painting, and I would be traveling to whatever
city that is. I would be dealing with the public transportation,
I would be dealing with the weird food. I would
be dealing with, you know, with all the issues that
(09:53):
go into into travel and exploring and things language, so
all that would be coming to with me as well
to inform my experience of the painting in person. Well,
and you know, I've talked about this before in terms
of memory in place, like you know, your example to
me before it has been like you visit a new city,
you get off the subway and you emerge from the
(10:15):
depth of the station, and you don't know where you are,
and your brain you have a campus, is like WHOA
trying to map this out because the ratlike hind brain
is kicking in and saying, where are we? Where are
the savord tooth tigers? Right? And am I going about
to be eaten? So I mean it's like a survival
instinct kicks in because you don't know exactly where you
are in the spatial world. Yeah, okay, so imagine that, right,
(10:38):
you have a campus is already overtaxed. There's new stimuli
all around you as if we need new stimuli to
to focus. But when you go to a foreign city,
especially a drastically foreign city, like when I think back
to when my wife and I went to Thailand, like
everything was different, everything was new. We never traveled in
East Asia before, and it was intense because it's like
everything from the language, through the temperature to the intensity
(10:59):
of of food. You know, it's like it's all it's
all amazing and different and uh, and in your brain
spends all this energy just computing it, right, And so
imagine that, Like imagine if you turn around and you
look at this incredibly moving piece of art, and your
hippocampus is already taxed. And now it's not only just
dealing with uh, you know, spatial awareness, um, but memory,
(11:21):
past memories, you know, because you and your magdela is
also working up some emotions here, right, So all of
these things could come sort of washing in. So you
can imagine how Santall syndrome works in these you know,
I hate to say this for perfect storm or cocktail
of a situation, uh, that that would lend itself to
this overreaction to a piece of work. Consequently to uh,
(11:45):
it is Caravaggio's painting of Bacchus and the concentric circles
of a Duomo Coppola uh Coppola, as well as the
as the statue of David that seemed to be the
breaking point um in these documented cases of Stendall of syndrome.
And I mean David especially is such an iconic piece,
and I think they're I mean they're you're bringing all
(12:05):
these expectations and then you're seeing it for real, and
uh yeah, I mean you can you can see how
a physical reaction might be possible, especially if you've been
walking around all day and in dealing with an entirely
new environment. Well, and sculpture is such an interesting thing too,
because the thing when I should say this, when I
when I look at sculpture, I'm always amazed the amount
(12:25):
of detail that someone has rung out of a rock.
You know, a piece of rock here, and you know
the details and veins in someone's arm. And then to
see that on the scale that David is, I don't
I don't know the exact stats, but it seems like
it's forty ft high when you look at it. And
to see and to know the age of a piece
too like like even the piece isn't that old. Uh,
(12:46):
you know, it's interesting to think that, you know, the
hands that made this are long gone, and this has
been around for you know, people have lived and died
in the course of this paintings lifetime or this sculpture's lifetime.
And you think of the older pieces, you think of
like regimes that have risen and fallen. Uh, you know,
countries that have that have vanished from the earth in
the life cycle of this piece. Well, and to you know,
(13:10):
to imagine the humanity expressed in this piece that was
conceived of by this human is just it can be overwhelming. Um. So, okay,
there you go. That's that's the Stenhall syndrome. We're gonna
take a break and we come back. We're going to
talk about Japanese tourists in Paris. All right, we're back.
(13:32):
We're going to discuss some similar syndromes that I think
ultimately illuminate the same thing as Stendhall. The ashould say
voyager syndromes. For instance, there's one this Jerusalem syndrome that
has to do with individuals have traveled from all over
the world to see the holy sites in Jerusalem and
and again you're bringing all this history with you. You're
bringing in in many cases at least a certain degree
(13:54):
of of religious thought and religious fascination. I mean, your
spirituality is tied up in these locations. And then you're
standing there like one day you're reading about these locations
in the Bible, you know, and they're to a certain extent,
they're unreal, and then you're seeing them in real life
and uh, and you know what effect does that have
on somebody? In some cases, apparently they get a little faint,
they will react a little well, yeah, it's the story
(14:16):
crossed with the crush of history, right right. Like I feel,
I feel maybe like I get something similar when I
when I'm in New York A few times I've I've
actually been in New York City. You know, this is
an unreal city to a certain extent. For most of
my life, I had never seen it, and I've only
seen it in movies, and I'd read about it in books,
and it seemed like it's like this story to a
(14:37):
certain extent, kind of a storybook land. You know, you
can't you can't you imagine it, you see it in fiction,
and then you're there and then you have to sort
of process your um presence in something that was previously imaginary. Yeah,
I know, I'm I can't be in the Bowery without
thinking about Bill the Butcher reacting his giant although that
was fictional, getting to the of but yeah, I mean,
(15:00):
there's there's a lot by the way of expectations that
people bring with them when they travel, which is particularly
interesting for something called the Paris syndrome. Yes, And what's
great about this is it's kind of the opposite of
Jerusalem and Standall syndrome. It's not really the opposite, it's
kind of the flip side of the same coin. Yeah, yeah,
definitely a dark side. Each year, about a dozen Japanese
(15:22):
tourists are treated for Paris syndrome while visiting the City
of Lights. Symptoms are acute delusions, hallucinations, dizziness, sweating, and
feelings of persecution. Okay m A handful of patients have
had to be flown back to their country under medical
supervision and um. According to Yusuf Mahomodia, a psychologist at
(15:44):
the Hotel hospital, a third of patients get better immediately,
a third suffer relapses, and the rest have psychoses and
some people just never want to travel again. It was
first documented in psychiatric journal Nairviere in two thousand and four,
and just to give people, you know, an idea of
what we're talking about, in two thousand and six, two
Japanese women suffering from Paris syndrome believe their hotel room
(16:07):
was being bugged and there was a plot against them.
