#59 Etta

Summary

Heavyweight Podcast — Episode 59: "Etta"

Host: Jonathan Goldstein
Release Date: September 18, 2025
Production: Pushkin Industries

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Episode Overview

The episode "Etta" revolves around Jonathan Goldstein helping his longtime friend Gregor (and by extension, Gregor’s siblings Lexi and Dimitri) face the emotionally fraught issue of moving their elderly artist mother, Etta Ehrlich, and their poet father, Milt, out of their dangerously cluttered Victorian house. Etta, a compulsive collector and prolific outsider artist, finds herself unable to part with her vast and eclectic collections—particularly her fragile, message-in-a-bottle artworks—even as age and illness loom. The episode explores the paradox of holding on and letting go, the meaning of art, family dynamics, mortality, and how we ultimately navigate transitions and loss.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Meet the Ehrlichs: Collectors, Artists, and Their Clutter ([02:52]–[05:13])

• Etta and Milt are described: creative, highly attached to their three-story home, and surrounded by Etta’s thousands of artistic creations and odd collections.
  • Quirk: Etta collects collections—200+ antique egg beaters, 2,000+ bisqueneiders (bobblehead figurines from Japan), old bottles, weaving looms, etc.
  • Quote — Etta (on her art):
    “I turn my noose to tightropuse and madly dance upon it. Isn't that gorgeous?” ([06:18])
• The problem: Their home is now dangerously cluttered, a hazard for aging bodies.

2. The Paradox of Etta’s Bottles — Preaching Letting Go, Not Practicing It ([05:36]–[07:31])

• Etta’s signature artworks are bottles adorned with philosophical, Zen-like messages about impermanence and letting go, but she herself cannot part with them.
  • Quote — Jonathan:
    “All the bottles bear messages imploring one to let go. Yet Etta is incapable of letting go of the very bottles doing the imploring…” ([06:47])
  • Etta responds:
    “You're very, very sharp. That is exactly, exactly true. These works which talk about being stuck with the grasping level, I suffer from that.” ([07:16])

3. Family Tensions: Gregor’s Urgency vs. Etta’s Attachment ([03:03]–[08:58])

• Gregor’s fear: His parents, especially his mother, may be seriously harmed by remaining in their hazardous, overfilled home.
  • Quote — Gregor:
    “I fear my mother falling down a flight of stairs, or my father. I mean, there's all kinds of dark things that can happen in a house full of staircases.” ([04:57])
• Milt’s position: Claims to be unattached, but secretly enjoys aiding Etta’s collecting, always on the hunt for more “charming” raw materials.
• Family irony: Etta feels stuck and can’t find a solution: “Except dying. That’s not a solution for Greg. He’s left holding the whole thing.” ([08:58])

4. Outlandish Schemes: Barn Museums & Hypnotism ([10:06]–[17:57])

• Gregor’s workaround: Proposes converting an old barn on a family property into the "Etta B. Ehrlich Museum" as a compromise to preserve Etta’s art without risking her safety.
  • Skepticism: Siblings point out the barn is a “breeding ground for the hantavirus,” is mold-ridden, and harbors raccoons ([15:19]).
• Dimitri’s alternative: Suggests hypnosis, recalling how it once cured Etta's smoking habit.
  • Quote — Dimitri:
    “Maybe hypnosis. It stops her from smoking, which is probably a more powerful psychological and physical addiction than collecting things.” ([16:18])
• Both ideas are ultimately impractical—hypnotists refuse the project and the barn is unsuitable.

5. A Revelatory Night — Etta’s Art Show and a Health Crisis ([24:17]–[27:24])

• Turning point: Etta is offered her first major solo exhibition in Manhattan, basking in validation and praise (“This guy told me that I was beautiful.” [21:44]).
• Tragedy strikes: Milt collapses at the end of the night; Etta is forced to verbalize what she’d been resisting:
  "You might as well order the dumpsters right now. Meaning, you win. Empty out the house, because if Milt isn't coming back to it, that's it." ([26:05])
• Jonathan reflects:
  “How do you know when the Damoclean sword of mortality isn’t just dangling above you, but actually falling?” ([26:13])

6. Letting Go, a Step at a Time ([27:24]–[34:49])

• A gradual shift: After Milt’s illness scare, Etta starts personally matching bottles to specific people and letting them go, something she never did before.
  • Quote — Etta:
    "I now have a whole shelf full of stuff that I’m now earmarking to give away." ([28:25])
    "When I think of giving a person a bottle, I have to think, would it be good for that person?" ([28:50])

7. Illness, Family Vigil, Acceptance, and Etta’s Passing ([32:04]–[36:02])

• Etta’s final months: Diagnosed with brain cancer; the family all move in together to care for her as she rapidly deteriorates.
  • Gregor on Etta’s end:
    "She would be laying there with her eyes shut, but smiling…and she was just…dancing by just flowing her hand in the air. It felt like a great death." ([33:55])
• The great paradox resolves: Etta, at the end, is able to let go—her words finally “sink in.”

