Speaker 1: Welcome to stot to Blow your Mind production of My
Speaker 1: Heart radiobum. Hey, welcome is stuck to Blow your Mind.
Speaker 1: My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick, and
Speaker 1: today we're bringing you some listener mail. Now, our trusty
Speaker 1: mail bot Carney has gone through a brilliant transformation where
Speaker 1: he has become a naggle bot, a nail faring bot,
Speaker 1: or wait no, not nail faring a a office floor
Speaker 1: faring bot made of the nails of the dead. Yeah,
Speaker 1: at least the exo skeleton anyway, I think everything underneath
Speaker 1: is you know, it still has to be made of
Speaker 1: the same material. But on the outside he is now
Speaker 1: a finger and toe nail based uh automaton and he
Speaker 1: belongs to mu spell. Uh should we jump right in
Speaker 1: with emails about our episodes on the Tomato? Yeah? Why not? Uh,
Speaker 1: let's go right from from nails to tomatoes here. Um,
Speaker 1: as always, Carney is delivering the listener mail that you,
Speaker 1: the listener, have lovingly um sent in to us. Do
Speaker 1: you want to start with this one? From Ian? Here?
Speaker 1: Are you okay? If I read this one? Go for it? Okay?
Speaker 1: Ian says hi, Robert and Joe, still in partial lockdown
Speaker 1: here in the UK and eternally grateful for your rich
Speaker 1: back catalog of rabbit holes to keep me occupied. I
Speaker 1: think I can offer some insight into the tomacco plant.
Speaker 1: Grafting tomatoes isn't that uncommon and used to be more popular.
Speaker 1: The usual reason to do it is improved hardiness and
Speaker 1: soil type tolerance. The one I've read most about is
Speaker 1: dat toura as a root stock, which is supposed to
Speaker 1: make the tomato much more cold resistant and tolerant of
Speaker 1: alkaline soil, but has been known to lead to toxic tomatoes.
Speaker 1: I read some speculation that it depends on exactly how
Speaker 1: much of the datura above of ground parts remain, and
Speaker 1: it's probably better to just not go there. And in fact,
Speaker 1: we're gonna have another email about this in just a moment,
Speaker 1: but Ian continues. One I've tried to do myself and failed,
Speaker 1: but is available as a novelty plant in the UK
Speaker 1: is the tomtato with potato roots on the bottom. I
Speaker 1: know a horticulturist who's played around with this. You don't
Speaker 1: get a great yield of either crop, but if you
Speaker 1: don't have much space. He also tried it the other
Speaker 1: way around, which led to potato stems growing small green
Speaker 1: tubers at the bottom leaf nodes. Interesting but pointless. Uh.
Speaker 1: And then Ian shares a link. I've tried wild tomatoes.
Speaker 1: I got seeds from a botanist colleague. The plants were leggy,
Speaker 1: sprawling vines that made small, orange ish berries. The flesh
Speaker 1: was meally vaguely sweet and sharp. Not great, but if
Speaker 1: you were foraging, I could see them being an important
Speaker 1: food source. They for the amazing content. Ian. Wow, I
Speaker 1: am jealous Ian that you've gotten to try like a
Speaker 1: traditional ancestral wild tomato plant. I have no idea what
Speaker 1: that would be like. Uh, it's it's crazy. He reminds
Speaker 1: me of something that I should have thought of in
Speaker 1: the episode as we were recording it. But if you play,
Speaker 1: if you've played any of the Fallout games, I'm not
Speaker 1: sure at what point this first shows up, but certainly
Speaker 1: in Fallout four, and definitely in Fallout seventy six, which
Speaker 1: I I played from time to time still to this day. Um,
Speaker 1: you can you can raise a garden? You you know
Speaker 1: you're crafting instead. A lot of survival of mechanics bound
Speaker 1: up in the game, but one of the plants you
Speaker 1: grow is something called a potato and um, you know
Speaker 1: it looks like a like a tomato on a vine,
Speaker 1: but it is supposed to be a mutated hybrid of
Speaker 1: the tomato and the potato plant. Yeah, so basically, I
Speaker 1: mean it's or at least very similar to what we're
Speaker 1: talking about here. Uh, with the novelty plant one can
Speaker 1: obtain in the UK. Very interesting. Yeah, I would like
Speaker 1: to see one of those plants. Yeah, well, come come
Speaker 1: to my camp and fall Out seventy six, Joe, and
Speaker 1: you will find several of them growing. Okay, you're doing
Speaker 1: a lot of agriculture there, well, you know, just enough
Speaker 1: for crafting purposes. Yes, I recall some funny dynamics in
Speaker 1: in the followed games where you could you could essentially,
Speaker 1: you know, you'd have a problem where you weren't generating
Speaker 1: enough food for your settlement and you could solve that
Speaker 1: just by just by growing watermelons exclusively. So you know, well,
Speaker 1: ye know its supposed to apocalyptic days, so you know,
Speaker 1: you get what you get and you don't pitch a fit, right,
Speaker 1: I guess. So. Our next message comes from long time
Speaker 1: correspondent Jim in New Jersey, who has something to add
Speaker 1: on basically the same topic that that ian raised here,
Speaker 1: but goes into more mysterious detail. Yeah, so, Jim rights.
Speaker 1: Your tomato podcast reminded me of something a little unusual
Speaker 1: from The Medical Detectives, which is an anthology of true
Speaker 1: medical mystery articles originally published in The New Yorker. Spoiler alert,
Speaker 1: I'm going to reveal the main details of the story,
Speaker 1: but since the article was published fifty five years ago,
Speaker 1: I think it's okay to root. The article tells the
Speaker 1: story of a family living on a tobacco farm in
Speaker 1: Tennessee who became extremely ill after a meal in late
Speaker 1: October nineteen. The meal consisted of split peace soup, spaghetti
Speaker 1: with meat sauce, sliced tomatoes, sweetbread, and corn bread. Their
Speaker 1: symptoms were so bad that they sought medical help. They
Speaker 1: were flailing their limbs and hallucinating the e er. Doctors
Speaker 1: ruled out tobacco voicing just from handling it in the barns.
Speaker 1: They suspected batchel um, but their symptoms were more severe
Speaker 1: than bacheli is um. Toxicology reports were normal. The article
Speaker 1: then spends a pator to describing Jimson weed, which is
Speaker 1: also in the nightshade family. Along the tomatoes and tobacco.
Speaker 1: Jimson weed causes the symptoms they were experiencing, but they
Speaker 1: didn't eat any gimpson weed. The mystery continues. Jimson weed
Speaker 1: is hardy, and it and withstand the first several frosts
Speaker 1: of fall. The husband had grafted a tomato plant onto
Speaker 1: a jimson weed to extend his tomato season. They had
Speaker 1: eaten the first tomato of that graft in late October.
Speaker 1: When asked how he came up with the idea, he
Speaker 1: said a neighbor had been doing it for years. The neighbor,
Speaker 1: who had not gotten nil grafted his tomato plants on
Speaker 1: the base of the jimson lead. The man who had
Speaker 1: gotten sick grafted his on the branches of the jimson weed.
Speaker 1: The article isn't definitive, but it suggests that the graft
Speaker 1: with more jimson weed produced more toxins that found their
Speaker 1: way into the tomatoes than the graft with less jimson weed.
Speaker 1: The other farmer could have been more tolerant to the toxins, too,
Speaker 1: so this is interesting. Oh. One thing that's worth noting,
Speaker 1: I guess we didn't say this is that Jimson weed
Speaker 1: is an example of or I guess it's the same
Speaker 1: thing as to toura, the plant mentioned by Ian in
Speaker 1: the last article, and that so that you can graft
Speaker 1: them together and grow tomatoes that are edible. But it
Speaker 1: apparently depends on like where you grafted how much of
Speaker 1: the gymsum plant you use, so that could be the
Speaker 1: case with the tobacco tomato graft as well, but I
Speaker 1: guess we don't know for sure. By the way, I
Speaker 1: don't think we heard any heard from anybody about this,
Speaker 1: but just doing a quick search around, it looks like
Speaker 1: you could. Of course makes sense given the night shade family,
Speaker 1: but it looks like grafting can also take place between
Speaker 1: eggplants and tomatoes. O okay, eggmatoes or if you go
Speaker 1: with their more elegant name, all burmatoes either want to work. Yeah, alright,
Speaker 1: but that one all we we heard from a lot
Speaker 1: of people about tomatoes. Yeah, we also got a short
Speaker 1: message from June. June says, Hi, Robert and Joe, just
Speaker 1: listen to your Tomato part one episode. I love your
Speaker 1: show and completely agree with you about the superiority of
Speaker 1: fresh tomatoes over store bought tomatoes. But I had to
Speaker 1: write in in defense of the tomato horn worm. I
Speaker 1: know it's a crop pest, but it's also just a cute,
Speaker 1: chunky caterpillar and doesn't deserve its historic reputation as some
Speaker 1: kind grosser, poisonous worm. I still remember finding one on
Speaker 1: our tomato plants as a kid and being fascinated by
Speaker 1: seeing a caterpillar that big. Maybe this is my biologist
Speaker 1: side outweighing my gardener side, but I think they're pretty cool.