Previous cases include a man convinced he was the French
son King and a woman who believes she was being
attacked with microwaves. So, yeah, I mean, that's a that's
a little stressful, sort of obvious why this might happen. Well, yeah,
(16:27):
I mean, I I've never been to France, but I
mean I like a lot of people like a number
of French things. I mean, the history is fabulous. Some
of like some of my some of my favorite authors
are French Alan Ropel for instance, Frenchman through some great
DJs and and and again the food is is above
reproach that France does have kind of a reputation, or
(16:48):
has in the past. I think they made efforts to
to to fix it in recent years, but it has
kind of a reputation of of of being kind of
snotty to tourist. Oh yeah, yeah, I mean I do
think that the French have gotten a bad rap up
for for um, their attitudes towards us, because I think
I'm on the whole that it's not that bad. I mean,
I have been yelling that before, I have to say um,
and I have had to apologize profusely for being a
(17:12):
vegetarian and committing sevil phrases of apology to memory in French. Um.
But if you're a sensitive soul, you can see and
not only just sensitive soul, but if you're someone who
comes from a culture that is distinctly different where customers
always king where um, you know, it's a rigidly formal
(17:33):
culture that it is very concerned with manners. And on
top of that, you have this romanticized version of the
city that you're about to visit. All those things come
tumbling down when reality, you know, sort of you know,
the rubber reality hits the road. Uh, you might feel
exceedingly overwhelmed. You might start to think that someone's plotting
against you. Right the streets of Tokyo in the streets
(17:55):
of Paris. Each of those definitely brings a very different
ideas and feelings to mind. You know um and and
so if you're magically traveling from one to the other,
you're gonna it's gonna be quite a shot. Well, and
language barrier too, right, Like, I mean, I think that
it's probably easier if you're if you speak English and
(18:17):
you go to France and um, because most people are
going to have, you know, at least some um phrases
of English that they know, but not necessarily Japanese. Right,
that's going to be a little bit more obscure for
someone who lives in in France. So yeah, that's a
lot to contend with, especially if you have this like
idealized notion that France is just like one big black
(18:40):
and white picture. Um. You know, I'm thinking of like
Frances such Fause Breathless um or even the what was
the Emily? Yeah, I mean that's a beautiful picture that
is your only exposure to to Paris, and you're probably
going to think that someone's going to present you with
a bag at Yeah, and some some beautiful smiling brunette's
(19:02):
gonna com up to you and help you across the street.
Across the street, and you'll go on magical little scavenger
hunts around the city. But it's not, and it's It's
also important to note and all of this, with all
these these syndromes that if you are traveling and you
have pre existing psychological conditions, even if it's something mild,
there's nothing like the stresses of travel to aggravate those conditions,
(19:25):
especially with Jerusalem syndrome, because in those cases the hallucinations
can be quite intense, from what I understand. But here's
here's okay, so here's here's another syndrome. And we were
kind of laughing about this earlier. We don't necessarily take
this one too terribly serious. Reuben syndrome. Yes, this is
a name for Peter Paul Rubens and another one of
(19:48):
the the Old Masters, and he's known for such works as, uh, well,
there's the Three Graces and this is like three voluptuous
nudes sort of dancing the Forest, The Judgment of Paris,
which also is pretty pretty nude, The Fall of man
Adam and Eve reasonably nude, and the Elevation of the Cross. Um,
(20:09):
it's Jesus. So it's partial nudity. Okay, So you're getting
the theme here. Yeah, there's a lot of flesh in
uh In Peter Paul Reuben's work, and it's and it's
presented magnificently. I mean, he he was, he was one
of these, one of the old masters. He knew his craft.
And uh so you're drawn into the just the sheer
artistry of the work. But then they're also naked people
in it, right, there's a lot of carnal stuff going on.
(20:32):
A study by the Roman Institute of Psychology found that
of Italians have embarked on an erotic adventure in a museum.
And this is why they call it the Reuben syndrome,
because many times it's said that um sensuous nudes are
are the reason for people feeling amorous toward one another
(20:55):
and embarking on these little trists. But then we were
laughing because you're like, it's of Italians, yeah, you know,
and that's not to say, uh, I just think that
maybe it's an Italian thing. You know, You've got to
like Rome's kind of a city of love, right or
cat calls anyway, So it makes sense that people might
(21:16):
find place in a you know, in a museum for
for that kind of expression. But I do think it's uh,
this idea of being seduced by culture is very interesting. Right,
sort of being brought in by that um. Roman psychologist
Willie Passini has said that art has always activated intensely
erotic mechanism. Otherwise what sort of art would it be.
(21:37):
The study has found that museums ranked higher than nightclubs
which respondents reported encounters, and are surpassed only by trains
and beaches. Beaches at places that people were actually engaging
in that that apparently are um And I'm assuming that
this is something that just is not premeditated, right, that's
(21:59):
in their study, that it's just erotic trist happening on
on the fly. Well, I have to say it makes
sense that it would that museums would outrank nightclubs because
on at nightclubs, more or less there's gonna be kind
of a sex patrol to make sure that nobody is
doing it in the bathrooms or in the corners. Like
that's gonna be a little more on people's radar. Don't
let the patrons have sex in the corners, were under
(22:21):
the tables at the museum. It's it's I would imagine
it's lower on the priorities. I mean, they wouldn't be
blind to it, but it's not like, you know, all right,
it's five am. We're you know, we're getting ready to
open for open for business. Um, who has uh sex
patrol today? Who's gonna be check in the corners? Make
sure you look behind the you know, the the petition
(22:44):
because that's you know, a favorite spot. So I don't know, yeah,
but I think it does come back to the whole
idea of of being you know, seduced by culture and
uh And certainly there are plenty of works of art
that have an erotic air to them. And and as
much as we like to to think sometimes that even
if we're looking at a you know, like a nude sculpture,
(23:04):
is we may want to think in terms of oh
this is I'm just having a purely artistic experience with
this piece, there is often an erotic element there too.
