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Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio.

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Speaker 2: Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. My name

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Speaker 2: is Robert Lamb.

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Speaker 3: And I am Joe McCormick. And today is not the

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Speaker 3: first day of October, but October does begin later the

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Speaker 3: week this episode airs. So we're kicking things off today.

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Speaker 3: Long-time listeners know our tradition. Every year, for the whole

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Speaker 3: month of October, we throw the podcast into uncanny overdrive.

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Speaker 3: So our core episodes all this next month are going

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Speaker 3: to be focused on eerie, haunted, or enchanted subjects. And

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Speaker 3: our Weird House Cinema selections are going to be all

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Speaker 3: horror films. We do horror sometimes anyway through the rest

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Speaker 3: of the year, but we're going full horror all month.

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Speaker 3: And today... Even though we are still in the last

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Speaker 3: days of September, we're going to be getting an early

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Speaker 3: start on the spirit of the season because today we're

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Speaker 3: going to begin a series of episodes about the scarecrow.

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Speaker 3: I've been really excited to do this one this year.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah. This has been on the list for a

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Speaker 2: few years, I believe. And it's a great topic because

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Speaker 2: obviously there's it's just a ubiquitous part of Halloween and

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Speaker 2: just general autumn decoration. you know, celebrating fall harvest, even

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Speaker 2: as it hints at darker matters, you know, inanimate beings

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Speaker 2: brought to life through dark magic, or maybe just the

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Speaker 2: inner workings of the human mind. You know, you see

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Speaker 2: a scarecrow, and just by virtue of its design, the

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Speaker 2: way that it's made to mimic a human body, it

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Speaker 2: kind of works on us, too. And so our imagination

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Speaker 2: tends to run away with it. And you'll find no

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Speaker 2: shortage of creepy scarecrows, obviously, from Just go to your

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Speaker 2: local haunted attraction, and I'm sure one will chase you around.

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Speaker 2: There are a plethora of horror films that have come

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Speaker 2: out over the decades as well. I don't think we're

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Speaker 2: covering any of these for Weird House Cinema, but we'll

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Speaker 2: probably do a short breakdown of some of these and

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Speaker 2: some of their themes as we go. And then there

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Speaker 2: are lots of things that are sort of at least

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Speaker 2: Scarecrow adjacent, like the residents of Pottsfield in the animated

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Speaker 2: series Over the Garden Wall. Maybe not quite Scarecrows, but

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Speaker 2: there's a lot of Scarecrow in their DNA. And as

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Speaker 2: a topic for our show, Stuff to Blow Your Mind,

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Speaker 2: Scarecrows allow us to explore a host of ideas and

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Speaker 2: all of our favorite buckets of content. You know, we

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Speaker 2: get to get into biology. We're going to get into

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Speaker 2: a little of that in this episode, more in later episodes,

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Speaker 2: and all manner of cultural, historic, folkloric treatments. I mean,

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Speaker 2: just think of the scarecrow as a sort of meta symbol,

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Speaker 2: you know, life and death, crucifixion and other modes of

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Speaker 2: public execution or display. uncanny watchers, apotropaic magic, and much more. Yeah.

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Speaker 3: Have you ever had this Halloween experience where you go

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Speaker 3: up to somebody's house on Halloween for trick-or-treating, and they

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Speaker 3: have a display, maybe hay bales set out, and there's

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Speaker 3: a scarecrow laying across the hay bales, and as you

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Speaker 3: walk up, suddenly it moves, and it was actually a

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Speaker 3: human in disguise?

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Speaker 2: This is a favorite tactic at your better professional haunted attractions.

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Speaker 2: The one I go to in the Atlanta area every

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Speaker 2: year is Netherworld. And a big fan of that place.

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Speaker 2: And you see a lot of this. It's like, be

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Speaker 2: really still. And ideally, trick the curious person into coming closer,

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Speaker 2: checking out the details. And then there's a sudden movement.

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Speaker 2: And they don't even have to make contact with you.

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Speaker 2: That movement enough is enough to just completely throw you off.

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Speaker 3: I've never been to Netherworld, but I one time went

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Speaker 3: to a big haunted attraction in North Carolina where they

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Speaker 3: had some horror scarecrows that would attack your group as

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Speaker 3: it was going through a cornfield part of the attraction.

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Speaker 3: And the really cool thing I remember they did was

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Speaker 3: in that section, they planted some people among the group

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Speaker 3: that was walking through that were actually performers but were

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Speaker 3: pretending to be part of the group, and they would

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Speaker 3: get dragged out of the group and into the corn

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Speaker 3: by the scarecrows.

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Speaker 2: I thought that was cool. Yeah, I don't think I've

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Speaker 2: seen that before. But yeah, create that sense of unease

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Speaker 2: by using plants, if you will.

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Speaker 3: Anyway, to set the mood both for the Scarecrow series

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Speaker 3: and for the whole month, I thought it might be

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Speaker 3: good to start off retelling a classic tale of scarecrows

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Speaker 3: and witchcraft. This story is called Feathertop by the author

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Speaker 3: Nathaniel Hawthorne, American author, who wrote The Scarlet Letter, among

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Speaker 3: other things, Young Goodman Brown, those sorts of things. This

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Speaker 3: story was published in the year 1852. It's not strictly

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Speaker 3: a horror story. I think most of the things Hawthorne

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Speaker 3: wrote wouldn't quite make that cut. He wasn't Edgar Allan Poe.

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Speaker 3: But it's close enough, and it's got a lot of

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Speaker 3: great witchy magic and stuff like that. So are you game, Rob?

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Speaker 2: I'm game, yeah. And I would say if you have

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Speaker 2: witches in it, you're at least horror adjacent. I mean,

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Speaker 2: that's close enough.

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Speaker 3: Well, parts of the story are pretty spooky, but it's

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Speaker 3: also got a strong sense of the ironic. It's like

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Speaker 3: a humorous story about the foibles of human character. But anyway, okay,

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Speaker 3: so here we'll tell it. So it goes, somewhere in

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Speaker 3: New England, there is an old witch of the woods

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Speaker 3: named Mother Rigby, and she lives alone on her farm.

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Speaker 3: And one morning, she wakes up early and she calls

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Speaker 3: on her invisible demonic servant, a familiar named Dickon, to

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Speaker 3: come light her pipe for her. And then she sets

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Speaker 3: to the task of making a scarecrow to hang in

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Speaker 3: her garden, because it says it is May, and the

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Speaker 3: blackbirds have already showed up to peck at her corn.

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Speaker 3: Once funny uh note i'll make here in several of

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Speaker 3: the things i've been reading about scarecrows uh to prepare

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Speaker 3: for this series they they talk about you know we

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Speaker 3: think of scarecrows associated with the harvest season because of

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Speaker 3: halloween and october uh but a lot of these stories

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Speaker 3: mention using scarecrows in the spring and i wonder if

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Speaker 3: that's because like you're scattering seed then maybe and like

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Speaker 3: you don't want the birds to come peck the seed

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Speaker 3: before you.

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Speaker 2: Uh yeah i don't know and And then, of course,

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Speaker 2: you have different harvests throughout the year, whether it's the big,

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Speaker 2: you know, there's the autumn harvest. But it's like if

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Speaker 2: you're growing tomatoes, you know, then if you're going to

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Speaker 2: try and engage in any kind of like bird or

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Speaker 2: rodent scaring, then you're going to have to do that

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Speaker 2: during the height of summer.

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Speaker 3: I guess so. To be fair, I don't know that

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Speaker 3: much about farming. So maybe, are you scattering seeds in May?

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Speaker 3: Maybe not. Do you scatter them earlier than that? I guess,

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Speaker 3: like you said, there are stages.

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Speaker 2: Throughout the year. All I know from my own limited

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Speaker 2: experience with backdoor gardening, which sometimes has catastrophic results, I

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Speaker 2: just know that there are different times to plant different

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Speaker 2: things and there are different times to harvest different things.

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Speaker 2: And if you're really hardcore about it, there's, I think,

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Speaker 2: pretty much, at least in our neck of the woods,

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Speaker 2: there's something you could be planting and or growing most

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Speaker 2: of the year. But we're not that hardcore. Throughout this series,

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Speaker 2: actual gardeners and farmers, please feel free to chime in

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Speaker 2: with your own field notes. Totally.

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Speaker 3: The narrator tells how Mother Rigby, the witch, considers making

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Speaker 3: a truly hideous and terrifying scarecrow and being one of

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Speaker 3: the most cunning witches in the country. She could have

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Speaker 3: made something straight out of hell if she set her

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Speaker 3: mind to it. It makes that clear. Like she has

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Speaker 3: it in her power to make the most frightening scarecrow

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Speaker 3: on earth, but she's in a good mood this morning

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Speaker 3: and she's feeling dulcified by her pipe tobacco. So she

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Speaker 3: decides instead to make a scarecrow in the form of

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Speaker 3: a splendid, charming gentleman. That's what the narrator says, but

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Speaker 3: then I love how some of the details will kind

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Speaker 3: of contradict that. So here I'm just going to read

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Speaker 3: directly from Hawthorne's description. perhaps it may be as well

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Speaker 3: to enumerate the chief of the articles that went to

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Speaker 3: the composition of this figure. The most important item of all, probably,

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Speaker 3: although it made so little show, was a certain broomstick

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Speaker 3: on which Mother Rigby had taken many an airy gallop

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Speaker 3: at midnight, and which now served the scarecrow by way

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Speaker 3: of a spinal column, or, as the unlearned phrase it,

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Speaker 3: a backbone. One of its arms was a disabled flail,

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Speaker 3: which used to be wielded by Goodman Rigby before his

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Speaker 3: spouse worried him out of this troublesome world. The other,

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Speaker 3: if I mistake not, was composed of the pudding stick

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Speaker 3: and a broken rung of a chair tied loosely together

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Speaker 3: at the elbow. As for its legs, the right was

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Speaker 3: a hoe handle and the left an undistinguished and miscellaneous

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Speaker 3: stick from the woodpile. Its lungs, stomach, and other affairs

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Speaker 3: of that kind were nothing better than a meal bag

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Speaker 3: stuffed with straw. Thus we have made out the skeleton

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Speaker 3: and entire corporosity of the scarecrow, with the exception of

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Speaker 3: its head, and this was admirably supplied by a somewhat

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Speaker 3: withered and shriveled pumpkin, in which Mother Rigby cut two

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Speaker 3: holes for the eyes and a slit for the mouth,

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Speaker 3: leaving a bluish-colored knob in the middle to pass for

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Speaker 3: a nose. It was really quite a respectable face. I've

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Speaker 3: seen worse ones on human shoulders at any rate, said

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Speaker 3: Mother Rigby, and many a fine gentleman has a pumpkin

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Speaker 3: head as well as my scarecrow. So then she goes,

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Speaker 3: I thought that was great. And then she goes on

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Speaker 3: to dress the scarecrow. She gives it a plum-colored coat

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Speaker 3: made long ago in London, now tattered and threadbare, which

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Speaker 3: the narrator says the neighbors, Rigby's neighbors, believe are belongs

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Speaker 3: to the devil himself so they say the devil comes

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Speaker 3: stops by mother Rigby's house to slip on this coat

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Speaker 3: from her wardrobe when he goes to dine with the

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Speaker 3: local high society and And that's just kind of given

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Speaker 3: as an aside. But yeah, the idea is the devil

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Speaker 3: sometimes shows up to go visit the governor here. And

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Speaker 3: when he does, he's got to get some nice clothes

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Speaker 3: from Mother Rigby's closet.

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Speaker 2: All right. And just leaves it on site.

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Speaker 1: Okay.

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Speaker 2: Yeah.

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Speaker 3: And then continuing the description of dressing the scarecrow, quote,

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Speaker 3: On the left breast was a round hole whence either

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Speaker 3: a star of nobility had been rent away or else

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Speaker 3: the hot heart of some former wearer had scorched it

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Speaker 3: through and through. And then later, to match the coat,

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Speaker 3: there was a velvet waistcoat of very ample size and

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Speaker 3: formerly embroidered with foliage that had been as brightly golden

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Speaker 3: as the maple leaves in October, but which had now

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Speaker 3: quite vanished out of the substance of the velvet. And

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Speaker 3: then she adds to this some scarlet breeches, which it

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Speaker 3: says once belonged to a French aristocrat, and then also

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Speaker 3: a pair of silk stockings, which she stretches over the

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Speaker 3: scarecrow's legs, quote, where they showed as unsubstantial as a dream,

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Speaker 3: with the wooden reality of the two sticks making itself

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Speaker 3: miserably apparent through the holes. Lastly, she put her dead

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Speaker 3: husband's wig on the bare scalp of the pumpkin and

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Speaker 3: surmounted the hole with a dusty three-cornered hat in which

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Speaker 3: was stuck the longest tail feather of a rooster. So

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Speaker 3: there you go, feather top. He's got the feather on top.

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Speaker 3: Once she has finished making this creature, she dies. just

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Speaker 3: gets to admiring it, and she judges it so handsome

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Speaker 3: and so fine that she really can't stand to just

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Speaker 3: leave it hanging in the garden. Quote, To say the truth,

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Speaker 3: whether it were chance or skill or downright witchcraft, there

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Speaker 3: was something wonderfully human in this ridiculous shape, bedizened with

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Speaker 3: its tattered finery, and, as for the countenance, it appeared

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Speaker 3: to shrivel its yellow surface into a grin, a funny

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Speaker 3: kind of expression betwixt scorn and merriment. as if it

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Speaker 3: understood itself to be a jest at mankind. So Mother Rigby,

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Speaker 3: she's like, I can't leave this thing out in the garden.

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Speaker 3: I'm going to come up with a different plan. She

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Speaker 3: decides to bring the scarecrow to life, to actually make

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Speaker 3: it a man. So she calls on her, which is familiar, Dickon,

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Speaker 3: to put another coal in her pipe. And then she

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Speaker 3: stuffs the pipe into the scarecrow's mouth and commands the

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Speaker 3: scarecrow to puff. Just as a side note in this story,

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Speaker 3: it keeps mentioning that Mother Rigby likes to have not

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Speaker 3: just tobacco in her pipe, but actually a coal from

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Speaker 3: the fireplace in her pipe for flavor. Love to get

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Speaker 3: some sulfur in.

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Speaker 2: There, you know.

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Speaker 3: Anyway, so it says that, quote, as soon as the

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Speaker 3: old dame bade him puff, there came a whiff of

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Speaker 3: smoke from the scarecrow's mouth. It was the very feeblest

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Speaker 3: of whiffs, to be sure, but it was followed by

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Speaker 3: another and another, each more decided than the preceding one.

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Speaker 3: Puff away, my pet. Puff away, my pretty one, Mother

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Speaker 3: Rigby kept repeating with her pleasantest smile. It is the

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Speaker 3: breath of life to ye, and that you may take

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Speaker 3: my word for. And so we're told that the smoke

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Speaker 3: of the witch's pipe begins to work its enchantment. The

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Speaker 3: narrator says that the shriveled yellow face becomes shrouded in

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Speaker 3: this tenuous haze of vitality. And it's shifting to and fro,

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Speaker 3: but growing stronger with each whiff of the pipe tobacco

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Speaker 3: and seeming more and more human. And then she says,

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Speaker 3: the witch says, why lurkest thou in the corner, lazy one?

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Speaker 3: Step forth, thou hast the world before thee. And then

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Speaker 3: the scarecrow tries to walk, but stumbles. Quote, the strong-willed

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Speaker 3: old Beldam scowled and beckoned. and flung the energy of

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Speaker 3: her purpose so forcibly at this poor combination of rotten

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Speaker 3: wood and musty straw and ragged garments that it was

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Speaker 3: compelled to show itself a man, in spite of the

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Speaker 3: reality of things. So it stepped into the bar of sunshine.

