Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, production of My
Speaker 1: Heart Radio. Hello, and welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind.
Speaker 1: Listener mail. My name is Joe McCormick. My regular co
Speaker 1: host Robert Lamb is not with us today. He's in
Speaker 1: He's on vacation the day we're recording this, so instead
Speaker 1: I am being joined by our regular producer, Seth Nicholas Johnson.
Speaker 1: How you doing, Seth doing wonderfully? It is the fall,
Speaker 1: the best time of year for us as creepy people,
Speaker 1: but in particular for this podcast. Get to play all
Speaker 1: the fun creepy stuff. That's right. So yeah, we're doing
Speaker 1: horror movies all month on Weird House Cinema. We're talking
Speaker 1: about weird topics as we usually do on on our
Speaker 1: regular core episodes on Tuesdays and Thursdays all month. But Seth,
Speaker 1: since you're I mean, we all love music here, but
Speaker 1: you especially are a music guy, I figured it would
Speaker 1: be a good way to kick off today's episode to
Speaker 1: ask you what you are are spending on the record
Speaker 1: player this month? What? What is? What are some of
Speaker 1: your favorite seasonal Halloween themed albums? I mean, it's it's
Speaker 1: it's a it's a rocky road because a lot of
Speaker 1: it is geared towards children. There are a lot of
Speaker 1: like novelty children's Halloween albums, and most of them are
Speaker 1: actually not very good, you know, like it's it's kind
Speaker 1: of a garbage pile more or less. Like if you
Speaker 1: ever actually take the time to listen to the actual
Speaker 1: Monster Mash album by Bobby Boris Pickett, it's not a
Speaker 1: very good album. You could, of course, the Monster Mashes Beloved.
Speaker 1: We all love that song. The album not so much,
Speaker 1: you know, it's what what are the b sides on
Speaker 1: the Monster Mash? Oh my gosh, they all monster themed.
Speaker 1: Not only are they monster themed, but they are like
Speaker 1: woefully uninformed about what a monster even is. Like it
Speaker 1: starts talking about like the details of like Frankenstein's Monster
Speaker 1: or the Wolfman, and like the little you know, the
Speaker 1: little the little things that we all know as monster
Speaker 1: aficionados are all just false, like like what their weaknesses are,
Speaker 1: what their strengths are, who they are as human beings?
Speaker 1: Is doc or Jekyla and Mr Hyde actually the Wolfman?
Speaker 1: Like they just don't actually clearly. Bobby bores Picket had
Speaker 1: a hit with The Monster Mash and then just filled
Speaker 1: in the rest of the album with a bunch of
Speaker 1: garbage they made up like in a week. So it's
Speaker 1: that kind of things. So so there's a lot of
Speaker 1: that kind of stuff out there, but there's some great
Speaker 1: stuff too, both both like fun, nostalgic and modern day. Um,
Speaker 1: I'll give you one of each, Okay, because this month,
Speaker 1: if the listener doesn't know, I, I host a music
Speaker 1: podcast in my spare time called Rusty Needles Record Club.
Speaker 1: Look it up wherever you find uh, you know your podcasts.
Speaker 1: But this month, of course, October, we're doing what all
Speaker 1: great spooky people do. We're doing four spooky albums throughout
Speaker 1: the month of October's were a weekly podcast. So the
Speaker 1: best Halloween album of all time. It's a bit contentious
Speaker 1: because there are multiple versions of it, but any version
Speaker 1: you find will be a pretty good version. It's called
Speaker 1: Forgotten Freakouts, Lost Halloween Hits nineteen fifty four through nineteen
Speaker 1: seventy seven. Okay, I love it already. It's so good.
Speaker 1: Everything is like a real like Dr Demento, like surf
Speaker 1: rock nostalgia hits. Everything is like a parody. Everything is like, um,
Speaker 1: it's it's a novelty. Everything is a novelty song, but
Speaker 1: it all has that kind of like integrity of just
Speaker 1: something that's lasted throughout the years. A lot of surf
Speaker 1: rocky stuff, a lot of like a lot of kitch,
Speaker 1: A lot of kitch. That's the best one by Fall
Speaker 1: I see hold on now I see tracks by Lee Christofferson.
Speaker 1: Is that brother of Chris or no relation? Do you
Speaker 1: have to tell you? I couldn't tell you. Okay, what
Speaker 1: about secondly? There's a secondly? What about Lee, the Big Masher?
Speaker 1: Lily Like? Aren't these names amazing? I would say, uh,
Speaker 1: nearly every single one of these artists. I have no
Speaker 1: idea who they are. Nearly every single one of them
Speaker 1: must be just a forgotten one hit. Wonder if these
Speaker 1: were even hits. I can't even begin to tell you.
Speaker 1: But they're here. They're here in their grays. Is the
Speaker 1: Big Masher a play on the Big Bopper? I'm sure
Speaker 1: right it had to have been. It had been like
Speaker 1: a joke or something. So it's like a hello baby baby,
Speaker 1: but the call is coming from Dracula rights right, yeah,
Speaker 1: done with the bell of the ghostie voice. That's fun. Okay,
Speaker 1: I gotta listen to this one as soon as we
Speaker 1: finished recording here. It's a good one. And now now, yeah,
Speaker 1: keep an eye out for it because I know, like,
Speaker 1: for example, the version on Spotify is missing a lot
Speaker 1: of tracks, and then like the version I got I
Speaker 1: got off band Camp years ago, I know there are
Speaker 1: physical cassettes of this. Just keep your eye out. It's
Speaker 1: the best compilation of come across. Do your best to
Speaker 1: find the full version. Listening audience, Okay, now let's bring
Speaker 1: this modern modern. Have you ever heard of a band
Speaker 1: called the Marshmallow Ghosts. No, I haven't. The Marshmallow Ghosts
Speaker 1: is so so good. What it is so Actually, this
Speaker 1: is somewhat local to you, Joe. You live in Atlanta, Georgia.
