Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of
Speaker 1: My Heart Radio. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind.
Speaker 1: Listener mail. My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick,
Speaker 1: and today we're bringing you some of the messages that
Speaker 1: you've sent in over the past couple of weeks. Rob,
Speaker 1: if you don't mind, I'm going to kick us off
Speaker 1: today with a message from Albert that addresses at least
Speaker 1: a half dozen subjects. All right, let's have it. Hit
Speaker 1: us with the uh with the bird shot that is
Speaker 1: Albert's email. Okay, Albert says, Hi, Robert and Joe, it's
Speaker 1: been a while since I rode in and I have
Speaker 1: much feedback, and I think we're gonna skip over a
Speaker 1: section or two of the email to condense, but maybe
Speaker 1: we can start with these comments about our episode on
Speaker 1: the invention of the mirror. Albert says, I'm surprised you
Speaker 1: did not mention the dreaded iPhone selfie image. I thought
Speaker 1: we did, but maybe you're right. Um it goes on.
Speaker 1: I personally hate it that it is always a mirror image,
Speaker 1: not obvious unless you see lettering or wearing an asymmetric
Speaker 1: clothing such as the Japanese kimono, where it is always
Speaker 1: worn with left over right. In the iPhone selfie, this
Speaker 1: becomes right over left, and the only time you wear
Speaker 1: a kimono right over left is when you are dead.
Speaker 1: Ghosts in Japan also wear the kimono right over left,
Speaker 1: as they are usually wearing their white funeral kimono. I've
Speaker 1: never heard this before, No me neither. Alright. Subsection three
Speaker 1: concerning the invention of the chainsaw, Albert says, you mentioned
Speaker 1: the limitations of the circular saw in this episode, but
Speaker 1: in cartoons they will cut through beyond their center attachment point.
Speaker 1: Remember what we were talking about. That was one of
Speaker 1: the limitations of like using a circular saw to try
Speaker 1: to cut down a tree is they've got to be
Speaker 1: mounted from the middle, and so you can only go
Speaker 1: like half the diameter of the of the saw into
Speaker 1: a tree. But Albert is correct. He has attached a
Speaker 1: clip of speed Racer showing speed Racers mock five. I
Speaker 1: guess that's the name of the car. I never really
Speaker 1: watched speed Racers, so I don't know anything about it.
Speaker 1: But uh, this scene is showing It's like the scene
Speaker 1: in James Bond where they show you all the new
Speaker 1: gadgets on the car. This is like a collection of
Speaker 1: here's what the mock five can do. And in this clip,
Speaker 1: one of the things that happens is it puts out
Speaker 1: a couple of circular saws on bars that are sweeping
Speaker 1: around in front of the car as it drives, and
Speaker 1: it shows the car just plowing through a forest of
Speaker 1: giant trees, just cutting right through them without even slowing down,
Speaker 1: which was very funny. Oh yeah, I mean, I guess
Speaker 1: we touched on this a little bit that. But cartoon
Speaker 1: saws and chain saws and circular saws are just unstoppable.
Speaker 1: They'll just cut through everything like a like a hot
Speaker 1: knife through butter. Okay. Now, regarding our episodes on crabs,
Speaker 1: Albert says, you mentioned you wanted to know about any
Speaker 1: crab stories. I remember one from my childhood, a Japanese
Speaker 1: folk tale called the Monkey Crab Battle. Uh. And then
Speaker 1: he attaches some links and so on this one. I
Speaker 1: sort of went deep. I went and found a translation
Speaker 1: of the story, and I I wrote up a little
Speaker 1: summary here that we could relay to you, because I know,
Speaker 1: Rob you were you were burning for more crab folk tales.
Speaker 1: So the monkey Crab Battle, also known simply as the
Speaker 1: Monkey and the Crab, is apparently a a classic Japanese
Speaker 1: fairy tale. There there are apparently many variations with different
Speaker 1: characters and plot details. So the version I'm about to
Speaker 1: tell is by no means definitive. This is just one
Speaker 1: that I happened to find in in a full text
Speaker 1: English translation. So this is the translation by Yea Theodora Ozaki,
Speaker 1: which uh and I think I've read that this one
Speaker 1: might take some liberties with the source material, but it'll
Speaker 1: give you a gist of the story. It begins there
Speaker 1: were once two friends, a pink faced monkey and a
Speaker 1: yellow crab, and they like to play together by the
Speaker 1: river banks. And one day, while they're playing around together,
Speaker 1: the crab finds a rice dumpling and the monkey finds
Speaker 1: a persimmon seed. The crab holds up his rice dumpling
Speaker 1: and he says, look at this nice thing I found,
Speaker 1: And then the monkey also shows off the thing he found,
Speaker 1: the persimmon seed. But inside the monkey is immediately jealous
Speaker 1: because he wants that dumpling. Persimmons are one of the
Speaker 1: monkey's favorite foods, but you can't eat the seeds. They're
Speaker 1: just you know, hard, crunchy. You know it's not very good. Um.
