Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of
Speaker 1: My Heart Radio. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your
Speaker 1: Mind Listener mail. My name is Robert Lamb and my
Speaker 1: name is Joe McCormick. And it's Monday. That's the day
Speaker 1: of the week where we read back a few of
Speaker 1: the messages that you've sent in over the past cycle
Speaker 1: or two and we've got a good mail bag for
Speaker 1: you today. That's right. Um. You know, before we get going, though,
Speaker 1: quick call out to our producer, Seth Nicholas Johnson. A
Speaker 1: couple of things. First of all, he wanted us to uh,
Speaker 1: to to remind everything, to to tell everybody, not remind
Speaker 1: to to tell everyone that he has been enjoying the
Speaker 1: hot dog plus kim Chi combo, which was recommended in
Speaker 1: the previous listener mail by Jim from New Jersey. How
Speaker 1: could you go wrong? I mean it's like, I know,
Speaker 1: it's perfect without even tasting it. Yeah, it's a matchmate
Speaker 1: in heaven. Uh. And then second, secondly, as I think
Speaker 1: we've we've mentioned this before, but Seth Nicholas Johnson has
Speaker 1: his own podcast, Usty Needles Record Club, which you can
Speaker 1: find wherever you get your podcast, and he had an
Speaker 1: episode come out on Friday with a very special guest.
Speaker 1: Who's that special guest? Joe? Oh, it's me. I was
Speaker 1: on sets podcast last Friday. We talked about So if
Speaker 1: you haven't heard it, Uh, Seth's podcast is again. It's
Speaker 1: called Rusty Needles Record Club and it's sort of like
Speaker 1: a book club, but four albums, you know, but for
Speaker 1: music and so it's very low key. It's a lot
Speaker 1: of fun. And the album I picked for Seth show
Speaker 1: was the Batman Forever soundtrack from the ninety nineties. I mean,
Speaker 1: what else with Seals kiss from Arose on it? Oh?
Speaker 1: You know it is. It's got Seal, it's got a
Speaker 1: method man, it's got Nick Cave, it's got the Flaming Lips.
Speaker 1: It's all over the place. You two had a song
Speaker 1: in there, didn't they. You two? Yeah, it has a
Speaker 1: You two has a song so big it contains universes
Speaker 1: within it. Wow. All right. So if hearing Seth and
Speaker 1: me gab about the Batman Forever soundtrack sounds like you're
Speaker 1: kind of thing, look up Rusty Needles Record Club. It
Speaker 1: should be the most recent episode on the day this
Speaker 1: comes out. Yeah, And the podcast has a cartoon dog
Speaker 1: on the logo, so you know you're in the right spot.
Speaker 1: All right. Well, Rob, if you don't have anything else,
Speaker 1: I think I'm going to jump right in with this
Speaker 1: message from Virginia. Let's do it, okay. This is in
Speaker 1: response to our episodes on The Seven Day Week. Virginia
Speaker 1: rights Greetings. I'm Virginia and I'm Brazilian. This is my
Speaker 1: first time writing to you, and I apologize in advance
Speaker 1: for any grammatical errors in this email. First, I need
Speaker 1: to say I love this podcast and I always recommend
Speaker 1: it to everyone. It's perfect to practice my English listening.