Speaker 1: Over in Savannah, there's a record label called grave Face Records.
Speaker 1: It is founded and run by Ryan grave Face of
Speaker 1: Black Moth, Super Rainbow. Okay, next next time you're in Savannah,
Speaker 1: make sure you go there, Joe, because next door is
Speaker 1: like a like spooky house of mysterious museum stuff. You know,
Speaker 1: so it's like, uh, you know, mermaids were like Fiji mermaids,
Speaker 1: you know that kind of stuff, like real Ripley's Believe
Speaker 1: it or not, Pete Barnum type stuff you know, so anyway,
Speaker 1: exactly so so so anyway, Ryan grave Face is just
Speaker 1: a cool dude who runs a cool label and he
Speaker 1: has many bands, but one of them is an annual
Speaker 1: Halloween themed band called The Marshmallow Ghosts, where every year
Speaker 1: they pick a new theme they have, like a new
Speaker 1: release method they do, like just a weird little thing
Speaker 1: every year. This year, I've already pre ordered their record.
Speaker 1: This year it's all about j H. Holmes, so that'll
Speaker 1: be fun. You know, we're reviewing their one this year
Speaker 1: on my podcast. That one is called The Witching Hour.
Speaker 1: The theme of that one was there's a woman hosting
Speaker 1: a radio show and like, I think it's her either
Speaker 1: her her ex wife or her ex girlfriend. What they died,
Speaker 1: so I don't know if that counts as x whatever.
Speaker 1: Their former wife, her former girlfriend who died keeps calling
Speaker 1: into the radio show. But this woman's just still trying
Speaker 1: to do her job and play music. So it's like
Speaker 1: a little radio play, but also with new music peppered
Speaker 1: in throughout by the Marshmallow Ghosts and others like it's
Speaker 1: it's just cool stuff like that. So check out grave
Speaker 1: Faced Records, in particular, check out the Marshmallow ghosts nice.
Speaker 1: Oh and I guess lastly, check out Rusty Needles Record
Speaker 1: Club because that's where I'll be talking about these things.
Speaker 1: If you like talking about music or hearing about music,
Speaker 1: Rusty Needles Record Club it's a great show. I I
Speaker 1: myself may pop on their in in the near future.
Speaker 1: You've been on there in the past, and yeah, we
Speaker 1: hope to get you on again very soon. Alright, Sece,
Speaker 1: you're ready to talk some stuff to blow your mind?
Speaker 1: Listener mail definitely okay. This first message really got my
Speaker 1: hopes up. It ultimately turned out to be a complete bust,
Speaker 1: but it's a lot of fun and I really appreciate
Speaker 1: this listener getting in touch anyway. So recently Rob and
Speaker 1: I did a couple of episodes about elf shot. These
Speaker 1: are very much in the seasonal October Vain because elf
Speaker 1: shot was a folk belief that used to be found,
Speaker 1: especially in the British Isles, and the belief was that
Speaker 1: livestock and sometimes people would become ill, or they would
Speaker 1: even die, or they would experience mysterious pains because they
Speaker 1: had been attacked with supernatural weapons by the invisible folk,
Speaker 1: such as fairy darts or elf arrows, and one of
Speaker 1: the sources we looked at was a nineteen article in
Speaker 1: the journal Antiquity by an author named Thomas Davidson which
Speaker 1: collect did a bunch of alleged cures for elf shot,
Speaker 1: and one of these cures was sourced to the Shetland Islands,
Speaker 1: and it read as follows. Quote A variant prescription from
Speaker 1: the same area directs the wise woman to take tar,
Speaker 1: a needle, a bible, a firebrand, and some fairy crabs.
Speaker 1: Waving the burning brand, she walked three times wider shans,
Speaker 1: meaning counterclockwise, around the cow, jabbing the animal with the needle,
Speaker 1: waving a leaf of the Bible over its back, and
Speaker 1: muttering an incantation. The firebrand was placed in a pot
Speaker 1: of tars and set at the cow's head so that
Speaker 1: the fumes would make her cough. She was then given
Speaker 1: the fairy crabs to eat alive. The ashes of the
Speaker 1: firebrand were later mixed with the tar into three pills,
Speaker 1: which were administered to the animal on three successive mornings. Now,
Speaker 1: Rob and I were unable to figure out what the
Speaker 1: quote fairy crabs referenced in this cure actually were. Were
Speaker 1: they literally some type of crab is this just a
Speaker 1: cute name for some other kind of animal or object.
Speaker 1: There is actually a species of crustacean that is sometimes
Speaker 1: called a fairy crab, but that seems to be in
Speaker 1: twenty one century sources, and it cannot be what the
Speaker 1: source is talking about. For one thing, because it's native
Speaker 1: to the opposite side of the world. It's a Pacific
Speaker 1: squat lobster around Australian Indonesia. And also I think the
Speaker 1: appellation there is much later than this folk belief. So
Speaker 1: we were asking listeners, does anybody have any idea what
Speaker 1: the Shetland Islands fairy crab might be? All of that
Speaker 1: to set up that listener, Carl wrote in with what
Speaker 1: it first looked like a very promising solution to our question.
