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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of

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Speaker 1: My Heart Radio. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your

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Speaker 1: Mind listener Mail. This is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick.

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Speaker 1: And uh wow, is this the first one we're recording

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Speaker 1: after coming back from Thanksgiving? I believe it is. I'm

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Speaker 1: losing track here. Okay, Hey, it's it's wintertime, though not

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Speaker 1: technically right. When does wintertime actually started? That around the solstice? Um? Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I think depends on where you are, right, depends what

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Speaker 1: part of the world you're in. This was not an

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Speaker 1: interesting way to start the episode. Uh, okay, talking about

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Speaker 1: a literal winter? Are we talking about the like the

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Speaker 1: winter of our Discontent? Um? I know I did various

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Speaker 1: ways of looking at it, but yes, to your point,

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Speaker 1: we're just back from Thanksgiving breaks, so we had a

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Speaker 1: little bit of listener mail pile up or collect anyway,

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Speaker 1: and I had some of it. I haven't even glanced

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Speaker 1: at yet. I seeing how we were away from I

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Speaker 1: was away from my computer. Yeah, it's coming in fast

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Speaker 1: and hot. Uh, like like a big old, big old

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Speaker 1: rushing river of gravy. Robert, are you cool if I

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Speaker 1: start by reading this message about Mushroom Foraging. I think

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Speaker 1: this is in response to a to a Vault episode

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Speaker 1: we did recently, this one from Maya go for it, okay.

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Speaker 1: Subject line on Maya's email an inadvertent psychedelic experience in

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Speaker 1: eighteenth century England. Okay, you know how to get our attention, Maya, says, Hi,

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Speaker 1: Joe and Rob. I've been a fan of the show

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Speaker 1: for many years now. I used to have very long commutes.

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Speaker 1: I live in Mexico City, and pre COVID, you would

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Speaker 1: join me on my three sometimes four hours of endless

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Speaker 1: traffic jams every day. Nowadays I work from home, but

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Speaker 1: managed to keep up with the show. I just listened

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Speaker 1: to the rerun of the Mushroom Foraging episodes and remembered

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Speaker 1: a passage from Mike Ja's aptly named book High Society,

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Speaker 1: Mind Altering Drugs in History and Culture. Uh. And I

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Speaker 1: actually wasn't familiar with this author, I don't think, but

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Speaker 1: I looked him up and he's got at least one

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Speaker 1: book with Yale University Press about the history of mescaline

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Speaker 1: that looks interesting. Um. But so this appears to be

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Speaker 1: a broader survey of of psychedelic drugs in human history.

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Speaker 1: And my Maya goes on to say a copy here

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Speaker 1: in case you would like to read it and perhaps

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Speaker 1: have a good time. So there's a sizeable chunk here.

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Speaker 1: I'm just gonna summarize the first part and then and

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Speaker 1: then I'll get into reading the quote that that Maya includes.

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Speaker 1: So this takes place in October of sevent and apparently

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Speaker 1: we know the story because it was relayed by a

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Speaker 1: doctor named Everard Branda, who was who was called to

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Speaker 1: a house in London where a family was complaining of

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Speaker 1: a bunch of extremely bizarre symptoms, possibly suffering from some

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Speaker 1: kind of poisoning. And what it looks like happened is

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Speaker 1: the father of the family, who is identified just by

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Speaker 1: initials as j. S. Had gone out to pick some

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Speaker 1: mushrooms and was going to cook them up into a

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Speaker 1: broth for breakfast for his family, for for his wife

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Speaker 1: and his several children. So he picks some mushrooms out

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Speaker 1: in a place called Green Park and then he brings

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Speaker 1: them home and he adds he cooks them up with

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Speaker 1: it specifies the ingredients flower water and salt. I don't

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Speaker 1: know about making a broth with flour but without fat.

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Speaker 1: That that seems kind of dangerous. He's got to make

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Speaker 1: that roof first, right, I don't know you ever add

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Speaker 1: flour just straight to water. That seems strange. Yeah, it

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Speaker 1: seems like he would go for the roof first. But

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Speaker 1: so he cooks them up, and the family eats this

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Speaker 1: mushroom broth, and then they start having very strange experiences.

