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: This is Robert Lamb.
Speaker 3: And this is Joe McCormick. And it's Monday, the day
Speaker 3: of each week that we read back some messages from
Speaker 3: the Stuff to Blow your Mind mail bag mail box.
Speaker 3: I realized I say both. If you have never gotten
Speaker 3: in touch with us before and you would like to,
Speaker 3: why not give it a try. You can email us
Speaker 3: at contact at stuff to Blow your Mind dot com.
Speaker 3: Any kind of correspondence is fair game. You can email
Speaker 3: us feedback on recent episodes. If you have something interesting
Speaker 3: you'd like to add to something we talked about. If
Speaker 3: you have questions, corrections, suggestions for future topics, send it
Speaker 3: all in contact at stuff to Blow your Mind dot com.
Speaker 3: Let's see Rob, Do you mind if I kick things
Speaker 3: off here with this message from Brett about the horse hook.
Speaker 2: Let's do it.
Speaker 3: Brett says, Hello, gentlemen, It's been a minute since I've
Speaker 3: written in, but I wanted to make a quick comment
Speaker 3: on horse hooves. I've always wondered the same thing you
Speaker 3: both described, which is why the horse has single wide hoofs,
Speaker 3: which seem to be different from other large hoofs of animals.
Speaker 3: I wondered if this allows them to be steady in
Speaker 3: damp soil and would allow them to still have power
Speaker 3: to move themselves out of trouble. I think of it
Speaker 3: similarly to the Eiffel Tower. The wide hooves can spread
Speaker 3: out the weight of the animal as its powerful legs
Speaker 3: can propel them quickly if the horse so desires, whether
Speaker 3: on dry or wet ground. Just to thought, hope your
Speaker 3: summer is off to a wonderful start, Brett. Well, Brett,
Speaker 3: that's an interesting idea. But actually, the more I thought
Speaker 3: about it, I was kind of thinking in the opposite direction,
Speaker 3: because this reminded me of some stuff I covered think
Speaker 3: a while back in a listener mail episode that I
Speaker 3: did solo, where a listener got in touch about seeing
Speaker 3: his dogs running on top of snow, and I ended
Speaker 3: up talking about some stuff I was reading about wolf
Speaker 3: pause being adapted for running on snow, specifically because they
Speaker 3: can spread the toes out wide and distribute the body
Speaker 3: weight across a larger surface area with that kind of
Speaker 3: you know, big wide webbed foot, which in some cases
Speaker 3: allows them to run more quickly in snowy conditions, because
Speaker 3: they can run up on top of the frozen crust
Speaker 3: at the top of the snow layer, whereas the prey
Speaker 3: animal like a the hoofed point of a deer leg
Speaker 3: will punch through the crust and then the deer will
Speaker 3: get bogged down wading through the snow. So I don't know.
Speaker 3: I would tend to think that having a larger, wider
Speaker 3: foot with multiple toes would give you more stability on
Speaker 3: wet or soft or unstable ground, whereas having a smaller
Speaker 3: footprint would allow you to I don't know. I guess
Speaker 3: have maybe less friction and less less drag if you're
Speaker 3: trying to move quickly.
Speaker 2: Interesting by the way, Joe, on the question of box
Speaker 2: or bag, I have looked inside carney our mail bot,
Speaker 2: and it does appear to be more of a horseshoe
Speaker 2: shaped cylinder. I guess it has to curve around some
Speaker 2: important wiring and so forth.
Speaker 3: Yes, okay, I understand all right.
