Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind listener mail.
Speaker 2: My name is Robert Lamb.
Speaker 3: And I am Joe McCormick. And hey, we're coming at
Speaker 3: you with new stuff after roughly a week or so off.
Speaker 3: Do we say this was a listener mail episode? I
Speaker 3: think you did. But if we didn't, here, yeah, here
Speaker 3: we are with listener mail for you. Hey, if you
Speaker 3: are a listener of Stuff to Blow your Mind and
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Speaker 3: of all sorts are welcome. We especially appreciate feedback to
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Speaker 3: you've got thoughts to add, something interesting, to build on
Speaker 3: anything we brought up in the episode, of course, if
Speaker 3: you ever have corrections if necessary, If you have just
Speaker 3: something interesting you want to share with us, we got
Speaker 3: some messages of that sort here today, Or if you
Speaker 3: just want to tell us what you like about the
Speaker 3: show where you listen from that kind of thing. All
Speaker 3: all sorts of messages are welcome. Contact at Stuff to
Speaker 3: Blow your Mind dot com.
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Speaker 2: emailing us to that address.
Speaker 3: All right, Rob, if you don't mind, I think we
Speaker 3: should kick things off today with actually a couple of
Speaker 3: messages from our listener Robin, one about ancient art and
Speaker 3: another one about festive holiday cocktails. We're sort of we're
Speaker 3: past the point for one season of holiday cocktails, but
Speaker 3: just in time for another. All right, I'll start with
Speaker 3: the one about art. So this is from Robin. Robin says, Hey, Rob,
Speaker 3: Joe and JJ just a quick email with some cool
Speaker 3: stuff I came across, maybe fodder for future topics. Sometimes
Speaker 3: the almighty cursed algorithm actually digs up something worthwhile, and
Speaker 3: I got served up an image of an ancient sculpture
Speaker 3: from early history with a quick line of description. Intrigued,
Speaker 3: I dug a bit more into the Gwynall line. Gwinnall,
Speaker 3: if you're trying to look this up, is spelled gue nnol.
Speaker 3: That's a Welsh word apparently meaning Martin. And just for
Speaker 3: a bit of description, The Gwynall Lioness is a roughly
Speaker 3: five thousand year old limestone statuette. It's a little over
Speaker 3: eight centimeters tall and it shows a lion human hybrid form.
Speaker 3: It's posed in a very interesting way. So we see
Speaker 3: it from the thighs up to the head. The lower
Speaker 3: parts of the legs I don't know if they ever existed.
Speaker 3: If they did, they're no longer attached to the rest
Speaker 3: of the statuette. But we see from the thighs up
Speaker 3: and so it's a lion human form with sort of
Speaker 3: the upright torso of a human body, but with a
Speaker 3: lion's head. No Maine, just a manless lion. And also,
Speaker 3: I don't know, the hands to me look like they're
Speaker 3: supposed to be maybe lion claws, but this could be interpreted.
Speaker 3: I guess it's just fingers. But it's a very unusual
Speaker 3: interesting pose. First of all, the figure is extremely muscular,
Speaker 3: and second of all, it's got its fists or claws
Speaker 3: like pushed together with its elbows bent up. I don't
Speaker 3: know what you would call this arm posture, but it's
Speaker 3: like just raise your arms up and push your fists
Speaker 3: together in front of your chest. And it's also sort
Speaker 3: of rotating at the torso, so it looks like it's
Speaker 3: doing some kind of exercise. I don't know if this
Speaker 3: is like a pilates move.
Speaker 2: Yeah, this looks a lot like the bodybuilding pose that
Speaker 2: is called the most muscular, except in the most muscular
Speaker 2: like the fists are not like touching, they're like crisscrossing.
Speaker 2: You've all seen this one if you've seen any amount
Speaker 2: of bodybuilding, just clips you know, you know Arnold Schwarzenegger
Speaker 2: back in the day, that sort of thing.
Speaker 3: So, this statuette was allegedly found near modern day bagh Dad.
Speaker 3: I don't know if it's known exactly when it was found,
Speaker 3: but the trading history of it and collections seems to
Speaker 3: begin in the early nineteen thirties, so it seemed it
Speaker 3: was found somewhere around Baghdad before that time, in the
Speaker 3: early nineteen thirties and held for a while in the
Speaker 3: private collection of a guy who was I guess a
Speaker 3: major tennis player named Alistair Bradley Martin who was also
Speaker 3: an art collector. But it's been on display at some museums,
Speaker 3: I believe the Brooklyn Museum in New York and so forth.
Speaker 3: But anyway, I'm going to continue with Robin's message here
Speaker 3: about this statuette. Robin says, holy mackinaw, what a fascinating
Speaker 3: and gorgeous piece of art, but even better in the
Speaker 3: Wikipedia article on this artwork, the first link in the
Speaker 3: further reading tab is a book called Art of the
Speaker 3: First Cities the third millennium BC, from the Mediterranean to
Speaker 3: the Indus, edited by Joan ruse at All. That book
Speaker 3: is downloadable as a PDF from the link provided there.
Speaker 3: And wow, is that ever a treasure of incredible art
Speaker 3: from the distant past. I love seeing the connections, similarities
Speaker 3: and the different takes on common subjects of art and
Speaker 3: expression by different people in the past. Early artwork gives
Speaker 3: me the shivers in the best way. I find a
Speaker 3: real connection can be forged with the artist, and to
Speaker 3: think about who they were and when they were living, well,
Speaker 3: it really blows my mind. As they say. Anyway, thanks
Speaker 3: for the continued excellent content and wishing you all folks
Speaker 3: down there a happy holiday season. Cheers Robin Well. First
Speaker 3: of all, thank you so much, Robin. A great message,
Speaker 3: and I love that you brought this up. So I
Speaker 3: got interested looking at this artwork. And I have two
Speaker 3: takes on this one, I guess, one sort of thoughtful
Speaker 3: and one kind of internet brained. The more thoughtful take
Speaker 3: is yes, I totally know what you mean about the
Speaker 3: way that ancient art can send shivers through your body.
