If you want to know, then you’re in luck / Just listen up to Josh and Chuck, sings a barbershop quartet commercial-break bumper most likely stuck in your head after a morning shower, if you’re a fan. If you don’t know, though, then you’re still in luck because one of the most topically scattered yet consistently beneficial research podcasts ever to podcast, Stuff You Should Know, will be live at Nashville’s Schermerhorn Symphony Center, Sept. 6, 2023.
Hosted by this duo of down-to-earth, well-read, All-American research writers with the civic excellence to understandably and freely share mindblowing, life-enhancing stretches of worldly knowledge on a consistent, quadweekly basis, Josh Clark and Charles W. “Chuck” Bryant tell their audience about things like (picking a random season out of 16 seasons), 2018’s “The Baffling Case of the Body on Somerton Beach” and “How Giraffes Work.” These guys are big fans of The Simpsons, so there’s a two-parter, “Episode 999: The Simpsons Spectacular Part 1,” and “Episode 1,000: The Simpsons Spectacular Part 2,” where they’re hilariously giddy, nerding out about the world of Simpsons creator Matt Groening and company. It’s great. They’ve been in the writer’s room and everything, and they’ll tell you all about it.
Actually, if you do know this podcast, it’s understandable that rattling off those episodes is kind of exciting.
Hold on . . . don’t forget 2012’s “Pickpockets: Artists or Crooks” and “10 Big Cases of Revenge” (and “How Zero Works” is in that season, too!). 2008 featured “Can People Really Get Hysterical Strength?” (Yes, humans can do that stuff but we have a governor in our brains to protect us. Apes don’t. That’s why they can rip us apart with the strength of 30 men and we shouldn’t have them as pets. When ours “unlocks” in high stress, or in a rage, either that car will lift or the bone in your arm will snap. That’s just how that works.)
On a recent July episode , the twosome presented “Magic Eye Illusions,” something familiar to anyone who remembers the stereogram explosion in the ’90s. To spoil that one, scientists dating back to the 2nd century Roman astronomer Ptolemy have spent generations figuring out focus and depth perception of “two eyeballs that are spaced about 60-something millimeters apart. . . . How in the world do we do that and come up with solid focus on things?” as they ask.
It’s called stereopsis, which occurs when our brain combines the two images. Binocular vision.
Somebody along the way figured out that stereopsis, combined with the human brain basically being an organizational, sense-making machine, can form a three-dimensional picture out of what looks like a digitized Jackson Pollack painting of random, tiny colored blotches; designers hide a pattern in the tiny blotches, just slightly off from one another in color, and the brain does its thing and recognizes it.
That’s wild and makes a man feel kind of punked on a deeply physiological level, but it’s awesome.
Josh Clark and Chuck Bryant break things down as naturally and warmly as anyone trying to teach something to a kid they’d just learned themselves, but more like “Hey, kid, here’s how Miranda rights work,” then covering history, science, and many other subjects. They make you laugh, wonder, talk about it with your friends and family, and then seek more knowledge. Their friendship is solid, too, if people being good people together and liking one another is something needed in your atmosphere, too.
In podcast land, Stuff You Should Know episodes air on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays with two full episodes (about an hour each) on Tuesdays and Thursdays, a 10–15 minute “Short Stuff” episode on Wednesdays, and then an “SYSK Select,” featuring a past episode, on Saturdays.
The hosts have taken the stage at various theaters, but this is the first time they’ve come to Nashville.
In these live show scenarios, Josh and Chuck show up with one of their topics they’ve extensively researched, producing a full hour-long episode right there.
The live episodes are in front of a live audience who wouldn’t be there unless they’d love to be. Bonuses include a Q&A after and a possibility they’ll walk in the front door past the crowd lined up before the show. It’s a pretty laid-back couple-hour outing to the Symphony Center, if you’re just wanting to chill out with no pressure to do much and watch a couple of guys who know stuff be cool in front of you. It’s Stuff You Should Know, man, hosted by Josh and Chuck.
Learn more at stuffyoushouldknow.com.
Find ticket and show information for the Stuff You Should Know Podcast at Schermerhorn Symphony Center in Nashville on Wednesday, Sept. 6, at nashvillesymphony.org.
