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Speaker 1: Hey, you welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. My

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Speaker 1: name is Robert Lamb and it is Saturday once more,

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Speaker 1: so we have another vault episode for you. This is

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Speaker 1: Where the Shadows Lie, Part two. It originally published ten

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Speaker 1: twenty six, twenty twenty three. Let's jump right.

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Speaker 2: In Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production

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Speaker 2: of iHeartRadio.

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Speaker 1: Hey you welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. My

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Speaker 1: name is Robert.

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Speaker 3: Lamb and I am Joe McCormick. And our month of

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Speaker 3: creepy topics continues. We are back with part two in

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Speaker 3: our series on shadows. In part one, we talked about

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Speaker 3: historical examples of people infusing the concept of the shadow

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Speaker 3: with strange power or supernatural connotations. We talked about how

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Speaker 3: the brain perceives shadows, and some cognitive science research regarding shadows,

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Speaker 3: including the interesting finding that a lot of the time

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Speaker 3: people do not detect when shadows apparently cast by objects

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Speaker 3: are physically impossible. We also talked about legends of the

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Speaker 3: Icelandic wizard who lost his shadow when it was snatched

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Speaker 3: away by the devil, a kind of a violent tuition

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Speaker 3: extraction for his fees for going to which school. But

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Speaker 3: also we talked about what it was understood to mean

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Speaker 3: that a vampire had no shadow at the time Bram

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Speaker 3: Stoker was writing the novel Dracula. Today we're back to

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Speaker 3: examine the shadows yet again. And to get started today,

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Speaker 3: I wanted to talk about shadows with halos. So to

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Speaker 3: introduce this item, I'm going to read a passage from

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Speaker 3: the memoirs of one ben Venudo Cellini, a sixteenth century

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Speaker 3: Italian sculptor and goldsmith who I had never heard of before.

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Speaker 3: But this this guy is interesting. He told his life

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Speaker 3: story in a weird, passionate, melodramatic autobiography full of bragging

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Speaker 3: that became widely celebrated in translation long after his death.

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Speaker 3: This memoir was especially beloved by artists and authors of

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Speaker 3: the Romantic movement in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Rob,

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Speaker 3: just so you can get a quick flavor of Chillini's

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Speaker 3: comprehensive too muchness of personality, I attached an image for

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Speaker 3: you to look at. This is a famous salt seller

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Speaker 3: that Benvenudo Chillini designed. This was used to store salt,

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Speaker 3: like for cooking.

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Speaker 1: You know, I always find it weird that it's essentially

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Speaker 1: a salt box, and I think it's sometimes called a

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Speaker 1: salt box, but it's also called a salt cellar and

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Speaker 1: a salt pig. Neither of these terms really feel very

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Speaker 1: true to what the thing is, at.

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Speaker 3: Least to be even less so in this case. So

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Speaker 3: let me just describe for those of you who cannot

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Speaker 3: see the image. What we have here is a sculpture

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Speaker 3: with two towering nude gods, one male, one female. They

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Speaker 3: are lying back, their legs entangled with one another's, suggestively.

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Speaker 3: The male immortal here is pointing with a trident, kind

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Speaker 3: of holding it out sort of languidly. He's like almost

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Speaker 3: like he's, you know, very tired from having feasted long,

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Speaker 3: but he's still he still wants that thing over there,

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Speaker 3: so he's sort of gesturing with his trident as if

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Speaker 3: to a servant, like bring me that. Meanwhile, the goddess

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Speaker 3: here appears to be sort of pinching her own breast.

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Speaker 3: Both figures are huge, they're made of gold. They are

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Speaker 3: over a landscape of blue water crashing on a rocky shore,

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Speaker 3: with golden horse heads shrieking from the surf, a golden

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Speaker 3: temple with three archways under the giant goddess's shadow. I

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Speaker 3: think this is supposed to be Poseidon in Gaya playing

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Speaker 3: foot see here, or rather I guess in a Roman

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Speaker 3: context it would be Neptune and Tara Mater. And if

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Speaker 3: you think about it, the gods selected are actually on

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Speaker 3: theme here because this is a salt cellar and these

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Speaker 3: are If it's a Neptune and Terra mater, this would

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Speaker 3: be gods of the earth and sea.

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Speaker 1: And I think those are hippocampi there right behind the

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Speaker 1: male god right, so that would be a strong indicator

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Speaker 1: of aquatic divinity.

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Speaker 3: Ah, that's a good point.

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Speaker 1: I didn't think of that.

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Speaker 3: Another thing here, So there's a dish next to the

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Speaker 3: two gods and the salt I guess goes in the dish.

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Speaker 3: But rob you see that little temple at the bottom

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Speaker 3: underneath the goddess. That's for peppercorns.

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Speaker 1: Oh okay.

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Speaker 3: Also strange fact, this salt cellar was stolen from a

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Speaker 3: museum in Austria in two thousand and three by a

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Speaker 3: man who ran an alarm system company. I was reading

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Speaker 3: about this in an article in the Guardian. The man

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Speaker 3: the suspect, later claimed that the theft was quote all

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Speaker 3: rather spontaneous. The salt seller was valued at thirty five

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Speaker 3: million pounds at the time. I think the thief tried

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Speaker 3: to get a ransom, maybe from the insurance company or something,

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Speaker 3: but eventually he was caught and the museum got.

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Speaker 1: The piece back. Well that's good.

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Speaker 3: So in his memoirs Benvenudo, Cellini tells the story of

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Speaker 3: creating this masterpiece. At one point he says that he

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Speaker 3: took a mock up design and showed it to the

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Speaker 3: King of France at the time, Francis the First, who

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Speaker 3: was so impressed by this model that he commissioned him

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Speaker 3: to make the salt cellar out of gold from his

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Speaker 3: own treasury. And he was like, Chillini, you are a genius,

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Speaker 3: You're the best ever. And then Chillini says, okay. So

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Speaker 3: he gets the gold. He's carrying it back to his

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Speaker 3: workshop in a basket to make to cast the design

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Speaker 3: in gold. When he was set upon by four armed

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Speaker 3: highwaymen and then he had to draw his sword and

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Speaker 3: defeat them single handedly, he says.

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Speaker 1: Okay.

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Speaker 3: He also brags about a time that he decided to

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Speaker 3: stab some guys who had sued him and prevailed in court.

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Speaker 3: He writes, in translation quote, I perceived that my cause

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Speaker 3: had been unjustly lost I had recourse for my defense

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Speaker 3: to a great dagger I carried.

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Speaker 1: All right.

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Speaker 3: By the way, if you want to read more about

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Speaker 3: the salt cellar in particular, there's a good Jaystore Daily

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Speaker 3: feature about this story by Giovanni Garcia Finitch. But needless

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Speaker 3: to say, Chilini seems to have had a fairly grandiose

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Speaker 3: idea of his own personal genius and historical significance. He

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Speaker 3: thought he was pretty cool.

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Speaker 1: I mean, he sounds pretty cool just from this account, right,

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Speaker 1: And he's going around getting into sword fights, stabbing people

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Speaker 1: in legal disputes.

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Speaker 3: He says, But I don't know who knows.

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Speaker 1: Maybe.

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Speaker 3: Among Chilini's many adventures and travails, at one point he

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Speaker 3: found himself imprisoned in Castle San Angelo in Rome after

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Speaker 3: being accused of embezzlement. By the way, he escaped from

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Speaker 3: prison later, Oh, and then he got caught and returned

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Speaker 3: to prison. But then he got busted out of prison

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Speaker 3: by the like a rich family. Anyway. He tells stories

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Speaker 3: of his time in prison in his memoirs, including the

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Speaker 3: fact that he had a dream in which an angel

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Speaker 3: came to him and wrote words of great importance on

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Speaker 3: his forehead with a red and he says, when he

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Speaker 3: woke up that morning, he found that his forehead actually

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Speaker 3: had marks on it, and he concludes that he was

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Speaker 3: at the time receiving messages from a heavenly angel. But

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Speaker 3: here we get to the passage that brings us back

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Speaker 3: to shadows. Cillini writes, quote another circumstance, I must not omit,

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Speaker 3: which is one of the most extraordinary things that ever

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Speaker 3: happened to any man, And I mention it in justice

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Speaker 3: to God and the wondrous ways of His providce towards me.

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Speaker 3: From the very moment that I beheld the phenomenon, there

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Speaker 3: appeared strange to relate a resplendent light over my head,

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Speaker 3: which has displayed itself conspicuously to all that I have

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Speaker 3: thought proper to show it to, but those were very few.

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Speaker 3: This shining light is to be seen in the morning

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Speaker 3: over my shadow till two o'clock in the afternoon, and

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Speaker 3: it appears to the greatest advantage when the grass is

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Speaker 3: moist with dew. It is likewise visible in the evening

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Speaker 3: at sunset. This phenomenon I took notice of when I

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Speaker 3: was at Paris, because the air is exceedingly clear in

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Speaker 3: that climate, so that I could distinguish it there much

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Speaker 3: plainer than in Italy, where mists are much more frequent.

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Speaker 3: But I can still see it even here and show

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Speaker 3: it to others, though not to the same advantage as

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Speaker 3: in France.

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Speaker 1: All right, well, no, that's cool. Not only is he

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Speaker 1: going around getting into sword fights and stabbing people in

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Speaker 1: legal disputes, but he has some sort of mysterious halo

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Speaker 1: that is about his shadow, at least for certain parts

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Speaker 1: of the day, during certain environmental conditions.

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Speaker 3: That's right, He says, God likes me so much that

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Speaker 3: he sometimes puts a halo around my shadow's head, and

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Speaker 3: you can see the shadows radiance. Especially in the morning

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Speaker 3: when the grass is wet with dew, there will be

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Speaker 3: visible to all a seraphic light in circling the face

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Speaker 3: of my shadow, as if my shadow's head contained a

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Speaker 3: second sun.

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Speaker 1: But not between the hours of two and six that's

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Speaker 1: Willie's time. I get.

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Speaker 3: That's all right. So it's a fantastic story. But the

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Speaker 3: more fantastic part of it would probably do injury to

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Speaker 3: Chillini's sense of specialness, because, unfortunately for him, other people

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Speaker 3: have seen this same effect. In fact, it's very common

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Speaker 3: when standing over a field of grass in the morning sunlight,

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Speaker 3: you can often see a ring of golden light surrounding

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Speaker 3: your shadow's head. Rob, I've attached some pictures for you

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Speaker 3: to look at here. Presumably the people who took these

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Speaker 3: pictures are not specially blessed by God. They were not

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Speaker 3: given a you know, plus four modifier on sword fighting bandits.

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Speaker 3: They're they're not the most genius goldsmith that ever existed.

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Speaker 3: These are just photographers. And what do you know they're

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Speaker 3: looking at in the field. They're taking a photo and

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Speaker 3: there is a ring, like a sort of emanation of

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Speaker 3: radiance off of the top of their shadow.

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Speaker 1: Absolutely, yeah, yeah, I see it.

