341. - Carsten Höller

All right, this episode of How Long Gone is brought to you by Stateside with Kai and Carter, a new podcast from The Guardian. And they are using this podcast to slow down the news and wrestle with the questions that we all have about what's happening in the world. And they do it three times a week, Jason. Does that sound familiar to you? We don't really talk about, you know, a lot of international global news items and climates and cultures and sports and things like that. We do talk about fashion and wellness, but for everything else, Kai and Carter are a great place. All right, so who couldn't use more news? Listen wherever you get your podcast. or watch on YouTube. How long gone? Coming to you live from the One Hotel in beautiful Toronto, Ontario. The sun is shining. I might have a concussion. TJ, how are you feeling? I'm feeling mildly dehydrated because of my travel, but otherwise, not bad, I guess. I got zooted last night off the zooties. Shout out to my dog, Ron, for dropping off the pack for Jason. God damn, bro. You're rich. OG Ron dropped off the damn pack. Jason's rich with marijuana products. canada where it's legal yeah i have way too much marijuana product um if you see me in the streets i'll have it all on me that's right so come find me legal he keeps it all on him at the same time just so the so like the the staff of the hotel doesn't take it if anybody needs a gummy on the street or anything just come find me i'll be around yeah yeah so we we flew from la to toronto uh yesterday on a plane from 1998 and uh we we arrived safely we touched down did you just send an email right now chris no okay i just heard an email sending sound maybe it was just my slow internet i think maybe you're just you you know that i'm about my grind so it wouldn't be you wouldn't be surprised if i was kind of double dipping while we were doing this intro i would not be surprised if you were um you know emailing people and texting people while we were interviewing our guests that's a pretty normal thing for you to do but yeah go ahead well i mean look some guests aren't that aren't that

compelling you know what i mean we'll find out today with our amazing guest let's see how boring he gets we we touched down in the six we dropped our bags off we went straight to imanishi for some corn yeah we ate some corn i was told by different white canadian people how to eat japanese food so that was always that was always fun and cool i mean but we did have a nice we strolled all the way back from imanishi to the hotel taking in the sights of ozington and queen street all the all the hottest neighborhoods Of course. And, you know, got to bed. It was beautiful. At a reasonable hour. I unfortunately was up late enough, which is a rarity, to see Jimmy Buffett and Florence and the Machine perform Margaritaville together with Jimmy Fallon. What the fuck? That kind of kept me up a little later than I wanted to because I was enraged. Damn, bro. You've got to stop watching Fallon before bed. It's not good for your health and wellness. Okay, what can I watch? Can I watch Stephen Colbert cry about COVID? Trevor Noah cry about COVID? Or Jimmy Fallon sings some songs. I'm picking Fallon. Yeah, this is not boding well for your Fallon fandom. I think that we are living in a scenario where you don't have to choose one of those three options. Unless we're in jail or something like that. I don't know which gang controls the TV on which nights. You know, you don't have to watch. You can just fire up Netflix. I watched Once Upon a Time in Hollywood last night. Not available in the U.S., available in Canada. How many times are you going to watch that fucking long-ass movie? That's a one-timer. I've seen it one time in the theaters, and then I guess like 20 minutes of it last night before I passed out. Oh, for some reason, I thought you had seen it more than that. I mean, I like it. It's a movie I could re-watch. But I was awoken, because it's a long one, like two hours into it. There's a scene where somebody, like, I don't want to spoil it, but, you know. Of course, please don't. There's a scene featuring violence. No. Near a pool, and somebody was screaming because they had seen some things near a pool. And the scream, it was just like blood-curdling screaming, you know, just.

terrible and that's what woke me up at like two in the morning so wow i'm sorry yeah i i woke up pretty early the zooties were powerful enough to get me back to bed with the quickness though oh did you hit the pack at 2 a.m no no no i just had enough in my system hard body i see built different dumb ass you were zoot up enough um well i i'm glad to hear that you're feeling good you had some water i hope you had jason brought coffee with him I brought, yeah, I brought Cometeer pods. Which I thought was interesting. I saw him reaching for his usual, you know, because he thinks he's slick, mixing his gummies in with his vitamins and his little Ziploc on the plane. I see him fishing out one of his little rose squares mixed in with his fucking men's daily. Men's daily. And then I see him pick out another Ziploc, and I'm like. Bro, what the fuck is that? And he's like, oh, it's my coffee. Do you want one? I'm like, no, I don't want. I mean, yes, but no. You know what I mean? No, I don't know what you mean, Chris. Please explain in detail. It's just interesting. You bringing coffee on the plane is interesting, but I also respect it. Like, I think it's a smart move, but I don't know if I could personally do it myself. Where did you get coffee this morning? Actually, you know what's so funny, Jason, is last night we stopped at a local market that had been gentrified completely. Great selection of. Quinoa puffs. Twelve different varieties of coffees in cans, nitro-brewed. They all had milk or sugar in them of some kind. Nothing, just plain old black coffee. To green straw mafia all the way down. And I was able to, I opened the minibar back at the hotel. Guess who has a black nitro coffee in the minibar? Timmy's? No, one hotel. I'm saying it was here for me, so I'm good. I'm good. Oh, that's wonderful. Yeah, it's wonderful. And I appreciate you for kind of... kind of recognizing that, that it's wonderful and feeling happy for me that something good happened to me for once. Shut up, bro. Shut up. You're boring. You said earlier at the top of the show that you...

You had some type of thing, like an incident? You had an injury? Is that what you mentioned? Yeah, so I woke up this morning. Shout out to my dog, Roy, in L.A. He hooked me up with a great trainer here, a man named Kevin, at a place called Catalyst over in my favorite neighborhood, Yorkville, of course. There's a Chanel store, Balenciaga, coming soon. There's a line for Stone Island this morning, a Whole Foods market. There's a line for Stone Island on a Thursday morning? Supreme. Got it. Jason, you'll be happy to know that there is an espresso bar in Toronto called Zaza. That's right. It predates the terminology being co-opted. I had a feeling it did. I'm training with Kevin. I get there. Of course, I'm fasted, but I've had water. I've had coffee. I feel pretty good. I've got to stretch in. We do a warm-up. We're jogging. We're talking. Then Kevin hits me with a little program that involves a shitload of assault biking. And could you explain what that is for our listeners who are not assaulting? The assault bike is something that you... It's powered by your feet and arms, and it blows a fan, and it's very difficult. And even the most fit people... Wow, this is the worst description of this I've ever heard in my life. I mean, it's a fucking bike. How do you want me to describe it? It's a fucking bike. If you don't know what that is, you can stop listening. So, so I'm doing the, I'm doing it. So basically I'm doing a set of, I'm doing the, like, it's a, a lot of people do calorie based stuff on the, on the, on the bike. So I'm doing seven calories, six calories, five calories. Then I'm doing a bicep run. So it's like 10 this, 10 that, 10 that bike, 10, 10, 10 bike, 10, 10, 10. And unfortunately on the, on the third session on the bike, I sat down and then I woke up with Kevin being like, are you good, bro? And I have a cut on my forehead because I passed out and just slammed my head on the turf. Okay, so the turf being like the ground. That's right. I left it all on the floor. Okay, so you hit the assault bike.

