Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, the production of
Speaker 1: My Heart Radio. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind.
Speaker 1: My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick. And
Speaker 1: today we're bringing you some of your listener mail. We
Speaker 1: haven't done this in quite a while, so we had
Speaker 1: an enormous mail bag to plow through. Uh And on
Speaker 1: top of that, I have to say, I don't know
Speaker 1: exactly what happened, but I think we have lost a
Speaker 1: significant amount of listener mail that came in in September
Speaker 1: and October. And I don't I don't know exactly why
Speaker 1: that happened, but there's sort of a gap in there. Uh.
Speaker 1: So I apologize if if your message you were hoping
Speaker 1: to hear is among that group. But uh, but we've
Speaker 1: still got a lot of great stuff to get to today. Yeah. Well,
Speaker 1: we'll have to ask Carnie our mail about about this.
Speaker 1: But I don't know. I feel like we all have
Speaker 1: some some missing time from September and October, you know,
Speaker 1: some some some blank spots in our recollection. Where did
Speaker 1: that time go? What happened? It's like the part of
Speaker 1: your your eyespot that you can't see because of the
Speaker 1: optic nerve, but you don't even notice that you can't
Speaker 1: see it. It's the the invisibility is invisible. Yeah. And
Speaker 1: now another thing that that we're going to go ahead
Speaker 1: and mention about this listener Mail is that, in some respects,
Speaker 1: this is the final listener Mail, or at least this
Speaker 1: is probably going to be the final full length listener
Speaker 1: Mail episode that publishes as an episode, a regular episode
Speaker 1: of Stuff to Blow Your Mind on a Tuesday or Thursday.
Speaker 1: That's right, Because we are gradually, as we can, transitioning
Speaker 1: to a more daily publication schedule. We're gonna be putting
Speaker 1: out some shorter episodes that come through on various days.
Speaker 1: But one idea we've been kicking around is basically a
Speaker 1: weekly episode that we've been sort of tentatively calling the
Speaker 1: Flaming Barrel Chats, and these will quite often be listener
Speaker 1: mail focused. Yeah. So yeah, just to reassure everyone, you're
Speaker 1: not going to get six episodes, like six full episodes
Speaker 1: of Stuff to Blow your Mind per week. It's gonna
Speaker 1: be in two core episodes. It's gonna be the Vault episode,
Speaker 1: it's gonna be the Weird House Cinema on Friday, and
Speaker 1: then a couple of small things, so hopefully that won't
Speaker 1: overwhelm anybody. But as always, right in and let you
Speaker 1: let us know what you think as this begins to
Speaker 1: uh to happen, and yeah, well we'll just see how
Speaker 1: it goes. All right, I think we should jump right
Speaker 1: into the bag. All right, let's do it. What do
Speaker 1: we have first, Joe, Well, we got a lot of
Speaker 1: great feedback to our episode. I think it was a
Speaker 1: couple of episodes about nails, fingernails and toenails. We got
Speaker 1: into some surprisingly religious territory, including that one really interesting
Speaker 1: paper that was trying to explain the prevalence of religious
Speaker 1: rituals about the proper disposal of nails, and the explanation
Speaker 1: in this paper appealed to people trying to re enact
Speaker 1: extremely ancient, reconstructed creation myths in which the earth is
Speaker 1: made out of the body parts of a dead primordial god.
Speaker 1: And we we got a number of messages on the
Speaker 1: theme of of nails and religious traditions, and this first
Speaker 1: one comes from Alice. Are you ready, Let's do it,
Speaker 1: Alice says Hi, Joe and Robert, thanks for the two
Speaker 1: part around fingernails. Love. When you guys take a seemingly
Speaker 1: mundane topic and find fascinating tidbits about it from so
Speaker 1: many different angles. I emailed today because when you were
Speaker 1: discussing fingernails in creation myths, when instantly came to mind
Speaker 1: that might not be familiar to American listeners. It's the
Speaker 1: legend from Maori culture about Maui and his grandmother Mahuika,
Speaker 1: the goddess of fire. In the story, Maui wonders where
Speaker 1: fire comes from. He's only ever seen it made from
Speaker 1: existing fire or lightning. So one night, because he's a
Speaker 1: bit of a trickster, he extinguishes all the fires in
Speaker 1: the village. In the morning, when everyone wakes up, he's
Speaker 1: told to go visit his grandmother to get more fire.
Speaker 1: Now here's where we get back to fingernails. His grandmother
Speaker 1: married aahi Roa, a comet, and their children are fingernails
Speaker 1: of fire on Mahuika's hand. There are some gorgeous depictions
Speaker 1: of this and various books, some of which I've included,
Speaker 1: and she did attach some pictures. The story continues with
Speaker 1: Mahuika pulling off one of her fingernails to give to
Speaker 1: Maui to take back to the village because he's a
Speaker 1: trickster Maui extinguishes the fire and goes back again and
Speaker 1: again for more fingernails, until Mahuika is down to her
Speaker 1: last nail. She's furious at this stage and throws the
Speaker 1: last nail into a tree. The legend continues, but long
Speaker 1: story short, this certain tree is known for being an
Speaker 1: easy tree to start a fire with. Anyway, I hope
Speaker 1: that was interesting. It's also referenced in one of the
Speaker 1: songs in Disney's Mohana, which is cool. Thanks for the
Speaker 1: work you guys do. It's been great to have something
Speaker 1: saying to look forward to in this topsy turvy time
Speaker 1: of lockdowns and craziness that we're going through. Alice, well
Speaker 1: thanks Alice. I did not know that. Myth I thought
Speaker 1: was really interesting. Kind of makes me want to watch Moana. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I love the idea of magical fingernails as a as
Speaker 1: a as a limited magical item. So you you know,
Speaker 1: you can literally count on your your your fingers how
Speaker 1: many times you can use this ability. It's uh, it
Speaker 1: makes me wonder why we haven't seen this more in
Speaker 1: in um science fiction or fantasy in general. You know,
Speaker 1: because you could have some sort of like robotic fingernails
Speaker 1: that you launch, you know, and your your hero gets
Speaker 1: down to the last couple of them or something. What's
Speaker 1: your I d k F a code for fingernails infinite
Speaker 1: fingernails Now. We got a couple of messages from listeners
Speaker 1: who were who had ideas about fingernails from various athletic perspectives,
Speaker 1: one about ballet and one about weightlifting, and I thought
Speaker 1: these were really interesting. Rob you want to read one
Speaker 1: of these? Sure? This one comes to us from Hannah, Hi, Robert,
Speaker 1: and Joe. I just finished listening to your pair of
Speaker 1: fingernail episodes and wanted to write in with not one,
Speaker 1: but two examples fingers and toes on nail length hindering
Speaker 1: ability to perform task. I'lbeit in a kind of niche way.
