Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of
Speaker 1: My Heart Radio. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your
Speaker 1: Mind listener Mail. My name is Robert Lamb and I'm
Speaker 1: Joe McCormick, and we're bringing you the messages that you
Speaker 1: have sent us. Uh So, this episode is going to
Speaker 1: feature some responses to our episodes about the Shannhaijing, the
Speaker 1: Classics of the Mountains and Seas or the I guess
Speaker 1: that's singular the Classic or the Cannon of the Mountains
Speaker 1: and Sees, our episode about the bonds eye Tree, our
Speaker 1: episode about stolen heads and stolen brains. It's gonna be
Speaker 1: a lot of fun. All right, Well, let's let's kick
Speaker 1: right in to uh to full gear on this listener
Speaker 1: mail episode. Here comes the robot, Here comes the listener mail. Okay,
Speaker 1: should I do this one from? I can do this
Speaker 1: one from Alexandra if you want to go for it, Okay.
Speaker 1: Alexandra writes in about the Shannhaijing, says, Hi, guys, I
Speaker 1: was listening to the episode about the Shanhaijing, and I
Speaker 1: wanted to say I really empathized with the childhood I
Speaker 1: believe dragons existed feeling you mentioned and wanted to share why.
Speaker 1: I come from Krakow, Poland, which used to be Poland's
Speaker 1: capital for many centuries, and our local mythical slash folklore
Speaker 1: symbol is a dragon. We have a beautiful castle Vovl,
Speaker 1: located on Jurassic limestone on the bank of the Visa
Speaker 1: or the Vistula River, and there is a legend saying
Speaker 1: a dragon used to live in a cave below the castle.
Speaker 1: The basic version of the legend I always heard goes
Speaker 1: like this, no night could slay the beast. When a
Speaker 1: local cobbler, Draftevka, showed up, he said he had a
Speaker 1: trick in mind. He got a sheep carcass and filled
Speaker 1: it with sulfur. The dragon, tricked by Drafteva's work, ate
Speaker 1: the sheep and suddenly felt very, very thirsty because of
Speaker 1: the sulfur. He started drinking from the Viswa river and
Speaker 1: drank and drank and drank until he finally burst, and
Speaker 1: thus Drutevka became a hero. Tadah, Yeah, good legend. I
Speaker 1: think it operates on the assumption that a dragon is
Speaker 1: much like a dog. Like it does not stop to
Speaker 1: taste its food. It just wolve, sit down. The goal
Speaker 1: is to get it down the gullet as fast as
Speaker 1: possible so it wouldn't be thrown off by the scent
Speaker 1: of sulfur. It's just going to swallow that sheep. Alexander
Speaker 1: goes on, But it's just a legend. Why would I
Speaker 1: believe it? Well, there's an actual limestone cave under the
Speaker 1: castle now a tourist attraction, and it's called Dragon's Den,
Speaker 1: which I believe in Polish is a smokee Sha Yama,
Speaker 1: Alexander says. There's even a really cool metal dragon sculpture
Speaker 1: that breathes fire next to the entrance. Now that sounds
Speaker 1: like some burning man stuff. Uh. There is also an
Speaker 1: ancient bone hanging on the cathedral located on the Vavel Hill,
Speaker 1: said to be the Dragon's bone, So how could that
Speaker 1: be just false? All the proof is there. Why would
Speaker 1: somebody just lie about dragon? Uh? And then there is
Speaker 1: a little tongue sticking out emoticon. Thanks for reminding me
Speaker 1: of that feeling, and thanks for the amazing podcast. Love
Speaker 1: listening to you. Stay safe and healthy, Alexandra. Well, I
Speaker 1: looked at the photograph of the bone hanging there and uh,
Speaker 1: yeah it looks legit. Yeah, what is that? Actually? It
Speaker 1: looks like a large kind of tongue shape. Maybe it's
Speaker 1: a rib bone. Yeah, I mean well, one's mind instantly
Speaker 1: goes to like whales, um something something of that nature
Speaker 1: for sure. M yeah, I wonder what that is. All right,
Speaker 1: here's another one for us. This one comes to us
Speaker 1: from Erica. Erica writes high There. I was recently introduced
Speaker 1: to your podcast and I'm loving it. Thank you for
Speaker 1: reminding me what interesting conversation like sounds like in the
Speaker 1: midst of a pandemic. I'm sure you get lots of mail,
Speaker 1: so I forgive me while I learned out a bit
Speaker 1: and share a few thoughts that were sparked by the
Speaker 1: few episodes I've listened to so far. I'll keep it
Speaker 1: as brief as possible. While I was listening to Monsters
Speaker 1: of the shan Haiji, you talked about how the Italian
Speaker 1: words for Dante's demons sound more interesting to English speakers
Speaker 1: than the translations. Um like malacota sounds better than evil tale.
