Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Hey you welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind listener mail.
Speaker 2: This is Robert Lamb.
Speaker 3: And this is Joe McCormick. And hey everybody, we are
Speaker 3: back after being out for a week. You know, we
Speaker 3: have an auspicious beginning here because, as our producer JJ
Speaker 3: just let us know, we began this recording session at
Speaker 3: the exact moment that Agent Dale Cooper enters Twin Peaks
Speaker 3: at the beginning of the series. This is February twenty fourth,
Speaker 3: eleven thirty am. So I don't know what to make
Speaker 3: of that, but maybe off to get some pie today.
Speaker 2: All right, well, let's go ahead and jump into some
Speaker 2: listener mail here. We've got some really good ones, a
Speaker 2: number of listener mail pieces devoted to our episodes on
Speaker 2: Cotton Candy. But first, this one comes to us from
Speaker 2: Troy regarding our episode on Io. This is, of course,
Speaker 2: the one of the moons of Jupiter that we revisited
Speaker 2: in full on the podcast. Troy writes, Hi, Joe, Robert,
Speaker 2: and JJ, I recently listened to your podcast about Io
Speaker 2: having volcanic eruptions strong enough to reach exit velocity. Then
Speaker 2: you mentioned several ideas related to achieving exit velocity from Earth,
Speaker 2: but did not mention Verne's book Jules vern Of course,
Speaker 2: I am probably not the only one, but this reminded
Speaker 2: me of the classic book by Jules vern where some
Speaker 2: gun club guys decided to shoot a cannon ball at
Speaker 2: the Moon. Later in the story, the cannon ball is
Speaker 2: scrapped for a more capsule shape so the ball won't spin.
Speaker 2: Somebody proposes to make the ball. Essentially a ship from
Speaker 2: the Earth to the Moon eighteen sixty five and its sequel,
Speaker 2: Around the Moon eighteen seventy by Jules vern Our pioneering
Speaker 2: works of science fiction and depict an ambitious attempt to
Speaker 2: send men to the Moon using a massive cannon. The
Speaker 2: story follows the Baltimore based Gun Club, a group of
Speaker 2: artillery enthusiasts led by President MP Barbicane. After the end
Speaker 2: of the American Civil War, the club seeks a new
Speaker 2: challenge and decides to construct an enormous cannon to launch
Speaker 2: a projectile to the Moon. Eventually, Barbicane, Arden and Barbicane's
Speaker 2: rival turned ally, Captain Nickel, decide to travel inside the
Speaker 2: projectile themselves. In Around the Moon the sequel, the three
Speaker 2: passengers experience weightlessness, observe Earth and the Moon from space,
Speaker 2: and face the danger of being trapped in orbit. A
Speaker 2: near miss with the Moon results in their capsule falling
Speaker 2: back to Earth, where they safely land in the ocean.
Speaker 2: Right Troy goes on to discuss some of the technology
Speaker 2: used in this science fiction book. The massive cannon named
Speaker 2: the Columbiad, is nine hundred feet two hundred and seventy
Speaker 2: four meters long and is built in a deep pit
Speaker 2: dug into the ground in Tampa, Florida. It is designed
Speaker 2: to fire an enormous hollow aluminum shell the spacecraft carrying
Speaker 2: the three men. To reach the Moon, the projectile needs
Speaker 2: to achieve an escape velocity of l two hundred meters
Speaker 2: per second approximately twenty five thousand miles per hour. Burne's
Speaker 2: calculations were impressively close to modern physics, though the concept
Speaker 2: of using a canon to achieve such speeds would be
Speaker 2: lethal due to the extreme acceleration. I thought the book
Speaker 2: had great character development and attention to detail. They even
Speaker 2: had a type of water mattress designed to push the
Speaker 2: water out of vents during the initial launch to dampen
Speaker 2: the g forces give up the great work. Troy. Ps
Speaker 2: one more thing. I also thought it was impressive how
Speaker 2: they decided to point the canon vertically at the moon,
Speaker 2: but had to bury the whole cannon to prevent the
Speaker 2: canon from exploding. One of the main characters had body
Speaker 2: parts missing due to one of his canons accidentally exploding,
Speaker 2: so they decided to bury the canon for extra strength.
Speaker 3: Oh thank you, Troy. Yeah, interesting contribution. So I never
Speaker 3: read this novel. I read several other things by Jules
Speaker 3: Vern when I was younger, and I had a copy
Speaker 3: of this book, And now I'm ashamed to say that
Speaker 3: I was discouraged from ever reading it because I was
Speaker 3: sort of glancing through it and thinking, I don't think
Speaker 3: they're going to see any aliens in this. This feels
Speaker 3: like an alien's free space adventure book, and I'm just
Speaker 3: not interested in that. Looking back on that now, I
Speaker 3: think that was a narrow minded way to approach science fiction,
Speaker 3: But I don't know that's how I was then.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think maybe I've only ever read twenty thousand
Speaker 2: Leagues under the Sea, though I don't remember much about
Speaker 2: the experience. My kid recently had to read it for school,
Speaker 2: and I don't think they enjoyed the experience. But then again,
Speaker 2: such as the case sometimes when you're having to read
Speaker 2: things for school.
Speaker 3: I remember liking twenty thousand Leagues and I read Journey
Speaker 3: to the Center of the Earth and I liked that.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I know. I've seen multiple film versions of various
Speaker 2: Vern novels, and a number of those are a lot
Speaker 2: of fun. I don't think we've covered one on Weird
Speaker 2: House Cinema though, have we? Have we covered a Vern's
Speaker 2: a direct Vern's adaptation?
