Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. My name
Speaker 2: is Robert.
Speaker 3: Lamb and I am Joe McCormick. And the month of
Speaker 3: October continues. The monster Ooze flows on. Rob and I
Speaker 3: were out last week, and in our absence, we featured
Speaker 3: a couple of vault episodes from the previous October about
Speaker 3: the Great he Goat, in which we discussed goats as animals,
Speaker 3: as biological entities, and as symbols, and got into the
Speaker 3: question of why goats have come to be associated with
Speaker 3: strange forces and demonic powers, especially in a Western Christian
Speaker 3: cultural context. Today, we wanted to begin an October themed
Speaker 3: series in that same vein looking at a different liminal beast,
Speaker 3: not the Christian imagery of the Grand Goat presiding over
Speaker 3: the witches Sabbath, but Japanese stories about the ghostly eminence
Speaker 3: of altered cats.
Speaker 2: That's right, we're talking about the common house cat, the
Speaker 2: domesticated if you want to use that word cat, that
Speaker 2: plays a central role in many of our households. But yeah,
Speaker 2: instead of and yeah, when it comes to Halloween, the
Speaker 2: cat has become an icon of the season, especially the
Speaker 2: black cat, and a lot of that is depending on
Speaker 2: the Western traditions and Western superstitions, which we're probably not
Speaker 2: going to get into in this series, but that's informing
Speaker 2: a lot of that imagery that we're seeing in the West.
Speaker 3: But yeah, cat as which is familiar.
Speaker 2: Yeah, cats which is familiar, and then just sort of
Speaker 2: generally cat hanging out looking a little bit creepy has
Speaker 2: a nice silhouette to use in various Halloween backgrounds. Though,
Speaker 2: of course, like the goat, the cat as an organism
Speaker 2: doesn't really care about trick or treating. It doesn't really
Speaker 2: care about seances and tannic rites or whatever you have
Speaker 2: stirred up in your imagination. They have different needs, but
Speaker 2: they live in close proximity to us. So yeah, we're
Speaker 2: gonna be focusing on the various supernatural treatments of this
Speaker 2: animal in Japanese traditions.
Speaker 3: And rob I have to admit, before you picked this
Speaker 3: topic and I started looking into it, I was not
Speaker 3: familiar with how many Japanese monster cats there were, how
Speaker 3: many cat yokai, and how many specifically cat oriented Japanese
Speaker 3: horror movies from the mid century there were.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's right. I mean when you stop to think
Speaker 2: of them, they start jumping out at you. I guess
Speaker 2: part of it is I think we all know that
Speaker 2: cats are popular in Japan. If you're even a casual
Speaker 2: consumer of Japanese pop culture, then you've probably seen various
Speaker 2: cute cat videos from Japan. You've seen, I guess some
Speaker 2: of the major stars include Hello Kitty, There's the talking
Speaker 2: cat Gigi, and Miyazaki's nineteen eighty nine film Kiki's Delivery Service.
Speaker 2: There's that blue robot cat. I'm not actually sure how
Speaker 2: to say its name, Doreman. I believe I'm not super
Speaker 2: familiar with him. But yeah, on top of that, you
Speaker 2: have luck cats, you have just all sorts of cat imagery,
Speaker 2: and yes, you also have various horror movies and horror
Speaker 2: stories that entail the cat. But prior to researching this, yeah,
Speaker 2: I think I would have maybe identified two cat based
Speaker 2: yokai or cat based Japanese traditional monsters. I didn't know
Speaker 2: that there were enough to fill a couple of episodes with.
Speaker 3: Oh wait, I also just remembered the cat bus.
Speaker 2: Oh goodness, Yeah, it's the cat bus from my neighbor Totoro. Yeah,
Speaker 2: another iconic cat. And you know, even Totoro has various
Speaker 2: You could you could say that he has some cat
Speaker 2: like features. I don't know, he's kind of a combination
Speaker 2: of panda and bear and so many other things.
Speaker 3: If a city had cat bus based transportation, would you
Speaker 3: take it? Would you rely on that transportation?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Yeah, the kids in Toto seemed to seem to
Speaker 2: dig it. It looks soft and warm in there. You know.
Speaker 2: The whole lining is like a cat's belly, except you
Speaker 2: won't be scratched if you touch it.
Speaker 3: I guess I'd be concerned about whether it's going to
Speaker 3: take me to my destination or its own I don't know,
Speaker 3: whatever it cares to it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean the cat buss does have that kind
Speaker 2: of cheshire cat spirit to it, like what is it
Speaker 2: going to do? And this gets to the heart of
Speaker 2: like the spirit of the cat. I mean. We could
Speaker 2: go on and on with just you know, personal anecdotes
Speaker 2: and also all sorts of sort of folk wisdom about
Speaker 2: the differences between the dog and the cat. What is
Speaker 2: it like living with a dog versus living with a cat?
Speaker 2: What is it like encountering an unknown dog versus encountering
Speaker 2: an unknown cat? There there are so many differences but
Speaker 2: definitely the cat has a unique spirit that can be challenging,
Speaker 2: that can be inviting, that can be very comforting. There's
Speaker 2: a there's really a broad spectrum of attitudes one ends
Speaker 2: up having, even about the most beloved cat in your life.
Speaker 3: So you're making the point that cats have a good
Speaker 3: deal of cultural prominence in Japan, not just in their
Speaker 3: monstrous forms.
Speaker 2: Right, right, But by exploring some of the monstrous forms,
Speaker 2: you also get some insight into how and why they
Speaker 2: were so admired and are still admired to this day. Now,
Speaker 2: in terms of sources here, I'm going to refer to
Speaker 2: there's the older book I have, Yokai Attack The Japanese
Speaker 2: Monster's Survival Guide by Hiroko Yoda and Matt Alt. That
Speaker 2: one's really good. But also a couple of books I've
Speaker 2: picked up for this include Joshua Friedman's The Japanese Myths,
Speaker 2: A Guide to God's Heroes and Spirits and Zach Davison's
Speaker 2: Kaibyo The Supernatural Cats of Japan.
Speaker 3: So this is a book entirely on the altered cats.
Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, this is a really good one. You can
Speaker 2: find this wherever you get your books, and it has
Speaker 2: just so many wonderful illustrations in it and stories. We're
Speaker 2: gonna touch on some of the main points, but if
Speaker 2: you want to deeper dive into the world of Japanese
Speaker 2: supernatural cats, that's a book to pick up. Now, getting
Speaker 2: back briefly, just to the general idea of cats in Japan,
Speaker 2: the domestic cat in Japan, I want to refer to
Speaker 2: a recent New York Times article titled Why do Cats
Speaker 2: hold Such mythic power in Japan? By Hanya Yanagahara. The
Speaker 2: author here points out that house cats are thought to
Speaker 2: have first arrived in Japan during the sixth century CE,
Speaker 2: brought in via the Silk Road as a curiosity from India,
Speaker 2: via China, or possibly from Korea. I think they're just
Speaker 2: different possible routes that cats may have taken. And at
Speaker 2: that point, Yanagahara points out that cats would have likely
Speaker 2: enjoyed the split value that they enjoyed everywhere else they
Speaker 2: traveled via human beings. They proved themselves an aid to
Speaker 2: agricultural pursuits, feasting on rodents, and they were amusing. They're
Speaker 2: amusing to look at, they're amusing to watch and to
Speaker 2: try and figure out, and they can become quite affectionate,
Speaker 2: especially if it serves their purposes.
Speaker 3: Right. So cute and useful an unbeatable combination.
Speaker 2: Right. And Azani Gahara points out Japan was both an
Speaker 2: agricultural country and a court culture country as well, so
Speaker 2: we can imagine the cat catching on at every level
Speaker 2: of society.
Speaker 3: I see that. So in the agricultural sense, the cat
Speaker 3: is useful because you can have one around your grain
Speaker 3: supplies to keep the rats out of it. But in
Speaker 3: the wealthy court setting, it might be attractive to have
Speaker 3: a cat in your lap or in your vicinity as
Speaker 3: a beautiful regal object or companion.
Speaker 2: That's right, Yeah, well what the cat is here to
Speaker 2: fulfill those needs either way again, if it wants to. Now.
Speaker 2: Zach Davison in his book emphasizes a kind of court
Speaker 2: first trajectory for cats taking hold in Japan. And we
Speaker 2: do have Hayan period descriptions of how wonderful cats were
Speaker 2: and how much the emperors of the time period loved them.
Speaker 2: But his populations grew, they were no longer confined to palaces,
Speaker 2: and as they lost their regal and exotic air, more
Speaker 2: attention was placed on their behaviors and alleged then sprang
Speaker 2: up about them, both rural and urban in nature. Now,
Speaker 2: of course, I'm not sure if this is necessarily a
Speaker 2: case where, you know, we always have to acknowledge that
Speaker 2: sometimes it's those accounts from the upper parts of society
Speaker 2: that stand the test of time and it's not the
Speaker 2: lives of people lower down the socioeconomic ladder. But this
Speaker 2: sounds reasonable, right, I mean, as the cat coming in
Speaker 2: as an exotic singularity, brought into the court, enjoyed in
Speaker 2: the court. But over time, cats are going to reproduce,
Speaker 2: the population is going to swell, and there's going to
Speaker 2: be like a trickle down cat economy in a given country.
Speaker 3: Yes, there's a cat sieve, and eventually the cats make
Speaker 3: their way through to every corner of the country.
Speaker 2: Now, another wrinkle in this that Davison points out is
Speaker 2: that it can be a little difficult to pin down
Speaker 2: exactly when written records are are are specifically talking about cats.
Speaker 2: And this concerns something that's come up before on the
Speaker 2: show concerning like novel animals in a given culture, and
Speaker 2: that is that when it comes to the way that
Speaker 2: animals were written about in ancient Japan, known animals had
Speaker 2: unique kanji characters, new animals did not, and it sometimes
Speaker 2: took centuries for them to get unique characters, so instead
Speaker 2: you'd use other animal characters in their place. So Davison
Speaker 2: points out that in ancient Japan, the same kanji character
Speaker 2: designated both tanuki and cat, so it was sometimes sometimes
Speaker 2: difficult to look back at these writings and determine exactly
Speaker 2: what animal is being described.
Speaker 3: So in kind of the same way, you might imagine like,
Speaker 3: I don't know, early medieval European writings about seafaring, and
Speaker 3: like you can't tell if they're trying to describe a
Speaker 3: mythical sea monster or a real whale or some type
Speaker 3: of fish. It's just a word that means like some
Speaker 3: kind of creature. It's clearly in the water, but other
Speaker 3: than that, you're not sure what it's referring to.
Speaker 2: Yeah, or how everything is a type of apple. Yeah,
Speaker 2: So you can imagine where it would be confusing going
Speaker 2: back and trying to figure out all this stuff. Now,
Speaker 2: so at any rate we can, one way or another,
Speaker 2: cats eventually really catch on. They're everywhere. One important date
Speaker 2: in Japanese cat history, this would be the year sixteen
Speaker 2: oh two. This is the year, according to Davidson, that
Speaker 2: during which amidst a plague of rats destroying Japanese silkworm industry,
Speaker 2: the Japanese government issues uneed it release all domestic cats
Speaker 2: to battle the rats, which maybe sounds a bit extreme,
Speaker 2: but they apparently did it. They made it illegal to
Speaker 2: buy or sell cats. Just release them, let them do
Speaker 2: their thing, let them fight the good fight against the rats. However,
Speaker 2: apparently it might not have actually helped much. It seems
Speaker 2: like there's some writings that kind of dispute the the
Speaker 2: idea that this was really all about. Helpful Davidson SHARE's
Speaker 2: a quote that I've seen featured in numerous sources talking
Speaker 2: about cats in Japan. This is from a character has
Speaker 2: come up on the show before. I believe, a German
Speaker 2: doctor visiting Japan during the period, doctor Ingelbert Kompfer.
Speaker 3: That name rings a bell.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't remember the context what we were talking about,
Speaker 2: but I'm pretty sure he's come up before. But he wrote,
Speaker 2: there is only one breed of cat that is kept
Speaker 2: in Japan. He's discussing here. It has large patches of yellow,
Speaker 2: black and white fur. Its short tail looks as if
Speaker 2: it has been bent and broken. It has no mind
Speaker 2: to hunt for rats and mice, but just wants to
Speaker 2: be carried and stroked by women, which I think this
Speaker 2: could basically be applied to many cats in our lives.
Speaker 2: This sounds a lot like my cat Mochi yellow, black
Speaker 2: and white.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And Calico just wants to hang out generally with
Speaker 2: my wife and will occasionally hang out with me if
Speaker 2: it's enough in the house, and doesn't particularly want to
Speaker 2: chase anything around except me. Sometimes sometimes you will attack my.
Speaker 3: Feet, by the way, I just had to look it
Speaker 3: up to see when Engelbert Kempfer came up before, and
Speaker 3: this was another connection from the vegetable Lamb of Tartary episode.