I mean it's it's kind of undeniable. I kind of
end up like when I'm looking at a piece that
has nudy and I kind of have to sort of
go back and forth when I'm like, I'm like, oh,
this is really good, and then the voice says you
don't like it just because it's naked people to you,
and I have to say, no, no, I don't I
(23:25):
think this is, you know, and it's so it's with
this internal argument over the merits of the art and
the nudity that by the way, you're actually talking out loud.
I wanted to tell you that the other day when
we were at the museum, but it was just kind
of funny. That's when those the children were looking at me.
Weird exactly. So what happens when humans attack art when
we have the opposite or maybe not even the opposite,
(23:47):
maybe related reaction. Okay, the classic example of this would
be all the people who have tried to do things
to the Mona Lisa. Yeah, they're they're they're throwing pain
at or acid or there's something. There was an even
more ridiculous example, right, Well, there was a woman, a
Russian woman, who bought a mug this is the thought
um at the gift shop and then returned to the
(24:08):
Mona Lisa and through it and of course it smashed
against the pullet bulletproof glass and she was you know,
spirited away. But the museum security, I mean, they immediately
wondered if this was Stenhall's syndrome. I mean, they didn't
necessarily think this was someone who was actually trying to
destroy the painting, but was having a you know, a
(24:29):
very passionate reaction to the artwork. It's interesting because you
think of people who want to deface of famous work
of art, and you know, you try and wrap your
head around it, and uh, and imagine, a lot of
it comes down to this is something that is to
a certain extent, it's it's immortal, you know, at least culturally,
and you know, certainly the you know, the culture is
(24:49):
not immortal, but this peace within culture is very long lived.
And if we are if we hurt this thing, if
we we put our mark on it, then to some
extent we are immortal, or at the very least we're
we're envious of its own immortality and we're able to
you know, bust it down well. And also you're immediately
(25:11):
connected to it forever, right, which is because you know,
from a same point of view. Yeah. Uh, they're like
the you know, they're always the people who want to
touch the painting, or at least they get way too
close to it. And then and and if you're lucky,
there will be a guard there to tell them not to.
But but certainly children want to touch the paintings and
I feel like like maybe even though we inevitably grow
out of that, that and we we learned that no,
(25:33):
you do not touch the paintings in a museum, there
there's still that little kid inness that wants to touch it,
and by touching it become a part of it. Well.
On a related note too, if you've ever seen a
nude bronze sculpture sculpture of a woman, you should take
a look at the breast area because it doesn't quite
have the same patina as the rest of the body.
You can see that people have been groping her. But yeah,
(25:54):
I mean, we want to connect with it. Um. In fact,
there was a thirty two year old woman in two
thousand and who so desperately wanted to connect with um
a painting by American artist Side Twombly that she wore,
you know, a bunch of the red lipstick and actually
kissed the canvas and so there's, you know, the big
(26:15):
kissing mark on on this painting. That's I'm assuming that
she ruined to some degree unless they could fix that.
But this was in Avignon and there was a big,
large red smudge and she was sent sentenced to community
work for her transgression there so but this, you know,
there are a bunch of other examples of people attacking
(26:38):
sculptures with a hammer, like a mild mannered, you know,
math professor who was reportedly like this great family man
who just one day showed up with the loop and
the hammer, with the hammer that he did not buy
in the gift shop. Premeditated for sure. Well, I mean,
the bottom line, art, when it's great, it messes with
you and who knows what's going to happen, right, But
(26:59):
that's the reasons we love art, I mean, and then
and again it's one of the idea of standall syndromes.
So um, we really want it to happen to us
almost because you want to be that moved by art,
you know, the idea that it completely overwhelms you even physically.
Is something romantic about that you do, you do, but
mostly you want to be overwhelmed and then compartmentalize it
(27:20):
and then we have a nice glass of wine exactly
and enjoy your nice overpriced glass of wine at the
museum cafe. All right, Well, let's call over the robot
and see what Arnie has for us today. Al Right,
here's the one from a listening by the name of Mike.
Mike writes, and he says, dear Robert, Julie and producer,
I want to say Jeered. Yeah, he says, he wants
(27:41):
to say Jerry, but a nice movie. It's not It's
not Jerry, not right now. It's Matt. Matt doesn't have this, yes,
and he is also of stuff they don't want you
to know. Yes, yeah, Matt, that's the same Mat and
coolest stuff on the planet. Right. There's some sort of
muling sounds, so I think that means yes, the multi
talented Matt. So Mike rights been to all of us
(28:01):
and says hello from NEPA. That's northeastern Pennsylvania or did
they say Nipa. I don't know. This is new to
me any p a. M I've been listening to your
awesome podcasts for about a year now, and I and
have listened to them all on my long drive to
and from work. Your podcast on tidily Locked Worlds has
finally given me a leason to write in. I immediately
(28:22):
thought of the game Mass Effect and Mass Effect to,
both of which feature tidily locked worlds, and uh, and Mike,
it's it's uh, it's good that we mentioned Matt, because
I know Man is a fan of these games. Some
of these worlds are viewable through space, but the game
allows you to land on a few of the planets.
The hallmark of these worlds in this game is the
Twilight Band, a small portion of the world that is habitable,
(28:43):
which I believe you mentioned on the podcast let Me did.
The game doesn't get very detailed into the exact weather conditions,
but they do seem to follow the trends of a
scorched and blasted wasteland that faces the sun and an
isolated I see desolate wasteland that never sees the sign,
and that band of sometimes political area in between in
the zones. Some of the planets described to have an
oxygen nitrogen atmosphere. Why others have things like xenon it's
(29:06):
their atmosphere. A few even describe some gale force winds
that are created from the hot side cold side difference.
