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 it's been a lot of groans over here lately
Speaker 1: because Carney, our loyal mail bot, has now been procedurally
Speaker 1: generating dad jokes, and they are not very good. Rob
Speaker 1: did you catch that most recent one? Uh? Yeah, I did,
Speaker 1: you know, but you know, it may not have been funny,
Speaker 1: but it's it's endearing in a way, you know. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so so he It's all stuff like what do you
Speaker 1: call a turkey that goes to space? I don't know.
Speaker 1: What do you call a turkey the coast of space?
Speaker 1: Poo poo in the toilet? The answer? M hmm, okay.
Speaker 1: I have questions about the logic behind that one. But
Speaker 1: you know, that's the thing about artificial intelligence is that
Speaker 1: you let it run wild, and it begins operating on
Speaker 1: a level that we can no longer connect with. That's right.
Speaker 1: You don't know if it's too stupid to be funny,
Speaker 1: or if it's so far over your head that you'll
Speaker 1: never catch up. Could be either way. Uh So, Luckily,
Speaker 1: Carney is still obeying his basic programming. He is still
Speaker 1: bringing us listener mail, and of course everybody out there,
Speaker 1: you're still sending us listener mail related to our stuff
Speaker 1: to blow your mind. Episodes are artifact episodes are weird,
Speaker 1: how cinema episodes. So once more we have a selection
Speaker 1: of listener mail to consider. That's right, We've got the
Speaker 1: seasonal yearly inundation of Dad jokes and uh, and we're
Speaker 1: very excited to get right into them. Rob do you
Speaker 1: want to start off? Let's see, should I read this
Speaker 1: one from Brett about the Nile inundation? Go for it.
Speaker 1: Brett says, Hello, Joe and Robert. I hope this note
Speaker 1: finds you both well. I just wanted to write a
Speaker 1: quick note about the Nile episode and how you guys
Speaker 1: were able to take it to a biochemical angle. You
Speaker 1: have had Daniel whiteson on your show before, and he
Speaker 1: has mentioned a quote about the ocean that I forget
Speaker 1: in detail. It goes something like, we left the ocean
Speaker 1: when we learned to take the water with us. Now
Speaker 1: it seems we should say we left the water's edge,
Speaker 1: not necessarily the ocean. H Now, I could be wrong
Speaker 1: about this, but I think we have had Daniel Whiteson
Speaker 1: on the show before. Daniel Whiteson is a physicist and
Speaker 1: one of the hosts of Daniel and Jorge Explain the Universe. Uh,
Speaker 1: and Daniel was a great guest on the show. But
Speaker 1: unless I'm mistaken, Brett, I think you're actually remembering us
Speaker 1: talking about Brian Green's book Until the End of Time,
Speaker 1: where Green in the book is explaining the role of
Speaker 1: water in biochemistry and he quotes the Nobel Laureate Albert
Speaker 1: sent Georgie, who said, quote water is life's matter and matrix,
Speaker 1: mother and medium. There is no life without water. Life
Speaker 1: could leave the ocean when it learned how to grow
Speaker 1: a skin a bag in which to take the water
Speaker 1: with it. We're still living in water, having the water
Speaker 1: now inside. I should say it would be it would
Speaker 1: be easy to confuse these two interviews since they occurred
Speaker 1: so close together. Um, I remember we I think we
Speaker 1: talked to Daniel Whiteson and then basically the next episode
Speaker 1: of the next week was when we talked to Brian Green. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I think that's exactly right, But but who knows. Maybe
Speaker 1: I'm forgetting something that we talked about with with Daniel
Speaker 1: that was very similar. But anyway, I think, yes, this
Speaker 1: makes a good point that what synt Georgie was saying
Speaker 1: is sort of true in a broad evolutionary sense, but
Speaker 1: it's also a little bit too simple because as we
Speaker 1: we talked about in the Nilon Inundation episode, Uh, you
Speaker 1: can't just have a cell be a bag of water.
Speaker 1: A cell actually needs to very tightly control and regulate
Speaker 1: what happens to the water contents inside it because of
Speaker 1: how dangerous water can be too organic molecules or I
Speaker 1: guess especially the long chain molecules needed for life, like DNA,
Speaker 1: RNA and so forth. But anyway, Breath's message goes on.
Speaker 1: You mentioned organic chemistry and how water is the enemy,
Speaker 1: which it can be for sure. As an organic chemist,
Speaker 1: we try to use an hydrus meaning free from water
Speaker 1: solvents and reagents daily because of the sensitivity of the
Speaker 1: reagents to something as polar as water. Water causes byproducts
Speaker 1: which we then need to remove. But this is more
Speaker 1: about how reactive our reagents could be to one another,
Speaker 1: which helps us design and synthesize drugs for disease. But
Speaker 1: I'm getting sidetracked here. The reason I write today is
Speaker 1: because of a basic process of life that all amino
Speaker 1: acids undergo to form peptides. When two amino acids linked together,
Speaker 1: they form an amide bond from an amine and a
Speaker 1: carboxylic acid, and the waste product of this step a
Speaker 1: water molecule. As you can see, water is the essence
Speaker 1: of life because it is derived from the process of
Speaker 1: making life. It's very interesting. Our cells then had to
Speaker 1: learn to regulate how much water was in the cell
Speaker 1: as more and more peptide bonds were formed. But this
Speaker 1: is at a very small amount relative to the size
Speaker 1: of a cell. Please keep the twists coming. I really
Speaker 1: enjoyed how you were able to start with crop growing
Speaker 1: for food and lead it to how life might have started.
Speaker 1: Definitely one of my favorite podcasts, and I look forward
Speaker 1: to what you guys will discuss next. Cheers Brett. Yes,
Speaker 1: our discussions are are are lawless affair. You never know
Speaker 1: where they're gonna go, what we're gonna end up talking about. Uh,
Speaker 1: it's very very free form. Some of the time maybe chaotic,
Speaker 1: but I hope at least chaotic good one would hope.
