Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Hey you welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind a
Speaker 2: listener mail. My name is Robert Lamb.
Speaker 3: And I am Joe McCormick, and today we're going to
Speaker 3: be reading back some messages that came into the Stuff
Speaker 3: to Blow Your Mind email address. If you have never
Speaker 3: gotten in touch before, this is a great time to
Speaker 3: try it. You can email us at contact at Stuff
Speaker 3: to Blow your Mind dot com. Whatever kind of message
Speaker 3: you want to send is fair game. We always appreciate
Speaker 3: if you have something interesting to add to a topic
Speaker 3: we've talked about on the show. If you want to
Speaker 3: suggest something you would like us to talk about in
Speaker 3: the future, if you want to suggest a movie for
Speaker 3: Weird House Cinema, general feedback of course, factual corrections if
Speaker 3: that ever comes up. Whatever you want, it's all fair game.
Speaker 3: Contact at Stuff to Blow your Mind dot com. Rob
Speaker 3: you just got in off the road, anything anything to
Speaker 3: report from wherever you went?
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, yeah, the family and I just traveled to
Speaker 2: Denver and back. So first time in Denver. Got to
Speaker 2: experience some of the great outdoors there, some of the
Speaker 2: offerings in the city itself, you know, went to miow Wolf,
Speaker 2: went to their excellent art museum, went to the excellent
Speaker 2: science museum. Actually got several really good ideas for the
Speaker 2: show from their science museum. So stay tuned for the
Speaker 2: future on that one.
Speaker 3: Okay, do you want to kick things off with some
Speaker 3: of these messages in response to the Star Wars.
Speaker 2: Series, Let's do it. Yeah.
Speaker 3: Okay. This first message is from Kenna. It's in response
Speaker 3: to our discussion from Star Wars Week about the planet Hawth. Now,
Speaker 3: in that episode, we did an extended segment, among other things,
Speaker 3: about the infamous ton Toon sleeping bag scene from the
Speaker 3: Empire Strikes Back. So in this scene, Han Solo cuts
Speaker 3: open the body of this animal called a ton Toon
Speaker 3: in the movie. It's a fictional creature in the Star
Speaker 3: Wars universe. It looks kind of like a part goat,
Speaker 3: part theropod dinosaur, and he cuts it open in the
Speaker 3: belly so that he can cram an unconscious Luke Skywalker
Speaker 3: inside the animal to protect Luke from freezing to death.
Speaker 3: And in the episode we talked about whether this would
Speaker 3: work in reality and about some real life cases of
Speaker 3: people crawling inside dead animals to try and survive. The cold,
Speaker 3: it has been done. This first message is from Kenna.
Speaker 3: Subject horses are wet. Kenna says, Hi, Robert, Joe and
Speaker 3: JJ love the show and have unusual life experience to
Speaker 3: share with you. It may, however, be too gross, so
Speaker 3: apologies in advance to whoever's turn it is to skim
Speaker 3: the mailbag. Yeah, so warning folks has some animal gutting
Speaker 3: details to follow. If you can't stand that, maybe skip
Speaker 3: ahead a few minutes.
Speaker 2: All right, the folks who couldn't handle it have left
Speaker 2: the room. Continue.
Speaker 3: I am a veterinary pathologist's assistant, meaning that dead cows
Speaker 3: and horses are my job. I think I know why
Speaker 3: the hapless hunters in Idaho could not fully hide within
Speaker 3: their horses the ribs and now this refers back to
Speaker 3: one of the real life cases of hiding inside an animal.
Speaker 3: We talked about the couple of hunters who got lost
Speaker 3: while out hunting in Idaho. They were trapped in a blizzard.
Speaker 3: They got soaking wet, so they survived by killing their horses,
Speaker 3: cutting them open, and crawling the inside. But one part
Speaker 3: of the story is one of the guys who had
Speaker 3: this experience described it there being a lot less room
Speaker 3: inside the horse than they expected. I think they first
Speaker 3: thought that they could get two guys inside one horse,
Speaker 3: and you couldn't even get one hole guy in there.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and horses are huge animals, obviously, and especially when
Speaker 2: you're around a big one, you might well think, oh, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: this room for two in there. There's room for two
Speaker 2: on top.
Speaker 3: But no, it couldn't even get the whole one regular
Speaker 3: sized guy in there. Legs were sticking out, which yeah,
Speaker 3: sounds unpleasant in multiple ways. But anyway, so now Kenna
Speaker 3: has an answer for us. The ribs could be a
Speaker 3: problem here. Kenna says, see, in my experience, the easiest
Speaker 3: way to remove the organs of any animal for inspection
Speaker 3: is to remove the back leg, open the abdomen, and
Speaker 3: remove the digestive tract. This takes us upwards of thirty
Speaker 3: minutes because we have to look for anomalies, so probably
Speaker 3: much less time. If you are desperate, you can do
Speaker 3: it with no tools but a knife, and you could
Speaker 3: keep the leg on if all you cared about was
Speaker 3: the warm body cavity. However, you need tools such as
Speaker 3: a saw or a really long pair of hedge tremors
Speaker 3: to open the ribs. It is very hard to remove
Speaker 3: the lungs of any animal without getting through those best
Speaker 3: case scenario, you can slowly get pieces of them out
Speaker 3: through the diaphragm, but the inside of a horse's rib
Speaker 3: cage is generally not very roomy and may not be
Speaker 3: worth the effort. Cows, especially dairy cows or mature breeding females,
Speaker 3: have very widely set ribs. I am five four and chubby,
Speaker 3: but by experience I can get most of me in
Speaker 3: there to take samples. And if you have a buddy
Speaker 3: to help you turn the turn the body over, you
Speaker 3: could get a large flap of leather to cover whatever
Speaker 3: sticks out. Wow, cows. Cows do tend to be wetter
Speaker 3: than horses, however, because of all the roomen. Oh, I
Speaker 3: guess that's the that's the fermentation stomach, isn't it.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Finally, Kenna says, I recommend a shovel to make a long,
Speaker 3: gross story very short. If you must be ton toon wrapped,
Speaker 3: the cow is probably better than a horse. Thanks for
Speaker 3: years of things I can talk about at work, Kenna.
Speaker 2: All right, well, this is again, as I said before,
Speaker 2: this is exactly the sort of real world field reportings
Speaker 2: that we love to see on stuff to blow your mind, listener, male.
Speaker 3: Absolutely. I mean most of what we talk about on
Speaker 3: the show is just stuff that we learn about by
Speaker 3: reading about it. So anybody who has life experience that
Speaker 3: can inform, you know, from your work or from your
Speaker 3: personal life, whatever it is that can inform the subjects
Speaker 3: we've talked about, we love to get that kind of feedback.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I know we're returning to a subject that we've
Speaker 2: talked about at least this is like the third time now,
Speaker 2: because it's a good camp on a previous listener mail
Speaker 2: as well, I believe. But on one hand, it seems
Speaker 2: like there should be a country western song about this, yeah,
Speaker 2: or it should be just a common feature you know,
Speaker 2: that will at least come up in passing. And then
Speaker 2: this leads me back to something else that I've mentioned before,
Speaker 2: and that is that episode of The X Files where
Speaker 2: there's an invisible elephant. If memory serves, there is a
Speaker 2: scene where there is an autopsy performed, or a necropsy
Speaker 2: rather on an elephant, and I think like Moulder and
Speaker 2: Scully are both standing inside the elephant, or maybe just
Speaker 2: one of them.
Speaker 3: You know, I don't remember. I did see that episode
Speaker 3: on my ex files journey, but I don't remember that scene.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you had episode that's the worst of the X
Speaker 2: Files just about so.
Speaker 3: I think it's not just an elephant if I remember right,
Speaker 3: it's like a whole zoo of invisible animals.
Speaker 2: Oh wow, yeah, oh how could that not be great?
Speaker 2: The whole zoo. And it's not one of the top episodes.
Speaker 2: M hmm, it's one of the few. The backstory here,
Speaker 2: as I've mentioned before, as a as a when I
Speaker 2: was a young person catching the X Files, X Files
Speaker 2: and television, I only caught like two episodes. This was
Speaker 2: before you could you know, the DVR stuff and so forth,
Speaker 2: So it was just like, when can I catch it
Speaker 2: on you know, whatever episode is being served up to
Speaker 2: me by fate. I saw the up maybe I saw
Speaker 2: three episodes. I remember seeing episode about the dude in
Speaker 2: the toilet, and then about the dude toilet the toilet monster,
Speaker 2: and then the dude who's stretchy and comes up through
Speaker 2: the toilet. I think they both are toilet.