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Speaker 1: So the father gets vertigo and he can't keep his balance,

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Speaker 1: and he reports seeing black spots within his vision. And

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Speaker 1: then other people in the family were feeling stomach cramps

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Speaker 1: and coldness at their extremities, and so the father tries

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Speaker 1: to leave the house to go find somebody to help them.

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Speaker 1: But then it says, quote, within a few hundred yards away,

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Speaker 1: he was found in a confused state, having already forgotten

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Speaker 1: where he was going and why. And the doctor was called.

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Speaker 1: And here I'll pick up with this passage from this

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Speaker 1: book by Mike J. Quote. By the time Dr Branda arrived,

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Speaker 1: the family symptoms were rising and falling in giddy waves.

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Speaker 1: He noted their pulses and breathing intensifying and fading periodically,

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Speaker 1: almost returning to normal before launching into another crisis. All

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Speaker 1: of them were seized by the idea that they were dying,

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Speaker 1: except for the eight year old son, Edward, who symptoms

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Speaker 1: were the strangest of all. Edward had eaten a large

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Speaker 1: portion of the mushrooms and was quote attacked with fits

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Speaker 1: of immoderate laughter immoderate um, from which neither the threats

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Speaker 1: of his father nor mother could restrain him. Between laughing fits,

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Speaker 1: he exhibited quote a great degree of stupor, from which

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Speaker 1: he was roused by being called or shaken, but immediately

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Speaker 1: relapsed unquote. The pupils of his staring eyes were the

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Speaker 1: size of saucers, and he would speak only nonsense. Quote.

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Speaker 1: When roused and interrogated as to it, he answered indifferently

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Speaker 1: yes or no, as he did to every other question,

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Speaker 1: evidently without any relation to what was asked. Uh. And

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Speaker 1: then finally, Ja writes that Branda put this in a

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Speaker 1: description that was sent off to a journal called the

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Speaker 1: Medical and Physical Journal, with an understanding that, in Branda's words, quote,

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Speaker 1: these deleterious effects on a very common species of of

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Speaker 1: a garic, not hitherto suspected to be poisonous, should be

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Speaker 1: made known to doctors in public alike. Uh. And then,

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Speaker 1: coming back into Maya's part of the message, Maya says

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Speaker 1: that they had eaten a good portion of liberty caps

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Speaker 1: or peloscopy similantiata. All the more reason for Englishmen to

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Speaker 1: be microphobic, I guess, although one has to wonder what

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Speaker 1: little Edwards experience was like. Have a great time and

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Speaker 1: keep up the great work. Maya. Uh ah, well, thanks Maya.

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Speaker 1: That was that was That was wonder I wasn't familiar

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Speaker 1: with this episode. Yeah, yeah, super interesting, Thanks for sending

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Speaker 1: it along. Okay, so, Rob, you want to read this

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Speaker 1: message from Taylor about chainsaws. This actually directly addresses a question.

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Speaker 1: Uh we we asked about people's experiences with the one

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Speaker 1: about you know, if you ever worked in a haunted

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Speaker 1: house where the used chainsaws? How did that work? Yeah? Yeah,

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Speaker 1: So Taylor writes in and says, hey, Rob, Joe, and Seth,

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Speaker 1: I was just listening to your invention of the chainsaw episode,

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Speaker 1: and you were wondering whether running a chainsaw without its

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Speaker 1: chain for the sake of safety at a haunted attraction

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Speaker 1: might damage the machine. I worked at several haunted houses

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Speaker 1: and spook alleys during high school and college and may

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Speaker 1: have an answer for this question. In my experience, prop

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Speaker 1: chainsaws do have chains, but the teeth the chains are

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Speaker 1: made of rubber and their run at low speeds. This

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Speaker 1: allows for the chainsaw to be run without engine damage

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Speaker 1: while keeping guests safe. We're a chainsaw wielding actor. To

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Speaker 1: accidentally make contact with a guest bear skin, the worst

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Speaker 1: injury they'd risk is a mild friction burn. As always,

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Speaker 1: thank you for doing what you do and being my

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Speaker 1: paras social friends. To chat about science culture and weird