Speaker 3: Rob I assume you have a similar experience as well,
Speaker 3: and I agree with you, Robin, that it is something
Speaker 3: about that sudden connection between minds that are so distant
Speaker 3: in time and space, like your mind and the artist's
Speaker 3: mind across thousands of years. It's easy to feel, by
Speaker 3: virtue of this encounter with someone's art, that you know
Speaker 3: them in some intimate way, maybe better than people who
Speaker 3: have actually met them know them, because art is a window,
Speaker 3: you know, it's a window in kind of deep parts
Speaker 3: of people's mind and character. Often people express things through
Speaker 3: art works that maybe they aren't comfortable sharing in conversation.
Speaker 3: You know, it's commonly thought of that art is in
Speaker 3: some way an expression of the personality of the artists.
Speaker 3: So like by seeing the works that people create, you
Speaker 3: know something very familiar and close and maybe commonly hidden
Speaker 3: about them. And yet because of the distance in time
Speaker 3: and the anonymity of the artist in this case, we
Speaker 3: don't know who made this lion of statue. Not only
Speaker 3: can you never meet this artist, there's just so much
Speaker 3: about their life and context you cannot know and will
Speaker 3: never know. How different their life was from yours, how
Speaker 3: differently they saw the world and everything like that. And
Speaker 3: I think it's that tension between the intimate mental connection
Speaker 3: established by viewing a piece of art and the objective
Speaker 3: ignorance we have the total mystery about the life of
Speaker 3: the artist that makes ancient art so haunting, at least
Speaker 3: to me.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, yeah, I agree with all that. And by the way,
Speaker 2: the book that was referenced, Art of the First Cities,
Speaker 2: this was a two thousand and three publication from the
Speaker 2: Metropolitan Museum of Art. Looks like you can still pick
Speaker 2: up copies of it. Yeah, it looks like a handsome volume.
Speaker 3: Oh nice. Yeah, I'm gonna have to go back and
Speaker 3: check out that link after we record this. But anyway,
Speaker 3: there are just so many questions that spring to mind.
Speaker 3: I don't know, It's like you want to know more
Speaker 3: about the mindset of the artist when you can't. For example,
Speaker 3: so this is a lion human hybrid. But I always
Speaker 3: wonder in these cases were of these ancient artworks, is
Speaker 3: it best thought of as anthropomorphic, meaning a lion taking
Speaker 3: a human form, or theiomorphic? Is it a human taking
Speaker 3: a lion form? And you can't necessarily tell by the picture,
Speaker 3: but you can make guess is like, what does it
Speaker 3: mean when it's a lion's head on a human body
Speaker 3: as opposed to like a human head on a lion's body.
Speaker 3: Does one imply more anthropomorphism versus theeomorphism than the other?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Yeah, I mean you can just look at our
Speaker 2: own modern dreams of half human half animal hybrids and
Speaker 2: they can ultimately convey a whole host of different ideas,
Speaker 2: and certainly that would have been the case in the
Speaker 2: ancient past as.
Speaker 3: Well as For my internet brained take on this, I'm sorry,
Speaker 3: but a comparison did come to mind. I was looking
Speaker 3: at this leonine human being that is just so jacked
Speaker 3: with muscles, and it made me think about those comic
Speaker 3: book superhero illustrations that get turned into memes because the
Speaker 3: muscles are comically gigantic. I'm thinking particularly of an image
Speaker 3: I've seen many times on the internet of like Captain America,
Speaker 3: where he looks just like a truck.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you included that one here, this in our outline,
Speaker 2: and this is the infamous big chested Rob Leifeld Captain America.
Speaker 3: And I'm not trying to hate, by the way, I
Speaker 3: don't know anything about this artist. I'm just say it's
Speaker 3: a funny image.
Speaker 2: A lot of people have fun with lifel illustrations. I mean,
Speaker 2: he was and is a very influential figure in comics,
Speaker 2: particularly Marvel, but some of his designs are maimed a
Speaker 2: lot because of their anatomical ridiculousness, even within the world
Speaker 2: of comic book superheroes. Yeah.
Speaker 3: On the other hand, I think there are multiple ways
Speaker 3: you can kind of read the pose of this lion
Speaker 3: human with the hands clasped together like that, Like is
Speaker 3: that a muscle flexing pose or kind of a you know,
Speaker 3: we were thinking of it as like an exercise bodybuilding pose,
Speaker 3: but you could also read that as the hands clasp
Speaker 3: of contemplation. You know. I don't know if it had
Speaker 3: the same association in the ancient Mesopotamian culture that produced this,
Speaker 3: but we often think of clasped hands as prayer or
Speaker 3: meditation or contemplation, thoughtfulness, wisdom. That could be what's going
Speaker 3: on here.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's hard to say exactly. It's hard. It's hard
Speaker 2: to read this image. I mean it's easier to read
Speaker 2: the Captain America. I think he's he's being in all tough. Uh,
Speaker 2: that's that's just basically the read I'm getting here tough
Speaker 2: and a little little mean. Ye, but yeah, it's hard
Speaker 2: to read the lioness.
Speaker 3: But anyway, thank you again, Robin. Oh should we do
Speaker 3: this other message from Robin about festive holiday cocktails?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Absolutely, Yeah, this one came in separately, and this
Speaker 2: one was was sent to us as well as to
Speaker 2: Tracy and Holly over at stuff you missed in history class,
Speaker 2: and this is how it goes down. Hi, Holly and
Speaker 2: Rob and Tracy and Joe. Please forgive the slightly odd
Speaker 2: co mingling of stuff personnel, But from listening to both
Speaker 2: of your podcasts, stuff you missed a history class and
Speaker 2: stuff to blow your mind, I think the two of
Speaker 2: you are most relevant to the question I have. If
Speaker 2: I may calling out Holly in particular because she has
Speaker 2: a cocktail book out. That book is Killer Cocktails, Dangerous
Speaker 2: Drinks in Spired by History's most Nefarious Criminals. It's out now.
Speaker 2: You can get it in all sorts of formats.
Speaker 3: Oh wonderful. Shout out to our crossover listeners, by the way.
Speaker 2: Yeah, anyway, Robin continues, it seems that both of you
Speaker 2: are fans of a tasty cocktail. I would love to
Speaker 2: make some tasty holiday cocktails for family and friends in
Speaker 2: the next few weeks, and I am looking for fun
Speaker 2: ideas and inspiration. Do the two of you either A
Speaker 2: have an outlet where you if use specifically about tasty
Speaker 2: drinks in your experience. I know about your exciting book, Hollie.
