Gear: Epilogue (with Jad Abumrad)

A recording of an intimate conversation at Ludlow House, where the venerable Jad Abumrad asked me some questions about Gear. For images (and the link to the game I talked about) head to articlesofinterest.substack.com https://articlesofinterest.substack.com/ Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices https://dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:01Speaker 00

  Hey there. It's Robyn from PRX. If you're a longtime listener of Radiotopia, you may know that we had a podcast that ran from 2016 to 2020 discussing every episode of the show The West Wing. Well, I'm excited to tell you The West Wing Weekly is back. Joshua Molina, who starred on The West Wing as Will Bailey, and Rishikesh Hirway, creator and host of Song Exploder, have reunited to discuss the hit Netflix political thriller The Diplomat. Just as they did in their original run, they're discussing each episode of the series in sequence, joined by special guests from the show and from the real world of diplomacy. Rishi and Josh will be wrapping up the first season with a special live taping at Union Chapel in London on November 14th. Subscribe now to The West Wing Weekly wherever you get your podcasts.

• 0:47Avery Trufelman?

  I always thought that brands like Prada and Louis Vuitton and Tiffany were way beyond my pay grade, but they're actually not, because at The RealReal, you can get all of these name brands that you know and niche designers you don't yet at up to 90% off retail. And The RealReal is so serious about authentication, you know that every single thing is guaranteed authentic. The RealReal is the most trusted name in authenticated luxury resale. With over 10,000 new arrivals daily, no one does resale like The RealReal. And now, get $25 off your first purchase when you go to the realreal.com artikels.

• 1:25Avery Trufelman?

  That's the realreal.com artikels to get your $25 off. Start shopping now at the realreal.com artikels. Hey, it's Avery. Okay, I have to admit, I debated whether or not I should put this on the feed because I was like, is it self-indulgent to post an interview with myself? Maybe it is. But this was unlike any other interview that I've ever been able to do because I was interviewed live on stage by one of my true heroes, Jad Abumrad. He is the founder of Radiolab, and currently, he is the host of this beautiful show called Fela Kudus.

• 2:10Avery Trufelman?

  Feli Kuti, Fear No Man. And it is a portrait, warts and all, of the artist Feli Kuti. And he's Jad Abumrad, so he brings his signature blend of philosophy and sound design and music theory all together with just some incredible reporting. And I was just completely chuffed when he asked if he could interview me live onstage at this club called Ludlow House in New York City as part of an ongoing series made by On Air Presents. And this was a really small crowd. It was this very intimate little space. And so I was like, you know what? Let me just put it beyond the room. We'll call it an epilogue. Just as a disclaimer, I mean, Jad and I are just talking onstage. I'm talking off the dome.

• 2:54Avery Trufelman?

  This is not my normal rehearsed, fact-checked sort of thing. So, sorry if I made a mistake, especially if you're from Finland and I got parts of your history wrong. If you're like, why is she talking about Finland? Just listen, you'll hear.

• 3:16Speaker 02

  Okay, hi. I'm so excited for you all to be here. So the rules of engagement are simple. I'm going to ask Avery a bunch of questions, and then you guys will have a chance to ask questions. So just log any thoughts or questions that I forget to ask or that come up for you as you're listening, and we'll throw it to you at the end. Avery is one of my favorite storytellers. And so I asked her to join me in conversation because I am mildly obsessed with her latest series, GEAR. I think it's truly an incredible creation. And I have so many questions, and so here we are.

• 3:55Avery Trufelman?

  Thank you so much. That really means a lot.

• 3:58Speaker 02

  But I thought, who here has heard parts of the series? Okay, cool. Well, for those of you who are not clapping or clapping just because you feel you should, let me just play a clip from episode one. This is sort of from the center of episode one, sort of get us on the same page, and then I'll ask some questions about it.

• 4:20Avery Trufelman?

  It does not take a fashion journalist to tell you that everybody is wearing outdoor clothes more. Look around you. For years now leggings have been pants, and runners have been dashing by you in increasingly more cyborgian, rainproof shells. Bankers and businessmen have traded blazers for Patagonia vests, and punks have swapped leather for camouflage, and even I, who vowed I would never wear sweatpants, ever, have been dressing like Sporty Spice. Why are we all wearing outdoor performance gear? Like, why are we wearing Arc'teryx to like, go to the grocery store and buy eggs?

• 4:54Speaker 03

  I think there are two different reasons. And one that will be a little more palatable for all the listeners to hear is that it works well, right? It's effective in like, a day like today, it's raining outside and it's nice to be able to stay warm and dry, even if you're just going down the block.

• 5:08Avery Trufelman?

  This is Rachel S. Gross.

• 5:10Speaker 03

  I'm a history professor at the University of Colorado Denver.

• 5:12Avery Trufelman?

  And she is the author of Shopping All the Way to the Woods: How the Outdoor Industry Sold Nature to America.

• 5:18Speaker 03

  The other answer is a much kind of deeper one, and it's a historical question.

• 5:22Avery Trufelman?

  Hell yeah, here we go.

• 5:23Speaker 03

  It's about what meanings do people attach to the kinds of clothing that they wear, to the brands that they're wearing on their chests? And it is steeped in American lore about recovering the rugged masculinity of the American frontier.

• 5:38Speaker 02

  I wanted to start with that, because there's just so much in that clip that I love. I love the, it's funny, it's so funny, but I love that moment when you're, you've got a historian who's saying a thing, and you just drop in and you're like, hell yeah, here we go. That is such a great moment. And it made me wonder, like, in that moment, you're hearing something that you really like?

• 6:05Speaker 02

  And like, what are you looking for? Like, when you cover fashion, what are you always looking for?

• 6:11Avery Trufelman?

  Well, so we were having this little exchange backstage just now, where I was like, "Oh, Chad, we kind of match. We do kind of match in what we're wearing." And Chad was like, "Oh, I was really worried about what to wear tonight, because you're a fashion journalist." And I do get this sometimes. People are like, "Oh, I want to impress you, because you work in fashion." But I don't really know anything about... Well, yeah, it's not like I cover the runways or what's going on right now in fashion. I'm very curious about the messages that we're all sending out with our clothes and the messages we think we're sending out with our clothes. And those are all based on a shared set of symbols and a shared set of assumptions,

• 6:56Avery Trufelman?

  which means it's like history. We have to go back and see where these all came from, you know? Like, why do certain cuts of pants equal Western? Why do certain kinds of shirts equal preppy? It shouldn't really, right? It's just a shirt. Like, the shirt doesn't have any particular... It's just a piece of cloth.