Speaker 3: He had a theory apparently. I don't remember whether it
Speaker 3: was more on track or more off track. I think
Speaker 3: it was one of the off track ones.
Speaker 2: Okay. Now, another interesting historical cat tib that comes up
Speaker 2: in this book from Japan. In eighteen forty two, Emperor
Speaker 2: Tatakuni instituted the Tenpo Reforms, which sort of reined in
Speaker 2: what could be presented in the arts, especially as a
Speaker 2: concerned kabuki and geisha imagery. However, nowhere in the law
Speaker 2: did it say you couldn't depict cats doing all of
Speaker 2: these things. So artists of the day began to illustrate
Speaker 2: drunken and cavorting cats like basically, you know, kabuki style
Speaker 2: cat soap opera, which which I love because you know,
Speaker 2: this kind of reminds me of the whole like nobody
Speaker 2: says a donkey can't play football sort of a thing,
Speaker 2: and also brings to mind dogs playing poker.
Speaker 3: Yeah, airbud rules apply. I love that.
Speaker 2: Now. Friedman, in his book writes the stories of cats
Speaker 2: date back to at least as far as the Hayan
Speaker 2: period seven ninety four through eleven eighty five see concerning
Speaker 2: the cats kept by the Emperor By the fourteenth century.
Speaker 2: Magical cats pop up in numerous works of art, in literature,
Speaker 2: and of course they become central parts of Japanese folklore
Speaker 2: in a legend as well. In this episode, yeah, we're
Speaker 2: going to provide an overview of these strange cats, these kaibyo,
Speaker 2: the strange cats, supernatural cats. They have a number of
Speaker 2: things in common, but they all have distinctive flavors, and
Speaker 2: some of them are more threatening than others. Now, as
Speaker 2: Friedman points out, one of the main attributes you find
Speaker 2: in various tales of strange magical cats in Japan. Is
Speaker 2: that is the idea that, as with tales of magical foxes,
Speaker 2: kaibyo are individual cats who have lived long enough to
Speaker 2: acquire magical abilities and also, like fox spirits grow multiple tales.
Speaker 3: Yes, that's an interesting comparison to the way the altered
Speaker 3: foxes are treated in stories. Those commonalities. I was trying
Speaker 3: to think, what is the difference between like a monstrous
Speaker 3: altered fox and a monstrous altered cat. And in my view,
Speaker 3: you know, the fox seems like it has the potential
Speaker 3: to be more of a chaotic alignment, and so in
Speaker 3: its bad form, it's kind of chaotic evil, whereas the
Speaker 3: cat in its monstrous form. I don't know, cats can
Speaker 3: be chaotic, and I know in some of these stories
Speaker 3: they are, but it seems like more of a cold,
Speaker 3: calculating evil to me.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that's that's accurate. But it's also interesting
Speaker 2: to think of this as in a situation where you
Speaker 2: have superstitions concerning an animal that is native to Japan,
Speaker 2: the red fox, and then when you bring in these
Speaker 2: animals from outside, these these domestic cats, something gets applied
Speaker 2: to them that was previously applied to native organisms. We
Speaker 2: do need to be clear that there is no such
Speaker 2: thing as a domestic cat with more than one tail.
Speaker 2: There are, however, two types of morphological mutations that affect
Speaker 2: the tail. There's the Manx tailless gene, which can prove lethal,
Speaker 2: and then there's the Japanese bobtail gene, in which the
Speaker 2: tail is shortened and kinked, but otherwise doesn't seem to
Speaker 2: really impact health, or at the very least, it doesn't
Speaker 2: entail skeletal issues and or involve death with certain genotypes.
Speaker 2: The Japanese bobtail gene is of course of note here because,
Speaker 2: as the name implies, it is native to Japan. It
Speaker 2: emerged there in Japan's feline population, though it has since
Speaker 2: spread beyond the limits of Japan. Now Here is an area, though,
Speaker 2: that I want to stress that I wasn't able to
Speaker 2: get like one hundred percent clarity on for my own
Speaker 2: research purposes, and that is the alleged practice of bobbing
Speaker 2: or docking cat tales in Japan. I couldn't find many
Speaker 2: solid contemporary references to this, though Friedman mentions it in passing,
Speaker 2: and there's a lot of dismissal of the idea as
Speaker 2: a myth in general. So, on one hand, the Japanese
Speaker 2: bobtail variant was at one point considered lucky, and Friedman
Speaker 2: indicates that this could have influenced a tail docking practice,
Speaker 2: some practice by which the tales of domestic cats are removed,
Speaker 2: though he also writes with uncertainty about exactly how superstition, mutilation,
Speaker 2: and genetic mutation would have been intertwined here. You know,
Speaker 2: because if this was taking place to any degree, you know,
Speaker 2: you asked the you can easily ask the question, well,
Speaker 2: is it because of superstition? Is it because of the
Speaker 2: genetic mutation that was already there? And you know, to
Speaker 2: and to what extent these things are interplaying with each other. Now.
Speaker 2: Tail bobbing of different forms does seem to come up
Speaker 2: in historic foreign writings on Japan, including a nineteen oh
Speaker 2: six letter by Greek writer left Kadio Hearn, who mentions
Speaker 2: kittens having their tails cut off so that they don't
Speaker 2: grow up to become a monster cat of one sort
Speaker 2: or the other. Of course, the obvious situation with this
Speaker 2: is you're dealing with with outsiders who are then you know,
Speaker 2: you're dealing with possible translation errors. You're dealing with them
Speaker 2: having to you know, perhaps make sense of local lore
Speaker 2: concerning a genetic mutation that's not completely understood and so forth.
Speaker 3: Or just making assumptions about things they've observed without understanding
Speaker 3: key elements. Like you could imagine a scenario where somebody
Speaker 3: observes a place where there is a genetic mutation that
Speaker 3: creates bobtailcats, and they assume people cut off the tails.