Speaker 1: It's so very well produced and always very fun to listen. Well,
Speaker 1: thank you, Virginia. Virginia says, by the end of part
Speaker 1: one of The Seven Day Week, you talked about the
Speaker 1: theory about markets and fresh food. I always have this
Speaker 1: on my mind because of my language. In Portuguese, the
Speaker 1: days of the week are separated by work days and
Speaker 1: rest days. Monday to Friday is and I think this
Speaker 1: is in order. Segunda fara ter safarra quarta farra keen
Speaker 1: to farrah and sex to farrah. Fa in Portuguese is
Speaker 1: often used to describe a fair or an open market,
Speaker 1: so we have second fair to sixth fair, and then
Speaker 1: we have the rest days Sabodah and Domingo or DS Dominica,
Speaker 1: and that's of course Saturday and Sunday. I think those
Speaker 1: are the same names for the weekend days as they
Speaker 1: are in Spanish, or very close. Anyway, Virginia says, maybe
Speaker 1: this will add something. I don't know, but I've been
Speaker 1: thinking about writing you for a long time. Hope this
Speaker 1: information will be useful. Lastly, I really love episodes that
Speaker 1: involves such trivial things that people would never tend to
Speaker 1: think about them. Can't wait for part two. Ps. I
Speaker 1: really don't know why we don't have a first fair here. Well,
Speaker 1: thank you, Virginia. Yeah, that's very interesting. So to restate
Speaker 1: what she says in the email, Monday in Portuguese translates
Speaker 1: to second market and then Tuesday's third market, and it
Speaker 1: goes all the way through until Friday, which is six
Speaker 1: the market. So that would imply to me that Sunday
Speaker 1: is in fact first market or first fair. Though this
Speaker 1: would be kind of weird because of course, you know,
Speaker 1: Sunday is the Christian holy day going back many centuries,
Speaker 1: probably including the whole time in the development of Portuguese,
Speaker 1: so I don't know. I wonder what is behind that.
Speaker 1: And I also wonder about words for days of the
Speaker 1: week and other languages, and if they shed any light
Speaker 1: on on weird quirks of local cultural history that they
Speaker 1: emerged from. Yeah, this is this is very fascinating. I
Speaker 1: always enjoy it when when listeners from the around from
Speaker 1: around the world share their own, uh you know, local
Speaker 1: and or linguistic take on the topic. Alright, this next
Speaker 1: one comes to us from Will. Will says, Hi, Robert
Speaker 1: and Joe, thanks for the fascinating content. I enjoyed listening
Speaker 1: to the first episode of Seven Days of the Week.
Speaker 1: You have underlined that different people are likely to have
Speaker 1: different mental representations for days of the week. This made
Speaker 1: me think of my father, who was a recently retired
Speaker 1: Lutheran minister. For my dad, the weekend was a time
Speaker 1: of work, as this was when he was prepared to
Speaker 1: lead and leading the Sunday services, including finalizing and delivering
Speaker 1: his sermon. Thus, Sunday, the traditional day of rest, was
Speaker 1: for my father, a peak day of work, at least
Speaker 1: until about one pm, when he usually made it back
Speaker 1: to sit with the family for lunch. Because of this
Speaker 1: my father often called Sunday afternoon the quote start of
Speaker 1: his weekend. Thanks again for the stimulating material each week,
Speaker 1: look forward to part two from Zurich. Will oh, glad
Speaker 1: to hear from Zurich. So we've heard from both Brazil
Speaker 1: and Switzerland already. Yeah, you know, this is interesting because
Speaker 1: maybe this explains why the clubs and music halls are
Speaker 1: not full of of priests and preachers partying on Saturday night.
Speaker 1: They're buckling down to work for the for the Sunday
Speaker 1: morning sermon. Yeah, are they better not be partying? They
Speaker 1: have they have a big day. Aad though, it is
Speaker 1: a reminder that, you know what, you're gonna have a
Speaker 1: particular religious calendar in place. I imagine it's going to
Speaker 1: vary not only from faith to faith, but from denomination
Speaker 1: to denomination. You know, is this a is this a
Speaker 1: church where Sunday is the big day or is it
Speaker 1: a church where, oh, also Wednesday is really big or
Speaker 1: or either or there's just something going on pretty much
Speaker 1: every day of the week. So it's always it's always
Speaker 1: interesting to consider a different different models for the week
Speaker 1: that are tailored to a specific um line of work. Uh,
Speaker 1: you know, sometimes Monday is the weekend. I would be
Speaker 1: interested to see a study that ranks all of the
Speaker 1: Christian denominations by how much prep work on average the
Speaker 1: leader of the congregation has to do to get ready, Like,
Speaker 1: you know, which are the most intensive in terms of
Speaker 1: sermon writing and which are the most seat of the pants. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I have fond memories of the episcopal priest at my
Speaker 1: my church when I was when I was a kid, uh,
Speaker 1: putting together I feel like, really well written sermons, Like
Speaker 1: you know, he puts some work into him. They had
Speaker 1: themes and stuff that wouldn't come back and all that.