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Speaker 1: movies with Taylor Man, that would be the world's scariest

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Speaker 1: mild friction burn, though it would be like the rope

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Speaker 1: burn from hell um. Oh and also I should note

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Speaker 1: in a PS, Taylor asked for our thoughts on the

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Speaker 1: new Done movie. But I guess this was before Taylor,

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Speaker 1: probably before you heard our multiple episodes on Dune. But

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Speaker 1: if you have any more questions and want us to

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Speaker 1: talk about doing even more right back from more specifics,

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Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I mean we have plenty of thoughts. I'm

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Speaker 1: I'm rereading Done right now, so I'm having a lot,

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Speaker 1: a lot of additional thoughts about, you know, how the

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Speaker 1: how the film adapted the story, you know, things that

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Speaker 1: by necessity had to be left out, um, you know,

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Speaker 1: and and and in some cases there terrific things like

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Speaker 1: there's that whole, that whole weird relationship between Peter and

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Speaker 1: the baron. Uh. You know, we we get a little

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Speaker 1: of it on the screen, but there's so much more.

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Speaker 1: There's such a it's such a twisted relationship. Um. And

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Speaker 1: also I've been I've been you know, listening to some

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Speaker 1: other podcast and looking at some other information about you know,

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Speaker 1: critiques on the making of the film and what could

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Speaker 1: potentially have been been better and well what they might

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Speaker 1: be angling to hopefully are angling to do better in

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Speaker 1: the next installments. So yeah, happy to continue talking about

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Speaker 1: din all right, Well after this, we've got a couple

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Speaker 1: of messages, uh, that we're following up from. I think

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Speaker 1: one part of the Chainsaw episodes where we quoted the

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Speaker 1: authors of that Chainsaws a History book where they said,

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Speaker 1: you know, chainsaw would actually not make a very good

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Speaker 1: Texas chainsaw mask her weapon because quote, they'll hear you coming.

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Speaker 1: But a couple of people responded with a pretty good counterpoint.

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Speaker 1: So one of them was James, James, Rob and Joe. Sorry,

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Speaker 1: I'm behind my podcast and trying to catch up. I'm

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Speaker 1: currently listening to your Chainsaw Invention episode early on y'all

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Speaker 1: talked about having to start a chainsaw. Obviously this is

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Speaker 1: a skill, but a well maintainsaw will normally start on

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Speaker 1: one pull. Anyway, I wanted to mention electric chainsaws. As

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Speaker 1: we all move away from fossil fuels, chainsaws are not

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Speaker 1: being left behind. They are quiet and could be used

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Speaker 1: for stealth. However, they don't have that terrifying roar of

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Speaker 1: a chainsaw. Instead, it has an electric wine. Sincerely, James, Now, James,

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Speaker 1: I think this is a really good point, but I

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Speaker 1: want to be clear that I understand neither James nor

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Speaker 1: of course not us are recommending any stealth uses of chainsaws.

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Speaker 1: I think any use of chainsaws should be very clear

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Speaker 1: and out in the open. You're you're you would prefer

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Speaker 1: people use like daggers or very nice. I know I'm

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Speaker 1: saying it like all uses, uh, even non violent uses

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Speaker 1: of chainsaws. No, nobody should be trying to be stealthy

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Speaker 1: about it. OK, fair enough, but this is a very

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Speaker 1: good point. You know. I mentioned in a in a

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Speaker 1: previous Listener mail that I actually had a chance to

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Speaker 1: use a chainsaw in my yard since the episodes we recorded,

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Speaker 1: and it was an electric chainsaw, So there's no revving

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Speaker 1: at all. I mean it just goes from from dead quiet,

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Speaker 1: not moving to to rip and right through the wood.

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Speaker 1: In Another thing we actually talked about this in the

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Speaker 1: History of Chainsaws episode, is that electric chainsaws are not new.

