WEBVTT - Listener Mail: Seraphs Sob at Vermin Fangs 0:00:02.960 --> 0:00:05.280 Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of 0:00:05.360 --> 0:00:10.960 My Heart Radio. Hello, and welcome to Stuff to Blow 0:00:11.000 --> 0:00:14.600 Your Mind. Listener mail. My name is Joe McCormick. My 0:00:14.720 --> 0:00:18.160 regular co host, Robert Lamb is not with me today, 0:00:18.239 --> 0:00:20.880 So in an unusual twist, I'm going to be doing 0:00:20.880 --> 0:00:24.800 today's episode solo. But for all of the people who 0:00:24.840 --> 0:00:27.320 have inquired, nothing weird's going on. Rob and I just 0:00:27.360 --> 0:00:30.840 had a couple of awkwardly timed back to back vacations 0:00:30.880 --> 0:00:34.200 and we're about to be coming back into recognizable form. 0:00:34.440 --> 0:00:37.640 So I'm going to be doing a core episode of 0:00:37.680 --> 0:00:41.000 the show tomorrow with a special guest, and then later 0:00:41.040 --> 0:00:43.200 on this week, Rob and I will both be back 0:00:43.240 --> 0:00:46.320 and ready to chase that fairy fire into the bogs 0:00:46.360 --> 0:00:49.920 of October. So I guess with that, I'll jump right 0:00:49.960 --> 0:00:53.199 into some of your messages. This first batch came in 0:00:53.280 --> 0:00:56.880 response to our series on the Black Death and religious 0:00:56.920 --> 0:01:01.000 responses to the second Plague pandemic. I think first, I'm 0:01:01.040 --> 0:01:09.640 going to read this message from Olivia. Olivia writes, Dear 0:01:09.720 --> 0:01:12.480 Robert and Joe. Hi, my name is Olivia and I'm 0:01:12.520 --> 0:01:15.120 a big fan of the show. I was particularly excited 0:01:15.160 --> 0:01:17.399 to listen to your recent episodes on God and the 0:01:17.440 --> 0:01:20.560 Black Death, as I did some research on that topic 0:01:20.600 --> 0:01:23.319 in college. I was actually in the middle of researching 0:01:23.360 --> 0:01:25.840 it right as our own plague hit in March of 0:01:27.680 --> 0:01:30.920 uh And she actually attaches a a part of a 0:01:31.000 --> 0:01:33.840 short paper that she wrote on the subject, but then 0:01:33.880 --> 0:01:37.440 explains quote my basic argument is that the poor reaction 0:01:37.520 --> 0:01:40.800 of religious authorities in Europe to the Black Death caused 0:01:40.800 --> 0:01:43.800 a widespread loss of faith in the Church, which created 0:01:43.840 --> 0:01:47.960 an opportunity for new spiritual leaders like mystics to gain followings. 0:01:48.480 --> 0:01:51.080 This endo, the hegemony of the church, combined with the 0:01:51.160 --> 0:01:55.240 rise of new, more individual focused forms of Christian spirituality, 0:01:55.640 --> 0:01:59.440 ultimately paved the way to the Protestant Reformation. And then 0:01:59.480 --> 0:02:02.360 she reckoned men's a book that she found helpful in 0:02:02.360 --> 0:02:05.200 this subject called From the Brink of Apocalypse by an 0:02:05.200 --> 0:02:08.760 author named John a Birth, and then finishes by saying 0:02:09.040 --> 0:02:12.080 that aside, thank you both for creating such a great podcast. 0:02:12.680 --> 0:02:15.440 I actually enjoy doing laundry and dishes because it's an 0:02:15.440 --> 0:02:17.840 excuse to listen to you guys. I really look forward 0:02:17.840 --> 0:02:21.280 to part three of the series. All the best, Olivia, Well, Olivia, 0:02:21.760 --> 0:02:23.920 as always, thank you for the kind words and thanks 0:02:23.919 --> 0:02:27.120 for getting in touch. I don't know enough about this 0:02:27.160 --> 0:02:30.680 subject to have a strong opinion on whether the Black 0:02:30.720 --> 0:02:33.960 Death weaken the authority of the Catholic Church and whether 0:02:34.040 --> 0:02:37.040 it was truly a determining factor in the Protestant Reformation. 