WEBVTT - The Upside-Down, Part 2 0:00:03.040 --> 0:00:06.760 Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind production of iHeartRadio. 0:00:12.960 --> 0:00:15.200 Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. My name 0:00:15.240 --> 0:00:16.160 is Robert Lamb. 0:00:16.400 --> 0:00:19.000 And I'm Joe McCormick, and we're back with part two 0:00:19.120 --> 0:00:22.439 in our series on the theme of being upside down. 0:00:23.239 --> 0:00:26.280 In the last episode, we started off talking about a 0:00:26.400 --> 0:00:31.320 very strange and interesting scene in the Divine Comedy of Dante, 0:00:31.360 --> 0:00:35.440 in which Dante the pilgrim and Virgil his guide are 0:00:35.520 --> 0:00:37.960 in Hell and they are at the very bottom of Hell. 0:00:38.000 --> 0:00:41.960 They are crawling down the wooly haunch of Satan, so 0:00:41.960 --> 0:00:45.919 they're on Satan's body and the world suddenly appears to 0:00:46.080 --> 0:00:49.960 turn upside down. We talked about what that scene meant 0:00:50.000 --> 0:00:54.680 within Dante's medieval worldview and how subsequent changes in our 0:00:54.760 --> 0:00:58.360 understanding of physics and cosmology affect how that scene reads. 0:00:59.080 --> 0:01:02.320 After that, we started looking at the principle of upside 0:01:02.360 --> 0:01:07.360 downness in mammal biology, focusing first on bats, very very 0:01:07.440 --> 0:01:12.000 upside down creatures in multiple ways, and then on tree sloths, 0:01:12.040 --> 0:01:15.160 and we got into all kinds of questions like why 0:01:15.200 --> 0:01:19.319 these animals are adapted to hang upside down, how their 0:01:19.360 --> 0:01:23.440 bodies managed this, especially since it's something that becomes incredibly 0:01:23.520 --> 0:01:27.080 uncomfortable for us after a few minutes or less. And 0:01:27.240 --> 0:01:29.000 we're back today to talk about more. 0:01:29.600 --> 0:01:33.640 That's right. And in the last episode about where we 0:01:34.000 --> 0:01:36.800 had ended things, we had been talking about upside down 0:01:36.880 --> 0:01:40.800 sloths or sloths, and we were talking about bats, and 0:01:41.120 --> 0:01:43.320 we teased out the idea of talking a little bit 0:01:43.360 --> 0:01:47.320 about vampires, and you know, especially talking about vampire bats, 0:01:47.360 --> 0:01:51.480 like moving this underside of a branch in order to 0:01:51.760 --> 0:01:53.520 get at some birds. You know, I couldn't help but 0:01:53.560 --> 0:01:58.160 think about vampires and think about Dracula, and it actually 0:01:58.200 --> 0:02:02.520 called to mind an excellent passage from the novel Dracula 0:02:02.560 --> 0:02:05.320 by Bromstoker. I'm going to read it from it here. 0:02:06.080 --> 0:02:08.480 What I saw was the count's head coming out from 0:02:08.520 --> 0:02:10.760 the window. I did not see the face, but I 0:02:10.840 --> 0:02:13.200 knew the man by the neck and the movement of 0:02:13.240 --> 0:02:15.960 his back and arms. In any case, I could not 0:02:16.000 --> 0:02:19.800 mistake the hands, which I had had so many opportunities 0:02:19.840 --> 0:02:23.280 of studying. I was at first interested and somewhat amused, 0:02:23.320 --> 0:02:26.360 for it is wonderful how small a matter will interest 0:02:26.400 --> 0:02:29.200 and amuse a man when he is a prisoner. But 0:02:29.240 --> 0:02:32.880 my very feelings changed to repulsion and terror when I 0:02:32.919 --> 0:02:35.920 saw the whole man slowly emerge from the window and 0:02:35.960 --> 0:02:40.600 began to crawl down the castle wall, over that dreadful abyss, 0:02:41.000 --> 0:02:44.360 face down, with his cloak spreading out around him like 0:02:44.480 --> 0:02:47.520 great wings. At first I could not believe my eyes. 0:02:47.560 --> 0:02:49.560 I thought it was some trick of the moonlight, some 0:02:49.639 --> 0:02:53.000 weird effect of shadow. But I kept looking, and it 0:02:53.040 --> 0:02:56.160 could be no delusion. I saw the fingers and toes 0:02:56.280 --> 0:02:59.640 grasp the corners of the stone, worn clear of the 0:02:59.680 --> 0:03:02.400 moor or by the stress of years, and by thus 