Speaker 2: This next bit of listener mail comes to us from Taylor,
Speaker 2: and this concerns of the beaver. This is another animal
Speaker 2: based series that we did. Taylor says, Hello, Robin, Joe,
Speaker 2: I loved your recent two part a on beaver's wonderful
Speaker 2: work as always. For the past few years, I have
Speaker 2: worked with the Forest Service to manage a visitor center
Speaker 2: at Silver Lake in Utah Wastoche Mountains. Silver Lake is
Speaker 2: a beaver engineered body of water, so I've had the
Speaker 2: pleasure to introduce countless tourists to our resident rodents of
Speaker 2: unusual size, and thought i'd share a few insights from
Speaker 2: my experience. Few people realize that beavers live in their
Speaker 2: lodges instead of their dams. Even fewer know that several
Speaker 2: commensal species cohabit with beavers in their lodges. Muskrats, another
Speaker 2: large semi aquatic rodent, have been known to cohabit with beavers.
Speaker 2: This relationship may even represent a form of mutualism, as
Speaker 2: some authors have argued that the muskrat may help beavers
Speaker 2: keep an eye on for predators and provide additional body
Speaker 2: heat for the lodge in cold winter months. I have
Speaker 2: heard some accounts of other rodent species and even some
Speaker 2: mustlids like mink and otters, cohabiting with beavers, but these
Speaker 2: relationships seem less well established in reputal literature. In any case,
Speaker 2: we can confidently add landlord to our list of beaver pons.
Speaker 2: Along with architecture and engineering, I also have a few
Speaker 2: anecdotes to contribute to the discussion of beaver intelligence. While
Speaker 2: I've never seen beavers use anything that looked like a
Speaker 2: constructed ladder to get higher up a trunk, I have
Speaker 2: observed our local beavers mounting boulder stumps and the snowpack
Speaker 2: to reach aspen trunks of their favored diameter about four inches.
Speaker 2: I am quite skeptical that a beaver would use a
Speaker 2: log it fell to reach a higher point on another trunk,
Speaker 2: particularly because the beaver's webbed feet make it ungainly on land,
Speaker 2: let alone climbing a log so narrow as those they
Speaker 2: prefer to fell. But I can highlight another beaver behavior
Speaker 2: that borders on the nebulus realm of tool use. In
Speaker 2: addition to the trees they fell themselves, beavers opportunistically feed
Speaker 2: from and build with trunks and branches fell by windstorms.
Speaker 2: I and many rangers I have worked with, have observed
Speaker 2: that beavers often abandoned trees they have been gnawing when
Speaker 2: the trees are nearly felled, only to return later after
Speaker 2: a storm has knocked them down. Of course, it is
Speaker 2: impossible to ascribe real intention to the beavers, but it
Speaker 2: is possible the beavers have developed the behavior of letting
Speaker 2: the wind finish the last dangerous step of felling the
Speaker 2: trees to save some effort and avoid being crushed. I've
Speaker 2: had difficulty finding any writing about this, and if it
Speaker 2: is the case that beavers sometimes outsource their work to storms,
Speaker 2: it would be difficult to distinguish from their usual nocturnal labors. Nevertheless,
Speaker 2: the more time one spends around these weird and noble rodents,
Speaker 2: the easier it is to imagine a thoughtful intellect behind
Speaker 2: those big orange incisors. All the best, Taylor, Oh wow,
Speaker 2: great email. Thank you for sending Taylor. That is an
Speaker 2: interesting observation, and multiple things we were reading really highlighted
Speaker 2: how much beavers seem to want to get off of
Speaker 2: land when they're on it, like they don't want to
Speaker 2: spend any more time out of water than they have to.
Speaker 2: So I don't know, I could imagine, yeah, maybe an
Speaker 2: adaptation where if they think they can save some time
Speaker 2: and energy by not finishing off the tree themselves and
Speaker 2: coming back to it later, I could see that being possible. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: so I absolutely agree wonderful insight and observation added, Thanks Taylor.
Speaker 3: All right now. We also got a bunch of messages
Speaker 3: in response to Weird House Cinema. Several answers came in
Speaker 3: after a listener named Michelle gave us a query last week.
Speaker 3: Michelle was trying to find the name of a movie
Speaker 3: she remembered about a woman who breaks up with her
Speaker 3: human boyfriend in favor of a robot suitor who was
Speaker 3: more sensitive and caring. We got several different answers to this.