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Speaker 3: There it stood, poor devil of a contrivance that it was,

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Speaker 3: with only the thinnest vesture of human similitude about it,

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Speaker 3: through which was evident the stiff, rickety, incongruous, faded, tattered,

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Speaker 3: good-for-nothing patchwork of its substance, ready to sink in a

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Speaker 3: heap upon the floor, as conscious of its own unworthiness

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Speaker 3: to be erect. Shall I confess the truth? At its

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Speaker 3: present point of vivification, the scarecrow reminds me of some

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00:14:44,510 --> 00:14:49,310
Speaker 3: of the lukewarm and abortive characters composed of heterogeneous material's

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Speaker 3: used for the thousandth time and never worth using with

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Speaker 3: which romance writers and myself, no, no doubt among the

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00:14:56,970 --> 00:14:59,850
Speaker 3: rest have so over people to the world of fiction.

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Speaker 3: So he's like a one dimensional character there. Uh, so

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Speaker 3: mother Rigby then, uh, begins to bully and abuse the

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Speaker 3: scarecrow kind of yelling at it, commanding it to speak.

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Speaker 3: And finally, um, out of fear, it does, it speaks though. It, uh, fright, uh,

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Speaker 3: In a fright explains that it does not know what

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Speaker 3: to say. And Mother Rigby shouts at it. And what

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Speaker 3: shalt thou say, Quotha? Say indeed, art thou of the

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Speaker 3: brotherhood of the empty skull and demandest of me what

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Speaker 3: thou shalt say? Thou shalt say a thousand things and

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Speaker 3: saying them a thousand times over, thou shalt still have

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Speaker 3: said nothing. Be not afraid, I tell thee, when thou

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Speaker 3: comest into the world, whether I purpose sending thee forthwith,

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Speaker 3: thou shalt not lack the wherewithal to talk. Talk, Why,

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Speaker 3: thou shalt babble like a mill stream, if thou wilt.

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Speaker 3: Thou hast brains enough for that, I trow. So I

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Speaker 3: think the point here is that, like, look, you don't

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Speaker 3: have to have anything to say to talk. You can

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Speaker 3: talk without having any thoughts. Everybody does that.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, this is already pretty rich because, you know, if

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Speaker 2: you're thinking about a physical scarecrow or a two-dimensional character

280
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Speaker 2: in a book, It doesn't take that much for us

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Speaker 2: to get invested in the idea, to think of the

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Speaker 2: scarecrow as real, to think of the two-dimensional character as real.

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Speaker 2: And then, of course, there's some nice commentary about noblemen

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Speaker 2: of the day, that sort of thing. Totally.

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Speaker 3: So what is Mother Rigby going to do with this now-walking,

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Speaker 3: now-talking scarecrow that looks like a living man? Well, she

287
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Speaker 3: is going to send it to woo the magistrate's daughter,

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Speaker 3: of course, as you do. So to be impressive among

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Speaker 3: the high society, he's going to have to be a

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00:16:46,830 --> 00:16:50,210
Speaker 3: rich man. So she gives him a fortune consisting of,

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Speaker 3: this is what it says, quote, a gold mine in

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Speaker 3: El Dorado and of 10,000 shares in a broken bubble

293
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Speaker 3: and of half a million acres of vineyard at the

294
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Speaker 3: North Pole and of a castle in the air and

295
00:17:03,570 --> 00:17:06,730
Speaker 3: a chateau in Spain, together with all the rents and

296
00:17:06,810 --> 00:17:10,369
Speaker 3: income therefrom accruing. She further made over to him the

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Speaker 3: cargo of a certain ship laden with salt of Cadiz,

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Speaker 3: which she herself, by her necromantic arts, had caused to

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Speaker 3: founder ten years before in the deepest part of mid-ocean.

300
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Speaker 3: If the salt were not dissolved and could be brought

301
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Speaker 3: to market, it would fetch a pretty penny among the fishermen.

302
00:17:27,950 --> 00:17:30,560
Speaker 3: That he might not lack ready money, she gave him

303
00:17:30,619 --> 00:17:34,639
Speaker 3: a copper farthing of Birmingham manufacture, being all the coins

304
00:17:34,680 --> 00:17:37,919
Speaker 3: she had about her. And likewise, a great deal of brass,

305
00:17:38,040 --> 00:17:41,140
Speaker 3: which he applied to his forehead, thus making it yellower

306
00:17:41,220 --> 00:17:45,060
Speaker 3: than ever. So the story mentioned several other things that

307
00:17:45,740 --> 00:17:50,500
Speaker 3: might make the scarecrow more convincingly human. So what does

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00:17:50,560 --> 00:17:53,469
Speaker 3: it take to be a convincing human? One thing is

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00:17:53,530 --> 00:17:57,010
Speaker 3: that the scarecrow learns how to respond in conversation with

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Speaker 3: meaningless cliches like, upon my word and indeed. So it's

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Speaker 3: saying like, oh, he can talk as vapidly as a

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Speaker 3: real human.

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Speaker 2: Yeah.

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Speaker 3: And then the other thing is that it really begins

315
00:18:09,580 --> 00:18:12,510
Speaker 3: to enjoy the tobacco smoke. So it sucks on the

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00:18:12,550 --> 00:18:16,230
Speaker 3: pipe with great pleasure. And we're told that when the

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00:18:16,250 --> 00:18:20,430
Speaker 3: tobacco in the bowl burns out, the scarecrow begins to

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00:18:20,590 --> 00:18:23,830
Speaker 3: fade back into a lifeless form of rotten wood. So

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00:18:23,869 --> 00:18:27,840
Speaker 3: the witch has her familiar replenish the tobacco constantly with

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Speaker 3: great haste so that the scarecrow's life breath is always there,

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Speaker 3: ready in the pipe, in the smoke of the pipe.

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Speaker 3: So Mother Rigby gives the gentleman scarecrow the name Feathertop

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Speaker 3: and sends him out to the house of the local

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Speaker 3: magistrate to court the magistrate's daughter, a girl named Polly. Now,

325
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Speaker 3: on the way, the story dwells on how the townsfolk

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Speaker 3: perceive Feathertop when he walks down the main street. They

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Speaker 3: think he's a great nobleman, a man of substance, a

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Speaker 3: wealthy and sophisticated traveler, someone who knows the protocol of

329
00:19:09,109 --> 00:19:11,320
Speaker 3: all the courts of Europe. And he's got a face

330
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Speaker 3: so beautiful it flames in the sunlight. Only two members

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Speaker 3: of the town dissent. There is a dog and a

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Speaker 3: young child, both of whom react as if the stranger

333
00:19:21,350 --> 00:19:24,570
Speaker 3: were frightening and unholy. But, you know, who listens to

334
00:19:24,609 --> 00:19:29,370
Speaker 3: a dog and a young child? So meanwhile, the daughter

335
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Speaker 3: of the gouty old judge sees this handsome, impressive stranger

336
00:19:33,910 --> 00:19:35,960
Speaker 3: coming up the walk to her house. She looks out

337
00:19:36,000 --> 00:19:39,140
Speaker 3: the window and sees him. And she is so excited,

338
00:19:39,220 --> 00:19:41,980
Speaker 3: she rushes to put on her finest clothes. And then

339
00:19:42,000 --> 00:19:45,270
Speaker 3: it says she practices laughing and smiling in a large mirror.

340
00:19:45,290 --> 00:19:51,140
Speaker 3: And when Feathertop is admitted inside, he whispers. a secret

341
00:19:51,400 --> 00:19:54,879
Speaker 3: word of introduction that Mother Rigby had instructed him to

342
00:19:54,920 --> 00:19:58,660
Speaker 3: tell the magistrate. And when the magistrate hears this word

343
00:19:58,680 --> 00:20:00,820
Speaker 3: of introduction, I think we're not told what it is.

344
00:20:01,440 --> 00:20:04,560
Speaker 3: When the magistrate hears it, he starts to tremble with terror.

345
00:20:05,260 --> 00:20:08,139
Speaker 3: But Polly is so smitten that she does not notice

346
00:20:08,220 --> 00:20:12,660
Speaker 3: her father's apparent distress. Quote, The old man was nervous, fidgety,

347
00:20:12,700 --> 00:20:16,219
Speaker 3: and very pale. Purposing a smile of courtesy, he had

348
00:20:16,280 --> 00:20:19,720
Speaker 3: deformed his face with a sort of galvanic grin, which,

349
00:20:19,840 --> 00:20:23,159
Speaker 3: when Feathertop's back was turned, he exchanged for a scowl,

350
00:20:23,660 --> 00:20:26,399
Speaker 3: at the same time shaking his fist and stamping his

351
00:20:26,480 --> 00:20:30,619
Speaker 3: gouty foot, an incivility which brought its retribution along with it.

352
00:20:31,050 --> 00:20:33,980
Speaker 3: The truth appears to have been. that Mother Rigby's word

353
00:20:34,000 --> 00:20:37,660
Speaker 3: of introduction, whatever it might be, had operated far more

354
00:20:37,720 --> 00:20:41,580
Speaker 3: on the rich merchant's fears than on his goodwill. Moreover,

355
00:20:41,780 --> 00:20:44,980
Speaker 3: being a man of wonderfully acute observation, he had noticed

356
00:20:45,060 --> 00:20:48,100
Speaker 3: that these painted figures on the bowl of Feathertop's pipe

357
00:20:48,160 --> 00:20:52,530
Speaker 3: were in motion. Looking more closely, he became convinced that

358
00:20:52,590 --> 00:20:56,530
Speaker 3: these figures were a party of little demons, each duly

359
00:20:56,609 --> 00:21:00,129
Speaker 3: provided with horns and a tail, and dancing hand in

360
00:21:00,190 --> 00:21:04,649
Speaker 3: hand with gestures of diabolical merriment, round the circumference of

361
00:21:04,710 --> 00:21:09,030
Speaker 3: the pipe bowl. So if the father can tell that

362
00:21:09,070 --> 00:21:12,389
Speaker 3: there is wicked magic afoot, why does he let the

363
00:21:12,430 --> 00:21:15,870
Speaker 3: scarecrow in to see his daughter? The implication is that

364
00:21:16,070 --> 00:21:20,510
Speaker 3: sometime earlier in his life, this rich man who is

365
00:21:20,550 --> 00:21:24,359
Speaker 3: a magistrate, a judge, and a wealthy merchant, and I

366
00:21:24,400 --> 00:21:26,419
Speaker 3: think also it says a member of the clergy, so

367
00:21:26,440 --> 00:21:28,560
Speaker 3: he's like all the branches, you know, all the power

368
00:21:28,600 --> 00:21:32,580
Speaker 3: branches concentrated in this one guy. It says that the father, quote,

369
00:21:32,930 --> 00:21:36,090
Speaker 3: had given some pledge or other to the evil principal

370
00:21:36,410 --> 00:21:39,410
Speaker 3: and perhaps was now to redeem it by the sacrifice

371
00:21:39,550 --> 00:21:43,090
Speaker 3: of his daughter. So the devil has come calling for,

372
00:21:43,109 --> 00:21:46,310
Speaker 3: you know, advantages that this guy received earlier on.

373
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Speaker 2: Almost as if, yeah, the devil had said, all right,

374
00:21:49,420 --> 00:21:54,820
Speaker 2: I'll give you this bounty, these treasures, these benefits. But

375
00:21:55,200 --> 00:21:58,000
Speaker 2: one day a scarecrow will come and court your daughter

376
00:21:58,480 --> 00:22:01,140
Speaker 2: and you have to agree to it. That's what I ask.

377
00:22:01,200 --> 00:22:01,760
Speaker 2: That's the price.

378
00:22:02,450 --> 00:22:05,550
Speaker 3: So the magistrate leaves the room. He leaves his daughter

379
00:22:05,609 --> 00:22:08,290
Speaker 3: in the company of this wooden man disguised by a

380
00:22:08,570 --> 00:22:12,030
Speaker 3: witch's glamour. But from the next room, he spies through

381
00:22:12,070 --> 00:22:14,310
Speaker 3: a gap in the door. And it says, quote, the

382
00:22:14,330 --> 00:22:17,909
Speaker 3: worthy magistrate who had been conversant with all degrees and

383
00:22:17,950 --> 00:22:21,679
Speaker 3: qualities of mankind could not but perceive every motion and

384
00:22:21,760 --> 00:22:25,020
Speaker 3: gesture of the distinguished feather top came in its proper place.

385
00:22:25,560 --> 00:22:28,320
Speaker 3: Nothing had been left rude or native in him. A

386
00:22:28,400 --> 00:22:33,790
Speaker 3: well-digested conventionalism had incorporated itself thoroughly with his substance and

387
00:22:33,830 --> 00:22:37,310
Speaker 3: transformed him into a work of art. Perhaps it was

388
00:22:37,430 --> 00:22:41,790
Speaker 3: this peculiarity that invested him with a species of ghastliness

389
00:22:41,869 --> 00:22:45,340
Speaker 3: and awe. It is the effect of anything completely and

390
00:22:45,430 --> 00:22:50,159
Speaker 3: consummately artificial in human shape that the person impresses us

391
00:22:50,340 --> 00:22:53,859
Speaker 3: as an unreality and as having hardly pith enough to

392
00:22:53,940 --> 00:22:58,060
Speaker 3: cast a shadow upon the floor. As regarded Feathertop, all

393
00:22:58,100 --> 00:23:02,800
Speaker 3: this resulted in a wild extravagant and fantastical impression as

394
00:23:02,859 --> 00:23:05,520
Speaker 3: if his life and being were akin to the smoke

395
00:23:05,619 --> 00:23:09,320
Speaker 3: that curled upward from his pipe. Now I loved this

396
00:23:09,359 --> 00:23:12,199
Speaker 3: part because I think obviously the point Hawthorne is making

397
00:23:12,280 --> 00:23:15,980
Speaker 3: is that there are some people who are so well

398
00:23:16,080 --> 00:23:20,200
Speaker 3: mannered and so practiced in their conversation and so well

399
00:23:20,280 --> 00:23:24,220
Speaker 3: cultured that they come off as not really human. It

400
00:23:24,240 --> 00:23:27,540
Speaker 3: kind of, however, made me think about artificial intelligence, about

401
00:23:27,700 --> 00:23:31,800
Speaker 3: this quality you can see where there is a kind

402
00:23:31,859 --> 00:23:37,400
Speaker 3: of smoothness and a kind of hollow perfection in writing

403
00:23:37,480 --> 00:23:42,490
Speaker 3: generated by artificial intelligence. It's the kind of lack of

404
00:23:42,590 --> 00:23:47,590
Speaker 3: human contours in it, of imperfections that might get a

405
00:23:47,710 --> 00:23:52,170
Speaker 3: piece of red pen from a writing instructor, but actually...

406
00:23:52,609 --> 00:23:54,730
Speaker 3: let you know that this was made by a person,

407
00:23:54,950 --> 00:23:55,649
Speaker 3: if that makes sense.

408
00:23:55,910 --> 00:23:58,230
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, that's a good read. On top of just

409
00:23:58,810 --> 00:24:01,909
Speaker 2: the sort of the general threshold for us to, at

410
00:24:01,930 --> 00:24:05,510
Speaker 2: least on some level, think of, you know, say a

411
00:24:05,590 --> 00:24:09,690
Speaker 2: chatbot as being an entity that we're actually conversing with,

412
00:24:09,710 --> 00:24:10,430
Speaker 2: that sort of thing.

