Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of
Speaker 1: My Heart Radio. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your
Speaker 1: Mind listener Mail. My name is Robert Lamb and I'm
Speaker 1: Shoe McCormick, and I think we can start today by
Speaker 1: jumping right in on the first batch of listener mail,
Speaker 1: which is in response to our episodes on sinkholes. Are
Speaker 1: you ready rob it okay? This first message comes to
Speaker 1: us from Thomas. Thomas says, I was just listening to
Speaker 1: your episode on sinkholes. While not actually a sinkhole. The
Speaker 1: episode reminded me of an event that happened while I
Speaker 1: was living in the loop in downtown Chicago. I was
Speaker 1: in law school at the time and in turning at
Speaker 1: a law firm on Whacker Drive. I had an office
Speaker 1: with a window overlooking the Chicago River. Pretty sweet for
Speaker 1: a young intern. One day, I was watching as a
Speaker 1: crew were driving pilings basically giant logs into the river
Speaker 1: bed next to the Kinsei Bridge. I could feel the
Speaker 1: reverberation of the pounding even up in the high rise
Speaker 1: where I was located. Suddenly everyone started running around like
Speaker 1: something bad had happened. Looking toward the water, I could
Speaker 1: see what was causing the chaos, a giant whirlpool had
Speaker 1: appeared right where they were pounding the pilings. Within minutes,
Speaker 1: the area was surrounded by fire trucks and emergency vehicles.
Speaker 1: Then helicopters appeared. After a period of time, a voice
Speaker 1: came over the emergency system in the building and announced
Speaker 1: that there had been ordered an evacuation of the loop
Speaker 1: and that we had to leave the building. Going downstairs,
Speaker 1: I walked out into what I can only describe as
Speaker 1: a calm version of a Godzilla movie. The streets were
Speaker 1: filled with people and police and firemen were directing everyone
Speaker 1: to leave the loop immediately. They had called in the
Speaker 1: L train cars and just started piling everyone into them
Speaker 1: and sending them outside of the loop. I ended up
Speaker 1: on the South side of Chicago, and I eventually made
Speaker 1: it to a friend's house and was unable to returned
Speaker 1: to my apartment for several days. It ends up that
Speaker 1: what had occurred was one of the pilings pierced through
Speaker 1: the roof of an abandoned subway line. The water immediately
Speaker 1: started rushing in and sucked the piling through the hole.
Speaker 1: The hole then started expanding, and the Chicago River was
Speaker 1: effectively draining through the hole and filling the entire underground
Speaker 1: rail system, and the reason for the evacuations the sub
Speaker 1: basements of the high rise buildings in the loop. The
Speaker 1: fire department was concerned that they were going to lose
Speaker 1: integrity of the sub basements for buildings like the Sears Tower,
Speaker 1: and like dominoes, they would topple over. They tried everything
Speaker 1: to cover the whole, but the force of the water
Speaker 1: was too strong. At one point they had put divers
Speaker 1: in the water with a large metal plate, but even
Speaker 1: that got sucked through and almost killed one of the divers. Finally,
Speaker 1: they were able to block the hole with a quick
Speaker 1: drawing cement that is used in underwater construction. This gave
Speaker 1: them enough time to put permanent covers over the whole,
Speaker 1: and they were finally able let everyone back into the loop.
Speaker 1: This lasted for three or four days, and the damage
Speaker 1: cost almost two billion dollars. The humorous side of the
Speaker 1: story is that while they call it the Great Chicago
Speaker 1: Flood of nine two, it was a flood with no
Speaker 1: visible water. There is also a humorous story about why
Speaker 1: they call it the Great Leak. It ends up that
Speaker 1: floods are not covered under insurance, but leaks are so
Speaker 1: they tried to classify it as a leak for insurance purposes.
Speaker 1: And then he links to a wiki for the event
Speaker 1: and a link to a Chicago Tribune article from which
Speaker 1: has some black and white pictures. So, and then finally
Speaker 1: Thomas says, I hope this blows your mind. Well, that
Speaker 1: definitely did. I was not aware of this event. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean neither. This is this is all new to me,
Speaker 1: the great leak. I like it, though, I mean I'm
Speaker 1: not in favor of great leaks occurring and causing property damage,
Speaker 1: but it's it's a fascinating little bit of history that
Speaker 1: I had somehow missed out on. What really scary part
Speaker 1: to me is imagining being a dive or sent down
Speaker 1: to try to cap the league while it's still suctioning
Speaker 1: water through it. Yeah. It's like urban cave diving or something. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: but with a drain at the bottom. All right, here's
Speaker 1: another one. This one comes to us from Eric. Greetings,
Speaker 1: My good sirs. I just listened to part one of
Speaker 1: your episode on sinkholes, where you speculate about the reason
Speaker 1: heaven always seems to be in the sky whereas hell
Speaker 1: always seems to be under the Earth, and I have
Speaker 1: a theory to contribute. It's because of gravity. Ancient people
Speaker 1: didn't understand gravity the way we do, and they could
Speaker 1: easily observe its effects on the surface of the Earth.