Speaker 1: All Right, we received a lot of feedback from our
Speaker 1: Dad Jokes episode, which we knew would be the case,
Speaker 1: given how connected people are to the topic. Either, you know,
Speaker 1: parents making bad jokes are just bad jokes in general
Speaker 1: and humor itself. Uh so we're gonna get into some
Speaker 1: of these now. This first one comes to us from Mark.
Speaker 1: Good evening, gentlemen. I hope this finds you well. I
Speaker 1: loved your episode on dad jokes and thought I would
Speaker 1: share one of my own creation. I am assuming the
Speaker 1: rule of infinite probability predicts either some one has already
Speaker 1: made it or will soon enough. Anyway, here it goes question,
Speaker 1: what do you call a questionable toilet? Answer? A skeptic tank.
Speaker 1: I hope you enjoyed my lame joke. Thanks for all
Speaker 1: the knowledge. Mark. Why does Mark get a voice a
Speaker 1: voice for a listener before? I don't know, just because
Speaker 1: he's I don't know, good evening gentleman's tended to demand it.
Speaker 1: So it just happened. Good evening to you, Mark. A
Speaker 1: skeptic tank. Okay, uh okay, close, Yeah, yeah, I like it.
Speaker 1: I think it'll work. I would tell it to my son,
Speaker 1: except I'm not sure he knows what a what a
Speaker 1: septic tank is. At this point. I'd have to first
Speaker 1: school him in that then wait, wait a few days,
Speaker 1: and then release the joke on him. Um, so just
Speaker 1: educating him as a precursor to sharing humor. Dad, why
Speaker 1: the six hour lesson about septic tanks? Just wait until Thursday.
Speaker 1: It'll come together, alright. This next message comes from Jim
Speaker 1: in New Jersey. Jim says Robert and Joe, the purpose
Speaker 1: of dad jokes is to embarrass your adolescent children in
Speaker 1: front of their adolescent friends. If you can embarrass your
Speaker 1: children in public from time to time, why even bother
Speaker 1: to have them. Jim in New Jersey PS, I didn't
Speaker 1: get the assassin joke until I listened to it for
Speaker 1: the second time. Oh. Yeah, that one is rather tricky,
Speaker 1: isn't it. Uh this is a good point, Uh, the
Speaker 1: Jim raises, and I think one that I don't know
Speaker 1: how much we've got into it, but I think this
Speaker 1: does fall into the category of like the teasing joke. Um,
Speaker 1: you know, the joke as a way of teasing. Parental
Speaker 1: teasing as one of the categories of teasing that humans
Speaker 1: engage in. Yeah, And one of the things we talked
Speaker 1: about in the episode was the possibility that sometimes when
Speaker 1: you make bad jokes at like an adolescent or teenager.
Speaker 1: It can at least elicit some kind of noticeable reaction
Speaker 1: from them when not much else does. Yeah, yeah, absolutely,
Speaker 1: all right. Here's another one. This one comes to us
Speaker 1: from Sebastian Hi, Rob, Joe, and Seth for the recent
Speaker 1: dad jokes episode. I just wanted to add a couple
Speaker 1: of bits of information. The first is that in French,
Speaker 1: or at least in Canadian French, the equivalent term to
Speaker 1: dad jokes is uh and forgive me my I'm terrible.
Speaker 1: With the French uh le jokes demons uncle or um
Speaker 1: or uh leblas de mon monacle, depending on your region.
Speaker 1: This translates not to dad jokes, but rather too uncle jokes,
Speaker 1: with the understanding that dad jokes in French are a
Speaker 1: lot more brown and blue than in English, and that
Speaker 1: it's considered to be the responsibility of the uncles to
Speaker 1: corrupt their nieces and nephews when the sister or sister
Speaker 1: in law isn't there to shoot them. Many a Christmas
Speaker 1: dinner have led to comparisons of gravy to diarrhea as
Speaker 1: soon as the matriarch's attention is diverted. In a French household,
Speaker 1: this is what we hear about that sophisticated French sense
Speaker 1: of humor. The Americans, you know, just we can't get there, yeah,
Speaker 1: Uncle Pierre. Anyway, they continue. The second thing is that
Speaker 1: I take mild exception to you are using the army's
Speaker 1: sleeve's joke as an example of a dad joke. Maybe
Speaker 1: it's more of a Canadian thing, but dad jokes here
Speaker 1: are usually considered more contextual and opportunistic. They tend to
Speaker 1: be cheap and fast and lack structure, and to be
Speaker 1: tied directly to observations in the immediate environment, such as
Speaker 1: pointing out things that look like a butt, or deliberately
Speaker 1: mishearing things. Oh god, this is a big one. Mom
Speaker 1: says you should thank your dad, causes the dad to say,
Speaker 1: I should shank the cat for this angle. Dad jokes
Speaker 1: are more like riffing, albeit a more infantile type of
Speaker 1: riffing based on crafts humor. Yes, the mishearing things was,
Speaker 1: um what was pretty big in my household, and also
Speaker 1: from I think from my dad, But I always I
Speaker 1: didn't know it was universal. I was kind of chalked
Speaker 1: it up to the fact that my dad's hearing was
Speaker 1: a little like his hearing was a little bit damaged,
Speaker 1: so I think he oftentimes did not hear things all
Speaker 1: the way and found humor in them and then kind
Speaker 1: of past that form of humor on to all of
Speaker 1: us so that we're all intolerable in conversations with other people. Now,
Speaker 1: I think that is more universal that uh. I think
Speaker 1: that's a kind of classic movie riff, where whatever is
Speaker 1: in the dialogue is hard to hear, and then you
Speaker 1: can you can go off of it. I can't think
Speaker 1: of a perfect example right now, but I know there's
Speaker 1: a lot of that on Mystery Science Theater. Yeah. Um, anyway,
Speaker 1: they continue. Similarly, there's a growing concept of mom jokes
Speaker 1: that I've seen more and more, at least among Canadians.
