WEBVTT - Listener Mail: The Flood 0:00:02.960 --> 0:00:05.280 Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of 0:00:05.360 --> 0:00:10.760 My Heart Radio. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your 0:00:10.800 --> 0:00:14.400 Mind listener Mail. My name is Robert Lamb and I'm 0:00:14.440 --> 0:00:16.880 Shoe McCormick, and I think we can start today by 0:00:16.920 --> 0:00:19.400 jumping right in on the first batch of listener mail, 0:00:19.440 --> 0:00:22.200 which is in response to our episodes on sinkholes. Are 0:00:22.239 --> 0:00:30.400 you ready rob it okay? This first message comes to 0:00:30.480 --> 0:00:34.360 us from Thomas. Thomas says, I was just listening to 0:00:34.360 --> 0:00:37.640 your episode on sinkholes. While not actually a sinkhole. The 0:00:37.680 --> 0:00:40.760 episode reminded me of an event that happened while I 0:00:40.800 --> 0:00:45.240 was living in the loop in downtown Chicago. I was 0:00:45.280 --> 0:00:47.320 in law school at the time and in turning at 0:00:47.360 --> 0:00:50.440 a law firm on Whacker Drive. I had an office 0:00:50.479 --> 0:00:53.640 with a window overlooking the Chicago River. Pretty sweet for 0:00:53.680 --> 0:00:56.240 a young intern. One day, I was watching as a 0:00:56.360 --> 0:01:00.880 crew were driving pilings basically giant logs into the river 0:01:01.000 --> 0:01:04.000 bed next to the Kinsei Bridge. I could feel the 0:01:04.040 --> 0:01:06.960 reverberation of the pounding even up in the high rise 0:01:07.000 --> 0:01:10.720 where I was located. Suddenly everyone started running around like 0:01:10.840 --> 0:01:13.840 something bad had happened. Looking toward the water, I could 0:01:13.880 --> 0:01:17.520 see what was causing the chaos, a giant whirlpool had 0:01:17.560 --> 0:01:21.280 appeared right where they were pounding the pilings. Within minutes, 0:01:21.319 --> 0:01:24.680 the area was surrounded by fire trucks and emergency vehicles. 0:01:25.000 --> 0:01:28.920 Then helicopters appeared. After a period of time, a voice 0:01:28.959 --> 0:01:31.960 came over the emergency system in the building and announced 0:01:32.000 --> 0:01:34.600 that there had been ordered an evacuation of the loop 0:01:34.640 --> 0:01:37.480 and that we had to leave the building. Going downstairs, 0:01:37.480 --> 0:01:39.880 I walked out into what I can only describe as 0:01:39.880 --> 0:01:43.360 a calm version of a Godzilla movie. The streets were 0:01:43.400 --> 0:01:46.480 filled with people and police and firemen were directing everyone 0:01:46.520 --> 0:01:49.320 to leave the loop immediately. They had called in the 0:01:49.480 --> 0:01:52.520 L train cars and just started piling everyone into them 0:01:52.560 --> 0:01:55.280 and sending them outside of the loop. I ended up 0:01:55.280 --> 0:01:57.640 on the South side of Chicago, and I eventually made 0:01:57.680 --> 0:02:00.360 it to a friend's house and was unable to returned 0:02:00.400 --> 0:02:03.240 to my apartment for several days. It ends up that 0:02:03.280 --> 0:02:06.160 what had occurred was one of the pilings pierced through 0:02:06.200 --> 0:02:10.040 the roof of an abandoned subway line. The water immediately 0:02:10.080 --> 0:02:13.360 started rushing in and sucked the piling through the hole. 0:02:13.840 --> 0:02:17.080 The hole then started expanding, and the Chicago River was 0:02:17.120 --> 0:02:21.520 effectively draining through the hole and filling the entire underground 0:02:21.639 --> 0:02:25.360 rail system, and the reason for the evacuations the sub 0:02:25.400 --> 0:02:28.520 basements of the high rise buildings in the loop. The 0:02:28.600 --> 0:02:30.920 fire department was concerned that they were going to lose 0:02:30.960 --> 0:02:34.200 integrity of the sub basements for buildings like the Sears Tower, 0:02:34.320 --> 0:02:38.200 and like dominoes, they would topple over. They tried everything 0:02:38.240 --> 0:02:40.400 to cover the whole, but the force of the water 0:02:40.520 --> 0:02:43.679 was too strong. At one point they had put divers 0:02:43.680 --> 0:02:46.119 in the water with a large metal plate, but even 0:02:46.240 --> 