WEBVTT - The Hearth, Part 1 0:00:04.240 --> 0:00:06.960 As I drew in my head and was turning around 0:00:07.000 --> 0:00:09.640 on the chimney, Saint Nicholas came with a bound. He 0:00:09.760 --> 0:00:12.039 was dressed all in fur from his head to his foot, 0:00:12.039 --> 0:00:14.440 and his clothes were all tarnished with ashes and soot. 0:00:14.480 --> 0:00:16.400 He was dressed all in fur from his head to 0:00:16.480 --> 0:00:19.000 his foot, and his clothes were all tarnished with ashes 0:00:19.040 --> 0:00:21.040 and soot. He was dressed all in fur from his 0:00:21.120 --> 0:00:23.720 head to his foot, and his clothes were all tarnished 0:00:23.760 --> 0:00:25.160 with ashes and soot. 0:00:29.560 --> 0:00:33.640 Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, production of iHeartRadio. 0:00:39.680 --> 0:00:41.600 Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. 0:00:41.720 --> 0:00:44.760 My name is Robert Lamb and I am Joe McCormick. 0:00:44.800 --> 0:00:47.360 And today we're going to be kicking off a series 0:00:47.400 --> 0:00:51.880 of episodes on the fireplace and the hearth, the infrastructure 0:00:52.440 --> 0:00:56.880 through which humans brought their campfires indoors, inside their homes 0:00:56.880 --> 0:01:00.000 and other dwelling structures. We're gonna look at how fire 0:01:00.080 --> 0:01:03.080 places work, where they come from, and what they mean. 0:01:03.720 --> 0:01:06.640 And just got to apologize again this week like I 0:01:06.680 --> 0:01:08.920 did last week. I've still got a cold. It's either 0:01:09.040 --> 0:01:11.160 round two of this cold or a whole new cold 0:01:11.200 --> 0:01:14.400 has come into my life. So so apologies for the 0:01:14.720 --> 0:01:17.640 sinus noises today, but I'm doing what I can. 0:01:17.920 --> 0:01:22.400 Twelve days of Christmas over there, Yeah they're gathering around 0:01:22.440 --> 0:01:25.039 the fire, but anyway, Yeah, so I wanted to do 0:01:25.160 --> 0:01:29.000 a series of episodes looking into fireplaces. 0:01:29.080 --> 0:01:33.760 And sometimes when you're trying to understand what an experience 0:01:33.920 --> 0:01:37.080 means to people, you can really get some good insights 0:01:37.120 --> 0:01:41.840 by looking at attempts to simulate that experience in its 0:01:41.959 --> 0:01:46.720 literal absence, like which elements do people consider worth copying, 0:01:47.000 --> 0:01:51.160 which elements can be ignored, which elements are accentuated or 0:01:51.240 --> 0:01:56.120 exaggerated in simulation. And this got me thinking about the 0:01:56.400 --> 0:02:01.160 Netflix mega hit Fireplace for Your Home, which, for those 0:02:01.200 --> 0:02:05.240 of you somehow not familiar, is an hour long, unbroken 0:02:05.280 --> 0:02:09.400 shot of logs burning in a fireplace, and it is 0:02:09.520 --> 0:02:12.040 the hottest movie of the year for I don't know, 0:02:12.120 --> 0:02:14.760 seven or eight years running whenever this thing started playing 0:02:14.800 --> 0:02:18.920 on Netflix. I just checked on Netflix and there are 0:02:19.120 --> 0:02:22.640 three episodes. This is not a sponsored episode, by the way. 0:02:24.000 --> 0:02:26.160 Netflix had nothing to do with this. I just think 0:02:26.160 --> 0:02:28.839 this is an interesting subject on its own, and we'll 0:02:28.880 --> 0:02:31.160 explain more as we go on. But I checked on 0:02:31.200 --> 0:02:35.360 Netflix and there were three episodes of season one of 0:02:35.440 --> 0:02:40.040 fireplace for your home. There's crackling yule log fireplace. That 0:02:40.080 --> 0:02:42.280 one's the one that plays music like Joy to the 0:02:42.280 --> 0:02:44.480 World and we wish you a Merry Christmas kind of 0:02:44.560 --> 0:02:48.560 Muzaki versions of them. Yeah, And then there's the second 0:02:48.560 --> 0:02:51.640 one that's just crackling fireplace, so no music. You just 0:02:51.720 --> 0:02:53.920 get the pop, the hiss and all that good stuff. 0:02:54.120 --> 0:02:54.600 There you go. 0:02:54.960 --> 0:02:57.720 And then there's a third one with music, again I 0:02:57.720 --> 0:02:59.919 guess in different music than the first one. I don't. 0:03:00.200 --> 0:03:02.440 I think we mainly just listen. The one we put 0:03:02.480 --> 0:03:03.680 on is the one without music. 0:03:03.919 --> 0:03:05.520 That's the way to go. You can add your own 0:03:05.560 --> 0:03:06.280 music that way. 0:03:07.120 --> 0:03:09.360 So I don't remember what year it was we first 0:03:09.400 --> 0:03:12.320 discovered this thing, but it has played a number of 0:03:12.320 --> 0:03:14.680 times in our household, and so I was wondering, Rob, 0:03:14.720 --> 0:03:16.440 do you do you have experience with this thing? 0:03:17.160 --> 0:03:20.280 Yes, I do. You know, I've never owned or rented 0:03:20.320 --> 0:03:22.880 a home that had a hearth or a fireplace in it, 0:03:23.440 --> 0:03:25.799 not even like some of the scaleback versions where it's 0:03:25.800 --> 0:03:28.919 like gas generated and you know, or has some sort 0:03:28.919 --> 0:03:32.240 of other effect. So I have to depend on what 0:03:32.320 --> 0:03:33.800 a lot of people have to depend on for the 0:03:33.840 --> 0:03:37.240 spiritual center of their home and that's the television, and 0:03:37.320 --> 0:03:40.160 so of course I fire up a fake fireplace, and 0:03:40.440 --> 0:03:43.960 the one that's been our favorite for several years running 0:03:44.000 --> 0:03:46.880 now is on Netflix. So again, credit, where's credit? Where 0:03:46.880 --> 0:03:49.680 credits do? They'll cancel your favorite shows after two seasons, 0:03:49.720 --> 0:03:53.480 but they will give you an amazing virtual fireplace, and 0:03:53.680 --> 0:03:57.760 our favorite is Netflix The Witcher Fireplace. It is a 0:03:57.800 --> 0:04:01.560 Witcher tie in and it's not much to it. It's simple, 0:04:01.560 --> 0:04:04.320 it's awesome. It's just kind of a medieval fantasy world 0:04:04.400 --> 0:04:08.320 fire pit, like you know, wrought iron or something. It's blazing, 0:04:08.440 --> 0:04:12.240 it's crackling. There's no Henry cavill or Unifer back there 0:04:12.320 --> 0:04:14.080 and a hot tub or anything like that. It's just 0:04:14.160 --> 0:04:18.080 the fire pit and it's great. My only criticism is 0:04:18.120 --> 0:04:20.960 that it's only an hour long, and I either can't 0:04:21.080 --> 0:04:22.960 or I don't know how to put it on repeat, 0:04:23.000 --> 0:04:25.040 because I would just prefer to have it on all 0:04:25.080 --> 0:04:26.320 the time during the holidays. 0:04:26.880 --> 0:04:29.159 What's this emblazoned on the side of it? Is it 0:04:29.200 --> 0:04:30.599 like a kraken or something? 0:04:31.279 --> 0:04:34.919 Ah, since I've seen this show, that's probably like some 0:04:34.960 --> 0:04:37.479 sort of a monster. You know, Henry Cavell is a 0:04:37.480 --> 0:04:39.640 monster hunter. And that the Witch is a monster hunter 0:04:39.680 --> 0:04:41.680 and that's I don't know, a chimera or something. 0:04:41.960 --> 0:04:44.240 Oh, I know the Witcher from the game, the third 0:04:44.279 --> 0:04:47.520 game specifically. But yeah, so this thing does look really cool. 0:04:47.640 --> 0:04:49.279 I'll have to look this one up this year. But 0:04:49.320 --> 0:04:52.800 it's like sexy wrought iron brazier for your home. 0:04:53.279 --> 0:04:56.480 Yeah, yeah, it's cool. Yeah, I legitimately love it. 0:04:56.880 --> 0:04:59.880 So I think Fireplace for Your Home and it's many 0:05:00.040 --> 0:05:06.960 derivatives are interesting cultural artifacts because on one hand, they're 0:05:07.040 --> 0:05:10.680 just like a genuine holiday fixture in millions of homes. 0:05:10.720 --> 0:05:13.880 I couldn't find any reliable sources on viewcount because Netflix 0:05:13.880 --> 0:05:15.719 doesn't release that kind of stuff as far as I know. 0:05:16.440 --> 0:05:19.479 But in an interview with The Independent in twenty eighteen, 0:05:19.600 --> 0:05:23.039 the director of Fireplace for Your Home, George Ford, I'll 0:05:23.040 --> 0:05:25.560 come back to this in a minute, estimated that it 0:05:25.560 --> 0:05:28.279 had been it had been watched more than seventy million 0:05:28.360 --> 0:05:31.240 times in twenty eighteen. No idea if he's right about that, 0:05:31.279 --> 0:05:34.479 But how am I going to argue with him? But 0:05:34.600 --> 0:05:37.800 at the same time, I think it's funny that people 0:05:37.839 --> 0:05:40.760 are putting this on to be cozy and feel good 0:05:40.800 --> 0:05:44.320 at Christmas time, and yet this movie is also a 0:05:44.400 --> 0:05:47.880 source of ironic amusement, Like when you bring it up, 0:05:48.000 --> 0:05:51.159 people kind of there's something funny, Like they find something 0:05:51.240 --> 0:05:54.360 kind of goofy about the idea of a cozy fire 0:05:54.440 --> 0:05:58.160 happening inside their television. And if you look at reviews, 0:05:58.480 --> 0:06:01.279 most of the reviews for this thing are jokes. They're 0:06:01.320 --> 0:06:04.880 things like, you know, zero stars, nearly burned down my house. 0:06:05.160 --> 0:06:09.279 It's like the joke is with the incongruity of the 0:06:09.279 --> 0:06:10.839 fact that this is not a real fire. 0:06:11.480 --> 0:06:13.919 It's not it won't it won't put out heat. And 0:06:13.960 --> 0:06:16.160 if it is putting out heat, there's probably something wrong 0:06:16.200 --> 0:06:18.360 with your television set. I mean, it'll put out a 0:06:18.360 --> 0:06:20.760 little heat, right, Like, you shouldn't be putting out a 0:06:20.800 --> 0:06:22.520 lot of heat. You shouldn't actually be able to warm 0:06:22.520 --> 0:06:23.360 your buns by it. 0:06:23.600 --> 0:06:26.720 You hope it's not putting out a lot. This is 0:06:26.760 --> 0:06:28.600 actually this is kind of a tangent. But I got 0:06:28.600 --> 0:06:32.680 interested thinking about what makes the difference between lovable holiday 0:06:32.800 --> 0:06:38.280 kitch like fireplace for your home and a divisive experimental 0:06:38.400 --> 0:06:42.039 art film like Andy Warhol's Empire, which if you're not 0:06:42.080 --> 0:06:44.720 familiar with Empire, this is worth looking up. It's an 0:06:44.800 --> 0:06:49.039 eight hour static shot of the illuminated upper floors of 0:06:49.120 --> 0:06:51.919 the Empire State Building. I think it was actually filmed 0:06:51.920 --> 0:06:54.039 over the course of roughly like six hours, and then 0:06:54.040 --> 0:06:56.200 it's supposed to be played back at slow motion, so 0:06:56.320 --> 0:06:58.800 the film takes like eight hours to watch. It was 0:06:58.800 --> 0:07:01.280 filmed over the course of one night in July nineteen 0:07:01.360 --> 0:07:05.560 sixty four, and you're just watching the buildings, like the 0:07:05.560 --> 0:07:08.040 sun sets and the floodlights come on, and you just 0:07:08.120 --> 0:07:10.840 watch the building through the night, and occasionally there'll be 0:07:11.160 --> 0:07:13.240 you know, a plane going by or flashes of light 0:07:13.400 --> 0:07:17.840 or something like that, but otherwise it's just a static shot. Obviously, 0:07:18.080 --> 0:07:21.720 the movie Empire is more likely to be regarded as 0:07:21.760 --> 0:07:24.680 either an important work of art with something interesting to 0:07:24.720 --> 0:07:29.240 illustrate about passage of time or the aesthetics of film, or, 0:07:29.280 --> 0:07:31.640 on the other hand, to be seen as a pretentious, 0:07:31.760 --> 0:07:36.720 self infatuated, artistic boondoggle. Fireplace for your home does not 0:07:36.800 --> 0:07:40.760 really invite either of these types of appraisal. It's just 0:07:40.920 --> 0:07:44.440 you know, cozy holiday kitsch. However, I would say that 0:07:45.120 --> 0:07:47.800 an hour long shot of a burning fireplace and an 0:07:47.800 --> 0:07:50.160 eight hour shot of the floodlights on top of a 0:07:50.160 --> 0:07:53.880 skyscraper have a lot of similarities. Both are what you 0:07:53.960 --> 0:07:59.080 might call slow or atmospheric films without plot, characters, or dialogue, 0:07:59.400 --> 0:08:04.040 primarily interested in just a purely aesthetic experience, maybe causing 0:08:04.320 --> 0:08:06.800 maybe something about causing the viewer to have time to 0:08:06.920 --> 0:08:10.640 relax and reflect without something directly taking up their attention 0:08:10.800 --> 0:08:15.400 to too aggressively. And both of them, in terms of 0:08:15.480 --> 0:08:18.760 visual display, are based on the interplay of light and shadow. 