Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Hey you, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind Listener Mail.
Speaker 2: My name is Robert Lamb.
Speaker 3: And I am Joe McCormick, and it's that old Halloween
Speaker 3: hangover edition of listener Mail. Today we're going to be
Speaker 3: featuring messages from the Stuff to Blow Your Mind a
Speaker 3: mail bag. We almost always end up doing one of
Speaker 3: these in the first week of November. I guess it's
Speaker 3: kind of a sprint through Halloween season, and then we've
Speaker 3: got to catch up on the mail bag responding to
Speaker 3: everything that came in over the previous month. Lots of great,
Speaker 3: cranky messages that feel like they were pounded out from
Speaker 3: a terminal at the Dunwich Public Library. And this time
Speaker 3: we've got a bunch of messages on deck, also going
Speaker 3: back to September. So we will see what we have
Speaker 3: time for today. We may have to save some of
Speaker 3: this stuff for later in the month. If you would
Speaker 3: like to get in touch, by the way, and you
Speaker 3: haven't done so before, or haven't done so recently, or
Speaker 3: even if you have and you just want to write
Speaker 3: in again, you can email us at contact at Stuff
Speaker 3: to Blow Your Mind. Dot Com. Messages of all sorts
Speaker 3: are welcome. We especially appreciate if you have something interesting
Speaker 3: to add to a topic we've talked about recently on
Speaker 3: the show. But even if you've got something else on
Speaker 3: your mind, you just want to ask us a question,
Speaker 3: share something you find interesting, whatever it is, hit us
Speaker 3: up contact at stuff to blow your mind dot com.
Speaker 2: That's right. You can also ask us for the link
Speaker 2: to the discord server. That's something you can do. Follow
Speaker 2: us wherever you happen to follow things social media wise
Speaker 2: these days, and you know, we still have the t
Speaker 2: public merch store open. I'm just going to say I
Speaker 2: have no idea how much longer that store will be available.
Speaker 2: So some of those designs in there that are not
Speaker 2: just the standard logo design, they may or may not
Speaker 2: be around for too much longer. So if you happen
Speaker 2: to want one of those, I'm just going to go
Speaker 2: and give you fair warning go pick one of those up,
Speaker 2: because I'm not sure what the long term future of
Speaker 2: those designs would happen to be.
Speaker 3: Ultra rare.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm not trying to be cryptic, I am just uncertain. Yeah,
Speaker 2: but let's get cryptic. What do we have in the
Speaker 2: mail bag here to read.
Speaker 3: Okay, Rob, do you mind if I start off with
Speaker 3: this message from Garrett about Egyptian curses? Oh?
Speaker 2: By all needs.
Speaker 3: Following some stage directions here this message. This message begins gentlemen,
Speaker 3: I've been a listener for quite a while. I have
Speaker 3: always enjoyed and now look forward to spooky Halloween content
Speaker 3: each October. Your recent episodes on Egyptian curses were quite interesting.
Speaker 3: Since I was young, I've heard my dad claim that
Speaker 3: a distant relative died after being at the opening of
Speaker 3: King Tut's tomb. Unfortunately, I later found he has no
Speaker 3: evidence except a shared last name. But that pseudo fact
Speaker 3: piqued my interest in Egypt from a young age, and
Speaker 3: it lasts even to this day. Your discussion about modern
Speaker 3: hazards to the reader or information threats contained within certain
Speaker 3: emails was fun. Yeah, so a brief refresher for context.
Speaker 3: This came up when we were talking about ancient Egyptian
Speaker 3: texts that threatened the reader with curses. This, of course,
Speaker 3: was not the majority of ancient Egyptian curses. This was
Speaker 3: not the norm. Most curses would be targeted at named
Speaker 3: enemies or at people who might come into crime, like
Speaker 3: stealing from a tomb, or disturbing a tomb or sacred space.
Speaker 3: But we talked about a couple of examples of texts
Speaker 3: that were like so and so who wronged me will
Speaker 3: face the vengeance of the God. They will be struck
Speaker 3: down and destroyed by holy wrath. Also, anybody reading this papyrus,
Speaker 3: you're going to get it too, which seems extreme. But
Speaker 3: we talked about some reasons people might have put curses
Speaker 3: like that in there. One possibility was as a kind
Speaker 3: of security measure against tampering with what was believed to
Speaker 3: be a deadly weapon, because the words of a magic
Speaker 3: spell in ancient Egypt were thought to have power in themselves,
Speaker 3: and in some sense, reading them could potentially activate the weapon.
Speaker 3: And that led us to talk about curses as a
Speaker 3: kind of information based threat, somewhat analogous to the modern
Speaker 3: example of an email containing a link to download malware
Speaker 3: and things like that. So back to Garrett's message. In
Speaker 3: addition to phishing and malware attacks, I'm sure you remember
Speaker 3: receiving seemingly innocuous chain emails whereby reading to the end
Speaker 3: you would be cursed in various ways for not sending
Speaker 3: it to fifteen other people.
Speaker 2: You remember these, rob Oh yeah, I mean I remember
Speaker 2: back when you received these in the mail. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: this was the thing before email, and sometimes like kids
Speaker 2: would get them or I'd hear about them through you know,
Speaker 2: through other kids. But yeah, you would receive chain mail
Speaker 2: like this through the snail mail. It would be a letter,
Speaker 2: and you have to get writing more physical letters in
Speaker 2: order to stave off the curse or make sure that
Speaker 2: the blessing remains intent, you know, because sometimes these things
Speaker 2: are not directly talking about curses. They're talking about keeping
Speaker 2: some sort of blessing instead, which kind of amounts to
Speaker 2: the same thing.
Speaker 3: Yeah, now that you're saying this, I actually do remember.
Speaker 3: I got one physical piece of an actual snail mail
Speaker 3: chain letter when I was a kid. It came from
Speaker 3: a friend of mine who lived in a different town
Speaker 3: but was a family friend, and I never followed up
Speaker 3: and sent it to anyone, and I felt guilty about
Speaker 3: it for years. So it actually did contain a curse.
Speaker 3: It's just an unintentional one.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I remember. I had to think I had a
Speaker 2: similar situation because I was like, what is this and
Speaker 2: my parents were like, that's that's bs. You don't have
Speaker 2: to work.
Speaker 3: But yeah, when you would get the email, you know,
Speaker 3: much later in life, you would get the email ones
Speaker 3: and I remember they, Yeah, sometimes they would have both
Speaker 3: a carrot and a stick. So it'd be like, if
Speaker 3: you send this to fifteen friends, you will your crush
Speaker 3: will tell you they like you. If you don't send
Speaker 3: it to anyone, then the next time you look in
Speaker 3: the bathroom mirror you will see the ghost of a girl.
Speaker 2: But either way, you know you're going to get some attention.