I'll send you some links that includes some descriptions of
the game. Anyway. I don't know if this is listener
mail worthy for your robot Arnie to bring to you,
but at least you'll be aware and have another fan
of the show peers and Q you have a great work.
Thank you, and you have been vetted by Arnie. It
(29:28):
shows you did uh and we have sometimes we have
somebody else on Facebook who mentioned U that there was
a world on Future Rama that was tidally locked, which
totally makes sense. I the Life of Man can't rems
wanted it was now. But but there are a lot
of a lot of cool sci fi ideas inevitably end
up in Futurama. Bec pulling from the from all the
different US an episode the other week and they were
(29:51):
going to a farmer's market and they were Chloake of
Fresh eggs, and that's where I knew I had used
chloec A Fresh at some point in a conversation. Is
wondering where I picked up from, But there you go.
It was probably Zoidberg. Yeah, I just caught it and
I was like, oh god, I love that. All right, Well,
if if you guys would like to interact with if
you would like to share some art with us, even
(30:14):
throw it on the Facebook board. We are stuff to
blow your mind on Facebook and you can find out
what we're working on, what we've just recorded, what's publishing
and against your great ideas with us. You can also
find us on Twitter, where our handle is below the
mind one order and um. We'd also love to hear
about your reactions to art. I know that we have
a listener, Shanty, who talked about painting by Goya that
(30:36):
really moved her and that was a great email to get,
very interesting. So if you have, if you've become you know,
wobbly need in front of the work of art, let
us know. Or if you just want to drop us
a line, you can do so at Blow the Mind
at Discovery dot com. Be sure to check out our
(30:56):
new video podcast, Stuff from the Future. Join How Stuffwork's
staff as we explore the most promising and perplexing possibilities
of tomorrow.
Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind from how Stuff
Works dot Com. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind.
My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Julie Douglas. And
this episode is titled Stindall Syndrome Kicked in the Brain
by Art, which I should I should point out that
I I like, I think a lot of people first
(00:24):
heard the term Stendall syndrome in reference to the Dario
Argento Italian horror film sat Nate, which I'm not recommending
anybody see because when it when it comes to Dario
Argenta's work, generally your your best just watching Suspiria maybe
and then calling it a day, because it's just kind
of similar patterns from there on out. But Stendall Syndrome
(00:46):
the movie is a movie about, like most of his films,
about you know, a killer who likes to kill women.
And the woman in the scenario is played by Dario
Argenta's daughter as Argenta, And there's like one interesting scene
where she stares into a painting, gets dizzy, falls and
feels her so falling through the painting into the water,
(01:06):
and then she makes out with an animatronic fish, which
sounds about right, yeah, which is, which is a pretty
great scene because it's it's like a it's such an
animatronic fish, you know, like if you saw it in
the water, even if you weren't making out with it,
you would be like, that's totally not a real fish.
That's animatronic. But it's it's one of the best cross
species um, you know, makeout scenes in Italian cinema. You know,
(01:27):
I'm jumping ahead a little bit, but the the woman
who who actually named the syndrome Sandall Syndrome, has commented
on that film before and said that the some of
the ways in which she reacted to this painting that
she's uh but she's looking at, is actually pretty faithful
to the syndrome. Well, there you got the one scene
(01:47):
in the in the movie that's interesting is actually maybe
not that far removed from what we're going to talk
about today. But now I'm starting to think about a
bunship tourists in Florence, Italy, like thinking that they're making
out with fishes, yeah, or asking which painting did I
stare at to make me make out with a yeah? Yeah. Yeah.
The syndrome is of course named for the author Stendahl Um,
(02:09):
who's what was his real name on re Marie Bail
I believe, yeah yeah, died two uh and wrote the
classic novel Scarlet and Black, which I really don't remember
much about at all now, but I know I read
it in college and I was really impressed at how
good it actually was, because a lot of times you
end up reading like nineteenth century literature, you know, translated
(02:30):
French novel your you know, your expectations are not necessarily
that high, but but I remember being a very engaging book. Uh,
just maybe not all that memorable now. But when Sindahl
wasn't writing books, he was traveling and writing about those travels.
And when he was writing about his visit to Florence,
(02:51):
he mentioned having this episode really while staring at a
particular painting that he described your palpitations of the heart,
this feeling that the wellspring of life has dried up
inside him and he and he walked in fear of
falling to the ground. So he's having this intense kind
of psycho somatic episode just from looking at his painting,
(03:13):
like like he's and it's such an amazing idea you
can't help but fall in love with it, The idea
that you could stare at the painting, and he would
be it would so impress you, or it would have
this overwhelm it would just overwhelm you, like not only
mentally but actually physically. Yeah. And you know, I can
say for myself that I've looked at paintings before and
felt a little bit emotional, but I certainly have never
(03:36):
become weak need or made out with fish. I mean,
I'm pretty much in the same boat there. There have
been times when I've encountered art and it has really
I mean it's really been a moment where you're you're
blown away and you're just staring into it and uh,
and those moments really are cemented in your memory. I've
mentioned like seeing Irving Norman his work in San Francisco before,
(03:58):
and now that was a moment of I got to
see some of Salvador Dolli's larger pieces when they were
in in Atlanta. Some of those were mind blowing because
I've seen the pieces before, but never on that scale.
And there's something about seeing art in the museum and
seeing it physically that can really mess with you, you know.
Like likewise, of course Cyclorama here in Atlanta. First, when
you walk into psycologic by the way. Uh, yeah, it's
(04:20):
a Civil war painting and diorama. It's both, yes, and
it's and it's a circular painting so it has no end.
It's infinity. Yes, it's it is a painting and it
is a di arama. Yeah, I will say that much. Um.
But you know, we talked about your brain on art before,
and we talked about metaphor, and we talked about why
brain messes with your brain. Why brain misses with your brain.
