Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of
Speaker 1: My Heart Radio. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind.
Speaker 1: Listener mail. My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick.
Speaker 1: We hope you're doing all right. On this Monday. We
Speaker 1: were just talking off Mike about movies shot in Arizona
Speaker 1: and about and about how my brain is kind of
Speaker 1: wrecked right now because Rachel and I earlier we're listening
Speaker 1: to a very nice playlist full of great music. But
Speaker 1: the playlist was called good Times, Great Oldies. It was
Speaker 1: just something Rachel found on the Internet. And then it's
Speaker 1: full of music from the nineties, which that is awful.
Speaker 1: Don't do that. It's like music for ancient mummies. And
Speaker 1: then it's that goat yea song. Well, you know, it's
Speaker 1: it's just how it works. You reached that point where
Speaker 1: you know, all the the hits you remember are the classics, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: everything becomes gs rock eventually. But now I'm loaded up
Speaker 1: on indigol Arles and and Sonny came home and all that,
Speaker 1: so so I'm ready to talk about fatim or Ghana.
Speaker 1: Rob would you like to jump right into the email. Yeah,
Speaker 1: let's do it. We received a number of listener mails
Speaker 1: regarding this episode, which was a super fun to put together,
Speaker 1: and um yeah, it seems to resonate with with everyone.
Speaker 1: And I guess came out at just the right time
Speaker 1: because we received a number of different um emails regarding
Speaker 1: a new image that has just come out. Yeah, so
Speaker 1: this was the ship that was cited floating in the
Speaker 1: air over the horizon off the Cornish coast. A bunch
Speaker 1: of listeners sent this to us. This may have been
Speaker 1: This may have been the thing that was like the
Speaker 1: single largest number of listeners sending the same news article. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: And I think this story was published maybe the same
Speaker 1: day as our fatimor Ghana episode or maybe the day after.
Speaker 1: I'm not sure, but uh so you can look up
Speaker 1: pictures of it on the internet if you haven't seen
Speaker 1: it already, look up like ship floating Cornish coast or something.
Speaker 1: Uh it should come right up and to read from
Speaker 1: the BBC news report about it. This is an unsigned
Speaker 1: article of course, so I can't tell you the author,
Speaker 1: but images of what appears to be a hovering ship
Speaker 1: have been captured as a result of a rare optical
Speaker 1: illusion off the coast of England. David Morris took a
Speaker 1: photo of the ship near Falmouth, Cornwall. BBC meteorologist David
Speaker 1: Brain said the superior mirage occurred because of special atmospheric
Speaker 1: conditions that bend light. He said the illusion is common
Speaker 1: in the Arctic that can appear very rarely in the
Speaker 1: UK during winter. Mr Morris said he was stunned after
Speaker 1: capturing the picture while looking out to see from the
Speaker 1: hamlet of Gillen. Mr Brain said quote Superior mirages occur
Speaker 1: because of the weather condition known as temperature inversion, where
Speaker 1: cold air lies close to the sea and warmer air
Speaker 1: above it. Since cold air is denser than warm air,
Speaker 1: it bends light towards the eyes of someone standing on
Speaker 1: the ground or on the coast, changing how a distant
Speaker 1: object appears. Superior mirages can produce a few different types
Speaker 1: of images. Here a distant ship appears to float high
Speaker 1: above its actual position, but sometimes an object below the
Speaker 1: horizon can become visible. And yeah, it is a really
Speaker 1: striking image. I will say it has, at least in
Speaker 1: this photo, it has greater clarity than most superior mirages.
Speaker 1: Usually somehow they look a little bit more I don't know,
Speaker 1: faded or ethereal, lending themselves well to spectral interpretations. This
Speaker 1: one looks quite straightforward. It just looks like a ship
Speaker 1: in the air. Yeah, and it really Yeah, it's one
Speaker 1: of these where it's not a situation in which you
Speaker 1: would look at this and be like, I guess it
Speaker 1: kind of looks like a ship floating above the horizon.
Speaker 1: Now it's it's it's it's very confusing to look at
Speaker 1: if you don't know what you're seeing here. So yeah,
Speaker 1: great serendipity. We did not know this, this photo would
Speaker 1: be published here, this article would be coming out around
Speaker 1: the time of the episode, so so yeah, it was
Speaker 1: a nice surprise. Thanks for everybody who send it our way. Yeah. Absolutely,
Speaker 1: I'm not sure I would have necessarily caught it otherwise. Um,
Speaker 1: let's see what else do we have, And we have
Speaker 1: more listener mail regarding the photomorgana. Uh. This one comes
Speaker 1: to us from Chris, Hi, Robert and Joe. Just finished
Speaker 1: listening to your excellent episode on Potomorgana. And I was
Speaker 1: not familiar with this term, but I did know what
Speaker 1: a mirage was and have been lucky enough to see
Speaker 1: a few during travels in the Southwest United States. The
Speaker 1: example that I am sharing is from the area of
Speaker 1: country that I live in. This was an excellent story
Speaker 1: at quite a breathtaking photo of Chicago taken from the
Speaker 1: shores of Michigan. Here is a link to the news
Speaker 1: story about it, and I checked this out. Chris attaches
Speaker 1: a link to an article by Tom Coombs explaining the
Speaker 1: mirage or case of looming. I'm not sure quite which
Speaker 1: one it is. It's one or the other that is
Speaker 1: apparently explaining this photograph of the skyline of Chicago that
Speaker 1: could be seen from the opposite shore of the Great Lake.
