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

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

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Speaker 1: your Mind. My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick,

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Speaker 1: and Halloween Hangover Week continues. Rob Today, I think you

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Speaker 1: wanted to talk a little bit about melting. Yeah. So

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Speaker 1: basically the reason for this episode is that we are

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Speaker 1: publishing this the first week of November, but we were

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Speaker 1: recording it the last week of October, so we didn't

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Speaker 1: want to work on any non Halloween material the week

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Speaker 1: of Halloween. Uh So Halloween on the show is lasting

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Speaker 1: an extra week. Uh So we're going to get into

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Speaker 1: some topics here. They are a little bit horror themed

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Speaker 1: in places, but also I think go beyond horror and

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Speaker 1: maybe just get into a study of a very particular

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Speaker 1: symbol or metaphor in the human experience and a discussion

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Speaker 1: of what it means. You know, one of the first

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Speaker 1: movies we talked about in October this year, I think

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Speaker 1: it was the first one was was the House of

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Speaker 1: Wax movie starring Vincent Price. So we did a whole

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Speaker 1: episode about wax horror and one of the things that

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Speaker 1: you see time and again in these wax murder movies

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Speaker 1: is there's the scene where the Palace of wax burns

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Speaker 1: down and you watch all of the wax figures melting. Uh,

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Speaker 1: it's got to happen in every one of these stories,

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Speaker 1: and there's clearly some kind of psychological thing going on

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Speaker 1: where the imagery they're is supposed to resemble human beings

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Speaker 1: actually melting, and that's what the fascination is in. But

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Speaker 1: another thing about it that just recently struck me as

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Speaker 1: a reason to have those wax figure melting scenes is

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Speaker 1: it's almost like a way of sneaking in gore, extra

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Speaker 1: gore around the sensors. Like if you couldn't get a

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Speaker 1: melting human past you know, the m P A A

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Speaker 1: or whatever, you probably can get some melting humanoid wax figure. Years. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I wonder like how much violence and gore involving a

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Speaker 1: clear um mannequin or wax figure, you know, just a

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Speaker 1: pure effigy could you get away with um? I mean

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Speaker 1: to a certain extent. You see that with other things, right,

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Speaker 1: Like you hear about movies where they're like, oh, yeah,

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Speaker 1: we decided that the monster or the villain should have

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Speaker 1: green blood, because then we can use as much as

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Speaker 1: we want, but if we're red, we couldn't show it

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Speaker 1: that sort of thing. So but yeah, I think you

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Speaker 1: know it kind of it ties back to a lot

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Speaker 1: of the themes that we talked about in the Wax episode,

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Speaker 1: you know, like what happens when we watch violence involving

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Speaker 1: an effigy or some sort of sacrament involving an effigy.

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Speaker 1: Uh it, you know, we we can't help but associate

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Speaker 1: then those movements, violent or otherwise with the person that

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Speaker 1: it is resembling, or like just a human in general.

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Speaker 1: Uh And it's it's fitting that we kicked off our

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Speaker 1: Halloween season this year with Wax and we're going to

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Speaker 1: close it out with the Melt. Now, there are a

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Speaker 1: couple of ways you could look at this. One I

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Speaker 1: think is just there is a good melting scene in

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Speaker 1: a movie, such as in Raiders of the Lost Ark

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Speaker 1: has a famous classic Nazi melting scene. But then on

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Speaker 1: the other end of the spectrum, you can you can go,

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Speaker 1: you can really embrace it to the nth degree and

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Speaker 1: go full melt movie, which is a sort of sub

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Speaker 1: genre of its own, of like horror, gore, gross out

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Speaker 1: films that are all just about people melting. Well, it's

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Speaker 1: this kind of the difference between a yeah, like a

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Speaker 1: blockbuster like Raiders, and a smaller picture or a B picture.

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Speaker 1: Right like Raiders is a film that does a lot

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Speaker 1: of things exceedingly well, and one of them is the

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Speaker 1: use of a practical special effect to make it look

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Speaker 1: like someone's melting. But a lot of times with these

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Speaker 1: be with the B film, you know, you're lucky if

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Speaker 1: you get one thing that's done really well, and sometimes

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Speaker 1: like that is the that is the push with the film,

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Speaker 1: like that is the energy of the film, Like, look,

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Speaker 1: we can do a really good melting scene. Let's build

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Speaker 1: a movie around our billy to do this, or at

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Speaker 1: least our desire to do this. You know. Well, it's

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Speaker 1: kind of like how a B movie can maybe have

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Speaker 1: a budget for one star, so you can just get

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Speaker 1: Vincent Price or something, and then you try to build

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Speaker 1: it around that star. Or maybe if you just have

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Speaker 1: a budget for a really good makeup effects artists, then

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Speaker 1: you build the whole film around that. Yeah, exactly, and

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Speaker 1: and in many cases that that can be enough. Um.

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Speaker 1: I also think it's certainly a case, especially with some

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Speaker 1: of these earlier pictures we're talking about, where they they

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Speaker 1: strike a chord, and they they for like there's something

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Speaker 1: about the melting human that resonates strongly with us and

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Speaker 1: makes us want to go back and re examine it.

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Speaker 1: Maybe not so deeply certainly with some of these films,

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Speaker 1: but we have to come back for more. There's just

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Speaker 1: something intriguing about about the melting human. And I think

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Speaker 1: a lot of it does go back to wax effigies

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Speaker 1: and some of the things we discussed in that past episode,

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Speaker 1: but in terms of just the cinnamon that we grow

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Speaker 1: up on. For my own part, and I feel like

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Speaker 1: other people probably share this cinematic legacy as well. I

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Speaker 1: think of Eights of course from eighty one, which we

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Speaker 1: just just discussed. But the other big one, of course

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Speaker 1: is the Wizard of Oz, which is not the goryous

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Speaker 1: scene ever, but a very memorable scene often seen at

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Speaker 1: a young age for the first time, in which the

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Speaker 1: wicked Witch of the West is splashed with water and

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Speaker 1: melts away into like smoking nothingness. The feeling of that

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Speaker 1: scene is very much defined by the fact that it's

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Speaker 1: water that does it. If it had been sulfuric acid

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Speaker 1: or something that supposedly melts her, that scene would be

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Speaker 1: more horrific, but the fact that she's melted by water

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Speaker 1: gives it a fairy tale kind of quality that actually

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Speaker 1: makes it less body horrific, less gruesome, and more magical

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Speaker 1: and and like something that would happen in a grim's

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Speaker 1: fairy tale. Yeah, yeah, exactly, something that the purity of

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Speaker 1: water is the only thing you could destroy such a

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Speaker 1: like a foul creature, right though, that would be a

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Speaker 1: hilarious ending to the movie where they find out the

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Speaker 1: secret is you've got to throw sulfuric acid on the witch. Alright, Well,

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Speaker 1: we're gonna we're gonna get more into the contemplative part

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Speaker 1: of this podcast in a bit, but we need to

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Speaker 1: go ahead and talk about a few other melt movies

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Speaker 1: before we move forward, just to establish the firm ground

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Speaker 1: upon which we're going to build everything else. And I

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Speaker 1: think one of the one of the big ones is

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Speaker 1: all I don't know, maybe for some of you have

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Speaker 1: never heard of it, but a big one for me

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Speaker 1: is seven The Incredible Melting Man. Then the plot here is,

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Speaker 1: uh was it was not original to this picture. There

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Speaker 1: have been some There's been at least one other film,

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Speaker 1: probably more before it, that explored a similar contemplation, and

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Speaker 1: that is, Uh, you have an astronaut goes into space,

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Speaker 1: is exposed to cosmic radiation, and he brings this home.

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Speaker 1: In this case, the radiation has caused him to melt,

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Speaker 1: and he can slow down this melting by eating human flesh.

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Speaker 1: And he also has radioactive powers. If I'm remembering correctly, Uh,

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Speaker 1: seems kind of similar to the plot of Monster A

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Speaker 1: Go Go, if I recall correct Yeah, and I think

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Speaker 1: there's um, there's the there's a move with Frankenstein in

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Speaker 1: the title that has a similar element, like like clearly

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Speaker 1: meets the space monster. Is that I think it had

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Speaker 1: a similar plot. Yeah, and I think there are more

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Speaker 1: films because obviously you you're dealing with the this this

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Speaker 1: one is perhaps the kind of an homage to the

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Speaker 1: radioactive cinema of the previous decades. And like this was

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Speaker 1: on everybody's mind in the post war period in the

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Speaker 1: in the shadow of the Mushroom Cloud, you know, this

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Speaker 1: was these were the kinds of of of myths we

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Speaker 1: kept stirring up. Now, many of you probably know this

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Speaker 1: film because it was featured on Mystery Science Theater three

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Speaker 1: thousand back in the day. And the other thing that's

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Speaker 1: really key about it is that the legendary Rick Baker

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Speaker 1: did effects on it, and the effects are quite terrifying.

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Speaker 1: Of these this like Melting Man, It's just kind of

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Speaker 1: like perpetually melting despite throughout the film. Um and uh,

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Speaker 1: maybe in part because of the effectiveness of those effects. This,

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Speaker 1: this is what started out as an intended horror parody

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Speaker 1: became a straight horror film. Like the producers apparently took

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Speaker 1: comedian scenes out of the picture in order to emphasize

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Speaker 1: the horror. Uh. That's something about the Melting Man, especially

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Speaker 1: when depicted convincingly through you know, Someone's worth like Rick Baker's,

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Speaker 1: that you just can't ignore. Movies don't usually go that

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Speaker 1: way during production. It's much more common for them to

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Speaker 1: go the other way, where you embrace comedy and add

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Speaker 1: more comedy in. Yeah, it's like this looks this look

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Speaker 1: looks dumb. Let's have it up a little bit. Let's

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Speaker 1: pretend like we meant to do this. Uh. An interesting

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Speaker 1: fact about the melt effects in this film. Um, the

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Speaker 1: Rick big Baker films apparently inspired uh, the effects in RoboCop.

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Speaker 1: You know, there's an infamous scene in RoboCop where one

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Speaker 1: of the Hinchmen gets toxic waste of splattered all over

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Speaker 1: them and they started melting. Yeah, a scene that really

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Speaker 1: shook me when I saw it way too early in

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Speaker 1: my life. Children should not watch RoboCop. No, not at all.

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Speaker 1: So in these two previous examples, we mentioned the melt

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Speaker 1: almost being in parody, uh, or you know, in the

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Speaker 1: case of RoboCop playing into sort of an ultra violent

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Speaker 1: satire of American culture. But there are more comedic examples

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Speaker 1: to consider as well. One of them, I believe you've

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Speaker 1: seen this, and I think we've talked about this and

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Speaker 1: before Joe, but Street Trash. It's been a long time

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Speaker 1: since I saw it, but my my friend Ben showed

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Speaker 1: it to me many many years ago, and it is

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Speaker 1: that is a absolutely grotesque film of the highest order. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: it is a it's a I guess it's supposed to

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Speaker 1: be a black comedy. Uh, you know, it's filled with gallows, humor,

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Speaker 1: um and just just atrocities. It's just an atrocious film

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Speaker 1: you should not watch unless you were into atrocious nineteen

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Speaker 1: eighties cinema, even less for children than RoboCop. Yeah, it's uh,

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Speaker 1: it is just wall to wall humans melting and disgusting nastiness. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: but the the the Key melt and it has a

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Speaker 1: fabulous melt scene in it involves this this plot element

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Speaker 1: where there is cheap liquor that's going around. I think

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Speaker 1: it's called like Tina fly Viper. Yeah. They find it

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Speaker 1: in the bay cement of a liquor store and starts

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Speaker 1: selling it and it makes people melt. Yeah. Like there's

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Speaker 1: a scene where a like a homeless individual or a

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Speaker 1: hobo or or something, um it, gets a bottle of this,

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Speaker 1: starts drinking and then starts melting whilst sitting on a

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Speaker 1: like a discarded toilet out in a junk field, and

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Speaker 1: he melts into the toilet and then goes down the

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Speaker 1: toilet bowl. But they do it in a way where

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Speaker 1: it's like, it's not like a purely gory melt like

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Speaker 1: it has. It's kind of a technicolor melt, So it's

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Speaker 1: not actually as bloody or gross as I'm making it sound.

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Speaker 1: It's more surreal and comic. Bookie, Well, it is gross,

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Speaker 1: but as he melts into the toilet, he's turning Lisa

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Speaker 1: Frank colors, so he's like blue and green and pink

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Speaker 1: as he melts. Now, another movie that has uh, if

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Speaker 1: not absolute melting, something very much like melting troll To

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Speaker 1: from ah yes where. Uh So I watched troll To

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Speaker 1: probably at least fifty times when I was in college.