8. The Aftermath — Those Left Behind ([35:03]–[39:50])

• The children inherit Etta’s struggle: Lexi and Gregor admit they, too, now have trouble parting with Etta’s art and collections.
  • Quote — Lexi:
    “It just feels really hard to…like her art…it feels like a part of her.” ([35:26])
  • Gregor:
    "I think of her a lot."
• Meaning of art and memory: Milt posits, “The reason people make art is so that they're not forgotten when they die.” ([35:36])
• Jonathan, on Etta’s final bottle to him:
  "I would love to live like a river flows, carried by the surprise of its own unfolding." ([37:59])

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On collecting and impermanence:
  • Etta: “All these works which talk about being stuck with the grasping level, I suffer from that.” ([07:16])
• On avoidance and denial:
  • Dimitri: “Just sort of watch the second hand sweep around the clock face until somebody's dead is the most passive and weakest possible way to exist and die.” ([09:41])
• On art and legacy:
  • Jonathan: “The words on the bottles had finally sunk in. In the end, Etta could dance out of the world gracefully. No grasping. It's the living who are left to grasp.” ([34:49])
• On grief and memory:
  • Dimitri: “I carry her with me. I mean, in the way that…when I experience something, I can't help but hear my mother's voice making fun of me for my description…” ([36:06])
• Closing reflection:
  • Jonathan: “My feeling today is that bodies are vessels, just like colorful bottles are vessels, just like podcasts and houses packed with stuff. And all of art…It's there to help us get closer to the non stuff. Because like the words Etta inscribed on one of her final bottles, all important, important matters are invisible.” ([39:00])

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Key Segments (Timestamps)

• Etta’s approach to art and collection — [04:12]–[07:31]
• Family confronts the problem — [08:51]–[10:06]
• The barn museum pitch — [10:22]–[15:37]
• Dimitri’s hypnosis idea — [16:18]–[17:57]
• Etta’s art opening and Milt’s collapse — [24:17]–[27:24]
• Etta begins letting go — [28:08]–[30:48]
• Family supports Etta at the end — [32:04]–[34:49]
• The ongoing struggle to let go — [35:03]–[36:54]
• Etta’s final message and Jonathan’s reflection — [37:59]–[39:50]

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Additional Details

• Sibling banter brings levity, especially scenes of Dimitri and Gregor riffing on Jonathan’s “smug smile” and playful teasing about “voluntary baldness syndrome.” ([20:10]–[21:02])
• The episode’s arc is ultimately about finding meaning and love in the act of letting go, honoring the complicated ties between family, memory, and objects, and accepting that loss—and release—cannot be perfectly scripted or controlled.

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Final Takeaway

“Etta” is a poignant, funny, and insightful meditation on the contradictions of holding on and letting go—whether of stuff, ideals, or loved ones. Through the story of the Ehrlich family and their cluttered, art-filled house, Goldstein captures the universal struggle to manage change, the desire to preserve, and the grace possible in surrender.

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Key quote to carry with you:

"I would love to live like a river flows, carried by the surprise of its own unfolding."
— Etta Ehrlich’s final bottle to Jonathan ([37:59])

Transcript

[Jonathan Goldstein]

Pushkin. Hello, I'd like to welcome to the show Jackie Cohen. Bye bye, Jackie.

[Etta Ehrlich]

Bye bye.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

Now, it's a new season. I'm with a new company, Pushkin Industries, and I thought it might be nice for you to, you know, tell everyone how much the show has meant to you.

[Etta Ehrlich]

Can you see the look on my face right now?

[Jonathan Goldstein]

We're on the telephone.

[Etta Ehrlich]

Can you imagine what kind of look I have on my face right now?

[Jonathan Goldstein]

Ecstasy.

[Etta Ehrlich]

Disgust.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

Heavyweight is back. Mamala. They thought we were down for the count.

[Gregor]

Can I hang up now?

[Jonathan Goldstein]

But what's this? Oh, oh. With a right and a left. Heavyweight's back pushing it with Pushkin Mamela. Pushkin Industries.

[Gregor]

Okay, I got it. I gotta go.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

Okay, you go with that. Bye. Bye. From Pushkin Industries. Hey, guys, I'm Jonathan Goldstein, and this is Heavyweight. Today's episode, Etta, right after the break. This is an Iheart podcast.

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[Manny]

Why are TSA rules so confusing?

[Gregor]

You got a hoodie on. Take it off.

[Manny]

I'm Manny.

[Gregor]

I'm Noah.

[Dimitri]

This is Devin.

[Manny]

And we're best friends and journalists with a new podcast called no Such Thing, where we get to the bottom of questions like that. Why are you screaming at me? I can't expect. What to do now? If the rule was the same, Go off on me. I deserve it, you know?

[Jonathan Goldstein]

Lock him up.

[Manny]

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[Gregor]

No such thing.