Speaker 2: Yeah, because as we've we're very mentioned apparently like the
Speaker 2: bobtailed effect does kind of look like you can easily
Speaker 2: look at it and think, oh, well, something bad happened
Speaker 2: to that animal's tale, et cetera. Now, a legend that
Speaker 2: I've seen mentioned in multiple texts is that the original
Speaker 2: bobtail cat lost its tail when it caught fire, causing
Speaker 2: it to run about and catch a whole town on fire,
Speaker 2: resulting in an imperial decree cats should not have tails
Speaker 2: because they are fire hazards. This is obviously not true,
Speaker 2: but it does illustrate there's a lot of room for
Speaker 2: just so stories here. You know, some sort of story
Speaker 2: that is obviously fictional and legendary, but it is providing
Speaker 2: some sort of an origin story for something in nature
Speaker 2: that is not completely understood. So Yeah, there's plenty of
Speaker 2: room for translationaire foreign misinterpretation and more. I mean, of course,
Speaker 2: on the other hand, we have to acknowledge that cosmetic
Speaker 2: mutilation of dogs and cats is nothing new and can
Speaker 2: be found in various cultures. With cats, there's the example
Speaker 2: of decline, which had been widespread in the US and
Speaker 2: Canada in prior decades and generally entails more than the
Speaker 2: removal of the clock self, but like the end of
Speaker 2: the digit on each clow finger, and then tail docking
Speaker 2: and ear cropping was widespread and has now banded many
Speaker 2: countries With dogs. I mentioned all of this just for
Speaker 2: added context and the consideration of potential historic tail docking.
Speaker 2: But again, there seems plenty of evidence to consider a
Speaker 2: mutation the primary cause here.
Speaker 3: Okay, so question marks about the extent to which tail
Speaker 3: docking was a real historical practice. But one thing we
Speaker 3: know for sure is that there are lots of stories
Speaker 3: of monster cats with weird tales.
Speaker 2: That's right, yes, And so the first one we're going
Speaker 2: to talk about here is the Nikomata. These are cats
Speaker 2: that are said to have lived for a hundred years.
Speaker 2: And what happens when you live to be one hundred
Speaker 2: years and you're a cat according to these traditions and superstitions,
Speaker 2: Well you get a second tale. The first tale splits
Speaker 2: in half, and now there are two tails, and other
Speaker 2: changes occur as well. Suddenly this cat has a craving
Speaker 2: for human flesh. They grow to the to be the
Speaker 2: size of like a large dog or wolf. They may
Speaker 2: walk on two legs, and thus at this point they
Speaker 2: are no longer a domestic cat, a cat of the
Speaker 2: natural world. They have become a feline yo kai. According
Speaker 2: to Davison, the fourteenth century work Essays and Idleness tells
Speaker 2: the story of a man who thinks himself pursued through
Speaker 2: the night by a nikomata, but it turns out to
Speaker 2: be his own dog. The creature was written about during
Speaker 2: the Edo period, This is the golden age of Yokai lore,
Speaker 2: but Davison stresses that the roots of the nikomata go
Speaker 2: back centuries earlier. So, according to Davison, some versions of
Speaker 2: the nikomata may date back to Chinese traditions in the
Speaker 2: short lived Sei dynasty five eighty one through six eighteen CE,
Speaker 2: and then written about in Japan at least by the
Speaker 2: Kamakura period. That's eleven eighty five through thirteen thirty three,
Speaker 2: but the accounts were not really of a supernatural cat yet,
Speaker 2: but rather of a large tiger or lion like predatory
Speaker 2: animal that lived in the mountains. You know, the situation
Speaker 2: where it was like, don't you know, be careful if
Speaker 2: you go off into the wilderness because that is where
Speaker 2: the nikomado lives. Attacks of this creature were apparently reported
Speaker 2: as just fact that this was not something legendary, It
Speaker 2: was just something that might happen to you if you
Speaker 2: were unlucky in the wilderness. Oh.
Speaker 3: It reminds me of the dad taking his kid to
Speaker 3: see aliens saying, no, he needs to see this because
Speaker 3: he needs to know things like this can happen in
Speaker 3: the world.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, Now. Davidson writes that there are different speculations
Speaker 2: about what this could all be about. There's at least
Speaker 2: one idea that it could be evidence of a surviving,
Speaker 2: perhaps prehistoric variety of yemen eco or leopard cat, so
Speaker 2: you know, essentially like some sort of at the time
Speaker 2: surviving a large predatory cat there. Also, he also brings
Speaker 2: up the idea that well tigers were brought in as
Speaker 2: curiosities during this time. Perhaps one escaped and was living
Speaker 2: in the forest and had attacked people. I mean, it's
Speaker 2: easily one of those situations where if you just have
Speaker 2: one tiger attack occur like this, it's enough to leave
Speaker 2: an imprint in folklore. And then another idea that's perhaps
Speaker 2: more compelling is that these could be sort of enhanced
Speaker 2: accounts of rabid animal attacks. So rabies could essentially be
Speaker 2: what is it the heart of these stories that would
Speaker 2: make sense. Yeah, So anyway, we have these stories from
Speaker 2: the wilderness of some sort of large nicomata cat, and
Speaker 2: then during the Edo period we see this legend intensified.
Speaker 2: So Davison writes that the cats get larger, they get
Speaker 2: more fierce in the stories, but then they're transformed into
Speaker 2: not a distinct species, but is a power upgrade to
Speaker 2: just the common domestic cat. Again, it gets old enough,
Speaker 2: the tail splits, and now you have a different creature
Speaker 2: on your hands, and its appetites, its desires, it's cunning
Speaker 2: or something entirely new.
Speaker 3: At that point, this touches on something interesting because I'm
Speaker 3: I got interested in the idea of the nekomada being
Speaker 3: a thing that is created when a cat reaches a
Speaker 3: sufficient age, and so here I want to turn to
Speaker 3: notes from a book that I've referred to on the
Speaker 3: podcast before called The Book of Yokai by an Indiana
Speaker 3: University folklore scholar named Michael Dylan Foster. And there was
Speaker 3: a section of the book that I thought was really
Speaker 3: interesting because I was originally looking at it just because
Speaker 3: it had a glancing mention of yokai stories about cats,
Speaker 3: but actually it got to a broader theme about the
Speaker 3: significance of the number one hundred in Japanese spooky storytelling.
Speaker 3: So the book is talking about a historical tradition known
Speaker 3: as the hayaku monogatari, which is a Japanese tradition of
Speaker 3: gatherings where people would come together to trade stories of
Speaker 3: the weird and uncanny in the hopes of actually inducing
Speaker 3: a supernatural experience through the storytelling. Oh that's wise, I agree,
Speaker 3: I think, yeah, that's a great plan. I would love
Speaker 3: to go to one of these.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: So it works like this. People would gather by night
Speaker 3: in a room or maybe in like a he says,
Speaker 3: in like a semi public place, a room, a gathering place,
Speaker 3: a temple, maybe in a place lit by candles or lanterns,
Speaker 3: and the people gathered would take turns recounting tales of
Speaker 3: ghosts or yokai, and after each story was finished, I
Speaker 3: think the stories would be fairly short. After each story
Speaker 3: was over, one of the lanterns or candles would be
Speaker 3: snuffed out until you keep getting fewer and fewer lights.