0:03:02.520 --> 0:03:08.040 using every projection and inequality, moved downwards with considerable speed, 0:03:08.520 --> 0:03:10.880 just as a lizard moves along a wall. 0:03:11.400 --> 0:03:15.080 It's funny because this scene from the book is pretty 0:03:15.080 --> 0:03:19.600 faithfully reproduced. I think in the Francis Ford Coppola Dracula movie, 0:03:20.200 --> 0:03:23.240 there's a scene where they show Gary Oldman in his 0:03:23.360 --> 0:03:25.680 he's still in the Old Man Dracula form with the 0:03:25.680 --> 0:03:28.480 butt hair, so he's got the butt hair, but he's 0:03:28.480 --> 0:03:31.720 crawling down, face down, down the wall of the castle, 0:03:31.760 --> 0:03:34.800 and I think they use some sped up film to 0:03:34.920 --> 0:03:37.520 like show him scuttling really quick like a lizard, and 0:03:37.680 --> 0:03:40.720 it's almost funny looking, But that is what the what 0:03:40.760 --> 0:03:42.000 the novel, says. 0:03:41.960 --> 0:03:44.320 Yeah, I love that scene in the in the movie. 0:03:44.400 --> 0:03:48.120 And and so we see this reference visually a lot 0:03:48.280 --> 0:03:51.880 in various vamphire films and other sci fi and horror films. 0:03:52.120 --> 0:03:54.000 And I was trying to think of a few examples. 0:03:55.320 --> 0:03:57.560 Really one of the first ones that this didn't quite 0:03:57.560 --> 0:03:58.960 come to mind, but it came up when I was 0:03:58.960 --> 0:04:02.400 looking around. There is a scene in John Carpenter's Vampires. 0:04:03.160 --> 0:04:07.720 You know, as we discussed, not the top tier Carpenter, 0:04:08.440 --> 0:04:11.000 but still, as it is the case with any John 0:04:11.000 --> 0:04:13.600 Carpenter film, some interesting moments, And there is a moment 0:04:13.640 --> 0:04:17.279 where we have the big bad vampire of that picture 0:04:18.240 --> 0:04:23.400 kind of positioned in a cruciform pose on the ceiling 0:04:24.000 --> 0:04:26.000 behind one of the characters. 0:04:26.440 --> 0:04:30.160 Yeah, almost looks like laying down drunken on the floor, 0:04:30.240 --> 0:04:33.400 but on the ceiling right now. 0:04:33.440 --> 0:04:35.680 In films that we've watched for Weird House Cinema, our 0:04:35.720 --> 0:04:37.800 Friday episodes of the show when we just talk about 0:04:37.800 --> 0:04:41.920 a weird movie, we did recently watch The Boxer's Omen 0:04:42.560 --> 0:04:45.680 in which we have a warlock character who is who 0:04:45.680 --> 0:04:49.440 has a close affiliation with bats and other creatures, and 0:04:49.480 --> 0:04:51.880 he climbs on the ceiling and crawls across the ceiling 0:04:51.880 --> 0:04:54.880 in order to what drop a spider down onto a 0:04:55.040 --> 0:04:57.440 rival Buddhist sorcerer. 0:04:57.440 --> 0:05:00.080 I believe, yes, he has a there's a there's a 0:05:00.080 --> 0:05:02.799 good sorcerer and an evil sorcerer, and the evil one 0:05:02.839 --> 0:05:05.560 attacks the good one by i think, dropping spiders on 0:05:05.600 --> 0:05:07.760 his face that stab his eyes with him. 0:05:07.839 --> 0:05:12.440 Yeah, yes, and blind him. But yeah. Various movies love 0:05:12.480 --> 0:05:14.520 to throw their monsters up onto the ceiling. There is, 0:05:14.560 --> 0:05:17.920 of course, a pretty amazing and famous sequence in John 0:05:17.920 --> 0:05:21.800 Carpenter is the thing in which one of the you know, 0:05:21.839 --> 0:05:23.839 the entity, the entity is pretending to be one of 0:05:23.839 --> 0:05:27.480 the humans, and it ends up like flying up onto 0:05:27.520 --> 0:05:31.000 the ceiling and begins to you know, bubble and transmute 0:05:31.040 --> 0:05:32.000 into a different form. 0:05:32.440 --> 0:05:35.440 I wonder by what mechanism is the thing sticking to 0:05:35.480 --> 0:05:38.200 the ceiling, because it's supposed to be human anatomy at. 0:05:38.120 --> 0:05:41.480 That point, Yeah, I'm not sure I really need to 0:05:41.520 --> 0:05:44.800 sit down and rewatch it. But I there's a lot 0:05:44.839 --> 0:05:47.799 of crazy stuff happening in that sequence, so it almost 0:05:47.839 --> 0:05:54.280 feels feels sensible that the impossible is happening. So vampires 0:05:54.680 --> 0:05:58.880 are of course closely associated with dats in many traditions, 0:05:58.960 --> 0:06:02.880 especially modern tradition. But I have another bat related creature 0:06:03.080 --> 0:06:05.920 to bring up here, and it is the Alan of 0:06:05.960 --> 0:06:10.000 the Philippines. This is spelled just like Alan, but it 0:06:10.160 --> 0:06:14.200 is the name of a particular creature in Filipino tradition. 