Speaker 3: One came from Sheldan. Sheldine says, Hi, guys, might the
Speaker 3: movie that Michelle is recalling be making? Mister Wright, I
Speaker 3: vaguely remember watching it in the eighties and I thought
Speaker 3: it starred Ali Sheety, but I am wrong. It stars
Speaker 3: John Malkovich as a scientist who makes a robot version
Speaker 3: of himself, and the female lead is played by Anne Magnuson,
Speaker 3: who falls in love with the robot. Thanks Sheldane, and
Speaker 3: also wanted to note there was another listener named David
Speaker 3: who suggested the same movie that this is the movie
Speaker 3: Michelle might be thinking of.
Speaker 2: Hmmm, I have never seen it, but it looks it
Speaker 2: looks interesting. Robot John Malkovich as a lever.
Speaker 3: Okay, One thing I recall Michelle saying, well, I recall
Speaker 3: her saying that the movie was in black and white
Speaker 3: and was probably from the fifties that would not match here,
Speaker 3: and also saying that the human boyfriend was was too macho,
Speaker 3: which is not how I would usually imagine John Malkovich.
Speaker 2: True. True, you know, unless this is a you know,
Speaker 2: an altered memory, this would seem to be going against
Speaker 2: type for John Malcovich. Though, I have to say, looking
Speaker 2: at the the images from this movie, I mean, it
Speaker 2: is a different on Malcovich that I'm used to seeing. Anyway.
Speaker 2: He has like a full head of like blonde hair
Speaker 2: in it, and it is clearly playing some sort of
Speaker 2: an altered, unnatural human. So I don't know. I'm intrigued.
Speaker 3: Who would leave John Malkovich's character from Burn after reading
Speaker 3: for a Robot? How could you imagine that?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't know. Nineteen eighty seven's John Malkovich is
Speaker 2: a slightly different flavor.
Speaker 3: Okay, But we also got a different suggestion of a
Speaker 3: movie from Chris. Chris says Joe and Robert Listener. Michelle
Speaker 3: wrote to you about a science fiction film from the
Speaker 3: nineteen fifties, in which a woman rejected her human boyfriend
Speaker 3: in favor of a robot. Although she said it was
Speaker 3: in black and white, that plot element struck a chord
Speaker 3: in my aged brain about a film that I recollected
Speaker 3: as being in color. A bit of appropriate Internet searching
Speaker 3: resulted in Creation of the Humanoids from nineteen sixty two,
Speaker 3: which I've not seen in more decades than I care
Speaker 3: to think about. Let's just say that I paid the
Speaker 3: huge sum of fifty cents from my mowing earnings to
Speaker 3: watch it at a local theater. This might be the
Speaker 3: film she's remembering, even if not, might be worth an
Speaker 3: investigation for Weird House Cinema.
Speaker 2: Chris, Yeah, nineteen sixty two is the Creation of the Humanoids.
Speaker 2: I haven't seen it, but I knew I had seen
Speaker 2: the title somewhere, and I quickly realized this is because
Speaker 2: this features a cast that includes Dudley man Love of
Speaker 2: Plan nine from Outer Space fame.
Speaker 3: It is Dudley Man Love Arrows, the alien bad guy.
Speaker 2: I think he's the one. Your stupid mind, stupid, stupid, that.
Speaker 3: One that's enough out of you.
Speaker 2: The Creation of the Humanoids looks interesting, though it is
Speaker 2: apparently in color and not black and white, So I
Speaker 2: don't know that. Perhaps the mystery remains. But I looked
Speaker 2: into this in a little bit. I think a lot
Speaker 2: of people did not like it. I think Michael Weldon
Speaker 2: said it was fun, sounds perfect, Okay.
Speaker 1: All right.