0:02:37.520 --> 0:02:40.880 It does seem plausible, though, then again, it it got 0:02:40.880 --> 0:02:43.680 the gears turning in my head and made me think 0:02:43.720 --> 0:02:48.160 about how, though this is not in particular a counter 0:02:48.280 --> 0:02:50.880 argument against the claim you're making about the Second Plague 0:02:50.919 --> 0:02:53.600 pandemic in the Catholic Church, it did get me thinking 0:02:53.639 --> 0:02:57.960 about how things like faith in a religious institution don't 0:02:57.960 --> 0:03:02.959 always react to external in puts in predictable ways. Uh. 0:03:03.000 --> 0:03:05.480 And the main example that came to my mind is 0:03:05.520 --> 0:03:09.960 a famous book in twentieth century psychology called When Prophecy Fails, 0:03:10.040 --> 0:03:12.960 A social and psychological study of a modern group that 0:03:13.000 --> 0:03:16.680 predicted the destruction of the world. This was a book 0:03:16.760 --> 0:03:21.520 by three co authors, Leon Festinger, Henry Reichn, and Stanley Shackter. 0:03:22.360 --> 0:03:24.920 And this is a somewhat different issue, different than the 0:03:24.960 --> 0:03:27.720 example of the plague, or at least a different type 0:03:27.720 --> 0:03:30.320 of undermining of religious authority, but it did make me 0:03:30.360 --> 0:03:34.200 think about studies of what happens when religious expectations for 0:03:34.400 --> 0:03:38.120 external events are not fulfilled. So this book was originally 0:03:38.160 --> 0:03:41.320 published in nineteen fifty six. We talked about Leon Festinger 0:03:41.400 --> 0:03:44.800 in some episode that we did recently. He's known for 0:03:44.880 --> 0:03:49.600 promoting the theory of cognitive dissonance, where a mismatch between 0:03:49.920 --> 0:03:53.720 um between the beliefs that you hold versus your observation 0:03:53.800 --> 0:03:57.680 of the external world UH causes a state of discomfort 0:03:57.800 --> 0:04:01.720 that you will seek to resolve of through, sometimes through 0:04:01.800 --> 0:04:06.920 rather radical means. And in this specific example, the authors 0:04:06.920 --> 0:04:10.760 here studied a small UFO cult whose leader claimed to 0:04:10.800 --> 0:04:14.280 be receiving messages from another planet. And this cult predicted, 0:04:14.360 --> 0:04:16.960 on the basis of these messages that there was going 0:04:17.000 --> 0:04:20.640 to be an apocalyptic flood that would destroy human civilization 0:04:20.720 --> 0:04:24.000 in the r nineteen fifty four, and of course it 0:04:24.040 --> 0:04:27.200 didn't happen. Yet some members of the cult not only 0:04:27.320 --> 0:04:30.640 continued believing in the messages and and in the cult 0:04:30.640 --> 0:04:34.760 authority structure, but increased their dedication to the cult with 0:04:34.920 --> 0:04:39.640 rationalizations about the mismatch between their predictions and observed reality 0:04:39.680 --> 0:04:43.320 and and their increased dedication was measured through things like 0:04:43.800 --> 0:04:47.880 even more preaching UH, public preaching and sharing of the 0:04:47.880 --> 0:04:51.720 cult's message. And I know there's been some later criticism 0:04:51.760 --> 0:04:54.960 of the author's methodology in this book. For example, I 0:04:54.960 --> 0:04:57.400 think how their their documentation of the cult might have 0:04:57.440 --> 0:05:00.440 actually influenced the behavior of the members. So think this 0:05:00.520 --> 0:05:03.680 is a uh not without its critics. But given that 0:05:03.720 --> 0:05:06.600 we can observe lots of other instances similar to this, 0:05:07.200 --> 0:05:10.040 I think there's still probably something useful to be learned 0:05:10.080 --> 0:05:13.240 from the explanation that the authors gave here, which is 0:05:13.279 --> 0:05:17.080 basically that when the cult members were faced with extremely 0:05:17.240 --> 0:05:20.520 uncomfortable cognitive dissonance, and this dissonance would be caused by 0:05:20.560 --> 0:05:23.960 the mismatch between I predicted X would happen. I predicted 0:05:24.000 --> 0:05:27.480 there would be an apocalyptic flood versus I observed that 0:05:27.560 --> 0:05:30.839 in fact, not X happened that or that Y happened, 0:05:31.160 --> 0:05:34.760 that there was no apocalyptic flood. And because they had 0:05:34.800 --> 0:05:38.159 already sacrificed so much on the basis of that prediction, 0:05:38.320 --> 0:05:40.200 so you can think of those in multiple ways, and 0:05:40.440 --> 0:05:44.800 they may have sacrificed wealth, social capital, and so forth. 