Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Hey you, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind listener Mail.
Speaker 3: My name is Robert Lamb and I am Joe McCormick,
Speaker 3: and every so often on the Stuff to Blow Your
Speaker 3: Mind podcast we do an episode like this where we
Speaker 3: read back messages from the Stuff to Blow Your Mind
Speaker 3: email address. We usually give it at the end of
Speaker 3: every episode, but we'll give it at the top of
Speaker 3: this one. If you have never gotten in touch before,
Speaker 3: you should give it a try. It's contact at stuff
Speaker 3: to Blow your Mind dot com. All types of messages
Speaker 3: are welcome. Of course, we always appreciate feedback to recent
Speaker 3: episodes or older episodes if you want so. If you've
Speaker 3: got a correction that you need to give on something
Speaker 3: we said in an episode, obviously please send it our way.
Speaker 3: We always want to make sure we're getting all the
Speaker 3: facts right. But if you have something interesting to add
Speaker 3: to a topic we've talked about, something we did not
Speaker 3: get into in an episode series that would add to
Speaker 3: the subject, that's bullseye. That's exactly what we want kind
Speaker 3: of build on what we've done here in our listener
Speaker 3: mail episodes. Also, just any general feedback. If you want
Speaker 3: to suggest a topic for the future, suggest a movie
Speaker 3: for Weird House Cinema, or just say hi, tell us
Speaker 3: an interesting story, whatever suits you. Contact at stuff to
Speaker 3: Blow your Mind dot com.
Speaker 2: You can also email us at that address and ask
Speaker 2: for the invite link for our discord server, which is
Speaker 2: intentionally kept kind of like tight knit. But if you
Speaker 2: just email us and ask for the invite code, we'll
Speaker 2: send it your way and you can give it a shot.
Speaker 3: So let's see, Rob, are you good? If we kick
Speaker 3: things off with responses to our crab bag series.
Speaker 2: We absolutely should kick off with craps.
Speaker 3: So this was a recent roundup we did of all
Speaker 3: kinds of topics related to crabs, crab stuff, biological, behavioral, technological, metaphorical,
Speaker 3: and spiritual. And this series was in part requested by
Speaker 3: a listen our listener, Hannah, who did get in touch
Speaker 3: after we started the series with an email subject line
Speaker 3: OMG OMG OMG crabs and then the body just said
Speaker 3: thank you, So you're welcome, Hannah. But I figure I'm
Speaker 3: going to kick things off after this with a message
Speaker 3: from Hugh and this is responding to our story about
Speaker 3: the miracle crab of Saint Francis Xavier, which, according to legend,
Speaker 3: took hold of a crucifix that had been lost in
Speaker 3: a storm at sea, and then brought that crucifix, raised
Speaker 3: in its claws, back to its owner, Saint Francis, once
Speaker 3: he had landed on shore. So, Hugh says, dear Robert,
Speaker 3: Joe and JJ, do you think Xavier's crab booked it
Speaker 3: that entire way or was maybe a relay situation. Yeah,
Speaker 3: I didn't think about that. The crabs are working together.
Speaker 3: That did come up later, and actually later in the
Speaker 3: first episod, right, the question of whether crabs are ever
Speaker 3: cooperative or whether it's always just one crab for themselves.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't know. I guess this comes into the
Speaker 2: imagined religious views of crabs. Are the crabs of the ocean?
Speaker 2: Are they one body of Christ? Are they one people
Speaker 2: who would do this? Or is this one crab an outlier?
Speaker 2: Are the rest of the crabs like atheist crabs? And
Speaker 2: this one crab has become faithful and participates in this miracle.
Speaker 3: That one Catholic crab the one that will go and
Speaker 3: preach to the nations of crabs. Yeah. Oh, and I
Speaker 3: forgot to set this up. But in this email, Hugh
Speaker 3: also makes reference to something where in this classic Renaissance
Speaker 3: painting of this miracle story where the crab is coming
Speaker 3: on shore, the crab is holding the crucifix up in
Speaker 3: the air above its body. And I was looking at
Speaker 3: this painting and I was like, why does this look
Speaker 3: so familiar? And I realized it looks exactly like the
Speaker 3: original theatrical release poster for Star Wars that has an illustrated,
Speaker 3: very muscly rendition of Mark Hamill holding the lightsaber up
Speaker 3: above his head. It's uncanny the resemblance, very very similar.
Speaker 2: Tom Young, the artist who did the famous poster, by
Speaker 2: the way, a pretty accomplished Chinese American post poster art artist.
Speaker 2: Pretty great stuff.
Speaker 3: It's a classic, even if it does give a different
Speaker 3: kind of vibe than the movie, like it may it
Speaker 3: makes it makes Luke Skywalker look like Conan the Barbaria
Speaker 3: instead of like, you know, you're supposed to be kind
Speaker 3: of a kid who's just looking for adventure. Yeah, But anyway,
Speaker 3: Hugh makes reference to that part of the episode, saying, also,
Speaker 3: I had always seen that Star Wars poster as an
Speaker 3: homage to Frank Frazetta. Maybe Frank got the idea from
Speaker 3: the painting you referenced. Congratulations on the Netflix gig. Thanks, huh,
Speaker 3: You're all doing a great job, Hugh. So, I actually
Speaker 3: did not know Frank Frazetta, at least my name, well
Speaker 3: not my name. Once I looked it up, I was like, oh,
Speaker 3: I recognize this style. So it is the classic paperback
Speaker 3: fantasy book cover style where you got hot barbarians and
Speaker 3: loincloth and metal bikinis, and you get weird monsters and
Speaker 3: beasts bristling, a lot of muscles and gleaming weapons and
Speaker 3: just bodies. And the figures in these in these illustrations
Speaker 3: have a lot of I was trying to think what
Speaker 3: to call this. They just have a lot of poise.
Speaker 3: They're like they they look like like statues in motion
Speaker 3: kind of. They're radiating strength and victory.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, I've never really attempted to put any of
Speaker 2: it in words concerning Frank Fazeta, but you know, I've
Speaker 2: been I've been a fan of Frank Vizzeta for ages,
Speaker 2: and I think I follow the official Frank Fazeta Instagram account,
Speaker 2: so I keep bombarding myself with images of his and
Speaker 2: sometimes ones that I've never seen before, but yeah, there's
Speaker 2: something about his work. I mean, you know, he was
Speaker 2: great at capturing the human form and admired it greatly.
Speaker 2: And sometimes those human forms are not even wearing loincloths
Speaker 2: or metal bikinis. Sometimes they are naked. But then also
Speaker 2: all of these fantasy elements and sci fi elements that
Speaker 2: were you know, you know, a part of the commercial
Speaker 2: aspect of so many of these works. And there is
Speaker 2: that sense of movement, And I don't necessarily have the
Speaker 2: artistic language in my head to describe all of this,
Speaker 2: but there is a sense of like culmination and rising
Speaker 2: and physical movement, like the muscles that you see and
Speaker 2: the bones, like they all seem to be biologically active
Speaker 2: and some rippling.