Speaker 3: Well, we did Invention for Destruction, which I think it
Speaker 3: was a loose adaptation of a different not of a
Speaker 3: novel by Jules Vern. I forget the name of it. Sorry,
Speaker 3: I just had to look it up. The Vern novel
Speaker 3: that was based on was called Facing the Flag alternately
Speaker 3: for the Flag from eighteen ninety six.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, And the film that we watched was a
Speaker 2: nineteen fifty eight black and white science fiction adventure film, yeah,
Speaker 2: which was wonderful. Yes, I remember it as being very
Speaker 2: visually pleasing.
Speaker 3: But to your point, yeah, there are some great movie
Speaker 3: adaptations of Vern. I mean, the twenty thousand Leagues with
Speaker 3: James Mason is how do you beat that? It's James Mason.
Speaker 2: All right, but all this has just been a preface
Speaker 2: to Cotton Candy Joe dig into the Cotton Candy Force.
Speaker 3: Oh all right, let's see. Well here, I'm going to
Speaker 3: start with this message you pulled in from discord from
Speaker 3: listener Eric. Eric says, I'm usually over in the Weird
Speaker 3: House channels, but I recently listened to the Cotton Candy
Speaker 3: two parter. I was especially drawn to these episodes because
Speaker 3: I used to work at a movie theater with a
Speaker 3: cotton candy machine, and not to toot my own horn,
Speaker 3: but I got pretty skilled at spinning some of the biggest,
Speaker 3: fluffiest bags of cotton candy you've ever seen. One thing
Speaker 3: I don't think was touched on, though it's probably obvious,
Speaker 3: is just how sticky the process is. Most cotton candy
Speaker 3: sessions left me covered in tiny sugar crystals embedded in
Speaker 3: my hair and eyelashes, to the point where I felt
Speaker 3: the need to wash my face afterwards. But it gets worse.
Speaker 3: Sometimes after running around cleaning theaters, I'd be sweaty and
Speaker 3: we'd need to whip up a fresh batch. Oh, the
Speaker 3: sugar would stick to my face and even my eyelids.
Speaker 3: Just imagine trying to blink with sticky eyelids. Despite all that,
Speaker 3: making cotton candy was ridiculously fun and none of it
Speaker 3: stopped me from becoming the resident cotton candy master at
Speaker 3: my theater. Anyway. Great episodes, awesome job guys. Thank you Eric.
Speaker 3: That is so gross. Just thinking about that makes my
Speaker 3: skin crawl, and so I have no choice but to
Speaker 3: respect your courage.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it shockingly close to killer clowns from outer space
Speaker 2: territory with that story.
Speaker 3: Yeah, makes you think they could get you cocooned pretty easy. Yeah.
Speaker 2: I did not have any cotton candy over the break,
Speaker 2: but I went with my family and some friends to
Speaker 2: San Diego Zoo, which is a pretty amazing zoo. A
Speaker 2: lot of cotton candy there. Having done these episodes about
Speaker 2: cotton candy, I was just seeing it everywhere in ways
Speaker 2: that I normally maybe don't pay that much attention to it.
Speaker 2: But I did feel a certain residual stickiness at times.
Speaker 2: When I watched a child consuming a big cone of
Speaker 2: the stuff, you can almost like feel the sugar in
Speaker 2: the air. Occasionally there was some discarded on the ground,
Speaker 2: and there was actually at least one like automated cotton
Speaker 2: candy machine. I didn't really spend much time with it
Speaker 2: because I want to attract any of the children and
Speaker 2: our party over to it. But I was tempted at
Speaker 2: that point. I was like, if this, if no one
Speaker 2: was around, I might put some money in this machine
Speaker 2: and see what happens.
Speaker 3: Sneak away for stealth adult cotton candy.
Speaker 2: Yeah, all right, This next one comes to us from Phoenix.
Speaker 2: Phoenix says, good morning. I enjoyed the Invention podcast so
Speaker 2: much and was sad to see it go, So I'm
Speaker 2: always thrilled when you guys dive back into these topics. Now,
Speaker 2: what is Phoenix talking about here? Well, for a short while,
Speaker 2: Joe and I had a separate podcast titled Invention. You
Speaker 2: can still find that podcast feed out there, and we
Speaker 2: did I don't remember how many episodes, each one tied
Speaker 2: to an Invention. Now, at some point or another, I
Speaker 2: think all those episodes were republished in the Stuff to
Speaker 2: Blow your Mind podcast feed, and we've continued on with
Speaker 2: the spirit of those episodes, occasionally doing some sort of
Speaker 2: an Invention themed episode, and we usually work the world
Speaker 2: Invention into the title, just to make it clear that's right.
Speaker 3: So while we no longer produce Invention as a separate
Speaker 3: show on its own feed on a set schedule it
Speaker 3: lives on, we will still keep doing these episodes from
Speaker 3: time to time.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean go check them out. The show does
Speaker 2: get listened, so I stand by those episodes. There were
Speaker 2: a lot of fun anyway, Phoenix continues, I just wanted
Speaker 2: to share a little something. As a teenager, I worked
Speaker 2: at an amusement park and occasionally I had to make
Speaker 2: the cotton candy. As you guys stated, it has a
Speaker 2: very short shelf life. Part of this is because it
Speaker 2: absorbs the moisture in the air. But another attractive feature
Speaker 2: of cotton candy is how light an aira it is,
Speaker 2: and that does not last very long because it starts
Speaker 2: to collapse and condense under its own weight within a
Speaker 2: matter of hours, and so by the second half of
Speaker 2: the day, any pre made cotton candy was pretty second
Speaker 2: rate to the fresh stuff. We actually wouldn't make very
Speaker 2: much of it, and someone would make new bags every
Speaker 2: few hours to try and keep it nice and fresh
Speaker 2: for the patrons. Thanks again for all ways sharing such
Speaker 2: amazing and wonderful topics, Phoenix.