0:02:50.040 that got sucked through and almost killed one of the divers. Finally, 0:02:50.360 --> 0:02:52.240 they were able to block the hole with a quick 0:02:52.320 --> 0:02:56.000 drawing cement that is used in underwater construction. This gave 0:02:56.040 --> 0:02:58.560 them enough time to put permanent covers over the whole, 0:02:58.800 --> 0:03:01.640 and they were finally able let everyone back into the loop. 0:03:02.000 --> 0:03:04.680 This lasted for three or four days, and the damage 0:03:04.680 --> 0:03:07.960 cost almost two billion dollars. The humorous side of the 0:03:08.000 --> 0:03:10.400 story is that while they call it the Great Chicago 0:03:10.480 --> 0:03:13.440 Flood of nine two, it was a flood with no 0:03:13.639 --> 0:03:17.000 visible water. There is also a humorous story about why 0:03:17.040 --> 0:03:19.800 they call it the Great Leak. It ends up that 0:03:19.880 --> 0:03:23.480 floods are not covered under insurance, but leaks are so 0:03:23.520 --> 0:03:26.520 they tried to classify it as a leak for insurance purposes. 0:03:27.240 --> 0:03:30.280 And then he links to a wiki for the event 0:03:30.480 --> 0:03:34.239 and a link to a Chicago Tribune article from which 0:03:34.280 --> 0:03:37.120 has some black and white pictures. So, and then finally 0:03:37.360 --> 0:03:39.840 Thomas says, I hope this blows your mind. Well, that 0:03:39.880 --> 0:03:43.120 definitely did. I was not aware of this event. Yeah, yeah, 0:03:43.120 --> 0:03:44.720 I mean neither. This is this is all new to me, 0:03:44.840 --> 0:03:47.440 the great leak. I like it, though, I mean I'm 0:03:47.480 --> 0:03:51.760 not in favor of great leaks occurring and causing property damage, 0:03:51.760 --> 0:03:54.320 but it's it's a fascinating little bit of history that 0:03:54.360 --> 0:03:57.880 I had somehow missed out on. What really scary part 0:03:57.880 --> 0:04:00.840 to me is imagining being a dive or sent down 0:04:00.880 --> 0:04:04.320 to try to cap the league while it's still suctioning 0:04:04.760 --> 0:04:10.320 water through it. Yeah. It's like urban cave diving or something. Yeah, yeah, 0:04:10.360 --> 0:04:18.840 but with a drain at the bottom. All right, here's 0:04:18.839 --> 0:04:21.680 another one. This one comes to us from Eric. Greetings, 0:04:21.720 --> 0:04:24.479 My good sirs. I just listened to part one of 0:04:24.480 --> 0:04:27.359 your episode on sinkholes, where you speculate about the reason 0:04:27.480 --> 0:04:30.440 heaven always seems to be in the sky whereas hell 0:04:30.520 --> 0:04:32.599 always seems to be under the Earth, and I have 0:04:32.640 --> 0:04:35.680 a theory to contribute. It's because of gravity. Ancient people 0:04:35.800 --> 0:04:38.440 didn't understand gravity the way we do, and they could 0:04:38.440 --> 0:04:40.560 easily observe its effects on the surface of the Earth. 0:04:40.600 --> 0:04:43.280 And so it makes sense to me that Heaven would 0:04:43.279 --> 0:04:46.120 be above where humans cannot go freely, if at all, 0:04:46.240 --> 0:04:49.760 whereas Hell would be below, where unwise or unlucky humans 0:04:49.760 --> 0:04:52.839 can end up whether they want to or not. In short, 0:04:53.160 --> 0:04:56.320 you must drive to reach Heaven, but must drive not 0:04:56.480 --> 0:04:58.440 to end up in Hell, which seems to me like 0:04:58.520 --> 0:05:03.800 both literally and metaphorically sound. What do you think about that, Joe, Oh, yeah, 0:05:04.000 --> 0:05:05.599 I think that kind of makes sense. I mean, another 0:05:05.600 --> 0:05:08.440 way I would put it is that I think some 0:05:09.040 --> 0:05:13.800 ancient ideas of hell as a place of punishment evolved 0:05:13.800 --> 0:05:16.799 from a sort of afterlife concept that is more generally 0:05:16.960 --> 0:05:20.159 the grave. I talked about this some with Bard Irmin 0:05:20.560 --> 0:05:22.800 when when he was a guest on the podcast last year, 0:05:22.839 --> 0:05:25.520 and he wrote a whole book about the evolution of 0:05:25.560 --> 0:05:28.560 at least the Jewish and Greco Roman and Christian beliefs 0:05:28.560 --> 0:05:31.680 about heaven and hell, and there I think the the 