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Speaker 1: But it's weird because now it's been a while since

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Speaker 1: I've seen it. We're we're about to rewatch it for

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Speaker 1: Weird House Cinema. But what I recall is there's like

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Speaker 1: nilbog milk in this town full of goblins, and when

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Speaker 1: people drink it or eat the food there, whatever it is,

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Speaker 1: they get poisoned and then their bodies are reduced to

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Speaker 1: this kind of green sap as they slowly turn into

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Speaker 1: plants and green jello, and they become food for vegetarian

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Speaker 1: goblins pretty much. Yeah. So if that sounds intriguing, uh,

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Speaker 1: pay attention to our feed. We'll come back and discuss

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Speaker 1: it in in full into a little bit. Another melt movie,

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Speaker 1: this one from the eighties is the Stuff. This one

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Speaker 1: is by the Master Larry Cohen, starring Saturday Night Live's

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Speaker 1: Garrett Morris. And this is one I haven't actually seen,

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Speaker 1: but I have seen the key melting scene in it,

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Speaker 1: in which Garrett Morris kind of mutate slash slash melts

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Speaker 1: into a big blob of killer cool whip. If I recall,

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Speaker 1: the real moral of the stuff is that you need

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Speaker 1: a strong f DA with good inspection provisions and regulations

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Speaker 1: on consumer goods, because I think it's like a packaged

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Speaker 1: yogurt product or something like that that ends up turning

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Speaker 1: people into into liquid in that. Let's see, what are

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Speaker 1: some other melt films that come to mind, um or

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Speaker 1: at least scenes that have films that have good melt

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Speaker 1: scenes in them. Uh, these are all played for straight horror.

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Speaker 1: But there's the Devil's Rain, that's where the rain melts

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Speaker 1: the Satanist. There's some melting in The Evil Dead. Obviously,

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Speaker 1: the Gremlins movies have some fabulous melting. Warlock has a

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Speaker 1: melt scene. As I recall, The Blob is actually a

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Speaker 1: wonderful melt film, and that not only is the Blob

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Speaker 1: itself very amorphous and melty, but it's it's always just

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Speaker 1: anytime it gets a person, it starts melting them, starts

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Speaker 1: dissolving them, digesting them. Uh in real grotesque time. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: The Blob, I think is a is an underrated type

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Speaker 1: of horror because something you know, if we were like

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Speaker 1: smaller types of animals, there could be real blob type

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Speaker 1: horror to worry about in the real world. I don't

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Speaker 1: think there are any major predators that would uh that

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Speaker 1: would prey on a human sized organism by digesting it

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Speaker 1: externally with enzymes. But that happens all the time to

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Speaker 1: you know, smaller types of creatures in the ocean or

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Speaker 1: in the like insect world. I mean, basically, a lot

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Speaker 1: of what a spider does to you if it catches

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Speaker 1: you is it will sort of spit enzymes into you

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Speaker 1: that dissolve your inner body parts, melt them and turn

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Speaker 1: them into a soup that the spider can suck out

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Speaker 1: of you. Do you remember the of I know the

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Speaker 1: answer to this. I know you remember these guys. But

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Speaker 1: the winged creatures and beast Master, yes, they do a

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Speaker 1: form of external digestion on the creatures they catch. They

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Speaker 1: like wrap them in their big wings and then they

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Speaker 1: just like turned to jelly and then presumably they eat

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Speaker 1: at least some of the jelly nice um. Other films,

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Speaker 1: let's see take more of a weird sigh five approach

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Speaker 1: to melting. A time cop which we've we've mentioned on

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Speaker 1: the show before, features a great melt seat when a

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Speaker 1: character comes into physical contact with their past self. Uh,

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Speaker 1: they melt away into nothingness together. I'm not sure exactly

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Speaker 1: c g I melt scene. Yeah, it's a c g

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Speaker 1: I melt scene which doesn't hold up as well today,

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Speaker 1: but at the time was was pretty crazy. As I

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Speaker 1: recall all c g I seemed like that in the nineties.

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Speaker 1: You remember when we were all saying how good the

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Speaker 1: c G I and Mortal Kombat the motion picture was.

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Speaker 1: What's the other films that come to mind. Toxic Avenger

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Speaker 1: has some melting in it. Um Society by Brian Jasna

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Speaker 1: is another sort of video nasty that has a certain

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Speaker 1: amount of orgiastic melting between characters, pet characters melting into

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Speaker 1: each other, etcetera. There's a really spectacular melting scene in

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Speaker 1: Fright Night where the vampire is familiar in that movie,

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Speaker 1: So the vampires Chris Srandon, but he's got this apparently

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Speaker 1: human help or named Billy. Uh, and this is I

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Speaker 1: don't know, there's something in a lot of vampire movies

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Speaker 1: have as like the vampire can't go out in the daytime,

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Speaker 1: so he's got a helper who goes out and does

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Speaker 1: stuff with him or doest to for him during the day.

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Speaker 1: For example, in um in Salem's Lot, this is the

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Speaker 1: character Straker, who's played by uh, what's his name, James Mason.

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Speaker 1: There's just wonderful in the role, you know, back priest,

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Speaker 1: back Shaman. Uh. But but in this movie, the James

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Speaker 1: Mason role is I can't remember the actor's name who

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Speaker 1: plays him, but the character's name is Billy. And later

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Speaker 1: in the film, when the when the characters start fighting Billy,

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Speaker 1: I think they shoot him with a revolver and they

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Speaker 1: discover he's not quite human at all. Actually, or if

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Speaker 1: he is human, he's cursed in some kind of way,

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Speaker 1: because after he has killed, he melts into a green

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Speaker 1: puddle of of bones and goo. U is it Roddy McDowell. No, No,

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Speaker 1: Roddy McDowell plays the Peter Cushing character in the movie.

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Speaker 1: He plays an actor who regularly plays Van Helsing type

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Speaker 1: roles in in films. Within the film, I just looked

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Speaker 1: him up. The actor's name is Jonathan Stark. Looks like

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Speaker 1: he's also in the House to the second story and

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Speaker 1: in an episode of Tales from the Crypt. Maybe we'll

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Speaker 1: have to come back to that another time. Now. Another

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Speaker 1: film that some of you might be thinking of it

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Speaker 1: involves like melting, external digestion, etcetera. Is of course David

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Speaker 1: Cronenberg's The Fly, which we we recently did, or sometime

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Speaker 1: earlier this year we did an episode on particularly we

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Speaker 1: we discussed the themes of the plasma pool UH in

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Speaker 1: that picture, because I I think David Cronenberg's film here

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Speaker 1: is worth focusing on, because certainly there's a lot of

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Speaker 1: meltish body heart that's going on in that film, characters

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Speaker 1: basically rotting and falling apart, etcetera. But the Brundle character

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Speaker 1: brings up this idea of the plasma pool is this

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Speaker 1: thing to to dive into and be reborn out off,

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Speaker 1: which itself is I think nicely represents the other side

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Speaker 1: of the coin with idea of melting uh, because it

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Speaker 1: brings with it again the idea of rebirth. And we

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Speaker 1: see a version of this in the natural world as well.

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Speaker 1: It's not all just amba's digesting things. We also see

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Speaker 1: um this jellification, this this melting and then rebirth in metamorphosis.

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Speaker 1: So we often don't realize this, but but what a

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Speaker 1: caterpillar does inside a chrystalis or cocoon is essentially a

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Speaker 1: full body melt. It digests itself, It releases enzymes that

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Speaker 1: dissolve almost all of its tissues, reducing itself to an

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Speaker 1: oozing goop. Only the imaginal discs survived this process, and

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Speaker 1: these develop into the adult body parts of the mature

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Speaker 1: butterfly er moth that ultimately emerges. So again, the larval

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Speaker 1: form must melt before it becomes an adult. It must

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Speaker 1: be granted within the protective frame of the crystalis or cocoon.

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Speaker 1: It must give up all of its hard exteriors. It

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Speaker 1: must liqui I undergo a self digestion, become an ouze,

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Speaker 1: and then that ouze becomes the butterfly. It is weird

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Speaker 1: to think about, if you focus on it for a second,

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Speaker 1: that across every generation of humans, the body plan has

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Speaker 1: to return to a mass of undifferentiated cells that you

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Speaker 1: know you you basically turn into a little lump of google.

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Speaker 1: And then, of course can the body can be reconstituted

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Speaker 1: based on on recombined DNA from the parents. But but yeah,

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Speaker 1: for a while, this line of organisms coming down the ages,

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Speaker 1: ever since the beginning of life on Earth, has always

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Speaker 1: been reduced back to a kind of primordial ooze with

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Speaker 1: each generation every time it changes over. Yeah, I wonder

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Speaker 1: if especially as we get more into you know, that's

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Speaker 1: certainly the modern age and more scientifically literate, um, you know, public,

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Speaker 1: I wonder if that plays into our appreciation of the melt,

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Speaker 1: at least on a subconscious level. This idea that we

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Speaker 1: are all all essentially creamy Newgat and therefore to see

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Speaker 1: us reduced to creamy newgat, uh, you know, fills this

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Speaker 1: with a certain wonder or horror or just sort of

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Speaker 1: you know, kind of spiritual um awe. Yeah, our genetic

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Speaker 1: essence at least is contained in the new Gat, and

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Speaker 1: we could be rebuilt from the Newgat. By the way,

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Speaker 1: on the topic of imaginal self, I once wrote an

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Speaker 1: article about gremlins for How Stuff Works, in which I

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Speaker 1: tried to make scientific sense of the gremlins biology and

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Speaker 1: the gremlin magua relationship, which is was a challenge to do,

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Speaker 1: but I felt like the closest we could come to

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Speaker 1: describing some of the things that happened, like the the

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Speaker 1: water triggering um a sexual butting or the or specifically

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Speaker 1: the idea of sunlight melting that might be linked to

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Speaker 1: some sort of biological impulse to self digest within the

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Speaker 1: cocoon that has then triggered outside of the cocoon. Uh.

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Speaker 1: In the case of light exposed magua and gremlins, you

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Speaker 1: should have been present at that scene depicted in the

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Speaker 1: Key and Peel skit where they're kind of a lot

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Speaker 1: of gremlins too. Yes, yes, yes, that's one of my favorites.

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Speaker 1: All right, we're gonna take a quick break, but we'll

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Speaker 1: be right back. Thank thank you, Thank alright, we're back. Well. So,

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Speaker 1: with regard to organisms actually melting, you know, sort of

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Speaker 1: like turning into a liquid or a goo. Uh, there

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Speaker 1: was something I briefly wanted to touch on, and it's

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Speaker 1: kind of parallel to some things we've talked about on

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Speaker 1: the show in the past. For example, when we did

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Speaker 1: an episode I think it was last year about pressure

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Speaker 1: about where we talked about and say, you know, organisms

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Speaker 1: that thrive under high pressure deep in the ocean. One

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Speaker 1: of the things we talked about is that sometimes when

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Speaker 1: fish from deep waters are brought up to the surface,

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Speaker 1: they can undergo a kind of traumatic body response to

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Speaker 1: the lower pressures that they're exposed to on the surface.

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Speaker 1: So there are are, for example, types of rock fish

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Speaker 1: or other fish that can uh, that can suffer eversions

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Speaker 1: of their digestive systems as their swim bladders expand with

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Speaker 1: lower pressure when they're brought up to the surface, so

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Speaker 1: it can actually actually like push their stomach out through

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Speaker 1: their mouth, which is really disgusting, don't knocket. Some organisms

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Speaker 1: do that as part of their they're just natural behavior.

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Speaker 1: There are certain sharks that do that too, if if

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Speaker 1: memory serves their sharks that do that as a way

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Speaker 1: of emptying their their stomach if need be. It's called

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Speaker 1: stomach aversion. Well for these fish, it is not part

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Speaker 1: of the plan. It's not voluntary. No, it happens because

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Speaker 1: like as they get as they rise up, the lower

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Speaker 1: pressure makes their swim the gas in their swim bladder

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Speaker 1: naturally expand. It pushes everything else out of the way,

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Speaker 1: and their guts get like pushed out through their mouth,

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Speaker 1: which is yeah, not good to happen to them. Uh.

