EPISODE 48: Invites Close Listening

This week’s prompts: Opal, Calendar, 1796

In this episode, Lauren and Neal dive into illuminated manuscripts, chaotic filmmaking, and the sounds that make your palms sweat.

First up: Lauren unpacks The Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry, one of the most important medieval manuscripts ever created. We explore why it's a masterpiece of Christian devotion, seasonal symbolism, and early art history—featuring astrological charts, noble feasts, a pregnant grape-picker (!), and even some cheeky peasant butts.

Then Neal breaks down why Uncut Gems (2019) is one of the most stressful films of all time. Discover how the Safdie Brothers used overlapping dialogue, handheld cinematography, telephoto lenses, and non-actors to trap viewers inside Adam Sandler’s unrelenting chaos. If you’ve ever felt stressed just watching a movie—this one’s for you.

This episode covers:

📚 BIG ANNOUNCEMENT: Our 50th episode is coming—and we're doing a Curated by Chance Book Club! Join us as we read How to Solve Your Own Murder by Kristen Perrin. You’ve got two weeks to grab a copy!

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EPISODE 50: How to Solve Your Own Podcast

We did it! 50 episodes in, Curated by Chance hits its midlife crisis—no Porsche, no Bali retreat, but Neal and Lauren are still here, still talking, and (shockingly) still not out of things to say. To celebrate the big 5-0, we’re cracking open our first ever CBC Book Club pick: How to Solve Your Own Murder by Kristen Perrin.

What begins as a light mystery read turns into a wide-ranging discussion on genre expectations, literary pet peeves, cozy vibes, and what makes a character actually worth rooting for. Lauren and Neal get honest about the book’s writing style, plot twists, character development (or lack thereof), and how it compares to their beloved Richard Osman universe.

📚 What’s inside:
– Our honest review of How to Solve Your Own Murder
– Thoughts on the “pastiche problem” in genre fiction
– Why fainting doesn’t count as a personality
– Where the romance subplot could’ve gone
– And what actually surprised us about the plot

Also discussed:
💬 Listening at 1.25 speed
📸 Posting episode extras on Instagram (@curatedbychance)
📖 The logistics (and dreams) of a future CBC Book Club tier
📘 P.D. James, Margaret Atwood, and the ghost of Agatha Christie
🎨 Art moms, missing townspeople, and the need for a “cool bitch” character
💋 And a wild aside about writing erotic fiction (Patreon exclusive?)

Your prompts for next week:
Parisian
Crown
540
Fuchsia

Have thoughts on the book? Want to nominate our next read? Drop us a message on Instagram or email us at [email protected]. And let us know—should the CBC Book Club be a recurring thing?

Help Support The Show On Patreon!

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Join The Curated By Chance Music League (RD 2):

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Follow the show and its creators on Instagram:

The Show - @curatedbychance

Lauren - @paisleylo

Neal - @nealefischer

E-mail us: [email protected]

Hear Neal each week on Triviality Podcast. Subscribe now!

Listen to Lauren on Miss Information Podcast! Subscribe now!

Check out Neal's newest book on MrBeast and his other books available now and for pre-order!

www.linktr.ee/nealefischer

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EPISODE 49: King of Bugs

This week’s prompts: Ivory, Pen, Radio, 1988

Morning energy hits different—especially when you’re caffeinated, half-unpacked, and dodging…critters? In this early-bird episode, Lauren and Neal dive into a grab bag of topics, from cinematic corporate climbs to tragic artistic genius.

First up, Neal shares a behind-the-scenes deep dive into Working Girl (1988). Hear the untold stories of Melanie Griffith’s sobriety struggles, Harrison Ford’s tzatziki-covered charm, and how Carly Simon’s Oscar-winning song almost got replaced by “Witchy Woman.” It’s a time capsule of shoulder pads, Staten Island, and serious 80s vibes.

Then, Lauren unpacks the short, brilliant, and heartbreaking life of Jean-Michel Basquiat. From street graffiti to gallery superstardom, Basquiat's rise through the New York art world was as meteoric as it was complicated. Learn how his work was shaped by language, jazz, anatomy, and identity—and how the art world has commodified and forged his legacy.