• 7:16Avery Trufelman?

  But, yeah, I'm really interested in both the history and the literal manufacture of where these things come from. And so, when... My biggest pet peeve in podcasting is when someone says, "But to understand that, first we have to go back in time." But it's so hard not to say, because that's what I want to say all the time. Like, to get into the history, you present something, and then you're like, "But to understand that, first we have to go back in time." So, when that historian basically said it for me, in other words, I was like, "Hell yeah. Good job. That was a nice transition."

• 7:55Avery Trufelman?

  And so, it was like my own internal delight, but also to call attention to it made it so that I didn't have to do it.

• 8:04Speaker 02

  Gotcha.

• 8:04Avery Trufelman?

  You know? It's like, we're going back in history now.

• 8:07Speaker 02

  But, so, you refer to yourself a couple... Maybe in this clip, I'm not sure, as a fashion journalist.

• 8:14Speaker 02

  And it's interesting. It's an interesting... Because your definition of fashion is maybe not most people's. But if journalism is the first draft of history...

• 8:25Speaker 02

  What is fashion?

• 8:27Avery Trufelman?

  Fashion is the externalization of your... It is both the externalization of your internal state and the individualization of the collective state. It is expressing what we're all going through and what you're going through in your time at the same time. It is like the most obvious barometer of time made visible. It's sort of nuts. Like, my favorite example that I love to give is there's this great game online where you can click on it and it will show you different pictures from the past. And you have to guess when the photograph was taken. And it's actually really, I find, it's quite hard to do.

• 9:10Avery Trufelman?

  But you realize that the things you're looking at are the clothes. Like, the buildings last a long time. Sometimes the cars can tell you what era you're in. But even there, it's like a little wishy-washy. You're really... That's how you can tell what era someone is in. It is the literal boundary between you and the world, and it navigates that boundary.

• 9:34Speaker 02

  Huh. That's really interesting. It's suddenly thinking of like semiotics, I guess, right? It's like what... It's the signaling and what the signals mean.

• 9:43Avery Trufelman?

  Yeah. It's how you're choosing to stand out and fit in at the same time. I've heard it once said, this is... I'm totally paraphrasing some very fam... It was like George Simmel or someone, so this isn't me. But this idea that fashion results from our need to stand in... To stand out and fit in. Like, if we all wanted to stand out, we would all just sort of wear the craziest thing we could possibly think of, and we'd all look really, really different. And if we all wanted to look exactly the same, we'd all just be in uniform. But fashion is this very delicate dance of wanting to look individual, yet wanting to look like everybody else. And looking like everybody else carries a bit of a like, "Come on, sheeple."

• 10:27Avery Trufelman?

  Like, it has a bit of a derogatory tone to it, but I think it's actually really beautiful. It's the way we read each other. It's the way that we... No maybe who will have something in common with us. It's how we follow each other. I think there's something very, very sweet and very lovely that the more time you start to spend with someone, you kind of start dressing like them. You kind of start dressing like your group of friends. It's this way that we... And like this even happens in the animal kingdom. Do you remember there was this phenomenon of orcas wearing salmon as hats?

• 11:00Speaker 02

  No.

• 11:01Avery Trufelman?

  Oh, yeah, this is a real thing. Like one orca started wearing a salmon as a hat and then others started following. It's like a thing. It's not just us and it's not just about clothing. So this is something that I also like to say about fashion is that I think about fashion in the same... Fashion exists in the same way that like love exists. Love exists. Love is real. It's like a feeling that you have and it's out there. And it is commodified and it is used to sell you things. And because it exists and it is so strong in you, it is easily hijacked. And fashion is real. Fashion exists. It exists under capitalism. It existed under feudalism. It exists under communism. It's just like, it's a part of, we are always looking towards each other.

• 11:45Avery Trufelman?

  And it is because of, because it is real, because it exists in us, it is so easily abused and hijacked and like used to tap into our deepest anxieties and fears and a way to make us spend money. But I think it exists on its own.

• 12:01Speaker 02

  Yeah. And what I find so interesting about your work, and particularly in this series, is the signals that you... Or let me say it differently. The cultural impressions and cultural histories that you are wearing on your body that you are completely unaware of. I want to play one clip from, this is another clip from your first episode that is specifically about, really the subject of all seven episodes, which is the military and the outdoor industry and how they are intertwined.

• 12:31Avery Trufelman?

  I also used to not think about the military. I mean, I thought about it in that I was against it categorically as an institution, but I didn't like know any veterans or active duty soldiers for most of my life. Basically, until I started working on this series. And if you're listening to this and you are a soldier or a veteran, I can just feel you rolling your eyes at this classically clueless civilian. I know. We live in this moment in history where there's a gaping rift between this country's military and this country's civilians. There's even a term for it, like college students take courses on the military civilian divide.

• 13:12Avery Trufelman?

  And it's gotten to the very practical nightmare where, as I write this, President Trump is ordering Marines and the National Guard into American cities to detain American citizens. We've been pitted against each other. And yet, oddly enough, American soldiers and American civilians have never been more intertwined than we both are now in our clothing. We all wear the same things, our styles.

• 13:45Speaker 02

  I'm going to fade down there, fade down from you on tape to you here. The experience of listening to this series is, was profound for me because I walked into my closet at a certain point and I thought, oh, my God, the military is literally dressing me. Every single thing that is in my wardrobe, and my wardrobe is very like basic, but like zippers, buttons, all of these things were made for us, are continuing to be made for us by the military. And it's a really weird, I mean, on some level, obvious. We all know that like the military industrial complex of the United States supports a lot

• 14:28Speaker 02

  of the things, a lot of the basic privileges that we have. And we'd rather not think about that a lot of the time, but it's such an interesting experience to tie it very concretely and directly with the clothes that we wear. I'm just curious, like, over the course of making this series, how has your, what's your evolution been on your thinking about our relationship to the military?

• 14:52Avery Trufelman?

  It's so embarrassing to say because I really did come in guns blazing, you know, like fuck the military, you know, but honestly, not that I'm like, I'm enlisting, I love the military now, but-

• 15:08Speaker 02

  I thought it was a cool move to be so like, kind of like, to state your politics so plainly.

• 15:14Avery Trufelman?

  Oh, yeah.

• 15:14Speaker 02

  And then spend seven episodes unraveling it.

• 15:17Avery Trufelman?