Speaker 3: Yeah yeah, yeah, so yeah, very much concerned with strength
Speaker 3: and sexiness and weirdness all coming together.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And it is a style that is so attached
Speaker 2: to a specific time, Like anytime I see Frank Fizzetta,
Speaker 2: I also want to see that work on the side
Speaker 2: of a van, some sort of a wizard van roaring
Speaker 2: down a nineteen seventies highway.
Speaker 3: Sometimes I think, like, if I had a billion dollars,
Speaker 3: what's the first thing I'd get, Like a wizard Van
Speaker 3: get that air brushed out real good. But yeah, anyways,
Speaker 3: so I h I was like, wait a minute, did
Speaker 3: Frank Frazetta ever do a crab?
Speaker 2: You know?
Speaker 3: Good question? So I googled Frank Frizzetta crab. Did not
Speaker 3: find anything that looked authentic. There were some grotesque looking,
Speaker 3: smoothed out AI imitations that I hated, but so far
Speaker 3: as I know, he never did any crab stuff.
Speaker 2: I'm going to be on the lookout now because again
Speaker 2: I regularly bombard myself with for Zetta images, So if
Speaker 2: a crab pope pops up, I will report on it
Speaker 2: here and listeners. If you know of a Frank Fazzeta
Speaker 2: crab work, send it in. Yeah. This is fun because
Speaker 2: I was just the other day. I was looking through
Speaker 2: some titles for some Clark Ashton Smith short stories and
Speaker 2: I found one that has crabs in the title and
Speaker 2: in the plot, and I've never read it before. So
Speaker 2: I'm like, okay, I'm going to cue this up. The
Speaker 2: crabs crabs await us everywhere, even in places we thought
Speaker 2: we'd fully explore.
Speaker 3: Was it called like the Magic of Crabs or Master
Speaker 3: of Crabs? Master of Crabs?
Speaker 2: So I think it's dueling wizards and crabs, but I
Speaker 2: haven't I haven't read it yet, but it's it's cue up.
Speaker 3: Dear God, it's made for me. Well, I'm going to
Speaker 3: go read it whenever I get a chance. Here, let's see, Rob,
Speaker 3: do you want to do this message from Nathan?
Speaker 2: Yes? Uh oh this yeah, I'm going in cold on
Speaker 2: this one. I did not read this one when it
Speaker 2: came in, got lost in the shuffle. But Nathan comes
Speaker 2: at us with the subject why is a raven like
Speaker 2: a writing desk? This is a reference. I forget even
Speaker 2: how this came up.
Speaker 3: But I've actually got a note about this.
Speaker 2: Okay, good, good, Yeah, I'll start reading and then you
Speaker 2: can jump in with clarification. Okay, Dear Rob, Joe and JJ.
Speaker 2: At the end of part four of your Crab brag
Speaker 2: Bag Crab grab Bag episodes, you brought up the question
Speaker 2: why is a raven like a writing desk? As an
Speaker 2: example of a riddle with no clear answer, as if
Speaker 2: it were designed to start arguments.
Speaker 3: So I also at first couldn't remember how we got there,
Speaker 3: and I had to look it up. But this came
Speaker 3: up because you were talking about Japanese folk tales in
Speaker 3: which a crab asks riddles and then kills you if
Speaker 3: you don't answer correctly. Usually the answer to the riddle
Speaker 3: is crab, you know, like describes a creature and then
Speaker 3: you're like, what am I? And the person is supposed
Speaker 3: to guess crab, but they usually don't. And this led
Speaker 3: to us talking about whether nefarious crabs of some kind
Speaker 3: could be behind the social media strategy where people post
Speaker 3: riddles that don't actually have answers. In this case, it's
Speaker 3: to get people confused and make them waste a lot
Speaker 3: of time engaging with a post on social media or
Speaker 3: like arguing in the comments, And the purpose of this
Speaker 3: is engagement farming, trying to game the system on these
Speaker 3: you know, horrible social algorithms. But this led to Rob
Speaker 3: mentioning the riddle why is a raven like a writing desk,
Speaker 3: which obviously predates social media, but the through line was
Speaker 3: that this is also a riddle without a clear intended answer, or.
Speaker 2: At least that's the way I always thought of it. Again,
Speaker 2: this is a This just pops up in the last Unicorn,
Speaker 2: if I remember correctly, Yeah, yeah, And then Nathan goes
Speaker 2: on to clarify Rob mentioned its use in the film
Speaker 2: The Last Unicorn, but this riddle originally comes from Alice's
Speaker 2: Adventures in Wonderland, Okay, written by Lewis Carroll in eighteen
Speaker 2: sixty five. The Mad Hatter asked this of Alice during
Speaker 2: the Mad Tea party. He doesn't wait for an answer
Speaker 2: before the conversation moves on, but when Alice asks for
Speaker 2: the answer later, he replies, I haven't the slightest idea.
Speaker 2: See now, I'm wondering if it actually is in the
Speaker 2: Last Unicorn, and if I'm not misremembering something from Alice
Speaker 2: in Wonderland. Oh, Okay, who knows. I have a feeling
Speaker 2: we'll come back around to The Last Unicorn on Weird
Speaker 2: House Cinema at some point in the future, so we'll
Speaker 2: figure that out then. Okay, But anyway, more answers from
Speaker 2: Nathan here he continues. According to The nit Alice by
Speaker 2: Martin Gardner, Carol wrote the riddle with no answer in mind,
Speaker 2: but that didn't stop many readers from suggesting their own.
Speaker 2: There are too many proposed solutions to list in full.
Speaker 2: But here are some better ones. Okay, here we.
Speaker 3: Go, or some better I think, better known ones.
Speaker 2: Better known ones, yes, yeah, okay, this one from Sam
Speaker 2: Lloyd because Poe wrote on both that's good. Okay, yeah, yeah, okay,
Speaker 2: that that checks out. I had to think about it
Speaker 2: for a second. Both have inky quills. Hmm yeah, okay, yeah,
Speaker 2: or maybe all right. One is a rest for pins.
Speaker 2: The other is a pest for wrens with a w Okay,
Speaker 2: that's clever. That's clever. That one does a few backflips
Speaker 2: in that one, which I like. Okay, here's one. This
Speaker 2: one comes. This one was apparently attributed to Alba Sucksley.
Speaker 2: Because there is a B in both and an inn
Speaker 2: in neither.
Speaker 3: I don't get that.
Speaker 2: I don't get anything. That's that's the way Homer. We're
Speaker 2: gonna have to think about that.
Speaker 3: There is an N in both writing desk and raven,
Speaker 3: and there is not a bee in either one. So
Speaker 3: I don't I'm not following. There's some kind of irony
Speaker 3: here that's gone past me.
Speaker 2: But there is a bee in the word both, and
Speaker 2: there's an N in the word neither. Yeah, okay, oh,
Speaker 2: this one was. Here's an answer that came there was
Speaker 2: presented in Stephen King's The Shining. This is a book
Speaker 2: I read in junior high. So it's been a long time.
Speaker 2: But this answer is the higher the fewer. Of course,
Speaker 2: the higher the fewer.
Speaker 3: Okay, that one's gone past me.
Speaker 2: Oh wait, wait, Nathan says, this is actually the answer
Speaker 2: to an entirely different nonsense riddle, when is a mouse
Speaker 2: if it spins?
Speaker 3: Okay, I still don't get it, Okay.