Speaker 1: And yeah, if you look at it, it is it
Speaker 1: is quite a beautiful picture. It's got some eighties mall colors,
Speaker 1: kind of Miami vice and the pink and blue hues,
Speaker 1: but it is quite beautiful. Yeah. It looks like he
Speaker 1: could be a you know, cover image for a vapor
Speaker 1: wave album for sure. That's what I was thinking. Yes, um, yeah,
Speaker 1: And it has the appearance of like a city in
Speaker 1: the clouds, or or a city so just so towering
Speaker 1: that it's somehow visible above the horizon. It's it's interesting
Speaker 1: anyway that the listening mail continues as the article states,
Speaker 1: it's impossible to see Chicago from that far away, some
Speaker 1: fifty seven miles, but with a mirage it looks significantly closer.
Speaker 1: Oh and with that being said, it could be very
Speaker 1: easy to see how travelers through the ages have imagined
Speaker 1: things being much closer than the actually word due to
Speaker 1: this phenomenon. Keep up the great work, and as always,
Speaker 1: thanks for continuing to blow our minds. Chris. Yeah, thanks Chris.
Speaker 1: So Yes. I was reading this article and it seems
Speaker 1: to me that basically, depending on the elevation at which
Speaker 1: you're standing, it maybe sometimes should be possible to see
Speaker 1: the tops of the very tallest buildings in the Chicago
Speaker 1: skyline from across the lake, just given the normal geometry
Speaker 1: the curvature of the earth. But you definitely shouldn't be
Speaker 1: able to see down to where it looks like you
Speaker 1: can see in this photo, which is it looks like
Speaker 1: you can see the city all the way down to
Speaker 1: the ground level, not just like the peak of the
Speaker 1: Sears Tower and the other tallest buildings. Um. And so,
Speaker 1: one of the funny things I was reading in this
Speaker 1: article is that apparently, according to this guy Tom Coombs, uh,
Speaker 1: some flat earth people were using the photo as evidence
Speaker 1: that well, look, the Chicago skyline is visible on the
Speaker 1: opposite side of the lake in this photo, proof that
Speaker 1: the Earth is actually flat. And that just made me think,
Speaker 1: if people are actually saying that, what do they think
Speaker 1: about like the millions of other photos where you can't
Speaker 1: see it, Like, what's going on there? I think you're
Speaker 1: you're already putting way too much thought, more thought than
Speaker 1: they put into um saying ah, here it is proof
Speaker 1: of of the Earth's flatness. Uh so very weirdly. This
Speaker 1: next message also will touch on something that's sort of
Speaker 1: peripheral to, uh to some of the bizarre flat Earth beliefs. Rob,
Speaker 1: do you ever come across this claim? Apparently some flat earthers,
Speaker 1: you know, you ask the question, well, okay, what happens
Speaker 1: if you get to the edge of the disc? They
Speaker 1: believe the Earth is some kind of flat disc, or
Speaker 1: at least claim to believe that. It's hard to tell
Speaker 1: with a lot of them, like whether they genuinely believe
Speaker 1: this or whether they're just sort of like saying it
Speaker 1: for fun. Um, Yes, yes, I know where you're going.
Speaker 1: This is the idea that at the edge of the
Speaker 1: disc you will encounter vast ice walls that keep you
Speaker 1: from falling off the Earth, and I guess maybe they
Speaker 1: keep the oceans from flowing off and landing on the turtle.
Speaker 1: I guess so. Um yeah, So the ice walls are
Speaker 1: a common feature of the flat earth mythology, so just
Speaker 1: keep that in mind. That will come up again in
Speaker 1: this next message from Dempsey. Oh and this one is
Speaker 1: about both the Fata Morgana episode and the previous episodes
Speaker 1: that we talked about with halos and optical phenomena like
Speaker 1: the sun dogs and things like that. So Dempsey says, Hey, guys,
Speaker 1: I'm a long time slash first time fan. I'm a
Speaker 1: physics grad student at u A. Fairbanks that studies crazy fluids.