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Speaker 1: And there are similar things that can happen, though not

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Speaker 1: not quite as stomach aversion, a little bit more melty

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Speaker 1: that happened to other organisms. The example I was looking

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Speaker 1: at was a type of fish that is known as

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Speaker 1: the snail fish, and there are a number of different

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Speaker 1: types of snail fish. This is a it's it's a

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Speaker 1: genus known as the lie parody, and Lie parody often

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Speaker 1: dwell in very deep, very cold waters, especially in ocean trenches.

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Speaker 1: And so I was reading a New York Times article

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Speaker 1: about a discovery of several new types of snail fish

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Speaker 1: in uh. The article is by very Neic Greenwood, and

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Speaker 1: it was about discoveries of three new types of snail

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Speaker 1: fish of the Atacama Trench, which is off the coast

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Speaker 1: of Chile in the southeastern Pacific Ocean. And this trench

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Speaker 1: gets very deep. It's almost five miles deep and down

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Speaker 1: in the dark. There some researchers, I think some of

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Speaker 1: them more associated with Newcastle University. They discovered these three

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Speaker 1: new varieties of snail fish. But they were describing the

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Speaker 1: difficulty in bringing these fish up to the surface because

415
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Speaker 1: the fish are adapted to these extremely deep waters. And

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Speaker 1: so they were speaking with a research nature named Thomas

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Speaker 1: Linley who's with Newcastle University, who says that their tissue

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00:23:05,680 --> 00:23:09,960
Speaker 1: is almost entirely gel quote. They are really supported by

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Speaker 1: the water around them, so they do have some hard

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Speaker 1: body parts. They have teeth. Most species of snail fish

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Speaker 1: have these kind of blunt, little cuppy kind of teeth,

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Speaker 1: and then they've got tiny bones, according to this article,

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Speaker 1: especially in the inner ear, and these are really the

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Speaker 1: main hard parts of their bodies. So if you grab

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Speaker 1: some of these snail fish and then you try to

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Speaker 1: bring them up to the surface to examine them, uh,

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00:23:36,600 --> 00:23:39,320
Speaker 1: it all just goes to hell because when they're no

428
00:23:39,400 --> 00:23:42,760
Speaker 1: longer confined by the hydrostatic pressure of the deep water

429
00:23:43,200 --> 00:23:46,679
Speaker 1: and the extremely low temperatures of this deep ocean trench,

430
00:23:47,040 --> 00:23:50,120
Speaker 1: they essentially just melt when they get to the surface.

431
00:23:50,680 --> 00:23:55,879
Speaker 1: Quoting Thomas Linley, they fall apart at like the molecular level.

432
00:23:56,640 --> 00:23:59,600
Speaker 1: It's like a ghost thing that's disappearing in front of

433
00:23:59,600 --> 00:24:02,520
Speaker 1: your eye ways. And you might think, well, why why

434
00:24:02,680 --> 00:24:06,200
Speaker 1: would a fish be that fragile, you know, wouldn't need

435
00:24:06,280 --> 00:24:08,800
Speaker 1: to have a little bit more structural integrity to survive.

436
00:24:08,920 --> 00:24:12,480
Speaker 1: But no, it's because it's adapted to these extreme conditions

437
00:24:12,480 --> 00:24:14,920
Speaker 1: that are present only in this deep ocean trench where

438
00:24:14,920 --> 00:24:18,479
Speaker 1: it lives. Uh. Greenwood writes quote. This may be because

439
00:24:18,520 --> 00:24:23,280
Speaker 1: shallow water snailfish gain adaptations that let them thrive in

440
00:24:23,320 --> 00:24:25,919
Speaker 1: the deepest ocean where they have plenty of prey. So

441
00:24:25,960 --> 00:24:28,880
Speaker 1: there's less competition down there because less stuff can survive

442
00:24:28,920 --> 00:24:33,160
Speaker 1: there quote. But then because of these physiological changes, they

443
00:24:33,160 --> 00:24:36,480
Speaker 1: find themselves unable to rise to higher levels to leave

444
00:24:36,800 --> 00:24:39,840
Speaker 1: and thus are never seen by humans. So at the

445
00:24:39,880 --> 00:24:42,240
Speaker 1: deepest parts of the ocean and these trenches, you get

446
00:24:42,280 --> 00:24:47,000
Speaker 1: these islands of adapted organisms, including these types of snail fish,

447
00:24:47,320 --> 00:24:50,240
Speaker 1: that have to make major changes to their bodies through

448
00:24:50,280 --> 00:24:53,359
Speaker 1: evolution in order to survive down there. But then once

449
00:24:53,400 --> 00:24:55,680
Speaker 1: they make those changes, they're kind of stuck right there,

450
00:24:55,680 --> 00:24:58,280
Speaker 1: not going to migrate out of these deep water trenches

451
00:24:58,600 --> 00:25:01,560
Speaker 1: once they're there, because now they bodies that can't survive

452
00:25:01,640 --> 00:25:05,240
Speaker 1: at the lower pressures and higher temperatures of more shallow water.

453
00:25:05,920 --> 00:25:10,480
Speaker 1: It's like becoming a professional podcaster, you realize, oh my goodness,

454
00:25:11,160 --> 00:25:13,479
Speaker 1: I don't know if I can handle um different depths.

455
00:25:13,920 --> 00:25:16,720
Speaker 1: Um may be stuck down here. Yeah, you're in the

456
00:25:16,760 --> 00:25:19,800
Speaker 1: like the challenger deep of career paths where you're I

457
00:25:19,880 --> 00:25:24,000
Speaker 1: specialize in talking about science and horror movies. Yeah, people,

458
00:25:24,480 --> 00:25:27,679
Speaker 1: it's really useful skill, you know. It's this is actually

459
00:25:27,680 --> 00:25:29,280
Speaker 1: ties in with a lot of stuff we're talking about,

460
00:25:29,320 --> 00:25:32,280
Speaker 1: because even in this we're joking about the fear of change,

461
00:25:32,880 --> 00:25:36,919
Speaker 1: and and perhaps clinging to stability um and uh and

462
00:25:36,920 --> 00:25:38,840
Speaker 1: in the case of this this creature, this is a

463
00:25:38,880 --> 00:25:43,320
Speaker 1: creature that thrives in this this this narrow environment that

464
00:25:43,520 --> 00:25:47,240
Speaker 1: is pretty stable, but it cannot handle change at all. Uh.

465
00:25:47,240 --> 00:25:50,479
Speaker 1: And melting in our fear of melting, our desire to melt, etcetera.

466
00:25:50,560 --> 00:25:53,600
Speaker 1: A lot of this does seem to center around how

467
00:25:53,600 --> 00:25:56,320
Speaker 1: we deal with change. And I think one thing to

468
00:25:56,359 --> 00:25:58,520
Speaker 1: keep in mind is that melting. We've certainly touched on

469
00:25:58,560 --> 00:26:01,000
Speaker 1: a lot of horrifying example, but melting doesn't have to

470
00:26:01,000 --> 00:26:03,960
Speaker 1: be bad. I just look to our language, um, you know,

471
00:26:04,000 --> 00:26:06,840
Speaker 1: because we have we have some really positive ideas and

472
00:26:06,880 --> 00:26:10,200
Speaker 1: metaphors that relate to melting at time, like the idea

473
00:26:10,200 --> 00:26:14,520
Speaker 1: of melting with joy or seeing something or experiencing something

474
00:26:14,520 --> 00:26:19,760
Speaker 1: that quote just makes you melt. Um. There's uh, I'm sure,

475
00:26:20,000 --> 00:26:22,760
Speaker 1: especially if you if you were someone you know UH

476
00:26:23,240 --> 00:26:26,960
Speaker 1: enjoys like metal or dub step music or some other

477
00:26:27,119 --> 00:26:30,040
Speaker 1: kind of genre that has kind of a I don't know,

478
00:26:31,000 --> 00:26:36,120
Speaker 1: an atmosphere of intensity to it. Sometimes you'll say loudness,

479
00:26:36,480 --> 00:26:39,119
Speaker 1: love loudness. You'll hear about how it is it is

480
00:26:39,160 --> 00:26:42,320
Speaker 1: face melting right uh. And and that and that is

481
00:26:42,400 --> 00:26:45,560
Speaker 1: largely depicted as being a positive thing. Yeah. One of

482
00:26:45,560 --> 00:26:47,959
Speaker 1: my favorite musicians is Neil Young, and I remember an

483
00:26:47,960 --> 00:26:51,960
Speaker 1: interview many years ago where Conan O'Brien was interviewing him,

484
00:26:52,000 --> 00:26:55,560
Speaker 1: and he he told him, I watched you at some

485
00:26:55,640 --> 00:26:58,520
Speaker 1: concert play a rendition of rocking in the free world

486
00:26:58,560 --> 00:27:02,240
Speaker 1: that made my eyes melt. It's clearly a compliment. Did

487
00:27:02,280 --> 00:27:04,560
Speaker 1: he mean crying? Was he crying? No? No, I think

488
00:27:04,600 --> 00:27:06,879
Speaker 1: he just meant like it was so powerful it like

489
00:27:07,000 --> 00:27:10,480
Speaker 1: destroyed my body. But he meant it as a compliment. Okay,

490
00:27:10,560 --> 00:27:15,040
Speaker 1: because yeah, because I think sometimes crying plays into how

491
00:27:15,080 --> 00:27:18,960
Speaker 1: we're loosely thinking about melting. But it doesn't seem to

492
00:27:18,960 --> 00:27:22,000
Speaker 1: be a case where we're using it as like a

493
00:27:22,080 --> 00:27:25,320
Speaker 1: euphemism for for crying, you know, or trying to sort

494
00:27:25,320 --> 00:27:27,080
Speaker 1: of cover up the fact that we're crying, like trying

495
00:27:27,119 --> 00:27:30,040
Speaker 1: to be like hyper masculine about crying. That doesn't seem

496
00:27:30,080 --> 00:27:32,720
Speaker 1: to be the way that people use melt. No. But

497
00:27:32,840 --> 00:27:35,520
Speaker 1: I think there's a very interesting thing that if you

498
00:27:35,960 --> 00:27:39,040
Speaker 1: look at movie scenes where characters are very first beginning

499
00:27:39,040 --> 00:27:41,879
Speaker 1: to melt, so the melt scene is happening very often,

500
00:27:41,920 --> 00:27:43,880
Speaker 1: a place for it to start is with some kind

501
00:27:43,880 --> 00:27:47,080
Speaker 1: of piece, like a drop of liquid rolling down the face,

502
00:27:47,160 --> 00:27:51,439
Speaker 1: almost like a tear drop does That is interesting? I

503
00:27:51,440 --> 00:27:54,040
Speaker 1: guess it does kind of look like, like, you know,

504
00:27:54,200 --> 00:27:56,680
Speaker 1: just water going down the face. You could sort of

505
00:27:56,760 --> 00:28:00,439
Speaker 1: interpret it as like flesh or the surface of flesh melting.

506
00:28:01,640 --> 00:28:03,640
Speaker 1: But that's a good point. So I was looking around

507
00:28:03,680 --> 00:28:06,040
Speaker 1: to see if anybody, you know, done any you know,

508
00:28:07,240 --> 00:28:11,400
Speaker 1: serious contemplation on this idea of of of melting, of

509
00:28:11,520 --> 00:28:13,840
Speaker 1: you know, there being a fear of melting or desire

510
00:28:13,880 --> 00:28:17,119
Speaker 1: to melt um. Because, as we've discussed on the show before,

511
00:28:17,760 --> 00:28:21,879
Speaker 1: you do see psychological delusions such as that of feeling

512
00:28:21,960 --> 00:28:24,560
Speaker 1: that your body as is as brittle as glass and

513
00:28:24,640 --> 00:28:29,200
Speaker 1: may shatter, so why not melting as well? Yeah, there

514
00:28:29,200 --> 00:28:33,480
Speaker 1: are all kinds of uh, psychological conditions that can disrupt

515
00:28:33,680 --> 00:28:38,120
Speaker 1: various features of the body schema, or can disrupt types

516
00:28:38,120 --> 00:28:41,280
Speaker 1: of appropriate reception where you since, where your body is,

517
00:28:41,320 --> 00:28:44,480
Speaker 1: what it feels like, what's happening to it. Yeah, So

518
00:28:44,640 --> 00:28:48,040
Speaker 1: I did not find anything. If anyone out there has

519
00:28:48,120 --> 00:28:50,360
Speaker 1: run across it, I am happy to be corrected, but

520
00:28:50,440 --> 00:28:52,600
Speaker 1: I'm also I'm not I'm not going to say I'm

521
00:28:52,640 --> 00:28:56,560
Speaker 1: disappointed that people are not dealing with a psychological delusion

522
00:28:56,560 --> 00:28:59,640
Speaker 1: that their bodies are melting, like I'm I'm happy that

523
00:28:59,720 --> 00:29:02,880
Speaker 1: people or spared that at least. Uh. But I did

524
00:29:02,880 --> 00:29:09,000
Speaker 1: come across studies in Nondeterministic Psychology by James L. Fausage. Uh.