0:08:19.080 --> 0:08:22.080 I read somebody described the glowing crown of the building 0:08:22.160 --> 0:08:25.960 featured in Empire as a chandelier in the sky, and 0:08:26.200 --> 0:08:29.160 based on an interview I was looking at it's clear 0:08:29.280 --> 0:08:31.560 that fireplace for your home. It took a lot of 0:08:31.640 --> 0:08:34.400 care to try to get the right interplay of lights 0:08:34.440 --> 0:08:36.400 and colors in the fire and how they would be 0:08:36.400 --> 0:08:39.880 picked up by the camera and the contrast of that 0:08:39.920 --> 0:08:42.480 with the shadows in the room around. And so I 0:08:42.559 --> 0:08:44.440 was thinking about if I had to single out a 0:08:44.480 --> 0:08:47.880 major difference, like what would make the difference between the 0:08:48.240 --> 0:08:51.280 kinds of feelings people have about them? Apart from the 0:08:51.400 --> 0:08:54.560 length difference, I think a big thing is that there 0:08:54.800 --> 0:08:58.840 is an understanding of a different expectation put on the viewer, 0:08:59.160 --> 0:09:02.359 Like if you were asked to watch Andy Warhol's Empire. 0:09:02.760 --> 0:09:06.319 People probably think that they're supposed to like sit silently 0:09:06.720 --> 0:09:09.160 in an art house theater and look at the screen 0:09:09.240 --> 0:09:12.640 the whole run time and think deep thoughts, whereas fireplace 0:09:12.679 --> 0:09:15.240 for your home makes no such demands. You probably just 0:09:15.280 --> 0:09:17.720 put it on in the background while you're having coffee 0:09:17.800 --> 0:09:19.560 or while you're wrapping presents or something. 0:09:20.000 --> 0:09:22.440 Yeah, it's interesting to think about the different ways we're 0:09:22.679 --> 0:09:28.040 supposed to or do, interact with various media. Like I 0:09:28.080 --> 0:09:31.280 was thinking about this recently. I went to a performance 0:09:31.679 --> 0:09:34.959 that was maybe a little dry for my taste, and 0:09:35.360 --> 0:09:37.120 in the same way, you know, you sometimes say, well, 0:09:37.160 --> 0:09:39.480 this meeting could have been an email, I kind of 0:09:39.480 --> 0:09:42.280 felt like this performance could have been an art installation, 0:09:42.440 --> 0:09:46.079 you know, something where I walk through it, I spend 0:09:46.120 --> 0:09:48.200 as much time with it as I want and sort 0:09:48.200 --> 0:09:51.120 of like gain what I want from looking at it 0:09:51.480 --> 0:09:54.240 walking through it and so forth. You know, I think 0:09:54.280 --> 0:09:56.760 we've all been to This also sometimes breaks down into 0:09:56.760 --> 0:10:00.720 actual video pieces, right where you'll see like short short 0:10:00.760 --> 0:10:03.720 films or even longer pieces, and yeah, you could watch 0:10:03.760 --> 0:10:06.120 them all in their entirety, or you could sort of 0:10:06.160 --> 0:10:09.720 pass through and get a general sense of it, and 0:10:09.760 --> 0:10:11.560 then on the other end, of the spectrum. Like you 0:10:11.600 --> 0:10:14.720 look at the way people often treat their favorite television shows, 0:10:14.800 --> 0:10:16.800 be it to you know, something's often something they have 0:10:16.800 --> 0:10:19.520 a lot of nostalgia for. You hear people talking about, 0:10:19.600 --> 0:10:22.679 say The Office or a Siginfeld or something like that, 0:10:23.040 --> 0:10:24.400 and they talk about, well, you know, I just like 0:10:24.440 --> 0:10:26.000 to put it on in the background while I'm working. 0:10:26.040 --> 0:10:28.480 It just put it on while I'm working or you know, 0:10:28.559 --> 0:10:31.120 doing things around the house. And you know it's you're 0:10:31.240 --> 0:10:37.320 kind of treating the office like one of these virtual fireplaces, 0:10:37.360 --> 0:10:42.319 something that is just generating a feeling in the background 0:10:42.840 --> 0:10:45.480 of some stimuli in the background that you're not one 0:10:45.520 --> 0:10:48.000 hundred percent focused on. In fact, I would say if 0:10:48.000 --> 0:10:50.160 you are one hundred percent focused on one of these 0:10:50.160 --> 0:10:55.960 fireplace videos, that may be a warning sign. You know, 0:10:56.000 --> 0:10:59.360 it's like that's why not. I mean, however, you engage 0:10:59.400 --> 0:11:00.720 with your art, that's fine. 0:11:01.240 --> 0:11:03.240 Or it could be you're just trying to find the 0:11:04.040 --> 0:11:07.199 warholiness of it. I mean, on the I have read 0:11:08.360 --> 0:11:11.840 strange kinds of interpretations of fireplace for your home. Was 0:11:11.880 --> 0:11:16.280 reading something that referred to an almost Lynchian meditation on 0:11:16.320 --> 0:11:21.040 the synthetic and alienated faces of holiday cheer. That you 0:11:21.160 --> 0:11:23.640 could see in fireplace for your home if you're looking 0:11:23.679 --> 0:11:25.320 for it. But I was thinking about it in the 0:11:25.320 --> 0:11:28.960 opposite direction, with the contrast with the Andy Warhol movie. 0:11:29.679 --> 0:11:31.960 You could be like wrapping Christmas presents and you could 0:11:31.960 --> 0:11:34.120 put Empire on in the background. It might not feel 0:11:34.160 --> 0:11:37.240 any less appropriate. The other day, I just watched part 0:11:37.240 --> 0:11:40.480 of Empires, like you can find it online, and however 0:11:41.200 --> 0:11:44.520 orthogonal this is to Warhol's intensions, it actually does feel 0:11:44.559 --> 0:11:47.920 quite seasonally festive. There's something about like the art deco 0:11:48.000 --> 0:11:50.720 design of the Empire state building and the floodlights against 0:11:50.720 --> 0:11:54.120 the dark knight skies, extremely cozy and felt like Christmas time. 0:11:55.080 --> 0:11:58.959 Yeah, there have been a number of interesting related I 0:11:59.000 --> 0:12:05.080 guess ambient audio visual experiences. Netflix hosted multiple moving art 0:12:05.640 --> 0:12:09.240 works by Lewis Schwarzberg. This is the guy who also 0:12:09.240 --> 0:12:12.400 directed the twenty nineteen film Fantastic Fun Guy, which is 0:12:13.040 --> 0:12:17.800 more traditional in its structure, But the moving art show, 0:12:18.080 --> 0:12:20.200 I guess, you know, they were like one hour long each, 0:12:20.280 --> 0:12:23.559 maybe less. You know, It's just pleasing music, a lot 0:12:23.559 --> 0:12:27.400 of cool ambient nature footage, and it's like great stuff. 0:12:27.400 --> 0:12:29.000 It was great stuff to take a nap to, you know. 0:12:30.080 --> 0:12:32.960 But still have something visual going on in the room 0:12:33.000 --> 0:12:37.080 as well. Disney has also got in on this with 0:12:37.160 --> 0:12:41.320 some great long ambient Star Wars themed av presentations like 0:12:41.360 --> 0:12:44.320 it'll be a landscape of Hath or something like that. 0:12:45.800 --> 0:12:48.480 So it seems like, you know, enough people were doing 0:12:48.559 --> 0:12:50.280 this kind of thing they realized, well, let's put that 0:12:50.280 --> 0:12:52.800 out there. I mean, we also have sort of screen 0:12:52.880 --> 0:12:55.880 savory type things that pop up on Apple televisions right 0:12:56.640 --> 0:12:59.400 and various apps and so forth, where instead of just 0:12:59.440 --> 0:13:01.560 looking at an ad, they're going to show you a 0:13:01.600 --> 0:13:03.280 city scape or something like that. 0:13:05.280 --> 0:13:06.800 I didn't know about the Star Wars thing. 0:13:06.840 --> 0:13:10.440 I don't look that up. They're pretty good Wampa attacks 0:13:10.480 --> 0:13:14.880 to study, relax to yeah, well yeah, nothing really happens. 0:13:14.880 --> 0:13:17.000 Maybe a spaceship flies over, you know. Yeah. They keep 0:13:17.000 --> 0:13:20.319 it chill, they keep it ambient. And it's an interesting 0:13:20.559 --> 0:13:22.439 I mean, because the idea of the TV being on 0:13:22.600 --> 0:13:27.800 NonStop as being this flood of ideas into your home 0:13:27.840 --> 0:13:29.960 and into your life, like this is nothing new. We've 0:13:30.000 --> 0:13:32.000 been doing this, We've been using our televisions like this 0:13:32.120 --> 0:13:36.640 since we've had televisions, and it's it's really almost kind 0:13:36.640 --> 0:13:39.720 of a refined idea to think, well, you know, let's 0:13:39.800 --> 0:13:43.200 let them have an hour two hour blocks of just 0:13:43.480 --> 0:13:47.880 you know, very ambient, chill audio visual stimuli instead of 0:13:47.920 --> 0:13:49.679 just NonStop ads and so forth. 0:13:49.679 --> 0:13:52.240 I don't know, well, yeah, yeah, and I mean and 0:13:52.280 --> 0:13:54.160 part of the reason I brought this up is to 0:13:54.200 --> 0:13:57.240 think about the the similarities and differences in the way 0:13:57.240 --> 0:14:00.400 people are now seeming to use a TV like would 0:14:00.480 --> 0:14:03.520 once or in many cases still do use a fireplace 0:14:03.559 --> 0:14:07.320 as a primarily you know, not primarily to heat the house, 0:14:07.480 --> 0:14:10.040 but because they probably have another heating system as well, 0:14:10.320 --> 0:14:13.120 but as an esthetic experience. It's something that supplies a 0:14:13.200 --> 0:14:16.320 kind of mood or ambience to the room that makes 0:14:16.360 --> 0:14:18.600 you feel a way you want to feel, or helps 0:14:18.600 --> 0:14:20.800 you focus your attention in a way that you want 0:14:20.800 --> 0:14:23.880 to Anyway, I just wanted to mention a couple of 0:14:23.920 --> 0:14:26.200 funny things that I found out about because I read 0:14:26.240 --> 0:14:28.920 a couple of interviews with the creator of Fireplace for 0:14:29.000 --> 0:14:32.360 Your Home, an American director named George Ford, who lives 0:14:32.400 --> 0:14:35.880 in Washington State, whose primary job is, or at least 0:14:36.040 --> 0:14:38.360 was at the time of these interviews, running a pet 0:14:38.360 --> 0:14:42.480 supply company, but he also directed a number of these 0:14:42.560 --> 0:14:45.200 like static shot genre films. One is like a mountain 0:14:45.240 --> 0:14:48.560 stream flowing. There's another thing of like fish bopping around 0:14:48.600 --> 0:14:52.160 in a saltwater aquarium. But apparently this started with him 0:14:52.200 --> 0:14:55.800 making these cat entertainment DVDs, the goal of which is 0:14:55.840 --> 0:14:58.560 to like drive your cat insane with images of mice 0:14:58.640 --> 0:14:59.800 running all over the place. 0:15:00.520 --> 0:15:04.640 Oh yeah, yeah. There are various YouTube accounts that specialized 0:15:04.640 --> 0:15:05.960 in this sort of thing as well, and some of 0:15:06.040 --> 0:15:08.400 those can be quite cheerful, you know, until the YouTube 0:15:08.400 --> 0:15:09.040 ads cut in. 0:15:09.640 --> 0:15:11.760 Yeah, I guess YouTube must have really cut into the 0:15:11.800 --> 0:15:15.120 DVD market for these things. He used to like twenty 0:15:15.240 --> 0:15:17.400 years ago you'd pick up in Pet Smart or something. 