[Dimitri]

All right, you ready? You're rolling. You got levels?

[Jonathan Goldstein]

Me. Me. Ma.

[Dimitri]

Moo. Okay, go.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

This is Gregor. You might know him from such previous episodes as Gregor. Gregor is one of my oldest friends, and today he's coming to me with a problem.

[Dimitri]

I'll take it from the top. Okay, so I have two parents, Milton and Etta.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

Etta and Milton are both pushing 90. And Gregor's problem is that they refuse to move out of their House. It's the same three story Victorian Gregor grew up in. He was 12 when the family first moved in. He still remembers the excitement as they unloaded boxes from the moving truck or moving trucks.

[Dimitri]

You know, normal people move with like a big giant 18 wheeler moving truck. I believe when we moved, we had six moving trucks.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

One for the family's belongings, the other five for the collections. Some people collect coins, some people collect comic books. Gregor's mother, Etta, collects collections.

[Dimitri]

She has like maybe 200 egg beaters. Antique egg beaters she has. Do you know what a bisquenader is?

[Jonathan Goldstein]

No.

[Dimitri]

In occupied Japan, people bought these little figurines where the head would wobble back.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

And forth like a bobble headed doll.

[Dimitri]

Something like that. Anyway, she probably has 2,000 bisquenters.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

Then there are the 19th century weaving looms, the handmade baskets, the medieval scythes. Etta Ehrlich is an artist and her collections are the source of her inspiration. Etta sees beauty in everything, and in her hands, everything becomes art. She'll sculpt lint from the dryer. She'll put googly eyes on a splatter of dried bird poop.

[Dimitri]

My mother has been unbelievably prolific in making art for like the last 35 years to a degree, where now the living room is like full to the brim with a million pieces of art. And every week she probably makes five or ten more pieces of art.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

None of this would be a problem, except that a large cluttered house is becoming increasingly dangerous for Gregor's elderly parents.

[Dimitri]

I fear the more conventional fears. I fear my mother falling down a flight of stairs, or my father. I mean, there's all kinds of dark things that can happen in a house full of staircases.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

And so Gregor wants to move his parents into a smaller apartment, something more manageable. That's his plan?

[Etta Ehrlich]

Yeah, that's his plan. But that's not my plan.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

This is.

[Etta Ehrlich]

Etta, the practical thing is we can't be in the house too much longer. I'm 88. Yeah, but to move out of the house isn't simply a question of selling the furniture. It's. My God, what do we do with all this?

[Jonathan Goldstein]

All this, all the collections is what's keeping Etta in the house. And of all her many collections, of all her milking stools and antique rolling pins, it's her collection of fragile, colorful bottles that is perhaps the biggest impediment to moving. By Gregor's estimate, Etta has thousands. Wine bottles, perfume bottles, old decanters, bottles washed up from the bottom of the ocean. As well as being an artist, Etta is a Buddhist and her bottles are not just bottles, but a series of meditations. Because on each of the bottles, in fancy fonts and careful calligraphy, Etta places a message in the form of a Zen like riddle.

[Etta Ehrlich]

I turn my noose to tightropuse and madly dance upon it. Isn't that gorgeous? That's very nice, but how's about this one? It's a black bottle with gold calligraphy and it has the first letter shows. Oh, breath. Somebody blowing a breath. Do you see it?

[Jonathan Goldstein]

It really does look like a breath is blowing. That's by design.

[Etta Ehrlich]

There you go. There you go. You want me to give that away for nothing?

[Jonathan Goldstein]

Other inscriptions are stop schlepping your old being into the future. Or we cling to illusions of control. After hearing a few, I start to recognize a theme. All the bottles bear messages imploring one to let go. Yet Etta is incapable of letting go of the very bottles doing the imploring or much of anything else. There is a little bit of a paradox or there's something to kind of be struggling with here.

[Etta Ehrlich]

You're very, very sharp. That is exactly, exactly true. These works which talk about being stuck with the grasping level, I suffer from that.

[Gregor]

I could leave tomorrow.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

This is Gregor's dad, Milt. If the taxi pulled up right now, you would jump in.

[Gregor]

I'm ready to go. Yeah, I'll stop you there. He's never taken a taxi in his.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

Life, but if I pulled up, I.

[Gregor]

Think he'd get it. Uber duber. I don't get attached to furniture and bottles and stuff. Oh, just reinforce that point that while my father made posit that he's a daoist and not attached to anything, he is very much complicit, relentlessly bringing home the raw material through which my mother, you know, turns the art out.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

When was the last time you brought something home, Milt?

[Gregor]

Yesterday. I'm always interested in what she's doing, and I often find the raw materials walking around in the woods or anywhere. Find stuff. Her only requirement is if I find something, it has to have what she calls charm.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

As for Milt, what he's charmed by, exceedingly charmed by, is Etta. Milt is a poet, and after over 60 years of marriage, he still writes poems about her, rhapsodizing about the way she creates art or cooks or the way she dances. Milt says he can watch Etta dance all night. He just doesn't understand her being so chained to her belongings.