  And multiple soldiers and veterans were like, you caught me rolling my eyes as I was rolling my eyes. I'm like, yeah, I know. But I think I've just realized how much more complicated it actually was. Because I think I was also like, yeah, they're these, they're the military industrial complex, there are these like dark machinations behind the scenes. But once I actually met a lot of soldiers and talked to them, and met a lot of veterans and talked to them, and also met a lot of people who work in the industry, like making these clothes for the outdoors and for the Department of Defense. I was like, oh, this

• 16:01Avery Trufelman?

  is actually like a lot more complicated than I thought it was. Because I was under the impression that, you know, these companies, because they're, because, okay, so a lot of the outdoor companies that are very famous, that we all know and love, do a lot of military contracts. And a lot of them really do not want you to know. They really bend over backwards. The most obvious example of this is Patagonia. They did it under a separate company, and they even changed that company's name, and the company is technically independent, so they're like, it's not us.

• 16:34Speaker 02

  What does Patagonia make for the military?

• 16:36Avery Trufelman?

  Jackets. You know, a lot of these are for like special ops, for these elite, high level soldiers. Outdoor Research does it, Archeryx does it, and even a lot of the places that don't do it now, used to do it in the past. Like, almost all the outdoor companies have some sort of connection to the military. But you really, they hide it on their website, you sort of have to know about it. And so in my mind, I was like, they're clearly getting buckets of dark money from the government. This is what's going on. And while they are occasionally getting these major, major government contracts, it's actually, it's more nuanced than I thought it was. Because-

• 17:17Avery Trufelman?

  They have to go through these huge government bureaucracies and everything has to be made in the United States for the military because it's a national security risk. If you are, let's say, we fought a war with China and our uniforms are being made in China, then they'd have a huge tactical advantage over us. They could just like stop sending uniforms or like lace all our uniforms with something or like, I don't know. It's a hu- especially given how high tech these clothes are now, it's a huge tactical advantage for any company to like manufacture our clothes. So they all have to be made domestically. It's really expensive. It's really complicated. And I found out ultimately, it's actually the other way around, that at least in the case of Outdoor Research, who was kind enough to sort of let me in and show me how they

• 18:00Avery Trufelman?

  work, it's actually the civilian clothes supporting the military clothes, not the other way around. Like it's mostly, like we are supporting them. Really? Yeah. They were like, it's 20% of our work is military, 80% is outdoor industry. And they like take turns supporting each other. And I was like, the metaphor makes itself right there. It's, it's, we are actually much more interconnected than I thought. But there's something about making it this like shameful secret that has to be hidden that ultimately, like at the end of the day, I went to, for my research, I went to a lot of military conferences that were very upsetting and made me realize how everything in our lives is connected to the military.

• 18:45Avery Trufelman?

  But at the end of the day, like these are jackets. They're not bombs, you know? I don't, actually, and I think if you have to pick your battles of what to rebel against, there are way bigger fights than like keeping people warm. And so I, I just think this should not be a thing that companies hide. I don't think this is something that people should be upset about, even though it does play into this larger system.

• 19:11Avery Trufelman?

  It's not this evil, dark thing that I thought it was. It's kind of fascinating. And especially given how amazing a lot of the soldiers, you know, they like, speak five languages, they jump out of planes. They've done, they're so smart, they've done amazing stuff. I'm like, well, I want you to be warm, you know, I want you to be protected. I would not wish a bad jacket upon you, ever. So, I don't know, my thinking's really, really changed. Because people sometimes ask me, like, how can I make sure my jacket isn't supporting the military? I'm like, I don't know, I think it's like-

• 19:43Speaker 02

  I think that ship has sailed.

• 19:44Avery Trufelman?

  And I think that ship has sailed, and I think there's like a different question. And I don't think it's about the jackets. I think it's about like the war. It's other stuff, let's not take it out on the jackets.

• 19:54Speaker 02

  Right, well, speaking of jackets, I mean, one of the stories you tell is about the M43, and then I guess it gets updated in, after Vietnam, or right before Vietnam. And the way in which that jacket initially was for the military, and then it gets co-opted by the anti-war movement, and they put sort of peace signs on it, and that these become literal canvases upon which we paint our politics, in a way. But the story that really stopped me in my tracks, and I think this is probably true for a lot of people who listen to the series, is the story of camouflage. I wonder if you could sort of, well, this is a bit of a spoiler, but you're all here.

• 20:35Speaker 02

  Tell the story of camouflage a little bit, and that drama, and how it unfolds, and how you got access to it.

• 20:42Avery Trufelman?

  Camouflage is an insane story that I'm obsessed with now. So, when you're on the subway, sometimes you see, like, people in camouflage, walking around. And it never dawned on me to ask, like, who are they? Who are those guys? Because I was like, I don't know, they're- Military.

• 21:08Speaker 02

  Hmm. You mean like soldiers or the police?

• 21:11Avery Trufelman?

  I was like, are, but now I'm like, are they soldiers or are they police? Cause sometimes you see police wearing camouflage and it just says police on them. Or you see like the images from the, from, you know, from Chicago recently and you see people looking like soldiers, just wearing these bulletproof vests that say police. And I never quite realized how similar soldiers and police actually dress now. And so much of it is tied up with camouflage. Cause not only is everybody wearing camouflage, they're basically wearing the same camouflage. Not only are like soldiers and police wearing the same camouflage, SWAT teams are wearing

• 21:50Avery Trufelman?

  the same camouflage and Border Patrol is wearing the same camouflage and the National Guard is wearing the same camouflage. And it's the same camouflage that like oath keepers are wearing and a lot of militia groups. And it's like, why is everybody wearing the same exact camouflage?

• 22:12Speaker 02

  Was that the question that you started with? Was it like, wow, they're all like, who makes this camouflage?

• 22:17Avery Trufelman?

  That wasn't the question that I started with, but it was what I started noticing afterwards. And the way we all got to this place was functionally through a trend cycle. It was like everybody copying a trend. And what happened was, long, long, long, very interesting story short, there's this company that's here in Brooklyn, they're in the Navy Yard. They're these like, for lack of a better word, hipster art school students. They went to Cooper Union and they designed, they were like, we can, we can make money designing stuff for the military. And they designed this camouflage, this cool looking camouflage that they were like, this will work.

• 23:00Avery Trufelman?

  It's kind of like that line from, from Anchorman, like 70% of the time it works all the time. They were like, this will work in most environments. Uh, which is, cause it's a huge problem if your camouflage like really stands out, but they're like, we can make one that like mostly stands out, especially because our soldiers were getting deployed in so many different places all over the world. It was proving to be a really big problem. Like we couldn't issue as many matching camouflages. And they were like, we have this one multipurpose one and it was called MultiCam. And they presented it to the military and they're like, do you want to use this camouflage? The military said, no. And then they pulled out this like notoriously ugly camouflage that everybody hated. It was like this digital camouflage that doesn't even work very well as a camouflage.