0:05:31.760 --> 0:05:34.400 older ideas is that in most cultures of the region, 0:05:34.680 --> 0:05:38.080 there was no like reward or punishment in the afterlife 0:05:38.080 --> 0:05:40.880 early on. The earlier beliefs are just that when you die, 0:05:41.000 --> 0:05:43.440 you go to this place that might be called something 0:05:43.480 --> 0:05:46.040 like sheol, which is like the gray if if there 0:05:46.120 --> 0:05:48.840 is any life after death, it's just this kind of 0:05:48.880 --> 0:05:52.919 like shadow of your former existence where nothing much happens 0:05:52.960 --> 0:05:55.640 and it's kind of gloomy and boring. Or maybe there's 0:05:55.640 --> 0:05:58.200 no afterlife at all. You're just in the ground, and 0:05:58.240 --> 0:06:02.159 over time that translates more into the afterlife you don't want. 0:06:02.240 --> 0:06:05.800 It becomes associated with a place of punishment after death, 0:06:05.839 --> 0:06:08.320 whereas there's some kind of other existence in some other 0:06:08.360 --> 0:06:11.240 place if you're being rewarded, and that could be a uh, 0:06:11.400 --> 0:06:14.920 that could be a temporal afterlife in which at some 0:06:15.040 --> 0:06:18.800 point you are resurrected bodily from the grave to your reward, 0:06:19.160 --> 0:06:21.480 or it could be as in the like the Greek view, 0:06:21.520 --> 0:06:25.239 the Platonic view, a place where the immaterial soul goes 0:06:25.320 --> 0:06:29.520 after death. Yeah, yeah, I think that that sounds sounds reasonable. 0:06:29.520 --> 0:06:31.839 I also, I guess have to to come back to 0:06:31.880 --> 0:06:35.320 this idea that just the idea of beings or voices 0:06:35.440 --> 0:06:39.600 originating from places that cannot be reached by humans or 0:06:39.600 --> 0:06:43.200 are not easily reached by humans, really resonates with us. 0:06:43.360 --> 0:06:45.960 So certainly that you know that can apply to the 0:06:46.000 --> 0:06:48.600 sky and to the cosmos above, you know, the visible 0:06:48.880 --> 0:06:52.240 uh universe, but also the unseen world beneath the earth 0:06:52.920 --> 0:06:57.919 mountain tops, but also um interior spaces like the hollows 0:06:57.920 --> 0:07:02.159 of volcanoes. I'm instantly reminded of the uh uh the 0:07:02.160 --> 0:07:05.120 the documentary, the Herza documentary that we we recently watched 0:07:05.160 --> 0:07:08.440 on the volcanoes talking about the where they're talking to 0:07:08.480 --> 0:07:12.600 the individual who had gone to the volcano and uh 0:07:12.680 --> 0:07:14.920 and had like met with being with a with a 0:07:14.960 --> 0:07:18.840 being from the interior, that sort of thing. Yeah, But 0:07:18.920 --> 0:07:21.080 despite all that, I mean, I also very much can 0:07:21.120 --> 0:07:23.560 see the intuitive logic of what Eric here is saying that, 0:07:23.760 --> 0:07:27.280 like if if they're if you're sorting afterlives or other 0:07:27.320 --> 0:07:30.360 planes of existence into a good place that is good 0:07:30.400 --> 0:07:31.960 to get too, but hard to get to, in a 0:07:32.000 --> 0:07:35.040 bad place that is easy to get to and painful. Yeah, 0:07:35.080 --> 0:07:38.680 the the updown trajectory seems quite clear there. I wonder 0:07:38.720 --> 0:07:40.600 if they're I've never run across it, but I wonder 0:07:40.640 --> 0:07:42.680 if there is a culture that has an inversion of 0:07:42.720 --> 0:07:45.840 that or perhaps some sort of fantasy treatment that intentionally 0:07:46.200 --> 0:07:49.200 goes through the sort of world building exercise of inverting 0:07:49.240 --> 0:07:52.360 that of having you have to work to earn your 0:07:52.400 --> 0:07:55.560 place in the ground in the world below, but if you, 0:07:55.800 --> 0:07:58.280 you know, just live a careless lifestyle, then you'll eventually 0:07:58.320 --> 0:08:00.600 float free and be lost to the uh you know, 0:08:00.640 --> 0:08:07.080 the cosmic horrors above, the lay and the Morlocks. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. 0:08:07.280 --> 0:08:09.440 They never any reversal of that. That That would be interesting. 