Speaker 1: I think this is why many people find watching films
Speaker 1: in their original language with subtitles so much better than
Speaker 1: a dub bad lip reading. Aside, by using subtitles, you're
Speaker 1: able to retain the original sounds of the dialogue while
Speaker 1: understanding the meaning in your native language. I was a
Speaker 1: latecomer to anime because growing up I'd never seen it
Speaker 1: in the original Japanese, and I generally loathed the sound
Speaker 1: of the American voice actors chosen to dub those shows. Now, though,
Speaker 1: I really enjoy watching Japanese anime and listening to the
Speaker 1: cadence of the language, which for me is up there
Speaker 1: with Italian in terms of phonetic beauty. One thing that
Speaker 1: struck me when I started watching anime was that when
Speaker 1: characters perform magic, they would often use English or German
Speaker 1: for spell casting. I'm really fascinated by this. What does
Speaker 1: magic sound like to people in different parts of the world.
Speaker 1: For English speakers, I think it's pretty fair to say
Speaker 1: that Latin is the fual magic language. In addition to
Speaker 1: the hocus pocus that evolved from listening to religious services
Speaker 1: in Latin for many centuries, Latin is a language known
Speaker 1: only to the elite learned. It has the lyricism of Italian,
Speaker 1: and it's something from the distant past when wizards, dragons, ETCETERA.
Speaker 1: Quote used to exist. As you mentioned, you believed as
Speaker 1: a kid in the Monsters episode, But what is it
Speaker 1: that makes mouth sounds sound magical to people from other
Speaker 1: parts of the world. Then I got to thinking about
Speaker 1: how Token invented Elvish to sound beautiful, and contrasting with that, uh,
Speaker 1: and contrasting that with Klingon, which is meant to sound warlike.
Speaker 1: And I just had to email you to unload these
Speaker 1: thoughts on someone and hope that you know about some
Speaker 1: kind of study that's been done on this. Unrelated to that.
Speaker 1: I'm listening to your podcast Brain and Head Theft Part
Speaker 1: one while I was between chapters on Worms by this
Speaker 1: w y R M s by Orson Scott Card. Uh.
Speaker 1: There's so much in that book that links up with
Speaker 1: what you were talking about in that episode that it
Speaker 1: was actually a little creepy. You made it this far
Speaker 1: through the email. Thanks for reading. I'm excited that there
Speaker 1: are so many more of your podcasts I have yet
Speaker 1: to hear. B Well, Erica, Oh thanks Erica. Well, yeah,
Speaker 1: a lot of interesting ideas here. I don't know if
Speaker 1: i'd ever put that together before about in the English
Speaker 1: speaking world, Latin being a very common convention for for
Speaker 1: the language of magic, and yeah, I think that would
Speaker 1: probably have a lot to do with Latin being the
Speaker 1: scholarly lingua franca of medieval Europe and and Renaissance Europe.
Speaker 1: So at the time when alchemists would have been writing,
Speaker 1: you know, they're there occult tomes. I think probably a
Speaker 1: lot of these tombs would have been written in Latin
Speaker 1: because it was the language of elite learning and scholarship,
Speaker 1: even though nobody actually liked spoke it. Yeah, yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean you see some other languages thrown in the mix,
Speaker 1: like especially post Exorcist, you see Aramaic thrown around a lot.
Speaker 1: Anytime you have a demon they're probably gonna be then
Speaker 1: they may be speaking in Aramaic. Uh if you can,
Speaker 1: you know, wing it um, But you know other I
Speaker 1: guess other ancient languages can work as well. But it
Speaker 1: does make me wonder. You know, we touched in recent
Speaker 1: weird hol cinema on um Chinese black magic films, and
Speaker 1: I wonder what languages, uh like Chinese films turned to,
Speaker 1: or what languages Japanese films turned to, especially if they're
Speaker 1: historic and scope you know, UM be interested to find out.