0:15:18.400 --> 0:15:20.720 But anyway, these interviews, one of them was with The 0:15:20.760 --> 0:15:23.960 Independent in twenty eighteen and others with CBC in twenty 0:15:24.040 --> 0:15:27.440 twenty two. A few takeaways that seemed interesting to me. 0:15:27.560 --> 0:15:31.240 This guy was inspired in part by pre existing hearth 0:15:31.320 --> 0:15:34.120 and fireplace films, So Fireplace for your Home not the 0:15:34.120 --> 0:15:36.760 first thing of its type. One example is a film 0:15:36.800 --> 0:15:39.640 that used to run on Christmas even Christmas on the 0:15:39.920 --> 0:15:43.480 New York TV market. It was on a station called WPIX, 0:15:43.560 --> 0:15:46.880 Channel eleven. This started in the nineteen sixties and it 0:15:46.920 --> 0:15:48.520 was this thing that was like two to four hours 0:15:48.560 --> 0:15:52.080 long depending on the instance, that would play a video 0:15:52.120 --> 0:15:55.160 loop showing a log burning in a fireplace with Christmas 0:15:55.280 --> 0:15:59.160 music playing over the top. And I read in turn 0:15:59.280 --> 0:16:01.760 that this was the idea of somebody who worked at 0:16:01.760 --> 0:16:04.520 this TV station who was inspired by like a Coca 0:16:04.560 --> 0:16:09.000 Cola commercial that he saw. But another thing from these 0:16:09.040 --> 0:16:11.720 interviews is that Ford talked about how his kids would 0:16:11.800 --> 0:16:14.479 keep begging him to build a fire around the holidays 0:16:14.480 --> 0:16:16.440 because you know, yeah, I remember when I was a kid, 0:16:16.520 --> 0:16:18.480 I wanted a fire in the fireplace. That was fun. 0:16:19.080 --> 0:16:21.800 And it occurred to him that it would be easier too, 0:16:22.000 --> 0:16:26.080 in his words, quote, just place a television inside our fireplace, 0:16:26.120 --> 0:16:30.280 hearth easier than to keep making a real fire. So 0:16:30.320 --> 0:16:34.040 he like pitched this to Netflix multiple times. They initially 0:16:34.120 --> 0:16:36.520 ignored him or laughed him off, but eventually he got 0:16:36.520 --> 0:16:40.000 some traction. And he claims again it can't verify this, 0:16:40.120 --> 0:16:42.720 but according to the director, the First Fireplace for Your 0:16:42.760 --> 0:16:45.640 Home film took him two years to make and cost 0:16:45.680 --> 0:16:49.160 almost thirty five thousand dollars to produce. This would not 0:16:49.200 --> 0:16:52.160 be Netflix money, by the way. It was actually that 0:16:52.240 --> 0:16:54.760 he made these films independently, and then I think sold 0:16:54.840 --> 0:16:58.200 the Distro rights to Netflix later on, like, how on 0:16:58.240 --> 0:17:01.640 earth could it actually be that difficult? Well, again, can't 0:17:01.720 --> 0:17:04.280 verify the figures are true, but the explanation kind of 0:17:04.280 --> 0:17:07.720 makes sense to me. Speaking to The Independent, he said, quote, 0:17:07.840 --> 0:17:11.920 we battled timing issues, color audio and general high resolution 0:17:12.040 --> 0:17:15.000 problems along the way. Special cameras have to be used 0:17:15.000 --> 0:17:18.720 around flames, and only certain color temperatures work. That's why 0:17:18.760 --> 0:17:21.680 you just don't see an open flame much in movies. 0:17:22.520 --> 0:17:24.919 And I was like, oh, that is interesting. You know, 0:17:24.960 --> 0:17:27.320 I think for a cozy fire on a TV screen, 0:17:27.920 --> 0:17:30.359 we kind of have some criteria that we might not 0:17:30.440 --> 0:17:32.239 even be aware of. But we'd like to see the 0:17:32.359 --> 0:17:35.240 warmer colors of the fire, don't We want some red, 0:17:35.320 --> 0:17:39.320 orange and yellow. But a roaring fire on camera, especially 0:17:39.320 --> 0:17:41.080 not the right kind of camera and not the right 0:17:41.160 --> 0:17:43.919 kind of shot, just doesn't always look like that. I 0:17:43.920 --> 0:17:46.320 can think of a lot of old movies and video 0:17:46.400 --> 0:17:50.800 where camera where a camera catching a fireplace looks either 0:17:50.920 --> 0:17:54.360 just like a white glare or it's like invisible somehow. 0:17:55.040 --> 0:17:56.920 M that's a good point. Now I'm going to have 0:17:56.960 --> 0:17:59.520 to be extra judging when I watch films with fireplaces 0:17:59.520 --> 0:18:00.480 in them. 0:18:00.640 --> 0:18:03.200 Apart from the technical concerns. This gets back to the 0:18:03.240 --> 0:18:06.800 things about like what elements of the simulation are important 0:18:06.880 --> 0:18:09.800 to capture. They also went through a lot of tries 0:18:09.840 --> 0:18:12.479 actually getting the logs to burn right in like an 0:18:12.520 --> 0:18:15.600 aesthetically pleasing way. They wanted the right sounds of like 0:18:15.640 --> 0:18:20.000 a crackle and snap and a visually symmetrical flame. And 0:18:20.119 --> 0:18:21.760 also to make the fire in such a way that 0:18:21.800 --> 0:18:23.920 it requires no intervention so you don't have to keep 0:18:23.960 --> 0:18:27.479 like poking it reaching in front of the camera. And 0:18:27.560 --> 0:18:30.680 another hilarious thing that I did not know so you 0:18:31.359 --> 0:18:35.240 filled me in about the Witcher themed fireplace, But according 0:18:35.280 --> 0:18:39.119 to this guy, Netflix did a fireplace tie in with 0:18:39.160 --> 0:18:43.800 some dystopian movie they made called Bright and they summarized this, 0:18:44.040 --> 0:18:46.320 I haven't seen this movie, but it's like it's got 0:18:46.400 --> 0:18:49.520 like elves and orcs in what is otherwise just a 0:18:49.520 --> 0:18:53.840 buddy cop movie. And they called this burn barrel for 0:18:53.920 --> 0:18:54.320 your home. 0:18:54.960 --> 0:18:59.359 I have not seen this one, but I mean, in general, 0:18:59.400 --> 0:19:02.960 I'm all for this. Let's have let's have more of these. 0:19:03.800 --> 0:19:07.640 I'm just looking around. It's possible that they just unleashed 0:19:07.640 --> 0:19:12.120 one for squid Game. If so, excellent, keep it keep 0:19:12.119 --> 0:19:14.840 it going. I need all Netflix series. I'm really kind 0:19:14.840 --> 0:19:17.440 of pissed we didn't get one for Gama Do Toro's 0:19:17.840 --> 0:19:20.399 Cabinet of Curiosities. We knew we really needed, like a 0:19:20.480 --> 0:19:25.959 linel lasseter themed a fireplace that would have been ideal. 0:19:26.400 --> 0:19:29.920 Oh yeah, like a fireplace that that talks extensively about 0:19:29.960 --> 0:19:31.400 what kind of drink it's making you. 0:19:31.920 --> 0:19:33.760 Yeah, I don't know, I mean, but seriously, can you 0:19:33.800 --> 0:19:38.160 imagine if Panels Coos Motos did a fireplace hour long 0:19:38.240 --> 0:19:41.520 video for Netflix? That would be amazing. Imagine how glorious 0:19:41.560 --> 0:19:42.560 that fireplace would. 0:19:42.359 --> 0:19:55.880 Look some kind of creature slowly melting. Oh but one 0:19:55.960 --> 0:19:59.240 last thing about the fireplace director. Speaking to the CBC, 0:19:59.440 --> 0:20:01.480 they ask him why do we love to stare at 0:20:01.520 --> 0:20:03.960 a fireplace even if it's not putting out heat like 0:20:03.960 --> 0:20:06.480 a real woman would. He mentioned a number of things, 0:20:06.520 --> 0:20:09.760 but one that he mentions this might seem kind of obvious, 0:20:09.800 --> 0:20:11.920 but he says, you know, a fireplace looks like safety, 0:20:12.800 --> 0:20:16.560 and I think that's true. Something feels very like safe, 0:20:16.840 --> 0:20:19.919 enclosed and contained about it, which is funny because actually, 0:20:19.920 --> 0:20:22.040 like putting a fire inside your house is one of 0:20:22.040 --> 0:20:23.640 the more dangerous things you might do. 0:20:24.520 --> 0:20:26.840 Yeah, yeah, but like this is the place to do it, 0:20:26.880 --> 0:20:29.400 and it's it's the thing that we have, and it's 0:20:29.400 --> 0:20:31.199 the thing we have a very long history with, you know, 0:20:31.280 --> 0:20:34.000 our you know, going back through times, will be discussing 0:20:34.040 --> 0:20:36.679 like this is what the house was built around. It 0:20:36.760 --> 0:20:39.280 is the heart of the house. It is the center 0:20:39.400 --> 0:20:41.280 of the house, and it is therefore the center of 0:20:41.320 --> 0:20:41.960 your lives. 0:20:42.520 --> 0:20:44.520 That's right. So I don't know if I meant to 0:20:44.600 --> 0:20:46.800 end up talking that long about fireplace for your home. 0:20:46.840 --> 0:20:50.080 Apologies it was a bit much, But I don't know. 0:20:50.119 --> 0:20:51.800 I think it does raise some issues that I might 0:20:51.880 --> 0:20:54.480 want to keep returning to as we think more about 0:20:54.480 --> 0:20:56.760 the fireplace and what it means to us over the 0:20:56.800 --> 0:20:59.600 course of the next couple episodes. But one thing I 0:20:59.640 --> 0:21:03.960 did want to cover briefly is the prehistory of human 0:21:04.040 --> 0:21:06.679 control of fire. Now, we've gone into this in depth 0:21:06.760 --> 0:21:09.439 in other episodes, so we're not going to rehash all 0:21:09.480 --> 0:21:11.520 that material in the same level of depth here. I 0:21:11.560 --> 0:21:14.160 just wanted to do a sort of quick overview of 0:21:14.359 --> 0:21:17.320 some things we've talked about. A paper we've referenced on 0:21:17.359 --> 0:21:20.240 the show before that is highly cited on this subject 0:21:20.680 --> 0:21:24.800 is from twenty sixteen published in Philosophical Transactions of the 0:21:24.880 --> 0:21:28.760 Royal Society. B by JAJ. Gawlett called the discovery of 0:21:28.760 --> 0:21:33.399 fire by humans a long and convoluted process. Now, this 0:21:33.480 --> 0:21:38.200 paper posits that human control of fire in prehistory probably 0:21:38.280 --> 0:21:43.119 constituted three general phases, and the first stage would be 0:21:43.200 --> 0:21:46.520 humans engaging in something we actually see in other animals, 0:21:46.560 --> 0:21:51.520 which is fire. Following this would be opportunistically taking advantage 0:21:51.560 --> 0:21:55.560 of natural fires caused most often by lightning strikes, lightning 0:21:55.560 --> 0:22:00.960 striking brush, but less often by like weird ignition sourcesvolcanic eruptions, 0:22:01.680 --> 0:22:03.960 but whatever the cause of the fire. This phase would 0:22:04.000 --> 0:22:07.280 be humans notice a natural fire is occurring and then 0:22:07.359 --> 0:22:11.919 swoop in to take advantage of it in various ways, 0:22:12.000 --> 0:22:14.959 like to capture prey that is flushed out of hiding, 0:22:15.359 --> 0:22:18.480 or to scavenge and eat a prey that has been 0:22:18.560 --> 0:22:20.840 killed and maybe even cooked by the fire in some 0:22:20.920 --> 0:22:24.719 way like oh, it's nicely roasted now, or to in 0:22:25.000 --> 0:22:28.600 various other ways take advantage of natural resources revealed or 0:22:28.640 --> 0:22:33.399 transformed by a burn. And then after the wildfire foraging stage, 0:22:33.400 --> 0:22:36.760 you've got the second and third phases, which postulate control 0:22:36.880 --> 0:22:39.560 of the fire within the living space. So the second 0:22:39.560 --> 0:22:43.920 phase is domestic fire primarily used for cooking and safety. 