Speaker 1: So Carl says, Dear Robin Joe, while listening to elf
Speaker 1: Shot Part two, I paused to find the attached search result,
Speaker 1: which seems to indicate that fairy crabs are some sort
Speaker 1: of insect found on the underside of leaves, and then
Speaker 1: Carl touched some search results for us. Uh. Now, the
Speaker 1: actual text appearing in the Google search preview here was
Speaker 1: very promising because it sounded like a scientific description of
Speaker 1: an animal, including a very official sounding Latin scientific name
Speaker 1: for the species. And it's an animal, as said by Carl,
Speaker 1: described as spending the majority of its life on the
Speaker 1: ground that roams around and behavior similar to a tiger beetle. Now,
Speaker 1: this was very exciting because it did look legitimate at
Speaker 1: first until you look at the domain that this result
Speaker 1: is coming from, and it was dv and R dot com. Yeah,
Speaker 1: at what point did you realize the the U R
Speaker 1: L there? When? When did that? Well, pop pop, the
Speaker 1: pop the balloon of your hopes. Well, my hopes were
Speaker 1: still up because I was like, Okay, this is a
Speaker 1: dv and art post that's referencing something I could look
Speaker 1: up else. Okay, So I wanted to yeah, yeah, and
Speaker 1: then find the the like the scientific name of this animal,
Speaker 1: and then search for it in other sources and see
Speaker 1: what's out there. Uh, And yet I didn't really find
Speaker 1: anything when I tried that. I tried some other search terms,
Speaker 1: and uh. I I kept going, still thinking maybe there
Speaker 1: was something here, but unfortunately I realized that this is
Speaker 1: really the only source for this information and it appears
Speaker 1: to be some user generated content on deva and art, which,
Speaker 1: as best I can tell, is some type of fictional
Speaker 1: bestiary or fictional animal taxonomy that includes scientific sounding names
Speaker 1: and scientific sounding descriptions, except with some cryptic references to
Speaker 1: obviously some kind of fantasy context, Like it says that
Speaker 1: this animal inhabits the barren lands. So so I think
Speaker 1: this is this is just somebody creating some kind of
Speaker 1: fun fictional world. But it kind of reminds me of
Speaker 1: uh Seth that I don't remember if you're actually on
Speaker 1: the show at this point, so this may be before
Speaker 1: your time, but it reminds me of when we were
Speaker 1: covering the invention of cinema and Louis La Prince, who
Speaker 1: was an inventor of an alternate early form of of
Speaker 1: moving pictures, uh, alternate to Edison's method, and we we
Speaker 1: came across this what originally looked like a historical paper
Speaker 1: but in fact I think was actually a fictional found
Speaker 1: document that was purporting to uncover Thomas Edison confessing in
Speaker 1: a diary entry to the murder of Louis La Prince,
Speaker 1: and this this fictional art. I don't think it was
Speaker 1: a hoax. I think it was intentionally meant to be
Speaker 1: a piece of fiction to be understood as such. But
Speaker 1: it was not labeled that way, and so I think
Speaker 1: people got confused to the extent that some good looking,
Speaker 1: kind of serious articles about La Prince reported the plot
Speaker 1: of this fictional document as fact. That that's that's a
Speaker 1: hard part about creating historical fiction at all, just period,
Speaker 1: full stop, is that sometimes you're too convincing, and sometimes
Speaker 1: people don't understand things like satire and and they can't
Speaker 1: figure it out. I mean, that's the same reason why
Speaker 1: so many news sources accidentally, um, you know, make make
Speaker 1: their reference back to the onion, just because they don't
Speaker 1: know they can't figure it out. It's yeah, it's it's
Speaker 1: it's fascinating. And you know, I'm looking at these drawings
Speaker 1: for all, not just the fairy crab, but for the
Speaker 1: orc crab and the elve crab and the goblin crab,
Speaker 1: and I have to say, like clearly these are done,
Speaker 1: you know, quickly with like a like rough hand more
Speaker 1: or less. But they're like it's not like a child's drawing.
Speaker 1: They took the time to like get the proper number
Speaker 1: of legs, that took the time to make them, you know,
Speaker 1: bilateral cemetry, you know, like they they they clearly have
Speaker 1: something that they're going for with this, So I commend
Speaker 1: them on their effort, you know. Yeah, congratulations to DV
Speaker 1: and art user the Siren Lord. Yeah exactly for some
Speaker 1: some some convincing world building. Anyway, do appreciate the message, Carl.
Speaker 1: Even though this didn't pan out, it does seem like
Speaker 1: the fairy crab mystery remains. It's good to know that
Speaker 1: other people are considering the fairy Crab. That perhaps someone
Speaker 1: else went down the same train of thought that we're
Speaker 1: going through now, which is, wow, I heard this word,
Speaker 1: what could it possibly mean? And perhaps they also couldn't
Speaker 1: find any informations they had to craft it themselves. You
Speaker 1: know that That is the way a lot of mythology continues,
Speaker 1: is just a lack of information and then filling in
Speaker 1: your own gaps and then someone else goes, oh, that's plausible,
Speaker 1: and then it becomes canon. You know. So yeah, may
Speaker 1: maybe this is the birth of that. All right, I'm
Speaker 1: ready to move on to this message from Matt about
Speaker 1: cattle mutilation. Are you ready? Seth most definitely all right, Matt.
