Speaker 1: Welcome to stuff to blow your mind. Production of my
Speaker 1: heart radio. Hey you, welcome to stuff to blow your mind.
Speaker 1: Listener Mail. My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick,
Speaker 1: and it's Monday, the day of the week that we
Speaker 1: read back some messages from the mail bag, messages you
Speaker 1: have sent into our show account, which is if you've
Speaker 1: never tried it before, contact at stuff to blow your
Speaker 1: mind dot com. If you've got something interesting you want
Speaker 1: to share some feedback on an episode, get in touch.
Speaker 1: Let's see, Robbie mind if I start off here with
Speaker 1: this message from Justina? Go for it. Okay. This is
Speaker 1: actually response to a much older episode our series on
Speaker 1: the Seven Day Week in the origins UH and effects
Speaker 1: of grouping days into chunks of seven. So justina writes. Hi,
Speaker 1: Robert and Joe. I'm about six months behind on my
Speaker 1: podcast feed, so I just listen to your seven day
Speaker 1: week episodes. When you started musing about what it would
Speaker 1: be like to live on two different week lengths simultaneously,
Speaker 1: like some ancient cultures might have done, I heard the call.
Speaker 1: I know what it's like, and so do millions of
Speaker 1: school children. I was in the first class in my
Speaker 1: school district to experience the six day cycle. This was
Speaker 1: back in nineteen eighty one to eighty two, and the
Speaker 1: idea was new. Instead of having a class schedule that
Speaker 1: followed Monday to Friday, we now had days a through F.
Speaker 1: The reasons behind the six day cycle were twofold. One,
Speaker 1: it let the different academic classes happen at different times
Speaker 1: a day, since we all learned best at different times
Speaker 1: of day. This way, math class wasn't always period one
Speaker 1: and your foggy morning brain wouldn't put you behind for
Speaker 1: the whole year. Number two, it also made sure classes
Speaker 1: didn't get shorted or skipped to due to holidays. If
Speaker 1: the last day of school before a break was c day,
Speaker 1: the first day back would be a d day, regardless
Speaker 1: of the day of the week. What made the whole
Speaker 1: experience particularly dual timeline issue is the fact that the
Speaker 1: six day cycle only applied to our academic classes. Other
Speaker 1: classes like Jim, music, shop and the like stayed on
Speaker 1: the old five day Monday to Friday schedule, so we
Speaker 1: were truly living two different weeks simultaneously. What did it
Speaker 1: feel like? It felt well normal. We had a system,
Speaker 1: we understood the system and we just followed the schedule.
Speaker 1: The fact that we might have English before music one
Speaker 1: week and math the next wasn't a big deal. I
Speaker 1: imagine the people in ancient cultures living two different cycles
Speaker 1: also adapted easily. I suspect that the convergence to a
Speaker 1: single system had more to do with the Times. Two
Speaker 1: different types of market days overlapped, causing a personnel shortage,
Speaker 1: rather than confusion about what day it was by the population.
Speaker 1: These days, school calendars are totally wild. Take, for example,
Speaker 1: the schedule for my local high school, and she includes
Speaker 1: some links. They are trying to have classes at different
Speaker 1: times of day in a balanced way and, oh, also
Speaker 1: balanced the lunch times and other variables. It leads to
Speaker 1: this madness, but the kids, they do it, they understand it,
Speaker 1: they master it, so I think living both a seven
Speaker 1: and eight day week would have been a piece of cake.
Speaker 1: Smiley face, thanks for making my favorite podcast. All the best,
Speaker 1: Justina W oh well, that's interesting. Yeah, I didn't even
Speaker 1: think about academic calendars, but that's that's a wonderful example.
Speaker 1: All right. This next one comes to us from Kenny.