Speaker 1: Whereas dad jokes are innocent and crass, mom jokes tend
Speaker 1: to be more exhausted and beset upon and oftentimes rather dark.
Speaker 1: So when a kid might say I don't like broccoli,
Speaker 1: a mom joke would be to reply with you're gonna
Speaker 1: die of scurvy if you don't learn to ram that
Speaker 1: in your face, Or if you say I don't think
Speaker 1: those shoes will go with that dress, and they reply
Speaker 1: with welp, I guess I should just go lay in
Speaker 1: a ditch and wait for the cold grip of death.
Speaker 1: In other words, whereas the dad joke is exceedingly immature,
Speaker 1: the mom joke tends to be exceedingly mature jokes about death, disease,
Speaker 1: abandonment and isolation and other darker topics, and usually with
Speaker 1: cartoonish hyperbole and either a dead pan or over the
Speaker 1: top delivery. But most importantly, mom jokes, like dad jokes,
Speaker 1: are contextual and can't be repeated unless in a similar context.
Speaker 1: Now this is that this is interesting, UM I wonder
Speaker 1: I mean, one would be tempted to sort of take
Speaker 1: like sort of traditional stereotypical um like gender roles and
Speaker 1: apply that and think, well, okay, if you have if
Speaker 1: you have a mom who maybe is around the kids
Speaker 1: more like they're forced to speak and even employ humor
Speaker 1: at a child's level, and then you you want the
Speaker 1: release of making a joke that is more sophisticated or darker.
Speaker 1: And whereas it might be the reverse with the sort
Speaker 1: of the stereotypical dad right like the dad has been
Speaker 1: at the I guess like the Madman era office all
Speaker 1: day making all sorts of body and sophisticated jokes and
Speaker 1: when he comes home, he just wants to make like crude, dumb,
Speaker 1: but ultimately innocent jokes. I don't know. I I like
Speaker 1: I said, that's probably a I'm sure that's a very
Speaker 1: simplistic way to look at it, and it's ultimately more
Speaker 1: complicated than that. But but I don't know. This is interesting.
Speaker 1: I'm very familiar with this kind of humor, but I
Speaker 1: guess I've never heard of it conceptualized as a mom
Speaker 1: joke before. That's interesting. Yeah, anyway, they close out here
Speaker 1: with I think the point of dad and mom jokes
Speaker 1: is that they are the unwanted punch line to a
Speaker 1: set up that nobody made, like a parasite of laughs
Speaker 1: on a tense situation. A traditional joke with a standard
Speaker 1: set up and a standard punch line feel like they
Speaker 1: fall outside of this kind of humor domestic improv in
Speaker 1: other words, at least to me hope things are. Sebastian, well,
Speaker 1: that was a searing assault on my use of the
Speaker 1: army sleeves joke as as an example. So, according to Sebastian,
Speaker 1: a joke with a setup and a punch line is
Speaker 1: not a dad joke and can never be a dad joke,
Speaker 1: speaking of the Army sleeps joke, I try after you
Speaker 1: shared it with me. I tried it out on my
Speaker 1: own son and he already knew the punch line and
Speaker 1: thought it was hilarious. Um. Now, I don't know how
Speaker 1: much of that was the fact that he knew the
Speaker 1: punch line and therefore it was not my joke, it
Speaker 1: was his. But but he thought it was just high humor. Well,
Speaker 1: there's no higher praise than making a child laugh or
Speaker 1: not phrase? Uh? What was it? No higher honor than
Speaker 1: making a child laugh? One last one about dad jokes here.
Speaker 1: This one comes from Danny. She says, Hi, I'm a
Speaker 1: mother and love making my son grown with dad jokes,
Speaker 1: simply because it's fun to be able to annoy him
Speaker 1: a little bit. Kids can be quite annoying at times,
Speaker 1: and here is a small childish way to annoy them back.
Speaker 1: And sometimes he even laughs at how much my jokes
Speaker 1: annoy him. Love from Switzerland, Danny, You know the revenge factor?
Speaker 1: We didn't even think about that. All right, are you
Speaker 1: ready for some spoons? Let's do it? Okay. This one
Speaker 1: picks up after we read a message from a listener
Speaker 1: on previous listener mail about a spoon that was designed
Speaker 1: to discourage left handedness, and it could only be easily
Speaker 1: used at least with the right hand, because the bowl
Speaker 1: part of the spoon bent to the left. And we
Speaker 1: talked briefly about how I remembered at least one of
Speaker 1: my teachers in elementary school telling me that when they
Speaker 1: were growing up, left handedness was bullied out of them
Speaker 1: by adults who thought that there was something wrong with it.
Speaker 1: I don't know if it was a religious thing or
Speaker 1: just a sort of cultural uh you know, No, you
Speaker 1: need to suck it up and learn to use your
Speaker 1: right hand like you're supposed to. I'm not sure what
Speaker 1: that was, but Darren Darren has a story along those
Speaker 1: same lines. So Darren says, Hi, gents, I've listened for years,
Speaker 1: but the latest Listener Mail episode really spoke to me.
Speaker 1: Back in nineteen eighty one, growing up in South Yorkshire, England,
Speaker 1: our class teacher of German descent told us stories of
Speaker 1: him having his left hand tied closed as a child.