Speaker 3: And then after the final tale ends and the final
Speaker 3: flame is extinguished, that would leave the room completely dark,
Speaker 3: at which point the people in attendance might get to
Speaker 3: see a real yokai in the darkness.
Speaker 2: Oh I like it. I mean, and again this is
Speaker 2: wise because if you want to prime yourself for having
Speaker 2: a supernatural encounter, there's no better way than to lower
Speaker 2: the lights and start recounting strange tales.
Speaker 3: If you build it, they will come. Yeah. So the
Speaker 3: book quotes a late seventeenth century Buddhist priest and author
Speaker 3: named Assai Rioi, who writes quote, it is said that
Speaker 3: when you collect and tell one hundred stories of scary
Speaker 3: or strange things that have been passed down since long ago,
Speaker 3: something scary or strange is certain to occur. So tell
Speaker 3: one hundred stories about it. Make it happen for real.
Speaker 3: Oh I like this, And Foster says this was probably
Speaker 3: not always understood as a literal threshold of exactly one
Speaker 3: hundred stories, even though that is literally what hayaku monogatari means,
Speaker 3: but in practice it probably just means a lot of stories.
Speaker 3: And you can tell this because some of the hayakum
Speaker 3: gatari collections have fewer than one hundred stories in them,
Speaker 3: so you know, this probably doesn't actually need to be
Speaker 3: literally one hundred. On the other hand, he relates this
Speaker 3: to other Japanese tales of the magical and uncanny in
Speaker 3: which the number one hundred has special properties. For example,
Speaker 3: a subject that we have done an episode about on
Speaker 3: stuff to blow your mind before, the sukumogami, which are
Speaker 3: these inanimate household objects, you know, hammers, dinnerwar brooms, objects
Speaker 3: from the house that transform into magical, animate sentient beings
Speaker 3: when they turn the age of one hundred.
Speaker 2: I remember this, yees seeing up with a parade of
Speaker 2: bewitched old.
Speaker 3: Things exactly, And I remember we talked about one famous
Speaker 3: story where I think they all get converted to a
Speaker 3: specific branch of Buddhism at the end. Yes, yes, But
Speaker 3: as another example of the transformative power of the number
Speaker 3: one hundred in some Japanese stories, Foster writes that it
Speaker 3: was sometimes said that an ordinary animal that had reached
Speaker 3: the age of one hundred would undergo a magical metamorphosis
Speaker 3: and become a yokai. And these animals could include foxes,
Speaker 3: could include tanuki, and yes, also cats. And so, coming
Speaker 3: back to your comment earlier, Rob, that cats that reach
Speaker 3: a sufficient age could transform into some type of altered
Speaker 3: cat or supernatural cat yokai like a nekomata. You apparently
Speaker 3: have to watch out for those ninety nine year old cats.
Speaker 3: They are just biding their time until the birthday and
Speaker 3: then they have the power.
Speaker 2: That's right, that's right up until ninety nine decent, you know,
Speaker 2: probably household cat, but one hundred years old, watch out.
Speaker 2: Now they're a menace. Now.
Speaker 3: I think there are also stories where cats reach a
Speaker 3: certain age and become transformed or dangerous in some way,
Speaker 3: and the number is not exactly one hundred, But I
Speaker 3: do think it's interesting that there is a recurring theme
Speaker 3: about the number one hundred across these different stories. You know,
Speaker 3: for some reason, this is the number after which things
Speaker 3: get weird. Now, I just want to mention what Foster
Speaker 3: says directly about the nekomata as a yokai type. He
Speaker 3: says that many written accounts of nekomata describe them as
Speaker 3: monstrously large cats living in the wilderness in mountains and forests,
Speaker 3: but sometimes also found in human settlements. But the idea
Speaker 3: of locating them mountain the mountains and forests, that kind
Speaker 3: of goes along with what you were saying about, the
Speaker 3: idea that these could go back to stories of like
Speaker 3: a wild animal that is occupying a place and is dangerous.
Speaker 2: That's right. And I should also mention that Davidson of
Speaker 2: Relief stresses that the sort of rural version of the
Speaker 2: nikamata as this wild large mountain cat that isn't necessarily
Speaker 2: connected to domestic cats that still remained a folk belief
Speaker 2: out in the wilds or on the borders of the wild.
Speaker 2: But then you get this new version of the nekomata
Speaker 2: that is more urban and based more on the domestic housecat.
Speaker 3: This might actually be going back to the same source
Speaker 3: referenced in the book you were talking about, but at
Speaker 3: least Foster talks about an early story of the nkomata
Speaker 3: appearing in the literature from twelve thirty three, and it
Speaker 3: is described in this source as a creature with the
Speaker 3: eyes of a cat but the body of a huge dog.
Speaker 3: And I think that's a striking combination that kind of
Speaker 3: sets the mind racing, not only because it has this
Speaker 3: classic recipe of monster creation, which is combining different attributes
Speaker 3: of different animals, you know, using sort of the mixing
Speaker 3: and matching power of the human mind to kind of,
Speaker 3: you know, potato head up different different predator features. But
Speaker 3: I think it's interesting that you're taking the eyes of
Speaker 3: a cat and the body of a dog. So the
Speaker 3: physical power of a big dog, and as scary as
Speaker 3: cats can be, sometimes if you're talking about domestic animals,
Speaker 3: it's you know, you can understand why you might be
Speaker 3: more physically intimidated by a big dog than by a
Speaker 3: house cat. But without the dog's sweet and subservient nature,
Speaker 3: you instead bring in the eyes. And of course with
Speaker 3: the eyes we equate eyes to mind. And so if
Speaker 3: you're putting the mind of a cat in the body
Speaker 3: of a big, powerful dog, it's like the uncontrollable and
Speaker 3: a moral will to power of a cat in the
Speaker 3: body of a dog that could really harm you. Yes, yes,
Speaker 3: And as you mentioned, Robin, these early stories, and in
Speaker 3: this one, the Nekamata eats seven or eight people in
Speaker 3: a single night.
Speaker 2: That's too many. You know that that nkamata is just
Speaker 2: going to barf up most of those people, and then
Speaker 2: someone's gonna have to clean it up.
Speaker 3: He's gonna barf up six of those people in your shoes.
Speaker 2: Right, and then it's going to look at me like, hey,
Speaker 2: I'm still hungry. I don't know why I'm hungry.