Speaker 1: This this listener has written several times before to talk
Speaker 1: about or to speak from personal experience about topics related
Speaker 1: to farming and ranching, and so Matt says, good day
Speaker 1: fellas loved the cattle mutilation episode. ILL have an opener
Speaker 1: like that, but that I would add a few thoughts
Speaker 1: from an agricultural perspective. I've seen many of the visuals
Speaker 1: described in the episode and can confirm predators play a
Speaker 1: big role in the avian realm. Corvid's meaning ravens and
Speaker 1: crows do play a significant part, and one which I
Speaker 1: don't think the average person quite understands. Here's a couple
Speaker 1: of examples for you, both pertained sheep, but the general
Speaker 1: idea applies to cattle as well. Warning to the listeners
Speaker 1: this will get a little bit grizzly for a few paragraphs. Here,
Speaker 1: Matt writes, I know some sheep farmers, for example, that
Speaker 1: have to keep ornaments reminiscent of owls and other species
Speaker 1: at the entrances to their barns, because if they don't,
Speaker 1: ravens will fly in and kill their lambs by pecking
Speaker 1: out their eyes. Further feasting commences from there if there's time,
Speaker 1: but they always go for the eyes first. It's pretty metal. Similarly,
Speaker 1: I've talked to sheep farmers in Ireland who lose full
Speaker 1: grown sheep to predatory birds. It happens in part because
Speaker 1: sheep become immobilized when on their backs. You might have
Speaker 1: seen this if you ever watch somebody shear a sheep's wool.
Speaker 1: If they fall over or misstep on the mountain or
Speaker 1: pasture for whatever reason, or become immobilized for another reason,
Speaker 1: the birds will go straight for the exposed soft tissues.
Speaker 1: This includes the inner thigh and gut by which the
Speaker 1: birds peck their way into the fallen animals innards, nasty
Speaker 1: stuff wow. Although cattle are much larger, calves can be
Speaker 1: particularly vulnerable to these kinds of things, particularly if they
Speaker 1: become immobilized for many of the reasons previously discussed, but
Speaker 1: in general, these things can happen to livestock of all
Speaker 1: kinds and sizes. I can also confirm that bloating can
Speaker 1: create clean looking tears, slash slice like damage to flesh.
Speaker 1: Like a lot of these things, bloating is something which
Speaker 1: also freaks people out if they're not familiar with the
Speaker 1: physiological process, though it is generally unpleasant for just about anyone.
Speaker 1: You can see why a bloated bovine with its legs
Speaker 1: sticking out at odd angles a rupture here and there,
Speaker 1: and a clean cut on the belly does look pretty odd.
Speaker 1: I'm sure a few cattle mutilation calls were made by
Speaker 1: folks who were less than experts. Anyway, just a bit
Speaker 1: of my own experience. Nothing more surgical than a hungry corvette.
Speaker 1: Matt uh. Thanks for sharing your experience, Matt. Yeah, one
Speaker 1: thing I wonder about so, you know, we did the
Speaker 1: episode on the cattle mutilation panic of the seventies, and
Speaker 1: then we did the movie The Return, which is a
Speaker 1: you know, a fictional thriller about aliens and cattle mutilation.
Speaker 1: And one of the things we saw in the movie,
Speaker 1: at least was that the rancher was the one who
Speaker 1: was saying, you know, I've never seen a cow that
Speaker 1: looked like this. This is you know, completely out of
Speaker 1: the ordinary. Animals couldn't have done this to it. But
Speaker 1: I wonder if it was often actually people with a
Speaker 1: lot of agricultural experience who were relaying the reports that
Speaker 1: allegedly happened in the seventies. I wonder if times it
Speaker 1: was like the cop who arrived on the scene, who
Speaker 1: put together the report that ends up sounding really crazy
Speaker 1: to somebody. And also you mentioned in that episode that
Speaker 1: a lot of the cattle mutilation happened on the smaller farms,
Speaker 1: not on the larger farms. That might have something to
Speaker 1: do with it too. Just like the law of averages,
Speaker 1: if you have ten cows, you may never see certain
Speaker 1: rarer you know, horrible diseases that can attack to your cows.
Speaker 1: But if you run a large, you know, cattle ranch
Speaker 1: that has thousands upon thousands of cows, I bet you've
Speaker 1: actually seen a little bit of everything. Like when you
Speaker 1: come across this is like, oh, I know what this is.
Speaker 1: I saw this once before, so so that that might
Speaker 1: have something to do with it too, is just pure
Speaker 1: law of averages versus a small cattle ranch and an enormous,
Speaker 1: you know, cattle ranch. That's a really good point. Yeah,
Speaker 1: But as always, Matt, thank you for providing the agricultural
Speaker 1: perspective and for letting us know once again just how
Speaker 1: sick the corvids are. Alright. This next message is in
Speaker 1: response to a somewhat older episode. It was the series
Speaker 1: we did called The Lesser of Two Crab Claws, which
Speaker 1: was about asymmetry and animal bodies, And this is from Morgan.