Speaker 1: Looking forward to part two, best June, Well, June, I
Speaker 1: hope you liked part two. I don't recall us really
Speaker 1: slandering the tobacco hornworm, except to note that what was
Speaker 1: historically said about it, right right, right? Um? I think
Speaker 1: we just said that to look kind of interesting and
Speaker 1: had kind of a gnarly looking horn. But yeah, it
Speaker 1: was the historical accounts that really there was one in particular,
Speaker 1: and I believe that was outlined in that that main
Speaker 1: tomato book that we were referring to, that that people
Speaker 1: were just so horrified by it that they considered just
Speaker 1: never eating tomatoes again, just abandoning their tomato garden and
Speaker 1: just surrendering it to these, uh, the these hordes, of
Speaker 1: weird creatures. I mean, it was enough to kind of
Speaker 1: make you wonder are they talking about the same organism
Speaker 1: or or perhaps they were dealing with just an excessive
Speaker 1: amount of them, because certainly one can see how one
Speaker 1: of these caterpillars might be interesting, whereas a whole writhing
Speaker 1: swarm of them might be enough to to to turn
Speaker 1: one's stomach. I don't know, all right. Here's another bit
Speaker 1: of a Tomato listener mail. This one comes to us
Speaker 1: from Kegan, Hi, Robert and Joe. It's been a bit
Speaker 1: since I've sent in some fan mail, but after hearing
Speaker 1: you two talk about how most kitchen knowledge is strange, hearsay,
Speaker 1: I simply had to write in, you may be interested
Speaker 1: in a cookbook that a friend of mine got for
Speaker 1: me recently. They may provide some illumination on the myths
Speaker 1: and misinformation that pervade typical kitchen knowledge. You actually mentioned
Speaker 1: the author In part two of the Tomato Tomato Episodes two,
Speaker 1: The Food Lab by j kim Ji Lopez alt Uh.
Speaker 1: He goes into full detail of how to prepare a
Speaker 1: lot of different meals, how to store food, and how
Speaker 1: to do basic kitchen tests, all enhanced by science He's
Speaker 1: done hundreds of tests on dozens of recipes and goes
Speaker 1: through a full explanation of the how and why as
Speaker 1: someone who wanted to learn cooking but also wanted to
Speaker 1: understand why I was doing the things I was doing
Speaker 1: so I could apply it to more than recipe. It's
Speaker 1: a lovely cookbook. Hope y'all are doing well, and I'm
Speaker 1: glad to hear Joe has jumped onto the D and
Speaker 1: D train recently. Sincerely, Kegan, Well, Keegan, I've got some
Speaker 1: news that may not be surprising. I actually owned this book,
Speaker 1: The Food Lab by j Ken g Lopez Alt. I've
Speaker 1: actually been following Kinji's recipes and and writing for years.
Speaker 1: He used to do a lot of writing for the
Speaker 1: website Serious Eats, and I love his approach. But yeah,
Speaker 1: because he does exactly what you're talking about. He doesn't
Speaker 1: just give you a recipe or tell you a technique
Speaker 1: to use. He explains why you do it, and and
Speaker 1: the why is actually informed by empirical testing, not just
Speaker 1: by you know, sort of received knowledge passed down from
Speaker 1: from cook to cook or chef to chef over the years. Because,
Speaker 1: as we said in the episode, that kind of received
Speaker 1: knowledge in fact, contains a lot of misinformation and stuff
Speaker 1: that isn't actually based on on anything empirical. It's just
Speaker 1: something somebody said at some point and now it's uh, now,
Speaker 1: it's just how you do it. A lot of a
Speaker 1: lot of times you don't have to do it that way.
Speaker 1: H Well, my approach is more, uh, mine is not
Speaker 1: to question Martha why mine is about to do and die.
Speaker 1: I just I just do what Martha says, and it
Speaker 1: tends to work out pretty well. Well. I think he
Speaker 1: can points out a very important reason though, to learn why,
Speaker 1: which is that learning the why of of things you
Speaker 1: do in the kitchen makes you a more versatile cooks.
Speaker 1: It makes you less shackled to individual recipes because once
Speaker 1: you understand the reason for doing something, you understand now,
Speaker 1: oh okay, this technique can be applied to this other
Speaker 1: type of dish or this other type of preparation, or
Speaker 1: that it can't and why. Yeah, this is true. And
Speaker 1: I I kid, I do. I do love some robust
Speaker 1: instructions that I can follow to the letter. But I
Speaker 1: I have gotten to the point where, yeah, I I
Speaker 1: understand some of the things enough to where I can
Speaker 1: I can be a little bit flexible, Like if I
Speaker 1: want to cut a little time off, I can realize, oh,
Speaker 1: I could do this instead, or I can bust out,
Speaker 1: you know, I can bust out the insta pot here
Speaker 1: because I'm doing the same thing that that she's asking
Speaker 1: me to do, et cetera. Now you've inspired a question
Speaker 1: that has nothing to do with any of what we
Speaker 1: were just talking about. But it's that you call it
Speaker 1: an insta pot. I call it an insta pot. Everybody
Speaker 1: I know calls it an insta pot. But it's not
Speaker 1: called an insta pot. It's an instant pot. And nobody
Speaker 1: says the T at the end of the first word,
Speaker 1: why is that? Is it Instagram or something like? That?
Speaker 1: Is just like causing us to leap over that letter.
Speaker 1: Oh really is it not called it is? Cause, yeah,
Speaker 1: you're right, it's an instant pot, not an insta pot.
Speaker 1: I don't know who the heck says instant pot. Nobody
Speaker 1: says that it's the Instagram of pots the world cross huh,
Speaker 1: surely they've they've copyrighted insta pot as well. Just realizing
Speaker 1: that's what everybody calls it is. It's a strange case
Speaker 1: because a lot of times you see people using the
Speaker 1: specific brand name for something as the generic name. But
Speaker 1: in this case, everybody's referring to it as a thing
Speaker 1: that as if this is the the specific product name.
Speaker 1: But it's not, like I don't think I've realized it.
Speaker 1: They'll just now. It's as if the generic term for
Speaker 1: bandages had become band aid or the generic term for
Speaker 1: tissues had become clear X. Yeah, I can't think of
Speaker 1: another case exactly like this. This is interesting. All right, Well,
Speaker 1: I guess we're gonna jump onto email that we got
Speaker 1: in response to the horned helm episodes. Now, the context
Speaker 1: that this email I think is responding to specifically was
Speaker 1: a biological portion where we were looking for examples of
Speaker 1: animals that build some form of helmet or horned helmet.
Speaker 1: One was a type of caterpillar that would stack old
Speaker 1: parts of its exoskeleton on top of its head and
Speaker 1: so form a little hat there. But we also talked
Speaker 1: about catas flies. Catasflies aren't or is fly larvae to
Speaker 1: be specific. Uh, the cats fly isn't a perfect example
Speaker 1: because it doesn't really seem to be a helmet that
Speaker 1: goes on its head, but it does create a hard
Speaker 1: surface that it lives inside. It's really more of a
Speaker 1: kind of a rock diaper than a helmet. I guess
Speaker 1: not even necessarily rock, just materials from its environment reinforced
Speaker 1: with silk. But anyway, Taylor writes in and says, hey,
Speaker 1: Robert and Joe Taylor again, longtime fan and now frequent correspondent.
Speaker 1: I was listening to part one of your horned Helm
Speaker 1: duo today and took a fence on behalf of Catis
Speaker 1: fly larvae everywhere when Robert expressed that they look a
Speaker 1: little trashy. Robert, I usually respect your instincts, but after
Speaker 1: spending several months last year netting cats fly larvae out
Speaker 1: of local creeks for entomological study, I have to see
Speaker 1: if I can change your mind. Cats Flies aren't picky architects.