Speaker 1: I'll start with toenails, since I whom it is a
Speaker 1: more unusual example. I'm a professional dancer, and although not
Speaker 1: a ballerina, a lot of my training up through college
Speaker 1: was based in ballet, including work on point. For those
Speaker 1: who don't know uh this this refers to a technique
Speaker 1: of ballerina is dancing on the tips of their toes.
Speaker 1: Ballet terminology is a lot of French anyway, Dancing on
Speaker 1: point is achieved by a combination of strengthening the muscles
Speaker 1: of the feet and legs to be able to support
Speaker 1: the full body's weight on a fully extended foot, with
Speaker 1: additional support from specialized stiff shoes, usually layers of fabric
Speaker 1: with hardened glue with flattened tips to help give a
Speaker 1: wider surface to balance on, distribute weight more evenly across
Speaker 1: the foot, and provide more stability in that extended shape.
Speaker 1: Although apparently a lot of people mistakenly think they are
Speaker 1: balancing on the toe knuckle with the toes curled under,
Speaker 1: it is actually the very tip of the toe that
Speaker 1: is the point of contact. And I know from my
Speaker 1: point I you know, I recognize this because I've I've
Speaker 1: seen Suspiria, so I know what this looks like. Man,
Speaker 1: this is one of those things that I cannot fathom.
Speaker 1: The athleticism of this, the standing on the toes, it
Speaker 1: just seems in superhuman to me. That in the spinning uh.
Speaker 1: I recently did a video yoga thing and from a
Speaker 1: teacher that I hadn't used before, and the teacher asked
Speaker 1: me to ask the hoovers watching the video to spin
Speaker 1: around like five times, and I did, and then I
Speaker 1: had to lay down because I felt like it had
Speaker 1: it had wounded my soul to spin around just five times.
Speaker 1: And of course you see uh, these various spinning athletics
Speaker 1: and in say ballet or in figure skating, and I
Speaker 1: know there are certain tricks to it. Perhaps this is
Speaker 1: something we could come back and discuss in the future, actually,
Speaker 1: because you get into a lot of of interesting biology
Speaker 1: and also cultural practices. Yes, now that I think about it,
Speaker 1: we should do an episode on spinning around in circles
Speaker 1: the centrifugal. Yeah, let's do it. Let's let's let's bookmark it.
Speaker 1: But let let's get back to Hannah here. Oh yes, yes,
Speaker 1: I was reading an email, wasn't I. Let's say, um,
Speaker 1: when wearing these shoes, you are acutely aware of the
Speaker 1: length of your toe nails, and it is extremely important
Speaker 1: to keep them trims short for a number of reasons. First,
Speaker 1: if the toenail extends past the end of the toe,
Speaker 1: it is the body's first point of contact with the floor,
Speaker 1: which is extremely painful and can possibly break, crack, or
Speaker 1: bruise the nail or nail bed. If the nail is
Speaker 1: definitely not strong, enough to support the full weight of
Speaker 1: the body. Also, because the toes are packed tightly together
Speaker 1: in the end of the shoe, you could possibly cut
Speaker 1: a neighboring toe with the offending long toenail. I am,
Speaker 1: I'm shivering. Less directly related, the pain and discomfort of
Speaker 1: a too long toenail pressing into the floor causes the
Speaker 1: dancer to shift their weight back ever so slightly to
Speaker 1: relieve the pressure, throwing them out of proper alignment. The
Speaker 1: technique requires all of the joints toe, ankle, knee, hip
Speaker 1: to be stacked vertically if viewed from the side, all
Speaker 1: though partly an aesthetic preference. Aligning the joints like so
Speaker 1: makes balancing much easier and takes unnecessary uneven pressure off
Speaker 1: of said joints. Shift out of alignment and you add
Speaker 1: pressure and lose balance. The strain on your joints puts
Speaker 1: you at risk for chronic issues like tendonitis and brucitis,
Speaker 1: while the lack of stability increases the chances of an
Speaker 1: acute injury like a sprained ankle. In a field where
Speaker 1: such injuries can be career ending, every bit of prevention
Speaker 1: counts this. This part of this email has been a
Speaker 1: horror movie for me. Yeah, you don't even need the
Speaker 1: rest the Suspiria, right. My second example is a little
Speaker 1: shorter in Quarantine. My partner has been teaching me to
Speaker 1: play guitar, and I noticed I was having trouble playing
Speaker 1: certain chords. I keep my fingernails on the longer side.
Speaker 1: Though nothing extreme, and though they had never hindered me before,
Speaker 1: I found I had trouble pressing the strings down hard
Speaker 1: enough to play the chords without my nail bumping into
Speaker 1: the fret board. He told me I would have to
Speaker 1: wear them shorter to progress, but I didn't want to
Speaker 1: give up my long nails and looked for a different solution.
Speaker 1: Then I thought of Dolly Parton. She has much longer,
Speaker 1: flashier acrylic nails and gets by all right, what does
Speaker 1: she do? After some googling, I found that she seems
Speaker 1: to rely on open tuning. And what does this bar chords?
Speaker 1: You hear the guitar person. Yeah, bar chords are a
Speaker 1: way of So there are open chords that usually play
Speaker 1: with your fingertips near the top of the neck of
Speaker 1: the guitar, and then there are bar chords where you
Speaker 1: use usually one finger, usually your index finger to sort
Speaker 1: of like cap all of the strings and then press
Speaker 1: down some other strings on top of that. Uh So
Speaker 1: bar chords um allow you to sort of like play
Speaker 1: the same chord forms anywhere on the neck of the guitar,
Speaker 1: She continues. The guitar is tuned so that it plays
Speaker 1: a major chord with no strings pressed, and you lay
Speaker 1: one finger across to bar different major chords. This works
Speaker 1: in some situations, but still limits what you can and
Speaker 1: can't play. We'll see how it works for me. Sorry,
Speaker 1: this email ended up ended up a lot little longer
Speaker 1: than I intended. I get super excited to spout off
Speaker 1: about our freaky alien bodies. Side note, would love some
Speaker 1: sort of an episode someday about body specialization in humans,
Speaker 1: especially with athletes. Ever seen a picture of different athletes
Speaker 1: standing next to each other, like gymnasts and a basketball player.
Speaker 1: It's crazy that performance optimization can look so different. I
Speaker 1: love the show so much and hope you're doing well.
Speaker 1: Thank you for what you do. Oh thanks, Hannah, and
Speaker 1: I totally get you at the end here. I'm not
Speaker 1: really into sports. I don't really follow sports at all,
Speaker 1: but there's one thing that always amazes me, which is
Speaker 1: when uh, when the which Olympics it is. It's summer winter,
Speaker 1: but one of the Olympics has gymnastics, and whenever Rachel
Speaker 1: watches that, I'm always kind of entranced, like I can't
Speaker 1: believe gymnasts are real people. What they're doing looks impossible.
Speaker 1: Yeah it is. It is just amazing to be hold.