Speaker 2: We also heard from someone's sort of giving my own
Speaker 2: take on this whole idea about how sometimes we have
Speaker 2: partial bits of movies stuck in our head from when
Speaker 2: we caught part of them on television. Lawrence writes in
Speaker 2: and says, Hi, Rob, Joe, and JJ Happy Monday. During
Speaker 2: your last listener mail, Rob mentioned a movie about two
Speaker 2: kids looking for their parents. If it was animated. I'm
Speaker 2: pretty sure he's thinking of Grave of the Fireflies. It
Speaker 2: won't be a letdown in terms of quality, but it
Speaker 2: is an incredibly sad and harrowing film. Yeah, it's not
Speaker 2: a Grave of the Fireflies, which I haven't seen, but
Speaker 2: the thing I'm half remembering is not animated. Grave of
Speaker 2: the Fireflies is one that I've It's been on my
Speaker 2: to watch list for a long time. But I know,
Speaker 2: I know it's an important film, but I know it
Speaker 2: is sad and harrowing, so I keep putting it off.
Speaker 2: This is, of course, a nineteen eighty eight Japanese film
Speaker 2: that came out from Studio Ghibli if memory serves, and
Speaker 2: it yeah, deals with like the tragedies of war anyway,
Speaker 2: Lawrence continues, I watched seconds based on your spoiler warnings
Speaker 2: for the movie, and I'm glad I did. I liked
Speaker 2: your conversation about Eastern religious interpretations of the film. If
Speaker 2: I can suggest a good double feature, nineteen seventy four's
Speaker 2: The Parallax View with Warren Batty seems fitting. It has
Speaker 2: a similarly distinct visual style, also gained a mixed reception
Speaker 2: upon release due to its ending and his age into
Speaker 2: a better reception. I'd be really curious to hear your
Speaker 2: thoughts on it. Thanks for all you do, Lawrence.
Speaker 3: I haven't seen it. It is on my radar.
Speaker 2: Same Yeah, I haven't seen this one, but you know
Speaker 2: it's a quick glance. You got Stacy Keach Sr. And anthony'
Speaker 2: zerba in it, so I mean I'm already a little
Speaker 2: interested as well.
Speaker 3: Did ever tell you I've met Anthony zerbe?
Speaker 2: Really? Yeah?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 2: How did this come around?
Speaker 3: I truly have no idea what he was doing. Some
Speaker 3: kind of event or something in the town where I
Speaker 3: went to college when I was in college, and so
Speaker 3: he gave some kind of talk and I went to it,
Speaker 3: and I don't know, there was just a general chatting
Speaker 3: around afterwards. So I don't know I met him in
Speaker 3: some capacity. I don't really remember anything about it.
Speaker 2: Hmm. Interesting. I don't know that we've actually watched a
Speaker 2: film on Weird House with him in it. But he's
Speaker 2: such an interesting and commanding presence when he does show up.
Speaker 3: What are his mystery science theater movies? I know there
Speaker 3: was there was sometimes kind of an Anthony's Erbe watch
Speaker 3: on the show.
Speaker 2: Oh Man. You know, I'm not not sure off him.
Speaker 2: They would often make references to him.
Speaker 3: Uh maybe maybe he wasn't actually in a movie they did.
Speaker 3: They would just say, like, you know, if it's a
Speaker 3: seventies movie, they're like, Okay, where's Anthony's Abbe?
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, you know, he was. Of course, when I
Speaker 2: think of him, of course I think of the Omega
Speaker 2: man and the vampire character who plays in that where
Speaker 2: he's talking about, you know, creature of the wheel and
Speaker 2: so forth. Or I think about him exploding in that
Speaker 2: one James Bond film. But yeah, you had a number
Speaker 2: of interesting credits.
Speaker 3: Okay, This next message is from Shana, who has gotten
Speaker 3: in touch many times before. Shana says Howdy howdy and
Speaker 3: kicks things off by sharing some info about movie theaters
Speaker 3: that I think this year are going to be running
Speaker 3: classic studio ghibli films. I don't know if that's just
Speaker 3: local or in locations all over, but thanks for sharing that.