Speaker 1: Of course, thinking back to our episode on the the
Speaker 1: Oily Maniac, I guess in that movie. I don't recall
Speaker 1: exactly how the magic worked in that movie, but that
Speaker 1: was a movie about the the magic of outsiders of
Speaker 1: other cultures. So it makes perfect sense that you would
Speaker 1: potentially use um a language like a non Chinese language
Speaker 1: in that scenario. So I wonder if there's a lot
Speaker 1: of that stuff going on. But on the subject of
Speaker 1: cling on, uh, we we'll have to come back to
Speaker 1: that because I I've long been interested in doing an
Speaker 1: invention style episode on invented language, oh straight up created languages,
Speaker 1: the reasons for them, uh, you know, entertainment or otherwise,
Speaker 1: and what some of the best examples are. So that's
Speaker 1: that's still on the list of possible episodes to do
Speaker 1: in the future. It's interesting that I think one of
Speaker 1: the last episodes that we did of the dedicated Inventioned
Speaker 1: podcast before we moved into this feed is um. It
Speaker 1: was that we did invented words. But of course inventing
Speaker 1: a word is very different than trying to invent an
Speaker 1: entire language with its own rules and lexicon and grammar
Speaker 1: and everything. And I wonder if could it be possible
Speaker 1: that an invented language would ever really catch on or
Speaker 1: is that pretty much just not ever going to happen. Yeah,
Speaker 1: all right, are you ready for this next message about
Speaker 1: stolen heads and stolen brains? Let's have it. This is
Speaker 1: from Sophie. Sophie says, dear stuff to blow your mind.
Speaker 1: Obligatory but true sentence about being longtime listener, first time caller.
Speaker 1: Uh in your head slash brain to parter. This week,
Speaker 1: the name Jeremy Bentham rang recognition bells in my mind. Hey,
Speaker 1: isn't that? But I wasn't certain until you mentioned him
Speaker 1: still being at University College London today. Upon reflection, this
Speaker 1: would imply there being multiple men who decided they ought
Speaker 1: to have their bodies preserved to hang around in perpetuity.
Speaker 1: But honestly, humans do far stranger things all the time.
Speaker 1: My first encounter with Jeremy Bentham was as a complete
Speaker 1: surprise during our orientation tour several years back. I was
Speaker 1: doing a semester abroad at u C l s Art School.
Speaker 1: Our first day was the whole group before we scattered
Speaker 1: to the many programs, So the tour guide made sure
Speaker 1: to lead the pile of unsuspecting American college students to
Speaker 1: the literal dead founder to tell us all about him
Speaker 1: and U C. L our culture, being one of shunning
Speaker 1: contact with death meeting, Mr Bentham was somewhat arresting. Despite
Speaker 1: his genial demeanor in the pictures you see online. I
Speaker 1: can assure you he's rather more unsettling in per and
Speaker 1: especially when he's been sprung on you. The tour guide
Speaker 1: went on to explain that a requirement for accessing the
Speaker 1: endowment under his name is that he be in attendance
Speaker 1: at all requisite meetings. Thus we got to contemplate the
Speaker 1: tableau of quiet, serious board meeting attendees patiently waiting as
Speaker 1: a very dead Jeremy Bentham in his glass case gets
Speaker 1: wheeled in ideally with amusingly squeaky wheel sound effects or
Speaker 1: something that at least amused me. I don't believe they
Speaker 1: explained that his head was elsewhere and why, and was
Speaker 1: unsure if you encountered this reason for his preservation or
Speaker 1: evidence for it in your research. They are not mutually
Speaker 1: exclusive pieces of lore necessarily. Although I do remember being
Speaker 1: told about the wax face, I genuinely don't remember if
Speaker 1: they clarified that it was all wax, as what I
Speaker 1: gleaned was wax over his skull and an increasing urge
Speaker 1: to make for the exit, never to return. As an aside,
Speaker 1: I would presume I have a relatively strong reaction and
Speaker 1: that most visitors are far less unnerved. I imagine as
Speaker 1: a regular student, I would either avoid his hallway whenever possible,
Speaker 1: or become desensitized. As it sounds most are, given that
Speaker 1: they've taken to stealing bits of him. I know, I
Speaker 1: know being uh, I know being there for only six months,
Speaker 1: I was somewhat inured, but barely. I have very strong
Speaker 1: hyper empathy, a terrifically active imagination, and probably am a
Speaker 1: hyper visualizer. I have autism, contributing to my high empathy
Speaker 1: and my difficulty in turning it off, and my family
Speaker 1: slash friends, and I suspect I also have mirror synesthesia
Speaker 1: added on for obvious reasons. It's easy to generate strong
Speaker 1: visceral imagery and difficult to put it to one side.