413
00:24:10,890 --> 00:24:14,230
Speaker 3: Yeah, totally. But again, the idea here being that there

414
00:24:14,280 --> 00:24:19,300
Speaker 3: are certain types of perfection in humans or human-like objects

415
00:24:19,740 --> 00:24:25,010
Speaker 3: that ring as hollow and unpleasant to us. They seem like, actually,

416
00:24:25,050 --> 00:24:27,689
Speaker 3: there's something inhuman about this in the way that it's

417
00:24:27,710 --> 00:24:32,230
Speaker 3: too perfect. Like uncanny symmetry, that sort of thing. Exactly, yeah. Anyway,

418
00:24:32,310 --> 00:24:36,250
Speaker 3: so Polly, the daughter, is easily charmed by Feathertop and

419
00:24:36,310 --> 00:24:38,730
Speaker 3: his enchantments. And so as they walk around the house

420
00:24:38,800 --> 00:24:43,000
Speaker 3: and talk, and within 15 minutes, Polly has fallen completely

421
00:24:43,040 --> 00:24:46,760
Speaker 3: in love with Feathertop. Quote, no matter what Feathertop said,

422
00:24:47,140 --> 00:24:50,189
Speaker 3: his words found depth and reverberation in her ear. No

423
00:24:50,230 --> 00:24:53,510
Speaker 3: matter what he did, his action was heroic to her eye.

424
00:24:54,490 --> 00:24:57,410
Speaker 3: But then comes the turn, the twist of the story.

425
00:24:58,070 --> 00:25:01,920
Speaker 3: Polly is admiring all of Feathertop's finery, his gleaming medals

426
00:25:01,980 --> 00:25:05,899
Speaker 3: and his fancy clothes. And then, quote, the maiden raised

427
00:25:05,940 --> 00:25:08,939
Speaker 3: her eyes and suffered them to linger upon her companion

428
00:25:08,980 --> 00:25:12,800
Speaker 3: with a bashful and admiring gaze. Then, as if desirous

429
00:25:12,840 --> 00:25:17,000
Speaker 3: of judging what value her own simple comeliness might have

430
00:25:17,119 --> 00:25:20,389
Speaker 3: side by side with so much brilliancy, she cast a

431
00:25:20,460 --> 00:25:23,949
Speaker 3: glance toward the full-length looking-glass in front of which they

432
00:25:23,990 --> 00:25:26,790
Speaker 3: happened to be standing. It was one of the truest

433
00:25:26,890 --> 00:25:30,909
Speaker 3: plates in the world, and incapable of flattery. No sooner

434
00:25:30,970 --> 00:25:34,930
Speaker 3: did the images therein reflected meet Polly's eye than she shrieked,

435
00:25:35,430 --> 00:25:38,590
Speaker 3: shrank from the stranger's side, gazed at him for a

436
00:25:38,630 --> 00:25:43,190
Speaker 3: moment in the wildest dismay, and sank insensible upon the floor.

437
00:25:43,890 --> 00:25:47,760
Speaker 3: Feathertop likewise had looked towards the mirror, and there beheld

438
00:25:47,980 --> 00:25:51,379
Speaker 3: not the glittering mockery of his outside show, but a

439
00:25:51,460 --> 00:25:55,940
Speaker 3: picture of the sordid patchwork of his real composition, stripped

440
00:25:56,119 --> 00:26:01,020
Speaker 3: of all witchcraft. So the mirror reveals the truth, and

441
00:26:01,180 --> 00:26:04,980
Speaker 3: Feathertop sees it as well, and he does not like

442
00:26:05,080 --> 00:26:10,420
Speaker 3: what he sees. Quote, The wretched simulacrum, we almost pity

443
00:26:10,460 --> 00:26:13,139
Speaker 3: him he threw up his arms with an expression of

444
00:26:13,200 --> 00:26:16,699
Speaker 3: despair that went further than any of his previous manifestations

445
00:26:17,060 --> 00:26:20,820
Speaker 3: towards vindicating his claims to be reckoned human. For perchance

446
00:26:20,940 --> 00:26:24,420
Speaker 3: the only time since this so often empty and deceptive

447
00:26:24,540 --> 00:26:28,580
Speaker 3: life of mortals began its course, an illusion had seen

448
00:26:28,780 --> 00:26:33,699
Speaker 3: and fully recognized itself. Later that evening, we're told that

449
00:26:33,760 --> 00:26:36,240
Speaker 3: Mother Rigby, the witch, is sitting alone in her home,

450
00:26:36,480 --> 00:26:39,420
Speaker 3: and then Feathertop bursts in through the front door, returning

451
00:26:39,480 --> 00:26:43,550
Speaker 3: home in failure. At first, the witch is furious. She's like,

452
00:26:43,609 --> 00:26:45,870
Speaker 3: did they throw you out? I'm going to send 20

453
00:26:45,869 --> 00:26:48,650
Speaker 3: demons to torture them. I'm going to make all the girls'

454
00:26:48,730 --> 00:26:52,609
Speaker 3: teeth fall out. And Feathertop says, no, it was not them.

455
00:26:53,250 --> 00:26:55,730
Speaker 3: I have seen what I am. I am an empty

456
00:26:57,260 --> 00:27:01,400
Speaker 3: and unreal thing, and I will exist no more. Quote,

457
00:27:02,080 --> 00:27:04,620
Speaker 3: snatching the pipe from his mouth, he flung it with

458
00:27:04,680 --> 00:27:07,340
Speaker 3: all his might against the chimney. And at the same

459
00:27:07,440 --> 00:27:10,659
Speaker 3: instant sank upon the floor a medley of straw and

460
00:27:10,740 --> 00:27:15,260
Speaker 3: tattered garments, with some sticks protruding from the heap, and

461
00:27:15,300 --> 00:27:19,460
Speaker 3: a shriveled pumpkin in the midst. The eyeholes were now lusterless,

462
00:27:19,800 --> 00:27:22,900
Speaker 3: but the rudely carved gap that just before had been

463
00:27:22,920 --> 00:27:26,810
Speaker 3: a mouth still seemed to twist itself into a despairing grin,

464
00:27:27,230 --> 00:27:31,510
Speaker 3: and was so far human. Mother Rigby says, My poor, dear,

465
00:27:31,630 --> 00:27:35,850
Speaker 3: pretty feather-top, There are thousands upon thousands of coxcombs and

466
00:27:35,990 --> 00:27:38,790
Speaker 3: charlatans in the world made up of just such a

467
00:27:38,850 --> 00:27:41,790
Speaker 3: jumble of worn out, forgotten and good for nothing trash

468
00:27:41,850 --> 00:27:44,810
Speaker 3: as he was. Yet they live in fair repute and

469
00:27:44,869 --> 00:27:47,600
Speaker 3: never see themselves for what they are. And why should

470
00:27:47,630 --> 00:27:50,540
Speaker 3: my poor puppet be the only one to know himself

471
00:27:50,740 --> 00:27:54,720
Speaker 3: and perish for it? So she considers bringing him to

472
00:27:54,780 --> 00:27:57,979
Speaker 3: life once again. I'll reanimate this pile of trash. But

473
00:27:58,020 --> 00:28:00,899
Speaker 3: then she decides against it. She says she's going to

474
00:28:00,960 --> 00:28:02,810
Speaker 3: hang him up in the field and use him to

475
00:28:02,850 --> 00:28:07,990
Speaker 3: scare the blackbirds from eating her corn. Basically, unlike being

476
00:28:08,030 --> 00:28:10,830
Speaker 3: a real man of society, that is an honest living.

477
00:28:12,750 --> 00:28:13,949
Speaker 3: And that's the end of the story.

478
00:28:13,970 --> 00:28:15,090
Speaker 2: Oh, I love it.

479
00:28:15,430 --> 00:28:18,540
Speaker 3: So, yeah, I love that story, too. Again, despite the

480
00:28:18,840 --> 00:28:21,820
Speaker 3: witchy themes, it's not really what would usually get called

481
00:28:21,859 --> 00:28:25,879
Speaker 3: a horror story. Like some other tales by Hawthorne, it's

482
00:28:25,920 --> 00:28:27,580
Speaker 3: probably best thought of as like a moral tale.

483
00:28:27,619 --> 00:28:27,739
Speaker 1: Hmm.

484
00:28:29,650 --> 00:28:32,379
Speaker 3: It's a story that's used to give a lesson or

485
00:28:32,500 --> 00:28:36,480
Speaker 3: illustrate something about human character. And in this case, I

486
00:28:36,520 --> 00:28:41,220
Speaker 3: think it seems mostly aimed at making two pessimistic points

487
00:28:41,300 --> 00:28:46,240
Speaker 3: about human nature. One is that most people are all hat,

488
00:28:46,300 --> 00:28:51,050
Speaker 3: no cattle. Like whatever seems impressive about them is an illusion.

489
00:28:51,570 --> 00:28:55,840
Speaker 3: People lack substance and character. and they are oblivious to

490
00:28:55,880 --> 00:29:00,170
Speaker 3: their own shortcomings. For if they could see themselves reflected

491
00:29:00,250 --> 00:29:04,270
Speaker 3: true in the mirror like Feathertop does, they would similarly

492
00:29:04,550 --> 00:29:07,630
Speaker 3: break the spell and collapse into a pile of rotten wood.

493
00:29:08,490 --> 00:29:11,800
Speaker 3: Probably not literally, but they couldn't bear to see themselves

494
00:29:11,880 --> 00:29:15,900
Speaker 3: for how hollow they really are. And then the second point,

495
00:29:16,000 --> 00:29:20,760
Speaker 3: I think, is that most people fall for this illusory

496
00:29:20,840 --> 00:29:24,700
Speaker 3: appeal in others. It's a little bit like the Emperor's

497
00:29:24,780 --> 00:29:27,620
Speaker 3: New Clothes story. You know, in this story, it says

498
00:29:27,820 --> 00:29:31,180
Speaker 3: only a child and a dog see through the Scarecrow's

499
00:29:31,380 --> 00:29:35,500
Speaker 3: phantom flesh and detect the uncanny within. All the adults

500
00:29:35,560 --> 00:29:38,200
Speaker 3: are like, oh, wow, he's so impressive, so cool. This

501
00:29:38,220 --> 00:29:41,800
Speaker 3: is the best guy ever. Well, I guess the other

502
00:29:41,860 --> 00:29:45,380
Speaker 3: exception is that the magistrate sees through the enchantment, but

503
00:29:45,440 --> 00:29:47,900
Speaker 3: the implication in the story is that he doesn't see

504
00:29:47,920 --> 00:29:51,290
Speaker 3: through it because like, oh, he's got real detective equipment,

505
00:29:51,330 --> 00:29:53,630
Speaker 3: you know, that he's the real deal. It's more like

506
00:29:53,730 --> 00:29:56,230
Speaker 3: he's familiar with the work of the devil because he

507
00:29:56,250 --> 00:29:58,690
Speaker 3: has dealt with the devil before. So he's like, oh,

508
00:29:58,760 --> 00:29:59,640
Speaker 3: I know what this is.

509
00:29:59,660 --> 00:30:01,060
Speaker 2: Yeah.

510
00:30:01,240 --> 00:30:05,959
Speaker 3: So we can revisit the meaning of scarecrows in storytelling

511
00:30:06,020 --> 00:30:10,140
Speaker 3: as we go along. But this is one major idea

512
00:30:10,220 --> 00:30:14,300
Speaker 3: that they do connect to in literature and in folklore.

513
00:30:15,020 --> 00:30:19,550
Speaker 3: It's something about the difference between appearances and reality, like

514
00:30:19,590 --> 00:30:24,000
Speaker 3: the genuine versus the counterfeit. and the ability to discern

515
00:30:24,060 --> 00:30:27,980
Speaker 3: that difference. Because in its common form, in its most

516
00:30:28,040 --> 00:30:32,900
Speaker 3: common form at least, a scarecrow is a counterfeit human.

517
00:30:32,920 --> 00:30:37,390
Speaker 3: A scarecrow is an inanimate figure, usually made in the

518
00:30:37,430 --> 00:30:40,550
Speaker 3: shape of a human being, often dressed in human clothes,

519
00:30:41,090 --> 00:30:44,810
Speaker 3: placed among fields to keep birds or other animals away

520
00:30:44,890 --> 00:30:48,420
Speaker 3: from crops. And so in the rest of the series,

521
00:30:48,480 --> 00:30:51,500
Speaker 3: we're going to be talking about what scarecrows are, how

522
00:30:51,540 --> 00:30:54,440
Speaker 3: they work or don't work, their history, and how they

523
00:30:54,500 --> 00:30:58,550
Speaker 3: end up figuring into folklore and unsettling literature. But there

524
00:30:58,660 --> 00:31:01,510
Speaker 3: is one thing, Rob, of your game that I potentially

525
00:31:01,550 --> 00:31:03,750
Speaker 3: wanted to discuss here at the top before we move

526
00:31:03,830 --> 00:31:05,850
Speaker 3: on to that other stuff. And that's a bit of

527
00:31:06,010 --> 00:31:10,570
Speaker 3: a taxonomy of horror scarecrows. Because I think there are

528
00:31:10,590 --> 00:31:13,730
Speaker 3: actually a lot of different ways that a scarecrow can

529
00:31:14,030 --> 00:31:16,890
Speaker 3: be a monster in a horror story, or if not,

530
00:31:17,310 --> 00:31:20,510
Speaker 3: if not being a monster itself can be a frightening

531
00:31:20,610 --> 00:31:23,740
Speaker 3: symbol or a frightening image in the story of the uncanny.

532
00:31:23,760 --> 00:31:27,860
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Let's get into it. Okay.

533
00:31:27,880 --> 00:31:31,240
Speaker 3: So one, I think is the type of scarecrow being

534
00:31:31,280 --> 00:31:34,540
Speaker 3: we already saw in Feathertop and that is the illusion

535
00:31:34,700 --> 00:31:38,760
Speaker 3: or the false man. In this sense, it can be

536
00:31:38,960 --> 00:31:42,560
Speaker 3: a scarecrow that is literally brought to life by magic

537
00:31:43,040 --> 00:31:46,110
Speaker 3: or made to seem alive as some kind of trick.

538
00:31:46,430 --> 00:31:48,850
Speaker 3: But the emphasis in this kind of story is on

539
00:31:48,910 --> 00:31:54,070
Speaker 3: the scarecrow's unreality, like the discrepancy between it and the

540
00:31:54,370 --> 00:31:59,190
Speaker 3: real human being that it mimics. Another type of creature

541
00:31:59,210 --> 00:32:01,920
Speaker 3: I was thinking of is sort of the straw zombie.

542
00:32:02,580 --> 00:32:04,640
Speaker 3: It's not always clear how these things work, but they

543
00:32:04,700 --> 00:32:07,630
Speaker 3: pop up in some horror movies. Definitely. They work a

544
00:32:07,690 --> 00:32:11,530
Speaker 3: lot like standard zombies or undead, except they're often tool

545
00:32:11,590 --> 00:32:14,430
Speaker 3: wielding undead. Uh, you know, and we've talked about that difference.

546
00:32:14,450 --> 00:32:16,969
Speaker 3: I think this came up in our, um, weird house

547
00:32:17,020 --> 00:32:20,080
Speaker 3: cinema episode on burial ground, the difference between zombies that

548
00:32:20,160 --> 00:32:23,200
Speaker 3: use tools and those that don't, uh, these are often

549
00:32:23,260 --> 00:32:27,960
Speaker 3: like sickle wielding or, you know, gardening, farming equipment, wielding zombies.

550
00:32:28,530 --> 00:32:31,250
Speaker 3: And instead of being made out of flesh, they are

551
00:32:31,350 --> 00:32:33,410
Speaker 3: feed bags and flannel and straw.