• 23:43Avery Trufelman?

  Everybody, it's like a historian I talked to called it one of the most notoriously dunked on camouflages. It's just, everybody hates it. But most soldiers just have no choice. They have to wear it. But if you are elite enough of a soldier, if you are like a very, very high level soldier, you do actually get to choose what you wear. Like very elite, if you are on Delta Force or SEAL Team Six or one of these like top, top tier guys, you can choose your own clothes. And so because they hated this ugly camouflage, they were like, we want to wear this cool one, multicam. So they basically started wearing it. And then, long, long, long story short, it was just a trend story.

• 24:24Avery Trufelman?

  Like everybody started copying them because those were the hip, cool, like badass guys wearing multicam. Slowly, every other, all the special forces in other countries, then all the armies in other countries, then our military made like a knockoff version of that camouflage. Like right now, in Russia and Ukraine, soldiers have to wear armbands to tell who's on what team because everybody looks the same. It's so nuts. Like this one camouflage is taking over. They are so successful. It's unbelievable. And it's actually a real, it's really dangerous.

• 25:07Avery Trufelman?

  It's really dangerous not to be able to know who's on what side or who's with what government agency. They all do different things. Like you should be able to tell them apart without a big sign that says police. So it's, so the funny thing is it's ultimately a trend story, but it has really, really, really dire consequences. And also it's just available. Like you can just buy it. You can just buy multicam. Any of us, we can just go to a store and buy multicam. And it's not regulated. Well, it is regulated for the manufacturers, but no one's going to like need to see your ID for you to buy it. Like people wear it for hunting.

• 25:42Speaker 02

  So there's not like a government issued camouflage? Like, because like you see dudes at the gym, right? All in camouflage and you're like, why? You're at the gym. But like that, those people are, is that the same camouflage?

• 25:54Avery Trufelman?

  So the government issue one is technically different. But if you look at them next to each other online, you can't tell them apart. The government one is called OCP, operational camouflage pattern. But it looks almost exactly the same as MultiCam. It's like, one's like a little more brown and one's like a little more green. But they are essentially the same. It's so confusing.

• 26:18Speaker 02

  And how do you get, I mean, this is, because this is one of those interesting stories that's sort of hiding in plain sight. But I had never heard it until your podcast. How do you go about getting people to talk? Was it, was it an easy situation where people were just wanting to tell the story and waiting for someone to show up? Or, or did you have to sort of like sneak in through the side door? Like, what was your process?

• 26:40Avery Trufelman?

  It was really, really hard. I'm really, thank you for asking this, Jad, because it was, we were talking about this backstage. It's really hard in a podcast, because like, I really wanted to toot my own horn in this. But I didn't want, I didn't, I didn't want to be in the show, be like, these were really hard interviews to get. This is incredibly rare. But you don't really want to like pat yourself on the back in your own show. But these were really like, the company who makes MultiCam. I don't think they've ever talked to the press in a serious way or told the story. And if they have, it hasn't been in like 10 years. It's like, there's-

• 27:16Speaker 02

  What was it, was it your body of work that sort of made them trust you? Do you have a sense of why they said yes?

• 27:21Avery Trufelman?

  You know how it is when you're doing deep research. You sort of talk to enough people. I met this amazing beat reporter named Emily Walzer, who's covered the outdoor industry forever. And she was like, oh, you have to meet this amazing woman, Amber Brookman. And Amber Brookman was in charge of a lot of the domestic mills that printed textiles in the United States. She was like this amazing powerhouse. And she was one of the first people to print MultiCam. And like, she put in a word to those guys and was like, you should talk to Avery. And that's what- Got me in and I was shocked. I couldn't, I couldn't believe that they said yes and they were so generous, but it was really funny to go there to their factory because it's

• 28:05Avery Trufelman?

  right there in, you know, I'd emailed them a bunch of times. They didn't respond. But their warehouse is right there in the Navy Yard and it's like so hardcore looking, you know, like everything's in camouflage, but they were like playing Arcade Fire in the lobby. It was this weird like hipster hardcore blend. Like, yeah, multicam is in MoMA. They have this like strangely high pedigree. It's in the permanent collection in MoMA.

• 28:33Speaker 02

  The, the pattern itself?

• 28:34Avery Trufelman?

  The pattern itself.

• 28:35Speaker 02

  Just the pattern?

• 28:36Avery Trufelman?

  Yeah, like as a piece of design. It's like in the MoMA permanent collection and they were like, "We go all the time. We, we love, it's so cool. We're members for life now." It's, it was so interesting. And then the other part was getting the perspective from the military and that was another whole rigmarole is getting their perspective. And I worked on them for so long. That was like my big goal is like, I need to go to the place where they design all this stuff, which is in Natick, Massachusetts. And it was another one of these things of like calling people, interviewing people, be like, "Do you know someone at Natick? Do you know someone at Natick?" And like asking around and then ultimately, um, do you know the science writer, Mary Roach?

• 29:16Speaker 02

  Mm-hmm.

• 29:17Avery Trufelman?

  Yeah. She had covered them before and they were like, "We checked with Mary Roach and she knows you and she vouched for you." It's always like some, like, you never know who the connection is gonna be.

• 29:29Speaker 02

  That's why you have to be nice to everybody.

• 29:30Avery Trufelman?

  You gotta be nice to everybody.

• 29:32Speaker 02

  Cause you never know. Yeah.

• 29:34Avery Trufelman?

  So, thanks, Mary. Thanks, Amber. Yeah, like these are the people who really helped open a door. Um, and to get both of their stories, but it's never, and that's the thing. I knew I wanted to tell the story of camouflage, but it's really hard to tell, especially in a podcast. It's like, am I gonna describe camouflages on the radio?

• 29:54Speaker 02

  Hmm.

• 29:55Avery Trufelman?

  Like you can't really do that. So I was like, I'm just gonna focus on one.

• 29:58Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 29:59Avery Trufelman?

  And you can Google it if you want, or you, I don't think you have to. I think you can also just sort of hear it as a story.

• 30:04Speaker 02

  No, I remember I Goog, I Googled it the moment I listened and I was like, "Oh, that's everywhere."

• 30:09Avery Trufelman?

  Yeah.

