Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of
Speaker 1: My Heart Radio. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind.
Speaker 1: Listener Mail. My name is Robert Land, and I'm Joe McCormick,
Speaker 1: and this is the inaugural of our recurring series of
Speaker 1: weekly listener mail episodes. If you've been listening to the
Speaker 1: show for a while, we have. We've had a tradition
Speaker 1: for several years now of sort of rounding up listener
Speaker 1: mail every couple of months. But now we're going to
Speaker 1: turn this into a weekly episode. So these will be
Speaker 1: shorter than our normal episodes, but we'll be trying to
Speaker 1: to check in with your your feedback and and reach
Speaker 1: into the mail bag on a on a more regular basis. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so let us know if this is good, if this
Speaker 1: is bad, it's it's new. That's that's that's for sure.
Speaker 1: But yeah, we're gonna you know, I guess the idea
Speaker 1: is that if we do it every week, that the
Speaker 1: the upside is it's more of a continual exchange of
Speaker 1: ideas between uh, you the listener and UH and us
Speaker 1: the host, as opposed to just sort of touching base
Speaker 1: every month or two. Now, in this first one, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna say, we're still going to be playing some catch
Speaker 1: up because there was a bunch of mail that we
Speaker 1: tried to get into in our last full listener Mail episode.
Speaker 1: We didn't even come close. So we're still rounding up
Speaker 1: some responses to our Halloween season episodes. This is gonna
Speaker 1: be a sort of Halloween hangover a Listener mail. But
Speaker 1: I would say in the future, we're gonna try to
Speaker 1: be getting into mail that is about more recent episodes,
Speaker 1: so hopefully within the you know, past couple of weeks
Speaker 1: before each episode airs. All right, well, let's go ahead
Speaker 1: and uh and see what the mail boat has for
Speaker 1: us this time. Uh, let's see. Do you want to
Speaker 1: take this one, Joe or shall I sure I can
Speaker 1: read this one here? From James. This is in response
Speaker 1: to our episode about the Leshy, the creature of Slavic
Speaker 1: mythology who's kind of a I think I called him
Speaker 1: a malevolent trickster end. He's a spirit of the woods
Speaker 1: who's somewhat beast of the forest, somewhat tree himself and uh,
Speaker 1: and is generally bad and we'll do bad things to you.
Speaker 1: So this is what James had to say, Hi, Robert
Speaker 1: and Joe, I love the Lessie episode, and I never
Speaker 1: heard of the Lessie prior to listening. I'm glad you
Speaker 1: made the connection to swamp Thing. Since reading Alan Moore's
Speaker 1: saga of the swamp Thing on a plane once, it
Speaker 1: is always stuck with me that swamp Thing is a
Speaker 1: much deeper character than some of those he had been
Speaker 1: paired with over the years. For example, I had a
Speaker 1: Hulk Versus swamp Thing comic as a kid. Uh, Rob,
Speaker 1: do you know that one? I don't. I'm I'm pretty
Speaker 1: much only familiar with the Alan Moore run of the comic,
Speaker 1: as well as some of the other stuff that he
Speaker 1: was up to on you know, various TV and film incarnations. Um.
Speaker 1: But yeah, I always thought that swamp Thing was was
Speaker 1: pretty deep. I mean, I'm not about to cast out
Speaker 1: on the depth of the Hulk, because I know that
Speaker 1: the Hulk has been around a while, so I'm sure
Speaker 1: there have been some some some deeper treatments of that character.
Speaker 1: But yes, swamp Thing, especially as presented by Alan Moore
Speaker 1: as a is a wonderfully rich character. Okay, James continues,
Speaker 1: the discussion about getting lost reminded me of something that
Speaker 1: happened when I was very young. It was certainly not
Speaker 1: a life threatening moment, but here goes. My cousins and
Speaker 1: I were at a beach with a coastal woodland behind
Speaker 1: the dunes. I was the oldest, about twelve years old,
Speaker 1: and we decided we should explore the woodland, being sure
Speaker 1: we would only need to turn around and head straight
Speaker 1: back to the beach when we needed to. After a
Speaker 1: few minutes of crawling under logs and pushing through bushes,
Speaker 1: the adults on the beach called for us to come out.
Speaker 1: We could hear them and headed in what we thought
Speaker 1: was their direction. We seemed to be bashing through the
Speaker 1: bush far longer than we had on the way in.
Speaker 1: We realized we weren't going the right way and we're lost.