Speaker 1: They work with the materials available to them, and it's
Speaker 1: true that the cases they make out of mud sticks
Speaker 1: and plant awful aren't much to look at. But if
Speaker 1: provided with the proper materials, the catisfly larva is an
Speaker 1: absolute artist. When catisflies spawn in clear rivers with a
Speaker 1: lot of minuscule rocks, the cases they make look like
Speaker 1: mosaics carried on their backs, and with the right patron
Speaker 1: the catisfly can really shine. There are artisans who rear
Speaker 1: catisfly larvae in pools they've littered with gyms, pearls, and
Speaker 1: gold shavings to make jewelry. The catisflies do as their
Speaker 1: want to do and spin beautiful cases from their sponsors materials.
Speaker 1: When the catisflyes mature, they abandoned these bejeweled cases for
Speaker 1: the artist to collect. The abandoned catosfly cases are then
Speaker 1: sealed with resin and sold as ear rings or necklace pendants.
Speaker 1: Depending on the materials used. This jewelry can sell for
Speaker 1: hundreds or even thousands of dollars. I've included a few
Speaker 1: images here for you to check out and describe to
Speaker 1: your listeners if you'd like. The first is of a
Speaker 1: catasfly collected from the wild, and the second of one
Speaker 1: reared by jeweler. If you search for cattisfly jewelry online,
Speaker 1: you can find hundreds of designs people have collaborated on
Speaker 1: with these tiny trichopterans. As always, I love your show
Speaker 1: and I'm immensely grateful for the weird and wonderful content
Speaker 1: you continue to entertain and educate me with. I've been
Speaker 1: pretty isolated during this pandemic, and it's nice to have
Speaker 1: your voices in my ears as I'm painting or doing
Speaker 1: any number of more monotonous things throughout the day. Thanks again,
Speaker 1: and I hope I've changed your minds about the catasifly well,
Speaker 1: thank you, Taylor. Yeah, I would say my mind is
Speaker 1: is definitely changed on these guys. I'm looking I looked
Speaker 1: at the images that that they sent in. I'm also
Speaker 1: looking at an article on this is Colossal dot com
Speaker 1: um from two thousand fourteen titled artist Hubert Dupratt collaborates
Speaker 1: with Cattis fly larvae as they build aquatic cocoons from
Speaker 1: golden pearls. And this is a really cool article. Is
Speaker 1: some nice high quality images and even um an animated
Speaker 1: jeff of of the catisified building the cocoon of bits
Speaker 1: of gold leaf. And yeah, the results are really impressive.
Speaker 1: It's a it's a it's an fascinating idea for a
Speaker 1: collaboration between larva and artist. And the results do have
Speaker 1: this weird, yeah, this is very weird organic quality to
Speaker 1: them while still being made out of these um you know,
Speaker 1: these materials that humans consider precious. I can just imagine
Speaker 1: some high society function where you're admiring someone's ear rings
Speaker 1: and they're like, ah, yes, this was a butt sack
Speaker 1: made by the larvae of an insect. You know what
Speaker 1: it reminds me of as well is the the the
Speaker 1: golden scales of small the dragon from the Hobbit. You know,
Speaker 1: he's supposed to have all the gold that's become embedded
Speaker 1: uh in his otherwise vulnerable belly. Uh. This this kind
Speaker 1: of has that kind of feel to it right here.
Speaker 1: All right, now, let's get to the nail based content.
Speaker 1: Man Carney is shaking with delight. There are just nails
Speaker 1: pouring off of him onto the floor. All right. This
Speaker 1: one comes to us from Ryan. Hello. I was compelled
Speaker 1: to write to you after listening to your podcast about fingernails,
Speaker 1: specifically about how to stop biting them. I'm in my
Speaker 1: late twenties and I have always bitten my nails, sometimes
Speaker 1: to the point where I get hangnails or have ingrown
Speaker 1: nails as well. Last year I got married and wanted
Speaker 1: to make sure my fingernails looked nice in case there
Speaker 1: were close up photos of my hands for the ring.
Speaker 1: This may not work for everyone, but it worked for me.
Speaker 1: I did a bit of research and I think I
Speaker 1: ended up using something similar to CBT. The nail biting
Speaker 1: was a habit, something I did without thinking, so I
Speaker 1: had to make myself think about it. What worked for
Speaker 1: me was apologizing to my nails every time I caught
Speaker 1: myself chewing them. This trained me to interrupt the automatic action,
Speaker 1: and it was surprisingly effective. Of course, as stress was
Speaker 1: one of my triggers. The end of the world as
Speaker 1: we know it in has caused me to relapse, But
Speaker 1: at least I know that when I have the mental
Speaker 1: energy to conquer this habit again, I know it's doable.
Speaker 1: As a side note, I was also intrigued about the
Speaker 1: notion that usage of a finger makes the nail grow faster.
Speaker 1: I noticed that once I stopped chewing and started trimming
Speaker 1: my nails, I seem to need to trim them fairly frequently,
Speaker 1: more so than my partner did. I wonder if the
Speaker 1: additional war of decades of chewing encourage faster than average
Speaker 1: nail growth. In any case, thank you for the many
Speaker 1: episodes of thoughtful and insightful discussion. I always enjoy seeing
Speaker 1: this podcast pop up in my feed with thanks Ryan
Speaker 1: M Well, thanks for getting in touch Ryan. I actually
Speaker 1: I don't know if the terminal trauma explanation for the
Speaker 1: rate of finger nail growth would have lingering effects, like
Speaker 1: after the terminal trauma has stopped, even if you know,
Speaker 1: even if you've been doing it for years. The stuff
Speaker 1: I was reading was about, like, what's happening to your
Speaker 1: fingers while the nail is growing so concurrent with the growth.
Speaker 1: But uh, it's possible. I don't know. That's an interesting question. Okay,
Speaker 1: question should we read this one from Brittany or will
Speaker 1: this make people stop listening to the episode? And maybe
Speaker 1: we we will give a quick warning, give us, give
Speaker 1: us a minute to read this and discuss it. But
Speaker 1: if you don't want to hear anything about nail trauma um,
Speaker 1: then you can just have just skip over this next
Speaker 1: bit of listener mail and come back in on the
Speaker 1: next topic. Okay, this is from Brittany. Brittany says, Dear
Speaker 1: Robert and Joe. When I was twelve, I managed to
Speaker 1: get a fairly big piece of wood stuck under the
Speaker 1: nail of my left middle finger. I remember it being
Speaker 1: very painful, it felt like my entire heart was beating
Speaker 1: in that one spot, but also very interesting to look at.
Speaker 1: The school nurse didn't have tweezers, so she used nail
Speaker 1: clippers to fish it out. It took a good while
Speaker 1: to heal, and whenever any kind of torture involving something
Speaker 1: being shoved under the nail is mentioned, I can only
Speaker 1: feel the greatest sympathy having experienced a small taste of
Speaker 1: it myself. Thanks for the great show, Brittany. Uh. The
Speaker 1: thing that really stuck out to me about this was
Speaker 1: the sensation of having your entire heart beating in that
Speaker 1: one spot. It's like a throbbing that becomes a whole
Speaker 1: body sensation. That's oh man, that's powerful. No that um,
Speaker 1: I can definitely relate to that from not identical nail trauma,
Speaker 1: but some nail issues I had, you know, a decade
Speaker 1: or so ago, where like you, the the the amount
Speaker 1: of sensation that you feel like um in an ingrown
Speaker 1: toenail can be such that it does feel like all
Speaker 1: of your nerves are centered on that one spot. You
Speaker 1: know that this is the epicenter of all nervous activity
Speaker 1: in your body, and I guess to a certain extent
Speaker 1: it is at that point. Okay, should we put the
Speaker 1: nail nightmares behind us? Yes? We should, and as a
Speaker 1: as a kind of palate cleanser. We're gonna take a
Speaker 1: quick break, but when we come back, we have all
Speaker 1: new listener mail to listen to on a variety of
Speaker 1: different topics. Alright, we're back. Oh. It seems during the
Speaker 1: break Carney has undergone a transformation. What is happening here?
Speaker 1: It appears, And I'm no expert on this sort of thing.