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Speaker 3: Folks at home, you can look this up yourself with

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Speaker 3: the term I'm about to give you. The phenomenon is

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Speaker 3: known as highligenshine h e i l I g e

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Speaker 3: n s c h e i n, meaning the light

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Speaker 3: of the Holy One or holy light, sometimes also known

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Speaker 3: as Chillini's halo after the passage in question, and it

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Speaker 3: is not in fact the flame of the Lord's favor

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Speaker 3: for the rattus dude in Renaissance Italy. It is an

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Speaker 3: optical effect created by the interplay of sunlight and certain

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Speaker 3: types of backgrounds, especially backgrounds containing drops of dew.

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Speaker 1: Also not to be confused with heinekenshine. That's a different

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Speaker 1: opical phenomenon.

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Speaker 3: So much like Chilini describes, the hiligenshine is most often

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Speaker 3: seen in fields early in the morning, when the sun

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Speaker 3: is at a low angle and the observer has a

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Speaker 3: long shadow falling over wet grass. The fact that the

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Speaker 3: light is brightest right around your shadow's head here is

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Speaker 3: of course not magic. It's also not really anything special

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Speaker 3: about your shadow or the head of your shadow. Rather,

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Speaker 3: it's about perspective. It's about light sources and reflecting backgrounds

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Speaker 3: and perspective. The halo is located around your shadow's head

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Speaker 3: because your eyes are in your head, and thus the

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Speaker 3: head of your shadow is the place exactly opposite the

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Speaker 3: sun from your eyes. Maybe even never thought about it

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Speaker 3: that way before, but that's always true. This point opposite

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Speaker 3: the sun from your head is known as your antisolar point.

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Speaker 3: And another way to picture this concept is that you

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Speaker 3: can always draw a straight line in three dimensional space

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Speaker 3: from the sun through your head to your shadow's head.

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Speaker 3: Your shadow's head is at one end of that line,

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Speaker 3: the sun is at the other. The line goes straight

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Speaker 3: through your face.

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Speaker 1: All right, all right, I can picture it.

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Speaker 3: So the explanation for the optical effect usually goes like this.

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Speaker 3: The intensity of light reflected off of a drop of water,

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Speaker 3: or through a drop of water and back towards you

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Speaker 3: depends on the angle of reflection. Rays of light that

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Speaker 3: reflect straight back through a droplet of water are most intense.

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Speaker 3: That this straight bounce back angle of reflection would be

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Speaker 3: one hundred and eighty degrees right, going straight into and

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Speaker 3: back like your reflection looking straight into a mirror. As

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Speaker 3: the angle of reflection shifts further away from one hundred

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Speaker 3: and eighty degrees, the reflect light becomes significantly less bright.

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Speaker 3: Why would that be? Well, I was reading about this

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Speaker 3: in the American Meteorological Society's Glossary of Meteorology, and they write, quote,

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Speaker 3: dew drops held off the surface of the leaf by

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Speaker 3: small hairs focus sunlight on the leaf where it is

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Speaker 3: diffusely reflected. The drop, acting in a manner similar to

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Speaker 3: the lens of a lighthouse, then collects a large fraction

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Speaker 3: of this diffusely reflected light that would have otherwise gone

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Speaker 3: in other directions, and sends it back toward the source

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Speaker 3: and the observer. So in other words, the dew drop

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Speaker 3: acts as a kind of focusing lens to reflect light

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Speaker 3: directly back at the sun. Again, that's one hundred and

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Speaker 3: eighty degrees the angle of reflection. Of course, when you

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Speaker 3: look out at a field in the sunlight, no light

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Speaker 3: from the sun is reflected to your eyes from exactly

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Speaker 3: one hundred and eighty degrees because your head is in

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Speaker 3: the way right that's where your shadow is, so you're

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Speaker 3: blocking the exact at one hundred and eighty degree reflection point.

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Speaker 3: But light reflected in droplets from right around your antisolar

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Speaker 3: point can be pretty close to one hundred and eighty

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Speaker 3: degrees and thus significantly brighter when when the rays are

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Speaker 3: focused by the droplets like this than the light from

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Speaker 3: all around. This is especially true if the angle of

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Speaker 3: the sun is low and your shadow is long, and

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Speaker 3: your antisolar point on the ground is thus farther away

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Speaker 3: from you, And if you think about it for a minute,

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Speaker 3: this makes sense because as your shadow's head gets farther

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Speaker 3: away from your eyes because the sun is lower, the

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Speaker 3: difference in the angle between like your exact antisolar point

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Speaker 3: and some point on the ground maybe eight inches to

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Speaker 3: the side of it that difference in angle becomes smaller

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Speaker 3: and smaller as the antisolar point gets farther away. You

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Speaker 3: could compare this to like, if you are aiming a

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Speaker 3: bow and arrow at two targets that are one foot

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Speaker 3: apart from each other, You'll have to make a larger

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Speaker 3: adjustment if those targets are one foot apart from each

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Speaker 3: other and ten feet in front of you than you

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Speaker 3: would if they were one foot apart from each other

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Speaker 3: and thirty feet in front of you. That smaller adjustment

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Speaker 3: in aim is a smaller angle of difference. So this

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Speaker 3: holy glow around your shadow's head has to do with

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Speaker 3: the angle of reflected light hitting your eyes. It's closest

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Speaker 3: to a one hundred and eighty degree angle of reflection

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Speaker 3: near where your shadow's head is, so the light front

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Speaker 3: reflected from the surface around that area is brighter. If

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Speaker 3: you could see it, it would be brightest exactly where

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Speaker 3: your head is, but your head's in the way. One

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Speaker 3: way of demonstrating this actually visually, that's quite simple. As

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Speaker 3: I've seen online, somebody takes a photo of themself with

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Speaker 3: the highlgenshine and the camera is right in front of

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Speaker 3: their face, and then they hold the camera away from

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Speaker 3: their head over to the side, and the glow is

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Speaker 3: around the camera and not around their shadow's head.

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Speaker 1: Ah. There you go.

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Speaker 3: One other tidbit from the American Meteorological Society entry the

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Speaker 3: glossary entry, though, is that while it's entirely true that

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Speaker 3: this effect is much stronger on wet irregular surfaces like

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Speaker 3: dewy grass, there's actually a weaker version of the shadow

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Speaker 3: halo effect that occurs even on dry surfaces. They write, quote,

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Speaker 3: when an observer's shadow is cast on a dry irregular

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Speaker 3: surface such as gravel or vegetation, each irregularity near the

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Speaker 3: antisolar point covers its own shadow in other directions. The

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Speaker 3: average brightness results from a mixture of sunlit and shaded surfaces.

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Speaker 3: The lower the sun in the sky, the longer the shadows,

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Speaker 3: and so the greater the contrast with the brighter region

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Speaker 3: near the antisolar point. So even if there's no dew,

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Speaker 3: you're still going to have the effect that if you

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Speaker 3: look around the world places that are farther away from

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Speaker 3: your anti solar point, you're going to be seeing light

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Speaker 3: reflected kind of bouncing in all directions from both brightly

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Speaker 3: sunlit areas and shaded areas. But when you're looking straight

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Speaker 3: at your antisolar point the stuff right around there, you're

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Speaker 3: pretty much only going to be seeing non shaded areas

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Speaker 3: because shaded areas are blocked by the objects right.

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Speaker 1: Right, all right. So it sounds then like that Seleni

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Speaker 1: probably had a case here. He was actually seeing this

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Speaker 1: optical phenomenon when he was out walking in the fields

301
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Speaker 1: and there was dew on the grass and so forth.

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Speaker 3: That's right, there's no reason to doubt his story that

303
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Speaker 3: he saw this. Lots of other people have seen it.

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Speaker 3: You can probably see it too in the right conditions. However,

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Speaker 3: I am doubtful about Chilini's claims that other people could

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Speaker 3: see his halo. Remember he says, like, I've showed it

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00:17:54,359 --> 00:17:57,119
Speaker 3: to a few special people and they said, yes, it's there.

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Speaker 3: The highligenshine is a phenomenon that is dependent on the

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Speaker 3: position of the viewer. It is not actually an object

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Speaker 3: out there in the world. Like you and I can

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Speaker 3: stand and look at a tree from different angles and

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Speaker 3: both see the tree. The highligenshine is about the angle

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Speaker 3: of reflected rays of light hitting your eyes, and the

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Speaker 3: rays are actually being reflected in this manner all over

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Speaker 3: the surface of the earth, the sunlit side of the Earth.

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Speaker 3: It just happens to be around your shadow's head that

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Speaker 3: you see it, because that's your particular antisolar point. So

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Speaker 3: I don't know. Maybe they could see it if they

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Speaker 3: got really close to him, like cheek to cheek, and

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Speaker 3: then they'd be like, oh wow, yeah, there is a

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Speaker 3: glow around our heads. I'm curious how close exactly you

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Speaker 3: would have to be to see the same thing. Maybe

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Speaker 3: you don't have to be cheek to cheek, but you'd

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Speaker 3: basically have to be looking from the same perspective that

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Speaker 3: he is.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I guess you can well imagine being

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Speaker 1: a scenario where since it's a subtle enough effect, if

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Speaker 1: it was, if he's there like pointing it out to you,

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Speaker 1: you might say, okay, I think I see something. Or

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Speaker 1: this is a guy that seemed to have a very

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Speaker 1: strong personality, yes, and there were at least stories about

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Speaker 1: him stabbing people. You know, you might be inclined to

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Speaker 1: just be like, yeah, totally, I do see that halo

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00:19:17,800 --> 00:19:20,000
Speaker 1: around your shadow. No, no, no, we don't have to.

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Speaker 1: I don't have to put my head next to yours.

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00:19:21,720 --> 00:19:24,840
Speaker 1: It's fine, I got you. I can see it. Too.

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00:19:25,000 --> 00:19:27,680
Speaker 3: Yes, you're a genius. Yes you're really cool. Yes that

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00:19:28,080 --> 00:19:29,480
Speaker 3: coat looks cool on you.

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Speaker 1: Please put the dagger away.

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Speaker 3: So that's the Highligan shine. But I am I am

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00:19:34,160 --> 00:19:37,520
Speaker 3: so interested in this bombastic weirdo. I might try to

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00:19:37,520 --> 00:19:41,280
Speaker 3: find another way to keep reading about ben Venudo Cellini

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00:19:41,320 --> 00:19:42,879
Speaker 3: and see if I can bring him back to the

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Speaker 3: show in the future.

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Speaker 1: And then he sounds like a big character who had

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Speaker 1: a lot of thoughts about a lot of topics, so

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Speaker 1: I won't I wouldn't be surprised if he pops back

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00:19:51,840 --> 00:20:03,240
Speaker 1: up again. All right, I want to come back to

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Speaker 1: a couple of things. In the last episode, we talked

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Speaker 1: about people and things that, due to some sort of

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00:20:11,240 --> 00:20:14,400
Speaker 1: supernatural reason do not cast a shadow, or a thought

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Speaker 1: to not cast a shadow, and how this is generally

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Speaker 1: a comment on something going on with their soul or

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Speaker 1: lack thereof. As I was telling my wife about all

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Speaker 1: of this, she was like, well, you've got to mention

356
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Speaker 1: that episode of The Simpsons. I believe this is the

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Speaker 1: episode where Lisa becomes a vegan for a little bit,

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Speaker 1: or at least she encounters a vegan. I know she

359
00:20:34,800 --> 00:20:37,880
Speaker 1: becomes vegan for an episode, but I can't remember if

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00:20:37,880 --> 00:20:39,520
Speaker 1: this is the same episode.