Speaker 3: But anyway, SHANEA goes on to say, after catching one
Speaker 3: of my absolute favorite films of all time, Conan the
Speaker 3: Barbarian in theater's Last Fall the fortieth anniversary screening, I
Speaker 3: am convinced that if one loves a film but has
Speaker 3: never seen it on the big screen, it is worth
Speaker 3: the money in time to try to do so. I
Speaker 3: had watched Conan dozens of times in my life, but
Speaker 3: saw details I'd never noticed on the small screen. And yes,
Speaker 3: please do nausicaa as a weird house movie. It is
Speaker 3: so beautiful, moving and relevant. Thanks as always for the podcasts, Shana, Shana,
Speaker 3: thank you, and I will say I can second the
Speaker 3: idea of seeing a film you already love from home
Speaker 3: video in a theater. It's a completely different experience. I
Speaker 3: guess that's probably a cliche I've heard people say that before,
Speaker 3: but it is true. The main examples I can think
Speaker 3: of are mostly horror movies, but I'm real standout experiences
Speaker 3: are seeing The Exorcist in theaters, seeing Alien and The
Speaker 3: Shining in theaters. All three were like seeing a whole
Speaker 3: different movie. And I don't know, in a way, I
Speaker 3: feel kind of kind of guilty about this because I
Speaker 3: don't go out and see movies in theaters as often
Speaker 3: as I would like to a lot of times. You know,
Speaker 3: it's just the same problems most people have. It's difficult
Speaker 3: to find time to plan ahead, leave the house, etc.
Speaker 3: Lives are busy, and it is easier to make room
Speaker 3: for streaming half of a movie on your TV before
Speaker 3: you go to bed than it is to go out
Speaker 3: to a scheduled theater showing. But it's especially when I
Speaker 3: see a movie on the big screen that I have
Speaker 3: already seen before on the small screen that I really
Speaker 3: understand like the difference. I realize how different the experience is,
Speaker 3: and that for the most part, this is how movies
Speaker 3: are made to be seen. The home viewing experience is
Speaker 3: kind of a fac simile. But then again, I mean,
Speaker 3: I understand why people are often not going out to theaters.
Speaker 3: I live it too. Life is busy, you just it's
Speaker 3: it's tough to make time to go out and see
Speaker 3: a schedule showing.
Speaker 2: I think when it's when I go to an AMC
Speaker 2: theater showing these days, there's a there's a long intro
Speaker 2: in which I think Nicole Kidman is giving a like
Speaker 2: a long pitch for why the theater experience is the
Speaker 2: best and how it's like it basically completes us as
Speaker 2: human beings. It's just the other half of our soul.
Speaker 2: And and I'm always like, Okay, I'm already here, Nicole Kidman,
Speaker 2: I don't need the whole pitch. So I don't want
Speaker 2: to sound too much like that, but but it is true,
Speaker 2: Like you know, there's something about seeing it on the
Speaker 2: big screen. I think it's a there's something about the way,
Speaker 2: hopefully it's captivating our attention in different ways, in ways
Speaker 2: that being on our couch wouldn't. Maybe we're a little
Speaker 2: more inclined to put our phone away, maybe we're a
Speaker 2: little more inclined to just absorb it as spectacle on
Speaker 2: the screen. There. I had an experience with this, actually
Speaker 2: very recently. It was a big screen, but it was
Speaker 2: like it wasn't one of the studio ghibli showings that
Speaker 2: were alluded to earlier. This is like a kid's birthday party.