[Etta Ehrlich]

I'm stuck. But I am not coming up with a solution that's any better, am I?

[Jonathan Goldstein]

Yeah.

[Etta Ehrlich]

You know, except dying.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

That's not a solution.

[Etta Ehrlich]

No, it's not a solution for Greg. He's left holding the whole thing.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

Of Milton Etta's three kids, Gregor is perhaps the one most ready to serve the child. His parents hand a to do list when he comes to visit.

[Etta Ehrlich]

I mean, he talks mean, and that's because he has meanness in him. I'm not saying he doesn't, but he's also a very kind, giving, generous, loving person.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

Yes, he is. Yeah.

[Etta Ehrlich]

Yeah. Don't tell him I said so.

[Dimitri]

Inaction is a choice. Not doing anything. Something's bound to happen sooner or later and just sort of watch the second hand sweep around the clock face until somebody's dead is the most passive and weakest possible way to exist and die. It just feels like, you know, the Damoclean sword of mortality is coming. And all we're going to do is sit here and watch Rachel Maddow until it cuts our head off.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

And so, because Edda can't let go, Gregor wants my help in pulling off a most extravagant workaround. One that will allow Etta to both keep her stuff and still move out. The plan of action that Gregor wants to present to her.

[Dimitri]

What if you don't get rid of your possessions and we make a museum of your stuff?

[Jonathan Goldstein]

Gregor explains to me the details. It seems that in the 1960s, Etta and Milt bought a 200-year-old farmhouse with no running water or indoor plumbing. Gregor's plan is to convert the barn into the Etta B. Ehrlich Museum. Convincing one's mother to downsize by way of a feral farmhouse museum that by Greger's own admission is probably a breeding ground for the hantavirus. Has all the makings of a classic cockamamie scheme. But this is just the begin.

[Gregor]

Foreign.

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[Manny]

Imagine that you're on an airplane and all of a sudden you hear this.

[Etta Ehrlich]

Attention passengers.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

The pilot is having an emergency and we need someone, anyone to land this plane.

[Manny]

Think you could do it? It turns out that nearly 50% of men think that they could land the plane with the help of air traffic control. And they're saying like, okay, pull this. Until this, pull that, turn this. It's just I can do my eyes closed. I'm Manny.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

I'm Noah.

[Dimitri]

This is Devin.

[Manny]

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[Jonathan Goldstein]

They need to recognize that they lack expertise.

[Manny]

And then as we try the whole thing out for real. Wait, what? Oh, that's the Runway. I'm looking at this thing.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

See?

[Manny]

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[Jonathan Goldstein]

For his plan to build a museum to work, Gregor will need his siblings on board. So as his emotional envoy, I begin by phoning his sister Lexi. Lexi is the level headed one of the three, and I want to get her read on the plan. I mean, is it realistic that he'll be able to turn the barn into a museum like that? Perhaps this plan is a bit half baked, but I figure I might have more luck getting Gregor's brother Dimitri on board. Dimitri's never been afraid of a scheme that runs a little pink on the inside, so I give him a call. We haven't spoken since I moved from New York, where Dimitri lives, to Minnesota.

[Gregor]

I hate to see a Minneapolis area code when you call. It makes me sad your business doesn't.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

Bring you to Minnesota.

[Gregor]

I'm guessing it does sometimes. I interviewed Prince for a cover story. Everyone warned me to be very careful with Prince. He's very touchy.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

Dimitri is a personal trainer who's kickboxed his way across Thailand. Also a journalist who interviews celebrities.

[Gregor]

So I went there, waited all day for the interview.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

And a musician who had a song go platinum six times in Belgium was.

[Gregor]

Like, hey, you want to jam? And I was like, okay. So I wound up actually jamming with Larry, Graham, and Prince for, like, 20 minutes.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

What?

[Gregor]

That was one sentence.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

Before Dimitri can launch into his next sentence, I jump in. So your brother Gregor.

[Gregor]

Yeah, I'm familiar with it.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

He has this plan, which maybe you're also familiar with. When I'm finished rehashing Gregor's museum plan, Dimitri offers a laundry list of issues.

[Gregor]

There's a 99 to 100% chance of getting Lyme disease walking out of your part of the barn because it's high grass, a lot of deer getting poison ivy. So there's also, like, horrible black mold because, as you know, the farmhouse burned down when my albino baker friend Theo stayed there and lit a fire, and the roof and the whole house burned down.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

And along with his friend Theo's trouble, there was also his friend Sonam's trouble in that cursed place.

[Gregor]

My friend, who spent 25 years as a Buddhist monk under the Dalai Lama, had to use a broom to fight off a very large raccoon that was in the house and was, like, growling at us like a. Just horrifying.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

But for Dimitri, even more daunting than the rabid raccoons is changing his mother's mind on the matter. Whenever he's tried to clear space in his parents home, it refills overnight, suggesting Etta's problem can't be solved by physical means. Instead, he thinks the problem has to be attacked at its psychological root. She needs to learn how to let go. And for this, Dimitri has just the solution.