525
00:29:09,040 --> 00:29:13,880
Speaker 1: This is the National Institute of Psychotherapies in nineteen and

526
00:29:14,000 --> 00:29:18,160
Speaker 1: in it the author discusses psychotherapy approaches that make use

527
00:29:18,200 --> 00:29:23,120
Speaker 1: of transformative melting metaphors during the waking state of consciousness,

528
00:29:23,520 --> 00:29:26,920
Speaker 1: which I found quite interesting. So this is not you know,

529
00:29:27,520 --> 00:29:30,280
Speaker 1: this is very much about like using various mental images

530
00:29:30,320 --> 00:29:32,800
Speaker 1: as a way of connecting with the patient and psychotherapy,

531
00:29:33,320 --> 00:29:34,960
Speaker 1: but it touches on some of the things we're talking

532
00:29:34,960 --> 00:29:40,320
Speaker 1: about here. So in this paper, Fassage Minsent mentions the

533
00:29:40,400 --> 00:29:44,040
Speaker 1: melting of a shield with one's warmth. So that's like

534
00:29:44,040 --> 00:29:47,000
Speaker 1: there's a shield between you and another person or another thing,

535
00:29:47,280 --> 00:29:50,040
Speaker 1: and your warmth can be the thing that melts the shield,

536
00:29:50,320 --> 00:29:53,840
Speaker 1: So you're like a an instrument of melting. And then

537
00:29:53,880 --> 00:29:56,520
Speaker 1: there's quote the fear of melting, of letting go and

538
00:29:56,600 --> 00:30:00,920
Speaker 1: becoming vulnerable without adequate defenses, which I think is is

539
00:30:01,040 --> 00:30:04,200
Speaker 1: very key. And then there's the fear of melting completely

540
00:30:04,480 --> 00:30:07,040
Speaker 1: and there being nothing left of oneself, this kind of

541
00:30:07,080 --> 00:30:10,160
Speaker 1: I guess, going back to the candle metaphor, but also

542
00:30:10,600 --> 00:30:12,280
Speaker 1: reminding me a bit of the Wicked Witch of the

543
00:30:12,320 --> 00:30:14,880
Speaker 1: West as well, you know, because she basically melts awaited nothing,

544
00:30:14,880 --> 00:30:16,920
Speaker 1: but it's just left. All this left is just the

545
00:30:16,920 --> 00:30:20,160
Speaker 1: clothing that she was wearing. I'd say, in psychological terms,

546
00:30:20,200 --> 00:30:23,440
Speaker 1: the one that I here emerge most naturally from people

547
00:30:23,560 --> 00:30:27,200
Speaker 1: is the middle one about the melting of defenses, the

548
00:30:27,240 --> 00:30:32,760
Speaker 1: idea that people bring up metaphors of melting when they're

549
00:30:32,760 --> 00:30:40,720
Speaker 1: talking about people becoming more open and vulnerable with each other. Yeah, which,

550
00:30:41,040 --> 00:30:43,160
Speaker 1: on one hand, you might say, well, that's clearly not

551
00:30:43,280 --> 00:30:45,760
Speaker 1: what the Incredible Melting Man is about, that's clearly not

552
00:30:45,840 --> 00:30:49,160
Speaker 1: what RoboCop is about, etcetera. But I'm not quite convinced.

553
00:30:49,520 --> 00:30:52,760
Speaker 1: I think I think these may, on a subconscious level,

554
00:30:53,080 --> 00:30:56,840
Speaker 1: be be about the the fear of of what happens

555
00:30:56,840 --> 00:30:59,680
Speaker 1: if we open ourselves up to the world too much,

556
00:30:59,720 --> 00:31:02,360
Speaker 1: you know, like because it's let me look at RoboCop,

557
00:31:02,440 --> 00:31:05,560
Speaker 1: you know, it's or straight trash. These are films in

558
00:31:05,600 --> 00:31:08,520
Speaker 1: which the world around us is depicted as being a

559
00:31:08,600 --> 00:31:12,560
Speaker 1: horrible place, and you know, you want to I guess

560
00:31:12,560 --> 00:31:15,960
Speaker 1: from your exterior to remain is is hard and impregnant,

561
00:31:15,960 --> 00:31:19,760
Speaker 1: impregnatble is possible, right in those cases, like you don't

562
00:31:19,840 --> 00:31:23,120
Speaker 1: want to melt into that world. That world would melt you, though.

563
00:31:23,160 --> 00:31:25,280
Speaker 1: I would say one of the main themes of RoboCop

564
00:31:25,440 --> 00:31:30,160
Speaker 1: is the attempt to hang on to pieces of humanity

565
00:31:30,360 --> 00:31:33,960
Speaker 1: in an in in an inhuman or inhumane world and

566
00:31:34,040 --> 00:31:39,560
Speaker 1: the world that is ruled by by cruelty and corporations

567
00:31:39,600 --> 00:31:44,960
Speaker 1: and machines and and transactional relationships. Trying to hang onto

568
00:31:45,080 --> 00:31:47,880
Speaker 1: something that's pure and good and human. And you see

569
00:31:47,880 --> 00:31:51,000
Speaker 1: that emphasized in several of the scenes between Alex Murphy

570
00:31:51,040 --> 00:31:54,320
Speaker 1: or RoboCop and Lewis played by Nancy Allen, his partner.

571
00:31:54,360 --> 00:31:57,120
Speaker 1: They've got these these little moments where you can remember

572
00:31:57,160 --> 00:32:00,360
Speaker 1: that you're human even when he's mostly machine. That's a

573
00:32:00,440 --> 00:32:03,640
Speaker 1: that's a very good point. Yeah, and again just more reasonable, like, no,

574
00:32:03,840 --> 00:32:08,720
Speaker 1: don't just dismiss RoboCop. Is this ultra violent you know,

575
00:32:09,000 --> 00:32:11,120
Speaker 1: a piece of trash or something like, There's there's a

576
00:32:11,160 --> 00:32:13,440
Speaker 1: lot going on there. It's so I don't think it's

577
00:32:13,440 --> 00:32:17,240
Speaker 1: for for all tastes, but it's it's definitely a film

578
00:32:17,240 --> 00:32:20,000
Speaker 1: that intends to say something, Yeah, it's a movie. It's

579
00:32:20,000 --> 00:32:22,800
Speaker 1: a movie that's relatable to anyone who's trying to remain

580
00:32:22,840 --> 00:32:25,400
Speaker 1: a human at the same time that a corporation is

581
00:32:25,440 --> 00:32:29,040
Speaker 1: extracting maximum value from what's left of your body. Yeah.

582
00:32:29,240 --> 00:32:31,520
Speaker 1: So yeah, again, this is a world where that you

583
00:32:31,560 --> 00:32:33,600
Speaker 1: do not want to melt into. You don't want to

584
00:32:33,680 --> 00:32:36,000
Speaker 1: let go and become vulnerable because you want to hang

585
00:32:36,040 --> 00:32:38,520
Speaker 1: on to that part of you that's still human, that

586
00:32:38,560 --> 00:32:41,520
Speaker 1: hasn't been crushed by the machine yet. So I think

587
00:32:41,520 --> 00:32:43,240
Speaker 1: it's also interesting in all of this, you know what

588
00:32:43,360 --> 00:32:47,400
Speaker 1: we're talking about, this idea of like the metaphorical body

589
00:32:47,520 --> 00:32:50,360
Speaker 1: uh melting away and uh and all, and then how

590
00:32:50,440 --> 00:32:53,560
Speaker 1: this is reflected in these horrific images of the body melting.

591
00:32:54,080 --> 00:32:57,720
Speaker 1: But while a wax effigy of a human definitely melts,

592
00:32:57,720 --> 00:33:01,480
Speaker 1: our bodies don't really melt even in the even when

593
00:33:01,520 --> 00:33:06,800
Speaker 1: extreme things happen to them. Um, generally, what's going on

594
00:33:06,880 --> 00:33:09,920
Speaker 1: with us is not quite the phase change that we

595
00:33:09,960 --> 00:33:14,040
Speaker 1: see occurring when say ice melts, or even when when

596
00:33:14,040 --> 00:33:17,760
Speaker 1: when wax is melting away. Um, it's not quite what

597
00:33:17,840 --> 00:33:21,080
Speaker 1: it is. It's similar to in our episode about freezing,

598
00:33:21,120 --> 00:33:25,040
Speaker 1: about how our bodies don't exactly freeze solid and shatter

599
00:33:25,120 --> 00:33:28,000
Speaker 1: in the way that pure water can correct. But I

600
00:33:28,000 --> 00:33:30,120
Speaker 1: think we concluded in that episode that if you get

601
00:33:30,160 --> 00:33:33,120
Speaker 1: a body cold enough, like you know, down to liquid

602
00:33:33,240 --> 00:33:36,520
Speaker 1: nitrogen temperatures, and use enough force, you can achieve some

603
00:33:36,640 --> 00:33:39,960
Speaker 1: shattering like the kinds of things. And I think something

604
00:33:40,040 --> 00:33:43,440
Speaker 1: similar is true with melting, that the human body doesn't

605
00:33:43,560 --> 00:33:47,000
Speaker 1: melt the way Nazis do in the movies, but elements

606
00:33:47,040 --> 00:33:49,040
Speaker 1: of the human body will kind of melt. I mean,

607
00:33:49,040 --> 00:33:52,280
Speaker 1: the body is made of different types of tissues and materials,

608
00:33:52,320 --> 00:33:55,960
Speaker 1: and some of them will sort of melt, yeah, some

609
00:33:55,960 --> 00:33:59,680
Speaker 1: some Some parts of our flesh liquefy a little more easily,

610
00:34:00,120 --> 00:34:02,640
Speaker 1: and in rare cases human fat and the body has

611
00:34:02,640 --> 00:34:06,080
Speaker 1: been observed to behave something like the wick of a candle.

612
00:34:06,200 --> 00:34:08,879
Speaker 1: This is called the Wick effect. And uh, if you've

613
00:34:09,000 --> 00:34:12,120
Speaker 1: if you've ever read anything about the various theories involving

614
00:34:12,320 --> 00:34:16,959
Speaker 1: um uh spontaneous combustion, they are the Wick effect often

615
00:34:17,000 --> 00:34:19,680
Speaker 1: plays into this. So so coming back to some of the

616
00:34:19,640 --> 00:34:23,960
Speaker 1: the faustages explorations about melting UM, I want to come

617
00:34:23,960 --> 00:34:27,000
Speaker 1: back to the idea of of losing oneself through melting,

618
00:34:27,400 --> 00:34:29,680
Speaker 1: and in this I think melting serves as a strong

619
00:34:29,760 --> 00:34:33,000
Speaker 1: metaphor for gradual decay, for aging, for the you know,

620
00:34:33,040 --> 00:34:37,360
Speaker 1: the gradual work of a debilitating disease. Uh. These effects

621
00:34:37,360 --> 00:34:40,319
Speaker 1: coupled with the totality of death, you know, because death

622
00:34:40,400 --> 00:34:43,000
Speaker 1: robs us of everything that we are, and in the

623
00:34:43,080 --> 00:34:46,560
Speaker 1: in its wake, there can be an almost candle like experience.

624
00:34:46,680 --> 00:34:49,360
Speaker 1: Right again, think back to what we talked about in

625
00:34:49,360 --> 00:34:53,600
Speaker 1: the Wax episodes about how the candle often had magical

626
00:34:53,880 --> 00:34:58,160
Speaker 1: um uh connotations in various cultures because it was this thing,

627
00:34:58,640 --> 00:35:02,759
Speaker 1: this physical thing that burned a way completely are almost completely,

628
00:35:03,160 --> 00:35:04,759
Speaker 1: you know, and at the end you might ask, what's

629
00:35:04,800 --> 00:35:07,759
Speaker 1: the candle even real? Did it exist? Where did it go?