Speaker 1: My brain is rather a live wire, and I can
Speaker 1: be tickled on the face from across the room. Much
Speaker 1: to my dismay, my plan to respectfully never go near
Speaker 1: dear Jeremy again was foiled by his placement at a
Speaker 1: critical intersection of hallways. The only way to the school's
Speaker 1: supply store was a set of lovely stairs directly by him.
Speaker 1: I cannot recall there being an alternate route while I
Speaker 1: was there, and would always brace myself for the trip,
Speaker 1: desperately attempting not to make eye contact with his surreal
Speaker 1: piercing gaze as I speed walked by him. With about
Speaker 1: the success we all have when trying not to think
Speaker 1: about the purple polar bear, I e. None. I suppose
Speaker 1: I was lucky that their art supply selection was largely
Speaker 1: insufficient for my mediums of choice, and I was tragically
Speaker 1: forced to seek art stores off campus. Conveniently enough, they
Speaker 1: contain no dead people. According to a recent article by
Speaker 1: the school, he's been relocated to a student center since
Speaker 1: I attended, which hopefully is a nicer location for all involved.
Speaker 1: He's an important icon they no doubt wish to keep
Speaker 1: accessible to visitors in the u c L community, but
Speaker 1: also need to maintain proper collections, protocols, slash environment, and
Speaker 1: apparently significant security. So I imagine finding the ideal balance
Speaker 1: is difficult. Maybe the new site will prevent more head
Speaker 1: theft if the meat jerky head is kept with the
Speaker 1: body now, or maybe his head will be like the
Speaker 1: gavel goat statue of U c L Time will tell
Speaker 1: no doubt. I'm not sure what the gavel goat is.
Speaker 1: It sounds fun. Thank you so much for your time
Speaker 1: and also your research. I appreciate a good citation so
Speaker 1: you can add me to the unofficial petition of your fans.
Speaker 1: Hoping your new home will return to us a mother
Speaker 1: ship website with that good good robost tagging and source linking. Sincerely, Sophie,
Speaker 1: Well Sophie, I, I really appreciate that final note. I
Speaker 1: don't know how much hope you should hold out for that.
Speaker 1: I believe the gavel goat, by the way, is a
Speaker 1: traditional Christmas display erected uh in Gavel, Sweden. Some some
Speaker 1: some some very swift online research seem to provide that answer,
Speaker 1: but who knows. There could be multiple gavel goats out there.
Speaker 1: Oh that's a good look and goat. It's got big
Speaker 1: old horns that make it look like a basket with
Speaker 1: a big handle. Yeah all right, here's another bit of
Speaker 1: listener mailison comes to us from Michelle. Oh and just
Speaker 1: to clarify something, this next message mentions in the subject
Speaker 1: line that it is about Haydn and the head theft
Speaker 1: of Franz Joseph Hayden that we talked about in part
Speaker 1: one of braindon Head Theft, Hi, Robert and Joe. I
Speaker 1: loved your episode on head and Brain Theft. It made
Speaker 1: me reminisce about my favorite teacher. I played violin in
Speaker 1: elementary school, but wasn't great at it and didn't love it.
Speaker 1: On my first day of middle school, the orchestra teacher
Speaker 1: asked for two people to switch to to to base,
Speaker 1: so I jumped at the chance without telling my parents beforehand. Luckily,
Speaker 1: they felt bad bass playing was vastly better than bad
Speaker 1: violin playing, and we're okay with it. The teacher loved
Speaker 1: to tell us stories about the composers we were playing.
