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

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Speaker 1: My Heart Radio. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind.

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Speaker 1: Listener mail This is Robert Lamb and this is Joe McCormick,

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Speaker 1: a candidates. Monday, the day of the week, we read

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Speaker 1: back some messages from the mail bag that you have

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Speaker 1: sent into our show account. If you've never tried it before,

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Speaker 1: you can get in touch with us at contact at

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Speaker 1: stuff to Blow your Mind dot com. Whatever you want

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Speaker 1: to send. This fair game. If you just want to

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Speaker 1: share something interesting, if you want to have feedback on

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Speaker 1: another episode, or you just want to say hi, tell

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Speaker 1: us your thoughts about the show anytime, right in? All right, Rob,

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Speaker 1: I'm going to kick us off today with this message

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Speaker 1: about our series on whistling from Renata. All right, go

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Speaker 1: for it, Renata says hi, Rob, Seth and Joe. Sorry

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Speaker 1: for the late response to the whistling episodes. Have you

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Speaker 1: ever wondered how many Ripperton and Mariah Carey hit those

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Speaker 1: glass shattering high notes. They do it by going into

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Speaker 1: the whistle register, which is physiologically distinct from other sounds

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Speaker 1: made with the vocal cords. As far as I can tell,

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Speaker 1: it's called the whistle register. Only because it sounds similar

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Speaker 1: to a whistle, but is also physiologically distinct from a whistle.

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Speaker 1: According to miscellaneous YouTube videos, the whistle register is achieved

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Speaker 1: by clamping shut a large portion of your vocal cords

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Speaker 1: and only allowing air through a tiny hole. Apparently, babies

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Speaker 1: and small children make this noise effortlessly when they scream

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Speaker 1: and cry. But something about learning language causes us to

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Speaker 1: find producing this sound less natural as we age. Have

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Speaker 1: I tried doing it? Yes? Did it sound molefluous? No?

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Speaker 1: It also hurt a little afterwards. This makes me all

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Speaker 1: the more impressed with singers who have the practice and

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Speaker 1: controlled use this range on a regular basis and make

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Speaker 1: it sound effortless. Thanks for making me think deeply about

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Speaker 1: seemingly mundane topics. Best renata renata, Yeah, this is interesting.

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Speaker 1: I don't know that much about Mariah Carey, though I

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Speaker 1: think I can hear in her song is kind of

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Speaker 1: going into a pitch above normal soprano. But yeah, many

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Speaker 1: reportson is great. You can hear her using the whistle

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Speaker 1: register on that single. Everybody probably knows Loving You, that's

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Speaker 1: the one with line you Loving you is easy because

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Speaker 1: you're beautiful? Uh? Robbi I attached a link if you're

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Speaker 1: not familiar with this song. But yeah, there is a

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Speaker 1: moment where you can hear her go from kind of

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Speaker 1: regular soprano voice to to the whistle register. That's kind

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Speaker 1: of hard to describe, except that it is higher than

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Speaker 1: even the normal high singing voice of a soprano singer,

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Speaker 1: and many repretend famous for having an extremely wide range

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Speaker 1: of octaves that different notes she could hit. One thing

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Speaker 1: I didn't realize until I was looking her up just

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Speaker 1: before this. Uh, Mini Repurton was the mother of the

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Speaker 1: comedian Maya Rudolph, and that's why apparently at the end

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Speaker 1: of the song loving You you hear her sing Maya,

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Speaker 1: Maya Maya. That's about her daughter, Maya Rudolph. Oh, I

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Speaker 1: didn't realize that. I mean, this is a great song.

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Speaker 1: I'm familiar with it, and of course and I like

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Speaker 1: Maya Rudolph's work as well. But interesting. Huh So anyway,

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Speaker 1: thanks for Nata. All right, here's uh we will see

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Speaker 1: some We'll see some listener mail from from folks in

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Speaker 1: uh response to our episode on fun and So we

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Speaker 1: heard from Jim in New Jersey. Jim in New Jersey

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Speaker 1: writes it and says Robert, Joe and Seth. At the

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Speaker 1: end of your third installment on Fun, you mentioned how

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Speaker 1: to make exercise more fun. This reminded me of a

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Speaker 1: Freakonomics episode entitled When will Power Isn't Enough. It featured