Speaker 1: And so it makes sense to me that Heaven would
Speaker 1: be above where humans cannot go freely, if at all,
Speaker 1: whereas Hell would be below, where unwise or unlucky humans
Speaker 1: can end up whether they want to or not. In short,
Speaker 1: you must drive to reach Heaven, but must drive not
Speaker 1: to end up in Hell, which seems to me like
Speaker 1: both literally and metaphorically sound. What do you think about that, Joe, Oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: I think that kind of makes sense. I mean, another
Speaker 1: way I would put it is that I think some
Speaker 1: ancient ideas of hell as a place of punishment evolved
Speaker 1: from a sort of afterlife concept that is more generally
Speaker 1: the grave. I talked about this some with Bard Irmin
Speaker 1: when when he was a guest on the podcast last year,
Speaker 1: and he wrote a whole book about the evolution of
Speaker 1: at least the Jewish and Greco Roman and Christian beliefs
Speaker 1: about heaven and hell, and there I think the the
Speaker 1: older ideas is that in most cultures of the region,
Speaker 1: there was no like reward or punishment in the afterlife
Speaker 1: early on. The earlier beliefs are just that when you die,
Speaker 1: you go to this place that might be called something
Speaker 1: like sheol, which is like the gray if if there
Speaker 1: is any life after death, it's just this kind of
Speaker 1: like shadow of your former existence where nothing much happens
Speaker 1: and it's kind of gloomy and boring. Or maybe there's
Speaker 1: no afterlife at all. You're just in the ground, and
Speaker 1: over time that translates more into the afterlife you don't want.
Speaker 1: It becomes associated with a place of punishment after death,
Speaker 1: whereas there's some kind of other existence in some other
Speaker 1: place if you're being rewarded, and that could be a uh,
Speaker 1: that could be a temporal afterlife in which at some
Speaker 1: point you are resurrected bodily from the grave to your reward,
Speaker 1: or it could be as in the like the Greek view,
Speaker 1: the Platonic view, a place where the immaterial soul goes
Speaker 1: after death. Yeah, yeah, I think that that sounds sounds reasonable.
Speaker 1: I also, I guess have to to come back to
Speaker 1: this idea that just the idea of beings or voices
Speaker 1: originating from places that cannot be reached by humans or
Speaker 1: are not easily reached by humans, really resonates with us.
Speaker 1: So certainly that you know that can apply to the
Speaker 1: sky and to the cosmos above, you know, the visible
Speaker 1: uh universe, but also the unseen world beneath the earth
Speaker 1: mountain tops, but also um interior spaces like the hollows
Speaker 1: of volcanoes. I'm instantly reminded of the uh uh the
Speaker 1: the documentary, the Herza documentary that we we recently watched
Speaker 1: on the volcanoes talking about the where they're talking to
Speaker 1: the individual who had gone to the volcano and uh
Speaker 1: and had like met with being with a with a
Speaker 1: being from the interior, that sort of thing. Yeah, But
Speaker 1: despite all that, I mean, I also very much can
Speaker 1: see the intuitive logic of what Eric here is saying that,
Speaker 1: like if if they're if you're sorting afterlives or other
Speaker 1: planes of existence into a good place that is good
Speaker 1: to get too, but hard to get to, in a
Speaker 1: bad place that is easy to get to and painful. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the the updown trajectory seems quite clear there. I wonder
Speaker 1: if they're I've never run across it, but I wonder
Speaker 1: if there is a culture that has an inversion of
Speaker 1: that or perhaps some sort of fantasy treatment that intentionally
Speaker 1: goes through the sort of world building exercise of inverting
Speaker 1: that of having you have to work to earn your
Speaker 1: place in the ground in the world below, but if you,
Speaker 1: you know, just live a careless lifestyle, then you'll eventually
Speaker 1: float free and be lost to the uh you know,
Speaker 1: the cosmic horrors above, the lay and the Morlocks. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1: They never any reversal of that. That That would be interesting.
Speaker 1: They well, it's need how the the other Way and
Speaker 1: the Morlocks were both horrible fates in their own way, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: all right, Well that was just half of Eric's uh
Speaker 1: that I don't want to skip over the praise section
Speaker 1: of the email. Uh, he writes, Anyway, just a thought
Speaker 1: I had while listening, and I wanted to share. I've
Speaker 1: been listening to the podcast for ages, not only since
Speaker 1: before Christian left, but before Joe and Christian joined, and
Speaker 1: I've rarely missed an episode. I was disappointed when the
Speaker 1: Invention podcast stopped being its own thing, but I'm pleased
Speaker 1: that you've kept the spirit of it going with your
Speaker 1: periodic Invention episodes, and I've really enjoyed the little artifact
Speaker 1: shorts and Weird House Cinema. Keep up the great work
Speaker 1: and thank you for the excellent content. Farewell and stay
Speaker 1: safe Eric. Thanks Eric. Yeah. Oh and you know, speaking
Speaker 1: of Christian we had mentioned Christians Kickstarter recently on the
Speaker 1: show for Corridor Magazine. That kicks or was successful. So
Speaker 1: Corridor Magazine is going to be a real thing. It's
Speaker 1: going to be a reality in the months ahead. When
Speaker 1: they have like a date and or website announced, I'll
Speaker 1: share it with everybody, probably in the listener mail episode.