0:06:14.720 --> 0:06:17.520 And I first read about this creature in the work 0:06:17.560 --> 0:06:20.200 of folk lore's Carol Rose, who I frequently saw it. 0:06:20.240 --> 0:06:22.839 She has a couple of tremendous volumes that have a 0:06:22.880 --> 0:06:27.559 lot of creatures chronicled from around the world, and Rose 0:06:27.600 --> 0:06:30.479 describes them as a is, this being a group of 0:06:30.520 --> 0:06:34.360 creatures in the folklore of the Tengean people, also I 0:06:34.400 --> 0:06:37.520 think referred to as the Itnig of the Philippines, and 0:06:37.600 --> 0:06:40.680 she describes them as bird like people with fingers and 0:06:40.720 --> 0:06:44.600 toes that point backwards, which enable them to hang upside 0:06:44.640 --> 0:06:48.120 down from the topmost branches of trees. So we get 0:06:48.160 --> 0:06:52.359 inverted and backwards with this creature, and clearly, despite being 0:06:52.480 --> 0:06:56.760 described in Avian terms, their basic description brings to mind 0:06:56.800 --> 0:06:59.920 the various fruit bats of the world, and a number 0:06:59.960 --> 0:07:02.839 of them are found in the Philippines, including the giant 0:07:02.920 --> 0:07:07.240 golden crowned flying fox. They roost in the trees, but 0:07:08.000 --> 0:07:11.040 the al roosts in the trees, but also have houses 0:07:11.080 --> 0:07:14.120 of pure gold on the ground. Were told and different 0:07:14.120 --> 0:07:17.400 tales position them as you know, everything from tricksters to 0:07:17.880 --> 0:07:20.920 benevolent helpers. So I was looking for more information about 0:07:20.960 --> 0:07:23.720 these creatures, and I found I ran across the excellent website, 0:07:23.760 --> 0:07:27.680 the Aswang Project, which I believe I've encountered before. It's 0:07:27.720 --> 0:07:31.400 maintained by one Jordan Clark, and he points He points 0:07:31.440 --> 0:07:34.600 to several other things about these creatures, points out that 0:07:34.640 --> 0:07:37.760 they're said to adopt lost children, and also that they 0:07:37.800 --> 0:07:41.640 make new elons out of the sort of pilfer biomaterials 0:07:41.680 --> 0:07:45.080 associated with female human procreation or the female side of 0:07:45.160 --> 0:07:50.080 human procreation. So I don't know, they're kind of crafty 0:07:50.400 --> 0:07:55.640 genetic tinkerers, I imagine in that regard. Clark's breakdown also 0:07:55.720 --> 0:07:59.520 points at the possibility in some Western retellings that the 0:07:59.600 --> 0:08:03.600 Alan is confused and combined with other creatures, and points 0:08:03.640 --> 0:08:06.760 out that there are a finite number of creature types 0:08:06.760 --> 0:08:10.520 in the Philippines, but with lots of regional variations, which 0:08:10.560 --> 0:08:12.160 is something I think we find in a lot of 0:08:12.720 --> 0:08:16.800 folkloric traditions. So reminder that the Philippines consist of more 0:08:16.840 --> 0:08:19.240 than seven thousand islands and more than one hundred and 0:08:19.240 --> 0:08:21.960 eighty five ethnic groups. So you might have a certain 0:08:22.000 --> 0:08:24.880 type of creature that's common in different groups, but you know, 0:08:25.120 --> 0:08:28.400 individual communities even are going to have a different spin 0:08:28.520 --> 0:08:32.920 on that creature. Now, turning to the world of Japanese 0:08:32.960 --> 0:08:36.840 yo kai, who I found not one, but two very 0:08:36.880 --> 0:08:44.960 interesting ceiling related creatures. So the first is the Tinjo kudari, 0:08:45.840 --> 0:08:49.920 and this is a yokai whose name translates, I believe 0:08:50.040 --> 0:08:53.080 roughly to the ceiling hangar. I've also seen it described 0:08:53.120 --> 0:08:57.040 as the