Speaker 2: They continue. In the preface of the eighteen ninety six
Speaker 2: edition of the book, Carroll himself finally included his own
Speaker 2: solution to the riddle, while acknowledging it was just an
Speaker 2: after that quote because it can produce a few notes,
Speaker 2: though they are very flat, and it is never put
Speaker 2: with the wrong end. First, Carol intentionally misspelled the word
Speaker 2: never as n e v a r raven spelled backwards,
Speaker 2: but later printers corrected the spelling to any v e
Speaker 2: r and so the punchline was lost in translation, or
Speaker 2: rather in transcription. Thanks as always for your delightful and
Speaker 2: insightful podcast, Nathan, Thank you, Nathan. Yeah, that's that's that's
Speaker 2: I again. I'm not entirely sure now if this poem,
Speaker 2: I mean, this riddle is reference in the Last Unicorn.
Speaker 2: Maybe I was misremembering it from else Adventures in Wonderland,
Speaker 2: But at any rate, This was a lot of fun
Speaker 2: going through these supposed answers to it.
Speaker 3: My favorite is Poe wrote on both that's.
Speaker 2: Good, that's good. Yeah, Yeah, one is a pet, one
Speaker 2: is a rest for pens and the other pets for rinds.
Speaker 2: I will also.
Speaker 3: Exactly yeah, thumbs up. Yeah, okay, you want me to
Speaker 3: do this one from.
Speaker 2: Chris, Let's do it?
Speaker 3: Chris says, oh. Subject line Mysteries and Crabs Robert and
Speaker 3: Joe while enjoying the Vault, episode three of Mystery Cults,
Speaker 3: focusing in part on the experiences associated with them being
Speaker 3: less about appeasing deities but more about becoming part of
Speaker 3: the mortal's identity and possibly a combination of revelation and inspiration.
Speaker 3: I was struck by the example of the goddess Demeter's
Speaker 3: daughter Persephone and her eating food while in hades and
Speaker 3: it's binding her there. It reminded me of Hyamiyazaki's excellent
Speaker 3: Spirited Away, in which a family inadvertently travels to a
Speaker 3: spirit realm, where the parents eat at an empty restaurant
Speaker 3: and are turned into pigs by a resident for their transgression. Yeah,
Speaker 3: they eat of the food of the spirit world, and
Speaker 3: thus they are trapped there. I don't remember crabs being
Speaker 3: part of their meal, so there is no connection to
Speaker 3: the Crabbag episodes that I'm aware of. However, Crabbag episode
Speaker 3: three and your discussion of crabs as inspiration for military
Speaker 3: devices an inventor is writing directly to President Lincoln. And
Speaker 3: the mention of balloons used during the Civil War did
Speaker 3: bring to mind Jules Verne's Mysterious Island, in which balloonists
Speaker 3: blown to an island in the South Pacific did encounter
Speaker 3: a giant crab, among other things, at least in the
Speaker 3: nineteen sixty one si Infield film version. Keep out the
Speaker 3: good work, and maybe iHeart will finally give you, gentlemen,
Speaker 3: that squad of research assistants and librarians you deserve. Chris, Yes,
Speaker 3: it's a long shot. I keep requesting them. I want
Speaker 3: them to be like the Dwarves and the Phantasm movies,
Speaker 3: except they do research for us. Yeah. This is kind
Speaker 3: of a yeah, a peek into behind the scenes discussions.
Speaker 3: You know, We've talked about this before, and I feel
Speaker 3: like part of the problem is that the research process
Speaker 3: is sort of how we create the product. Like a
Speaker 3: lot of what we end up talking about is not
Speaker 3: just presenting information, but talking about the process of learning
Speaker 3: about a subject, which you only really get if you
Speaker 3: do the research yourself.
Speaker 2: So yeah, and finding the little the little research conduits
Speaker 2: that that speak to us individually. It leads us in
Speaker 2: some of our some of our favorite areas in the podcast,
Speaker 2: you know, some of our favorite discussions and uh and
Speaker 2: subtopics have been just because we've followed our own particular
Speaker 2: interests while researching. And you know, you might get that
Speaker 2: if you had a really good research You know, certainly
Speaker 2: there's plenty of podcasters out there and writers and so
Speaker 2: forth use researchers and make good use of their their talents.
Speaker 2: And I don't know, maybe we're just stubborn and we
Speaker 2: should we should give it a shot. But h but
Speaker 2: this is what we've done so far.
Speaker 3: Oh but coming back to Jules Verne and the Mysterious Island,
Speaker 3: I don't think I ever read that book. If I did,
Speaker 3: for some reason, I have a weak memory of it,
Speaker 3: but I uh don't think and I don't think i've
Speaker 3: seen the movie either. But it's one of those stories
Speaker 3: I just have a vague general awareness of. And I
Speaker 3: was thinking about a giant crab there.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Yeah, I have seen a giant crab scene because
Speaker 2: it's got a big of stop motion crabs. But yeah,
Speaker 2: I haven't seen the film in full.
Speaker 3: All right, well, Rob, you want to pick. We don't
Speaker 3: have to do these in order pick pick whatever you
Speaker 3: want for the.
Speaker 2: Next Yeah, this next one's highly visual. It's gonna be
Speaker 2: lost on nearly everyone. Even if you have video, you're
Speaker 2: not gonna see this image, I guess. But at any rate,
Speaker 2: this one comes to us from Sir Eel, subject crabstab.
Speaker 2: They write as follows. Was doodling whilst listening to the
Speaker 2: first two episodes of Crab grab Bag and the Saint
Speaker 2: Francis story. That was that was an interesting subject. Note
Speaker 2: the crab is no particular species and the crucifix is
Speaker 2: of no particular denomination. Thank you for the years of
Speaker 2: brain food and many more to come, sincerely, Sir Eel.
Speaker 2: And then we have this nice tight little sketch here
Speaker 2: of a crab species unknown holding crucifix denomination unknown that
Speaker 2: has a Christ crucified on it.
Speaker 1: Uh.
Speaker 2: This crab is holding it overhead on its side, rather
Speaker 2: than straight up as in the Xavier image imagery that
Speaker 2: we were talking about.
Speaker 3: Yeah, the painting we saw the crab is holding it
Speaker 3: straight up like the lightsaber in the Star Wars poster,
Speaker 3: so it's vertical orientation. But yeah, this makes more sense.
Speaker 2: And we also have a sort of a New York
Speaker 2: Times style caption here, keep your junk out of my yard,
Speaker 2: which I like. That's fun.
Speaker 3: Yeah. I will note that if this is supposed to
Speaker 3: be a crucifix crab, I think the crucifix crab has
Speaker 3: the little backweg legs or the swimmer legs, not the
Speaker 3: walking legs like this. I'm not trying to criticize, sir Eel.
Speaker 3: I appreciate the illustration. Thank you.
Speaker 2: It's a miracle crab. You know who knows what it's for.
Speaker 3: Miss Yeah, okay, let's see. I'll do this message from
Speaker 3: Carrie Carrie right oh, subject line bass awkward horseshoe crabs.