• 30:09Speaker 02

  That pattern is everywhere. Yeah. Well, you mentioned, I, I would love to play one clip from, this is from your, the fourth episode.

• 30:20Speaker 02

  It was a really interesting moment to listen. So for the first three episodes, you were telling the story of these various articles of clothing, like a jacket or lightweight gear. And you're focusing on the characters who are the designers of those things. And then in the fourth episode, you do something really interesting. To set it up, I mean, you start every episode with a guy doing a sort of drill instructor title sequence. This is, I think this one is, I don't know which one this is from.

• 30:52Speaker 04

  Listener, focus your attention on me. Now, do not infuriate me and make me repeat myself. Do you understand me? Chapter one.

• 31:03Speaker 02

  So that's how you start. You start with that guy. And that guy is at the top of every episode. And as I was listening, I was like, oh, this is like, just like, it's kind of a joke. It's kind of like a clever joke. But then in chapter four, you do this, you totally flip it and suddenly we meet the guy. And it's such an interesting moment to, it's almost like, well, I'll play it and then I'll sort of reflect on the back end.

• 31:26Speaker 04

  So I was a rifleman and a grenadier and a machine gunner, all that pretty much at the same rank, private, then sergeant in an airborne infantry unit.

• 31:36Avery Trufelman?

  Were you like aspiring to ascend through the ranks? Or is that just something that happens if you stick around long enough?

• 31:42Speaker 04

  Well, you have to aspire because at certain points, it's kind of like up or out. You don't get to stay as long as you want to stay. At certain ranks, you have to go. If you don't.

• 31:53Avery Trufelman?

  So you wanted to stay?

• 31:55Speaker 04

  I wanted to stay because that's all I had to do was to stay. Because I grew up in the army. I joined the army when I was 17.

• 32:04Speaker 02

  But it's such an interesting moment because it, it's the experience of focusing on the clothes for so many minutes. And then suddenly it's like you go inward in a way and you understand the person wearing the clothes, which then reflects back on the clothes. It's like, it almost completes the circuit that you were describing between clothes and behavior, clothes and soul in a way.

• 32:30Speaker 02

  I don't really have a question attached to this.

• 32:32Avery Trufelman?

  Thank you for saying that.

• 32:32Speaker 02

  I just think it's such a wonderful move that you made. Like, you introduce us to a character almost as a joke, and then you suddenly make us care so hard with him.

• 32:44Avery Trufelman?

  Ray's the man.

• 32:45Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 32:45Avery Trufelman?

  Ray rules. Dr. Ray Christian, I should say. Ray has an amazing podcast called What's Ray Saying? Yeah, and part of his show is he just kind of like talks, and he's so good at talking. And one of his episodes was like, myths, people don't understand about the military. And I was like, wait, Ray, can we talk about that? And so that was what the interview was based on.

• 33:06Speaker 02

  Oh, interesting.

• 33:07Avery Trufelman?

  And then it was only after that that I was like,

• 33:10Avery Trufelman?

  could you do some drill sergeant announcements for me?

• 33:12Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 33:12Avery Trufelman?

  And he's so good. I didn't coach him at all. He's just like, he's like, what about this? He's sending me this file, and they were perfect. They were all amazing. And like, I have to finish the last episode tonight, but he really like hands it up for the last one. He's like, all right, boys, gather around. Like, this is what we've all been training for. This is episode seven. It's like so... Every time I had to make an episode, I felt like he was pumping me up. It was so great. He was like a gift. Yeah, Ray rules.

• 33:43Speaker 02

  I just also want to underline the thing you just said, because I'm so grateful that you're here, because you're gonna leave this event and go finish the final episode of the series. Which delivers when, tomorrow or the next day?

• 33:55Avery Trufelman?

  Wednesday. I've got so much time. Wednesday, a whole day.

• 33:59Speaker 02

  I mean, I just spent three years working on a series. So that, to me, I'm like, that gives me panic, frankly.

• 34:04Avery Trufelman?

  Oh, but you've worked this way before.

• 34:06Speaker 02

  Sure.

• 34:06Avery Trufelman?

  You're no stranger to working this way.

• 34:09Speaker 02

  But I'm tempted to ask you. So this clip was the moment I... And you sort of revealed us at the top of our conversation. This is when I really started to question that you are, in fact, a fashion journalist, which you say, you identify yourself that way many times. I'm like, I think you're some, like, a humanist historian interested in human behavior through the lens of fashion or something? There's some other... Doesn't matter what I think. Let me ask you this. Like, when did you become interested in both journalism and fashion and then together?

• 34:46Avery Trufelman?

  All right, just cutting in here. Avery again, in the studio, slipping in. So Jad asked this really great question. And before we get to that answer and some larger questions, let me just slip in a little ad break, real quick.

• 35:04Avery Trufelman?

  I first heard about The RealReal, I think, a decade ago. Suddenly, it was this place where you could get Prada pumps and Burberry jackets and Gucci handbags for a song. Like, I recently got this vintage 90s Yoji Yamamoto skirt that I wear constantly. The RealReal is adding thousands and thousands of items every single day. So it really does still feel like a treasure hunt, even though it has all the convenience of shopping online. And I periodically use it to clean out my closet. They make it so easy. The RealReal sends a representative to my tiny apartment to pick up my things and assess them for me, and then it's done. Money just appears in my account. The RealReal is the most trusted name in authenticated luxury resale.

• 35:45Avery Trufelman?

  With over 10,000 new arrivals daily, no one does resale like The RealReal. And now, get $25 off your first purchase when you go to therealreal.com articals. That's therealreal.com articals to get your $25 off. Start shopping now at therealreal.com articals.

• 36:08Speaker 02

  Let me ask you this. Like, when did you become interested in both journalism and fashion and then together? So you can pick, pick either one.

• 36:19Avery Trufelman?

  Well, I always was, like, very interested in, in dressing. And I always dressed kind of weird, like, really weird. And I never really understood why. Like when I was in high school, I would wear these really nutty outfits. I would go visit my aunt in San Francisco and I would go thrift shopping and buy what I think now. I'm like, rock on, high school me, that was so cool. But at the time, it's like, why were you wearing these in high school? Like gold lame dresses and like fur stoles. And I'm like, why am I not getting invited to parties? Like, yeah, everyone thinks you're a little alien. Well, of course, they're not inviting you to parties. And I think at the time, I knew, I was like, I think I'm alienating people, but I don't really understand why I'm doing this. And I think it was this instruction in the sort of social nature of clothing.

• 37:04Avery Trufelman?