Speaker 3: I thought, I'm thinking of the same thing. Well maybe
Speaker 3: then I don't know who the dude in the toilet is.
Speaker 2: The creature in the port of like at the bottom
Speaker 2: of the toilet.
Speaker 3: Oh oh oh, I see, yes there is. You're the
Speaker 3: Flukeman and I think Tombs two different creatures who both
Speaker 3: come through sewage plumbing.
Speaker 2: Up through the toilet. Okay, yeah, but then.
Speaker 3: There's Flukeman is the more direct toilet monster.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: The Tombs is just stretchy and he goes all all
Speaker 3: kinds of.
Speaker 2: Places, including toilet. Yeah, but there's no toilet in the
Speaker 2: Zoo Animal. And I and as I remember the Zoo
Speaker 2: Animal episode, the Invisible Elephant Elephant episode is the last
Speaker 2: one I saw, and that one kind of maybe made
Speaker 2: me push pause in catching X Files episodes.
Speaker 3: Oh man, I need to go. File says it's there's
Speaker 3: such a range. The best episodes are like the best
Speaker 3: TV ever made, and the worst episodes are some of
Speaker 3: the worst. It's really incredible. Okay, do you want to
Speaker 3: pick the next one to read? You take your pick,
Speaker 3: go go with whatever you like.
Speaker 2: All right, let's see. Well, there's more Tonton material here
Speaker 2: we could Uh yeah, there's one from Annel here titled
Speaker 2: ton Ton Montana, and Daniel says, hi, fellas are e
Speaker 2: your recent discussion of the Tonton Sleeping Bag and the
Speaker 2: Lost Hunters. I wanted to bring up Jack London's nineteen
Speaker 2: oh eight short story to Build a Fire, firstly because
Speaker 2: it had a lot in common with the story of
Speaker 2: the Hunters, except with a dog instead of a horse
Speaker 2: and a very different ending for both men and animal,
Speaker 2: but also because it contains this sentence quote he remembered
Speaker 2: the story of the man caught in a storm who
Speaker 2: killed an animal and sheltered himself inside the dead body
Speaker 2: and thus was saved. I think it was possible that
Speaker 2: they were inspired by a similar sort of folk tale
Speaker 2: or the short story itself and later the Tontan or
Speaker 2: it all might have been mixed into the story and
Speaker 2: potentially their memories by the sort of Well, it would
Speaker 2: just make sense logic that memory often relies on thanks
Speaker 2: and love from Daniel.
Speaker 3: Thank you so much, Daniel. Yeah, this came up because
Speaker 3: the guys who were the hunters who got lost and
Speaker 3: ended up crawling inside their horses. In one retelling of
Speaker 3: the story, they actually mentioned that they got this idea
Speaker 3: from talking about the Empire strikes back, so they had
Speaker 3: Tonton consciousness when they got in those horses. But it's
Speaker 3: entirely possible they could have been inspired by I don't
Speaker 3: know earlier stories like this. I wasn't aware of this.
Speaker 3: I think I've read this story before, but it's been
Speaker 3: so long I don't remember this detail at all.
Speaker 2: Same I read this so long ago, and I remember
Speaker 2: I remember more of the stuff that had to do
Speaker 2: with just like the challenges of building a fire. I
Speaker 2: should go back and read my Jack London again, because
Speaker 2: he wrote some pretty great tales and dabbled in some
Speaker 2: sci fi. I don't know that I've ever read any
Speaker 2: of his science fiction. But it's not all dogs and survivalism.
Speaker 3: Well, he wrote kind of a dystopian political novel, didn't
Speaker 3: He sort of a prefiguring an idea of sort of
Speaker 3: future fascism.
Speaker 2: Okay, yeah, I haven't read that one. I've only read
Speaker 2: the ones they would assign you in school, which were great.
Speaker 2: But yeah, it's been a long time.
Speaker 3: I haven't read this book either, so I don't know
Speaker 3: for sure. I just have read about it. I think
Speaker 3: it's it's called something like The Iron Heel or something,
Speaker 3: so can't vouch for it. Haven't read it, but yeah,
Speaker 3: be worth interesting checking out what kind of ideas he
Speaker 3: had about that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, or even in to build a Fire? How did
Speaker 2: they climb how does the guy climb inside a dog
Speaker 2: where it is you know, too dark to read quite true?
Speaker 3: And maybe I'm missing some of the implications there.
Speaker 2: Maybe like they put feet inside the dog. I mean
Speaker 2: basically you could use even a large dog only for
Speaker 2: you know, as a handwarm or something.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we'll have to go back and reread it.
Speaker 3: All right, I'm going to read this next message from Scott,
Speaker 3: subject line Contradictions in the Syth. This is about the
Speaker 3: other topic we covered on Star Wars Week, where we
Speaker 3: looked into the Sith rule of two and general Sith
Speaker 3: psychology questions, questions about power and succession within the Sith order,
Speaker 3: of which there are usually only two participants at any
Speaker 3: given time, and the contradictions that arise from that. So
Speaker 3: we're getting some more contradictions on that subject from Scott.
Speaker 3: Scott says, Hi, Robert and Joe, your recent explorations of
Speaker 3: Sith's psychology reminded me of a long standing puzzle I've
Speaker 3: had with this order. The rule of two summarizes the
Speaker 3: master apprentice relationship, which persists even as roles change and
Speaker 3: individual Sith come and go, as a very long term
Speaker 3: strategy for undermining the Jedi through the dark side of
Speaker 3: the force. The theory behind this is that, since the
Speaker 3: Sith work through harnessing anger, any larger group tends to
Speaker 3: splinter into internal descent and infighting, which is just barely
Speaker 3: controlled in a two person relationship. Maybe two is plenty
Speaker 3: three is a crowd when it comes to sith. What's
Speaker 3: the original two's company? Yeah, so two is just barely
Speaker 3: not too much, Scott says. The problem I see with
Speaker 3: this is that whether this rule of two is a
Speaker 3: conscious plan or simply evolved after other strategies failed, it
Speaker 3: can't be a plan on behalf of anybody, for by definition,
Speaker 3: there are no other Sith or other peoples to do
Speaker 3: it on behalf of, Nor can it actually serve each
Speaker 3: sith lord's own personal goals, even if each of the
Speaker 3: two Sith imagines that they will somehow be an exception
Speaker 3: to the generalization that they will eventually be overthrown by
Speaker 3: the apprentice. Their apprentice, in turn, a sober view of
Speaker 3: the history of their order would suggest that this is unlikely,
Speaker 3: so that in practice, each Sith is on a kind
Speaker 3: of suicide mission. But while most suicide attackers act in
Speaker 3: defense of a larger group who are or are imagined
Speaker 3: to have been treated unjustly, and who it is hoped,
Speaker 3: will have have better lives. After the individual self sacrifice,
Speaker 3: the Sith act on behalf of nobody, either in reality
Speaker 3: or in their own self understanding. Indeed, the very idea
Speaker 3: of a Sith lord is a contradiction in terms, because
Speaker 3: they are not usually a lord of anything significant, at
Speaker 3: most a single apprentice, and the apprentice over no one else.
Speaker 3: In other words, while the Sith purport to extol the
Speaker 3: self and individual desire and anger, in fact they sacrifice
Speaker 3: everything personal in the name of an abstract principle. They
Speaker 3: accept their role and almost certain death, simply to spite
Speaker 3: the Jedi. This may exemplify the master and slave dialectic
Speaker 3: described by the German philosopher Hegel. The master seeks to
Speaker 3: dominate the slave, but this means that the master defines
Speaker 3: himself and his value in terms of the slave, and
Speaker 3: in a sense exists as a master for and in
Speaker 3: vertuble you of having a slave. So if the ultimate
Speaker 3: plan of the Sith is to destroy the Jedi, dominating
Speaker 3: them and enslaving the rest of the universe, then the
Speaker 3: Sith only value themselves in terms of this conquest and domination,
Speaker 3: rather than to serve their personal desires. This doesn't necessarily
Speaker 3: mean that Lucas's vision of the Sith is inconsistent. For
Speaker 3: perhaps it simply means that the Sith philosophy is inconsistent,
Speaker 3: and that the Sith themselves don't and perhaps can't, truly
Speaker 3: understand what scythism is and what they are doing. They
Speaker 3: are lords only in their imagination, and they are actually
Speaker 3: slaves to the abstract principle of hatred. Rather than being selfish,
Speaker 3: Scythism is more like a virus, or, as Joe suggested
Speaker 3: at the end of your last episode, a kind of parasite.