(04:43):
Art misses with your brain so much because we are
seeing these metaphors in action, and they're encouraging us to
see the world in a new way, and all of
a sudden you have unrelated objects, um, directly compared, and
that somehow gives birth to a new idea or feeling.
And someone who was a master at this with Picasso, Um,
you know, he portrayed the bombing of Guernica, for example,
(05:06):
with the imagery of a bull, a horse and a
light bulb, and it's all in black and white and gray.
And somehow you look at this painting and you really
feel like the desperation, you feel the sort of stakes
that these people were dealing with at that time. Um,
and in the tragedy of war. Right And and certainly
there's not not all art, but a lot of our
deals with pretty weighty subject matter. Um, you know, the
(05:28):
state of humanity, war, death, love, sex, you know. And
then you you stare into a piece that captures these
emotions well, um, and sometimes even in a subversive fashion.
You know than than you know, it's gonna have an
effect on you. Right And actually V. S ram Machandre
and we talked about it again in that podcast. He
talked about cubism and he talked about why it does
(05:51):
what it does to us. Um, you know, it kind
of dissenters us. It's because the fusiform genres in our
brain there ourselves in in the fusiform gyuss that only
respond to certain views of a face. And then they
are so called master face cells that respond to all
views of face. And normally you only have one view
of the face that would be presented at a time,
(06:13):
and we're used to that sort of perspective, right, But
in a cubist painting, for example, you have the presence
of multiple views and that causes multiple single views to
be shooting off in your brain. So you have all
this firing going on. You're hyperactivating the master face cells
uh in the fusiform gyus, and you're exciting the limbic system.
(06:34):
So they're they're definitely. I mean it's not just that
something is beautiful or grotesque to such a degree that
you're taken by I mean, your brain is actually firing
as as it's looking at this image. And so it
would make sense that it's not just Stendal that who
would have this, um, this sort of episodic experience. But um,
(06:55):
but but other tourists actually, and other tourists do experience this. Mean,
that's the thing. It's that Stendall syndrome is not just
this interesting story from one author's life, but it happens
time and time again, and it leads some scientists to
ask what's up with this? Now, not a lot of scientists.
And that's one thing that's important to note here, because
ultimately Stendall syndrome is not a public menace to whatever
(07:21):
extent it is actually a thing. It's just people were
overwhelmed by art, and in some of the more intense
alleged cases of Stendall syndrome, the worst is that it
might make them a little violent and may be prone
to attack of painting or trying right which we'll talk about.
Nobody's crying to government and saying we need more funding
to find out what Stindell syndrome is about. Right right there,
I'm sure that when you when you land in Florence, Italy,
(07:45):
that you know you're not count it right right about. Hey,
you're you're going to swoon in front of a painting.
It's perfectly normal. Um. But there there was a there
is a psychiatrist name Graziella Macrini, and she started to
see a correlation between this this disorder with tourists that
were coming through the emergency room doors where she worked.
(08:05):
And she she was like, why why is it after
the viewing of artwork that these people are collapsing. So
over a ten year period from nineteen eighty six, she
studied this and she documented more than one cases of
Sendall syndrome. And what she says is that when you
encounter the cultural riches of a famous Italian city, uh,
(08:27):
you know, like Florence, and you're looking at my calling
Jelos David that statute which is you know, so iconic, um,
and you are tired and you're hot. Uh. Some tourists
could actually experience giddiness, confusion, breathlessness, panic attacks, and then
faint to the floor. Right. These effects can last for
minutes to day's And what's what I find most telling
(08:51):
about that summary there is that it's it takes in
more than just looking at the artwork. It's not just
because like to tell a piece that I've always found
really impressive, rem Brand's Philosopher and Medica in Meditation. Not
not Philosopher and Medication, that's a different piece altogether, but
Rembrandt's Philosopher and Meditation is a very like I look
(09:12):
at it just one of these pieces that suction. I mean, it's,
you know, the master work with the spiral staircase and
this gloomy individual looking out at you. If I were
to look at that without having any preconceived notion, I
you know, I might say it's a pretty cool painting,
and you know, and I'm having certain experiences staring into it,
but feeling this way about the painting, which I've never
seen in real life. If I were to go to
(09:32):
a museum and see this actual work on the wall,
I would be bringing these expectations with me. I would
be bringing my past reverence for the work with me
to the painting, and I would be traveling to whatever
city that is. I would be dealing with the public transportation,
I would be dealing with the weird food. I would
be dealing with, you know, with all the issues that
(09:53):
go into into travel and exploring and things language, so
all that would be coming to with me as well
to inform my experience of the painting in person. Well,
and you know, I've talked about this before in terms
of memory in place, like you know, your example to
me before it has been like you visit a new city,
you get off the subway and you emerge from the
(10:15):
depth of the station, and you don't know where you are,
and your brain you have a campus, is like WHOA
trying to map this out because the ratlike hind brain
is kicking in and saying, where are we? Where are
the savord tooth tigers? Right? And am I going about
to be eaten? So I mean it's like a survival
instinct kicks in because you don't know exactly where you
are in the spatial world. Yeah, okay, so imagine that, right,
(10:38):
you have a campus is already overtaxed. There's new stimuli
all around you as if we need new stimuli to
to focus. But when you go to a foreign city,
especially a drastically foreign city, like when I think back
to when my wife and I went to Thailand, like
everything was different, everything was new. We never traveled in
East Asia before, and it was intense because it's like
everything from the language, through the temperature to the intensity
(10:59):
of of food. You know, it's like it's all it's
all amazing and different and uh, and in your brain
spends all this energy just computing it, right, And so
imagine that, Like imagine if you turn around and you
look at this incredibly moving piece of art, and your
hippocampus is already taxed. And now it's not only just
dealing with uh, you know, spatial awareness, um, but memory,
(11:21):
past memories, you know, because you and your magdela is
also working up some emotions here, right, So all of
these things could come sort of washing in. So you
can imagine how Santall syndrome works in these you know,
I hate to say this for perfect storm or cocktail
of a situation, uh, that that would lend itself to
this overreaction to a piece of work. Consequently to uh,
(11:45):
it is Caravaggio's painting of Bacchus and the concentric circles
of a Duomo Coppola uh Coppola, as well as the
as the statue of David that seemed to be the
breaking point um in these documented cases of Stendall of syndrome.