Speaker 1: Several times we stopped and listened, then changed direction to
Speaker 1: move toward the voices on the beach. It felt as
Speaker 1: though every direction we chose was wrong and we were
Speaker 1: beginning to freak out. I was sure that if we
Speaker 1: looked for open sky, it would signify the edge of
Speaker 1: the woodland. Time after time, this theory was proven wrong.
Speaker 1: After what might have been about thirty minutes, my cousin
Speaker 1: caught a glimpse of something and following her lead. Within
Speaker 1: a few strides, we'd step back onto the dunes. Needless
Speaker 1: to say, the adults were relieved to see us, and
Speaker 1: I was not the favorite nephew that afternoon. I couldn't
Speaker 1: understand how it repeatedly got it so wrong until listening
Speaker 1: to Joe's explanation of the science of being lost. Most
Speaker 1: likely I was leading us in circles just meters from
Speaker 1: the edge. More recently, my partner and I were walking
Speaker 1: back from the same beach as a storm was approaching.
Speaker 1: It's a place I still often go for holidays and
Speaker 1: is very familiar to me, less so to her. The
Speaker 1: houses and narrow roads i'll sit amongst a remnant coastal woodland.
Speaker 1: I suggested we take a new route back to the house,
Speaker 1: just to see what it was like. As we headed
Speaker 1: down the different route, the wind picked up and the
Speaker 1: tall trees lining the street were swaying dramatically under a
Speaker 1: dark gray sky. We were startled by a loud screeching
Speaker 1: sound and looked up to see several yellow tailed black
Speaker 1: cockatoos just above us. They were clinging to the swaying branches,
Speaker 1: screeching while the wind buffeted them to and fro. We
Speaker 1: hadn't spotted any of these birds at all until that moment.
Speaker 1: Up close, they're very large, and each of them firmly
Speaker 1: held one eye on us, even as they were tossed
Speaker 1: around by the oncoming storm. All we could hear was
Speaker 1: wind in the trees and their sharp screeches cutting deeply
Speaker 1: into us. We felt very intimidated by the whole scene,
Speaker 1: and when my partner asked to turn back, I agreed,
Speaker 1: even though it meant doubling back and staying out slightly longer.
Speaker 1: I should say that I am not frightened of wild
Speaker 1: life at all, and of experienced handling wild animals, including
Speaker 1: large birds. At no time were we in any danger whatsoever,
Speaker 1: and these cockatoos are beautiful birds that I love observing
Speaker 1: when I get the chance. However, there was something profoundly
Speaker 1: wild about the scene that made us feel very unwelcome.
Speaker 1: It felt as though we were being told we had
Speaker 1: stayed out too late, we shouldn't pass that point in
Speaker 1: the road, and the storm, speaking through dark winged messengers,
Speaker 1: was commanding us to return to the house. I got
Speaker 1: the feeling that all of nature at that time was
Speaker 1: one conscious force, which is not my usual belief. My
Speaker 1: rational mind recognizes that this is simply a quirk of
Speaker 1: being a human and feeling exposed in unfamiliar surroundings. I
Speaker 1: can only imagine that if I was actually lost, like
Speaker 1: I had been years earlier, not far from this encounter, Uh,
Speaker 1: this would have been really frightening rather than just a
Speaker 1: bit spooky. Listening to the leshy episode connected these memories
Speaker 1: for me, and I can really see how a spirit
Speaker 1: of the forest could manifest in the mind of people
Speaker 1: losing their way in the wild. It almost did for me.
Speaker 1: Thanks for introducing me to a fascinating idea once again, James. Oh,
Speaker 1: I love that that especially. I especially love that having
Speaker 1: just returned from a few days with nine with just
Speaker 1: my immediate family. Uh. Tybee Island here in Georgia, because
Speaker 1: they have some very desolate kind of coastlines there that
Speaker 1: always Uh not that I ever thought it felt like
Speaker 1: I was getting lost, but you can imagine yourself getting
Speaker 1: lost out there beside the dunes where the ghosts of
Speaker 1: the forest and the ghosts of the waters mingle. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of wild country there to consider. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we're really great email, James, Thanks for sharing. All right,
Speaker 1: here's another Leshy email. This one comes to us from Adam. Hi, guys,
Speaker 1: Happy Halloween from Massachusetts. Um. I mean you can look
Speaker 1: at that either way. Either it's a late happy Halloween
Speaker 1: or it's a it's a really early one, depending you know,
Speaker 1: based on when we're reading this anyway, Uh, they continue.