Speaker 1: I remember. There was one about James Bond, and I
Speaker 1: don't really the moral was, Yeah, somehow I think he
Speaker 1: tied back into the Gospel of Matthew. Well, you know,
Speaker 1: you gotta connect you It's it's always a struggle, right,
Speaker 1: you gotta find a way to connect with everybody, to
Speaker 1: to make the message relevant to today's listeners. And you know,
Speaker 1: and and so sometimes that means reference thing what everybody's
Speaker 1: excited about, being a you know, James Bond film or uh,
Speaker 1: you know, The Grinch or whatever it happens to be.
Speaker 1: It could be it was some kind of Bible lesson
Speaker 1: that tied into it. Possibly it was a movie tie
Speaker 1: in for the upcoming release of Golden I in the
Speaker 1: Night release with Pierce Brosnan, but I'm not sure. Okay.
Speaker 1: Next message is from frequent correspondent Jim and New Jersey See.
Speaker 1: Jim says Robert and Joe, I keep having a recurring
Speaker 1: thought about biological reasons for there to be seven days
Speaker 1: in the week. You've danced around the idea several times
Speaker 1: in referring to people using the week to mentally organized tasks.
Speaker 1: Is there any connection between seven days in the week
Speaker 1: and roughly seven short term memory chunks and human brains.
Speaker 1: People in cultures with low literacy would depend more upon
Speaker 1: memory in organizing and tracking short to medium term tasks.
Speaker 1: Most people would be able to manage a week's worth
Speaker 1: of activity in their heads at a time. Add a
Speaker 1: few more days to the week and you start to
Speaker 1: lose track. I have no evidence for this, but a
Speaker 1: quick Google search didn't reveal any resources confirming or contradicting
Speaker 1: this idea. Jim in New Jersey. Uh yeah, Jim, I
Speaker 1: would say, like the other biological hypotheses that we've mentioned,
Speaker 1: I mean, I feel like it would be hard to
Speaker 1: prove this is the origin of the week, but it's
Speaker 1: it's it's certainly an interesting idea. If you want to
Speaker 1: look up more about the idea of their being sort
Speaker 1: of seven chunks of short term memory, you can check
Speaker 1: out a classic paper in cognitive psychology. It's called the
Speaker 1: Magical number seven plus or minus two Some limits on
Speaker 1: our capacity for processing information. This was published in nineteen
Speaker 1: fifty six in Psychological Review by the famous Harvard psychologist
Speaker 1: George A. Miller, And if you want to have a full,
Speaker 1: well rounded understanding, you should look up the paper and
Speaker 1: then all the subsequent research adding to and critiquing it.
Speaker 1: But the massively abridged and simplified version is that Miller
Speaker 1: used a number of different tests to argue that the
Speaker 1: average person can typically hold in working memory about seven
Speaker 1: chunks of meaningful information at one time. And this general
Speaker 1: rule shows up in people's attempts to do things like
Speaker 1: repeat lists of items or manipulate simple pieces of information.
Speaker 1: But of course all the usual caveats. It's more complicated
Speaker 1: than that. In reality, it depends on a number of
Speaker 1: intrinsic and extrin sick factors and so forth. But I
Speaker 1: do think that you could be onto something, Jim, Because
Speaker 1: if seven is a good rough approximation of the average
Speaker 1: number of chunks of information that we can manage in
Speaker 1: working memory at one time, would that means seven is
Speaker 1: just a pretty good number of days to have in
Speaker 1: a week, because that's about as many days in advance
Speaker 1: as the average person would be able to think about
Speaker 1: without consulting written records. Yeah, that that makes sense to me. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: plus seven is the Holy number, James Bond is double O.
Speaker 1: Seven all comes together. Um. By the way, another shout
Speaker 1: out to Seth, our producer. Uh. In one of these episodes,
Speaker 1: we were asking the question, well, what are some horror franchises, uh,
Speaker 1: that have seven installments that you could, you know, spread
Speaker 1: out evenly throughout the week, and Uh, Seth researched this
Speaker 1: as he was editing the episode and pointed out that, uh,
Speaker 1: there are three that we can look to the as
Speaker 1: of this recording. There may be some subsequent films that
Speaker 1: come out of the change this, but he said, Paranormal Activity,
Speaker 1: the Amityville Horror and Wrong Turn. Wow, all of those
Speaker 1: hilarious wrong They just keep going in those woods. You'd
Speaker 1: think after the previous six massacres in the West Virginia woods.