  I think I was so against fitting in that I was standing out too much and I didn't realize the signals that it was sending. I thought I was having fun, but I didn't realize it was kind of like asocial.

• 37:13Speaker 02

  Oh, interesting. So you were, you were, at what point did you begin to see the clothes you were wearing as messaging?

• 37:22Avery Trufelman?

  Honestly, when I went to college and there was this anonymous confession board where people could write whatever they wanted about people. And everyone was like, who does Avery Trufelman think she is? And I was like, oh my god. Like, I was just horsing around and I was like, oh no, these really mean something.

• 37:36Speaker 02

  Oh, that's horrible. Someone wrote that?

• 37:38Avery Trufelman?

  But, no, I get it, but I get it, I get it. Like, if you're walking-

• 37:41Speaker 02

  Don't defend them, that's horrible.

• 37:42Avery Trufelman?

  No, but I get it. Like, if you're walking around in like a costume, being like, I'm not of this world. Like, who do you think you are? You know? And I was like, oh, this, this like means something. I'm sending out a message that I'm not in control of. And I, that was not my intention. But, and I, and I think it was this idea of like cultural cohesion. That I want to, I want to stand out, I want to express myself, but I also want to be like inviting somehow. I don't, I realized the message I was sending was like, don't fucking talk to me, you know? And that was not my, my goal at all. I was like, I, it was a more powerful messaging than I realized.

• 38:26Speaker 02

  That's interesting. And did you, because I know you, okay, so now I'm thinking of the journalism part of fashion journalism, right? I know that you come from a- If not a journalist family, maybe a journalist family, I know that they were radio, right? Like, radio is, your parents met at a radio station. So, did, did they, and I love this story, and I wish my kids were here to hear this story, to know that, like, you had parents who worked in journalism, and you thought they were cool, apparently. Did you, I mean, did they communicate to you a sense that journalism was a thing you could do, and that it was, it was a way to make sense of the signals in the world?

• 39:03Avery Trufelman?

  Well, they were definitely like, radio people. Like, my, my mom did live recordings at WNYC, and like, my dad worked in publicity. So, they were very much like, radio station people. And even though they would, like, produce programs, and they did do journalism sometimes, I don't think they identified as, like, journalists, first and foremost. They were very much about, like, cutting tape with a knife, and like, smoking cigarettes after midnight, and Allen Ginsberg walked in, and like, WNYC was such a crazy place. I was like, oh, that, I want, I want that.

• 39:37Speaker 02

  Yeah, okay.

• 39:38Avery Trufelman?

  Like, that's, that's, that's cool. It's a cool job. And I think I fantasized about being like, a station person, you know? I was like, oh, I wanna help prep the host. I wanna like, read books for the host, and like, give them questions, and cut tape with a knife, and do all those things. I don't think I really had it in, I didn't think that I would necessarily be the, like, one with a microphone, making sense of the world, this way. I really thought I'd be like, a radio station person. But I think the idea of fashion as something that could be explored really came to me when I went to this museum exhibit about Vivienne Westwood, and I didn't realize that, like, a designer invented punk clothing. I was like, whoa, oh my god. Like, that is the first sort of, because you-

• 40:23Speaker 02

  Whoa, wait. So, punks didn't invent punk clothing? That was, it was a-

• 40:27Avery Trufelman?

  It's by, like, a designer.

• 40:29Speaker 02

  Wow.

• 40:30Avery Trufelman?

  It's by Vivienne Westwood. And like, sure, some of it was inspired by the street, but a lot of the sort of canonical ideas of what we think punk clothing is, sure, some of it came from, like, Richard Hells, but a lot of it came from this designer that had a very expensive, high-end shop, and then started doing runway shows. And it was the first example, I was like- This is what this is for. Hmm. Because I think the world of fashion design had been so severed from every day. You see things on a runway and, you know, I could give the whole cerulean blue monologue, but I didn't realize more than, again, this idea that fashion exists outside of commerce. It wasn't just someone telling you what to buy. It's like, this designer gave me a new language for what is beautiful.

• 41:12Avery Trufelman?

  That someone could have like hair that sticks out all over the place or like, you know, makeup that looks strange and be like, that's beautiful. That's interesting. That she gave us a new, that you could wear a shirt with holes in it. You know, that she just gave, she handed us this totally new framework for how to think about ourselves and how to identify ourselves.

• 41:35Avery Trufelman?

  And I was like, oh, this is what this is for. This is what the, this is, this is how you push boundaries and this is what all the boundary pushing is, is, is for. And it really changes, it really changes people. It really changes things. But I think I was, I really wanted, the show, I used to work for the podcast 99% Invisible and it was about architecture and design. And it was really building off this legacy of like design criticism and architecture criticism. And I was like, oh, it'd be cool to apply that lens to fashion. Not that I'm a critic, but this sort of, um, this lens of not just like what's new. Yeah. But what is, what does it all mean? The sort of sense-making element.

• 42:16Avery Trufelman?

  And you know, the funny thing is, Jad, like, when you say, it's not fashion journalism, it's being curious about humanity, like, I do think that's sort of what fashion is. Yeah. And I do think this word has been, because everything, when you're studying fashion, you're studying human desires and aspiration and the, when people talk about trends, you know, like the trends towards minimalism or maximalism, the trends towards driving or biking, like, these are ways we are headed. And I do think that's fashion. I just think it's manifested externally through clothes. And I think it's taken a long time for me, and I think that's part of why I'm like, I'm a fashion journalist, because I think it has to get.

• 43:00Avery Trufelman?

  It has to stop, even though I'm embarrassed to say it, just like I'm embarrassed to be a podcaster. I'm like trying to get less embarrassed about saying it. So I'm like, I'm a fashion journalist.

• 43:08Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 43:08Avery Trufelman?

  Fashion journalist.

• 43:09Speaker 02

  But it strikes me that your definition of fashion is really, it's very interesting to me. It's almost like fashion, not as choices about what we wear, but it's almost like the grammar of culture in a way.

• 43:20Avery Trufelman?

  Exactly.

• 43:20Speaker 02

  The way that culture has actually lived and embodied, rather than thought about, spoken about.

• 43:25Avery Trufelman?

  Culture and reality, you know, it's also informed by like, what's the weather? You know, it's informed by like climate change.

• 43:31Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 43:31Avery Trufelman?

  And where are you going? And how are other people expecting you to dress? And yeah.

• 43:36Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 43:37Avery Trufelman?

  It's like, it's very, I mean, tonight I almost was gonna text you like, what are you gonna wear? Because I didn't know if we were like dressing up or not, like you, it's about like, what space did we decide to make together?