Speaker 3: This message is about the story we talked about in
Speaker 3: Crabbag Part three, where a guy known only by the
Speaker 3: initial C. D K wrote a marvelous letter to the
Speaker 3: Scientific American. This was during the Civil War, and the
Speaker 3: letter advocated that the Union Navy construct a giant steam
Speaker 3: powered horseshoe crab called the King Crab Warship, which would
Speaker 3: be invincible would be the ultimate naval technology, though there
Speaker 3: were some details of both biology and technology in this
Speaker 3: letter that seemed a little fuzzy, and CDK writes not
Speaker 3: CDK sorry, Carry rights, Rob and Joe. Hearing cdk's description
Speaker 3: of his idea contained in the Scientific American of a
Speaker 3: ramming weapon modeled on the horseshoe crab, I get the
Speaker 3: feeling that he never actually saw the animal in life.
Speaker 3: That's the possibility. His description of the pointed prow, the
Speaker 3: back being wedge shaped, the bow armored with a row
Speaker 3: of smaller spikes, and the ability to raise and lower
Speaker 3: its front makes me think that he was confused and
Speaker 3: thought that the back end of the crab was actually
Speaker 3: the front end. Yeah, we sort of came to the
Speaker 3: same conclusion, and that's what it sounded like, Carrie says,
Speaker 3: when you look at a horseshoe crab this way, his
Speaker 3: description makes sense. The crab's rear end is pointed, its
Speaker 3: actual head is wedge shaped, there is a row of
Speaker 3: backwards pointing spikes, and the telson can lift the backside.
Speaker 3: Just an observation. I thought, I chair take care, Carrie, carry.
Speaker 3: I think you're I think you're dead. On on that
Speaker 3: that that was my reading as well.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so like inverted biommicry, here you venture into your
Speaker 2: design using backwards understanding of the organism.
Speaker 3: Though. I do love this as like a you know,
Speaker 3: an idea that aliens come to Earth and look at
Speaker 3: all these quadrupedal mammals and they all think that the
Speaker 3: tails are a like spike coming out of the face,
Speaker 3: and they're like, wow, they have all of these sensory
Speaker 3: organs on their butts. That's so interesting.
Speaker 2: All right, let's been shrew on to an other one.
Speaker 2: This one's really good. It concerns lily Putian hallucinations, so
Speaker 2: this doesn't really concern crabs. I don't as possible crabs
Speaker 2: will come up in the comment, but I don't think
Speaker 2: they will. This one comes to us from a repeat correspondent, Renata,
Speaker 2: and it goes as follows, Hi, Robin Joe. When I
Speaker 2: saw there was an episode on lily Putian hallucinations, I
Speaker 2: got confused and thought it was going to be about
Speaker 2: something else called Alice in Wonderland syndrome. This, by the way,
Speaker 2: is also discussed in Oliver Sack's book. Anyway, they continued,
Speaker 2: thank you for the great episode. Lily Putian hallucinations are
Speaker 2: equally fascinating, and I have a bit of secondhand experience
Speaker 2: with that. More on that later. Alice in Wonderland syndrome
Speaker 2: involves distorted perceptions of the size of yourself relative to
Speaker 2: other objects, and even the size of one of your
Speaker 2: body parts relative to one another. Alice's experiences in the
Speaker 2: book are caused by a mushroom, but in reality, the
Speaker 2: syndrome mainly affects children who have had a serious infection. Thankfully,
Speaker 2: it usually doesn't last for most kids. I highly recommend
Speaker 2: looking up some of the children's first hand accounts of
Speaker 2: their experiences. This might sound mean, but there is something
Speaker 2: especially adorable about the way that kids describe this bizarre
Speaker 2: and unfamiliar experience, such as, Mommy, why did your hand
Speaker 2: turn into a doll hand? If you look up the
Speaker 2: very short Wikipedia article on the Lecutian hallucinations, it mentions
Speaker 2: Alice in Wonderland's syndrome and a few other related syndromes.
Speaker 2: What I find so intriguing about these is what you
Speaker 2: brought up in the episode, which is that certain stimuli
Speaker 2: can cause highly consistent hallucinations, while other hallucinogens involve a
Speaker 2: broader range of altered experiences. Perhaps related is the phenomena
Speaker 2: that certain drugs and drug combinations can induce deja vu,
Speaker 2: sometimes an overwhelming and upsetting frequency of dejav vu. Now
Speaker 2: that's interesting. I wasn't familiar with that myself. Yeah, so
Speaker 2: we may have to come back to that. I don't
Speaker 2: know that we've.
Speaker 3: We've done something on deja vous before.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't remember talking about drug interactions or drug
Speaker 2: combinations causing it though, Yeah, either, I have to look
Speaker 2: into that anyway. I wish more science will be done
Speaker 2: to understand these reproducible ways that our senses of reality
Speaker 2: can be hindered or altered, as it could lead to
Speaker 2: a better understanding of how our conscious perception is constructed.
Speaker 2: But it seems like these cases are mostly on the
Speaker 2: fringes of science and not study directly. Anyways, back to
Speaker 2: lillly Fusian hallucinations. My dad has experienced them. He would
Speaker 2: sometimes go walking at dusk or night, and he has
Speaker 2: fairly bad eyesight. Not sure walking at night was the
Speaker 2: best idea. He doesn't do it anymore. He said that
Speaker 2: if he could make out something like a leaf or
Speaker 2: a stick, he would see little people crawling on them
Speaker 2: and dancing. I had already heard of these types of
Speaker 2: hallucinations before and told him it was probably not serious
Speaker 2: and not to worry too much. I should ask him
Speaker 2: if he still ever experiences them. Truly wonderful, wonderful episodes
Speaker 2: late you still find interesting topics and continue to be
Speaker 2: delightful and entertaining after so many years.
Speaker 3: The very best renat Thank you, Ranata. Yeah, that's interesting,
Speaker 3: and that would match with a lot of the research
Speaker 3: we were looking at where Liliputian hallucinations, apart from being
Speaker 3: triggered by consuming this particular mushroom in China, a common
Speaker 3: way people get to these seems to be conditions affecting
Speaker 3: the eye sight, like degeneration of eyesight or low light conditions.
Speaker 3: Things that affect the vision itself in some way sometimes
Speaker 3: lead to Liliputian hallucinations.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, so yeah. I absolutely love this bit of feedback,
Speaker 2: and we love in any time we can get this
Speaker 2: kind of like in the field response, you know, first
Speaker 2: or secondhand, really really helps us understand the topics a
Speaker 2: lot more, and I think helps illustrate it for listeners
Speaker 2: as well.
Speaker 3: Okay, I think I'm going to do a couple of
Speaker 3: these messages about gold paint, if that's good with you, Rob, Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3: So in the last Listener Mail episode, read a message
Speaker 3: that was following up on a thread about whether a
Speaker 3: person will suffocate if they are painted gold like in
Speaker 3: the movie Goldfinger. This originally came up in passing on
Speaker 3: an episode about the Twilight Zone episode the Rip van
Speaker 3: Winkle Caper, and because it was just kind of a
Speaker 3: side comment, we actually hadn't researched the answer, but I
Speaker 3: guessed that the answer was no, that would not happen
Speaker 3: because humans don't actually significantly breathe through their skin. We
Speaker 3: breathe through our lungs. But then on the Listener Mail
Speaker 3: episode after that, a listener named Brian got in touch
Speaker 3: to share a story from history in which a chronicler
Speaker 3: of the Medichi family from the sixteenth century claimed, and
Speaker 3: this was Brian's description. So, in Brian's words, quote, Pope
Speaker 3: Leo the tenth, a Medichi and arguably the worst pope
Speaker 3: of all time, had a boy painted fully painted in
Speaker 3: gold to celebrate the Pope's return to Florence. The boy
Speaker 3: died mere days later. I'm sure the I'm sure paint
Speaker 3: in the sixteenth was highly questionable in and of itself,
Speaker 3: so presumably any of the substances in the paint could
Speaker 3: have been the cause. But yes, we do have death
Speaker 3: by gold paint.