Speaker 1: That is excellent news. Everybody keep an eye out if horror,
Speaker 1: weird fiction is your thing. All right, it looks like
Speaker 1: the mail bot is coming forth with more um hellish
Speaker 1: content for us here Joe, Yeah, more afterlife stuff. So
Speaker 1: this comes from Rachel. Rachel says, Hi, guys, I've been
Speaker 1: listening to your show for many years now, and I
Speaker 1: really enjoyed the things you discuss. Some of the stuff
Speaker 1: is a bit over my head, but fun to listen to. Nonetheless,
Speaker 1: as a former neuroscience major in college and future neurologist
Speaker 1: in medical school currently, especially like the brain related episodes.
Speaker 1: I've also got a soft spot for the monster episodes
Speaker 1: as a fan of horror Anyway, the reason for this
Speaker 1: email isn't related to any of that, as you might
Speaker 1: have guessed by the subject line. What I'm really writing
Speaker 1: for is to ask this. A while ago, one of
Speaker 1: you mentioned a companion to Dante's Divine Comedy, or maybe
Speaker 1: just the Inferno. I can't remember that. Gave good footnotes
Speaker 1: and such for understanding the context of the time, but
Speaker 1: I can't recall which episode it was in, so I
Speaker 1: can't go back and check. Do you remember which author
Speaker 1: translator you recommended? From a quick Internet search, it sounds
Speaker 1: like maybe the one by Mark musa Is is a
Speaker 1: good start. I'm not sure if either of you guys
Speaker 1: had other thoughts. It'll probably be quite some time before
Speaker 1: i'll actually get around to reading it. I've got a
Speaker 1: whole shelf full of untouched books that I've collected while
Speaker 1: in school and haven't had time for, but I'm hoping
Speaker 1: to get to it someday. Thanks Rachel, Well, Rachel, I'm
Speaker 1: I'm no Dante scholars, so I don't have extensive opinions.
Speaker 1: I haven't surveyed like a lot of different translations, but
Speaker 1: I can tell you the ones I've read and and
Speaker 1: my thoughts on them. So when I read The Divine
Speaker 1: Comedy last year, I read, uh, the The Inferno translation
Speaker 1: by the American poet Robert Pinsky, and that translation has
Speaker 1: some in to no it's with it that are pretty good.
Speaker 1: For the Purgatorio and the Paradiso actually used two different translations,
Speaker 1: combining the translations and the notes there. One was the
Speaker 1: additions of the Purgatorio and the Parody so by Jean
Speaker 1: and Robert Hollander. I think Gene Hollander was a poet.
Speaker 1: Unfortunately she passed away just the other year, um, but
Speaker 1: I think she did the translation and her husband, Robert,
Speaker 1: who is a Dante scholar or medieval literature scholar, did
Speaker 1: the did the notes. But then also for the Purgatorio
Speaker 1: and parody, so we kind of read them concurrently with
Speaker 1: the John Chardie translation and footnotes, and in my experience,
Speaker 1: we really liked the Gene Hollander translation, but chartis footnotes
Speaker 1: were the most accessible, and sometimes they were they were
Speaker 1: rather funny. They were good footnotes if you really don't
Speaker 1: know anything and and just want to understand what's being
Speaker 1: talked about in the poem at a at a pretty
Speaker 1: basic level. The Hollander translation has great notes, but they
Speaker 1: go deep. That seems more like a good resource for
Speaker 1: scholars or something. Is just pages and pages of notes
Speaker 1: on every canto. Awesome. Yeah, that that does sound like
Speaker 1: like really good, good additions to to look to. For
Speaker 1: my own part. I did uh Inferno and Purgatory via
Speaker 1: the Robert M. Durling translations illustrated by Robert Turner. I
Speaker 1: found those to be excellent. I I read those as
Speaker 1: part of a college class on on Dante. I had
Speaker 1: I forget that the professor's name, but I have was
Speaker 1: at the University of Tennessee at Knoxville, and there is
Speaker 1: this um, this fabulous Dante teacher, and he was this
Speaker 1: kind of shortish Italian American man, and so he had
Speaker 1: he had a wonderful accent, and he had this just
Speaker 1: real enthusiasm for Dante. And I remember him talking about
Speaker 1: how he was going to dresses Dante for Halloween, and
Speaker 1: I asked him if he was going to have the pas?