552
00:32:33,430 --> 00:32:35,890
Speaker 2: Okay. Yeah, yeah. I mean, that does remind me of

553
00:32:35,950 --> 00:32:40,460
Speaker 2: some of our discussions of burial ground zombies and other

554
00:32:40,500 --> 00:32:42,780
Speaker 2: sort of Italian takes on zombies that are very earthy

555
00:32:42,940 --> 00:32:45,940
Speaker 2: in their tone. And so we might think of these

556
00:32:46,280 --> 00:32:51,570
Speaker 2: animate scarecrows as being less, maybe less a situation of

557
00:32:51,610 --> 00:32:57,730
Speaker 2: like an artifice given life through magic by human magic workers.

558
00:32:58,550 --> 00:33:04,340
Speaker 2: Instead has at least some partial like environmental earth magic

559
00:33:05,040 --> 00:33:08,320
Speaker 2: aspect to it, maybe even tied directly to some sort

560
00:33:08,340 --> 00:33:10,160
Speaker 2: of magic in the earth. Totally.

561
00:33:10,180 --> 00:33:14,440
Speaker 3: Yeah. Another way you could think of a horror scarecrow

562
00:33:15,020 --> 00:33:18,300
Speaker 3: is as a costume worn by a human killer to

563
00:33:18,440 --> 00:33:21,820
Speaker 3: blend in and appear harmless like that scarecrow gag on

564
00:33:21,860 --> 00:33:24,760
Speaker 3: Halloween night. And if you think about it, this is

565
00:33:24,800 --> 00:33:29,580
Speaker 3: kind of a reverse scarecrow, whereas a real scarecrow outside

566
00:33:29,600 --> 00:33:33,620
Speaker 3: of the horror context is a collection of inanimate objects

567
00:33:33,830 --> 00:33:38,230
Speaker 3: disguised as life to scare birds. The reverse scarecrow would

568
00:33:38,270 --> 00:33:43,110
Speaker 3: be a living person disguised as inanimate objects as disguised

569
00:33:43,170 --> 00:33:46,210
Speaker 3: as an effigy to calm humans and put them at ease.

570
00:33:47,390 --> 00:33:50,090
Speaker 3: And then a variation on this, I think, sometimes appearing

571
00:33:50,150 --> 00:33:53,130
Speaker 3: in these movies or stories would be a human corpse

572
00:33:53,430 --> 00:33:55,650
Speaker 3: used or disguised as a scarecrow.

573
00:33:56,510 --> 00:33:59,709
Speaker 2: Right, right. And yeah, and these are two concepts that

574
00:33:59,990 --> 00:34:02,260
Speaker 2: I think factor into a number of the horror movies, right?

575
00:34:02,650 --> 00:34:05,130
Speaker 2: Where either it's just a costume for a slasher killer,

576
00:34:05,840 --> 00:34:08,560
Speaker 2: or you have a situation where, oh, it's just a scarecrow. No,

577
00:34:08,719 --> 00:34:11,400
Speaker 2: it's one of the characters that was killed off earlier

578
00:34:11,420 --> 00:34:11,860
Speaker 2: in the picture.

579
00:34:12,780 --> 00:34:15,060
Speaker 3: Another thing you could have would be a kind of

580
00:34:15,460 --> 00:34:18,920
Speaker 3: idol or cult object. So this would be an effigy

581
00:34:19,640 --> 00:34:24,549
Speaker 3: on which frightening forms of religious attention are focused. Uh,

582
00:34:24,610 --> 00:34:27,089
Speaker 3: you could imagine something like this in a story like

583
00:34:27,130 --> 00:34:29,770
Speaker 3: the wicker man, though. I don't recall a scarecrow appearing

584
00:34:29,810 --> 00:34:33,109
Speaker 3: in that movie. Uh, but in this sense, it could

585
00:34:33,150 --> 00:34:36,029
Speaker 3: be a kind of embodiment of an agriculture, God, a

586
00:34:36,110 --> 00:34:38,500
Speaker 3: Lord of the fields, or it could just be a,

587
00:34:38,730 --> 00:34:41,750
Speaker 3: an object used in full core rituals.

588
00:34:42,190 --> 00:34:45,440
Speaker 2: Yeah. he who walks behind the rose sort of a thing.

589
00:34:45,540 --> 00:34:48,800
Speaker 2: And it's some of those vibes, if not a direct

590
00:34:48,840 --> 00:34:51,310
Speaker 2: incarnation of this, that Over the Garden Wall gets into

591
00:34:51,370 --> 00:34:56,410
Speaker 2: it with its pumpkin-based entities. Though I'm not going to

592
00:34:56,430 --> 00:34:59,149
Speaker 2: spoil anything about the reveal there, but it's a pretty

593
00:34:59,190 --> 00:34:59,770
Speaker 2: great episode.

594
00:35:00,050 --> 00:35:01,250
Speaker 3: I've got to watch that at some point.

595
00:35:01,730 --> 00:35:03,790
Speaker 2: Oh, yeah. Now's the time. It's a great autumn show.

596
00:35:06,660 --> 00:35:08,299
Speaker 2: Check it out before you show it to the whole family,

597
00:35:08,360 --> 00:35:10,960
Speaker 2: just to be on the safe side. But it's pretty cute.

598
00:35:12,120 --> 00:35:14,509
Speaker 3: And then one last category I'd mentioned would just be

599
00:35:14,590 --> 00:35:18,270
Speaker 3: pure uncanny Valley. It it's exploited as a thing that

600
00:35:18,530 --> 00:35:21,830
Speaker 3: looks a little too human and makes you wonder, is

601
00:35:21,910 --> 00:35:24,170
Speaker 3: that what it, what you think it is or is

602
00:35:24,230 --> 00:35:25,030
Speaker 3: it something else?

603
00:35:25,690 --> 00:35:30,239
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah. Um, the, the shoddiness of scarecrows is often

604
00:35:30,280 --> 00:35:32,900
Speaker 2: very key, you know, I, and I love this in

605
00:35:32,920 --> 00:35:36,600
Speaker 2: Hawthorne's descriptions talking about the legs looking particularly bad as

606
00:35:36,640 --> 00:35:40,840
Speaker 2: they often do almost as if, um, sometimes, uh, the

607
00:35:40,880 --> 00:35:45,080
Speaker 2: creative or scarecrow runs out, partially runs out or completely

608
00:35:45,160 --> 00:35:50,319
Speaker 2: runs out of creative or engineering inspiration once they get

609
00:35:50,380 --> 00:35:52,340
Speaker 2: to the legs and they're like, ah, just some sticks

610
00:35:52,360 --> 00:35:55,130
Speaker 2: will do. Or do we need legs? Will half a

611
00:35:55,170 --> 00:35:59,189
Speaker 2: person do? And you see that all the time. There's

612
00:35:59,210 --> 00:36:05,090
Speaker 2: an annual festival at the Atlanta Botanical Garden where different

613
00:36:05,530 --> 00:36:10,010
Speaker 2: area artists and businesses will create scarecrows. And, you know,

614
00:36:10,160 --> 00:36:13,120
Speaker 2: they're not serving a purpose. They're just there as art,

615
00:36:13,219 --> 00:36:17,600
Speaker 2: as decoration. And you see, it's always amusing. And my

616
00:36:17,660 --> 00:36:20,020
Speaker 2: wife has actually participated in this a number of years.

617
00:36:20,080 --> 00:36:23,200
Speaker 2: Not this year, but in previous years. And it is

618
00:36:23,239 --> 00:36:25,819
Speaker 2: great to see different approaches to what a scarecrow is.

619
00:36:26,320 --> 00:36:29,630
Speaker 2: And also that sort of inherent shoddiness of the scarecrow

620
00:36:30,150 --> 00:36:35,350
Speaker 2: works so well with all levels of artistic ability and

621
00:36:35,610 --> 00:36:39,040
Speaker 2: different ideas. Because If a scarecrow looks a little bad,

622
00:36:39,300 --> 00:36:42,060
Speaker 2: like that's part of what a scarecrow is. If a

623
00:36:42,100 --> 00:36:44,440
Speaker 2: scarecrow looks too much like a human, it's no longer

624
00:36:44,480 --> 00:36:47,439
Speaker 2: a scarecrow. And that's an interesting way to think, too,

625
00:36:47,520 --> 00:36:52,030
Speaker 2: about at least our pop cultural idea of the scarecrow.

626
00:36:52,590 --> 00:36:55,710
Speaker 3: Yeah. You know, it almost makes me think that the.

627
00:36:56,840 --> 00:37:00,819
Speaker 3: how pleasant a scarecrow is is inversely proportional to how

628
00:37:01,060 --> 00:37:04,620
Speaker 3: realistic as a human it is. Like that, you know,

629
00:37:04,660 --> 00:37:07,819
Speaker 3: a very shoddy scarecrow is cute and a really well

630
00:37:07,860 --> 00:37:09,890
Speaker 3: put together scarecrow can be a little creepy.

631
00:37:10,330 --> 00:37:12,950
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah. Like you want to see the sticks. You

632
00:37:12,989 --> 00:37:17,130
Speaker 2: want to see that sort of protruding gut of obvious struts,

633
00:37:17,230 --> 00:37:19,469
Speaker 2: straw or hay. You know, it's those sort of things,

634
00:37:19,510 --> 00:37:23,219
Speaker 2: you know, corn cob bits in there. You know, it

635
00:37:23,260 --> 00:37:26,370
Speaker 2: needs to be, made out of the season and made

636
00:37:26,430 --> 00:37:28,969
Speaker 2: out of the world from which it arises. And if

637
00:37:29,010 --> 00:37:31,190
Speaker 2: that's missing, uh, yeah, it can be a little bit

638
00:37:31,210 --> 00:37:33,509
Speaker 2: too polished. And that's something I've seen with the, the

639
00:37:33,530 --> 00:37:37,510
Speaker 2: scarecrows in the garden, the Atlanta botanical, um, gardens before

640
00:37:37,570 --> 00:37:40,750
Speaker 2: as well, because yeah, sometimes it'll be a great concept,

641
00:37:40,950 --> 00:37:44,310
Speaker 2: perfectly executed, but maybe it's not scarecrowy enough. And it

642
00:37:44,350 --> 00:37:45,890
Speaker 2: almost feels out of place in that case.

643
00:37:46,210 --> 00:37:49,330
Speaker 3: Hmm. You know, my brain just made a totally random

644
00:37:49,370 --> 00:37:51,750
Speaker 3: connection to a thing that we see in movies on

645
00:37:51,790 --> 00:37:55,859
Speaker 3: weird house cinema. Sometimes, um, especially lower budget movies. This

646
00:37:55,920 --> 00:37:59,450
Speaker 3: is not explicitly a scarecrow, but similar principle of human

647
00:37:59,630 --> 00:38:03,970
Speaker 3: clothes stuffed with padding or straw. That can be a scarecrow,

648
00:38:03,989 --> 00:38:06,330
Speaker 3: but that can also be the dummy you throw over

649
00:38:06,350 --> 00:38:09,610
Speaker 3: a waterfall or over a cliff for your human falling shot.

650
00:38:10,010 --> 00:38:23,510
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. We'll touch on some other examples

651
00:38:23,530 --> 00:38:25,830
Speaker 2: of this where the thing that we're talking about is

652
00:38:25,969 --> 00:38:29,049
Speaker 2: not really a scarecrow. Sometimes it may be referred to

653
00:38:29,370 --> 00:38:31,730
Speaker 2: as a scarecrow, or in some cases it might be

654
00:38:32,310 --> 00:38:36,240
Speaker 2: a description in another language that is loosely translated to scarecrow.

655
00:38:36,480 --> 00:38:39,120
Speaker 2: But sometimes we're just talking about a straw man, a

656
00:38:39,200 --> 00:38:43,299
Speaker 2: straw human, a human clothes stuffed with straw or some

657
00:38:43,480 --> 00:38:47,969
Speaker 2: other similar stuffing in order to create a human duplicate,

658
00:38:48,010 --> 00:38:51,430
Speaker 2: a human decoy for a variety of purposes. many of

659
00:38:51,489 --> 00:38:55,739
Speaker 2: which are going to come down to the root exercise

660
00:38:55,780 --> 00:38:59,340
Speaker 2: in any scarecrow exercise, and that is, of course, deception.

661
00:39:01,219 --> 00:39:05,020
Speaker 2: Whether that's deception for fun, to fool you into at

662
00:39:05,060 --> 00:39:08,240
Speaker 2: least momentarily thinking that this is a real human character

663
00:39:08,300 --> 00:39:12,370
Speaker 2: in your horror movie, or in the agricultural sense, try

664
00:39:12,430 --> 00:39:15,790
Speaker 2: to scare birds or other pests away by making them

665
00:39:15,810 --> 00:39:20,069
Speaker 2: think that a live human agent is present. So where

666
00:39:20,110 --> 00:39:23,400
Speaker 2: does this idea come from? So needless to say, this

667
00:39:23,440 --> 00:39:27,410
Speaker 2: concept is very deeply seated in us. It's not only

668
00:39:27,510 --> 00:39:30,600
Speaker 2: deep seated in the human experience, but really, if you

669
00:39:30,900 --> 00:39:34,899
Speaker 2: expand sort of the limits of it, it's also deep

670
00:39:34,940 --> 00:39:38,430
Speaker 2: seated in biology itself, because what is a scarecrow but

671
00:39:38,469 --> 00:39:42,629
Speaker 2: a form of anthropomorphic mimicry? You know, we are using

672
00:39:42,670 --> 00:39:48,760
Speaker 2: our technology and our tool use to mimic ourselves, to

673
00:39:48,820 --> 00:39:52,220
Speaker 2: create this false human for some sort of a purpose.

674
00:39:52,860 --> 00:39:59,000
Speaker 2: And various organisms have evolved with features or behaviors that

675
00:39:59,020 --> 00:40:02,850
Speaker 2: allow them to mimic the forms of other organisms, to attract,

676
00:40:03,830 --> 00:40:08,890
Speaker 2: to distract, or otherwise disrupt the activities of other life forms.

677
00:40:10,610 --> 00:40:12,970
Speaker 2: So scarecrows are, you could think of scarecrows as something

678
00:40:13,010 --> 00:40:16,150
Speaker 2: of a human technological take on all of this. To

679
00:40:16,190 --> 00:40:19,900
Speaker 2: protect an altered crop, We create a likeness of ourselves

680
00:40:19,980 --> 00:40:22,400
Speaker 2: to stand in for us and to scare away threats

681
00:40:22,460 --> 00:40:25,930
Speaker 2: to said crop. And it's pretty much the simplest form

682
00:40:25,969 --> 00:40:28,830
Speaker 2: of a robot in that regard, right? Based on the

683
00:40:28,890 --> 00:40:33,210
Speaker 2: simplest possible task. Just be there as a physical deterrence.

684
00:40:33,230 --> 00:40:36,390
Speaker 2: You don't have to move. There's no programming other than

685
00:40:36,430 --> 00:40:39,450
Speaker 2: to not fall down. And maybe, just maybe, this will

686
00:40:39,530 --> 00:40:43,290
Speaker 2: fool other animals, non-human animals, into thinking it's the live

687
00:40:43,390 --> 00:40:44,529
Speaker 2: presence of a human being.

688
00:40:44,989 --> 00:40:45,969
Speaker 3: Yeah, interesting.