Speaker 1: People would stop taking that wrong turn. They'd be like
Speaker 1: a sign up by that that put us put a
Speaker 1: sign up for God's sake. Yeah, I've never seen a
Speaker 1: single I don't think I've seen any of these movies.
Speaker 1: I haven't seen anything from all three of these franchises.
Speaker 1: I saw a number of the paranormal activity movies. They're all,
Speaker 1: you know, they're all demon hauntings. There's a demon possession
Speaker 1: and then you you know, like a camera gets set
Speaker 1: up in a room and and you see weird stuff
Speaker 1: happening behind a person's back and they're not aware of it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and you know, here's another thing that once they put
Speaker 1: that sign up, they have to make more of these,
Speaker 1: and they could just call it right turn. It's just
Speaker 1: about a family going on a normal vacation in West
Speaker 1: Virginia and uh and just skipping them. I'm assuming cannibalistic
Speaker 1: h rural dwellers altogether. That would be an interesting movie.
Speaker 1: It's about a group of backwoods cannibals who are trying
Speaker 1: to get people to come down the wrong term, but
Speaker 1: nobody ever comes, and we just follow them about their
Speaker 1: day to day lives. While they're sitting around waiting. All right,
Speaker 1: we have another one here. This one comes to us
Speaker 1: from Aiden. Aiden writes, Hi, Robert and Joe, I just
Speaker 1: listened to part two of the Seven Day Week series.
Speaker 1: In the episode, you mentioned the study using BART tests
Speaker 1: to look at risk aversion and it's correlation with mood
Speaker 1: throughout the week. Uh. Yeah, Now a quick refresher on
Speaker 1: that in case it's been a while since you listened,
Speaker 1: or you didn't listen yet. The BART test that Aiden
Speaker 1: is talking about, that's an acronym. It stands for Balloon
Speaker 1: Analog Risk Task and basically it is a simple computer
Speaker 1: game that is used to measure a person and his
Speaker 1: willingness to take risks. And also, uh, quickly on the
Speaker 1: results of that one study we looked at. They the
Speaker 1: authors found a pattern where people start fairly risk tolerant
Speaker 1: on Mondays, and then their risk tolerance goes down each
Speaker 1: day after that, reaching its lowest point on Thursdays, Thursdays
Speaker 1: the most cautious day, and then rebounding again on Fridays,
Speaker 1: with Friday looks a little bit more like Monday anyway,
Speaker 1: Aid continues. You point out that the correlation is consistent
Speaker 1: through the week, More sad equals less risk averse, except
Speaker 1: for Fridays. On Fridays, we would expect people to be
Speaker 1: happy and for risk aversion to go down, but instead
Speaker 1: it goes up. You considered a few different explanations for this,
Speaker 1: which I must admit we're not very compelling. The explanation
Speaker 1: that immediately came to mind for me is the fact
Speaker 1: that some poor soul had to spend their Friday night
Speaker 1: in a lab clicking a spacebar for pennies instead of
Speaker 1: doing something fun and or relaxing after a long week.
Speaker 1: I would be sad too if I had to bar
Speaker 1: tie instead of party on my Friday night. To the
Speaker 1: based emoticon that that is an illegal pun. As a
Speaker 1: side note, your description of the bart test exactly matched
Speaker 1: a personality test I had to do once as part
Speaker 1: of a job application process. There were a series of
Speaker 1: similarly simple games and scenarios that seemed to assess various
Speaker 1: personality metrics. I never heard back from the company, so
Speaker 1: I will never know if I lacked the right experience
Speaker 1: for the job or if it's simply my personality that
Speaker 1: got in the way. When I was job hunting at
Speaker 1: the time, it was always demoralizing to be rejected by
Speaker 1: a machine. Another online test I had to do automatically
Speaker 1: emailed me within seconds telling me I didn't meet their benchmarks.