Speaker 1: He told us this almost apologetically, as he was aware
Speaker 1: his now right handed writing was sometimes difficult to read. Ironically,
Speaker 1: then at school there would be an incident only a
Speaker 1: few weeks later, where we were in the dinner hall
Speaker 1: having school lunch, the head mistress singled me out for
Speaker 1: having my knife in my left hand. She berated me,
Speaker 1: saying that I needed to eat right handed, and I
Speaker 1: tried but couldn't. Embarrassed to the point where I took
Speaker 1: a stand as a nine year old, I walked out
Speaker 1: of school, the head mistress furious at me, and my
Speaker 1: classmates cheering all the way back home. Yes, walking from
Speaker 1: school was a thing. My parents at first were annoyed
Speaker 1: I was home early, but when I explained why, my
Speaker 1: dad went down to the school, and let's just say that,
Speaker 1: he made it clear that I'd continue using my knife
Speaker 1: with my left hand. I tell my daughter this story
Speaker 1: and she is amazed that this was only really a
Speaker 1: generation ago. Thank you for hopefully taking time to consider
Speaker 1: this email, and thanks for continuing to blow mine in
Speaker 1: my daughter's minds. Kind regards, Darren. Yeah, I mean, it's
Speaker 1: that's it's crazy that that sort of thing took place.
Speaker 1: I mean, if them now, it seems crazy, and I
Speaker 1: don't know, it's hard to imagine at the time how
Speaker 1: that would have how that was was was allowed. I
Speaker 1: don't know, it's just crazy to think about. Okay, I'm
Speaker 1: getting more convinced that maybe we should do this as
Speaker 1: an episode and look into like, why is it that
Speaker 1: they were doing. I mean, was it just the idea that, well,
Speaker 1: a lot of things are designed for right handed people
Speaker 1: and it will be easier if kids learned how to
Speaker 1: use the right hands for things. Or is it more
Speaker 1: like a I don't know, superstitious religious thing where it's
Speaker 1: like the left hand is the hand of the devil. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I remember there being at least a little bit of
Speaker 1: that mixed in. Yeah, it's been a while since I
Speaker 1: looked at it, so yeah, we should we shoul think
Speaker 1: about coming back to this as a topic. Al Right,
Speaker 1: here's another one. This one comes to us uh from Maybe,
Speaker 1: and it is about spoons once more. Dear Robert and Joe,
Speaker 1: I just finished listening to your excellent spoon episodes. Regarding
Speaker 1: the fancy silvil ware that never gets used, I have
Speaker 1: a story. My mother hated silver ware because polishing the
Speaker 1: silver had been one of her household chores when she
Speaker 1: was young. However, she and my father were rather badly
Speaker 1: off financially for many years, so they used sterling silverware
Speaker 1: because they couldn't afford to buy a set of stainless flatware.
Speaker 1: The silverware had been a wedding gift. When I was
Speaker 1: about ten. They bought stainless and we never used the
Speaker 1: silver again, not even for holidays. It just amuses me
Speaker 1: that the stainless flatlet where was the aspirational purchase, given
Speaker 1: how expensive real silverware is. They gave me a nice
Speaker 1: set of stainless steel flatware when I got married. Also,
Speaker 1: I submit that sports are the perfect utensil for baked
Speaker 1: potatoes and for mango has. Thanks for all the great content, Mayve,
Speaker 1: rob do I need to stop you from exploding with
Speaker 1: invective against may Have for defending the use of sports. Um,
Speaker 1: I mean, I guess if if they want to use them, fine,
Speaker 1: but I would argue, I mean of spoon works perfectly
Speaker 1: fine out a baked potato. I don't know why anybody
Speaker 1: needs a fork to get in there. And uh, mango has,
Speaker 1: I guess mango. The thing about mango, I will admit
Speaker 1: is it does tend to be a bit slippery. Um So,
Speaker 1: I guess that is that is where one might insist
Speaker 1: upon having some some prongs on your utensil. Um So,
Speaker 1: I've certainly never used a sport to eat them, maybe trying.
Speaker 1: I think I've just used a spoon to eat mango
Speaker 1: that has been like properly cut up in all, but
Speaker 1: I don't know. It's rare I get my hands on
Speaker 1: a mango in this household because my son eats them all.
Speaker 1: I didn't include the full message, but we did also
Speaker 1: get a piece of email from somebody who wanted to
Speaker 1: talk about grapefruit spoons. Yes, now that I will, I
Speaker 1: will argue strongly that a grapefruit spapoon is not a spork.
Speaker 1: But I I do believe in grape fruit spoons. I
Speaker 1: think they are They're very handy. I prefer to use
Speaker 1: one when I eat a grape fruit, though I was once.
Speaker 1: This was when we were, you know, more properly. I
Speaker 1: guess when we were how stuff works. I remember eating
Speaker 1: a grape fruit with a grapefruit spoon, and there's somebody else,
Speaker 1: like they worked in the office, and they they began
Speaker 1: they were getting on my case saying, no, the grape
Speaker 1: fruit spoon is not the way to go. You need
Speaker 1: a grape fruit knife. You need a special knife for
Speaker 1: eating your grape fruit. That is the only way to
Speaker 1: eat them the spoon is malarkey? Is this strickland? No?
Speaker 1: I don't remember who this individual was. They weren't like
Speaker 1: in our department. I think they were more of a
Speaker 1: technical role in the cup. But it was one of
Speaker 1: those where like they were coming on kind of strong,
Speaker 1: and I think I kind of like backed out of
Speaker 1: the room with my grape fruit and spoon. I mean,
Speaker 1: maybe the argument was like, this is a better way
Speaker 1: to eat your grapefruit at your computer, because certainly, like
Speaker 1: when you eat a grape fruit, when I eat a
Speaker 1: grape fruit with a grape fruit spoon, it still makes
Speaker 1: kind of a mess, like you're gonna get some sprays
Speaker 1: of citrus. So maybe the knife cuts down on that
Speaker 1: to a certain extent. I don't know, but you know,
Speaker 1: that was back in the glorious time when we had cubicles,
Speaker 1: and those cubicle walls could protect your next door neighbors
Speaker 1: from the citrus spray. That's right. At least it's only
Speaker 1: you and your stuff that are getting doused in citrus
Speaker 1: juice in you in your dink cave of bones. And
Speaker 1: we remember you had some really weird decorations when I
Speaker 1: first moved in. Well, you know, stuff kind of accumulated. No,
Speaker 1: I mean it was good. I was like, I could
Speaker 1: see your desk and I was like, that's good people. Okay,
Speaker 1: This next message comes to us from Paul. It is
Speaker 1: about sun dogs and halos. Paul says, Hi, Robin Joe
Speaker 1: just had to throw this link your way regarding halos
Speaker 1: and sundogs. One of the most impressive I've ever seen.