Speaker 1: Is it peace on the forehead as in Purgatory that
Speaker 1: one has to work off? Oh? Yes, yes, the angel
Speaker 1: carve seven pas into Dante the pilgrim's forehead, and there
Speaker 1: each each time he goes up one level of the
Speaker 1: Mountain of Purgatory, one of the peas is erased because
Speaker 1: he's been purged of that one of the seven sins. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So so I asked him he's gonna have the peas
Speaker 1: on his forehead and he says, no, I'm in heaven.
Speaker 1: You know, of course he's not going to go as
Speaker 1: the as the infernal or the Purgatory Dante. He's the
Speaker 1: Heavenly Dante. Um. But speaking of heaven. When I read these, um,
Speaker 1: Durling and Turner had not put out their Paradiso yet.
Speaker 1: I believe it's out there. It's probably been out for
Speaker 1: like fifteen years at this point. But but I really
Speaker 1: enjoyed those. But I also had it was also had
Speaker 1: the benefit of being in a class and having a
Speaker 1: really cool teacher, so I think he had some supplemental
Speaker 1: information that he gave to us as well. Um. I
Speaker 1: I feel like it's definitely a text that if you
Speaker 1: can have the original Italian like in an opposing page,
Speaker 1: like many of these do, and I think I think
Speaker 1: Darlings did. It's it's cool, but you know, to get
Speaker 1: even if you don't know Italian or not learning Italian,
Speaker 1: it's neat to kind of pick out some of the words,
Speaker 1: and it suspect actually neet with some of the demon names,
Speaker 1: because I've noticed some additions do a full translation of
Speaker 1: the demon names and others leave them um with their
Speaker 1: sort of fantastic sounding names like scarmiglion um you know,
Speaker 1: and you don't you don't necessarily want that translated into whatever.
Speaker 1: I forget what Scarnigleon's calling him evil claws or what
Speaker 1: evil clause or you know, or or pig nose or
Speaker 1: whatever the case may be. But having those of those rich,
Speaker 1: you know, Italian names, this is wonderful. Yeah, So anyway,
Speaker 1: I recommend all the ones I used, I think they're good.
Speaker 1: But but I would say, if you're looking for good
Speaker 1: succinct footnotes, I think maybe the John Chardi translation is
Speaker 1: the best to go with, just because the footnotes are
Speaker 1: so accessible and so and it was a good translation
Speaker 1: to he actually tries to do the rhyme, which some
Speaker 1: of the other one must focus on less. But I
Speaker 1: also really love Geene Hollander's translation. I don't know, So
Speaker 1: I don't know. Just take your pick from the following,
Speaker 1: but but I will emphasize yet again, like if you
Speaker 1: are interested in reading the Divine comedy. It is not
Speaker 1: going to make a lick of sense unless you get
Speaker 1: some good footnotes to go along with it. Like it,
Speaker 1: it is just crammed with with medieval like church politics
Speaker 1: and and Tuscan Italian politics and and rest references to
Speaker 1: recent history and the centuries previous. Yeah. Yeah, it is
Speaker 1: not going to make the slightest bit of sense to
Speaker 1: you unless you you get an addition that has some
Speaker 1: good footnotes and you can explain what all the references
Speaker 1: to proper nouns and all that are about. Absolutely all right,
Speaker 1: here's another one. This comes to us from Shanny. Shanny
Speaker 1: writes then and says, hi, too interesting notes about keys
Speaker 1: from my culture of origin, Orthodox Judaism. I'm no longer observant,
Speaker 1: but I am pretty enmeshed in the community because of
Speaker 1: my very religious family. Number One, there is a Jewish
Speaker 1: law the prohibits carrying anything outside of your home on
Speaker 1: the sad, including your house keys. As a loophole, some
Speaker 1: people have their keys set in jewelry or accessories such
Speaker 1: as a bracelet, um, a broad brooch, or a belt,
Speaker 1: because if the keys are part of your attire, it
Speaker 1: is permissible to wear outside. Number two there is a
Speaker 1: Jewish custom that before the first Sabbath after Passover, remembering
Speaker 1: how the Jews were freed from Egypt and then wandered
Speaker 1: homeless around the desert for forty years, many women will
Speaker 1: place a key into their chola dough before baking it
Speaker 1: as a uh segula, loosely defined good omen to always
Speaker 1: have a home to live in. I'm not sure where
Speaker 1: this tradition originated. I have a feeling that it is
Speaker 1: based on an old Christian Easter tradition of forming bread
Speaker 1: to look like a cross, but I haven't found anything
Speaker 1: to substantiate that. I love your podcast, especially when it
Speaker 1: somehow tries different cultures. I'm sorry, I think it's supposed
Speaker 1: to be ties different cultures and histories together best shiny.
Speaker 1: I also like it when it does that. Thank you, Seanny. Yeah,
Speaker 1: this is really interesting. I love rituals like this like
Speaker 1: the Another thing that I like when they come together
Speaker 1: are the intersections of religious beliefs, rules and prohibitions sort
Speaker 1: of interacting with the practicalities of life as we see explained,
Speaker 1: especially in your first point there, Rob, do you'll do
Speaker 1: you'll ever get holl of bread? Um? I guess we do.