Speaker 3: I wonder if there is a selection process in play,
Speaker 3: like the cotton candy vendor sees a person approaching and decides,
Speaker 3: does this person are they gonna be the type who
Speaker 3: complains if they don't get the good stuff? Or is
Speaker 3: this a kid who's not going to know the difference,
Speaker 3: Like you can give them the old collapsing cotton candy
Speaker 3: and it's just just fine.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Or maybe do they need a little enticing Do
Speaker 2: they need to see someone making cotton candy to sort
Speaker 2: of cinch the cell to the child and or the
Speaker 2: parents who have to produce the money that sort of thing.
Speaker 3: Can you imagine though, the parent who tries to bargain
Speaker 3: with you, So the parents like, no, no, I'm not
Speaker 3: paying for that old cotton candy, I need fresh stuff
Speaker 3: for my kid.
Speaker 2: Yeah, oh, I can imagine that. I can also imagine
Speaker 2: the reverse. You're like, don't give me that fresh stuff.
Speaker 2: I want the old stuff. Give it to me a discount.
Speaker 3: Oh well, speaking of that, that will tie into our
Speaker 3: next message. Are you ready for me to read this
Speaker 3: one from Sheldean.
Speaker 2: Let's do.
Speaker 3: Okay? Sheldyan says, Hi, Rob, Joe, and JJ, it's such
Speaker 3: a weird coincidence that you did the two episodes on
Speaker 3: cotton candy because it's been on my mind recently. I
Speaker 3: loved it as a kid, but as an almost fifty
Speaker 3: year old, it's just too sweet now. So I'm South
Speaker 3: African and we call it candy floss there. My recollection
Speaker 3: is that as a child, we'd have to go to
Speaker 3: the beach to get candy floss. There were usually vendors
Speaker 3: selling various types of foods, and if we wanted fresh floss,
Speaker 3: that was the place to go. But we could also
Speaker 3: usually get it at markets, fairs or fetes. Another interesting
Speaker 3: variance is we'd get it in a plastic bag. I've
Speaker 3: never had candyfloss on a stick or holder of any type.
Speaker 3: Even when my kids were young, that was the way
Speaker 3: of it, but by the time they came along early
Speaker 3: two thousands, we could also buy candy floss at the
Speaker 3: shops in small airtight buckets. In Afrikaans, it's got a
Speaker 3: great name spook a sim or maybe a spoke a sim,
Speaker 3: which means ghost breath, keep up the great work regards Sheldane.
Speaker 3: And then here's the ps that ties into what you
Speaker 3: were saying, rob Ps. I forgot to add having candy
Speaker 3: floss in a plastic bag also helped create the way
Speaker 3: I like to eat it. You'd have to unknot the bag,
Speaker 3: which is always puffed full of air, and then I'd
Speaker 3: squash the floss flat into a sugary piece of crunchy board.
Speaker 3: The best way to eat.
Speaker 2: It, I mean, fair enough, that's just not a wrong
Speaker 2: way to eat cotton.
Speaker 3: I say, with affection, what is wrong with you?
Speaker 2: Well? I will say that had I grown up being
Speaker 2: exposed to cotton candy as ghost breath candy, I would
Speaker 2: have probably had it a bit more, and maybe it
Speaker 2: would have a warmer place in my heart. All right,
Speaker 2: let's see what else do we have from the cotton
Speaker 2: candy archives here. This one comes to us from Pat.
Speaker 2: Pat says, I very much enjoyed your episodes on cotton candy. However,
Speaker 2: I truly dislike cotton candy itself. I am not one
Speaker 2: to eat many sweets. In fact, after the abundance of
Speaker 2: candy from Halloween and Easter, I give a lot of
Speaker 2: it to my sister, who consumed it quite quickly. I
Speaker 2: took days to eat all of mine. Mom sometimes asked
Speaker 2: if I was taking so long just to torture my sister,
Speaker 2: and it did indeed torture her. As much as I
Speaker 2: dislike cotton candy, I do like a pinch of maple
Speaker 2: cotton candy. Living in the Northeast, we are blessed with
Speaker 2: sugar maple trees, and someone must have decided to use
Speaker 2: maple sugar to make cotton candy. It is amazing. One
Speaker 2: pinch is enough so I can avoid a sugar crash,
Speaker 2: but I'm always tempted to eat more. I'm glad I
Speaker 2: found your podcast and the fantastic variety of subjects you cover.
Speaker 3: Oh thanks so much, Pat, You know you've got me interested.
Speaker 3: I am not usually very into the idea of eating
Speaker 3: cotton candy, but maple flavored I would give that.
Speaker 2: Ah, I would give it. I would give it a pinch,
Speaker 2: much like this. I probably have a pinch of it,
Speaker 2: and then I don't know, hold the rest under a
Speaker 2: water foucet or something to destroy the evidence. But yeah,
Speaker 2: that does sound interesting. Oh, by the way, Pat also
Speaker 2: had a question about where to find the old Invention episodes.