689
00:40:47,200 --> 00:40:50,300
Speaker 2: And, you know, sometimes the other animals are, of course,

690
00:40:50,400 --> 00:40:53,180
Speaker 2: human beings as well, in what we might think of

691
00:40:53,500 --> 00:40:56,340
Speaker 2: as the Ferris Bueller principle. Those of you who remember

692
00:40:56,420 --> 00:40:59,660
Speaker 2: Ferris Bueller's day off, you remember that he's having a

693
00:40:59,700 --> 00:41:02,580
Speaker 2: sick day, he's faking being ill, and he has a

694
00:41:02,620 --> 00:41:05,640
Speaker 2: number of elaborate procedures that he goes through to pull

695
00:41:05,680 --> 00:41:09,600
Speaker 2: this off, you know, faking it to his parents. And

696
00:41:09,640 --> 00:41:12,600
Speaker 2: this culminates in the use of a dummy. Now, in

697
00:41:12,640 --> 00:41:14,739
Speaker 2: this case, it's not just a physical dummy in the bed.

698
00:41:14,800 --> 00:41:18,399
Speaker 2: I seem to recall he also had a, a false

699
00:41:18,460 --> 00:41:21,600
Speaker 2: breathing apparatus set up, like somehow to sort of mimic

700
00:41:21,620 --> 00:41:23,420
Speaker 2: the rise and fall of breathing.

701
00:41:23,440 --> 00:41:26,920
Speaker 3: So you have a tape of his voice or something?

702
00:41:27,080 --> 00:41:31,290
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah. There's some audio equipment that's used. So it's

703
00:41:31,630 --> 00:41:34,169
Speaker 2: fairly elaborate, but it is based on this very old

704
00:41:34,290 --> 00:41:39,069
Speaker 2: idea that involves just like, you know, just create the

705
00:41:39,190 --> 00:41:41,290
Speaker 2: basic outline of a human body in a bed and

706
00:41:41,350 --> 00:41:43,230
Speaker 2: someone will think that there is an immobile person there.

707
00:41:43,530 --> 00:41:46,140
Speaker 2: It doesn't have to move because... We don't move as

708
00:41:46,239 --> 00:41:49,920
Speaker 2: much when we are sleeping. And we see this throughout

709
00:41:49,980 --> 00:41:53,920
Speaker 2: human history in all sorts of media. I suppose another

710
00:41:54,080 --> 00:42:00,170
Speaker 2: key cinematic scene is when, particularly in Peter Jackson's The

711
00:42:00,190 --> 00:42:03,130
Speaker 2: Lord of the Rings movies, when the ringwraiths stab the

712
00:42:03,170 --> 00:42:05,670
Speaker 2: pillows in the beds at the Prancing Pony. Or at

713
00:42:05,690 --> 00:42:08,290
Speaker 2: least my memory is that those beds are stuffed with pillows.

714
00:42:08,750 --> 00:42:12,940
Speaker 2: I think the way that it's presented in other bits

715
00:42:12,980 --> 00:42:15,359
Speaker 2: of Tolkien media and even in the book itself play

716
00:42:15,400 --> 00:42:17,719
Speaker 2: out just a little bit differently. But, but am I

717
00:42:17,739 --> 00:42:19,739
Speaker 2: correct in this, that in the original they're stabbing those

718
00:42:19,780 --> 00:42:22,700
Speaker 2: pillows that are in hobbit shapes in the bed? Yeah. Yeah.

719
00:42:22,719 --> 00:42:26,020
Speaker 3: The hobbits and, uh, and, uh, Aragorn, I guess known

720
00:42:26,060 --> 00:42:29,000
Speaker 3: as Strider at this point, they, they put the pillows

721
00:42:29,060 --> 00:42:31,680
Speaker 3: in the bed and trick the ringwraiths into attacking there

722
00:42:31,719 --> 00:42:33,580
Speaker 3: and they're watching from across the street.

723
00:42:34,360 --> 00:42:34,560
Speaker 2: Yeah.

724
00:42:35,540 --> 00:42:38,120
Speaker 3: Well, one interesting distinction that occurs to me here is

725
00:42:38,160 --> 00:42:41,420
Speaker 3: that a lot of the mimicry in nature that's in

726
00:42:42,020 --> 00:42:45,790
Speaker 3: organisms other than humans would be mimicry of trying to

727
00:42:45,930 --> 00:42:49,509
Speaker 3: make yourself look like something else. Like, you know, I'm

728
00:42:49,550 --> 00:42:51,830
Speaker 3: trying to make my body look not like a bug,

729
00:42:51,890 --> 00:42:53,250
Speaker 3: but like a leaf or something.

730
00:42:53,290 --> 00:42:55,390
Speaker 2: Yeah, or I'm trying to make my tail look like

731
00:42:55,430 --> 00:42:56,680
Speaker 2: my head, that sort of thing.

732
00:42:57,239 --> 00:42:59,819
Speaker 3: Or trying to make yourself look like a different, more

733
00:42:59,900 --> 00:43:02,940
Speaker 3: dangerous type of organism. You know, I'm disguising myself as

734
00:43:03,000 --> 00:43:07,560
Speaker 3: a really poisonous other animal or something. So that's one thing.

735
00:43:07,780 --> 00:43:09,520
Speaker 3: I'm trying to look like something else, but I guess

736
00:43:09,580 --> 00:43:13,239
Speaker 3: the scarecrow is a slightly different decoy mimicry principle, which

737
00:43:13,300 --> 00:43:16,140
Speaker 3: is I'm going to make a second object that is

738
00:43:16,219 --> 00:43:19,459
Speaker 3: not my body look like me, or at least look

739
00:43:19,500 --> 00:43:22,919
Speaker 3: like some kind of living thing. And so I guess

740
00:43:22,980 --> 00:43:25,700
Speaker 3: that's the question. Is there that sort of thing in nature?

741
00:43:25,719 --> 00:43:29,000
Speaker 2: Yeah, something which is, to be clear here, it is

742
00:43:29,040 --> 00:43:34,580
Speaker 2: an act that is carried out using other materials. So

743
00:43:34,620 --> 00:43:39,149
Speaker 2: it involves a certain amount of material usage and construction.

744
00:43:39,830 --> 00:43:42,129
Speaker 2: And it is also something to be clear, we're talking

745
00:43:42,150 --> 00:43:44,310
Speaker 2: about something that is a definite act, not something that

746
00:43:44,330 --> 00:43:49,240
Speaker 2: has emerged out of evolution, but as something that an animal, well,

747
00:43:49,300 --> 00:43:52,440
Speaker 2: has certainly evolved to do, but it is actively doing,

748
00:43:52,480 --> 00:43:56,200
Speaker 2: it is actively creating this thing in real time. And

749
00:43:56,360 --> 00:43:59,460
Speaker 2: there is at least one strong case to be made

750
00:43:59,860 --> 00:44:02,920
Speaker 2: for one type of organism doing this. These are the

751
00:44:03,060 --> 00:44:07,660
Speaker 2: so-called decoy spider orb weavers. There are, I think, a

752
00:44:07,700 --> 00:44:09,779
Speaker 2: few different varieties of these. One that I was reading

753
00:44:09,840 --> 00:44:15,980
Speaker 2: about is Cyclosa longicata in Peru, and they create a

754
00:44:16,100 --> 00:44:21,580
Speaker 2: sort of spider-shaped form at the center of their webbing.

755
00:44:21,640 --> 00:44:26,010
Speaker 2: This is something that is in the literature called a stablamenta,

756
00:44:27,090 --> 00:44:29,270
Speaker 2: which I think just means like, you know, it's a

757
00:44:29,310 --> 00:44:32,910
Speaker 2: shape in the web is what it is. And it's

758
00:44:32,969 --> 00:44:36,320
Speaker 2: made out of bits of webbing, bits of their prey,

759
00:44:36,390 --> 00:44:39,800
Speaker 2: bits of, you know, plant detritus, you know, essentially spider garbage.

760
00:44:40,340 --> 00:44:44,520
Speaker 2: that is reutilized at the center of the web. And

761
00:44:44,540 --> 00:44:49,280
Speaker 2: it is, according to some hypotheses here, it might serve

762
00:44:49,739 --> 00:44:53,380
Speaker 2: as a decoy. It might serve as a larger double

763
00:44:53,600 --> 00:44:56,920
Speaker 2: of the actual spider that has built the web and

764
00:44:56,980 --> 00:44:58,520
Speaker 2: has built the decoy.

765
00:44:59,460 --> 00:45:03,730
Speaker 3: So it's like, if this interpretation is correct, it would

766
00:45:03,750 --> 00:45:07,839
Speaker 3: be like the spider creating a scarecrow of itself But

767
00:45:07,900 --> 00:45:10,200
Speaker 3: a bigger, scarier spider form.

768
00:45:10,550 --> 00:45:14,169
Speaker 2: Yeah, like one that's 10 times larger, roughly 10 times

769
00:45:14,230 --> 00:45:17,950
Speaker 2: larger than its actual self. Imagine if humans did this.

770
00:45:19,190 --> 00:45:20,720
Speaker 2: I mean, on some levels, I guess we do. But

771
00:45:20,760 --> 00:45:23,280
Speaker 2: imagine if humans did exactly this.

772
00:45:23,300 --> 00:45:25,000
Speaker 3: Like the scarecrow in the middle of the field is

773
00:45:25,040 --> 00:45:25,759
Speaker 3: a Godzilla.

774
00:45:25,780 --> 00:45:28,439
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah. Don't mess with this field. Look how big

775
00:45:28,820 --> 00:45:30,719
Speaker 2: the people are who live here. That sort of thing.

776
00:45:31,900 --> 00:45:35,080
Speaker 2: So I was reading about this in, this is a

777
00:45:35,060 --> 00:45:39,150
Speaker 2: 2025 study by Ola et al, or Ola and the

778
00:45:39,190 --> 00:45:42,910
Speaker 2: other human beings that aided in this study. It is

779
00:45:42,989 --> 00:45:49,760
Speaker 2: titled Cyclosomengy 1866, Orb Weavers Build Stabilimenta That Resemble Large

780
00:45:49,820 --> 00:45:53,460
Speaker 2: Spiders for Ecology and Evolution. This was published in Ecology

781
00:45:53,500 --> 00:45:57,600
Speaker 2: and Evolution. And the authors proposed that this is one

782
00:45:57,640 --> 00:46:00,870
Speaker 2: of the possible reasons for the spiders building this kind

783
00:46:00,890 --> 00:46:03,410
Speaker 2: of false spider at the center of their web. There

784
00:46:03,489 --> 00:46:06,870
Speaker 2: are other possible explanations to be clear. And these include

785
00:46:07,430 --> 00:46:10,450
Speaker 2: just like a shape that is there to prevent bird collisions,

786
00:46:10,489 --> 00:46:12,810
Speaker 2: you know, not unlike, you know, the stickers or other

787
00:46:12,850 --> 00:46:15,529
Speaker 2: shapes that one might put on a glass window in

788
00:46:15,570 --> 00:46:17,910
Speaker 2: order to keep birds from just running smack into it.

789
00:46:18,270 --> 00:46:22,060
Speaker 2: Because you're this orb spider, you've spent time building this

790
00:46:22,120 --> 00:46:24,880
Speaker 2: nest in order to catch prey you can eat. If

791
00:46:24,920 --> 00:46:27,359
Speaker 2: a bird doesn't see it and just comes going right,

792
00:46:27,420 --> 00:46:29,830
Speaker 2: you know, flying right through it, well, then that's your

793
00:46:29,850 --> 00:46:31,989
Speaker 2: work wasted. You're not going to catch that bird. That's

794
00:46:32,010 --> 00:46:32,890
Speaker 2: just pure destruction.

795
00:46:33,410 --> 00:46:38,200
Speaker 3: So that would still be a visual symbol evolved to

796
00:46:38,260 --> 00:46:41,239
Speaker 3: have an effect on the behavior of another animal, but

797
00:46:41,300 --> 00:46:44,000
Speaker 3: it wouldn't quite be the scarecrow principle because it wouldn't

798
00:46:44,080 --> 00:46:47,360
Speaker 3: be in that point important that it looks like a spider.

799
00:46:48,020 --> 00:46:52,610
Speaker 2: Right, right. They point out that with other species of

800
00:46:52,710 --> 00:46:57,299
Speaker 2: orb spider, the stable lamenta is more clearly understood to

801
00:46:57,340 --> 00:47:01,230
Speaker 2: be there as camouflage. So a place on the web

802
00:47:01,250 --> 00:47:04,109
Speaker 2: where the spider can retreat to, can hang out at

803
00:47:04,190 --> 00:47:07,210
Speaker 2: and blend in. That also seems to be, or at

804
00:47:07,250 --> 00:47:10,049
Speaker 2: least sounds to me like a compelling reason, you know,

805
00:47:10,070 --> 00:47:14,410
Speaker 2: just create a zone in your web so that you

806
00:47:14,430 --> 00:47:17,450
Speaker 2: can hang out at the center and not merely at

807
00:47:17,469 --> 00:47:21,839
Speaker 2: the edges and still benefit from camouflage. Because Again, it's

808
00:47:21,860 --> 00:47:24,480
Speaker 2: important to note the spider in this case is both

809
00:47:24,540 --> 00:47:27,140
Speaker 2: predator and prey. It's trying to catch creatures, but it

810
00:47:27,200 --> 00:47:31,569
Speaker 2: also is trying to avoid being consumed. And so like

811
00:47:31,610 --> 00:47:35,130
Speaker 2: their hypothesis is that the spider has built this false

812
00:47:35,190 --> 00:47:37,810
Speaker 2: spider not to work as a pure scarecrow, not to

813
00:47:37,870 --> 00:47:41,670
Speaker 2: say to potential like avian predators like don't come here.

814
00:47:41,710 --> 00:47:44,830
Speaker 2: The spiders are huge, but rather to sort of draw

815
00:47:44,870 --> 00:47:47,560
Speaker 2: the attack of the spider. So, I mean, draw the

816
00:47:47,600 --> 00:47:50,100
Speaker 2: attack of the bird, rather. So the bird sees the

817
00:47:50,160 --> 00:47:52,120
Speaker 2: spider shape at the middle of the web. It's going

818
00:47:52,140 --> 00:47:55,870
Speaker 2: to attack it. But that is not ideally where the

819
00:47:55,930 --> 00:47:59,450
Speaker 2: spider is. And the authors cite experiments in which the

820
00:47:59,510 --> 00:48:06,180
Speaker 2: webs with these oversized stabilimenta suffered more attacks than under-decorated webs,

821
00:48:06,340 --> 00:48:09,940
Speaker 2: but fewer successful attacks, which would certainly make all the difference.

822
00:48:09,980 --> 00:48:12,360
Speaker 2: So you build this spider shape at the center of

823
00:48:12,400 --> 00:48:14,710
Speaker 2: your web. You might get more attention from birds, but

824
00:48:14,750 --> 00:48:17,189
Speaker 2: that attention is going to be targeted at the area

825
00:48:17,230 --> 00:48:20,820
Speaker 2: where the spider is not at. So I find that interesting.

826
00:48:21,010 --> 00:48:23,560
Speaker 3: You use one of these, you're making more work for

827
00:48:23,580 --> 00:48:26,180
Speaker 3: yourself maybe and having to rebuild your web, but you're

828
00:48:26,219 --> 00:48:28,480
Speaker 3: less likely to actually get eaten by a bird.

829
00:48:28,880 --> 00:48:30,940
Speaker 2: Yeah, that would seem to be the case. Again, this

830
00:48:31,000 --> 00:48:35,900
Speaker 2: is one possible explanation for this. And we can't 100%

831
00:48:35,900 --> 00:48:37,859
Speaker 2: be sure. And as we discussed in the show too,

832
00:48:38,260 --> 00:48:41,040
Speaker 2: nature has a way of, you know, it solves problems

833
00:48:41,080 --> 00:48:45,120
Speaker 2: in ways that humans do not. with an efficiency that

834
00:48:45,160 --> 00:48:48,540
Speaker 2: we often do not, but also they have a way

835
00:48:48,580 --> 00:48:51,820
Speaker 2: of like solving multiple problems at once, you know, steadily

836
00:48:51,900 --> 00:48:55,950
Speaker 2: over time. So I personally can imagine a situation where

837
00:48:56,390 --> 00:48:58,850
Speaker 2: it's several of these little boxes being checked off at once.