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Speaker 1: I mean, one of the first, uh, commercially successful chainsaw

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Speaker 1: models was the Wolf, and I'm pretty sure if I

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Speaker 1: recall correctly, they had an electric model before they had

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Speaker 1: an internal combustion model. Yeah. I mean it kind of

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Speaker 1: runs parallel with a lot of what was happening in

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Speaker 1: the world of of motors and engines, uh, electricity versus

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Speaker 1: the use of fossil fuels. Right that you could you

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Speaker 1: could more easily make an electric motor and a compact

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Speaker 1: handheld form than you could a an internal combustion motor

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Speaker 1: at the time. Yeah. Oh, but I also just wanted

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Speaker 1: to say that on the same subject, we got a

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Speaker 1: message from Lee, and Lee says, Hello, Robert and Joe.

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Speaker 1: Just a quick thought on chainsaws in horror movies. If

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Speaker 1: you've ever watched loggers in chainsaw competitions, apparently they use

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Speaker 1: something called hot saws. These go from sitting to wide

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Speaker 1: open with one pull I think, hearing nothing then a

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Speaker 1: wide open saw in a horror movie or haunted house

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Speaker 1: would be more terrifying than the idling saw with a

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Speaker 1: few revs, especially if the screaming motor was coupled with

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Speaker 1: a mannequin of some type. Just a thought love the

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Speaker 1: show Lee, Uh wow, hot saws. No, I had not

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Speaker 1: heard of that, but I guess that makes sense and

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Speaker 1: it doesn't make me in there a scene at least

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Speaker 1: in the second Texas Chainsaw movie where leather face like

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Speaker 1: jumps out of a dark room with the chainsaw immediately

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Speaker 1: squealing like from nothing to Yeah. So I guess this

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Speaker 1: must have either been an electric saw or a hot saw. Well,

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Speaker 1: you know the saw, he was like hot sauce, so

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Speaker 1: it stands to reason they would use the hot saw

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Speaker 1: as well. That's a good point. Yeah. So how do

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Speaker 1: you make a saw a saw into a hot saut

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Speaker 1: when you just keep it really well maintained, I guess so.

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Speaker 1: But I mean the Saws family, so I imagine they

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Speaker 1: did all right. Well. We also got some great messages

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Speaker 1: in response to our episodes about crabs. Yes, this one

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Speaker 1: comes to us from Matt Hey, Robert, and Joe. I

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Speaker 1: was listening to your November sixte episode on crabs and

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Speaker 1: it had a thought while you were describing crabs, that

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Speaker 1: is the classic Dungeons and Dragons monster the and um,

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Speaker 1: you know, I've never said this. This monster's name allowed

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Speaker 1: I believe it's what tarask. I don't know, I've never

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Speaker 1: said it either. I had an inkling in my mind

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Speaker 1: that this was a derived from a French creature. But

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Speaker 1: he's always too big and too powerful, Like this is

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Speaker 1: one of those monsters that, um, you know, as if

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Speaker 1: you're if you're if you're actually, you know, dungeon mastering something.

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Speaker 1: You'll look through the dungeon Guide and there are a

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Speaker 1: lot of great creatures, but some of them are just

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Speaker 1: so powerful you're never gonna get Like, when do you

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Speaker 1: get to bust out one of these creatures? I don't know.

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Speaker 1: I'd love to hear hear about it. If you've if

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Speaker 1: you're a d M and you've used one of these

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Speaker 1: these behemoths. It's like a Godzilla. It's like the Godzilla

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Speaker 1: of Dungeons and Dragons. Um, you know, when do you

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Speaker 1: get to bust it out? Anyway? Um? Matt describes it

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Speaker 1: as a quote actually a dinosaur shaped crab. Consider the following.

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Speaker 1: Both crabs and the tarask are cloud creatures protected by

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Speaker 1: a strong carapist shell. Okay, maybe not the most exciting

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Speaker 1: features yet, but bear with me. Both crabs and the

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Speaker 1: tarask have a diet consisting of all the things. If

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Speaker 1: it fits into the food hole, it's food. Both cannot

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Speaker 1: be permanently destroyed, though the Tarask version is decidedly faster

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Speaker 1: and more magical. Crabs just keep evolving into existence. Crabs

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Speaker 1: have evolved from independent lineages multiple times already, so it

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Speaker 1: follows that it would likely happen again, and we'll keep

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Speaker 1: happening no matter how hard the attempt might be to