Speaker 3: It only superficially purports to promote the self, but actually
Speaker 3: is the most self renouncing philosophy possible. It tricks the
Speaker 3: individual Sith promise to fulfill their personal desires, only to
Speaker 3: both frustrate these goals and ultimately erase them, replacing them
Speaker 3: with the impersonal goal of the Sith order. This is
Speaker 3: self destructive in the deepest possible way, not because it
Speaker 3: will inevitably be defeated by good, but because even if,
Speaker 3: and insofar as it succeeds in attaining its goal, it
Speaker 3: has defined itself in terms of this singular goal, before
Speaker 3: which everything else, and in particular are all personal and
Speaker 3: selfish goals, must be sacrificed. Palpatine ultimately has hollowed himself
Speaker 3: out of all desires except to destroy the Jedi and
Speaker 3: stay in power to keep them down. Anakin slash Vader
Speaker 3: must lose his beloved Padme to become a Sith, and
Speaker 3: only eventually rejects the Sith by caring once again about
Speaker 3: something personal to him. His son Luke Scott. Well, that's
Speaker 3: really interesting. Yeah, thanks a lot, Scott. I obviously you
Speaker 3: know this can feel kind of silly because we're talking
Speaker 3: about a fictional world with these fictional beings in it.
Speaker 3: But obviously you know their behavior patterns are somewhat mirrored
Speaker 3: by some people in the real world, so I think
Speaker 3: there's some applicable philosophy and psychology to examine here. I
Speaker 3: thought it was interesting that you brought in Hegel's Master
Speaker 3: Slave Dialectic, which is also sometimes translated as the Lord
Speaker 3: Bondsman dialectic or the master Servant dialectic. I'm not deeply
Speaker 3: read on Hegel, so this is an idea I only
Speaker 3: know about secondhand. You know, from reading other summaries, I
Speaker 3: apologize if I'm failing to do this justice in some way.
Speaker 3: But the interesting thing about it is that, so the
Speaker 3: point of Hagel's argument is originally about like what shapes
Speaker 3: the emergence of consciousness and independence and the self. So
Speaker 3: originally it's kind of a descriptive thing about the world
Speaker 3: and about how selves emerge. What this concept that he
Speaker 3: calls self consciousness or that's usually translated from the German
Speaker 3: to be self consciousness. But the way I understand it,
Speaker 3: this dialectic also has sort of normative implications about why
Speaker 3: domination of other people is not just morally wrong but
Speaker 3: self destructive. So in this dialectic, Hegel argues that a
Speaker 3: person can't really have a free and self sufficient identity
Speaker 3: unless they are recognized by another free and self sufficient mind.
Speaker 3: So our ability to be a free person and a
Speaker 3: self sufficient person comes from being perceived and recognized as
Speaker 3: a person by other free and self sufficient people. And
Speaker 3: this creates this contradiction in human behavior because humans in
Speaker 3: a desire to be free and self sufficient are sort
Speaker 3: of driven into conflict with one another, and people often
Speaker 3: end up thinking that they can become maximally self sufficient
Speaker 3: and empowered by dominating other people. So I make other
Speaker 3: people do what I want instead of what they want,
Speaker 3: and that is liberating to me. It helps me enact
Speaker 3: my will. But Hagel suggests that when you dominate another person,
Speaker 3: you both define your identity in terms of that person
Speaker 3: you're dominating. You believe yourself to be valuable because you
Speaker 3: are victorious over them in some way, but you also
Speaker 3: devalue them and make them unfree through your domination, So
Speaker 3: your relationship with them is not real, like you're not
Speaker 3: getting real recognition from them. It's only recognition by compulsion
Speaker 3: and not mutual recognition among equals. So while it feels
Speaker 3: like dominating a person could make you strong, it actually
Speaker 3: makes you hollow and dependent and without self sufficiency.
Speaker 2: That's interesting. Yeah, And you know, certainly we can apply
Speaker 2: that understanding to various real world contexts, but also reward
Speaker 2: to apply it to this this fantasy scenario as well
Speaker 2: of a master and apprentice engaged in a two person
Speaker 2: secret order of darkness.
Speaker 3: Well, also, I mean the broader Sith goal being one
Speaker 3: clearly of domination. Like the Sith is a domination oriented ideology.
Speaker 3: It's all about what is best in life. It's crush
Speaker 3: your enemies, see them driven before you hear the lamentation.
Speaker 3: It's dominating people. And I'm not saying that I think
Speaker 3: George Lucas had Hegel in mind or anything, but I
Speaker 3: do think it's interesting that Scott brought this in because
Speaker 3: it does bring me back to something we talked about
Speaker 3: in the Star Wars episodes, and I think Scott alludes
Speaker 3: to this in the email too, the fact that we
Speaker 3: never really see the Sith Lords enjoying themselves or having
Speaker 3: much of an identity or finding fulfillment in anything except
Speaker 3: in the act of exerting power and inflicting cruelty. It
Speaker 3: seems like that's the only thing they really like to do.
Speaker 3: And I sort of mention in that in the in
Speaker 3: the episode as a joke, like we never see the
Speaker 3: Sith Lords having fun, uh, but I think there may
Speaker 3: there might be something kind of interesting at work there,
Speaker 3: Like it's not just morally wrong to be a Sith Lord,
Speaker 3: of course it is. It is wrong to inflict cruelty
Speaker 3: and domination over other people, but beyond the moral wrongness
Speaker 3: of it, it also sucks like it leaves the Sith
Speaker 3: lord with some without some core essence of self sufficiency
Speaker 3: and identity.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, the end up being cold, hollow people and
Speaker 2: in some cases arguably no longer completely people either, you know,
Speaker 2: either they've become partially machine or they've become uh, you know,
Speaker 2: some other in some other like very visible and metaphoric way,
Speaker 2: their physical bodies have been transformed. And yeah, I think
Speaker 2: it's it's it's it's telling uh. And then of course,
Speaker 2: you know this idea that all they want is domination,
Speaker 2: like that is the heart of the Sith. Though. One
Speaker 2: of the great things that is Lord, especially in the prequels,
Speaker 2: is the idea that this ascension, the ascension of the Sith,
Speaker 2: it may be cloaked in all these other rationales, you know,
Speaker 2: especially when you know, carrying down the Jedi order and
Speaker 2: talking about everything that's wrong and corrupt about the Jedi,
Speaker 2: but the Sith are not here to simply bring about
Speaker 2: the end of corruption. That is that is maybe that's
Speaker 2: how they mask their true ambitions, but it is not
Speaker 2: their true ambition.
Speaker 3: The latter to sithhood is full of pretextual goals and motivations,
Speaker 3: and then once you get to the top, all there
Speaker 3: really is is domination. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so we we know that the Sith don't really
Speaker 2: love much beyond domination. But we know, at least in
Speaker 2: one case, there's one particular Sith who hates sand. So
Speaker 2: let's go ahead and talk about some of our some
Speaker 2: of the listener mails that came out of our sand episode.
Speaker 3: Okay, is it your turn? You want to take one?
Speaker 2: Yeah, let's see. Let me sift through the mail bag here,
Speaker 2: so we have this one comes to us from Bill.
Speaker 2: Bill says Robin Joe. Thanks, as always for the continuing
Speaker 2: education on all things. I dwell in multiple deserts in
Speaker 2: Utah in Arizona, and we have some extra fine sand
Speaker 2: here that essentially has a much lower coefficient of friction,
Speaker 2: resulting in fantastic sledding. I hear the sands of the
Speaker 2: Sahara are similar because wind erosion tends to create more
Speaker 2: spherical shape. With all the sand that I deal with
Speaker 2: on a daily basis, my brain has a hard time
Speaker 2: grasping a number equal to the grains in my sight
Speaker 2: much less on the planet. But the email continues. AnyWho,
Speaker 2: here is an interesting comparison that really quote bakes my noodle.