Speaker 2: You should still be able to find that podcast feed
Speaker 2: out there wherever you get your podcasts, just look for
Speaker 2: Invention or Invention podcast. Our names are going to be
Speaker 2: mentioned in the about data. But I just did a
Speaker 2: quick internet search and it seemed to come up pretty
Speaker 2: easily on my end, So just turn around you should
Speaker 2: be able to find it. If you're having trouble, email
Speaker 2: us and we'll send you a link.
Speaker 3: Side note, You can, of course listen however you want,
Speaker 3: but if you just want to listen in a way
Speaker 3: that helps us out the most, you might want to
Speaker 3: listen if we've rerun the episode, listen to the one
Speaker 3: on the stuff to blow your mind. Feed that gives
Speaker 3: us another little ping.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, absolutely, all right, Joe, have we had enough
Speaker 2: cotton candy for the day?
Speaker 3: I think we have. Let's see, how about we do
Speaker 3: some messages in response to our series on pretend play.
Speaker 3: I'm gonna read this one from Sauna. Saana says hello
Speaker 3: from Sweden. I've been listening to you guys for years
Speaker 3: now and the pretend Play episodes were really interesting. I
Speaker 3: work as a dentist in northern Sweden and I use
Speaker 3: pretend play every week. The child patients, mostly between the
Speaker 3: ages of four to seven, who have to go through
Speaker 3: a filling of a tooth, can be a bit nervous
Speaker 3: or scared by creating a story or a play around
Speaker 3: the treatment, the whole thing usually goes more smoothly. The
Speaker 3: drill becomes the shower, the cavity is the house of
Speaker 3: the tooth bacteria or tooth trolls in Swedish what and
Speaker 3: the filling material is the door to prevent new tooth
Speaker 3: trolls going back into the tooth. The young children can
Speaker 3: become really invested in the stories and it makes the
Speaker 3: experience a bit more fun. Best regards Sauna, oh.
Speaker 2: Man, tooth trolls, ghost Breath, There's so many wonders here
Speaker 2: that I missed out on, while not missing out on
Speaker 2: the things that they're not the awful things that bear the.
Speaker 3: Name the House of the tooth Bacteria one of the
Speaker 3: lesser known Christopher Lee films.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but this is.
Speaker 3: Delightful to think about, and it makes me wonder how
Speaker 3: like you couldn't do this with adults because they would
Speaker 3: be like, why are you playing this game and talking
Speaker 3: about tooth trolls. I'm an adult. You know, people would
Speaker 3: probably feel disrespected by trying to do this with them.
Speaker 3: But I feel like if adults could be game for
Speaker 3: this kind of thing, it might actually help.
Speaker 2: Yeah, most adults are probably not going to react fondly too.
Speaker 2: You've got tooth trolls, so you have to sugarcoat it.
Speaker 3: Or you may not sugarcoat it, Like you can't play
Speaker 3: the pretend game with adults. But even if it might
Speaker 3: actually help with adults, if they were a game for it.
Speaker 2: I think they. I think most adults would would and
Speaker 2: would be in our game for a different sort of
Speaker 2: sugar coating, you know. I feel like, you know, sometimes
Speaker 2: it's just it's freshened up clinical language and so forth,
Speaker 2: And I mean it's probably gonna vary worldview to worldview.
Speaker 2: But yeah, I think I think you still have to
Speaker 2: sugarcoat things for adults in these situations. It's just a
Speaker 2: different form of sugarcoating, and maybe it's a little less
Speaker 2: overtly fun. But I think you should maybe have the
Speaker 2: option to sign on for pretend play. Why not? All right?
Speaker 2: This one comes to us from Matt. Matt says, Hey, guys,
Speaker 2: I thought I might drop you a line about something
Speaker 2: I remember from my early childhood with regard to imaginative play.
Speaker 2: There's one experience in particular that stands out in my mind.
Speaker 2: I grew up in a highly religious family that had
Speaker 2: the rule that we could not play outside on Sunday
Speaker 2: to keep the Sabbath day holy and all that. On
Speaker 2: the day in question, I snuck outside to do just that,
Speaker 2: play outside with the other neighborhood kids. They were pretending
Speaker 2: they were in a gang, and we were carrying around
Speaker 2: sticks with grape fruits stuck to the end that they
Speaker 2: called their weapons. This was in Florida, by the way,
Speaker 2: so such fruit trees were not hard to come by.
Speaker 2: Now the part I want to mention about this. At
Speaker 2: my young age, I was uncertain whether they were pretending
Speaker 2: or if they actually believed they were a threatening cohort
Speaker 2: with these deadly fruits on sticks. Additional relevant information, I
Speaker 2: believe that I might have some level of autism, though
Speaker 2: no diagnosis was ever attempted due to my parents' religious
Speaker 2: and political beliefs, and I am unsure if that uncertainty
Speaker 2: is a sign of that or if it is a
Speaker 2: common experience as we learned to model the minds and
Speaker 2: behaviors of others. But in any case, I thought it
Speaker 2: might be an interesting point of discussion for you guys.
Speaker 2: Whatever your thoughts, I'd be interested to hear them this
Speaker 2: regarding how to evaluate the gang of children whether they
Speaker 2: were pretending to be in a gang or actually in
Speaker 2: a gang.
Speaker 3: They thought they were actually in a gang.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I guess it's it's kind of difficult right
Speaker 2: to gauge that because I'm just thinking, like the mindset
Speaker 2: of the kids who are pretending to be in a gang,
Speaker 2: At what point does that become being in a gang?