Speaker 1: I'm not remembering it offhand, um, but I think we have. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's some some places in town that make good. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's good. I am. I'm very much in favor of bread. Um.
Speaker 1: I wonder have we ever done an episode that really
Speaker 1: goes into any bit of Hebraic ritual. I mean, obviously
Speaker 1: we've dealt with like the Ark of the Covenant and
Speaker 1: all that, but any trying to come up in technology
Speaker 1: based invention episodes. Yeah, I feel like it's come up
Speaker 1: a good bit here and there. Maybe I'm just blinking.
Speaker 1: I can only remember the arc all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: so it's kind of all consuming like that. We had
Speaker 1: a great piece of listener mails sometimes last year when
Speaker 1: we did a couple of episodes about pointing that involved
Speaker 1: the yawd, the little pointer stick with the finger on
Speaker 1: it used for reading the Torah. That's right. Yeah, that's that.
Speaker 1: That was a really good one. Okay, all right now
Speaker 1: I feel better, Okay, Um, But yeah, I would like
Speaker 1: if there any other topics of that nature, uh that
Speaker 1: that we could be covering. Yeah, we'll have to let
Speaker 1: us know, listeners. All right. This next message is about chemistry.
Speaker 1: It refers back to our episode on heavy water, but
Speaker 1: also a subsequent listener mail and it is from Brett
Speaker 1: who has written in before. Brett says hello Robert and Joe.
Speaker 1: I hope you were both doing well, and has treated
Speaker 1: you kindly thus far. It's Brett again. I recently wrote
Speaker 1: in about die chloro methane or d c M for
Speaker 1: organic synthesis and the Christmas tree ornament which you read.
Speaker 1: Thank you. During that listener mail, another listener wrote in
Speaker 1: about heavy water her and it was then I realized
Speaker 1: I missed that podcast and had to go back, so
Speaker 1: pardon the late response. Deuturated water has a great history
Speaker 1: and thank you for sharing it. As an organic chemist,
Speaker 1: people in my field rely on the properties of deuterium daily,
Speaker 1: not just for incorporation into potential active ingredients which you mentioned,
Speaker 1: but also for for solvent to characterize our compounds that
Speaker 1: we synthesize. Let me explain. I mentioned that chemists use
Speaker 1: nuclear magnetic resonance or n MR to help provide us
Speaker 1: with information about the type of carbon hydrogen bonds that
Speaker 1: our compounds possess. The NMR is so finely tuned that
Speaker 1: it detects the presence of these carbon hydrogen bonds with
Speaker 1: great accuracy and precision reproducible, but in order to obtain
Speaker 1: a spectra for the most part, we use deuturated solvents,
Speaker 1: which all derive from heavy water. Deuturated solvents such as chloroform, methanol,
Speaker 1: and dimethyl soul. Fox side allow the NMR to lock
Speaker 1: and shim and I look that up. I didn't know
Speaker 1: what that was, but that is a term in in UH,
Speaker 1: the nuclear magnetic resonance to lock and shim based on
Speaker 1: the carbon deuterium bond, allowing the instrument to focus on
Speaker 1: the small amount of material we are concerned with. If
Speaker 1: the solvent did not contain deuterium and only hydrogen, then
Speaker 1: the solvent would drown out the signal for our compounds
Speaker 1: because of how many more molecules of solvent there would
Speaker 1: be compared to our material. And then Brett says, maybe
Speaker 1: you know about the mole the m o L. I
Speaker 1: don't know much about it. I think that is that
Speaker 1: is a measure used in chemistry of like the number
Speaker 1: of elementary particles in a sample. Or I think it's
Speaker 1: the number of elementary particles that are equal to like
Speaker 1: a certain number of grams of carbon or something um
Speaker 1: but I'm no expert on that, but so I obviously
Speaker 1: don't know a lot about it. Um Brett goes on.
Speaker 1: We also use a deuterated solvent to help us understand
Speaker 1: the mechanism of reaction, how a reaction might proceed by
Speaker 1: change by exchanging a hydrogen for a deuterium adom which
Speaker 1: when using n m R the carbon deuterium bond would
Speaker 1: not be present. Amazing how we can obtain information on
Speaker 1: something we cannot see, and how we rely on instruments
Speaker 1: to help us figure out what we're doing. Thanks again
Speaker 1: for always providing great fodder for the mind. Tritium topic
Speaker 1: anytime soon, Best Brett, Tritium, of course, being the even
Speaker 1: heavier hydrogen. You know, we were talking mainly about deuterium
Speaker 1: in that episode, which is hydrogen that's got a one
Speaker 1: neutron in the nucleus where it normally would have no neutrons.