Speaker 2: The comparison grains of sand on Earth. Researchers estimate these
Speaker 2: are roughly seven point five plintillion grains of sand on
Speaker 2: the planet. And then Rubik's cube combinations. A standard three
Speaker 2: x three cube has roughly forty three quintillion possible states.
Speaker 2: In short, there are nearly six times more ways to
Speaker 2: scramble a Rubek's cube than there are grains of sand
Speaker 2: on Earth. Take that sand, Okay, I mean we're dealing
Speaker 2: with numbers so huge here, Yeah, we can we really
Speaker 2: it's difficult to even make any sense of this, But
Speaker 2: let's just say a lot in either category. But what
Speaker 2: we're saying more Rubus cube combinations than grains of sand
Speaker 2: on Earth.
Speaker 3: Well, I'd say one difference here is that we can
Speaker 3: calculate exactly the real number of possible Rubic's cube states,
Speaker 3: whereas we have to guess at the number of grains
Speaker 3: of sand. We can only make sure informed estimate that's true.
Speaker 2: That's true, all right, And then there's a little bit
Speaker 2: tacked on the end here. Ps. It is far too depraved, grotesque,
Speaker 2: and ultimately eighties to recommend the following flick for the
Speaker 2: general public. But Street Trash is a unique film from
Speaker 2: nineteen eighty seven that may entertain one or both of
Speaker 2: you I can't believe it has kept me laughing for
Speaker 2: nearly forty years.
Speaker 3: Bill oh Bill, Street Trash has come up on the
Speaker 3: show before. We've talked some Street Trash folks. I don't
Speaker 3: want you to take this as a general recommendation to
Speaker 3: go watch Street Trash. It is not for many people,
Speaker 3: probably not for most. It is one of the weirdest,
Speaker 3: most extreme melt movies out there. But yeah, yeah, we've
Speaker 3: seen Street Trash.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, it's been a number of years for me.
Speaker 2: But I greatly enjoyed Street Trash in the past, certainly
Speaker 2: the last time I saw it, and it was a
Speaker 2: film that I specifically remember being introduced to via a
Speaker 2: very short lived series on Comedy Central. Back this would
Speaker 2: have been I looked it up. This would have been
Speaker 2: like ninety three or ninety four. It was called drive
Speaker 2: in Reviews, based I believe out of Chicago, and there
Speaker 2: were two hosts. It was Buzz Killman and Tony Fitzpatrick,
Speaker 2: and they had kind of like a Ciskel and Ebert
Speaker 2: set up, but they only talked about you know, gross
Speaker 2: and you know, quote tasteless films, and they talked about
Speaker 2: the quality kills. If you ever hear me say Quality
Speaker 2: Kill on Weird House Cinema. That is a little homage
Speaker 2: of mine to this show, because this is where I learned.
Speaker 2: You know, I probably i'd seen a number of these
Speaker 2: these movies on the video shelves at this point in
Speaker 2: my life, but they were still introducing me to the
Speaker 2: ones i'd never heard of. Like I think The Beyond
Speaker 2: is a film that I saw profiled here for the
Speaker 2: first time.
Speaker 3: Oh the Fulcy movie.
Speaker 2: Oh no, no, no, I'm sorry, not no, from Beyond Beyond. Yeah, yes, okay, yeah,
Speaker 2: so yeah, they profiled a lot of like sci fi,
Speaker 2: horror films, anything that had a certain amount of gore
Speaker 2: or nastiness to it. I don't again, I don't think
Speaker 2: it lasted very long, but it was introduced at a
Speaker 2: time when I was watching any and everything that was
Speaker 2: on Comedy Central.
Speaker 3: Yeah. I never saw this one. I just found out
Speaker 3: now where quality Kill comes from. I felt like you
Speaker 3: were quoting something but I'd never asked.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, these two. I believe Fitzpatrick, I believe he
Speaker 2: passed in recent years, but Buzz Buzz Kilman is still around.
Speaker 2: I think he's like a Chicago radio guy. So yeah, anyway,
Speaker 2: look it up. You can probably find these episodes on
Speaker 2: YouTube or something.
Speaker 3: Okay, we got another response to our episode on sand.
Speaker 3: This is from Tyrone. Tyrone says, maybe God is telling
Speaker 3: me to listen to more podcasts. I never listened to podcasts.
Speaker 3: I saw your podcast on Netflix yesterday May thirteenth, twenty
Speaker 3: twenty six, and clicked play because the name of your
Speaker 3: podcast was the perfect bait. We baited you.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Connell did it again with that one.
Speaker 3: For the first ten minutes, I could not believe I
Speaker 3: was listening to a discussion about sand and had not
Speaker 3: left the show. When that episode on sand ended, I
Speaker 3: had learned a few amazing things, indeed about the strength
Speaker 3: of sand. Fast forward to today, May fourteenth, twenty twenty six.
Speaker 3: One day later, for no reason at all, I stopped
Speaker 3: by an area library I never visited before, and in
Speaker 3: their books for Sale section, I saw a Grain of
Speaker 3: Sand by doctor Gary Greenberg, and all I can say
Speaker 3: is it will blow your mind. The data and vivid
Speaker 3: photos are jaw dropping. Best one dollar I have ever spent.
Speaker 3: After reading it, you may be tempted to do a
Speaker 3: Sand part two podcast. Good podcast eight out of ten
Speaker 3: Good Day series. All right, Well, thank you so much.
Speaker 3: I did look up this book after your recommendation. So
Speaker 3: Gary Greenberg, he's got a website you can read about him.
Speaker 3: He is originally a PhD biologist who it seems many
Speaker 3: decades ago sort of switched to specializing in microscopy and microphotography.
Speaker 3: So he has a lot of I think, like public
Speaker 3: work and books and art and stuff that is just
Speaker 3: like really close up photos of extremely tiny things, and
Speaker 3: he does like three D light microscopy. So according to
Speaker 3: his author bio, I thought this detail was good.
Speaker 2: Quote.
Speaker 3: His striking images of human pancreatic cancer cells were repurposed
Speaker 3: as the surface of Krypton in the first Superman movie
Speaker 3: in nineteen seventy eight movie. I couldn't find a shot
Speaker 3: of what this was, so I'm gonna have to go
Speaker 3: back and watch that movie and figure out what special
Speaker 3: effects shot this is. But you may actually have seen before,
Speaker 3: Like I looked at some of the pictures of grains
Speaker 3: of sand that I think come from this book that
Speaker 3: Tyrone recommended again that's called a Grain of Sand by
Speaker 3: Gary Greenberg, and these pictures looked really familiar to me.
Speaker 3: I feel like maybe I've seen these images on the
Speaker 3: internet before, but they are extreme close ups of grains
Speaker 3: of sand. And when you zoom in and see obviously
Speaker 3: sand in different parts of the worldferent places has different constituents,
Speaker 3: you know, different types of little fragments of of you know,
Speaker 3: minerals make it up. But the in some sands you
Speaker 3: get very interesting little bits of you know, organic remnants,
Speaker 3: little shells and hard parts of creatures in the ocean.
Speaker 2: Uh.
Speaker 3: And that's what we've got a lot of in these
Speaker 3: close ups here. It looks when zoomed in like this,
Speaker 3: it looks a lot more like a handful of candies
Speaker 3: than it does sand.
Speaker 2: It really does. Yeah, there are a few in particular
Speaker 2: that looks like the sort of hard candies that you know,
Speaker 2: your great aunt or uncle might have had in a
Speaker 2: it congealed together in a jar in their dining room.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, I had a jar like that in my family,
Speaker 3: not my house, an extended family house. I remember, the
Speaker 3: hard candy jar.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, it definitely looks like that.
Speaker 3: Mostly to be looked at though. Yeah, but anyway, Yeah,
Speaker 3: thanks again, Tyrone.
Speaker 2: All right, let's see what else we have here. This
Speaker 2: next one, Yeah, this one comes from Taylor. This one
Speaker 2: has to do with fulgarites. Examples of fulgarites in fantasy media.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Oh, and we talked about this in the sand episode,
Speaker 3: because fulgarite is when it's this natural formation you get
Speaker 3: when lightning hits sand and instantly melts it, forming this
Speaker 3: hollow glass tube that will usually be smooth on the
Speaker 3: inside and rough on the outside.