Speaker 1: Thanks for the great comment. And then Paul attaches a
Speaker 1: link to an Astronomy Picture of the Day UH entry.
Speaker 1: A p o D is a thing that NASA does
Speaker 1: where they collect cool photographs of natural phenomenon and photographs
Speaker 1: from space and stuff. This one was by a photographer
Speaker 1: named Let's see Magnus ed Back and it's from the
Speaker 1: twenty one December two thousand eighteen if you want to
Speaker 1: look it up. The caption UH title was extraordinary solar
Speaker 1: halos and this one is fantastic. The caption explanations says
Speaker 1: quote captured at lunchtime on a cold December fourteenth near
Speaker 1: Ute and Doll, Sweden. The image includes the relatively ordinary
Speaker 1: twenty two degree halo, sun dogs or par helia, and
Speaker 1: sun pillars, the extensive array of rarer halo those has
Speaker 1: been identified, along with previously unknown features. All the patterns
Speaker 1: are generated as sunlight or moonlight is reflected and refracted
Speaker 1: in flat six sided water ice crystals in Earth's atmosphere.
Speaker 1: In this case, likely local contributors to the atmospheric ice
Speaker 1: crystals are snow making machines operating at a nearby ski center.
Speaker 1: That's interesting, but the yeah, this picture is worth looking up.
Speaker 1: It is gorgeous and it looks almost like the Earth
Speaker 1: is plummeting down a tunnel made of sun's. Yeah, this
Speaker 1: is impressive. It looks I'm it kind of seems like
Speaker 1: a cosmic church window to me, or indeed like some
Speaker 1: sort of angelic visitation. It almost has like the makings
Speaker 1: of some sort of inhuman face. It's this is gorgeous,
Speaker 1: But that's hilarious that this may well be aided by
Speaker 1: the utter artificiality of a snow making machine. It is
Speaker 1: angered the gods. Alright, for this next one, if you're
Speaker 1: listening on a device that has a way to speed
Speaker 1: up things, uh, speed up our voices. Go ahead and
Speaker 1: speed us up to about three eggs because it will
Speaker 1: be appropriate. This one comes to us from Jesse, Dear
Speaker 1: Robert and Joe. On the most recent listener Mail episode one,
Speaker 1: someone wrote in mentioning that they listen to podcast up
Speaker 1: to three times speed. Robert, you mentioned that while you
Speaker 1: were listening to sped up audio, you feel like your
Speaker 1: mind speeds up to keep pace, and you find it unsettling. Joe,
Speaker 1: you notice that it affects the way you perceive the
Speaker 1: speed which someone is speaking in regular conversation. I too,
Speaker 1: have sped up podcast to get through backlogs. I noticed
Speaker 1: that when I listened to podcasts at a higher speed,
Speaker 1: I feel increased stresses. My mind has to work harder
Speaker 1: and pay closer attention so I don't miss anything. But
Speaker 1: more than that, if I listen at increased speeds for
Speaker 1: a few days or more, I feel like it starts
Speaker 1: to affect my own speech. I notice I tend to
Speaker 1: speak more quickly, which means my mind can't always keep
Speaker 1: up and I end up tripping over my words. Another
Speaker 1: thing I've noticed is when I slowed down a conversational
Speaker 1: podcasts such as Stuff to Bow Your Mind to around
Speaker 1: point eight times, it has a subtle relaxing effect. This
Speaker 1: intuitively makes sense. I don't notice it's slowing down my speech,
Speaker 1: but I suspect this is because I do this exclusively
Speaker 1: for podcasts that I put on to help me get
Speaker 1: to sleep. This is not when I do most of
Speaker 1: my podcast listening, so perhaps it doesn't have to have
Speaker 1: as much of a chance to mess with my head
Speaker 1: as it would during the day. One last thing, As
Speaker 1: other listeners have admitted, I too have listened to stuff
Speaker 1: to bow your mind to get me to sleep when
Speaker 1: it is your turn. Though it is a vault episode
Speaker 1: that I turned to that way, I don't feel like
Speaker 1: I am missing out on anything. Please know that you're
Speaker 1: not boring, just common, relaxing, stay brilliant, Jesse. Oh thanks Jesse.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, I can't imagine listening to us at
Speaker 1: zero point eight speed. Yeah, that sounds so drunk, just hammer. Yeah,
Speaker 1: if you if you heard me laughing a little bit
Speaker 1: or through my reading of that, it's it's uh not
Speaker 1: not because there's I'm I'm I'm judging Jesse for doing this,
Speaker 1: but I'm just imagining that if I did that, it
Speaker 1: would be kind of like nightmare juice, because I have
Speaker 1: like literally had nightmares in which voices are slowed down.
Speaker 1: So it's not something I really I really like, but
Speaker 1: I could second see where it could be relaxing for
Speaker 1: someone else. I mean, you and I both have Tennessee
Speaker 1: speech anyway, which is already on the slower side of
Speaker 1: accent pace, and oh man, that that would be rough.
Speaker 1: But anyway, it's interesting to hear to hear from everyone,
Speaker 1: you know, just there's so many nuances to how people
Speaker 1: listen to podcasts that it's always interesting to pick up
Speaker 1: on what the trends are. And I guess it what
Speaker 1: used to be not as easy to do this, right?
Speaker 1: I mean when did iPhones and so forth start getting
Speaker 1: that that speed up slow down option? Oh I don't know.