Speaker 1: All Right, we got another message from our listener Era
Speaker 1: about athletics and fingernails. Aaron says, hey 'all, I've been
Speaker 1: listening to your show through multiple hosts for years. I'm
Speaker 1: super thankful that you've done your best to go deeper
Speaker 1: and deeper as the years go on. You've educated me
Speaker 1: and sent me down some of the oddest corners of
Speaker 1: the Internet in the best way possible. You asked in
Speaker 1: Fingernails Part two if there are any odd uses for fingernails. Well,
Speaker 1: I have one for you. I am a former Olympic
Speaker 1: weightlifter and have had the pleasure to represent the United
Speaker 1: States at multiple junior and senior world championships. Early in
Speaker 1: my career, I met a fellow weightlifter from Greece. I
Speaker 1: noticed how long his thumbnail was, and only his thumbnail.
Speaker 1: I was super curious, so I asked him about it
Speaker 1: as best I could. We hit a standstill, so we
Speaker 1: found a translator. After she translated my question, he laughed.
Speaker 1: It's for weightlifting, he said, and I inquired how well.
Speaker 1: Little known to me at the time, there is a
Speaker 1: rule that you can tape your thumbs as long as
Speaker 1: the tip of the finger can be seen. This might
Speaker 1: not seem like a big deal, but in weightlifting we
Speaker 1: use something called a hook grip, in which the four
Speaker 1: fingers wrap around your thumb, pretty much the opposite of
Speaker 1: how any human grabs an object. This gives you an
Speaker 1: advantage by being able to hold more weight in your
Speaker 1: hand while performing the lift. Now the tape and the
Speaker 1: thumbnail length come in here. My friend explained to me
Speaker 1: that if you let your thumbnail grow out longer, you
Speaker 1: can tape further down your thumb, thus making your thumb longer.
Speaker 1: Looking for any advantage possible, I grew my thumbnail out
Speaker 1: to about an inch past what I normally would. I
Speaker 1: then taped it, and wow, did it help a ton.
Speaker 1: The interesting part for me was I always bite my nails.
Speaker 1: I still do, actually, but I have never bit my
Speaker 1: thumbnail for risk of damaging my advantage. I've stopped lifting
Speaker 1: competitively for about eight years now, and I cannot cut
Speaker 1: my thumbnail still it still feels too foreign and uncomfortable. Anyway,
Speaker 1: Sorry for the long story, but I thought it was
Speaker 1: interesting enough to write in. Thank you again for all
Speaker 1: you do to educate us in the populace. Hope you
Speaker 1: all are staying strong and hopefully plenty of front yard
Speaker 1: lightsaber battles. Well, Aaron, yeah, that is referring to a
Speaker 1: tidbit I shared about having lightsaber battles with my son
Speaker 1: in my front yard and then he would sometimes run
Speaker 1: to the side yard and leave me exposed, um battling
Speaker 1: no one in the front yard when people drive by.
Speaker 1: But this, yeah, this is the anecdote about the weightlifting
Speaker 1: and the growing out of the thumbnails. This is this
Speaker 1: is fabulous. I just had no idea this. This really
Speaker 1: blew me away. Yeah, totally really interesting. Thanks for getting
Speaker 1: in touch. Okay, we got another one about nails and mythology.
Speaker 1: So this comes from Carolina. Carolina says the episode on
Speaker 1: fingernails reminded me of a creation myth from the Mayan
Speaker 1: sacred book The Pope Voo, in which four hundred boys
Speaker 1: attempt to murder the Demi god Zipakna by asking him
Speaker 1: to dig a post hole for them and then burying
Speaker 1: him in it. He overheard their plans and dug a
Speaker 1: side hole to save himself. The four hundred boy as
Speaker 1: conclude Zipacna is really dead when they see ants crawl
Speaker 1: up out of the ground carrying his fingernails. Here is
Speaker 1: an excerpt from a literal translation by Alan J. Christensen
Speaker 1: from Mezo Webb Publications. And so in this translation, I
Speaker 1: just want to say some of the phrasing sounds strange.
Speaker 1: But I looked this up and this is Christensen's translation.
Speaker 1: I think the odd grammar of it comes from the
Speaker 1: fact that it's kind of a transliteration that looks like
Speaker 1: it's attempting to preserve word order of the original more
Speaker 1: than it's trying to make it sound fluid in English.
Speaker 1: So it goes like this. Then assembled ants, they walk about,
Speaker 1: they swarm. Then they gathered beneath tree everywhere they carry
Speaker 1: with their teeth. Hair they carry with their teeth as
Speaker 1: well as his nails Zipakna. Then they saw, therefore the
Speaker 1: boys he was finished. The demon look at Shirley. Ants
Speaker 1: they gathered hither they assembled hither everywhere, hair they carry
Speaker 1: with their teeth. There are his nails that can be seen.
Speaker 1: Surely we did it at last, they said to each other.
Speaker 1: He therefore the Zeppachna merely alive. He cut off its hair,
Speaker 1: his head merely as well. He gnaws off his nails.
Speaker 1: He gives them away to them, the ants. Thus he died.
Speaker 1: They thought, five eighties boys, and the five eighties that's
Speaker 1: four hundred, not five boys from the nineteen eighties. Uh uh,
Speaker 1: So Carolina continues. Zeebakna kills the four hundred boys by
Speaker 1: collapsing their house on them. They then rose into the sky,
Speaker 1: becoming stars. I read a very similar legend from Micronesia
Speaker 1: and thought it was strange to have such similar myths
Speaker 1: from such far flung places, until one day when I
Speaker 1: was clipping my fingernails outside and saw ants carrying away
Speaker 1: the clippings. I have no idea what ants use fingernails for.
Speaker 1: Maybe they think that they're dead bugs. I can see
Speaker 1: how such a disconcerting image could crop up in creation.
Speaker 1: It surround the world. For most of my life, I
Speaker 1: grew my fingernails long and tapered them to points. I
Speaker 1: liked looking like I had claws and having such a
Speaker 1: visible signifier of nonconformity. I didn't play sports, throw clay,
Speaker 1: or participate in other activities where long nails would be
Speaker 1: a hindrance. I was so used to having them long
Speaker 1: that when I decided to cut them short. After deciding
Speaker 1: long nails no longer reflected my identity, I found some
Speaker 1: things more difficult, such as doing needlework or otherwise grasping
Speaker 1: its small objects. I used to pick up very small
Speaker 1: objects by scooping them up with a nail right after
Speaker 1: cutting my nails. The increased sensation made my fingertips tingle.
Speaker 1: Thanks for such a consistently thought provoking podcast. Best regards, Carolina.
Speaker 1: I'd say, Carolina, this is a very thought provoking email.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much. Yeah, there's a there's a lot
Speaker 1: to comment on here. First of all, I love the
Speaker 1: the story here uh from papal Vu and uh you know,
Speaker 1: of course that instantly makes me think of the German
Speaker 1: music collective pop Vu. Who did um who did the
Speaker 1: soundtrack for a number of Vernon Herzog films, including a
Speaker 1: gear Ay The Wrath of God? Has that the wonderful
Speaker 1: um uh you know South American pipe sound in it?