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00:20:39,800 --> 00:20:42,160
Speaker 3: I think she becomes a vegetan, unless this happens more

362
00:20:42,200 --> 00:20:46,240
Speaker 3: than once. She becomes a vegetarian, and then she ruins

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00:20:46,240 --> 00:20:48,760
Speaker 3: Homer's barbecue.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, and then there's another episode where she meets and

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00:20:52,200 --> 00:20:56,600
Speaker 1: falls in love with a vegan who claims that he

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00:20:56,720 --> 00:20:59,240
Speaker 1: is a level five vegan and he doesn't eat anything

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00:20:59,240 --> 00:21:03,040
Speaker 1: that casts a shot. Now, I have to admit, you know,

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00:21:03,080 --> 00:21:06,640
Speaker 1: sometimes looking back on, especially at vegetarian and vegan jokes

369
00:21:06,640 --> 00:21:11,359
Speaker 1: from the nineteen nineties, a lot of them hit unnecessarily hard,

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00:21:11,960 --> 00:21:16,200
Speaker 1: and especially you know, as a vegetarian I and someone

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00:21:16,320 --> 00:21:19,440
Speaker 1: has lots of vegan friends, you know, I often will

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00:21:19,480 --> 00:21:22,520
Speaker 1: be like, I think that's that's a bit much nineties comedy.

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Speaker 1: But this one, I don't know. I've always liked this

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Speaker 1: one because, you know, at one hand, it's it's a

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Speaker 1: parody of it's poking fun at a particular dietary choice.

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Speaker 1: But on the other hand, this idea of eating something

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00:21:35,119 --> 00:21:38,879
Speaker 1: that doesn't cast a shadow, it does line up with

378
00:21:38,920 --> 00:21:40,399
Speaker 1: a lot of what we were talking about, the idea

379
00:21:40,440 --> 00:21:44,439
Speaker 1: that like, okay, this is a creature with diminished or

380
00:21:44,440 --> 00:21:49,000
Speaker 1: non existent personhood and therefore or a plant. Even I

381
00:21:49,040 --> 00:21:50,960
Speaker 1: guess more and more likely it would be the scenario

382
00:21:51,080 --> 00:21:55,720
Speaker 1: like this particular stalk of corn that doesn't cast a shadow,

383
00:21:55,800 --> 00:21:58,880
Speaker 1: and therefore it is okay to eat corn from this plant.

384
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Speaker 1: Like a lot of comedy, if you think about it

385
00:22:00,359 --> 00:22:02,840
Speaker 1: too hard, it doesn't work. But I always found it

386
00:22:02,840 --> 00:22:05,080
Speaker 1: a bit funny, all right, So I had to mention

387
00:22:05,200 --> 00:22:08,120
Speaker 1: that one Another thing, This is another one that came

388
00:22:08,200 --> 00:22:12,119
Speaker 1: up and talking about these episodes with my wife, she said, oh,

389
00:22:12,200 --> 00:22:15,240
Speaker 1: you've got to mention zero shadow days. So it's worth

390
00:22:15,400 --> 00:22:17,600
Speaker 1: noting that if you're standing in just the right place

391
00:22:17,640 --> 00:22:20,080
Speaker 1: at just the right time, you might well encounter a

392
00:22:20,119 --> 00:22:23,000
Speaker 1: world with I don't want to say no shadows, but

393
00:22:23,080 --> 00:22:29,280
Speaker 1: let's say significantly decrease shadow activity, Like if you were

394
00:22:29,480 --> 00:22:33,240
Speaker 1: let's say you're an individual in a supernatural horror show

395
00:22:33,320 --> 00:22:35,119
Speaker 1: and you always have to be on guard for shadow

396
00:22:35,119 --> 00:22:38,120
Speaker 1: monsters climbing out of the shadows and dragging you to hell. Well,

397
00:22:38,119 --> 00:22:41,119
Speaker 1: these are the places you would want to be because

398
00:22:41,160 --> 00:22:43,520
Speaker 1: you would, I guess, have fewer pools of shadow from

399
00:22:43,520 --> 00:22:46,719
Speaker 1: which things might crop. As pointed out on NASA's Night

400
00:22:46,760 --> 00:22:50,159
Speaker 1: Sky Network website, this is a reality of the solstice

401
00:22:50,560 --> 00:22:52,600
Speaker 1: in the tropics between the Tropic of Cancer and the

402
00:22:52,600 --> 00:22:56,840
Speaker 1: Tropic of Capricorn. Here people experience two zero shadow days

403
00:22:56,880 --> 00:23:00,480
Speaker 1: per year, so called when the sun is directly overhead

404
00:23:00,480 --> 00:23:05,159
Speaker 1: at solar noon, and this makes objects and people cast

405
00:23:05,200 --> 00:23:09,040
Speaker 1: a minimal shadow. It's often been observed that you may

406
00:23:09,080 --> 00:23:12,040
Speaker 1: have to jump in the air to see your own shadow.

407
00:23:12,359 --> 00:23:15,720
Speaker 3: So it's not literally zero shadow, but it's as close

408
00:23:15,760 --> 00:23:18,760
Speaker 3: as it gets on Earth to zero shadow because the

409
00:23:19,520 --> 00:23:22,760
Speaker 3: sun is directly overhead, so you're not casting. There's really

410
00:23:22,840 --> 00:23:25,600
Speaker 3: no horizontality to your shadow.

411
00:23:25,920 --> 00:23:29,520
Speaker 1: Right right, no lengthen shadows for the most part. Yeah,

412
00:23:29,560 --> 00:23:32,160
Speaker 1: it's a minimal shadow activity. Ooh.

413
00:23:32,240 --> 00:23:34,560
Speaker 3: You know though, I wonder if you could say that

414
00:23:34,560 --> 00:23:39,040
Speaker 3: there's actually even less shadow on days when the sun

415
00:23:39,200 --> 00:23:43,080
Speaker 3: is obscured by clouds, because then the directionality of light

416
00:23:43,320 --> 00:23:47,879
Speaker 3: is greatly reduced and light is more just kind of diffuse,

417
00:23:48,400 --> 00:23:51,080
Speaker 3: So you know, there's much I guess you still have

418
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Speaker 3: a shadow, but it's much much less intense.

419
00:23:53,080 --> 00:23:56,280
Speaker 1: It's very faint, yeah, fainter shadows. And then of course

420
00:23:56,359 --> 00:23:58,520
Speaker 1: we also have to take into account our world of

421
00:24:00,119 --> 00:24:04,480
Speaker 1: so much modern illumination, artificial illumination, it's going to continue

422
00:24:04,520 --> 00:24:08,200
Speaker 1: to cast all sorts of interesting shadows as well. In fact,

423
00:24:08,200 --> 00:24:10,600
Speaker 1: that's kind of a defining aspect of sort of the

424
00:24:10,640 --> 00:24:15,240
Speaker 1: modern urban environment. You know, we've talked about that before,

425
00:24:15,359 --> 00:24:20,320
Speaker 1: These various realities and conceptions of the big city. You know,

426
00:24:20,400 --> 00:24:25,679
Speaker 1: having like gulches of shadow between skyscrapers that our positioned

427
00:24:25,680 --> 00:24:28,720
Speaker 1: too closely or don't taper off as they climb into

428
00:24:28,760 --> 00:24:31,080
Speaker 1: the sky, that sort of thing, And then you get

429
00:24:31,080 --> 00:24:34,440
Speaker 1: into you know, various forms of artificial illumination, particularly at night.

430
00:24:34,480 --> 00:24:37,240
Speaker 1: I mean, this is a defining character of so many

431
00:24:38,280 --> 00:24:42,240
Speaker 1: visuals that we have with you know, from various noir films,

432
00:24:42,320 --> 00:24:46,399
Speaker 1: you know, where it's like this this shadowy nightscape, urban

433
00:24:46,480 --> 00:24:49,160
Speaker 1: nightscape in which there are all these places where one

434
00:24:49,200 --> 00:24:51,720
Speaker 1: may hide, but also all these places where one will

435
00:24:51,760 --> 00:24:56,199
Speaker 1: be starkly illuminated and be in more vulnerable perhaps to

436
00:24:56,280 --> 00:24:57,200
Speaker 1: the nighttime city.

437
00:24:57,400 --> 00:25:00,280
Speaker 3: Well, yeah, the environment of the modern city makes where

438
00:25:00,440 --> 00:25:04,240
Speaker 3: you can almost kind of recreate the striking lighting of

439
00:25:04,359 --> 00:25:07,800
Speaker 3: like stage effects, but within a realistic context. You know,

440
00:25:07,920 --> 00:25:11,080
Speaker 3: having like a dark street with a single street lamp

441
00:25:11,119 --> 00:25:14,000
Speaker 3: illuminating something. It's like a spotlight, but you know it's

442
00:25:14,000 --> 00:25:15,200
Speaker 3: plausible to reality.

443
00:25:15,800 --> 00:25:18,639
Speaker 1: Yeah, like that classic what is the the movie poster

444
00:25:18,680 --> 00:25:21,840
Speaker 1: for the Exorcist works that way. You know, it's got

445
00:25:21,960 --> 00:25:24,359
Speaker 1: you know, a sort of noir styling to the poster.

446
00:25:24,480 --> 00:25:29,680
Speaker 1: But also it's like, hey, here comes the Exorcist front

447
00:25:29,720 --> 00:25:32,040
Speaker 1: and centers spotlights on you, buddy, Time to put on

448
00:25:32,080 --> 00:25:32,960
Speaker 1: a show for the devil.

449
00:25:33,680 --> 00:25:35,520
Speaker 3: The way he's got the bag, yet it almost looks

450
00:25:35,520 --> 00:25:38,120
Speaker 3: like he's gonna put on like a costume and tap

451
00:25:38,200 --> 00:25:39,800
Speaker 3: dancing shoes or something.

452
00:25:40,040 --> 00:25:42,040
Speaker 1: Like the suitcase is full of like prop comedy.

453
00:25:42,359 --> 00:25:44,640
Speaker 3: Yeah, got a can of spring snakes.

454
00:25:46,480 --> 00:25:48,440
Speaker 1: Oh man, the devil won't see that kind of Yeah,

455
00:25:48,480 --> 00:25:48,960
Speaker 1: what devil?

456
00:25:48,960 --> 00:25:51,720
Speaker 3: Would you like a boiled peanut?