Speaker 1: In truth, I study the turbulence in Tokomax, a type
Speaker 1: of nuclear fusion reactor. Along this path was an incredibly
Speaker 1: interesting class on geophysical fluid dynamics or g f D,
Speaker 1: the study of planetary scale fluids meaning atmosphere and oceans,
Speaker 1: their interactions that occur at given boundaries, and many other
Speaker 1: interesting things. In the class, we learned the finest inner
Speaker 1: workings of several optical illusions that one could see, especially
Speaker 1: ones from the cold. Being a huge fan of sustainable living,
Speaker 1: I bike ski or walk to school every day. On
Speaker 1: top of finally catching up on all of stuff to
Speaker 1: blow your mind and seeing all of the aurora in commute.
Speaker 1: This has grown my optical illusion checklist better. Yet, the
Speaker 1: sleep deprived ramble of a first year grad student from
Speaker 1: science building the cabin has also led to the occasional
Speaker 1: false paranormal sighting. Oh, Dempsey, you know how to grab
Speaker 1: our attention? Um, so yeah, so Dempsey goes on. The
Speaker 1: first sighting occurred the winter before taking g f D.
Speaker 1: Remember that's geophysical fluid dynamics, and I had absolutely no
Speaker 1: idea it was a possibility. Skiing home late one cloudy
Speaker 1: night after grading, it was perfectly calm with no wind,
Speaker 1: and it was a bitter cold, better than thirty degrees
Speaker 1: fahrenheit below. This commute was also along a hiking path
Speaker 1: in the woods that allowed for almost no light pollution.
Speaker 1: I stopped in a clearing to catch my breath. When
Speaker 1: looking in the distance towards home, four or five beams
Speaker 1: of light connecting the forest to the clouds appeared. These
Speaker 1: columns of white light were huge, laser like beams that
Speaker 1: were stable and did not flicker. Beams were so powerful
Speaker 1: and caught me so unaware that it was all I
Speaker 1: could do to avoid the fight or flight panic, to
Speaker 1: get lost and hide in the forest aliens. Later in GFD,
Speaker 1: I learned in that kind of cold, when ice precipitates
Speaker 1: from the clouds humidity, it can form a crystal so
Speaker 1: small it can't be seen. This crystal based structure is
Speaker 1: most likely to form in a flat paper like sheet.
Speaker 1: When these sheets of crystal float to the ground like
Speaker 1: a falling leaf, they act like either a lens or
Speaker 1: a mirror, depending on the way that the light strikes it. Ultimately,
Speaker 1: the combination of the street lights that were already on
Speaker 1: and the temperature dropping to a given sweet spot for
Speaker 1: the humidity and pressure that day led to false UFO
Speaker 1: beams that got a rise out of me. Wow, that
Speaker 1: that is amazing. I have never heard of that before.
Speaker 1: Dempsey goes on the sun dogs are my favorite illusion.
Speaker 1: It turns out there essentially a glorified cold weather rainbow.
Speaker 1: When white light from the sun like some small round thing,
Speaker 1: like a tiny ice crystal, it is deflected along a
Speaker 1: cone from the point to possibly your eye. This is
Speaker 1: why rainbows are always the same shape arc I'm a
Speaker 1: little confused on this next sentence, I Dempsey says, when
Speaker 1: we see them get brighter, not grow and extend. Not
Speaker 1: quite sure about that, but there may be a type
Speaker 1: of there. Uh. This is also why the halo around
Speaker 1: the moon has a specific fixed angular size. The same
Speaker 1: behavior leads to sundogs in the polar regions of the
Speaker 1: world at the polls during the winter when the temperature
Speaker 1: is right to make small ray Leigh scatterers. The sun
Speaker 1: is low near the horizon. If present when the conditions
Speaker 1: are perfect, this can actually result in a ring of
Speaker 1: rainbow around the Sun. During these conditions, it is possible
Speaker 1: to have as many as four additional suns at the
Speaker 1: vertices of pie divided by two pie, three pie divided
Speaker 1: by two and two pie surrounding the Sun. As you
Speaker 1: guys know, this can also lead to false UFO encounters,
Speaker 1: not in my case, though I got the burning bush
Speaker 1: experience earlier. This semester. We had a negative ten degree
Speaker 1: fahrenheit snow day. On this commute, I admired the beauty
Speaker 1: of this impossibly fine stacked dust in the trees. I
Speaker 1: had been walking up to a crested ridge to suddenly
Speaker 1: see a lone birch in a clearing engulfed in the
Speaker 1: brightest red flame I had ever seen. It was only
Speaker 1: after changing my position by several meters that it was
Speaker 1: easy to tell that it was only a chance alignment
Speaker 1: with a sun dog in the early morning sun. Unfortunately,
Speaker 1: it was too cold and my phone died before I
Speaker 1: could get the picture. So here is one from later
Speaker 1: on without the snow. That should be a good starting
Speaker 1: point for a mental image. And uh and Dempsey attaches
Speaker 1: an image of like a thicket of trees with the
Speaker 1: sun shining from right behind them. That does make it
Speaker 1: kind of look like the trees on fire. Now here,
Speaker 1: we're coming back to the ice wall. I think I'm
Speaker 1: riding after the morning walk listening to the episode on
Speaker 1: Fatim Morgana. I may not have been listening closely enough.