Speaker 1: Um so certainly somebody have listened to a fair amount
Speaker 1: in the last couple of years. Oh, when you first
Speaker 1: came across them, did you not realize they were named
Speaker 1: after the Mayan story? I made that connection pretty pretty quickly,
Speaker 1: but that they were there. They're probably the first thing
Speaker 1: I think of though when I think of pop them, like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: I like them. They're good. They put out some good soundtracks.
Speaker 1: Um uh. The The other thing this is interesting about
Speaker 1: the ants because when it was first brought up, the
Speaker 1: idea of ants carrying off fingernail clippings, that that well,
Speaker 1: clearly that's somebody saw a leaf cutter ants in action,
Speaker 1: and you kind of think, well, what you have? They
Speaker 1: were carrying fingernail clippings instead of vegetation, and that was
Speaker 1: what I was expecting to be like the basic connection there.
Speaker 1: But then the idea that that they have been observed
Speaker 1: to carry off fingernails, that turns that on its head totally.
Speaker 1: That's really interesting. I've never seen that before, but I
Speaker 1: feel like I got to look that up now. Yeah, Okay,
Speaker 1: do we want to finish up nails with one last
Speaker 1: message from Bethany? Sure? This one comes to us from Bethany. Hi.
Speaker 1: Robert and Joe, I've been thinking a lot about your
Speaker 1: episodes on fingernails and have a handful unintended of antidotes
Speaker 1: to share. I started playing violin about a year ago
Speaker 1: after a decade long break, and have noticed that my
Speaker 1: nails are growing much more quickly than they used to.
Speaker 1: I'm left handed, so that, combined with the extra use
Speaker 1: of my left hand fingertips, means that my nails are
Speaker 1: growing at warp speed, which is really a bummer when
Speaker 1: I realized they're too long and I need to trim
Speaker 1: them again. Violin playing requires my nails on the hand
Speaker 1: to be very short, and they can damage the wood
Speaker 1: of the neck of the instrument, or they can get
Speaker 1: caught on the strings and can cause that awful teeth
Speaker 1: twining nails on a chalkboard feeling. My My husband teases
Speaker 1: me every time time I only trim my left hand
Speaker 1: nails and leave the right ones, but honestly, the right
Speaker 1: side doesn't grow that quickly. Now for a couple of
Speaker 1: gross stories. My husband and I moved into a beautiful
Speaker 1: home about two years ago. It had stood empty for
Speaker 1: about three years and was fully ready to move in.
Speaker 1: We had to do some of the standard painting and cleaning,
Speaker 1: but nothing too terrible. I remember the first time I
Speaker 1: went through the drawers of the master bedroom. I cleaned
Speaker 1: out all of the drawers and cabinets with pretty standard
Speaker 1: bathroom debris, some stray hairs, toothpaste, etcetera. Nothing to labor intensive,
Speaker 1: but a tiny bit gross. The last drawer was full
Speaker 1: of the previous owner's fingernail clippings. It was so so
Speaker 1: gross I couldn't touch them. I made my husband take
Speaker 1: care of them. What a great horror movie. This could
Speaker 1: become a beautiful home, except all the drawers are full
Speaker 1: of the previous owner's fingernail clippings. You know, I have
Speaker 1: to say, Joe, this reminds me this is not fingernails.
Speaker 1: But have you ever encountered an old um bathroom mirror
Speaker 1: medicine cabinet that has the slot in the back of
Speaker 1: it where you deposit razor blades? Oh yeah, yeah, I
Speaker 1: know exactly what you're talking about. I thought you were
Speaker 1: gonna say, have you ever opened like an old bathroom
Speaker 1: cabinet that had somebody else's hair in it? Which? Yes,
Speaker 1: but no, I know what you're talking about with the
Speaker 1: razor blades. Never anywhere I've lived, but I've seen that before.
Speaker 1: I've only encountered it like once, but I mean clearly
Speaker 1: it was a mass manufactured thing. And like there was
Speaker 1: an idea at one point where it's like, yeah, as
Speaker 1: you use up your razor blades instead of throwing them away,
Speaker 1: what if they went through a hole in your wall
Speaker 1: and then fell down into either the crawl space or
Speaker 1: just sort of in between the walls of your house
Speaker 1: and accumulated there. Like that is just so strange and
Speaker 1: and weirdly mysterious, and it reminds me of some of
Speaker 1: these traditions I've read about before about depositing hair and
Speaker 1: fingernails within the walls of the house because that would
Speaker 1: be a safer place for them to be, so that,
Speaker 1: you know, evil things cannot acquire them. Yeah, it's kind
Speaker 1: of like the ossuary churches, the buildings that are built
Speaker 1: with the bones in the wall les. Yeah. So if
Speaker 1: anyone out there, if you've ever you're involved in like
Speaker 1: demo or reconstruction, remodeling at all, I'd love to know
Speaker 1: what happens when you you open up that wall behind
Speaker 1: that one of these these these medicine cabinets, Like what
Speaker 1: is it, Like, what's back there. Is it just full
Speaker 1: of razor blades, rusty old razor blades, haunted razor blades?
Speaker 1: I I have to know anyway, Bethany continues. Finally, there's
Speaker 1: something about other people's nails and teeth that just grosses
Speaker 1: me out so much. My husband and I have been
Speaker 1: hosting a foster kiddo for about a month and he's
Speaker 1: lost three teeth. They're all in an envelope and will
Speaker 1: be shipped to his forever home. Similarly, I've been dealing
Speaker 1: with my nine year old stepsons teeth and nails for
Speaker 1: years now. Dealing with disembodied teeth in an invisible pixie
Speaker 1: that steals them from the under a pillow while he's
Speaker 1: sleeping is bad enough, but walking into my child chewing
Speaker 1: on his toe nails and he's watching TV definitely makes
Speaker 1: me question where I've gone wrong as a parent. Queue
Speaker 1: some horrified laughter. I've seen a lot of fingernail biting.