Speaker 1: Morgan says, Hi, Robert and Joe, longtime listener Morgan here,
Speaker 1: and I've been catching up on my backlog of podcasts.
Speaker 1: Started maternity leaves, so I've thankfully been blowing through a
Speaker 1: large chunk of it during the day while my older
Speaker 1: one is a daycare and my husband works parentheses. Baby
Speaker 1: hasn't come yet. I just listened to the series on
Speaker 1: biological asymmetry, which included your annotation about cilia, and as
Speaker 1: a brief reminder here, the context was that silia are
Speaker 1: these tiny hair like filaments that line the surfaces of
Speaker 1: some cells in our bodies, and one of the ideas
Speaker 1: we talked about in that episode was how silia can
Speaker 1: create currents in the flu it surrounding cells, and how
Speaker 1: the role of cilia in early embryonic development, maybe in creating,
Speaker 1: in guiding the current of fluid moving around the developing embryo,
Speaker 1: may have something to do with the link between having
Speaker 1: typically functioning cilia and having the common a asymmetrical arrangement
Speaker 1: of internal organs, you know, with the heart on the
Speaker 1: left and the liver on the right and so forth,
Speaker 1: And how there are conditions where if you're silia seems
Speaker 1: to function atypically or to be damaged in some way,
Speaker 1: this can lead to having your internal organs swapped to
Speaker 1: the other side. So Morgan continues, when you were talking
Speaker 1: about the functionality of cilia and a recessive human trait
Speaker 1: of cartagen or syndrome, and how oftentimes people diagnosed with
Speaker 1: the syndrome have organs flipped, it made me have to
Speaker 1: stop and rewind and listen again. I have a brother
Speaker 1: who was born very premature and as a baby and
Speaker 1: young boy, was very medically involved. From what I've been
Speaker 1: told through my mom's journey as my brother's medical advocate,
Speaker 1: I've learned that part of why my brother was so
Speaker 1: medically complicated was the cilia in his lungs pushing mucus
Speaker 1: from respiratory illnesses down instead of up and out, causing
Speaker 1: severe pneumonia regularly and eventual deterioration of his respiratory cilia.
Speaker 1: Along with the complications of his premature birth, respiratory illnesses,
Speaker 1: as well as open heart surgery in his youth. My
Speaker 1: family also learned that my brother's internal anatomy is completely reversed,
Speaker 1: including how his blood flows parentheses in verse us total us.
Speaker 1: When my brother has had the heartbeat leads connected to
Speaker 1: him in a medical setting. If the healthcare professional does
Speaker 1: not know of this internal trait, his heartbeat on the
Speaker 1: monitor will read upside down. However, if the leads are
Speaker 1: reversed on the machine, it will appear normal. Now, as
Speaker 1: he is an adult, his health has improved and treatment
Speaker 1: of illnesses is relatively minor compared to how things were
Speaker 1: when he was younger. I will probably have to explain
Speaker 1: to doctors in the few sure my brother's medical idiosyncrasies
Speaker 1: because of his rare and unique medical history as he
Speaker 1: gets older. But until then, it's just a random, weird
Speaker 1: fact that I know about him. Thank you for the
Speaker 1: interesting podcast, and keep up with the topics that keep
Speaker 1: me engaged, Sincerely, Morgan. That's wonderfully fascinating, And I can't
Speaker 1: imagine like how many situations that must come up and
Speaker 1: when it creates just kind of like you know, little
Speaker 1: things like you know, from something as simple as just
Speaker 1: you know, checking your blood pressure all the way up
Speaker 1: to like, oh no, I have to get my appendix removed.
Speaker 1: I need to really assure my doctor where it is
Speaker 1: in my body. Like what a wild set of like
Speaker 1: strange complications that must create for you, you know, Yeah,
Speaker 1: the Morgan definitely glad to hear his his health has
Speaker 1: improved since he's gotten older, for sure, and I'm glad
Speaker 1: that it seems like there are workarounds for this, like
Speaker 1: like putting the leads on backwards and stuff like that.
Speaker 1: That's really fascinating to me. Yeah, So thanks for getting
Speaker 1: in touch, Morgan. Okay, a couple of messages about gimbals.
Speaker 1: One of them comes from Eric. Eric says, greetings, gentlemen,
Speaker 1: I really enjoyed your episode about gimbals. There was one
Speaker 1: really fascinating use of gimbals that is an obscure but
Speaker 1: important part of the Apollo program, the lunar Lander test vehicle.