Speaker 1: Tritium has two neutrons and and it gets it gets
Speaker 1: really hairy. Yeah, I've I've mined a lot of it
Speaker 1: in No Man's sky before I forget what it's for
Speaker 1: und because I've been I haven't played it in about
Speaker 1: a month, but I look forward to picking him back
Speaker 1: up it kind of. I think it's ultimately you know,
Speaker 1: it's not the most educational games, but it's a it's
Speaker 1: a pretty tame one to play with my son around
Speaker 1: and let him play it some and it will hopefully
Speaker 1: educate him about some of these elements. Maybe not like
Speaker 1: what their actual purposes are, but the names of them are. Yeah,
Speaker 1: just like the names will sink in and the abbreviations
Speaker 1: will sink in. Like that's that's more than I had
Speaker 1: in video games at his age. So yeah, same here. Great,
Speaker 1: So yeah, maybe we go to even heavier hydrogen, will
Speaker 1: do something on tridium, and then we can do what's
Speaker 1: beyond heavy heavy hydrogen, like like death hydrogen or thrash hydrogen,
Speaker 1: rash hydrogen, symphonic death hydrogen. That sounds good, all right. Um,
Speaker 1: you know, we also receive some weird house Cinema listener
Speaker 1: mails here, so we'll we'll dig into these a little bit. Uh.
Speaker 1: And and I have to say that Carney the mail
Speaker 1: butt has been very excited, um, because you know he's
Speaker 1: he's very much into the idea of Champion combat. Uh.
Speaker 1: This first one comes to us from Jim and New Jersey,
Speaker 1: who of course is a is a regular listener mail
Speaker 1: Um writer. He says, Robert and Joe. In Friday's Weird
Speaker 1: House Cinema, you featured arena where you mentioned that the
Speaker 1: password to a casino was swordfish. I don't know if
Speaker 1: this is the first use of swordfish, but it appears
Speaker 1: in the Marx Brothers movie Horse Feathers as the password
Speaker 1: to a speak easy and Jim includes a clip. I
Speaker 1: went and watched this, and this is a wonderful scene.
Speaker 1: You know, the comedy of EON's past is uh, sometimes
Speaker 1: just not very funny anymore, and often the often comedy
Speaker 1: does not translate across generations very well. But this scene
Speaker 1: is still really funny. It's great. It's uh, Groucho and
Speaker 1: is it Checo or Checho a spell like Chico? I
Speaker 1: guess Chico or Checho. Marks Um is on the inside
Speaker 1: and Grouchos on the outside, and they're they're talking through
Speaker 1: the little window in the door, and and Groucho has
Speaker 1: got like three guesses to figure out how what the
Speaker 1: password is, and he gets the hint that it's the
Speaker 1: name of a fish, and his first guess is Mary,
Speaker 1: which made me laugh a lot. Yeah, I I haven't
Speaker 1: really seen in a bunch of Marx Brothers, um, and
Speaker 1: I'm struggling to I mean, outside of just a few bits,
Speaker 1: you know, clips here and there, Like I think they
Speaker 1: did a mirror gag that that I think everybody has seen.
Speaker 1: But but it is notable that, you know, especially for
Speaker 1: like a previous generation of filmmakers would have been even
Speaker 1: more familiar with Marx Brothers, you know, so it makes
Speaker 1: sense that we see these little nods in these films
Speaker 1: to some of their work. There's that great scene in
Speaker 1: Indiana Jones in the Last Crusade where Sean Connery has
Speaker 1: mailed his diary to Harrison Ford in order for safe
Speaker 1: keeping because he's been captured by the Nazis, and then
Speaker 1: Harrison Ford brings it with him when he comes to
Speaker 1: rescue him. The Nazis get it, and Sean Connery says,
Speaker 1: I should have mailed it to the Macks Brothers. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: I remember that. I haven't seen that one in forever.
Speaker 1: I need to give it another go. Okay. This next
Speaker 1: message comes from Tend. It is also about Arena. Uh.
Speaker 1: Tend says, Dear Robert and Joe. I've been a listener
Speaker 1: of your show for years and in particularly enjoying the
Speaker 1: recent weird House Cinema episodes. The choices you featured really
Speaker 1: are my types of movies. I think that's because I
Speaker 1: appreciate seeing how well a production company, film crew, and
Speaker 1: actors can do without having much of a budget. Even
Speaker 1: though this means the walls sometimes shake and performances are
Speaker 1: less than convincing, I love seeing those involved earnestly strain
Speaker 1: in their depictions. I had a real flutter of excitement
Speaker 1: when I saw you picked Arena to discuss, as I've
Speaker 1: watched it not so long ago with my wife and
Speaker 1: brother in law. We were very much entertained by the
Speaker 1: varied and inventive alien designs as you described them. There
Speaker 1: was one thing I was waiting for you to point
Speaker 1: out about the movie, something I couldn't believe I had
Speaker 1: seen and so needed to rewind and pause it to confirm.