457
00:25:52,920 --> 00:25:54,480
Speaker 1: Now, at this point, I'd like to get once more

458
00:25:54,520 --> 00:25:57,680
Speaker 1: into the world of art and shadow and get a

459
00:25:57,760 --> 00:26:00,680
Speaker 1: little bit into philosophy and history here as well. And yeah,

460
00:26:00,720 --> 00:26:03,520
Speaker 1: this is gonna be like a big tint discussion. I'm

461
00:26:03,520 --> 00:26:06,080
Speaker 1: not gonna get into all the details here, because ultimately,

462
00:26:06,600 --> 00:26:09,360
Speaker 1: you know, shadows have always been with us. They've they're

463
00:26:09,400 --> 00:26:12,520
Speaker 1: never far from us. And so anytime throughout history when

464
00:26:12,520 --> 00:26:17,639
Speaker 1: you've had a particularly contemplative individual who's gonna indulge in

465
00:26:17,680 --> 00:26:21,720
Speaker 1: a bit of navel gazing, uh, the shadow was always

466
00:26:21,760 --> 00:26:24,320
Speaker 1: there to aid us. And yeah, there's there's been a

467
00:26:24,359 --> 00:26:26,600
Speaker 1: lot of deep thoughts about shadows, about what is and

468
00:26:26,720 --> 00:26:29,000
Speaker 1: isn't a shadow? Can you actually look at a shadow?

469
00:26:29,600 --> 00:26:32,560
Speaker 1: Does a moving bird cast one shadow or multiple shadows?

470
00:26:32,560 --> 00:26:35,320
Speaker 1: And so forth? And I'm not saying it isn't interesting,

471
00:26:35,359 --> 00:26:39,000
Speaker 1: but it all, it all kind of started turning my

472
00:26:39,000 --> 00:26:41,960
Speaker 1: my brain upside down after a bit. So I'm gonna

473
00:26:41,960 --> 00:26:46,440
Speaker 1: skip around a bit here. But I was initially reminded

474
00:26:46,520 --> 00:26:50,240
Speaker 1: once more of our episode on necromancy, or one of

475
00:26:50,240 --> 00:26:54,440
Speaker 1: our episodes on necromancy, when we briefly discussed shadow puppetry

476
00:26:54,840 --> 00:27:00,320
Speaker 1: and its possible connections to shamanistic practices and or necromancy

477
00:27:01,160 --> 00:27:04,600
Speaker 1: in the sense of some sort of ritualistic way of

478
00:27:04,640 --> 00:27:06,760
Speaker 1: attempting to speak with the dead or to create the

479
00:27:06,760 --> 00:27:08,320
Speaker 1: illusion of speaking with the dead.

480
00:27:08,960 --> 00:27:11,560
Speaker 3: Right, So, the example from the necromancy episode was a

481
00:27:11,600 --> 00:27:16,280
Speaker 3: story about a Chinese emperor long ago who had a

482
00:27:16,320 --> 00:27:19,439
Speaker 3: sort of wizard like advisor who told him that he

483
00:27:19,480 --> 00:27:23,000
Speaker 3: could resurrect the spirit of a concubine who he had

484
00:27:23,040 --> 00:27:26,280
Speaker 3: loved very much but who had passed away, and that

485
00:27:26,359 --> 00:27:28,719
Speaker 3: she could speak to him again, but she would appear

486
00:27:28,800 --> 00:27:31,679
Speaker 3: as like a shadow behind a screen, and that this

487
00:27:31,880 --> 00:27:33,960
Speaker 3: was attributed later to shadow puppetry.

488
00:27:34,800 --> 00:27:38,399
Speaker 1: Right, it's unknown exactly how this played out or you know,

489
00:27:38,480 --> 00:27:41,639
Speaker 1: ultimately you know how true this account is. And there

490
00:27:41,640 --> 00:27:43,840
Speaker 1: were some thoughts that it was like a statue behind

491
00:27:44,240 --> 00:27:47,840
Speaker 1: the screen or scrim that it was more traditional shadow

492
00:27:47,840 --> 00:27:51,840
Speaker 1: puppetry or that, and also disagreements over to what extent

493
00:27:52,080 --> 00:27:55,760
Speaker 1: the Emperor would have been conned by this. But it's

494
00:27:55,800 --> 00:27:59,840
Speaker 1: an interesting slice of history. But at any rate, setting

495
00:27:59,880 --> 00:28:03,119
Speaker 1: off that aside, shadow theater anyway you slice that is

496
00:28:03,160 --> 00:28:06,800
Speaker 1: an ancient performance. Are that probably began in Central Asia

497
00:28:06,880 --> 00:28:10,120
Speaker 1: or China or possibly India during the first millennium BC.

498
00:28:11,240 --> 00:28:14,040
Speaker 1: That's at least, I mean, who knows ultimately how far

499
00:28:14,080 --> 00:28:17,439
Speaker 1: back it goes, because of course people along before that

500
00:28:17,520 --> 00:28:20,520
Speaker 1: were aware of their shadows, and they might have caught

501
00:28:20,560 --> 00:28:25,040
Speaker 1: on two ways that you might manipulate that shadow. So

502
00:28:26,200 --> 00:28:30,959
Speaker 1: as it stands, shadow puppetry contains a number of different

503
00:28:31,000 --> 00:28:35,400
Speaker 1: styles and traditions, you know, their use of puppets cut

504
00:28:35,400 --> 00:28:39,600
Speaker 1: out or otherwise. Also you have instances where individuals are

505
00:28:39,720 --> 00:28:43,000
Speaker 1: using their own bodies. I think the most famous example

506
00:28:43,000 --> 00:28:46,360
Speaker 1: of this is of course shadow graphy or the use

507
00:28:46,400 --> 00:28:48,360
Speaker 1: of you know, like making a little bunny out of

508
00:28:48,360 --> 00:28:51,960
Speaker 1: your hands and far more complicated things, and then using

509
00:28:52,000 --> 00:28:55,480
Speaker 1: that with light to create a shadow creature. And then

510
00:28:55,520 --> 00:28:57,520
Speaker 1: that's a you know, you may think of that as

511
00:28:57,560 --> 00:29:00,960
Speaker 1: just like a quick little you know, dad or something,

512
00:29:01,000 --> 00:29:03,640
Speaker 1: but it's actually a very refined craft and it is

513
00:29:03,800 --> 00:29:06,480
Speaker 1: likely it likely originated in China or the Far East

514
00:29:06,480 --> 00:29:06,920
Speaker 1: as well.

515
00:29:07,400 --> 00:29:11,240
Speaker 3: In my limited recent experiences doing a hand shadow puppetry

516
00:29:11,280 --> 00:29:13,760
Speaker 3: for my daughter, it's interesting.

517
00:29:13,280 --> 00:29:14,040
Speaker 1: The way that.

518
00:29:17,360 --> 00:29:21,280
Speaker 3: It's unlike some other art forms in that by reshaping

519
00:29:21,320 --> 00:29:24,280
Speaker 3: your hand in front of the to block the light

520
00:29:24,680 --> 00:29:27,400
Speaker 3: and looking at the shadow, you can kind of get

521
00:29:27,440 --> 00:29:32,000
Speaker 3: a instant, continuous feedback on how close you're getting to

522
00:29:32,120 --> 00:29:34,760
Speaker 3: the object you're trying to represent as you move your

523
00:29:34,800 --> 00:29:38,080
Speaker 3: hand around. You know, it's unlike I would say in

524
00:29:38,120 --> 00:29:40,520
Speaker 3: my experience drawing, which I'm not good at at all,

525
00:29:40,880 --> 00:29:44,800
Speaker 3: which is a more laborious path to the realization of

526
00:29:44,840 --> 00:29:46,840
Speaker 3: the image, and then if you make a mistake, it's

527
00:29:46,920 --> 00:29:49,440
Speaker 3: laborious to undo it and try to change it. With

528
00:29:49,600 --> 00:29:52,440
Speaker 3: the shadow puppet, I felt like my hand kind of

529
00:29:52,480 --> 00:29:56,200
Speaker 3: became a form of jelly that was just automatically adjusting

530
00:29:56,240 --> 00:29:58,080
Speaker 3: itself to try to look more and more like a

531
00:29:58,120 --> 00:29:58,920
Speaker 3: dinosaur head.

532
00:29:59,640 --> 00:30:02,719
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's probably worth keeping in mind this act of

533
00:30:02,840 --> 00:30:05,760
Speaker 1: making your hand into this three dimensional object, this three

534
00:30:05,760 --> 00:30:09,920
Speaker 1: dimensional arrangement of digits that can then be manipulated in

535
00:30:10,000 --> 00:30:13,280
Speaker 1: three D space in order to change a two D

536
00:30:13,480 --> 00:30:17,520
Speaker 1: silhouette and make it resemble something else. We're thinking about

537
00:30:17,520 --> 00:30:19,840
Speaker 1: it when we get into a discussion of shadows as

538
00:30:19,960 --> 00:30:23,880
Speaker 1: truth and shadows as lies or manipulation. So at any rate,

539
00:30:23,920 --> 00:30:27,120
Speaker 1: I think you know, shadow publishing is worth thinking about here, though,

540
00:30:27,160 --> 00:30:29,400
Speaker 1: of course, we can easily become lost in discussions over

541
00:30:29,440 --> 00:30:32,000
Speaker 1: to what extent we're talking about shadow in these various

542
00:30:32,040 --> 00:30:37,880
Speaker 1: performances rather than shade, silhouette, translucent materials, et cetera. You know,

543
00:30:37,920 --> 00:30:40,480
Speaker 1: there's a lot going on in any given example of

544
00:30:40,640 --> 00:30:45,080
Speaker 1: shadow theater, But what about shadows elsewhere in art? This

545
00:30:45,120 --> 00:30:47,320
Speaker 1: is another huge topic that we're not going to be

546
00:30:47,360 --> 00:30:50,800
Speaker 1: able to do full justice too. But I was reading

547
00:30:50,840 --> 00:30:55,000
Speaker 1: a bit about this in a really excellent jay Store

548
00:30:55,120 --> 00:30:58,600
Speaker 1: article type Jaystore Daily article titled do we actually see

549
00:30:58,640 --> 00:31:02,720
Speaker 1: shadows by a rule? Sorensen, an article that I recommend

550
00:31:02,720 --> 00:31:05,640
Speaker 1: for anyone wanting a nice look at the various philosophical

551
00:31:05,720 --> 00:31:08,400
Speaker 1: arguments over whether we can see a shadow or not

552
00:31:08,680 --> 00:31:10,480
Speaker 1: when you look at a shadow, are you looking at

553
00:31:10,480 --> 00:31:13,400
Speaker 1: something or are you looking at nothing? That sort of thing.

554
00:31:14,040 --> 00:31:18,040
Speaker 3: This seems exactly the perfect kind of debate to like

555
00:31:18,120 --> 00:31:22,320
Speaker 3: occupy the minds and debate space of medieval scholastics.

556
00:31:22,800 --> 00:31:25,440
Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, so there's a great deal in there. This

557
00:31:25,560 --> 00:31:29,040
Speaker 1: article also gets into some of these theological discussions. What

558
00:31:29,040 --> 00:31:30,800
Speaker 1: does it mean that a shadow moves over the deep,

559
00:31:30,840 --> 00:31:34,600
Speaker 1: et cetera. But it covers a lot of ground in here.