Speaker 3: Help. And then finally, I just wanted to quote from
Speaker 3: part of a paragraph Foster has here. He's writing about
Speaker 3: a Japanese source that has illustrations of nekamata, So Foster writes,
Speaker 3: quote Toriyama Sekion illustrates a nekamata in his first catalog.
Speaker 3: It stands on two legs on the outer veranda of
Speaker 3: a house with a small towel on its head. Another cat,
Speaker 3: presumably not a yokai, sits on the ground below it,
Speaker 3: while a third seems to be looking out from inside
Speaker 3: the house. Although Sekian does not explain anything here, the
Speaker 3: nkamata is portrayed as betwixt and between the human and
Speaker 3: natural worlds. It is wild, but wears a towel on
Speaker 3: its head, stands on two legs like a person, and
Speaker 3: is perched literally on the outer edge of a human habitation,
Speaker 3: with one cat outside, possibly feral, behind it, and another inside,
Speaker 3: possibly domestic, in front of it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a good point. I mean it again, like
Speaker 2: all these these examples are looking at you know, they're
Speaker 2: touching on the superstition and the you know, the mythic
Speaker 2: and folkloric world, but they're also commenting on like a
Speaker 2: lot of time spent with cats trying to figure them out,
Speaker 2: you know, how they're they're domesticated, but they're still wild,
Speaker 2: like they're they are suspended between worlds.
Speaker 3: I think that's exactly right. I don't know the mind
Speaker 3: of the illustrator here, but this seems like it could
Speaker 3: be providing some rather nuanced analysis. But with this kind
Speaker 3: of drawing, like uh, commenting on the nature of the
Speaker 3: cat as a as a pet or as a domestic
Speaker 3: animal that it's own, it's only partly part of our world.
Speaker 3: And also I like the implied threat of the nearness
Speaker 3: of the known, normal, mundane cats to this monstrous cat
Speaker 3: that you know what I mean, like kind of like
Speaker 3: placing them beside one another is almost like, you know,
Speaker 3: watch out, watch out for the the nature of the cat.
Speaker 2: You think, you know, yeah, because the just normal housecat
Speaker 2: knows that they're a nikamata out there and just doesn't care.
Speaker 2: It's like, yeah, this is just how it is now,
Speaker 2: I do. Really, I'm glad you brought up the towel
Speaker 2: on the head because that is important when considering the
Speaker 2: next example we're going to talk about here, and that
Speaker 2: is the bachan echo, the shape shifting cat. So in
Speaker 2: this case you get even more advanced age numerous tales,
Speaker 2: and it grants them the ability to change their form
Speaker 2: and interfere directly in human affairs. So not just scratches,
Speaker 2: you know, not just messing up furniture, attacking feet and
Speaker 2: so forth, not just merely eating people after you turn
Speaker 2: into a giant cat, a giant monster cat, but actually
Speaker 2: taking on a human form and directly interfering in the
Speaker 2: human world, sometimes helping humans, sometimes hunting them for sport. Again,
Speaker 2: they're just like the domestic cat in spirit. They're completely immoral.
Speaker 2: They may be helpful, they may be sweet, it depends
Speaker 2: on what they want. Now. Davison and discussing the becan Niko,
Speaker 2: writes that they were said to in their cat form,
Speaker 2: dance on their hind legs and wear towels on their heads.
Speaker 2: This account, he says, apparently spawned from a story about
Speaker 2: a soy sauce merchant who kept finding his towels in
Speaker 2: disarray and then hid one night to see what was happening.
Speaker 2: What's happening to my towels at night? And what was
Speaker 2: happening while cats were coming in wearing the towels on
Speaker 2: their head and dancing around on their hind legs, you know.
Speaker 2: And he was horrified and I don't remember, perhaps eaten
Speaker 2: at the end. But apparently this is a magical trope
Speaker 2: in Japanese folklore, an animal puts something on its head,
Speaker 2: like with the tanuki. The tanuki will put leaves on
Speaker 2: its head and this helps activate magical powers. He also
Speaker 2: adds here that some traditions describe becan Nico's as humans
Speaker 2: who can turn into cats and tom Sometimes the story
Speaker 2: is that if a cat drinks the blood of a
Speaker 2: murder victim, they will transform into a back in eko,
Speaker 2: taking the shape of the victim in order to seek vengeance.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, this appears to be a major plot point
Speaker 3: in a movie I was looking at, because Foster mentions
Speaker 3: it in his right up on the bakan Echo. But
Speaker 3: there is a movie from nineteen sixty nine directed by
Speaker 3: Tanaka Tokuzo called The Haunted Castle, and it has exactly
Speaker 3: this plot. I think there is an evil landlord and
Speaker 3: woman who is wronged by this evil landlord and she
Speaker 3: ends up I believe, killing herself or somehow and letting
Speaker 3: a cat drink her blood, and this transforms the cat
Speaker 3: into a creature, a monster of vengeance that goes and
Speaker 3: attacks the man who is oppressing her.
Speaker 2: Nice. Nice I was looking. I noticed there's a nineteen
Speaker 2: sixty eight film called beakan Eko a Vengeful Spirit, which
Speaker 2: looks like it maybe has a similar plot and will come.
Speaker 2: You know, there's an interesting area where we're already touching
Speaker 2: on here, this connection between living domestic cats and deceased
Speaker 2: human beings. Essentially, we're getting into the realm of post
Speaker 2: mortem predation, in which an animal, in this case a
Speaker 2: cat pet animal will drink the blood or consume some
Speaker 2: of the flesh of someone who has died. If someone
Speaker 2: in the house has died, even a know an owner
Speaker 2: who loved that animal in life, well, still your pet
Speaker 2: is an animal, and they may have a little to eat.
Speaker 2: It's just how it goes. It's a known fact, a
Speaker 2: known reality of having pets, but it also ends up
Speaker 2: leading to various supernatural interpretations, this connection between in this case,
Speaker 2: the cat and the dead. So again more on that later,
Speaker 2: but in terms of just sort of like a general
Speaker 2: possible origin story for this idea of cats taking on
Speaker 2: human form, Davidson shares shares this idea. Okay, you have
Speaker 2: oil lamps at the time that are being used to
Speaker 2: illuminate homes in the fish oil is used in these lamps.