Speaker 1: He told us about the Surprise Symphony being written because
Speaker 1: his benefactor kept falling asleep during concerts, and about the
Speaker 1: Farewell Symphony, which involves musicians leaving the stage as the
Speaker 1: last movement progresses until it's only two violinists because the
Speaker 1: orchestra had been stuck there longer than they expect did,
Speaker 1: and Hyden wanted to give his benefactor the message that
Speaker 1: they wanted to go home. But now that I've learned
Speaker 1: about Hyden's head theft, I think my teacher left out
Speaker 1: the best story of all. I can't think of a
Speaker 1: better story to get middle schoolers into classical music than
Speaker 1: something as gory as decapitation and missing heads. I'm still
Speaker 1: playing the bass in local community orchestras back when we
Speaker 1: could still have those, and I'll never look at a
Speaker 1: hide and piece the same way again. He's always been
Speaker 1: one of my favorites, and I'll enjoy them all the
Speaker 1: more now once we are all allowed to play in
Speaker 1: groups again. Also in response to Robert's comments about cats
Speaker 1: and food names, my cat growing up was called pancake
Speaker 1: because my parents got her when she ran under our
Speaker 1: car and they almost smashed her flat as a pancake.
Speaker 1: Thanks again, you guys have been keeping me going through
Speaker 1: these weird times. Thanks Michelle, rob How does pancake stack
Speaker 1: up in your in your cat food names? I think
Speaker 1: pancake is a perfect name for a cat, because Smith
Speaker 1: there was a there was an ignoble prize winning paper,
Speaker 1: wasn't there about how cats are neither solid nor look
Speaker 1: quid there Um, let's say you forget the details of that.
Speaker 1: But but as they their shape is in flux, sometimes
Speaker 1: they are flat like a pancake. Yes, that ignoble paper
Speaker 1: was about the rayology of cats. Reology being the field
Speaker 1: of physics that studies how how fluids and liquids flow.
Speaker 1: Uh so, and and cats, I mean, I think one
Speaker 1: would be hard pressed to argue that they do not flow.
Speaker 1: Let the Let the cats flow. Okay. This next message
Speaker 1: comes from Zolt. Zolt said, Oh, and it's about our
Speaker 1: episodes on sinkholes. Results says, Hi, Robert and Joe, I'm
Speaker 1: writing regarding your recent episodes on sinkholes. You mentioned that
Speaker 1: various sources of waters, such as wells or rivers, often
Speaker 1: serve as sacred or spiritual sites for locals. I thought
Speaker 1: i'd mentioned an example. Sacred or holy wells are quite
Speaker 1: common in Hungary. One can often come across them while
Speaker 1: while hiking in the countryside. These natural wells supposedly possess
Speaker 1: healing power, with stories of magical recoveries from various illnesses
Speaker 1: and disabilities, with the healing power often attributed to patron saints.
Speaker 1: The sacred nature of these wells is often discovered or
Speaker 1: confirmed by the appearance of a saint or very often
Speaker 1: the Virgin Mary in the vicinity. There are more wild
Speaker 1: stories too, such as a healing well being created by
Speaker 1: a lightning strike. Interestingly, I noticed that these wells are
Speaker 1: often nearby other religious sites, such as small chapels or
Speaker 1: calvary hills. Maybe people attributed certain religious significance to areas,
Speaker 1: or it was just easier to make a pilgrimage to
Speaker 1: the same general place to fulfill all their religious needs
Speaker 1: instead of going all over the forest one stop shop. Uh.
Speaker 1: Calvary hills, otherwise known as crosswalks if you're not familiar,
Speaker 1: are also pretty interesting. UH. They are usually a hill
Speaker 1: with at least thirteen stations of crosses along a path
Speaker 1: that people hike up on around Easter time as a
Speaker 1: form of pilgrimage. Each cross along the path represents one
Speaker 1: stage that Christ goes through during his crucifixion, with three
Speaker 1: crosses on the top of the hill. Usually, these hills
Speaker 1: are barely a few hundred meters above sea level, but
Speaker 1: they still tie back to the idea of sacred mountains
Speaker 1: as well. Anyway, thanks for all your good work, zolt PS.