838
00:48:59,510 --> 00:49:04,290
Speaker 3: You've got a picture of this stabilimenta, is the singular stabilimentum,

839
00:49:04,510 --> 00:49:05,819
Speaker 3: I would guess? I don't know.

840
00:49:06,280 --> 00:49:07,160
Speaker 2: I'm going to go with that.

841
00:49:07,180 --> 00:49:10,910
Speaker 3: Okay. The stabilimentum, I'm guessing, in the outline here, and

842
00:49:10,910 --> 00:49:13,800
Speaker 3: it looks very Blair Witch. It's like those little puppets

843
00:49:13,800 --> 00:49:16,120
Speaker 3: that are hanging from the trees in that movie.

844
00:49:16,120 --> 00:49:18,569
Speaker 2: Yeah, in a way, it's a perfect scarecrow because it

845
00:49:18,570 --> 00:49:22,680
Speaker 2: is it is crude. It is made from organic materials

846
00:49:22,739 --> 00:49:26,279
Speaker 2: like local garbage and, uh, and it is in the

847
00:49:26,400 --> 00:49:29,040
Speaker 2: shape of a living being, or at least that is

848
00:49:29,300 --> 00:49:31,419
Speaker 2: the way that, you know, it's, it's been interpreted many

849
00:49:31,460 --> 00:49:34,830
Speaker 2: times by, uh, by these humans studying it. So, uh, and,

850
00:49:35,130 --> 00:49:37,650
Speaker 2: and it seems to be interpreted as such by the birds.

851
00:49:37,850 --> 00:49:40,860
Speaker 2: If these, uh, experiments are, are truly shedding light on

852
00:49:40,890 --> 00:49:42,839
Speaker 2: what's going on here. If the birds are drawn to

853
00:49:42,900 --> 00:49:45,700
Speaker 2: it and are attacking it more often, then it's serving

854
00:49:45,739 --> 00:49:46,240
Speaker 2: that purpose.

855
00:49:46,820 --> 00:49:49,400
Speaker 3: Is there any nutrition in it for the bird, or

856
00:49:49,460 --> 00:49:50,560
Speaker 3: is it just trash?

857
00:49:51,060 --> 00:49:54,180
Speaker 2: I think it's just trash. Yeah, I mean, any bits

858
00:49:54,200 --> 00:49:57,049
Speaker 2: that the spider's not eating, I would assume that it

859
00:49:57,090 --> 00:49:58,850
Speaker 2: doesn't contain a great deal of nourishment.

860
00:49:59,530 --> 00:50:02,450
Speaker 3: Spiders get most of the meat off those bones, at least.

861
00:50:02,969 --> 00:50:08,560
Speaker 2: Yeah, we've talked about ingenious spider usage of corpse garbage

862
00:50:08,620 --> 00:50:09,379
Speaker 2: before on the show.

863
00:50:09,739 --> 00:50:09,959
Speaker 3: Yes.

864
00:50:11,120 --> 00:50:14,590
Speaker 2: Still, it might be the closest thing to a scarecrow,

865
00:50:15,050 --> 00:50:17,450
Speaker 2: to a human-built scarecrow, that I can think of, if

866
00:50:17,469 --> 00:50:21,630
Speaker 2: you just consider it to be possibly some version of

867
00:50:21,790 --> 00:50:25,230
Speaker 2: animal builds a copy of itself out of garbage. Otherwise,

868
00:50:25,570 --> 00:50:28,379
Speaker 2: the closest thing we have to look at are, again,

869
00:50:28,760 --> 00:50:34,020
Speaker 2: anatomical decoys, false heads, pretending to be another organism. And

870
00:50:34,040 --> 00:50:36,860
Speaker 2: I'm also briefly reminded of, this has come up on

871
00:50:36,880 --> 00:50:42,000
Speaker 2: the show before, there's a 2011 documentary Mark McMiniman hypotheses

872
00:50:42,360 --> 00:50:46,270
Speaker 2: concerning the Kraken, uh, not, not the mythical Kraken, but

873
00:50:46,350 --> 00:50:52,090
Speaker 2: the idea that the way that different, uh, ichthyosaurus bones, uh,

874
00:50:52,130 --> 00:50:55,109
Speaker 2: were fossilized, the way they were arranged, he put out

875
00:50:55,130 --> 00:50:58,880
Speaker 2: this controversial, but interesting idea that I don't think has

876
00:50:58,900 --> 00:51:02,560
Speaker 2: been really been commented on since 2013, but he presented

877
00:51:02,580 --> 00:51:06,600
Speaker 2: the idea of what if a giant cephalopod of unknown origin, um,

878
00:51:07,989 --> 00:51:12,759
Speaker 2: basically arrange bits of animals that it killed into a

879
00:51:12,860 --> 00:51:17,660
Speaker 2: self portrait of itself for, I guess, unknown reasons. And, uh,

880
00:51:17,680 --> 00:51:20,660
Speaker 2: you know, I think this was like a serious proposition,

881
00:51:20,840 --> 00:51:22,680
Speaker 2: but also one where a lot of people, you know,

882
00:51:22,700 --> 00:51:24,380
Speaker 2: found some problems with it and thought maybe it was

883
00:51:24,400 --> 00:51:26,419
Speaker 2: a bit of a jump and there's, you know, maybe

884
00:51:26,900 --> 00:51:28,840
Speaker 2: no way to really prove that that would be the case.

885
00:51:28,880 --> 00:51:32,069
Speaker 2: And it raises maybe more questions that it answers. But I,

886
00:51:32,300 --> 00:51:34,170
Speaker 2: I keep coming back to that, uh, you know, every

887
00:51:34,210 --> 00:51:36,250
Speaker 2: now and then there'll be something like adjacent to that idea.

888
00:51:36,310 --> 00:51:39,230
Speaker 2: And I'll, I'll think back to that Kraken hypothesis, and

889
00:51:39,950 --> 00:51:41,950
Speaker 2: it makes me wonder, who doesn't love the idea of

890
00:51:42,010 --> 00:51:50,219
Speaker 2: some ancient, now extinct, octopus-like creature killing prehistoric swimming reptiles

891
00:51:50,260 --> 00:51:53,600
Speaker 2: and then making a self-portrait out of its body? And

892
00:51:53,620 --> 00:51:55,640
Speaker 2: if it were doing that, if that were the case,

893
00:51:55,660 --> 00:51:59,469
Speaker 2: and again, that's a big leap that people are not

894
00:51:59,739 --> 00:52:02,750
Speaker 2: jumping to make, then you could imagine it might have

895
00:52:02,810 --> 00:52:06,710
Speaker 2: some function that involves drawing the attention of a predator

896
00:52:06,830 --> 00:52:08,609
Speaker 2: or driving them away. I don't know.

897
00:52:09,090 --> 00:52:09,610
Speaker 3: Interesting.

898
00:52:09,650 --> 00:52:09,830
Speaker 2: Yeah.

899
00:52:09,950 --> 00:52:13,370
Speaker 3: As you say, highly speculative, but I wonder, yeah, how

900
00:52:13,410 --> 00:52:15,489
Speaker 3: would you, so you just take that and you say,

901
00:52:15,510 --> 00:52:19,129
Speaker 3: I wanted to look for, for evidence for or against that.

902
00:52:19,190 --> 00:52:20,970
Speaker 3: What would you look for? I guess you'd look for,

903
00:52:21,989 --> 00:52:24,140
Speaker 3: you'd look for a pattern, right? You'd look for other

904
00:52:24,660 --> 00:52:28,080
Speaker 3: arrangements that you think of a similar cephalopod shape or.

905
00:52:28,100 --> 00:52:30,980
Speaker 2: Yeah. Or I guess it would really be helpful if

906
00:52:31,000 --> 00:52:34,670
Speaker 2: you found something like this, in the modern cephalopod world.

907
00:52:36,350 --> 00:52:38,590
Speaker 2: I guess it's possible there's something out there that we

908
00:52:38,610 --> 00:52:41,569
Speaker 2: haven't seen, but again, we haven't seen it, so there's

909
00:52:41,610 --> 00:52:44,609
Speaker 2: no evidence. We see some, as we've discussed in the show,

910
00:52:44,650 --> 00:52:50,520
Speaker 2: before you see cephalopods engaging with various construction and even

911
00:52:50,580 --> 00:52:54,560
Speaker 2: tool use, be it grabbing onto coconut husks or shells

912
00:52:54,620 --> 00:52:57,540
Speaker 2: or moving the objects in their midden around, but we've

913
00:52:57,600 --> 00:53:01,160
Speaker 2: never seen anything like this. So it's definitely a leap,

914
00:53:01,200 --> 00:53:15,290
Speaker 2: but an interesting one. So at any rate, humans might

915
00:53:15,370 --> 00:53:19,400
Speaker 2: not be the first to engage in the creation of

916
00:53:19,480 --> 00:53:21,620
Speaker 2: a double to make a copy of themselves out of

917
00:53:21,660 --> 00:53:26,040
Speaker 2: garbage to fool other organisms. But it's clear that we've

918
00:53:26,080 --> 00:53:28,480
Speaker 2: been doing things like this for a very long time.

919
00:53:28,920 --> 00:53:30,910
Speaker 2: So the first modern humans emerged some 300,000 years ago.

920
00:53:32,580 --> 00:53:35,540
Speaker 2: And most of the details are going to be lost

921
00:53:35,580 --> 00:53:39,260
Speaker 2: to prehistory, but we proved ourselves quite capable with tools

922
00:53:39,320 --> 00:53:44,450
Speaker 2: and tactics, making up for any perceived deficiencies very early on.

923
00:53:45,140 --> 00:53:51,090
Speaker 2: We became very skilled at deception, at fooling other organisms

924
00:53:51,150 --> 00:53:55,529
Speaker 2: and also fooling fellow humans to our benefit. I mean,

925
00:53:55,550 --> 00:53:57,990
Speaker 2: just imagine, imagine if human beings couldn't lie.

926
00:53:59,090 --> 00:54:01,990
Speaker 3: Well, I'm reminded of, uh, there's a moment, uh, spoilers

927
00:54:02,050 --> 00:54:06,290
Speaker 3: for the, uh, the, uh, three body problem, uh, trilogy. Uh,

928
00:54:06,330 --> 00:54:08,710
Speaker 3: but I remember the, the kind of thrilling moment in

929
00:54:08,730 --> 00:54:12,430
Speaker 3: the books there, where there are these very technologically advanced

930
00:54:12,570 --> 00:54:15,129
Speaker 3: aliens that are threatening earth. And so they have all

931
00:54:15,170 --> 00:54:17,750
Speaker 3: these advantages that we don't have in terms of their

932
00:54:17,790 --> 00:54:20,730
Speaker 3: technology being so far ahead of ours. Uh, but there

933
00:54:20,770 --> 00:54:23,989
Speaker 3: is a moment where the aliens first become aware that

934
00:54:24,090 --> 00:54:29,840
Speaker 3: humans are capable of lying, uh, I think the aliens

935
00:54:29,860 --> 00:54:34,350
Speaker 3: have a situation where their thoughts are immediately perceptible to

936
00:54:34,390 --> 00:54:37,250
Speaker 3: each other, so they really don't have much of a

937
00:54:37,290 --> 00:54:41,130
Speaker 3: way or skill for deceiving about their intentions, and yet

938
00:54:41,170 --> 00:54:44,359
Speaker 3: they discover their enemy has the ability to be deceptive,

939
00:54:44,660 --> 00:54:45,879
Speaker 3: and that frightens them.

940
00:54:45,900 --> 00:54:51,060
Speaker 2: Man, this alone is such an interesting concept, because we often,

941
00:54:52,040 --> 00:54:56,440
Speaker 2: certainly in Western history, we often have this sort of

942
00:54:56,700 --> 00:55:01,020
Speaker 2: Bible-coded view of the fall of man and the introduction

943
00:55:01,060 --> 00:55:06,089
Speaker 2: of sin, right? And suddenly humans discover what lying is

944
00:55:06,150 --> 00:55:09,190
Speaker 2: and these various other sinful abilities at their disposal. But

945
00:55:10,590 --> 00:55:14,710
Speaker 2: it seems more likely that this kind of deception, again,

946
00:55:14,750 --> 00:55:16,739
Speaker 2: we see it in the natural world, we see it

947
00:55:16,800 --> 00:55:20,640
Speaker 2: in other organisms, granted without the complexity of human thought

948
00:55:20,680 --> 00:55:24,160
Speaker 2: and behavior, but it's still there. So to me, it

949
00:55:24,180 --> 00:55:26,200
Speaker 2: makes more sense that this is just a fabric of

950
00:55:26,260 --> 00:55:31,270
Speaker 2: how organisms behave and how they navigate their relationships with

951
00:55:31,350 --> 00:55:34,989
Speaker 2: potential predators and prey. And therefore, it just all it

952
00:55:35,030 --> 00:55:38,850
Speaker 2: does is just becomes more complicated in the human scenario

953
00:55:39,570 --> 00:55:41,489
Speaker 2: as we ascend, if you will.

954
00:55:42,070 --> 00:55:44,650
Speaker 3: Totally, though, I want to be clear that I'm not

955
00:55:44,690 --> 00:55:48,310
Speaker 3: giving a moral endorsement of lying. I actually I think

956
00:55:48,390 --> 00:55:51,570
Speaker 3: lying is bad. I think the cultural conventions against it

957
00:55:51,610 --> 00:55:51,910
Speaker 3: are good.

958
00:55:54,170 --> 00:55:57,810
Speaker 2: All right. Well, it also depends on how you define lying, right?

959
00:55:57,850 --> 00:56:02,069
Speaker 2: Because if we think of scarecrow building as being another

960
00:56:02,130 --> 00:56:06,450
Speaker 2: form of misdirection, you know, this remains a hallmark of

961
00:56:06,510 --> 00:56:10,890
Speaker 2: various human activities from warfare, certainly, to the arts. You know,

962
00:56:10,910 --> 00:56:14,850
Speaker 2: I mean, there's a lot of misdirection and deception in

963
00:56:15,350 --> 00:56:18,850
Speaker 2: everything from a magic show to a motion picture. You know,

964
00:56:18,890 --> 00:56:23,470
Speaker 2: we engage in that willful suspension of disbelief. You know,

965
00:56:23,840 --> 00:56:27,160
Speaker 2: it's such a rich part of who and what we are.

966
00:56:27,180 --> 00:56:30,360
Speaker 2: A scarecrow, again, is a decoy made to resemble a

967
00:56:30,400 --> 00:56:34,420
Speaker 2: human form, placed so as to deter other creatures from

968
00:56:34,600 --> 00:56:37,610
Speaker 2: acting by manipulating them into thinking a human being is

969
00:56:37,660 --> 00:56:42,489
Speaker 2: present when they are not. And this sort of thing

970
00:56:42,550 --> 00:56:48,210
Speaker 2: in general does seem to go way back. Again, especially

971
00:56:48,230 --> 00:56:51,880
Speaker 2: if we're considering not just this specific agricultural usage.

972
00:56:52,860 --> 00:56:54,870
Speaker 3: Though, and I think we'll get more into this in

973
00:56:54,890 --> 00:56:57,170
Speaker 3: the later episodes, I think there is good evidence of

974
00:56:57,550 --> 00:57:01,110
Speaker 3: the actual agricultural use of scarecrows going into the ancient world.