Speaker 2: So yeah, this is this you as we were discussing
Speaker 2: in the podcast, it's like, you know, this is a
Speaker 2: great this is great fodder for science fiction or fantasy,
Speaker 2: you know, be it. You know the results of wizard
Speaker 2: battles or Dragon's Breath, and we encourage everyone to write
Speaker 2: in if you had an example. So that's what this is,
Speaker 2: answering your request for examples of fulgarites in fantasy media.
Speaker 2: I draw your attention to Monster Hunter. Wild's one of
Speaker 2: the most recent installments in the popular Monster Hunter RPG series.
Speaker 2: The series has a heavy focus on ecology and the
Speaker 2: relationships of its settings peoples with huge monstrous fun. Joe,
Speaker 2: have you played these games?
Speaker 3: No, I know nothing about them.
Speaker 2: I have seen, you know, the little thumbnails for them,
Speaker 2: and I believe our former co host, Christian play that
Speaker 2: played this and was a fan. I remember him talking
Speaker 2: it up and we may have some friends in common
Speaker 2: that we're also really into it, but I never I
Speaker 2: have not myself played it, but here it's great.
Speaker 3: Just based on the description, I'm picturing some somewhere between
Speaker 3: the Witcher and Pokemon.
Speaker 2: I guess that sounds about right. Yeah, my understanding. It
Speaker 2: is kind of like an action RPG, right, so it's
Speaker 2: not like turn based. You're out there in the wilds.
Speaker 2: Folks can write in if they have further details they
Speaker 2: want to share about the games, but this email continues.
Speaker 2: Fulger Rites play an important role in the first region
Speaker 2: the player explores in Monster Hunter Wilds, the Windward Planes.
Speaker 2: This desert ecosystem is marked by massive folg right structures,
Speaker 2: created both by the severe thunderstorm thunderstorms endemic to the
Speaker 2: and by massive lightning channeling wyns. The region's apex predator,
Speaker 2: a wyvern species called red aalh, presumably coats the leading
Speaker 2: edges of its wings in sand and electrifies them to
Speaker 2: turn its wing edges into shimmering blades of glass. WHOA,
Speaker 2: all right, so this is not only fulgarites, but like
Speaker 2: fulgarite tool use by magical beingslg.
Speaker 3: Fulgarite wing armor blades like swords and armor at the
Speaker 3: same time.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, they really ran with it. I didn't even
Speaker 2: anticipate like this. This kind of invocation of Fulgrides redw
Speaker 2: is often preceded by the tinkling sound of the wind
Speaker 2: rustling the fulgarite on its scales when it's prey. Here,
Speaker 2: the sound they attempt to flee. The indigenous human population
Speaker 2: of the Windward Planes have learned to exploit this signal
Speaker 2: by collecting shed crystals of fulgarite from ray Now and
Speaker 2: stringing them into wind chimes. The tinkling wind chimes ward
Speaker 2: other monsters away from their sheltered settlements in the region's canyons.
Speaker 2: Hope this is the sort of thing you were looking for.
Speaker 2: The Monster Hunter franchise is really great and incorporating interesting
Speaker 2: bits of natural science into their creature designs and fantasy storytelling.
Speaker 2: I've attached some pictures of ray Dow, the Windward Planes
Speaker 2: fulgar Rides, which are so large the player traverses them
Speaker 2: in three dimensional labyrinths, and the Windward Planes village adorned
Speaker 2: with fulgar Ride windshimes. As ever, thank you for producing
Speaker 2: there's wonderful, thoughtful pieces and turning me on to so
Speaker 2: many great weird films.
Speaker 3: All the best, Taylor, Thank you, Taylor. So I'm looking
Speaker 3: at these screenshots now I see something that looks kind
Speaker 3: of like a like a you know, gore On village
Speaker 3: sort of design, with the rocks and the glass pieces
Speaker 3: hanging from the ropes. I guess that's the fulgarites collected
Speaker 3: by the people in this game universe. And then we
Speaker 3: see the branching things that I initially thought were roots,
Speaker 3: but okay, yeah, these are like giant fulgarites that the
Speaker 3: character wanders through. And then there's a big old monster
Speaker 3: that yes has dragon wing, and then at the edges
Speaker 3: of the wings there are these massive shards of glass
Speaker 3: that I guess the creature has made with some electricity.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, cool monster design. And I can already tell
Speaker 2: this guy's got to be pretty frustrating to battle, though.
Speaker 2: I guess they said they said it's the first zone
Speaker 2: that you encounter, so maybe not that difficult. But sometimes
Speaker 2: the first level boss can be pretty challenging.
Speaker 3: I yeah, I think that often happens, doesn't it Like
Speaker 3: sometimes the first boss in the game is harder than
Speaker 3: all the others.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I feel and often is the case that the
Speaker 2: final boss is kind of a letdown. There have been
Speaker 2: plenty of games I've played where I get to the
Speaker 2: end it's like, oh, that's the boss, or oh, there's
Speaker 2: not really a boss, just kind of fighting a an
Speaker 2: array of enemies you encountered earlier.
Speaker 3: This doesn't really count because pretty much the whole thing's
Speaker 3: hard all the way through. But I remember when I
Speaker 3: tried to play Elden Ring before I realized like I
Speaker 3: don't have time for this game. I tried to do it,
Speaker 3: and you just sort of come out into the world
Speaker 3: and then like the first thing you run into is
Speaker 3: something that you absolutely cannot but you just have to
Speaker 3: go around it. It will destroy you. This big golden
Speaker 3: guy on a horse who just beats you down or
Speaker 3: I don't know, maybe if people who are good at
Speaker 3: video games can beat it, but but I felt like
Speaker 3: it's almost trying to teach you something there, like you know,
Speaker 3: you just have to run away from some things at
Speaker 3: least at whatever level you are. Okay, you good if
Speaker 3: I do this message from David about the thing before
Speaker 3: the beginning.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah. Tying into another multi part series that we've
Speaker 2: we've been airing in recent weeks.
Speaker 3: Right, So, this was a series about creation narratives, and
Speaker 3: specifically about in creation narratives, what is described as the
Speaker 3: way things are before the world is created or ordered.
Speaker 3: And that's a kind of surprise to some people because
Speaker 3: sometimes people think that creation narratives tend to be about
Speaker 3: the initial making of the universe out of nothing. Most
Speaker 3: of the creation narratives that you can find are not
Speaker 3: like that. They're actually like orderings and furnishings of pre
Speaker 3: existing universes. So this comes from David. David says dear
Speaker 3: Robin Joe. I was listening to your episode on Things
Speaker 3: before the Beginning. I had heard before your episode about
Speaker 3: the better translation of the start of the Book of
Speaker 3: Genesis as quote, God began separating. Yeah, so this is
Speaker 3: one of the things we talked about in the episode.
Speaker 3: The creation narrative in the Book of Genesis is often
Speaker 3: misunderstood as a creation ex nihilo, a creation of the
Speaker 3: world out of nothing, but most translators now agree that
Speaker 3: the better way of understanding what the story is trying
Speaker 3: to say is that a sort of dark, chaotic world
Speaker 3: of waters already existed at the beginning of the story,
Speaker 3: and then God begins to separate things and bring things
Speaker 3: into that world, brings in light brings in creatures and
Speaker 3: separates the waters and the earth and stuff like that.
Speaker 3: David goes on to say, but your discussion of the
Speaker 3: translation reminded me of an encounter I had back when
Speaker 3: I was in college. I don't remember how it started, hmm,
Speaker 3: self referential problem, but while I was walking back from
Speaker 3: a class, I entered into a conversation with a guy
Speaker 3: who was clearly a young missionary. Oh yeah, Rob, do
Speaker 3: you ever have college campus encounters with some preachers who
Speaker 3: like to hang out on campus?
Speaker 2: Ooh yeah, I imagine I did, but I don't have
Speaker 2: very clear memories of them, but yeah, they were around.
Speaker 3: Yeah. I feel like it's a common experience of students
Speaker 3: walking up to a preacher at their college campus who's
Speaker 3: yelling things at the students and thinking like, well, I
Speaker 3: can argue this guy out of whatever he's saying, And
Speaker 3: then when you start talking to him, you realize like, oh,
Speaker 3: this guy is really used to talking to people like
Speaker 3: me all day, and I've never had a conversation like
Speaker 3: this before. So you just end up kind of feeling
Speaker 3: embarrassed and walking away. Anyway, So David says he was
Speaker 3: upfront about wanting to talk about God, and I was
Speaker 3: interested enough to engage. After a couple of questions about
Speaker 3: what I was studying in my religious background, he asked
Speaker 3: if I agreed that everything in the universe has a cause.