Speaker 1: I didn't follow him around, but I think he fell
Speaker 1: into a pit of snakes and has emerged with us,
Speaker 1: with snakes sleeping through the winter inside him, uh, using
Speaker 1: his his body as a broommation chamber. So um, he's
Speaker 1: quite a site to behold. So what was once a
Speaker 1: creature of nails is now a creature of snakes. Welcome back,
Speaker 1: snake bought. Okay, So this first message comes to us
Speaker 1: from David. It was about our episode on pie crete.
Speaker 1: We actually got to hear from a structural engineer. That's right.
Speaker 1: David writes in and says, hello, guys, I listened with
Speaker 1: interest to your recent episode on pie crete. The description
Speaker 1: of reinforced ice made me think of the more recent
Speaker 1: practice of fiber reinforced concrete with either steel or plastic
Speaker 1: fibers as a structural engineer. The description of the properties
Speaker 1: of ice, including creep, mirrors those of concrete. I wonder
Speaker 1: whether the experiments with pike crete was a precursor to
Speaker 1: concrete fiber technology and to some extent, uh similar fiber
Speaker 1: reinforcements such as fiberglass and f RP plastic. So in
Speaker 1: that way, could we say that Jeffrey Pike was a
Speaker 1: pioneer of fiber reinforcement technology and engineering. David, that's a
Speaker 1: good question, though. I don't think the innovation of putting
Speaker 1: the wood pulp inside the ice came from Pike himself.
Speaker 1: That came from I believe some researchers in the Eastern
Speaker 1: United States out of was it Brooklyn, Brooklyn Polytechnic. It
Speaker 1: was something like that. But anyway, Pike had the idea
Speaker 1: brought to him and then he picked up on it.
Speaker 1: But uh, yeah, good enough, close enough, right, Yeah, Now
Speaker 1: it does make me wonder, Okay, if we're talking about
Speaker 1: this sort of composite material, then you know where do
Speaker 1: we rank various paper innovations. Uh, not not nearly paper itself,
Speaker 1: but take for instance, paper mache, which is, you know,
Speaker 1: a composite material that has paper pieces or pulp sometimes
Speaker 1: textiles bound up with an adhesive. And and this of
Speaker 1: course has been around for quite some time. I believe that,
Speaker 1: you know, we've discussed some very old versions of this
Speaker 1: um in UM what uh mezzo and uh South America.
Speaker 1: I think it dates back to you to use in
Speaker 1: ancient Egypt and in China as well. UM So I
Speaker 1: would I guess I would be hesitant to give Pipe
Speaker 1: too much credit in terms of just overall composite material engineering.
Speaker 1: But you absolutely got to give him outside the box thinker.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah, still a fascinating individual who came up
Speaker 1: with some pretty interesting ideas. All right. We got some
Speaker 1: messages in response to a Vault episode that aired recently,
Speaker 1: the one about school dreams, you know, the recurring dream
Speaker 1: where you have to go back and take the Russian
Speaker 1: calculus test. Some of the messages were in response to
Speaker 1: a question we asked at the end of the episode
Speaker 1: about um whether people still have school dreams if they
Speaker 1: had experiences other than just going up graduating from high
Speaker 1: school and then maybe going on to college. If people
Speaker 1: had dropped out of school at an earlier age, or
Speaker 1: had something else going on in their lives at that time,
Speaker 1: if they were home schooled. How did that affect their
Speaker 1: propensity for school dreams? And so k log gets in
Speaker 1: touch with us to say Hi, Joe and Robert. I
Speaker 1: missed the school dreams episode the first time around and
Speaker 1: was really intrigued to see it pop up. I knew
Speaker 1: that many people experienced school dreams, but I assumed mine
Speaker 1: were unusual because of my background. Due to homelessness and
Speaker 1: a number of family issues, I dropped out of high
Speaker 1: school during my freshman year and got my g E D.
Speaker 1: I only ever went to high school classes sporadically over
Speaker 1: a period of a few months. I had the added
Speaker 1: misfortune of having to change schools three times in this
Speaker 1: short period. I'm thirty now, putting my high school experience
Speaker 1: fifteen years ago. I didn't start having school dreams until
Speaker 1: my mid twenties, when I started having them all the time.
Speaker 1: I was surprised to find that the basic premise of
Speaker 1: my dreams was so common. I find myself at my
Speaker 1: first high school on the last day of the school year.
Speaker 1: I panic, realizing there's a class I haven't attended all year.
Speaker 1: I remember that I couldn't find the classroom on my
Speaker 1: first day and was too afraid to ask anyone. I
Speaker 1: wander through a maze of high school frantically searching for
Speaker 1: this class. It occurs to me that the teacher had
Speaker 1: gone out of their way to give a second chance
Speaker 1: to finish school, making me feel extremely guilty for letting
Speaker 1: them down. These dreams almost always end with me finding
Speaker 1: a huge glass door and leaving the building, trying to
Speaker 1: get away without being noticed. I'm on the fence about
Speaker 1: dream interpretation, but it's so interesting how these things can
Speaker 1: tie folks of all different backgrounds together. I associate these
Speaker 1: dreams most closely with my general feelings of anxiety and
Speaker 1: how it affected my life at different times. It's worth
Speaker 1: mentioning that I generally don't regret or feel bad about
Speaker 1: having dropped out. I went down a different path, but
Speaker 1: it worked for me and I have a great life
Speaker 1: now with a family and career. I just wanted to
Speaker 1: share to hopefully answer some of those questions. Love the podcast,
Speaker 1: Please keep quality dream related content coming, Kayla, Oh, that's interesting.
Speaker 1: As a side note, I recently had a school dream again,
Speaker 1: and one of the amusing things about it is that
Speaker 1: in the school dream, it had been updated for the
Speaker 1: COVID era because I was I was it had to
Speaker 1: do with stress over um dialing into my classes, into
Speaker 1: my college classes and attending them virtually, and I forget
Speaker 1: I've already forgotten the details of it, if I was
Speaker 1: having trouble connecting or or if I had forgotten the class,
Speaker 1: you know, that old trope. But but still it was
Speaker 1: it was amusing that that had been updated for like
Speaker 1: COVID error class anxiety, despite that having obviously never been
Speaker 1: my experience going to school in the past. I don't
Speaker 1: know if it was like a combination of like my
Speaker 1: son's experiences right now zooming into classes combined with my own,
Speaker 1: uh you know, college error anxiety about missing the classes.
Speaker 1: I don't know, but it was. It was. It was amusing,
Speaker 1: but also yeah, also I guess kind of frustrating to
Speaker 1: where you're like, come on, dream world, is is there
Speaker 1: nothing better we can have than just a timely updated
Speaker 1: version of the tired old school dream. Uh? Yeah, that
Speaker 1: that seems like a kind of thing that normally happens,
Speaker 1: where a lot of times people bring current relationships and
Speaker 1: drama to their school dreams. So it's like I was
Speaker 1: at school, I was missing a you know, I hadn't
Speaker 1: prepared for a test, but also my current co workers
Speaker 1: were there with me, and whatever kind of drama you've
Speaker 1: got going on with them was the background of it.
Speaker 1: But life, life changes, but the school dreams there there forever.
Speaker 1: But this next message has a very interesting variation, Robert,
Speaker 1: you want to read this one from James. Yeah, James writes,
Speaker 1: I think I have an interesting perspective on the idea
Speaker 1: of dreams, not from any research perspective. I'm a high
Speaker 1: school and college graduate and my main job is a
Speaker 1: fireman and a paramedic. I did start this job in
Speaker 1: my early twenties, so I can't speak to dreams coming
Speaker 1: from your twenties memory bias. That being said, I never
Speaker 1: have school dreams, at least none that I can remember.
Speaker 1: I do have work dreams relatively often. All of these
Speaker 1: are ridiculous, as ridiculous as Russian calculus, but they're all that.
Speaker 1: They are related to just how often things can go
Speaker 1: wrong on the job. For example, just last night, I,
Speaker 1: by serendipity remember a dream about VTAC. I'm not going
Speaker 1: to get into the totality of the dream. However, the
Speaker 1: biggest point that stuck with me was that I occluded
Speaker 1: an I v this if you're unfamiliar is a process
Speaker 1: of stopping blood from flowing out of an ivy prior
Speaker 1: to the tubing uh being attached to the hub Um.