Speaker 2: I guess.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So Garrett's message goes on. I thought about your
Speaker 3: comments on readers of these curses or scrolls possibly knowing
Speaker 3: at a glance that such text could be cursed and
Speaker 3: would know not to read it. Yeah, because we were
Speaker 3: talking about the idea that texts often have context around
Speaker 3: them that tells you how to read or understand the
Speaker 3: text within, and a lot of times that context is
Speaker 3: stripped out by history and the you know, the circumstances
Speaker 3: through which a text comes down to us. So if
Speaker 3: you just read the text of a pyrus, you know,
Speaker 3: in a compiled in a book translated by by historians,
Speaker 3: you might not get some of these context clues that
Speaker 3: would have existed. You know for whatever form this text
Speaker 3: originally took wherever it would have been, and so forth.
Speaker 3: Garrett goes on. It made me think of modern high
Speaker 3: security environments, such as in government computer systems. From my understanding,
Speaker 3: only scribes and clergy would have had the ability to
Speaker 3: read hieroglyphs. Perhaps this is a parallel to encryption in
Speaker 3: the digital age. If you go to access any federal
Speaker 3: websites such as for the IRS, FBI, ATF or any
Speaker 3: agency where you'd file documents or make a FOIA request,
Speaker 3: you will encounter a slew of warnings regarding the terms
Speaker 3: for accessing the information, threats of civil or criminal penalties
Speaker 3: for misused slash interference, consent to monitoring, etc. To go
Speaker 3: a step further, access to these systems by workers within
Speaker 3: government is often only allowed in controlled spaces, potentially analogous
Speaker 3: to a sealed or hidden tomb, especially when sensitive and
Speaker 3: classified materials are handled, and of course those materials are secured, marked,
Speaker 3: and may contain dangerous information. Viewing such information without a
Speaker 3: need to know is prohibited, and of course mishandling it,
Speaker 3: failing to properly secure it, or worse yet, publishing it
Speaker 3: can result in severe penalties certain classification levels can keep
Speaker 3: documents concealed for years or decades, similar to how graves
Speaker 3: were meant to be undisturbed with severe consequences to defilers.
Speaker 3: It was interesting to me how the curses of antiquity
Speaker 3: seem very relatable when compared to safeguarding information even in
Speaker 3: our modern times. Thanks for all the great episodes over
Speaker 3: the years, and have a happy Halloween season with regards, Garrett.
Speaker 2: Yeah, this is a great observation, and I think it's
Speaker 2: worth mentioning against something we brought up in that episode
Speaker 2: that a lot of times these curses or things like
Speaker 2: curses or things that sort of fall under that classification.
Speaker 2: You know, again, they would have also been coexisting alongside
Speaker 2: actual legal, real world frameworks. So you would be talking
Speaker 2: about some sort of a punishment in the afterlife for
Speaker 2: supernatural punishment, but that was just alongside or as a
Speaker 2: plan b considering that there would be real world implications
Speaker 2: if you were to say, rob a toomb and so forth.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's right, So, Garrett, I think this is a
Speaker 3: really interesting comparison. There definitely are some parallels between the
Speaker 3: care taken to preserve sanctity and secrecy in some ancient
Speaker 3: Egyptian magical writings, and the security measure is taken to
Speaker 3: protect sensitive information in a government or a business context,
Speaker 3: and you highlight that nicely. Though I was thinking about
Speaker 3: this and a difference occurred to me. I think it's
Speaker 3: an interesting difference. I think in a modern government and
Speaker 3: business context, information is almost always dangerous, exclusively because it
Speaker 3: can be acted on. In other words, if somebody unauthorized
Speaker 3: had access to this information, they could use it. It
Speaker 3: could give them power or advantage over somebody else and
Speaker 3: allow them to cause harm. That could certainly be the
Speaker 3: case for magic as well. You know, somebody gets the
Speaker 3: hold of it, gets hold of the text of a curse,
Speaker 3: they could use it. But ancient Egyptian heca magic had
Speaker 3: an added layer on top of that use through an
Speaker 3: actor danger, in that the Egyptians believed that written and
Speaker 3: spoken words essentially had power to act themselves, making some
Speaker 3: writing more like a piece of self executing computer code
Speaker 3: that does something on its own, rather than like only
Speaker 3: a piece of information that can be used by human actors.
Speaker 3: Though it is that too, and one interesting illustration of
Speaker 3: this Egyptian belief in the power of written words to
Speaker 3: become self executing magical code. I was thinking about apotropaic
Speaker 3: defacement of certain dangerous or threatening words in certain contexts.
Speaker 3: And so, for example, imagine you're making an inscription in
Speaker 3: a tomb and you need to use the hieroglyphic symbol
Speaker 3: that includes a depiction of a crocodile or a snake
Speaker 3: or a scorpion. In some cases, not all cases, but
Speaker 3: in some these symbols within the words would be altered
Speaker 3: in some way, maybe only half represented or inscribed in
Speaker 3: a physically mutilated way, like with a depicted with a
Speaker 3: weapon stabbing through them, or depicted with their heads chopped off.
Speaker 3: So if you needed to show a snake, you might
Speaker 3: show it with its head chopped off, essentially to prevent
Speaker 3: these dangerous symbols in the written words from magically coming
Speaker 3: alive and causing damage or violence, which I think is
Speaker 3: a fascinating understanding of the power of writing. I haven't
Speaker 3: fully thought it out, but it feels like there could
Speaker 3: be some interesting parallels to modern information threats there as well.
Speaker 3: But yeah, yeah, I don't know, that does seem like
Speaker 3: an important difference.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I love this idea that you see
Speaker 2: you see echoes of this in other cultures where once
Speaker 2: we have employed a symbol, it becomes a live in
Speaker 2: a way like just the symbol itself or the representation. Uh.
Speaker 2: It reminds me of stories of the magic paint brush
Speaker 2: and so forth, and Chinese tradition, like the idea that
Speaker 2: you wouldn't finish, say a painting of a dragon, you
Speaker 2: would leave out an eye, because if it were complete,
Speaker 2: it would it would come alive in a way that
Speaker 2: you might not want it to.
Speaker 3: Yeah, very similar here, y.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: During fall break, my family and I traveled to Vancouver
Speaker 2: and we visited the excellent Museum of Anthropology at UBC,
Speaker 2: which if anybody out there, if you're if you live
Speaker 2: near Vancouver or you're planning to visit Vancouver, great city,
Speaker 2: and this is an amazing museum, well worth visiting. But
Speaker 2: and I may come back to them later in this episode.