Speaker 3: Having recently taken an intro to philosophy class, I immediately
Speaker 3: recognized the start of the first cause argument. I think
Speaker 3: it originates from Aristotle and was developed into a more
Speaker 3: formal argument by Thomas Aquinas. I'm probably going to mangle this,
Speaker 3: but for listeners who are unaware, the first cause argument
Speaker 3: is basically that since everything has a cause, the universe
Speaker 3: itself must have a cause, but the cause for the
Speaker 3: universe could not have a cause, and thus must be
Speaker 3: uncaused and eternal, and an uncaused and eternal thing is God.
Speaker 3: If I make the argument sound wea I will admit
Speaker 3: that it was more but not very convincing when I
Speaker 3: read it originally in class, but I now believe it
Speaker 3: is significantly gibberish. But back to the story. The missionary
Speaker 3: asked if I agreed that everything in the universe had
Speaker 3: a cause, and I said no. He looked completely shocked
Speaker 3: after ten or fifteen seconds of processing that I had
Speaker 3: already gone off script from his expected argument. He asked
Speaker 3: me how that was possible. I explained that I was
Speaker 3: studying physics and at the quantum level, things just happen randomly.
Speaker 3: There isn't a cause for a particular atom of uranium
Speaker 3: to decay into byproducts. There's just a percentage chance that
Speaker 3: it does. And moreover, some physics data is best explained
Speaker 3: by assuming that particles and antiparticles are appearing and self
Speaker 3: annihilating all the time, So the Big Bang might have
Speaker 3: been caused by some large, random quantum fluctuation. He said
Speaker 3: he'd have to look into that, and that was it
Speaker 3: for him. Conversation attempt tying all the way back to
Speaker 3: the episode. First, I think your discussion makes me suspect
Speaker 3: that the cause of the first cause argument is the
Speaker 3: improper translation in the beginning God created. If I had
Speaker 3: known then the translation of God began by separating, I
Speaker 3: probably would have asked the missionary about that issue as well.
Speaker 3: And Second, while your discussion focused on mythology, even talking
Speaker 3: about current cosmology, it is still possible that there was
Speaker 3: something prior to the Big Bang, even if we don't
Speaker 3: know that. Interested in your reactions and comments, and as always,
Speaker 3: thank you for the great podcast. Regards. David, PS, You've
Speaker 3: done a couple of Weird House episodes on movies from
Speaker 3: the sixties, so I will repeat my request for Zardas.
Speaker 2: I'll know Zardas is a nineteen seventy four picture, but
Speaker 2: I think it's fair to say that in many ways
Speaker 2: it is a product of the sixties. I mean, you
Speaker 2: can the thirteen sixties, you can make that argument. But
Speaker 2: in terms of the general request for Czar Does, we
Speaker 2: probably should just go ahead to Tsardes. At some point
Speaker 2: here in the past we've kind of I remember, kind
Speaker 2: of quibbling at one point over like, I don't know
Speaker 2: about the content ratings on Tzar Does, but I don't
Speaker 2: know who cares. We should just do Tzar Does.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Sean Connery and the Red diaper with the long
Speaker 3: braid and the unbelievable it's iconic.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I see referenced all the time. We should
Speaker 2: just dig in.
Speaker 3: But yeah, these are all good points, David. I agree
Speaker 3: that I, you know, don't want to be disrespectful to
Speaker 3: anybody's beliefs. But I find the first cause argument very unconvincing.
Speaker 3: I think it relies on equivocation. It relies on equivocation
Speaker 3: about what it means for something to have a cause.
Speaker 3: And then on top of that, I think you can
Speaker 3: also bring up the idea that some things we observe
Speaker 3: in reality probably don't have a cause, depending on how
Speaker 3: you define what a cause is. So, yeah, I think
Speaker 3: there are a lot of problems with that argument. And
Speaker 3: then beyond that, Yeah, I think you raised it. We
Speaker 3: sort of talked about this in the episode, but I'm
Speaker 3: glad you explored this in more depth. The idea that
Speaker 3: many people are out there formulating, like logical and evidence
Speaker 3: based apologetics arguments for a particular religion based on what
Speaker 3: is probably a misunderstanding of what is what that religion's
Speaker 3: creation story is attempting to say. So that's another kind
Speaker 3: of contradiction there like that. I don't know how it
Speaker 3: would affect it. Would the missionary who makes the first
Speaker 3: cause argument for Christianity stop making the first cause argument
Speaker 3: if they were convinced that actually the genesis narrative does
Speaker 3: not say that the universe was created out of nothing.
Speaker 3: I don't know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, all I know is that again, I don't have
Speaker 2: any specific memories of encountering preacher folk or anything on
Speaker 2: college campuses, but just the idea of getting into some
Speaker 2: sort of a a bad faith of philosophical theological discussion
Speaker 2: of the stranger. Not my comfort zone. I just want
Speaker 2: no part. I don't want to be wrong, I don't
Speaker 2: want to be right. I just don't want that conversation.
Speaker 2: These are of course, I love these topics, but that's
Speaker 2: just not the sort of environment where I want to
Speaker 2: engage with anybody about them.
Speaker 3: Well, yeah, I mean, if you talk to somebody who's
Speaker 3: out making arguments like that in a public space, you know,
Speaker 3: I don't want to impugne everybody's motives, but I'd say
Speaker 3: the chances are low that they are ready to have
Speaker 3: a mutually respectful listening and sharing of ideas. They are performing,
Speaker 3: they're they're trying to like prove something to onlookers by,
Speaker 3: you know, they're being rhetorical. They're probably not trying to
Speaker 3: have a meeting of the minds and see if you
Speaker 3: make any good points.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I mean, why to dine me first a
Speaker 2: little bit? You know? Yeah, all right, I'm going to
Speaker 2: skip on through the mailbag here to something we receive
Speaker 2: from Claire and Sean. We received this just the other day,
Speaker 2: and recording this on June first. They say Hello, stuff
Speaker 2: to blow your mind. I was wondering if you plan
Speaker 2: to do a little late celebration of the new Boards
Speaker 2: of Canada release in the form of a Weird House
Speaker 2: Cinema episode. They are referring to the new album from
Speaker 2: Boards of Canada Inferno, which just came out the other day,
Speaker 2: and I actually just sat and listened to several times
Speaker 2: through on a flight back from Denver. So I'm very
Speaker 2: freshly immersed in the album and I'm still sort of
Speaker 2: working my way through it.
Speaker 3: But Roddy, sorry, do you know Claara and Sean, Like,
Speaker 3: how do they know you so well that this is
Speaker 3: up your alley?
Speaker 2: I me, you know, we've mentioned Boards of Canada on
Speaker 2: the show before, so I think it's just it's just
Speaker 2: come up if they you know, they they know me
Speaker 2: at all from the podcast. They know that I'm a
Speaker 2: big Boards of Canada fan, but they so they included
Speaker 2: a quote here. This is, I believe taking taken off
Speaker 2: of one of the Boards of Canada fan pages, but
Speaker 2: it refers to a nineteen ninety nine interview with herb
Speaker 2: magazine RB in which the two individuals who make up
Speaker 2: Boards of Canada, Michael Sanderson and Marcus Owen. They each
Speaker 2: gave a top ten list of films, and it says
Speaker 2: that the majority of them have been identified. Some such
Speaker 2: as Ice Core Drilling, remain unknown and have been indicated
Speaker 2: as such. These are neat lists to look at because
Speaker 2: they are a mix of very mainstream films and things
Speaker 2: that are either so obscure that we don't know exactly
Speaker 2: what they're referring to, but it's neat. Sanderson's list has
Speaker 2: let's see a few that stand out here. Dark Star
Speaker 2: John Carpenter's film is on the list. The Elephant Man
Speaker 2: makes the list. Those are both fascinating picks. And then
Speaker 2: as far as Marcus Owen's top ten includes let's see
Speaker 2: the Invention of Destruction, which I believe refers to the
Speaker 2: Invention for Destruction which we have discussed on Weird House Cinema.