Speaker 1: I may have been staring at it too intently. But
Speaker 1: did you guys mention the ice wall that sometimes results
Speaker 1: from Fairbanks? Looking south, one can see the Alaska slash
Speaker 1: Dnnali range miles away, with many small valleys and ridges
Speaker 1: between the Fata Morgana seems to result in a in
Speaker 1: a hundreds of foot high ice wall visible hundreds of
Speaker 1: miles away. Here's a picture, and then there is a
Speaker 1: picture for us to look at that that does look
Speaker 1: extremely strange. Yeah, it's it's quite impressive. It does look
Speaker 1: like some sort of Titanic ice wall. I don't know
Speaker 1: if it has ever had religious significance, but I imagine
Speaker 1: it's influenced ideas in literature like Game of Thrones and
Speaker 1: in conspiracy theories like the Flat Earth. One last illusion
Speaker 1: to look for occurs when the sun crosses a sharp boundary,
Speaker 1: giving the quote green flash from Lots of Lore. I
Speaker 1: don't remember if this came up in Fatim Moor, Ghana,
Speaker 1: but it is yeah, related phenomena often observed by sailors.
Speaker 1: Dempsey goes on, this is much harder to see because
Speaker 1: it is literally a flash of green light that you
Speaker 1: can see when staring at the sun at the exact
Speaker 1: right moment the sun goes below the ocean pirates of
Speaker 1: the Caribbean style or dips behind the peak of a
Speaker 1: huge mountain range Alaska style. Hopefully this was interesting or
Speaker 1: at least a little bit funny. Always looking forward to
Speaker 1: our next walk, Dempsey, Yeah, I love all these of
Speaker 1: these images. This was I was hoping, you know, that
Speaker 1: people would send in photographs and yeah, that they that
Speaker 1: they've provided a number of them here. Yeah, and really
Speaker 1: appreciate the interpretive context as well. I had never heard
Speaker 1: of that idea before about um light being reflected against
Speaker 1: or through these like sheet like crystal svice. I'm gonna
Speaker 1: have to look that up, all right. Here's another one.
Speaker 1: This one comes to us from m R and it
Speaker 1: is a response to our Halo episodes. Hi, Joe and Robert.
Speaker 1: I was introduced to your podcast by my husband, who
Speaker 1: has been listening for many years now. I hope this
Speaker 1: doesn't sound too weird, but we listened to the show
Speaker 1: every night to fall asleep. I will say that is
Speaker 1: not that is not weird. We've been I think we
Speaker 1: heard of heard from people like this for for years
Speaker 1: and uh and you know, we're we're happy to help
Speaker 1: you drift off into a pleasant slumber. And we do
Speaker 1: apologize for the rare occurrences where some sort of loud
Speaker 1: noise at the end of the episode disturbs that anyway,
Speaker 1: they continue. We're the type of people who like to
Speaker 1: have background noise. I'm like that as well. After the
Speaker 1: first night that my husband suggested stuff to blow your mind,
Speaker 1: it became our permanent routine. Yeah, the quick aside, Joe,
Speaker 1: This reminds me when I was when I was a kid,
Speaker 1: or maybe in junior high. I remember going to the
Speaker 1: bookstore and I was purchasing a Dune book and the
Speaker 1: teller there was very excited and she told me how
Speaker 1: she and her husband put David Lynch's Dune on every
Speaker 1: night to go to sleep too. Yeah, so I was.
Speaker 1: I remember being really impressed with that. That that because like, wow,
Speaker 1: that maybe this that is what adult life is like.
Speaker 1: I don't know. You know, there are many things about
Speaker 1: that movie that are dream like, beyond their their dream
Speaker 1: like in ways that are not suggested by the original book.
Speaker 1: They're they're very particularly Lynch. And one example is the
Speaker 1: recurring pug. You know, the pug of House of Tradees.