0:08:09.600 --> 0:08:11.160 They well, it's need how the the other Way and 0:08:11.200 --> 0:08:15.800 the Morlocks were both horrible fates in their own way, right, Yeah, 0:08:16.840 --> 0:08:19.560 all right, Well that was just half of Eric's uh 0:08:19.600 --> 0:08:22.920 that I don't want to skip over the praise section 0:08:23.000 --> 0:08:26.120 of the email. Uh, he writes, Anyway, just a thought 0:08:26.120 --> 0:08:28.200 I had while listening, and I wanted to share. I've 0:08:28.200 --> 0:08:30.520 been listening to the podcast for ages, not only since 0:08:30.560 --> 0:08:33.920 before Christian left, but before Joe and Christian joined, and 0:08:33.960 --> 0:08:36.480 I've rarely missed an episode. I was disappointed when the 0:08:36.480 --> 0:08:39.600 Invention podcast stopped being its own thing, but I'm pleased 0:08:39.600 --> 0:08:41.440 that you've kept the spirit of it going with your 0:08:41.480 --> 0:08:45.840 periodic Invention episodes, and I've really enjoyed the little artifact 0:08:45.920 --> 0:08:48.200 shorts and Weird House Cinema. Keep up the great work 0:08:48.200 --> 0:08:50.319 and thank you for the excellent content. Farewell and stay 0:08:50.320 --> 0:08:54.000 safe Eric. Thanks Eric. Yeah. Oh and you know, speaking 0:08:54.000 --> 0:08:57.439 of Christian we had mentioned Christians Kickstarter recently on the 0:08:57.480 --> 0:09:01.520 show for Corridor Magazine. That kicks or was successful. So 0:09:01.640 --> 0:09:04.920 Corridor Magazine is going to be a real thing. It's 0:09:04.920 --> 0:09:07.679 going to be a reality in the months ahead. When 0:09:07.720 --> 0:09:10.720 they have like a date and or website announced, I'll 0:09:10.760 --> 0:09:13.200 share it with everybody, probably in the listener mail episode. 0:09:13.280 --> 0:09:16.040 That is excellent news. Everybody keep an eye out if horror, 0:09:16.080 --> 0:09:24.160 weird fiction is your thing. All right, it looks like 0:09:24.320 --> 0:09:28.800 the mail bot is coming forth with more um hellish 0:09:28.880 --> 0:09:32.040 content for us here Joe, Yeah, more afterlife stuff. So 0:09:32.120 --> 0:09:35.520 this comes from Rachel. Rachel says, Hi, guys, I've been 0:09:35.559 --> 0:09:37.480 listening to your show for many years now, and I 0:09:37.559 --> 0:09:40.199 really enjoyed the things you discuss. Some of the stuff 0:09:40.240 --> 0:09:42.720 is a bit over my head, but fun to listen to. Nonetheless, 0:09:42.760 --> 0:09:46.200 as a former neuroscience major in college and future neurologist 0:09:46.240 --> 0:09:50.239 in medical school currently, especially like the brain related episodes. 0:09:50.480 --> 0:09:52.960 I've also got a soft spot for the monster episodes 0:09:53.080 --> 0:09:55.920 as a fan of horror Anyway, the reason for this 0:09:56.000 --> 0:09:58.240 email isn't related to any of that, as you might 0:09:58.240 --> 0:10:00.760 have guessed by the subject line. What I'm really writing 0:10:00.760 --> 0:10:02.760 for is to ask this. A while ago, one of 0:10:02.760 --> 0:10:06.079 you mentioned a companion to Dante's Divine Comedy, or maybe 0:10:06.120 --> 0:10:09.679 just the Inferno. I can't remember that. Gave good footnotes 0:10:09.800 --> 0:10:12.840 and such for understanding the context of the time, but 0:10:12.920 --> 0:10:15.520 I can't recall which episode it was in, so I 0:10:15.559 --> 0:10:17.880 can't go back and check. Do you remember which author 0:10:17.920 --> 0:10:21.280 translator you recommended? From a quick Internet search, it sounds 0:10:21.320 --> 0:10:23.520 like maybe the one by Mark musa Is is a 0:10:23.520 --> 0:10:25.720 good start. I'm not sure if either of you guys 0:10:25.760 --> 0:10:28.600 had other thoughts. It'll probably be quite some time before 0:10:28.640 --> 0:10:30.720 i'll actually get around to reading it. I've got a 0:10:30.720 --> 0:10:33.320 whole shelf full of untouched books that I've collected while 0:10:33.320 --> 0:10:35.880 in school and haven't had time for, but I'm hoping 0:10:35.920 --> 0:10:39.880 to get to it someday. Thanks Rachel, Well, Rachel, I'm 0:10:40.200 --> 0:10:44.120 I'm no Dante scholars, so I don't have extensive opinions. 