Speaker 1: We we take plenty of pride and scares, thrills and
Speaker 1: traditions of this holiday, and I know you both enjoy
Speaker 1: it as much as anyone. I'm a massive fan of
Speaker 1: the podcast and love all of your content, but this
Speaker 1: is the first time I finally willed myself to write
Speaker 1: in on a topic. I just listened to your Leshy
Speaker 1: podcast and found it extremely fascinating and informative on forest
Speaker 1: myths and legends. However, I would like to politely critique
Speaker 1: your description of the green Man and how it pertains
Speaker 1: to European traditions. The podcast discussion encouraged me to do
Speaker 1: some research of my own, and it was very difficult
Speaker 1: to come across a consensus about how related, if it, all,
Speaker 1: the various green Man figures of Europe were. In particular,
Speaker 1: you commented that we find this green man carved into
Speaker 1: Christian churches dating back to at least the sixth century,
Speaker 1: hinting at a clear inspiration from, or even direct reference
Speaker 1: to pre Christian folklore. I've included a link to an
Speaker 1: article by Emily Tesh below. This was a tour article
Speaker 1: toward dot com uh that suggests the green men folklore
Speaker 1: we think of today is actually a product of the
Speaker 1: twentieth century, due to a poorly researched amalgamation of various
Speaker 1: European myths by Lady Raglan in a nineteen thirty nine
Speaker 1: edition of Folklore, a writing that relies more on speculation
Speaker 1: than hard facts. While there I was certainly a multitude
Speaker 1: of similar forest spirits in pre Christian folklore, it seems
Speaker 1: to be taken as a fact that this is why
Speaker 1: the Christian architects were carving forest men into the churches,
Speaker 1: without much evidence to support the theory. It could very
Speaker 1: well be true, but it should be pointed out when
Speaker 1: speculating that this idea is by no means conclusive. The
Speaker 1: article below does a nice job of showing that in
Speaker 1: the past few centuries that has become quite common for
Speaker 1: one folklore author to quickly inspire a quote unquote canonical myth.
Speaker 1: An idea you touched on in the Minotaur podcast that
Speaker 1: combines and oversimplifies ancient stories, traditions, and legends to make
Speaker 1: them easier for mainstream consumption and pop cultural reference. Thought
Speaker 1: you would find the read interesting as well. Thank you
Speaker 1: for all the entertainment, education, and inspiration you constantly provide.
Speaker 1: All the best. Adam from Boston. Well, Adam, thanks for
Speaker 1: writing in. I think this is this is a fabulous
Speaker 1: point and I'm glad you, uh you you made it here. Um.
Speaker 1: On one hand, I would love to return to The
Speaker 1: Green Man in the future. I've actually wanted to do
Speaker 1: a Green Man episode for a long time. Um. I
Speaker 1: guess it. It probably goes back to finally remembering catching
Speaker 1: catching bits of the movie The Green Man starring Albert
Speaker 1: Finney on on cable back in the day. I think
Speaker 1: they would show it on any like on the middle,
Speaker 1: like the dead middle of a Sunday afternoon, and I
Speaker 1: always found that intriguing, and then of course I would
Speaker 1: occasionally catch that I figured what it was called. But
Speaker 1: there was a movie where Sean Connery played the Green
Speaker 1: Night uh you know, his head gets cut off and everything. Um.
Speaker 1: But yeah, it's it's my understanding that when we talk
Speaker 1: about the green Man, we're really were oversimplifying, and we're
Speaker 1: bringing together a whole bunch of different ideas um and
Speaker 1: it would be it would be fun to research that
Speaker 1: in greater depth in the future. And of course I
Speaker 1: totally agree with this point about the dangers of forming
Speaker 1: a canonical myth. I've been reading a book about Egyptian mythology,
Speaker 1: and the author of that book makes many of the
Speaker 1: same points, and one of the well one of the
Speaker 1: ways that that she puts it in that book is
Speaker 1: that is that when you consider a myth, you have
Speaker 1: to consider all versions of the myth. The myth is
Speaker 1: all versions of the myth, which I think is a
Speaker 1: wonderful point to make. Like, you can't you can't pick
Speaker 1: an choose, you can't carve it down, you can't limit
Speaker 1: it to just one narrative. It is all of it.