975
00:57:01,330 --> 00:57:04,890
Speaker 2: Oh, absolutely. And it undeniably goes further back than that,

976
00:57:04,910 --> 00:57:07,290
Speaker 2: because you think of what a scarecrow is. This is

977
00:57:07,330 --> 00:57:10,009
Speaker 2: something that, this is the very sort of artifact that

978
00:57:10,050 --> 00:57:13,130
Speaker 2: generally does not survive, because it is, what is it

979
00:57:13,170 --> 00:57:15,410
Speaker 2: made out of? It is made out of agricultural garbage.

980
00:57:15,830 --> 00:57:18,850
Speaker 2: It's made out of sticks and clothing and straw and

981
00:57:18,910 --> 00:57:23,959
Speaker 2: things that will naturally degrade very quickly. And then also

982
00:57:24,040 --> 00:57:27,060
Speaker 2: think about the fact that even though it may be novel,

983
00:57:27,200 --> 00:57:30,640
Speaker 2: it may spin our imagination in interesting ways, but it

984
00:57:30,720 --> 00:57:33,410
Speaker 2: is also, at the end of the day, an agricultural tool.

985
00:57:33,820 --> 00:57:36,350
Speaker 2: And you have to ask yourself, is it the sort

986
00:57:36,370 --> 00:57:39,230
Speaker 2: of thing that many commentators would even stop to write about?

987
00:57:39,830 --> 00:57:42,090
Speaker 2: And then if they did write about it, of course,

988
00:57:42,110 --> 00:57:45,950
Speaker 2: does that writing survive? It's a similar scenario to artifacts like,

989
00:57:45,990 --> 00:57:49,480
Speaker 2: did it exist? Did it not rot away? Did it survive?

990
00:57:49,520 --> 00:57:52,770
Speaker 2: And then is it found? Yeah. But then there are

991
00:57:52,790 --> 00:57:55,250
Speaker 2: other things we can also look to. For instance, the

992
00:57:55,310 --> 00:57:58,050
Speaker 2: use of animal decoys goes back at least as far

993
00:57:58,110 --> 00:58:01,820
Speaker 2: as ancient Egypt. We know that there were clay waterfowl

994
00:58:02,060 --> 00:58:07,180
Speaker 2: used back to an estimated 2500 BCE for hunting purposes,

995
00:58:07,220 --> 00:58:11,390
Speaker 2: you know, to convince waterfowl that, hey, this is an

996
00:58:11,430 --> 00:58:14,670
Speaker 2: area you should go to. And then using their presence

997
00:58:14,690 --> 00:58:16,370
Speaker 2: there to hunt them, something that is, of course, still

998
00:58:16,390 --> 00:58:19,550
Speaker 2: done today by human hunters of waterfowl.

999
00:58:20,120 --> 00:58:22,710
Speaker 3: So that's kind of a reverse scarecrow principle. Instead of

1000
00:58:22,790 --> 00:58:25,250
Speaker 3: deterring animal presence, it would be attracting.

1001
00:58:25,670 --> 00:58:30,210
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah. And of course, this gets a little complicated, too,

1002
00:58:30,830 --> 00:58:33,330
Speaker 2: when you consider the fact that humans also just make

1003
00:58:33,490 --> 00:58:37,970
Speaker 2: models of things because they like to. Because just in

1004
00:58:38,010 --> 00:58:42,260
Speaker 2: ancient Egypt, for example, we have other various models of birds,

1005
00:58:42,320 --> 00:58:46,600
Speaker 2: for example, that were clearly not used for any kind

1006
00:58:46,620 --> 00:58:51,130
Speaker 2: of hunting purposes, nor were they capable of flight. But

1007
00:58:51,650 --> 00:58:55,380
Speaker 2: they just had some sort of religious purpose or were

1008
00:58:55,390 --> 00:58:58,360
Speaker 2: just novel. You know, people just make things because they can.

1009
00:58:58,680 --> 00:59:01,620
Speaker 2: They do it to test out techniques. And so you

1010
00:59:01,680 --> 00:59:04,570
Speaker 2: end up with these various curios throughout history that are

1011
00:59:04,610 --> 00:59:07,350
Speaker 2: just because that's how we artistically engage with the world

1012
00:59:07,390 --> 00:59:07,850
Speaker 2: around us.

1013
00:59:08,230 --> 00:59:08,390
Speaker 3: Yeah.

1014
00:59:09,240 --> 00:59:16,320
Speaker 2: Now, as for using a human decoy for purposes besides scarecrowing,

1015
00:59:16,420 --> 00:59:20,030
Speaker 2: besides bird scaring, there are a lot of stories of

1016
00:59:20,090 --> 00:59:23,570
Speaker 2: human ingenuity and cunning here. And there's actually a pretty

1017
00:59:23,870 --> 00:59:26,930
Speaker 2: fun one of like straight up Ferris Bueller tactics that

1018
00:59:27,130 --> 00:59:31,950
Speaker 2: that you find in the Old Testament in 1 Samuel 11.

1019
00:59:31,950 --> 00:59:34,570
Speaker 2: I'm going to read from this here. This is from

1020
00:59:34,610 --> 00:59:40,860
Speaker 2: the updated NRSV translation. Quote, Saul sent messengers to David's

1021
00:59:40,900 --> 00:59:43,580
Speaker 2: house to keep watch over him, planning to kill him

1022
00:59:43,600 --> 00:59:47,560
Speaker 2: in the morning. David's wife, Michal, told him, if you

1023
00:59:47,660 --> 00:59:50,880
Speaker 2: do not save your life tonight, tomorrow you will be killed.

1024
00:59:51,600 --> 00:59:54,450
Speaker 2: So Michal let David through the window. He fled away

1025
00:59:54,510 --> 00:59:57,680
Speaker 2: and escaped. Michal took an idol and laid it on

1026
00:59:57,740 --> 01:00:00,400
Speaker 2: the bed. She put a net of goat's hair on

1027
01:00:00,440 --> 01:00:03,540
Speaker 2: its head and covered it with the clothes. When Saul

1028
01:00:03,580 --> 01:00:06,140
Speaker 2: sent messengers to take David, she said, He is sick.

1029
01:00:06,700 --> 01:00:09,620
Speaker 2: Then Saul sent the messengers to see David for themselves.

1030
01:00:09,780 --> 01:00:12,800
Speaker 2: He said, Bring him up to me in the bed

1031
01:00:12,820 --> 01:00:15,720
Speaker 2: that I may kill him. When the messengers came in,

1032
01:00:15,860 --> 01:00:18,660
Speaker 2: the idol was in the bed and the covering of

1033
01:00:18,720 --> 01:00:23,310
Speaker 2: goat's hair on its head. Saul said to Michal, Why

1034
01:00:23,350 --> 01:00:25,530
Speaker 2: have you deceived me like this and let my enemy

1035
01:00:25,630 --> 01:00:29,850
Speaker 2: go so that he has escaped? Michal answered Saul. He

1036
01:00:29,910 --> 01:00:32,530
Speaker 2: said to me, let me go. Why should I kill you?

1037
01:00:33,970 --> 01:00:36,900
Speaker 2: So there you go. Again, straight up Ferris Bueller. Just

1038
01:00:37,100 --> 01:00:40,160
Speaker 2: like let's create something sort of like a human, put

1039
01:00:40,180 --> 01:00:42,180
Speaker 2: it where a human should be sleeping and people will

1040
01:00:42,200 --> 01:00:43,780
Speaker 2: at least be temporarily deceived.

1041
01:00:44,250 --> 01:00:46,810
Speaker 3: I like that Saul has the whole bed brought to him.

1042
01:00:46,830 --> 01:00:49,190
Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean, that's how they do it. Bring, bring

1043
01:00:49,210 --> 01:00:50,690
Speaker 2: me the bed. Like, did they think he wasn't going

1044
01:00:50,710 --> 01:00:52,930
Speaker 2: to wake up? He's like such a sound sleeper. It's like,

1045
01:00:52,970 --> 01:00:55,710
Speaker 2: be very careful, but I don't want you to wake him,

1046
01:00:55,750 --> 01:00:58,350
Speaker 2: bring him to me slowly and then wake him up

1047
01:00:58,410 --> 01:00:58,950
Speaker 2: and we kill him.

1048
01:00:59,450 --> 01:01:03,530
Speaker 3: Yeah. Uh, that one is really funny. There's actually another

1049
01:01:03,670 --> 01:01:06,350
Speaker 3: passage in the Hebrew Bible worth mentioning when it comes

1050
01:01:06,390 --> 01:01:10,510
Speaker 3: to scarecrows and decoys. Um, This one actually, at least

1051
01:01:10,690 --> 01:01:15,710
Speaker 3: in some translations, makes explicit reference to a scarecrow. So

1052
01:01:15,850 --> 01:01:19,050
Speaker 3: the text in question occurs in chapter 10 of the

1053
01:01:19,090 --> 01:01:22,330
Speaker 3: book of Jeremiah. This is a section sometimes called the

1054
01:01:22,370 --> 01:01:26,150
Speaker 3: polemic against idols. And the context here is that the

1055
01:01:26,190 --> 01:01:31,220
Speaker 3: prophet is trying to discourage the Israelites from taking part

1056
01:01:31,340 --> 01:01:34,320
Speaker 3: in the religions of their neighbors who use cult images

1057
01:01:34,380 --> 01:01:39,560
Speaker 3: in their worship. And one way the prophet makes his

1058
01:01:39,660 --> 01:01:44,900
Speaker 3: point here is by spinning out this extended mocking satire

1059
01:01:45,060 --> 01:01:49,910
Speaker 3: on the idea of an idol as a physically constructed god.

1060
01:01:50,410 --> 01:01:53,150
Speaker 3: So the satire reads as follows. This is also from

1061
01:01:53,210 --> 01:01:57,730
Speaker 3: the NRSVUE. It says, Do not learn the way of

1062
01:01:57,770 --> 01:02:00,830
Speaker 3: the nations, or be dismayed at the signs of the heavens,

1063
01:02:00,950 --> 01:02:04,150
Speaker 3: for the nations are dismayed at them. For the customs

1064
01:02:04,210 --> 01:02:07,870
Speaker 3: of the peoples are false. A tree from the forest

1065
01:02:08,030 --> 01:02:10,970
Speaker 3: is cut down and worked with an axe by the

1066
01:02:11,030 --> 01:02:14,390
Speaker 3: hands of an artisan. They deck it with silver and gold.

1067
01:02:14,510 --> 01:02:17,300
Speaker 3: They fasten it with hammers and nails so that it

1068
01:02:17,380 --> 01:02:22,380
Speaker 3: cannot move. Their idols are like scarecrows in a cucumber field,

1069
01:02:22,640 --> 01:02:26,020
Speaker 3: and they cannot speak. They have to be carried, for

1070
01:02:26,060 --> 01:02:29,200
Speaker 3: they cannot walk. Do not be afraid of them, for

1071
01:02:29,260 --> 01:02:32,090
Speaker 3: they cannot do evil, nor is it in them to

1072
01:02:32,150 --> 01:02:36,740
Speaker 3: do good. Now, a few thoughts on this. One is

1073
01:02:36,860 --> 01:02:39,140
Speaker 3: that while I do kind of love this, I think

1074
01:02:39,180 --> 01:02:43,160
Speaker 3: the book of Jeremiah has great literary qualities here. I

1075
01:02:43,320 --> 01:02:46,380
Speaker 3: think the author, you could say, is not actually being

1076
01:02:46,580 --> 01:02:50,980
Speaker 3: fair in how he characterizes the polytheistic religious beliefs of

1077
01:02:51,070 --> 01:02:54,050
Speaker 3: the other peoples of the ancient Near East. In the

1078
01:02:54,110 --> 01:02:59,410
Speaker 3: examples that I'm aware of, like Egyptian and ancient Mesopotamian religions,

1079
01:03:00,130 --> 01:03:03,120
Speaker 3: the way I understand them. is that the people who

1080
01:03:03,180 --> 01:03:07,440
Speaker 3: practice these religions would not usually have said that when

1081
01:03:07,480 --> 01:03:13,050
Speaker 3: you make an idol, the idol simply is the god. Rather,

1082
01:03:13,070 --> 01:03:18,790
Speaker 3: I think they believed that an idol properly fashioned, properly

1083
01:03:18,890 --> 01:03:23,190
Speaker 3: cared for, and then sanctified through ritual. So you might

1084
01:03:23,210 --> 01:03:25,700
Speaker 3: have these rituals like the opening of the mouth or

1085
01:03:25,760 --> 01:03:28,880
Speaker 3: the washing of the mouth ceremony, different things, but like

1086
01:03:29,100 --> 01:03:32,900
Speaker 3: Egyptian and Mesopotamian. that this idol cared for in the

1087
01:03:32,920 --> 01:03:35,919
Speaker 3: right ways and having gone through the right rituals could

1088
01:03:35,980 --> 01:03:40,620
Speaker 3: be inhabited or indwelt by a god or could become

1089
01:03:40,740 --> 01:03:44,020
Speaker 3: a sort of conduit of the god's presence on earth.

1090
01:03:44,580 --> 01:03:47,160
Speaker 3: So I think the artisan who makes the idol would

1091
01:03:47,220 --> 01:03:50,140
Speaker 3: not exactly say, look, I've carved a figure from a

1092
01:03:50,200 --> 01:03:53,200
Speaker 3: tree and nailed it up and it is my god.

1093
01:03:53,780 --> 01:03:57,590
Speaker 3: But instead, if all the right rituals are observed, A

1094
01:03:57,650 --> 01:04:00,570
Speaker 3: god comes to dwell within this body I have made

1095
01:04:00,670 --> 01:04:04,030
Speaker 3: for it. Or this can be a focal point for

1096
01:04:04,090 --> 01:04:09,060
Speaker 3: rituals where I honor this god. And obviously, like Jeremiah

1097
01:04:09,160 --> 01:04:12,720
Speaker 3: or a monotheistic Jewish prophet would not have believed in

1098
01:04:12,920 --> 01:04:16,540
Speaker 3: either version of the polytheistic religion. But I think the

1099
01:04:16,680 --> 01:04:19,760
Speaker 3: latter is a little bit less intuitively easy to make

1100
01:04:19,860 --> 01:04:20,300
Speaker 3: fun of.

1101
01:04:21,200 --> 01:04:23,270
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I think you're right. I think it matches

1102
01:04:23,330 --> 01:04:25,390
Speaker 2: up with things we've discussed in the show before, that

1103
01:04:25,690 --> 01:04:29,050
Speaker 2: even ancient people had rather complex ideas about what a

1104
01:04:29,090 --> 01:04:32,610
Speaker 2: god was and how that god interacted with the human realm,

1105
01:04:32,650 --> 01:04:34,370
Speaker 2: certainly in the domain of ritual.

1106
01:04:34,750 --> 01:04:38,010
Speaker 3: Yeah, but in the satire here, it works because Jeremiah

1107
01:04:38,050 --> 01:04:40,490
Speaker 3: is saying, like, look how stupid this is. Like, you

1108
01:04:40,530 --> 01:04:43,430
Speaker 3: cut down a tree and you nail it with silver

1109
01:04:43,490 --> 01:04:45,730
Speaker 3: and gold, and now you think, look, it's a god,

1110
01:04:45,790 --> 01:04:47,770
Speaker 3: but it can't even walk by itself. You have to

1111
01:04:47,810 --> 01:04:49,570
Speaker 3: carry it around on processions.