0:10:44.320 --> 0:10:46.719 I haven't surveyed like a lot of different translations, but 0:10:46.760 --> 0:10:49.000 I can tell you the ones I've read and and 0:10:49.080 --> 0:10:51.440 my thoughts on them. So when I read The Divine 0:10:51.440 --> 0:10:55.760 Comedy last year, I read, uh, the The Inferno translation 0:10:55.840 --> 0:10:59.120 by the American poet Robert Pinsky, and that translation has 0:10:59.200 --> 0:11:01.360 some in to no it's with it that are pretty good. 0:11:02.040 --> 0:11:06.200 For the Purgatorio and the Paradiso actually used two different translations, 0:11:06.559 --> 0:11:10.440 combining the translations and the notes there. One was the 0:11:10.480 --> 0:11:13.640 additions of the Purgatorio and the Parody so by Jean 0:11:13.720 --> 0:11:16.800 and Robert Hollander. I think Gene Hollander was a poet. 0:11:16.840 --> 0:11:20.160 Unfortunately she passed away just the other year, um, but 0:11:20.240 --> 0:11:23.040 I think she did the translation and her husband, Robert, 0:11:23.640 --> 0:11:27.199 who is a Dante scholar or medieval literature scholar, did 0:11:27.240 --> 0:11:31.319 the did the notes. But then also for the Purgatorio 0:11:31.360 --> 0:11:33.880 and parody, so we kind of read them concurrently with 0:11:33.920 --> 0:11:37.520 the John Chardie translation and footnotes, and in my experience, 0:11:38.200 --> 0:11:43.000 we really liked the Gene Hollander translation, but chartis footnotes 0:11:43.120 --> 0:11:45.640 were the most accessible, and sometimes they were they were 0:11:45.720 --> 0:11:48.640 rather funny. They were good footnotes if you really don't 0:11:48.640 --> 0:11:51.400 know anything and and just want to understand what's being 0:11:51.400 --> 0:11:53.319 talked about in the poem at a at a pretty 0:11:53.320 --> 0:11:56.480 basic level. The Hollander translation has great notes, but they 0:11:56.520 --> 0:11:58.960 go deep. That seems more like a good resource for 0:11:59.000 --> 0:12:02.480 scholars or something. Is just pages and pages of notes 0:12:02.480 --> 0:12:05.679 on every canto. Awesome. Yeah, that that does sound like 0:12:05.679 --> 0:12:08.760 like really good, good additions to to look to. For 0:12:08.880 --> 0:12:14.960 my own part. I did uh Inferno and Purgatory via 0:12:15.080 --> 0:12:20.480 the Robert M. Durling translations illustrated by Robert Turner. I 0:12:20.720 --> 0:12:22.920 found those to be excellent. I I read those as 0:12:22.960 --> 0:12:26.800 part of a college class on on Dante. I had 0:12:26.840 --> 0:12:28.839 I forget that the professor's name, but I have was 0:12:28.880 --> 0:12:32.040 at the University of Tennessee at Knoxville, and there is 0:12:32.080 --> 0:12:36.120 this um, this fabulous Dante teacher, and he was this 0:12:36.679 --> 0:12:40.800 kind of shortish Italian American man, and so he had 0:12:40.840 --> 0:12:42.640 he had a wonderful accent, and he had this just 0:12:42.800 --> 0:12:46.520 real enthusiasm for Dante. And I remember him talking about 0:12:46.520 --> 0:12:49.080 how he was going to dresses Dante for Halloween, and 0:12:49.120 --> 0:12:51.079 I asked him if he was going to have the pas? 0:12:51.520 --> 0:12:54.760 Is it peace on the forehead as in Purgatory that 0:12:54.880 --> 0:12:57.120 one has to work off? Oh? Yes, yes, the angel 0:12:57.160 --> 0:13:00.400 carve seven pas into Dante the pilgrim's forehead, and there 0:13:00.440 --> 0:13:03.360 each each time he goes up one level of the 0:13:03.360 --> 0:13:06.400 Mountain of Purgatory, one of the peas is erased because 0:13:06.480 --> 0:13:09.560 he's been purged of that one of the seven sins. Yeah. 0:13:09.600 --> 0:13:10.920 So so I asked him he's gonna have the peas 0:13:10.960 --> 0:13:12.760 on his forehead and he says, no, I'm in heaven. 