Speaker 2: But one to one tradition that I learned about there
Speaker 2: was that among some of the Northwest specific people, the
Speaker 2: indigenous peoples of that region, you would have puppets that
Speaker 2: depicted certain animals, and after the puppets had been created
Speaker 2: and or used, when they were stored, you would need
Speaker 2: to strap their beaks or mouths shut because otherwise they
Speaker 2: might chatter in storage. And I love that idea. You
Speaker 2: know that once something has been created like this, you
Speaker 2: fill it with the sort of energy and now you're
Speaker 2: responsible for that energy, or in like the case of
Speaker 2: the Chinese traditions, like you need to make sure you
Speaker 2: don't give it the full of energy of creation.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, I mean that certainly to me resembles some
Speaker 3: of the thinking that you see in ancient Egyptian linguistics,
Speaker 3: with the idea of hecka magic itself, you know, hekka
Speaker 3: being this concept that does mean magic, but also has
Speaker 3: a broader significance as the power to create the creative energy.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Absolutely.
Speaker 3: Anyway, thanks for the message, Garrett. Let's see, rob do
Speaker 3: you want to do one of these messages about our
Speaker 3: series on creatures that lurk in the mine shaft?
Speaker 2: Sure? Sure, let's see. Here's one that comes to us
Speaker 2: from Jamie. Jamie says, Dear Robert and Joe, I hope
Speaker 2: you both are well. Your recent episode on the Cornish
Speaker 2: Tommy Knockers and their evolution on the other side of
Speaker 2: the Atlantic, as an example of the phenomenon of cultural
Speaker 2: practices through migration, made me think of the festival of
Speaker 2: Halloween itself. Halloween, as I'm sure you both know, is
Speaker 2: the Christianized Scots term for the old Celtic New Year
Speaker 2: festival of Saloon, practiced in both Scotland and Ireland, or
Speaker 2: rather in the shared Gaelic culture from which these two
Speaker 2: different nations would eventually emerge. Of course, the festival must
Speaker 2: have changed in many ways over the century, but as
Speaker 2: a child of the nineteen eighties and nineteen nineties, I
Speaker 2: remember Halloween being celebrated very differently to the way it
Speaker 2: is today. There were no greeting cards or decorations. This
Speaker 2: was not a version of Christmas that came earlier in
Speaker 2: the year, but a festival in its own right, one
Speaker 2: designed to keep away the fair folk, the city and
Speaker 2: their unquiet dead who might cross over the thinning veil
Speaker 2: between our world and theirs. This is the purpose of
Speaker 2: dressing up and frightening costumes and walking the streets guysing
Speaker 2: rather than trick or treating. As children, we would go
Speaker 2: from house to house, knocking on doors and asking are
Speaker 2: you taking any geysers? If invited in, you would perform
Speaker 2: a party piece, some kind of joke or song or
Speaker 2: other small performance, and the host would give you some
Speaker 2: sweets if you were lucky, money if you were very lucky,
Speaker 2: or fruit if you weren't. I don't know, I'm probably
Speaker 2: an old fogy, but I'm like, where's the where's the fruit?
Speaker 2: I was quizing kids after Halloween here, some of friends
Speaker 2: of my own kid and they were like, oh, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: this one house was giving out like fruit roll ups
Speaker 2: or something, and I was like, what's all wrong with that?
Speaker 2: Like that's not even straight up fruit. That's still essentially candy,
Speaker 2: basically candy. Yeah yeah, or they were fruit gund I
Speaker 2: don't know. It was something that was still candy enough,
Speaker 2: I thought. But anyway, the message continues in line with
Speaker 2: the process you described in your episode, guysing had a
Speaker 2: communal rather than an individual focus. Rather than the individual
Speaker 2: transaction of trick or treating, the whole community is supposed
Speaker 2: to benefit from having the denizens of the other world
Speaker 2: kept at bay. We would also duke I E. Bob
Speaker 2: for apples, and if a young woman peeled an apple
Speaker 2: and threw the peel over her shoulder on Halloween, supposedly
Speaker 2: she would learn the name of her future betrothed. I'm
Speaker 2: not sure how that was supposed to work, but I
Speaker 2: wasn't the target audience. Perhaps the most striking difference is that,
Speaker 2: rather than pumpkins, which are not indigenous to Scotland and
Speaker 2: have a hard time growing, the original jack o lantern,
Speaker 2: or rather boggle, was a face cut in a turn
Speaker 2: up rootabaga. My dad did that once, and given how
Speaker 2: long it took him, I'm not surprised that the pumpkins
Speaker 2: took over. I have seen some of the I've seen
Speaker 2: photos of this before, though, and some of these more
Speaker 2: traditional jack o' lanterns are rather frightening, even more grotesque,
Speaker 2: or it seemed to me than a pumpkin jack o
Speaker 2: lantern can be.
Speaker 3: One of these years, I'm going to split the difference
Speaker 3: and do a celariac.
Speaker 2: All right, just a little bit more here in this
Speaker 2: Jamie message. Still, although I enjoy Halloween every year, it
Speaker 2: makes me quite sad that the original festival has all
Speaker 2: but died in the country of its birth, and that
Speaker 2: the earthy tang of the old ways has been replaced
Speaker 2: with the prepackaged, globalized American version. I realized that mine
Speaker 2: was the last generation ever to go guysing. You don't
Speaker 2: think when you're young that you'll be the last of anything.
Speaker 2: But I suppose everyone is one day wishing you an
Speaker 2: untroubled son. Jane.
Speaker 3: Dang, dude, you sound like Dana Hurley at the end
Speaker 3: of Halloween three.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, it got it got very contemplative. I mean
Speaker 2: it was a great, great listener mail all the way through.
Speaker 3: For sure.
Speaker 2: You know, I don't know, I you know, I guess
Speaker 2: with Halloween, I'm I find I often find myself in
Speaker 2: a weird place because I absolutely love Americanized Halloween. It's
Speaker 2: one of the one of the only American, fully Americanized
Speaker 2: things that I'm like all in on. But on the
Speaker 2: other hand, you know, I respect these these uh, these
Speaker 2: older traditions and uh, you know, and I of course
Speaker 2: I have various friends who are pagan and and uh
Speaker 2: and and often highlight the importance of solowin h uh.
Speaker 2: But you know, there's always room, I think, for us
Speaker 2: to to take these older traditions and re embrace them
Speaker 2: and uh enjoy them alongside of and sometimes in place
Speaker 2: of these more globalized traditions. So you know, I'm in favor.
Speaker 2: I'm not going to be like super protective my Americanized Halloween,
Speaker 2: which you know, even still I think you know, my
Speaker 2: American Eyed Halloween, like everyone else, is going to be
Speaker 2: highly individualized, and you know, you can sort of there's
Speaker 2: so much of it out there, you can sort of
Speaker 2: select what you're going to embrace. But yeah, I'm all
Speaker 2: for us, you know, reawakening these these older traditions as well.
Speaker 2: Let's carve some rout of beaks, That's what I'm saying.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Oh, in quick note here, I use the I believe
Speaker 2: older pronunciation of sith here. This is more I think
Speaker 2: more recently pronounced as she, and we have used that
Speaker 2: as well. And this is you know, this is the
Speaker 2: referring to the fairy folk and like Irish tradition and
Speaker 2: so forth.