And I mean David especially is such an iconic piece,
and I think they're I mean they're you're bringing all
(12:05):
these expectations and then you're seeing it for real, and
uh yeah, I mean you can you can see how
a physical reaction might be possible, especially if you've been
walking around all day and in dealing with an entirely
new environment. Well, and sculpture is such an interesting thing too,
because the thing when I should say this, when I
when I look at sculpture, I'm always amazed the amount
(12:25):
of detail that someone has rung out of a rock.
You know, a piece of rock here, and you know
the details and veins in someone's arm. And then to
see that on the scale that David is, I don't
I don't know the exact stats, but it seems like
it's forty ft high when you look at it. And
to see and to know the age of a piece
too like like even the piece isn't that old. Uh,
(12:46):
you know, it's interesting to think that, you know, the
hands that made this are long gone, and this has
been around for you know, people have lived and died
in the course of this paintings lifetime or this sculpture's lifetime.
And you think of the older pieces, you think of
like regimes that have risen and fallen. Uh, you know,
countries that have that have vanished from the earth in
the life cycle of this piece. Well, and to you know,
(13:10):
to imagine the humanity expressed in this piece that was
conceived of by this human is just it can be overwhelming. Um. So, okay,
there you go. That's that's the Stenhall syndrome. We're gonna
take a break and we come back. We're going to
talk about Japanese tourists in Paris. All right, we're back.
(13:32):
We're going to discuss some similar syndromes that I think
ultimately illuminate the same thing as Stendhall. The ashould say
voyager syndromes. For instance, there's one this Jerusalem syndrome that
has to do with individuals have traveled from all over
the world to see the holy sites in Jerusalem and
and again you're bringing all this history with you. You're
bringing in in many cases at least a certain degree
(13:54):
of of religious thought and religious fascination. I mean, your
spirituality is tied up in these locations. And then you're
standing there like one day you're reading about these locations
in the Bible, you know, and they're to a certain extent,
they're unreal, and then you're seeing them in real life
and uh, and you know what effect does that have
on somebody? In some cases, apparently they get a little faint,
they will react a little well, yeah, it's the story
(14:16):
crossed with the crush of history, right right. Like I feel,
I feel maybe like I get something similar when I
when I'm in New York A few times I've I've
actually been in New York City. You know, this is
an unreal city to a certain extent. For most of
my life, I had never seen it, and I've only
seen it in movies, and I'd read about it in books,
and it seemed like it's like this story to a
(14:37):
certain extent, kind of a storybook land. You know, you
can't you can't you imagine it, you see it in fiction,
and then you're there and then you have to sort
of process your um presence in something that was previously imaginary. Yeah,
I know, I'm I can't be in the Bowery without
thinking about Bill the Butcher reacting his giant although that
was fictional, getting to the of but yeah, I mean,
(15:00):
there's there's a lot by the way of expectations that
people bring with them when they travel, which is particularly
interesting for something called the Paris syndrome. Yes, And what's
great about this is it's kind of the opposite of
Jerusalem and Standall syndrome. It's not really the opposite, it's
kind of the flip side of the same coin. Yeah, yeah,
definitely a dark side. Each year, about a dozen Japanese
(15:22):
tourists are treated for Paris syndrome while visiting the City
of Lights. Symptoms are acute delusions, hallucinations, dizziness, sweating, and
feelings of persecution. Okay m A handful of patients have
had to be flown back to their country under medical
supervision and um. According to Yusuf Mahomodia, a psychologist at
(15:44):
the Hotel hospital, a third of patients get better immediately,
a third suffer relapses, and the rest have psychoses and
some people just never want to travel again. It was
first documented in psychiatric journal Nairviere in two thousand and four,
and just to give people, you know, an idea of
what we're talking about, in two thousand and six, two
Japanese women suffering from Paris syndrome believe their hotel room
(16:07):
was being bugged and there was a plot against them.
Previous cases include a man convinced he was the French
son King and a woman who believes she was being
attacked with microwaves. So, yeah, I mean, that's a that's
a little stressful, sort of obvious why this might happen. Well, yeah,
(16:27):
I mean, I I've never been to France, but I
mean I like a lot of people like a number
of French things. I mean, the history is fabulous. Some
of like some of my some of my favorite authors
are French Alan Ropel for instance, Frenchman through some great
DJs and and and again the food is is above
reproach that France does have kind of a reputation, or
(16:48):
has in the past. I think they made efforts to
to to fix it in recent years, but it has
kind of a reputation of of of being kind of
snotty to tourist. Oh yeah, yeah, I mean I do
think that the French have gotten a bad rap up
for for um, their attitudes towards us, because I think
I'm on the whole that it's not that bad. I mean,
I have been yelling that before, I have to say um,
and I have had to apologize profusely for being a
(17:12):
vegetarian and committing sevil phrases of apology to memory in French. Um.