Speaker 1: It is all of the uh, you know, the the
Speaker 1: the the weird things that don't line up, the things
Speaker 1: that don't really work together. It is the you know,
Speaker 1: it is the version of the story that has been
Speaker 1: retold recently. It is also the version that was told
Speaker 1: long ago. It is all these things that you you
Speaker 1: have to incorporate or not even incorporate. You just have
Speaker 1: to identify them as the myth and and you should
Speaker 1: you should be hesitant to incorporate them all and try
Speaker 1: and cobble together something that you would call canon. That's
Speaker 1: a very good point, and it also it introduces difficulties
Speaker 1: in reconciling how we view a myth as I don't know,
Speaker 1: like the subject of academic study, versus how we view
Speaker 1: a myth as a story to be retold, Because if
Speaker 1: it's a story to be retold, you have to tell
Speaker 1: it one way, like you have to pick away to
Speaker 1: tell it, even though that's sort of antithetical to the
Speaker 1: best way to really study and understand a mythological tradition. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: so this is all important stuff to keep in mind,
Speaker 1: um when because yeah, it's hard to you know, on
Speaker 1: one level, you know, you want to engage with the
Speaker 1: myth um you know, accurately, and talk about where it
Speaker 1: came from and how it changed and how it is
Speaker 1: still changing. But on the other hand, yeah, these are
Speaker 1: these are at the heart. You often have stories that
Speaker 1: stick with us, characters and settings that stick with us,
Speaker 1: and we have that narrative impulse. It's hard to resist anyway,
Speaker 1: if you want to check out that article that I mentioned.
Speaker 1: It is titled The Green Man When a is a
Speaker 1: myth not a myth? Uh. This was published in Tour
Speaker 1: back in twenty nineteen. It is by Emily Tesh. All right,
Speaker 1: we got a short message from nol in response to
Speaker 1: our episode about melting. You remember the Melt movie episode,
Speaker 1: and Noel says, Hi, first time getting in touch. Listening
Speaker 1: to your recent podcast on melting, I was reminded of
Speaker 1: when my daughter Millie was very little and she came
Speaker 1: running to us in horror that she had discovered that
Speaker 1: quote the wind does are melting. We then had to
Speaker 1: explain the while while trying to gather some composure while
Speaker 1: in fits of laughing, that everything was okay and what
Speaker 1: she found was condensation on the windows. Love the show, knoll. Uh,
Speaker 1: that is great. That's wonderful child logic, you know. Speaking
Speaker 1: of the Melt episode, I think at one point in
Speaker 1: that we said are there any songs about melting? And
Speaker 1: it was subsequently pointed out to us by numerous listeners.
Speaker 1: Uh that, of course we're forgetting the modern English British
Speaker 1: New wave song I Melt with You, which is a
Speaker 1: great track. Um, I don't know why that didn't rattle
Speaker 1: in either of our heads. But but yeah, there's a
Speaker 1: melt song for you, and it is a positive melt song.
Speaker 1: It's about melting with somebody, you know, losing these destructive
Speaker 1: boundaries in our life and just becoming this uh, this
Speaker 1: pure ideal. So it's a great song for some reason.
Speaker 1: For a long time, I think I thought that one
Speaker 1: was by The Cure. I don't know why that's I'll
Speaker 1: stop the world and melt with you. I thought it was, like, yeah,
Speaker 1: on that same album with love song and pictures of
Speaker 1: you and stuff. It has a very similar sound as
Speaker 1: being someone who's kind of I love The Cure, but
Speaker 1: I'm very much a The Cure Greatest Hits kind of listener.
Speaker 1: Uh So, I I kind of had it loosely grouped
Speaker 1: in there with them. Oh, I kind of like to
Speaker 1: go deep on the weird Cure songs, so you know,
Speaker 1: the hanging gardens and all that stuff. Oh cool, All right,
Speaker 1: here's one that comes to us from Aaron responding to
Speaker 1: our anthology of horror episodes. Hi, Robert and Joe. I
Speaker 1: enjoyed the podcast greatly, and I've been working again through
Speaker 1: the back catalog of your shows. I'm currently listening to
Speaker 1: the old episode Anthology of Horror volume three from last year,
Speaker 1: and I want to comment on the whole sixth finger thing,
Speaker 1: the idea of having six fingers. On one hand, um uh,
Speaker 1: polydactually is actually a dominant trait in humans and more animals. Actually, however,
Speaker 1: it is rarely expressed because the recessive gene for five
Speaker 1: digits is the dominant gene in the population. That being said,
Speaker 1: if one of your parents had the dominant gene and
Speaker 1: passed it on to you, it would be expressed. So
Speaker 1: having six digits is not a birth defect as was
Speaker 1: stated in the podcast. So considering that polydactically is the
Speaker 1: dominant trait, it could in theory come into dominance in
Speaker 1: expression if we were to do some selective breeding that
Speaker 1: would produce more people who have this gene as dominant.