0:05:45.320 --> 0:05:49.000 One natural way to alleviate that excruciating dissonance is to 0:05:49.160 --> 0:05:51.880 double down. So you double down on the original belief 0:05:51.880 --> 0:05:54.479 you believe it even more strongly, you preach it even 0:05:54.480 --> 0:05:59.560 more fervently, thereby potentially adding new believers and increasing the 0:05:59.600 --> 0:06:02.920 faith of other believers, and thus increasing social support within 0:06:02.960 --> 0:06:06.480 the cult belief structure. As I mentioned earlier, these are 0:06:06.480 --> 0:06:09.440 clearly two very different ways that a religious authority could 0:06:09.480 --> 0:06:13.960 be potentially undermined, one by making predictions that don't come true, 0:06:14.400 --> 0:06:16.720 and the other by simply failing to be able to 0:06:16.760 --> 0:06:20.159 do anything about the cataclysmic human suffering caused by the 0:06:20.160 --> 0:06:23.640 Second Plague pandemic. But I can't see some parallels, and 0:06:23.680 --> 0:06:26.520 so so I wonder I think you could well be 0:06:26.640 --> 0:06:30.320 correct in your characterization that uh, that the Second Plague 0:06:30.320 --> 0:06:33.640 pandemic led to a series of social outcomes that undermined 0:06:33.720 --> 0:06:36.400 faith in the Catholic Church, led to these alternative forms 0:06:36.440 --> 0:06:40.200 of spirituality, maybe more individually focused, and eventually paved the 0:06:40.200 --> 0:06:43.080 way to the Protestant Reformation. That does seem quite plausible, 0:06:43.120 --> 0:06:45.760 though I don't know. I also do find it very 0:06:45.800 --> 0:06:50.839 interesting how uh, things like religious faith and and faith 0:06:50.839 --> 0:06:54.200 in the authority of religious institutions doesn't always react to 0:06:54.200 --> 0:07:03.360 external events in a way that's strictly predictable from the outside. Alright, 0:07:03.400 --> 0:07:07.520 this next message comes to us from Ed. Ed is 0:07:07.560 --> 0:07:11.320 also reacting to the Plague series and he says, Hi, guys, 0:07:11.400 --> 0:07:14.040 while listening to your series on the plague images in 0:07:14.120 --> 0:07:17.520 a montage in the nineteen thirty six film Things to 0:07:17.640 --> 0:07:20.840 Come kept coming to mind, as you may recall, after 0:07:20.920 --> 0:07:24.040 civilization is destroyed in Never Ending Wars. I think he 0:07:24.080 --> 0:07:27.240 means in the movie plagues ravage the world. What do 0:07:27.280 --> 0:07:31.080 you think of the film? Thanks? Ed? And this one 0:07:31.480 --> 0:07:34.840 definitely caught my interest because I've never seen this movie before. 0:07:34.880 --> 0:07:36.920 I don't think I was even aware of it if 0:07:36.920 --> 0:07:38.760 it If I was, I'd forgotten about it. But I 0:07:38.840 --> 0:07:42.040 looked it up and it does indeed look fascinating. So 0:07:42.680 --> 0:07:46.000 this is a British science fiction movie from nineteen thirty 0:07:46.000 --> 0:07:49.360 six written by H. G. Wells, who we talked about 0:07:49.360 --> 0:07:52.119 in the Weird House Cinema episode on Time after Time. 0:07:53.160 --> 0:07:55.280 But it was based on a book that he wrote 0:07:55.320 --> 0:07:58.720 called The Shape of Things to Come, which I have 0:07:58.800 --> 0:08:00.720 not read, but which seems to operate as a kind 0:08:00.760 --> 0:08:04.720 of speculative future history. So it's a book that spans 0:08:04.800 --> 0:08:08.679 multiple generations of time beyond the horizon of of Wells 0:08:08.760 --> 0:08:12.240 or the filmmakers, and so the broad outline is that 0:08:12.680 --> 0:08:16.280 Wells predicted a global war would break out in nineteen 0:08:16.360 --> 0:08:20.920 forty and rage for decades after that, so partially prescient there, uh, 0:08:20.960 --> 0:08:23.560 And that the war would be so brutal and devastating 0:08:23.600 --> 0:08:26.080 that it would cause the world to descend into a 0:08:26.080 --> 0:08:29.640 new dark Age, especially because towards the end of the 0:08:29.680 --> 0:08:34.520 conflict the belligerents turned from conventional weapons to biological weapons, 0:08:34.640 --> 0:08:38.480 unleashing new forms of disease and plague that kills something 0:08:38.559 --> 0:08:41.640 like