Speaker 1: I'm loving the Weird House Cinema episodes. I found a
Speaker 1: few movies that I enjoyed quite a lot that I
Speaker 1: didn't even know existed before. Well, if you find a
Speaker 1: few movies that you enjoy quite a lot in that mix,
Speaker 1: that you you're doing pretty pretty well. I mean, I
Speaker 1: don't think to think we we love all of them. Well,
Speaker 1: maybe the spirit of Weird House Cinema is that we're
Speaker 1: exploring movies that are always fun to talk about whether
Speaker 1: or not they're fun to watch. True, Yeah, and finding
Speaker 1: finding the things to love even in films that are
Speaker 1: sometimes very uneven. I would say that's that's also a
Speaker 1: court of the spirit of the thing. All right. This
Speaker 1: one comes to us from Toronto. Hi, Robert and Joe.
Speaker 1: I'm a big fan of the show and have been
Speaker 1: for ages. I have to say I am joined the
Speaker 1: new format of the show with more content and variety. Okay,
Speaker 1: maybe except Weird Al Cinema. I think I'm not ready
Speaker 1: for that yet. I was listening to your episode on
Speaker 1: Bonds Eyes, and when you mentioned the story of the
Speaker 1: stolen Bonds Eyes and the plea for them to be returned,
Speaker 1: I thought that I had heard that before. Furthermore, I
Speaker 1: thought I remembered a happy ending to it. Sure Enough,
Speaker 1: a quick search of in my podcast library brought me
Speaker 1: to an episode from Stuff You Missed in History Class six.
Speaker 1: By the way, not sure if I found them through
Speaker 1: you or vice versa, but also a great podcast. I'll
Speaker 1: quote from from there, and this is the thirty two
Speaker 1: minute scond mark. The museum put out a call on
Speaker 1: social media for the returning, promising that they would not
Speaker 1: ask any questions. They were just afraid that these irreplaceable
Speaker 1: trees would die without proper care. Three days after the theft,
Speaker 1: that trees reappeared in the museum's driveway and uh. Then
Speaker 1: they also included a link to a Smithsonian mag dot
Speaker 1: com article to stolen Bonsai trees mysteriously returned Washington Museum. Um. Anyway,
Speaker 1: they continue, I thought I would give you the good
Speaker 1: news best regards train no ps the explanation of one
Speaker 1: of you regarding why cutting onions from pole to pole
Speaker 1: to cry less was pure stuff to blow your mind.
Speaker 1: Can't wait to test it? Is it gonna be your
Speaker 1: first time cutting an onion that way? Me or the listener?
Speaker 1: No to the listener to uh, to train o or
Speaker 1: to toronto. I apologize that I don't know how to
Speaker 1: pronounce your name t r A n O. Uh. Well
Speaker 1: that's funny. I I hope you enjoyed the poll to
Speaker 1: poll cutting I mean pulled a pole. Cutting of onions
Speaker 1: is something I recommend in all kinds of scenarios. I
Speaker 1: mean they're there are different reasons that you cut onions
Speaker 1: in different directions, but one of the main ones that
Speaker 1: I would say is that if you want the onions
Speaker 1: to kind of fall apart over cooking, cut them cross
Speaker 1: wise into the ring shapes, because and you're you're sharing
Speaker 1: more of the cells and they're just going to fall
Speaker 1: apart more, especially if you're like braising them or cooking
Speaker 1: them in liquid. If you want them to retain their shape,
Speaker 1: more cut and pull to pull, because then you're cutting
Speaker 1: along with the direction of the long cells, you're sharing
Speaker 1: less of them. There's just gonna be less falling apart
Speaker 1: as the cooking goes on. All right, tip tips we
Speaker 1: can all use right there. Sorry, this is this has
Speaker 1: been onion news. You can use. But anyway, regarding the
Speaker 1: subject of your message, I really do appreciate hearing that
Speaker 1: the bonsai trees were returned. That's that's that's heartwarming. Alright,
Speaker 1: looks like we have some more bonds eye listener mail. Yeah,
Speaker 1: this one comes from Matt. I think Matt has written
Speaker 1: to the show several times before about agricultural scientific topics
Speaker 1: and Matts emails are always good. Matt says, Good day,
Speaker 1: Fellas love the episode on bonsai trees, particularly since you
Speaker 1: delved briefly into several biotechnology topics. I just wanted to
Speaker 1: add a couple of bits to the conversation as you
Speaker 1: described the green revolution and the dwarf ization of major
Speaker 1: crops was indeed a tremendous agricultural leap. You were also
Speaker 1: right on the topic of lodging. Remember this is the
Speaker 1: issue where lodging is where crops end up falling over
Speaker 1: like the stalk bends near the ground, and this causes
Speaker 1: a lot of crop loss in farms around the world.