560
00:31:34,680 --> 00:31:39,320
Speaker 1: At one point he mentions quote shadows were fringe phenomena

561
00:31:39,520 --> 00:31:43,080
Speaker 1: in the European Dark Ages. They are rarely depicted in

562
00:31:43,120 --> 00:31:46,440
Speaker 1: the era's paintings. Perhaps the artists portrayed only what they

563
00:31:46,480 --> 00:31:49,240
Speaker 1: believe to be visible. So coming back to this idea

564
00:31:49,240 --> 00:31:52,960
Speaker 1: that maybe a sort of negative view of the shadow

565
00:31:53,480 --> 00:31:56,080
Speaker 1: was maybe more predominant during this period of time.

566
00:31:56,560 --> 00:31:59,800
Speaker 3: Oh, I'm having an idea, it's only sort of half formed.

567
00:32:00,640 --> 00:32:03,240
Speaker 3: I'm thinking about how when you look at like a

568
00:32:03,280 --> 00:32:08,560
Speaker 3: medieval artwork that might to some modern critics appear kind

569
00:32:08,560 --> 00:32:12,600
Speaker 3: of primitive somehow, because it's like a maybe a representation

570
00:32:12,680 --> 00:32:17,200
Speaker 3: of a human that shows no optical effects or effects

571
00:32:17,200 --> 00:32:20,120
Speaker 3: of perspective at all, Like, so it doesn't show any

572
00:32:20,160 --> 00:32:23,640
Speaker 3: differences in illumination by the direction of light. It doesn't

573
00:32:23,640 --> 00:32:27,040
Speaker 3: have any shadows or anything like that. That might look

574
00:32:27,400 --> 00:32:31,760
Speaker 3: kind of unsophisticated as an artwork because it doesn't show

575
00:32:31,800 --> 00:32:35,080
Speaker 3: all these all the tricks and plays of light that

576
00:32:35,240 --> 00:32:38,640
Speaker 3: are so prized in the you know, in the passionate

577
00:32:38,720 --> 00:32:42,040
Speaker 3: realistic artworks of I don't know, the Renaissance or whatever.

578
00:32:42,480 --> 00:32:45,400
Speaker 3: But you could look at that and say, actually, by

579
00:32:45,480 --> 00:32:48,080
Speaker 3: taking out all of those light effects, that is a

580
00:32:48,640 --> 00:32:54,000
Speaker 3: that is a more highly processed visual representation. That is

581
00:32:54,320 --> 00:32:57,920
Speaker 3: what the brain. That is the information the brain is

582
00:32:57,920 --> 00:32:59,959
Speaker 3: trying to interpret in a scene, because, as we talk

583
00:33:00,000 --> 00:33:02,320
Speaker 3: talked about in the last episode, the brain has to

584
00:33:02,400 --> 00:33:05,960
Speaker 3: kind of ignore a lot of things about shadows and

585
00:33:06,400 --> 00:33:09,160
Speaker 3: effects of light to try to just get information about

586
00:33:09,160 --> 00:33:11,800
Speaker 3: what are the physical objects in my space and what

587
00:33:11,840 --> 00:33:14,840
Speaker 3: are the physical agents in my space that I need

588
00:33:14,880 --> 00:33:18,480
Speaker 3: to understand as possibly having relevance to what I'm about

589
00:33:18,520 --> 00:33:21,320
Speaker 3: to do. You know, you need to be able to

590
00:33:21,360 --> 00:33:23,600
Speaker 3: see that there are two people standing in the room

591
00:33:23,640 --> 00:33:25,600
Speaker 3: in front of you, and there's a rock right there

592
00:33:25,640 --> 00:33:28,520
Speaker 3: that you could trip on, and not be confused by

593
00:33:28,600 --> 00:33:31,200
Speaker 3: shadows and changes and shading due to the position of

594
00:33:31,240 --> 00:33:35,240
Speaker 3: the light source that might be literal differences that you

595
00:33:35,320 --> 00:33:39,320
Speaker 3: see with your eyes, but are but are not relevant

596
00:33:39,320 --> 00:33:42,600
Speaker 3: information about what the objects in your space are. So

597
00:33:42,680 --> 00:33:45,760
Speaker 3: when you see that artwork that is like a picture

598
00:33:45,800 --> 00:33:48,720
Speaker 3: of a person without any effects of light sources or

599
00:33:48,720 --> 00:33:51,200
Speaker 3: shadows or anything like that, that is kind of a

600
00:33:51,320 --> 00:33:55,200
Speaker 3: mental representation of a person. That's not how we actually

601
00:33:55,240 --> 00:33:56,080
Speaker 3: see the world.

602
00:33:56,680 --> 00:33:59,160
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, so it is. It's still a true image.

603
00:34:00,520 --> 00:34:03,560
Speaker 1: And again you can also factor into these various discussions

604
00:34:03,600 --> 00:34:06,680
Speaker 1: about whether or not we actually see a shadow that

605
00:34:06,760 --> 00:34:10,000
Speaker 1: sort of thing. But Sorenson does get back to the

606
00:34:10,040 --> 00:34:14,320
Speaker 1: idea of shadow theater in ways that I was not expecting.

607
00:34:14,840 --> 00:34:17,600
Speaker 1: He writes, quote, if shadows were not seen as figures,

608
00:34:17,960 --> 00:34:21,280
Speaker 1: shadow plays would be as visually inert as radio plays.

609
00:34:21,880 --> 00:34:26,400
Speaker 1: Shadows are enlivened by actions such as jumping, bowing, and kissing.

610
00:34:26,480 --> 00:34:30,600
Speaker 1: This animation raised medieval concerns about idolatry to appease the

611
00:34:30,640 --> 00:34:35,239
Speaker 1: pious puppets were perforated. The dots of light were reminders

612
00:34:35,239 --> 00:34:38,800
Speaker 1: that shadows are lifeless effects of positive causes.

613
00:34:40,680 --> 00:34:44,319
Speaker 3: Seems like even if it's perforated, the principle remains. But

614
00:34:44,680 --> 00:34:46,359
Speaker 3: I don't know that just seems like one of those

615
00:34:46,400 --> 00:34:50,640
Speaker 3: funny kind of ineffectual gesture is to try to appease

616
00:34:50,680 --> 00:34:52,920
Speaker 3: somebody who just wants to complain about something.

617
00:34:53,560 --> 00:34:55,560
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I mean it also reminds me of other

618
00:34:55,760 --> 00:35:00,719
Speaker 1: stories and tales we've read about where it's like, if

619
00:35:00,760 --> 00:35:06,120
Speaker 1: you don't complete a highly realistic painting, then there's less

620
00:35:06,200 --> 00:35:08,360
Speaker 1: risk of it coming alive, like do not dot the

621
00:35:08,440 --> 00:35:11,760
Speaker 1: dragon's eye, less the dragon climb out of the painting,

622
00:35:11,800 --> 00:35:15,360
Speaker 1: that sort of thing. Now, it is true that puppetry

623
00:35:15,400 --> 00:35:18,520
Speaker 1: has at times raised the ire of iconoclasts and raised

624
00:35:18,520 --> 00:35:21,160
Speaker 1: fears of idolatry, though at the same time it's also

625
00:35:21,160 --> 00:35:23,440
Speaker 1: been utilized by religious groups and it's still utilized by

626
00:35:23,440 --> 00:35:26,760
Speaker 1: religious groups today. I mean, puppetry is just, generally speaking,

627
00:35:26,800 --> 00:35:30,720
Speaker 1: a performance medium that is very ancient and well entrenched

628
00:35:30,719 --> 00:35:33,800
Speaker 1: in human tradition. But I was curious about this idea

629
00:35:33,920 --> 00:35:37,680
Speaker 1: of perforation, the idea like we were discussing that, Okay,

630
00:35:37,680 --> 00:35:39,600
Speaker 1: here's this shadow thing we've created on the wall, but

631
00:35:39,600 --> 00:35:41,760
Speaker 1: don't worry, it has holes in it. It can't possibly

632
00:35:41,800 --> 00:35:46,280
Speaker 1: be real because, on one hand, outside of European context especially,

633
00:35:46,320 --> 00:35:50,840
Speaker 1: you see plenty of examples of shadow puppetry, thinking especially

634
00:35:50,920 --> 00:35:59,239
Speaker 1: of Indonesian traditions that depend on perforated puppets structures in

635
00:35:59,360 --> 00:36:02,560
Speaker 1: order to allow light to pass through and enhance the

636
00:36:02,600 --> 00:36:06,239
Speaker 1: overall effect like it's those holes, at least to me

637
00:36:06,280 --> 00:36:09,680
Speaker 1: as a viewer, they help bring the things alive more,

638
00:36:10,040 --> 00:36:12,799
Speaker 1: not make them seem less alive. I don't know where

639
00:36:12,840 --> 00:36:15,400
Speaker 1: you would stand on the argument of making it less real,

640
00:36:16,840 --> 00:36:19,840
Speaker 1: but I did find something written about this as it

641
00:36:20,440 --> 00:36:26,600
Speaker 1: concerns traditional Turkish shadow puppetry. This is from the article

642
00:36:27,080 --> 00:36:33,000
Speaker 1: Karagauz and Hazavad Projections of Subversion and Conformance by James Smith.

643
00:36:33,040 --> 00:36:36,000
Speaker 1: This was an Asian theater journal from back in two

644
00:36:36,040 --> 00:36:40,399
Speaker 1: thousand and four. The author rights Islamic Sufi thought, one

645
00:36:40,400 --> 00:36:43,440
Speaker 1: of the most powerful cultural forces within Islamic society from

646
00:36:43,440 --> 00:36:48,200
Speaker 1: the twelfth century on, also affected Karrago's performance. According to

647
00:36:48,320 --> 00:36:53,160
Speaker 1: Karrago's expert Linda Merceades, Turkish shadow puppetry was designed both

648
00:36:53,200 --> 00:36:56,880
Speaker 1: to entertain and to achieve religious experience, based on the

649
00:36:56,920 --> 00:37:00,759
Speaker 1: Sufi islam doctrine that man is but a shadow manipulated

650
00:37:00,800 --> 00:37:05,680
Speaker 1: by his creator. The opening poem, typically recited by either

651
00:37:05,800 --> 00:37:10,799
Speaker 1: Kara or Hasavat, is a ghazal. The rules against forms

652
00:37:10,840 --> 00:37:15,600
Speaker 1: of representation expressed by the Quran in Sorotu are fairly strict,

653
00:37:15,800 --> 00:37:20,680
Speaker 1: but Sufi clerics defended Karaga's performance. A complex theological argument

654
00:37:20,760 --> 00:37:25,960
Speaker 1: was formulated. Because Islam forbids the representation of animate beings,

655
00:37:26,040 --> 00:37:30,520
Speaker 1: and furthermore, because shadow puppets were perforated by holes, there

656
00:37:30,600 --> 00:37:33,879
Speaker 1: was no possible reason to think of shadow puppets as

657
00:37:33,920 --> 00:37:39,160
Speaker 1: animate beings. Thus shadow puppet shows could be performed. Now

658
00:37:39,160 --> 00:37:41,080
Speaker 1: there's a lot to process there that I think is

659
00:37:41,080 --> 00:37:44,759
Speaker 1: just fascinating. On one hand, this idea of human beings

660
00:37:45,400 --> 00:37:49,920
Speaker 1: as shadows cast by God, and thus God is far

661
00:37:50,000 --> 00:37:53,239
Speaker 1: beyond us as a human being is beyond the substance

662
00:37:53,280 --> 00:37:56,319
Speaker 1: of his own shadow. I think that's all really really

663
00:37:56,360 --> 00:37:58,759
Speaker 1: deep and cool to think about. And we'll also see

664
00:37:58,760 --> 00:38:01,920
Speaker 1: some reflections of that in another religious example coming up.