Speaker 1: I've never seen toenail biting, but that seems much more
Speaker 1: doable for a kid who's more flexible. I guess, oh yeah,
Speaker 1: these kids are crazy flexible. Um, the the the loose
Speaker 1: teeth thing is certainly can be a little wiggy because
Speaker 1: they have. They'll come up to you and there's like
Speaker 1: a tooth flapping. They're like, they're like, help me rip
Speaker 1: this out, you know, because there's this they want the
Speaker 1: teeth gone. They they there's something about like they want
Speaker 1: you know, there's the tooth fairy idea on one hand
Speaker 1: that you know they'll they'll be able to trade this
Speaker 1: for money with some sort of other worldly spirit, but
Speaker 1: also just the idea of of like other kids are
Speaker 1: losing their teeth, I want to lose some of my
Speaker 1: teeth too. And you tell them, like, we don't mess
Speaker 1: with it. It It will come out on its own. It's
Speaker 1: it's leaving your head. You don't need to accentuate it
Speaker 1: because you're just gonna get blood everywhere. And of course
Speaker 1: they end up wiggling and until it comes out and
Speaker 1: there's blood and it's a whole scene anyway. But Bettany continues,
Speaker 1: I would be interested to know if there's some connection
Speaker 1: between nails and teeth. I know that when my nails
Speaker 1: get snagged or scraped or something like a violin string
Speaker 1: or rigged rigid hard surface like concrete, or would my
Speaker 1: teeth almost hurt compounded with my reaction to the kid's
Speaker 1: teeth and nails. Just something else to think about. Anyway,
Speaker 1: I'm sure that's enough fingernail talk for you. Thanks for
Speaker 1: your podcast that keeps me occupied, whether I'm sitting at
Speaker 1: my desk at work at a public library that's currently open,
Speaker 1: or doing laundry at home. I've been inspired to start
Speaker 1: a Lord of the Rings reread rewatch this fall, and
Speaker 1: to rekindle my love of Queen by listening to I'm
Speaker 1: in Love with My Car on repeat after your Vault episode.
Speaker 1: Our cars, our bodies, our minds, keep up the great conversations.
Speaker 1: I'm in Love with My Car is one of my
Speaker 1: favorite just absolutely stupid rock anthems. It is one of
Speaker 1: the dumbest songs ever written, and it's really good. Gotta
Speaker 1: feel from my automobile. All right, Uh, I guess we're
Speaker 1: done with nails for now. So this next message came
Speaker 1: to us in response to our episode on Lins and
Speaker 1: this is from Sophia. So Fia says, Hi, Robert and Joe.
Speaker 1: I believe this is my third time writing to you.
Speaker 1: I'm an evolutionary biologist and I'd just like to point
Speaker 1: out an inspiring thought related to the kinds of symbiosis
Speaker 1: that we observe in Likens. Everything on Earth that photosynthesizes,
Speaker 1: except for cyanobacteria, is a product of symbiosis. There is
Speaker 1: always a photosynthetic component and a non photosynthetic component. This
Speaker 1: appears to be such a go to strategy for many
Speaker 1: organisms that I don't think we can even estimate how
Speaker 1: many times this happened. All plants are a product of
Speaker 1: ancient indosymbiosis. Um. That's mean intern like a symbiosis in
Speaker 1: which one organism sort of swallows another or takes another inside.
Speaker 1: Picking up between a prokaryotic photosynthetic organism now chloroplasts and
Speaker 1: other plastids, and a proto you carry out. Moreover, some
Speaker 1: kinds of algae have chloroplasts with one or two additional
Speaker 1: membranes surrounding the existing two brains of primary plastids. These
Speaker 1: extra membranes likely formed to due to secondary endosymbiosis. Roughly speaking,
Speaker 1: a cell engulfed another cell, after which at some point
Speaker 1: it was itself engulfed by another cell, et cetera, and
Speaker 1: in some cases probably even tertiary endosymbioses. Likens seem to
Speaker 1: be a more recent example of an In some ways
Speaker 1: similar evolutionary strategy, but the components still maintain a high
Speaker 1: level of independence. Now, if we look at the animal kingdom,
Speaker 1: we also find something similar. In corals, there's a primary
Speaker 1: animal component which strongly depends on its photosynthetic algal symbions.
Speaker 1: If they're lost for an extended period of time due
Speaker 1: to increased water temperatures coral bleaching, the corals die. So
Speaker 1: in this case, at least, the animal already went far
Speaker 1: enough down the evolutionary path in the direction of obligate
Speaker 1: symbiosis being tied to this algal organism necessary to survive.
Speaker 1: I find it fascinating imagining what some photosynthetic life on
Speaker 1: Earth might look like in millions of years. There might
Speaker 1: very well be many different kinds of obligate symbiotic organisms
Speaker 1: that would in many ways look and behave like modern plants,
Speaker 1: but having very different life histories. Some of them may
Speaker 1: have animal and algal origins, others fungal and bacterial or algal, etcetera.
Speaker 1: As always, thanks for the great show. Can't wait for
Speaker 1: more inspiring episodes, Sophia. Yeah, that is all really interesting,
Speaker 1: so thank you for getting in touch, Sophia and I
Speaker 1: I do love thinking about how the the I don't know,
Speaker 1: the tree of life that we often imagine is not
Speaker 1: just sort of like branches split off and then all
Speaker 1: go their own way. There's there's actually a fair bit
Speaker 1: of sort of re growing together of branches. And that's inspiring. Alright,
Speaker 1: here's another one. This comes to us from John. This
Speaker 1: also has to do with lin and and this this
Speaker 1: is I really love this one. This is a great
Speaker 1: little bit of listener mail. Hi, Robert and Joe. I've
Speaker 1: been listening to stuff to Believe your Mind for years,
Speaker 1: but have never felt I had a good reason to
Speaker 1: write in until your most recent episode about LINS when
Speaker 1: you mentioned the Lins of the Arctic article by James
Speaker 1: Walton UM and this, by the way, this was published
Speaker 1: UM on the National Park Service website. Lins of the
Speaker 1: Arctic by James Walton, National Park Service. Anyway, John continues here,
Speaker 1: I did a double take at the time. I've been
Speaker 1: fortunate enough to do vegetation monitoring work with James at
Speaker 1: the boreal forest of Lake Clark National Park in southwestern
Speaker 1: Alaska and can tell you that he really knows his flora.
Speaker 1: When he walked along thirty transsects of moss undergrowth and
Speaker 1: spruce trees. James would instantly an accurately idea the organisms
Speaker 1: that we passed, including the numerous mosses and lins. Anyway,
Speaker 1: it was fun to hear you mentioned him in the podcast.
Speaker 1: If you're looking for episode ideas, how about one on
Speaker 1: the salmon runs of the North Pacific. The early salmon
Speaker 1: run is an important event for bears, commercial fisheries, and
Speaker 1: um and anglers alike. It has unique economic, cultural, and
Speaker 1: ecological significance for communities across the North Pacific, and is
Speaker 1: threatened by climate change, poor fisheries management, and damn building.
Speaker 1: Worth a look best, John, Oh, that is a great
Speaker 1: idea for an episode. Yeah, yeah, yeah, they're I mean
Speaker 1: it's it's certainly come up in research before. I don't
Speaker 1: know if we've really mentioned it much on the show before,
Speaker 1: but yeah, it's like a fact. There's a fascinating biological
Speaker 1: story there. There's a story of humans interfering with it,
Speaker 1: and then also some innovations that have been at least proposed,
Speaker 1: if not implemented, to uh to help them out. Like
Speaker 1: I think there has been a salmon canon cannon, salmon
Speaker 1: cannon that has been suggested at times to sort of
Speaker 1: like launch them upward over dams and whatnot? Did first
Speaker 1: say camon salmon, like out there camon salmon, salmon jam
Speaker 1: and salmon cannon. Yes, um, so that that would make
Speaker 1: for an interesting episode. And and and again I just
Speaker 1: love the idea that you know, we this is just
Speaker 1: a source I came across, and it's neat to hear
Speaker 1: some of the human story behind the individual responsible for it. Yeah, wonderful.