630
00:35:08,400 --> 00:35:11,640
Speaker 1: And he's certainly in the face of actual human death,

631
00:35:11,680 --> 00:35:15,680
Speaker 1: not movie human death, but but actual personal loss. You

632
00:35:15,719 --> 00:35:19,200
Speaker 1: can feel that as well, totally. Now, the idea of

633
00:35:19,239 --> 00:35:23,280
Speaker 1: melting as phase transfer by which we become more vulnerable

634
00:35:23,320 --> 00:35:27,120
Speaker 1: without adequate defenses, you know, of letting go um. You know,

635
00:35:27,280 --> 00:35:29,880
Speaker 1: I think that's extremely apt as well. It certainly ties

636
00:35:29,920 --> 00:35:34,240
Speaker 1: into our uses of melting, as in melting with joy um. Again,

637
00:35:34,280 --> 00:35:38,360
Speaker 1: perhaps tears add an additional context to a certain degree, um,

638
00:35:38,400 --> 00:35:41,080
Speaker 1: but for the most part, it's it's about becoming more

639
00:35:41,160 --> 00:35:45,080
Speaker 1: malleable to the world around you, both in positive and

640
00:35:45,120 --> 00:35:49,040
Speaker 1: in negative ways, connecting with other people, connecting with the environment,

641
00:35:49,680 --> 00:35:53,799
Speaker 1: but also perhaps opening yourself to the dangers of other

642
00:35:53,880 --> 00:35:57,520
Speaker 1: people and of society, etcetera. It reminds me a lot

643
00:35:57,520 --> 00:35:59,799
Speaker 1: of what we discussed in our psychedelic episodes, you know,

644
00:36:00,000 --> 00:36:03,759
Speaker 1: about the breaking down of boundaries between ourselves and others,

645
00:36:03,760 --> 00:36:07,400
Speaker 1: between ourselves in the natural world, not only melting, but

646
00:36:07,560 --> 00:36:11,799
Speaker 1: merging into some larger totality. Uh. In fact, I look back,

647
00:36:11,840 --> 00:36:15,320
Speaker 1: just just out of curiosity, I did some quick uh

648
00:36:15,520 --> 00:36:18,040
Speaker 1: word searches in a in a few texts, uh to

649
00:36:18,120 --> 00:36:21,440
Speaker 1: see who was using melting, and I noticed, for instance

650
00:36:21,480 --> 00:36:25,520
Speaker 1: that that Huxley did not use melt or melting at

651
00:36:25,560 --> 00:36:28,480
Speaker 1: all in the Doors of Perception. But for instance far

652
00:36:28,480 --> 00:36:32,200
Speaker 1: more recent work UM How to Change Your Mind by

653
00:36:32,239 --> 00:36:35,600
Speaker 1: Michael Pollen, he uses melt or melting multiple times in

654
00:36:35,640 --> 00:36:39,000
Speaker 1: the book. You know, it seems like a pretty handy

655
00:36:39,120 --> 00:36:44,000
Speaker 1: contemporary um uh mental image to draw upon to make

656
00:36:44,080 --> 00:36:47,719
Speaker 1: sense of what's happening with the psychedelic experience. Well, yeah,

657
00:36:47,800 --> 00:36:51,120
Speaker 1: I mean, in fact, I would say melting becomes an

658
00:36:51,160 --> 00:36:55,960
Speaker 1: interesting way of thinking about psychedelic psychedelic compounds effects on

659
00:36:56,000 --> 00:36:58,520
Speaker 1: our perception because it even comes through and just the

660
00:36:58,600 --> 00:37:03,239
Speaker 1: sheer mechanics of how imagery transitions under the effects of

661
00:37:03,280 --> 00:37:06,399
Speaker 1: many psychedelics, where there are these things that people talk about,

662
00:37:06,480 --> 00:37:10,000
Speaker 1: like using terms like tracers and things like that, where

663
00:37:11,239 --> 00:37:16,120
Speaker 1: mental imagery and even visual imagery is perceived normally doesn't

664
00:37:16,719 --> 00:37:19,879
Speaker 1: transition as quickly from one state to another, but there

665
00:37:19,880 --> 00:37:23,320
Speaker 1: seemed to be sort of drag effects in between images,

666
00:37:23,480 --> 00:37:26,239
Speaker 1: you know what I'm talking about, uh, And that this

667
00:37:26,440 --> 00:37:31,400
Speaker 1: simulates a kind of liquidity of mental content that I

668
00:37:31,680 --> 00:37:35,400
Speaker 1: think is quite aptly described by metaphors of melting. Often

669
00:37:35,440 --> 00:37:38,960
Speaker 1: on psychedelics, people describe some version of instead of just

670
00:37:39,080 --> 00:37:41,840
Speaker 1: thinking about image A and then thinking about image B,

671
00:37:42,280 --> 00:37:46,279
Speaker 1: image A melts into image by I don't know if

672
00:37:46,320 --> 00:37:49,480
Speaker 1: that was entirely clear, but just the psychedelics really encourage

673
00:37:49,520 --> 00:37:53,640
Speaker 1: these sort of like dragging transition states. No, I absolutely agree.

674
00:37:53,840 --> 00:37:56,440
Speaker 1: And it's interesting to think that, like, since that kind

675
00:37:56,480 --> 00:38:00,320
Speaker 1: of thing is so common phenomenologically, it would almost suggest

676
00:38:00,400 --> 00:38:04,120
Speaker 1: there is something about these compounds that that consistently encourage

677
00:38:04,200 --> 00:38:07,160
Speaker 1: that at a chemical level in the brain. Yeah, I mean,

678
00:38:07,160 --> 00:38:08,560
Speaker 1: and some of them maybe even comes down to like

679
00:38:08,600 --> 00:38:11,799
Speaker 1: how we're how we're we're taking in sense data, right,

680
00:38:12,239 --> 00:38:15,239
Speaker 1: is it are we taking in abstract facts about the

681
00:38:15,280 --> 00:38:19,200
Speaker 1: reality around us or is it a more fluid observation

682
00:38:19,239 --> 00:38:23,719
Speaker 1: of reality in terms of of of making note of changes. Oh,

683
00:38:23,800 --> 00:38:27,480
Speaker 1: that's very interesting. So like instead of that, maybe you

684
00:38:27,520 --> 00:38:31,279
Speaker 1: could more easily, in a normal frame of mind, look

685
00:38:31,280 --> 00:38:33,840
Speaker 1: at one thing and then look at another thing because

686
00:38:33,840 --> 00:38:37,000
Speaker 1: you've got cognitive filtering that you're applying to your visual

687
00:38:37,000 --> 00:38:40,040
Speaker 1: sense data. You know that that's sort of like excluding

688
00:38:40,120 --> 00:38:43,919
Speaker 1: the transition, the transitional middle period of what your eyes

689
00:38:43,960 --> 00:38:47,279
Speaker 1: are doing. But on the psychedelic you're processing things in

690
00:38:47,320 --> 00:38:51,080
Speaker 1: a raw or way that does not filter out the

691
00:38:51,120 --> 00:38:54,759
Speaker 1: transitional period as efficiently. Yeah, Like instead of saying, oh,

692
00:38:54,840 --> 00:38:57,360
Speaker 1: that's my face in the mirror, it's more it's a

693
00:38:57,360 --> 00:39:00,560
Speaker 1: continual updating of it. Uh. It can create kind of

694
00:39:00,560 --> 00:39:03,879
Speaker 1: a melting effect without it actually looking like your face

695
00:39:03,960 --> 00:39:07,080
Speaker 1: is straight up melting. So I I would never attempt

696
00:39:07,120 --> 00:39:10,200
Speaker 1: to argue that something like, um, you know that to

697
00:39:10,280 --> 00:39:13,960
Speaker 1: say the psychedelic experience and humanity sister with the psychedelic experiences.

698
00:39:14,000 --> 00:39:16,719
Speaker 1: Certainly in the like the twentieth century would have been

699
00:39:16,800 --> 00:39:20,600
Speaker 1: like the the soul uh influence on all this melting

700
00:39:20,880 --> 00:39:24,680
Speaker 1: um fixation in cinema. But but I can't help but

701
00:39:24,760 --> 00:39:26,839
Speaker 1: wonder if that's part of it. But clearly you still

702
00:39:26,880 --> 00:39:28,920
Speaker 1: have other things. You have just the cinematic influence and

703
00:39:28,960 --> 00:39:32,480
Speaker 1: tradition that's going on when you know, people watch a

704
00:39:32,520 --> 00:39:35,240
Speaker 1: witch melt in one film and then create a melting

705
00:39:35,239 --> 00:39:38,360
Speaker 1: effect in another film later on. Obviously that's part of

706
00:39:38,360 --> 00:39:41,920
Speaker 1: it um. And I think also material the materials in

707
00:39:41,920 --> 00:39:44,040
Speaker 1: our surrounding culture are a big part of it as well.

708
00:39:44,239 --> 00:39:47,560
Speaker 1: I mean we see that again with wax observations of wax,

709
00:39:47,560 --> 00:39:49,680
Speaker 1: and then what happens when you create a human of wax.

710
00:39:50,480 --> 00:39:54,040
Speaker 1: Also what happens when you have, you know, a wax

711
00:39:54,120 --> 00:39:57,480
Speaker 1: culture that becomes eventually an iron culture and then you

712
00:39:57,520 --> 00:40:00,520
Speaker 1: have all of this melting and smelting um mixed up

713
00:40:00,600 --> 00:40:03,480
Speaker 1: in um in in your understanding the world. And then

714
00:40:03,520 --> 00:40:06,239
Speaker 1: what happens when you go from an iron culture eventually

715
00:40:06,239 --> 00:40:08,840
Speaker 1: to a plastic culture. You know, it brings on new

716
00:40:09,160 --> 00:40:12,839
Speaker 1: connotations of what melting is, how things melt, and how

717
00:40:12,880 --> 00:40:16,640
Speaker 1: we might imagine our bodies in reference to that material.

718
00:40:17,040 --> 00:40:19,239
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I was just thinking about the metaphors we

719
00:40:19,320 --> 00:40:23,359
Speaker 1: live by here. So so the metal metaphor is one

720
00:40:23,440 --> 00:40:26,279
Speaker 1: in which it takes a tremendous amount of work to

721
00:40:26,400 --> 00:40:30,200
Speaker 1: change one's shape. The plastic metaphor is pretty much just

722
00:40:30,239 --> 00:40:32,279
Speaker 1: shaped at the factory. You're not gonna melt it and

723
00:40:32,400 --> 00:40:35,919
Speaker 1: reshape it. That would kind of destroy it. So it's

724
00:40:36,000 --> 00:40:38,880
Speaker 1: it's you know, the plastic age. You're just stuck. All right,

725
00:40:38,920 --> 00:40:41,279
Speaker 1: We're gonna take a quick break, but we'll be right back.

726
00:40:42,760 --> 00:40:46,600
Speaker 1: Thank thank, thank, and we're back. And you know this,

727
00:40:46,760 --> 00:40:49,360
Speaker 1: this ultimately leads us to the next topic we're going

728
00:40:49,400 --> 00:40:51,239
Speaker 1: to discuss here, and this will be I guess that

729
00:40:51,320 --> 00:40:53,480
Speaker 1: sort of the final topic of discussion in this episode,

730
00:40:53,840 --> 00:40:57,920
Speaker 1: and that is another major melting symbol or metaphor that

731
00:40:58,000 --> 00:41:01,120
Speaker 1: comes up that a lot of your probably thinking about already,

732
00:41:01,160 --> 00:41:05,080
Speaker 1: and that is the American melting pot. Now quick note again,

733
00:41:05,120 --> 00:41:08,360
Speaker 1: we're recording this episode the week of Halloween, though it

734
00:41:08,400 --> 00:41:11,960
Speaker 1: won't publish till after election day, so just throwing that

735
00:41:12,000 --> 00:41:15,520
Speaker 1: out there for timing should it be essential. So this

736
00:41:15,560 --> 00:41:18,600
Speaker 1: is another area where I think when we're talking about melting,

737
00:41:18,640 --> 00:41:21,839
Speaker 1: everything we've discussed so far is still very much in play,

738
00:41:22,000 --> 00:41:25,000
Speaker 1: uh melting, and even you know, the fear of melting,

739
00:41:25,040 --> 00:41:28,640
Speaker 1: but also the potential joy of melting, the transformative nature

740
00:41:28,680 --> 00:41:34,319
Speaker 1: of melting. It's all reflected in this strange concept of

741
00:41:34,440 --> 00:41:37,880
Speaker 1: the American melting pot, something that I've heard my whole life,

742
00:41:38,480 --> 00:41:41,439
Speaker 1: and and I have to say, I think early on

743
00:41:41,719 --> 00:41:44,520
Speaker 1: I always interpreted it's kind of a stupot. Maybe I

744
00:41:44,560 --> 00:41:48,640
Speaker 1: was confused by the franchise of Fondue restaurants called the

745
00:41:48,640 --> 00:41:52,520
Speaker 1: melting pot. I'm not exactly sure, because I mean, clearly

746
00:41:52,880 --> 00:41:56,799
Speaker 1: it is referring to a you know, a metallurgical comparison. Here,

747
00:41:56,840 --> 00:41:59,840
Speaker 1: it is an idea of metals melting together in in

748
00:41:59,840 --> 00:42:02,640
Speaker 1: a pot. Right, you combine different metals to form a

749
00:42:02,680 --> 00:42:06,080
Speaker 1: stronger alloy that has the great properties of each YEA.