Speaker 1: I'm not sure which of these outcomes is worse. Anyways,
Speaker 1: Thanks for another great episode, Hayden oh Aiden. I feel
Speaker 1: for you there. I mean, on from the employer's perspective,
Speaker 1: I can understand why they might use personality tests to
Speaker 1: to help them find the right kind of candidates, But
Speaker 1: I don't know from the applicants perspective, that's just brutal
Speaker 1: having something feels really awful about having to like play
Speaker 1: the balloon inflation test in order to get a job. Now,
Speaker 1: you know, we don't know exactly what job they were
Speaker 1: applying for here, so maybe this wasn't abstract at all.
Speaker 1: Maybe the job was inflating balloons with moneys and uh
Speaker 1: and doing so in a way where the balloon of
Speaker 1: money does not explode, but also is filled enough that
Speaker 1: you're not losing losing money on you know, all those giant,
Speaker 1: you know, balloon rubbers. Were you applying for a job
Speaker 1: as a professional gambler? But I agree, and I can
Speaker 1: see where that would be demoralizing too, to be rejected
Speaker 1: by a machine. All right. This next message comes from Selena,
Speaker 1: and it is also about the same study, with people
Speaker 1: being becoming more risk averse from Monday through Thursday, and
Speaker 1: then risk tolerance rebounding on Friday. Um Selena says that
Speaker 1: this pattern of behavior sounds like a pattern called scalloped
Speaker 1: responding In applied behavior analysis, this patterned behavior is typically
Speaker 1: produced by a fixed interval schedule of reinforcement. Behavior that
Speaker 1: happens closer in time to access to the reinforcer e g.
Speaker 1: Finish the work week slash access the weekend is more
Speaker 1: likely to be strengthened than behaviors that happened farther in
Speaker 1: time from the reinforcer. Once someone gains access to the reinforcer,
Speaker 1: it produces a post reinforcement pause in responding. Then, as
Speaker 1: the person anticipates access to the reinforcer, as it gets
Speaker 1: closer to the end of the fixed time interval i e.
Speaker 1: The work week, the previously reinforced behaviors start to ramp
Speaker 1: up again. Another example of fixed interval schedule of reinforcement
Speaker 1: is studying behavior for weekly tests or monthly exams. Well
Speaker 1: that's interesting, Selena, and I guess if I'm understanding you right.
Speaker 1: I think this would mean that there's a different kind
Speaker 1: of pattern going on than the than the explanation hypothesized
Speaker 1: by the researchers there. So, under this interpretation, if the
Speaker 1: pattern of risk tolerance observed in the study is generally sound,
Speaker 1: it might be explained by proximity to the weekend, you know,
Speaker 1: with the weekend offering some kind of behavioral reinforcing mechanism
Speaker 1: that causes us to take risks, rather than you know,
Speaker 1: improving mood from Monday to Thursday causing increased aversion to risks.
Speaker 1: So maybe it has nothing to do with mood. All right,
Speaker 1: here's another one. This one comes to us from Samantha. Hello, Rob, Joe,
Speaker 1: and Seth. I wanted to write in about my experience
Speaker 1: with confusing days of the week with each other. I'm
Speaker 1: a college student and my schedule has a typical division
Speaker 1: into Monday, Wednesday, Friday days, and Tuesday Thursday days. I
Speaker 1: tend to have the same set classes on Monday, Wednesday, Friday,
Speaker 1: and then a different set of classes on Tuesday Thursday.
Speaker 1: Even within that, I have different labs that happen on
Speaker 1: different days. None of my week days are identical. Uh.
Speaker 1: This this just makes me anxious even reading this, because
Speaker 1: I feel like I still have dreams about this sort
Speaker 1: of thing. Oh yeah, So my college classes were organized
Speaker 1: along the same scheme. I mean, with some exceptions. I
Speaker 1: had some of that were just like one long weekly
Speaker 1: Wednesday night class or something. Um, you didn't you have
Speaker 1: that mid morning Tuesday Thursday class that you didn't cancel that?