Speaker 1: I think I've also seen this called the lunar Lander
Speaker 1: Research vehicle. Uh. Eric says this was basically a tube
Speaker 1: frame lunar lander shaped vehicle with a turbojet engine on
Speaker 1: a gimbal. The jet engine was on a gimble to
Speaker 1: provide a constant downward thrust of about five sixths of
Speaker 1: g I mean standard acceleration due to Earth's gravity to
Speaker 1: make the vehicle behave as if it was in the
Speaker 1: one six of g of lunar surface gravity. So does
Speaker 1: that make sense if if the Moon has one sixth
Speaker 1: of Earth's gravity. If you provide down thrust a an
Speaker 1: acceleration creating five six worth of Earth's gravity, then it
Speaker 1: will be like simulating being on the service of the Moon. Yeah, yeah, exactly,
Speaker 1: at least for the this this test vehicle. Yeah yeah,
Speaker 1: but of course you would have to mount the engine
Speaker 1: so that it's down thrust was always aimed straight towards
Speaker 1: the Earth's center of mass, right, so like if you
Speaker 1: slightly moved over, it wouldn't be thrusting diagonal to to
Speaker 1: Earth's center of mass. You know. I feel like there
Speaker 1: were dozens of, you know, very early like eight video
Speaker 1: games all about creating that thrust to try and like
Speaker 1: land like a lunar vehicle. And they definitely did not
Speaker 1: have any gimbals in those video games that would have
Speaker 1: made them much easier. Huh oh. Sorry. Anyway, Eric goes
Speaker 1: on saying it was built to allow the astronauts to
Speaker 1: practice landing on the moon. Uh And then he mentioned
Speaker 1: an incident wherein one of these vehicles, Neil Armstrong had
Speaker 1: to eject once to avoid to avoid a crash, but
Speaker 1: that he still claimed it was a vital part of
Speaker 1: training for lunar land ing. I thought you might appreciate
Speaker 1: this weird but super cool use of gimbals. Have a
Speaker 1: great one, Eric, that is that is interesting, Thank you Eric. Yeah, okay.
Speaker 1: This next message about gimbals is in response to our
Speaker 1: discussion about a device described in an ancient text called
Speaker 1: on Machines by the Greek author named Athanius Mechanicals, who
Speaker 1: probably lived in the first century b c. And the
Speaker 1: device in this text is described as some kind of
Speaker 1: suspension system for siege weaponry at sea. So you would
Speaker 1: have siege weaponry of some kind that was on a
Speaker 1: ship or maybe being carried between ships. Uh, and it
Speaker 1: was suspended somehow in this in this device called the pithecon,
Speaker 1: which translates to little ape, and the somewhat mimics a gimbal,
Speaker 1: and we were wondering why it would be called the
Speaker 1: little ape. Well listener Christian wrote in with an interesting guest.
Speaker 1: Christian says sailors would occasionally capture monkeys or apes if
Speaker 1: given freedom to roam the ship. These arboreal creatures would
Speaker 1: naturally be seen swinging from the rigging. It seems logical
Speaker 1: to me that sailors would make the connection between the
Speaker 1: motion of a swinging ape and the motion of an
Speaker 1: early gimbal, especially if the gimbal was suspended by ropes.
Speaker 1: Interesting idea. I wonder how pronounced that practice actually was,
Speaker 1: because I think, I, you know, obviously we've seen like
Speaker 1: films and books that have that kind of leftover. You know,
Speaker 1: the Pirates the Caribbean movies had a little monkey. The
Speaker 1: I believe its name was like Jack Sparrow Jr. Or something.
Speaker 1: Um what really? Yeah? I think also, um, yet the
Speaker 1: Pippi Longstocking books and movies also had a Mr. Nielsen
Speaker 1: a little monkey. So yeah, that's interesting, Like like I
Speaker 1: know the trope for sure, I wonder how accurate that
Speaker 1: that really was, But it makes perfect sense that it
Speaker 1: is accurate. I'm trying to think of other ancient evidence
Speaker 1: for sailors to king monkeys on ships. I mean, I
Speaker 1: think about how when we did the episode on the
Speaker 1: the Tempest Stone, the ancient Egyptian inscription that has been
Speaker 1: alleged or at least argued by some scholars to describe
Speaker 1: whether an atmospheric phenomena related to the volcanic eruption at
Speaker 1: Theora around six b c E, also known as the
Speaker 1: Minor Interruption. So in that episode we were talking about
Speaker 1: the some of the leftovers, the ruins of the civilization
Speaker 1: that existed at at Theora also today down as Santorini,
Speaker 1: and one of the places there is is a place
Speaker 1: where it has been uh like an ancient building has
Speaker 1: been uncovered and in the wall there are these paintings
Speaker 1: of monkeys that are very accurate monkeys. And I remember
Speaker 1: the this at least suggested some kind of situation of
Speaker 1: monkeys being brought on ships to these islands in the Aegean.
Speaker 1: You know that one word you said, they're very accurate monkeys,
Speaker 1: because I think that's actually a very important part of
Speaker 1: like ancient art is like you can use that as
Speaker 1: a like a determination whether or not this artist has
Speaker 1: only heard of this creature or that whether they've actually
Speaker 1: seen it. Because man, there is nothing more wonderful than
Speaker 1: having an artist to draw a horse that's never seen
Speaker 1: a horse wonderful, or giraffe or rhinoceros or yeah, rhinoceros,
Speaker 1: say an elephant. You can find these pictures all over
Speaker 1: the place ancient artists who have never actually seen the
Speaker 1: animal they're depicting. Is a is a very fun rabbit
Speaker 1: hole to go down the Outbrecht Durer illustration of the
Speaker 1: rhinoceros really stands out in my mind where it looks
Speaker 1: like a some kind of armored vehicle, I mean, and
Speaker 1: and it makes sense to like if I have if
Speaker 1: I had never seen an armadillo and someone describes it
Speaker 1: to me, and they're like draw that, Like, Okay, this
Speaker 1: is gonna be fun. We're gonna have a very strange
Speaker 1: little monster here, you know, because in your imagination it
Speaker 1: definitely turns monstrous or anything else, you know. Okay, Sethew,
Speaker 1: ready to talk a little bit of weird House cinema. Alright,
Speaker 1: a couple of messages here. The first one is from Mike,
Speaker 1: subject line October weird House request. Mike says, Hey, Robin Joe,
Speaker 1: nightmare on Elm Street, three Dream Warriors. That's the opening sentence.