Speaker 1: Do you remember this? I do remember the pug that
Speaker 1: is such a David Lynch detailed the book, I'm quite sure,
Speaker 1: makes no mention of a pug, and yet in many
Speaker 1: scenes in the movie there's just a pug. There's one
Speaker 1: scene where I believe Patrick Stewart is leading a bunch
Speaker 1: of troops charging into battle against the soldiers of House
Speaker 1: Harconin and he's holding the pug in his arms. Well,
Speaker 1: you know, it's a regal dog. It's it's it's befitting
Speaker 1: of a noble house. Yeah, but anyway, that is that's
Speaker 1: not Mr. Uh, that's not their story. This is a
Speaker 1: story from you know, from when I was younger. Anyway,
Speaker 1: Mr continues, I've always wanted to write in but I
Speaker 1: never had much to contribute until you mentioned synthesia as
Speaker 1: a synisthet myself, what I listened to for relaxation depends
Speaker 1: heavily on the colors and textures I gather from people's voices. Luckily,
Speaker 1: both of you have very calming colors. Joe's voice is
Speaker 1: a dusty, icy purple that moves in symmetrical liquid like waves.
Speaker 1: It has a slight, silvery glitter effect as well. Robert's
Speaker 1: voice actually has two colors. It's mostly a reddish maroon,
Speaker 1: but it's supplemented by an occasional splash of pastel orange.
Speaker 1: The texture feels pointed or spiky, but the tips of
Speaker 1: these spikes are rounded and smooth, kind of conical. Both
Speaker 1: of your voices are very cool toned, which is great
Speaker 1: for relaxation and sleep in my case. Your individual colors
Speaker 1: also complement each other quite well, sometimes separate voices speaking
Speaker 1: together can have colors that clash, which is not as
Speaker 1: conducive for sleep. WHOA though, well, this is the first
Speaker 1: time I've ever had somebody described me in terms of synesthesia.
Speaker 1: I guess this would not be person color synesthesia. This
Speaker 1: would be like auditory, like just the sounds of the voices. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but but I like this. I'm already reading more into it,
Speaker 1: like you know, like my own relationship with the color orange.
Speaker 1: And so for anyway, they continue. But where I met
Speaker 1: my husband, I watched videos that triggered a s MR
Speaker 1: tinkling sensation in order to fall asleep. I think a
Speaker 1: s MR could be an interesting topic for a future episode.
Speaker 1: Thanks for being a part of my nightly routine. MR. Well,
Speaker 1: thank you, m R. I will say, I do not
Speaker 1: think we have ever gotten a message like this before. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I know this is insightful. I mean, like like we've
Speaker 1: said with with synesesia, it's it's it's not universally insightful,
Speaker 1: like the pastel orange is not universally my color for everyone.
Speaker 1: But it's interesting that that's how it is received with
Speaker 1: one individual. But can you tell me the colors of
Speaker 1: the pug It's white and brown or it's black. That's
Speaker 1: those are my guests. I think those are the two
Speaker 1: colors they come in, right, Yeah, I guess so in
Speaker 1: my experience. Anyway, maybe there are other colors of the
Speaker 1: of the pug. I can't remember the color of the
Speaker 1: pug of House of Tradees. I think it's maybe sort
Speaker 1: of sort of a beige dog. Yeah, all right, here's
Speaker 1: another one. This one comes to us from Anna. Hello,
Speaker 1: Robert and Joe. I've just listened to your second episode
Speaker 1: on Halos and you asked for any examples of halos
Speaker 1: and horror sci fi movies. Well, I just happened to
Speaker 1: watch an episode of Doctor Who called Voyage of the Damned.
Speaker 1: This is a long episode and features robot angels called
Speaker 1: the Host. At the start, uh, they are merely robots
Speaker 1: to give out information, but then there is a point
Speaker 1: where they turn evil. They take off their halos above
Speaker 1: their head and use them as deadly weapons to throw
Speaker 1: at people. This is definitely worth a watch. It was
Speaker 1: on recently here in Australia a repeat. I only meant
Speaker 1: to watch a little bit of it, but David Tennant
Speaker 1: is so charming I watched the whole thing. It has
Speaker 1: a lot of lovely elements to it. There's a scene
Speaker 1: at a cocktail party where Doctor Who is a bit
Speaker 1: like James Bond chatting up a pretty girl, except that
Speaker 1: he is interested in her as a person and she
Speaker 1: just happens to be Uh, who's this Kylie Minogue? Kylie Minogue? Well?
Speaker 1: Where should I know? Kylie Minogue from Kylie Minogue is
Speaker 1: as a musician? Oh, just helped us out. I was
Speaker 1: thinking of the music video of hers, directed by Michelle
Speaker 1: Gondry's which is an interesting video. And but also I
Speaker 1: just looked her up and apparently she portrayed Cammy in
Speaker 1: The Street Fighter movie. That should make it worthwhile for you. Right, well, yeah,
Speaker 1: we're talking about the one um the street Fighter movie, right,
Speaker 1: the one yes with all Julia Yes, yeah, yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: all right, excellent. I mean, just more more reason for
Speaker 1: us to uh to to to rewatch that film. Yeah.