Speaker 1: Kenny writes in regarding our episode, or was it an
Speaker 1: episode or episodes on the paradig series. Yeah, serious, yeah,
Speaker 1: sometimes it's hard to remember. Sometimes it's hard to remember
Speaker 1: when we have done an episode that was actually a
Speaker 1: single episode. Uh, a lot of our episodes are multipart
Speaker 1: these days. But Anyway, Kenny writes in and says, Dear
Speaker 1: Robin Joe, I did not know I would find the
Speaker 1: invention of the paragraph quite so fascinating. I was even
Speaker 1: able to answer a pub quiz question on the pill
Speaker 1: crow this week, which was a mighty coincidence, given I'd
Speaker 1: never heard the word before in my life. As per
Speaker 1: rob's request, here are some of my favorite opening paragraphs.
Speaker 1: Some are probably pretty obvious. So Kenny sites the gunslinger
Speaker 1: opening from from Stephen King. The man in black fled
Speaker 1: across the desert and the gun slinger followed. We heard
Speaker 1: from multiple people about this one. This is a great opening.
Speaker 1: But then here's some other ones that Kenny includes. Uh,
Speaker 1: in a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit.
Speaker 1: Not a nasty, dirty, wet hole filled with the ends
Speaker 1: of worms and an oozy smell, nor yet a dry,
Speaker 1: bare sandy hole with nothing in it to sit down
Speaker 1: on or to eat. It was a hobbit hole, and
Speaker 1: that means comfort, and that is that, of course, is
Speaker 1: from the hobbit. That's a great one. Uh, here's one.
Speaker 1: This is one from a book by the name of
Speaker 1: the title the Crow Road by Ian Banks, WHO's an
Speaker 1: author I'm I'm very familiar with, but I have not
Speaker 1: read this particular book. If I'm remembering correctly, this would
Speaker 1: be one of the non sci fi books, because the
Speaker 1: like the culture books and so forth are by Ian
Speaker 1: in banks, and Ian Banks is just his what he
Speaker 1: goes by, what he went by for books that were
Speaker 1: outside of science fictional concerns. Quote. It was the day
Speaker 1: my grandmother exploded. I sat in the crematorium listening to
Speaker 1: my uncle Hamish quietly snoring in a harmony to box
Speaker 1: mass in B minor, and I reflected it that it
Speaker 1: always seemed to be death that drew me back to Glanok.
Speaker 1: I have no idea where that's going, but that already
Speaker 1: that sounds pretty intriguing. Once the grandmothers are exploding. Um,
Speaker 1: there's music playing, galenock, this sounds very fascinating as well.
Speaker 1: Uh So, yes, uh, that sounds like a good one.
Speaker 1: That's a good hook. Alright. This one is from a
Speaker 1: work that I'm not familiar with the Patricia mckillop riddle
Speaker 1: of stars. Quote. Morgan of head met the High Ones
Speaker 1: Harpist one autumn day when the trade ships docked at
Speaker 1: toll for the season's exchange of goods. Oh, that's the
Speaker 1: high ones harpist. Wow. Yeah, yeah, and again, and we
Speaker 1: got a nice fantasy or sci fi sounding name. There
Speaker 1: a couple of names. UH, there's a trade ships. Sounds
Speaker 1: a fantasy novel. Yeah, alright, here's here's one. Um, I'm
Speaker 1: going to read it and some of you may be
Speaker 1: able to guess the source. In the beginning the universe
Speaker 1: was created. This has made a lot of people very
Speaker 1: angry and has been widely regarded as a bad move.
Speaker 1: This is, of course, from Douglas Adams, the restaurant at
Speaker 1: the end of the universe. Strong entry. And finally, this one.
Speaker 1: This one is also this is from a book I'm
Speaker 1: familiar with. Everything starts somewhere, although many physicists disagree. That
Speaker 1: is from Terry Pratchett's the hog father, which is a yea,
Speaker 1: a wonderful Christmas read, and they also made a wonderful
Speaker 1: TV mini series, or two part series, adaptation of it.