ceiling dropper. So this entity was first reported 0:08:57.040 --> 0:09:01.440 by noted scholar and yokai chronicler Tori Seki in his 0:09:01.520 --> 0:09:04.400 illustrated Yokai books of the eighteenth century, and according to 0:09:04.400 --> 0:09:07.280 Matthew Meyers Yokai dot Com, there's an argument to be 0:09:07.320 --> 0:09:11.640 made here that Sekian largely created this creature. So it 0:09:12.240 --> 0:09:16.080 kind of depends on his yokai some of them. Some 0:09:16.120 --> 0:09:19.679 of them are definitely more folk traditions that he is reporting, 0:09:20.040 --> 0:09:22.360 some he's maybe putting his own spin on, and some 0:09:22.440 --> 0:09:26.240 he may be sort of creating whole cloth. So Matthew 0:09:26.240 --> 0:09:29.080 Meyer writes, quote in Old Japan, the space above the 0:09:29.160 --> 0:09:32.800 ceiling was connected with lots of superstitions about dead bodies 0:09:32.880 --> 0:09:37.600 rolling about or women being confined like prisoners. Tinjo Kudari 0:09:37.679 --> 0:09:42.280 seems to have been something Toriyama invented based on those myths. Fittingly, 0:09:42.400 --> 0:09:44.880 during this time, the phrase to show someone in the 0:09:44.960 --> 0:09:49.000 ceiling was a colloquial expression for causing trouble, which Tinjo 0:09:49.120 --> 0:09:54.640 Kudari certainly does, and he adds the possible connection to 0:09:54.679 --> 0:09:58.280 another tale, a story of a yokai that was something 0:09:58.280 --> 0:10:00.920 of an attic monster in an inn, descended down at 0:10:01.040 --> 0:10:04.679 night to drag travelers up to consume them. And of 0:10:04.760 --> 0:10:07.360 course that one is more overtly threatening than a lot 0:10:07.400 --> 0:10:09.640 of yokai. A lot of yokai, as we've discussed in 0:10:09.679 --> 0:10:12.680 the show before, they're just they're doing their own creepy thing, 0:10:12.960 --> 0:10:18.000 and just witnessing them is maybe the limit of human interaction. 0:10:19.320 --> 0:10:22.280 I see, Yeah, they're living parallel lives in a parallel 0:10:22.320 --> 0:10:26.760 world almost. But yeah, but some are more more predatory. 0:10:26.880 --> 0:10:29.479 Yeah, yeah, Like some are going to be more aggressive 0:10:29.640 --> 0:10:32.000 and might hurt you or harm you in some way, 0:10:32.000 --> 0:10:34.520 and some they're just like, well, you've got to peek 0:10:34.559 --> 0:10:38.320 into the unseen world there, and I hope you're okay 0:10:38.400 --> 0:10:43.160 with it. Okay, Now, I did find this whole treatment 0:10:43.160 --> 0:10:45.680 of the ceiling interesting, and I was reading also about 0:10:45.720 --> 0:10:49.920 some other tradition, like their ghost stories about for instance, 0:10:50.559 --> 0:10:52.880 acts of violence that have taken place that have like 0:10:53.080 --> 0:10:56.600 left blood stains that never go away in ceilings and 0:10:56.640 --> 0:10:58.680 so forth. You know, there are a lot of ghostly tales 0:10:58.840 --> 0:11:03.680 like that. And there is another yo kai known as 0:11:03.800 --> 0:11:07.520 the Tinjonami or the ceiling liquor, and this one is 0:11:07.559 --> 0:11:11.360 also really fun. So according to Zach Davison at the 0:11:11.800 --> 0:11:18.360 Hakku Monogatari kaiden Kai website, it visits during cold nights 0:11:18.559 --> 0:11:22.080 to lick the ceiling, leaving these dark streaks behind on 0:11:22.120 --> 0:11:25.120 the ceiling, the kind of streaks that say, a child 0:11:25.280 --> 0:11:28.000 sleeping in a room might they can't go to sleep. 0:11:28.000 --> 0:11:31.000 They're staring up at the ceiling. Maybe there's light from 0:11:31.040 --> 0:11:33.760 outside playing on the ceiling and they're noticing these dark 0:11:33.760 --> 0:11:37.000 streaks for the first time, and then they can reflect 0:11:37.000 --> 0:11:40.280 on where these came from, allegedly the tongue of the 0:11:40.320 --> 0:11:42.599 ceiling liquor. So don't stare at the ceiling because you 0:11:42.679 --> 0:11:45.640 might see the ceiling liquor and if you see the 0:11:45.679 --> 0:11:49.960 ceiling liquor licking the ceiling, you might die. Otherwise, no 0:11:50.040 --> 0:11:53.679 real risks involve here. It's not actively trying to hurt you, 0:11:53.800 --> 0:11:57.040 but it's not something you actually want to see occurring. 