Speaker 1: I don't know what you're talking about, but I'll let
Speaker 1: you care you h. It is also something I was
Speaker 1: initially bad at during my training. Anecdotally, I would argue,
Speaker 1: because my job is high stress and intensely chaotic, this
Speaker 1: outweighs the stress I would have felt in college or
Speaker 1: high school, neither of which I remember as particularly stressful.
Speaker 1: So I dream of fire and emergency medical calls gone wrong,
Speaker 1: or just being off kilter, rather than giving speeches in
Speaker 1: my underwear. Sincerely, James, Yeah, that's interesting. I mean it
Speaker 1: does sound very much like the school dream dynamic, except
Speaker 1: it's not about school. It's about this other kind of
Speaker 1: institutional challenge that you're repeatedly facing day after day in
Speaker 1: your early adulthood. But that's not all. James also had
Speaker 1: something to contribute to our discussion of snakes. Would you
Speaker 1: like to take this next part? Joe? Sure. James adds
Speaker 1: thoughts about the snake Pit episodes and a separate email,
Speaker 1: and this was regarding the liver fascination. Remember in the
Speaker 1: episode we talked about all the different myths where the
Speaker 1: people would be attacked by snakes, and then it would say,
Speaker 1: and the snake was eating his liver, or the snake
Speaker 1: was biting him right on the liver. And then we
Speaker 1: related this to other strange stories of monsters attacking people
Speaker 1: in the liver, the eagle attacking Prometheus's liver, the Kappa
Speaker 1: trying to pull out your liver through your anus. What's
Speaker 1: going on here? James has a thought. James says, if
Speaker 1: you look at most predators eating, their initial attack is
Speaker 1: normally towards the stomach or abdomen. I'm now, I'm not
Speaker 1: saying these animals are first going after the liver, if
Speaker 1: I remember correctly, thereafter the guts to obtain plant nutrients
Speaker 1: while it's still freshen the gut. However, from an observation
Speaker 1: deduction mindset, I would feel it's easy for an ancient
Speaker 1: observer to think that the animal is after the liver,
Speaker 1: being the liver is the largest and most prominent abdominal
Speaker 1: organ as. Always keep up the good work, sincerely, James.
Speaker 1: I don't know if I'd ever heard that rationale for
Speaker 1: why predators very often attack the abdomen first. I think
Speaker 1: that is true that after a predator is made to kill,
Speaker 1: they start eating at the abdomen. But but I've never
Speaker 1: heard that it was to obtain plant nutrients from the
Speaker 1: prey animals digestive system. I'll have to look into that,
Speaker 1: but that does sound plausible at least. All right, well,
Speaker 1: we're we're we're wading into the snakes now. We're about
Speaker 1: an ankle deep at least, so we're going to continue.
Speaker 1: Here is another bit of listener mail. This came to
Speaker 1: us from Matt. Hey, guys, a longtime listener, first time writer.
Speaker 1: Just finished the Snake pin I mean Din episode, and
Speaker 1: I loved hearing you talk about narciss I live in Manitoba,
Speaker 1: just north of Winnipeg and east of narciss but I
Speaker 1: took a road trip there a few years ago. It
Speaker 1: was early in the season, so the snakes weren't super crazy,
Speaker 1: but what a cool experience kids running around catching snakes,
Speaker 1: writhing balls of snakes in the dens. Uh. Their their
Speaker 1: color is such that at first glance you don't think
Speaker 1: there's that many in the pit, but then your eyes
Speaker 1: start picking out more and more areas of movement. The
Speaker 1: sound description is accurate at Persistent Wrestling. My photos suck,
Speaker 1: as everything is just all earth colors. But here's a
Speaker 1: photo of a statue in Narciss. Uh right, you're right
Speaker 1: that the town is really just a few houses, and
Speaker 1: he includes this image of this um this really fabulous
Speaker 1: fulsa doom esque sculpture that they have there of these
Speaker 1: uh kind of writhing arching like what gold and green
Speaker 1: snakes on top of a rock pile. I guess they're
Speaker 1: supposed to be the garter snakes that that gather there
Speaker 1: at the dens, but you know, obviously they're a little
Speaker 1: bit bigger. And what I think is funny is that
Speaker 1: this statue has inverted the dynamic the snakes come to
Speaker 1: the Narciss area because there are sinkholes and pits and
Speaker 1: and you know, holes in the limestone that are good
Speaker 1: for them to to broomate in. But this puts them
Speaker 1: atop a mountain of stone. It's a total of vertical
Speaker 1: inversion of the snake dynamic. Yeah, absolutely, but and I
Speaker 1: do say it does sort of demand worship as well.
Speaker 1: What is the answer to the riddle of snakes? Also,
Speaker 1: Matt was not the only Manitoba listener we heard from.
Speaker 1: Becca got In touch, and I just want to read
Speaker 1: an excerpt from her email. Here, she says that she
Speaker 1: loved that we mentioned that Manitoba snake pits are the
Speaker 1: largest in the world, and she goes on, I don't
Speaker 1: know how that's possible, but how excited I was to
Speaker 1: hear that you have no idea. Finally I have something
Speaker 1: I can contribute to. It really is a nice Mother's
Speaker 1: day activity. It's a really small circular hike, approximately the
Speaker 1: size of a football field. I guess the pits are
Speaker 1: guarded by a fence, but the snakes often slither across
Speaker 1: the track, so you have to walk slow. They are
Speaker 1: very docile and in my experiences, don't seem to mind
Speaker 1: being picked up. It really is like a huge writhing swarm.
Speaker 1: I don't know if I've ever are picked up on
Speaker 1: the noise, but there is usually a lot of background
Speaker 1: noise going around. When I saw the movie Annihilation and
Speaker 1: saw the intestine scene, my first thought was, that's like
Speaker 1: the snake pits. Um and Becca attaches some photos for
Speaker 1: us to look at, So yeah, thanks for getting in touch, Becca.
Speaker 1: All right, on that note, we're going to take one
Speaker 1: more break, but when we come back more Listener mail,
Speaker 1: thank thank you, thank you. All right, we're back now.
Speaker 1: A number of listeners wrote in on our episode on
Speaker 1: the spotlight effect. Remember the effect that essentially finds that
Speaker 1: people think other people are paying more attention to them
Speaker 1: and noticing more about them than they actually are. So
Speaker 1: it's quite ironic that the next bit of listener mail
Speaker 1: is another one from Jim in New Jersey. So, so, Jim,
Speaker 1: please don't make we hope we're not encouraging spotlight effect
Speaker 1: by reading a nun another one of your emails, or
Speaker 1: that we're not getting into it by thinking that Jim
Speaker 1: only thinks about our show and right there all the time.
Speaker 1: I mean, Jim is prolific. What can you do? So,
Speaker 1: Jim says Robert and Joe, I think the spotlight effect
Speaker 1: can be summed up in this quote for which I
Speaker 1: can't find the source. Everyone is the star of their
Speaker 1: own movie. Yeah. I think that's about right, Jim. Uh So,
Speaker 1: he says, I don't think it's unreasonable for children and
Speaker 1: young adults to be subjected to the spotlight effect through
Speaker 1: the first twenty or so years of their lives. There's
Speaker 1: almost always a set of adults watching much of what
Speaker 1: children do. Whether it's parents, family members, friends, teachers, etcetera.
Speaker 1: Why wouldn't they think they're the center of attention? They
Speaker 1: often are. Now, this is very interesting because some of
Speaker 1: the psychologists that we were talking about in an episode
Speaker 1: highlighted the fact that the spotlight effect is especially pronounced
Speaker 1: among you know, teenagers, And Yeah, it makes me wonder
Speaker 1: is is that something natural about the brain as it develops.
Speaker 1: Would would it be that way no matter what was
Speaker 1: going on in the culture around them? Or is it
Speaker 1: because you know, by teenage years, you are used to
Speaker 1: actually being the center of attention for so much of
Speaker 1: your life. Yeah, I don't know, you know. It also
Speaker 1: reminds me of something that came up recently about the podcast.
Speaker 1: On the podcast, but I don't know if it was
Speaker 1: in this episode where we we briefly discussed the the
Speaker 1: idea that was certainly written about by iliad A, but
Speaker 1: the the idea that that that, especially older cultures, that
Speaker 1: anything you did was only meaningful insomuch as it um
Speaker 1: you know, went through the paces of some mythic trope. Uh,
Speaker 1: and you could you could sort of explain that as
Speaker 1: well as as being a statement of of the things
Speaker 1: I do are only important if they are doing the
Speaker 1: sort of things that that central characters and other stories
Speaker 1: do you know, Uh so I could see that kind
Speaker 1: of um process playing into uh this. Everyone is a
Speaker 1: star in their own moody or in their own narrative thing.