0:13:13.040 --> 0:13:15.000 You know, of course he's not going to go as 0:13:15.080 --> 0:13:18.280 the as the infernal or the Purgatory Dante. He's the 0:13:18.280 --> 0:13:23.960 Heavenly Dante. Um. But speaking of heaven. When I read these, um, 0:13:24.120 --> 0:13:27.960 Durling and Turner had not put out their Paradiso yet. 0:13:28.679 --> 0:13:30.880 I believe it's out there. It's probably been out for 0:13:30.920 --> 0:13:33.560 like fifteen years at this point. But but I really 0:13:33.640 --> 0:13:36.440 enjoyed those. But I also had it was also had 0:13:36.440 --> 0:13:38.160 the benefit of being in a class and having a 0:13:38.160 --> 0:13:41.120 really cool teacher, so I think he had some supplemental 0:13:41.160 --> 0:13:44.079 information that he gave to us as well. Um. I 0:13:44.440 --> 0:13:46.720 I feel like it's definitely a text that if you 0:13:46.760 --> 0:13:50.000 can have the original Italian like in an opposing page, 0:13:50.040 --> 0:13:52.080 like many of these do, and I think I think 0:13:52.200 --> 0:13:55.080 Darlings did. It's it's cool, but you know, to get 0:13:55.160 --> 0:13:57.440 even if you don't know Italian or not learning Italian, 0:13:57.480 --> 0:13:59.200 it's neat to kind of pick out some of the words, 0:13:59.440 --> 0:14:02.720 and it suspect actually neet with some of the demon names, 0:14:03.000 --> 0:14:06.680 because I've noticed some additions do a full translation of 0:14:06.679 --> 0:14:09.959 the demon names and others leave them um with their 0:14:10.000 --> 0:14:13.760 sort of fantastic sounding names like scarmiglion um you know, 0:14:13.840 --> 0:14:17.160 and you don't you don't necessarily want that translated into whatever. 0:14:17.280 --> 0:14:20.120 I forget what Scarnigleon's calling him evil claws or what 0:14:20.240 --> 0:14:24.080 evil clause or you know, or or pig nose or 0:14:24.120 --> 0:14:26.960 whatever the case may be. But having those of those rich, 0:14:27.600 --> 0:14:31.000 you know, Italian names, this is wonderful. Yeah, So anyway, 0:14:31.000 --> 0:14:33.640 I recommend all the ones I used, I think they're good. 0:14:33.640 --> 0:14:36.080 But but I would say, if you're looking for good 0:14:36.120 --> 0:14:40.000 succinct footnotes, I think maybe the John Chardi translation is 0:14:40.400 --> 0:14:42.600 the best to go with, just because the footnotes are 0:14:42.640 --> 0:14:45.320 so accessible and so and it was a good translation 0:14:45.400 --> 0:14:48.040 to he actually tries to do the rhyme, which some 0:14:48.080 --> 0:14:50.520 of the other one must focus on less. But I 0:14:50.560 --> 0:14:52.880 also really love Geene Hollander's translation. I don't know, So 0:14:53.280 --> 0:14:56.440 I don't know. Just take your pick from the following, 0:14:56.880 --> 0:14:59.200 but but I will emphasize yet again, like if you 0:14:59.240 --> 0:15:01.720 are interested in reading the Divine comedy. It is not 0:15:01.760 --> 0:15:03.960 going to make a lick of sense unless you get 0:15:04.000 --> 0:15:06.360 some good footnotes to go along with it. Like it, 0:15:06.360 --> 0:15:12.280 it is just crammed with with medieval like church politics 0:15:12.400 --> 0:15:16.800 and and Tuscan Italian politics and and rest references to 0:15:16.880 --> 0:15:21.920 recent history and the centuries previous. Yeah. Yeah, it is 0:15:21.960 --> 0:15:24.400 not going to make the slightest bit of sense to 0:15:24.400 --> 0:15:27.080 you unless you you get an addition that has some 0:15:27.120 --> 0:15:30.440 good footnotes and you can explain what all the references 0:15:30.480 --> 0:15:39.320 to proper nouns and all that are about. Absolutely all right, 0:15:39.400 --> 0:15:42.320 here's another one. This comes to us from Shanny. Shanny 0:15:42.400 --> 0:15:45.720 writes then and says, hi, too interesting notes about keys 0:15:45.960 --> 0:15:50.440 from my culture of origin, Orthodox Judaism. I'm no longer observant, 0:15:50.520 --> 0:15:53.360 but I am pretty enmeshed in the community because of 0:15:53.360 --> 0:15:57.000 my very religious family. Number One, there is a Jewish 0:15:57.080 --> 0:15:59.640 law the prohibits carrying anything outside of your home on 0:15:59.680 --> 0:16:03.360 the sad, including your house keys. As a loophole, some 0:16:03.440 --> 0:16:07.880 people have their keys set in jewelry or accessories such 0:16:07.920 --> 0:16:11.480 as a bracelet, um, a broad brooch, or a belt, 0:16:11.960 --> 0:16:14.200 because if the keys are part of your attire, it 0:16:14.320 --> 0:16:17.880 is permissible to wear