[Gregor]

Well, maybe hypnosis. It stops her from smoking, which is probably a more powerful psychological and physical addiction than collecting things.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

Etta was a pack a day smoker, a habit she hung onto for nearly 30 years.

[Gregor]

Our friend, who was a hypnotist, said, oh, I can hypnotize you. And she went into the session thinking, this isn't gonna work. The whole time the hypnosis was going on, she was like, this isn't working. This isn't working. And then she walked out and never smoked again. He was an interesting person, too. His name was Saul Feldstein. He actually had one of his eyeballs was, like, hanging out of his head face. And it was like a sort of early commune hippie thing.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

Having grown up on TV sitcoms of the 1970s, I'm well aware of the power of hypnosis hanging out of his face. Hypnosis gave Fred Flintstone the self control to stop eating brontosaurus burgers. It Gave the Fonz the confidence that jumped Snake Canyon on his motorcycle as a boy. I always wondered what it would feel like to have my full potential unlocked through the hypnotic arts hanging out of his face.

[Gregor]

And he was very successful as a hypnotist.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

Wow. Unlike building a museum, hypnosis requires neither time, effort, nor those awful stanchions that snap back with that loud thwacking sound that make everyone turn around and stare at you. Fully convinced that Saul Feldstein is the solution to all of our problems and that museums belong in a museum, Dimitri and I say our goodbyes.

[Dimitri]

We're slating in on part two. Johnny discusses post talking to Dimitri. Here we go.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

I need to tell Gregor that I like Dimitri's idea much better than his, but I need to tread lightly. From Cain and Abel to Stephen and Alec Baldwin. I know how competitive brothers can be. And unlike the Lord or Alexander Ray Baldwin Sr. I don't want to be seen playing favorites. Do you think you're that, like, hypnotism has a role in this?

[Dimitri]

Well, I hear that, like, your voice went up an octave when we started talking about hypnotism and you got excited about hypnotism.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

Well, Dimitri seemed to think that it could help.

[Dimitri]

Okay, so the two of you should go see a movie together.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

Going to movies is Gregor and my thing. Clearly, I'm arousing some jealousy. I need to keep my arguments away from Demetri and grounded in the merits of hypnotism. This whole barn thing as the symptom, but through hypnosis.

[Dimitri]

Why are you saying it with, like, the weird accent on the word hypnosis?

[Jonathan Goldstein]

I mean, do you think that hypnotism has something to offer here?

[Dimitri]

My short answer would be, absolutely not. I think it's a waste of time. Hypnosis. Hypnosis. Hypnosis.

[Gregor]

Hi, Johnny. How are you?

[Jonathan Goldstein]

Hey, Dimitri. Hi. I've got your brother Gregor on the line with me.

[Dimitri]

We've met.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

Hi.

[Gregor]

How are you?

[Jonathan Goldstein]

Can you make the case to your brother?

[Gregor]

Sure. I just think that, you know, there's no harm, there's certainly no nothing to lose. It takes 15 or 20 minutes. And she's proven that she's very susceptible to hypnotic suggestions. So why not try it?

[Dimitri]

I agree with all those points. My main feeling is that getting someone to stop a behavior like smoking is much, much easier than getting someone to change their personality, which is harder to hypnotize someone out of.

[Gregor]

That may be true. I wouldn't disagree. There.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

Swept up in a wave of brotherly bonhomie. I decide it's a safe space to cautiously share my one secret boyhood longing. And along the way, I could get hypnotized that as something too.

[Dimitri]

Yeah, a lot of stuff.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

Yeah, and immediately regret it. What do you mean a lot of stuff?

[Gregor]

I mean that smug smile they could work on.

[Dimitri]

We could give you a whole brand new thing where you're like super charming all the time.

[Gregor]

Being more able to look people in.

[Dimitri]

The eye, not always hide behind a microphone.

[Gregor]

Actually, you know, there is all joking aside, there is a new hypnosis that works on what's called voluntary baldness syndrome, where they realize that a lot of men are sort of doing it on purpose.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

Why would someone do that on purpose?

[Gregor]

Well, it's just that it turns out that hair loss is more of like an act of willful insolence, often and a cry for pity.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

I used to love my hair.

[Gregor]

Well, if you loved it so much, why did you get rid of it?

[Jonathan Goldstein]

First of all, I find it offensive. And Gregor, chime in here because I'm sure you're equally offended.

[Dimitri]

No, Dimitri used to be bald as an egg and then he willed it back on.

[Gregor]

I think if you did at the same time with my mother, we can get a two for one deal.

[Dimitri]

Package deal.