Speaker 2: I am waiting until after Christmas in case someone already
Speaker 2: wrapped it up for me or B have favorite or
Speaker 2: a favorites that you go to websites, blogs, social media,
Speaker 2: et cetera for cocktail inspiration. Thank you ever so much
Speaker 2: for any info in this area. Much appreciated. Happy mixing. Well, Yes,
Speaker 2: Rob and I do enjoy a cocktail, be it one
Speaker 2: that is infused with a spirit or one that is
Speaker 2: alcohol free. I love a great many zero proof cocktails
Speaker 2: these days as well. Big fanatropical drinks, so often turned
Speaker 2: to the pages of Jeff Beach Bumberry as well as
Speaker 2: his Total Tiki app on top of his published books.
Speaker 2: You know, so it's a great These are great places
Speaker 2: to find cool, historic tiki drinks to try out. I
Speaker 2: also love to look through the pages of Imbibe Magazine
Speaker 2: and their website imbibemagazine dot com for ideas. In fact,
Speaker 2: one of the holiday drinks I've been making regularly each
Speaker 2: year for a few years now is one called nutty
Speaker 2: like a fruitcake. That's a lot of fun. So you
Speaker 2: can find that at Imbibe magazine. I will, however, stress
Speaker 2: that this is one of those drinks that every year
Speaker 2: I make it, it feels a little stronger and a
Speaker 2: little sweeter. And I know that I'm not changing the
Speaker 2: way I make it, but I think the makeup of
Speaker 2: myself is changing each year. It just feels sweeter and
Speaker 2: stronger to my sensibilities. So if you do make this
Speaker 2: drink and it's a great Christmas, you know, holiday Day,
Speaker 2: New Year's drink, and so forth, I would say, don't
Speaker 2: be a hero. Consider cutting it with soda water. It's
Speaker 2: still a great drink if you do it that way. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I support that. Certainly, over time the body craves less
Speaker 2: alcohol and sugar, I would say, but yeah, yeah, you know,
Speaker 2: on the subject of cutting drinks or not being a hero,
Speaker 2: I think this came up recently on a Weird House
Speaker 2: Cinema episode.
Speaker 3: I don't remember if we may have cut it. I
Speaker 3: don't know if we left it in or not, But anyway,
Speaker 3: I want to stand up for the non dry martini.
Speaker 3: You know, whenever people order a martini in a movie,
Speaker 3: if they specify anything about it, they always say dry
Speaker 3: one very dry martini, meaning you know, higher content of
Speaker 3: your whatever, your your hard spirit is in your gin
Speaker 3: or your vodka. So I recommend if you're making yourself
Speaker 3: a martini for New Year's try try a wetter, gentler martini.
Speaker 3: I think it's a nice experience. I think a gin
Speaker 3: based martini is better. And go less on the gin,
Speaker 3: heavier on the vermouth, and try it with some olive brine.
Speaker 3: It's it's nice.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And I do want to stress too for folks
Speaker 2: out there who don't drink alcohol or considering stopping or
Speaker 2: you know, considering doing a dry january, as a lot
Speaker 2: of folks do these days. I mean, there's never been
Speaker 2: a better time in my opinion, to go that route.
Speaker 2: Like we have so many wonderful zero proof spirits, zero
Speaker 2: proof ingredients, cocktail recipes to go off of. Yeah, you
Speaker 2: can still have a grand time and get you know,
Speaker 2: so much out of the cocktail experience these days.
Speaker 3: Totally agree. There there are even some like canned, pre
Speaker 3: made non alcoholic cocktails you can buy now that we've
Speaker 3: tried recently that are really good.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So if any of you out there
Speaker 2: have particular favorites you'd like to share, write in. We'd
Speaker 2: love to hear from you.
Speaker 3: All right. This next message is from Elliott and it
Speaker 3: concerns our episodes on Sacred Trees, specifically the second episode
Speaker 3: we did on that where I talked about sacred trees
Speaker 3: struck by lightning and Rob you talked about the meaning
Speaker 3: of the Rowan Tree. Elliott says. Greetings, longtime listener, first
Speaker 3: time writer here. Primarily thank you for your service with
Speaker 3: the podcast. It's an educational joy and a wonderful wellspring
Speaker 3: of inspiration. Thank you so much, Elliott. Elliott says, as
Speaker 3: a small token of appreciation for the Rowan Tree episode,
Speaker 3: I wanted to share some seeds. Specifically, I know the
Speaker 3: Rowan tree is used by Ursula k Legwin in her
Speaker 3: Earthsea series. The first chapter of book three, The Farthest Shore,
Speaker 3: is called the Rowan Tree. The specific Rowan tree in
Speaker 3: question is one which stands adjacent to a fountain in
Speaker 3: the courtyard in the Magical School of Roke, the inspiration
Speaker 3: for Hogwarts. This scene is actually a callback to book
Speaker 3: one titled A Wizard of Earth see when the young
Speaker 3: protagonist first arrives at the school and meets the arch
Speaker 3: Mage an inspiration for Dumbledore. Since Ursula le Gwin's father
Speaker 3: was an anthropologist working with Indigenous Americans, documented by her
Speaker 3: mother in the book Ishi in Two Worlds, Young Ursula
Speaker 3: grew up surrounded by inherently anthropological questions such as what
Speaker 3: does this tree mean to this culture? The magic system
Speaker 3: in the Earth Sea universe is also fascinating to view
Speaker 3: through this lens. An episode on the on magic systems
Speaker 3: in general could be fun. Thanks again for your great work, Elliott, Well,
Speaker 3: thank you Elliott. A couple of thoughts. First of all, yes,
Speaker 3: I love Ursula Legwin. I haven't read the Earthsea series yet.