750
00:42:07,120 --> 00:42:10,000
Speaker 1: On some level, though, I did recognize that it seemed

751
00:42:10,040 --> 00:42:13,120
Speaker 1: to be about different cultures and backgrounds, so that was

752
00:42:13,160 --> 00:42:16,799
Speaker 1: only coming together in this pot that is America and

753
00:42:16,880 --> 00:42:22,560
Speaker 1: becoming something new. Now it's this is a broad and

754
00:42:22,840 --> 00:42:25,880
Speaker 1: h and at times very uh, you know, non specific

755
00:42:27,200 --> 00:42:30,160
Speaker 1: symbol to engage with, because it ultimately raises a lot

756
00:42:30,200 --> 00:42:33,240
Speaker 1: of questions like is this is this an accurate, accurate

757
00:42:33,239 --> 00:42:36,600
Speaker 1: depiction depiction of what American culture is? Is it more

758
00:42:36,600 --> 00:42:38,920
Speaker 1: of an ideal of what it could be. Is it

759
00:42:38,960 --> 00:42:43,280
Speaker 1: a misunderstanding of culture? Is it actually a misunderstanding of melting?

760
00:42:43,880 --> 00:42:47,800
Speaker 1: Is it a helpful concept? Is it a hurtful concept? Uh?

761
00:42:47,880 --> 00:42:51,000
Speaker 1: And certainly, at least to some extent, it depends on

762
00:42:51,080 --> 00:42:54,520
Speaker 1: how it's being used and who's using it during what

763
00:42:54,719 --> 00:42:58,319
Speaker 1: period of of of you know, the last century or

764
00:42:58,320 --> 00:43:00,880
Speaker 1: so of American history. You know? Is it something to

765
00:43:00,920 --> 00:43:04,200
Speaker 1: support the idea of a monoculture and often a particular

766
00:43:04,239 --> 00:43:08,520
Speaker 1: mono culture, or is it anti multiculturalism? So I decided

767
00:43:08,520 --> 00:43:10,480
Speaker 1: to look into this a little bit and and just

768
00:43:10,719 --> 00:43:12,880
Speaker 1: learn from myself, like, what what are the origins of

769
00:43:12,880 --> 00:43:16,319
Speaker 1: this term? I I honestly didn't have any idea. Uh.

770
00:43:16,480 --> 00:43:19,200
Speaker 1: So I read a paper this is from nineteen sixty

771
00:43:19,280 --> 00:43:23,480
Speaker 1: four by historian Philip Gleason, uh and it's titled the

772
00:43:23,520 --> 00:43:28,360
Speaker 1: Melting Pot Symbol of Fusion or Confusion in American Quarterly.

773
00:43:28,520 --> 00:43:32,600
Speaker 1: That's a great title, Umfusion or Confusion and American Quarterly,

774
00:43:32,640 --> 00:43:34,640
Speaker 1: by the way, as an academic journal and the official

775
00:43:34,680 --> 00:43:38,319
Speaker 1: publication of the American Studies Association. So I want to

776
00:43:38,880 --> 00:43:42,200
Speaker 1: roll through some of the points that Gleason makes. I

777
00:43:42,239 --> 00:43:46,480
Speaker 1: am not attempting to summarize the entire uh right up here.

778
00:43:46,760 --> 00:43:49,600
Speaker 1: I recommend seeking this out if you want the full story.

779
00:43:49,680 --> 00:43:51,879
Speaker 1: It's a it's it's it's a wonderful read, and it's

780
00:43:51,880 --> 00:43:55,680
Speaker 1: invailable available in full in full on j Starr. So.

781
00:43:55,760 --> 00:43:58,560
Speaker 1: First of all, he ties this this idea back to

782
00:43:58,719 --> 00:44:02,160
Speaker 1: the myth of metals in Plato's The Republic. This is

783
00:44:02,200 --> 00:44:05,400
Speaker 1: also known as the Noble Lie, and here's how Malcolm's

784
00:44:05,680 --> 00:44:10,760
Speaker 1: Schofield summarized it in the Cambridge companion to Plato's Republic quote.

785
00:44:10,760 --> 00:44:13,560
Speaker 1: The noble Lie is to serve as charter myth for

786
00:44:13,600 --> 00:44:17,400
Speaker 1: Plato's Good City, a myth of national or civic identity,

787
00:44:17,719 --> 00:44:21,400
Speaker 1: or rather two related myths, one grounding that identity in

788
00:44:21,440 --> 00:44:25,279
Speaker 1: the natural brotherhood of the entire indigenous population. They're all

789
00:44:25,400 --> 00:44:29,120
Speaker 1: auto cathanas, literally born from the earth, the other making

790
00:44:29,120 --> 00:44:33,920
Speaker 1: the city's differentiated class structure a matter of divine dispensation.

791
00:44:34,360 --> 00:44:37,520
Speaker 1: The god who molds them puts different metals in their souls.

792
00:44:37,880 --> 00:44:40,359
Speaker 1: If people can be made to believe it, they will

793
00:44:40,400 --> 00:44:43,040
Speaker 1: be strongly motivated to care for the city and for

794
00:44:43,080 --> 00:44:45,719
Speaker 1: each other. If they can be made to believe it. So,

795
00:44:45,840 --> 00:44:48,320
Speaker 1: I mean, at least in Plato's vision. There's got to

796
00:44:48,320 --> 00:44:50,719
Speaker 1: be a certain amount of just like getting people on

797
00:44:50,800 --> 00:44:55,000
Speaker 1: board with a certain way of thinking about things. Yeah. Now,

798
00:44:55,040 --> 00:44:57,680
Speaker 1: Gleason writes that the American myth of the medals here

799
00:44:57,800 --> 00:45:01,000
Speaker 1: is is ultimately a rejection of the platonic Um and

800
00:45:01,160 --> 00:45:04,880
Speaker 1: this is the melting pot quote. Unlike Plato's it was

801
00:45:04,920 --> 00:45:08,440
Speaker 1: not deliberately contrived to provide a supernatural sanction for the

802
00:45:08,480 --> 00:45:11,560
Speaker 1: existing social order. But is it that it is intimately

803
00:45:11,600 --> 00:45:15,720
Speaker 1: related to the origins and nature of American society? Okay,

804
00:45:15,719 --> 00:45:18,800
Speaker 1: so it's not a supernatural myth that you would tell people,

805
00:45:19,040 --> 00:45:21,520
Speaker 1: like a story that you make up to unify them.

806
00:45:21,960 --> 00:45:25,080
Speaker 1: But in the case of American society, it's supposed to

807
00:45:25,120 --> 00:45:28,799
Speaker 1: be a fact that is literally just like descriptive and

808
00:45:28,840 --> 00:45:32,839
Speaker 1: self evident. Yeah. The interesting thing that Gleason drives something

809
00:45:32,840 --> 00:45:34,600
Speaker 1: about the melting pot, and I hadn't really thought about

810
00:45:34,600 --> 00:45:36,520
Speaker 1: this as well, is that it's it's a curious thing

811
00:45:36,560 --> 00:45:40,440
Speaker 1: to be so entrenched in the national mindset because on

812
00:45:40,440 --> 00:45:43,520
Speaker 1: one hand, it is not an actual thing you can

813
00:45:43,560 --> 00:45:47,040
Speaker 1: point to, like you can't go to Boston or Washington,

814
00:45:47,120 --> 00:45:49,160
Speaker 1: d c. And like, hey, should we hey, family, should

815
00:45:49,200 --> 00:45:50,839
Speaker 1: we go see the melting Pot? There it is. We've

816
00:45:50,840 --> 00:45:53,880
Speaker 1: heard all about the American melting pot. Yeah, behhold no,

817
00:45:54,120 --> 00:45:57,200
Speaker 1: it's not a thing. And on the other hand, it's

818
00:45:57,239 --> 00:46:00,520
Speaker 1: not a proper symbol either. You can't say, oh, let me,

819
00:46:00,840 --> 00:46:03,080
Speaker 1: let me fish some dollar bills out of my wallet. Oh, yes,

820
00:46:03,080 --> 00:46:05,879
Speaker 1: here's the melting pot right here. You could you if

821
00:46:05,880 --> 00:46:07,839
Speaker 1: you were asked to draw the melting pot, what would

822
00:46:07,840 --> 00:46:11,080
Speaker 1: you draw? You know, it's it's not a concrete symbol

823
00:46:11,160 --> 00:46:13,200
Speaker 1: per se, to the extent that it's a symbol, It's

824
00:46:13,200 --> 00:46:15,920
Speaker 1: only a linguistic one, like the phrase is a symbol,

825
00:46:15,960 --> 00:46:19,680
Speaker 1: but it's never depicted. Yeah. So Gleason says that it

826
00:46:19,760 --> 00:46:23,240
Speaker 1: might be more fair to consider it a concept or theory.

827
00:46:24,080 --> 00:46:26,520
Speaker 1: But but it He also discusses it just in terms,

828
00:46:26,560 --> 00:46:30,000
Speaker 1: loosely as a symbol throughout the paper. Uh. He points

829
00:46:30,000 --> 00:46:32,320
Speaker 1: out that it's used in many ways as a simile.

830
00:46:32,680 --> 00:46:36,319
Speaker 1: America is is like a melting pot. Sometimes it's a

831
00:46:36,320 --> 00:46:40,320
Speaker 1: metaphor America is a melting pot, and sometimes it's a symbol.

832
00:46:40,360 --> 00:46:42,319
Speaker 1: They traveled across the sea to be part of the

833
00:46:42,360 --> 00:46:44,640
Speaker 1: melting pot. So the use of the melting pot is

834
00:46:44,680 --> 00:46:48,040
Speaker 1: a symbol, he says, You know, for the process of immigration,

835
00:46:48,080 --> 00:46:53,239
Speaker 1: into American society. This was popularized basically as recently as

836
00:46:53,320 --> 00:46:58,000
Speaker 1: nine eight with Israel Zangwell's play that was titled The

837
00:46:58,080 --> 00:47:01,360
Speaker 1: Melting Pot. So it it's another interesting thing about it.