0:11:57.520 --> 0:12:00.560 So the licks on the ceiling are an indicator. They're 0:12:00.559 --> 0:12:02.760 not gonna mechanistically get you. 0:12:03.480 --> 0:12:05.880 Yeah, but it's it's one of those interesting things. It's like, 0:12:06.559 --> 0:12:09.320 this may be evidence of a ghost, but you don't 0:12:09.320 --> 0:12:11.480 want to ever actually see the ghosts. The evidence is 0:12:11.480 --> 0:12:13.720 all you really need. And so it's kind of a reminder, 0:12:13.760 --> 0:12:15.880 do not look too closely here lest you see something 0:12:15.920 --> 0:12:16.960 you can never unsee. 0:12:17.960 --> 0:12:21.600 Ceiling liquor almost sounds like one of the Mule Lads, 0:12:21.960 --> 0:12:22.360 doesn't that. 0:12:22.760 --> 0:12:28.080 Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So Davison also points out that 0:12:28.160 --> 0:12:32.040 Sekian might be referring to a line of poetry here 0:12:32.440 --> 0:12:36.160 that reads essentially, in the cold winter, tall ceilings swallow 0:12:36.240 --> 0:12:40.720 the lantern light. And yeah. So this one was really 0:12:40.720 --> 0:12:42.880 weird though, to try and figure out, like what are 0:12:42.920 --> 0:12:45.120 we supposed to make of it? Like what is the 0:12:45.240 --> 0:12:47.920 intended reader supposed to make of the idea of the 0:12:47.960 --> 0:12:50.880 ceiling like liquor, And on one level, you potentially just 0:12:50.920 --> 0:12:55.280 have a scary story that also explains mysterious stains. And 0:12:55.280 --> 0:12:57.440 we're all familiar from seeing stains like this, you know, 0:12:57.520 --> 0:13:00.520 often caused by like water dripping and so leaks in 0:13:00.600 --> 0:13:03.600 the roof and so forth, no matter what the structure 0:13:03.600 --> 0:13:07.200 of your house might be. But as Michael Dylan Foster 0:13:07.320 --> 0:13:11.080 points out in twenty fifteen's Licking the Ceiling, semantic staining 0:13:11.160 --> 0:13:14.760 and Monstrous Diversity, Yochai scholars have also brought up the 0:13:14.840 --> 0:13:21.440 idea that second is referencing Edo period firefighters or the 0:13:21.559 --> 0:13:24.000 especially their sort of signature of clothing, some of the 0:13:24.040 --> 0:13:28.320 frills and the way that the clothing and thrills and 0:13:28.360 --> 0:13:31.760 fingers of this creature are depicted, and it would be 0:13:31.760 --> 0:13:34.600 a visual pun that might have been better understood on 0:13:34.600 --> 0:13:39.240 some level by the intended reader. Okay, So Matthew Meyer 0:13:39.280 --> 0:13:42.520 mentions this as well, describing the ceiling liquor as essentially 0:13:42.600 --> 0:13:47.240 a transform matoid. These are like paper flags that were 0:13:47.240 --> 0:13:50.080 carried by Edo period firemen. You can look up pictures 0:13:50.080 --> 0:13:52.040 of these. They look like something you would have in 0:13:52.040 --> 0:13:55.600 a parade, you know, lots of tassels and all. And 0:13:55.679 --> 0:13:58.839 so the idea is maybe this creature is supposed to 0:13:58.880 --> 0:14:04.079 be a transformed version of this thing that the firemen 0:14:04.120 --> 0:14:07.400 would carry. But beyond that, I can't find much about 0:14:07.640 --> 0:14:10.960 the definite connection here. Is it something concerning fire risks 0:14:11.040 --> 0:14:14.960 and ceilings? To me at least uncertain because the prime 0:14:15.040 --> 0:14:18.240 firefighting tool of these firemen would have been the destruction 0:14:18.400 --> 0:14:21.640 or partial destruction of structures that were either on fire 0:14:21.840 --> 0:14:24.640 or about to become on fire to keep that fire 0:14:24.680 --> 0:14:27.240 from spreading. So water pumps were not really used till later, 0:14:28.360 --> 0:14:31.520 because I was initially thinking, oh, well, maybe firefighters water 0:14:31.760 --> 0:14:34.760 water damage stains. But I don't think that's the connection 0:14:34.880 --> 0:14:39.760 here at all. But fascinating the way these things seem 0:14:40.160 --> 0:14:41.000 to stitch together. 