Speaker 3: All right, let's do another message about the creatures of
Speaker 3: the minds. A lot lot of the mining spirits we
Speaker 3: talked about in those episodes would get offerings in exchange
Speaker 3: for the protection of miners. Sometimes there would be little
Speaker 3: effigies of the creature, maybe positioned at the mine opening.
Speaker 3: People would leave little donuts for them, things so that
Speaker 3: they would work their magic and beneficial rather than harmful ways.
Speaker 3: And much to my happy surprise, we got a message
Speaker 3: about that type of tradition from somebody involved in mining.
Speaker 3: So this comes from Andrew. Subject line current mining protections. Hi,
Speaker 3: Robert and Joe, loved your Mining Superstitions podcast. Just wanted
Speaker 3: to let you know of current practices in Australia. At
Speaker 3: our tunneling projects, it is traditioned to have Saint Barbara,
Speaker 3: the patron Saint of tunnelers and miners, at the entrance
Speaker 3: to the shaft to offer protection. Below is a bit
Speaker 3: of information. I'll come back to this in a second.
Speaker 3: Andrew says, I have attached a photo of our Saint
Speaker 3: Barbara in the Brisbane Metro Tunnel, and we also have
Speaker 3: the sacred ranches used in the indigenous smoking blessing ceremony
Speaker 3: held at the start of each project. Thanks love your work, Andrew.
Speaker 3: And then yes, Andrew includes did I say earlier Andrew
Speaker 3: was involved in mining. It sounds like maybe he's Maybe
Speaker 3: Andrew's involved in tunneling for infrastructure rather than mining. I'm
Speaker 3: not sure tunneling whatever the location. But yeah, anyway, Andrew
Speaker 3: included this picture. So we see here what looks like
Speaker 3: a station that's got a bunch of controls, you know,
Speaker 3: like electrical doubing and controls for power and machinery and
Speaker 3: there is. I think it's either a security camera. Oh no,
Speaker 3: that can't be. That's got to be a photo, a
Speaker 3: mounted photo of a bunch of miners in safety vests
Speaker 3: and stuff like that lined up for a photo. And
Speaker 3: then above it, yeah, there's a little it almost looks
Speaker 3: like a bird house on the side of a tunnel wall.
Speaker 3: And inside the house there is a little statue of
Speaker 3: a saint. She's holding a sword and a cup, she's
Speaker 3: wearing a crown, and she's surrounded by some minty blue lights.
Speaker 3: And then also in another little house of the same
Speaker 3: shape mounted against the wall, Yeah, there is, there's a
Speaker 3: bouquet of some kind of herb, dried herb held together,
Speaker 3: and I guess that's for the smoking ceremony.
Speaker 2: I love these images because in both cases you clearly see,
Speaker 2: you know, the shrine very much alongside the modern technology,
Speaker 2: or at least symbols of that modern technology, you know,
Speaker 2: which really, you know, goes to show that. Yeah, even
Speaker 2: even today with you know, enhanced safety measures, enhanced technology
Speaker 2: on our side, enhanced lighting, which of course is a
Speaker 2: major aspect of all of this, as we discussed in
Speaker 2: those episodes, there is still more than enough space for
Speaker 2: the supernatural for religious belief and so forth, you know,
Speaker 2: to reach out to that extra level of protection in
Speaker 2: uncertain and or dangerous or extreme environments.
Speaker 3: Andrew also links to an article about the import of
Speaker 3: Saint Barbara on the website of something called Blui, which
Speaker 3: I think has nothing to do with the Australian cartoon dog.
Speaker 3: This is a tunneling company of some kind, but they've
Speaker 3: got an article on their website about Saint Barbara, the
Speaker 3: protector of tunnelers and engineers that talks about how there's
Speaker 3: a tradition going back to the sixteenth century of placing
Speaker 3: an image or an image of Saint Barbara or shrine
Speaker 3: to Saint Barbara at the portal of a tunnel, and
Speaker 3: the article explains why it says quote. According to legend
Speaker 3: tracing as far back as the third century AD, Barbara
Speaker 3: lived in present day Istanbul, Turkey, and was the only
Speaker 3: daughter of a wealthy man who sought to protect her
Speaker 3: by confining her to an isolated tower. She eventually escaped
Speaker 3: and converted to Christianity. However, in doing so, she was
Speaker 3: denounced by her father to the authorities. Barbara took refuge
Speaker 3: with miners in a small town in Greece, but was
Speaker 3: later uncovered by the other authorities. Upon leaving the mind
Speaker 3: she was decapitated by her father. God then struck down
Speaker 3: her father with a blast of lightning as punishment, and
Speaker 3: hence the association with explosives in underground darkness became associated
Speaker 3: with Saint Barbara. This is also the reason some people
Speaker 3: say Saint Barbara whenever there's a lightning strike nearby.
Speaker 2: Oh wow, I need to start saying that.
Speaker 3: Okay, never heard that before, and maybe that's a regionalism.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I was not familiar with this saint at all.
Speaker 3: Weird associative history. So because she hid it a mine
Speaker 3: and because her murderer father got blasted by lightning, she's
Speaker 3: the patron saint of blowing up of dynamiting tunnels.
Speaker 2: Yeah, of course it also brings to mind we briefly
Speaker 2: mentioned the threat that lightning strikes can pose to mining operations.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, so there may be some relation there as well.
Speaker 3: Well. Thanks again, Andrew.
Speaker 2: Yeah, this is exactly the sort of field report we
Speaker 2: love to get regarding our episodes.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Absolutely love to hear from people who have firsthand experience,
Speaker 3: who you know, work day to day with the kinds
Speaker 3: of things we talk about and can add their own experience.
Speaker 3: All right, Rob, do you want to do another one
Speaker 3: of the messages about the mind shaft?
Speaker 2: Sure? This one comes to us from Jeff Jeff Wright.
Speaker 2: Sentence says, Hey, guys, mercifully short note here. If you've
Speaker 2: still got room in your episodes on Cave Gromlin's, you
Speaker 2: might want to check out Jules Verne's The Child of
Speaker 2: the Cavern. Or maybe not because spoiler alert. While the
Speaker 2: characters do discuss possible supernatural explanations for unexplained happenings, it's
Speaker 2: ultimately a Scooby Doo reveal where the villain is essentially
Speaker 2: a captain Nemo of the coal Mine. Verne creates another
Speaker 2: one of his fragile utopias, this one of Paradise Underground,
Speaker 2: just waiting to be ruined by meddling outsiders. Fun read
Speaker 2: with lots of imagery that is stuck in my head
Speaker 2: for years, but maybe not his most compelling work. Yeah.
Speaker 3: I don't think I was even aware of this one.
Speaker 2: Yeah, this was not on my radar either, but looking
Speaker 2: it up, I mean it does sound fascinating, involves what
Speaker 2: goblins and fire maidens, but I.