• 43:47Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 43:48Avery Trufelman?

  Um, it's very, it's very social. It's very fascinating. And it's also, it kind of makes every day, it's just something that I like to do when I'm on the subway. I love just looking at what people are wearing and I love observing them. And I don't know, once you can kind of find a light in it, it, it just makes people more interesting.

• 44:09Speaker 02

  Yeah. Was there a moment that you, as a fashion journalist, where you heard your voice? Where you recognized something that would become your distinct thing? I'm curious if there was a moment where that happened or moments?

• 44:23Avery Trufelman?

  Yeah. Well, it's funny because it wasn't really about, um, it wasn't about clothing per se, but I felt like it was about trends. It was a story that I did for 99% Invisible where I was like, I think I finally found my voice and what I want to do. It was a story about where curvy pools come from, like why pools are bean shaped? And, uh, because someone asked me that question. They were like, why are pools bean shaped? And I was like, I don't know. And, uh, as I looked into it, it unfolded into like one of the strangest, most interesting stories I've ever done. And it did end up being sort of a story about ideas and trends.

• 45:05Speaker 02

  Just tell, give us the reveal. Why are they bean shaped?

• 45:08Avery Trufelman?

  Okay. So.

• 45:12Avery Trufelman?

  Finland, 1917.

• 45:17Avery Trufelman?

  I'll try to make this quick. So Finland is established as a nation and it is on the, basically the border between Scandinavia and Russia. And so it has to make this very definitive choice to be like, "We are not Slavic. We are..." They're not Scandinavian technically, but they are Nordic. They're like, "We are aligning ourselves with like, these guys, with like Sweden and Norway." And they really actively choose to do this, kind of out of fear of being taken over by Russia. They're like, "We are going to make our identities so separate that like you can't touch us, that you would never even think of Finland as being a part of Russia." And the way that they do this is like really practical. They like excise witchcraft.

• 45:59Avery Trufelman?

  They're like, "You are not allowed to practice witchcraft," which was a huge thing. And they were like, "We are going to include..." Like, modernist design, this like new Scandinavian design is going to be like a core tenet of who we are. Like, "We are going to look modern and Scandinavian." And the government supports new designers such as this brilliant young architect named Alvar Aalto. And he is responsible for so much of the furniture that we know and love today. And he's a pioneer of like curved wood, which is crazy. Like, that's such a pivotal point of mid-century modernism.

• 46:43Avery Trufelman?

  But when you think about it, like beforehand, everything that like Le Corbusier was doing, all the other modernism was very like metal and leather. And he found this way to like incorporate wood into it. And Finland has this big lumber culture. So anyway, he was really raised up and promoted. And a very rich heiress asked him to make her a house in inland, inland in Finland, in the middle of the country. And if you're Finnish, you have to have a sauna in your house. And after, it's like if you give a mouse a cookie. If you have a sauna, what do you need? You need a lake to cool off in after the sauna. And so he builds this woman a wiggly, squiggly pool that looks...

• 47:26Avery Trufelman?

  Kinda like a lake. It looks a little bit like a sock, like a cartoon sock. So he builds this, he builds this house. And then, one day, in his workshop in Finland, he's visited by this American architect, this American landscaped architect named Thomas Church. And he sees this design for this pool, and he's like, "Oh, that's a great idea." And he builds a version of it in Northern California. And it's now a little bit more like Americanized and sort of groovyized. It's got this like boomerang shaped to it. And there's a sculpture in the middle of it. It's meant to be like this work of art. And it's beautiful. It's like this amazing pool. And it's featured on the cover of Sunset Magazine, which at the time was like all up and down the West Coast. Everybody's reading Sunset Magazine.

• 48:10Avery Trufelman?

  And this is around the time, after World War II, a bunch of soldiers had been stationed in the Pacific Theater. And they were like, "Oh, California's kinda nice. I'm gonna stay here." And there were all these new housing developments. And these were mostly like city kids who'd never had a house or a yard before. And so suddenly, there are all these like young families with yards. And they're like, "What do I do with this yard?" They read Sunset Magazine. They see this pool, and they're like, "I want that pool." This pool becomes the trend all across Southern California. Everybody builds like a curvy pool. And then, it's funny, because I told the story backwards from the way I told it in 99% Invisible. But the way, the thing that is most interesting to me is, in the 1970s, there's a massive drought. All those pools get drained.

• 48:54Avery Trufelman?

  And a bunch of kids who are surfers, who don't want to, who are having trouble finding waves, break into all those pools and they start skateboarding. Skateboarding used to be like a flat sport. You used to just sort of like do it back and forth. It was like hula hooping or something. They break into those pools and they start surfing on them. And that's how like modern skateboarding was created. Accidentally by Alveralto.

• 49:18Speaker 02

  I love that. Wow, that was, that is a plot, wow.

• 49:23Avery Trufelman?

  But I was like, "That's what fashion is. It's also that."

• 49:25Speaker 02

  That you went from geopolitics all the way down to curvy pools, and then into the birth of skateboarding. I mean, that's just, that's amazing.

• 49:32Avery Trufelman?

  Thanks. But I was like, "This is what fashion is." It's idea, it's like this weird copying idea proliferation.

• 49:38Speaker 02

  And it was in this sort of, the way that all those levels of ideas held hands that you were like, "That's me."

• 49:45Avery Trufelman?

  Well, I was like, "That's fashion." Like, I think there's a way, I think this happens very commonly. Nothing's an accident. It all comes from, from somewhere.

• 49:56Speaker 02

  Amazing. Who has any questions for Avery?

• 50:00Speaker 05

  Um, so I want to know your take. Is wearing camo an endorsement of the American military industrial complex?

• 50:08Avery Trufelman?

  That is such a good question, and there's so many, that's like the question, and there's so many different takes on it. You know, the interesting thing is, when I talk to soldiers, they would like, "Well, I would never wear camo, but like, you go for it." Because it's, they're like, "It's my work clothes. I would never."

• 50:23Avery Trufelman?

  And so the funny thing is, Jad, when you were talking about like, guys at the gym wearing camo, it's like, "Well, they're not soldiers, you know, they're not veterans." It's so obvious. And I didn't realize that it was sort of like, a civilian privilege to wear camo.

• 50:35Avery Trufelman?

  I was like, "Oh, that kind of changes things." I never really thought about it that way. I kind of thought it was a privilege for y'all. And they were like, "No, no, no, that's you. Like, we don't, we don't really want to do that. That's, that's all you." So that, that really changed things for me.