Speaker 1: So he tries to convince the crab to trade. He's like, hey,
Speaker 1: wouldn't you rather have this seed than the dumpling? And
Speaker 1: the crab says, no, I would like to keep my
Speaker 1: rice dumpling, thank you. But the monkey comes up with
Speaker 1: a plan, because monkeys often it's often the case in
Speaker 1: these stories that monkeys are crafty. So the monkey says
Speaker 1: to the crab, and this part's a direct quote from
Speaker 1: the translation, how unwise you are not to think of
Speaker 1: the future. Your rice dumpling can be eaten now, and
Speaker 1: is certainly much bigger than my seed. But if you
Speaker 1: sow this seed in the ground, it will soon grow
Speaker 1: and become a great tree in a few years, and
Speaker 1: bear an abundance of fine ripe per simmons year after year.
Speaker 1: If only I could show it to you then, with
Speaker 1: the yellow fruit hanging on its branches. Of course, if
Speaker 1: you don't believe me, I shall sew it myself, though
Speaker 1: I am sure later on you will be very sorry
Speaker 1: you did not take my advice. And this does the trick.
Speaker 1: The crab is persuaded to trade, and the monkey takes
Speaker 1: the rice dumpling and gobbles it up, immediately hands over
Speaker 1: the persimmon seed to the crab, and then the crab
Speaker 1: takes the seed and plants it in the ground. And
Speaker 1: then we cut two years later where the crab's patients
Speaker 1: has paid off. One spring, he finds his persimmon tree
Speaker 1: full of glistening ripe fruit. But there's a problem. As
Speaker 1: a crab, he can't climb the tree to get the persimmons,
Speaker 1: so he's just gazing up at them. They look delicious,
Speaker 1: but he can't get to them, I guess because he
Speaker 1: is not an arboreal species of crab. But he knows
Speaker 1: somebody who is very good at climbing tree, the monkey.
Speaker 1: So he goes and he finds the monkey, and he
Speaker 1: asks if the monkey will climb the tree and bring
Speaker 1: him some of his per simmons. The monkey agrees, but
Speaker 1: the monkey is not a very good friend. He climbs
Speaker 1: up in the tree and as soon as he's up there,
Speaker 1: he's like, no, I'm just gonna eat all these myself.
Speaker 1: He's hungry, and he just gobbles up all of the
Speaker 1: right per simmons until there is nothing left but the
Speaker 1: green fruits. And the green fruits are as hard as rocks.
Speaker 1: And this whole time, the crab is frantically running around
Speaker 1: the base of the tree, calling out to the monkey
Speaker 1: to remember what he promised. And apparently this is annoying
Speaker 1: to the monkey, so he begins to pelt his crab
Speaker 1: friend with unripe per simmons. Again, these are as hard
Speaker 1: as rocks, and so when they hit the crab, they
Speaker 1: wound him. They bash him up real good, and eventually
Speaker 1: the monkey pelts the crab with so many unripe per
Speaker 1: simmons that he dies. That's a dark turn. Now here's
Speaker 1: where it actually turns into like a seven in the
Speaker 1: style Grindhouse revenge flick. The crabs son comes along and
Speaker 1: finds his dead father's body. I should menage. I think
Speaker 1: in some variations of the story, at least it's the
Speaker 1: it's the crab's mother, not father, But I'm not sure
Speaker 1: about what the frequency of those variations is. Anyway, In
Speaker 1: this version, he finds his his crab dad's body, and
Speaker 1: he weeps bitterly, and he looks around and sees the
Speaker 1: persimmoncy it's littered all about, and he knows that it
Speaker 1: must have been the monkey that killed his father, and
Speaker 1: he swears revenge, and then there is sort of an
Speaker 1: assembling the team montage. The young crab recruits his friends
Speaker 1: to help execute the plan of revenge, and his friends
Speaker 1: are again this is this list of friends is another
Speaker 1: thing that varies by version, but there is a bee
Speaker 1: like honey bee, a chestnut h a mortar like like
Speaker 1: a mortar, and pestle like a stone mortar. And then
Speaker 1: some versions also include some kind of slippery substance like
Speaker 1: a pile of cow dung or a puddle of oil. Okay,
Speaker 1: all right, so this is quite the team involving animals, vegetables, uh,
Speaker 1: inanimate objects um, slime or dung, which I love. So
Speaker 1: they hatch a conspiracy. Meanwhile, the monkey is off by himself.