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Speaker 1: Katherine Milkman, associate professor at the University of Pennsylvania. From

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Speaker 1: the podcast. This is a direct quote from Milkman in

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Speaker 1: the in the podcast quote, So I struggle at the

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Speaker 1: end of a long day to get myself to the gym,

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Speaker 1: even though I know I should go. And at the

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Speaker 1: end of a long day, I also struggle with the

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Speaker 1: desire to watch my favorite TV shows instead of getting

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Speaker 1: work done. And so I actually realized that those two temptations,

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Speaker 1: those two struggles I faced, could be combined to solve

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Speaker 1: both problems. Jim continues. She calls the technique temptation bundling.

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Speaker 1: Milkman continues, quote, what I realized is that if I

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Speaker 1: only allowed myself to watch my favorite TV shows while

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Speaker 1: exercising at the gym, then I'd stop wasting time at

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Speaker 1: home on useless television, and I'd start craving trips to

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Speaker 1: the gym at the end of the long day because

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Speaker 1: I'd want to find out what happens next in my show,

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Speaker 1: and not only that, I'd actually enjoy my workout and

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Speaker 1: my show more combined, I wouldn't feel guilty watching TV,

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Speaker 1: and time would fly while I was at the gym.

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Speaker 1: So when I talk about temptation bundling, I mean combining

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Speaker 1: a temptation something like a TV show, a guilty pleasure,

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Speaker 1: something that will pull you into engaging in a behavior

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Speaker 1: with something you know you should do but might struggle

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Speaker 1: to do. Jim in New Jersey, Oh yeah, thanks, Jim. Uh,

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Speaker 1: this is interesting, and I know we have heard from

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Speaker 1: listener is describing this exact same thing, maybe not with

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Speaker 1: the terminology of tem temptation bundling, but telling us that

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Speaker 1: they listen to our show when they, for example, do

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Speaker 1: dishes as a motivation to make themselves do the dishes.

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Speaker 1: I think this is a common thing people do with

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Speaker 1: their podcasts, right, like you set it aside for like

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Speaker 1: when you need to do chores or something else. Yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 1: that's that's interesting. It reminds me a little bit of,

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Speaker 1: you know, something like flying, where I'm not a huge

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Speaker 1: fan of flying, but sometimes I can get sort of

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Speaker 1: I'll sort of say, well, okay, flying is the time

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Speaker 1: where there's nothing else to do but to like, I

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Speaker 1: have free license to just to you know, to watch something,

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Speaker 1: to play a game on my phone, to read whatever.

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Speaker 1: Whatever I'm gonna do, I have license to do it

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Speaker 1: during the flight because it will make the flight easier.

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Speaker 1: It's not quite the same as temptation bundling. I guess, um,

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Speaker 1: My main exercises are swimming in yoga, and it's really

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Speaker 1: it's either not wise or improper to try and temptation

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Speaker 1: bundle any of those things. Uh. I get, you can

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Speaker 1: get you can get specialized underwater earbuds and so forth

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Speaker 1: to listen to music while while swimming. But I don't

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Speaker 1: think I could really follow a podcast or something or

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Speaker 1: an audiobook while swimming. But that's just me. If you

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Speaker 1: fill a swimming pool with sugary soda that you want

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Speaker 1: to drink but you know you shouldn't, and then you

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Speaker 1: can take a few gulps while you're doing your laps,

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Speaker 1: I guess. So yeah, it's I guess it tends to

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Speaker 1: work better with like stationary exercise equipment, often with that

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Speaker 1: built in screen. Like you were saying, yeah, I think

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Speaker 1: you were talking about watching television Preachers or evangelists. Yeah

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Speaker 1: on the screen there that's my vice. But temptation, Bunny,

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Speaker 1: that's it's worth worth thinking about. Like, I like this concept. Okay.

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Speaker 1: This next message is also in response to Fun and

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Speaker 1: this is from Lex, like says Joe Robin Seth. Loved

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Speaker 1: your episodes on Fun and always enjoy listening to the show.