Speaker 2: Cats want some of that fish oil, and so they
Speaker 2: will stand on their hind legs and try to access
Speaker 2: the fish oil in the lamps, which in turn casts
Speaker 2: strange shadows on the wall. And this you can combine
Speaker 2: this can combine this with other sort of uncanny aspects
Speaker 2: of the cat. You know, their vocalizations that certainly can
Speaker 2: sometimes sound almost human, almost like a baby or something,
Speaker 2: or like they're trying to intone something, as well as
Speaker 2: just all the other you know, very suspect things that
Speaker 2: cats are doing on just a regular daily basis. I mean,
Speaker 2: just generally speaking, I will say that you know when
Speaker 2: you see, just anecdotally, when you see a cat standing
Speaker 2: on its hind legs, which they can do. They can't
Speaker 2: rear up if they want to, if they need to
Speaker 2: see over something, et cetera. It is a little weird
Speaker 2: because suddenly they're bipedal. Suddenly they are. It's like they're
Speaker 2: taking on a different form. And cats can move their
Speaker 2: bodies in so many different ways that, yeah, they like
Speaker 2: we've discussed in the show before, they can almost seem fluid.
Speaker 2: They can. It can feel like they are changing their
Speaker 2: shape in a way that is not tethered to some
Speaker 2: skeletal or muscular form, or at least not one like
Speaker 2: we're used to considering with a human being or even
Speaker 2: like a dog.
Speaker 3: Now, regarding bipedal imagery of monster cats from Japan, I
Speaker 3: hate to bring the Internet into this, but I found
Speaker 3: what struck me as a substantial meme incursion onto my
Speaker 3: processing of antique Japanese. All right, there's a picture that
Speaker 3: is up on the wiki for this creature, for the
Speaker 3: Bakan Echo, that comes from an eighteenth century imachi or
Speaker 3: picture scroll by the Japanese painter and poet Yosa Busan.
Speaker 3: This painting is called the Bakan Echo of the Sasakibara family,
Speaker 3: and it depicts a monster cat in a bizarre bipedal
Speaker 3: posture with four legs spread out kind of like shrugging
Speaker 3: arms like what do you want from me? Of course,
Speaker 3: a towel on the cat's head, sort of a napkin
Speaker 3: hanging off the back of the cat's head behind the ear,
Speaker 3: and a facial expression that is equal parts menace and
Speaker 3: goof sole. And as soon as I saw it, I thought,
Speaker 3: oh my god, it's the cat from the woman yelling
Speaker 3: at cat meme, just a chaotic, confused gobblin spirit in
Speaker 3: the most fundamentally feline way possible.
Speaker 2: No, this is this is solid.
Speaker 3: Yes.
Speaker 2: And in fact, after you mentioned this, I was like,
Speaker 2: I wonder, I wonder if anyone has transformed this, given
Speaker 2: the popularity of all that meme. And sure enough I
Speaker 2: found somebody on Etsy who has created like a like
Speaker 2: a traditional looking Japanese two panel image all of the
Speaker 2: encounter where you have it's where you have the there's
Speaker 2: the there're the two women, one is yelling, and then
Speaker 2: there is the cat seated at a table behind this
Speaker 2: plate with some vegetables on it. And you know, I
Speaker 2: think it is almost impossible to consider many of these
Speaker 2: classic Japanese cat illustrations without comparing them to cat memes,
Speaker 2: in large part because the images are so good at
Speaker 2: capturing the essence of the cat. Yeah, I mean, the
Speaker 2: memes do. I mean. One of the reasons that meme
Speaker 2: has resonated so strongly is that, yeah, I mean that
Speaker 2: the cat part of it feels very on brand. And
Speaker 2: you see this in some of the older illustrations of
Speaker 2: cats in Japan as well. There's a great nineteenth century
Speaker 2: illustration of cats in various positions by Utagawa Kunayoshi, And
Speaker 2: this one is worth looking up because it features I
Speaker 2: found mostly naturalistic depictions of cats, and they're like, you know,
Speaker 2: at least a few dozen of these, But then there
Speaker 2: are also some unnatural or even supernatural ones as well.
Speaker 2: Like if you look around closely at this Joe included
Speaker 2: it for you, you'll see one cat with a towel on
Speaker 2: its head with kind of like zombie arms up. There
Speaker 2: are some other cats that are doing things of that nature.
Speaker 2: And then also cats just doing normal cat things.
Speaker 3: Yep, just like snoozing in a basket, sleeping, chewing on
Speaker 3: a dead squid. Is that what I'm looking at?
Speaker 2: Yeah, dragging a big dead squid that one like the
Speaker 2: squid is so big there, it makes me me wonder.
Speaker 2: But yeah, and then other you just see cats interacting
Speaker 2: with each other, and of course cats as a loaf
Speaker 2: with their their legs tucked in underneath them, curled up
Speaker 2: in a circle, you know, all the various forms of
Speaker 2: the cat that we're accustomed to. You know, we're novel then,
Speaker 2: just as their novel. Now, all right, I have one
Speaker 2: more area concerning the back of the echo. I want
Speaker 2: to touch on here though, just in the event that
Speaker 2: you're listening with small children, maybe maybe skip this part
Speaker 2: and come back later, just just because it is maybe
Speaker 2: a little more mature and themed compared to what we've
Speaker 2: discussed so far. So fair warning. Okay, now that you've
Speaker 2: had a chance to leave, I want to just add
Speaker 2: a word about beakaniko prostitutes. So during the this is
Speaker 2: covered in Davison. During the Edo period, kiboshi or yellow
Speaker 2: books sprang up as a kind of he describes as
Speaker 2: kind of like a penny dreadful literary genre of the day.
Speaker 2: You know, this is literature that is just appealing to
Speaker 2: to very base interests. And they included these guide books
Speaker 2: to the pleasure districts in these guide books included mentions
Speaker 2: of actual places, actual people, but also in human entities
Speaker 2: one might encounter, namely back in Eko prostitutes. They would
Speaker 2: otherwise just look like a normal human prostitute, but their
Speaker 2: shadow would eventually give them away as a shape shifting cat.
Speaker 2: Coming back to perhaps to that idea of the strange
Speaker 2: cat reaching up towards the lamplight. Now, a major inspiration
Speaker 2: for this idea, he writes, was an Edo period tale
Speaker 2: of such a being working in a particular district, and
Speaker 2: it's soon caught on in written. In visual storytelling, eventually,
Speaker 2: and eventually you have various embellishments that are made either
Speaker 2: for telling a good story or for creating a compelling image.