Speaker 1: Of course, that would be horrific as you would essentially
Speaker 1: have to perform eugenics to do this. Since the recessive
Speaker 1: gene is is the dominant expressed gene and to increase
Speaker 1: the number faster, you would want your breeding stock to
Speaker 1: have two copies of the dominant gene. So I feel
Speaker 1: that you you kind of missed out on the horrific
Speaker 1: implications of the evolved form of the character having six fingers.
Speaker 1: A whole lot of bad crap had to happen to
Speaker 1: get there. Uh. There was also another episode where you
Speaker 1: talked about somebody who damaged their hearing by something happening
Speaker 1: in their mouth. I'm sorry, but I don't remember the
Speaker 1: name of the episode. I immediately under if the damage
Speaker 1: occurred from a pressure wave passing from the mouth up
Speaker 1: the eustacean tube into the inner ear. Lots of people
Speaker 1: forget about this design in our anatomy and that the
Speaker 1: issues that can be caused from this connection to the
Speaker 1: inner ear. I think this was in reference to our
Speaker 1: episode on the eggs. Remember exploding eggs where if you
Speaker 1: that's right, cases where somebody microyve the hard boiled egg
Speaker 1: and then bit into it and it exploded like a
Speaker 1: bomb in their mouth. Finally, and one of the Anthology
Speaker 1: of Horror episodes who referred to the Simpsons episode with
Speaker 1: Kane and Kodos wanting to cook humans. That was one
Speaker 1: of one of the early of not the first tree
Speaker 1: House of Horror episodes. Kang and Kodos subduct the Simpsons
Speaker 1: when they are in the backyard barbecuing, Lisa becomes suspicious
Speaker 1: of the aliens and ultimately finds the alien cook's cookbook
Speaker 1: that implies that they are fattening up the Simpsons to eat.
Speaker 1: Much hilarity and sues as each side continues to blow
Speaker 1: space dust off the title until they reveal that they
Speaker 1: had no intention attention of eating the Simpsons. It's still
Speaker 1: one of the best King and Kotos stories in my
Speaker 1: honest opinion. Anyway, keep up the great work and stay safe.
Speaker 1: Aeron um. Yeah, I recently rewatched the very first tree
Speaker 1: House episode and this is one of them. This is
Speaker 1: back when it's it's Kane and Kodos, but also a
Speaker 1: third alien whose name I don't remember, but it's the chef,
Speaker 1: and it's voiced by James Earl Jones. Oh wow, I've
Speaker 1: completely forgotten that that's not in my memory at all. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think James Earl Jones. Like they started off having
Speaker 1: a tradition of James Earl Jones being a voice actor
Speaker 1: in their tree House episodes, but it only lasted like
Speaker 1: the first couple of episodes, maybe three episodes, I'm not sure.
Speaker 1: Because of course he's the voice of of of of
Speaker 1: the Baby of Maggie and Time and in the Time
Speaker 1: of Punishment episode. Yeah, alright, this next message comes to
Speaker 1: us from Robin. I believe it's a paleontologist. Robin says, Hi,
Speaker 1: Joe and Rob and Seth listening to your Saturday Vault
Speaker 1: episode Anthology of Horror volume two. Joe expressed that he
Speaker 1: very much like the Twilight Zone episode that was discussed
Speaker 1: shadow play. Remember that was the one about the the
Speaker 1: guy who is being sent to the execution and he
Speaker 1: tells everybody around him, you can't execute me because you're
Speaker 1: in my dream right now. If you kill me, you
Speaker 1: will all cease to exist. Um. And Robin goes on
Speaker 1: to say, you went on to discuss some really interesting
Speaker 1: thoughts about theory of mind and the nature of consciousness. Uh,
Speaker 1: and I remember we talked about the possibility of like,
Speaker 1: what if you could have a conscious mind inside your
Speaker 1: conscious mind that's separate from your mind. You know, the
Speaker 1: brain is capable of generating consciousness. We that that seems
Speaker 1: to be observable. What if it can generate more than
Speaker 1: one consciousness? It's hard to rule something like that out. Um,
Speaker 1: So Robin continues, I believe I've written in to recommend
Speaker 1: this book before, but I will happily recommend it again.