0:14:41.680 --> 0:14:46.360 It's interesting regarding ghostly implications of perceived stains on the ceiling. 0:14:46.760 --> 0:14:50.360 This may be a totally idiosyncratic connection that has nothing 0:14:50.360 --> 0:14:53.720 to do with history. But I do know from at 0:14:53.800 --> 0:14:57.600 least one example of somebody who has a fairly persistent 0:14:57.720 --> 0:15:01.160 edge of sleek hallucinations tends to wake up thinking that 0:15:01.200 --> 0:15:02.960 they see things in the room with a kind of 0:15:03.080 --> 0:15:08.040 dream intrusion on the physical environment. A very very common 0:15:08.120 --> 0:15:12.360 manifestation of this is illusory stains on the ceiling and walls. 0:15:12.800 --> 0:15:18.560 Oh that is fascinating. Yeah, because the other way I 0:15:18.600 --> 0:15:21.920 was thinking about it is like, even in my own house, 0:15:22.200 --> 0:15:24.080 there's like one place in the living room where there's 0:15:24.080 --> 0:15:26.280 a scuff on the ceiling, and I have no idea 0:15:26.360 --> 0:15:29.200 how it got there, Like how did that happen? And 0:15:29.280 --> 0:15:31.640 so on one level in our mind we might think, 0:15:31.960 --> 0:15:37.040 you know, we might be dwelling on this floor ceiling dichotomy. 0:15:37.480 --> 0:15:39.680 So like, if there's a stain on the floor while 0:15:39.680 --> 0:15:41.720 it dripped there, it's spilt there, But how does the 0:15:41.760 --> 0:15:44.600 stain get on the ceiling? What can drip onto the ceiling? 0:15:44.920 --> 0:15:47.880 What can scuff the ceiling? Nothing's walking around up there. 0:15:48.920 --> 0:15:51.480 It must be something uncanny, It must be something from 0:15:51.480 --> 0:15:53.320 some kind of inverted world. 0:15:54.240 --> 0:15:57.720 I personally know the story behind every scuff on my ceiling. 0:15:58.640 --> 0:16:00.760 There it's because I tried to move of the acoustic 0:16:00.800 --> 0:16:03.640 partition wall, and there because I tried to move the 0:16:03.680 --> 0:16:04.240 wall again. 0:16:06.520 --> 0:16:09.080 Well, yes, there are the known scuffs, for sure, and 0:16:09.320 --> 0:16:12.080 the more embarrassing the story behind them, the better we 0:16:12.160 --> 0:16:13.880 remember them. 0:16:13.920 --> 0:16:16.280 Most of mine are connected to trying to turn a 0:16:16.320 --> 0:16:19.080 basement room with a low ceiling into a recording space. 0:16:21.000 --> 0:16:24.560 Now, as far as supernatural creatures of folklore, and legend. 0:16:24.720 --> 0:16:27.000 There may be some other good ones out there, So listeners, 0:16:27.240 --> 0:16:31.320 if you know of other upside down creatures from folklore 0:16:31.560 --> 0:16:34.600 and mythology, and we haven't covered them here on the 0:16:34.600 --> 0:16:36.600 show right in because we would love to hear from you. 0:16:37.240 --> 0:16:40.640 There are, of course various upside down creatures in comic books. 0:16:40.680 --> 0:16:42.960 For example, in fact, I wasn't familiar with this one, 0:16:43.000 --> 0:16:46.200 but I ran across something called upside Down Man in 0:16:46.640 --> 0:16:49.640 DC's Justice League series, and you can look up pictures 0:16:49.640 --> 0:16:52.480 of this creature. Basically a monstrous enemy from another dimension, 0:16:52.920 --> 0:16:56.040 but in the visual medium of comics, he's very often 0:16:56.080 --> 0:16:58.320 depicted in an inverted position. 0:17:00.120 --> 0:17:01.800 Shaped and walking on his hands, or. 0:17:02.240 --> 0:17:05.560 Or often kind of in the frames I was looking at, 0:17:05.600 --> 0:17:08.719 like kind of gigantic and partially outside of the frame, 0:17:09.000 --> 0:17:12.199 but inverted. So it's like you're not necessarily in like 0:17:12.200 --> 0:17:15.080 a physical space, but some sort of either an extra 0:17:15.119 --> 0:17:18.760 dimensional space or sort of like the visual extra dimensional 0:17:18.800 --> 0:17:22.600 space that you find in certain comic book scenes. Well, 0:17:22.600 --> 0:17:24.359 we're not supposed to take it as an actual like 0:17:24.440 --> 0:17:29.120 physical