0:22:44.200 --> 0:22:46.560 And then the third phase is what you might call 0:22:46.640 --> 0:22:51.440 industrial fire, the transformation of used for the transformation of 0:22:51.520 --> 0:22:56.159 resources and technology, like the production of baked pottery, and 0:22:56.240 --> 0:22:59.200 so going into the second and third phases, you see 0:22:59.200 --> 0:23:04.399 this sporadic an opportunistic relationship to rare natural fires transform 0:23:04.520 --> 0:23:08.480 into the capture and maintenance of fire first, like feeding 0:23:08.520 --> 0:23:11.320 a fire continuous fuel to keep it burning after you've 0:23:11.359 --> 0:23:14.840 caught it from a natural source. And then eventually humans 0:23:14.840 --> 0:23:17.679 would learn to strike fire from nothing with implements like 0:23:17.760 --> 0:23:21.840 flintstone's and tender Now what's the general timeline for these 0:23:21.880 --> 0:23:26.000 early stages of fire control. Well, it's messy and it's 0:23:26.000 --> 0:23:30.679 still debated. The oldest evidence that anybody seriously proposes for 0:23:30.880 --> 0:23:34.399 human control of fire goes back to our hominin relatives 0:23:34.520 --> 0:23:36.960 roughly one to two million years ago, So at the 0:23:37.000 --> 0:23:40.159 farthest it might go back like two million years but 0:23:40.400 --> 0:23:43.639 this evidence is ambiguous. So you can have things like 0:23:44.160 --> 0:23:47.320 charred or baked remains buried at a site that was 0:23:47.359 --> 0:23:51.720 occupied by hominins around the same time between one and 0:23:51.760 --> 0:23:54.720 two million years ago. But with these cases it's not 0:23:54.920 --> 0:23:57.840 always clear if this is the result of deliberate fire 0:23:57.880 --> 0:24:02.600 control or of natural burning and like scavenging of burned materials. 0:24:03.000 --> 0:24:05.600 Gallot in the paper mentions a couple of sites of 0:24:05.640 --> 0:24:09.880 this kind in Kenya containing like burned sediments, stone tools 0:24:09.920 --> 0:24:12.560 that appear to have been altered by heat, and a 0:24:12.560 --> 0:24:15.600 couple of large hunks of baked clay, but again it's 0:24:15.640 --> 0:24:19.560 not clear if these are from natural fires or controlled burning. 0:24:21.240 --> 0:24:25.119 A lot of the archaeological investigation for the emergence of 0:24:25.160 --> 0:24:28.680 fire control has focused on looking for what are called hearths. 0:24:28.760 --> 0:24:30.880 In the literature, that's going to be a little bit 0:24:30.880 --> 0:24:34.960 different than the way we're using hearth primarily in these episodes, 0:24:35.520 --> 0:24:38.919 because this would not necessarily refer to indoor fireplaces, but 0:24:39.040 --> 0:24:42.120 could refer to any dedicated place for burning. So, in 0:24:42.160 --> 0:24:46.040 like the archaeological papers, a hearth just means the remains 0:24:46.080 --> 0:24:49.080 of a place that was used for a purposeful fire, 0:24:49.840 --> 0:24:53.440 and there is pretty unambiguous evidence for hearths starting several 0:24:53.560 --> 0:24:57.200 hundred thousand years ago. There are more traces of human 0:24:57.240 --> 0:25:00.840 associated burning beginning around one million years ago, and then 0:25:00.880 --> 0:25:04.840 the hearths really start popping up in Africa, Asia, Europe, 0:25:04.840 --> 0:25:07.280 in the Middle East around four hundred thousand years ago 0:25:07.320 --> 0:25:08.720 when you start seeing a lot of them. 0:25:09.240 --> 0:25:12.600 Yeah, just based on materials I've been looking at. The 0:25:12.680 --> 0:25:15.560 exact usage of the term hearth is going to depend 0:25:15.600 --> 0:25:20.040 on a large part on exactly what the researchers and 0:25:20.160 --> 0:25:22.240 or the paper or the book is dealing with, Like 0:25:22.280 --> 0:25:25.840 are we dealing with with an age in which people 0:25:25.880 --> 0:25:30.679 are living in homes or some other situation, and then 0:25:30.720 --> 0:25:33.040 the exact nature of the homes varies as well. Yeah. 0:25:33.119 --> 0:25:35.560 Yeah, hearth in the main way we're using it in 0:25:35.600 --> 0:25:37.320 this series is going to refer to a piece of 0:25:37.359 --> 0:25:40.840 infrastructure in a home, like a constructed enclosure made of 0:25:40.840 --> 0:25:44.000 fireproof materials that contains the fireplace. 0:25:44.600 --> 0:25:46.320 Right. But there may be a time or two where 0:25:46.320 --> 0:25:48.000 we use the term hearth and you might think are 0:25:48.000 --> 0:25:50.760 they talking about a home? Well, in a few cases 0:25:50.800 --> 0:25:52.760 we might be referring to some material that's dealing with 0:25:52.920 --> 0:25:56.280 some other situation. But yeah, for the most part, we're 0:25:56.320 --> 0:25:59.880 dealing with hear, hearthstones and gotten something along the lines 0:25:59.880 --> 0:26:00.760 of a fireplace. 0:26:01.240 --> 0:26:04.400 Now, there are tons of ways that gaining control over 0:26:04.480 --> 0:26:08.680 fire transformed humankind. Of course, one thing is it would 0:26:08.720 --> 0:26:12.760 have expanded our geographic range, making it easier to migrate 0:26:12.800 --> 0:26:17.240 into colder climates and higher altitudes. It allowed us to 0:26:18.080 --> 0:26:23.480 expand our technological regime through the transformation of natural resources. Again, 0:26:23.520 --> 0:26:26.560 a very good example is pottery fired pottery, but also 0:26:27.000 --> 0:26:30.080 things you might not think of as readily, like adhesives 0:26:30.119 --> 0:26:33.920 for hafting, the famous birch bark tar that we talked 0:26:33.960 --> 0:26:37.000 about in some episodes in the past, and other things 0:26:37.040 --> 0:26:39.520 you know you can make like various glues out of 0:26:39.600 --> 0:26:43.240 natural substances that involves some element of heating. Also the 0:26:43.280 --> 0:26:47.760 heating of stones for improved napping. Some silicon based stones 0:26:48.160 --> 0:26:51.240 they nap better, you know, they flake off into the 0:26:51.320 --> 0:26:53.639 kinds of sharp edges that you're looking for with a 0:26:53.720 --> 0:26:57.080 napping exercise if you heat them the right way. But 0:26:57.400 --> 0:27:00.399 a big thing, of course, is the importance of cooking. 0:27:00.440 --> 0:27:03.639 The importance of fire for cooking really hard to overstate. 0:27:04.160 --> 0:27:07.200 Now there is a real scholarly debate about the extent 0:27:07.240 --> 0:27:10.840 to which cooking actually could have transformed the human body. 0:27:10.920 --> 0:27:14.439 This is known as the cooking hypothesis. The base idea 0:27:14.600 --> 0:27:17.600 is that the ability to cook otherwise hard to digest 0:27:17.720 --> 0:27:22.919 foods actually steered hominine evolution, changing not just our culture 0:27:22.960 --> 0:27:26.120 but our bodies. Allowing us to grow more powerful brains 0:27:26.160 --> 0:27:29.639 by devoting less energy to a hardy gut. Though I 0:27:29.640 --> 0:27:32.880 should stress that the cooking hypothesis is not proven. There 0:27:32.880 --> 0:27:35.439 are arguments against it, mainly having to do with the 0:27:35.560 --> 0:27:38.040 timing that would be required and lack of evidence for 0:27:38.119 --> 0:27:42.200 control of fire at the required times. So we don't 0:27:42.200 --> 0:27:46.080 know about the cooking hypothesis hypothesis in terms of human evolution. 0:27:46.359 --> 0:27:49.560 But what cannot be doubted is that the invention of 0:27:49.560 --> 0:27:54.240 cooking massively expanded the base nutrition yield of food we acquired. 0:27:54.280 --> 0:27:56.440 So it just made it possible to get a lot 0:27:56.480 --> 0:27:58.880 more nutrition out of your food. And it also made 0:27:58.880 --> 0:28:02.600 food safer by calling food borne pathogens and neutralizing some 0:28:02.760 --> 0:28:06.879 plant toxins. So it just unlocked a gigantic level up 0:28:06.920 --> 0:28:07.480 in nutrition. 0:28:08.240 --> 0:28:11.520 Yeah, there's like a real sort It's often described as 0:28:11.600 --> 0:28:15.040 kind of an externalization of digestion, like a lot of 0:28:15.040 --> 0:28:20.440 the chemistry of digestion and potential chemistry of digestion handled 0:28:20.440 --> 0:28:24.159 outside the body, taking the strain off of the body, 0:28:24.160 --> 0:28:28.200 making things that we could need otherwise edible or more 0:28:28.280 --> 0:28:32.119 nutritious and so forth. Yeah, and then there's you know, 0:28:32.240 --> 0:28:36.119 additional areas you can get into, like food preservation and 0:28:36.160 --> 0:28:36.639 so forth. 0:28:36.920 --> 0:28:40.440 Yeah. Also with control of fire, you have protection against 0:28:40.520 --> 0:28:43.600 wild predators which tend to be afraid of fire and 0:28:43.680 --> 0:28:46.719 are easier to drive away with it. And then finally 0:28:46.720 --> 0:28:50.160 you've got provision of light in the darkness. And the 0:28:50.200 --> 0:28:54.440 way in which fire provides light in the darkness I 0:28:54.480 --> 0:28:58.880 think is interesting because of how it is different from 0:28:59.000 --> 0:29:03.160 the light provided by the sun, and to say nothing 0:29:03.200 --> 0:29:05.160 of the way that it's different from the kind of 0:29:05.240 --> 0:29:07.880 light provided by electrical light sources that we have today. 0:29:08.200 --> 0:29:10.560 That's something I want to come back to in part two, 0:29:10.800 --> 0:29:17.120 to think about the particular light regime of fire based societies. 0:29:17.840 --> 0:29:18.080 Yeah. 0:29:18.240 --> 0:29:21.320 Yeah, this is something I was thinking a lot about recently. 0:29:21.680 --> 0:29:23.960 When I visited Wales with my family. We went to 0:29:24.000 --> 0:29:27.280 Saint Fagan's National Museum of History, which has a lot 0:29:27.280 --> 0:29:31.560 of these historic Welsh buildings that have been moved to 0:29:31.600 --> 0:29:34.040 this area where you can check them out, you can 0:29:34.080 --> 0:29:37.240 walk inside them, and in many of these buildings they 0:29:37.240 --> 0:29:40.480 had a fireplace going and that was often like the 0:29:40.480 --> 0:29:43.400 main form of illumination and there may or may not 0:29:43.520 --> 0:29:47.280 even be any windows, and it's such an insight into 0:29:47.800 --> 0:29:52.400 times when you would be inhabiting an indoor environment like that. 0:29:52.480 --> 0:29:55.840 You know, we were totally spoiled for indoor illumination. These days, 0:29:56.440 --> 0:29:58.760 you can have your house generally as bright as you 0:29:58.840 --> 0:30:04.360 want it, like astoundingly bright. But it's an interesting experience 0:30:04.400 --> 0:30:07.520 to sort of step back in time and appreciate like 0:30:07.560 --> 0:30:10.000 the challenges and not to say that they were restricted 0:30:10.040 --> 0:30:12.560 only to the hearth fire. There are other you know, 0:30:13.040 --> 0:30:17.200 tricks you could could you could utilize to up your elimination, 0:30:17.400 --> 0:30:20.480 but you were limited. Uh and yeah, it's it was 0:30:20.520 --> 0:30:21.320 a different world. 0:30:21.800 --> 0:30:23.680 And specifically, one of the things I want to come 0:30:23.720 --> 0:30:26.760 back to in part two is ways that that limitation 0:30:27.080 --> 0:30:30.400 could actually be create a kind of freedom or open 0:30:30.440 --> 0:30:34.360 opportunities for other things that that are not as a 0:30:34.480 --> 0:30:37.000 parent if you're just in a daylight type of light 0:30:37.160 --> 0:30:40.160 or in a very bright electrical lighting scenario. 0:30:40.640 --> 0:30:44.120 Yeah. Yeah, in addition to like the obvious, like it's dark, 0:30:44.160 --> 0:30:47.719 maybe we should go to sleep. Yeah, it's sometimes a 0:30:47.880 --> 0:30:51.080 kind of a revelation to modern humans. It's like it 0:30:51.160 --> 0:30:55.040 is nighttime, I could sleep, I could turn all of 0:30:55.080 --> 0:30:58.960 this off, and we often don't do that. Yeah. 0:30:59.040 --> 0:31:01.360 I was about to be like, stop staring at your 0:31:01.360 --> 0:31:03.120 phone right before bed, which I do. 0:31:03.800 --> 0:31:06.720 Yeah, it's really hard to shake. It's our little heart 0:31:06.840 --> 0:31:08.880 we bring to bed with us, our little fireplace. 