Speaker 2: Well, this makes me feel a lot better, because you know,
Speaker 2: I was doubting the gold finger thing, and I was like,
Speaker 2: what else did I learn from bond films that I
Speaker 2: now have to unlearn? So this I can breathe a
Speaker 2: sigh of relief.
Speaker 3: Here the most factual factual of all cannons. Yeah, but
Speaker 3: then we talked about, Okay, so we don't know if
Speaker 3: this historical story is actually true, but assuming it is true,
Speaker 3: my guess was still probably that if this boy died,
Speaker 3: it would be from something other than suffocation. I mean,
Speaker 3: you could die from other things, yeah, like toxic chemicals
Speaker 3: in the paint, or very likely actually from overheating, because
Speaker 3: you know, this prevents you from like sweating and letting
Speaker 3: heat out through your skin. But again, we breathe mostly
Speaker 3: through our lungs, not through our skin, so it didn't
Speaker 3: seem like suffocation would be the most likely explanation. But
Speaker 3: of course, you know, as always, were open to contradictory evidence.
Speaker 3: So we joked then about whether the MythBusters had ever
Speaker 3: tried to sort this out and whether such an attempt
Speaker 3: would would have involved painting Jamie Gold. Wouldn't you know?
Speaker 3: The joke scenario that we conjured up actually happened on
Speaker 3: the show and multiple listeners got in touch to let
Speaker 3: us know. So this is from Karen. Karen says, Hi,
Speaker 3: Robert and Joe. On your recent listener mail episode Lamerte,
Speaker 3: you further discussed the possibility of death being caused by
Speaker 3: being covered in gold paint, then offhandedly suggested that the
Speaker 3: MythBusters may have done it, including joking did they paint
Speaker 3: Jamie Gold? Yes to both, They did indeed test this
Speaker 3: myth by painting Jamie with gold paint. The plan was
Speaker 3: to cover him in paint and have him run on
Speaker 3: a treadmill. However, after the latex paint was applied, Jamie
Speaker 3: started to show a significant negative reaction. To everyone's surprise,
Speaker 3: his blood pressure shot up and he reported feeling generally
Speaker 3: ill and lightheaded. Two onset ParaMed two onset paramedics strongly
Speaker 3: advised him not to do any strenuous exercise and remove
Speaker 3: the paint immediately. The conclusion was that covering the skin
Speaker 3: with latex paint caused him to overheat and subsequently feel
Speaker 3: ill and stressed in various ways. The episode also featured
Speaker 3: Shirley Eton, the actor who who portrayed the gold painted
Speaker 3: woman in Goldfinger. Apparently there's an urban legend that she
Speaker 3: died during filming as a result of the paint. She
Speaker 3: recounted the experience on set, feeling very hot and strange
Speaker 3: while being covered in paint, but definitely not dying. And
Speaker 3: then Karen provides a link to the full episode and
Speaker 3: talks a bit. Oh, and then says, I didn't write
Speaker 3: in after you discussed this in the original episode because
Speaker 3: I assumed many other people would bystander effect here. So
Speaker 3: I'm writing in now in case any in case everyone
Speaker 3: else is suffering from a listener male version of the
Speaker 3: bystander effect. Oh, I preempted you. Yeah, sorry, Thanks for
Speaker 3: the fantastic podcast, Karen.
Speaker 2: There you go that. Yeah, we we just we joked
Speaker 2: that this this had possibly happened, and it had happened.
Speaker 2: I'm glad nobody died though.
Speaker 3: Yeah. So sounds like it could very well be lethal,
Speaker 3: but not by the mechan probably not by the mechanism
Speaker 3: usually used to explain it, but that doesn't make it
Speaker 3: any less dangerous.
Speaker 2: Yeah, putting a strong do not attempt at home warning
Speaker 2: on this one.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Uh. And then also listener Lex wrote in to
Speaker 3: share this information, noting that the myth was tested not
Speaker 3: once actually, but twice on MythBusters because they came back
Speaker 3: to it in one of their revisited episodes where they
Speaker 3: painted the other guy gold. They painted Adam gold also
Speaker 3: because you both got to get painted gold.
Speaker 2: Once, okay, so that the on site medics were like, Okay,
Speaker 2: you can do it one more time. All right.
Speaker 3: Well, that suggests to me that it's, you know, not advisable,
Speaker 3: but not so incredibly dangerous that they wouldn't wouldn't try it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but still do not attempt.
Speaker 3: Yeah, all right.
Speaker 2: This one, next one that comes to us from Joe.
Speaker 2: This one. This one's pretty fun. This is a response
Speaker 2: to a recent artifact Shorty episode Having to do It
Speaker 2: is really the second artifact Shorty that I've done on
Speaker 2: gadget canes. And if you didn't listen to that one
Speaker 2: or the older one, go back. But basically it comes
Speaker 2: down to the fact that sword canes became popular essentially
Speaker 2: because wearing an open weapon became kind of frowned upon,
Speaker 2: so like hide that lethal blade. And then people got
Speaker 2: into putting all sorts of things in their canes as
Speaker 2: a gimmick, you know, like little things like they would
Speaker 2: often line up with your occupation. Like I covered a
Speaker 2: fiddle that was hidden in a cane. It's not a
Speaker 2: good fiddle, it's it's just a novelty. But you can
Speaker 2: imagine a scenario where oh, you know, he likes to
Speaker 2: play the fiddle, he needs a cane. Now he has
Speaker 2: a fiddle cane and it's what it was fashionable.
Speaker 3: Yeah, got a dental drill cane.
Speaker 2: Or yeah, all sorts of stuff and then we talked.
Speaker 2: We talked. Was a Benjamin Franklin and had a practical application.
Speaker 2: He had oil and in his cane at what a
Speaker 2: bamboo walking stick? Oh yeah, so sometimes there's a semi
Speaker 2: practical reason for it. But anyway, listener, Joe writes in
Speaker 2: and says, love your artifacts episode on the myriad use
Speaker 2: of canes for discrete purposes. As a blind man that
Speaker 2: uses a white cane to orient and maneuver through the world,
Speaker 2: I like to share a tidbit with curious individuals asking
Speaker 2: about my stick. I let them know how the white
Speaker 2: cane is actually recognized as a protected federally regulated safety device,
Speaker 2: and because of such, my cane is allowed to have
Speaker 2: a small three inch retractable blade in the top in
Speaker 2: the handle all white canes do. And invariably when they
Speaker 2: ask me really, I tell them no, not really. But hey,
Speaker 2: please help me propagate this rumor because maybe you'll help.