Speaker 1: I Am a Strange Loop by Douglas Hofsteader. It goes
Speaker 1: into quite a bit of exploration into just what you
Speaker 1: were discussing in that segment. Joe mentions the idea of
Speaker 1: simulating another consciousness within your own while practicing theory of mind,
Speaker 1: and Rob talks about simulating those in our lives that
Speaker 1: we know best. Well, the person that we know best
Speaker 1: is ourselves. Yes, we can simulate other consciousnesses in our
Speaker 1: mind to greater or lesser degrees, but the highest fidelity,
Speaker 1: best simulation is your own eye. You are the eponymous
Speaker 1: strange Loop. We are nothing more than the pattern of
Speaker 1: our thoughts and actions. And when idiosyncratic characteristics like speech, mannerisms,
Speaker 1: philosophical positions, taste in music, et cetera, are picked up
Speaker 1: by other surrounding consciousnesses and continue after the original person
Speaker 1: has died, it is very much the case that a small,
Speaker 1: pixelated version of that consciousness continues to live on in
Speaker 1: the remaining person or people. Anyway, I very much think
Speaker 1: you folks would enjoy the book, and I would recommend
Speaker 1: picking up a copy over the holiday season to read.
Speaker 1: Not too dense, very read bull fairly quick. Cheers Robin. Well,
Speaker 1: thanks Robin. Yeah, this is really interesting and yeah, I
Speaker 1: think we've talked about that idea before that in some
Speaker 1: strange sense, your your personality does actually live on in
Speaker 1: the memory of of other people. It's like a you know,
Speaker 1: a sort of vhs uh second generation copy of your personality,
Speaker 1: but it can be simulated by other people's brains. Yeah,
Speaker 1: very cool. All right, here's another one. This is another
Speaker 1: Anthology of of Horror listener mail from Matt. Good Day,
Speaker 1: Robert and Joe very much enjoyed your fourth Horror Anthology
Speaker 1: episode and all October episodes. Of course, I've written you
Speaker 1: a couple of times about farming food production, and this
Speaker 1: time I just wanted to briefly expand on one of
Speaker 1: the things you mentioned regarding pathogen transmission from plants to humans. Specifically,
Speaker 1: you mentioned fungal infestations in crops, vomit, toxin, and consequential
Speaker 1: health concerns associated with elevated levels. You were absolutely correct
Speaker 1: that we farmers scalt and apply controls fungicides if we
Speaker 1: see fungal pressures in our fields, not all the time.
Speaker 1: The infection has to be serious and widespread enough to
Speaker 1: warrant a control, but it can be a solution. How
Speaker 1: much disease pressure uh one has in their fields is
Speaker 1: usually determined by every farmer's favorite gambling buddy, the weather.
Speaker 1: Generally speaking, corn is the crop in question when discussing
Speaker 1: vomitoxin grain. Elevators and processors also a monitor for volomitoxin
Speaker 1: levels by taking samples when corn shipments are delivered. This
Speaker 1: was actually a front page issue in the farm community
Speaker 1: when higher than usual toxin levels were detected across the province.
Speaker 1: There were many cases of elevators turning grain shipments away.
Speaker 1: There ended up being a lot of false positives due
Speaker 1: to flaws and how grain is tested on site, and
Speaker 1: it brought in some wider business strategy issues on behalf
Speaker 1: of buyers, but certainly prompted by higher than expected vomitoxin.
Speaker 1: One other thing most of the corn in these kinds
Speaker 1: of discussions is seed corn, as opposed to sweet corn
Speaker 1: destined for human consumption. Seed corn gener only goes for
Speaker 1: industrial processing of various sorts, animal feeds, etcetera. This makes
Speaker 1: the risk of vomitoxin related sickness and even and even
Speaker 1: fainter possibility. Research on resistant hybrid varieties is ongoing as well.
Speaker 1: People not aware of how these systems work and sometimes
Speaker 1: get very nervous about farming and food production, often unnecessarily
Speaker 1: so thus I thought this might be of interest. Also,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of cool science associated with it. Thanks again, Matt,
Speaker 1: so as Matt says, we've heard from him before about
Speaker 1: stuff like this, and and this is great because a
Speaker 1: lot of this agricultural industrial stuff, it totally underlies our
Speaker 1: our entire society, like, you know, everything that we do,
Speaker 1: all of the products that we consume, you know, you know,
Speaker 1: this is the basis for the modern world. And and
Speaker 1: it's so invisible to us most of the time unless
Speaker 1: you actually work in agriculture. So yeah, I love getting
Speaker 1: stuff like this. All right, let's move on to the
Speaker 1: next LISTR mail looks like you have one. They're concerning
Speaker 1: the Minotaur, Joe. That's right. Uh so this is from Scott.