Speaker 3: This email has made me think maybe that should be
Speaker 3: my next fiction read. Been meaning to for years. I
Speaker 3: think there is a cool sensibility about cultures in her work,
Speaker 3: that the way she depicts invented alien cultures and her
Speaker 3: sci fi novels. I haven't read any of her fantasy work,
Speaker 3: but excited about Earthsea. It feels very sensitive and lived in,
Speaker 3: with a kind of heterogeneity visible within the general trends
Speaker 3: as opposed to the stories that depict alien cultures or
Speaker 3: invented culture is in a very flat or symbolic way
Speaker 3: where it's just like everyone does this, you know. And also,
Speaker 3: if you would like to learn more about the story
Speaker 3: of the man known as Ishi mentioned in this email,
Speaker 3: the person who's in the title of the Theodor Krober
Speaker 3: book Eshi in Two Worlds. We discussed him in our
Speaker 3: series on Brain Theft from twenty twenty one, so you
Speaker 3: can go back and listen to that if you want
Speaker 3: to hear about Hi.
Speaker 2: All right, let's see. Oh, we do have a number
Speaker 2: of messages related to the Hearth. I believe that's a
Speaker 2: there's a Hearth related title for today's listener mail episode.
Speaker 2: So let's get into some of these. This first one
Speaker 2: comes to us from Mike, subject line x Men ninety
Speaker 2: seven Fireplace. We were talking about various fireplace for your
Speaker 2: home DVDs, streaming options and so forth. So Mike says,
Speaker 2: to add to the collection, Marvel has posted an X
Speaker 2: Men animated series Fireplace on YouTube.
Speaker 3: You know, Mike included a link and I tried to
Speaker 3: go check this out, but by the time I checked it,
Speaker 3: it was after Christmas and the video was gone, so
Speaker 3: it may have been just a before Christmas thing and
Speaker 3: then taken down. I don't know, or maybe it's still
Speaker 3: out there somewhere. But I did find a screenshot and
Speaker 3: I pulled that in and put it in our outline,
Speaker 3: so here you can see rob what the X Men
Speaker 3: fireplace looked like. I appreciate that this is more like
Speaker 3: a hand drawn animation style.
Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, very much in the style of X Men
Speaker 2: ninety seven, which is an amazing series. By the way,
Speaker 2: it hits really hard. I think it's must viewing for
Speaker 2: anyone who grew up with the nineties X Men cartoon.
Speaker 2: But I think I haven't tested this out yet, but
Speaker 2: I think you could also watch X Men ninety seven
Speaker 2: without having watched the original X Men series. I watched
Speaker 2: it with my kid and it was a lot of fun,
Speaker 2: and we've been talking about, well should we get mom
Speaker 2: in on the action as well? And I think there's
Speaker 2: I think you can get into it. That's my theory.
Speaker 2: I think you can watch X Men ninety seven with
Speaker 2: only just like a casual understanding of Marvel's X Men.
Speaker 3: Trying to see who's got stockings. The stockings have names
Speaker 3: on them here. Oh yeah, we have a stocking for Wolverine, Storm, Rogue,
Speaker 3: Gene Jeene Gray.
Speaker 2: And then who this says morph in Morph? Yeah, morph
Speaker 2: is a shape shifting mutants. Yes, I don't know if
Speaker 2: I knew morph Morph was in the in the original series. Okay,
Speaker 2: and has a I think a more prominent role in
Speaker 2: this one. Cool.
Speaker 3: Well, as I've said before on the show, I'm underfamiliar
Speaker 3: with the X Men cartoons, both old and new. I
Speaker 3: haven't seen this new one, and I didn't ever watch
Speaker 3: much of the old one, so I don't know as
Speaker 3: much as I would like to, But I don't know.
Speaker 3: It looks fun, I like the visual style. I'd like
Speaker 3: to check it out.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, it's solid. Let's see what else? Oh? And
Speaker 2: then this is the This is also from Mike, Right,
Speaker 2: Mike sent something that sent over something that aw wrestler dead.
Speaker 2: It's a video of one hangman Adam Page sipping whiskey
Speaker 2: in front of a burning house that's serving as a
Speaker 2: yule log. I didn't I personally don't follow wrestling as
Speaker 2: much these days, so I don't know what the context
Speaker 2: is for this. But still, anything within in the virtual
Speaker 2: Christmas Hearth domain, I'm all for it. Oh, and this
Speaker 2: just springs to mind as well. I didn't think to
Speaker 2: mention this earlier, but when we were talking about like
Speaker 2: spinoffs of virtual hearts, digital hearths and fireplaces and indeed
Speaker 2: yule Logs Adult Swims yule Log from twenty twenty two,
Speaker 2: it's like a horror movie that begins as a yule
Speaker 2: Log video feed and then it evolves into a horror movie.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, my pal nick A Katanawat did the original
Speaker 2: score for it. This is the same bunch that also
Speaker 2: did Too Many Cooks a few years I think a
Speaker 2: couple of years before that.
Speaker 3: So similar vein so like fireplace for your home in
Speaker 3: the style of Too Many Cooks. Exactly, Yes, perfect, that's
Speaker 3: what I want.
Speaker 2: In speaking of what we want, I was also thinking.
Speaker 2: We talked a little bit about this when we discussed
Speaker 2: the movie Blue Sunshine and Weird House Cinema, which has
Speaker 2: a very notable horrific hearth sequence in it. These are
Speaker 2: some of my ideas. These are movies that we need
Speaker 2: digital hearth feeds. For Blue Sunshine, of course, The wicker
Speaker 2: Man obviously not quite a hearth, but fire Fellowship of
Speaker 2: the Ring seems just a no brainer. We need one
Speaker 2: of the Roaring Hop a hearth with the one ring
Speaker 2: in there, you know, staying nice and cool and shining,
Speaker 2: and maybe we can glimpse the script in the interior
Speaker 2: of the ring. I think that would be a good one.
Speaker 2: And then finally, Citizen Kane. It's been a while since
Speaker 2: I've seen Citizen Kane, but I'm reminded that Citizen Kane
Speaker 2: had a phenomenal fireplace. It seems like that would be
Speaker 2: a great inclusion as well.
Speaker 3: I gotta say my entry is the Vincent Price House
Speaker 3: of Wax, whereas our burning House of Wax. Though, that
Speaker 3: would be kind of hard to loop, I think because
Speaker 3: as the wax figmurines melt, maybe they could melt and
Speaker 3: then it could go in reverse and they reconstitute and
Speaker 3: it just.