which is a bike that you have to pedal with your own resistance. It's very hard to do. Doing it for a minute will get you pretty gassed, right? Oh, yeah. And you were doing it a bicep set, so you'll just crank it, and as soon as you burn seven calories, then you take a break? Is that what you said? Seven calories, then you do six calories, then you do five calories, then you get off, and then you do the biceps. And then you get back on the bike, do the same thing, then you get off and do triceps. So he beat you like a nasty motherfucker. He just fucked you up. And this guy's fucking ripped. As soon as I saw this guy, I'm like, hell yeah. Whatever this guy tells me to do, I'm going to do it. This guy looks good as fuck. So you saw a big buff guy and his first thing you said when you saw him was, hell yeah. Lean buff guy. I said, hell yeah. And they told me. I'm sorry. You like him lean? He told me he was from Winnipeg. I was like, this guy got out the fucking mud. Like, let's go. Like, let's go. This guy got out the snow, man. I'm ready to get it in. Got it up out the snow. But unfortunately, I did have to take a break, pound my Fiji, and I was able to finish the set after like a five to six minute break. So you're on the Assault, which is a stationary seated bicycle. Did you fall back, forward, to the left, to the right? No, no, no, no, no. I got off. No, no, I got off. Oh, you got off the bike and then you just kind of crumbled. Got it. Yeah, exactly. So, look, I had to call down to the front desk to get some alcohol wipes for the cut on my forehead. It's the only time you'll use an alcohol wipe, I'm assuming. I hope you can't see it from stage tomorrow. We do have an after party at Tammy's after the show, 11 p.m. DJ Them Jeans playing his hits. DJ Them Jeans playing his hit with some of our other friends, Jeff and Adam. Thank you to Jamal for hosting that. We'll see you guys there. Good luck getting in. The list is closed. We're happy to be in Toronto. It's a beautiful day, and we're happy to be podcasting with an artist named Carson Holler, who is...

Kind of an OG legend German artist represented by Gagosian. You've probably seen some of his work over the years. The man loves to install installations. He's an installer. It's playful. It's entertaining. It's actually great. It's interactive. No, it's interactive. But we're focused today a little bit just because of... Jason's obviously food background. More than a little bit. Carson is opening a restaurant called Brutal Listen in Stockholm. That's like the new Kendrick Lamar, Chris. It's a Brutal Listen. Exactly. Brutal Listen. It's a new restaurant in Stockholm where he lives with a menu inspired by the bold simplicity of brutalism. Which, honestly, this is kind of right up my street, but I want to hear more from the man himself. Chris loves brutalist cooking, so this is going to be a fun pod to get into. He's a bit of a foodie. I'll try and keep up. Let's give Carson a jingle, and we'll get into it. All right. This episode of How Long Gone is brought to you by Quince. Jason, the temps are warming up. It's getting hot out there. Summer always changes how I get dressed. I need pieces that feel lighter, more breathable, and they're just easy but still put together. I don't want to look like a slob. That's why I keep coming back to Quince. They focus on high-quality essentials that feel and look amazing. Breathable linen and soft organic cottons. Well-made basics, but without the luxury markups. That rare balance where everything feels elevated, but still effortless. Yeah, Chris, linen season is here. I wore a linen blazer to dinner a few nights ago in the warm California sun. But, you know, you got that Italy trip coming up this summer. And quality European linen pants and shirts. Upgrade that look starting at just $34. You know, if you get a nice linen suit, a little t-shirt underneath it, some chill shoes, you're looking good, but you're staying cool. The inside of your special areas are nice and dry as you turn up with your besties. So elevate that summer wardrobe. Go to quince.com slash how long for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns, even on a nice holiday now available in Canada.

That is Q-U-I-N-C-E dot com slash how long. That'll get you free shipping and 365 day returns. Quince punto com slash how long. Oh, this is huge for me personally. This episode of How I'm Gone is brought to you by TaskRabbit. Oh, baby, let me tell you something. This is not a joke. I use TaskRabbit a lot because I can't do anything. You need some art hung? TaskRabbit. You need a fucking... Something put together, a cabinet. Got to reach that cheese grater on the top shelf. TaskRabbit. Anything you need, TaskRabbit can take care of it for you. And, I mean, how it works, TaskRabbit connects you with skilled taskers in your area. They can help you move. They can assemble furniture. repairs, yard work, mounting, and more. You can search for a Tasker based on cost, skill set, availability, and past client reviews so you know exactly who's showing up and can have confidence that they know what they're doing because Taskers have assembled over 3.4 million pieces of furniture, completed 700,000 home repairs, handled 1.5 million moves, and the numbers are just going up, Jason. Yeah, throw a little money at the problem. It's not so expensive, and that job that you really don't want to do is something that another person out in the world, is very good at doing and would gladly do it in exchange for a little bit of money. So... When life happens, your to-do list grows. Get ahead of it now and get $15 off your first task at TaskRabbit.com or grab the TaskRabbit app using promo code HowLong. Taskers book up faster, especially for same-day tasks. So book Trusted Home Help today. That is $15 off your first task using promo code HowLong with the TaskRabbit app or at TaskRabbit.com. This episode of How Long Gone is brought to you by a new podcast from The Guardian stateside with Kai and Carter. This is covering a lot of our bases, Jason. It's trying to slow down. The news and wrestle with the questions we all have about what's happening in the world. And I know you particularly have quite a lot of questions. A lot of questions. But how often? Because we do this podcast three times a week and that's a sweet spot. How many times do they do? Three times a week. And I have a feeling just based on the platform and these talking points that they're maybe going to be covering different stuff than we do. That's just a guess. The Guardian is not some billionaire owned.