outside. Number two there is a 0:16:17.960 --> 0:16:21.960 Jewish custom that before the first Sabbath after Passover, remembering 0:16:22.000 --> 0:16:24.360 how the Jews were freed from Egypt and then wandered 0:16:24.360 --> 0:16:27.560 homeless around the desert for forty years, many women will 0:16:27.560 --> 0:16:30.680 place a key into their chola dough before baking it 0:16:30.960 --> 0:16:35.680 as a uh segula, loosely defined good omen to always 0:16:35.720 --> 0:16:38.720 have a home to live in. I'm not sure where 0:16:38.720 --> 0:16:41.040 this tradition originated. I have a feeling that it is 0:16:41.080 --> 0:16:43.960 based on an old Christian Easter tradition of forming bread 0:16:44.040 --> 0:16:46.240 to look like a cross, but I haven't found anything 0:16:46.400 --> 0:16:49.760 to substantiate that. I love your podcast, especially when it 0:16:49.920 --> 0:16:53.760 somehow tries different cultures. I'm sorry, I think it's supposed 0:16:53.760 --> 0:16:57.080 to be ties different cultures and histories together best shiny. 0:16:57.440 --> 0:17:01.200 I also like it when it does that. Thank you, Seanny. Yeah, 0:17:01.240 --> 0:17:04.000 this is really interesting. I love rituals like this like 0:17:04.080 --> 0:17:06.960 the Another thing that I like when they come together 0:17:07.000 --> 0:17:11.320 are the intersections of religious beliefs, rules and prohibitions sort 0:17:11.320 --> 0:17:14.960 of interacting with the practicalities of life as we see explained, 0:17:15.240 --> 0:17:18.159 especially in your first point there, Rob, do you'll do 0:17:18.200 --> 0:17:21.520 you'll ever get holl of bread? Um? I guess we do. 0:17:21.680 --> 0:17:25.720 I'm not remembering it offhand, um, but I think we have. Yeah, 0:17:25.720 --> 0:17:28.720 there's some some places in town that make good. Yeah, 0:17:28.920 --> 0:17:32.840 it's good. I am. I'm very much in favor of bread. Um. 0:17:32.880 --> 0:17:34.880 I wonder have we ever done an episode that really 0:17:34.920 --> 0:17:39.360 goes into any bit of Hebraic ritual. I mean, obviously 0:17:39.520 --> 0:17:41.560 we've dealt with like the Ark of the Covenant and 0:17:41.600 --> 0:17:46.040 all that, but any trying to come up in technology 0:17:46.119 --> 0:17:49.040 based invention episodes. Yeah, I feel like it's come up 0:17:49.040 --> 0:17:52.440 a good bit here and there. Maybe I'm just blinking. 0:17:52.520 --> 0:17:54.439 I can only remember the arc all of a sudden, 0:17:54.720 --> 0:17:58.359 so it's kind of all consuming like that. We had 0:17:58.400 --> 0:18:00.600 a great piece of listener mails sometimes last year when 0:18:00.640 --> 0:18:03.520 we did a couple of episodes about pointing that involved 0:18:03.640 --> 0:18:07.840 the yawd, the little pointer stick with the finger on 0:18:07.840 --> 0:18:10.920 it used for reading the Torah. That's right. Yeah, that's that. 0:18:11.040 --> 0:18:13.280 That was a really good one. Okay, all right now 0:18:13.280 --> 0:18:16.119 I feel better, Okay, Um, But yeah, I would like 0:18:16.160 --> 0:18:19.080 if there any other topics of that nature, uh that 0:18:19.080 --> 0:18:21.639 that we could be covering. Yeah, we'll have to let 0:18:21.720 --> 0:18:34.359 us know, listeners. All right. This next message is about chemistry. 0:18:34.400 --> 0:18:36.520 It refers back to our episode on heavy water, but 0:18:36.560 --> 0:18:39.480 also a subsequent listener mail and it is from Brett 0:18:39.520 --> 0:18:42.720 who has written in before. Brett says hello Robert and Joe. 0:18:42.800 --> 0:18:45.639 I hope you were both doing well, and has treated 0:18:45.680 --> 0:18:49.040 you kindly thus far. It's Brett again. I recently wrote 0:18:49.359 --> 0:18:52.199 in about die chloro methane or d c M for 0:18:52.400 --> 0:18:56.000 organic synthesis and the Christmas tree ornament which you read. 0:18:56.240 --> 0:18:59.240 Thank you. During that listener mail, another listener wrote in 0:18:59.240 --> 0:19:01.680 about heavy water her and it was then I realized 0:19:01.720 --> 0:19:04.159 I missed that podcast and had to go back, so 0:19:04.240 --> 0:19:08.240 pardon the late