Speaker 1: So thanks for getting in touch. Okay, we got a
Speaker 1: lot of responses to our episodes about mushroom foraging. Again, sorry,
Speaker 1: we can't get to them all. We're picking out a
Speaker 1: few here. One I just wanted to mention briefly was
Speaker 1: Thomas got in touch because in the mushroom foraging episodes
Speaker 1: we ended up talking about whether it was safe to
Speaker 1: drink milk produced by a goat who had who had
Speaker 1: eaten a bunch of poison ivy, and Tom got in
Speaker 1: touch to share an article by a North Carolina State
Speaker 1: professor of Crop and Soil sciences named J. M. Lugan Boule,
Speaker 1: and he writes this article that research shows that toxic
Speaker 1: compounds from poison oak ivy and sumac are not passed
Speaker 1: onto the milk of goats, so it should be safe.
Speaker 1: I guess that's potentially good news, but I'd still say,
Speaker 1: I guess, please nobody go drink, you know, poison oak
Speaker 1: goat milk because you heard it here. Do your own
Speaker 1: research first, check it out. Yeah, And so this was
Speaker 1: me that said that that threw that end really quickly,
Speaker 1: just cut of an offhand, because I think I had
Speaker 1: heard that at some point. I I researched it after
Speaker 1: we received this email. And yeah, it does seem that
Speaker 1: that it does right across a couple of studies, or
Speaker 1: at least two studies referring to the same thing here,
Speaker 1: that that you don't have to worry about poison um
Speaker 1: ivy or poison oak, et cetera passing through to the milk.
Speaker 1: But I also ran across an article that I can't
Speaker 1: completely vouch for yet that I need to return to
Speaker 1: about the idea of psychedelic goat milk, about psychedelic compounds
Speaker 1: surviving and becoming part of goat milk. And perhaps I
Speaker 1: think the author was arguing it could have played into
Speaker 1: various traditions in the past. I don't know. Uh, don't
Speaker 1: take my word on that one either. Uh, that one
Speaker 1: requires more research. But I love the idea of magical
Speaker 1: goats passing on their magical milk to early humans. It's
Speaker 1: an insight from dairy farmer Farmer McKenna. He had some
Speaker 1: great things to share on the subject. No, we should
Speaker 1: come back to that. I want to learn more. Yeah,
Speaker 1: thank so, let's see we We definitely have some more
Speaker 1: mushroom um mail here. Like you said, we got a
Speaker 1: lot of it. We had to sort through it because
Speaker 1: the thing about mushroom emails is that you know, some
Speaker 1: of them look fine until you start reading them, and
Speaker 1: then you know suddenly you can have a really dire
Speaker 1: reaction to them. So you've gotta be choosy. Uh. Sometimes
Speaker 1: the good emails and the bad emails look remarkably alike.
Speaker 1: So here's one of the good ones from Joseph. A
Speaker 1: few thoughts on mushrooms. I couldn't believe you didn't bring
Speaker 1: up Hobbits and the Hobbit metabolism episode, since they are
Speaker 1: particularly fond of mushrooms. It is true Hobbits love mushrooms.
Speaker 1: Microphilick shy are yeah more doors microphobic? I would say,
Speaker 1: do you think so? Yeah? I think so. Yeah. I
Speaker 1: guess it's hard to imagine mushrooms really thriving there. Yeah,
Speaker 1: all right, Joseph continues, I have not been foraging, but
Speaker 1: I have been attempting to grow mushrooms in a closet
Speaker 1: at home for the last few months. No luck yet,
Speaker 1: but I will keep trying. As to toxicity, when I
Speaker 1: was in high school, I played in a band. Some
Speaker 1: people assume since I was a guitar player, I must
Speaker 1: have been into illicit drugs. I was approached by some
Speaker 1: fellow students and invited to go shroom hunting. I made
Speaker 1: up an excuse not to go and forgot about it.
Speaker 1: A few days later I found out they were in
Speaker 1: the ICU because they had picked the wrong type. Lastly,
Speaker 1: mushrooms might be the first food eaten just because they
Speaker 1: taste good and not because of calaric or nutritional value.
Speaker 1: The nutritional value is really low compared to other foods.
Speaker 1: There are over seven times the calories in venison as
Speaker 1: in mushrooms. Salmon has nearly ten times as many calories
Speaker 1: for an equivalent weight of mushrooms. Sure, there's some vitamins
Speaker 1: and mineral, some fiber, and some species have a little protein,
Speaker 1: but not nearly as much as plants. And animals. I
Speaker 1: believe hunter gathers ate them when they were there was
Speaker 1: nothing else, but also continued to eat them when denser
Speaker 1: nutrition options were available, simply because they were tasty. Um.
Speaker 1: And then uh yeah, so that's the fully meo. Interesting. Yeah,
Speaker 1: this got me thinking about other foods that we eat
Speaker 1: that have a pretty low caloric density. I mean, for example,
Speaker 1: low starch vegetables, vegetables like celery or like leafy greens.
Speaker 1: You would kind of have to eat a disgusting amount
Speaker 1: of these foods in order to get a day's worth
Speaker 1: of calories. So it seems like we do eat them,
Speaker 1: but we eat them for a reason other than, you know,
Speaker 1: filling up and getting energy from them. I don't know
Speaker 1: if there's a disgusting amount of spinach, though, I can.
Speaker 1: I can eat spinach all day, No, I I love spinach,
Speaker 1: and sometimes I do eat it all day. You know,
Speaker 1: you have it in your smoothie in the morning, then
Speaker 1: you have it in like a case of d or
Speaker 1: something at lunch, and then it factors into whatever you
Speaker 1: having for dinner as well. Actually, one pasta dish I
Speaker 1: really like to make has uh it has roasted mushrooms,
Speaker 1: and I used to make it with roasted mushrooms and
Speaker 1: spinach and like like a peccorino cheese. But I've recently
Speaker 1: discovered that actually, I think kale holds up better than
Speaker 1: spinach in the dish because the spinach wilts just a
Speaker 1: little too easily. The kale is a little bit heartier.
Speaker 1: You've ever been to a pizza place where they don't
Speaker 1: have spinach? Is a topping? Oh? I don't usually look
Speaker 1: for it, but I'd be into it. It should be there,
Speaker 1: it should be offered, at least my opinion. Well, speaking
Speaker 1: of pizza, let's go to our next email about mushroom foraging.