half the people on Earth. And after this all 0:08:41.679 --> 0:08:46.080 government falls away in the world descends into anarchy and barbarism, 0:08:46.120 --> 0:08:51.439 and everybody lives in this warlord hell of plague vikings. Eventually, though, 0:08:51.480 --> 0:08:56.079 the Earth is saved by some sort of international coalition 0:08:56.400 --> 0:09:01.280 of strangely pilots and engineers. They're called Wings over the World, 0:09:01.800 --> 0:09:04.200 and they're they're based out of a of a hub 0:09:04.240 --> 0:09:07.599 in Iraq, and they fly around re establishing order the 0:09:07.760 --> 0:09:11.839 outlaw war. They rebuild lost scientific and technological capability so 0:09:11.880 --> 0:09:14.640 that its benefits can be spread to all of the 0:09:14.640 --> 0:09:17.640 people of the planet. And I thought it was interesting 0:09:17.640 --> 0:09:22.320 here that Wells identified airplanes as one of the technologies 0:09:22.400 --> 0:09:27.320 primarily associated with future progress. So there there's also a 0:09:27.360 --> 0:09:30.560 thing in the movie where there's a final section set 0:09:30.559 --> 0:09:32.560 far in the future and the inhabitants of Earth are 0:09:32.559 --> 0:09:34.839 planning a mission to the Moon, which I guess is 0:09:34.880 --> 0:09:37.640 another extension of the air travel principle taken to the 0:09:37.640 --> 0:09:40.679 next level. And uh and I don't know. I thought 0:09:40.720 --> 0:09:44.000 it was curious that we do in science fiction today 0:09:44.120 --> 0:09:48.040 still associates space travel with UH with sort of the 0:09:48.280 --> 0:09:50.600 cutting edge of future technology, one of the things that 0:09:50.800 --> 0:09:54.920 is emblematic of technological progress overall, but not so much 0:09:54.960 --> 0:09:58.200 for air travel. If a similar future history were written today, 0:09:58.240 --> 0:10:01.680 I wonder if it be instead of pilots, who would 0:10:01.679 --> 0:10:03.880 be the people who come in to try to re 0:10:04.040 --> 0:10:06.720 establish order. I don't know if it would be uh, 0:10:06.880 --> 0:10:11.200 I T professionals or something. But anyway, so poking around 0:10:11.200 --> 0:10:12.559 a bit in the movie. I have not watched the 0:10:12.559 --> 0:10:14.840 whole thing, but it does look really interesting. Uh. And 0:10:14.920 --> 0:10:16.719 at some point, I guess things are supposed to be 0:10:17.040 --> 0:10:19.840 taking place in the far future, and everybody's addressed and 0:10:20.520 --> 0:10:23.800 they're they're living in the technological utopia, but everybody is 0:10:23.800 --> 0:10:26.600 also dressed in medieval tunics, and so they look kind 0:10:26.600 --> 0:10:29.080 of like Bunny Breckenridge in Plan nine from Outer Space, 0:10:29.120 --> 0:10:32.280 which which I found funny but definitely looks like it 0:10:32.400 --> 0:10:43.240 is worth a watch. Alright. One more message in response 0:10:43.280 --> 0:10:46.640 to the Black Death episodes. This one came in from 0:10:46.640 --> 0:10:49.280 our listeners, a big Nif, and this was a really 0:10:49.320 --> 0:10:53.280 good clarification that that's worth pointing out. So the Big 0:10:53.360 --> 0:10:57.720 Nief got in touch to say that to to comment 0:10:57.800 --> 0:11:00.480 on when we were talking in the third Plague episode 0:11:01.000 --> 0:11:04.600 about anti submitted conspiracy theories that arose in Christian Europe 0:11:04.679 --> 0:11:07.319 during the Black Death, so there would be these mass 0:11:07.360 --> 0:11:11.560 delusions that Jews had somehow caused the plague epidemics by 0:11:11.600 --> 0:11:15.200 poisoning wells, and uh this led to massacres of Jewish 0:11:15.200 --> 0:11:18.720 people in communities throughout Europe. And we mentioned something about 0:11:18.760 --> 0:11:22.160 how there have been recent echoes, more recent echos at least, 0:11:22.160 --> 0:11:25.200 of this type of thinking in which people falsely accused 0:11:25.240 --> 0:11:30.360 minority groups, sometimes specifically Jews, of causing infectious disease, and 0:11:30.440 --> 0:11:33.360 Rob mentioned I think what he said was a Polish 0:11:33.360 --> 0:11:37.200 poster from