Speaker 2: You know, even if you set out to pretend. Like
Speaker 2: I remember part of my childhood, this would have been
Speaker 2: in a few years that I lived in Canada, there
Speaker 2: were kids that had these sticks with nails through them,
Speaker 2: so it was like very mad Max and I guess
Speaker 2: this was around the time of like road War or something,
Speaker 2: but they were they were sticks with nails through them,
Speaker 2: Like you could have messed somebody up with these, but
Speaker 2: they were toys and the kids kind of acted like
Speaker 2: they were in some sort of a post apocalyptic gang.
Speaker 2: But since they had sticks with nails through them, who's
Speaker 2: to say they were not.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that race is a really good point. There. There
Speaker 3: were different types of sort of pretend architecture for pretend
Speaker 3: to play. So one is where the as if world
Speaker 3: is changing objective facts about reality. The banana is really
Speaker 3: objectively not a phone, but you can pretend it is.
Speaker 3: But there are other types of pretend play where what
Speaker 3: you're pretending about our mind states and intentions. So like
Speaker 3: play fighting, the pretense there is like we're acting as
Speaker 3: if we were really fighting, but we're not really fighting,
Speaker 3: and all it would take for that to become really
Speaker 3: fighting is a change in the minds and intentions of
Speaker 3: the people playing, you know, so you're not like pretending
Speaker 3: about some objective external fact in the world. You're just
Speaker 3: pretending about what we're doing. And a gang is kind
Speaker 3: of like that, isn't it. Yeah, Yeah, And to extend
Speaker 3: from that point, I think with that second type of pretend,
Speaker 3: where you're not pretending about objective facts in the world,
Speaker 3: but you're pretending about intentions, it's easier to blur the
Speaker 3: line between are we between are we just suspending disbelief
Speaker 3: for the purpose of play, or do we really believe this?
Speaker 3: It can kind of you can kind of get to
Speaker 3: the point where you are intentionally not looking at that line.
Speaker 3: You're like not, You're willing yourself not to notice whether
Speaker 3: you are doing one or the other, at least for
Speaker 3: the moment, and then something might an event might kind
Speaker 3: of force you to acknowledge the line again and say, no,
Speaker 3: this is really what we're doing. But I think a
Speaker 3: lot of play as children, like when you get into
Speaker 3: a kind of task, like, oh, we're trying to accomplish that,
Speaker 3: you know. A listener wrote in I think at one
Speaker 3: point about like collecting certain cicada shells to like get
Speaker 3: a great bounty of money or something. You know, it's
Speaker 3: like there's an objective fact about the world, like whether
Speaker 3: you could actually get the money, but you're not at
Speaker 3: that point yet whether you have to test whether that's true.
Speaker 3: So instead you're just at the tensions point, are we
Speaker 3: actually harvesting these cicada exoskeletons in order to get millions
Speaker 3: of dollars? And you can kind just not look at
Speaker 3: the fact of whether you really believe you're going to
Speaker 3: get the money or not. You're just in the task
Speaker 3: and you're fully absorbed.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, that's a great point. Now Matt continues here,
Speaker 2: Matt says, side note on a topic you covered in
Speaker 2: the same episodes. When I was little, I wanted to
Speaker 2: an imaginary friend so bad, but I didn't know how
Speaker 2: to make that happen. In a way I imagined it.
Speaker 2: I thought such a friend would have their own autonomous
Speaker 2: mind and personality. But every time I tried to conjure one,
Speaker 2: I was well aware that I was the one actively
Speaker 2: choosing the choices of anyone I imagined. I had a
Speaker 2: very strong imagination, but there definitely were no illusions or
Speaker 2: confusion about the separation between what was real and what
Speaker 2: I was imagining, and I was sad about that. Anyways,
Speaker 2: loved the show and look forward to continuing to hear
Speaker 2: more of it as time moves forward. Thanks Matt. I
Speaker 2: love this point Matt raises about like wanting an imaginary friend,
Speaker 2: because you know, I can't relate to that, to that specifically,
Speaker 2: but I think you know, at different points in life
Speaker 2: you sometimes encounter like different models of this, like people
Speaker 2: who have on one level or another claimed or proclaimed
Speaker 2: to have connection to the unseen world, you know, be
Speaker 2: it like in a religious experience or you know, some
Speaker 2: sort of like paranormal experience. However, it's you know, framed
Speaker 2: in a particular worldview or belief system. And if you
Speaker 2: want that thing and you believe that it is accessible
Speaker 2: at least on some level, and then you know pine
Speaker 2: for it, you know, you can feel left out for
Speaker 2: not having it. Why like why have I not seen
Speaker 2: the lights in the sky, Why have I not heard
Speaker 2: like the voice of God in my head? And so forth?
Speaker 2: And of course there are a million different answers for
Speaker 2: why that is going to be the case, and they
Speaker 2: have to do with everything from the sorts of stories
Speaker 2: were told and how they relate it to objective reality,
Speaker 2: also to just the different mental experiences that people have
Speaker 2: across different mind states.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's all true. I also wonder about I don't know, Matt,
Speaker 3: I don't know if you have an opinion on whether
Speaker 3: this is the case or not, But I wonder if
Speaker 3: when you're saying you're sad about your inability to have
Speaker 3: an imaginary friend that had thoughts and actions that seemed
Speaker 3: to come from outside yourself, were you said just simply
Speaker 3: because like that couldn't happen, that your imaginary friend all
Speaker 3: came from you and you were conscious of that, or
Speaker 3: were you said in a relative sense because you thought
Speaker 3: maybe other kids had had more of a feeling that
Speaker 3: their imaginary friend's actions came from outside theirselves, and that like,
Speaker 3: relative to their experience, you couldn't have the same experience.