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Speaker 1: destroy them. Um. Not that we should be trying to

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Speaker 1: destroy crabs, mind you, but anyway, I get the point, um,

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Speaker 1: and the next point Matt makes, though a detail unfortunately

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Speaker 1: omitted in the fifth edition of Dungeons and Dragons, the

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Speaker 1: tarask is described as having a feature inside its digestive

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Speaker 1: system designed to crush and ground down large pieces into

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Speaker 1: smaller bits, going so far as describing the effect as

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Speaker 1: being like grounding them between boulders. This feature sounds very

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Speaker 1: similar to a crabs gastric mill, which likewise grinds up

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Speaker 1: food only after it has been swallowed through a similarly

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Speaker 1: describable motion. They're probably more similarities that could be cited,

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Speaker 1: but these are the ones that immediately came to mind,

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Speaker 1: just a random line of thought. Let me know if

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Speaker 1: you agree with me or if you are wrong. Always

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Speaker 1: love the podcast, Matt, Oh this is great man, I

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Speaker 1: love this. So this creature I guess has a gastric

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Speaker 1: mill like real crabs do. And how do you work

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Speaker 1: the gastric mill mechanic into a game? Would you have

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Speaker 1: characters I guess swallowed by the tarask and it's like

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Speaker 1: they have to fight the teeth that are trying to

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Speaker 1: chew them up inside the stomach. Quick reminder the Dungeons

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Speaker 1: and Dragons Monsters mount Monster Convendium. It does have giant

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Speaker 1: crabs in it. You can always bust out some giant crabs,

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Speaker 1: and I don't think they're too too lofty as far

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Speaker 1: as difficulty goes, although you could of course bump that

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Speaker 1: up through sheer numbers. UM. I don't know if there

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Speaker 1: are any great minis if you're if you're doing more

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Speaker 1: of a mini based game. Four Giant Crabs looks like

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Speaker 1: just a quick search around looks like you can get

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Speaker 1: some sort of uh, some three D printed versions off

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Speaker 1: of vtsy and so forth. But I don't know. You

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Speaker 1: might have to use real crabs. I just looked it

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Speaker 1: up him. I'm here on the D and D Beyond website.

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Speaker 1: There is indeed a stats list for giant crab medium

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Speaker 1: beast unaligned. You know, I don't know if it would

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Speaker 1: be I check with experts on this. I don't know

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Speaker 1: if you could use live hermit crabs on the tabletop. Um,

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Speaker 1: don't don't harm them in the game. I don't want

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Speaker 1: them to get hurt or be stressed out by it.

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Speaker 1: So maybe you shouldn't do that. But you know, get

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Speaker 1: some plastic crabs. Wait a minute, this is unfair. They're

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Speaker 1: giving giant crabs an intelligent score of one. That that

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Speaker 1: is not That doesn't seem right. Have they not watched

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Speaker 1: Attack of the Crab monsters. When a giant crab eats

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Speaker 1: a human, it absorbs their mind, in their knowledge, So

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Speaker 1: a giant crab should be super intelligent. Find the climb

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Speaker 1: ships and planes. But around this island will have anything

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Speaker 1: wave of the but you will not. You will be

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Speaker 1: about of me. Well that is ah, that's this is

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Speaker 1: an opportunity for a homebrew giant crab. I wonder if

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Speaker 1: anybody's done that already, h some sort of homebrewed giant

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Speaker 1: crab um with some sort of advanced intelligence. Anyway, I

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Speaker 1: love the you know, I love some good monster science.

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Speaker 1: So these are some great thoughts. Matt very much appreciated. Okay,

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Speaker 1: this next message comes from Liz. Subject line ants uh,

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Speaker 1: Liz says, Dear Robert and Joe. I thought of sending

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Speaker 1: this Ogden Nash poem for fun back when the Aunt

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Speaker 1: Wars episodes aired, but never got around to it. Was

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Speaker 1: reminded when you got into Aunts again in the recent

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Speaker 1: crab Content is King episode. Here it goes, the Aunt

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Speaker 1: has made himself illustrious through constant industry industrious, So what

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Speaker 1: would you be calm and placid if you were full

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Speaker 1: of formic acid. Thanks for all the great stuff, Liz.