Speaker 2: Got coving forth forever. It sounds fun. Who Likewise, this
Speaker 2: would be hard to loop. But melting Nazis from the
Speaker 2: end of Raiders of the Last Star. Ah, Yes, that
Speaker 2: could also potentially work.
Speaker 3: Melting Nazis for your home Yeah yes.
Speaker 2: Oh. A couple of quick messages from the Discord server
Speaker 2: in regards to hearth videos and so forth, One Gorpi
Speaker 2: writes in with the following back in two thousand and eight,
Speaker 2: Stephen Colbert made a holiday special and one of the
Speaker 2: extras on the DVD was a yule log that but
Speaker 2: a random book would occasionally be thrown into it. I
Speaker 2: remember Fahrenheit four fifty one was one of the first
Speaker 2: books thrown into the yule log. Nice and then oh
Speaker 2: and then we also heard from Matt on Discord. Matt
Speaker 2: writes loving the hearth episode so far. If I growing
Speaker 2: up in the Burbs, we had a functional woodstove fireplace
Speaker 2: in the living room, so between that and being a
Speaker 2: boy scout as a kid, I have a strong nostalgia
Speaker 2: for fireplaces and campfires. The apartment I lived in had
Speaker 2: a faux fireplace mantle with a rotating fire effect and
Speaker 2: a built in space heater. Something I noticed over the
Speaker 2: years was that even if the heater part wasn't on,
Speaker 2: my face would flush after sitting in front of the
Speaker 2: fire effect for a while, as though it was a
Speaker 2: real fire and not just a rotating stencil and red light.
Speaker 2: And Netflix certainly wasn't the first. I've got this gym
Speaker 2: from two thousand and five, and I'm sure there were
Speaker 2: plenty before it. Matt includes a photograph of a DVD
Speaker 2: here holiday fire a virtual fireplace.
Speaker 3: Oh man, I bet like Kmart could not keep these
Speaker 3: on the shelves in two thousand and six.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I have to admit there many times where I'll
Speaker 2: go up to I will be at a friend's house
Speaker 2: who has a faux fireplace of some kind, and I
Speaker 2: will still warm my hands by it. I just can't.
Speaker 2: Just like you see it, you do it, and even
Speaker 2: when you feel no heat coming off of it, the
Speaker 2: ritual of the of the situation is still feels potent. Yeah.
Speaker 3: Interesting that the thing Matt saying about the physiological reaction,
Speaker 3: the flushing without the heat.
Speaker 2: You know, it kind of comes back to what we
Speaker 2: were talking about earlier about zero proof cocktails. I've had
Speaker 2: sit situations before where I've had a zero proof cocktail
Speaker 2: and you know, you kind I kind of feel like
Speaker 2: a little flushed, a little, a little like psychosomatic imbibing
Speaker 2: of like purely mental alcohol. In those situations.
Speaker 3: Like just the the belief that you're having a cocktail
Speaker 3: provides some amount of social disinhibition, even if there's no
Speaker 3: actual alcohol in it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, because there's so much, of course, with with any
Speaker 2: of these things where there's the actual stimuli there's the
Speaker 2: actual you know, chemical and biological processes that are involved.
Speaker 2: But then there's some there's ritual, there's there's additional sensory
Speaker 2: data it's not tied to the heat or to the
Speaker 2: alcohol and so forth, and all of that has an
Speaker 2: effect on the mind as well. There have probably been studies,
Speaker 2: maybe there even been studies about people warming themselves by
Speaker 2: a fake firelight. I don't know all right.
Speaker 3: This next message comes from Joe, a subject line on illumination.
Speaker 3: Dear Rob and Joe, thank you for your illuminating had
Speaker 3: to swing at that slow pitch over the plate sorry
Speaker 3: podcast on hearths. I wanted to write in with some
Speaker 3: cultural commentary on your observations on the nature of firelight
Speaker 3: and how we take pervasive electric illumination for granted. I
Speaker 3: connected this conversation with an upcoming ritual in which I
Speaker 3: partake annually, Honkkah. My favorite thing about Honkkah is the
Speaker 3: sacred practice of turning off all the other lights while
Speaker 3: the candles burn. The light of the honakiah or manora,
Speaker 3: both words are correct is intended to be the only
Speaker 3: light in the area for the time when the candles burn.
Speaker 3: It can be an extraordinary gift of peace in a
Speaker 3: time of year which is usually filled with joy, that
Speaker 3: brings with it a sizable share of chaos, noise, and
Speaker 3: of course bright electric light. I am a secular jew,
Speaker 3: so for me, this holiday isn't about a divine connection.
Speaker 3: But I find the ten or fifteen minutes of darkness,
Speaker 3: but for the flickering, fading, waning light as the candles
Speaker 3: in my manora dwindle, strengthen my relationship to my ancestors
Speaker 3: whose nights were lit by this ephemeral source. It's not
Speaker 3: a portal to another world, but for me, firelight does
Speaker 3: open a passageway of sorts through time and creates a
Speaker 3: connection to a history I choose to treasure. Joe, Well,
Speaker 3: thank you, Joe. Yeah, that's very interesting, and it does
Speaker 3: expand on some themes we talked about in the second
Speaker 3: of our Hearth episodes when we were talking about the
Speaker 3: study of how time lit by firelight is used differently
Speaker 3: than time lit by daylight or by electric light. And
Speaker 3: in one particular case of people studied living in Southern Africa,
Speaker 3: time that was lit exclusively by firelight was used overwhelmingly
Speaker 3: for storytelling, as opposed to other types of conversation which
Speaker 3: dominated during daylight hours. And that's kind of an interesting observation.