Speaker 1: Scott says, Hello, Robert and Joe. I've looked forward to
Speaker 1: this year's Monster Extravaganza since last October and you haven't disappointed.
Speaker 1: I was delighted to see the first episode dedicated to
Speaker 1: the Minotaur pop up in my podcast feed last night. Coincidentally,
Speaker 1: I've recently read a fair amount of Minotaur and Labyrinth
Speaker 1: related content UH in recent months. Madeline Miller's teen novel
Speaker 1: Cercy features a fantastic depiction of the Minotaur's origins, and
Speaker 1: Susannah Clark's just released pure NeSSI is a wonderful novel
Speaker 1: set in a vast, otherworldly labyrinth. To say anything more
Speaker 1: would spoil the book's mystery, although I think it would
Speaker 1: make great fodder for a future Stuff to Blow Your
Speaker 1: Mind episode. I also learned the exact method used by
Speaker 1: theseus to navigate the labyrinth is used by scuba divers
Speaker 1: exploring shipwrecks today. They carefully unspool a wreck reel they
Speaker 1: tie off every five feet as they pass us along
Speaker 1: a wreck. When it's time to turn the dive, the
Speaker 1: divers simply follow their line back, spooling it up as
Speaker 1: they go. It's not a very easy feat. When I
Speaker 1: attempted to do it myself on a training dive this
Speaker 1: past weekend, I didn't get far before my tightly wound
Speaker 1: wreck reel bloomed into a rat's nest. All this leads
Speaker 1: me to the crux of this email. What are Stuff
Speaker 1: to Blow Your Mind's favorite Halloween novels. I'm referring to
Speaker 1: any kind of horror, supernatural, or weird fiction that's fitting
Speaker 1: for October reading. Thank you for all the great episodes
Speaker 1: you deliver weekend and week out. Happy Halloween, Scott. Oh,
Speaker 1: I feel like we're late getting to this one. And
Speaker 1: this is the kind of question I am so bad at,
Speaker 1: because you know, I have lots of things I love,
Speaker 1: and I'm really bad at like listing my favorite So
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, I'm probably gonna stall out horribly here. Oh,
Speaker 1: I mean favorite Halloween novels. I don't know. Um, I
Speaker 1: find that some of my favorite Halloween stuff is probably
Speaker 1: short story based, you know, so I would I would
Speaker 1: tend to to think of books of short stories, you know,
Speaker 1: pick up some some Clark Ashton Smith or I've always
Speaker 1: been a fan of Brian McNaughton's Throne of Bones, which
Speaker 1: is a collection of dark fantasy short stories. You can't
Speaker 1: go wrong with Jack Vance's The Dying Earth that sort
Speaker 1: of thing, uh, Stephen King's uh Skeleton Crew, and um,
Speaker 1: what's the other the other big short story collection he did? Um?
Speaker 1: Um night Shift, night Shift? Yes, those are great collections.
Speaker 1: So yeah, night Shift, because when it's the story and
Speaker 1: that concerns uh like rats and exterminators, and they made
Speaker 1: a fun, a fun movie out of it, as I
Speaker 1: recall that had Brad Dora fin it, So um, yeah,
Speaker 1: I would. I would tend to go towards some of
Speaker 1: those short story books. I don't know when it comes
Speaker 1: to hard novels, like full blown novels. Yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: King had some some great ones, for sure, but um,
Speaker 1: it's the short stories that really really get me. Also,
Speaker 1: I'd say that since October, it seems like it's always
Speaker 1: such a chaotic month. There's always a lot going on,
Speaker 1: and certainly October was was no exception to that. So
Speaker 1: I find that short stories fit a little uh you know,
Speaker 1: they fit into your schedule a little easier. You know,
Speaker 1: it's one thing to to devote yourself to that novel,
Speaker 1: but if it's just a short story, you can you
Speaker 1: can kind of sneak it in a little better. I'm
Speaker 1: just trying to think actual novels that that come to mind.
Speaker 1: Oh well, one obvious one is Shirley Jackson's The Haunting
Speaker 1: of Hill House, which is just a fabulous, excellent, scary
Speaker 1: e ghost novel. Uh, that's gonna be one of the
Speaker 1: best scary novels I've ever read. Um. Another one that
Speaker 1: would come to mind is actually, uh, William Peter Bladdie's
Speaker 1: the original The Exorcist novel on which the movie is based.