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Speaker 1: I would consider myself a fun Efficiana know, and your

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Speaker 1: discussion of fund in the workplace reminded me of a

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Speaker 1: previous employer. At this workplace, there was an anonymous person

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Speaker 1: who is designated as the Minister of Fun. While I

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Speaker 1: love the concept, it was not always effective. For example,

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Speaker 1: when there were busy stretches, the Minister of Fun or

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Speaker 1: m o F might go silent and thereby add to

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Speaker 1: the collective existential dread of the humdrum of work. Additionally,

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Speaker 1: the activities may not appeal to all members of the team,

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Speaker 1: fostering more division than connectivity. Uh and and as you said,

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Speaker 1: the activity maybe time or labor intensive, adding to the

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Speaker 1: stress of work. Yeah, it's difficult when you're you're you're

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Speaker 1: under under a deadline and then also somebody's trying to

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Speaker 1: make you play a game. Lex goes on However, in

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Speaker 1: a less stressful work environment like the one I'm in now,

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Speaker 1: I think that the value of an anonymous fund master

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Speaker 1: is high. It also removes some of the infantilizing connotations

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Speaker 1: of having the boss force feed fund I cannot help

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Speaker 1: but think about Michael Scott's strong, arming employees and having fun.

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Speaker 1: Of course that's on the office, like making everyone go

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Speaker 1: to the Dundee Awards banquet despite very little genuine interest

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Speaker 1: thanks for the hours of fantastic content. Lex I could

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Speaker 1: see this idea. So it's not that the boss is

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Speaker 1: planning games and stuff. It's a an anonymous, maybe randomly

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Speaker 1: chosen one of the employees whose duty it is to

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Speaker 1: to make some fun that that day. It is interesting

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Speaker 1: that this it's mentioned that this is an anonymous person.

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Speaker 1: Um Like, it sounds like it's possibly official. But also

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Speaker 1: you could imagine an anonymous minister fund could almost be

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Speaker 1: like vigilante fun person and then in the office and yeah,

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Speaker 1: and of course that could be seen as dangerous by

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Speaker 1: the powers that be, uh like, because this is like

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Speaker 1: pure organic fun. Who is the anonymous fun meister who

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Speaker 1: is devising what is fun in the office? And is

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Speaker 1: that fun? Like too critical of the mission statement, and

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Speaker 1: so forth. Or it could be like which one which

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Speaker 1: one of us is secretly ratting to the boss that

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Speaker 1: I'm not having fun? All right? This next one comes

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Speaker 1: to us from Adam. This was in response to both

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Speaker 1: Are Fun Episode episodes and the Paragraphs episodes. Adam writes, Hi,

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Speaker 1: Robert and Joe, I love your show because I'm consistently

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Speaker 1: excited that you were covering a topic that I myself

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Speaker 1: would want to cover if I had my own podcast.

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Speaker 1: So thank you for letting me outsource my curiosity to you.

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Speaker 1: It's an excellent hands. I'm reaching out because I am

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Speaker 1: able to share a book recommendation based on one of

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Speaker 1: your conversations. In the paragraph part two, Robert mentioned the

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Speaker 1: short story collection The Voice Imitator by the brilliant Austrian

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Speaker 1: novelist Thomas Bernhardt, who is known for extended paragraphs. I

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Speaker 1: particularly love his novels Gargoyles two four pages, Wittgenstein's Nephew

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Speaker 1: You hundred and six pages, and The Loser a hundred

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Speaker 1: and ninety pages. If I'm not mistaken, all consists of singular,

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Speaker 1: unbroken paragraphs. Joe said that he dreaded the idea of

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Speaker 1: reading never ending chunks of prose. But Bernhardt turns this

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Speaker 1: horror into a form of art that is truly transcended.

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Speaker 1: If you have the patience and commitment to taking the

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Speaker 1: work on its own terms, that's fascinating. I really this

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Speaker 1: is a book that had been on my shelf for

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Speaker 1: a while, and I had not picked it up in

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Speaker 1: a while, and I hadn't really looked into the author

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Speaker 1: um beyond the voice imitator. So this is this is

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Speaker 1: interesting to learn a bit, a little bit more about

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Speaker 1: this this author. It's not just a choice for that work.