Speaker 1: At David Warner in it played the head of the
Speaker 1: guild of assassins, if I remember correctly. Oh Wow, I
Speaker 1: don't know this book or this movie or Adaptation. But Yeah,
Speaker 1: David Warner, I'm there anyway. Kenny, that says you'll probably
Speaker 1: be swamped by day, so I'll stop there. Thanks for
Speaker 1: all you do. Good picks, Kenny. Um. All Right, I
Speaker 1: think we did a vault episode on sentient swords or
Speaker 1: swords that talk uh, and we got a response from Michaela,
Speaker 1: who writes. Hi, Robert and Joe, first of all, thank
Speaker 1: you so much for the work you put into this
Speaker 1: amazing podcast. I was listening to the vault episode on
Speaker 1: sentient weapons and it reminded me of a few things.
Speaker 1: One of them is this sentient shield that I had
Speaker 1: home brewed. I think this is a d and d reference. Right, yes, okay, that,
Speaker 1: while very useful, it had an annoying personality. Thinking back,
Speaker 1: I don't know of any named sentient armor in mythology
Speaker 1: or in D and D. magical armor absolutely exists, but
Speaker 1: not named or sentient in the way weapons tend to be.
Speaker 1: Perhaps it's harder to ascribe agency to our Mur as
Speaker 1: armor rarely works in unexpected ways. That combatants don't directly control,
Speaker 1: but even then one might say it was the armor
Speaker 1: that moved them rather than their instinctual reactions driven by
Speaker 1: adrenaline in the midst of battle. Any thoughts? Second was
Speaker 1: one thing that I've been meaning to ask for a while,
Speaker 1: and it's if you have ever brought something from your
Speaker 1: research into a homebrew in one of your D and
Speaker 1: D Games. I know I've paused many of your shows
Speaker 1: to jot down some mythical item or cool, weird real
Speaker 1: life place, creature or thing that might work in a
Speaker 1: D and D setting. I'm not sure how I'll fit
Speaker 1: them all in at this point when I eventually run
Speaker 1: a game, but I'm very excited to see how players react.
Speaker 1: Keep up the good work, Michaela. Well, that's yeah, so homebrewing,
Speaker 1: for anyone unfamiliar, this is basically like when you you
Speaker 1: create something for a game and you can homebrew, maybe
Speaker 1: homebrewing the stats of something. Generally it's about stats, like
Speaker 1: if you're you're homebrewing a particular magic particular magical item
Speaker 1: or homebrewing a particular creature, that sort of thing. Like
Speaker 1: you're saying, like you create a creature for your dn
Speaker 1: d campaign, that does not exist in the monster manual right, yeah,
Speaker 1: which which is is a rarity, especially now. It's like
Speaker 1: if they if they don't have it in there officially,
Speaker 1: then somebody's probably home brooded. Over the years. Uh, there
Speaker 1: there have been some wonderful like third party publications that
Speaker 1: have come up with a lot of that stuff. Um, like,
Speaker 1: I guess in the fact in the past. I have
Speaker 1: done that sort of thing before, but it becomes, Um,
Speaker 1: I don't know. My experience that you sometimes risk running
Speaker 1: into the situation where you have some sort of idea
Speaker 1: that you're suddenly really excited to introduce into the role playing,
Speaker 1: either as a character, as as a player or as
Speaker 1: a dungeon master, and you can get so excited about
Speaker 1: that idea you kind of forget that this is also
Speaker 1: ultimately about the communal experience and maybe everyone else doesn't
Speaker 1: know about this thing and they're not as excited for it,
Speaker 1: and so it ultimately ends up being something that's mostly
Speaker 1: just for you. Um. But that being said, of course
Speaker 1: there are tons of great ideas in mythology and in
Speaker 1: history to draw up on and UH, yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: one can't help but do that a bit if you're
Speaker 1: doing any kind of creative work within a role playing scenario,
Speaker 1: either as a player or as a game master. My
Speaker 1: favorite one I've heard about was the listener who wrote
Speaker 1: in to say that they had home brewed, uh, the
Speaker 1: psychic mind devouring giant crabs from attack of the crab
Speaker 1: monsters by combining attributes of, I think it, kind of
Speaker 1: base giant crab monster with like some mind flavor kind
Speaker 1: of dynamics. That's right, that was a good one alright.