0:31:09.160 --> 0:31:11.960 Yeah, all right, well, so from here for the rest 0:31:11.960 --> 0:31:15.960 of today's episode, I wanted to talk briefly about how 0:31:16.000 --> 0:31:19.120 fireplaces are normally constructed, how they normally work in the 0:31:19.120 --> 0:31:22.360 modern sense, and then Rob, I know you had some 0:31:22.360 --> 0:31:25.600 stuff you wanted to get into about fireplaces as kind 0:31:25.600 --> 0:31:29.880 of magical portals. But okay. So one of the things 0:31:29.920 --> 0:31:32.920 is that obviously, once humans started to build houses, to 0:31:32.960 --> 0:31:35.840 build enclosures to live inside, it can be easy to 0:31:35.840 --> 0:31:37.880 see why you would want to have the heat and 0:31:38.000 --> 0:31:40.760 light benefits of a fire inside the protection of the 0:31:40.840 --> 0:31:44.480 dwelling and not just outside. But this actually is not 0:31:44.560 --> 0:31:47.520 as easy as it sounds. You're presented with several concerns. 0:31:47.640 --> 0:31:50.120 One is, how do you keep the fire from burning 0:31:50.200 --> 0:31:52.920 down the house. To do so, you would need to 0:31:53.000 --> 0:31:57.400 build the fireplace kind of away from any flammable walls 0:31:57.520 --> 0:32:00.720 or furniture, or if it is touching walls, you would 0:32:00.800 --> 0:32:05.080 need a fireplace system built into non flammable infrastructure made 0:32:05.080 --> 0:32:09.240 out of something like stone, brick, clay, or metal. Other 0:32:09.280 --> 0:32:11.680 big thing this is huge, how do you keep the 0:32:11.760 --> 0:32:14.960 fire from filling your house? Up with smoke. You need 0:32:15.000 --> 0:32:17.560 to have some kind of channel through which smoke and 0:32:17.640 --> 0:32:22.440 hot gases can escape the building. Modern fireplaces are equipped 0:32:22.440 --> 0:32:25.200 with dedicated flues and chimneys, as we'll talk about in 0:32:25.200 --> 0:32:29.280 a second. But as we see, many early indoor fireplaces 0:32:29.360 --> 0:32:33.760 had more had cruder ventilation systems, often consisting of simply 0:32:33.800 --> 0:32:36.760 a hole in the roof directly above the fire. And 0:32:36.840 --> 0:32:39.760 this would work to a degree, but it also meant that, yeah, 0:32:39.800 --> 0:32:42.360 for like thousands of years, a lot of buildings that 0:32:42.560 --> 0:32:46.000 housed indoor fires were just going to be pretty smoky inside. 0:32:46.320 --> 0:32:50.160 I definitely got a taste of some of that at St. Fagan's. Yeah. 0:32:50.960 --> 0:32:56.200 Now, basic modern fireplace and chimney design goes roughly like this. 0:32:56.360 --> 0:32:58.720 Usually you've got the fire box. This is where the 0:32:58.760 --> 0:33:02.360 fire goes, built on top of what's called a hearth. 0:33:02.520 --> 0:33:04.680 This is the more specialized use of the word hearth. 0:33:05.120 --> 0:33:07.680 This is the base of the fireplace that is made 0:33:07.680 --> 0:33:12.200 out of some kind of fireproof material, often bricks or stones. 0:33:13.120 --> 0:33:16.160 And this material, of course is meant to absorb heat 0:33:16.240 --> 0:33:19.200 from the fire and then heat the room that it's 0:33:19.200 --> 0:33:23.400 in by radiating that heat back out into the air. Now, 0:33:23.440 --> 0:33:26.920 above the firebox You often have like a decorative shelf 0:33:27.000 --> 0:33:29.040 called a mantle, but that's not really part of the 0:33:29.080 --> 0:33:32.600 mechanics of the fireplace. That's just a common decorative feature. 0:33:33.040 --> 0:33:36.040 The channel above the firebox leading to the outside is 0:33:36.040 --> 0:33:38.960 what's called the flu, and then the flu is surrounded 0:33:38.960 --> 0:33:41.760 by the structure that we call the chimney. A lot 0:33:41.760 --> 0:33:45.600 of times the flu is slightly offset from the firebox, 0:33:45.640 --> 0:33:48.840 so it's not just a pipe straight up. Instead, it'll 0:33:48.840 --> 0:33:50.880 be kind of set off to the side or behind, 0:33:51.360 --> 0:33:53.920 and it will be the FLU will be positioned directly 0:33:53.960 --> 0:33:57.280 above something that is called the smoke shelf, where soot 0:33:57.680 --> 0:34:00.600 or anything that happens to penetrate the flu opening on 0:34:00.720 --> 0:34:04.120 top of the roof, anything comes in from outdoors can 0:34:04.280 --> 0:34:07.120 fall without landing directly on the fire. Instead, it falls 0:34:07.160 --> 0:34:10.759 onto this shelf. Often also there is a damper which 0:34:10.760 --> 0:34:13.440 allows you to close off the flu when there's no 0:34:13.560 --> 0:34:16.920 fire burning to stop cold air from coming down in 0:34:16.960 --> 0:34:20.280 the chimney. Very important to remember to open the damper 0:34:20.320 --> 0:34:21.600 before lighting a new fire. 0:34:22.160 --> 0:34:24.160 This is especially true. Yeah, if you're staying in a 0:34:24.160 --> 0:34:27.839 cabin or something it's not your home, maybe back at 0:34:27.840 --> 0:34:29.920 your own house, you're not used to using a fireplace. 0:34:30.239 --> 0:34:32.200 It is an absolutely necessary step. 0:34:32.680 --> 0:34:34.880 Now, we all know that a fire needs fuel and 0:34:34.960 --> 0:34:37.400 heat to burn, but it's also important to remember that 0:34:37.480 --> 0:34:41.520 it needs oxygen. So airflow is important in determining how 0:34:41.600 --> 0:34:45.759 a fire burns and also in determining what effect a 0:34:45.800 --> 0:34:49.600 fire has on the house and its occupants. The majority 0:34:49.680 --> 0:34:53.680 of the interior heat provided by a fireplace is radiant heat. 0:34:53.800 --> 0:34:57.800 It's the infrared radiation coming off of the fire itself 0:34:58.160 --> 0:35:01.959 and then also coming off of the heated parts of 0:35:02.040 --> 0:35:05.040 the hearth or whatever is enclosing the fire, so coming 0:35:05.080 --> 0:35:08.240 off of the heated bricks or stones, or the metal. 0:35:08.280 --> 0:35:10.399 If it's more of a stove design, I'll talk about 0:35:10.440 --> 0:35:13.440 that in a second. But there is an irony to 0:35:13.600 --> 0:35:18.120 this beloved fixture of the fireplace. Way back in the 0:35:18.160 --> 0:35:23.040 eighteenth century, Benjamin Franklin wrote about how inefficient fireplaces were 0:35:23.200 --> 0:35:27.279 actually were at heating indoor spaces, just huge amounts of 0:35:27.280 --> 0:35:31.719 wasted energy. He noted that the majority of the convective 0:35:31.719 --> 0:35:34.480 heat that they produce just rushes straight up the flu 0:35:34.680 --> 0:35:37.640 and is lost to the outside air. And this is 0:35:37.680 --> 0:35:40.880 often true, though it can vary depending on particulars of 0:35:40.920 --> 0:35:45.040 the fireplace design. In fact, here's a weird thing. A 0:35:45.040 --> 0:35:47.759 lot of people might not know. A fire in the 0:35:47.760 --> 0:35:54.080 fireplace can actually make your house colder overall. So this 0:35:54.400 --> 0:35:57.200 again depends on particulars, depends on the design of the 0:35:57.200 --> 0:36:01.400 fireplace and the chimney, particularly how the vinylation system is configured. 0:36:01.800 --> 0:36:03.960 But in a lot of cases, you build a fire 0:36:03.960 --> 0:36:07.400 in the fireplace and it will increase the temperature in 0:36:07.480 --> 0:36:10.959 the area directly around the fire, you know, mostly again 0:36:11.000 --> 0:36:13.319 by way of radiant heat coming off the fire and 0:36:13.360 --> 0:36:15.640 the heated stone or brick or metal of the hearth. 0:36:16.239 --> 0:36:19.759 But meanwhile that fire is sucking in air from the 0:36:19.800 --> 0:36:23.160 inside of your house, relatively warm air, probably if it's 0:36:23.200 --> 0:36:25.880 winter time and you have the heat going, or just 0:36:25.960 --> 0:36:28.799 you know, there's warm stuff happening inside the house and 0:36:28.840 --> 0:36:32.359 so it's warmer than the air outside. So this air 0:36:32.600 --> 0:36:35.080 from the rest of the house is being sucked into 0:36:35.080 --> 0:36:38.480 the fireplace to feed the fire, and then the convection 0:36:38.800 --> 0:36:41.759 of the hot gas plume rising up through the flu 0:36:42.160 --> 0:36:46.239 is driving it outside as it gets superheated. As hot 0:36:46.320 --> 0:36:49.040 gas and smoke rushes up the chimney, a vacuum is 0:36:49.080 --> 0:36:51.920 created and more air continues to flow in from the 0:36:51.920 --> 0:36:56.080 inside of your house to the fireplace system, and thus 0:36:56.080 --> 0:36:58.200 a vacuum is created in the rest of the house, 0:36:58.480 --> 0:37:02.080 and then cold air is in from outside through whatever 0:37:02.120 --> 0:37:04.799 cracks your house has, cracks in the doors and windows 0:37:04.840 --> 0:37:08.359 and so forth. So plenty of tests have shown that 0:37:08.440 --> 0:37:12.000 an inefficient fireplace may feel warm to the room right 0:37:12.040 --> 0:37:14.839 there in front of the blaze, but actually freezes out 0:37:14.880 --> 0:37:17.480 the rest of the house. They even did an episode 0:37:17.480 --> 0:37:20.399 of MythBusters where they featured this one time. I haven't 0:37:20.440 --> 0:37:22.640 seen this, but I read about it, and I read 0:37:22.640 --> 0:37:26.000 that in their particular test rooms farther away in the 0:37:26.040 --> 0:37:28.680 house got a couple of degrees celsius colder. 0:37:29.200 --> 0:37:31.040 This is fascinating, and it makes me think back on 0:37:31.080 --> 0:37:33.440 times I've been in houses where there is a fireplace, 0:37:33.960 --> 0:37:35.880 and I'll, I mean, I will often find myself in 0:37:35.880 --> 0:37:38.040 this situation where it's like I'm somewhere else in the house, 0:37:38.360 --> 0:37:40.040 start feeling kind of chilly. Then I have to go 0:37:40.160 --> 0:37:42.520 like right next to the fireplace to warm up, and 0:37:42.560 --> 0:37:46.600 this pattern kind of continues. Yeah, and now I'm realizing 0:37:46.840 --> 0:37:49.600 it could be in part due to the presence of 0:37:49.640 --> 0:37:54.360 the fireplace to begin with, this inequality of temperature. 0:37:54.840 --> 0:37:57.840 Now, there are ways to improve the heating efficiency of 0:37:57.840 --> 0:38:00.520 a wood fire a one is to replace it with 0:38:00.680 --> 0:38:03.160 a wood is to replace your open fireplace with a 0:38:03.200 --> 0:38:07.160 wood stove. So this would be a fireplace completely enclosed 0:38:07.200 --> 0:38:10.200 in a metal box, which uses air more efficiently. It 0:38:10.320 --> 0:38:13.520 sucks less cold air into your house, and also it 0:38:13.719 --> 0:38:17.160 radiates heat into the house more efficiently, like the metal 0:38:17.239 --> 0:38:20.960 can radiate in all directions. You might notice a traditional 0:38:21.000 --> 0:38:23.640 stone or brick fireplace is usually built into a wall, 0:38:24.080 --> 0:38:27.200 whereas a wood stove is more often closer to the 0:38:27.200 --> 0:38:29.719 middle of the room and can radiate in all directions. 0:38:30.320 --> 0:38:32.680 Yeah, my late father in law was really into like 0:38:32.800 --> 0:38:37.719 passive solar and design and houses and you know, not 0:38:37.840 --> 0:38:39.719 quite like living off the grid kind of stuff, but 0:38:39.800 --> 0:38:41.399 like all the things you could do with a house 0:38:41.440 --> 0:38:44.520 to sort of like limit the need for electricity and 0:38:44.520 --> 0:38:47.759 so forth, and like that was a Keith aspect of 0:38:47.800 --> 0:38:51.600 his home design was having that wood stove. And yeah, 0:38:51.800 --> 0:38:53.839 it's not stuck in the wall, it's like out there 0:38:54.160 --> 0:38:55.440 basically in the center of the house. 