Speaker 1: He is congratulating himself greatly for getting away with his crime,
Speaker 1: and he, you know, he thinks himself so clever. He's like, well,
Speaker 1: I killed that crab and nobody's ever going to know.
Speaker 1: And later he is invited to a feast commemorating the
Speaker 1: life and death of the elder crab. And starting here,
Speaker 1: I'm going to read directly from the Ozaki translation. Maybe
Speaker 1: we'll do some voices for the characters. Quote the feast over.
Speaker 1: He was next invited to the tea ceremony room to
Speaker 1: drink a cup of tea. When the young crab had
Speaker 1: conducted the monkey to the tea room, he left him
Speaker 1: and retired. Time passed and he still did not return.
Speaker 1: At last, the monkey became impatient. He said to himself,
Speaker 1: the tea ceremony is always a very slow affair. I
Speaker 1: am tired of waiting so long. I am very thirsty
Speaker 1: after drinking so much sake at the dinner. He then
Speaker 1: approached the charcoal fireplace and began to pour out some
Speaker 1: hot water from the kettle boiling there, when something burst
Speaker 1: out from the ashes with a great pop and hit
Speaker 1: the monkey right in the neck. It was the chestnut,
Speaker 1: one of the crab's friends, who had hidden himself in
Speaker 1: the fireplace. The monkey, taken by surprise, jumped backward and
Speaker 1: then started to run out of the room. The bee,
Speaker 1: who was hiding outside the screens, now flew out and
Speaker 1: stung him on the cheek. The monkey was in great pain.
Speaker 1: His neck was burned by the chestnut and his face
Speaker 1: badly stung by the bee, But he ran on, screaming
Speaker 1: and chattering with rage. Now the stone mortar had hidden
Speaker 1: himself with several other stones on the top of the
Speaker 1: crab's gate. And as the monkey ran underneath the mortar
Speaker 1: and all fell down upon the monkey's head. Was it
Speaker 1: possible for the monkey to bear the weight of the
Speaker 1: mortar falling upon him from the top of the gate.
Speaker 1: He lay crushed and in great pain, quite unable to
Speaker 1: get up. As he lay there helpless, the young crab
Speaker 1: came up, and, holding his great claw scissors over the monkey,
Speaker 1: he said, do you now remember that you murdered my father?
Speaker 1: Then you ah, my enemy, gasped the monkey brokenly. Of course,
Speaker 1: said the young crab. It was your father's fault, not mine,
Speaker 1: gasped the unrepentant monkey. Can you still lie? I will
Speaker 1: soon put an end to your breath. Uh. And with
Speaker 1: that he cut off the monkey's head with his pincher claws.
Speaker 1: Thus the wicked monkey met his well merited punishment, and
Speaker 1: the young crab avenged his father's death. Alright, alright, that's
Speaker 1: that's pretty good, I applauded as a strong crab centric folk.
Speaker 1: Taylor Methrow, What have you? Does this have a moral?
Speaker 1: I've started to think like, uh, I mean, I guess
Speaker 1: the monkey, Yeah, there. Maybe the moral for the monkey
Speaker 1: is like, hey, don't betray and kill your friends or
Speaker 1: else you will you will meet a similar fate. I
Speaker 1: don't know. He kind of started off feeling, you know,
Speaker 1: like kind of like a Subs Fables, but then it
Speaker 1: ended up feeling more like a shot Brothers picture. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so I don't know. I don't know. Um, I guess
Speaker 1: the lesson is don't trust monkeys or even if they're
Speaker 1: there there that they have, you know, a good what
Speaker 1: seems to be a good, you know, business offer for
Speaker 1: you because ultimately, like the monkeys trick pays off for
Speaker 1: the crab, he's just betrayed by the monkey a second time. Right,
Speaker 1: that's the funny part. So you think the monkey is
Speaker 1: tricked to the crab, but everything the monkey said was true,
Speaker 1: like he gives the crab in the long run the
Speaker 1: better deal, but then he just he just cheats him
Speaker 1: a second time. Yeah, anyway. To finish off, Alberts email
Speaker 1: one last note, he mentions the Dunwich horror. He says,
Speaker 1: for some reason, I remember this movie being in black
Speaker 1: and white. After watching it, I remember thinking that film
Speaker 1: is a very hard medium to adapt. The dread and
Speaker 1: horror of Lovecraft's mythos. You clearly like Lovecraft, so I
Speaker 1: can recommend Daygone. It is an adaptation of the novella
Speaker 1: The Shadow Over in Smith and then attaches a link. Okay,
Speaker 1: that's it, thank you and keep up the great work,
Speaker 1: Albert Albert. I. It's been many years now, but I
Speaker 1: do remember enjoying Dagon when I was in college. I
Speaker 1: think it's one of those movies that's maybe not great
Speaker 1: in every way, but it it has some things that
Speaker 1: that really work. I remember having a kind of uh,
Speaker 1: pleasing color contrast, because most of the sets and and
Speaker 1: locations in the movie are are very kind of dark
Speaker 1: and blue and green, you know, the colors of the
Speaker 1: sea or like caves in the ocean. But the main
Speaker 1: character wears a bright orange sweater and that always stuck
Speaker 1: in my head. Yeah. Yeah, it's it's a fun flick.