Speaker 3: H Does that make sense?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 3: Yeah, in which case, I guess that also raises the
Speaker 3: question like were the other kids actually able to feel
Speaker 3: like their imaginary friends were coming from outside them or
Speaker 3: is that just how it looked from the outside. Actually,
Speaker 3: on the subject of pretend play feeling real to kids,
Speaker 3: like the question of whether you know you're pretending or not,
Speaker 3: or whether you remember in the moment that you're pretending,
Speaker 3: we also got this message from Joy Joy, says Dear
Speaker 3: Robert and Joe. The discussion on how much children believe
Speaker 3: the things they pretend brought to mind an instance of
Speaker 3: ongoing pretend play. Two of my friends and I devised
Speaker 3: during recesses in elementary school. One day, we found the
Speaker 3: name Penny written on a piece of litter. We decided
Speaker 3: Penny was a ghost who haunted the school. Penny was good,
Speaker 3: but there was another ghost who was evil. For many months,
Speaker 3: we spent our recesses trying to solve the mystery of
Speaker 3: the haunting, which included occasional cases of pretend possession. Looking
Speaker 3: back on that pretend play a couple of years later,
Speaker 3: it struck me that we never paused to consider the
Speaker 3: question of if the ghosts were real or just a
Speaker 3: collaborative story. We were making up our searches, and any
Speaker 3: incidents of possession would end as soon as the school
Speaker 3: bell rang to call us back from recess. And when
Speaker 3: one of my friends accidentally broke something of mine, a
Speaker 3: purple ribbon that I carried around and pretended was a
Speaker 3: dragon in unrelated pretend play, broke that while pretending to
Speaker 3: be possessed, I definitely blamed her and not the ghost.
Speaker 3: So on some level we must have known it wasn't real,
Speaker 3: but we pretended that we thought it was, even to
Speaker 3: ourselves best regards. Joy, Well thanks Joy. Yeah, like we
Speaker 3: were saying, that connects to what we were just talking about,
Speaker 3: and it makes me think that they're actually like multiple
Speaker 3: levels of the suspetn of disbelief. So you can engage
Speaker 3: in sort of first order suspension of disbelief, where you
Speaker 3: are just you enter a mind state where you can
Speaker 3: participate in a pretend game or in a work of
Speaker 3: fiction without constantly being interrupted by the thought that this
Speaker 3: is not real. You can just sort of take it
Speaker 3: as is in the moment, and that in a way
Speaker 3: involves a second order suspension of disbelief, which is willing
Speaker 3: yourself not to ask the question of or not to
Speaker 3: examine the issue of whether you are suspending your disbelief
Speaker 3: about the game or the story. Does that make sense?
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I mean yeah, it gets really complicated really
Speaker 2: quickly when we get into contemplations of like the creative
Speaker 2: process and the gameness as you say, of all of this.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so we can be game for pretend while at
Speaker 3: the same time, like if there is something that forced
Speaker 3: us to exit that temporary state of gameness, we can
Speaker 3: recall what's real and what's not, so it's not actually
Speaker 3: a confusion, a confusion in a permanent sense about what's
Speaker 3: real and what's not. But we get into these mind
Speaker 3: states where we like, we don't want anything to uh,
Speaker 3: to break the break the illusion, to force us to
Speaker 3: consider whether we do really believe what we're doing or
Speaker 3: what we're saying at the moment. We want to we
Speaker 3: want to like not have to examine that question for
Speaker 3: the time being.
Speaker 2: Yeah. It reminds me of some of the examples we
Speaker 2: talked about, UH, audience members cheering on a like a
Speaker 2: pro wrestling performance, you know, yeah, where yeah, you don't
Speaker 2: want to constantly come in and out of the willing
Speaker 2: suspension disbelief. You want to you know, keep that going
Speaker 2: for a little bit. It's going to be a massive
Speaker 2: bummer if you have to keep coming in and out
Speaker 2: of it.
Speaker 3: Right, Yeah, so you like, you know it's not real,
Speaker 3: but it's also annoying to you if somebody, if like you,
Speaker 3: are reminded that it's not real.
Speaker 2: Yeah, all right, let's go ahead and move on to
Speaker 2: some weird house cinema listener mail here. This first one
Speaker 2: I'm going to read. This one comes to us from Carrie.
Speaker 2: Carrie writes Deer Robin Joe. Now that you've run the
Speaker 2: thing from another world twice, unstuffed, blow your mind. I
Speaker 2: believe one of those is where rerun you need to cover.
Speaker 2: My other favorite sci fi monster movie nineteen fifty four's Them,
Speaker 2: featuring giant radiation induced mutant ants running them up. It
Speaker 2: has a good plot and work by some accomplished actors
Speaker 2: James Whitmore, Edmund Gwyn, James Arnest a year before he
Speaker 2: began his twenty year stint as Marshall Matt Dillon in
Speaker 2: TV's gun Smoke, and small roles by Fess Parker, dub Taylor,
Speaker 2: and an up and coming young actor named Leonard Nimoy.
Speaker 2: For the time, most of the special effects are pretty
Speaker 2: good too. If you haven't seen it, you should if
Speaker 2: you've avoided doing so because of comments you've seen or
Speaker 2: discounting it as schlock. Remember that kept you from watching
Speaker 2: The Thing from Another World and you were glad you
Speaker 2: finally did. Anyway, Please put it on your list and
Speaker 2: keep up the good work.