Speaker 1: And so one of the advantages of dwarf crops like wheat,
Speaker 1: for example, is that by not getting as tall, they're
Speaker 1: less likely to fall over and bend at the bottom
Speaker 1: of the stalk and and waste or make harder to
Speaker 1: harvest the weight at the top of the stalk. Anyway,
Speaker 1: going on, Matt says, lodging is still a major issue
Speaker 1: for farmers in many crops and can be caused by
Speaker 1: both extra weight on cropheads due to excess moisture as
Speaker 1: well as blowdown from wind. It hurts yields quality and
Speaker 1: certainly makes for harvest trouble. If I could recommend a
Speaker 1: cool example to illustrate some height differences, you might want
Speaker 1: to check out some indigenous land race maze varieties. Sierra
Speaker 1: mix a comes to mind. We bread away from these
Speaker 1: varieties over the eons, but researchers are now actually looking
Speaker 1: to incorporate some of the genetics from these varieties back
Speaker 1: into modern high production hybrids. In the case of Sierra
Speaker 1: mix a, the traits allowing it to fix nitrogen from
Speaker 1: the air are of particular interest. Plus, Sierra mix a
Speaker 1: can make for some pretty weird pictures see attached. Rob
Speaker 1: I did include the picture down here for us to
Speaker 1: look at. I guess that is supposed to be a
Speaker 1: maze plant, but though it looks like, I don't know,
Speaker 1: it looks like using red goblin fingers with yellow nails. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's very um it's very alien looking. Yeah, Matt goes on.
Speaker 1: You might have said this already. Apologies if you did,
Speaker 1: but it's worth remembering. Dwarf varieties also produce more food
Speaker 1: per plant, less energy spent growing up, more spent growing out.
Speaker 1: It's producing more with less, which continues to be a
Speaker 1: major factor in bettering food security. I know I've pestered
Speaker 1: you guys with agriculture related subjects several times in the past,
Speaker 1: so thank you once again for begging my indulgence here.
Speaker 1: Keep getting that science out there. We all need it. Matt, Well,
Speaker 1: thank you, Matt. Yeah, this is interesting. I think we
Speaker 1: did talk about how the dwarf crops also do tend
Speaker 1: to have a higher yield or a higher percentage of
Speaker 1: I can't remember exactly what the term is. That's something
Speaker 1: like the the harvest index or something. It's like the
Speaker 1: percentage of the above ground way to the plant that's
Speaker 1: the harvest able part of it. All. Right, here, we
Speaker 1: have one more listener mail. This one comes to us
Speaker 1: from z Z rights In and says, Hey, Joe and Robert,
Speaker 1: I hope you're both well. I've been listening to your
Speaker 1: show for years and years, and suffice to say, I'm
Speaker 1: really glad the show is still going strong. It happened
Speaker 1: that I put the Bondsai episode on as I was
Speaker 1: starting a walk through the Tory Pine State Natural Reserve
Speaker 1: at the northern end of Coastal San Diego. It's one
Speaker 1: of my favorite places in the world, and it's full
Speaker 1: of what i'd call natural bondsai inform, if not always
Speaker 1: in size, the kinds of unique shapes you find in
Speaker 1: swamps like the cypress you mentioned, or as crumb holes
Speaker 1: formations near mountain Arctic tree lines, or in this case,
Speaker 1: on wind swept coasts. It's really too dry in this
Speaker 1: area for trees to grow naturally other than down by
Speaker 1: rivers and creeks. The one exception is the tory pine,
Speaker 1: which only grows wild on the headlands on either side
Speaker 1: of a particular estuary, where the valley topography channels the
Speaker 1: summer fog so that the trees get just enough moisture
Speaker 1: to survive the rainless summer and fall. Supposedly, these trees
Speaker 1: are a relic of a formerly more widespread pine forest
Speaker 1: throughout coastal southern California. I sa age relics might be
Speaker 1: a cool topic on its own. In any case, I
Speaker 1: think these lovely contorted trees are a great example of
Speaker 1: the kinds of environmental constraints that lead to bonsiesque growth,
Speaker 1: growing as they do on the windy slopes of eroding
Speaker 1: sandstone cliffs without much in the way of soiler rain.