[Gregor]

I'm just saying it's science. If you read the New England Journal of Medicine.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

With Gregor and Dimitri aligned and friends again at my expense, I set out in search of the one eyed hippie hypnotist Saul Feldstein. But it turns out Saul died in 2019 at the age of 92. So I reach out to other hypnotists, all of whom pretty much hang up on me once I explain the project. So hypnotism is out, the museum is out. I'm stuck with my crap personality and Etta is stuck with her house full of crap. And Gregor is still at an impasse. But things are about to change. Coming up after the break, Etta's big night. You know what that guy said to me just now?

[Etta Ehrlich]

This guy told me that I was beautiful.

[Dimitri]

Well, you are. What's going on here?

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[Manny]

Imagine that you're on an airplane and all of a sudden you hear this.

[Etta Ehrlich]

Attention passengers.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

The pilot is having an emergency and we need someone, anyone, to land this plane.

[Manny]

Think you could do it? It turns out that nearly 50% of men think that they could land the plane with the help of air traffic control. And they're saying like, okay, pull this. Until this, pull that, turn this. It's just I do my eyes closed. I'm Manny.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

I'm Noah.

[Dimitri]

This is Devin.

[Manny]

And on our new show, no Such Thing, we get to the bottom of questions that like these. Join us as we talk to the leading expert on overconfidence.

[T-Mobile Advertiser]

Those who lack expertise lack the expertise.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

They need to recognize that they lack expertise.

[Manny]

And then as we try the whole thing out for real. Wait, what? Oh, that's the run, right? I'm looking at this thing. See, listen to no Such thing on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

Gregor tells me that Etta has been offered a show at the Carter Burden Gallery in Manhattan. Etta is an outsider artist, so the offer of her own solo exhibition feels like. Finally, at the age of 88, she's being invited inside. The show with its formal invitations and coat check, feels like validation. It's the kind of opportunity Etta has always hoped for. And for Gregor, it feels like an opportunity for her pieces to find good homes outside her home. The show opens on March 21, 2019. Gregor and I make a plan to speak the morning after so he can tell me how it went. When we speak, what Gregor tells me is that things that night took a wild turn. Do you want to. Do you want to explain?

[Dimitri]

Sure. I flew into town for my mom's art opening. Okay. We're here at the art opening. It's a pretty good crowd. Everyone's eating wine and cheese, and it's.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

Great, but it's so loud.

[Dimitri]

It was almost like a cartoon version of my mom's success story, in that, like, some stranger guy came up and was like, you're a beautiful woman.

[Gregor]

You're beautiful. Thank you.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

It's very nice to hear my age.

[Dimitri]

Her ego was buffed from many sides. Everything going great. Hello.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

Gregor's dad, Milt, on the other hand, wasn't having as good a time. He spent most of the evening in the corner, nibbling on crackers. At the end of the night, Gregor approached him.

[Dimitri]

Well, Father, what'd you make it up?

[Gregor]

Oh, it's very nice. A little bit exhausting.

[Dimitri]

He seemed like even though he sometimes talks in a quiet voice, he was especially quiet, like I could hardly hear him.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

On the drive home, Milt conked out. When the family couldn't rouse him, they realized he wasn't just sleeping, but completely unconscious. Etta began yelling, wailing Milt's name. He was driven to the hospital, where the EMTs lifted him onto a gurney. The doctors thought he might be having a stroke, but they couldn't say for sure. In the waiting room, Etta turned to Gregor and said, you might as well order the dumpsters right now. Meaning, you win. Empty out the house, because if Milt isn't coming back to it, that's it. How do you know when the Damoclean sword of mortality isn't just dangling above you, but actually falling? How do you know when it's time to pick up the remote, turn off Rachel Maddow, and finally act? The night, a milestone in Etta's career, was meant to symbolize a turning point, and it was just not the kind she was hoping for. Milt was eventually sent home from the hospital, but his clap signaled a change for Gregor, too. For so long, he'd been saying, maybe it's time. But maybe it was time to stop saying maybe.

[Etta Ehrlich]

Hello?

[Jonathan Goldstein]

Hi, It's Gregor and Jonathan.

[Etta Ehrlich]

Oh, and I thought this was a scam call. How do you like that? How are you?

[Dimitri]

Well, I wouldn't be so sure. It's not.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

We haven't finished the call yet.

[Etta Ehrlich]

Right. So what's the pitch?

[Dimitri]

Johnny wanted to dredge up a bunch of painful family issues.

[Etta Ehrlich]

Oh, sure. Why not? The painfuler, the better.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

I want to talk with Etta about the night of the art opening and the way it affected her, thinking about remaining in the house.

[Etta Ehrlich]

I won't be able to stay here alone. Either I will become ill or Milt will become ill, and I need somebody to help me. There is a new little piece in my head that says things are Going to change.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

In the aftermath of the art show opening, as Etta's new reality sunk in, another plan began to take shape. One that Etta came up with. Her idea is to pair each of her message on a bottles with the right person. In this way, each one will find the right home.