Speaker 3: Care Oh well, thank you, Kerry. Recommendation noted, and yes,
Speaker 3: them has been on my list for a long time.
Speaker 3: I know it's one of the peaks sort of atomic
Speaker 3: age giant bug movies, which is fun. I've seen a
Speaker 3: lot of the lesser ones, but I've never seen like
Speaker 3: one of the main ones, which is this film. But
Speaker 3: I was a little confused by your last comment about
Speaker 3: avoiding it because it might be seen as schlock. Have
Speaker 3: we ever expressed an unwillingness to watch schlock? That seems
Speaker 3: quite out of character. This must be based on something
Speaker 3: we said, or maybe I said, but I don't remember
Speaker 3: what that would be.
Speaker 2: I think what he's referring to here is that, in
Speaker 2: talking about the original The Thing from Another World, I
Speaker 2: believe I commented that I had always seen stills from
Speaker 2: it and kind of discounted the picture because the monster
Speaker 2: looked goofy, whereas if you if you experience the monster
Speaker 2: within the context of the film, it's actually quite terrifying
Speaker 2: and there's a great you know, there's great suspense in
Speaker 2: that film. So I think that is what Carrie is
Speaker 2: referring to.
Speaker 3: That makes sense, and that's squares with my memory. Okay, well, yes,
Speaker 3: we but we're not avoiding schlock. I guarantee you, Carrie,
Speaker 3: I think you, if you've listened to the show enough,
Speaker 3: we will engage with schlock. We go there.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I totally come back to them. I believe
Speaker 2: I saw them or most of them on like a
Speaker 2: daytime horror host scenario. This would have been the one
Speaker 2: on like TBS that Grandma Monster hosted back in the day.
Speaker 2: I distinctly remember watching at least part of this movie
Speaker 2: on TV.
Speaker 3: Al Lewis, Yeah, yeah, yeah, all right. This next message
Speaker 3: about Weird House is from John. Subject line magic music
Speaker 3: cue in the Brainiac movie.
Speaker 2: Hmm.
Speaker 3: This is something we asked about in the episode for
Speaker 3: people to write in, and John answers a question we had.
Speaker 3: John says, Hi, guys, I'm John from Salt Lake, long
Speaker 3: longtime listener, occasional writer. I write music for movies, mostly
Speaker 3: small independent films. In this week's Weird House Cinema Show,
Speaker 3: you were talking about The Brainiac. At one point in
Speaker 3: the movie, you mentioned a musical cue that sounds magical
Speaker 3: or indicates that something magical has just happened, and asked
Speaker 3: if it was a named thing. So, yeah, refresher, this
Speaker 3: happened in the moment in The Brainiac where the count
Speaker 3: is getting burned at the stake, but he looks up
Speaker 3: and he sees a comet in the sky, and that
Speaker 3: comet ends up being related to the brainy acts ability
Speaker 3: to return hundreds of years later as this brain eating creature.
Speaker 3: Unclear exactly whether the premise is fully magical or science fiction,
Speaker 3: but it used this music cue on like a marimba
Speaker 3: or a harp that was familiar to both of us.
Speaker 3: It's like the thing that always triggers in a movie
Speaker 3: or an old TV show when something magical or dream
Speaker 3: like is happening, doulululu, you know. And we were asking,
Speaker 3: is there a name for that musical cliche? So this
Speaker 3: is what John is answering. John says, yes, there is
Speaker 3: a named thing here. It's called the whole tone scale.
Speaker 3: The whole tone scale is a six note scale, in
Speaker 3: which each note is a whole tone away from its neighbors.
Speaker 3: It was a favorite cue for magical scenes in TV
Speaker 3: and movies from the sixties, such as Bewitched. This scale
Speaker 3: is also used in other musical compositions too. Stevie Wonders
Speaker 3: You Are the Sunshine of My Life is one such song.
Speaker 3: The magical sound is often enhanced when the scale is
Speaker 3: played on a harp or a marimba. Thanks for the
Speaker 3: great shows, John, Well, thank you so much, John for
Speaker 3: answering that question. And now that you've explained it, I
Speaker 3: realized that I sort of know what you're talking about,
Speaker 3: and even wonder if this may have come up in
Speaker 3: the show in years past when we were talking about music,
Speaker 3: Like we did some episodes about music being used in
Speaker 3: horror movies and things like that. But I guess this
Speaker 3: is sort of the curse of being barely semi literate
Speaker 3: in music, as I am, like, I know just enough
Speaker 3: music theory to screw around, but not enough to know
Speaker 3: what I'm doing or talk about it. But anyway, to
Speaker 3: make this concept clear, I made a little audio illustration
Speaker 3: here of three scales. So we've got the C major scale,
Speaker 3: then we've got the C minor scale, and then this
Speaker 3: is the six note whole tone scale starting on C.
Speaker 3: So if you think about the third one there in
Speaker 3: relation to the first two, it seems kind of eerie
Speaker 3: or magical. And again, I'm by no means an expert
Speaker 3: on music theory or even in the psychology of music,
Speaker 3: so I'm just speculating here, but I'm wondering if this
Speaker 3: feels eerie or magical to people because it's musically ambiguous.
Speaker 3: Most of the music we listen to is in a
Speaker 3: major or a minor key, so there, you know, it's
Speaker 3: one of those first two scales that we played. It's
Speaker 3: a major or a minor key with a clear root note.
Speaker 3: And even if people don't know music theory, we're intuitively
Speaker 3: familiar with musical conventions because we listen to music, so
Speaker 3: you know the cultural conventions of music and your culture.