Speaker 1: Did you? You? You just stopped going oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: yeah yeah. Did you have rob? Did you ever do
Speaker 1: the thing where I think I tried this at least
Speaker 1: one semester, where you tried to get all of your
Speaker 1: week's classes into the Tuesday Thursday days and you basically
Speaker 1: have five days off but Tuesdays and Thursdays are just nuts. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I think I did something along those lines. Or God,
Speaker 1: it's it's been so long, but I remember sort of scheming.
Speaker 1: I don't know if it worked out, um, but I
Speaker 1: can't imagine that would have been a good idea to
Speaker 1: just try and just slam everything under those two days
Speaker 1: and thursdays. I think I basically did that one semester,
Speaker 1: but it didn't actually work out great because of a
Speaker 1: because at the time I sort of had a tendency
Speaker 1: to procrastinate, and like, you can't procrastinate if you're if
Speaker 1: you're cramming all of your stuff into being due on
Speaker 1: basically the same day. Yeah, yeah, I was. I was
Speaker 1: very much the same way anyway, Samantha continues. Despite it
Speaker 1: being very important that I know what day of the
Speaker 1: week it is, it is not unusual for me to
Speaker 1: be getting ready in the morning and have no idea
Speaker 1: what class I will be heading to later. Keep my
Speaker 1: whole schedule in my phone, however, so I can often
Speaker 1: check that and know which classes I have that day.
Speaker 1: I wonder if this has to do with the fact
Speaker 1: that I have my calendar in my phone. Why I
Speaker 1: bother to remember what day of the week it is
Speaker 1: When I can check my phone at any given moment
Speaker 1: and see that I have chemistry at ten am. My
Speaker 1: classes start at the same time every day, so I
Speaker 1: suppose that helps blend the days together as well. Thanks
Speaker 1: for reading. I love your show. You guys keep me
Speaker 1: company while I crochet and net Samantha, Well, thanks, Samantha. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's a good question. Is our perception of time and
Speaker 1: calendar consciousness affected by ease of access to uh? I
Speaker 1: don't know. Uh date confirming devices. Yeah. I mean, we've
Speaker 1: certainly looked at similar data about our ability to sort
Speaker 1: of offload things to other minds and of course machines,
Speaker 1: so it seems entirely plausible. All right, Rob, should we
Speaker 1: wrap up with one message about Weird House cinema? This?
Speaker 1: This one is about snooker, So I feel like I
Speaker 1: must defer to you and let you read it. Okay, Yeah,
Speaker 1: we we We heard from at least a couple of
Speaker 1: listeners regarding uh ability to kid in the Green Days Vampire,
Speaker 1: So here we go. This comes to us from Kinney, Hi,
Speaker 1: Rob and Joe. Growing up in the UK when there
Speaker 1: were only four channels, you unfortunately had to endure a
Speaker 1: lot of snooker on TV. Scintillating entertainment for a nine
Speaker 1: year old, it was not I did, however, absorb the
Speaker 1: rules pretty well, despite only getting to play once or
Speaker 1: two ice in the intervening years. Every time you pocket
Speaker 1: a red you can pocket a colored ball. Since the
Speaker 1: balls all have different values, the best one to go for,
Speaker 1: if you can get it, would be the black. While
Speaker 1: there are still red balls on the table, the other
Speaker 1: colors are replaced on their starting spots each time they
Speaker 1: are sunk. Once all the reds are gone, the remaining
Speaker 1: colors can be sunk, but this must be done in
Speaker 1: ascending order of value, finishing with the black. This is
Speaker 1: why the Green Bay's vampire is repeatedly going for the black,
Speaker 1: and why it's seemingly always being replaced. Also about the
Speaker 1: luminous waistcoats, I think you call them vests. In the USA,
Speaker 1: the formal attire for a professional match would be spiced
Speaker 1: up with a bit of color, and I seem to
Speaker 1: remember that the younger, cooler players could be pretty flamboyant. Finally,
Speaker 1: I was confused by the green stamps or tickets reference.