Speaker 2: You'll be helping keep a blind or visually impaired safe
Speaker 2: person safe. One day, some mugger remembers hearing the Old
Speaker 2: wives tale of blind guys with knives in their canes. Anyway,
Speaker 2: thought it was appropriate and wanted to share all the best.
Speaker 3: Thank you, Joe. That's a good strategy. Yeah, so the
Speaker 3: doubt and the fun jet I like that. All right,
Speaker 3: let's do a few responses to our Polywater series. This
Speaker 3: was a series of episodes we did in January about
Speaker 3: a revolutionary physical substance called polywater, which a bunch of
Speaker 3: people in the nineteen sixties and early seventies became convinced
Speaker 3: did exist, but which it later turned out definitely did
Speaker 3: not exist. Polywater was supposedly a polymer like arrangement of
Speaker 3: water which took on a jellied or wax like consistency
Speaker 3: at room temperature, but again, of course, it never existed,
Speaker 3: and by the early to mid seventies, skeptical scientists had
Speaker 3: proved that it was largely the product of just contaminated
Speaker 3: experimental samples. And this historical saga led into a discussion
Speaker 3: on our show about a concept known as pathological science.
Speaker 3: So we got into the question of how researchers can
Speaker 3: be led into delusion and compounding error like a paper
Speaker 3: talking about common features of programs that go haywire in
Speaker 3: this way, and then we also did a segment about
Speaker 3: historical cases of scientific research containment panic when people get
Speaker 3: the idea for valid reasons or not a lot of
Speaker 3: times not for valid reasons, but sometimes with legitimate cause
Speaker 3: for concern, when they get the idea that a specific
Speaker 3: research program will lead to worldwide calamity if pursued or
Speaker 3: if it gets out of hand. This was related to
Speaker 3: polywater because some researchers in the late sixties proposed that
Speaker 3: if a molecule of polywater got out of the lab
Speaker 3: and into the soil or the natural water supply, it
Speaker 3: would lead to an apocalyptic scenario like the end of
Speaker 3: Kurt Vonnegut's novel Cat a cat's cradle where all of
Speaker 3: the world's water is frozen at room temperature and is
Speaker 3: made biologically useless. In this case, we imagined a bizarre
Speaker 3: wax world where all the water is turned to a
Speaker 3: waxy consistency. Wouldn't be a good thing to happen. Fortunately,
Speaker 3: there was no danger of this because again polywater isn't real.
Speaker 3: But anyway, one of the research panic episodes that we
Speaker 3: talked about in this discussion was when some people got
Speaker 3: the idea for not good reasons in this case, that
Speaker 3: activation of the Large Hadron Collider at CERN would create
Speaker 3: black holes that would consume planet Earth. And it turned
Speaker 3: out physicists had already modeled this and they ruled out.
Speaker 3: They ruled that there was no danger of this happening.
Speaker 3: But our longtime listener and frequent correspondent Jim gets in
Speaker 3: touch on this subject. This is from Jim in New
Speaker 3: Jersey who says, Robert, Joe, and JJ you mentioned the
Speaker 3: concern that the Large Hadron Collider might destroy the Earth.
Speaker 3: Fortunately we can check for that at has the Large
Speaker 3: Hadron Collider destroyed the Earth destroyed the world? Yet dot
Speaker 3: com so they got a dot com domain there not
Speaker 3: a dot org. That's interesting, and Jim says, last I checked,
Speaker 3: We're good. I went to check this website out, and
Speaker 3: Rabbi attached a screenshot of the homepage as of this morning.
Speaker 3: It's a big black screen with white text that says nope.
Speaker 3: And Jim has pointed out some embedded HTML from this
Speaker 3: page that includes I think it's JavaScript saying like if
Speaker 3: and then the variable is world has ended right up,
Speaker 3: and then you know else write nope the script ends.
Speaker 3: And then also the page contains some other you know,
Speaker 3: embedded text that says something about if a giant laser
Speaker 3: eyed bunny has destroyed the world, you can email this
Speaker 3: email address to get a refund, I guess for a
Speaker 3: refund for being an earthling. I think.
Speaker 2: So.
Speaker 3: I actually didn't figure out what that second thing is about.
Speaker 3: I don't know if the laser eyed bunny is anything,
Speaker 3: or if that's just a mockery of the idea that
Speaker 3: the af Dron collider would destroy the world. But anyway, yes,
Speaker 3: thank you for letting us know, Jim.
Speaker 2: All right, This next one comes to us from Taylor,
Speaker 2: and this is responding to our episode on a let's
Speaker 2: see what do we call this one? It was biophilian
Speaker 2: Pokemon or something to that effect. Taylor, Right, Hello, Rob, Joe,
Speaker 2: and JJ. Having previously volunteered myself as stuffed to blow
Speaker 2: your mind's unofficial Pokemon correspondent, and written multiple listener mails
Speaker 2: about Pokemon, recently about the surreal Pokemon god arseius if
Speaker 2: I'm I'm not sure I'm pronouncing that one correctly, but
Speaker 2: this is a big one. It's central to one of
Speaker 2: the video games. I was stoked to see this episode
Speaker 2: arrive in my feed. I am a lifelong Pokemon fan
Speaker 2: and a professional naturalist and conservationist. I was born in
Speaker 2: nineteen ninety six, the same year that the original Pokemon
Speaker 2: video games were released, making both them and I late malis.
Speaker 2: For as long as I can remember, I have been
Speaker 2: obsessed with both Pokemon and the natural world. As I
Speaker 2: have grown and my interests have evolved, my love of
Speaker 2: nature and my love of Pokemon have continually fed into
Speaker 2: each other, and I am by no means alone in this.
Speaker 2: In my interactions with friends and colleagues in my field,
Speaker 2: I've come to realize that within my generation, the proportion
Speaker 2: of zoology professionals, paleontologists, taxonomists, wildlife biologists, and naturalists who
Speaker 2: are also Pokemon fans is wildly high. Whether this relationship
Speaker 2: is causal or correlative is another question, but I can
Speaker 2: confirm from first hand observation that it's very real. I
Speaker 2: currently work as a naturalist and educator at the Minnesota
Speaker 2: Minnesota Zoo, where one of my responsibilities is to write
Speaker 2: educational curriculum for summer camps that we host. I am
Speaker 2: currently in the process of revising a Pokemon themed zoology
Speaker 2: summer camp that the Zoo has been hosting for several years.
Speaker 2: This camp is the brain child of several of my
Speaker 2: coworkers and I, who suffer, as y'all might put it,
Speaker 2: a chronic Pokemon infection. The summer camp is dedicated to
Speaker 2: comparing and contrasting the world of Pokemon with our own
Speaker 2: natural world, using the Goliath franchise as a springboard to
Speaker 2: discuss real world biology and natural diversity. Campers in the
Speaker 2: class collect Pokemon in a pokedex they illustrate by observing
Speaker 2: their natural world parallels around the zoo, marrying the creature
Speaker 2: collecting mechanic of the games with naturalist observations. They also
Speaker 2: learn the ways in which real world evolution differs from
Speaker 2: evolution in the Pokemon games, pokemon evolution is better likened
Speaker 2: to the real world phenomenon of metamorphosis. Quote, Fully evolved
Speaker 2: Pokemon lay eggs that hatch into their unevolved states, indicating
Speaker 2: that this is an adult slash juvenile relationship. The three
Speaker 2: stages of many insects and amphibiuan Pokemon directly mirror real
Speaker 2: world examples of metamorphosis. To the credit of these first
Speaker 2: and second graders, very few fail to grasp distinction others
Speaker 2: mileage may vary, but for me and many scientists and
Speaker 2: science educators of my generation, the relationship between Pokemon and
Speaker 2: naturalism is not one of competition, but of beautiful symbiosis.