Speaker 1: It is um it's a Stewart Gordon movie, so you
Speaker 1: can go into that. You know you're going to get
Speaker 1: a certain amount of of grizzliness and gruesomeness. But it
Speaker 1: has some fun monsters, some over the top gore, and
Speaker 1: it has um a Kidnas style mermaid if memory serves.
Speaker 1: So that's a pretty fun one. Um. I haven't seen
Speaker 1: this one in many years, but I was always partial
Speaker 1: to the Dan O'Bannon directed film The Resurrected from which
Speaker 1: who let's see who starting that? Oh yeah, it had
Speaker 1: it had Chris Surrandon in it. I've not seen that one,
Speaker 1: Like I said, it's been a long time. I think
Speaker 1: that when I saw it was on VHS, So I'm
Speaker 1: not sure if it's aged well or not, but it
Speaker 1: but it may have. I mean, it's Dan O'Bannon, so
Speaker 1: it has that going for it totally. Now, speaking of
Speaker 1: Dan O'Bannon, who was also like another one of his
Speaker 1: his films that he directed is worth noting, as of course,
Speaker 1: the Return of the Living Dead from nineteen eighty five.
Speaker 1: Uh So, here's little bit of listener mail from Alan,
Speaker 1: Alan writes in during the podcast, and this is responding
Speaker 1: to our Wholy Undead episode from back in October, which,
Speaker 1: by the way, is also a holiday episode, so it's
Speaker 1: both Halloween episode and a Christmas episode. So if you
Speaker 1: didn't listen to it, then listen to it now and
Speaker 1: maybe listen to it again. Um. Alan writes during the podcast,
Speaker 1: I recall you wondering why a bunch of pious undead
Speaker 1: would attend services, but then also try to attack and
Speaker 1: kill the living who accidentally wander in. Presumably, the undead
Speaker 1: want to live on live as much as anyone, and
Speaker 1: having been discovered, realized that the living would be a
Speaker 1: huge threat to their continued existence if word got out,
Speaker 1: so they would need to eliminate any source of leakage
Speaker 1: that arise. Uh. They to see sister would of course
Speaker 1: feel the need to warn her living sister. Okay, so
Speaker 1: under your idea here alan, Uh, the reason somebody might
Speaker 1: wander into a night service of the pious undead listening
Speaker 1: to a sermon in the church, and and they attack
Speaker 1: her because they're afraid that if she spreads word, people
Speaker 1: are going to come in. And I don't know what
Speaker 1: do do? An exorcism or something that will not allow
Speaker 1: them to dwell there in the church anymore, I guess.
Speaker 1: But the other stories seemed to suggest that the churches,
Speaker 1: or at least the regional church, is powerless to stop
Speaker 1: the undead, So like, what are they gonna do? They
Speaker 1: they're afraid the Pope's gonna show up and squash everything,
Speaker 1: or you know, or some higher member of whatever. The uh,
Speaker 1: you know the church organization is in place. Um it
Speaker 1: it seems like they kind of get whatever, they get
Speaker 1: to do whatever they want because they own the night.
Speaker 1: It's good to own the night. Uh. This reminds me.