Speaker 1: Jim goes on, I noticed the spotlight effect in US politics,
Speaker 1: but I'm sure it applies to other countries politics as well.
Speaker 1: It's very prominent during congressional hearings when members of Congress
Speaker 1: interrogate those who have been called in. From what I've seen,
Speaker 1: they are there to present more than to listen. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I do think that's often the case. You see what
Speaker 1: is ostensibly supposed to be you know, the member of
Speaker 1: Congress is supposed to be acting like a prosecutor, acquiring
Speaker 1: information or listening testimony from the witness. Very often they're
Speaker 1: clearly just performing to to create an impression about themselves.
Speaker 1: As for feeling less self conscious about something, I think
Speaker 1: a new hairstyle is a good example. My wife's stylist
Speaker 1: might cut her hair much shorter than my wife desired.
Speaker 1: She often feels very self conscious about it, but in
Speaker 1: a day or two she doesn't even notice it. I
Speaker 1: don't have bad hair days myself, since I support the
Speaker 1: same head style as Jonathan Strickland. Uh, that's our that's
Speaker 1: our colleague on tech stuff. That means not having hair.
Speaker 1: And then Jim finally finishes with the PostScript, saying, I
Speaker 1: just subscribed to Netflix about two months ago during COVID,
Speaker 1: and I'm working my way through Black Mirror. Jim, take
Speaker 1: it slow, don't don't get too down in the dumps.
Speaker 1: It's it's it's it's a tough time for that kind
Speaker 1: of a. Yeah, totally, we're living in a Black Mirror
Speaker 1: episode already. But but Jim says, uh, finally, I saw
Speaker 1: metal Head last week, so I knew the tree climbing
Speaker 1: robot dogs reference. I don't remember when we reference that,
Speaker 1: but but good on you, Jim. Yeah, yeah, that's a that.
Speaker 1: That is a terrifying episode, but probably probably one of
Speaker 1: my favorites. All Right, we have another one here. This
Speaker 1: one comes to us from Matt Hi, Robert and Joe.
Speaker 1: Glad you're both able to stay safe and produce amazing
Speaker 1: content from the comfort of your respective bunkers. In your
Speaker 1: recent episode about the spotlight effect, you mentioned playing d
Speaker 1: and d over zoom and it being exhausting. I may
Speaker 1: have a few suggestions to hell. Number one, it's possible
Speaker 1: to hide the self view on Zoom. It's in the
Speaker 1: menu that appears after clicking on the three little dots
Speaker 1: when you hover over your portrait. I find it helps.
Speaker 1: Number two, A D and D campaign seems like a
Speaker 1: perfect opportunity to have the players use their character avatars.
Speaker 1: Under settings, you can select a virtual background to use
Speaker 1: for the call, but if you cover your webcam, you disappear.
Speaker 1: But the background doesn't have each player put a picture
Speaker 1: of their character or reasonable facts. Simile as the vertue
Speaker 1: their virtual background and then close the webcam, then nobody
Speaker 1: has to feel like they are in the spotlight. Maybe
Speaker 1: the d M has an image of a formless evil
Speaker 1: presence or something. Now the question becomes, will you still
Speaker 1: be tempted to stare at your avatar or will you
Speaker 1: need to hide that as well? Stay safe, Matt, Well,
Speaker 1: I think these are some of these are some great tricks. Uh.
Speaker 1: You know, this email came in I think before my
Speaker 1: most recent session, and I tried to do some of
Speaker 1: these things, but then I realized, oh, we don't actually
Speaker 1: use Zoom for this, We use um, Google meat or
Speaker 1: something like that. And I'm even less sure how to
Speaker 1: pull the different various bells and whistles on that one. Um,
Speaker 1: but I I like the idea, yeah, of making myself
Speaker 1: go away and replacing it with my character's image, as
Speaker 1: that would be more immersive because when we're playing, I
Speaker 1: don't know. I I'm at the point with with with
Speaker 1: the doing remote d n D where a lot of
Speaker 1: the things that are difficult about it are really starting
Speaker 1: to to grind me down. I'm really missing the the
Speaker 1: physical hangout aspect of playing. And the part that I
Speaker 1: enjoy the most is, you know, getting immersive and being
Speaker 1: a character, um, being my character through the through the
Speaker 1: interface and something like that sounds like it would be
Speaker 1: a good tool to use. I think this is about
Speaker 1: a shattering on TV that pre dates Terminator too. Yeah,
Speaker 1: this is exciting this because this because my part of
Speaker 1: my whole theory was, and I still stand by this,
Speaker 1: that Terminator to gave us a shattering scene that had
Speaker 1: a huge impact on other sci fi movies and TV shows,
Speaker 1: and everybody wanted to do the same gimmick and use
Speaker 1: the same technology. Um. However, they do not seem to
Speaker 1: be the first. Carrie writes in and says hi gentlemen,
Speaker 1: love your show. I'm a truck driver and ing a
Speaker 1: lot of podcast and other audio formats. Just wanted to
Speaker 1: throw in a scene from a two part mini series.
Speaker 1: I think V from nineteen eighty three. Now, I don't
Speaker 1: think i've ever seen V. I'm vaguely familiar with it.
Speaker 1: It's like an alien invasion show. Yes, starring Mark Singer
Speaker 1: from Beast Master. Yeah, he was in at least two
Speaker 1: episodes of it. I mean you got you got Andrew
Speaker 1: Prin in there as well. Um uh, it looks like
Speaker 1: an interesting cast. Robert England shows up. I've never seen it,
Speaker 1: but maybe I gotta look it up, all right. Carrie
Speaker 1: Continue is a character in that gets his forearm and
Speaker 1: hand frozen by liquid nitrogen and then breaks it off
Speaker 1: stumbling to safety. It's funny. I remember watching the entire series,
Speaker 1: but I only remember that reptile people and a woman
Speaker 1: with long black hair. I had to google it for
Speaker 1: the year. Keep up the good work. Your show is
Speaker 1: one of a few I have no problem real listening
Speaker 1: to Carrie Well, thanks Carry and now now I gotta
Speaker 1: check this out. It does look it looks like some
Speaker 1: early eighties TV production values magic and certainly it does
Speaker 1: push the timeline back further regarding the beginning of our
Speaker 1: liquid nitrogen obsession. So perhaps James Cameron had watched v
Speaker 1: and thought, that's pretty good. I could do something with that.
Speaker 1: Go whole body. You just do an arm that's weak.
Speaker 1: But now we've got homework for you. You listening out there,
Speaker 1: find us the earliest shattering of a human body on
Speaker 1: in film or in fiction. Where's where's the earliest one?
Speaker 1: I gotta know, Well, here's the other thing. It needs
Speaker 1: to be ice, because you will find precursors that are stone.
Speaker 1: Someone's turned to stone and then they shatter that way.
Speaker 1: But particularly I'm interested in ice, al right. Next you
Speaker 1: get a very brief note from Samantha. It just says,
Speaker 1: I just watched The Tingler. It was awesome. Thank you, Sammy. Yes, yeah,
Speaker 1: p s. I also went an alien slash Predator slash
Speaker 1: predd alien bing. I think she meant binge, but I
Speaker 1: liked being even better. I went on an alien bing
Speaker 1: and she says, y'all are rocking it. Well, thank you, Sammy.
Speaker 1: I'm I'm glad you liked The Tingler. Yeah. Anytime we
Speaker 1: can turn people onto high quality cinema, like this, I
Speaker 1: feel like we're doing our job right. What do we
Speaker 1: know about the Tinglas? Alright, here there's another one. This
Speaker 1: comes to us from August. Hello friends, a quick one.
Speaker 1: Just watch Star Wars episode one and the Clone Wars.
Speaker 1: So I think Robert mentioned doing the same. How about
Speaker 1: an episode about four armed beings? I'm thinking about the
Speaker 1: pod racer Gascano or the infamous General Palm Krell. Just
Speaker 1: a thought. Also love the pi Crete episode. More about materials.
Speaker 1: Please with love and admiration, August. Um, Yes, that's a
Speaker 1: great point about four armed beings. Um Joe, I don't know.