space. It's just representing interaction between two characters, and 0:17:29.160 --> 0:17:31.400 he is often presented upside down. 0:17:32.800 --> 0:17:36.240 This is interesting. I didn't fully get into this for 0:17:36.480 --> 0:17:39.360 this episode, But I was thinking about how often in 0:17:39.960 --> 0:17:46.640 poetry and literature upside downness is a visual and spatial 0:17:46.680 --> 0:17:50.080 metaphor just for wrongness or the thing that should not 0:17:50.280 --> 0:17:53.800 be and is a violation of the order, is something 0:17:53.840 --> 0:17:58.960 that indicates chaos and disorder or moral decay, you know, 0:17:59.119 --> 0:18:02.840 thinking about There's a passage in ts Eliot's The Waste Land, 0:18:02.920 --> 0:18:06.919 which is very The last section of that poem is 0:18:06.960 --> 0:18:10.480 describing like a journey through the desert, the parched landscape 0:18:10.520 --> 0:18:14.240 that has a world gone wrong and destroyed, and he 0:18:14.320 --> 0:18:17.679 talks about coming upon a I think, coming upon a 0:18:17.720 --> 0:18:21.959 city in the desert where bats with baby faces crawl 0:18:22.080 --> 0:18:25.440 upside down, and he sees inverted towers in the air 0:18:25.600 --> 0:18:29.800 hanging upside down. So it seems to be part of 0:18:29.840 --> 0:18:33.240 the metaphor created there is something I mean, it might 0:18:33.320 --> 0:18:36.560 also be an indication of the actual scene imagine, because 0:18:36.560 --> 0:18:38.000 I guess if it's supposed to be in the desert, 0:18:38.000 --> 0:18:40.880 seeing the upside down towers might be like a mirage 0:18:40.960 --> 0:18:44.400 or a fata morgana kind of illusion. But I don't 0:18:44.440 --> 0:18:46.439 know if that's what it's supposed to mean. But I 0:18:46.440 --> 0:18:49.479 think also all the upside downness, especially the bats with 0:18:49.520 --> 0:18:53.840 baby faces. Upside down is clearly supposed to indicate something 0:18:53.960 --> 0:18:58.639 is wrong here. And it's funny because there's nothing especially 0:18:59.080 --> 0:19:02.400 bad about being upside down, but we take it as 0:19:02.400 --> 0:19:04.080 a metaphor for wrongness. 0:19:05.040 --> 0:19:07.600 Yeah, and I feel like baby's upside down. Baby's on 0:19:07.640 --> 0:19:10.359 the ceiling. I've seen that before somewhere, like definitely. I 0:19:10.359 --> 0:19:14.040 guess to a certain extent. In Labyrinth, Toby is towards 0:19:14.080 --> 0:19:17.119 the end when we have big Esher Room. I guess 0:19:17.280 --> 0:19:20.720 Toby's on the ceiling at some point if I'm not mistaken. 0:19:20.760 --> 0:19:22.800 But I feel like there's another film out there where 0:19:23.200 --> 0:19:26.240 some sort of magic baby or superpowered baby is on 0:19:26.280 --> 0:19:29.359 the ceiling. Maybe it's maybe it's Jack Jack from the 0:19:29.359 --> 0:19:34.520 Pixelaro Inredibles, Yeah, Incredibles. Or maybe it's something poltergeisty. I'm 0:19:34.520 --> 0:19:36.320 not sure, but he's ringing a bell. 0:19:37.680 --> 0:19:38.679 Maybe we'll come back to that. 0:19:39.040 --> 0:19:49.880 Yeah, let's see. 0:19:49.880 --> 0:19:52.679 Are you ready to talk about space, Let's do it? 0:19:52.800 --> 0:19:53.080 Yes? 0:19:53.280 --> 0:19:57.119 Okay, So, last time we talked about that scene in 0:19:57.280 --> 0:20:03.080 the Inferno where Dante is only bewildered because again they're 0:20:03.080 --> 0:20:05.600 crawling down the body of Satan and it seems like 0:20:05.640 --> 0:20:09.120 out of nowhere. The world has flipped upside down around him, 0:20:09.600 --> 0:20:14.520 and initially he is without explanation until Virgil gives the explanation, 0:20:15.000 --> 0:20:18.280 which is that because they have passed through the very 0:20:18.440 --> 0:20:21.520 center of the Earth, now the directions of up and 0:20:21.560 --> 0:20:24.520 down have reversed, and so up has become down and 0:20:24.600 --> 0:20:29.399 vice versa. So Dante is describing this moment of overwhelming 0:20:29.560 --> 0:20:34.560 confusion at the sudden subjective inversion of up down continuity, 0:20:35.359 --> 0:20:39.840 and that moment actually brings