Speaker 1: We did hear from another listener though, who was telling
Speaker 1: about a local folk tale about a parish somewhere in
Speaker 1: Poland where Um, I think the idea was that the
Speaker 1: priest was believed the ghost of the former priest was
Speaker 1: believed to haunt the churchyard because it had never been consecrated,
Speaker 1: and then once it was consecrated, Uh, he his spirit
Speaker 1: could leave or something. And am I getting that sort
Speaker 1: of right? Remember that that sounds right? Yeah? Yeah, So
Speaker 1: sometimes I guess there are things that that the undead
Speaker 1: actually want the church to do on some level. Anyway,
Speaker 1: I guess it depends on like do you want to
Speaker 1: keep hanging out at the church or do you want
Speaker 1: to move on to that, I don't know, the afterlife
Speaker 1: or wherever else you're supposed to go. Yeah, and then
Speaker 1: what afterlife are we dealing with? Are we dealing with
Speaker 1: like the the new Christian afterlife or remember these are
Speaker 1: ideas that are that are kind of embedded in older
Speaker 1: systems of relief. Are we're talking about something a little grayer,
Speaker 1: a little um maybe less appetizing, or maybe something that
Speaker 1: is a little more like the midnight Mass itself, you know,
Speaker 1: And in a sense, this is the afterlife. They're already there,
Speaker 1: and it consists of going to church in the middle
Speaker 1: of the night when the humans aren't around. Another way
Speaker 1: of thinking about it is maybe they're afraid if word
Speaker 1: gets out to all the living that they're doing these things,
Speaker 1: that the living are gonna everybody's gonna come swarm to
Speaker 1: see them, and it'll just get too crowded in there.
Speaker 1: You know. There were the restaurant principle. Sometimes you love
Speaker 1: a good restaurant, you kind of don't want people to
Speaker 1: find out about it. Okay, we got one message regarding
Speaker 1: our Weird House Cinema episode on blood Beat. This is
Speaker 1: just a quick little hello from Maria. The subject line
Speaker 1: was just to say hello parentheses blood Beat. Um. I
Speaker 1: have to thank you because today's episode Weird House Cinema
Speaker 1: was so hilarious. I was walking and laughing with my dog.
Speaker 1: I hope that doesn't mean your dog was laughing as well,
Speaker 1: because that sounds demonic. But Maria finishes saying lots of
Speaker 1: love from Italy, and then she attaches an image of
Speaker 1: her dog this. Uh. We don't know the dog's name, though,
Speaker 1: I would like to know that. This is a gorgeous
Speaker 1: looking animal that is lying down in the snow and
Speaker 1: chewing on a blue plastic toy of some kind. Looks
Speaker 1: like it looks like this dog is having a great time. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I don't know. If this dog laughed, I don't think
Speaker 1: it would necessarily be demonic. Seems like a good dog. No,
Speaker 1: I mean, this looks like a great dog. This is
Speaker 1: the kind of dog that would not laugh, because dogs
Speaker 1: don't laugh. Everything is serious to dogs, all right. Here's
Speaker 1: the one from Matt, who also wrote in about blood
Speaker 1: Beat with the subject blood Beat a better way to
Speaker 1: hunt Good Day Fellas. The weird House episode on blood
Speaker 1: Beat was hilarious. I've not seen it, but love your
Speaker 1: description of the chaos. I'm an active hunter, and no,
Speaker 1: the way the film portrays hunting strategies is rather off target.
Speaker 1: There are many ways to hunt deer alone in a group,
Speaker 1: moving and stalking, standing still in seasons designated for specific tools,
Speaker 1: archery season as opposed to rifle season, for example, etcetera.
Speaker 1: Rules and times change from jurisdiction to jurisdiction for blood Beat,
Speaker 1: though these things don't matter. A fun film is a
Speaker 1: fun film. I hope to give it a watch in
Speaker 1: the near future. Thanks for the show and your time, Matt. Oh, thanks, Matt. Yeah,
Speaker 1: if you're if you're looking for a holiday experience viewing
Speaker 1: experience like leod Beat, um, nothing but blood Beat will do.
Speaker 1: It's the reason for the season. All right, We're gonna
Speaker 1: go and close the mail bag on this one, but
Speaker 1: we'll be back in the future with more listener mail.
Speaker 1: Just a reminder that our core episodes of Stuff to
Speaker 1: Blow your Mind air on Tuesdays and Thursdays. On Wednesdays
Speaker 1: we do the Artifact that's a short form episode on
Speaker 1: Monday's at the listener Mail, and on Friday's That's Weird
Speaker 1: how Cinema. That's when we set aside most serious concerns
Speaker 1: to just discuss a weird film such as blood Beat.
Speaker 1: You know, I think technically this is gonna be our
Speaker 1: last listener mail of one, right, I believe you're right. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but we'll read plenty more of your messages in the
Speaker 1: new year. Yeah, so keep them coming, keep them coming, huge.
Speaker 1: Thanks as always to our wonderful audio producer Seth Nicholas Johnson.
Speaker 1: If you would like to get in touch with us
Speaker 1: with feedback on this episode or any other to potentially
Speaker 1: get a message featured on a future listener mail episode,
Speaker 1: just to say hello, or to suggest a topic for
Speaker 1: an episode. Any of that, you can email us at
Speaker 1: contact at stuff to Blow your Mind dot com. Stuff
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