Speaker 1: I feel like that's apt dependent for me. It depends
Speaker 1: on what I used to listen Google podcast, So we'll
Speaker 1: let you pick pretty much any speed you want. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but of course they're also like trying to shame you
Speaker 1: and to listen to everything. I noticed, like when I
Speaker 1: use it and it's like I go to a podcast
Speaker 1: I haven't listened to in a few days and it's like,
Speaker 1: have you given up on this podcast? You still want
Speaker 1: to be subscribed at all? And I'm like, yes, I
Speaker 1: just wasn't in the car for a few days. I said,
Speaker 1: don't want to keep up with it. Don't make me
Speaker 1: feel bad just because I just because I'm like, you know,
Speaker 1: a few dozen episodes behind. I'm gonna get to it.
Speaker 1: But seriously, we love you Apple. Okay, let's go on
Speaker 1: to our next one. What do we have for us here, Joe? Okay, now,
Speaker 1: we got some messages about Weird House Cinema. All right,
Speaker 1: some very substantive messages about Weird House. So we'll say
Speaker 1: this first one comes from John. John says, Hi, Robert
Speaker 1: and Joe. I just listen to your Weird House Cinema
Speaker 1: episode on Hands of Steel, and I enjoyed it a lot.
Speaker 1: I actually passed through Page, Arizona last week and after
Speaker 1: leaving town, walked on the Navajo footbridge where the finale
Speaker 1: took place. It's a great but vertigo inducing view of
Speaker 1: the Colorado River before the canyon really widens out. I'm
Speaker 1: also writing because I noticed a funny connection between the
Speaker 1: movie and it's real world setting. Although I can't speak
Speaker 1: for acid rain. Remember in the movie, there was a
Speaker 1: there was like a stationary acid rain hazard. There's like
Speaker 1: a sign on the highway there's like warning you're about
Speaker 1: to drive through acid rain, which is pretty great. Um,
Speaker 1: uh sorry, John goes on. Although I can't speak for
Speaker 1: acid rain, the state of Arizona does have an ongoing
Speaker 1: history of water and land pollution from mining, including groundwater
Speaker 1: pollution by the acid waste of copper mines. Southern Arizona
Speaker 1: has a high concentration of large open pit copper mines,
Speaker 1: and in order to extract the copper from or strong
Speaker 1: acid solutions are often used, along with other toxic chemicals.
Speaker 1: These waste products can leach into the surrounding environment, including
Speaker 1: into groundwater, endangering surrounding communities. A good resource on this
Speaker 1: is the book Boom Bust Boom, who's author Bill Carter,
Speaker 1: recalls being poisoned by the vegetables in his own garden
Speaker 1: in Bisbee, Arizona, a mining town, and learning that his
Speaker 1: house was built on the arsenic and lead lace tailings
Speaker 1: from a nearby copper mine. Wow and John attached some photos,
Speaker 1: one an aerial photo and one from the ground level
Speaker 1: of one of these open pit copper mines that has
Speaker 1: been partially filled in. It is a It is a
Speaker 1: truly dystopic site. Looks kind of like a like a
Speaker 1: colosseum for earth elementals. Though I guess if you're an
Speaker 1: earth elemental. I'm not sure what kind of animals they
Speaker 1: would throw you too, maybe like some kind of rock
Speaker 1: dissolving fungus or something. I don't know. Well, we'll come
Speaker 1: back to that idea, um. But then John goes on.
Speaker 1: I briefly lived in Aho, Arizona, which has its own
Speaker 1: open pit copper mine. The now retired pit still has
Speaker 1: a turquoise and toxic pool at the bottom, and the
Speaker 1: tailings pile from the mine dominates the landscape images attached
Speaker 1: to both though that's what these images are, Okay. While there,
Speaker 1: I was told that the tap water had more arsenic
Speaker 1: than would be ideal, but I can't say whether this
Speaker 1: was from the mind or some other environmental factor. It
Speaker 1: was fun to see a connection between the film's vision
Speaker 1: of dystopian environmental degradation and the stuff that goes on
Speaker 1: in the real world. Sometimes American truth is stranger than
Speaker 1: Italian fiction. For a future weird house cinema, could I
Speaker 1: suggest Altered States. Given that the podcast has discussed Timothy
Speaker 1: Leary and Terence McKenna at length, this movie might be appropriate.
Speaker 1: It seems like the writers did some brief reading about
Speaker 1: traditional uses of psychedelic mushrooms and sensory deprivation, did mushrooms themselves,
Speaker 1: and then wrote a script. Thanks for all the fun
Speaker 1: and interesting conversations, Best John with Altered States? Am I
Speaker 1: wrong in thinking that was written by Patty Chaievsky the
Speaker 1: same person who wrote Network? Uh that sounds familiar? Yes, yes,
Speaker 1: that is correct. U. Yeah, so it has an interesting writer.
Speaker 1: And then of course it's a kin Russell film. Um So,
Speaker 1: I mean I feel like we probably do need to
Speaker 1: take on a kin Russell film at some point. I
Speaker 1: assume you've seen Altered States, right, I have? I have.
Speaker 1: It's been a long time since I watched it in
Speaker 1: its entirety. Uh so it would it would totally be
Speaker 1: a different experience watching it now, but uh, it could
Speaker 1: be a pretty fun one. It's got some neat connections
Speaker 1: in it. John Lara Catt, isn't it as an X
Speaker 1: ray technician? Oh? That's funny. Uh So My main memory
Speaker 1: of it is that William Hurt is the main character. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and he plays a I don't know, Timothy Leary type
Speaker 1: some a A an academic who becomes interested in the
Speaker 1: use of psychedelics and in sensory deprivation tanks. And he
Speaker 1: starts to discover that as he like does more and
Speaker 1: more sensory deprivation, he like regresses to some kind of
Speaker 1: pre previous state of existence, and which is an interesting idea,
Speaker 1: but I think it sort of ends up with him
Speaker 1: just like turning into a werewolf. Yeah, he's sence some
Speaker 1: sort of like caveman monster mode towards the end, as
Speaker 1: I recall. But in an interesting coincidence, this next piece
Speaker 1: of listener mail also concerned sensory deprivation. Alright, this one
Speaker 1: comes to us from Dan. Dan rights to Robert and Joe.