Speaker 1: This next one comes to us from Troy. Troy writ
Speaker 1: sin says. Hi, Robert, Joe and Seth, thanks for reviewing
Speaker 1: krawl in one of your weird house cinema episodes. It
Speaker 1: brought back many memories as a result of the episode.
Speaker 1: I shared your podcast with my brother and he said
Speaker 1: he liked the episode and we'll be shopping for a
Speaker 1: glave replica on that's all right. Would be careful. The
Speaker 1: glave looks kind of dangerous to handle, so make sure
Speaker 1: you check on just how sharp it is. This might
Speaker 1: be a reaction to the fact that I found glave
Speaker 1: fidget spinners on Etsy. That's great anyway. Troy continues Um
Speaker 1: and this is the portion of the email that I
Speaker 1: referenced in a recent core episode. Troy right, right, and
Speaker 1: says Robert, you said that you don't consider swimming fun,
Speaker 1: but I would say it's only a chore if your
Speaker 1: performance is below your expectation. I find running around the
Speaker 1: lake near my house very fun and extremely challenging. I
Speaker 1: envisioned impaired and can usually pick out a pedestrian within
Speaker 1: about twenty to thirty feet. Beyond that distance it looks
Speaker 1: like fog. Since I run typically at around a eight
Speaker 1: twenty minute pace. That's eight minute twenty seconds, uh pace.
Speaker 1: It is quite a rush trying to avoid collisions. I
Speaker 1: carry my white cane folded up and enjoy saying hi
Speaker 1: to people that I've passed. Two laps around the lake
Speaker 1: is roughly seven miles, and the run makes me feel
Speaker 1: accomplished and independent. That's good. Like I said, that there's
Speaker 1: a lot of a lot of fun is inherently subjective.
Speaker 1: Like I would you know me personally, I would say, well,
Speaker 1: something can I can make me feel accomplished and independent,
Speaker 1: but and it can also make me, you can also
Speaker 1: feel like like work. So it's, like I say, it
Speaker 1: varies greatly from individual to individual, but I enjoy hearing
Speaker 1: these alternate takes on it anyway. Troy continues. Troy says
Speaker 1: I think a potential topic down the road would be
Speaker 1: assistive technology for the blind or disabled in general. I
Speaker 1: believe you did an episode on prosthetics. My audio screen
Speaker 1: reader called Jaws enables me to work on the computer
Speaker 1: literally with my eyes closed. This is a great idea
Speaker 1: for an episode. Yeah, I know we've talked about prosthetics
Speaker 1: a little bit. I remember talking about like ancient Egyptian
Speaker 1: examples of prosthetics. I believe there's a particular toe that's
Speaker 1: rather ancient, ancient Um. But yeah, yeah, we haven't. We
Speaker 1: haven't done a real deep dive into and even prosthetics.
Speaker 1: I don't think have we? I mean I think I
Speaker 1: don't think we've had a dedicated episode about it, but
Speaker 1: it's like come up in other contents. One thing we
Speaker 1: definitely did is, uh, we did an invention episode on Brail.
Speaker 1: That's right, kind of fascinating and surprising history of reading
Speaker 1: system touch based reading systems. Yeah, so that's the great
Speaker 1: suggestion and Troy is not done making great suggestions, because
Speaker 1: they say is last I wanted to give one movie
Speaker 1: suggestion for you guys to cover. If it has not
Speaker 1: already been covered, I recommend the last dragon from this
Speaker 1: movie fits the fun category of Weird House Cinema. The
Speaker 1: Part I love the most is when either character in
Speaker 1: a fight scene appears to be getting the upper hand,
Speaker 1: they start emitting a glowing neon color from their teeth.