Speaker 1: I know you have. You haven't seen Clone Wars, but
Speaker 1: perhaps if you think back to um the movie Attack
Speaker 1: of the Clones, there's a scene where Obi Wan is
Speaker 1: in a in a diner meeting with the diner operator,
Speaker 1: and he is a four armed alien. He is a
Speaker 1: basal sick. I believe it's the name of the species. Wow. Yeah,
Speaker 1: oh no, I don't want to start a fight. I
Speaker 1: know that you're you're more of a prequel over now
Speaker 1: than I am. But I do recall thinking, mainly that
Speaker 1: that scene had some of the worst c G I
Speaker 1: I had ever seen in a major Motion picture. Uh
Speaker 1: that that creature was was a crime. Well, I think
Speaker 1: you're gonna anger the Scorpion King with words like that. Um. Regardless,
Speaker 1: the same species shows up in Clone Wars. There's this
Speaker 1: there's this awesome character named General Palm Krell and uh
Speaker 1: and he is a fourth sensitive individual of this species.
Speaker 1: He wields um I think dual double sided um lightsabers,
Speaker 1: and he's just an interesting character because um uh he's
Speaker 1: I think he's really the first Jedi that you encounter
Speaker 1: where you you begin to to uh to question his
Speaker 1: motivations and his devotion to the war. He's almost kind
Speaker 1: of a um, kind of a Kurts type character where
Speaker 1: you begin to to really um recoil from the way
Speaker 1: that he he treats the Clone troopers and how he's
Speaker 1: using them on the battlefield. It's a really that's a
Speaker 1: really great story arc with that character. I won't spoil
Speaker 1: anything for anybody, but that's that's one of the really
Speaker 1: good story arcs in the show. I looked up images
Speaker 1: and I will say this has the distinction of being
Speaker 1: the only character I've ever seen who looks like a
Speaker 1: really tough, bad dude but also has a throat sack
Speaker 1: like a frog, just a jelly inflatable throat sack. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's I feel like it's probably a really interesting design
Speaker 1: um choice on the makers of the Clone Wars part
Speaker 1: because they took a character that you know that was
Speaker 1: designed as like an alien just an alien diner operator
Speaker 1: and you know, um, and then they made they used
Speaker 1: that species as the template for a totally different style character.
Speaker 1: But it's still it works really well. It's like, could
Speaker 1: we make a like a tough, badass Jedi hut. Now
Speaker 1: back to the number of arms that I don't know
Speaker 1: we could put potential. It would be potentially interesting to
Speaker 1: get into the whole four armed multi armed uh uh discussion,
Speaker 1: because of course we could talk about Palm Crew. We
Speaker 1: could also talk about Goro uh we we've touched on before,
Speaker 1: and then you can get into various other multi armed
Speaker 1: entities from various mythologies. Uh uh. There's some really good
Speaker 1: ones out there. There's some some in Greek mythology with
Speaker 1: just way too many arms, as I recall what like
Speaker 1: hundred arms and so forth, Like how do you even
Speaker 1: how do you even use all those arms? I don't know.
Speaker 1: That's one of the things in ancient mythology and religion.
Speaker 1: That often strikes me as the strangest is uh, the
Speaker 1: creatures that are imagined having this great multiplicity of body parts,
Speaker 1: say the visions in the Book of Revelation with creatures
Speaker 1: with X many wings and x many heads, where at
Speaker 1: a certain point you just start imagining, I don't know
Speaker 1: how to even picture that or what those things would do.
Speaker 1: You know what, why why would you have ten wings?
Speaker 1: Would that be useful? Yeah? It tends to work so
Speaker 1: much better in my opinion anyway, with with with in
Speaker 1: Hindu iconography, because you have, first of all, a visual
Speaker 1: representation of what this multi armed form would look like.
Speaker 1: But then also it's it's obvious that the visual symbology
Speaker 1: is about um portraying aspects of this divine being, Like
Speaker 1: what are the things they are holding in their hands?
Speaker 1: And how many hands do they have to hold those things?
Speaker 1: And then what that does that say about the capabilities
Speaker 1: of the divine. It's a lot simpler with Goro. What
Speaker 1: is Goro holding his hands? Next? That's it? Right? Yeah?
Speaker 1: Or maybe like goblets? Right yeah? Goblets? And next that's it.
Speaker 1: Goro only drinks from goblets? Can you invite him over
Speaker 1: to your house. You offer him a mug of coffee.
Speaker 1: He's like, no, put it in a goblet. Okay. A
Speaker 1: couple more messages here, both related to Star Wars. This
Speaker 1: one is from Villain. Villain says, Hi, Robert and Joe.
Speaker 1: I've been listening to stuff to blew your mind for
Speaker 1: about eight years, but I don't think I've ever written.
Speaker 1: I'm normally at least a month behind, and when i
Speaker 1: get the urge to write in, I always think, I'm
Speaker 1: sure someone else has written about that in the meantime.
Speaker 1: But once you talk Star Wars, I'm ready to risk
Speaker 1: potentially repeating someone else. Never never be afraid, villain. You know,
Speaker 1: sometimes we get some duplicated sentiments, but that's okay. In
Speaker 1: your discussion of the Mighty Sarlak, I was waiting for
Speaker 1: someone to bring up the aspect that interested me the most.
Speaker 1: Quote a new definition of pain and suffering as you
Speaker 1: are slowly digested over a thousand years, or that's what
Speaker 1: C three p O says. That Jama Java is promising
Speaker 1: them as they will be thrown into the sarlac um.
Speaker 1: I always took that to mean that the victim is
Speaker 1: kept alive for a thousand years in order to experience this. However,
Speaker 1: even if you were to take it that the victim
Speaker 1: dies quite quickly but their corps is digested over a
Speaker 1: thousand years, then the digestive process takes longer to break
Speaker 1: down the body than it would take if the body
Speaker 1: were to decompose naturally. Whether the victim lives a thousand
Speaker 1: years or not, being digested by a sarlac is still
Speaker 1: a kind of horrific preservation. Taking the more interesting reading, though,
Speaker 1: that the victim remains alive throughout the process. My first
Speaker 1: imagining is a monkey's paw scenario. I want to live
Speaker 1: for a thousand years. Sure, meet your new buddy, the sarlac.
Speaker 1: And the second thing that comes to mind while wondering
Speaker 1: how a sarlac might prolonged sapient life is your two parter,
Speaker 1: The devourer of memories about planaria worms and whether they
Speaker 1: can incorporate memories by eating, and whether the extended life
Speaker 1: of a sarlac's victims is a shadowy existence as a
Speaker 1: memory in a worm. Very interesting, but I guess you
Speaker 1: don't have time to cover everything. Thanks for all the
Speaker 1: work that you put into researching and recording the show,
Speaker 1: and thanks also to Seth Nicholas Johnson for their efforts.
Speaker 1: It's a consistently excellent show regards villain always always good
Speaker 1: to get a shout out for Seth. Seth does amazing work. Absolutely.
Speaker 1: Seth is the one that kind of stitches everything together
Speaker 1: with the pieces that we provide. Um, this is some
Speaker 1: wonderful starlac um uh thoughts there. It does bring me
Speaker 1: though back again to that short story I mentioned that
Speaker 1: episode um a bar of like that, the Tale of
Speaker 1: Boba Fette by J. D. Montgomery from Tales from Jaba's Palace,
Speaker 1: which is just a short story from because um, it's
Speaker 1: still been a very long time since I read it,
Speaker 1: but I was refreshing myself a little bit about it
Speaker 1: by reading a summary, and yeah, there's this whole bit
Speaker 1: where while he's in the belly of the Sarlac Uh,
Speaker 1: Boba Fette is put in telepathic contact with one of
Speaker 1: its first victims, um and uh. And they're like flashbacks
Speaker 1: concerning other victims of the Sarlac as well. So there's
Speaker 1: a lot of really um imaginative stuff that's pulled off
Speaker 1: in that story. And I'm kind of I have heard
Speaker 1: I have heard rumors that Boba Fette is coming back
Speaker 1: in the second season of The Mandalorian. Um. I don't
Speaker 1: know if that's a if that if it's real, or
Speaker 1: if it's going to be you know, some other character
Speaker 1: pretending to be Boba Fette, But I'm hoping that if
Speaker 1: they do actually bring him back, uh, they consider getting
Speaker 1: some ideas from this particular short story. Um. Now, obviously
Speaker 1: they already filmed it, they're already written, they've already written it,
Speaker 1: so whatever is gonna happen, it is going to happen.