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Speaker 1: It's like a consistent style for this guy. Yeah, I

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Speaker 1: gotta respect that, all right. Um Adam continues here on

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Speaker 1: another note, I was thinking about what makes creative work

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Speaker 1: fun when I was listening to your episode on the

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Speaker 1: topic in your The Nature of Fun episodes, and for me,

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Speaker 1: Monty Python immediately comes to mind. In particular, I frequently

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Speaker 1: recalled particular scenes that bring a smile to my heart,

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Speaker 1: such as the Bridge of Death scene in The Holy Grail.

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Speaker 1: You're comment about humor deriving often from the resolution of

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Speaker 1: incongruities in the Psyche resonated with me and help me

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Speaker 1: understand why I keep going back to it in my mind.

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Speaker 1: They take a trope answering riddles to avoid supernatural death

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Speaker 1: and bridge trolls of fairy tale lore and turned it

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Speaker 1: on its head. The central incongruity concerns the difficulty of

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Speaker 1: the questions. Comically, Sir Galahad can't answer the simple third

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Speaker 1: question about his favorite color. Later author's third question about

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Speaker 1: the air speed velocity of an unladen swallow seems impossible,

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Speaker 1: but then the role is reversed uh when he knows

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Speaker 1: more about sparrows than the Riddler, who then is hoisted

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Speaker 1: by his own petard, paying the price for his own

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Speaker 1: hypocritical ignorance. There's so much going on here, but twelve

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Speaker 1: year old me only got about forty of it. On

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Speaker 1: a conscious level. All I knew was it was a

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Speaker 1: ton of fun that I could keep returning to as

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Speaker 1: my friends and I called back to it in our

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Speaker 1: in jokes repeatedly for years. Get back to your thoughts

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Speaker 1: about incongruity. This joke is a masterpiece, and that it

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Speaker 1: has multiple twists and turns. They create a spring loading

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Speaker 1: effect that pays off fantastically well. When the incongruities are

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Speaker 1: resolved by the bridgekeeper's death, which follows the deaths of

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Speaker 1: Robin and Sir Galahad, But one incongruity remains unresolved. What

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Speaker 1: is the air speed velocity of an unladen African swallow

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Speaker 1: and how does it compare to that of the European variety?

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Speaker 1: We may never know. Thanks for the amazing work you

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Speaker 1: guys do weekend and week out, Adam. I think you're

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Speaker 1: right about all that, Adam. That seems a classic for

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Speaker 1: a reason is almost a perfectly structured piece of comedy.

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Speaker 1: All right, we got another message about our episodes on

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Speaker 1: the paragraph. This is from somebody who wants to defend

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Speaker 1: the honor of the pill crow as a as a

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Speaker 1: useful symbol. Uh. And it's from a listener who wanted

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Speaker 1: to remain anonymous. She asked simply to be called a

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Speaker 1: woman in stem I think because she ends up potentially

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Speaker 1: implicating her boss in the message. So uh, listener says,

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Speaker 1: I love the show. I've been listening for nearly a decade.

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Speaker 1: Now you are the only original show I'm still auto downloading,

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Speaker 1: So I hope you know how special that makes you. Sorry,

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Speaker 1: this is lagging so far behind the topic, but here

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Speaker 1: goes on paragraphs in the workplace in a business environment.

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Speaker 1: My three favorite paragraphs each consist of one word yes, no,

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Speaker 1: and okay. And then in this next paragraph, I think

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Speaker 1: this is referring to the conversation we had about how

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Speaker 1: a lot of good writing doesn't just explain what the

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Speaker 1: author thinks, but shows you how the author thinks. So

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Speaker 1: it kind of takes you along a path of the

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Speaker 1: author getting to a thought within their own brain. But

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Speaker 1: this listener here says bad writing also sadly displays the

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Speaker 1: author's thinking. However, rambling, disordered and oblivious to the interest, need,

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Speaker 1: or expertise level of the reader, and a complete lack

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Speaker 1: of respect for the reader's time. I suffer a barrage

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Speaker 1: of daily emails from one or more coworkers guilty of

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Speaker 1: all the above sins, combined with a refusal to edit,

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Speaker 1: and egos sufficient to believe anyone cares what they think

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Speaker 1: based on the list of c C is generally attached. Unfortunately,

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Speaker 1: I report to one of the offenders, so I cannot

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Speaker 1: just ignore them completely. Yeah, they're I think there are

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Speaker 1: a lot of jobs where the the email is copious

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Speaker 1: and uh and and not as well edited as it