Speaker 1: I made the unfortunate mistake of watching the Janet um
Speaker 1: Agrin video of Teddy Bear that Robert posted on his
Speaker 1: Commuta Music blog, and now I am trapped in the
Speaker 1: hell Raiser Laborath dimentioned, just as Joe had warned, I
Speaker 1: should have listened. While the pain and anguish has been
Speaker 1: unbearable and my suffering soon to be legendary. My cinebye
Speaker 1: masters have permitted me to send you this listener mail.
Speaker 1: By the way, they're big fancy show. Earlier this week,
Speaker 1: I was going through the show's archive and listened to
Speaker 1: the Creepy Pasta Experiments episode that Robert did with Christian
Speaker 1: and this episode you discussed one creepy pasta about a
Speaker 1: Russian sleep experiment that descended into violence and madness and
Speaker 1: related it to your own experiences with sensory deprivation and
Speaker 1: isolation tanks. It made me think about how the last
Speaker 1: twelve months since the covid vandemic forced me to start
Speaker 1: remotely working from home, that in order to get through
Speaker 1: my day I need to listen to a lot of
Speaker 1: podcasts to keep me focused on my job. Ironically, if
Speaker 1: I don't have some kind of auditory stimuli, I lose concentration,
Speaker 1: focus and find I cannot function in a complete, in
Speaker 1: complete silence. Perhaps this is related to how I used
Speaker 1: to work in a very noisy office with a lot
Speaker 1: of phones ringing, people talking, laughing at various machines going off,
Speaker 1: and I need to replicate the illusion of being in
Speaker 1: the company of a lot of people to maintain some
Speaker 1: sense of normalcy. I wonder if you've had similar experiences
Speaker 1: since transitioning to your home offices. Apologies for the lengthy email,
Speaker 1: but I must now be going CD rom Centebyte is
Speaker 1: calling such sites to show me. Keep up the great work,
Speaker 1: Dan Well I'm so glad. Dan remembers there is a
Speaker 1: c D cinemyte c D cinembyte shows up in the
Speaker 1: third one that's in that weird club. Yeah, I think
Speaker 1: he's a what is He's like several ideas kind of
Speaker 1: slammed together, right, he's us. I think bartender and a
Speaker 1: DJ and like a c D face. Um. At times
Speaker 1: we may have to do uh how Raiser three Hell
Speaker 1: on Earth at some point because it is kind of
Speaker 1: like the Gremlins too of Hell Raiser films, you know, um,
Speaker 1: or every everybody at the writing table gets to design
Speaker 1: their own cinemabyte for the movie. That movie is just
Speaker 1: a ladle full of vegetable shortening. It is gross. Okay,
Speaker 1: what was I gonna say? Oh? Yeah, well this is
Speaker 1: an interesting idea, Dan. Yeah. I sometimes find that certain
Speaker 1: types of music and noise can help me focus on tasks,
Speaker 1: but not any kind of music or noise, And I
Speaker 1: don't know, I guess it depends on what kind of
Speaker 1: work I'm doing. But yeah, there can certainly be a
Speaker 1: thing I think for some people where it can be
Speaker 1: harder to focus if you have less stimulation, because if
Speaker 1: you have less stimulation, you're more likely to let your
Speaker 1: mind start to wander, you know, people who are prone
Speaker 1: to rumination, and then you get distracted by your thoughts. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean I I can't take silence at all. Like
Speaker 1: I'll I'll be listening to Deepeche Mode and they're like,
Speaker 1: enjoy the silence, and I'm like, no, That's why I
Speaker 1: put you on depeche Mode. So I don't have to
Speaker 1: hear the silence. Now, just keep singing, so I don't
Speaker 1: think too hard, uh for something that effect. I don't know,
Speaker 1: you know, it varies. There's different depending on where I
Speaker 1: am during the day. I might need something more ambient
Speaker 1: or or or something a little more um complicated. But
Speaker 1: then also it's like we live in such an area
Speaker 1: that I'm setting out on the front porch working like
Speaker 1: I don't really need any music. There's plenty of noises
Speaker 1: going on, like they're multiple trains going by, there's traffic,
Speaker 1: their dogs, their lawnmowers. There's plenty of of auditory stimuli.
Speaker 1: Uh to keep me on task. You know. I gotta
Speaker 1: say one of my all time now productivity albums is
Speaker 1: an album that I never heard until you shared it
Speaker 1: with me. It's Biosphere The Petrified Forest. Oh, Yeah, that
Speaker 1: was so good. I put that one onto work all
Speaker 1: the time. I mean all the time. That's a that's
Speaker 1: a good one. Yeah. Yeah, uh, you can't beat Biosphere.
Speaker 1: Play play a lot of Biosphere. Also play a lot
Speaker 1: of Steve Roach. Um. Yeah, listeners out there, let us know,
Speaker 1: do you have particular ambient or even not so ambient
Speaker 1: tracks or artists that you turn to, uh to to work,
Speaker 1: either during the pandemic or you know, just in general.
Speaker 1: Let us know. We're always always looking for listening suggestions. Oh.
Speaker 1: Another good one that I've been listening too lately to
Speaker 1: work is cluster Zucker site. Yeah. Oh that's good. Yeah, older,
Speaker 1: older stuff, but but great, still stands the test of time. Okay,
Speaker 1: one last message here. This comes to us from Kenny.
Speaker 1: Kenny says, Dear Robert and Joe High there from Scotland.