665
00:38:03,120 --> 00:38:05,400
Speaker 1: And then we have this idea that, hey, puppets have

666
00:38:05,400 --> 00:38:10,120
Speaker 1: holes in them and therefore they can't possibly be mistaken

667
00:38:10,160 --> 00:38:15,160
Speaker 1: for living, animate creatures. It's interesting as well, it seems again,

668
00:38:15,320 --> 00:38:18,680
Speaker 1: I still feel like the holes overall in any given

669
00:38:18,760 --> 00:38:22,319
Speaker 1: shadow puppetry example, they do aid to bring the thing

670
00:38:22,560 --> 00:38:24,759
Speaker 1: to life more. But it's interesting to think of it

671
00:38:24,800 --> 00:38:37,680
Speaker 1: as kind of like a theological loophole as well. All right,

672
00:38:37,719 --> 00:38:40,360
Speaker 1: Now moving along to some other areas, this is another

673
00:38:40,360 --> 00:38:44,160
Speaker 1: one that I imagine is on listeners' minds already. It's worth

674
00:38:44,160 --> 00:38:47,080
Speaker 1: at least noting that Plato's allegory of the cave concerns

675
00:38:47,160 --> 00:38:50,080
Speaker 1: shadow images on a wall, essentially shadow puppets, I guess

676
00:38:50,080 --> 00:38:53,480
Speaker 1: you could say. And this of course regards humanity's ability

677
00:38:53,520 --> 00:38:56,760
Speaker 1: to see beyond the material world and into something far greater.

678
00:38:57,360 --> 00:39:02,240
Speaker 1: So it's an hour in which shadows on a wall

679
00:39:02,320 --> 00:39:05,480
Speaker 1: are taken for reality because there's no additional context for

680
00:39:05,560 --> 00:39:08,840
Speaker 1: the viewer to understand them. And we also have this

681
00:39:08,960 --> 00:39:12,960
Speaker 1: idea of shadows ultimately as something less than reality, something

682
00:39:12,960 --> 00:39:16,279
Speaker 1: that can mislead us about the true nature of reality. Now,

683
00:39:16,280 --> 00:39:19,399
Speaker 1: to come back to visual art, yeah, there is often

684
00:39:19,440 --> 00:39:21,560
Speaker 1: the lack of shadows, like we've been discussing in older works,

685
00:39:22,239 --> 00:39:25,239
Speaker 1: unless shadow is key to the work itself. During the

686
00:39:25,320 --> 00:39:28,520
Speaker 1: Dark Ages, again, Soresen suggests that perhaps artists were just

687
00:39:28,560 --> 00:39:31,279
Speaker 1: more concerned with the visible as opposed to the invisible

688
00:39:31,280 --> 00:39:34,879
Speaker 1: world of shadows. But shadows would of course become more

689
00:39:34,920 --> 00:39:39,480
Speaker 1: popular again during the Renaissance as perspective became increasingly important

690
00:39:39,520 --> 00:39:42,960
Speaker 1: in works of Western art and post Renaissance shadows became

691
00:39:43,040 --> 00:39:46,680
Speaker 1: just standard in all manner of Western art. As William

692
00:39:46,840 --> 00:39:49,960
Speaker 1: Chapman Sharp points out in a twenty seventeen article for

693
00:39:50,080 --> 00:39:53,360
Speaker 1: the Oxford University Press titled What's going On in the Shadows?

694
00:39:53,400 --> 00:39:56,960
Speaker 1: A Visual arts Timeline, you eventually get to a point

695
00:39:57,040 --> 00:40:00,319
Speaker 1: in the nineteenth century where standalone shadows without an in

696
00:40:00,400 --> 00:40:04,360
Speaker 1: picture source, so like the shadow is cast by someone

697
00:40:04,440 --> 00:40:07,080
Speaker 1: essentially out of frame or off screen. If you will,

698
00:40:08,560 --> 00:40:11,239
Speaker 1: these begin to pop up. He specifically points to an

699
00:40:11,280 --> 00:40:14,359
Speaker 1: eighteen thirty three piece by William Collins that you can

700
00:40:14,400 --> 00:40:17,080
Speaker 1: look up online titled Rustic Civility.

701
00:40:17,480 --> 00:40:20,600
Speaker 3: Oh boy, I don't know if this is the intended effect.

702
00:40:20,719 --> 00:40:23,439
Speaker 3: Maybe I'm just in the Halloween mindset, but I'm finding

703
00:40:23,520 --> 00:40:27,799
Speaker 3: this painting rather spooky. So what we see here is

704
00:40:27,840 --> 00:40:32,040
Speaker 3: like a sort of road leading through a gate into

705
00:40:32,120 --> 00:40:34,800
Speaker 3: a wooded grove, and there's a house in the distance.

706
00:40:35,000 --> 00:40:38,440
Speaker 3: The gate is open, and there are three children standing

707
00:40:38,480 --> 00:40:42,239
Speaker 3: beside the gate. They're sort of like squinting in the sun.

708
00:40:42,320 --> 00:40:45,200
Speaker 3: I think one is holding up a holding up a

709
00:40:45,239 --> 00:40:48,359
Speaker 3: hand to block the sun over his eyes, and two

710
00:40:48,360 --> 00:40:50,720
Speaker 3: of the children seem to be kind of hiding behind

711
00:40:50,800 --> 00:40:53,960
Speaker 3: the third, and then we see in the foreground on

712
00:40:54,040 --> 00:40:57,640
Speaker 3: the road just a shadow of a figure and a hat.

713
00:40:57,719 --> 00:40:59,880
Speaker 3: I think it's a man mounted on a horse.

714
00:41:00,080 --> 00:41:02,799
Speaker 1: Maybe. Yep, that's the impression I get.

715
00:41:03,560 --> 00:41:08,280
Speaker 3: We don't see the figure itself, we just see its shadow,

716
00:41:08,360 --> 00:41:10,080
Speaker 3: but it seems rather ominous.

717
00:41:11,239 --> 00:41:13,560
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that's a valid interpretation. Again, I'm not

718
00:41:13,560 --> 00:41:16,120
Speaker 1: sure offhand what the artist's exact intent was here, but

719
00:41:16,239 --> 00:41:19,640
Speaker 1: you could look at this like, oh, Dad's home. The

720
00:41:19,719 --> 00:41:21,920
Speaker 1: kids are excited. The kids don't look particularly fearful, but

721
00:41:21,960 --> 00:41:26,640
Speaker 1: they are children. Yeah. The other interpretation is that this

722
00:41:26,800 --> 00:41:29,840
Speaker 1: is a stranger and then therefore we have no idea

723
00:41:29,920 --> 00:41:32,600
Speaker 1: what the intent is. But we don't see the individual

724
00:41:32,640 --> 00:41:35,960
Speaker 1: in this painting. All we see is the shadow they

725
00:41:36,040 --> 00:41:39,240
Speaker 1: cast on the road in front of the children.

726
00:41:39,520 --> 00:41:43,040
Speaker 3: Well, I apologize to William Collins if I've read menace

727
00:41:43,120 --> 00:41:45,640
Speaker 3: into his artwork that he did not intend. But yeah,

728
00:41:45,680 --> 00:41:47,400
Speaker 3: this is looking to me, this is kind of like

729
00:41:47,960 --> 00:41:51,200
Speaker 3: some of those paintings by Edward Hopper, like gas by

730
00:41:51,280 --> 00:41:54,160
Speaker 3: Hopper that just to me always look more and more

731
00:41:54,280 --> 00:41:57,200
Speaker 3: foreboding and ominous the more I look at them.

732
00:41:57,480 --> 00:42:02,080
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, absolutely, but but if nothing else, you know,

733
00:42:02,120 --> 00:42:05,200
Speaker 1: it's an example of a case where in a painting

734
00:42:05,640 --> 00:42:08,600
Speaker 1: the shadow is not merely incidental. The shadow is key

735
00:42:08,640 --> 00:42:11,120
Speaker 1: to the work. It's not just oh, it's nice that

736
00:42:11,160 --> 00:42:13,200
Speaker 1: things have shadows and people have shadows. Now like that,

737
00:42:13,280 --> 00:42:16,200
Speaker 1: the shadow is key to whatever the artist is trying

738
00:42:16,200 --> 00:42:18,160
Speaker 1: to say here. Now, once we reach the age of

739
00:42:18,160 --> 00:42:21,960
Speaker 1: photography and then cinema, of course, shadow becomes increasingly essential.

740
00:42:22,360 --> 00:42:26,400
Speaker 1: In fact, the author of this Oxford University Press piece

741
00:42:26,880 --> 00:42:32,640
Speaker 1: sharp points out that Henry Fox Talbot originally discussed photography

742
00:42:32,680 --> 00:42:35,840
Speaker 1: as a matter of fixing a shadow, and various others

743
00:42:35,880 --> 00:42:39,000
Speaker 1: made this connection between photography and shadow as well. I mean,

744
00:42:39,239 --> 00:42:43,919
Speaker 1: you can't engage in photography without at least thinking about shadows, right,

745
00:42:44,000 --> 00:42:47,640
Speaker 1: if not exploiting them and using them. One example though,

746
00:42:47,680 --> 00:42:50,160
Speaker 1: of people of the time period thinking about shadows and

747
00:42:50,239 --> 00:42:54,280
Speaker 1: photography apparently a poet Elizabeth Barrett wrote to a friend

748
00:42:54,280 --> 00:42:57,240
Speaker 1: in eighteen forty three that a photograph was like quote,

749
00:42:57,320 --> 00:43:01,000
Speaker 1: the very shadow of the person lying there fixed forever.

750
00:43:01,400 --> 00:43:05,360
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, going around with your cameras just snatching shadows

751
00:43:05,400 --> 00:43:07,759
Speaker 1: left and right. And then, of course, once we get

752
00:43:07,760 --> 00:43:10,279
Speaker 1: into the era of film, which we touched on earlier, you,

753
00:43:10,400 --> 00:43:12,800
Speaker 1: especially when you look at the work of German expressionists

754
00:43:13,360 --> 00:43:16,720
Speaker 1: during the Silent Era. They made terrific use of shadow,

755
00:43:16,880 --> 00:43:19,680
Speaker 1: not only is just a way of capturing the mood,

756
00:43:19,760 --> 00:43:23,400
Speaker 1: but making them become an active part of the visual narrative,

757
00:43:23,400 --> 00:43:27,000
Speaker 1: which of course brings us back to Nosferatu. And you

758
00:43:27,000 --> 00:43:30,360
Speaker 1: know those scenes of Nosferatu, the vampire creep or I

759
00:43:30,360 --> 00:43:32,880
Speaker 1: guess his name's not nos Faratu, it's called crown Count

760
00:43:33,120 --> 00:43:36,440
Speaker 1: Orlock or Lock, you know, creeping up the stairs. His

761
00:43:36,760 --> 00:43:41,160
Speaker 1: shadow lengthened and menacing. The shadow is an active part

762
00:43:41,600 --> 00:43:45,640
Speaker 1: of the narrative that is being presented on the screen. Now,

763
00:43:46,239 --> 00:43:49,040
Speaker 1: rewinding things a bit, our old friend Plenty of the

764
00:43:49,080 --> 00:43:52,080
Speaker 1: Elder famously chimed in on the role of shadow in art.