response. Deuturated water has a great history 0:19:08.240 --> 0:19:10.879 and thank you for sharing it. As an organic chemist, 0:19:11.119 --> 0:19:14.320 people in my field rely on the properties of deuterium daily, 0:19:14.680 --> 0:19:18.760 not just for incorporation into potential active ingredients which you mentioned, 0:19:18.920 --> 0:19:23.119 but also for for solvent to characterize our compounds that 0:19:23.160 --> 0:19:27.159 we synthesize. Let me explain. I mentioned that chemists use 0:19:27.280 --> 0:19:31.000 nuclear magnetic resonance or n MR to help provide us 0:19:31.000 --> 0:19:34.199 with information about the type of carbon hydrogen bonds that 0:19:34.240 --> 0:19:38.159 our compounds possess. The NMR is so finely tuned that 0:19:38.200 --> 0:19:40.960 it detects the presence of these carbon hydrogen bonds with 0:19:41.040 --> 0:19:45.800 great accuracy and precision reproducible, but in order to obtain 0:19:45.840 --> 0:19:49.359 a spectra for the most part, we use deuturated solvents, 0:19:49.400 --> 0:19:54.960 which all derive from heavy water. Deuturated solvents such as chloroform, methanol, 0:19:55.040 --> 0:19:58.600 and dimethyl soul. Fox side allow the NMR to lock 0:19:58.760 --> 0:20:00.800 and shim and I look that up. I didn't know 0:20:00.840 --> 0:20:02.800 what that was, but that is a term in in UH, 0:20:02.960 --> 0:20:07.639 the nuclear magnetic resonance to lock and shim based on 0:20:07.680 --> 0:20:11.760 the carbon deuterium bond, allowing the instrument to focus on 0:20:11.800 --> 0:20:14.880 the small amount of material we are concerned with. If 0:20:14.880 --> 0:20:18.880 the solvent did not contain deuterium and only hydrogen, then 0:20:18.920 --> 0:20:21.760 the solvent would drown out the signal for our compounds 0:20:21.800 --> 0:20:24.640 because of how many more molecules of solvent there would 0:20:24.680 --> 0:20:28.280 be compared to our material. And then Brett says, maybe 0:20:28.280 --> 0:20:30.840 you know about the mole the m o L. I 0:20:30.840 --> 0:20:32.520 don't know much about it. I think that is that 0:20:32.640 --> 0:20:35.840 is a measure used in chemistry of like the number 0:20:35.880 --> 0:20:38.800 of elementary particles in a sample. Or I think it's 0:20:38.800 --> 0:20:41.320 the number of elementary particles that are equal to like 0:20:41.359 --> 0:20:45.600 a certain number of grams of carbon or something um 0:20:46.040 --> 0:20:49.240 but I'm no expert on that, but so I obviously 0:20:49.280 --> 0:20:52.280 don't know a lot about it. Um Brett goes on. 0:20:52.680 --> 0:20:55.400 We also use a deuterated solvent to help us understand 0:20:55.440 --> 0:20:59.520 the mechanism of reaction, how a reaction might proceed by 0:20:59.600 --> 0:21:03.600 change by exchanging a hydrogen for a deuterium adom which 0:21:03.600 --> 0:21:06.400 when using n m R the carbon deuterium bond would 0:21:06.400 --> 0:21:09.719 not be present. Amazing how we can obtain information on 0:21:09.800 --> 0:21:12.800 something we cannot see, and how we rely on instruments 0:21:12.800 --> 0:21:15.320 to help us figure out what we're doing. Thanks again 0:21:15.359 --> 0:21:18.679 for always providing great fodder for the mind. Tritium topic 0:21:18.720 --> 0:21:23.480 anytime soon, Best Brett, Tritium, of course, being the even 0:21:23.560 --> 0:21:26.879 heavier hydrogen. You know, we were talking mainly about deuterium 0:21:26.880 --> 0:21:30.120 in that episode, which is hydrogen that's got a one 0:21:30.200 --> 0:21:33.440 neutron in the nucleus where it normally would have no neutrons. 0:21:33.600 --> 0:21:36.359 Tritium has two neutrons and and it gets it gets 0:21:36.400 --> 0:21:39.520 really hairy. Yeah, I've I've mined a lot of it 0:21:39.560 --> 0:21:42.320 in No Man's sky before I forget what it's for 0:21:42.440 --> 0:21:44.440 und because I've been I haven't played it in about 0:21:44.440 --> 0:21:46.879 a month, but I look forward to picking him back 0:21:46.960 --> 0:21:50.040 up it kind of. I think it's ultimately you know, 0:21:50.080 --> 0:21:52.280 it's not the most educational games, but it's a it's 0:21:52.280 --> 0:21:54.920