But if you're a sensitive soul, you can see and
not only just sensitive soul, but if you're someone who
comes from a culture that is distinctly different where customers
always king where um, you know, it's a rigidly formal
(17:33):
culture that it is very concerned with manners. And on
top of that, you have this romanticized version of the
city that you're about to visit. All those things come
tumbling down when reality, you know, sort of you know,
the rubber reality hits the road. Uh, you might feel
exceedingly overwhelmed. You might start to think that someone's plotting
against you. Right the streets of Tokyo in the streets
(17:55):
of Paris. Each of those definitely brings a very different
ideas and feelings to mind. You know um and and
so if you're magically traveling from one to the other,
you're gonna it's gonna be quite a shot. Well, and
language barrier too, right, Like, I mean, I think that
it's probably easier if you're if you speak English and
(18:17):
you go to France and um, because most people are
going to have, you know, at least some um phrases
of English that they know, but not necessarily Japanese. Right,
that's going to be a little bit more obscure for
someone who lives in in France. So yeah, that's a
lot to contend with, especially if you have this like
idealized notion that France is just like one big black
(18:40):
and white picture. Um. You know, I'm thinking of like
Frances such Fause Breathless um or even the what was
the Emily? Yeah, I mean that's a beautiful picture that
is your only exposure to to Paris, and you're probably
going to think that someone's going to present you with
a bag at Yeah, and some some beautiful smiling brunette's
(19:02):
gonna com up to you and help you across the street.
Across the street, and you'll go on magical little scavenger
hunts around the city. But it's not, and it's It's
also important to note and all of this, with all
these these syndromes that if you are traveling and you
have pre existing psychological conditions, even if it's something mild,
there's nothing like the stresses of travel to aggravate those conditions,
(19:25):
especially with Jerusalem syndrome, because in those cases the hallucinations
can be quite intense, from what I understand. But here's
here's okay, so here's here's another syndrome. And we were
kind of laughing about this earlier. We don't necessarily take
this one too terribly serious. Reuben syndrome. Yes, this is
a name for Peter Paul Rubens and another one of
(19:48):
the the Old Masters, and he's known for such works as, uh, well,
there's the Three Graces and this is like three voluptuous
nudes sort of dancing the Forest, The Judgment of Paris,
which also is pretty pretty nude, The Fall of man
Adam and Eve reasonably nude, and the Elevation of the Cross. Um,
(20:09):
it's Jesus. So it's partial nudity. Okay, So you're getting
the theme here. Yeah, there's a lot of flesh in
uh In Peter Paul Reuben's work, and it's and it's
presented magnificently. I mean, he he was, he was one
of these, one of the old masters. He knew his craft.
And uh so you're drawn into the just the sheer
artistry of the work. But then they're also naked people
in it, right, there's a lot of carnal stuff going on.
(20:32):
A study by the Roman Institute of Psychology found that
of Italians have embarked on an erotic adventure in a museum.
And this is why they call it the Reuben syndrome,
because many times it's said that um sensuous nudes are
are the reason for people feeling amorous toward one another
(20:55):
and embarking on these little trists. But then we were
laughing because you're like, it's of Italians, yeah, you know,
and that's not to say, uh, I just think that
maybe it's an Italian thing. You know, You've got to
like Rome's kind of a city of love, right or
cat calls anyway, So it makes sense that people might
(21:16):
find place in a you know, in a museum for
for that kind of expression. But I do think it's uh,
this idea of being seduced by culture is very interesting. Right,
sort of being brought in by that um. Roman psychologist
Willie Passini has said that art has always activated intensely
erotic mechanism. Otherwise what sort of art would it be.
(21:37):
The study has found that museums ranked higher than nightclubs
which respondents reported encounters, and are surpassed only by trains
and beaches. Beaches at places that people were actually engaging
in that that apparently are um And I'm assuming that
this is something that just is not premeditated, right, that's
(21:59):
in their study, that it's just erotic trist happening on
on the fly. Well, I have to say it makes
sense that it would that museums would outrank nightclubs because
on at nightclubs, more or less there's gonna be kind
of a sex patrol to make sure that nobody is
doing it in the bathrooms or in the corners. Like
that's gonna be a little more on people's radar. Don't
let the patrons have sex in the corners, were under
(22:21):
the tables at the museum. It's it's I would imagine
it's lower on the priorities. I mean, they wouldn't be
blind to it, but it's not like, you know, all right,
it's five am. We're you know, we're getting ready to
open for open for business. Um, who has uh sex
patrol today? Who's gonna be check in the corners? Make
sure you look behind the you know, the the petition
(22:44):
because that's you know, a favorite spot. So I don't know, yeah,
but I think it does come back to the whole
idea of of being you know, seduced by culture and
uh And certainly there are plenty of works of art
that have an erotic air to them. And and as
much as we like to to think sometimes that even
if we're looking at a you know, like a nude sculpture,
(23:04):
is we may want to think in terms of oh
this is I'm just having a purely artistic experience with
this piece, there is often an erotic element there too.
I mean it's it's kind of undeniable. I kind of
end up like when I'm looking at a piece that
has nudy and I kind of have to sort of
go back and forth when I'm like, I'm like, oh,
this is really good, and then the voice says you
don't like it just because it's naked people to you,
and I have to say, no, no, I don't I
(23:25):
think this is, you know, and it's so it's with
this internal argument over the merits of the art and
the nudity that by the way, you're actually talking out loud.
I wanted to tell you that the other day when
we were at the museum, but it was just kind
of funny. That's when those the children were looking at me.
Weird exactly. So what happens when humans attack art when
we have the opposite or maybe not even the opposite,
(23:47):
maybe related reaction. Okay, the classic example of this would
be all the people who have tried to do things
to the Mona Lisa. Yeah, they're they're they're throwing pain
at or acid or there's something. There was an even
more ridiculous example, right, Well, there was a woman, a
Russian woman, who bought a mug this is the thought
um at the gift shop and then returned to the
(24:08):
Mona Lisa and through it and of course it smashed
against the pullet bulletproof glass and she was you know,
spirited away. But the museum security, I mean, they immediately
wondered if this was Stenhall's syndrome. I mean, they didn't
necessarily think this was someone who was actually trying to
destroy the painting, but was having a you know, a
(24:29):
very passionate reaction to the artwork. It's interesting because you
think of people who want to deface of famous work
of art, and you know, you try and wrap your
head around it, and uh, and imagine, a lot of
it comes down to this is something that is to
a certain extent, it's it's immortal, you know, at least culturally,
and you know, certainly the you know, the culture is
(24:49):
not immortal, but this peace within culture is very long lived.