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Speaker 1: could be, but the message goes on. I wanted to

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Speaker 1: close with a defense of the humble pill crow symbol

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Speaker 1: in word. Remember this is the symbol that denotes a

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Speaker 1: paragraph break. If you have accidentally turned it on and

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Speaker 1: desperately tried to turn it off, you are not it's

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Speaker 1: intended audience, But as someone who makes their living converting

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Speaker 1: random text documents into data, it is invaluable. Definitely, it

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Speaker 1: identifies where the line breaks are with paragraph marks, but

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Speaker 1: it does much more. Turning the pill crow symbol on

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Speaker 1: has helped me identify hidden white space, weird extra characters,

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Speaker 1: and all sorts of surprise nonsense that is sometimes lurking

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Speaker 1: unseen in documents that can be treated as text. These

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Speaker 1: extra symbols inhibit your ability to treat portions of text

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Speaker 1: as data fields. This is very important for any business

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Speaker 1: process that turns out the same file format over and

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Speaker 1: over that has then written to individual files. Only a

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Speaker 1: computer has time to read all the files and find

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Speaker 1: all the matching data fields, store them in a database,

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Speaker 1: and produce a nice, usable summary report for the end users.

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Speaker 1: And then if you read this on air, please call

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Speaker 1: me a woman in stem since I called out my

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Speaker 1: boss and don't know who else at the office might

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Speaker 1: be listening. Looking forward to listening for another decade or more.

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Speaker 1: Uh a woman in stem Uh. So, yeah, thanks for

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Speaker 1: the message. I can absolutely see how Yeah, I think

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Speaker 1: the story was that I remember that time when I

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Speaker 1: was a kid and I accidentally turned on the paragraph

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Speaker 1: markers on on Microsoft Word and then I was like, ah,

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Speaker 1: what what are all these symbols? But yeah, if you

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Speaker 1: if you're trying to avoid confusion and make sure you're

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Speaker 1: just getting the relevant text and not extra stuff, that's

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Speaker 1: that's very helpful. All right. This next one comes to

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Speaker 1: us from Keith when it has and it has the

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Speaker 1: title Crabs. Uh. You know, we we frequently come back

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Speaker 1: to crabs on the show. We love a good crab story,

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Speaker 1: we love crab movies and and so forth. So Keith

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Speaker 1: writes in and says, first time a long time. I've

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Speaker 1: been saving up some Pokemon comments for when I had

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Speaker 1: a nice cash to send you, but I just got

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Speaker 1: knocked off my feet by House of the Dragon, so

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Speaker 1: I'll drop one right now. When I listened to your

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Speaker 1: Crab series, the hairy crabs excited me because they must

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Speaker 1: have been an inspiration for the Pokemon Crabominable. Uh. And

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Speaker 1: then there's a picture attached to here and you can

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Speaker 1: pull this up. You can also look up crabominable in

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Speaker 1: various Pokemon databases, and it is indeed a beautiful beast.

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Speaker 1: I don't think I've asked my son about this one,

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Speaker 1: but uh yeah, beautiful, beautiful creature here. Wooly crab Pokemon

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Speaker 1: is the species. But does this crab not have claws

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Speaker 1: that where the clothes would be. I see like almost

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Speaker 1: what looks like flowers with the kind of ball in

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Speaker 1: the middle. Well, and so many of these creatures they

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Speaker 1: are hybrids. Uh you know, they are monsters. They are

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Speaker 1: pocket monsters at the end of the day, and therefore

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Speaker 1: there there are a lot of chimeras in the mix.

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Speaker 1: I would have concerns about putting this creature in my pocket. Anyway,

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Speaker 1: they continue. I do wish that the in game explanations

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Speaker 1: were as interesting as the real crabs, but I suppose

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Speaker 1: it is a game designed to keep kids engage, not

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Speaker 1: adult nerds. House of the Dragon, on the other hand,

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Speaker 1: is very much not for kids and spoiler light. Episode

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Speaker 1: two begins with a horrifying shot of humans being eaten

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Speaker 1: alive by crabs as the surf licks their legs. It's

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Speaker 1: gnarly stuff, so view at your own risk, but I

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Speaker 1: was curious about your take on the prospect these crabs

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Speaker 1: even seem to nestle in the flesh of their victims.