Speaker 1: I tried googling letter boxed Weird House cinema and was
Speaker 1: unable to find the list of past movies. If the
Speaker 1: above film is not in the list, you may want
Speaker 1: to check it out. Cheers. Okay. Well, first of all, yes, letterbox,
Speaker 1: that's L E T T E R B o x.
Speaker 1: d uh. Yeah, if you go there, if you look
Speaker 1: for a weird house, one word, that's that's our account
Speaker 1: should come up, and we only have one list and
Speaker 1: that's the list of the episodes. Um, so, Um, it
Speaker 1: is there. Um. So, my apologies if anybody, as they'd find,
Speaker 1: had trouble finding it. Um, it's also linked off of
Speaker 1: the blog at some Muta, some MUTA MUSIC DOT com.
Speaker 1: But in terms of the last Dragon, Y, yeah, this
Speaker 1: is one that's been on my radar. In fact, I
Speaker 1: was telling I was talking with you about it just
Speaker 1: a few weeks back. Um, I one of the reasons
Speaker 1: on my radars because it was one of the films
Speaker 1: profiled on the CBC ideas episode that dealt with cult movies.
Speaker 1: This is one that they singled out as being a
Speaker 1: cult film. Uh, you know, despite the fact that I
Speaker 1: think I don't, I remember in correctly, the last dragon
Speaker 1: wasn't a huge financial hit by any means, but it's
Speaker 1: it's so distinct. It's like a is a like a
Speaker 1: like a a motown um production, like an epic motown
Speaker 1: production with martial arts and fantasy and love and great
Speaker 1: music and it's it's a little unlike anything else you
Speaker 1: might expect to find. It looks absolutely magical. I haven't
Speaker 1: seen it, but I would love to. So this is
Speaker 1: a romantic martial arts musical produced by Barry Gordy, like
Speaker 1: it sometimes called Berry Gordy's last dragon. Berry Gordy the
Speaker 1: the music, music producer, record executive known like he was
Speaker 1: the writer, or one of the writers of like I
Speaker 1: want you back, like classic songs like that. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: and the founder of the motown record label. Yeah, yeah, so, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's true motown production and uh, you know, has a
Speaker 1: pretty great cast and uh, yeah, I haven't watched it
Speaker 1: in its entirety. Yet weirdly enough, William H macy is
Speaker 1: in it. He has like a been role, but he's
Speaker 1: he's in the cast Um. But yeah, this one's definitely
Speaker 1: on the list. It's just kind of I guess it's
Speaker 1: kind of week to week what catches our fancy, but
Speaker 1: I have a feeling we'll get to the last dragon
Speaker 1: at some point here. Alright. This next message is from Casey.
Speaker 1: Casey says, hi, Robert and Joe. Recently some of my
Speaker 1: son's friends introduced him to the world of Dungeons and
Speaker 1: dragons and he was asking me to explain dungeons to him.
Speaker 1: I realized that I really don't know much about them.
Speaker 1: From the movies, I've learned that a dungeon is basically
Speaker 1: a basement of a castle that functions as a jail
Speaker 1: or torture chamber or where one might find the occasional
Speaker 1: potions classroom or slytherin common room. I thought the history
Speaker 1: and usage of real dungeons, versus their depiction and pop culture,
Speaker 1: might be a good subject for you to cover on
Speaker 1: your show, in the same vein as your cauldron episodes.
Speaker 1: My son would also like to suggest that you cover
Speaker 1: the beholder or the gelatinous cube on a monster fact episode.
Speaker 1: On a different note, I was unfamiliar with the Jallo
Speaker 1: Genre until I heard you talk about it on your show. UH,
Speaker 1: jallow movies or, of course, these kind of violent CD
Speaker 1: murder Italian murder mystery thrillers from the seventies, as some
Speaker 1: great jallow highlights, or like the movies of Dario Argento,
Speaker 1: like deep red and stuff. Anyway, Casey continues. So finding
Speaker 1: out about the shallow genre, my mind immediately. You plugged
Speaker 1: it into the tune of shallow from a star is born. Oh, Casey,
Speaker 1: you have done violence to my brain by by doing
Speaker 1: this to me. UH, Casey says. I know I regularly
Speaker 1: find myself singing in the Jazz Jallo, in the Jalo.