Speaker 3: Don't know how universally true that holds, but it seems
Speaker 3: that other sources have documented that it is common for
Speaker 3: people who have environments lit entirely by firelight to dwell
Speaker 3: in a kind of storytelling space, or in a space
Speaker 3: that puts everyday experiences in the context of a kind
Speaker 3: of bigger picture and a history and a world and
Speaker 3: a realm of meaning, as opposed to just the day
Speaker 3: to day tactics of getting by that consume most of
Speaker 3: our energy. And so I thought that that was really interesting,
Speaker 3: and I wonder to what extent there was a kind
Speaker 3: of economic explanation in the paper we talked about, which
Speaker 3: is that firelight is enough light to stay awake and
Speaker 3: interact with other people, to like talk and sing and
Speaker 3: dance and have social time. But the quality of the
Speaker 3: light produced by a fire is typically not good enough
Speaker 3: to see what you're doing, well enough to get most
Speaker 3: kinds of work done, you know. So it's like it
Speaker 3: produces a time you can be awake and do things,
Speaker 3: but you can't really be very economically productive. And that
Speaker 3: could be viewed in some ways as a kind of
Speaker 3: blessing because it allows you to engage in these other
Speaker 3: types of activities. And so we were thinking, is it
Speaker 3: only that kind of mechanical explanation where it's like, well,
Speaker 3: you can't really see good enough to do most types
Speaker 3: of economic work with the firelight, or is it also
Speaker 3: that there are things about the esthetic qualities of firelight
Speaker 3: that just put you in a different frame of mind
Speaker 3: that also lend themselves to these sort of storytelling meaning
Speaker 3: orientations and thinking more about the big picture and thinking
Speaker 3: more about other worlds and dreams. I guess I'm not
Speaker 3: fully prepared to have this conversation day, but maybe it's
Speaker 3: something to come back to in the future. Like, if
Speaker 3: it is the case that firelight puts you in a
Speaker 3: particularly imaginative or expansive state of mind compared to daylight
Speaker 3: or bright electric light, why is that? What is it
Speaker 3: about the firelight environment that that makes you think differently?
Speaker 3: Is it something about the color of the light, or
Speaker 3: the relative amount of darkness surrounding you or what. I
Speaker 3: don't know exactly, but I think they'll be interesting to consider.
Speaker 2: Yeah, fluctuations shadows. I wonder if lava lamps get into
Speaker 2: a similar area, like, you know, yeah, we'll probably you know,
Speaker 2: you're not doing a lot of like serious study by
Speaker 2: by Lava Lamp. You're you're you're doing other things. Yeah,
Speaker 2: you're you're you're dreaming, you know. All right, This next
Speaker 2: one comes to us from Anna. Anna writes, and it says, Hi,
Speaker 2: Robin Joe, you talk about the TV show of a Fireplace.
Speaker 2: Reminds me of something that came out a few years
Speaker 2: ago here in Australia. It was just one long train
Speaker 2: journey and it ran all day long. There's a famous
Speaker 2: train in Australia called the Gone that runs through the
Speaker 2: center of Australia. I had to look this up and yeah,
Speaker 2: it goes right through the middle from the northern coast
Speaker 2: to the southern coast. It looks pretty incredible. The show,
Speaker 2: Anna continues, was mostly shots from the front of the
Speaker 2: train moving along the track, interspersed with other external shots
Speaker 2: of the train moving along. Because the train goes through
Speaker 2: the center of Australia, the landscape is mostly desert. There
Speaker 2: was no soundtrack, just the soothing clackety clack of the train.
Speaker 2: It was quite popular at the time. The fact that
Speaker 2: there wasn't much going on was what made it appealing
Speaker 2: because people found it soothing. I live in Sydney now,
Speaker 2: so I don't encounter fireplaces a lot, but I grew
Speaker 2: up in Tasmania, where they were a part of life
Speaker 2: in winter. Obviously, here in Australia, winter is at the
Speaker 2: opposite time of the year, so I don't associate them
Speaker 2: with Christmas, but I do associate them with family gatherings. Anyway,
Speaker 2: thanks for the great podcast.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well thanks Anna. Well, yeah, I agree that that's
Speaker 3: an interesting comparison. So when we were talking about Slow
Speaker 3: TV and the Hearth episodes, we talked about obviously, you know,
Speaker 3: the mule log fireplace for your home, all of these
Speaker 3: fire burning movies, but we also talked about Andy Warhol's Empire,
Speaker 3: which is just a shot of the Empire State Building
Speaker 3: filmed over the course of one night as as the
Speaker 3: sky grows dark and the floodlights come on at the
Speaker 3: top of the building, and not much happens. You just
Speaker 3: look at the building for I don't know, six hours
Speaker 3: or eight hours. How I think it's like eight hours
Speaker 3: the full length of the movie when played at the
Speaker 3: frame rate that's intended. And so that's one way of
Speaker 3: doing it. The train thing is on a similar theme,
Speaker 3: though it does seem kind of different because there you
Speaker 3: are going from one place to another. Though I still
Speaker 3: think it'd be hard to call that much of a
Speaker 3: plot by conventional standards, but there's something more literally of
Speaker 3: a journey about it.
Speaker 2: I should go ahead and to add a real time
Speaker 2: self correction here. I think I said gone. I think
Speaker 2: GAN would be more accurate because this was formerly the
Speaker 2: Afghan Express and it was abbreviated to GAN. But yeah,
Speaker 2: this does sound like a very interesting program in its
Speaker 2: own right. I'm reminded now of I believe this was
Speaker 2: a twenty sixteen project from the band Cigaroes. They did
Speaker 2: some sort of project where they had like a camera
Speaker 2: mounted on the top of a vehicle and they were
Speaker 2: just driving around Iceland and then of course with their
Speaker 2: signature sound on top of that. But I remember when
Speaker 2: that came out. I remember a lot of us were
Speaker 2: very intrigued by it, and I think you can still
Speaker 2: pull it up on their website, and maybe that just
Speaker 2: linked to some other places you can watch it, but anyway,
Speaker 2: it's still out there if you want to ride around
Speaker 2: Iceland with cigarettes.
Speaker 3: Well, thanks again, Anna, Okay, let's see Rob do you
Speaker 3: mind if I do this message about our vault episodes
Speaker 3: on the shadow, please do. This comes from ls. LS says, hey,
Speaker 3: I thought your episodes on shadows were quite intriguing. I
Speaker 3: was particularly curious about the role shadows play in characters
Speaker 3: or religious figures, such as Chaia and that, by the way,
Speaker 3: is a Hindu deity that is a personification of the
Speaker 3: shadow or of shade. LS continues. The stories you featured
Speaker 3: in these episodes had characters with their shadows being stolen
Speaker 3: or in some cases a separate entity. This got me
Speaker 3: thinking about characters that have shadows as an integral part
Speaker 3: of their being, especially in ways that reflect some sort
Speaker 3: of inner evil or buried personality. An example that comes
Speaker 3: to mind is Vex from League of Legends parentheses. I know, well, LS,
Speaker 3: maybe you know, but I don't know. I don't know
Speaker 3: what I've heard of League of Legends, but I don't
Speaker 3: know anything about it. This implies to me that there
Speaker 3: must be I don't know something notorious about it.