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Speaker 1: Well that's great, Liz, thank you for really good and

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Speaker 1: it rhymes, you know, you know, poetry rhymes. Sorry all right.

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Speaker 1: Coming back around to Dune, Amy rides in and says Hi, Robin, Joe,

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Speaker 1: thanks so much for the Dune episodes. I really enjoyed watching,

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Speaker 1: along with the Weird House Cinema episodes, so I thought

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Speaker 1: i'd read the book to prepare air I had never

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Speaker 1: gotten around to it before and really loved it. Your

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Speaker 1: deep dive helped me understand it better, and now I'm

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Speaker 1: enjoying the sequels. A question though, of course, the phrase

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Speaker 1: Dune universe came up a lot. Did you ever consider

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Speaker 1: using the word do universe? Or is that a siege

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Speaker 1: too far? Bless the Maker and his water? Amy? Well,

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Speaker 1: isn't that nice? Uh? Do universe? Do people say that?

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Speaker 1: Maybe they do? They may, they may say it. They

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Speaker 1: certainly had enough time to start using it. Um. Do

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Speaker 1: universe is good? I like it. Um. By the way,

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Speaker 1: speaking of doone, I mentioned that I, you know, I

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Speaker 1: listened to a podcast about it recently. I want to

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Speaker 1: go ahead and give a proper reference for that, because

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Speaker 1: it's really good. The MPR history podcast through Line Uh

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Speaker 1: did an episode of November nine titled Bonus The Deep

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Speaker 1: History of Done, and it's really good. In this, the

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Speaker 1: host speak to sci fi writer in Princeton historian Harris

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Speaker 1: Durrani UM about the Islamic and Middle Eastern and North

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Speaker 1: African aspects all of Dune. Uh. And in this they

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Speaker 1: get into like, you know, what Frank Herbert put into them,

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Speaker 1: what we see of of that representation in the film adaptation,

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Speaker 1: what could have arguably been done better, what they might

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Speaker 1: might be able to do better in the future, etcetera.

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Speaker 1: But it's it's a really great listen. I highly recommend

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Speaker 1: it to any any fans of Doone. Uh and or

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Speaker 1: you know world history, and now I add that through

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Speaker 1: line is just a great history podcast in general. Um,

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Speaker 1: highly recommended. Oh nice. Well, I guess that'll wrap it

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Speaker 1: up for today, but we will be back with more

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Speaker 1: listener mail next week. And uh and of course, as usual,

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Speaker 1: our our study flow of episodes the rest of this week.

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Speaker 1: I don't know. I don't usually tell you what episodes

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Speaker 1: are coming up. I'm I'm usurping your role, Rob. Yeah, well,

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Speaker 1: we don't always know what episodes are coming up. I mean,

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Speaker 1: do you know what we're recording for next Thursday? Well,

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Speaker 1: I guess we do in this case, but I don't

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Speaker 1: know what we're recording for next Friday yet. Uh So

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Speaker 1: so it's sometimes it's a surprise to us. Yeah, if

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Speaker 1: you want to check out what we have put together

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Speaker 1: in the past past, uh, the all you have to do,

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Speaker 1: or in the present, all you have to do is

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Speaker 1: go to look up stuff to blow your mind. Wherever

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Speaker 1: you get your podcasts, just find the Stuff to Blow

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Speaker 1: your own podcast feed. You'll find our core episodes on

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Speaker 1: Tuesdays and Thursday's Artifact on Wednesday, listener mail on Monday,

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Speaker 1: and on Friday we do a little bit of weird

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Speaker 1: house cinema. That's our time to set most serious matters

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Speaker 1: aside and just talk about some sort of weird or

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Speaker 1: wonderful film. Huge thanks as always to our excellent audio

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Speaker 1: producer Seth Nicholas Johnson. If you would like to get

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Speaker 1: in touch with us with feedback on this episode or

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Speaker 1: any other, to suggest a topic for the future, just

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Speaker 1: to say hello, you can email us at contact at

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Speaker 1: stuff to Blow your Mind dot com. Stuff to Blow

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Speaker 1: Your Mind is a production of I Heart Radio. For

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