Speaker 2: It includes Alice, which I you know, I believe must
Speaker 2: be the the John Smickmeyer Alice that has also been
Speaker 2: covered on Weird House Cinema, but then also The Andromeda String,
Speaker 2: Jesus Christ, Superstar, Capricorn I, and The Wizard of Oz.
Speaker 3: Invention for Destruction is definitely one of my favorite movies
Speaker 3: we've done on weird house, and I can see why.
Speaker 3: I don't know that much about the Boards of Canada creators,
Speaker 3: but it fits with the sound of their music for me.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, I mean, there's I think overall less known
Speaker 2: about them compared to a lot of other musicians. They're
Speaker 2: not I mean, they're not going to say they're completely secretive,
Speaker 2: like there are things that are known about them. But
Speaker 2: you know, the vibe I generally get when I read
Speaker 2: about Boards of Canada is that they prefer to be
Speaker 2: a little a little further back and then the material,
Speaker 2: the music is in the forefront. And yeah, I'm I'm
Speaker 2: I'm really enjoying Inferno so far. It's delivering on all
Speaker 2: my expectations for a new Boards of Canada album, which
Speaker 2: itself I think is a major deal. The last one
Speaker 2: was twenty thirteen's Tomorrow's Harvest, and in many ways, like
Speaker 2: that one, I was for a long time I assumed
Speaker 2: that was the last Boards of Canada album. I you know,
Speaker 2: there wasn't a lot of information out there that was
Speaker 2: that that indicated that there was going to be another one.
Speaker 2: And it also kind of feels like it came out
Speaker 2: a lifetime ago because it came out right before a
Speaker 2: major transition in my life, right before I became a parent,
Speaker 2: and so a decade later, you know, obviously a lot
Speaker 2: has changed. And and then here comes this new Boards
Speaker 2: of Canada album with some I mean people saw it coming.
Speaker 2: It was, it was predicted, but but I but it
Speaker 2: wasn't until the album art was released, and then I
Speaker 2: really like, oh, this is actually happening. There's actually going
Speaker 2: to be another Boards of Canada album. And so again
Speaker 2: it has it has met my expectation, but it's also
Speaker 2: in unexpected ways. It has also really impressed me. So
Speaker 2: I don't want to overhype it, but I feel like
Speaker 2: Tomorrow's Harvest was easily the greatest album of its decade,
Speaker 2: and I think Inferno shows all the signs of being
Speaker 2: the best of its own, of our own dark age, heure, yeah,
Speaker 2: And it's it's an album that feels, you know it,
Speaker 2: It's not a album that feels exclusively of its time.
Speaker 2: I was thinking about this the other day, Like Tomorrow's
Speaker 2: Harvest and really all the other Boards of Canada albums
Speaker 2: as well, to me, they feel like a message arriving
Speaker 2: from outside of our own time, you know. And part
Speaker 2: of that is obviously the sonic alchemy that they weave
Speaker 2: with the nostalgic sounds and different bits of media that
Speaker 2: are woven together in this you know, electronic matrix.
Speaker 3: But it sounds like a polaroid photo.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, so it does feel like something of the past,
Speaker 2: but it has, you know, the futurest part of it
Speaker 2: as well, So it feels like it is something maybe
Speaker 2: outside of our linear experience entirely. It feels like prophecy.
Speaker 2: It feels like music that you don't merely listen to,
Speaker 2: you kind of integrate with and maybe it listens back
Speaker 2: to back to you and it knows that you are there.
Speaker 3: Yeah. I have not had the opportunity to listen to
Speaker 3: the new album yet, but I would. I'm very much
Speaker 3: looking forward to it. I'm not as much of a
Speaker 3: super fan as you, but I really love Boards of Canada.
Speaker 3: I listened to Music Has the Right to Children ten
Speaker 3: million times.
Speaker 2: I don't know, amazing album obviously. Yeah, yeah, this one's
Speaker 2: This one's amazing as well. And I recommend listening to
Speaker 2: it maybe in a dark room with your eyes shut,
Speaker 2: you know, in one big, big, long listening session. Just
Speaker 2: listen to the whole thing beginning to end, and you know,
Speaker 2: see see where it takes you. So yeah, as far
Speaker 2: as movies off that list for us to cover, I
Speaker 2: don't know. Dark Star has been on my list for
Speaker 2: a long time. I imagine we'll get to that one eventually.
Speaker 2: And there are some others on here that could be fun.
Speaker 2: You know, we could easily discuss the Andromeda Strain or
Speaker 2: Capricorn One or even the Wizard of Oz.
Speaker 3: I say, we got to track down ice Core Drilling.
Speaker 3: That's my kind of movie.
Speaker 2: Ice Core Drilling. Yeah, yeah, what are the the ideas?
Speaker 2: According to this says unknown thought to be perhaps a
Speaker 2: National Film Board of Canada film, although the National Film
Speaker 2: Board of Canada's website makes no mention of any film
Speaker 2: by this title might be, and they refer to another
Speaker 2: title like Artich four or something. So again, I think
Speaker 2: they were, you know, maybe casually answering this question, so
Speaker 2: they might be referring to this other film. Yeah.
Speaker 3: Well, I like the idea that their list of that
Speaker 3: specifically for the creators of Boards of Canada, that their
Speaker 3: list of films would include something that sounds like it
Speaker 3: could be a kind of industry informational film or something
Speaker 3: that's not meant for the general public. Because that I
Speaker 3: think they you know, it feels like they could source
Speaker 3: a lot from those types of media or not, just
Speaker 3: as they could that they do.
Speaker 2: Actually, oh yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 3: Anyway, Okay, would you like me to read one of
Speaker 3: these other ones here? Let's see.
Speaker 2: Yeah, what else do we have in the mailbag? We
Speaker 2: have some weird house cinema messages in particular.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we can do. Let's see this one. How about
Speaker 3: this one from Matt about Star Crash. Oh yes, Star
Speaker 3: Crash Memories from an old guy. Matt says, Hi, Robert
Speaker 3: and Joe, I really enjoyed your recent episode on Star Crash,
Speaker 3: a movie that made a big impression on me, both
Speaker 3: good and bad when it came out. Imagine being an
Speaker 3: eleven year old science fiction fan in nineteen seventy seven
Speaker 3: and having your whole world rocked by Star Wars. Also,
Speaker 3: imagine that there was no way to see Star Wars
Speaker 3: after its theatrical run, So anything even vaguely related to
Speaker 3: a movie set in space is going to be on
Speaker 3: your radar, and you'd beg your parents, grandparents, or any
Speaker 3: adult who'd listen to take you to see that movie. Lastly,
Speaker 3: imagine sitting in a theater and watching Star Crash. The
Speaker 3: mood of the audience went from excitement to disappointment pretty quickly,
Speaker 3: but the constant costume changes and the always wonderful Carolyn
Speaker 3: Monroe kept the interest up, and once there was an
Speaker 3: acceptance of the goofiness embedded in every frame, my friends
Speaker 3: and I had a mildly entertaining afternoon. Unexpectedly, though, a
Speaker 3: Star Crash stuck with us. Constant discussions of the movie's
Speaker 3: shortfalls led to an appreciation of bad or weird movies
Speaker 3: and the fun that could be had in staying up
Speaker 3: late to watch some forgotten gem on TV. This coincided
Speaker 3: with the release of the Medved Brothers books, The Golden
Speaker 3: Turkey Awards, and The Fifty Worst Movies of All Time,
Speaker 3: so we were hooked. Once video rentals became a thing,
Speaker 3: a whole world of weird and wonderful movies opened up,
Speaker 3: and I remember many incredible nights with friends watching some
Speaker 3: awful movie and laughing so hard I could hardly breathe.
Speaker 3: Fast forward to now, in my original attitude to Star
Speaker 3: Crash has changed. I love the energy and the throw
Speaker 3: it all at the wall and see what sticks attitude
Speaker 3: of the filmmakers. I love the colorful stars that look
Speaker 3: like Christmas decorations, the ship models with obvious sprus and
Speaker 3: spray cand lids glued to them, and the bizarre dialogue
Speaker 3: that throws in crazy ideas but never sees them through.
Speaker 3: I hope one day to get my well worn Star
Speaker 3: Crash DVD signed by Carolyn Monroe or David Hasselhoff or both.