Plus:
– Which famous actor turned down Melanie Griffith?
– Who did Basquiat sell his first painting to?
– And what exactly crawled out of Neal’s hat?

REMINDER: Next week’s 50th episode is coming—and we're doing a Curated by Chance Book Club! Join us as we read How to Solve Your Own Murder by Kristen Perrin. You have one week to read, or just tune in to hear the basics and revisit when you finish!

Help Support The Show On Patreon!

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Check Out Lauren’s Substack

https://ltlikesthis.substack.com/ 

Join The Curated By Chance Music League (RD 2):

bit.ly/4iSDSmx

Follow the show and its creators on Instagram:

The Show - @curatedbychance

Lauren - @paisleylo

Neal - @nealefischer

E-mail us: [email protected]

Hear Neal each week on Triviality Podcast. Subscribe now!

Listen to Lauren on Miss Information Podcast! Subscribe now!

Check out Neal's newest book on MrBeast and his other books available now and for pre-order!

www.linktr.ee/nealefischer

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EPISODE 47: Double Jackpot All The Way

PROMPTS: Bridge, Tangerine, 1077

This week, Neal and Lauren balance on the edge—of collapsing bridges, spiritual awakenings, and the line between realism and mysticism. It’s an episode about burden and beauty, as we trace the paths of two vastly different artists connected by one thing: the courage to push beyond what’s expected and into something sublime.

Neal dives into William Friedkin’s Sorcerer (1977), the sweaty, pulse-pounding remake of The Wages of Fear. It’s a tale of four desperate men driving trucks full of nitroglycerin across a rotting jungle bridge—but it’s also a story about fate, failure, and Friedkin’s quest to make something raw and real. Neal explores the movie’s notorious production chaos, its moody Tangerine Dream score, and why this film—long overshadowed—might just be a masterpiece.

Lauren brings light to the life and work of M. Louise Stowell, a Rochester-based artist and educator, who wove mysticism, nature, and design into luminous works of watercolor, posters, and illustration. A founding member of the Rochester Arts and Crafts Society, Stowell studied with Arthur Wesley Dow and taught at what is now RIT. Her work—dreamlike and spiritually charged—blended Japanese aesthetics, feminist ideals, and celestial symbolism. With glowing moonlit forms and reverence for line, space, and color, Stowell built quiet, meditative bridges between the physical world and something deeper.

Help Support The Show On Patreon!

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Join The Curated By Chance Music League (RD 2):

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Follow the show and its creators on Instagram:

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Hear Neal each week on Triviality Podcast. Subscribe now!

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Check out Neal's newest book on Cristiano Ronaldo and his other books available now and for pre-order!

www.linktr.ee/nealefischer

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EPISODE 46: I'm Gonna Go Take A Bath

4PROMPTS: Sweet, Disguise, Violet, 1166

This week, Neal and Lauren unwrap stories that look sweet on the surface—but dig a little deeper and you’ll find layers of longing, legacy, and lawsuits. It’s an episode about beauty, disguise, and the unexpected depth behind desserts and string sections.

Neal revisits Bitter Sweet Symphony by The Verve, a song so instantly iconic that it dominated 1997—and nearly destroyed the band that made it. He traces how a borrowed Rolling Stones sample led to one of music’s most infamous copyright clashes, why Richard Ashcroft’s swagger couldn’t save The Verve from implosion, and how the song’s legacy was shaped by ego, irony, and a long-overdue apology two decades later. Also: Liam Gallagher shows up, because of course he does.

Then Lauren brings us a rich and frosted journey through the work of Wayne Thiebaud, the painter who made cakes, pies, gumball machines, and deli counters into pop art masterpieces. With thick brushstrokes and brighter-than-life color, Thiebaud made the everyday delicious—and deeply emotional. Lauren explains why his art isn’t quite Pop, what makes his shadows so satisfying, and how stillness and sugar can say more than satire.