Speaker 3: Think things falsely attributed to such.
Speaker 2: I believe yes, because again has just noted it ends
Speaker 2: up being a Scooby Doo reveal. But still, you know,
Speaker 2: just the idea sometimes is more frightening than the reveal
Speaker 2: or the reality. So depending on how it's presented in
Speaker 2: the text, it might be rather compelling.
Speaker 3: The wiki makes it look like one of the characters
Speaker 3: has an attack owl. Yeah, okay, yeah, yeah, maybe I'll
Speaker 3: have to take a look someday. All right, I'm going
Speaker 3: to do one more message on the mining creatures. This
Speaker 3: one comes from Rebecca. Rebecca says Hello. In twenty twenty four,
Speaker 3: I visited the Rigna Mining experience in roscomm And, Ireland.
Speaker 3: The Rigna mine was in the side of a hill,
Speaker 3: so you didn't need to descend to just walk into
Speaker 3: the old mine. The mind closed in nineteen ninety, but
Speaker 3: there are still a few miners working as tour guides.
Speaker 3: Listening to our guide relate his experiences was very interesting.
Speaker 3: He mentioned that once a coal seam was exhausted, they
Speaker 3: would pack it in with rock. Of course, they couldn't
Speaker 3: ever pack it as tightly as it had been, so
Speaker 3: you would hear the ground settling. It must have been
Speaker 3: quite disconcerting. I would recommend visiting it if you're ever
Speaker 3: in that part of the world. Thanks for the podcast, Rebecca,
Speaker 3: Thank you, Rebecca. Yeah, this is a great thing to
Speaker 3: point out, Like in addition to minds, of course, you know,
Speaker 3: the underground tunnel version of minds being dark and having
Speaker 3: strange sonic characteristics and all that, the changes that you
Speaker 3: are physically making to the earth have to bring about
Speaker 3: their own challenges to the psyche, both in terms of
Speaker 3: just conceptually being aware of you know, that you're cutting
Speaker 3: through the rock and how much rock is above you
Speaker 3: and all that, but also yeah, when you're you know,
Speaker 3: packing a bunch of rock into an emptied out seam
Speaker 3: or something. Yeah, surely that makes some noises. I'm sure
Speaker 3: that doesn't sound very good in the dark.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, absolutely, this is a great point.
Speaker 3: Okay, we got a few more Halloween related things. You
Speaker 3: want to take your pick, Rob.
Speaker 2: Yeah, let's see. We heard from Scott here in response
Speaker 2: to our Bone Collector's episodes subject line hyenas and lions
Speaker 2: and bears. Oh my, Scott says, greetings all, I'm listening
Speaker 2: to this to the discussion about cave hyenas in part
Speaker 2: one of the bone collector's episode and remembered something I
Speaker 2: read years ago, probably in a National Geographic article. Modern
Speaker 2: day lions and the spotted hyena are natural enemies, so
Speaker 2: much so that if a group of either animal encounters
Speaker 2: the other, they will attack them on site. This behavior
Speaker 2: is outside of attempting to steal food, defend their territory,
Speaker 2: or protect their young. If the pack of hyenas come
Speaker 2: across the solitary lion, they will immediately attack and kill
Speaker 2: the lion, and vice versa. An interesting finding of the
Speaker 2: article was that the outcome of the fight could be
Speaker 2: accurately predicted by comparing the total weight of the groups,
Speaker 2: rather than by the number of fighters. A single large,
Speaker 2: powerful lion could defeat a number of quick, agile hyenas
Speaker 2: until the number of hyaenas increased to where their total
Speaker 2: weight exceeded that of the lion. I was reminded of
Speaker 2: this when you talked about how the cave versions of hyenas, lions,
Speaker 2: and bears all used the same caves. It occurred to
Speaker 2: me that the same arithmetic might have been in play
Speaker 2: back then. If a sufficient weight of lions arrived at
Speaker 2: a cave occupied by a smaller total weight of hyaenas
Speaker 2: the lions might say, nice cave, we'll take it. If
Speaker 2: the lion pride didn't have the weight, though, they'd possibly
Speaker 2: just move along. One of the things I like about
Speaker 2: your podcast is how I get connections between new things
Speaker 2: that I've learned in things that I'd learned previously. Thank you, Scott.
Speaker 3: Interesting, Thank you Scott. To the extent that this is true,
Speaker 3: I haven't verified this myself, but I mean, if the
Speaker 3: weight balance and sing thing is true, how does that
Speaker 3: work in the animal's brain, Like, how does the lion
Speaker 3: or the hyena judge accurately? Okay, we've got enough mass
Speaker 3: on our side to take down the other side, you know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I mean, I mean I could see where
Speaker 2: some version of this would would certainly be be true
Speaker 2: because we've talked about, you know, plenty of times before
Speaker 2: about one of the defensive characteristics of various organisms is
Speaker 2: of course, to make yourself appear bigger. And if you
Speaker 2: accurately or if you say accurately communicate, if you effectively
Speaker 2: communicate this even as a deception, you may convince the
Speaker 2: other animal like the math is wrong. I can't take
Speaker 2: this animal, or the attempt to take it is just
Speaker 2: too risky and therefore I should move along.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, okay, I'm going to do this one from Joe.
Speaker 3: Joe says, Hey, Rob and Joe, Oh enjoyed the spooky
Speaker 3: content this month. Watched Black Sunday with my wife and
Speaker 3: loved the Bone Midden episodes as well. Nice hope you
Speaker 3: both enjoyed Black Sunday. So, Joe says, I just heard
Speaker 3: about another creature suitable for entry into your catalog of
Speaker 3: abattoir keepers. The spectral bat. Now, that really does sound
Speaker 3: like a creature from the D and D manual because
Speaker 3: it sounds like it like phases in and out. It's
Speaker 3: like a phase spider or something. But no, this is
Speaker 3: a real animal, Joe says. Unlike your typical bat, which
Speaker 3: is either a docile vegetarian or helpful insectivore, these bats
Speaker 3: are true predators, with large bodies, ferocious faces, wolfish jaws,
Speaker 3: and massive fangs that they used to kill their avian
Speaker 3: bat and rodent prey and then carry them back to
Speaker 3: their layers to eat at their leisure, discarding the inedible parts.
Speaker 3: Below and Rabbi pulled in a collage of images of
Speaker 3: this bat for you to look at in the outline
Speaker 3: shocking looking jaws. I did not know there were bats
Speaker 3: that had mouths that looked like this. It does have
Speaker 3: werewolf face.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Joe attaches a link to a study of their diet
Speaker 3: and behavior done by looking at the middens of bones
Speaker 3: that they create, or bones and other hard parts that
Speaker 3: they create. Joe says, I thought you'd like to hear
Speaker 3: about these guys because they really feel like they flapped
Speaker 3: out of the monster manual. This is a bat with
Speaker 3: a challenge rating. These are the bats that other bats
Speaker 3: tell scary stories about when the nights grow long and dark.