Speaker 1: That's a great read. Huh. I've never read. I don't
Speaker 1: know that I've read anything by him. I should pick
Speaker 1: it up and I type that back. I may have
Speaker 1: read a short story or two, but as far as
Speaker 1: books of short stories go, UM, I was a big
Speaker 1: fan of a book of short stories I read by
Speaker 1: a horror writer named Laird Baron. Especially there's one sort
Speaker 1: of long short story or almost like novelette in there,
Speaker 1: called Mysterium Tremendum that is just really really scary and good.
Speaker 1: And of course I always really love the horror short
Speaker 1: stories of Stephen Graham Jones. His book After the People
Speaker 1: Lights Have Gone Off is really good, you know. I
Speaker 1: also want to pick up on something else that, uh,
Speaker 1: that they mentioned in this email, and that is Madeline
Speaker 1: Miller's two thousand eighteen novel Searcy, which I have not read,
Speaker 1: but as of this recording, my wife is reading it
Speaker 1: right now and and she thinks it's it's it's fabulous,
Speaker 1: it's it's sounds really good, you know, retelling of of
Speaker 1: the character Searcy from um from from Greek myth and
Speaker 1: her various interactions with the with the gods and other
Speaker 1: figures from Greek mythology. Um so uh so, so it's
Speaker 1: it sounds like it's a recommended read. I have to say.
Speaker 1: I was. She has another book that concerns Achilles, which
Speaker 1: I was. I looked into and almost picked up a
Speaker 1: few years back when I when I had read The
Speaker 1: Rage of Achilles by Terrence Hawkins, and it is kind
Speaker 1: of an Achilles bend over there for a little bit,
Speaker 1: um so that one's probably worth picking up as well. Um.
Speaker 1: And as long as I'm mentioning Terence Terence Hawkins, um,
Speaker 1: I believe he's coming out with a revised edition of
Speaker 1: The Age the Rage of Achilles in the near future.
Speaker 1: This is the the Iliad meets the Bicameral Mind novel
Speaker 1: that he did. I know he put out a revised
Speaker 1: episode edition of of of the the Caveman book he
Speaker 1: did American Neolithic, and he has also that he has
Speaker 1: a short story book out as well titled Turings Graveyard.
Speaker 1: So if you're interested in in any of those, go
Speaker 1: check them out. Some more things are coming to mind.
Speaker 1: There are obviously some some really uh scary short stories
Speaker 1: by Peter Watts, one of our favorite science fiction authors.
Speaker 1: Um and uh, And I just wanted to say, if
Speaker 1: you want to check out Stephen Graham Jones horror short stories,
Speaker 1: there's one I think you can read online that's really
Speaker 1: good called brush Dogs. That's a good place to start
Speaker 1: if you've never read a story by him. Yeah, Peter
Speaker 1: watts short story collection Beyond the Riff is quite nice
Speaker 1: and has just a couple of real gems in there.
Speaker 1: All right, we're gonna go ahead and close it off there.
Speaker 1: That's right. Then, new listener mail episodes are going to
Speaker 1: be shorter. Uh. That way, we'll we'll you know, be
Speaker 1: able to cover listener mail more often and perhaps you know,
Speaker 1: not add as much to your listening load for the week.
Speaker 1: So let's see. Certainly we want to hear from everybody
Speaker 1: if you have, if you have some additional comments based
Speaker 1: on these listener mails, let us know. And of course
Speaker 1: we want to hear more and more from everyone regarding
Speaker 1: current episodes, so we can sort of keep this conversation
Speaker 1: going in the meantime. If you want to check out
Speaker 1: other episodes of Stuff to Blow Your Mind. You can
Speaker 1: find us wherever you get your podcasts UM and wherever
Speaker 1: that is. We just hope that you rate, review, and subscribe.
Speaker 1: Core episodes of Stuff to Blow Your Mind will continue
Speaker 1: to come out on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and then we've
Speaker 1: of course filled in UM five of the other days
Speaker 1: with some additional content, or make that four of the
Speaker 1: other days. I think Sunday is still still open, still free,
Speaker 1: huge things, as always to excellent audio producer Seth Nicholas Johnson.
Speaker 1: If you would like to get in touch with us
Speaker 1: with feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest
Speaker 1: topic for the future, or just to say hello, you
Speaker 1: can email us at contact AT's Stuff to Blow your
Speaker 1: Mind dot com. Stuff to Blow Your Mind is a
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