They're not afraid to say what they want to say, brother. Yeah, Rupert ain't sniffing around in what journalists Kai Wright and Carter Sherman are up to over there at Stateside. But yeah, listen wherever you get your podcasts. You can watch it on YouTube. It's three times a week. And who couldn't use more news? Especially when it's not from here, let's say. Give it a listen. Give it a listen. Yeah, we're loud talkers. I apologize. You know how Americans are. Yeah, I know. You know what? I'm doing a book about games, and the games are all about materials. So it's a collection of 350 games that you can play without that you need any materials. And one of the games is... how to speak like an American. Please, please tell us what that entails. I would love to know what your thoughts are. I'm getting there. Okay, okay, good. So the thing is like in an American bar, everybody speaks in a certain way that the sound is going through. And I'm standing there with my way of speaking. Nobody hears what I'm saying and I'm shouting and getting, you know, hoarse. It doesn't work. So I found out what it is. You have to bend down the outer edges of your corner of your mouth. So for our listeners at home who are unable to see the video of this, you kind of look like a double fish hook kind of thing where you pull the sides of your mouth down as if you've been hooked. You know, just try it yourself. It sounds so much better. I mean, it goes to the whole room. Oh, yeah. There's no pesky tongue getting in the way of inhibiting the beautiful sound. Hello. I need to ask, Karsten, how did you discover this, though? Is this through years of practice and research? Years of research. Whenever I go to the U.S., I'm looking at people. I have this traumatic experience. I was working as a scientist in 1991 in Texas, Texas A&M University, and I had a hard time connecting with Americans, mainly because my humor was so different.

But finally, I got invited to a student party. It took, you know, months. But I was invited. So I went there. So you're telling me you had a hard time connecting with college students in Texas? I'm shocked, Carson. I'm shocked. I know. That was like a long time ago. But I realized they don't understand what I'm saying while I was there. And they don't get my jokes. So people would just turn around and walk away while I tried to speak to them. And since then, I've been traumatized. I've been looking at how you do it. And I still cannot really imitate it, but I think I found somehow the basics of American speaking. A way to project. Yeah, the main characteristic of the American is we demand that everyone in the room, wherever we're at, is hearing us clearly. Yeah, it's an amazing phenomenon. You go like even in a European restaurant and there's one table of Americans and you hear everywhere in the whole restaurant what they're saying, but also the whole restaurant has to speak louder in order to make themselves understandable. So I always wondered, what is the tweak? And the tweak, in my opinion... An allegory for modern politics. It's like bending your mouth down. I, unfortunately, I've actually experienced this as an American in Paris at a restaurant where I was... I think I was treated differently by the staff because of the loudness of my voice. I don't think they wanted me in their establishment because of how loud I was. I would say rightfully so. Yeah, I felt... I wasn't... angered by it because I agree with them that I am too loud in that setting. And I don't even drink. Is this something that your mothers or your fathers are teaching you while you're babies? How come is that you all do this so well? We are actually a little bit jealous. Me especially. Then we have people like Stalin. He was speaking in a very low voice and he was attracting the attention of his listeners by speaking slowly at a very low voice. This is the other way to go. But I prefer the American way, and I'm still learning, and I hope this podcast with you will entrain me to do a little bit better afterwards. Thank you for comparing us Americans to Stalin. This is going to be a great podcast so far. No, no, no, no. I compared myself to Stalin, not you. Say what you want about the guy. He was a great public speaker, wasn't he?

You win some, you lose some. You know what I mean? A couple of kooky ideas. He killed millions of people. So I don't want to get involved in that discussion. But he had a way of speaking. It was the opposite of American way. What else is going on in this book? What kind of games are we talking about? Well, it has different categories. So five or six games you can play with yourself. All of them have no material. So you don't need a dice. You don't need a piece of paper. You don't need a scissor or anything. So category numbers, number one is that you play the game with yourself. Okay. You play with yourself and with somebody else who doesn't know that you're playing. That's number two. Number three is two people playing they both know. Number four, I'm not ready. Without consent. That'll get you in trouble. Oh, that's an interesting game. Two people playing the game and with other people who don't know. And then you have more than that. So one, since we spoke about America, one of these games is called The Uncle from America. And that's a category number, let me count, number four. So it's like two people playing with a third person who doesn't know. And it's like the two people are meeting another person and then are saying, this person doesn't hear very well. You have to speak very loud. And then the other person who goes to play said, yes, he doesn't hear well. Speak very loud. So the person who's coming who doesn't know will also speak very loud in order to make himself or herself understandable. So it's a very humiliating game for the person who doesn't know that in so many of the games. That mean, humiliating. Some of them are impossible to play. Some are actually also a little bit fun. Okay. Yeah, I didn't know this was like a category of gaming. It feels like you're a little bit of an impractical joker and a merry pranksman. Is that safe to say, Karsten? It's more like, you know, like there's a first version from 1998, which I have somewhere up there. It's a small book. You can put it in your pocket. And then in case of need, you take it out and you play some games. But now it's going to be a big book. It comes out. It's like...

700 pages. It's like an encyclopedia of games, and I think it will be quite amusing to read, but not so easy to play. So you're saying that you did a smaller version of this in the 90s, and now you're doing the expanded version. I did a pocket size, and now it's time for the anthology. It's called Karsten Höller Spielebuch. It's in German. And then it looks like it. So you have pictures. Oh, wow. He's showing us pictures of butts mooning us. Yes. You said this was from the 90s? Yes. 98, I believe it came out. So this game is called Protest Exhibitionism. And it just says, show your butt alone or several people to protest. That's the name, that's the description of the game. Damn, I do like that these games, you know, sometimes Monopoly can be confusing for someone like me, but these games I understand. If the game is to show my butt in protest, I can follow those instructions. It's not elementary, it's just simply easy to digest and understand for all people. It's a very clear message, but in the other games that I'm telling you, they're completely impossible to understand. So it has... Something for everybody. And they all come with an image. And sometimes the image, as in this case, is explicit. You show your butt and you see some butts and they're outside of the window of a car. But sometimes the image is also like you don't know what it does to help you to understand the game. So it's a collection of photographs and games that I've been collecting over the years. I mean, I like that you're able to just... contact a publisher and tell them this is what you want to do, and they're like, yeah, okay, sounds good. Here's a bunch of money. Let's get it done. That's the power of an established artist. Yes, it's actually quite easy. You're right. So whatever I want to do, people say, yeah, let's do it.