World War Two blaming Jews for typhus, and 0:11:37.320 --> 0:11:40.520 Zbignia wrote in to emphasize that though this poster was 0:11:40.600 --> 0:11:43.680 written in Polish, it was a German Nazi poster that 0:11:43.760 --> 0:11:46.160 was hung up in Nazi occupied Poland, and this is 0:11:46.200 --> 0:11:48.920 why it was written in Polish. And yeah, that's very 0:11:48.960 --> 0:11:51.280 good to point out if that was unclear to anyone, 0:11:51.320 --> 0:11:53.440 the poster was Polish and since that it was in 0:11:53.480 --> 0:11:56.760 the Polish language, not a poster of Polish origin. So 0:11:56.880 --> 0:11:58.880 thank you very much for that clarification. It's a big 0:11:58.960 --> 0:12:06.040 NIF all right now, I think I'm going to be 0:12:06.120 --> 0:12:10.000 moving on from the from responses to the Black Death series, 0:12:10.200 --> 0:12:13.959 and I'm going to read a message from our listener, Raj. 0:12:14.280 --> 0:12:18.439 Raj says, Hello, gentlemen. I know you've received many emails 0:12:18.440 --> 0:12:21.200 regarding mirrors, but here is one more to add to 0:12:21.440 --> 0:12:24.640 the wall. I was working out recently and was on 0:12:24.679 --> 0:12:27.880 a stationary bike that happened to be facing a window. 0:12:28.280 --> 0:12:30.240 Since it was early in the morning and the lights 0:12:30.240 --> 0:12:32.520 in the studio were not too bright, I could easily 0:12:32.520 --> 0:12:35.200 see my reflection in the window, thus acting as a 0:12:35.280 --> 0:12:39.440 pseudo mirror. Noticing this observation, my mind immediately went to 0:12:39.480 --> 0:12:42.640 your episodes regarding the mirror, and I then remembered a 0:12:42.720 --> 0:12:46.440 listener mail episode where Joe explained how mirrors work. I 0:12:46.480 --> 0:12:49.240 apologize for not remembering the specifics, but it had something 0:12:49.280 --> 0:12:52.520 to do with the notion that mirrors reverse the image 0:12:52.520 --> 0:12:57.240 along the Z axis and not the X or Y axes. Yeah, 0:12:57.280 --> 0:12:59.679 I guess I'll interject here if this helps to give 0:12:59.679 --> 0:13:02.679 a quick refresher. I was answering a question about why 0:13:02.800 --> 0:13:07.160 a mirror appears to flip our image horizontally, so your 0:13:07.280 --> 0:13:10.400 left hand becomes your reflections right hand, even though it's 0:13:10.400 --> 0:13:13.800 still the image of your left hand, but at the 0:13:13.840 --> 0:13:16.200 same time does not flip your image vertically. You don't 0:13:16.280 --> 0:13:19.959 seem to notice any equivalent phenomenon going on with the 0:13:20.120 --> 0:13:23.600 reversal of your head and your feet. And my conclusion 0:13:23.720 --> 0:13:27.240 was actually that this impression we have about it reversing 0:13:27.240 --> 0:13:30.599 the horizontal axis but not the vertical is an illusion 0:13:30.760 --> 0:13:35.960 that's predicated on the fact that human bodies are horizontally symmetrical. Uh. 0:13:35.960 --> 0:13:37.800 And you can test this out a bit just by 0:13:37.880 --> 0:13:41.920 imagining that human bodies looked exactly the same except they 0:13:42.000 --> 0:13:45.559 floated sideways in the air. So imagine a human body 0:13:45.559 --> 0:13:49.640 floating sideways. If it raises its left arm to its side, 0:13:49.679 --> 0:13:51.439 it's going to be pointing toward the ground. If it 0:13:51.520 --> 0:13:53.720 raises its right arm to the side, as if you know, 0:13:53.880 --> 0:13:55.959 to the side, as of doing a jumping jack, it's 0:13:55.960 --> 0:13:59.199 gonna be pointing towards the sky. In this case, it 0:13:59.240 --> 0:14:02.720 would be exactly the opposite. If humans floated sideways like this, 0:14:02.760 --> 0:14:06.280 a mirror would appear to flip you vertically, but not horizontally. 