0:38:55.880 --> 0:38:58.000 And we might talk more about this in part too. 0:38:58.040 --> 0:39:01.279 But there are also designs that improve the heating efficiency 0:39:01.320 --> 0:39:05.560 because they don't draw air from the interior of the house. Instead, 0:39:05.600 --> 0:39:08.800 they've got like an external intake vent of some kind 0:39:09.239 --> 0:39:12.040 feeding a fire that heats a structure made of again 0:39:12.120 --> 0:39:15.520 a fireproof material like brickstone or metal or tile, and 0:39:15.560 --> 0:39:19.360 then that radiates heat into the building, but the airflow 0:39:19.360 --> 0:39:22.520 system just doesn't really connect to the inside of the house. 0:39:22.600 --> 0:39:25.160 That also is a way of improving the heating efficiency. 0:39:26.080 --> 0:39:29.319 Though there's an interesting sort of a converse implication here 0:39:29.320 --> 0:39:31.640 which I discovered. Shout out one of my sources on 0:39:31.680 --> 0:39:34.880 fireplaces and how they generally work here was how stuff 0:39:34.920 --> 0:39:38.640 Works article our old employer. This one was by John Kelly, 0:39:38.760 --> 0:39:43.200 so a nice job, John, But basically the idea here 0:39:43.320 --> 0:39:45.600 is that if you notice you're building a fire and 0:39:45.640 --> 0:39:48.160 it's like having a hard time burning and the damper 0:39:48.239 --> 0:39:50.600 is open, and yet there's still a lot of smoke 0:39:50.719 --> 0:39:53.920 coming into the house, a problem could be that the 0:39:54.000 --> 0:39:56.759 house is too well sealed, like the doors and the 0:39:56.760 --> 0:39:59.000 windows are too well sealed, and the fire is not 0:39:59.239 --> 0:40:02.520 able to create this efficient river of air from the 0:40:02.560 --> 0:40:06.120 outside into the house into the fireplace, up the flu 0:40:06.200 --> 0:40:09.680 and then back outside. So instead it's pulling some air 0:40:09.800 --> 0:40:12.799 down the flu which is causing a counter draft and 0:40:12.840 --> 0:40:16.160 sending smoke into the room. So if you are having 0:40:16.200 --> 0:40:19.120 this problem, one thing to try is like opening a window, 0:40:19.440 --> 0:40:21.359 though of course that's going to let a bunch of 0:40:21.360 --> 0:40:23.720 cold air in, so that may just be the price. 0:40:24.280 --> 0:40:26.920 Wow, I had never thought about that, huh. 0:40:26.920 --> 0:40:30.799 But anyway, I'm just thinking about the implications of a 0:40:30.880 --> 0:40:34.719 fireplace often making the rest of the house colder, even 0:40:34.719 --> 0:40:37.879 while it makes one or two rooms much warmer. And 0:40:38.719 --> 0:40:42.399 this made me think about an unintended secondary effect of 0:40:42.560 --> 0:40:46.960 wood fire heating being the tendency to cause people to gather. 0:40:47.440 --> 0:40:50.239 Yeah, this is a great point. Yeah, drawing people to 0:40:50.600 --> 0:40:54.400 the hearth, to the fire, drawing them together, and thus 0:40:55.880 --> 0:40:58.880 and thus becoming like a center of the family of 0:40:59.800 --> 0:41:03.080 social interaction, storytelling and so forth. 0:41:03.320 --> 0:41:06.719 Yeah, there's like a sort of unstated little punishment for 0:41:06.800 --> 0:41:09.920 being off by yourself. It's just gonna make your room colder. 0:41:10.280 --> 0:41:24.759 Yeah, now you know it is. It is Christmas time, 0:41:24.880 --> 0:41:30.000 and so a lot of folks are engaging in different 0:41:30.120 --> 0:41:35.399 fireplace related traditions, the hanging of stockings and so forth. 0:41:35.480 --> 0:41:37.640 And what do you traditionally hang your stockings? Why you 0:41:37.640 --> 0:41:41.239 hang them by the hearth. You hang them above the fireplace. 0:41:42.000 --> 0:41:43.719 And of course we have tales of Santa Claus, or 0:41:43.760 --> 0:41:48.600 perhaps they masquerading grinch entering your home by crawling down 0:41:48.680 --> 0:41:53.800 your chimney and climbing in through the fireplace. This is 0:41:54.000 --> 0:41:55.920 this is one of those I think examples of the 0:41:55.960 --> 0:42:00.560 fireplace as a portal, fireplace as a as a gate 0:42:00.760 --> 0:42:04.000 through which something may travel that it's almost too close 0:42:04.040 --> 0:42:06.160 to us. You know, we grow up with this tradition, 0:42:06.280 --> 0:42:09.360 we're told it from an early age. We're familiar with 0:42:09.360 --> 0:42:13.400 this story before. We're familiar with many of the foundation 0:42:13.640 --> 0:42:18.600 stories of our own religions, you know, and important cultural 0:42:18.680 --> 0:42:22.279 other important cultural tales, arguably more important cultural tales. We 0:42:22.360 --> 0:42:25.880 have this story of a strange old man who climbs 0:42:26.040 --> 0:42:29.279 through the fireplace, again, almost too close for us to 0:42:29.320 --> 0:42:31.440 even think about it. We'll come back to that in 0:42:31.480 --> 0:42:34.359 a second. But another way, of course, that and this 0:42:34.400 --> 0:42:36.799 is one that may resonate more with fireplace owners, people 0:42:36.800 --> 0:42:41.800 who actually have hearts in their home, is the reality that, okay, 0:42:41.840 --> 0:42:46.600 as a literal aperture to the outside of your home, 0:42:47.000 --> 0:42:49.760 it is possible for animals to climb down that chimney 0:42:50.280 --> 0:42:54.680 and potentially enter your home. They may be prevented full 0:42:54.800 --> 0:42:59.719 access to the home by bats, raccoons, mice various squirrels 0:42:59.719 --> 0:43:03.759 are some of the examples of potential chimney splunkers. I 0:43:03.760 --> 0:43:07.000 know I've encountered bats in this manner before at a 0:43:07.000 --> 0:43:09.799 friend's house, where like a bat or two would come 0:43:09.800 --> 0:43:12.400 into the chimney, get trapped in the house, and then 0:43:12.440 --> 0:43:14.680 you would find them, often in the sink trying to 0:43:14.680 --> 0:43:18.279 get water. WHOA, yeah, I came to this house like 0:43:18.320 --> 0:43:19.839 some it was, you know, it's like a vacation home 0:43:19.920 --> 0:43:21.360 or something, so nobody had been in it for a 0:43:21.360 --> 0:43:23.920 little bit, and I saw something in the sink and 0:43:23.960 --> 0:43:26.200 I'm like, oh, someone left a tea bag and I 0:43:26.280 --> 0:43:29.359 almost grabbed it throw it away, and then I, oh, 0:43:29.480 --> 0:43:32.520 that's a bat. And then I had to call my 0:43:32.560 --> 0:43:38.000 friend and be like, what's your bat protocol? The bat 0:43:38.040 --> 0:43:39.280 was fine, thiss. 0:43:39.120 --> 0:43:41.759 Never even occurred to me. I cannot relate. That's but 0:43:41.800 --> 0:43:42.640 that's incredible. 0:43:43.760 --> 0:43:46.720 Now. This idea, though, of a chimney is a portal 0:43:46.760 --> 0:43:50.720 through which other worldly powers may traverse, such as Santa Claus. 0:43:51.400 --> 0:43:55.320 This is a pretty deeply seated concept, certainly in European traditions, 0:43:55.760 --> 0:44:00.279 but you can also see examples of similar ideas from 0:44:00.560 --> 0:44:04.640 pretty far flung traditions. Seemingly to connect with the various 0:44:04.760 --> 0:44:09.960 supernatural concepts you might encounter about the home, about fire, technology, 0:44:10.160 --> 0:44:13.520 about cooking, and just the nature of the flame itself. 0:44:14.160 --> 0:44:17.280 For instance, Carol Rose, in her Encyclopedia of Giants, Monsters, 0:44:17.280 --> 0:44:20.680 and Dragons that I frequently cite, mentions a tradition of 0:44:20.719 --> 0:44:26.719 the clean Get peoples of Northwestern United States the tell 0:44:26.960 --> 0:44:33.320 of Heya Kannako, the old woman underneath us, an enormous 0:44:33.320 --> 0:44:37.880 protective deity of the earth who concentrates on supporting the world, 0:44:38.000 --> 0:44:41.240 almost in a similar sense to Atlas, you know, holding 0:44:41.320 --> 0:44:44.040 up the earth. But when her hunger gets the better 0:44:44.080 --> 0:44:49.200 off her, her concentration falters and earthquakes ensue. And so 0:44:50.040 --> 0:44:54.239 humans occasionally throw bits of fat into their hearths, and 0:44:54.320 --> 0:45:00.239 the Carol Rose describes it in order to help or 0:45:00.280 --> 0:45:04.799 overcome her hunger and to concentrate on keeping the earth imbalance. 0:45:06.080 --> 0:45:09.200 So you know, it's not something crawling through the fire 0:45:09.760 --> 0:45:12.680 through the hearth, but it's this idea of the hearth 0:45:12.800 --> 0:45:17.520 is kind of this connection in almost a physical connection 0:45:17.640 --> 0:45:20.080 to some sort of supernatural force. 0:45:20.600 --> 0:45:23.360 Yeah. I think the general use of fire for burnt 0:45:23.400 --> 0:45:26.400 offering or sacrifice indicates a way of thinking of the 0:45:26.440 --> 0:45:30.400 fire as a kind of interface point between our world 0:45:30.400 --> 0:45:34.279 and the other world, that you can burn something to 0:45:34.360 --> 0:45:36.800 kind of send it through a portal to the gods. 0:45:37.520 --> 0:45:39.239 Yeah, and what I like about this one, though, is 0:45:39.280 --> 0:45:43.319 the idea that it's not a special fire created for 0:45:43.480 --> 0:45:46.880 a special ritual purpose. It's more like the everyday fire. 0:45:47.239 --> 0:45:50.920 But even the everyday fire has the potential to be 0:45:51.120 --> 0:45:54.520 this gateway. And you know, again, it makes sense when 0:45:54.560 --> 0:45:57.080 you think about all the convergence of activities and energies 0:45:57.120 --> 0:46:02.480 at the hearth, the warmth, the illumination, food preparation, social gathering. 0:46:02.520 --> 0:46:05.600 You know, perhaps due to the fact that it's in 0:46:05.640 --> 0:46:07.680 a home situation that the rest of the home is cold, 0:46:08.000 --> 0:46:12.959 and drawing people together to tell stories, tell jokes, share 0:46:13.000 --> 0:46:16.319 their experiences. And on top of that, it is an 0:46:16.360 --> 0:46:20.520 obvious aperture to the outside world, which certainly brings about 0:46:20.560 --> 0:46:24.680 the possibility of various natural world creatures gaining access to 0:46:24.719 --> 0:46:28.560 your abode. But let us also remember that we're also 0:46:28.600 --> 0:46:31.319 talking about a gateway through which air can pass and 0:46:31.400 --> 0:46:34.960 does pass. And as most of human history is pre 0:46:35.080 --> 0:46:37.720 germ theory, I think you can see where this is going. 0:46:37.800 --> 0:46:40.959 The idea that this is also an aperture through which 0:46:41.120 --> 0:46:44.680 bad air could travel, or something in the air, something 0:46:44.719 --> 0:46:50.160 that is not as constricted as physical as physical beings 0:46:50.160 --> 0:46:52.920 are constricted. That they could pass through that small hole. 0:46:52.960 --> 0:46:55.400 They could essentially, you know, pass through the keyhole and 0:46:55.440 --> 0:46:59.560 that's all the space they need. Interesting, it reminds me 0:46:59.600 --> 0:47:02.480 actually of a tradition we talked about an idea of 0:47:02.680 --> 0:47:06.960 the Dine or Navajo people. This came up in a 0:47:06.960 --> 0:47:09.760 couple of episodes, I think in Our Dust episodes, actually, 0:47:10.560 --> 0:47:14.480 the idea that you might have an adante, a practitioner 0:47:14.480 --> 0:47:19.160 of secret evil magic, who might introduce a magical poison 0:47:19.239 --> 0:47:24.120 or illness into a home through its smoke hole. So 0:47:24.200 --> 0:47:27.960 that definitely came to mind here, the smoke hole in 0:47:28.000 --> 0:47:30.759 a traditional home, this could be an aperture that could 0:47:30.760 --> 0:47:35.600 be exploited by an evil doer, and in European traditions, 0:47:35.680 --> 0:47:39.320 spilling over into early American colonial traditions, this concept carried 0:47:39.320 --> 0:47:42.960 a great deal of weight, something that previous guest on 0:47:43.080 --> 0:47:46.400 Stuff to Blow your Mind Brian Hoggard discusses in his 0:47:46.440 --> 0:47:51.000 excellent twenty nineteen book Magical House Protection The Archaeology of 0:47:51.080 --> 0:47:55.160 counter Witchcraft. I know some of you probably listened to 0:47:55.239 --> 0:47:57.440 that episode. It's a great one if you want to 0:47:57.480 --> 0:48:00.320 go back and listen to an interview with the author. 