Speaker 1: As we watched. During fight scenes in the arena itself,
Speaker 1: the camera often cuts to the audience and you can
Speaker 1: see many unmoving dummies filling out the crowd. It's unbelievably
Speaker 1: badly done, looks fully ludicrous, and just made me love
Speaker 1: it more. You won't be able to watch Arena now
Speaker 1: without seeing this, I promise. Thanks to you and your
Speaker 1: team for all your work. I'm looking forward to the
Speaker 1: future episodes. Uh. And then there's a different name at
Speaker 1: the end of this than the name at the beginning,
Speaker 1: which was Tended. I'll just stick with tend. Well. I
Speaker 1: didn't I did not notice these, um these mannequins when
Speaker 1: watching the film, too distracted by the cool aliens. But
Speaker 1: it makes sense that they would be there. You need
Speaker 1: to fill out a stadium, or if something that looks
Speaker 1: like a stadium, you might want to plant some some
Speaker 1: fake butts in the fake seats. You know what this
Speaker 1: means is you were so riveted to the action in
Speaker 1: the center of the frame that you were not You
Speaker 1: were not even tempted to wander around with your eyes
Speaker 1: to the periphery and see who might be sitting in
Speaker 1: the audience. Another thing could be you know, at this
Speaker 1: point in the pandemic like it, we're just not used
Speaker 1: to seeing live crowd shots anymore. So it's like, wow,
Speaker 1: that that looks right, that that must be what it's
Speaker 1: it looks like to watch sports or something with with
Speaker 1: with an audience viewing it. So this is weird. There
Speaker 1: are some shows that are they have they're used to
Speaker 1: having a live studio audience, and now they still do,
Speaker 1: but it's clearly a much reduced like people are sitting
Speaker 1: very far apart from each other and there are many
Speaker 1: fewer of them, and so when they clap, it sounds
Speaker 1: so pathetic. You know, it sounds like five people clapping,
Speaker 1: and it's just like it would be better without any
Speaker 1: applause than every joke or line getting like a you know,
Speaker 1: a smattering of laughter from five or six people, or
Speaker 1: you know what what sounds like two people clapping in
Speaker 1: an empty hall? Is this of what it was Saturday
Speaker 1: Night Live? Do? This is this way you're referencing. No,
Speaker 1: I feel like I've I've just seen a couple of
Speaker 1: like talk shows, like late night talk shows doing something
Speaker 1: like this. Okay, well, I guess my my only experience
Speaker 1: has been watching stuff like um like Colbert and Daily Show,
Speaker 1: which don't have they are not even pretending to have
Speaker 1: an audience. And then I kind of keep up with
Speaker 1: some of the pro wrestling, so I kind of note
Speaker 1: how different players in that sport have been reacting to
Speaker 1: it like you have. For instance, you know, some places
Speaker 1: and in sometimes during the pandemic just having no audience
Speaker 1: at all, or to having like a completely fake audience
Speaker 1: of just people from the locker room come out and
Speaker 1: and you know, be enthusiastic. Or you have a smattering option,
Speaker 1: or you have like a high tech like fill the
Speaker 1: audience with TV screens and have people like zoom into
Speaker 1: a tend I mean, there's there's so many different approaches
Speaker 1: that have been taken, none of them perfect, but but
Speaker 1: it's interesting to see. It's kind kind of like the
Speaker 1: listener mail earlier talking about the earnest straining, right, Sometimes
Speaker 1: that is the most interesting part. I've got an idea
Speaker 1: that I think they should do. This seems perfectly realistic
Speaker 1: to me. I mean, so on one hand, it would
Speaker 1: seem very fake if you were to just pipe in
Speaker 1: fake laughter or fake applause at each applause line, like
Speaker 1: in a sitcom, you know, But I think you could
Speaker 1: do real electronic laughter or applause where there are a
Speaker 1: bunch of electronic viewers and they can like press a
Speaker 1: certain button. They're watching in real time and they can
Speaker 1: press a certain but every time they want to either
Speaker 1: laugh or applaud, and that will create one sound of
Speaker 1: one person laughing or applauding, And so you get real
Speaker 1: reactions like the jokes that actually get up roorious laughter
Speaker 1: will get up roarious laughter uh organically but mediated through
Speaker 1: electronic devices. And and the ones that kind of bomb,
Speaker 1: you'll hear them bomb. That's what I think should happen. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: all right, here's another one. This one comes to us
Speaker 1: for me and Ian Rites. Even though this isn't a
Speaker 1: comedy podcast, I derived some great belly laughs from your show.
Speaker 1: You both know when to use it and when not.
Speaker 1: To better leave some songs unsung than to sing them
Speaker 1: out of season, right, your wise and worthy singers. Anyway,
Speaker 1: I wanted to tell you, Joe that I genuinely laughed
Speaker 1: out loud by myself when you said I want to
Speaker 1: see Chewbacca fight job of the Hut from Marina episode
Speaker 1: L O L. You couldn't have picked a funnier match
Speaker 1: from Star Wars. Good Jess, Sir, peace out, Love you guys.