0:14:07.080 --> 0:14:09.319 And so I think the most accurate way to describe 0:14:09.320 --> 0:14:12.520 what a mirror does to your image is neither horizontal 0:14:12.600 --> 0:14:16.839 nor vertical flipping. It's actually turning your image inside out. 0:14:17.080 --> 0:14:20.920 The mirror reverses your image along the axis of depth 0:14:21.200 --> 0:14:25.560 a distance from the mirror, not height or width. And 0:14:25.720 --> 0:14:28.600 human bodies just happened to be constructed in such a 0:14:28.640 --> 0:14:31.640 way that an inside out image of our front facing 0:14:31.680 --> 0:14:35.560 side is confusing like this. So you raise your left hand, 0:14:35.920 --> 0:14:39.280 and your reflection raises the hand that would be the 0:14:39.480 --> 0:14:42.520 right hand if it was another person looking at you 0:14:42.640 --> 0:14:46.240 from your mirror images position, but it is the image 0:14:46.360 --> 0:14:50.280 still of your left hand. Uh. And so that this, uh, 0:14:50.280 --> 0:14:52.880 this is just not something we encounter in everyday life 0:14:52.880 --> 0:14:55.120 anywhere except looking into a mirror. So it kind of 0:14:55.120 --> 0:14:59.760 short circuits the brain. Anyways, Raj continues, I was recalling 0:14:59.760 --> 0:15:01.800 this memory while I happened to be looking at my 0:15:01.920 --> 0:15:05.280 reflected feet, and all of a sudden, my feet looked 0:15:05.320 --> 0:15:08.760 as if they were peddling backwards. Not only that, I 0:15:08.800 --> 0:15:12.560 then began to feel as if I were physically peddling backwards. 0:15:12.920 --> 0:15:14.960 I tried to make sense of this, but trying to 0:15:15.000 --> 0:15:18.920 reconcile my confused perception with trying to understand how mirrors work, 0:15:18.960 --> 0:15:22.240 all while keeping up with my workout was too mentally taxing, 0:15:22.440 --> 0:15:24.760 and I ultimately had to look away from my reflection 0:15:24.800 --> 0:15:28.080 to reorient myself. Looking back to this moment, I'm still 0:15:28.080 --> 0:15:30.320 not sure what happened, and trying to make sense of 0:15:30.320 --> 0:15:33.360 it just invokes more confusion. But in the end, it's 0:15:33.360 --> 0:15:35.640 still a comical memory to think about, and so I 0:15:35.680 --> 0:15:38.320 thought i'd share it with you, Laurage. I I don't 0:15:38.320 --> 0:15:40.680 know exactly what to make of that. That that's very interesting, 0:15:40.680 --> 0:15:44.000 and I'd be interested if if other listeners have insights 0:15:44.000 --> 0:15:45.800 on what's going on here. It almost seems like a 0:15:45.800 --> 0:15:48.680 combination of the way mirrors mess with our heads. But 0:15:48.760 --> 0:15:51.920 then also, um, I don't actually know what the name 0:15:51.960 --> 0:15:54.760 for it is, but the the optical illusion where there 0:15:54.960 --> 0:15:58.360 is the twirling ballerina and you can see it twirling 0:15:58.520 --> 0:16:02.480 either direction. It appears to twirl either clockwise or counterclockwise, 0:16:02.480 --> 0:16:05.920 depending on just sort of Nothing changes about the The 0:16:05.960 --> 0:16:09.320 animation is just the way your brain sees it. You 0:16:09.360 --> 0:16:10.960 can look that up and find the name of it 0:16:11.000 --> 0:16:13.080 if you're trying to figure out what I'm talking about, 0:16:13.320 --> 0:16:15.960 but ultimately I don't know. Yeah, that's very curious, so 0:16:16.440 --> 0:16:19.440 Rage goes on moving on. I was thinking about addle 0:16:19.520 --> 0:16:22.560 audels one day, as one does, and I thought to myself, 0:16:22.720 --> 0:16:24.640 that would be a pretty cool weapon to wield in 0:16:24.760 --> 0:16:27.200 D and D. I don't recall D and D being 0:16:27.240 --> 0:16:29.320 brought up in the addle addle episode, but it made 0:16:29.360 --> 0:16:32.120 me wonder if it was an actual item. It turns 0:16:32.120 --> 0:16:35.320 out it exists in both D and D and Pathfinders, 0:16:35.440 --> 0:16:38.800 some of which are cannon and some are homebrew extensions. 