Speaker 3: Thanks for the podcast. A show that combines interesting facts
Speaker 3: with a weekly weird movie was always going to be
Speaker 3: right up my right up my alley. But the two
Speaker 3: of you always find the right tone to hit, whether
Speaker 3: you're discussing hard science, interesting culture, or a bizarre Italian
Speaker 3: space movie with a Texan robot and a spaceship fist.
Speaker 3: Cheers Matt. Well, thank you, Matt. That makes me feel wonderful.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, yeah, that's right in there. And that then
Speaker 2: diagram that we've created of interest.
Speaker 3: Yeah all right.
Speaker 2: This next one comes to us from Karen. Karen says, hey,
Speaker 2: w HC, dudes, I didn't see Brother from Another Planet
Speaker 2: on your letterbox list, and it's a wonderful movie. Consider
Speaker 2: it if you're ever at a loss. By the way,
Speaker 2: Karen is referring to our profile on letterbox dot com.
Speaker 2: You can look us up there. We're a weird house.
Speaker 2: We have a list of all the movies we've covered
Speaker 2: over the years there, so you can see what we've
Speaker 2: covered and sometimes you get a peek ahead at what
Speaker 2: we're covering next. But indeed, Brother from Another Planet it
Speaker 2: is not on the list because we have not covered it.
Speaker 2: Karen continues, love your show. Been listening to stuff to
Speaker 2: blow your mind and offshoots forever. Thanks for exposing me
Speaker 2: to schlock and sometimes not schlock that I never would
Speaker 2: have seen if not for you, except Forbidden Planet, which
Speaker 2: has been my fave since I first saw it and
Speaker 2: was thrilled that you did anp on it. Any thanks
Speaker 2: for the infotainment, Karen.
Speaker 3: Well, thank you very much. Karen. Yeah, Brother from Another
Speaker 3: Planet directed by John Sales. I've hit that on my
Speaker 3: list for a long time. I've never seen it, but
Speaker 3: I've heard it's great.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah that that has also been on my list
Speaker 2: for a while, and I don't know that might be
Speaker 2: might be one that we cover later this month there, Yeah,
Speaker 2: one of the Friday slots coming up. I'm thinking of
Speaker 2: possibly picking Spaces the place, but Brother from Another Planet
Speaker 2: also strong contender. And then Finally, I'm going to include
Speaker 2: one message here from our discord server. If you would
Speaker 2: like to join our discord server, just email us. We're
Speaker 2: going to throw that email out here in a minute.
Speaker 2: Email lists will send you a link to the discord.
Speaker 2: It's a much smaller, i think, segment of the listener base,
Speaker 2: but you know, kind of keep it small because it
Speaker 2: stays cozy that way. But anyone is free to join.
Speaker 2: Matt says here, apparently there is a mobile armor, like
Speaker 2: a mobile suit, not human shaped, in the Gundam universe.
Speaker 2: This is this is the Bandai Namco series. This is
Speaker 2: a you know, Gundam. So if you know what a
Speaker 2: Gundam is, you know what I'm talking about. If not,
Speaker 2: look it up and then you it'll be like, oh,
Speaker 2: that's a Gundam, I know what that is. But Matt
Speaker 2: says that there is there's a particular mobile armor in
Speaker 2: the Gundam universe called a Gromlin. And he says maybe
Speaker 2: someone at Bandai at Namco is a fan of eighties
Speaker 2: and nineties Grimlins copycat movies. He includes a picture here
Speaker 2: and I've included this for you to look at.
Speaker 3: Joe.
Speaker 2: Folks out there, you can look up Gundam Gromlin, and
Speaker 2: you will see this as well. It's, as Matt points out,
Speaker 2: a bizarre design with one leg and a weird kind
Speaker 2: of like arm on a wire. So it's a very
Speaker 2: strange looking like anime. It looks like a spaceship, but
Speaker 2: it is a combat suit of some sort.
Speaker 3: I interpreted this as two legs sort of twisted together
Speaker 3: and a head on a long, thin neck, so it
Speaker 3: looks to me kind of like a green metal flamingo.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it looks like a chicken leg to me. Yeah,
Speaker 2: it's kind of like the Bobba Yaga's House. But make
Speaker 2: it sci fi, make it anime. So this was fun.
Speaker 2: If you've listened to us on Weird House Cinema before,
Speaker 2: you know that when we say Gromlin, we're talking about
Speaker 2: any kind of cinematic creature that occurs in the wake
Speaker 2: of nineteen eighty four's Grimlins, regardless of comparative effects slash
Speaker 2: puppetry quality, though generally it's going to be of poorer equality,
Speaker 2: thus invoking the idea of subpark Grimlins, Grimlins at home,
Speaker 2: or of course, generic off brand grimlins that might be
Speaker 2: called Gromlins.
Speaker 3: Right, Hobgoblins, munchies, that sort of thing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that sort of thing. But even in like our
Speaker 2: discussion of Jim Henson's Storyteller, that's what we're talking about,
Speaker 2: the Soldier and death, some great devils in there, and
Speaker 2: we were talking I think we discussed whether or not
Speaker 2: these were Gromlins. There's some Gromlin energy to them, although
Speaker 2: they were obviously made by puppetry masters.
Speaker 3: Good Gromlins, Good Gromlins.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I love all Gromlins. They're they're they're
Speaker 2: all beloved in my eyes. But that's what we were
Speaker 2: talking about when we talk about with talk about Gromlins.
Speaker 2: I think the usage in the Gundam universe definitely predates,
Speaker 2: so I was looking into it a little. I think
Speaker 2: the Gromlin sued here is from the late nineties, so
Speaker 2: they were definitely using it before we were using it.
Speaker 2: I was also looking around to see why who else
Speaker 2: is using the word Gromlin, And apparently it's the name
Speaker 2: of a fictional English town in the music of the
Speaker 2: band love Joy. Not really familiar with this band, I
Speaker 2: think they were they were formed and in recent years,
Speaker 2: the last twenty years at any rate, but there's some
Speaker 2: sort of fictional town they've created named Gromlin. I like
Speaker 2: that idea as well.
Speaker 3: Never heard of that. But are are there Gromlins in
Speaker 3: the town of Gromlin.
Speaker 2: I don't know anything about it, but I want to
Speaker 2: go to there, much like the town of Millbag. I
Speaker 2: also also want to go visit Nilboch.
Speaker 3: This Gromlin spelled backwards, mil Milmore, neil Moore.
Speaker 2: Neil More works. Yeah, that's if you're creating some sort
Speaker 2: of fiction out there and you need a town name,
Speaker 2: go with nil Moore. Just spell Gromlin and then do
Speaker 2: it backwards. You'll have a clearer idea of what you're
Speaker 2: working with. Here. All right, we're gonna go ahead and
Speaker 2: close the mail bag here, but I mean, there was
Speaker 2: a lot we didn't get to in this edition. We'll
Speaker 2: be back with another edition at least next month.
Speaker 3: We'll be back.
Speaker 2: We generally do about one of these a month, but
Speaker 2: there there's no shortage of listener mails for us to discuss.
Speaker 2: We generally don't have time to respond one on one
Speaker 2: when people write in, but rest assured we read it all,
Speaker 2: we sort through it all, and then of course we
Speaker 2: don't have time to bring it all up on the show.
Speaker 2: But we greatly appreciate it when you take the time
Speaker 2: to write in about any and everything, be it a
Speaker 2: little field reporting on a particular topic, or recommendations for
Speaker 2: the future, you know, corrections, whatever the case may be,
Speaker 2: we are happy to hear from you. Just a reminder.
Speaker 2: The Stuff to Blow Your Mind is primarily a science
Speaker 2: and culture podcast, with core episodes on Tuesdays and Thursdays,
Speaker 2: chort form ofpisodes on Wednesdays and on Fridays. That's when
Speaker 2: we set aside most serious concerns to just talk about
Speaker 2: a weird film on Weird House Cinema.
Speaker 3: Huge thanks as always to our excellent audio producer JJ Posway.
Speaker 3: If you would like to get in touch with us
Speaker 3: with feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest
Speaker 3: a topic for the future, or just to say hello,
Speaker 3: you can email us at contact at stufft Blow your
Speaker 3: Mind dot com.
Speaker 1: Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production of iHeartRadio. For
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