[Etta Ehrlich]

I now have a whole shelf full of stuff that I'm now earmarking to give away.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

That's something that you've not normally done.

[Etta Ehrlich]

No, I only gave very few things away, you know, to my best friend or to the kids or something like that. Very few. Very, very few.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

You think it's at the beginning of something, more of this to come?

[Etta Ehrlich]

Yeah, yeah. It has to be. It has to be. I take it very seriously. When I think of giving a person a bottle, I have to think, would it be good for that person?

[Dimitri]

Okay, now we're rolling.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

All right. A few weeks later, I call Gregor to see how Etta's bottle drive is coming along.

[Dimitri]

So she called me this morning saying, I thought of the perfect person to give the perfect bottle to, but I'm afraid it's going to hurt his feelings. Okay, she wants to give you a bottle.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

She wants to give. Okay, well, that. Wow, that's. That's really nice. Why? Why would that hurt my feelings?

[Dimitri]

You know, if you give someone a bottle that says, like, I wish, like I was present, then it's sort of an implication that you're not present. You know what I mean? It could be interpreted sometimes as like a sort of a criticism. So I don't know how you'll take it.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

Well, did she tell you what my bottle says?

[Dimitri]

That's as much as I can say at this point, as much as I'm authorized to say.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

Even though I should know better, know how Gregor will dangle this knowledge over my head like a cat dancer. My curiosity gets the better of me. And so I keep asking Gregor what the bottle says, which he uses as an opportunity to dissect my personality. All I can say, he says, is that it addresses some of your deep seated issues.

[Dimitri]

Despite all your insights about other people, you sort of tend to remove yourself from the collective and put yourself in the position of, like, journalistic observer. When you have these insights, you know, your dime store insights, you bolt on at the end of things where you're like, maybe we all need someone to run to that Hallmarky nonsense that you tend to spout at the end of this. What are you, jerk?

[Jonathan Goldstein]

You feel comfortable just saying something like that to someone, telling me about my dynasty?

[Dimitri]

I knew you Were gonna take it the wrong way.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

What's the right way to take that?

[Dimitri]

I think sometimes you sort of make yourself resistant. Like, oh, I don't matter. I'm just the fly on the wall to watching the human condition. As you know, people live and die and suffer, and babies are born and old people lowered into the ground. Oh, when the dirt hits the coffin. That reminds me of my sponsor. I think you just. You use this thing to remove yourself from what's actually going on.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

Okay. All right.

[Dimitri]

You're like. You know what would really make this thing sing? Now, let me just get a shot of you throwing your art off the bridge. That's what we need to finish this.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

Maybe Gregor thinks I'm being too prying with his mom, and this is just an expression of his protectiveness. So I apologize to him and tell him I'll try to be more respectful. It turns out that Gregor has little respect for my respect.

[Dimitri]

Yeah. Hey, lady, I can be more respectful out there. Won't tell you to throw your stuff in the garbage. I'll tell you to throw it in the recycling bin. That way it don't wind up in no landfill. You understand? Very respectful. Like, we'll even separate out the green bottles from the clear glass. Very good.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

Johnny, why would you even let me speak to your mother?

[Dimitri]

I don't know. I mean, I thought maybe you could patch things up.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

I don't know. Over the next couple years, Etta continues to slowly search out the right homes for her bottles. Whereas in the past, Etta was only able to give away a few, Gregor estimates that she hands out about a hundred. During this time, Milt is in and out of the hospital with cardiac issues ranging from fainting spells and high blood pressure to an actual heart attack. But then, in the summer of 2022, it's Etta who receives some bad news. Three years after Gregor and I first spoke, Gregor phones to tell me his mother has been diagnosed with brain cancer. The doctor found nine metastases in her brain. They went to three different hospitals in five days, and the consensus was that it wasn't a matter of months, but of weeks. In what felt like only days, Etta went from carrying laundry up the stairs to needing to be carried up the stairs herself. With Etta's illness, Gregor decides to move in, the whole family does, into the big packed house they grew up in. A hospital bed is set up on the main floor in Etta's old office, and Gregor wakes up at sunrise and sits at Etta's bedside in silence. He Speaks with her, makes her comfortable. He tells her it's okay to go, that everything is okay.

[Dimitri]

And I stayed there for six weeks, eight weeks, and sort of did the bedside vigil. As she slowly died.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

In those final weeks, Gregor saw a change come over Etta.

[Dimitri]

In the years running up to her death. She would say things like, listen, there's a rolled up rug in the attic that's worth a lot of money. Make sure that they don't, you know, cheat you out of that one. That was always kind of a sort of joke, sort of real thing. But when the actual room of death and dying was happening, that stuff didn't really come up. It felt more like she was at peace with a lot of stuff and a lot of the stuff. She told me she would be laying there with her eyes shut, but smiling. And I'm like, you know, mom, what are you thinking about? And she was just. Just with her hand, she would indicate that she's, like, dancing by just flowing her hand in the air. It felt like a great death.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

The words on the bottles had finally sunk in. In the end, Etta could dance out of the world gracefully. No grasping. It's the living who are left to grasp.