Speaker 3: You just kind of feel them. And we're usually expecting
Speaker 3: a song to feel like a major key or a
Speaker 3: minor key, and whole tone scale violates our expectations because
Speaker 3: it refuses to feel like either a major or a
Speaker 3: minor key. It's neither one. It's sort of pointing off
Speaker 3: in both directions, and it also refuses to let you
Speaker 3: know what the root note of the scale is, so
Speaker 3: it feels like it is breaking the laws of music,
Speaker 3: kind of like magic does, and so it's sort of unsortable,
Speaker 3: and that makes it eerie and unsettling. That's my take.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I can feel myself beaming up or shrinking, or
Speaker 2: becoming gigantic in size, whatever the effects of the magic
Speaker 2: slash science fiction happens.
Speaker 3: To be writing a comment until you eat brains.
Speaker 2: Yeah, all right, Well, you know, I think we have
Speaker 2: we essentially have time for one more message, but I
Speaker 2: have a couple of short ones here, so I'm I'm
Speaker 2: going to try and roll through these really quickly. Okay,
Speaker 2: all right, column writes in to purely to suggest for
Speaker 2: weird House Cinema the nineteen eighty one film Kung Fu Zombie,
Speaker 2: directed by sham Wa. This is not a film that
Speaker 2: I was super familiar with, but just looking into it
Speaker 2: a little little bit, let's see, it's from the director
Speaker 2: of Inframan, which we've talked about. Good yeah, and it
Speaker 2: has music ripped off from a James Bond movie. So
Speaker 2: I think those are two strong compelling indicators. Plus zombies
Speaker 2: plus kung fu very good.
Speaker 3: Call him, you know how to get our attention. The
Speaker 3: poster of it is I've got to see this. It's
Speaker 3: kung Fu zombie dripping blood over the title and the
Speaker 3: O in zombie is a skull, a pink skull. So yes,
Speaker 3: I've got to see it, starring Billy Chong. I don't
Speaker 3: know if we've seen anything else with Billy Chong, and
Speaker 3: don't know if I know him, but he looks so determined.
Speaker 3: He's like breaking free from some rope bindings and there's
Speaker 3: water splashing everywhere. And then is this a flying kung
Speaker 3: Fu vampire behind him?
Speaker 2: It looks like it. Yeah, yeah, I don't think we've
Speaker 2: talked about Billy Chong before, but yeah, Indonesian martial artist,
Speaker 2: actor and stuntman Strong contenders.
Speaker 3: Thank you call him yeah.
Speaker 2: And then finally Jim rides in and says, hey, guys,
Speaker 2: I think a Red Brown film fest sounds like a
Speaker 2: lot of fun. I've seen many of his films and
Speaker 2: he's had an interesting co star, Christopher Lee. They co
Speaker 2: starred in Captain America two, Death Too Soon and Howling
Speaker 2: Too Your Sister Is a Werewolf. Both are great weird films,
Speaker 2: perfect for weird house.
Speaker 3: Jim Thank you, Jim. I've seen The Howling Too, your
Speaker 3: sister is a werewolf. I don't remember a lot about it,
Speaker 3: except that it felt to me like the entire movie
Speaker 3: was just Sybil Danning doing that pose that you see
Speaker 3: in any still from the film. And as for the
Speaker 3: Reb Brown Captain America or Captain America Too, I didn't
Speaker 3: realize there was a second Reb Brown Captain America. I
Speaker 3: may have already said this on the show recently. I
Speaker 3: don't remember if this was on micro Off, but I
Speaker 3: have been wanting to do an Alt Captain America fest
Speaker 3: on Weird House, including the Albert Pyune directed movie from
Speaker 3: I don't know nineteen ninety or whenever that was, and
Speaker 3: the Reb Brown Captain America stuff, of which apparently there
Speaker 3: were even more than I knew of.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, you've definitely denighned the the Captain America films recently,
Speaker 2: and we both have recently watched The Howling, the original one,
Speaker 2: so both of both of these films are kind of
Speaker 2: under radar at the moment.
Speaker 3: Oh and everybody just treat yourself to looking up some
Speaker 3: stills of Christopher Lee in The Howling Too with the sunglasses.
Speaker 3: Oh god, it's amazing.
Speaker 2: All right, well, we're going to go ahead and close
Speaker 2: it out there, but certainly you keep the Weird House
Speaker 2: Cinema recommendations and suggestions coming, keep writing in with feedback
Speaker 2: for our core episodes of Stuff to Blow Your Mind,
Speaker 2: our short form episodes, anything else, past episodes of Invention.
Speaker 2: It's all fair game. Just a reminder that Stuff to
Speaker 2: bliw Your Mind is primarily a science and culture podcast,
Speaker 2: with core episodes on Tuesdays and Thursdays. You can find
Speaker 2: us wherever you get your podcasts. Just look for Stuff
Speaker 2: to Blow your Mind. If you're on what Instagram, we're
Speaker 2: s stbym podcast there, and if you're on a letterboxed
Speaker 2: you can find our account. We are Weird House and
Speaker 2: that's where you can keep up with all the movies
Speaker 2: we've covered thus far on Weird House Cinema.
Speaker 3: Huge thanks as always to our excellent audio producer Jjposway.
Speaker 3: If you would like to get in touch with us
Speaker 3: with feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest
Speaker 3: a topic for the future, or just to say hello,
Speaker 3: you can email us at contact at Stuff to Blow
Speaker 3: your Mind dot com.
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