Speaker 2: I hope you've enjoyed my unapologetically nerdy perspective. I know
Speaker 2: it has a home among the wonderful community surrounding the show.
Speaker 2: As ever, thank you so much for your fantastic intersectional
Speaker 2: dives into subjects mundane and marvelous. Sincerely, Taylor.
Speaker 3: Wow, thank you, Taylor. That's great to hear. I mean,
Speaker 3: that's funny, that sort of exactly the question we're exploring
Speaker 3: in the episode. So you're living it, you are, you
Speaker 3: are the phenomenon. And then Rob I don't know whether
Speaker 3: you want to get into these, but Taylor included a
Speaker 3: number of postscripts.
Speaker 2: Yeah, let's take a look at these postscripts. Some of
Speaker 2: these might just be for us. Let's see there is
Speaker 2: a he does point out that. Let's see, here's one.
Speaker 2: Joe joked about peach baby Pikachu being an artifact of
Speaker 2: our current moment akin to Baby Yoda. Piachu is old
Speaker 2: enough to rent a car. This Pokemon has been around
Speaker 2: since the second generation of Pokemon games in nineteen ninety nine.
Speaker 2: We're currently at the end of the ninth generation, anticipating
Speaker 2: the tenth generation this fall of twenty twenty six.
Speaker 3: I stand corrected, Baby Pikachu is older than Baby Yoda.
Speaker 2: All right, here's another one. I do remember this question
Speaker 2: coming up of fish are on fish Pokemon. In the anime,
Speaker 2: fish Pokemon generally don't battle out of water when engaging
Speaker 2: in a water battle. In the games, swimming Pokemon swim,
Speaker 2: and terrestrial Pokemon fight from inflatable rats. It's very silly
Speaker 2: on land fully aquatic Pokemon magically swim through the air levitating.
Speaker 2: We just kind of suspend our disbelief on this one.
Speaker 2: An exception that breaks the fourth wall is the Pokemon
Speaker 2: Magic Harp, a fish Pokemon known for being completely useless
Speaker 2: see the Magic Carp song in battle. Magic Harp is
Speaker 2: only capable of using the move splash, which it helps
Speaker 2: in which it helplessleave flops around on the ground. This
Speaker 2: is the main one I was familiar with because this
Speaker 2: was shown to me at some point and it was hilarious.
Speaker 2: So I didn't know if they all behaved like magic
Speaker 2: Harp or not. But now we have a complete answer.
Speaker 3: But wait, I have a long ago memory of some
Speaker 3: episodes we did about that involved leaping fish, I think,
Speaker 3: and in that we got into the idea of a
Speaker 3: myth or a legend, I think a Chinese legend about
Speaker 3: the carp that leaps over the rainbow or the carp
Speaker 3: that leaps up the waterfall or something turning into a dragon.
Speaker 3: And then I remember a listener got in touch with
Speaker 3: us to let us know that there is a Pokemon
Speaker 3: equivalent of this. There's like, oh, I think it was
Speaker 3: magic Harp. I don't know. I'm out of my depth
Speaker 3: here because I don't know Pokemon, but that's my memory.
Speaker 3: It was magic Harp that leaps over something and turns
Speaker 3: into a dragon. Does this ring a bell for you.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it faintly does, but I do not have a
Speaker 2: strong memory of this. Folks.
Speaker 3: We just got an update from our resident Pokemon expert
Speaker 3: our producer JJ, who says that yes, Magic Harp does
Speaker 3: evolve into the powerful dragon form Pokemon giri Dos. Do
Speaker 3: I say that right?
Speaker 2: I hope? So? Uh?
Speaker 3: And yeah, so uh what I said was at least
Speaker 3: partially correct. Okay, update number two, JJ, just let us
Speaker 3: know that actually we're gonna get some well actually is
Speaker 3: about that because there is such a thing called a
Speaker 3: dragon type Pokemon, and gied Doos might not be one
Speaker 3: of those. Is maybe like water or something else. So
Speaker 3: I'm just making I'm making a mess everywhere I go here.
Speaker 2: We just got to get JJ on the mic for
Speaker 2: some Pokemon discussions at some point.
Speaker 3: Hey, yeah, okay, Rob, do you mind if I read
Speaker 3: another message about polywater?
Speaker 2: Yeah, let's do it.
Speaker 3: Okay. This one is from Tanner, subject line real life Polywater. Greetings, gentlemen,
Speaker 3: it's great to see you on the small screen. It's
Speaker 3: always interesting to compare what we think people look like
Speaker 3: based on their voices and what they actually look like.
Speaker 3: I had seen your photos from the Museum of illusions,
Speaker 3: but seeing y'all in motion is a little surreal. Lol. Well, yeah,
Speaker 3: I hope we can. I hope we're weird enough for you. Man. Yeah,
Speaker 3: let's see. Tanner says, I think I have two examples
Speaker 3: of polywater, one real, one fictional. The fictional one comes
Speaker 3: from the Three Body Problem trilogy by Sitchin lou The End.
Speaker 3: It is the dual vector Foil. It's a weapon fired
Speaker 3: at solar systems with tech signals by advanced alien species
Speaker 3: as a preemptive strike. Once the weapon enters the Solar system,
Speaker 3: it expands and accelerates towards and through the Solar System,
Speaker 3: collapsing all matter into a lower dimension. Planets become massive discs,
Speaker 3: and then rings of color beings caught in it flatten
Speaker 3: and freeze, and stars collapse and spoilers for the end
Speaker 3: of the trilogy. Well you know, warning, folks, spoilers are incoming.
Speaker 3: Since these weapons have infinite range, they eventually convert all
Speaker 3: matter into two dimensions.
Speaker 2: Oh wow, I did not get that far in the trilogy.
Speaker 2: I read the first.
Speaker 3: Book and for the real example of polywater. Preons, like
Speaker 3: polywater and ice nine. Preons are alternative isomers of healthy
Speaker 3: proteins that are capable of spreading themselves by contacting normal molecules,
Speaker 3: since they're chemically identical to Since they're chemically identical, the
Speaker 3: conditions that cause them to de nature are very similar
Speaker 3: to healthy ones, and the new structure is biologically inactive,
Speaker 3: if not actively fatal. Thanks for all the insightful content
Speaker 3: you produce. Cheers, uh, and let's see. Oh. Tanner also
Speaker 3: asks for the discord link. So I assume we sent
Speaker 3: it to Tanner, but I.
Speaker 2: Will probably did. But if I ever fail to send it,
Speaker 2: ask me again. Sometimes sometimes we.