Speaker 2: I mean, I don't know much of Legal Legends, but
Speaker 2: the TV series Arcane, the animated series, is quite good
Speaker 2: and I'm not very far into it, but people really
Speaker 2: love it and I've been impressed by it so far.
Speaker 2: So yeah, I mean it seems like a rich world,
Speaker 2: but I don't know anything about the original video.
Speaker 3: Kain Arkane is a show based on legal legends.
Speaker 2: Correct.
Speaker 3: Oh okay, yeah, so Ls continues about this character Vex.
Speaker 3: This character features abilities revolving around her sentient shadow, one
Speaker 3: that is a source of power, a thing that she
Speaker 3: can separate from and manipulate. Another, maybe more prominent exhibit
Speaker 3: is the departed shadow of the Marvel character Centry. This
Speaker 3: thing is called the Void and is somewhat its own character.
Speaker 3: In the Doctor Strange trade paperback The God of Magic
Speaker 3: parentheses Kate slash Walta, the Void is imprisoned in the
Speaker 3: Wizard's Sanctum, a being that mirrors the strength of Century,
Speaker 3: but returns the century's good deeds into equal of darkness.
Speaker 3: These characters come to mind because they have different behaviors
Speaker 3: than the shadows featured in the episodes. I thought that
Speaker 3: the idea of the shadow being the reflection of someone's
Speaker 3: inner evil, like a personification of intrusive thoughts or source
Speaker 3: of power, was a topic that wasn't reached due to
Speaker 3: time constraints, but felt that this kind of interpretation of
Speaker 3: shadow was something that you might find curious. There are
Speaker 3: certainly many more instances of this, but I may have
Speaker 3: spent too much time on this anyways, LS well, thank you. Ells. Yeah,
Speaker 3: I guess we didn't get into it in the episode.
Speaker 3: For example, I know the shadow. I don't know a
Speaker 3: ton about this, but I know the shadow in I
Speaker 3: almost called it Jungian psychology. I try not to say
Speaker 3: Jungian psychology these days because I feel like that gives
Speaker 3: Jungianism too much of the implication that it's based on
Speaker 3: like direct scientific research in Jungian thought. Uh, there's this
Speaker 3: idea of the shadow that is basically the the subconscious,
Speaker 3: repressed version of the ego or of the self. And
Speaker 3: so it's like the version of you that is maybe
Speaker 3: the version that that you don't want people to see,
Speaker 3: that would maybe do bad things that you know you
Speaker 3: shouldn't do, or in some other way would would violate
Speaker 3: your your externally validated ethos. You know, it's the the
Speaker 3: version of you that could be let loose if you
Speaker 3: just cut off all of your inhibitions.
Speaker 2: The the mister hide to your doctor Jekyl exactly, yes,
Speaker 2: and so yeah, you can have kind of interesting thoughts
Speaker 2: about the ways that your conscious self interacts with the
Speaker 2: you know, with your your repressed desires and the things
Speaker 2: that you know you shouldn't do, and so forth.
Speaker 3: Those kind of interactions between the conscious self and the
Speaker 3: and the shadow self, I don't know, maybe kind of
Speaker 3: blend in interesting ways that that come out in our behaviors.
Speaker 3: But then again, I don't want to I don't want
Speaker 3: to overstate or give the impression that that I think
Speaker 3: Youngian thought is like a sign scientifically validated way of
Speaker 3: understanding humanity. It's more just kind of like an interesting
Speaker 3: philosophical framework on the human mind.
Speaker 2: All right, Well, on that note, should should we turn
Speaker 2: to a little weird house cinema limail to round out
Speaker 2: the episode? Absolutely the Void to Our Century?
Speaker 3: If you will, Let's see you want to do this
Speaker 3: one from Nathan and Olivia or this one from Joan?
Speaker 2: Oh? I mean, whether they're both great? Your choice.
Speaker 3: Let's see, I'll take Nathan and Olivia, then you take Joan.
Speaker 3: How about that sounds good? Okay? So this is from
Speaker 3: an account called Nathan and Olivia, though the email uses
Speaker 3: the first person singular pronoun, so it seems like this
Speaker 3: is from either Nathan or Olivia in superposition for the
Speaker 3: time being. Subject line Dead Mountaineers Hotel Hi Robert, Joe
Speaker 3: and JJ just finished the Weird House episode on the
Speaker 3: Dead Mountaineers Hotel. I was especially excited for this one
Speaker 3: as the Strugatsky's have been cited by the developers of
Speaker 3: the video game disco Elysium as a core inspiration to
Speaker 3: the game, and then they add if you search Arcadi,
Speaker 3: Arcadi and Boris Strugatsky disco Elysium Steam, you should find
Speaker 3: a list of inspirations the developers made on a Steam
Speaker 3: page for the game. Disco Elysium is my favorite game
Speaker 3: of all time. You play as an amnesiac detective trying
Speaker 3: to solve a murder and get his life together or
Speaker 3: not in the fictional city of Revashl. It is a
Speaker 3: callback to classic CRPGs like Planescape Torment and regarded as
Speaker 3: one of the best written video games of all time.
Speaker 3: The lead writer for the game was Robert Kurwitz, who
Speaker 3: is Estonian. Oh yeah, was Dead Mountaineer's Hotel Estonian? I
Speaker 3: know it was one of the Baltic states where it
Speaker 3: was made. Yes, Rob just confirmed it was Estonian. Anyway,
Speaker 3: The email goes on. I really enjoyed the episode on
Speaker 3: the Dead Mountaineers Hotel. The influence on Disco Elysia is
Speaker 3: easy to see. If you were ever to decide to
Speaker 3: do a weird house episode on a video game, Disco
Speaker 3: would be a great candidate. It's relatively short, and the
Speaker 3: choices are endless and isn't traditionally difficult as there is
Speaker 3: no combat. It sounds great to me.