Speaker 1: We're far from the Jalos now. I just thought I'd
Speaker 1: give you that little earworm on my way out. Thanks
Speaker 1: for all the wonderful content, Casey. Casey, this is a
Speaker 1: crime you have committed. That you did this to me,
Speaker 1: that you did this to Robert and Seth and now
Speaker 1: you've done it to every listener to this show. Absolutely atrocious. Actually,
Speaker 1: I'm immune because I've seen need a version of a
Speaker 1: star is born and I don't think I'm familiar with
Speaker 1: this song. So, Oh, you know. Uh. So this is
Speaker 1: from the most recent one, the one with the Lady
Speaker 1: Lady Gaga Bradley Cooper, which, uh, I saw a couple
Speaker 1: of years ago. Actually. I thought it was great, and
Speaker 1: this song is indeed. It's great pop melodrama. It's yeah,
Speaker 1: it'll get in you. Yeah, I didn't see it. Looked
Speaker 1: like he might be a downer. So, oh, yeah, kind of.
Speaker 1: It kind of is, but it's also, I don't know,
Speaker 1: I thought it was good. whistlers. Not In it, though? Right, no, Oh,
Speaker 1: he's in the one from the seventies, isn't he? It's
Speaker 1: like Barbra streisand and Chris Christofferson. Right, Sam Elliot's in
Speaker 1: the new one, though. Right, yes, Sam Elliott, I think,
Speaker 1: plays Um Bradley Cooper's brother, maybe. Is that right? That
Speaker 1: sounds right. Like, yeah, it's like he's like a much
Speaker 1: older brother. Right, he's kind of his sort of manager
Speaker 1: or something. Yeah, but it's yeah, it's got great music,
Speaker 1: it's full of emotion, it's all that stuff, all right.
Speaker 1: It does not have a like an unknown assailant going
Speaker 1: around killing hands. It does not have like a needle
Speaker 1: killer who wears a trench coat and a hat. Now,
Speaker 1: of course there are jellow musicals, though, or at least there's.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, Folgi did one in particular. Um, yeah, there's
Speaker 1: the movie murder, Rock, dancing death, which which I have
Speaker 1: not seen, but you know it has, uh uh, Claudio
Speaker 1: Cassinelli's in it. So you know that. That that tells
Speaker 1: you something. It has music, it has stabbings, uh, you know,
Speaker 1: everything you could possibly want out of a luccio Fulci musical.
Speaker 1: I don't even know what to say about that. All right,
Speaker 1: we're gonna and call it right there. But with we
Speaker 1: thank everybody who wrote in for this episode and, yeah,
Speaker 1: and in general, we should remind everyone. Yeah, we we
Speaker 1: read all the emails that come in. We don't we
Speaker 1: don't have time to respond to everybody via email and
Speaker 1: we don't have have time to even use all of
Speaker 1: the emails on the show, but we greatly appreciate all
Speaker 1: the feedback, so keep it coming. If you have comments
Speaker 1: on recent episodes of stuff to blow your mind, future
Speaker 1: episodes of stuff to blow your mind, episodes of Weird
Speaker 1: House artifact, monster fact, other listener mail episodes, all of
Speaker 1: it is fair Games. So right in. We'd love to
Speaker 1: hear from you. Huge thanks, as always, to our excellent
Speaker 1: audio producer, Seth Nicholas Johnson. If you would like to
Speaker 1: get in touch with us with feedback on this episode
Speaker 1: or any other, to suggest a topic for the future
Speaker 1: or just to say hello, you can email us at
Speaker 1: contact at stuff to blow your mind dot com. Stuff
Speaker 1: to blow your mind is a production of I heart radio.
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