Speaker 3: Thanks again and happy Halloween, Joe. And then I want
Speaker 3: to note the study that Joe linked to. It was
Speaker 3: a paper published in the Journal of Mammalogy in nineteen
Speaker 3: seventy seven called Observations on the Foraging Behavior and avan
Speaker 3: Prey of the Neotropical carnivorous Bat Vimpyrum spectrum. This is
Speaker 3: by Sandra verencamp F, Gary Styles, and Jack W. Bradbury.
Speaker 3: And so the authors of this paper were trying to
Speaker 3: study the foraging behavior of vectral bat by looking by
Speaker 3: using some radio tracking, by watching their roosts in the evening,
Speaker 3: and then finally by a quote a systematic collection of
Speaker 3: the prey parts found in the bottom of a roost
Speaker 3: containing five bats. Quote. Of the eighteen species, about eighty
Speaker 3: six individuals identified most. And this is talking about the
Speaker 3: prey species. The remains they found most were common residents
Speaker 3: of the tropical dry deciduous forest. Non passerines were significantly
Speaker 3: preferred over passerines. Vampireum appeared to select birds which way
Speaker 3: between twenty and one hundred and fifty grams, sleep in
Speaker 3: foliage rather than in holes or burrows, and either roost
Speaker 3: communally or have a strong body odor. It appears that
Speaker 3: the bats locate their avian prey by scent rather than
Speaker 3: by vision or echolocation. So these are going to be
Speaker 3: wolfjaw bats out there hunting for birds to eat in
Speaker 3: the foliage at night, birds that might sleep among the
Speaker 3: leaves rather than in a tight, little protected roost. And yeah,
Speaker 3: especially smelly birds are going to be the ones that
Speaker 3: are easiest for them to find.
Speaker 2: Excellent, Yes, quite a specimen here, you know. I had
Speaker 2: bats on the brain a little bit over the weekend,
Speaker 2: which being Halloween weekend, that's not completely out of the ordinary,
Speaker 2: but I was driving my kid and one of their
Speaker 2: friends somewhere in the car, and so we put on
Speaker 2: an episode of Ali Ward's Homologies, and in it she
Speaker 2: was interviewing the world famous bat researcher Merlin Tuttle, and
Speaker 2: it was just a really fun chat about bats. So
Speaker 2: I recommend that one passed that on to our listeners
Speaker 2: as well.
Speaker 3: Great, all right, now we have some more responses to
Speaker 3: Halloween episodes, but there were a few other messages we
Speaker 3: wanted to fit in today, so we're going to save
Speaker 3: the rest of the Halloween stuff for next time. We'll
Speaker 3: probably do another listener within the next couple of weeks,
Speaker 3: but yeah, for now, we're going to skip back to
Speaker 3: some responses to our Giant Clam episode.
Speaker 2: Right, that's right, we heard from Chris. Chris wrote in
Speaker 2: and said, good day, Robert, Joe and JJA. Listening to
Speaker 2: the most recent episode, Jaws of the Giant Clam, I
Speaker 2: couldn't help but notice the overlap between the story you
Speaker 2: mentioned about the giant clam and the canoe from the
Speaker 2: Tahitian and includes a question mark herett legend, and the
Speaker 2: storyline in Mwana II when the traveling party encounters a
Speaker 2: giant clam the size of an island, they end up
Speaker 2: inside the clam, and the events that ensue are vital
Speaker 2: to the rest of the story. Here's a quick link
Speaker 2: to a page about it, but i'd suggest just taking
Speaker 2: a quick watch of that section of the film and
Speaker 2: see how it's portrayed. Thanks as always for your fantastic episodes.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so I was the one who brought up the
Speaker 3: folklore about the giant clam that sometimes appears in the
Speaker 3: tales of the Polynesian folk hero Rata. The specific version
Speaker 3: of the story that I was talking about was a
Speaker 3: to Amoto On telling, but yeah, this kind of encounter
Speaker 3: pops up in multiple versions throughout these Polynesian folk tales,
Speaker 3: so that's what I was talking about. But this is
Speaker 3: a great connection because I have not seen Moana or
Speaker 3: Moana Too, but I clicked through here and yeah, it
Speaker 3: looks like there is there's a giant like almost like
Speaker 3: skyscraper sized.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, and it does have the correct it's it's
Speaker 2: position vertically as opposed to horizontally, which is more accurate.
Speaker 3: Right. Yeah. Nice.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I haven't seen Moana too, I've only seen the
Speaker 2: first one. But yeah, the images of this look really
Speaker 2: really fascinating, So maybe I should give it a fewing.
Speaker 3: I'm just taking a look at it. I see. I
Speaker 3: love how you can see the little the little eyes. Yes,
Speaker 3: flesh there, Yeah, that's nice.
Speaker 2: Absolutely and certainly the yeah then interior, that mantle of
Speaker 2: flesh is very vibrant, as it should be. So they
Speaker 2: definitely did their own work a bit and paid attention,
Speaker 2: and then you know, also applyed a fair amount of
Speaker 2: creativity in creating this. Now, I want to use this
Speaker 2: as a springboard to mention something that I learned about
Speaker 2: recently after our Giant clam episode came out. I mentioned
Speaker 2: earlier in this episode that my family and I visited
Speaker 2: Vancouver and we went to the Museum of Anthropology at
Speaker 2: UBC and there was so much to learn there. Again,
Speaker 2: fabulous museum, but specifically I learned about a belief among
Speaker 2: the Hata people about the raven and the first Men.
Speaker 2: And basically the story goes that the first people are
Speaker 2: found in a giant clamshell by the great Raven after
Speaker 2: a tremendous flood, you know, some sort of a great flood,
Speaker 2: and so the little people are in there naked, cowering
Speaker 2: for shelter and cover from this great bird that's inspecting them.
Speaker 2: But the bird, the Great Raven, is also a little
Speaker 2: bit of a trickster, but also not a cannibal bird
Speaker 2: or anything, you know, not a man eater. So what
Speaker 2: he does is he coaxes them out with his tongue
Speaker 2: and it convinces them you can get out of there.
Speaker 2: You can't cower in that shell forever. And so they
Speaker 2: climb out of the shell and they become the first people.
Speaker 2: So it's a tremendous little story. And there's an amazing
Speaker 2: sculpture in the museum that I believe was unveiled in
Speaker 2: nineteen eighty by hay To artist Bill Reid. I included
Speaker 2: a photograph of this sculpture here for you, Joe, though
Speaker 2: in this image you don't really get a sense of
Speaker 2: the scale of the piece because it's the central piece
Speaker 2: in this special room and you kind of like look
Speaker 2: up at it and you walk around it. I was
Speaker 2: very impressed.