1112
01:04:49,920 --> 01:04:51,660
Speaker 2: Though I do like that he says, like, it can't

1113
01:04:51,700 --> 01:04:54,360
Speaker 2: do any evil, but it also can't do any good. Like,

1114
01:04:55,640 --> 01:04:57,570
Speaker 2: that in itself, I don't know, it reminds me a

1115
01:04:57,590 --> 01:04:59,870
Speaker 2: little bit more of sort of like sort of the modern,

1116
01:05:00,590 --> 01:05:03,630
Speaker 2: modern atheistic and skeptical approach to religion and say, like,

1117
01:05:03,650 --> 01:05:05,910
Speaker 2: you know, would look at a statue and be like, well,

1118
01:05:05,970 --> 01:05:07,890
Speaker 2: you know, it's not bad. It's not good. It's just

1119
01:05:07,930 --> 01:05:09,230
Speaker 2: a piece of wood. Well, I think.

1120
01:05:09,920 --> 01:05:12,360
Speaker 3: I think he probably would say it's bad. I think

1121
01:05:12,420 --> 01:05:15,700
Speaker 3: he's saying that, like, it has no power, good or evil. Like,

1122
01:05:15,720 --> 01:05:18,340
Speaker 3: there's nothing in it. You know, it can't help you

1123
01:05:18,390 --> 01:05:19,410
Speaker 3: and it can't harm you.

1124
01:05:19,430 --> 01:05:23,169
Speaker 2: Yeah, it can't move. It can't enact powers and so forth.

1125
01:05:23,450 --> 01:05:25,590
Speaker 3: Yeah, but I think he would definitely say it's bad

1126
01:05:25,650 --> 01:05:26,340
Speaker 3: to worship it.

1127
01:05:26,410 --> 01:05:30,090
Speaker 2: That is his opinion. That is a common theme, right? Yeah,

1128
01:05:30,290 --> 01:05:33,800
Speaker 2: don't go worshiping these things, according to the Old Testament authors.

1129
01:05:34,240 --> 01:05:36,820
Speaker 3: Now, there's another really interesting thing about the scarecrow line.

1130
01:05:37,580 --> 01:05:42,660
Speaker 3: The line about the scarecrow has not been translated that

1131
01:05:42,700 --> 01:05:47,740
Speaker 3: way universally. So the version I read again was the

1132
01:05:47,800 --> 01:05:52,370
Speaker 3: updated edition of the NRSV, which is informed by modern scholarship.

1133
01:05:52,430 --> 01:05:54,050
Speaker 3: So a lot of biblical scholars are going to think

1134
01:05:54,090 --> 01:05:58,550
Speaker 3: that's a good translation. But where that translation reads, their

1135
01:05:58,730 --> 01:06:01,770
Speaker 3: idols are like scarecrows in a cucumber field for they

1136
01:06:01,830 --> 01:06:05,610
Speaker 3: cannot speak or sorry, and they cannot speak. The older

1137
01:06:05,710 --> 01:06:10,490
Speaker 3: King James translation says they are upright as a palm tree,

1138
01:06:10,790 --> 01:06:14,770
Speaker 3: but speak not. So what's the difference here? Well, I

1139
01:06:14,810 --> 01:06:18,980
Speaker 3: went looking into this. Apparently the Hebrew term used in

1140
01:06:19,020 --> 01:06:22,580
Speaker 3: the text here is a bit ambiguous. It is, and

1141
01:06:22,780 --> 01:06:28,540
Speaker 3: forgive any mispronunciation here, it is Tomer Miksa or Miksha,

1142
01:06:28,820 --> 01:06:31,890
Speaker 3: in which the first word means something like palm tree

1143
01:06:31,950 --> 01:06:34,950
Speaker 3: or date palm. And the second word has something to

1144
01:06:34,990 --> 01:06:38,970
Speaker 3: do with hammering or manufacturing. So it means something like

1145
01:06:39,260 --> 01:06:44,100
Speaker 3: worked or fashioned. So it suggests something of a palm

1146
01:06:44,160 --> 01:06:50,200
Speaker 3: tree or wooden structure crafted by hand. Apparently, this interpretation

1147
01:06:50,240 --> 01:06:52,780
Speaker 3: of the line as a scarecrow and a cucumber patch

1148
01:06:53,400 --> 01:06:58,420
Speaker 3: is influenced, at least in part, by a later non-canonical

1149
01:06:58,500 --> 01:07:02,180
Speaker 3: Jewish text from the Hellenistic period called the Epistle of Jeremiah.

1150
01:07:02,730 --> 01:07:06,170
Speaker 3: which expresses the same idea as this passage in Jeremiah.

1151
01:07:06,670 --> 01:07:09,670
Speaker 3: And in this text, it explicitly makes clear it is

1152
01:07:09,710 --> 01:07:12,130
Speaker 3: talking about a scarecrow in a cucumber field who says

1153
01:07:12,230 --> 01:07:17,680
Speaker 3: guarding nothing. So that's apparently one reason for thinking it's

1154
01:07:18,420 --> 01:07:20,740
Speaker 3: what the author meant in this older text as well.

1155
01:07:21,580 --> 01:07:24,820
Speaker 3: I also found a more recent paper from 2017 by

1156
01:07:24,880 --> 01:07:28,510
Speaker 3: a scholar named Eichler who is arguing something else entirely

1157
01:07:28,530 --> 01:07:32,080
Speaker 3: about This scholar says maybe it should be translated as

1158
01:07:32,320 --> 01:07:36,060
Speaker 3: palm sculpture. And in this case, it would be a

1159
01:07:36,140 --> 01:07:41,220
Speaker 3: reference to a known existing religious motif or religious symbol

1160
01:07:41,700 --> 01:07:45,370
Speaker 3: in Assyrian art known as the Assyrian sacred tree. Have

1161
01:07:45,390 --> 01:07:46,790
Speaker 3: you ever read about this before, Rob?

1162
01:07:47,210 --> 01:07:53,450
Speaker 2: I have definitely seen this image before. Yes, yes. It

1163
01:07:53,490 --> 01:07:57,430
Speaker 2: is a very erect tree with these elaborate fronds coming

1164
01:07:57,510 --> 01:07:58,700
Speaker 2: off of it in every direction.

1165
01:07:59,030 --> 01:07:59,210
Speaker 1: Yeah.

1166
01:07:59,230 --> 01:08:02,610
Speaker 3: Uh, and there are different interpretations of what that Assyrian

1167
01:08:02,650 --> 01:08:04,810
Speaker 3: sacred tree means. It could have something to do with

1168
01:08:04,850 --> 01:08:07,250
Speaker 3: like the tree of life tradition, uh, or.

1169
01:08:07,190 --> 01:08:09,470
Speaker 2: Maybe we see in cultures around the world.

1170
01:08:09,590 --> 01:08:12,200
Speaker 3: Yeah. Uh, so I can't make a judgment about which

1171
01:08:12,260 --> 01:08:15,140
Speaker 3: translation is best here, but I think the comparison to

1172
01:08:15,180 --> 01:08:18,700
Speaker 3: a scarecrow makes a lot of sense to me because

1173
01:08:18,740 --> 01:08:22,780
Speaker 3: it really fits with Jeremiah's satirical themes in the passage.

1174
01:08:23,479 --> 01:08:26,910
Speaker 3: You know, the author is saying that idols like scarecrows

1175
01:08:27,510 --> 01:08:32,010
Speaker 3: in his opinion are They are fashioned by clever humans,

1176
01:08:32,490 --> 01:08:36,590
Speaker 3: but they possess no interior power of their own. He

1177
01:08:36,650 --> 01:08:39,610
Speaker 3: says their only power is in the fact that they

1178
01:08:39,689 --> 01:08:42,150
Speaker 3: mislead the foolish into fearing them.

1179
01:08:43,450 --> 01:08:45,600
Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean, this is also very interesting when you

1180
01:08:45,620 --> 01:08:50,040
Speaker 2: think about either the acceptance or rejection of icons in

1181
01:08:50,100 --> 01:08:52,780
Speaker 2: any kind of religious form. Like there's there's this kind

1182
01:08:52,800 --> 01:08:57,660
Speaker 2: of like recognition here that. that an idol, a form

1183
01:08:58,340 --> 01:08:59,840
Speaker 2: like this that is made, that it looks like a

1184
01:08:59,860 --> 01:09:02,880
Speaker 2: human or an animal, is on some level deceiving us

1185
01:09:02,939 --> 01:09:05,420
Speaker 2: because of the way that we buy into it and

1186
01:09:05,479 --> 01:09:09,550
Speaker 2: we give it life just via our own mental processes.

1187
01:09:10,110 --> 01:09:14,030
Speaker 2: And so you can see that then the rejection of

1188
01:09:14,070 --> 01:09:15,230
Speaker 2: that is to say, well, we're not going to do

1189
01:09:15,370 --> 01:09:19,920
Speaker 2: idols at all, no forms. No representations of human or

1190
01:09:20,020 --> 01:09:23,260
Speaker 2: animal forms or any combination because that is inherently deceptive.

1191
01:09:23,280 --> 01:09:25,600
Speaker 2: And the thing that we believe in is real and

1192
01:09:25,620 --> 01:09:27,960
Speaker 2: therefore doesn't need that kind of a motif. It doesn't

1193
01:09:28,000 --> 01:09:28,740
Speaker 2: need that trickery.

1194
01:09:29,140 --> 01:09:29,720
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah.

1195
01:09:29,939 --> 01:09:31,460
Speaker 2: And we've talked about that before. We did a whole

1196
01:09:31,500 --> 01:09:35,490
Speaker 2: series on the rejection of idols and imagery and stuff

1197
01:09:35,510 --> 01:09:36,690
Speaker 2: to what you're buying in the past.

1198
01:09:37,189 --> 01:09:38,670
Speaker 3: I don't remember the name of the series, but yeah,

1199
01:09:38,770 --> 01:09:40,729
Speaker 3: on aniconism as a tradition.

1200
01:09:40,750 --> 01:09:43,689
Speaker 2: Yeah, I forget exactly what clever title we came up

1201
01:09:43,729 --> 01:09:45,860
Speaker 2: with for the series, but it was a fun one.

1202
01:09:46,860 --> 01:09:48,620
Speaker 2: All right. Well, we're looking at the time right now,

1203
01:09:48,800 --> 01:09:51,120
Speaker 2: and we've decided this is when we need to cut

1204
01:09:51,160 --> 01:09:53,090
Speaker 2: it off. But we already have so much more to

1205
01:09:53,160 --> 01:09:55,290
Speaker 2: discuss in the next episode. We're going to get into

1206
01:09:55,330 --> 01:09:59,849
Speaker 2: some more historic examples of scarecrows, or at least straw-stuffed

1207
01:10:00,370 --> 01:10:03,650
Speaker 2: human bodies, or they're not really human bodies stuffed with straw,

1208
01:10:03,670 --> 01:10:07,110
Speaker 2: but human forms, clothing stuffed with straw. More examples of

1209
01:10:07,150 --> 01:10:11,070
Speaker 2: this from throughout history. And we're also going to get more,

1210
01:10:11,350 --> 01:10:13,730
Speaker 2: I think, into the biology of what's going on with

1211
01:10:13,760 --> 01:10:16,830
Speaker 2: the scarecrow. And even into these questions of does it work?

1212
01:10:17,110 --> 01:10:19,810
Speaker 2: Do scarecrows work? Or if they don't work, why don't

1213
01:10:19,850 --> 01:10:21,870
Speaker 2: they work? And when do they work? That sort of thing.

1214
01:10:22,510 --> 01:10:25,880
Speaker 3: Farmers, please write in. Let us know your thoughts. We

1215
01:10:25,900 --> 01:10:27,719
Speaker 3: would love to talk about this on our next Listener

1216
01:10:27,740 --> 01:10:28,439
Speaker 3: Mail episode.

1217
01:10:28,800 --> 01:10:31,120
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah. And artists. Many of you out there just

1218
01:10:31,200 --> 01:10:35,400
Speaker 2: enjoy the scarecrow for purely aesthetic reasons. So, yeah, stick

1219
01:10:35,420 --> 01:10:39,060
Speaker 2: with us in this multi-part look at the scarecrow. And, yeah,

1220
01:10:39,110 --> 01:10:42,430
Speaker 2: keep chiming in. All right. We want to remind everyone

1221
01:10:42,470 --> 01:10:45,210
Speaker 2: out there that Stuff to Blow Your Mind is primarily

1222
01:10:45,250 --> 01:10:48,060
Speaker 2: a science and culture podcast with core episodes on Tuesdays

1223
01:10:48,120 --> 01:10:50,860
Speaker 2: and Thursdays, short form on Wednesdays and on Fridays. We

1224
01:10:50,900 --> 01:10:53,360
Speaker 2: just set aside time to discuss a weird film on

1225
01:10:53,400 --> 01:10:56,140
Speaker 2: Weird House Cinema. And again, throughout the month of October,

1226
01:10:56,600 --> 01:10:58,960
Speaker 2: as much as humanly possible, it's all going to be

1227
01:10:59,160 --> 01:11:03,000
Speaker 2: Halloween themed one way or another. Spooky content, spooky topics,

1228
01:11:03,060 --> 01:11:06,490
Speaker 2: spooky tie ins and so forth. So stick with us.

1229
01:11:06,550 --> 01:11:09,430
Speaker 2: It's going to be a fun ride. Let's see. Just

1230
01:11:09,470 --> 01:11:11,810
Speaker 2: a reminder that you can get Stuff to Blow Your Mind,

1231
01:11:11,830 --> 01:11:14,850
Speaker 2: the podcast, in the podcast feed wherever you get your

1232
01:11:14,970 --> 01:11:17,700
Speaker 2: audio podcast. Wherever that happens to be, we just ask

1233
01:11:17,720 --> 01:11:20,000
Speaker 2: that you rate, review, subscribe, help us out with all that.

1234
01:11:20,020 --> 01:11:22,620
Speaker 2: You know, chime in and say, I enjoy the Halloween

1235
01:11:22,680 --> 01:11:26,059
Speaker 2: offerings and accept them wholeheartedly, that sort of thing. And

1236
01:11:26,090 --> 01:11:29,110
Speaker 2: then if you dig the video, well, the video version

1237
01:11:29,150 --> 01:11:32,440
Speaker 2: of our podcast is available on Netflix. We encourage you

1238
01:11:32,460 --> 01:11:34,400
Speaker 2: to go check that out. Maybe you just do the

1239
01:11:34,500 --> 01:11:35,980
Speaker 2: audio and you just want to see what it's like.

1240
01:11:36,060 --> 01:11:38,939
Speaker 2: Or maybe you really want that video component. Go to Netflix.

1241
01:11:39,000 --> 01:11:41,440
Speaker 2: That's where you'll find the audio video version of the show.

1242
01:11:41,960 --> 01:11:44,020
Speaker 2: And if you're watching there, just give us a couple

1243
01:11:44,050 --> 01:11:46,670
Speaker 2: of thumbs up and ask to be reminded about new episodes.

1244
01:11:47,150 --> 01:11:50,929
Speaker 3: Huge thanks, as always, to our excellent audio producer, J.J. Posway.

1245
01:11:51,330 --> 01:11:52,830
Speaker 3: If you would like to get in touch with us

1246
01:11:52,870 --> 01:11:55,429
Speaker 3: with feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest

1247
01:11:55,490 --> 01:11:57,490
Speaker 3: a topic for the future, or just to say hello,

1248
01:11:57,920 --> 01:12:01,689
Speaker 3: you can email us at contact at stufftoblowyourmind.com.

1249
01:12:09,410 --> 01:12:11,830
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1250
01:12:12,210 --> 01:12:15,550
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1251
01:12:15,570 --> 01:12:27,229
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