Yeah. So does that make you maybe arrogant? Does that make you overconfident? Because you got the magic touch, everyone says yes to you, or are you still a humbled man? Do I come across as being arrogant? What kind of impression do I make of you? I mean, not no. Not yet? No. I wouldn't call you modest, but I don't think you're an arrogant asshole kind of guy. I don't think so. You just got a little swag to you. Yeah, I have my sights, of course. But no, it's like, it's actually, now I'm working on a new project. So I've just been to MIT in Boston, and we worked with dream scientists who study the nature of dreams, and it starts with sleep research. That's, you know, interesting. But dreams have been... always, for science, such a no-no, because it's such a flaky matter. But the project that we want to do, and this is like when you just go out and ask for money to do it, you will say this one will be difficult, because what you want to do is to make a dream hotel. You want to make seven rooms that you can book, and one room on the one side will be like strictly science, one room on the left side will be strictly art, and then some other rooms in between. So for a project like this, I don't know where you find the money. You know, this is a difficult thing because it's not really an art project. It's not really a science project. People would say, you know, what should we do with it? Sometimes I'm pushing it to the extremes. With the book, it was rather easy because we know this book will sell. But this dream hotel, as we call it, will be a very difficult thing to... to put to put up in place so you're trying to get some like scientific grants and they're like hey you know we got covid 19 going on you know i don't know if the hotel where we have funny fun dreams is really at the top of our priority list is it kind of like that yeah it's also like because like dreams are you know what are dreams dreams are like you know they we want to we want to what you want to achieve is like also an artistic and a scientific perspective

to understand dreams a little bit better, but also to give them a direction while you sleep so that you can dream in a certain way and that you can record your dreams better when you wake up. So not that they just go away the moment you wake up and that you possibly can translate them into something physical, like an image or something that you can see or a film that is recorded while you dream. Using some artificial... Intelligence or something? Yes. These kind of things. Hopefully your research will be able to solve the problem where my girlfriend wakes up and wants to tell me her dream and nobody cares except for the person who is having that dream. Is that a phenomenon you're familiar with? Exactly. We've been speaking about that. So you're basically going to fix that problem. You're going to fix that problem. It's a very good point. I spoke with all the scientists about it. Why is it so... boring to hear other people talking about their dreams. It's not one of the most boring things in the world. You don't want to hear it. I even call it like, it's terrible. I call it active boredom. It's not a passive boredom when you have nothing to do. It's actually boring. You really don't want this. And the reason for this is, in my opinion, that dreams are some kind of excrements. They're like excrements of the mind. And you feel like We pulse by them, and the repulsion is not that they smell badly or something, but they're extremely boring, so that keeps you away from it because they're infectious in some way. You don't want to deal with other people's dreams, really. But you want to control your own dreams because for yourself, they're very interesting. Absolutely. So we started with a toothpaste, actually, that we made where we can... You can wash your teeth with four different toothpaste and they contain different ingredients and you can mix them in such a way that you dream like a woman or like a child or like a man, you know, all mixed up. What? You got a toothpaste that does that? Yes. Yes, I'm going to send you some. It's really amazing. It works. You go to bed and you give your...

Dreams are directional. So that is quite fantastic. That's amazing. Well, I enjoy using marijuana. And one of the downsides or upsides, depending on who you ask, is you kind of don't really have dreams if you smoke beforehand. And then if you don't smoke, then like constipation of the mind. weeks of excrement dreams start pouring out the one time you don't smoke weed, and it can be a little alarming. So it's important to take breaks and stay regular. Yeah, but there are some things like marijuana, like cannabis, and also lavender. It's like dream killers. But then if you kill your dreams for a while, of course, then they come out. There's a lot coming at the same time. So that's pretty good. So if you want to dream really heavily, you just smoke pot for a week or two. And then you stop and then you see what happens. Say less, King. I'm already there. Can I ask how you record your dreams? Do you scribble down? Do you do a voice note? Do you do like a drawing? What is your preferred method of capturing what you can remember when you wake up? And when I wake up and I think about the dreams I just had, I just ask myself one question, which is, was this interesting or not? And in almost 100% of the cases, I say, it was just crap. It was really excrements of the mind. So I say, forget it. But while I was working with my science colleague, Adam Ha at MIT there, we did a very interesting experiment. I hope he hears us. We took galantamine in the middle of the night. So we woke up, we put our alarm clock, take two pills of galantamine, four milligrams. the story starts to be a completely different one. Because you suddenly dream lucid, or at least partly lucid, you're aware that you're dreaming, and you remember the dreams so much better. I still remember the dreams from that night today, and that was like 10 days ago. So there are ways...

to keep them if you want. But, you know, even these things are not very interesting. So what is that drug called again? It's called Galantamine. In Europe, it's forbidden, of course. In the U.S., it's not. It's a drug that you use for people who have dementia. So it's a prescription drug. It's not over-the-counter. I think you can buy it over-the-counter. Okay. Well, Jason's going to try that tonight. Yeah. What happens if you snort it, Karsten? Does that change any of the effects? I didn't go so far. You call yourself a scientist. Okay. You have to focus on the research. You can do everything. He had work to do. As a scientist, how do you approach drug use? I don't know if you're still doing it, but when you were younger, do you look at it scientifically or can you detach and just have fun? I don't know any artist who hasn't done any drugs. I'm not aware of it. There's a famous story of this artist called Alighiero Bretti, and he had some visitors, some young students. This Arte Bova artist from Italy must have been in the 60s or 70s or 80s because he's dead now. And he just asked him, so, you know, do you want the joint? I said, no, no, we don't smoke. Do you want the whiskey? No, no, we don't drink alcohol. Then after a while he got like an oil. I said, so what are you taking? You know, you cannot be an artist if you don't take anything. So I don't know. I'm not a big... drug user nowadays, but I have certainly tried some things and they have been influential because they give you some kind of reference point to how different everything could be. Jason likes everything to be different every day, I guess, with his intake. His approach is maximal, I would say. Not maximal enough to overdose, though. You've got to be careful. I hate the city of Boston. How do you feel about it? I really say this in public like this. I don't know. It's like, okay, there's Boston and there's Cambridge, which I didn't have, you know, I didn't understand that really before I came there, but this is like completely different towns. Yeah. How can I say? I would say the general feeling is that it is not a very entertaining place. There's not much going on. You have these enormous universities with these campuses and you have,

badly dressed students walking around, all looking miserable because they have to, I don't know, go to an examination or learn a lot. So there's not a lot of happiness in these places. The food also, I have to say, even though we tried, was not very good. Even so bad at some places, I said, guys, you can't cook food like this. It's not okay. Give it back to the kitchen. You do that in New York. Apparently in the US you don't say things like that because it costs like a year and people didn't like me very much for that. But I had to say it. Also being a restaurateur myself now. So I don't know. I think the idea is probably that since it is a boring place, it is not so much happening. It's not so entertaining as say many other places in the US. It's very good for research. for work, these kind of things. And there's a general feeling of you want to work. You want to get work done. Your excitement lies in the world. You can't be going to fantastic music venues every evening because then you forget about your work. So these people are extremely productive in terms of science and there's a reason for it. Because their life is miserable? Yeah, I used to have to go there all the time for business myself and I just could never crack the egg. And then I think that the point is there's no egg to crack. It's not. It's just fine. You know what I mean? But I like – it's funny you talk about that because Jason actually gave some commentary to our waiter last night about this octopus being too salty, and he was told that it was meant to be too salty. I mean, these French fries I gave, they were not meant to be called French fries. They were meant to be called like an oily mess. That's disaster. Yeah, so you were mentioning that the American restaurateur chef did not like it when you sent something back. If some American came to your brutalist restaurant and sent something back, how would you respond to that? That's a very good question because I've been thinking about this. What do you do with people who say, you know, like, I want it to be like this, or I'm not taking it the way that how you propose it.