0:16:39.120 --> 0:16:41.000 I'm not sure where or how I'd be able to 0:16:41.000 --> 0:16:43.120 fit the audle addle in any of my current D 0:16:43.200 --> 0:16:46.200 and D or Pathfinder campaigns, but I'm excited at the 0:16:46.240 --> 0:16:48.240 prospect of being able to use it. I wonder if 0:16:48.280 --> 0:16:50.840 either of you have considered using it in any of 0:16:50.880 --> 0:16:54.000 your campaigns. Well, Rage, this would be fun to ask 0:16:54.080 --> 0:16:55.800 Rob about once he gets back. We may have to 0:16:55.800 --> 0:16:58.960 revisit this in the next listener mail episode if we 0:16:58.960 --> 0:17:01.040 were called to bring it up. But I have not 0:17:01.240 --> 0:17:04.000 used it. I don't know that that seems like a 0:17:04.640 --> 0:17:07.800 It seems like a weapon for a for a brawnier 0:17:07.840 --> 0:17:10.359 and more courageous character than mine, who is who is 0:17:10.440 --> 0:17:14.120 mostly a liar and a coward. Um. So so yeah, 0:17:14.119 --> 0:17:16.680 I have not gotten around to the autolatal use yet, 0:17:16.720 --> 0:17:20.600 but maybe in the future anyway, uh find Moving on 0:17:20.640 --> 0:17:24.600 to Roger's last point about whispering weapons, Roger says, another 0:17:24.640 --> 0:17:27.159 great episode and once again another tie into D and D. 0:17:27.800 --> 0:17:29.919 In one of the campaigns I'm playing in, one of 0:17:29.960 --> 0:17:32.240 the players got his sword as part of a loot. 0:17:32.720 --> 0:17:36.280 Since that player's character doesn't use swords, my character eventually 0:17:36.320 --> 0:17:39.359 got his hands on it. Shortly afterward, my character started 0:17:39.400 --> 0:17:41.639 to hear a voice in his head, and it was 0:17:41.760 --> 0:17:44.760 the sword. My mind immediately went to your episode on 0:17:44.760 --> 0:17:47.760 the whispering sword, so I asked it what its name was. 0:17:48.240 --> 0:17:50.240 It replied that no one had ever thought to ask 0:17:50.280 --> 0:17:53.040 it that question, so it didn't have a name. So, 0:17:53.240 --> 0:17:55.159 like with any great weapon, I'll have to give it 0:17:55.200 --> 0:17:58.200 a name, though admittedly that's still a work in progress. 0:17:58.560 --> 0:18:00.600 More excitement of bounds as I might have to go 0:18:00.640 --> 0:18:02.520 back and re listen to that episode and get some 0:18:02.600 --> 0:18:05.600 inspiration on how to role play with this new item. 0:18:05.600 --> 0:18:07.879 Thanks as always for the wonderful content and keep up 0:18:07.920 --> 0:18:11.840 the great work. Cheers Raj. Well, yeah, Raj, thanks as 0:18:11.840 --> 0:18:15.160 always for writing in and very intriguing about the sword. 0:18:15.200 --> 0:18:17.119 You'll have to keep us updated on on how it 0:18:17.160 --> 0:18:19.399 turns out, though I would be slow to trust a 0:18:19.480 --> 0:18:28.000 sword that speaks. I'm I'm not quite sure why. Okay, 0:18:28.000 --> 0:18:32.399 maybe one last message here about Weird How Cinema and warning. 0:18:32.440 --> 0:18:35.400 The following email contains some Gaelic that I am I'm 0:18:35.440 --> 0:18:38.480 sure I'm going to fail at pronouncing um. This is 0:18:38.520 --> 0:18:42.520 from Aaron. Aaron says, Hi Robert and Joe Dia Dewet 0:18:42.760 --> 0:18:45.280 from Ireland. I have to say that I think Weird 0:18:45.320 --> 0:18:48.280 How Cinema is probably my favorite offering from your good selves. 0:18:48.440 --> 0:18:51.240 If I haven't seen the film being discussed, I normally 0:18:51.280 --> 0:18:53.600 listen to the first part of the podcast to see 0:18:53.600 --> 0:18:56.719 if it's something i'd be interested in watching. It usually is, 0:18:56.880 --> 0:18:59.639 much to the dismay of my wife, uh the not 0:18:59.800 --> 0:19:02.680 less into the rest of the podcast after watching the film, 0:19:02.840 --> 0:19:05.080 or more often just start the whole thing over from 0:19:05.080 --> 0:19:08.479 the beginning. My favorite part of the podcast is usually 0:19:08.480 --> 0:19:11.160 the plot breakdown section. It can be interesting to see 0:19:11.200 --> 0:19:14.040 what strange moments you pick out to talk about, and 0:19:14.080 --> 0:19:16.720 I sometimes find myself laughing out loud if we noticed 0:19:16.760 --> 0:19:20.120 the same things, such as the young fella's nail collection 0:19:20.240 --> 0:19:24.200 in the Russian space movie. Oh Yeah, teens in the Universe, 0:19:24.640 --> 0:19:27.560 that was a good one, Aaron says. I found this section. 