Speaker 1: I feel this is a bloated treasure trove of weird
Speaker 1: Halloween goodness. You guys have made mention of this film
Speaker 1: here and there across the span of Weird House. While
Speaker 1: it might not be weird enough for inclusion, I'm certain
Speaker 1: you guys can find plenty of fodder to make it. So, Hey,
Speaker 1: we've got John Saxon and this one not to mention
Speaker 1: Ja Ja Gabord, Dick Cavitt, and Frank dear A Bantu
Speaker 1: Dearra bant of the Green Mile, Shawshank Redemption and most
Speaker 1: recently notable Walking Dead screenwriting fame. Mike Well, Mike, I
Speaker 1: don't know if we'll do that on Weird House, but
Speaker 1: we did directly cover Nightmare three Dream Warriors one time
Speaker 1: when I was a guest on Movie Crush with Chuck Bryant,
Speaker 1: uh Seth. Do you have thoughts on Dream Warriors. I
Speaker 1: think it's wonderful. I think it is perhaps peak Nightmare
Speaker 1: on Elm Street. Perhaps, I mean, you know, I think
Speaker 1: actually depends on your mood. If you're in the mood
Speaker 1: for a creepy or nightmare on Elm Street. The first
Speaker 1: one is actually really solid for that there there are
Speaker 1: there is really much humor yet. But but if you're
Speaker 1: if you're looking for like the goofy Freddy Krueger, I mean,
Speaker 1: Dream Warriors is probably the peak of that in every
Speaker 1: every fun way. You know. I think much like when
Speaker 1: people think about Jason Vorhees, even though he appears technically
Speaker 1: in all of the Friday Thirteenth movies, they're thinking of
Speaker 1: the Jason Vorhees probably in like part seven or eight. Yes,
Speaker 1: you're right like that, they're probably thinking of the Kane
Speaker 1: Hotter version of Jason. Yeah. And so we have the
Speaker 1: same actor playing Freddy Krueger through all the Nightmare movies,
Speaker 1: but Freddie is presented differently in these different movies. And
Speaker 1: I think when people think of Freddy Krueger, they're mainly
Speaker 1: thinking of Part three, speaking of ostension, uh, Dream Warriors,
Speaker 1: Part three is like the example of Freddy Krueger that
Speaker 1: people think of as most characteristic of the character. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And I actually I think that's one reason why people
Speaker 1: were so down on the Jackie Earl Hayley version of
Speaker 1: Freddy Krueger was that he was definitely depicting, you know,
Speaker 1: part one Freddy, which really isn't funny. It's it's more sinister.
Speaker 1: It's much more creepy, you know than anything else. So
Speaker 1: you know, but thankfully we have both. So if you
Speaker 1: want creepy Freddy, you got it. If you want fun, loving,
Speaker 1: camp be pun making Freddy, you got that too. And
Speaker 1: it has the dock In song. Yeah, yeah, yeah, and
Speaker 1: you know, yeah, I mean it's it's it's it's very
Speaker 1: much um inspired by it's it's decade. It's the most
Speaker 1: eighties tastic, not just of any of the Nightmarre on
Speaker 1: M Streets, but perhaps just of any eighties or her film.
Speaker 1: Like it's it's extremely eighties and in in a in
Speaker 1: a fun way. So yeah, I know I like that
Speaker 1: one quite a bit. It's probably it's it's definitely one
Speaker 1: of my favorites, if not my actual favorites of the
Speaker 1: Nightmare series. Oh but but but but to put a
Speaker 1: put a cap on that, I think you should cover
Speaker 1: for Weird House, because I think we should do everything
Speaker 1: for Weird House, because you're right, like, it's it's not
Speaker 1: quite strange enough. The writer is correct, you you and
Speaker 1: Robert correct, but it's still fun and fun is fun. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't know if we have a necessary like bar
Speaker 1: for strangeness to make it onto the show. I mean,
Speaker 1: criteria pretty loose. One more message to close us out today.
Speaker 1: This is from Matt, a different Matt than the earlier
Speaker 1: Messagett says, good morning, team. I have to say that
Speaker 1: I still get locked up whenever I hear the word phantasm,
Speaker 1: simply because my dad thought it was a great idea
Speaker 1: to have me watch it when I was three. Theaters
Speaker 1: I almost doubt this story. Well, I mean, I I'll
Speaker 1: just wait to hear the rest of the message. But
Speaker 1: three is shocking. Three in theaters in theaters, Okay, Matt says.
Speaker 1: This goes in line with him dragging me to the
Speaker 1: theaters when I was ten to see aliens parentheses a
Speaker 1: great birthday present in hindsight, but for a ten year
Speaker 1: old me terrifying. Even seeing the ball floating through the
Speaker 1: air still gives me an eye twitch. Hooray for bad
Speaker 1: late seventies early eighties parenting styles. As an aside, now,
Speaker 1: you might remember in the Phantasm episode, Rob and I
Speaker 1: had a particular fixation on the character of Reggie Banister,
Speaker 1: who is a is about as cool a cat as
Speaker 1: you can imagine. But we were trying to describe his hairstyle,
Speaker 1: which is bald on top with the horseshoe going around
Speaker 1: the sides and then a ponytail in back. That's a
Speaker 1: that's a plot twist, um, so Matt says, as an aside,
Speaker 1: I believe the term for Reggie's here is called the skullet.