[Dimitri]

Since my mom died, it feels like it's harder to throw things out than I thought.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

This is Gregor's sister, Lexi, again. Like Etta, Lexi is an artist. And like Gregor, she's surprised by how after all the years trying to get her mom to let go of her stuff, she herself is finding it so hard to let go of that very same stuff.

[Dimitri]

It just feels really hard to like her art. It feels. It's like a part of her.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

Yeah, but it's not her. Yeah.

[Dimitri]

I had an interesting conversation with my dad the other day, who is, of course, really, you know, grief stricken. And he was saying, why do people make art? And he thinks the reason people make art is so that they're not forgotten when they die. Like, you do something that remains in the world. I think of her a lot.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

Do you still carry with you your mother's love? Do you feel it?

[Dimitri]

I carry her with me. I mean, in the way that, you know, when I experience something, I can't help but hear my mother's voice making fun of me for my description of what I'm experiencing. I might be describing something, telling her about just some quotidian thing in the day. You know, this is a nice sunset, but it'd be nicer if that truck weren't backing up. And I can hear her being like, why are you so rotten, you know, what is wrong with you? I mean, that type of thing.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

You can try to move your aging parents out of their house, you can treat death like a to do list with items to check off, but ultimately, you can't control how people live or die. Even after Etta's death, Milt remained in that very same house. It's Dimitri and his own family that move in so that Milt doesn't have to be alone. And over the next few years, Gregor, in fits and starts and with disregard for what anyone thinks, continues to work on the museum. Only it's become less about a full fledged museum open to the public, and more of just a place to honor his mom. And then one day, Gregor texts, saying he found a sealed box in the Victorian with my name on it written in Etta's hand. When the box arrives, I unravel what seems like yards and yards of bubble wrap. Edda had taken great care. The bottle is a beautiful blue, the blue of a childhood toy. It's curvaceous and feels good in my hand. Upon it, Etta laid out her words to me.

[Etta Ehrlich]

I would love to live like a river flows, carried by the surprise of its own unfolding. See what I mean?

[Jonathan Goldstein]

I do. But how dare she? I'm kidding. Cue the outro music. Cue the dime store insight. Whether it's to a museum in the wilds of upstate New York or to a landfill, none of us knows where we're flowing. In the face of that, we need to learn how to let go. My feeling about what comes after death is constantly changing. I don't have a spiritual practice, so all I have is a feeling. And my feeling today is that bodies are vessels, just like colorful bottles are vessels, just like podcasts and houses packed with stuff. And all of art is it's all just stuff. And stuff can be beautiful, but it's there to help us get closer to the non stuff. Because like the words Etta inscribed on one of her final bottles, all important, important matters are invisible.

[Manny]

Now that the furniture's returning to its.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

Goodwill home.

[Dimitri]

Now that the last month's.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

Rent is scheming with the damaged deposit, take this moment to decide if we meant it, if we tried.

[T-Mobile Advertiser]

Or felt.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

Around for far too much. From things that accidentally tied. This episode of Heavyweight was produced by Phoebe Flanagan and me, Jonathan Goldstein. Our senior producer is Kahlilah Holt, and our supervising producer is Stevie Lane. Editorial guidance from Emily Condon. Special thanks to Steve Marsh, Amy Gaines McQuaid and Sarah Nix. Our production counsel is Jake Flanagan. Emma Munger mixed the episode with original music by Christine Fellowes, John K. Sampson and Bobby Lord. Additional score by Boxwood Orchestra and Blue Dot Sessions. Our theme song is by the Weaker Thans, courtesy of Epitaph Records. Follow us on Instagram @H heavyweightpodcast or email us @H heavyweightushkin FM. And if you'd like your very own Etta B. Erlich original, her bottles can be found on her Instagram at Etta Baerlich. We'll be back next week with a new episode. Can you believe it? Back in the saddle, Hiding behind that mic. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. So I wanted to go through the entire thing just to make sure the fact and also make sure that the.

[Dimitri]

Art that your mother made. She put bird poop with googly eyes. Is that correct?

[Jonathan Goldstein]

She spelled it with two GS.

[Dimitri]

Okay. How many times would you say you were rejected by girls in the dozens?

[Gregor]

Is that correct?

[Manny]

Why are TSA rules so confusing?

[Gregor]

You got a hoodie on. Take it off.

[Manny]

I'm Manny.

[Gregor]

I'm Noah.

[Dimitri]

This is Devin.

[Manny]

And we're best friends and journalists with a new podcast called no Such Thing, where we get to the bottom of questions like that. Why are you screaming at me? I can't expect what to do now if the rule was the same, Go off on me. I deserve it.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

You know, lock him up.

[Manny]

Listen to no Such thing on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Gregor]

No Such Thing.

[Jonathan Goldstein]

This is an iHeart podcast.