Speaker 3: Get a lot of email folks. Yeah, so sometimes we
Speaker 3: don't get a chance to replies off as we'd like.
Speaker 3: So yeah, please, if you don't hear back and you
Speaker 3: want the discord link, send it again.
Speaker 2: All right, Well, let's go ahead and look at some
Speaker 2: weird house cinema listener mail here. Let's see what we have.
Speaker 2: All right, Let's go ahead and read one here from Chris,
Speaker 2: subject the Ankle Snatcher. Chris writes, good day, In case
Speaker 2: the bugins didn't hit your quota for ankle snatching, I
Speaker 2: wanted to recommend a Grady Hendrick short story called The
Speaker 2: Ankle Snatcher. I found it in the Best American Science
Speaker 2: Fiction and Fantasy twenty twenty four, and it's been haunting
Speaker 2: me ever since. Also, it may be too recent for
Speaker 2: Weird House Cinema, but I have to recommend a movie
Speaker 2: called The Man Who Killed Hitler and then The Bigfoot.
Speaker 2: I consider it an honorary Vonnegut story. Best wishes, Chris.
Speaker 3: I have not seen that movie, but I've encountered the
Speaker 3: title and I was puzzled.
Speaker 2: I've heard good things about it. I've also heard that
Speaker 2: it's not like it's kind of a goofy sounding title,
Speaker 2: and it maybe sounds a little more absurdist than it
Speaker 2: actually is. But I've heard good things about it. Okay, Yeah,
Speaker 2: and as for the Ankle Scratcher here, if I'm not mistaken,
Speaker 2: it looks like some form of adaptation is in the works.
Speaker 2: I see it listen on IMDb. I don't know if
Speaker 2: that's a film, a short film. Could be a podcast
Speaker 2: or a video game for all I know, but maybe
Speaker 2: something is brewing in the Ankle Snatcher universe.
Speaker 3: Okay, all right, This next message is from Jay, subject
Speaker 3: line the Blob. Hi, guys, on your recent Weird House Cinema,
Speaker 3: you were asking which blob version you should cover Oh yeah,
Speaker 3: the nineteen fifties or sixties one, the older one or
Speaker 3: the one from the eighties. Jay says, I think it
Speaker 3: would be fun and weird to cover them both in
Speaker 3: the same episode. Calm down, Jay, Jay says, keep up
Speaker 3: the fantastic work. It sustains a lot of us through
Speaker 3: these twisting times. We're trying. We're all trying, Jay. Yea,
Speaker 3: but yeah, it's uh. That would be a lot to
Speaker 3: do in one episode. The episode weird how someone can
Speaker 3: run long even covering one movie, So I think we
Speaker 3: would probably break it up into two episodes.
Speaker 2: We've only ever successfully done one episode that covered two movies,
Speaker 2: and those were like short, silent films as that.
Speaker 3: Recalls, yeh oh, where we did Ashen Puttle and The
Speaker 3: Mechanical Man.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, So for that to work, they need to
Speaker 2: be short and have no words in them. So it's
Speaker 2: possible we could do something like that again, but not
Speaker 2: with two feature length films. That would be crazy.
Speaker 3: Okay, Rob your pick, select the next one here.
Speaker 2: Oh, let's say I think we had a one here
Speaker 2: that I was taken with. Let's say, ah, oh, this
Speaker 2: one's this one's good. Okay, this one comes to us
Speaker 2: from Jeff. Jeff says, Hi, guys, big weird House fan here.
Speaker 2: I love to track down these films to watch before
Speaker 2: listening to your commentary. Lots of fun. I have a
Speaker 2: suggestion for you. Millennium nineteen eighty nine. Chris Christofferson is
Speaker 2: investigating a plane crash when he meets Cheryl Ladd, who
Speaker 2: is a time traveler from an apocalyptic future. There's lots
Speaker 2: of weirdness to enjoy, including a freaky looking humanoid robot.
Speaker 2: This one is directed by Michael Anderson, who did Logan's
Speaker 2: Run seventy six, another possible candidate for Weird House. Keep
Speaker 2: up the good work well. Logan's Run seventy six is
Speaker 2: a favorite of mine and one we may very well
Speaker 2: come back to. Millennium I've never seen I remember when
Speaker 2: it came out, and it definitely has a cool cast
Speaker 2: and the stills look interesting. But I mostly remember this
Speaker 2: film because of a sketch on The Kids in the
Speaker 2: Hall in which Scott Thompson's buddy Cole is doing a
Speaker 2: monologue and he's talking a little bit about differences between
Speaker 2: Canada and America and talks about the film and TV
Speaker 2: industry and anyway, there's a where Buddy Cole was talking
Speaker 2: about having been in Millennium. Scott Thompson, the actor playing
Speaker 2: Buddy Cole, actually was. So Cole tells us, I'm going
Speaker 2: to quote the skit here. I'm in this new American picture, Millennium.
Speaker 2: It's a big budget science fiction thriller starring Cheryl Ladd.
Speaker 2: You see, one day some American thought, hey, I want
Speaker 2: to make a terrible movie in Canada. Everybody else has.
Speaker 2: I play the best friend of the timegate operator. He
Speaker 2: has one line, but he says it directly to me.
Speaker 2: This movie is full of Canadian actors with one line.
Speaker 2: It's great. It won't make a dime.
Speaker 3: So I want to cry. That's amazing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's the main thing that sticks out to me
Speaker 2: about Millennium. But yeah, we could come back and do Millennium. Plus, hey,
Speaker 2: Scott Thompson is in it. I love it when there's
Speaker 2: a you know, a star hidden in there somewhere, or
Speaker 2: future star if you will.
Speaker 3: All right, well, this has been a good mailbag, but
Speaker 3: I think we have to call it there.
Speaker 2: All right, sounds good, going to go ahead and close it up,
Speaker 2: but yeah, right in, we would love to hear from
Speaker 2: you out there again. Just a reminder. Stuff Well in
Speaker 2: Your Mind is primarily a science and culture podcast. Core
Speaker 2: episodes Tuesdays and Thursdays, Friday's Weird House Cinema short form
Speaker 2: episode on Wednesdays. Yeah, and I don't know if there's
Speaker 2: anything else we really need to cover here, but I
Speaker 2: guess we'll go ahead and throw it out. If you've
Speaker 2: made it this far through the through the listener mail episode, hey,
Speaker 2: make sure you rate interview where if you have the
Speaker 2: ability to do that, give us some stars, thumbs up,
Speaker 2: two thumbs up. I don't know. Every platform is a
Speaker 2: little different, but whatever it is, we greatly appreciate the support.
Speaker 3: Yeah, if you want to help us out, subscribe wherever
Speaker 3: you get your audio podcasts. And if you're watching us
Speaker 3: on Netflix, click remind me so we pop up in
Speaker 3: your feed when we release a new video episode. So
Speaker 3: I guess that does it huge. Thanks as always to
Speaker 3: our excellent audio producer JJ Posway. If you would like
Speaker 3: to get in touch with us with feedback on this
Speaker 3: episode or any other, to suggest a topic for the future,
Speaker 3: or just to say hello, you can email us at
Speaker 3: contact Stuff to Blow your Mind dot com.
Speaker 1: Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production of iHeartRadio. For
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