And if we are if we hurt this thing, if
we we put our mark on it, then to some
extent we are immortal, or at the very least we're
we're envious of its own immortality and we're able to
you know, bust it down well. And also you're immediately
(25:11):
connected to it forever, right, which is because you know,
from a same point of view. Yeah. Uh, they're like
the you know, they're always the people who want to
touch the painting, or at least they get way too
close to it. And then and and if you're lucky,
there will be a guard there to tell them not to.
But but certainly children want to touch the paintings and
I feel like like maybe even though we inevitably grow
out of that, that and we we learned that no,
(25:33):
you do not touch the paintings in a museum, there
there's still that little kid inness that wants to touch it,
and by touching it become a part of it. Well.
On a related note too, if you've ever seen a
nude bronze sculpture sculpture of a woman, you should take
a look at the breast area because it doesn't quite
have the same patina as the rest of the body.
You can see that people have been groping her. But yeah,
(25:54):
I mean, we want to connect with it. Um. In fact,
there was a thirty two year old woman in two
thousand and who so desperately wanted to connect with um
a painting by American artist Side Twombly that she wore,
you know, a bunch of the red lipstick and actually
kissed the canvas and so there's, you know, the big
(26:15):
kissing mark on on this painting. That's I'm assuming that
she ruined to some degree unless they could fix that.
But this was in Avignon and there was a big,
large red smudge and she was sent sentenced to community
work for her transgression there so but this, you know,
there are a bunch of other examples of people attacking
(26:38):
sculptures with a hammer, like a mild mannered, you know,
math professor who was reportedly like this great family man
who just one day showed up with the loop and
the hammer, with the hammer that he did not buy
in the gift shop. Premeditated for sure. Well, I mean,
the bottom line, art, when it's great, it messes with
you and who knows what's going to happen, right, But
(26:59):
that's the reasons we love art, I mean, and then
and again it's one of the idea of standall syndromes.
So um, we really want it to happen to us
almost because you want to be that moved by art,
you know, the idea that it completely overwhelms you even physically.
Is something romantic about that you do, you do, but
mostly you want to be overwhelmed and then compartmentalize it
(27:20):
and then we have a nice glass of wine exactly
and enjoy your nice overpriced glass of wine at the
museum cafe. All right, Well, let's call over the robot
and see what Arnie has for us today. Al Right,
here's the one from a listening by the name of Mike.
Mike writes, and he says, dear Robert, Julie and producer,
I want to say Jeered. Yeah, he says, he wants
(27:41):
to say Jerry, but a nice movie. It's not It's
not Jerry, not right now. It's Matt. Matt doesn't have this, yes,
and he is also of stuff they don't want you
to know. Yes, yeah, Matt, that's the same Mat and
coolest stuff on the planet. Right. There's some sort of
muling sounds, so I think that means yes, the multi
talented Matt. So Mike rights been to all of us
(28:01):
and says hello from NEPA. That's northeastern Pennsylvania or did
they say Nipa. I don't know. This is new to
me any p a. M I've been listening to your
awesome podcasts for about a year now, and I and
have listened to them all on my long drive to
and from work. Your podcast on tidily Locked Worlds has
finally given me a leason to write in. I immediately
(28:22):
thought of the game Mass Effect and Mass Effect to,
both of which feature tidily locked worlds, and uh, and Mike,
it's it's uh, it's good that we mentioned Matt, because
I know Man is a fan of these games. Some
of these worlds are viewable through space, but the game
allows you to land on a few of the planets.
The hallmark of these worlds in this game is the
Twilight Band, a small portion of the world that is habitable,
(28:43):
which I believe you mentioned on the podcast let Me did.
The game doesn't get very detailed into the exact weather conditions,
but they do seem to follow the trends of a
scorched and blasted wasteland that faces the sun and an
isolated I see desolate wasteland that never sees the sign,
and that band of sometimes political area in between in
the zones. Some of the planets described to have an
oxygen nitrogen atmosphere. Why others have things like xenon it's
(29:06):
their atmosphere. A few even describe some gale force winds
that are created from the hot side cold side difference.
I'll send you some links that includes some descriptions of
the game. Anyway. I don't know if this is listener
mail worthy for your robot Arnie to bring to you,
but at least you'll be aware and have another fan
of the show peers and Q you have a great work.
Thank you, and you have been vetted by Arnie. It
(29:28):
shows you did uh and we have sometimes we have
somebody else on Facebook who mentioned U that there was
a world on Future Rama that was tidally locked, which
totally makes sense. I the Life of Man can't rems
wanted it was now. But but there are a lot
of a lot of cool sci fi ideas inevitably end
up in Futurama. Bec pulling from the from all the
different US an episode the other week and they were
(29:51):
going to a farmer's market and they were Chloake of
Fresh eggs, and that's where I knew I had used
chloec A Fresh at some point in a conversation. Is
wondering where I picked up from, But there you go.
It was probably Zoidberg. Yeah, I just caught it and
I was like, oh god, I love that. All right, Well,
if if you guys would like to interact with if
you would like to share some art with us, even
(30:14):
throw it on the Facebook board. We are stuff to
blow your mind on Facebook and you can find out
what we're working on, what we've just recorded, what's publishing
and against your great ideas with us. You can also
find us on Twitter, where our handle is below the
mind one order and um. We'd also love to hear
about your reactions to art. I know that we have
a listener, Shanty, who talked about painting by Goya that
(30:36):
really moved her and that was a great email to get,
very interesting. So if you have, if you've become you know,
wobbly need in front of the work of art, let
us know. Or if you just want to drop us
a line, you can do so at Blow the Mind
at Discovery dot com. Be sure to check out our
(30:56):
new video podcast, Stuff from the Future. Join How Stuffwork's
staff as we explore the most promising and perplexing possibilities
of tomorrow.
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