838
00:47:01,360 --> 00:47:03,799
Speaker 1: It's not really that old of an idea, and not

839
00:47:03,880 --> 00:47:06,560
Speaker 1: that the United States is that old of an idea either,

840
00:47:07,320 --> 00:47:10,520
Speaker 1: But the idea itself does date back a good bit

841
00:47:10,640 --> 00:47:16,000
Speaker 1: before eight uh, dating back to the eighteenth century contemplations

842
00:47:16,320 --> 00:47:20,319
Speaker 1: of the New American man, and particularly it goes back

843
00:47:20,360 --> 00:47:24,360
Speaker 1: to the French American writer Jay Hector st. John de Crevicur,

844
00:47:24,680 --> 00:47:29,000
Speaker 1: who lived seventeen thirty five through eighteen thirteen. Crevicur wrote

845
00:47:29,400 --> 00:47:33,640
Speaker 1: pro American writings during the Revolution. He also opposed slavery,

846
00:47:33,800 --> 00:47:37,040
Speaker 1: and he touched on the melting pot concept in Letters

847
00:47:37,120 --> 00:47:40,280
Speaker 1: from an American Farmer in seventeen eighty two, in which

848
00:47:40,280 --> 00:47:43,640
Speaker 1: he quote developed or implied all of the themes unquote

849
00:47:43,760 --> 00:47:47,239
Speaker 1: involved in the idea that a new American man would

850
00:47:47,280 --> 00:47:51,400
Speaker 1: be the product of cross cultural fertilization. Right, So that

851
00:47:51,480 --> 00:47:55,160
Speaker 1: would be the sort of what was considered a revolutionary

852
00:47:55,239 --> 00:47:59,680
Speaker 1: idea at the time, that you could build a civic culture,

853
00:47:59,719 --> 00:48:02,680
Speaker 1: you could build a polity on the basis of shared

854
00:48:02,760 --> 00:48:07,000
Speaker 1: ideals rather than shared ethnicity. Yeah, yeah, Like he was

855
00:48:07,120 --> 00:48:10,239
Speaker 1: very much it's at least for for a time here

856
00:48:10,239 --> 00:48:12,600
Speaker 1: in a lot of these writings, was very gung ho

857
00:48:13,000 --> 00:48:15,839
Speaker 1: about what America could be, this idea like it's going

858
00:48:15,880 --> 00:48:18,319
Speaker 1: to be a new thing where we're building a new

859
00:48:18,360 --> 00:48:21,600
Speaker 1: country here and uh and and the people that occupied

860
00:48:21,640 --> 00:48:24,680
Speaker 1: are going to be a new creation in a sense,

861
00:48:24,680 --> 00:48:26,359
Speaker 1: they're going to be created out of out of these

862
00:48:26,520 --> 00:48:29,680
Speaker 1: pre existing elements. And he did use the word melt

863
00:48:29,760 --> 00:48:33,560
Speaker 1: to describe the process quote individuals of all nations are

864
00:48:33,719 --> 00:48:37,200
Speaker 1: melted into a new race of men unquote, which at

865
00:48:37,239 --> 00:48:40,279
Speaker 1: least in some ways sounds futuristic and positive. You know,

866
00:48:40,320 --> 00:48:43,560
Speaker 1: it sounds very plasma pool in his wake, though you

867
00:48:43,600 --> 00:48:46,480
Speaker 1: see other people occasionally use it in a different fashion.

868
00:48:46,680 --> 00:48:51,279
Speaker 1: For instance, DeWitt Clinton, described by Gleason as a nativistic congressman,

869
00:48:51,960 --> 00:48:54,520
Speaker 1: used it in the eighteen forties as a criticism of

870
00:48:54,560 --> 00:48:58,520
Speaker 1: immigrants who did not melt into American culture and kept

871
00:48:58,560 --> 00:49:01,600
Speaker 1: aspects of their own culture. So again, already we see

872
00:49:01,920 --> 00:49:04,960
Speaker 1: melt the idea of the melting pot be used positively,

873
00:49:05,000 --> 00:49:08,080
Speaker 1: like like, hey, everybody, let's melt together and become something new.

874
00:49:08,520 --> 00:49:10,440
Speaker 1: And then here's this other guy using it and saying,

875
00:49:10,640 --> 00:49:13,080
Speaker 1: why aren't people melting? I want to see more melting.

876
00:49:13,640 --> 00:49:16,840
Speaker 1: You're not melting enough. You're not melting enough me. Well, no,

877
00:49:16,920 --> 00:49:19,520
Speaker 1: I'm not melted. I'm I'm I'm not in I'm melting.

878
00:49:19,520 --> 00:49:22,040
Speaker 1: But you you need to do some melting. But still

879
00:49:22,280 --> 00:49:25,000
Speaker 1: it doesn't quite inner general usage just yet again, not

880
00:49:25,080 --> 00:49:26,920
Speaker 1: until that play comes around, which we'll get to in

881
00:49:26,920 --> 00:49:31,200
Speaker 1: a second. Um. Ralph Waldo Emerson, however, who lived eighteen

882
00:49:31,239 --> 00:49:33,960
Speaker 1: o three eighteen eighty two, he came close and discussing

883
00:49:33,960 --> 00:49:37,680
Speaker 1: how Americans America would quote construct a new race and

884
00:49:37,760 --> 00:49:40,520
Speaker 1: new religion, a new state, and new literature, and that

885
00:49:40,640 --> 00:49:42,879
Speaker 1: it would be as as vigorous, quote as the new

886
00:49:42,880 --> 00:49:45,239
Speaker 1: Europe which came out of the smelting pot of the

887
00:49:45,320 --> 00:49:48,960
Speaker 1: Dark Ages. So Gleason points to a few different examples there.

888
00:49:49,000 --> 00:49:53,319
Speaker 1: But the melting pot again doesn't really take off in

889
00:49:52,920 --> 00:49:55,560
Speaker 1: uh in in in the in in our language until

890
00:49:56,160 --> 00:49:59,480
Speaker 1: the early twentieth century. In that period between the dawn

891
00:49:59,520 --> 00:50:02,960
Speaker 1: of the twenti century and the start of World War One.

892
00:50:03,719 --> 00:50:06,280
Speaker 1: Uh this, Gleason says, is a time when one million

893
00:50:06,280 --> 00:50:10,160
Speaker 1: immigrants roughly entered the United States of America. Most of

894
00:50:10,200 --> 00:50:12,960
Speaker 1: them were from southern and Eastern Europe, and the resulting

895
00:50:13,040 --> 00:50:17,279
Speaker 1: communities in major cities were considered by some to be

896
00:50:17,640 --> 00:50:21,239
Speaker 1: to constitute an immigration problem. Thus the notion of the

897
00:50:21,280 --> 00:50:24,600
Speaker 1: melting Pot. There was a fear of an express fear

898
00:50:24,680 --> 00:50:29,120
Speaker 1: of what non assimilating immigrants meant for the country. Now,

899
00:50:29,120 --> 00:50:31,640
Speaker 1: the play itself was a big hit, at least with

900
00:50:31,640 --> 00:50:34,279
Speaker 1: with audiences, apparently not so much with the with the

901
00:50:34,920 --> 00:50:38,680
Speaker 1: theater critics of the day. But the plot concerned a

902
00:50:38,760 --> 00:50:42,200
Speaker 1: Russian Jewish immigrant family and the main character's desire to

903
00:50:42,280 --> 00:50:45,560
Speaker 1: melt into a new future devoid of ethnic division and hatred,

904
00:50:45,840 --> 00:50:48,000
Speaker 1: and it also also concerns the plight of the Jewish

905
00:50:48,000 --> 00:50:51,760
Speaker 1: people in this period of history. But in in criticizing

906
00:50:51,840 --> 00:50:56,480
Speaker 1: the average American of the day, it also you know, proposed,

907
00:50:57,520 --> 00:51:01,000
Speaker 1: it put forth this idea that the melting pot is

908
00:51:01,000 --> 00:51:04,959
Speaker 1: not something that either that has been done or is done,

909
00:51:05,040 --> 00:51:07,239
Speaker 1: is not part of a process that we see completed

910
00:51:07,840 --> 00:51:10,799
Speaker 1: in any person around us, but rather it is an

911
00:51:10,840 --> 00:51:15,080
Speaker 1: ongoing process that we're all going to be reborn out of.

912
00:51:15,239 --> 00:51:18,680
Speaker 1: If that makes sense. So it's not it's so if I,

913
00:51:18,680 --> 00:51:21,560
Speaker 1: if I understand the play correctly, the concept of the

914
00:51:21,600 --> 00:51:25,560
Speaker 1: melting plot employed here is not one of hey, immigrants,

915
00:51:25,600 --> 00:51:27,960
Speaker 1: go get into the melting pot and then come out

916
00:51:28,000 --> 00:51:29,600
Speaker 1: and then you can be with me. It's more like

917
00:51:29,680 --> 00:51:31,640
Speaker 1: we are all in the melting pot. We are all

918
00:51:31,800 --> 00:51:36,680
Speaker 1: melting into something better and and new, right, not an

919
00:51:36,719 --> 00:51:40,040
Speaker 1: exhortation of like, you're not melting properly, but just saying, like,

920
00:51:40,120 --> 00:51:44,160
Speaker 1: it's descriptive. The melting pot is what happens. Yes, it

921
00:51:44,280 --> 00:51:46,919
Speaker 1: is an ongoing thing that has had It is the

922
00:51:46,920 --> 00:51:50,080
Speaker 1: the ongoing transformation of what it means to be an

923
00:51:50,120 --> 00:51:53,200
Speaker 1: American now. Gleason points out that Theodore Roosevelt loved it,

924
00:51:53,360 --> 00:51:55,440
Speaker 1: but he didn't like the lines in there about Americans

925
00:51:55,480 --> 00:51:59,480
Speaker 1: being lax on divorce or public corruption. So the playwright

926
00:51:59,520 --> 00:52:05,240
Speaker 1: took it out like, okay, it fair enough to be happy. Yeah, um,

927
00:52:05,280 --> 00:52:08,720
Speaker 1: but you know, it's it also seems like the play

928
00:52:09,600 --> 00:52:12,520
Speaker 1: carried with it a certain you know, divisive interpretations depending

929
00:52:12,520 --> 00:52:15,120
Speaker 1: on who was thinking about the play and was also

930
00:52:15,200 --> 00:52:18,759
Speaker 1: then thinking about immigration. You know, is it preaching too

931
00:52:18,880 --> 00:52:21,879
Speaker 1: much conformity on the part of the immigrant or too

932
00:52:21,960 --> 00:52:25,000
Speaker 1: much transformation on the part of the nation. And I

933
00:52:25,000 --> 00:52:27,160
Speaker 1: I guess in that respect it sounds like the play

934
00:52:27,400 --> 00:52:30,520
Speaker 1: did what what good art should do, right. I mean

935
00:52:30,560 --> 00:52:33,440
Speaker 1: it's it's maybe pissing off everybody to a certain extent

936
00:52:33,640 --> 00:52:38,239
Speaker 1: or making everybody think about, like, what what's going on

937
00:52:38,320 --> 00:52:40,920
Speaker 1: in the country. Well, if I'm understanding correctly, I mean

938
00:52:40,960 --> 00:52:44,799
Speaker 1: it maybe sort of assuming something that sounds kind of

939
00:52:44,840 --> 00:52:47,640
Speaker 1: ahead of its time, which is that the cultural assimilation

940
00:52:47,680 --> 00:52:53,200
Speaker 1: of immigrant communities into into a new country is not

941
00:52:53,280 --> 00:52:56,560
Speaker 1: necessarily what what the you know, the nativist that the

942
00:52:56,640 --> 00:53:00,560
Speaker 1: angry finger waggers are saying that you're not assimilating good enough. Uh,

943
00:53:00,600 --> 00:53:03,600
Speaker 1: that like that they need to become like the nativist

944
00:53:03,600 --> 00:53:07,560
Speaker 1: finger waggers. Instead, it's the nativist finger waggers and the

945
00:53:07,600 --> 00:53:11,160
Speaker 1: new immigrants are all going to in the future assimilate

946
00:53:11,280 --> 00:53:15,439
Speaker 1: into this this common thing that is yet to come. Yeah,

947
00:53:15,480 --> 00:53:18,200
Speaker 1: I think so. Yeah, the idea that it's it's it's

948
00:53:18,200 --> 00:53:21,359
Speaker 1: something that is happening and will happen. Uh yeah, as

949
00:53:21,360 --> 00:53:23,480
Speaker 1: opposed to this this thing that has supposed to have

950
00:53:23,520 --> 00:53:26,000
Speaker 1: already occurred. But but it does get back to a

951
00:53:26,000 --> 00:53:27,880
Speaker 1: lot of what we discussed already about, like how we

952
00:53:27,920 --> 00:53:30,759
Speaker 1: think about melting, both in its positive and negative connotations.

953
00:53:31,080 --> 00:53:33,680
Speaker 1: You know, if I'm melting, am I gonna lose myself?

954
00:53:34,040 --> 00:53:36,360
Speaker 1: Will I be hurt when I become soft and malleable?

955
00:53:36,560 --> 00:53:40,000
Speaker 1: I am am I ready for change, you know. Uh.

956
00:53:40,040 --> 00:53:42,000
Speaker 1: And and as Gleason points out, you know, there's a

957
00:53:42,040 --> 00:53:44,360
Speaker 1: lot of variety and how the melting pot is presented,

958
00:53:44,880 --> 00:53:46,759
Speaker 1: and and there are a lot of questions that all

959
00:53:46,800 --> 00:53:49,040
Speaker 1: the time about what exactly you're trying to say, Like it,

960
00:53:49,120 --> 00:53:51,960
Speaker 1: are we talking about a biological blending, like is it

961
00:53:52,000 --> 00:53:56,040
Speaker 1: about you know, different ethnicities becoming one? Is it a

962
00:53:56,080 --> 00:53:59,840
Speaker 1: cultural blending that we're talking about? Is it is it

963
00:54:00,000 --> 00:54:02,520
Speaker 1: all of the culture or just like aspects of the culture.