Speaker 2: One of these is that there may be discarded fish
Speaker 2: around the bedroom, or even a discarded human arm, because
Speaker 2: again it is not a human being, it is a
Speaker 2: cat monster that is consuming human victims. Now, initially this
Speaker 2: is just a tale of horror, you know, kind of
Speaker 2: a watch out for the monsters in disguise out there
Speaker 2: in the shadowy world at night. But Davidson rise that
Speaker 2: it eventually becomes this kind of fun visual fad. There's
Speaker 2: an eighteenth century illustration that he shares in the book
Speaker 2: of a samurai walking hand in hand with one of
Speaker 2: these beck in Niko, but it has a cat's head.
Speaker 2: It just looks like it's like a full furry in
Speaker 2: this illustration, and they're just kind of like, Okay, we're
Speaker 2: out in the open with this. Now I I have
Speaker 2: a relationship with a cat woman, and it's it's a okay.
Speaker 2: He also writes that this idea was even eventually embraced
Speaker 2: by by women working in the pleasure districts, so accentuating
Speaker 2: their names or and or keeping a cat in order
Speaker 2: to play up the idea that they might be something
Speaker 2: other than human.
Speaker 3: Oh so like playing with these cat themes for fun,
Speaker 3: or that there was some kind of power in it.
Speaker 2: Man, I'm guessing both, you know. It sounds like it
Speaker 2: could be both. On one hand, yeah, like superstition becoming
Speaker 2: fetish after a while, But also, yeah, there is this
Speaker 2: idea of the the bachan echo woman is this vengeful thing,
Speaker 2: this thing that will, you know, to destroy these these men,
Speaker 2: And so you could see it being embraced on that
Speaker 2: level as well. Now, Davison doesn't go into that so much,
Speaker 2: but mentions that some commentators have tried to establish a
Speaker 2: connection here between the folk tale and a general prohibition
Speaker 2: at the time against courtisans eating in the print in
Speaker 2: the presence of men eating in the presence of their clients,
Speaker 2: in this case, forcing them to sneak snacks in a
Speaker 2: hunched over cat like posture. I'm I don't know, maybe
Speaker 2: this is true. I don't know. I have a hard
Speaker 2: time sort of buying into this in my own mind.
Speaker 2: But but he mentioned it, so I think a number
Speaker 2: of commentators have made this this connection and then a
Speaker 2: broader connection, he says, you can looking in the other direction,
Speaker 2: moving forward towards modern times, there's like a general catgirl
Speaker 2: trope in Japanese pop culture of today that is, you know,
Speaker 2: not directly related to these examples, but like you just
Speaker 2: see like this idea of the cat human hybrid, the
Speaker 2: the the the female cat person as being this this
Speaker 2: motif that is echoed throughout throughout the decades and throughout
Speaker 2: different forms of media, and for that matter, one that
Speaker 2: we find throughout the world as well. I mean, like,
Speaker 2: as far as I know, Catwoman from the Batman franchise
Speaker 2: is not directly connected to any motifs from say Japanese culture.
Speaker 2: There is perhaps just some connection to be made between
Speaker 2: I don't know, stereotypical images of the feminine form and
Speaker 2: the cat. I don't know. I'm sure there's someone who's
Speaker 2: written extensively on this from a larger global perspective.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, well in a Western context. I mean, I
Speaker 3: think the classic nineteen forty two American horror movie Cat People,
Speaker 3: which it has a catwoman in it and is used
Speaker 3: to great spooky effect.
Speaker 2: I didn't see that one. I think. I think when
Speaker 2: the movie man came around, the movie man said, Hey,
Speaker 2: would you like to see cat People or would you
Speaker 2: like to see Sleepwalkers from nineteen ninety two from the
Speaker 2: mind of Stephen King, And I said, oh, I like
Speaker 2: Stephen King, Let's watch Sleepwalkers, which has cats in it.
Speaker 2: I don't remember if the monster people are also cat people, that.
Speaker 3: They're sort of cat people. It is a movie about
Speaker 3: a I think, sort of incestuous mother son monster couple
Speaker 3: who can sort of morph into cats and have cat
Speaker 3: powers and can I think, turn invisible and have super strength,
Speaker 3: and they go around, I don't know, like drinking young
Speaker 3: women's souls or something, and the only way they can
Speaker 3: be defeated is by house cats like cats, chase them
Speaker 3: around and if they get if the cats get to them,
Speaker 3: the cats can defeat them, but nothing else can.
Speaker 2: Yep, that's about how I remember it. Yeah, I haven't
Speaker 2: seen it in forever though it has a great cast,
Speaker 2: solid director too.
Speaker 3: Somebody in it gets murdered with a corn cob. I
Speaker 3: think maybe Ron Pearlman gets stabbed with a corn cob.
Speaker 3: Oh man, I do not remember that part. Maybe it's
Speaker 3: a different guy who gets corn cobbed. I don't know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I just did a search for Ron Pearlman corn
Speaker 2: cob death scene and nothing came up. So maybe it
Speaker 2: just hasn't been embraced online.
Speaker 3: And I know somebody gets killed with the corn cob.
Speaker 3: I'm not making that up. Listeners who have seen Sleepwalkers
Speaker 3: recently right in improved me right.
Speaker 2: All right, And as we close out this episode it's
Speaker 2: in general right in. If you have insight and additions
Speaker 2: on anything we've discussed here, we would love to hear
Speaker 2: from you.
Speaker 3: But we will be back with more in part two.
Speaker 2: That's right now. Before we close out here, I do
Speaker 2: have a couple of extra matters to highlight. If you're
Speaker 2: on social media, you might have noticed that We have
Speaker 2: new host photos for Stuff to Blow your Mind if
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Speaker 2: dot com. We are STBYM podcast on Instagram now and
Speaker 2: you can check out these new photos if you're wondering
Speaker 2: where were these photos taken? Well, Joe and I visited
Speaker 2: the Museum of Illusions Atlanta, a delightful and educational attraction
Speaker 2: located in Atlantic Station here in Atlanta. They feature a
Speaker 2: whole host of visual illusions, including illusion rooms you can
Speaker 2: walk into and interact with, and that includes taking your
Speaker 2: own selfies there. Joe, do you remember that room we
Speaker 2: went into where depending on where you stood, we could
Speaker 2: change how big you looked and how small I looked
Speaker 2: on the on the screen.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, it's a great place to play. I'm the
Speaker 3: big one now to just take turns going from corner
Speaker 3: to corner. And yeah, this place is a lot of fun.
Speaker 3: They've got They've got a ton of great illusions to showcase.
Speaker 3: I'm really excited about taking the baby.
Speaker 2: That's right. Fun for all ages and you can learn
Speaker 2: more about Museum of Illusions Atlanta at m OI Atlanta
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