So there was one famous chef, unfortunately I forgot who it was, but it might have been Dan Barber, who had people like that sitting in the restaurant, and all he did was that he said, okay, you know, he said, like, you know, if you don't like it, you can go home, but they wanted this in a certain way, and he just said, okay, and he didn't serve them anything. They were just sitting there. Everybody else got their food. They were complaining, when is my food coming? It's coming soon, don't worry. No way. They never got anything. Dan Barber's too cucked to do something that cool, but I think that is a very cool thing. Maybe it wasn't him. It's a little extreme, if you ask me. Yeah, but in the end they got also a bill, which I think is completely, you know. Yeah, that's the coolest part. Yeah, that's the coolest part. It's a tough question to pose because you're kind of saying, like, my opinion. And my taste is better than yours. No, mine is better than yours. I'm right. You're wrong. A lot of restaurants, or like not a lot of them, but some of them have to kind of fix the problem before it arises by kind of judging who comes in through the doors and who doesn't and being, you know, is this person going to get it? Is this person going to, you know, protest? Are they going to show their nude ass at this menu? Will it not even be worth it? Is that something that you've considered? screening your guests? Yeah, but I think, you know, the trick is that they know they're coming to a place where they get something new, which is, you know, we're not making food like another place. So then you can't say, oh, but I want it to be like in the other place because then you're just in the wrong place. So far the reactions have been extremely positive. I'm surprised. That has been nobody saying, like, I don't like this. I want to go somewhere else. Because I was expecting it. How long has the restaurant been open? Today is day number five. Oh, wow. Oh, shit. So we're in the infant stages of this whole thing. Absolutely. At a very, like, fetal stage, I would say. Just after insemination. There's something strange about people wanting to open restaurants. You know, like...

Almost every second person that you know wants to open a restaurant. Why is that? It's absolutely, I don't get it. For me, it's also like an enigma. It's extremely work incentive. The chances that you're getting money out of it is almost, you know. One of the highest failure rates of any business in the world. Yes, but there's something psychological about it that you want to give food to other people who trust you well enough to eat the food that you give them because it could as well be poison. And, you know, there's a magic in there that we haven't really understood. But it's a phenomenon to see how people want to open this. Also in Stockholm, it's like crazy how many places open all the time. And also, if this restaurant fails, you can just say it was an art project, right? Yeah. No, I'm sure it'll do quite well. I want to talk about the brutalist kitchen manifesto that we were talking about before, in case our listeners are not familiar with it. Kind of a bullet point list of about a dozen sentences that sum up your ideology for this brutalist cooking. I'm just going to run down it. The brutalist kitchen is a dogma kitchen where certain rules apply. So there is a higher power that says this is so and that person is you, I'm assuming. Are you the god in this dogmatic kitchen? Absolutely. Okay. The brutalist kitchen is time. In reference to brutalist architecture, renowned for its linear and blockish appearance, the main rule is the following ingredients are used alone for a certain dish. Only water and salt may be added. And then the more orthodox version is no ingredients can be added whatsoever, kind of like eating a raw oyster or something like that. Is that right? Right. Okay. So salt and water only. Does that mean you're doing a lot of boiling or? Are we allowed to cook with oil or butter or anything like that? Mayonnaise, perhaps? No, mayonnaise is total no-no. That's the enemy number one. Yeah, my man. Fuck mayonnaise. Fuck mayonnaise. Really fuck mayonnaise. Exactly. That's probably the reason why I did this is because I hate mayonnaise so much. My man.

I don't hate it as such because it can be good for certain dishes, but it's not okay to put it on everything. In every kitchen I go in, I see them, they have these big triangular plastic bags with a tiny hole again. It is spraying like, I don't know what, in between tiles or piles of different ingredients that they put on the plate. That's how cooking is nowadays, everywhere. So this is more specifically in like Swedish? Kitchens, I'm assuming? No, no, no. It's actually all over the world. It takes different forms, and then some cuisines, let's say like Thai cuisine, for instance, is per definition anti-butalist, but it doesn't use mayonnaise, and it can be extremely delicious. So I'm not saying it all. Okay, so Thai food gets a pass because they are delicious and anti-mayonnaise. What do you think about people? Would you eat a dish that had mayonnaise in it if you didn't know it was in there and you couldn't see it? Or could you tell? Could you sniff it like a truffle dog? It's everywhere. It's a mass hysteria. I don't know how to call it. It's like crack cocaine. It's infected our streets and communities. It's drinking water. It's unavoidable. I've noticed that there's a common trait of person where they avoid all white creamy substances in terms of food, eating, mayonnaise, ranch dressing, you know, things like that, any type of white creamy sauce, yogurts, sour creams, things like that. Are you one of those people or is it only mayonnaise? No, I didn't know that there was people like that. So, no, it's really... To be against mayonnaise was one reason to write this manifesto, but the main idea is still another one, which is like you wrote a few points, there's 13 of them, but actually there's one main point. The main point is you cook one ingredient by itself and you only add water and salt or not even that. And that means that you have to think about what to do with this ingredient because if you have a chicken, for instance,

It's an easy thing because a chicken has everything. A chicken has grease and you can make a sauce if you want from the intestines and you can make crispy things with it and you can, you know, do it in very different ways and put it together again. So that's what we normally do is that we take the different parts of an ingredient, cook them in different ways and put it together again on a plate. But then there's other things like usually speak about salad. which is tricky because if you have a salad, what do you do with it? There's no olive oil allowed. You can add salt and water, but that doesn't really help you. So you need to find a way to get around this. And the way around it is to either you take the seeds from the salad and you make oil out of it, or you take, for instance, the roots, which is very bitter, and you put it like... the zest of the roots. That could be an idea. You can take the leaves and you can ferment them and use the fermented substance as a kind of, you know, as a dressing. And then it gets very interesting because suddenly you get new tastes that you never had before. And they're all about the ingredient because you want, when you find a good ingredient, you don't want to mess it up with other things. I think it's, you know, it's generally a mistake to think that you must. have something else to go with it. You must alter something to put your stamp on it. If the ingredient is good enough, do the least amount as possible to it. But then you get to show your personality with the plating, or lack thereof, I'm assuming? Yes. I don't want to come across as a missionary, really, because I think all the other cuisines are fine, too. I just think it's so interesting that in cooking, you can still do new things. And very simple ideas. This is a super simple idea. It's based on a dogma. I use the word dogma because it refers to the Danish guys. When was this like 20 years ago or so when they said like, you know, Lars von Trier and Thomas Winterberg and these people, when they said like, oh, now they do like dogma films, which means that you cannot use artificial light anymore. You cannot use a tripod anymore. And they had a set of rules like this and they made some amazing films. They were absolutely stunning.