Speaker 1: But so apparently she's in a she's in a Doctor
Speaker 1: Who episode. I did not know that. Okay, anyway, they
Speaker 1: continue Also it has alien culture trying to explain Christmas. Uh.
Speaker 1: They so so called expert on Earth cultures says things like, uh,
Speaker 1: like there is a figure called Santa who has clause
Speaker 1: and will punish you if you are bad and it Christmas.
Speaker 1: Humans will eat people from Turkey. Anyway, keep up the
Speaker 1: excellent work, Anna. So, I guess it's kind of like
Speaker 1: that that exercise we often talk about, like how would
Speaker 1: aliens try to describe or understand human culture? So it
Speaker 1: sounds like there was an exercise in in that. I'm
Speaker 1: very tickled by the idea of James Bond, except he's
Speaker 1: interested in her as a person. Yeah, yeah, Bond. Bond
Speaker 1: generally comes off as something of a creep, doesn't he hum?
Speaker 1: But he's our creep, is he? I think he's British.
Speaker 1: Oh that's true. Well he's he's on our side of something.
Speaker 1: He's against the people who want to kill the whole world. Yeah,
Speaker 1: well that's true. Yeah, he ultimately does good work. All right,
Speaker 1: you ready to talk some weird house, let's do it. Okay?
Speaker 1: This first message, actually, we're gonna look at a couple
Speaker 1: of messages about Split Second, and both of them have
Speaker 1: to do with the question we brought up in Split Second,
Speaker 1: the question of why is it that that the tough
Speaker 1: guys in the movie you want to make somebody look
Speaker 1: like a really bad to the bone dude, you give
Speaker 1: them a long coat? Where does that come from? So here? Uh?
Speaker 1: Thomas gets in touch with us about split Second to say, Hi,
Speaker 1: Robin Joe, I really enjoy your podcast. The broad coverage
Speaker 1: both between and within the episodes makes it really enjoyable.
Speaker 1: In your Weird House Cinema episode about Split Second, you
Speaker 1: wonder about the origin of the long code in movies.
Speaker 1: That got me thinking about when it is used. It's
Speaker 1: usually by a lone ranger type of hero or by
Speaker 1: outlaw types of villains, often combined with motorcycles, a modern
Speaker 1: take on the wild West aesthetics Western movies seem to
Speaker 1: me to be the origin of the coats. But are
Speaker 1: they a modern idea or were they used by real cowboys?
Speaker 1: I turned to the Internet for an answer and quickly
Speaker 1: found the duster, a long travel coat worn by cowboys
Speaker 1: in order to protect their clothes from rain and trail dust.
Speaker 1: This is only me speculating, but these long coats and
Speaker 1: the way they flowed in the wind were probably found
Speaker 1: to work really well on the silver screen and made
Speaker 1: a part of the dress code for the cinematic wild West,
Speaker 1: while also being somewhat historically correct, earning itself a permanent
Speaker 1: place in the cinematic wardrobe kind regards to Moss, and
Speaker 1: I will say, yeah, I think there is probably something
Speaker 1: to that. There could be other traditions feeding into it
Speaker 1: as well, but it does seem to me that a
Speaker 1: lot of the aesthetic elements of what makes a like
Speaker 1: a tough guy or you know, bad to the bone
Speaker 1: dude in modern cinema are very much derived from the
Speaker 1: genre conventions that you first see that you first seeing westerns,
Speaker 1: like bikers being sort of reimagined cowboys and so forth.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, absolutely. Um, It's one of those things where
Speaker 1: when we we kind of stumbled onto the question in
Speaker 1: the episode, we didn't really have an answer. But now
Speaker 1: that I'm reminded of Westerns, like, I feel like this
Speaker 1: has to be the has to be the answer, or
Speaker 1: at least a primary part of the answer, because I'm
Speaker 1: also reminded of just how just how many cowboy films
Speaker 1: they were, and how much of of like the cinematic
Speaker 1: and TV output for a while was just Westerns. And
Speaker 1: you you you hear various filmmakers that we think of
Speaker 1: for their like sci fi, uh and and or fantasy,
Speaker 1: but ginerally like sci fi and horror output. And a
Speaker 1: lot of those those directors they grew up watching these westerns,
Speaker 1: and they're very they're very open about the influence of
Speaker 1: Westerns on their own films. Like John Carpenter is someone
Speaker 1: who's who has touched on this before, you know, especially
Speaker 1: I think even talking about his early films as essentially
Speaker 1: being uh, you know, remakes of westerns. You know, they're
Speaker 1: basically westerns, but they they've taken on this this this
Speaker 1: altered style. I mean, you can also apply that to
Speaker 1: Star Wars and you know, so many things that we
Speaker 1: you know, we don't think of as being really connected
Speaker 1: to cowboys, but but the cowboy DNA is there. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I think in a lot of ways, Han Solo is
Speaker 1: probably sort of the Man with No Name, except made
Speaker 1: a little bit like funnier and more approachable. Uh And
Speaker 1: and you can even see it in some that are
Speaker 1: just direct adaptations, like what is it? Was it that
Speaker 1: Sean Connery movie Outland that's just high noon in space?