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Speaker 1: I have been a fan since the days when Christian

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Speaker 1: was a co host, and I love how you keep

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Speaker 1: the show fresh and exciting all these years. In Thanks

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Speaker 1: for all the content and movie recommendations, Keith. Thanks Keith.

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Speaker 1: Always welcome more crab content. People out there. You've got

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Speaker 1: interesting stuff about crabs, send it on in Well. I

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Speaker 1: am current on the House of the Dragon. I've been

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Speaker 1: watching it and yes there this is not really a

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Speaker 1: spoiler at all, but there is a character that's introduced

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Speaker 1: that is like a pirate lord that's threatening the realm

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Speaker 1: and is he's called the crab Feeder, and he's this

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Speaker 1: horrific looking individual with like copious sunburns and also this

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Speaker 1: weird mask, uh mysterious. You don't know much about him,

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Speaker 1: but after they defeat a particular enemy, they stake everybody

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Speaker 1: to the shore like basically like crucifying them in some cases,

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Speaker 1: and they let the crabs crawl on them, sometimes dumple

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Speaker 1: a few crabs on them just to be sure. And

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Speaker 1: the crabs start eating them. So the question did occur

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Speaker 1: to me because we've talked about crabs eating people before.

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Speaker 1: That's the kind of show we we are, and so

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Speaker 1: I was wondering, It's like, well, would crabs really be

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Speaker 1: up for this or they be turned off? Would they

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Speaker 1: Would they be far more inclined to eat these people

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Speaker 1: after they had died. Uh? I tend to think that's

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Speaker 1: the case. Yeah. I would tend to think crabs in

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Speaker 1: the real world tend to be more scavengers than than

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Speaker 1: hunters of large prey. I mean, when they are hunters,

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Speaker 1: I think they're they're grabbing it stuff smaller than them.

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Speaker 1: I don't know for sure, but it seems very unlikely

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Speaker 1: to me that that crabs would be trying to eat

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Speaker 1: like a human sized animal that was capable of moving. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: So unless there's a specialized species or ray of species

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Speaker 1: in West roast Um, I would tend to say that

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Speaker 1: this is just some some grotesque of fantastic dreaming here.

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Speaker 1: But I love that they included it. It was still

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Speaker 1: it's it's at the end of the day, it's crabs

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Speaker 1: eating people, So it's it's kind of fun um and

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Speaker 1: it's a good year for that sort of thing, because

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Speaker 1: the season three of Love Death Robots has a wonderful episode,

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Speaker 1: horrific episode titled Bad Traveling that that is centered around

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Speaker 1: a monstrous crab that takes over a ship. So if

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Speaker 1: you like your crab monsters, especially you're talking crab monsters,

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Speaker 1: that's definitely an episode to check out. That one, uh

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Speaker 1: I believe was Yeah, it's a bit based on a

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Speaker 1: short story by Neil Asher, and uh it was adapted.

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Speaker 1: The screenplay was adapted by Andrew Kevin Walker, So that's

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Speaker 1: pretty cool, all right. On that crab note, we will

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Speaker 1: go ahead and close out this episode of Stuff to

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Speaker 1: Blow Your Mind listener Mail, but we'd love to hear

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Speaker 1: from you out there. Do you have crab related thoughts

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Speaker 1: to past episodes of Stuff to Blow Your Mind, crab

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Speaker 1: related thoughts to Weird House cinema, uh, crab related thoughts

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Speaker 1: to any of our episodes right in, We'd love to

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Speaker 1: hear from you, and we'll read your your email on

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Speaker 1: a future episode of Stuff to Blow Your Mind. Uh

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Speaker 1: crab based listener mail, which thanks as always to our

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Speaker 1: excellent audio producer Seth Nicholas Johnson. If you would like

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Speaker 1: to get in touch with us with feedback on this

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Speaker 1: episode or any other, to suggest a topic for the future,

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Speaker 1: or just to say hello. You can email us at

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Speaker 1: contact at stuff to Blow your Mind dot com. Stuff

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Speaker 1: to Blow Your Mind is a production of I Heart Radio.

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Speaker 1: For more podcasts for my heart Radio, visit the i

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Speaker 1: heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to

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Speaker 1: your favorite shows.