Speaker 2: You had me at it's relatively short.
Speaker 3: Yeah, good writing and short. That's my kind of game
Speaker 3: these days. Take care and thanks for a great show,
Speaker 3: Nathan and Olivia. So yeah, thank you for getting in touch,
Speaker 3: either Nathan or Olivia or both of you whoever wrote this.
Speaker 3: That I've heard great things about the game, I actually well,
Speaker 3: actually I'm understanding. I did downloaded it and I started
Speaker 3: playing it one day, but I didn't actually like get
Speaker 3: into the you know as one of those threshold I
Speaker 3: played like five minutes. So I just need to like
Speaker 3: start over someday.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I've I've been tempted to pick it up
Speaker 2: as well because I've always heard great things, and as
Speaker 2: of this recording, there's like a massive sale on it
Speaker 2: on the on the console that I use in their
Speaker 2: web store, so I like, I have it bookmarked, and
Speaker 2: I've been trying to decide It's like, is seventy percent off?
Speaker 2: Is this the threshold at which I buy this game?
Speaker 2: And then what will it take for me to actually
Speaker 2: play it? I just play fewer games these days, but yeah,
Speaker 2: I've only heard great things and a Planescape Torment that
Speaker 2: was one that I loved so much back in the day.
Speaker 2: That is an amazing game Dungeons and Dragons game set
Speaker 2: in the Planescape setting, which is also one of my favorites. Yeah,
Speaker 2: loads of fun. So if it's anything like that, that's
Speaker 2: that's a great sign. All right, One more weird house message. Yes,
Speaker 2: this one comes to us from Joan Jones, says, I
Speaker 2: just enjoyed listening to your discussion of Return to Oz. Yes,
Speaker 2: so we recently re ran this as a Weird House
Speaker 2: Cinema rewind episode, and I think I managed to more
Speaker 2: or less hit the debut of the new Wicked movie
Speaker 2: without really intending too. It's like ended up being like, oh,
Speaker 2: that was a great I patted myself on the back
Speaker 2: for it, but it was kind of by accident. I
Speaker 2: wasn't even thinking about it. But obviously Wicked has been
Speaker 2: a huge hit. Everyone I know who has seen it
Speaker 2: loved it. The rest of my family really loved it,
Speaker 2: but I haven't seen it just yet. Anyway, Jones says, Oh, boys,
Speaker 2: your grandma's minds were being blown by those characters before
Speaker 2: you were a twinkle in your daddy's eyes. What you
Speaker 2: view as mind blowing is all from the original Oz
Speaker 2: books by bomb You owe it to yourself to read them.
Speaker 2: Bomb Can the original illustrator, and the new illustrations are wonderful.
Speaker 2: They have a fantastic art deco vibe. Ozma of Oz
Speaker 2: is Dorothy's best friend, not her alter ego. She's the
Speaker 2: rightful ruler of Oz, but was hidden for most of
Speaker 2: her life when momby transformed her into the least likely
Speaker 2: creature imaginable, a little boy named Tip. When Tip gets
Speaker 2: transformed into a beautiful fairy princess, he's initially not too
Speaker 2: happy about it. Totally can talk, but he just doesn't
Speaker 2: feel like it. Auntie m and Uncle Henry eventually joined
Speaker 2: Dorothy and Oz. Oh lots of twists and turns there. Yeah.
Speaker 2: As a little girl, my personal favorite was a magic
Speaker 2: turnstyle that would dress you in a new outfit. Every
Speaker 2: time you went through it. I just realized turnstyle may
Speaker 2: have been a pun for turn style. My friends and
Speaker 2: I hated Glinda's hairstyle and loved polychrome The Fairy of
Speaker 2: the Rainbow. Wow. Somebody once pointed out that Oz is
Speaker 2: a distinctly American fairy tale. In Alice in Wonderland, for example,
Speaker 2: all the characters are self centered creeps who work against Alice.
Speaker 2: In Oz, Dorothy succeeds by making friends. Check out the
Speaker 2: books sometime, Joan, Oh.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I didn't really. I guess I didn't really think
Speaker 3: about that. But in both of the Oz stories I
Speaker 3: know from the movies, not from the books, Dorothy is
Speaker 3: is a friend maker, even in a very strange lend.
Speaker 3: She picks up friendships wherever she goes.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a great point.
Speaker 1: Ye.
Speaker 2: Every time the Wizard of Oz has come up, we
Speaker 2: often hear from folks who have read the books who
Speaker 2: point out just how deep and weird it all is.
Speaker 2: I have to I've never I have never read any
Speaker 2: of it, but I enjoy these little little tidbits about
Speaker 2: the deep weirdness.
Speaker 3: Of OZ totally. All Right, Does that do it for today?
Speaker 2: I believe it does. We'll go ahead and close out
Speaker 2: this episode of Stuff to Blow Your Mind listener Mail,
Speaker 2: but we'll be back with more in the future, so
Speaker 2: keep the listener mails coming. We read everything that comes in.
Speaker 2: It doesn't necessarily make it to a listener mail episode,
Speaker 2: but a lot of it does. Likewise, you can leave
Speaker 2: your thoughts and the discord server. You can write into
Speaker 2: us via email and we'll send you the link for that.
Speaker 2: We're also there are some some other places. There's a
Speaker 2: there's a Stuff to Blow your Mind Facebook group called
Speaker 2: the Discussion Module. You can look that up and ask
Speaker 2: to join that if if you prefer to use the Facebook.
Speaker 2: Speaking of social if you're on Instagram where STBYM podcast,
Speaker 2: follow us there. It's one way to keep up with
Speaker 2: what we're putting out these days. On letter We're Weird
Speaker 2: House and you can follow the Weird House cinema selections there.
Speaker 2: And yeah, those are the main plugs I can think of.
Speaker 2: What do you got, Joe?
Speaker 3: Just our email once again. Oh but first, huge thanks
Speaker 3: as always to our excellent audio producer JJ Posway. If
Speaker 3: you want to get in touch by email and you
Speaker 3: missed the address earlier in the episode, once again, it
Speaker 3: is contact at Stuff to Blow your Mind dot com.
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