0:48:00.600 --> 0:48:02.799 But I'm going to discuss some of the ideas that 0:48:02.840 --> 0:48:04.800 he brought up in that book here as it relates 0:48:04.840 --> 0:48:07.960 to this topic. So in the book, Hoggard discusses the 0:48:08.040 --> 0:48:12.640 various counter witchcraft rights and rituals that Europeans use, dating 0:48:12.680 --> 0:48:18.000 back at least to the Middle Ages, functioning alongside and generally, 0:48:18.040 --> 0:48:22.240 I guess in spite of protections offered by the Christian 0:48:22.280 --> 0:48:25.640 faith and Christian tradition. This is coming from the show before. 0:48:25.680 --> 0:48:31.480 You know, you have the various church approved methods that 0:48:31.560 --> 0:48:35.680 you might take against supernatural evil, but are you going 0:48:35.719 --> 0:48:37.719 to limit yourself to just those or are you going 0:48:37.800 --> 0:48:41.799 to also set other traps and wards in place? But 0:48:42.400 --> 0:48:48.399 in this case, we're talking about supernatural superstitious folk protections 0:48:48.840 --> 0:48:53.080 that were clearly deemed absolutely necessary by many to combat 0:48:53.200 --> 0:48:57.359 evil in a demon haunted world. Hoggard stresses that the 0:48:57.440 --> 0:49:00.920 archaeological evidence suggests that unseen supernaw natural threats, which just 0:49:00.920 --> 0:49:05.160 a standard part of everyday existence, supernatural evil was everywhere 0:49:05.520 --> 0:49:07.640 and you had to bust out all the tricks in 0:49:07.760 --> 0:49:11.120 order to if not completely protect yourself, then at least 0:49:11.160 --> 0:49:14.640 been the odds even slightly in your favor, and is 0:49:14.680 --> 0:49:17.680 explored in the book. These efforts often took the form 0:49:17.760 --> 0:49:21.400 of a ritual object or objects hidden in the home. 0:49:23.080 --> 0:49:26.560 He writes the most popular locations to conceal objects within 0:49:26.640 --> 0:49:31.080 buildings are usually at portals such as the hearth, the threshold, 0:49:31.360 --> 0:49:35.400 and also voids or dead spaces. This suggests that people 0:49:35.400 --> 0:49:38.359 believed it was possible for dark forces to travel through 0:49:38.360 --> 0:49:41.759 the landscape and attack them in their homes. Whether these 0:49:41.800 --> 0:49:44.400 forces were emanations from a witch in the form of 0:49:44.440 --> 0:49:47.920 a spell, a witch is familiar pestering their property, an 0:49:47.920 --> 0:49:51.000 actual witch flying in spirit, or a combination of all 0:49:51.040 --> 0:49:54.040 of those is difficult to tell. Additional sources of danger 0:49:54.080 --> 0:49:57.399 could be ghosts, fairies, and demons. People went to great 0:49:57.480 --> 0:50:00.759 lengths to ensure their homes and property were protected, highlighting 0:50:00.760 --> 0:50:03.520 the fact that these beliefs and fears were visceral and 0:50:03.600 --> 0:50:06.719 as far as they were concerned, literally terrifying. 0:50:07.640 --> 0:50:12.760 Interesting yet again, the way that some physical intuitions apply 0:50:12.920 --> 0:50:16.160 to these apparently magical substances, like the spell of a 0:50:16.200 --> 0:50:18.799 witch or a which is familiar, which you might well 0:50:18.840 --> 0:50:22.160 assume could just you know, pass magically through any wall 0:50:22.320 --> 0:50:26.640 or whatever. It seems people were especially concerned about voids 0:50:26.680 --> 0:50:29.840 and portals, like the physical gaps that a physical being 0:50:29.840 --> 0:50:31.120 would need to travel through. 0:50:31.880 --> 0:50:35.200 I mean, I imagine a lot of you have had 0:50:35.200 --> 0:50:37.520 this experience. I mean, to be clear, some of you 0:50:37.600 --> 0:50:40.440 may have the experience of finding some of these secreted 0:50:41.480 --> 0:50:44.560 and hidden items, and if so, do write in. We 0:50:44.560 --> 0:50:46.400 would love to hear from you. But I find it 0:50:46.480 --> 0:50:48.799 like a little strange when I encounter a void in 0:50:48.840 --> 0:50:51.120 my house, when you realize, like, here is a space 0:50:51.160 --> 0:50:53.799 within my home where there is nothing, you know, and 0:50:53.840 --> 0:50:56.880 that's that I don't know. It shouldn't feel creepy, but 0:50:56.920 --> 0:50:57.319 it does. 0:50:57.640 --> 0:51:03.000 What's under the stairs nothing, there's nothing there. 0:51:12.800 --> 0:51:15.720 Now, if you're not familiar with the details that HACKERD 0:51:15.800 --> 0:51:17.960 gets into and the details that came up in that 0:51:18.120 --> 0:51:20.600 interview I conducted a while back, you might be wondering, well, 0:51:20.600 --> 0:51:23.520 what sort of ritual objects are we talking about hidden 0:51:23.560 --> 0:51:27.759 away in homes and voids and so forth, potentially near 0:51:27.840 --> 0:51:31.919 the hearth to afford protection against these many evils. Well, 0:51:32.120 --> 0:51:35.400 there are various examples, but some of the main ones 0:51:35.440 --> 0:51:37.800 are as follows. First of all, there's just protective marks. 0:51:37.840 --> 0:51:40.480 And I feel like this is fairly self explanatory. You know, 0:51:40.520 --> 0:51:44.040 some sort of a symbol or a sigil that has 0:51:44.080 --> 0:51:48.279 protective properties and that may be hidden away somewhere in 0:51:48.320 --> 0:51:52.239 a home. This next one, though, this one was the 0:51:52.280 --> 0:51:55.319 one that I found surprising at the time I was 0:51:55.360 --> 0:51:57.920 not familiar with prior to reading this book, and that 0:51:58.040 --> 0:52:01.480 is shoes. And I think this is especially interesting because 0:52:01.520 --> 0:52:04.360 from our modern perspective, we often forget just what a 0:52:04.480 --> 0:52:06.960 shoe is. We can take it for granted, we can have, 0:52:07.120 --> 0:52:09.600 you know, hundreds of them, and we may love shoes 0:52:09.640 --> 0:52:13.240 to death without like, without really thinking about this vital 0:52:13.280 --> 0:52:15.799 aspect of what they are. Yeah. Yes, we put them 0:52:15.800 --> 0:52:17.799 on our feet to walk about in and you know, 0:52:17.880 --> 0:52:20.160 not step on nails and rocks and so forth, keep 0:52:20.160 --> 0:52:23.480 our feet warm, make our feet look you know, snazzy 0:52:23.520 --> 0:52:27.440 and cool. But they are also flesh like sheaths, sometimes 0:52:27.480 --> 0:52:32.280 made from animal products, that are sized, perhaps individually sized 0:52:32.560 --> 0:52:35.120 for the shape of our feet or if nothing else. 0:52:35.160 --> 0:52:38.120 Over time, they take on the shape of our feet. 0:52:38.160 --> 0:52:41.239 They take on the odor of our feet. These are 0:52:41.280 --> 0:52:45.120 two details, especially the odor that is often lost on us, 0:52:45.160 --> 0:52:48.200 perhaps not lost on our dogs and cats. They know 0:52:48.320 --> 0:52:54.000 these shoes smell like us and are like potent familiar 0:52:54.040 --> 0:52:57.680 items of us. You know, our cat will lay on 0:52:57.719 --> 0:53:01.640 shoes a lot, and I've had some commentary on this 0:53:01.760 --> 0:53:03.799 kind of behavior in cats and dogs, where they will 0:53:03.840 --> 0:53:07.040 be drawn to the shoes because they remind them of 0:53:07.440 --> 0:53:10.759 the owners of said shoes. And all. This would seem 0:53:10.800 --> 0:53:13.239 to be part of the superstitious calculus for these traditions. 0:53:13.280 --> 0:53:16.560 So a shoe may wear out beyond repair in the 0:53:16.560 --> 0:53:19.560 case of a child's shoes and shoes that they may 0:53:19.680 --> 0:53:23.279 outgrow them, but they are still then objects that have 0:53:23.400 --> 0:53:26.200 to a large extent become a part of us. You know, 0:53:26.239 --> 0:53:29.160 they are shaped after us, they smell of us, and 0:53:29.400 --> 0:53:34.120 they're therefore dangerous items to discard. In much the same 0:53:34.160 --> 0:53:37.120 way that nail clippings and hair were often seen as such, 0:53:37.480 --> 0:53:40.080 like they were a part of you. They still are 0:53:40.200 --> 0:53:43.000 a part of you, and that is dangerous material to 0:53:43.120 --> 0:53:46.480 just leave out in the world where you know an 0:53:46.520 --> 0:53:49.080 evil doer or an evil spirit may come across it 0:53:49.120 --> 0:53:51.279 and by doing so gain power over you. 0:53:52.120 --> 0:53:54.279 This type of folk belief is sometimes referred to as 0:53:54.320 --> 0:53:58.200 the law of contagion, that like things that were once 0:53:58.440 --> 0:54:02.600 united or in contact with one another. If they become separated, 0:54:02.800 --> 0:54:05.840 you may need to do some kind of cleansing or exorcism, 0:54:06.000 --> 0:54:10.000 or some kind of ritual acknowledgment of the severing there 0:54:10.160 --> 0:54:13.360 or destruction of the thing as it is separated from you, 0:54:13.880 --> 0:54:16.120 or else it can be used to have power over 0:54:16.160 --> 0:54:19.120 you by way of the associative magical connection. 0:54:19.920 --> 0:54:22.640 Yeah yeah, or in this case, you find another use 0:54:22.680 --> 0:54:25.319 for them. And so according to Hoggard, shoes and other 0:54:25.360 --> 0:54:28.880 objects we're often deposited on ledges, within the chimney breast 0:54:28.960 --> 0:54:32.000 or behind the fireback, and he stresses that quote. Shoes 0:54:32.040 --> 0:54:36.360 are perhaps the most commonly encountered apotropaic objects and often 0:54:36.400 --> 0:54:38.280 had an association with the hearth. 0:54:38.800 --> 0:54:41.440 Oh interesting, so the same object that could become your 0:54:41.520 --> 0:54:45.319 vulnerability if discarded and found by a witch, could be 0:54:45.400 --> 0:54:47.759 your protective amulet if you keep it, if you keep 0:54:47.800 --> 0:54:49.239 it in the home, right. 0:54:49.280 --> 0:54:51.680 And I'll come back to why this may be in 0:54:51.760 --> 0:54:54.200 just a second, but before we do, I want to 0:54:54.239 --> 0:54:56.680 talk briefly about witch bottles, which are I think the 0:54:56.760 --> 0:55:02.920 more exciting and exotic sounding version of abotropic objects hidden 0:55:02.960 --> 0:55:06.239 in a home, often in the area of the hearth. Now, 0:55:06.280 --> 0:55:09.960 there's some variety to what these will consist of but 0:55:10.120 --> 0:55:13.040 you know, they have been found, they've been analyzed, they're 0:55:13.040 --> 0:55:14.839 still being found. That's one of the great things that 0:55:15.200 --> 0:55:17.640 Hagard discusses is that you have so many different waves 0:55:17.680 --> 0:55:20.439 of renovation that take place with some of these old 0:55:20.480 --> 0:55:25.080 homes in Europe, in Britain, in the UK, and also 0:55:25.280 --> 0:55:28.880 in parts of the United States and Canada as well, 0:55:29.480 --> 0:55:33.560 where people will suddenly discover a pair of ancient shoes 0:55:34.040 --> 0:55:38.000 or a strange bottle. And he also discusses how there 0:55:38.000 --> 0:55:42.080 are cases where people have suddenly sort of given into 0:55:42.080 --> 0:55:44.560 some of the superstition of it and they've had to 0:55:44.600 --> 0:55:47.759 put sad item back. You know, it's like it's kind 0:55:47.760 --> 0:55:50.160 of like the reverse of finding a void. You find 0:55:50.160 --> 0:55:54.719 a purposeful item that you don't fully understand. You're not 0:55:54.760 --> 0:55:57.439 on the same mental wavelength with it, but you've come 0:55:57.480 --> 0:56:00.239 to believe, well, I should put it back. I don't 0:56:00.280 --> 0:56:02.040 know my way around all of this enough to say 0:56:02.080 --> 0:56:03.200 it doesn't belong there. 