Speaker 1: But I hope that they hope that they looked at
Speaker 1: this story because there's some cool, cool ideas in it.
Speaker 1: All Right, here's another bit of listener mail. This one
Speaker 1: comes to us from Kale. Kale writes and says, Hey,
Speaker 1: Robert and Joe. First off, I want to say that
Speaker 1: I absolutely love the show. I really appreciate the work
Speaker 1: you guys put into it. I love the jokes and
Speaker 1: puns and recommendations you all put in as well. During
Speaker 1: the Starlac episode, you guys pondered the reason, uh, the
Speaker 1: reasons why Star Wars fans were so interested in Boba Fett,
Speaker 1: and I think it has to do with the Star
Speaker 1: Wars animated series The Clone Wars. In this show no spoilers.
Speaker 1: They delve into his story through multiple episodes, and it's
Speaker 1: very interesting. Also, I highly recommend watching it if you haven't,
Speaker 1: and especially if Robert has been sharing his love of
Speaker 1: Star Wars with his son. The show is enjoyable and
Speaker 1: very fun for children and adults alike. I wasn't even
Speaker 1: interested in watching the live action movies until my partner
Speaker 1: showed me the animated series. Plus, there are lots of
Speaker 1: episodes set on planets with cool creatures and interesting alien races.
Speaker 1: If you have Disney Plus you can stream it on there.
Speaker 1: I hope you all are staying safe and healthy, Sending
Speaker 1: much love and good vibes your way. Uh Kale Now
Speaker 1: this this, of course, I should add that that Starlac
Speaker 1: episode came out before I did, indeed, started watching Clone
Speaker 1: Clone Wars with my son. Um. We are currently Um
Speaker 1: let's see what what what season? We're in? Like season six?
Speaker 1: I think? And uh yeah, we we were loving it.
Speaker 1: They did, They've done. They did such a great job
Speaker 1: creating the show. Um and and it's a show that
Speaker 1: again kids and adults can both enjoy. It's just light
Speaker 1: years ahead of any of the animated series I had
Speaker 1: access to as a kid. I love the development that
Speaker 1: they give all the main characters as well as all
Speaker 1: these side characters and some of the more obscure guests
Speaker 1: that pop up. Uh. Some great monsters and creatures in
Speaker 1: there as well. But indeed, Bobba Fett, like a young
Speaker 1: Baba Fet does show up and is an interesting character.
Speaker 1: They have him sort of bouncing around the universe, falling
Speaker 1: in with some some other bounty hunters, and also seeking
Speaker 1: revenge because of course he wants revenge on Mace wind
Speaker 1: Do uh, the the individual who killed his father. Um,
Speaker 1: and of course Mace Window is a very very dangerous
Speaker 1: um object for one's revenge. I keep feeling like at
Speaker 1: some point I'm just gonna have to watch this show
Speaker 1: or else I'm never going to be able to relate
Speaker 1: to you again, because it's like half your brain now,
Speaker 1: um it is, it's become U. Yeah. My main jam
Speaker 1: this COVID season is this also the source of that
Speaker 1: that amazing spider lad you shared with me. The magnificent
Speaker 1: gentleman with the Walrus mustache style chillissery. Yeah, Admiral Trench,
Speaker 1: who's like a big Admiral tarantula creature that shows up
Speaker 1: fighting with for the Separatist Yeah, very good. Okay, well,
Speaker 1: maybe maybe I'll get there sometime in the near future.
Speaker 1: I will say, though, I think I want to disagree
Speaker 1: with something Kale said, which is that that the fascination
Speaker 1: with Boba Fett could be rooted in uh the character
Speaker 1: appearing in and having a good storyline in the Clone Wars.
Speaker 1: This definitely predates the Clone Wars TV show. I remember
Speaker 1: when I was a kid, my Star Wars friends were
Speaker 1: obsessed with Boba Fett, and I thought he was cool.
Speaker 1: But I still even then didn't quite get it. Was like,
Speaker 1: you just don't know much about him. And I think
Speaker 1: maybe that's part of it. He was exciting because he
Speaker 1: had cool looking armor and you didn't know much about him. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, I absolutely, I absolutely agree with that. Um.
Speaker 1: But but I will say that you know, when when
Speaker 1: the storytelling is is really on point, um, you know,
Speaker 1: the mystery can be transformed into something, uh, something even
Speaker 1: more satisfying. Um. Like. Another example of this is that
Speaker 1: you have the character of Darth Maul, who of course
Speaker 1: shows up in The Phantom Menace. Is a really interesting
Speaker 1: looking character. We don't know much about them and are
Speaker 1: there seemingly slain at the end of that movie. Well,
Speaker 1: Clone Wars brings him back. And I knew the Clone
Speaker 1: Wars was going to bring him back, and I was
Speaker 1: a little suspicious of it. I'm like, hey, he was
Speaker 1: cutting half. I don't really know that I need Darth
Speaker 1: Maul to come back. Um, he was only so interesting.
Speaker 1: There's the mystery of the character, etcetera, etcetera. But I
Speaker 1: have to say they did a really fabulous job bringing
Speaker 1: him back. The Darth Maul return arc that occurs on
Speaker 1: Clone Wars is is superb stuff, and they made the
Speaker 1: character far more interesting, uh than than than than anything
Speaker 1: he had going for him in Phantom Menace was is
Speaker 1: he I don't know, I'm cutting half pretty bad Dowey. Oh,
Speaker 1: I mean, um, it's I don't want to give much away,
Speaker 1: but basically, imagine you know a character like that, that
Speaker 1: is that is that has survived all these years just
Speaker 1: mostly based on hate. Like that's the power of the
Speaker 1: dark side, is um, you know, sufficiently evil characters they
Speaker 1: never really die because they're too hateful, they're too too
Speaker 1: off to to pass on to another existence. That's right.
Speaker 1: Build yourself an armor of Hatred and evil, a lesson
Speaker 1: of Star Wars. Well, you are tempting me because I
Speaker 1: gotta know. Does Darth Maul talk? Uh, because he's only
Speaker 1: got two in the movie, right, Yes, he does talk,
Speaker 1: and in fact a really awesome voice actor by the
Speaker 1: name of Sam Whitworth or perhaps it's vit Vir. I'm
Speaker 1: not sure. I haven't heard his name pronounced out loud,
Speaker 1: but um, he he does the voice and it's terrific,
Speaker 1: Like he's able to really inject this kind of desperate,
Speaker 1: doomed pain into the character. Um, because he's like you
Speaker 1: really get the sense of a character that should have died. Uh,
Speaker 1: that is alive just purely because of his hate and
Speaker 1: um yeah, it's it's just fabulously done. All right. Well,
Speaker 1: there we have it. Um, we're gonna go ahead and
Speaker 1: close it out there. We had a lot of great
Speaker 1: listener mail that we were able to read in this episode.
Speaker 1: We also received a lot of great listener mail that
Speaker 1: we just didn't have time for here today. Uh, and
Speaker 1: is always I just want to let everybody know, just
Speaker 1: remind you you know, we we we rarely respond to
Speaker 1: listener mail, um via email, and we can only read
Speaker 1: so much of it on the show, but we do
Speaker 1: read everything that comes in and we do greatly appreciate
Speaker 1: hearing from everybody. Everybody has has such great perspective on
Speaker 1: the topics that we cover additional factoids. Uh Also, um
Speaker 1: A listener suggestions for episodes are always helpful, So just
Speaker 1: keep keep sending it in and we'll keep trying to
Speaker 1: put out listener mail episodes. Maybe not every month, but
Speaker 1: you know, UM as regularly as as we can. And
Speaker 1: in the meantime, if you like to check out other
Speaker 1: episodes of Stuff to Blow your Mind, you can find
Speaker 1: us wherever you get your podcasts and wherever that happens
Speaker 1: to be. We just ask that you rate, review and subscribe.
Speaker 1: You just thinks as always to our excellent audio producer
Speaker 1: Seth Nicholas Johnson. If you would like to get in
Speaker 1: touch with us with feedback on this episode or any
Speaker 1: other to suggest the topic for the future, just to
Speaker 1: say hello, you can email us at contact at stuff
Speaker 1: to Blow your Mind dot com. Stuff to Blow Your
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