0:19:27.880 --> 0:19:31.360 I guess the plot breakdown conspicuous in its absence from 0:19:31.400 --> 0:19:34.040 your cast about time after time. I really enjoyed the 0:19:34.040 --> 0:19:36.280 film and was looking forward to the plot summary, but 0:19:36.320 --> 0:19:38.760 this didn't occur, and instead you were careful to avoid 0:19:38.760 --> 0:19:41.840 any spoilers. Is this a new direction you're heading in? 0:19:42.160 --> 0:19:44.359 I hope not, because your take on the proceedings and 0:19:44.400 --> 0:19:48.160 some seriously crazy films can be hilariously entertaining. I hope 0:19:48.200 --> 0:19:51.280 this doesn't come across as being overly critical. I really 0:19:51.359 --> 0:19:53.920 enjoy listening to YouTube rambling on about stuff I would 0:19:54.160 --> 0:19:57.600 I would genuinely never consider in a million years, especially 0:19:57.640 --> 0:20:00.200 like the October monster stuff and the prom us of 0:20:00.240 --> 0:20:03.480 a new anthology of horror episode. Anyway, all the best, 0:20:03.880 --> 0:20:09.040 uh Slow August banoched Aaron oh and then finally, Aaron says, ps, 0:20:09.080 --> 0:20:11.040 one of the bits I hoped you'd mentioned in Time 0:20:11.080 --> 0:20:14.399 after Time was the bit where Malcolm McDowell hailed the 0:20:14.480 --> 0:20:16.800 cab by imitating the woman doing it before him. I 0:20:16.880 --> 0:20:20.280 must have rewound that part about twelve times. Malcolm mcdwell 0:20:20.320 --> 0:20:24.320 could be seriously funny when he wanted to be. Uh well, Aaron, No, 0:20:24.520 --> 0:20:26.600 this is not a general direction. I think we'll just 0:20:26.920 --> 0:20:29.280 go case by case, and some movies seem like it 0:20:29.320 --> 0:20:31.560 would be more fun to break down the plot in detail. 0:20:31.680 --> 0:20:33.800 I know we've got one coming up this week where 0:20:33.800 --> 0:20:35.760 we go into great detail. I think it may have 0:20:35.840 --> 0:20:39.080 been maybe our longest weird house yet because we got 0:20:39.119 --> 0:20:42.040 so wrapped up talking about it. But yeah, with others, 0:20:42.040 --> 0:20:44.560 it just feels more appropriate to talk about the movie 0:20:44.560 --> 0:20:47.760 from a higher altitude, so or sometimes somewhere in between. 0:20:47.760 --> 0:20:55.840 It just depends on the movie. Oh well, one one 0:20:55.920 --> 0:20:59.280 last short message before we go, Um, this will be 0:20:59.400 --> 0:21:02.080 This will be from Tom subject line Tom bomba Dill. 0:21:02.160 --> 0:21:06.600 These of course keep pouring in, and Tom suggests a 0:21:06.680 --> 0:21:09.440 so far unique one that we've not heard this one yet. 0:21:09.680 --> 0:21:13.240 The pick is Elton John very interesting. You know that 0:21:13.600 --> 0:21:18.480 these casting choices never ceased to amaze me. Yeah, yeah, yeah, Okay, 0:21:18.520 --> 0:21:20.719 I'm a big fan of the tumble Weed Connection, in 0:21:20.760 --> 0:21:23.280 which Elton John it was one of his earlier albums 0:21:23.280 --> 0:21:25.480 and which he sort of, uh he sort of performs 0:21:25.520 --> 0:21:28.000 as a cowboy. I don't know if that's too far 0:21:28.080 --> 0:21:31.560 off from from becoming a sort of uh jolly god 0:21:31.640 --> 0:21:35.000 of the woods. So yeah, I can see it anyway. 0:21:35.040 --> 0:21:37.639 I guess that's going to close things out for this episode, 0:21:37.760 --> 0:21:39.800 but hey, stay tuned for the rest of the week. 0:21:39.960 --> 0:21:42.479 There is going to be so I'm going to do 0:21:42.520 --> 0:21:46.000 a core episode with special guests tomorrow and then later 0:21:46.040 --> 0:21:48.120 in the week after that or Rob's going to be back. 0:21:48.160 --> 0:21:51.840 We'll rejoin me for some uh some great October content 0:21:51.920 --> 0:21:54.920 that we've been excited about all years. So so stick 0:21:54.920 --> 0:21:58.320 around and uh and uh and and keep listening. You can, 0:21:58.359 --> 0:22:00.480 of course, if you're not subscribed to this podcast, you 0:22:00.560 --> 0:22:03.600 can find it probably anywhere you get podcast. It is 0:22:03.640 --> 0:22:06.480 the stuff to blow your mind podcast. Uh what. We 0:22:06.520 --> 0:22:08.399 do a number of different episodes in our in our 0:22:08.480 --> 0:22:11.200 daily offerings today, So on Monday's we do listener mail 0:22:11.200 --> 0:22:13.520 episodes like this one, though usually Rob is here with 0:22:13.560 --> 0:22:17.040