to mind a similar situation 0:20:40.080 --> 0:20:45.040 that occurs in reality, and that is a common experience 0:20:45.160 --> 0:20:49.480 that astronauts report in microgravity. So I want to talk 0:20:49.520 --> 0:20:55.240 about astronauts something called visual reorientation illusions and something called 0:20:55.280 --> 0:20:59.639 the spider Man illusion. To introduce this idea, I was 0:20:59.680 --> 0:21:03.359 reading a June twenty twenty article in the newspaper of 0:21:03.400 --> 0:21:07.520 the LSU School of Medicine by Leslie Coppo featuring an 0:21:07.520 --> 0:21:10.840 interview with a NASA astronaut, and I think at the 0:21:11.000 --> 0:21:15.040 time an LSU professor of medicine. I believe she might 0:21:15.080 --> 0:21:18.119 be with a different institution now, but a medical doctor 0:21:18.119 --> 0:21:23.280 and professor of medicine named Serena Onen Chancellor, and she's 0:21:23.320 --> 0:21:27.240 talking in this interview about her experience as a flight 0:21:27.280 --> 0:21:30.359 engineer in expeditions fifty six and fifty seven to the 0:21:30.400 --> 0:21:34.520 International Space Station. These were both in twenty eighteen, and 0:21:34.640 --> 0:21:36.919 on a Chancellor talks about how one of the biggest 0:21:37.000 --> 0:21:41.439 challenges of spaceflight and of the especially the early time 0:21:41.600 --> 0:21:46.560 spent at the space station, is the body's adjustment to microgravity. 0:21:46.720 --> 0:21:49.119 This is something we've talked about before, but never with 0:21:49.200 --> 0:21:53.400 this particular angle that I recall. So you know, literally, 0:21:53.480 --> 0:21:56.359 the space station and its occupants are in free fall. 0:21:56.400 --> 0:21:59.800 They're in orbit around the Earth. And since the station 0:22:00.119 --> 0:22:03.200 inhabitants and the station are all falling at the same rate, 0:22:04.160 --> 0:22:07.679 there is no ground inside the station, and there's no 0:22:07.840 --> 0:22:11.680 gravitational queue to tell the astronauts which way is up 0:22:11.800 --> 0:22:14.879 or down. So inside the space station there is no 0:22:15.160 --> 0:22:17.880 up or down except that which you try to sort 0:22:17.880 --> 0:22:22.359 of culturally impose. There's not a physically sensed up or 0:22:22.400 --> 0:22:27.280 down and so on. In Chancellor describes the experience going 0:22:27.320 --> 0:22:31.720 from launch, through the initial burn and into orbit, saying, quote, 0:22:32.240 --> 0:22:35.119 after that eight minutes and forty seconds, when the third 0:22:35.160 --> 0:22:38.720 stage finally cuts off, your brain does not perceive your 0:22:38.880 --> 0:22:41.919 environment the same as it did back on Earth. I 0:22:42.000 --> 0:22:45.520 almost felt like everything was that a forty five degree 0:22:45.720 --> 0:22:49.160 tilt to the left in front of me, and even 0:22:49.200 --> 0:22:52.800 the control panels and the console console in the soused 0:22:52.840 --> 0:22:56.760 vehicle itself appear different. That took a couple of hours 0:22:56.800 --> 0:23:01.480 to resolve. So that's interesting. We can imagine weird sensations 0:23:01.520 --> 0:23:04.439 of being in microgravity, like you can imagine even if 0:23:04.480 --> 0:23:06.640 you haven't felt it yourself. You can sort of imagine 0:23:06.960 --> 0:23:13.200 the feeling of floating, of you know, having this sensation 0:23:13.320 --> 0:23:17.400 of weightlessness. But there are these other things she's describing, 0:23:17.480 --> 0:23:20.159 like suddenly it feels like the world is tilted forty 0:23:20.200 --> 0:23:26.480 five degrees. That's strange and specific, and I thought it's 0:23:26.480 --> 0:23:29.959 interesting how we don't always appreciate that the weirdness of 0:23:30.000 --> 0:23:35.120 being in microgravity is not just a body sensations. It's 0:23:35.359 --> 0:23:40.240 like a new perceptual and even cognitive regime that causes 0:23:40.320 --> 0:23:44.439 perceptual and cognitive distortions. In other words, when you lose 0:23:44.560 --> 0:23:48.160 the ground and the normal gravitational cues for up and down, 0:23:48.600 --> 0:23:52.320