Speaker 3: Yeah, looks amazing, though, I would love to see this
Speaker 3: in person. So you can see all the people inside
Speaker 3: the shells, they're you know, peeking out, and you can
Speaker 3: see several different bodies in there, and then the bird
Speaker 3: with like sort of huddled over with its wings forming shroud.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, you also see a butt or two poking
Speaker 2: out because the people are cowering in there.
Speaker 3: Yeah, jumbled always inside, all right. One more message about
Speaker 3: giant clams. This comes from Lawrence a subject line Batman
Speaker 3: versus Giant Clam. Hey, guys, just finish listening to your
Speaker 3: Giant Clam episode. And I thought you might like to
Speaker 3: know that Superman isn't the only DC hero to have
Speaker 3: a run in with a giant clam. Seems the Joker
Speaker 3: tried to finish off the Dynamic duo with one in
Speaker 3: the Cliffhanger episode or the Cliffhang Cliffhanger ending of an
Speaker 3: episode of the Adam West Batman series. Here's a link
Speaker 3: to a clip of the escape, and then Lawrence provides
Speaker 3: a clip. I went and looked at it. I see
Speaker 3: Batman and some lady are in this wet room and
Speaker 3: I think Robin has already been swallowed by a giant
Speaker 3: clam and Batman has to pry the jaws open, and
Speaker 3: it's just like the Superman thing. It's like, Wow, you know,
Speaker 3: only a superhero could could get these these things apart.
Speaker 2: Yeah, how rop and get in there? To begin with
Speaker 2: a lot of.
Speaker 3: Questions lost and Nickel when in there looking for it. Yeah,
Speaker 3: all right, let's see Rob. Do you want to finish
Speaker 3: off by doing a couple of responses about weird house cinema?
Speaker 2: Sure, sure, let's do some weird house cinema.
Speaker 3: Take your pick.
Speaker 2: All right, this one comes to us. Oh, this one's
Speaker 2: from Rob, but not from me. This is a different Rob.
Speaker 2: There are a lot of us.
Speaker 3: And also I'm not the Joe who wrote the Joe
Speaker 3: messages today.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there are there Joe's and Robs out there, and
Speaker 2: sometimes they know each other too. Anyway, this one says, Hello, Robin, Joe,
Speaker 2: your call out for suggestions. This would be suggestions for
Speaker 2: things we could watch during October, including potential weird house
Speaker 2: cinema selections. Your call out for suggestions included a thematic
Speaker 2: preference that likely precludes my suggestion, But I expect that
Speaker 2: you both enjoy it, even if it doesn't fit on
Speaker 2: a weird House episode. If you have not had the
Speaker 2: pleasure of watching Over the Guard Wall, I cannot recommend
Speaker 2: it strongly enough. It's an animated ten episode mini series
Speaker 2: featuring some big name voice actors. Despite the talent, it
Speaker 2: has flown under the radar for virtually everyone I've spoken
Speaker 2: to about this wonderful series. It's an annual watch in
Speaker 2: my household, and my daughter in university comes home for
Speaker 2: a weekend so we can all watch it. It's a
Speaker 2: family friendly, wholesome, slightly creepy, fully weird viewing adventure that
Speaker 2: is now a part of my family's cultural DNA. I
Speaker 2: wish you the best. Thank you for your passion and
Speaker 2: dedication to blowing the minds off your listeners. Cheers Rob.
Speaker 2: Oh well, Rob, I'm glad you mentioned Over the Garden Wall.
Speaker 2: Here in my household, we are also big fans of
Speaker 2: Over the Garden Wall. We just finished a complete rewatch
Speaker 2: of the full ten episode series. In the past, we've
Speaker 2: just rewatched a few choice episodes here and there, but
Speaker 2: we finally returned and took in the whole storyline. A
Speaker 2: tremendous show. We love everything about it, and in fact,
Speaker 2: my wife and I went as the two characters weret
Speaker 2: and Greg for Halloween this year, so I was Wort
Speaker 2: and she was Greg, and not everybody knew who we were.
Speaker 2: Some people thought I was a gnome, but the people
Speaker 2: who got it really got it and were excited for it.
Speaker 3: So you sent me some pictures of your family Halloween costumes,
Speaker 3: and it was adorable. I also actually am not familiar
Speaker 3: with Over the Garden Wall. I think somebody has written
Speaker 3: in about this before, so I think it's come up
Speaker 3: in a past listener mail some time ago. But yeah,
Speaker 3: I've never seen it, so I didn't recognize what these
Speaker 3: costumes were. So I was like googling the characteristics of
Speaker 3: the photos you sent me trying to figure out what
Speaker 3: it was. Once I did, I was like, oh, okay,
Speaker 3: but yeah, y'all looked great. It looked like a really
Speaker 3: fun family Halloween.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, it's a tremendous show. And as Rob mentioned here,
Speaker 2: it has flown under the radar for a lot of people,
Speaker 2: but it has in the process taken on this cult
Speaker 2: like following. You know, it's something new for people to
Speaker 2: discover every year. Oh and while I'm at it, I'll
Speaker 2: go ahead and mention it just happens to be the
Speaker 2: case that already made this decision. But this week's Monster Fact,
Speaker 2: we'll cover something from Over the Garden Wall. So Over
Speaker 2: the Garden Wall fans tune in.
Speaker 3: Oh, here's a funny one from Jonas addressing something that
Speaker 3: I don't remember. If we if we did. But Jonas says,
Speaker 3: dear Joe and Robert, I am writing to you about
Speaker 3: two times recently when you called a couple of our
Speaker 3: beloved Swedish national heroes Swiss. So Jonas mentions britt Ekland
Speaker 3: of the Wicker Man and says, britt Ekland is Swedish,
Speaker 3: not Swiss. The same is true of old Carl Linnaeus. Jonas,
Speaker 3: I truly cannot remember when we called britt Ekland or
Speaker 3: Carl Lineus Swiss. But if that passed through my lips,
Speaker 3: I'm sorry. I did not mean to say that. That
Speaker 3: was not the impression I had about either one.
Speaker 2: It might have been me. And because I did go
Speaker 2: back and and applied some corrections to a couple of episodes,
Speaker 2: I believe, so, just a slip of the tongue there.
Speaker 3: Okay, Well, so thank you for the correction, Jonas. And yeah,
Speaker 3: of course corrections always welcome, folks, if we have a
Speaker 3: slip up of that kind.
Speaker 2: Yeah, because we can always go back in and generally
Speaker 2: correct it, which is of course essential if we're going
Speaker 2: to rerun an episode later in the future.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Also I should add on here Jonas asks us
Speaker 3: to do an episode on the subject of religion, answering
Speaker 3: the big questions such as what is it, where did
Speaker 3: it come from? Things like that. This is a subject
Speaker 3: so large and fundamental. I don't think we're ever going
Speaker 3: to do that as an episode in itself, but of
Speaker 3: course this will come up tangentially and discussing all kinds
Speaker 3: of other topics. So it's definitely always on our mind.