0:56:03.640 --> 0:56:06.200 I can sympathize with that, and this may just say 0:56:06.200 --> 0:56:10.440 something about my you know, personality or kind of tendencies, 0:56:10.480 --> 0:56:15.560 the character tendencies. But while I would never take active 0:56:15.719 --> 0:56:18.720 steps to do it to like you know, put shoes 0:56:18.719 --> 0:56:20.960 in a wall thinking it would protect my house or something. 0:56:21.000 --> 0:56:24.880 I would feel weird about taking something out. Yeah, yeah, 0:56:25.120 --> 0:56:28.040 it seems like, well, feels like I shouldn't do that. 0:56:28.640 --> 0:56:31.160 Yeah, that may be a load bearing shoe. 0:56:31.520 --> 0:56:32.360 Just leave it alone. 0:56:33.920 --> 0:56:36.319 So with witch bottles, again there's some variation as to 0:56:36.360 --> 0:56:41.240 what they may hold, but there are various written instructions 0:56:41.560 --> 0:56:45.200 from historical records that talk about what goes into a 0:56:45.239 --> 0:56:48.759 witch bottle, and one that Hoggard shares This is from 0:56:49.000 --> 0:56:52.400 seventeen oh one and he includes it in his book, 0:56:52.480 --> 0:56:54.600 and basically the directions are to take a pint of 0:56:54.640 --> 0:56:58.200 your own urine, heat it to near scalding temperatures, pour 0:56:58.239 --> 0:57:01.680 it into a jug, and then add white salt and 0:57:01.840 --> 0:57:05.400 three new nails with the points down. Then you bind 0:57:05.520 --> 0:57:07.960 the jug with clay and leather and you heat it 0:57:08.000 --> 0:57:10.040 over embers for nine to ten days. 0:57:10.520 --> 0:57:12.760 It's gotta work because look at all the steps. 0:57:13.080 --> 0:57:16.240 Yeah, and I think sometimes there are more steps than 0:57:16.240 --> 0:57:18.400 may be a simplified version, but it's the basics are 0:57:18.520 --> 0:57:21.720 in play here. The urine, the pointy object. Sometimes they're 0:57:21.760 --> 0:57:24.200 pins or needles. Sometimes it's like a lot of like 0:57:24.280 --> 0:57:27.000 rusty nails, pins or needles and so forth. So in 0:57:27.040 --> 0:57:29.400 the case of the shoes and the witch bottle, here 0:57:29.920 --> 0:57:33.760 the basic idea would seem to be this. You have 0:57:33.800 --> 0:57:37.040 an unseen evil force, be it a demon, a fairy, 0:57:37.160 --> 0:57:40.720 a ghost, or some curse of a witch, and it 0:57:40.840 --> 0:57:45.080 is seeking you. It has entered your home, perhaps through 0:57:45.120 --> 0:57:49.040 a door, perhaps through a window, perhaps down the chimney 0:57:49.200 --> 0:57:53.440 and through the fireplace. It's seeking you out. But what 0:57:53.520 --> 0:57:57.960 does an encounter. Instead, it encounters your smell, and encounters 0:57:58.560 --> 0:58:00.640 the shoe that was so much a part of your 0:58:00.680 --> 0:58:03.880 body and now can be mistaken for your body, and 0:58:03.920 --> 0:58:06.400 it goes after that. Instead, it serves as a decoy. 0:58:06.920 --> 0:58:10.320 And in the case of the witch bottle, it's even 0:58:10.360 --> 0:58:14.560 more exciting. So it smells that deep uriny stench that 0:58:14.680 --> 0:58:17.600 is associated with you. But it's found the bottle first. 0:58:17.680 --> 0:58:20.400 And so what does this evil thing do, this spirit, 0:58:20.600 --> 0:58:25.120 this dark seeker in the night. It climbs inside that bottle. 0:58:25.360 --> 0:58:28.000 But uh oh, Now it is either trapped in the 0:58:28.000 --> 0:58:31.880 bottle or it is impaled upon all of those sharp 0:58:31.920 --> 0:58:36.360 pointy bits inside the bottle and therefore injured or perhaps 0:58:36.440 --> 0:58:39.960 killed by this witch bottle, this trap that has been 0:58:40.000 --> 0:58:40.560 set for it. 0:58:41.280 --> 0:58:43.760 That's ingenious. I didn't know it was going there with 0:58:43.840 --> 0:58:46.000 the nails, but that makes sense. I was wondering if 0:58:46.000 --> 0:58:48.000 the nails had some kind of you know, they might 0:58:48.000 --> 0:58:51.480 be iron nails unless the iron significance as like a 0:58:51.520 --> 0:58:54.760 protective magic against the fairy folk and so forth. 0:58:54.920 --> 0:58:56.800 Yeah, and there may be part of that to it 0:58:56.840 --> 0:59:00.400 as well, you know, and certainly protective magic like this, 0:59:00.600 --> 0:59:04.160 you know, they may sort of like drag various ideas 0:59:04.200 --> 0:59:08.200 with them across time. So I would not discount the 0:59:08.600 --> 0:59:11.960 importance of the iron at all. But this is all 0:59:12.080 --> 0:59:16.600 very interesting to think about in comparison to various Christmas traditions, 0:59:16.600 --> 0:59:19.680 like I instantly think about wooden clogs left out for 0:59:19.840 --> 0:59:22.919 Saint Nicholas or Santa though I've also read that prior 0:59:23.000 --> 0:59:25.480 to the sixteenth century, at least in some European countries, 0:59:25.520 --> 0:59:27.400 the clogs were left in the church rather than in 0:59:27.400 --> 0:59:31.640 the home. I'm not as well versed in the history 0:59:31.680 --> 0:59:35.240 of those traditions, but at any rate, you do have 0:59:35.320 --> 0:59:39.800 examples where shoes are left out so that some entity 0:59:40.200 --> 0:59:44.400 may deposit gifts inside them, and those shoes may be placed, 0:59:44.400 --> 0:59:46.600 I think often near doors or windows, so there still 0:59:46.680 --> 0:59:49.560 is that sense of put them near the aperture, put 0:59:49.600 --> 0:59:52.440 them near the portals. And where do we hang our 0:59:52.480 --> 0:59:55.600 stockings with care? We of course hang them again by 0:59:55.680 --> 1:00:01.200 the fireplace, by the hearth. Yeah, almost as if we're 1:00:01.240 --> 1:00:03.800 trying to throw Santa Claus off the scent. You know, 1:00:03.880 --> 1:00:06.400 there is no need, strange one, to bring the gifts 1:00:06.440 --> 1:00:10.680 directly to the children. Here is their sense, smell their feet. 1:00:11.600 --> 1:00:14.680 Here is the essence you seek. Leave the gifts here, 1:00:15.080 --> 1:00:17.840 leave the children alone in their room. 1:00:17.400 --> 1:00:19.760 Or the coal, I guess if applicable. 1:00:20.040 --> 1:00:22.240 Yes, there is no need to put the coal inside 1:00:22.280 --> 1:00:25.800 the children, leave it in the socks. And thus he 1:00:25.880 --> 1:00:28.720 is outsmarted, and he leaves the children alone for another year? 1:00:29.360 --> 1:00:33.960 What resonance this idea is now bounding about inside me? 1:00:35.320 --> 1:00:39.360 One more note from Brian Haggard. I was looking through 1:00:39.360 --> 1:00:41.120 the book to see I couldn't remember if he had 1:00:41.440 --> 1:00:46.120 mentioned anything Christmasy in particular, And he does mention a 1:00:46.360 --> 1:00:51.160 rhyme that was associated with ritual burn marks from tapers 1:00:51.160 --> 1:00:53.560 in homes. So, like I say, there were various There 1:00:53.560 --> 1:00:56.840 are various marks and signs inside some of these old 1:00:56.880 --> 1:01:01.960 homes that are interpreted as being associated with various protective 1:01:02.040 --> 1:01:06.960 magical activities. And rituals, and one of them I think 1:01:06.960 --> 1:01:09.160 could be easy to miss. It's just like burn marks 1:01:09.360 --> 1:01:11.680 in a house. I included a picture from his book 1:01:11.720 --> 1:01:13.120 here for you to look at, Joe, Like, if you 1:01:13.120 --> 1:01:15.240 didn't know what you're looking at, you might just think 1:01:15.280 --> 1:01:17.560 these were caused by some other you know, I don't know, 1:01:17.600 --> 1:01:21.560 something that occurred during construction or something like that. But 1:01:22.840 --> 1:01:26.080 an interpretation here is that these were ritual burn marks. 1:01:26.120 --> 1:01:29.560 And he includes this is a translation, but it is 1:01:30.480 --> 1:01:34.360 a translation of a German rhyme that apparently went along 1:01:34.400 --> 1:01:38.040 with some holiday traditions of protecting the home. So I'm 1:01:38.040 --> 1:01:39.560 going to read it here again. This is from Brian 1:01:39.640 --> 1:01:44.400 Huggrid's book and it goes as follows, and round about 1:01:44.440 --> 1:01:47.920 the house they go with torch or taper, clear that 1:01:48.080 --> 1:01:51.720 neither bread nor meat do want know which with dreadful 1:01:51.840 --> 1:01:55.400 charm have power to hurt their children or do the 1:01:55.480 --> 1:01:58.400 cattle harm. So I'm not saying burn beams in your 1:01:58.400 --> 1:02:03.840 house with fire as part of your holiday traditions. But yeah, 1:02:03.880 --> 1:02:06.600 it's interesting to think about all of this. And again, 1:02:06.640 --> 1:02:08.960 this is another one that involves the power of fire, 1:02:09.720 --> 1:02:14.040 the power of the flame to protect us against unseen things. 1:02:14.080 --> 1:02:18.080 In the night. By the way, I know Brian would 1:02:18.120 --> 1:02:20.560 want me to pass this along to you. If you 1:02:21.280 --> 1:02:24.600 do encounter something like this in your house strange shoes, 1:02:24.640 --> 1:02:27.760 a strange item, a witch bottle and so forth, it 1:02:28.200 --> 1:02:31.680 is very helpful to like reach out to people who 1:02:31.720 --> 1:02:35.320 will document it all. And a lot of people do 1:02:35.440 --> 1:02:40.120 reach out to Brian Hoggard themselves. He's on Instagram as 1:02:40.360 --> 1:02:43.520 folk Magic Man. He also has a website, so just 1:02:43.560 --> 1:02:46.840 look him up. It's Brian Hoggart h O G A 1:02:47.080 --> 1:02:48.880 r D. And he can point you in the right 1:02:48.880 --> 1:02:52.439 direction if if you encounter something like this in your home, 1:02:53.120 --> 1:02:56.040 or email us and I'll forward it to him. Happy 1:02:56.080 --> 1:02:56.480 to do that. 1:02:57.200 --> 1:02:59.280 All right, Well, I think we're out of time for today. 1:02:59.280 --> 1:03:01.880 We've got more to say and to explore about the 1:03:01.920 --> 1:03:04.480 fireplace and the hearth, so join us again on Thursday. 1:03:05.120 --> 1:03:07.000 That's right. In the meantime, we'll remind you that this 1:03:07.000 --> 1:03:08.800 stuff to blow your mind is primarily as signed some 1:03:08.800 --> 1:03:12.000 culture podcasts with core episodes on Tuesdays and Thursdays. On 1:03:12.000 --> 1:03:14.360 Wednesdays we do a short form episode and on Fridays 1:03:14.400 --> 1:03:16.560 we set aside most series concerns to just talk about 1:03:16.560 --> 1:03:20.400 a weird film on Weird House Cinema. If you're on Instagram, 1:03:20.640 --> 1:03:24.440 follow us at stbym podcast, and if you are on 1:03:24.680 --> 1:03:27.520 Letterboxed follow us at Weird House. That's where you can 1:03:27.560 --> 1:03:30.320 keep up with movies that we're covering on Weird House Cinema. 1:03:30.800 --> 1:03:34.520 Huge thanks as always to our excellent audio producer JJ Posway. 1:03:34.880 --> 1:03:36.520 If you would like to get in touch with us 1:03:36.520 --> 1:03:39.000 with feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest 1:03:39.000 --> 1:03:41.040 a topic for the future, or just to say hello, 1:03:41.480 --> 1:03:44.320 you can email us at contact stuff to Blow your 1:03:44.320 --> 1:03:52.360 Mind dot com. 1:03:52.480 --> 1:03:55.400 Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production of iHeartRadio. For 1:03:55.480 --> 1:03:58.280 more podcasts from my Heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, 1:03:58.440 --> 1:04:13.040 Apple Podcasts, or wherever you some two favorite shows