⁠www.whosampled.com⁠

Help Support The Show On Patreon!

⁠www.patreon.com/curatedbychance⁠

Check Out Lauren’s Substack

⁠https://ltlikesthis.substack.com/⁠ 

Join The Curated By Chance Music League (RD 2):

⁠bit.ly/4iSDSmx⁠

Follow the show and its creators on Instagram:

The Show - ⁠@curatedbychance⁠

Lauren - ⁠@paisleylo⁠

Neal - ⁠@nealefischer⁠

E-mail us: ⁠[email protected]⁠

⁠Hear Neal each week on Triviality Podcast. Subscribe now!⁠

⁠Listen to Lauren on Miss Information Podcast! Subscribe now!⁠

Check out Neal's newest book on Cristiano Ronaldo and his other books available now and for pre-order!

⁠www.linktr.ee/nealefischer

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EPISODE 45: The DMV of the Afterlife

PROMPTS: Bath, Copper, 949

This week, Neal and Lauren step into two seemingly very different worlds—one of foster kids, foul balls, and 90s baseball magic, the other of copper plates, religious politics, and some seriously metal Renaissance art. It’s an episode about faith, fandom, and just how much you can say with a single image (or a single angel).

Neal revisits Angels in the Outfield (1994), a feel-good Disney sports fantasy that came out just as Major League Baseball faced one of its darkest real-life chapters. From Christopher Lloyd’s mischievous angel to Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s hopeful foster kid, Neal dives into the film’s quirky backstory—including its origins in a Jesuit radio play, why Disney picked the California Angels, and how four Oscar winners somehow ended up in this kids’ movie. Plus: Tony Danza’s arm bath, major Major League references, and life lessons on and off the field.

Then Lauren gives us a crash course on the art, politics, and religious drama behind the prints of Albrecht Dürer, the Renaissance engraving genius whose copper-plate works helped define the German Reformation era. From The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse to Melencolia I to an eerily accurate rhino he never saw in person, Dürer’s art was moralizing, mathematical, and meticulously beautiful. Learn why his prints spread across Europe (and schoolbooks), how they avoided the wrath of Protestant iconoclasts, and why his self-portrait was basically Renaissance Instagram thirst-trap energy.

Neal's Topic: Angels in the Outfield (1994)

Lauren's Topic: Albrecht Dürer

Help Support The Show On Patreon!

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Follow the show and its creators on Instagram:

E-mail us: [email protected]

Hear Neal each week on Triviality Podcast. Subscribe now!

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Check out Neal's newest book on Cristiano Ronaldo and his other books available now and for pre-order!

www.linktr.ee/nealefischer

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Episode 44: Pollen the Size of Cotton Balls

PROMPTS: Teal, Pizza, 236

This week, Lauren and Neal wander down wildly different (but equally satisfying) paths—one lined with sumptuous portraits and queer-coded brushstrokes, the other dripping with melted cheese, pizza lore, and ’80s teen movie mayhem. It’s an episode about beauty, indulgence, and the long, strange history of how we present people and pizza.

Lauren goes long on John Singer Sargent, the prolific portraitist whose mastery of fabric, personality, and sensuality made him the toast of the Gilded Age—and also got him chased out of Paris for painting a strap just a little too far off a woman’s shoulder. From the iconic Portrait of Madame X to the hotly debated Dr. Pozzi at Home, Lauren makes the case for Sargent as one of the most talented—and possibly most closeted—painters of his generation. Expect velvet, scandal, blush-toned skin, and a long detour through art historian beef.

Then Neal sets the table for a smorgasbord of pizza in film, from the absurd (Loverboy) to the iconic (Do the Right Thing) to the TV (Breaking Bad’s flying pie). With a heavy slice of Patrick Dempsey, a dash of Spider-Man, and a drizzle of grease-dripping nostalgia, Neal breaks down the evolution of pizza on screen—including the moment it first appeared, when it was called “pizza pie,” and why 85% of film pizza looks inedible. Anchovies optional.

Help Support The Show On Patreon!