765
00:43:52,520 --> 00:43:55,960
Speaker 1: In the natural history, he shares the story of the

766
00:43:56,000 --> 00:44:01,680
Speaker 1: Corinthian Buttades, who allegedly invented the art of modeling via shadow,

767
00:44:01,800 --> 00:44:04,000
Speaker 1: or at least the art of modeling clay in relief

768
00:44:04,239 --> 00:44:09,000
Speaker 1: utilizing shadow. In translation quote, it was through his daughter

769
00:44:09,040 --> 00:44:11,680
Speaker 1: that he made the discovery, who, upon being deeply in

770
00:44:11,680 --> 00:44:13,640
Speaker 1: love with a young man about to depart on a

771
00:44:13,640 --> 00:44:17,040
Speaker 1: long journey, trace the profile of his face as thrown

772
00:44:17,120 --> 00:44:19,600
Speaker 1: upon the wall by the light of the lamp. Upon

773
00:44:19,680 --> 00:44:22,880
Speaker 1: seeing this, her father filled in the outline by compressing

774
00:44:22,960 --> 00:44:26,480
Speaker 1: clay upon the surface and so made a face in relief,

775
00:44:26,760 --> 00:44:30,400
Speaker 1: which he then hardened by fire along with other articles

776
00:44:30,400 --> 00:44:31,040
Speaker 1: of pottery.

777
00:44:31,239 --> 00:44:34,920
Speaker 3: Oh interesting, But so I would think via that method

778
00:44:34,960 --> 00:44:39,920
Speaker 3: you could only get a two dimensional silhouette a not

779
00:44:40,000 --> 00:44:41,880
Speaker 3: a three dimensional cast, right.

780
00:44:42,200 --> 00:44:44,840
Speaker 1: Right right, So he would have to add in additional

781
00:44:44,840 --> 00:44:48,480
Speaker 1: details via his craft, but he would have at least

782
00:44:49,120 --> 00:44:51,880
Speaker 1: some aspect, at least the silhoe out of the individual

783
00:44:52,120 --> 00:44:56,040
Speaker 1: is captured on the wall. So it's interesting, especially when

784
00:44:56,040 --> 00:44:58,080
Speaker 1: you sort of compare it to Plato. And again Plato

785
00:44:58,200 --> 00:45:00,520
Speaker 1: is making other points. Plato's not just talk talking about Hey,

786
00:45:00,600 --> 00:45:02,200
Speaker 1: let me tell you all about shadows and what they're

787
00:45:02,280 --> 00:45:05,720
Speaker 1: up to. He's using it to make a different point.

788
00:45:06,120 --> 00:45:10,279
Speaker 1: But instead of shadow being a dangerous deceiver regarding the

789
00:45:10,280 --> 00:45:13,600
Speaker 1: true nature of reality, in this case, it actually allows

790
00:45:13,680 --> 00:45:17,840
Speaker 1: reality to at least a certain degree, be captured, to

791
00:45:17,920 --> 00:45:21,880
Speaker 1: be recreated or duplicated. And this story would apparently become

792
00:45:21,960 --> 00:45:24,560
Speaker 1: a popular painting subject in and of itself in the

793
00:45:24,600 --> 00:45:27,879
Speaker 1: eighteenth century. And again because you're getting into a time

794
00:45:27,880 --> 00:45:30,799
Speaker 1: period where painters want to make use of shadow, and

795
00:45:30,840 --> 00:45:35,800
Speaker 1: here is a story about artistic creation or recreation via shadow.

796
00:45:36,040 --> 00:45:40,000
Speaker 1: So it's a perfect topic to consider in your art

797
00:45:40,600 --> 00:45:43,040
Speaker 1: in the topic itself, and the idea of using silhouettes

798
00:45:43,040 --> 00:45:46,080
Speaker 1: and shadow and portraits also became popular again in this

799
00:45:46,200 --> 00:45:49,640
Speaker 1: time period. All right, And finally, I want to return

800
00:45:49,840 --> 00:45:54,759
Speaker 1: back to the world of shadows and mythology and religion

801
00:45:54,840 --> 00:45:57,480
Speaker 1: here just for a couple of examples that I didn't

802
00:45:57,480 --> 00:45:59,640
Speaker 1: turn up earlier that turned out kind of late in

803
00:45:59,640 --> 00:46:02,760
Speaker 1: my recent church, but they're they're both really good. First

804
00:46:02,760 --> 00:46:05,960
Speaker 1: of all is the idea that in Hinduism there is

805
00:46:06,000 --> 00:46:10,200
Speaker 1: a Hindu goddess of shadows, and her name is Chaiah.

806
00:46:10,239 --> 00:46:12,960
Speaker 1: And Chaia is an interesting goddess from Hinduism. She is

807
00:46:13,000 --> 00:46:17,800
Speaker 1: the cast shadow of the goddess Saranyu, that the first

808
00:46:17,840 --> 00:46:21,440
Speaker 1: wife of the sun and the sun god Surya. And

809
00:46:21,480 --> 00:46:24,080
Speaker 1: I've seen some treatments that discuss her as a sort

810
00:46:24,080 --> 00:46:27,120
Speaker 1: of shadow clone. I've seen the word clone used a lot.

811
00:46:27,840 --> 00:46:33,120
Speaker 1: She becomes Surya's wife after the first wife, Saranyu temporarily

812
00:46:33,320 --> 00:46:37,360
Speaker 1: temporarily leaves him and Uh and and together they actually

813
00:46:37,640 --> 00:46:41,839
Speaker 1: Uh the shadow wife here and the son actually have

814
00:46:42,040 --> 00:46:45,000
Speaker 1: three children. He has other children with other wives, but

815
00:46:45,840 --> 00:46:48,120
Speaker 1: at different points, but yeah, they have they he has

816
00:46:48,200 --> 00:46:52,040
Speaker 1: three children with the shadow wife. But anyway, this idea

817
00:46:52,040 --> 00:46:55,520
Speaker 1: of like the shadow actually taking on the likeness of

818
00:46:55,560 --> 00:46:59,000
Speaker 1: that which casts the shadow is really interesting. And then

819
00:46:59,160 --> 00:47:02,880
Speaker 1: finally this is really interesting as well. I'd read a

820
00:47:02,920 --> 00:47:06,920
Speaker 1: little bit about this before, certainly, but the idea of

821
00:47:07,000 --> 00:47:11,719
Speaker 1: the shadow in ancient Egyptian religion and culture is also fascinating.

822
00:47:12,800 --> 00:47:16,319
Speaker 1: The shadow is what would be called a shut or

823
00:47:17,120 --> 00:47:20,480
Speaker 1: I've seen it. I think it's pronounced shut, but it's

824
00:47:20,560 --> 00:47:25,520
Speaker 1: sometimes spelled swt in English translation. And you know, it

825
00:47:25,520 --> 00:47:28,480
Speaker 1: should come as no surprise that many of the same

826
00:47:28,560 --> 00:47:33,640
Speaker 1: elements we've discussed already concerning shadows in these episodes also

827
00:47:33,760 --> 00:47:35,600
Speaker 1: is in play here. So first of all, the idea

828
00:47:35,719 --> 00:47:39,640
Speaker 1: of the shadow as darkness, you know, they're almost used

829
00:47:39,640 --> 00:47:43,600
Speaker 1: interchangeably in a lot of languages and traditions. But then,

830
00:47:43,640 --> 00:47:45,799
Speaker 1: of course we have the idea of the shadow as

831
00:47:45,840 --> 00:47:49,520
Speaker 1: the soul, or in the case of the ancient Egyptian religion,

832
00:47:49,760 --> 00:47:53,399
Speaker 1: one aspect of the human soul alongside at least the ba.

833
00:47:54,040 --> 00:47:58,480
Speaker 1: So the shadow or shoot is more spiritual in nature,

834
00:47:58,560 --> 00:48:02,120
Speaker 1: while the ba is more physical, or at least that's

835
00:48:02,160 --> 00:48:04,960
Speaker 1: the rough overview of it. The concepts of the soul

836
00:48:05,080 --> 00:48:08,920
Speaker 1: and ancient Egyptian religion are rather complicated and have multiple.

837
00:48:08,600 --> 00:48:10,600
Speaker 3: Parts to them.

838
00:48:10,640 --> 00:48:13,719
Speaker 1: And then also the idea of the shadow as a

839
00:48:13,760 --> 00:48:18,080
Speaker 1: copy of something, and particularly it's interesting with the idea

840
00:48:18,400 --> 00:48:21,759
Speaker 1: of a shadow of a god as a kind of

841
00:48:21,800 --> 00:48:25,640
Speaker 1: manifestation of the God. So apparently a statue of a

842
00:48:25,640 --> 00:48:29,239
Speaker 1: god was sometimes discussed as a shadow, and even a

843
00:48:29,280 --> 00:48:33,440
Speaker 1: temple to a god was considered that God's shadow. All right,

844
00:48:33,480 --> 00:48:35,359
Speaker 1: So I don't think any of those ideas comes as

845
00:48:35,360 --> 00:48:38,000
Speaker 1: a complete shocker or anything, But there are two additional

846
00:48:38,000 --> 00:48:44,000
Speaker 1: contexts here that I thought were rather fascinating. One is

847
00:48:44,040 --> 00:48:48,440
Speaker 1: that shadows are associated with quick movement without any sound,

848
00:48:48,840 --> 00:48:50,880
Speaker 1: which I suppose is key given this, you know, the

849
00:48:50,880 --> 00:48:53,560
Speaker 1: speedy and silent movement of the shadow, a thing that,

850
00:48:53,680 --> 00:48:57,800
Speaker 1: according to may Ahmed Hasani in light, darkness and shadow

851
00:48:57,840 --> 00:49:00,960
Speaker 1: in ancient Egypt was considered a physical entity. So it

852
00:49:01,080 --> 00:49:03,880
Speaker 1: was largely thought like the shadow as being more or

853
00:49:03,960 --> 00:49:05,200
Speaker 1: less physical in form.

854
00:49:05,520 --> 00:49:07,879
Speaker 3: So it's like a substance that moves, but it does

855
00:49:07,920 --> 00:49:11,359
Speaker 3: so without making a sound and even without generating a breeze.

856
00:49:11,760 --> 00:49:14,840
Speaker 1: Yeah, Now, a lot of what we've discussed in terms

857
00:49:14,840 --> 00:49:18,160
Speaker 1: of supernatural and mythic and religious treatments of shadows. You know,

858
00:49:18,200 --> 00:49:21,280
Speaker 1: they get down to some sort of deep metaphysical truth.