Speaker 1: I think there's some translation issues on this one, but
Speaker 1: I'll do my best. This is from Jacob. Jacob says welcome.
Speaker 1: It starts with a quote welcome beings from an afterlife,
Speaker 1: and then Akaba explains that this is the Polish greeting
Speaker 1: and voyager one. It seems like someone confused cosmology with
Speaker 1: ghosts when they were doing the translation there. Um, but
Speaker 1: Jacob says, being Polish, it was really great to hear
Speaker 1: someone to hear that anyone in the Western world quotes
Speaker 1: pantadas that I had to read in high school as
Speaker 1: a mandatory book in a context other than PhD study
Speaker 1: on Slavic poetry. I cannot imagine the process that led
Speaker 1: you to quote this poem, you know. I think that
Speaker 1: happens a lot. On our show. We often hear from
Speaker 1: people who say, I have no idea how you ended
Speaker 1: up reading X Y or z well. I research is
Speaker 1: often like the idea of someone following a trail through
Speaker 1: the woods, and then you see something off to the side,
Speaker 1: maybe a fairy ring or some mushrooms, and you go
Speaker 1: out to look at it. And sometimes we get a
Speaker 1: little bit lost in the woods, but we but in
Speaker 1: doing so we find sometimes some of them very remarkable things. Totally.
Speaker 1: I mean, I loved our segment on pantadays I I
Speaker 1: don't regret it at all. But but Yaka continues, says,
Speaker 1: if you like such stories, I recommend a more modern book,
Speaker 1: The Wedding by Stanislav Vespianski. Mushroom foraging is indeed part
Speaker 1: of our culture, and visiting other countries and continents, it
Speaker 1: was hard for me to understand why people there do
Speaker 1: not like to wander the woods to do it. Being
Speaker 1: raised at the end of communism in Poland, it seemed
Speaker 1: mushroom foraging was part of every holiday anywhere close to
Speaker 1: the woods. Referring to poisoning with mushrooms, I honestly do
Speaker 1: not know how much vodka you need to drink to
Speaker 1: confuse macro lepiota pro sera with Amanita virosa or Amanita ploides.
Speaker 1: These mushrooms do not look, smell, or feel the same,
Speaker 1: but unfortunately some people die every year because of that.
Speaker 1: If you like consuming mushrooms, I have a good hint.
Speaker 1: Try our Malaria malia. Unfortunately, you will have a hard
Speaker 1: time to find it in North America. As a pizza topping.
Speaker 1: I send you a picture when I make one. It
Speaker 1: go is very well with a glass of primativo. As
Speaker 1: I do not eat animal products, I tried most widely
Speaker 1: available mushrooms as pizza toppings and this one wins the
Speaker 1: contest for me. However, our Millaria melia does it as well,
Speaker 1: quite good. By the way, I remember the episode about biophilia,
Speaker 1: but do not remember one about aquaphilia. By that, I
Speaker 1: mean a phenomenon that people like to spend time by
Speaker 1: the water. Longtime listener, first time emailing Jacob, Oh Wow,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of good stuff in that at that email.
Speaker 1: For sure. Surely you love mushrooms on pizza, right on me,
Speaker 1: of course? Yeah, I mean I love mushrooms and pretty
Speaker 1: much anything. Well not the smoothie. I guess we're not putting.
Speaker 1: We don't put them in the morning smoothie. I'll have them.
Speaker 1: I'll have them on an omelet or something in the morning. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that sounds great. All right. Here's another one. This one
Speaker 1: comes to us from Nancy regarding eggs. They're right. My
Speaker 1: neighbor turned me onto podcast and I'm hooked. I chanced
Speaker 1: upon your show and have enjoyed each episode and look
Speaker 1: forward to listening to more. I've also told about five
Speaker 1: people I know about podcasts and recommend your show. I
Speaker 1: have to react to your podcast about the exploding egg.
Speaker 1: I taught commercial food service to high school students aged
Speaker 1: students at a career center in Cadillac, Michigan, a small town.
Speaker 1: In the scheme of things, we had a large commercial
Speaker 1: kitchen and a dining room that could see a hundred
Speaker 1: We serve lunch four days a week for about two
Speaker 1: thirds of the year. One day, during lunch, a student
Speaker 1: waited on a gentleman who wanted two hard boiled eggs
Speaker 1: with toast, which wasn't on our menu, but she took
Speaker 1: the order and brought it to the kitchen. Because hard
Speaker 1: cooked eggs take a relatively long time to cook for
Speaker 1: a restaurant order, the student cook decided to improvise. She
Speaker 1: grabbed two hard cooked eggs out of a large bucket
Speaker 1: of hard cooked eggs which are available through commercial food providers.
Speaker 1: These eggs are processed and sit in a liquid bath.
Speaker 1: I'm not sure the composition of the solution, but it
Speaker 1: must contain some ingredients to keep the eggs usable for
Speaker 1: at least two weeks. She microwaved these eggs and prepare
Speaker 1: aired the plate for takeout. I was in the dining
Speaker 1: room when the students served the eggs, not aware of
Speaker 1: what had happened in the kitchen. There were about six
Speaker 1: tables with customers in the dining room at the time.
Speaker 1: I happened to be facing the gentleman when he pierced
Speaker 1: the egg with his fork. Boom, the egg exploded and
Speaker 1: sprayed a ten foot circle of tiny pieces of cooked
Speaker 1: egg on the guy and around the table and floor.
Speaker 1: Of course, everyone's eyes turned to see what had happened.
Speaker 1: It was a mess, and the guy had egg all
Speaker 1: over him. Luckily, he was very nice about it. The
Speaker 1: egg brushed off his clothing easily and we were able
Speaker 1: to move him and prepare something else. These commercial eggs
Speaker 1: are available to prep hard cooked eggs for salad, stuffed eggs,
Speaker 1: et cetera, but not to microwave. Buckets of eggs come
Speaker 1: in various sizes that depending on the restaurant's needs. It
Speaker 1: was a real learning experience and the students loved the
Speaker 1: teachable moment. Looking back, it was hilarious and it worked
Speaker 1: out well for all of us. I said this because
Speaker 1: I did not hear this particular reason for the exploding edge,
Speaker 1: which was which was not a freshly cooked egg at
Speaker 1: least that's what I'm assuming, like the ones used in
Speaker 1: your experiments. Is there a searchable list of topics? Although
Speaker 1: I enjoy all that, I have heard friends ask about
Speaker 1: particular subjects, such as animals, and it would be nice
Speaker 1: to start them there to pique their interests. I also
Speaker 1: would like to look up particular topics. I'm truly impressed
Speaker 1: by the depth of research and documentation you do for
Speaker 1: your podcasts. I look forward to listening to more of
Speaker 1: your work. Thank you, Nancy Well Nancy, I would say
Speaker 1: to start with the least fun part of your email.