So I thought, interesting idea. Why don't we do this in kitchen to apply some rules, in this case, ingredient only, and see where we get. And I think the results are absolutely stunning. So the interesting thing is that it's still easy to make a discovery or even like a movement, if you want to call it like this, in cuisine, because there has been so much happening, but only in the last 20 years. As compared to art, where I originally come from, where I think to make a movement is basically impossible nowadays. Restricting and removing and adding more rules. To simplify it and then new things will kind of pop up, moving in reverse versus moving forward kind of. Yeah, if you think about like… It's kind of the only way to go in the world of food where it seems as if everything has already been done before. No, no, no. In food, there's a lot to do. Think about like nose-to-tail eating or like the idea that you get your ingredients from very close to where the places where you serve them or like molecular cuisine. All these things, they're very, very new ideas. They're not even 20 years old. Right, right. Things are happening there now, you know, at this moment when you speak. And in art, the big movements that has been like the last one was maybe, I was maybe part of it like in the 90s or something. Nowadays, it's just a big carousel or something that doesn't produce anything like this anymore. So as an artist, when you think like you want to make something new and you want to, you know, find a way of dealing with what's surrounds us in a specific way that has to do with this artistic input that you can give, then I think cuisine is a very good field to work in. One of the items in your manifesto says, we are born as brutalist eaters, as mother's milk is essentially brutalist. So have you started to explore with the consumption of human breast milk on your menus, or is that out of the question? No, I would love to do that.

Let me get a titty. Nowadays, there shouldn't be such a problem. Have you tasted human breast milk recently? I have two children, so I took the occasion when there was some, but since then, not. You can buy it, and we're thinking of putting it on the menu and see. See what people say. Great minds think alike. I like this. I think you should put on the menu. I think it would ruffle some feathers in a good way. Yes. Even though you Europeans are a little looser with it, I think people would still get to clucking. Speaking of feathers and clucking, what's your relationship with birds? Did I read that you keep a lot of birds in the house, my friend? Yes, I keep a lot of birds, but I'm actually even watching a video right now. So it's like a bird that is in one of my cages. You got a nanny cam for one of your birds? I have a nanny cam for my birds because they can't disturb it. And you have a wife and kids? They're not here. They're just the birds. Okay. They don't talk to Daddy anymore. Not when he's talking to his birds. Okay, so we have the nanny cam for the bird. What is this bird's name that is being monitored as we speak? It is called... A snowy crowns Robin Chet. And have you given him a name yourself? No. I don't do that. I have too many. How many birds are we looking at? What are we looking at? Let's get a number. You don't want to know, Chris. You don't want to know. No. I live in an apartment. So before I was living outside of the city, I had like 100 or so. But now it's just 35. Hold on. Hold on. Karsten. Karsten, hold on. You got 35 birds in the apartment? And we're not talking about women. Roughly. I need to count. We're not talking about women, just to be clear. We're talking about birds that fly. Exactly. They fly. I have like two rooms just for the birds. Well, they would fly if you didn't keep them in a cage.

So what is your relationship? I mean, obviously beyond the pet owner relationship, but is this something you've been passionate about for years and it's gotten to this point? And a follow-up question, what's it smelling like in that apartment, my friend? The follow-up question is a problem, I have to admit. He's like, that question is not funny, actually. cleaners, and so it smells a bit in my apartment. But I have also a professional bird feeder. He comes every day. He cleans, and so it's okay. I mean, we smell, you know, dogs smell, cats smell especially bad. I'm sure you have a connection to Byredo, you know, since they're local. You got all the candles burning. Yeah, yeah. Ben is a friend of mine. I need like the same thing like with my headphones, like noise reduction, smell reduction. So you're pushing Ben to make a smell reduction candle versus addition. That's a good – I like where your head's at. Yes, exactly. Now, we've been actually working on this toothpaste together that I spoke about before. So he's a close friend. But it's not so bad with the smell. It's okay. I'm sure you got used to it. It's more like what I like about the birds the most is the sound. If you come to my apartment and the birds are singing, it's fantastic. It's like an orchestra. I'm not even directing it because they do their own thing. But they sing in slots and then I have very good singers. There's a collection of very good singers that I greet for mainly Africa and some European birds too. I don't want to get into your nefarious activities, but how are you obtaining these birds? Next question. I just don't know the market. You know what I mean? I don't think this is something that you, you know, I just don't know how this works. I want to learn. No, no, no. It's a good question. Have you ever had a guy from Madagascar with a bunch of birds duct taped to his dick? Something like that? I don't get it from the wild because it's forbidden. But there's other breeders. Okay, okay. But sometimes it's a bit.

questionable. Sure, sure, sure, sure. Yeah, yeah, I understand. I've paid cash for things, too. I get how it goes. Yeah, you look the other way, you know, turn the other beak. I want to eat at the restaurant. I have a couple friends that have moved there. Okay, so when are you coming? I want to come this summer. I mean, I feel the summer is the nicest, right? Yeah, it is, but we need to plan this carefully because we're going to close in the summer for the reason that the Swedish people, they all go into some kind of collective coma, which starts... like at the beginning of July and ends in the beginning of August. What do you mean collective? Nobody there anymore. Everybody's like, they have all like a little country house. Everybody. Often without electricity. Toilet outside. I don't know why they like it so much. But everybody's gone. Even the police, the thieves, everybody. There's nobody left. Police is gone. That's the perfect time for me to come. Everybody is on holiday. That's their way of doing it. They work hard. They suffer because of the weather. The weather gets fine. And they switch off completely. I've never seen anything like this. When you go on holiday, where are we going? Where's your number one? Ibiza? Why do you say Ibiza? I'm going there tomorrow. But it's only my second time. Funny that you say that. Because they have some nice grooves. You said you liked African music. I'm sure they have some bongo baleric house happening over there. A couple buttons of your shirt go down as the night falls. Yeah, that shirt's losing two buttons in Ibiza. I'm telling you that right now. Yeah, I don't think that's the right style. I'm really thinking of what to wear because it's like a... I've been invited to come. There's like a new hotel opening and they bring me there as a kind of guest of honor. So it's very nice of them. Which hotel is it? Sixth Sense. And you're like, what am I going to wear? Exactly. Do you have to speak or anything? You just have to be there and have a good time. I have to be there and have a good time and then I'm going to meet them. few people, but there's nothing public in that sense, nothing to be recorded. Chris, what do you think you should be wearing out there? Loewe Resort? Yeah, we need you in some Loewe, I think would be great for you. Who does your shopping? Yeah, who does your shopping? Are you hitting the shops yourself, or do you have somebody that kind of handles that for you? Certainly not. No, I do it myself, but I support a few brands, and they support me, let's put it like that.