Speaker 1: Skullet popularized by Devon Townsend, who is a Canadian metal musician.
Speaker 1: If you're not familiar Matt says, well, Reggie would have
Speaker 1: nothing on Devon. It is still something used in regular
Speaker 1: conversation here today, at least on the central coast of California.
Speaker 1: Thanks for giving me a little bit of the old
Speaker 1: lock up I needed to keep sharp for an interview
Speaker 1: later today. All the best, Matt, So I looked up
Speaker 1: some images to compare them. I see what you're saying, Matt. Yeah,
Speaker 1: both bald on top, long and back. Oh. I think
Speaker 1: we described it as UM closed for business in front,
Speaker 1: party and back. That's an excellent description. And I can
Speaker 1: actually see that in the central Californian coast where it's UM.
Speaker 1: I would bet there are a lot of people. Let's
Speaker 1: let's let's focus on people with male pattern baldness that
Speaker 1: kick in where they have spent the majority of their
Speaker 1: lives with long, luxurious, hippie like hair and then suddenly
Speaker 1: the male pattern baldness horseshoe kicks in and what they're
Speaker 1: gonna change? Nah, they're not sellouts, man, you know, they've
Speaker 1: they're in on this lifestyle and they're keeping their long,
Speaker 1: flowing locks. And uh, you know, friends don't let friends
Speaker 1: get haircuts. That's that's just the way this Ponytail's hot
Speaker 1: his love, you know, absolutely hot his love. Every time
Speaker 1: I hear that line, um, I try to figure out
Speaker 1: what his intention is behind that, and I can't. I
Speaker 1: can't figure it out. I guess he just means good,
Speaker 1: I guess. Unless unless I think you mentioned this in
Speaker 1: the episode, unless that's the band name, I don't. I
Speaker 1: don't know. So so you got, you got. Let's let's
Speaker 1: get your music reviewers opinion. Sitting here at midnight, what
Speaker 1: do you think? I think it's great, I really do.
Speaker 1: I really do think it's great. It's it's your favorite song.
Speaker 1: It's so ridiculous, but it does. It makes you think
Speaker 1: of a lot of things. It makes me think of
Speaker 1: because you know, when you grow up, because because you
Speaker 1: know I'm a musician, you're a musician. You grow up,
Speaker 1: you know, and knowing lots of musicians, and just that
Speaker 1: person sitting on their front porch with their guitar plugged
Speaker 1: into an AMP and just serenading the neighborhood and part
Speaker 1: of the front it's just like, shut up, shut up.
Speaker 1: But and I love the transition from it being this
Speaker 1: very lazy blueslick over a kind of I don't even
Speaker 1: know what style. You'd call that, you know, easy listening,
Speaker 1: blues rock kind of thing. But then when he comes
Speaker 1: in with the acoustic guitar and they go, oh and
Speaker 1: play the riff, Yes, you can't beat that, and it
Speaker 1: means how many times have they played this before? So
Speaker 1: many times because they didn't synchronized so they knew. But
Speaker 1: you know, I love it. It feels very authentic to
Speaker 1: annoying musicians on their front porch, of which I have been,
Speaker 1: of which I have been, I think all musicians have been.
Speaker 1: I think I've been that guy. All right. I think
Speaker 1: that does it for this episode of Stuff to Blow
Speaker 1: Your Mind listener mail my regular co host Robert Lamb
Speaker 1: should be back with us for all new core episodes
Speaker 1: starting tomorrow. Uh. In the meantime, Hey, if you're not
Speaker 1: subscribed to our feed, you gotta do that. You gotta
Speaker 1: subscribe to the Stuff to Blow your Mind podcast. You
Speaker 1: can get it wherever you get your podcasts. It's on
Speaker 1: all the apps and all that stuff. Or you can
Speaker 1: go to stuff to Blow your Mind dot com. I
Speaker 1: think that will rout you to our to our feed
Speaker 1: through some kind of app that one I guess yeah,
Speaker 1: um and uh yeah, yeah, yeah, so we we do
Speaker 1: listener mail. On Monday's we do core episodes which tend
Speaker 1: to be science focused, often kind of interdisciplinary science with history, mythology,
Speaker 1: other kinds of topics. On Tuesdays and Thursdays. On Wednesdays
Speaker 1: we do a short form episode called the Artifact or
Speaker 1: often the Monster Fact. And on Friday's that's just time
Speaker 1: to have fun we talk about a weird movie on
Speaker 1: Weird House Cinema. And then, of course on Saturdays, that's
Speaker 1: a vault. Big thank you Seth for not only editing
Speaker 1: this episode but joining me on Mike today. Of course,
Speaker 1: happy to be here anytime. If you want to check
Speaker 1: out Seth's podcast once again, that is Rusty Needles Record Club.
Speaker 1: Also anywhere you get your podcasts everywhere and anywhere. If
Speaker 1: you would like to get in touch with us with
Speaker 1: feedback on this episode or any other, you'd like to
Speaker 1: share something interesting with us, if you'd like to suggest
Speaker 1: a topic for a future episode, or if you just
Speaker 1: want to say hi, you can email us at contact
Speaker 1: at stuff to blow your Mind dot com. Stuff to
Speaker 1: Blow your Mind is a production of I Heart Radio.
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