859
00:49:21,440 --> 00:49:24,200
Speaker 1: You know, it's connected to the soul, or it is

860
00:49:24,200 --> 00:49:28,000
Speaker 1: connected to the darkness. Right, So this last bit I

861
00:49:28,040 --> 00:49:31,440
Speaker 1: found very fascinating, and this is something that Hasti mentions

862
00:49:31,440 --> 00:49:34,680
Speaker 1: in the article, the idea that also to the ancient Egyptians,

863
00:49:35,160 --> 00:49:40,000
Speaker 1: shadow was associated with protection from the sun and the heat.

864
00:49:40,040 --> 00:49:44,840
Speaker 1: And also when you start factoring in these various divine invocations,

865
00:49:45,200 --> 00:49:49,040
Speaker 1: it becomes a metaphor for the protection of the gods.

866
00:49:49,520 --> 00:49:52,839
Speaker 1: You know. So it's one of those things that once

867
00:49:52,840 --> 00:49:54,440
Speaker 1: it's pointed out to you, it seems kind of like

868
00:49:54,480 --> 00:49:57,360
Speaker 1: a no brainer, because obviously, under the intense Egyptian sun,

869
00:49:57,880 --> 00:50:01,680
Speaker 1: shadow is also a refuge, a place of protection or rest.

870
00:50:02,280 --> 00:50:05,560
Speaker 1: But yeah, you factor in these divine aspects and so

871
00:50:06,239 --> 00:50:09,160
Speaker 1: you know, Hasting points out that shadow becomes a symbolic

872
00:50:09,200 --> 00:50:12,040
Speaker 1: word for protection from the sun god, a metaphor for

873
00:50:12,080 --> 00:50:15,799
Speaker 1: protection in general, in addition to being part of a

874
00:50:15,880 --> 00:50:18,520
Speaker 1: human being's essence that survives moral death.

875
00:50:19,160 --> 00:50:21,799
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, so you can see how that complex of

876
00:50:21,840 --> 00:50:26,759
Speaker 3: different symbols converging could generate some very interesting, I don't know,

877
00:50:26,840 --> 00:50:30,240
Speaker 3: mythological grammar, like the idea that the shadow is both

878
00:50:30,360 --> 00:50:34,560
Speaker 3: a reflection, like sort of a soul copy of a person,

879
00:50:35,480 --> 00:50:38,520
Speaker 3: but it is also the place in which you could

880
00:50:38,560 --> 00:50:40,959
Speaker 3: stand to be sheltered by that person.

881
00:50:41,320 --> 00:50:43,799
Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, so this idea of like, step into my

882
00:50:43,880 --> 00:50:47,880
Speaker 1: shadow would be an an invitation to enter into my

883
00:50:48,000 --> 00:50:50,640
Speaker 1: protection that sort of thing. And then we also get

884
00:50:50,680 --> 00:50:53,120
Speaker 1: back to this idea that we referenced earlier about like

885
00:50:53,200 --> 00:50:56,320
Speaker 1: a shadow of something, especially if we're talking about a god,

886
00:50:56,800 --> 00:50:59,680
Speaker 1: a divine being of some sort, like the shadow is creation,

887
00:51:00,080 --> 00:51:04,239
Speaker 1: shadow is replication, at least to some lesser extent. Yeah,

888
00:51:04,320 --> 00:51:07,680
Speaker 1: I see that. So just some final mythological and religious

889
00:51:07,719 --> 00:51:10,640
Speaker 1: ideas about shadows, I think to sort of take us

890
00:51:10,680 --> 00:51:15,040
Speaker 1: home for these episodes. It's been fascinating to go through

891
00:51:15,080 --> 00:51:16,920
Speaker 1: all this. There were a lot of things I expected

892
00:51:16,920 --> 00:51:20,040
Speaker 1: to find and expected to see other takes in the

893
00:51:20,040 --> 00:51:23,920
Speaker 1: shadow that I just was blisifully unaware of, or you know,

894
00:51:24,239 --> 00:51:26,880
Speaker 1: we're not in the forefront of my mind when we

895
00:51:26,960 --> 00:51:29,840
Speaker 1: first ventured into it. I know we didn't even we

896
00:51:29,880 --> 00:51:33,640
Speaker 1: didn't even really get into any I guess real shadow

897
00:51:33,719 --> 00:51:36,400
Speaker 1: monsters we talked about, not in like the sort of

898
00:51:36,440 --> 00:51:38,719
Speaker 1: dungeons and dragons sense of the word. I did a

899
00:51:38,760 --> 00:51:40,960
Speaker 1: little bit of looking around to see about mentions of

900
00:51:41,000 --> 00:51:45,280
Speaker 1: shadows and shades and a couple of my favorite monster

901
00:51:45,400 --> 00:51:51,080
Speaker 1: guides and so forth, but nothing else really came up.

902
00:51:51,280 --> 00:51:53,080
Speaker 1: Maybe I missed something. It also can get a little

903
00:51:53,120 --> 00:51:57,040
Speaker 1: difficult to research things related to the word shadow, because

904
00:51:57,080 --> 00:52:01,000
Speaker 1: of course shadow is used so frequently to refer to

905
00:52:01,080 --> 00:52:04,040
Speaker 1: things that are not specifically shadows, or things that are

906
00:52:04,080 --> 00:52:05,520
Speaker 1: just metaphorically shadows.

907
00:52:05,880 --> 00:52:08,120
Speaker 3: I'm sure some of you out there are thinking of

908
00:52:08,160 --> 00:52:10,120
Speaker 3: a shadow monster right now that you want to tell

909
00:52:10,200 --> 00:52:11,360
Speaker 3: us about, right in.

910
00:52:12,440 --> 00:52:15,520
Speaker 1: That's right, send us your shadow monsters. We'd love to

911
00:52:15,520 --> 00:52:18,359
Speaker 1: talk about them in a future Listener Mail episode. All right, Well,

912
00:52:18,400 --> 00:52:19,880
Speaker 1: on that note, we're going to go ahead and close

913
00:52:19,880 --> 00:52:23,239
Speaker 1: out this episode. But yeah, right in, we'd love to

914
00:52:23,239 --> 00:52:25,840
Speaker 1: hear from you. On Mondays we do Lister Mail. Tuesdays

915
00:52:25,840 --> 00:52:29,000
Speaker 1: and Thursdays are core episodes. On Wednesdays we do a

916
00:52:29,040 --> 00:52:31,960
Speaker 1: short form monster fact or artifact episode, and on Fridays

917
00:52:32,000 --> 00:52:34,160
Speaker 1: we set aside most serious concerns to just talk about

918
00:52:34,160 --> 00:52:38,040
Speaker 1: a weird movie on Weird House Cinema. Also, I want

919
00:52:38,040 --> 00:52:40,239
Speaker 1: to stress, hey, you might have noticed that we have

920
00:52:40,440 --> 00:52:42,759
Speaker 1: new host photos for Stuff to Blow your Mind if

921
00:52:42,800 --> 00:52:45,880
Speaker 1: you haven't seen them, run by our recently revived social

922
00:52:45,920 --> 00:52:49,440
Speaker 1: media presences all linked off of Stuff to Blow Yourmind

923
00:52:49,440 --> 00:52:51,399
Speaker 1: dot com, or you can look them up independently. Maybe

924
00:52:51,400 --> 00:52:55,480
Speaker 1: you already follow them. We are STBYM podcast on Instagram,

925
00:52:55,960 --> 00:52:57,719
Speaker 1: so you can go there. You can see these new

926
00:52:57,719 --> 00:53:00,959
Speaker 1: photos of Joe and myself. If you're wondering, well, where

927
00:53:00,960 --> 00:53:04,640
Speaker 1: did you take these fabulous and strange photos with these cool,

928
00:53:04,680 --> 00:53:07,799
Speaker 1: weird mirrors and so forth, Well, we visited Museum of

929
00:53:07,840 --> 00:53:12,240
Speaker 1: Illusions Atlanta, a delightful and educational attraction located in Atlantic Station.

930
00:53:12,800 --> 00:53:16,640
Speaker 1: They feature a whole host of visual illusions, including illusion

931
00:53:16,760 --> 00:53:19,480
Speaker 1: rooms you can walk into and interact with, and that

932
00:53:19,520 --> 00:53:22,759
Speaker 1: includes using the cameras there or your own cameras to

933
00:53:22,760 --> 00:53:26,120
Speaker 1: take some selfies and some cool shots. This is a

934
00:53:26,160 --> 00:53:28,880
Speaker 1: real fun place, good for all ages, the whole family.

935
00:53:29,440 --> 00:53:34,200
Speaker 1: These are not scary mirror rooms. These are ode inspiring

936
00:53:34,640 --> 00:53:38,680
Speaker 1: mirror rooms. These are whimsical mirror based illusions and other

937
00:53:38,840 --> 00:53:40,360
Speaker 1: sorts of illusions that you encounter.

938
00:53:40,800 --> 00:53:43,000
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's not like a creepy haunted house though, well,

939
00:53:43,040 --> 00:53:44,959
Speaker 3: I don't know if they do something for October maybe

940
00:53:44,960 --> 00:53:45,520
Speaker 3: they do, but.

941
00:53:46,280 --> 00:53:48,839
Speaker 1: I think they put some decorations up now. The other

942
00:53:48,880 --> 00:53:52,239
Speaker 1: thing is, since a number of the rooms do involve mirrors,

943
00:53:52,840 --> 00:53:56,839
Speaker 1: if you yourself are creepy, then I'm afraid that your

944
00:53:56,840 --> 00:53:59,479
Speaker 1: experience might be creepy because it will be built upon

945
00:53:59,560 --> 00:54:03,000
Speaker 1: your own. And if you have lost your reflection due

946
00:54:03,040 --> 00:54:06,439
Speaker 1: to some sort of wizardry, mishap or undead status, well

947
00:54:07,200 --> 00:54:09,120
Speaker 1: I don't think you can get your money back.

948
00:54:09,440 --> 00:54:11,520
Speaker 3: It's a great place to find that out though.

949
00:54:11,760 --> 00:54:13,839
Speaker 1: Yes, so yeah. If you want to learn more about

950
00:54:13,920 --> 00:54:17,440
Speaker 1: Museum of Illusions Atlanta, visitm OI Atlanta dot com.

951
00:54:17,560 --> 00:54:20,239
Speaker 3: It's a great place check it out. Huge thanks as

952
00:54:20,280 --> 00:54:24,080
Speaker 3: always to our excellent audio producer Jjposway. If you would

953
00:54:24,160 --> 00:54:26,200
Speaker 3: like to get in touch with us with feedback on

954
00:54:26,280 --> 00:54:28,920
Speaker 3: this episode or any other, to suggest a topic for

955
00:54:28,960 --> 00:54:31,560
Speaker 3: the future, or just to say hello, you can email

956
00:54:31,640 --> 00:54:41,960
Speaker 3: us at contact at stuff to Blow your Mind dot com.

957
00:54:42,040 --> 00:54:45,000
Speaker 2: Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production of iHeartRadio. For

958
00:54:45,080 --> 00:54:47,880
Speaker 2: more podcasts from My Heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app,

959
00:54:48,040 --> 00:55:01,480
Speaker 2: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

960
00:55:00,040 --> 00:55:02,560
Speaker 1: The data