• 50:52Avery Trufelman?

  I will say, I do still feel very strangely about wearing like, the current camo that the military has. Like, I did buy some camo pants at a military base, and like, sometimes I wear them, and people are like, "Sick pants, bro." I'm like, "Ugh, I don't know, weird." So I do feel weird, so the funny thing is, I do think it also depends on like, the kind of camo you're wearing. Because I don't think there's anything, if you're wearing a fashion camo, or a like, 81 woodland or something, that has nothing to do with the current war. That's purely fashion, you know? And if the idea that like, "Oh, camo writ large represents war", I mean, yeah, it does, but this is also like, part of the water we swim in.

• 51:37Avery Trufelman?

  Like, and, and it's another thing that made me realize, I used to be so vehemently against like, field jackets, camo, combat boots. I would never touch any of that stuff. And after doing this series, I'm like, "This is my history too. Like, I have a say in this." And, um, not only do I pay taxes, but like, I have opinions. And I, like, I am a, I am a civilian, but this is also totally my history. And like, I think you can, you can do it too. So, this is going to be in the last episode that I'm working on, but a lot of soldiers have sort of requested that citizens become a little bit more literate about...

• 52:17Avery Trufelman?

  Not, I shouldn't say current events, because it's really hard to keep up with everything. But like, the current state of war. And I think becoming camo literate, for me, has been a part of it. It's like, oh, not that camo, but other kinds of camos are really great. So I think it's like, understanding camo differences, to me.

• 52:34Speaker 06

  I'm curious, with this series, and I think Ivy as well, it's a lot of men, in men's fashion. And we heard a little bit in that first episode, you're talking about how men, they want, they don't want to think about style, they don't want to think about fashion, it's about functionality. Which I think there's a lot of truths to that. But I was curious for you, like, what is it, what has it been like to spend so much time in the heads of these manly men, and what have you kind of learned?

• 53:03Avery Trufelman?

  Yeah, it's, it's really interesting, because, it's funny, I was getting really down on myself, and like, doing the thing that you're not supposed to do, which is like, reading comments on Reddit. And a lot of men are like, really offended, or think I hate them. And I don't, I love men. I just, I just think it's really, it's very interesting.

• 53:23Speaker 02

  I mean, it's interesting too, it's a great question, because most people, when you, most, most people, when they talk about fashion, talk about women's fashion.

• 53:31Avery Trufelman?

  Mm-hmm.

• 53:32Speaker 02

  Because men's fashion seems very, at least to me, from the outside, the dynamic range is much narrower, you know? You're not seeing wild, like, experiments, in the way that you will, with female fashion.

• 53:45Avery Trufelman?

  Yeah, but I think that's part of, like, that's my grand experiment, is to specifically interrogate male fashion, because we take it so for granted, we're like, well, that's just some plain stuff. It's like, well, what's plain about it? Like, where does it come from? And I think there are three tenants of what we consider American masculine dress. And I think one of them is preppy style, and I did a series about preppy style. The next one was military. And the third one I want to do is western wear, and like cowboy stuff. Which also feels very like Back to the Future, like, the third one, we go to the west. But it feels, like, all these, we, we've been taught to think about these things as being- Like neutrals, basics.

• 54:29Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 54:29Avery Trufelman?

  But they're not neutral. They all mean something. And they usually come from one of those three places.

• 54:35Speaker 02

  Did you just give us a preview of your next series?

• 54:37Avery Trufelman?

  Yeah.

• 54:38Speaker 02

  Oh, my God.

• 54:39Avery Trufelman?

  Yeah, yeah. But that's what I kept thinking of as I was like, working on the military. I was like, I want to touch a horse. I can't wait. I want to do the Western stuff.

• 54:48Speaker 02

  Wow, wow. That's such a, that's such a reveal at the very end here.

• 54:52Avery Trufelman?

  Well, I don't know when I'll be able to do it, but that's the, that's the dream. But I knew when I was doing the last season, I was like, the next one's going to be military.

• 55:00Speaker 02

  OK.

• 55:00Avery Trufelman?

  And so I'm like, I'm calling it, this next one's. And of course, I'm like, this one will just be like a fun little one. No, it won't. No way. Like, these things all end up having horrendous, gruesome histories.

• 55:15Speaker 02

  Totally. Well, yeah, as soon as you go out west, that's, that's a lot of, lot of blood on our hands there.

• 55:21Avery Trufelman?

  Yeah. Well, the thing, OK, the question I'm really curious about is why all colonial cultures have cowboys?

• 55:29Avery Trufelman?

  Right? Like, Australia has cowboys, Canada has cowboys, we have cowboys. They all sort of wear the same stuff. And so did we export that? Did that like naturally sort of like grow from the colonial mindset? Like, like the colonizer plus ranchland equals cowboy? Like, how did we all get to this place?

• 55:50Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 55:50Avery Trufelman?

  And also, the aesthetics are so interesting. Like, the cowboy boot is obviously Mexican. And then, OK, actually, I happen to have an example right here. I'm wearing a shirt that I got in Hungary. And if you can see it, it looks kind of cowboyish. A lot of the embroidery and like cowboy looking stuff comes from Eastern Europe. And it's like, this amazing blend. Like, how did we, how did this get everywhere?

• 56:17Speaker 02

  Oh, my God, I can't wait for you to tell me that story.

• 56:20Avery Trufelman?

  I got to figure it out.

• 56:22Speaker 02

  Well, Avery, thank you. I mean, just thank you so much for your work and for this incredible series and for all of them.

• 56:30Avery Trufelman?

  Thank you so much.

• 56:31Speaker 02

  And for, for agreeing to chat tonight.

• 56:34Avery Trufelman?

  Thank you for sending me home with this. This is really, really special.

• 56:38Speaker 02

  Please give it up for Avery Trufelman.

• 56:39Avery Trufelman?

  And Judd.

• 56:43Speaker 07

  There's a portrait painted on the things we love.

• 56:53Speaker 07

  Special, special thanks to Judd Averman.

• 56:56Avery Trufelman?

  Again, his podcast is called Failakuti Fear No Man. I am a huge fan. It is such an honor to be in the Mutual Appreciation Club. Thank you so much, Jad. Thanks as well to Scott Newman and Giuliana Nicola of On Air Presents and to the kind folks at Ludlow House. You made me feel like a member. And if you're wondering about that game that I mentioned, where you have to look at the photographs and guess what era they're from, it's a really fun game. I'll have the link on the Substack at articlesofinterest.substack.com.