Speaker 1: I'm a longtime listener who, like many others, enjoys your
Speaker 1: podcasts in the evenings, often letting them play as my
Speaker 1: wife and I go to sleep. This leads to some
Speaker 1: very confusing blended episodes, as we fall asleep to a
Speaker 1: discussion about Jovian moons and wake up in the night
Speaker 1: to a debate about ancient fungus. I recently listen to
Speaker 1: Your Weird House Cinema episode about Ewoks the Battle for Indoor,
Speaker 1: and Joe made an observation that the gas giant around
Speaker 1: which Indoor orbits being depicted on the horizon as absolutely enormous,
Speaker 1: apparently taking up half the sky. The point was accurately
Speaker 1: made that even from the vantage point of an observer
Speaker 1: on Io, Jupiter's innermost moon, the gas giant would only
Speaker 1: appear to be a fraction of the size of Tanna
Speaker 1: indoors planet, and that this was done for dramatic effect
Speaker 1: rather than accuracy. However, this got me thinking about how
Speaker 1: our own moon appears when it is high in the
Speaker 1: sky compared to how it does when it's on the horizon.
Speaker 1: The Moon obviously doesn't change size, but it often appears
Speaker 1: to us as if it does. As far as I'm aware,
Speaker 1: The mechanism by which this occurs is not fully understood,
Speaker 1: but this is referred to as the moon illusion and
Speaker 1: as puzzled observer since antiquity. It is now commonly accepted
Speaker 1: to be a psychological rather than a physical phenomenon. The
Speaker 1: Moon obviously doesn't change size, but it fools us into
Speaker 1: thinking that it does. This effect seems to have something
Speaker 1: to do with context. When the moon is high in
Speaker 1: the sky and there's nothing around it to give its
Speaker 1: scale and help us judge distance, we see it as
Speaker 1: relatively small because our brains interpret it as being very
Speaker 1: far away. When it is on the horizon. However, the
Speaker 1: moon often appears to be much larger, and it may
Speaker 1: be that when there are other objects in our field
Speaker 1: of view, this tricks our brain into perceiving the Moon
Speaker 1: is significantly closer. Perhaps an observer on io would perceive
Speaker 1: Jupiter to be truly vast as it rises and sets,
Speaker 1: but smaller and ever so slightly less intimidating when it
Speaker 1: was higher in the sky, That is, if they lasted
Speaker 1: long enough to perceive anything at all before they succumbed
Speaker 1: to their radiation. Bath yours, Kenny, And of course if
Speaker 1: the moon is to the left, it's a part of
Speaker 1: your thoughts, right yeah, And a part of my thoughts
Speaker 1: is a part of me? Is me? Uh well? Uh so, Kenny,
Speaker 1: raise some wonderful points here, uh this that I will
Speaker 1: just jump in real quick. This has nothing to do
Speaker 1: with their content, but they mentioned the indoor movies. Battle
Speaker 1: for Indoor the e Walks movies. If if you out
Speaker 1: there listening are not aware, these are finally coming to
Speaker 1: Disney Plus, uh next month. I'm very excited by this
Speaker 1: because when we recorded that episode on the Battle for Indoor,
Speaker 1: one of the things we stressed was you sadly have
Speaker 1: to go to like Russian YouTube to watch these things
Speaker 1: right now, or you know, pick up a used DVD.
Speaker 1: But soon that that that battle will be over. These
Speaker 1: will be available on Disney Plus along with the the
Speaker 1: excellent uh Tartarkovski Clone Wars series, So I'm excited for that.
Speaker 1: Oh and the animated segment from the Holiday Special with
Speaker 1: Boba Fette in it, but not the whole Holiday special,
Speaker 1: right that couldn't know? I mean, I think it just
Speaker 1: could not be allowed. It needs to remain in its prison.
Speaker 1: That's where the gods put it. This is a good choice. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so they're uploading the e walk So now are we
Speaker 1: going to be able to get the Wicked the Ewalk
Speaker 1: manson Family Eyes in four? Yeah? Yeah, hopefully so. I
Speaker 1: haven't heard anything about them restore it doing any kind
Speaker 1: of restoration on it, are certainly adding any effects to it,
Speaker 1: so I'm guessing it'll be in It's in all its glory.
Speaker 1: Now one wonders on the on the question of um
Speaker 1: of possible cursing in the film, if Wilford Brimley actually
Speaker 1: did anything like cursing, which has been an argument that's
Speaker 1: been made. I wonder if they're going to go in
Speaker 1: and remove anything. I wonder if they're gonna make any changes.
Speaker 1: Be interested to find out if they take out Wilford
Speaker 1: Brimley saying the F word, that is that is censorship
Speaker 1: that will not be tolerated. Um Allegedly. We don't know
Speaker 1: that for sure that he seasoned Afford, but some have
Speaker 1: made that that case. If they take out the Brimley Ffford,
Speaker 1: this is stall in a Strussia absolutely unacceptable. Well we
Speaker 1: we shall see, we shall see. All right, Well, we're
Speaker 1: gonna go ahead and close the book on everything right here.
Speaker 1: But this has been your weekly listener mail episode. Uh so, yeah,
Speaker 1: right in. Let us know, do you have responses to
Speaker 1: what we talked about in this episode? You have responses
Speaker 1: to our core stuff to blow your mind episodes or
Speaker 1: two Weird House Cinema. Let us know we'd love to
Speaker 1: hear from you. We don't have time to read everything
Speaker 1: in these episodes, but we do read everything that comes in.
Speaker 1: If you would like to follow our podcast, check out
Speaker 1: the Stuff to Blow Your Mind podcast feed wherever you
Speaker 1: find that. Just make sure you rate, review, and subscribe,
Speaker 1: and don't don't let whatever whatever you're listening platform is,
Speaker 1: you know, don't let them try and shame you. Don't
Speaker 1: let them give you a hard time about skipping an
Speaker 1: episode or we're having to catch up, or and certainly
Speaker 1: listen at any speed that your brain can bear. Huge things.
Speaker 1: As always to our excellent 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 suggest
Speaker 1: a topic for the future, or just to say hello,
Speaker 1: you can email us at contact at stuff to Blow
Speaker 1: your Mind dot com. Stuff to Blow Your Mind is
Speaker 1: a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts for my heart Radio,
Speaker 1: visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you
Speaker 1: listen to your favorite shows