Speaker 1: I would say, Unfortunately, our podcast has become less searchable
Speaker 1: in recent times. That's not due to decisions on our part. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I would say, whatever, however you're getting the podcast, or
Speaker 1: however you're your friends might be getting the podcast, the
Speaker 1: best bet is to try and search within that framework.
Speaker 1: So if you're listening to a show at at on
Speaker 1: iHeart radio, um you know is, then you can search there,
Speaker 1: Or if you're in iTunes, try searching there, like doing
Speaker 1: the search for stuff to blow your mind, plus animals,
Speaker 1: because we've certainly recorded a number of episodes about animals
Speaker 1: over the years. If our website is ever brought back
Speaker 1: from the Internet dead by digital necromancy, we will immediately
Speaker 1: let everyone know and that that will be the best
Speaker 1: way to search for things once again. Yeah, but yeah, oh,
Speaker 1: I love this story. So of course, in the Eggs episode,
Speaker 1: we talked about the phenomenon of exploding hard boiled eggs.
Speaker 1: This is something that apparently happens pretty frequently when you
Speaker 1: microwave a previously hard boiled egg and it we don't
Speaker 1: know for sure why it happens, but it seems like
Speaker 1: a good candidate. Explanation is that there are little pockets
Speaker 1: of water in the yolk that get trapped by the
Speaker 1: matrix of proteins there and get superheated, and then when
Speaker 1: they get exposed to lower pressure by cutting open the egg,
Speaker 1: they suddenly rapidly expand and just pop and blow all
Speaker 1: over the place. I'm sure it would be terrifying to
Speaker 1: have this happened to you if you didn't know it
Speaker 1: was possibility. All right, Well, thanks thanks for writing in.
Speaker 1: We appreciate that, and it's always great to hear from
Speaker 1: from new listeners who discover, you know, what we've what
Speaker 1: we're putting out, what we've put out in the past,
Speaker 1: and what we're going to continue to put out here
Speaker 1: in the future. Totally. Uh Now, we a lot of
Speaker 1: listeners got in touch about episodes that we did this October,
Speaker 1: our standard October episodes like Anthology of Horror, The Leshy,
Speaker 1: the Minotaur. I think we're probably gonna come back and
Speaker 1: read some of those messages in our first Flaming Barrel
Speaker 1: Chat or whatever we end up calling it our weekly
Speaker 1: listener mail related offering. But just to wrap up today,
Speaker 1: I did want to say that a bunch of listeners
Speaker 1: got in touch to say nice things about Weird House Cinema,
Speaker 1: So we we really appreciate all of the love and
Speaker 1: feedback about that. Are our new episodes that are about
Speaker 1: are you probably know by now that we have a
Speaker 1: passion for strange b movies, uh, you know, odd films
Speaker 1: that aren't going to make it onto any mainstream lists,
Speaker 1: and so we've been looking at those in these recent
Speaker 1: Weird House episodes. Those have been a lot of fun.
Speaker 1: It seems like you've mostly been enjoying them. I think
Speaker 1: we heard from one person who wasn't really complaining. We
Speaker 1: just said, yeah, not really for me, but otherwise all
Speaker 1: the feedback has been wonderful and it's it's been really encouraging.
Speaker 1: But Robert, do you want to read this message from Scott? Oh? Yes,
Speaker 1: Scott writes, dear stuff to blow your mind. Weird How
Speaker 1: Cinema is an absolute delight. Thank you for sharing the
Speaker 1: joy of flock movies with the masses. I've noticed Robert
Speaker 1: Lamb introduces himself as Rob in both episodes of Weird
Speaker 1: How Cinema released so far. Is this a signal that
Speaker 1: he's really letting his hair down to discuss the likes
Speaker 1: of without warning con troll to best Scott. Uh yeah,
Speaker 1: I I would, I guess. So you know it's this
Speaker 1: is like the like the part in Mr. Rogers Neighborhood
Speaker 1: where he changes sweaters. You know, it comes in from
Speaker 1: the outside, uh and uh and is going to share
Speaker 1: you know some some stories go to the neighborhood and
Speaker 1: make believe that's that's kind of what weird how cinema
Speaker 1: is to me. Well, I'm sorry, I've been sort of
Speaker 1: cross contaminating because I realized I've been calling you Rob
Speaker 1: on regular stuff to blow your mind episode, So I
Speaker 1: I apologizeified. I mean trying to jam the sweater onto
Speaker 1: you while you're not. It's not that uh that fiercely
Speaker 1: thought out a concept. So I'm I'm I'm Robert. Robert
Speaker 1: in most situations put the sweater on. But has anyone
Speaker 1: ever called you Bert? I don't know if I've been
Speaker 1: a bird before. I've been just about everything else, uh,
Speaker 1: Robbie as a kid, I think my my great grandmother
Speaker 1: called me Robin. So yeah, I mean every there's so
Speaker 1: many variations on it, and I think I've been all
Speaker 1: of them before. Do you know are some Bert's Roberts
Speaker 1: or all Berts like Burton's or whatever. I don't know.
Speaker 1: We'll have to ask some birds birds of the world.
Speaker 1: Bert listeners, let us know. We'd love to hear from you.
Speaker 1: We're gonna go ahead and close out the listener mail
Speaker 1: mail bag for today, but obviously a again, we we
Speaker 1: didn't have time to get into everything here. Uh B.
Speaker 1: We're gonna come back and we're gonna do listener mail
Speaker 1: on a more regular basis, So stay tuned and then
Speaker 1: see yeah right in, let us know. Is your name Bert?
Speaker 1: Have you ever watched an egg explode? Ever seen a
Speaker 1: bad movie that all these things are on the table?
Speaker 1: Tell us about the Bert life? Yeah, tell the Birt life.
Speaker 1: How do you? How do you of it? What's it like?
Speaker 1: In the meantime, if you want to listen to other
Speaker 1: episodes of Stuff to Blow your Mind, you can find
Speaker 1: us wherever you get your podcast and wherever that happens
Speaker 1: to be. We just ask you rate, review, and subscribe.
Speaker 1: You can also find us about going to stuff to
Speaker 1: Blow your Mind dot com that will shoot you over
Speaker 1: to the I heart listing for our show. And on
Speaker 1: that page there's a button. It's called shop or store
Speaker 1: I don't remember you click on that, it'll take you
Speaker 1: to a place where you can buy a T shirt
Speaker 1: or a sticker or a toebag or what have you
Speaker 1: that has our logo on it or a monster design.
Speaker 1: There's some cool new ones. There's one with Pandora on it.
Speaker 1: Go check it out. Uh see them for yourself. Huge
Speaker 1: thanks as always to our excellent audio producer Seth Nicholas Johnson.
Speaker 1: If you would like to get in touch with us
Speaker 1: with feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest
Speaker 1: a topic for the future, to tell us about the
Speaker 1: bird experience, or just to say hello, you can email
Speaker 1: us at contact that Stuff to Blow your Mind dot
Speaker 1: Com Stuff to Blow your Mind. It's production of I
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