Speaker 3: If you listen to us, you probably know we both
Speaker 3: are big. We are very interesting religion.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, we tend to be a bit more I
Speaker 2: guess granular in our approach these days and these sorts
Speaker 2: of topics. So I would say in general, just anytime
Speaker 2: you see a topic that is related to religion or
Speaker 2: could potentially be related to religion, will probably go there
Speaker 2: to some degree.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: All right, here's one last one to close out the episode.
Speaker 2: This one comes to us from Luisa, subject spiritual successor
Speaker 2: to Wickerman. She says, Hi, guys, I hope Halloween season
Speaker 2: was as weird and rewarding as you like it to be.
Speaker 2: The following idea has been going around in my head
Speaker 2: ever since the Wickerman episode on Weird House. Maybe the
Speaker 2: true spiritual child of that classic movie is not the
Speaker 2: horrible remake, but what I find to be a nice
Speaker 2: recipient of the spookiness of the original Midsummer think about it,
Speaker 2: a whole town in on the rituals, however, Macague people
Speaker 2: from outside trying to make sense of it all, gorgeous cinematography,
Speaker 2: vivid colors, and at the end, acceptance of what should
Speaker 2: not feel as right as it actually does. Please tell
Speaker 2: me if I'm way off base. As always, thank you
Speaker 2: for your podcast. I must confess I will not be reading.
Speaker 2: I have no mouth and I'm a scream however much
Speaker 2: it sounds fascinating.
Speaker 3: Best regards, please, thank you, Luisa. Yeah, great recommendation. You know,
Speaker 3: we usually do older films. I mean, we don't have
Speaker 3: a rule against doing more recent films. We tend to
Speaker 3: do older movies. But yeah, that one, I'm absolutely on
Speaker 3: the same page with you about it being in many
Speaker 3: ways a spiritual grandchild of the Wickerman. Yeah, it feels
Speaker 3: absolutely like that, And I see exactly what you're talking
Speaker 3: about about the ending, the acceptance of what should not
Speaker 3: feel right as it actually does feel as right as
Speaker 3: it actually does. I was thinking about both of the
Speaker 3: big ari astor horror movies that I've seen have this
Speaker 3: great feeling of like an ending that is terrible and
Speaker 3: horrible bowl but feels great or I don't know, I
Speaker 3: don't know if it feels great but has an exultant
Speaker 3: quality about it.
Speaker 2: Hmm. Yeah, I haven't seen it, so I can't speak
Speaker 2: to it, and I don't think I've seen either of
Speaker 2: his films. Actually, with Midsommer, we've received recommendations regarding it
Speaker 2: numerous times. For a weird house. I'm always just turned
Speaker 2: off because, like, the lady on this is so silly,
Speaker 2: I'm sure, But the lady on the posters crying and
Speaker 2: she seems very unhappy, and I'm like, I don't know
Speaker 2: if I want to watch this. She seems very unhappy
Speaker 2: about it. Am I going to be unhappy about it?
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 3: You're going to have a mix of extreme emotions. There
Speaker 3: are some very very unhappy things in the movie.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't know. I don't know if I want
Speaker 2: extreme emotions.
Speaker 3: But it's also really interesting.
Speaker 2: Yeah, again, I've been hearing great things about it. I'm
Speaker 2: catching up a little bit. Over Halloween, my wife and
Speaker 2: I watched a pair of move movies that that we'd
Speaker 2: heard good things about. We watched Weapons, which everyone loves
Speaker 2: and I haven't seen it. Oh, you haven't seen Weapons?
Speaker 2: Weapons is great?
Speaker 3: Bye? Is it by the people who made Barbarian? Yes?
Speaker 2: Yeah, same same creator, h same writer, director, And I
Speaker 2: haven't seen Barbarian yet because I was I was kind
Speaker 2: of like, I was concerned that it would be too
Speaker 2: real world. People said it was great and that I
Speaker 2: should see it, and I just haven't gotten to it yet.
Speaker 2: But then I was like, Okay, we'll give Weapons a go.
Speaker 2: Too many people are saying it's tremendous, uh, and I
Speaker 2: really enjoyed it. Don't let anybody tell you anything about it. Luckily,
Speaker 2: the promotion of the film I think has largely avoided spoilers.
Speaker 2: But it's a lot of fun. And then because one
Speaker 2: of my kids friends was dressed as the title character
Speaker 2: from it, we watched Megan the three again. Yeah, we
Speaker 2: watched him three again and in a in a different way.
Speaker 2: That was a lot of fun as well.
Speaker 3: Dude, I love him three agin. It was I think
Speaker 3: Reagan's awesome.
Speaker 2: I heard it described as it's Chucky meets Terminator with
Speaker 2: a you know, like with a dash of like not
Speaker 2: too deep modern AI robotics consideration, and it makes for
Speaker 2: a fun film.
Speaker 3: I like that style of just a hog wild, care
Speaker 3: free sci fi horror movie with a sense of humor.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I enjoyed it, and I'm I'm interested in
Speaker 2: watching the sequel.
Speaker 3: I don't know.
Speaker 2: My wife is on board for it. But the trailer
Speaker 2: for the sequel looks looks pretty wild.
Speaker 3: Oh, we're gonna watch it. Yeah. Rachel loved the original
Speaker 3: in threegan two. Yeah, we've seen it more than once.
Speaker 3: The sequel looks like maybe it goes into like it
Speaker 3: maybe goes a little Kaishu or maybe even a little
Speaker 3: Grimlins too. I can't tell, but it does look like
Speaker 3: one of those sequels where at least the filmmakers were
Speaker 3: asking the right questions, like what can we do that's different?
Speaker 2: Where do we go from here? Not just another scoopa
Speaker 2: iyce tream? But you know, I'm more on top and
Speaker 2: maybe it falls, but I don't know, but the trailer
Speaker 2: looks intriguing.
Speaker 3: Maybe next year for Halloween I'll bem three again. I
Speaker 3: would like that.
Speaker 2: All right? Well, listeners, you write in, you tell us
Speaker 2: what your thoughts are. We're always happy to hear from you.
Speaker 2: Just a reminder, this stuff to blow your mind is
Speaker 2: primarily a science and culture podcast, with core episodes on
Speaker 2: Tuesdays and Thursday, short form episodes on Wednesdays and on Fridays.
Speaker 2: We set aside most serious concerns to just talk about
Speaker 2: a weird film on Weird House Cinema.
Speaker 3: Huge thanks as always to our excellent audio producer JJ Posway.
Speaker 3: If you would like to get in touch with us
Speaker 3: with feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest
Speaker 3: a topic for the future, or just to say hello,
Speaker 3: you can email us at contact at stuff to Blow
Speaker 3: your Mind dot com.
Speaker 1: Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production of iHeartRadio. For
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