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This week, Neal and Lauren dig deep—into Detroit’s dystopian futures and the defiant symbolism of a pink dress on the border between two worlds. From cyborg vengeance and squib-splattered satire to political identity and anti-colonial resistance, this episode is about the body: armored, wounded, and framed for revolution.

Neal takes the first swing (and squib) with a dive into RoboCop (1987), Paul Verhoeven’s ultraviolent, ultra-satirical sci-fi cult classic set in a future Detroit teetering on collapse. Come for the gunslinger-cyborg revenge story, stay for the commentary on Reaganomics, privatized policing, Nazi propaganda, and a Walkman loaded with Peter Gabriel. Learn how director Verhoeven’s childhood under Nazi occupation shaped his explosive style—and why RoboCop is both an American Jesus and corporate cautionary tale.

Then Lauren paints a political portrait—literally—by unpacking Self-Portrait on the Border Between Mexico and the United States (1932) by Frida Kahlo. In this often-overlooked work housed at the Detroit Institute of Arts, Frida dons a blush pink dress (out of character, but not out of context) and straddles cultural, national, and personal lines. From ancient Aztec ruins and industrial smokestacks to electric roots and subtle rebellion, this piece is a masterclass in using art as a weapon—and a warning. Also: unibrows, impalement, and political feminism done Frida’s way.

Neal's Topic:

RoboCop (1987)

Directed by Paul Verhoeven

Lauren's Topic:

Self-Portrait on the Border Between Mexico and the United States

(1932)

Frida Kahlo

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Episode 42: Wash Your Damn Hands!

Prompts: Kitchen, Bronze, 80

Fresh off a trip to Boston, Lauren recounts her culinary and curatorial adventures (chocolate chip cookies in bed, lobster dumplings, and one surreal encounter with a butter-yellow sculpture of a woman peeing). Her topic? The extraordinary and unsettling work of contemporary artist Kiki Smith. Known for her sculptures, prints, and bronze bodies that explore everything from menstruation to myth, Smith is a feminist powerhouse whose work challenges viewers to confront death, discomfort, and the sacred messiness of being alive. Highlights include her crawling, glass-eyed Lilith, apothecary bottles labeled with fluids like “vomit” and “urine,” and a haunting series of woodcuts documenting her mother’s death.

Then Neal flips the episode’s aesthetic and emotional tone with a loving deep dive into the career of Nancy Meyers, queen of the romantic comedy, goddess of the marble kitchen island, and the only woman in Hollywood with consistent Final Cut. From Private Benjamin and The Parent Trap to Something’s Gotta Give, The Holiday, and It’s Complicated, Neal celebrates Meyers’ buttery, beige, beautifully structured world—and her game-changing success as a writer-director who made movies about middle-aged women... and made millions doing it.

Also: urinal etiquette, olive texture trauma, and what lullabies have to do with demons.

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Episode 41: How is that better, Catholically?

PROMPTS: 30, Expose, Shadow

From the tight grip of Hollywood’s moral code to the brooding, empty piazzas of metaphysical painting, it’s all about what happens when shadows speak louder than light.

Neal exposes the strange, fascinating, and deeply moralistic world of the Hays Code, Hollywood’s self-imposed censorship system that ruled American cinema from the 1930s to the 1960s. From Fatty Arbuckle to Gone with the Wind, Casablanca, and the birth of film noir, Neal tracks the cultural panic that shaped what we could (and couldn’t) see on screen—and how filmmakers got clever with innuendo, subtext, and shadowy visual metaphors. Plus: the Catholic Church’s role in forming the hilariously named but terrifyingly influential Legion of Decency.

Then Lauren steps into the surreal with Giorgio de Chirico, a metaphysical painter who helped pave the way for Surrealism—and then completely rejected it. With eerie cityscapes, haunting shadows, and mythic stillness, de Chirico’s early work captivated the likes of Magritte and Dalí… until he denounced it all as forgeries. We explore his moody brilliance, his retreat into classicism, and how his lonely mannequins and Roman arcades still echo through modern art and cinema.

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