My man. You sound like A-Sight Rocky. So these are brands you have relationships with. I have similar relationships where there are brands that like me as well. They're probably not quite as expensive as the ones that like you. Mine are very expensive. This motherfucker. Okay, so you got the Prada plug? I can't take that to Ibiza. Okay. You're saying you can't take the custom suiting to Ibiza. That would be just wrong. So maybe, I mean, do you wear shorts? You don't strike me as a shorts guy. I love shorts. I have very nice legs. Yeah, my man. You have nice legs. Are you a runner, a cyclist? I was a runner and just kind of stayed. That's great. You do give me a runner vibe, I have to say. Were you doing like marathons or like, what are we talking about? Yeah, I was doing like long distance running. I never made a marathon, but I was like, basically as a boy, I was running, running, running. I was admiring people who could do that. So I was doing that. But I stopped. I don't do it anymore. What are you doing now? What are you doing for exercise? You can't just think all the time. I don't do anything. I don't exercise. He's German. He doesn't have to exercise. No, here comes. He doesn't do anything? No, here comes. I do like gymnastics in the morning, five minutes from my back. But that's it. And here comes the thing. It's about what you eat, not how you exercise. That's the main thing. If you eat brutalist, you're going to be in great shape. No, it's true. Look. You've turned me... That's true. Yeah, no, that all tracks. I think exercise for a lot of us is for the mental, though. You know what I mean? I mean, think about it. You go to these places, they're so ugly. They smell bad. You spoke about the smell in my apartment. Go to a gym, and then you make a choice because it smells better than my place. It's a very good point. And then you have all these people doing ridiculous movements all day long. No, I can't. I think it's like... I understand some people have to do it. But you can solve a big part of the problem by eating better. But I think that this is an opportunity for us to maybe the three of us to revolutionize the way the gym looks. I think this is an opportunity. Yes. You did the restaurant. Now it's time to do a gym with us. I think we could kind of – we're not bringing a lot of financial capital to the table, but we have a lot of knowledge in the space.

And I feel like you got the bread, so I think we can make this happen. I think it's a very good idea. You know, they're having these gyms, so they try to, because it's also like a waste of energy, not just in the sense that I spoke about before, but also because all the energy that is produced just goes nowhere. So there are some gyms now. Turn that into some Bitcoin. I see where it heads at. Yeah, we incorporate the energy, so we should think about that. That's a good idea, actually. I would love to make energy. I'll get those guys at MIT on it. You can call them and let them know that I'm going to be getting in touch. I call them after I'll talk. I call them right away. Carson, we were talking about kind of materials and textiles earlier. A couple episodes ago, we had a famous rapper on as our guest, and I asked him to... rank his top three favorite prescription pills to take recreationally, you said you don't really have a drug use background. So could you rank your top three favorite surfaces? Do you get horny for stainless steel, smooth cement, chunky cement? You know, let's get into some surfaces and textiles. What did the rapper say? I'm curious because I know that in America, you know, there's a different culture, which is basically based on three pills. I don't know. Am I supposed to name him? Percocet is number one, right, Jason? What else? Yeah, it was Percocet, MDMA, and Xanax. Xanax is very good. Xanax I like a lot. Xanax is very good. I agree, Carson. Yes, it is. Well put. Well stated. It's right to the point. Hopefully you have a little two milligram for that little flight over to Ibiza tomorrow. Perfect for a plan. Yes, I know. It's like it's a dangerous drug, but it works because it's, you know, for people who are not anxiolytic, I think you call it like this, who are not plagued by too much anguish. Anxiety? Anxiety. If you take it, it's just a wonderful sleeping pill. It makes you feel good. There are some downsides, though. Yes, like a headache if you take too much of it. Headache, that's not a downside. I'm talking about waking up in a different county. Oh. Yeah, getting the sweats and maybe shitting yourself as you get off of them, as you wean off, you know what I mean? Falling asleep while driving a car, things like that. Yeah, it gets a lot. Most recommended.

Okay, so, yeah, I mean. What are your top three? So are we going stone? Are we going stainless? Travertine? What are we looking at? Wood? You're a wood guy? What's going on? I really like ideas. That's my main thing. I'm not, you know, materials. If somebody says to me, make an artwork in stainless steel, I would say that I wouldn't know what to do. But if somebody says, why don't we, you know, like what you said before, let's think about the gym. How could that be done in a different way? then things are starting to happen. So there's a few idea topics that I like most. That makes sense. So one of them being doubts, which I've been working on a lot and which I find a fascinating topic. You said doubt? Doubts. Doubts as such, like the opposite of certainty. Okay. Do you want me to elaborate on this? No, I just wanted to make sure you were saying the right word that I was understanding. Okay. Doubts, I find very interesting. Fun, I also find very interesting. Let's go. Fun in a sense because, you know, like I would say like we can live without fun. We don't need fun. A life without fun is perfectly possible. So why do we, you know, are guided by fun to such an extent? Why is fun such an important part of our life? What is going on? Is there something which is maybe another entity, like, say, like a parasite, for instance, that has taken possession of us and is proliferating in the way how we treat it when we travel to Ibiza tomorrow, for instance? I don't think this has been very well explained. Philosophers, for instance, have kept their hand out of the question because fun is kind of, you know. It's an intangible thing. A slimy matter that you cannot get a grip of, really, like a little bit like the dreams of the scientists. So dogs and fun, I think, are very, or entertainment as such, if not like directly goal-oriented, like, say, having sex or things like that. Why do we need to have fun? It doesn't make so much sense to me. I think it's a very interesting question that hasn't been asked very much. Well, I guess a follow-up question to that, how do you make brutalism fun? By reducing the amount of noise.

that you experience while eating and by doing so, creating a certain focus and a possibility to get out something that you wouldn't get out otherwise, which is the taste of an ingredient. And as you all know, to eat good food is very good fun. I agree with that. And so you mentioned eating it in an environment that is quiet. Do you play music in your restaurant or is it a controlled soundtrack created by an ambient music artist or something like that? I've been thinking about it and the result is that we don't play music in the restaurant. It's probably the only one in Stockholm, at least the only one I know. So there's no music until the kitchen closes. And then we also changed the lighting system because we have this big Dan Flavin work. I don't know if you're familiar with this. Wow, what a flex. You got a Flavin in the restaurant? Yeah, we got a big Flavin in the restaurant. It's like five of these gigantic fluorescent tubes. Two are pink. Two are yellow and one is green. And that's like lighting up the whole restaurant. So people look a little bit sick in there. But it's okay. It's okay during the daytime because there's light coming in. But then when it gets dark, it's getting a bit too much. So at some point, and especially when the kitchen is closing, we switch off the flavor. We put on LEDs that are following like the contours of the windows and architecture in general. And we put on music. because then people can actually enjoy themselves in a different way. Okay. And so Chris personally has a problem with restaurants here in America, Los Angeles, where you'll have kind of like a fine dining restaurant, maybe an Italian spot or something like that. and they'll be playing kind of very loud hip-hop music because they think it's a juxtaposition that is just never-ending fun. But it's a little tired now, so what kind of music are you guys playing? Is it a little Todd Terje, something like that? We haven't really figured out yet what, you know, because as I said, we're at the very beginning, but I have some very nice Congolese playlists that are older stuff.