Speaker 1: The infos of the conditions you guys talked about is
Speaker 1: also underscored by the ornamental tory pines planted all throughout
Speaker 1: this area, which instead grow quickly into tall, rounded canopies
Speaker 1: when they're liberally watered, and the same effect is visible
Speaker 1: just on the two sides of the ridge here, with
Speaker 1: small bent over bonds eye on slopes facing the sea,
Speaker 1: taller open canopies in the canyon bottoms and on the ridge,
Speaker 1: and much fuller, rounder trees on the sheltered leeward slopes.
Speaker 1: The California coast actually has a bunch of endemic conifers,
Speaker 1: mostly pines and cypresses, that only grow in really restricted,
Speaker 1: often disjoint, uh distributions near the ocean, and many of
Speaker 1: them grow in these strange bonds I shapes. I'm a
Speaker 1: big fan of the idea of bioregionalism, and I find
Speaker 1: these strange, rare trees to be a really lovely symbol
Speaker 1: of the particularity of this stretch of coast, which helps
Speaker 1: me feel like I'm more connected with the placiness of
Speaker 1: the land, especially in southern California, where there are hundreds
Speaker 1: of kinds of ornamental plants from all around the world
Speaker 1: just in one suburb. In any case, I'm looking forward
Speaker 1: to what you do next and am holy in support
Speaker 1: of more plant tree themed episodes. Sincerely, Z Rob. I've
Speaker 1: attached some of the photographs that Z sent us to
Speaker 1: look at. These are mostly what they were referring to
Speaker 1: as like Bonsai trees, but growing wild, not not necessarily
Speaker 1: in size, but in shape. And these are a lot
Speaker 1: of really beautiful trees. I like them. Yeah, the trees
Speaker 1: finding their way in a um in a unique landscape
Speaker 1: sometimes you know, with some some some some some definite
Speaker 1: restraints in place. I think in in the Bonsai episode,
Speaker 1: we did make the comparison to poetry, right, the idea
Speaker 1: that in some cases, UH poets often feel that creativity
Speaker 1: is driven by the constraints imposed by a certain rhyme
Speaker 1: or meter scheme. Because you can't just say anything. It
Speaker 1: leads you to say things that you wouldn't have said otherwise,
Speaker 1: you know, because you've got to fit it into the
Speaker 1: meter or something. And UH, I think that that looks
Speaker 1: true of many trees, even if they're not having constraints
Speaker 1: imposed by humans, but maybe having constraints imposed by the
Speaker 1: harshness or weird conditions of the natural environment where they're growing.
Speaker 1: They kind of form a poem because of how hard
Speaker 1: their life is. All right, well, that is it for
Speaker 1: this particular listener mail mail bag. But there's stuff we
Speaker 1: didn't get to this week. There's stuff that will come
Speaker 1: in between now and next week, and we will read
Speaker 1: even more listener mail, So feel free to to chime in.
Speaker 1: You have responses to old episodes, new episodes, uh, you know,
Speaker 1: ideas about what future episodes could consist of. Everything's on
Speaker 1: the table. You've got corrections, let us know. You've got
Speaker 1: responses to other people's listener mail. Uh, let us have it.
Speaker 1: Do you want to correct other listener mails? Do so
Speaker 1: you want to correct corrections? Yeah? Well whatever you like
Speaker 1: this is this is kind of your show at this point,
Speaker 1: so uh yeah, let us know. In the meantime, you
Speaker 1: want to check out other episodes of Stuff to Blow
Speaker 1: Your Mind or the Friday episodes of Weird House Cinema.
Speaker 1: You know where to find it. Go to the Stuff
Speaker 1: to Blow your Mind podcast feed wherever you get your podcasts.
Speaker 1: Huge thanks as always to our excellent audio producer Seth
Speaker 1: Nicholas Johnson. If you would like to get in touch
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