Speaker 1: Uh Ian from St. Louis uh Ian the Far Too Kind.
Speaker 1: But I think I am I seeing this right that
Speaker 1: you were quoting from the Kalavla. I think right. If
Speaker 1: I'm getting this right, I think at the beginning of
Speaker 1: your your message, you're quoting a couple of lines the
Speaker 1: better to leave some songs on sung than sing them
Speaker 1: out of season. Is that not from the Kala Vla
Speaker 1: that we read in a previous episode? I think you
Speaker 1: might be right. Yeah, yeah, very very good. Uh deep
Speaker 1: deep reference there. Yeah, and yeah, Chewbacca fighting job of
Speaker 1: the Hut. It's a good matchup there. They're probably some
Speaker 1: others we could we could really brainstorm if we set
Speaker 1: our mind to it. I don't know. Um, like a
Speaker 1: Wampa versus four Javas stacked on top of each other
Speaker 1: in a trench coat. That would be neat. But if
Speaker 1: you had a fight between Obi Wan Kenobi and Boba
Speaker 1: Fette's dad, that'd be really weird. We had that, we
Speaker 1: had that? That was that. I watched that one. That joke. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the boy and I watched the first half of Attack
Speaker 1: of the Clones together. Um and uh and that's a
Speaker 1: pretty solid fight scene. I like that one. Okay, you've
Speaker 1: got the various Mandalorian weapons uh in in in play
Speaker 1: there against the Jedi. You've got kind of a kind
Speaker 1: of a neat fight environment. Oh here's what I think
Speaker 1: we should someday. Uh, if we're if we're feeling especially fresh,
Speaker 1: we should do an episode of invention that's basically a
Speaker 1: Boba Fette Invention special where we discuss all of his gadgets.
Speaker 1: This we know actually did a blog post about this
Speaker 1: at smooda music dot com where I um, I kind
Speaker 1: of waxed. Uh maybe not philosophical, but I I contemplated
Speaker 1: the weapons of the Mandalorian and was thinking about like
Speaker 1: the idea of of the Mandalorian armor as being on
Speaker 1: one hand, everything is geared about fighting a Jedi, like
Speaker 1: how to best engage a Jedi and survive or even
Speaker 1: um emerge victorious. But then also you get into this
Speaker 1: idea of their armor and their weapons being at parts
Speaker 1: of their religion, which is a fabulous topic with with
Speaker 1: parallels to the real world. You think of things like
Speaker 1: the Sikh religion and all um. But it may got
Speaker 1: me thinking like what additional connotations might be absorbed by
Speaker 1: some of these weapons, like the idea of say, like
Speaker 1: the jet pack does the jet pack then becomes something
Speaker 1: that symbolizes not is you know, not just about escaping distance,
Speaker 1: creating distance between yourself and a JETI who's a deadly
Speaker 1: melee combatant, but also something about the spirit, you know,
Speaker 1: like the ascension of the spirit um, perhaps the fire
Speaker 1: of the little flamethrower and the wrist like that becomes
Speaker 1: something about like the purifying flame or something. You know,
Speaker 1: Like there's so many directions you could go in with
Speaker 1: all these different details of the armor that could almost
Speaker 1: be like the iconography you encounter in a Hindu deity.
Speaker 1: Like each you know, each little detail has some sort
Speaker 1: of important meaning. Uh to those who would be you know,
Speaker 1: a literate of those symbols. Well, if you're going to
Speaker 1: be realistic about jet packs, it would unless I've not
Speaker 1: kept up to date about what jet packs are capable
Speaker 1: of these days, it seemed like it should symbolize riding
Speaker 1: a dragon or riding a tiger, you know, something that
Speaker 1: will very likely kill you and get out of control.
Speaker 1: That that's often how it goes for the Mandalorians. But
Speaker 1: you know, it's like short term victories, I guess, is
Speaker 1: what they're they're focused on. All right, Well, the buzzer
Speaker 1: on the mail body is going off. That means that
Speaker 1: the time is is ended for today. That's it for
Speaker 1: this episode of Stuff to Blow your Mind Listener Mail.
Speaker 1: But we'll be back next week with more listener mail,
Speaker 1: So just tune in then, uh in the meantime, definitely
Speaker 1: feel free to reach out to us, your responses to
Speaker 1: past episodes, your responses to this listener mail, uh, you know,
Speaker 1: keep the conversation going by getting in touch with us,
Speaker 1: and if you would like to listen to the show.
Speaker 1: Just remember the Stuff to Blow Your Mind pod cast
Speaker 1: feet can be found wherever you get your podcasts and
Speaker 1: wherever that happens to be. Just rate, review, and subscribe
Speaker 1: huge things as always to our excellent audio producer Seth
Speaker 1: Nicholas Johnson. If you would like to get in touch
Speaker 1: with us with feedback on this episode or any other,
Speaker 1: to suggest a topic for the future, or just to
Speaker 1: say hello, you can email us at contact that's Stuff
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