to the 70s maybe. Then we have newer things. But we're working also like, you know, I actually like very much this one app which is called Radio Garden where you can go in a radio station somewhere in the world and you say like, okay, so... Today, I don't know, we go to Cali in Colombia and find a good radio station there. And we just play that. And it's wonderful. It's life. It's very cool. It's happening right now. And then you don't need to have a playlist necessarily. So we can do it a bit on the mood. But it's still the ideas when you eat, no music, because I find it just often very destructive and it makes people speak even louder. You can't focus on the food. You can't speak to the other person you want to speak to. So no music. I'm with you. I have an idea, though. I think maybe we should put some field recording-style microphones in the restaurant, record service, just the ambient sounds, and then put that out on vinyl. Yes. You know, I think we could get some purchasers there. I think that would be a nice brand building. The sexual clanking of silverware. The light chatter, you know what I mean? The shuffling of the staff. I think it could be kind of meditative. Yes. Do you want that for the podcast? Or do you mean I should play that in the restaurant? No, I'm saying I think you should package it and release it for sale. Yes. So that people could listen. to brutal listen at home you know what i mean when they want that effect like let's say jason's cooking dinner for me obviously we're not really staffed up like that but we want that we want the feeling of the restaurant we put we put brutal listen on the hi-fi and all of a sudden we're transported to stockholm and the experience of the restaurant is is happening right there at home in la so i can i can have the experience of being in the restaurant but also have the ability to eat lots of mayo with impunity. So much mayonnaise is going in, and it's naughty, and frankly, it's sexual. Yeah, and it can even be mouth-watering, because it's a kind of thing that will come across as very arty. There's artists, they made a vinyl that is called Wayne. That's right. And then...

When what you hear is rain, it's actually very nice. That's where my head's at. What I'll do then on my side is we'll get this done and then I'll also kind of for a video component for me, I can have it playing and then have Jason eating mayonnaise kind of slowly to the music and then kind of send that over to you and see if you want to add a layer to it. To the mayonnaise eating? Is it like a lot of slurping and slurping like this? It'll be mayonnaise five ways, kind of omakase style. Yeah, I just want you to maybe experience mayonnaise eating through the eyes of someone who truly loves it. Let me show you my mayonnaise. Yeah, because I hate it too. I know you're from the home of mayonnaise, but it's time to take a second look at that beautiful creamy substance. I hate it too, Carson. Trust me, it's something we fight about a lot on this program. It's a big topic. People don't know how much it influences their lives. We have to put this really more on the menu. I love this. I know. And I think the silent restaurant is something that I feel like I might not notice it, you know what I mean, when I enter and maybe when I'm seated. But then maybe throughout the meal, I start to realize that I'm more relaxed and the conversation is easier. And that is very cool to me. I don't think it would jump out, but as I go through the meal, it would gradually kind of reveal itself to me, and I would have to realize why I'm having a better time, and the conversation is easier. Evolve from the subconscious to the conscious over the course of your meal. Exactly. Beautiful. Yeah, but in terms of taste experience, don't get me started on mayonnaise, but mayonnaise is some kind of enhancer in the first place. It's a bit like a replacement of the old cream sauce. Because cream sauce is totally passé, nobody's doing it anymore. So you have mayonnaise nowadays in different forms. But what it does is that maybe it brings out the taste in a more palatable way, but it takes out the edges, all the little spikes and different things and what makes the subtlety of a certain food. It goes away when you put mayonnaise to it. It just makes it into a big clumsy mess.

And, you know, that's not the idea. That's why we do brutalism, because we want to go into something, not try to hide something. You want your French fry to taste like a potato, not like eggs and oil. So the ultimate mayonnaise dish for me is a very perverse dish. I grew up in Brussels, and in Brussels we have a lot of French fries, as you know. So we have these three trees. And then in the three trees they sell something which is called a mitraillette. So that's a long, like a baguette. bread that you slice up in the middle, you fill it with french fries and a lot of mayonnaise and you eat that. That I do sometimes because it's extreme. And then mayonnaise makes sense, you know, that goes so much over the top. That's fucked up. It is. I'm starting to see what kind of guy you really are, and it's twisted in there. I'm assuming you eat this sandwich in the nude? Is it nude? Of course. I mean, you have to throw your clothes away afterwards. You have to throw your clothes away? Deadass. But you really do. I am aware of that sandwich, and it is very twisted. But I also think there's a little bit of a... You know, a nostalgia element for you, obviously. If you grew up eating that and it's part of your life at a young age, then going back to it is a nice warm hug. Yes, but, you know, I also like these extremes. I like this mitrajeta, the opposite of brutalization. I also live in Sweden and I have a house in Ghana and West Africa, which I, you know, from my experience, I think are, you know, the most opposite places that you can think. I really think it's, you know, as a life model, if I may say, a good idea. to avoid all the middle ground and just go for the extremes. And then you find something. Damn, that's good advice, honestly. That's really good advice. I think a lot of our world is middling, and that's the stuff that often comes to the surface, unfortunately. Yeah, mayonnaise is middling. So, you know, it's like the perfect metaphor. That's right. If you think mayonnaise not just as a kind of food item, but like how life is in general and what people say, it's mayonnaise all over the place.

Wow, shit. Mayonnaise as a metaphor. Carson. Just a sheen coat covering everything, taking out all the edges and excitement. That's right. You've given us a lot to think about, Carson. It's been a treat talking to you. It's been a pleasure. Yeah, it's been a pleasure. We really appreciate you joining us. Same here. We'll come check you. When we're in Stockholm, we'll come check you out, get a smell of those birds, have a bite at the restaurant. I'm dying to come try this restaurant, my friend. We'll be out there as soon as possible. Let's make sure you're coming when we're not close enough. So come either before or after. They're back in August. We'll let you know. We'll be in touch. We obviously want the full VIP treatment, of course. That's what I want to hear. Carson, thank you. Thank you for joining us, and good luck with everything. Have fun in Ibiza. Thank you. Thank you.