Speaker 1: I am not sure it refers to money, as our
Speaker 1: bank notes aren't green. Only the single was green, and
Speaker 1: these guys wouldn't think of a one pound note as
Speaker 1: being worth singing about. It was also completely withdrawn from use,
Speaker 1: at least in England. In anyway, I hope that this
Speaker 1: shed some light on the topic. Kenny Well, Thanks Kenny Well. Okay,
Speaker 1: so a couple of notes on the things you bring
Speaker 1: up here. The luminous waistcoats line, if nobody remembers what
Speaker 1: that was. That was when the Green Bays vampire is
Speaker 1: complaining about how about how the young people in in
Speaker 1: Snooker are no longer you know, fancy, posh, rich people
Speaker 1: like him. They're coming in wearing wearing gaudy clothes and stuff.
Speaker 1: And and one of the things he says is luminous waistcoats.
Speaker 1: I think that comes right before he says one of
Speaker 1: them has green hair. Yes, And then the green stamps
Speaker 1: thing is the very first song in the movie is
Speaker 1: called green Stamps. And we were trying to figure out
Speaker 1: what it was about, and we honestly couldn't. It seems
Speaker 1: to be about money. But yeah, Kenny's note is good
Speaker 1: here because I don't I don't think the cash at
Speaker 1: the time was green. Yeah, based on this after reading
Speaker 1: Kenney's email, I did a little more research and um,
Speaker 1: it looked a little deeper and I think this is
Speaker 1: my guest. I think they must be referencing green shield stamps. Um.
Speaker 1: According to Wikipedia quote, green shield stamps was a British
Speaker 1: sales promotion scheme that rewarded shoppers with stamps that could
Speaker 1: be used to buy gifts from a catalog or from
Speaker 1: any affiliated retailer. Uh. They apparently were referenced in songs
Speaker 1: by Genesis and Jethrow Toll, So you know this would
Speaker 1: not this this show and this song would not be
Speaker 1: isolated in referencing green Stamps. Though, um, I'm guessing you know,
Speaker 1: I would have to go back and listen to the
Speaker 1: song a bit more to maybe try and get it.
Speaker 1: But maybe they're they're trying to talk about green stamps
Speaker 1: and you know, sort of using that to, uh to
Speaker 1: to further flesh out this idea of sort of the
Speaker 1: via the nineteen eighties rat race of trying to get
Speaker 1: ahead in this London, you know, sub world. Yeah, maybe
Speaker 1: I don't know. I mean, the song really does seem
Speaker 1: to be about money, like that's what you get from
Speaker 1: all the visuals and all that. But but yeah, I
Speaker 1: I really don't know what to make of this. Uh.
Speaker 1: The alternate explanation I was thinking of was, Okay, if
Speaker 1: you go with the post apocalyptic interpretation where they're living
Speaker 1: in an underground system of of of bunkers and tunnels,
Speaker 1: maybe it's like, you know, the green stamps or the
Speaker 1: in world currency that you have to use to buy
Speaker 1: oxygen from Cohagen or whatever. There seems to be a
Speaker 1: song by someone named Alan Sherman called green stamps as well.
Speaker 1: Uh so I don't know this is I mean, this
Speaker 1: is I guess was just a common cultural reference at
Speaker 1: the time. I guess, And my only guess is that
Speaker 1: there's somehow supposed to be a critique of sort of
Speaker 1: uh Thatcher era capitalism in England. But if anyone out
Speaker 1: there has more information, maybe you're a big you know,
Speaker 1: Genesis fan or Jethrow toll head, you can ride in
Speaker 1: and uh and let us know more about green stamps. No,
Speaker 1: we do not want to hear from the tull heads.
Speaker 1: I'm just kidding. All all fans welcome. All right, We're
Speaker 1: gonna go and wrap it up here, but we will
Speaker 1: be back next Monday with more listener mail, So keep
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Speaker 1: us have it. Um Our core episodes published on Tuesdays
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Speaker 1: form artifact or monster fact episode. On Friday's we do
Speaker 1: Weird Out Cinema. That's our time to discuss a strange film.
Speaker 1: And on the weekends we have a rerun a Vault episode.
Speaker 1: Huge thanks, as always to our excellent audio producer Seth
Speaker 1: Nicholas Johnson. If you would like to get in touch
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