Speaker 2: But still they played Totoro on the big screen and
Speaker 2: it was magical. It was a movie I've seen a
Speaker 2: million times, and I really was expecting to be kind
Speaker 2: of checked out on it. But I really got to
Speaker 2: appreciate a lot of the details, you know, as if
Speaker 2: for the first time you know the ways that the
Speaker 2: children move in that movie, and just the raw and
Speaker 2: beautiful imagination of the whole thing.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, I can imagine. And I want to say
Speaker 3: one more thing about the difference with the theater experience,
Speaker 3: which is we often refer to the difference by metonymy
Speaker 3: I guess as saying like the big screen, as if
Speaker 3: it's like the size of the screen that is the
Speaker 3: major difference. That's one difference, But I think it's really
Speaker 3: the whole environment. It's like the big, darkened room, and
Speaker 3: especially the sound. The sound experience is totally different in
Speaker 3: the theater for multiple reasons. I mean, they have good
Speaker 3: you know, a good theater as a good sound system
Speaker 3: where it sounds good, but also you can listen to
Speaker 3: the movie at a volume that I at least am
Speaker 3: not comfortable watching a movie at home because it just
Speaker 3: feels too loud for my house.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and another issue is this is something that I
Speaker 2: often forget about because when I go to a theater,
Speaker 2: my sort of selfish experience is that I just don't
Speaker 2: want to hear other people. I want to have it
Speaker 2: both ways. I want to have the big theater, a
Speaker 2: big screen experience, but I don't want to feel like
Speaker 2: I'm actually in there with any other human beings, you know.
Speaker 2: But I was recently reading about some Bollywood films because
Speaker 2: I'm hoping that we can cover a Bollywood film in
Speaker 2: the near future on Weird House Cinema, and one of
Speaker 2: the commentators was saying, like, look, if you're trying to
Speaker 2: watch this film on your own on like your TV,
Speaker 2: you're going to have a different experience than what was intended.
Speaker 2: Like this is a movie that was supposed to be
Speaker 2: consumed in a theater packed with other people, and like
Speaker 2: you're missing out on that whole communal aspect of the viewing.
Speaker 2: So you know, to whatever extent each of us individually
Speaker 2: agrees with that for our own viewing preferences, it's something
Speaker 2: to keep in mind when consuming various pictures.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, I mean for some types of entertainment, the
Speaker 3: rest of the crowd is part of the experience, Like
Speaker 3: you know, seeing a concert, it's having the crowd with
Speaker 3: you there, and the audience is part of what makes
Speaker 3: it fun. I would say for movies, it depends on
Speaker 3: the kind of movie. I mean, you know, more serious,
Speaker 3: quiet or more thoughtful movies. Yeah, I don't want to
Speaker 3: be hearing people's popcorn and stuff. But for like say
Speaker 3: a low brow like a slasher movie or something like that,
Speaker 3: I would like a pack to and people making noise.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah. Or if you know, you catch an opening
Speaker 2: night doing of something and everyone who's there is really
Speaker 2: enthusiastic for it. You know, they came out for this picture,
Speaker 2: and so there's kind of like a built in I
Speaker 2: would say, good faith viewing going on there. You know
Speaker 2: that that can be a lot of fun. All right, Well,
Speaker 2: on that note, we're gonna go ahead and seal up
Speaker 2: the horseshoe shaped tube in Carneye the mail Bots Torso,
Speaker 2: and we're gonna close this episode out. But we'd love
Speaker 2: to hear from everyone out there if you have thoughts
Speaker 2: on any of the topics we discussed in this listener
Speaker 2: Mail episode or you know, feedback, ideas, experiences, et cetera,
Speaker 2: concerning any past episodes of Stuff to Blow Your Mind,
Speaker 2: the Artifact, Monster Fact, Weird House Cinema. It's all fair game.
Speaker 2: Just a reminder that those episodes of Listener Mail they
Speaker 2: air on Mondays, Core episodes on Tuesdays and Thursdays, Artifactor
Speaker 2: Monster Fact on Wednesday, and on Fridays. We set aside
Speaker 2: most serious concerns just took up at a weird film on
Speaker 2: Weird House Cinema.
Speaker 3: Huge thanks to our excellent audio producer JJ Posway. If
Speaker 3: you would like to get in touch with us with
Speaker 3: feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest a
Speaker 3: topic for the future, or just to say hello, you
Speaker 3: can email us at contact at stuff to Blow your
Speaker 3: Mind dot com.
Speaker 1: Stuff to Blow Your Mind is a production of iHeartRadio.
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