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, and it works like but but a big
Speaker 1: part of it was like this was this was everybody's
Speaker 1: diet beforehand, and then you know, you're living increasingly in
Speaker 1: the space age, and people weren't influenced by all this
Speaker 1: sci fi literature as well. And yeah, so your westerns
Speaker 1: stay structurally more or less the same, but they take
Speaker 1: on this this new vibe. Yeah, and I think especially
Speaker 1: especially in the way that traditional ideas about like toughness
Speaker 1: and masculinity are reproduced across film in the era, So
Speaker 1: like it's often going to be like a like a tough,
Speaker 1: cool male character. They're trying to like show him as
Speaker 1: a bad dude, And so they're trying to make you
Speaker 1: think back to things that are in your head from
Speaker 1: the Western movies of old, and that long coat is
Speaker 1: going to be one of them. Yeah. But then again,
Speaker 1: on the you know, it goes without saying, you also
Speaker 1: have an awful gangster movies and stuff. So you know,
Speaker 1: Dick Tracy wore a long coat bright yellow, but a
Speaker 1: long coat nonetheless, and the Shadow wore a long coat,
Speaker 1: so uh yeah, there's there's probably a bit of that
Speaker 1: in there as well. So you have the cowboy DNA,
Speaker 1: you have the noir DNA, and it all kind of
Speaker 1: feeds into your new visions of science fiction. So the
Speaker 1: cowboy wears the long coat to keep the dust off.
Speaker 1: The noir hero wears the long coat what. I guess
Speaker 1: to keep the rain out right because they lived in
Speaker 1: some kind of like rainy nasty or maybe I don't know,
Speaker 1: maybe just because it's the style of the era. Yeah,
Speaker 1: all right, here's another one. This one comes to from Jerry,
Speaker 1: Joe and Robert. I just finished your episode on Split Second.
Speaker 1: In that episode, you had a question about when the
Speaker 1: long coat, like the one Neo Warre and Matrix, became
Speaker 1: a thing. While it was certainly something that was already
Speaker 1: popular as part of the sci fi aesthetic by the
Speaker 1: end of the eighties, compare with the protagonist of Albert
Speaker 1: Puns Nemesis, which came out the same year. A Split
Speaker 1: Second would love an episode on this great slash awful film.
Speaker 1: I susp act its origin as a badass protact protagonist
Speaker 1: fashion comes from eastwoods Man with no name character. There's
Speaker 1: a great scene in the film Wrestler's Rhapsody that pokes
Speaker 1: fun at this, and they include a link. I clicked
Speaker 1: on this and this is funny. It's got a This
Speaker 1: appears to be some kind of Western parody movie. I've
Speaker 1: never seen it before, but the clip is funny because
Speaker 1: it takes place on a train and it's this one
Speaker 1: train car where these two rich you know, ranch owners
Speaker 1: are debating. They've got some kind of rivalry, and each
Speaker 1: one just has this army of looming cowboy dude standing
Speaker 1: behind them. And on one side they're all wearing chaps,
Speaker 1: and on the other side they're all wearing dusters. Andy
Speaker 1: Griffith's in this. It looks like, yeah, he's one of
Speaker 1: the he's one of the like rancher dudes. Okay, well,
Speaker 1: I don't think I was familiar with this film. It
Speaker 1: looks funny. Now. Nemesis, which they mentioned, Uh here that
Speaker 1: is that is already on my my list. I haven't
Speaker 1: watched it yet, but I remember seeing the box art
Speaker 1: when I was younger, and it's now that i've I've
Speaker 1: spotted an Amazon Prime It's it's on my list of
Speaker 1: things to watch. At some point. I hear great things
Speaker 1: about it, like it's supposed to be ultimately a lower
Speaker 1: budget film that has some some some definite sci fi aspirations. Uh,
Speaker 1: it's supposed to be supposed to be worth watching, so
Speaker 1: I'm excited for it. Oh. Albert Paiune has made a
Speaker 1: number of quite funny B movies that I've really enjoyed.