964
00:54:02,760 --> 00:54:06,040
Speaker 1: I mean again, it depends on who's who's trotting it

965
00:54:06,040 --> 00:54:08,920
Speaker 1: out really, Uh, you know, is it describing something that

966
00:54:09,040 --> 00:54:11,120
Speaker 1: used to take place, something that is taking place, something

967
00:54:11,120 --> 00:54:13,640
Speaker 1: that needs to take place, or is taking place with

968
00:54:13,640 --> 00:54:16,920
Speaker 1: with a few, with the future in mind, etcetera. Uh

969
00:54:16,960 --> 00:54:20,560
Speaker 1: So I found it all very very um, very intriguing

970
00:54:20,600 --> 00:54:23,600
Speaker 1: to think about. It makes me even less likely to

971
00:54:23,719 --> 00:54:27,200
Speaker 1: use the term melting pot in my own conversations unless

972
00:54:27,200 --> 00:54:31,200
Speaker 1: i'm you know, uh talking with somebody about the concept itself.

973
00:54:31,239 --> 00:54:34,160
Speaker 1: Like it seems it seems like it's just too um,

974
00:54:34,840 --> 00:54:39,400
Speaker 1: it's too vague. And too open to interpretation and also uh,

975
00:54:39,560 --> 00:54:42,640
Speaker 1: too too easy to misuse. Yeah, you could look at

976
00:54:42,640 --> 00:54:44,719
Speaker 1: it that way, And I gotta say, I don't know

977
00:54:44,760 --> 00:54:48,760
Speaker 1: if I've ever really been somebody who used this image myself.

978
00:54:48,760 --> 00:54:51,319
Speaker 1: But on the other hand, as as somebody who you know,

979
00:54:51,600 --> 00:54:55,920
Speaker 1: believes in the project of multiculturalism and uh and believes

980
00:54:55,960 --> 00:55:00,120
Speaker 1: like immigration is good for a nation. Um, I you

981
00:55:00,160 --> 00:55:03,480
Speaker 1: think it's also useful to have imagery, Like having symbols

982
00:55:03,480 --> 00:55:08,040
Speaker 1: and imagery really does help an idea take root. It's

983
00:55:08,160 --> 00:55:10,960
Speaker 1: it's possible that this symbolar imagery is not the best

984
00:55:11,040 --> 00:55:13,920
Speaker 1: symbol or imagery. I don't know, because it's certainly right

985
00:55:13,960 --> 00:55:16,960
Speaker 1: that it has like tons of ambiguous meanings. But when

986
00:55:17,000 --> 00:55:20,520
Speaker 1: you're talking about a trend as big as uh, you know,

987
00:55:20,600 --> 00:55:25,040
Speaker 1: trying to form a multicultural polity, I guess there probably

988
00:55:25,080 --> 00:55:27,000
Speaker 1: is going to be a lot of ambiguity and in

989
00:55:27,120 --> 00:55:30,480
Speaker 1: whatever imagery you use. Yeah, yeah, I mean it's it's

990
00:55:30,560 --> 00:55:32,200
Speaker 1: it's asking a lot, I guess of a of a

991
00:55:32,239 --> 00:55:36,040
Speaker 1: symbol or metaphor to really sum up um, some of

992
00:55:36,080 --> 00:55:38,399
Speaker 1: what this this uh, this symbol or metaphor has called

993
00:55:38,400 --> 00:55:41,360
Speaker 1: on to do. But again I found it interesting, especially

994
00:55:41,480 --> 00:55:44,080
Speaker 1: again just in terms of thinking once more about melting

995
00:55:44,440 --> 00:55:47,680
Speaker 1: as this thing that has positive and negative connotations that

996
00:55:47,840 --> 00:55:53,480
Speaker 1: ultimately is about how we think about change in our lives. Uh,

997
00:55:53,520 --> 00:55:57,040
Speaker 1: in the world. Uh, you know, political change, societal change,

998
00:55:57,080 --> 00:56:00,560
Speaker 1: cultural change, biological change. I gotta say, when you proposed

999
00:56:00,560 --> 00:56:02,920
Speaker 1: a Melt movie episode, this is not the direction I

1000
00:56:02,960 --> 00:56:05,640
Speaker 1: expected it to go. But this has been really interesting. Yeah,

1001
00:56:05,880 --> 00:56:07,600
Speaker 1: I I enjoyed it as well. I don't think I

1002
00:56:07,760 --> 00:56:10,280
Speaker 1: ended I thought that we'd end up talking about the

1003
00:56:10,360 --> 00:56:13,560
Speaker 1: you know, the substance of America uh so much. Um.

1004
00:56:13,640 --> 00:56:15,720
Speaker 1: That was not the intent. In fact, if the attempt,

1005
00:56:15,760 --> 00:56:17,480
Speaker 1: if it was any intent, it was to not talk

1006
00:56:17,520 --> 00:56:22,680
Speaker 1: about anything political or or or America centrics. So but

1007
00:56:22,760 --> 00:56:25,480
Speaker 1: here we are, we have melted into it, and I'll

1008
00:56:25,480 --> 00:56:28,880
Speaker 1: proudly melt up next to you and melt her still today.

1009
00:56:29,239 --> 00:56:36,120
Speaker 1: Are there songs about melting Um in the Sopranos. There

1010
00:56:36,400 --> 00:56:41,040
Speaker 1: is a metal band, uh that has a song called melt.

1011
00:56:42,120 --> 00:56:44,600
Speaker 1: I know, there's there's a there's a Calm Truise album

1012
00:56:44,640 --> 00:56:47,920
Speaker 1: called Galactic Melt, which I think is nice because his

1013
00:56:47,920 --> 00:56:50,239
Speaker 1: his sound has a very like that that I think

1014
00:56:50,239 --> 00:56:52,040
Speaker 1: it sums up to something about it sound like something

1015
00:56:52,080 --> 00:56:55,799
Speaker 1: galactic something that is like spacey and specific, but the

1016
00:56:55,960 --> 00:56:59,719
Speaker 1: melting aspect of it has implies a kind of you know,

1017
00:57:00,040 --> 00:57:04,480
Speaker 1: biological um uh, you know, amorphous quality that's there as well,

1018
00:57:04,920 --> 00:57:08,600
Speaker 1: sort of like it's it's in biology and technology fused

1019
00:57:08,640 --> 00:57:12,600
Speaker 1: together into one sound. Shoegaze type music has some good

1020
00:57:12,719 --> 00:57:15,360
Speaker 1: sonic melting qualities I would I would consider like my

1021
00:57:15,400 --> 00:57:19,160
Speaker 1: Bloody Valentine and a very melty band. Yeah, I guess

1022
00:57:19,160 --> 00:57:21,400
Speaker 1: a vapor wave in it in its own way. Like

1023
00:57:21,480 --> 00:57:26,000
Speaker 1: just the word vapor wave implies phase transition as well,

1024
00:57:26,080 --> 00:57:30,920
Speaker 1: but different, not a different one, not melting but sublimation. Yeah,

1025
00:57:31,320 --> 00:57:33,480
Speaker 1: And I don't know that that's something we really explore

1026
00:57:33,520 --> 00:57:36,280
Speaker 1: that much in our our horror movies. So I don't

1027
00:57:36,280 --> 00:57:39,160
Speaker 1: know what happens when the mall turns not from a

1028
00:57:39,200 --> 00:57:42,880
Speaker 1: solid into a liquid, but a solid directly into a gas. Yeah,

1029
00:57:43,040 --> 00:57:45,880
Speaker 1: then you get an eternal loop of the chorus from

1030
00:57:46,360 --> 00:57:51,200
Speaker 1: Take These Broken Wings. The real quick is that you know,

1031
00:57:51,320 --> 00:57:53,800
Speaker 1: is that what happens in um the Avengers movies, the

1032
00:57:53,840 --> 00:57:57,120
Speaker 1: whole Fingersnap thing are are are people turning into vapor

1033
00:57:57,080 --> 00:57:58,960
Speaker 1: or they just turning into ash? And that I don't know.

1034
00:57:59,000 --> 00:58:02,680
Speaker 1: I haven't seen those movies. Okay, I watched the first one.

1035
00:58:02,800 --> 00:58:04,560
Speaker 1: The listeners will have to cue clue us in on

1036
00:58:04,600 --> 00:58:07,360
Speaker 1: that and being exposed for the millionth time as somebody

1037
00:58:07,360 --> 00:58:10,120
Speaker 1: who I don't I'm not in the marble thing. I

1038
00:58:10,120 --> 00:58:13,320
Speaker 1: don't really. Well, you'll come back for the next Blade film.

1039
00:58:13,320 --> 00:58:15,320
Speaker 1: I hope. Oh, I guess you know what. I still

1040
00:58:15,400 --> 00:58:19,960
Speaker 1: haven't seen Blade three, so uh well, it has one

1041
00:58:19,960 --> 00:58:22,440
Speaker 1: good line in it. But I can send you a

1042
00:58:22,480 --> 00:58:24,600
Speaker 1: clip of that and then you're good to go. Okay,

1043
00:58:24,800 --> 00:58:26,360
Speaker 1: all right, well we're gonna go ahead and close it

1044
00:58:26,400 --> 00:58:29,080
Speaker 1: out here. This was this was melting. This says the

1045
00:58:29,080 --> 00:58:33,680
Speaker 1: episode is going to close out this year's Halloween festivities.

1046
00:58:34,120 --> 00:58:36,439
Speaker 1: But don't worry. We're you know, we're coming back next

1047
00:58:36,480 --> 00:58:40,760
Speaker 1: week and it's gonna be new topics. Uh perhaps a

1048
00:58:40,760 --> 00:58:43,760
Speaker 1: little less halloweeny, but just as h as exciting and

1049
00:58:44,080 --> 00:58:47,160
Speaker 1: contemplated in theory. Anyway, Well, we'll see where it goes.

1050
00:58:47,160 --> 00:58:48,880
Speaker 1: We're just gonna see where the rest of the year, Texas.

1051
00:58:49,400 --> 00:58:51,040
Speaker 1: In the meantime, if you want to check out other

1052
00:58:51,040 --> 00:58:53,400
Speaker 1: episodes of Stuff to Blow your mind, you can find

1053
00:58:53,440 --> 00:58:56,600
Speaker 1: us wherever you get your podcasts and wherever that happens

1054
00:58:56,640 --> 00:58:58,400
Speaker 1: to be if you have the ability to do so,

1055
00:58:58,840 --> 00:59:01,720
Speaker 1: just rate, review and subscribe. You can always find us

1056
00:59:01,680 --> 00:59:03,200
Speaker 1: such stuff to Blow your Mind dot com that will

1057
00:59:03,200 --> 00:59:05,120
Speaker 1: shoot you over to the I Heart listing for this show,

1058
00:59:05,400 --> 00:59:07,720
Speaker 1: and somewhere on there you could define it for yourself.

1059
00:59:07,760 --> 00:59:09,560
Speaker 1: There's a store button and that will take you to

1060
00:59:09,640 --> 00:59:11,480
Speaker 1: our T shirt store where if you want to buy

1061
00:59:11,520 --> 00:59:14,320
Speaker 1: a T shirt or a sticker or bag or what

1062
00:59:14,400 --> 00:59:17,640
Speaker 1: have you, face mask with our logo on it or

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00:59:17,680 --> 00:59:20,400
Speaker 1: some sort of monster you can buy that there and

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00:59:20,480 --> 00:59:23,959
Speaker 1: learn to fly again and learn to live so free. Yes,

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Speaker 1: all right, uh huge, Thanks as always to our excellent

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00:59:27,880 --> 00:59:30,920
Speaker 1: audio producers Seth Nicholas Johnson. If you would like to

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00:59:30,960 --> 00:59:33,320
Speaker 1: get in touch with us with feedback on this episode

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00:59:33,400 --> 00:59:35,840
Speaker 1: or any other, to suggest a topic for the future,

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00:59:35,920 --> 00:59:38,360
Speaker 1: or just to say hello, you can email us at

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00:59:38,560 --> 00:59:49,040
Speaker 1: contact at stuff to Blow your Mind dot com. Stuff

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Speaker 1: to Blow Your Mind is production of I Heart Radio.

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00:59:51,600 --> 00:59:54,480
Speaker 1: For more podcasts for my Heart radios, the iHeart Radio app,

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Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you're listening to your favorite shows.

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Speaker 1: Blah blah blah. The Busy point four point four part