Speaker 1: He made the Captain America, not the not the like
Speaker 1: new you know, high budget Marvel one like the well
Speaker 1: I guess it was always Marvel maybe, but the Captain
Speaker 1: America that came out in the year nineteen. Oh. Yes,
Speaker 1: this was the one with Ronnie Cox Allinger kid in
Speaker 1: it and Ronnie Cox yeah, and Ned Beatty. This movie
Speaker 1: is I remember there's one part in it. Maybe maybe
Speaker 1: I'm remembering this wrong, but the part that stands out
Speaker 1: in my head is that Captain America has been frozen
Speaker 1: in ice, I think, for for many decades and wakes
Speaker 1: up in the nineties and as soon as he wakes up,
Speaker 1: just like the bad guys, wounds are there with motorcycles
Speaker 1: like to ambush him and I don't know what they're
Speaker 1: just immediately there. But as possible, my memory is not
Speaker 1: being fair to it. But I recall this one being
Speaker 1: uh bad but enjoyable. And he also made Cyborg, which
Speaker 1: is another cloud Van Damn movie, uh that I that
Speaker 1: I recall fondly watching with my dad, and there's like
Speaker 1: a great there's a great villain character in it who
Speaker 1: is called a pirate, but he doesn't have a ship.
Speaker 1: They're just like land pirates. Yeah, I'm glancing. It is
Speaker 1: his full filmography here, and yeah, there's a lot of
Speaker 1: stuff in here that looks it looks really cool if
Speaker 1: I recall correctly. The plot of Cyborg is that there
Speaker 1: is a cyborg who must get to the c d
Speaker 1: C command center in Atlanta because this because she has
Speaker 1: in her robot brain a cure for the disease that
Speaker 1: has ravaged Earth, and they can come up with a
Speaker 1: vaccine for it, I guess. And the pirates stop her
Speaker 1: along the way and she said, as I can cure
Speaker 1: all this death and disease, and the lead pirates says,
Speaker 1: but I like the Death and Disease. Yeah, yeah, I
Speaker 1: don't think I've ever watched it in its entirety, but
Speaker 1: I've been familiar with it by reputation for a while.
Speaker 1: But the whole thing with the CDC, that's essentially the
Speaker 1: same thing they did in um, The Walking Dead. Right, Well,
Speaker 1: I don't know. I I never made it past the
Speaker 1: second episode of The Walking Dead. People say it's good.
Speaker 1: I mean, someday, maybe I'll get there. I remember thinking
Speaker 1: I really liked the first episode. I really hated the
Speaker 1: second episode, and then I never saw anymore. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: don't think any of Cyborg was filmed in Georgia, but
Speaker 1: glancing at the filming locations, they weirdly enough, seems like
Speaker 1: they filmed it in North Carolina and Arizona. So yeah,
Speaker 1: with a little bit of California thrown in there for
Speaker 1: good measure. Wikipedia tells me that Cyborg is the first
Speaker 1: in Paiune's Cyborg trilogy. Oh yeah, so there's Cyborg two
Speaker 1: and Cyborg three. I'm getting there. Yeah, there's gonna be
Speaker 1: so much more because they're Cyborgs in Nemesis as well. Right,
Speaker 1: that's that's my understand Probably I'm not familiar with Nemesis. Actually, yeah,
Speaker 1: Nemesis is supposed to be like a like a a
Speaker 1: cyberpunk adventure with you know, killer cyborgs and so forth,
Speaker 1: big guns, that sort of thing. Oh wow, it's got
Speaker 1: Brian James, it's got uh carry here are Yuki Tagawa.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, it's good. That's got a good cast, Thomas Jane.
Speaker 1: So okay, I'll watch it. I'm on. I'm on the
Speaker 1: hook for Nemesis now. All right, Well, I guess that's
Speaker 1: about it. That's all we have time for. You know,
Speaker 1: we received a lot of other listener mails related to
Speaker 1: these topics. And you know we'll read some more of
Speaker 1: them next time. But keep it coming, keep responding to episodes,
Speaker 1: older episodes, newer episodes, uh core episodes of the show, artifact, weird,
Speaker 1: how cinema, whatever the case may be. Just reach out
Speaker 1: to us, and you know, we don't have time to
Speaker 1: read everything on the show, but we we read everything
Speaker 1: that comes in, at least to ourselves. In the meantime,
Speaker 1: if you want to check out other episodes of Stuff
Speaker 1: to Boil your Mind, you can find us in the
Speaker 1: Stuff to Blow Your Mind podcast feed and you'll find
Speaker 1: that wherever you get your podcasts. Huge thanks as always
Speaker 1: to our excellent audio producer Seth Nicholas Johnson. If you
Speaker 1: would like to get in touch with us with feedback
Speaker 1: on this episode or any other, to suggest a topic
Speaker 1: for the future, just to say hello, you can email
Speaker 1: us at contact at stuff to Blow your Mind dot com.
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