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: My name is Robert.
Speaker 3: Lamb, and I am Joe McCormick and Rob and I
Speaker 3: are here with our loyal mail bot Carney to read
Speaker 3: back some messages you have sent in to the Stuff
Speaker 3: to Blow your Mind email address over the past few weeks, which,
Speaker 3: by the way, if you want to get in touch yourself,
Speaker 3: that is contact at Stuff to Blow your Mind dot com.
Speaker 3: We love messages of all kinds, especially feedback to recent episodes.
Speaker 3: If you've got something interesting you'd like to add to
Speaker 3: a topic that we've talked about, if you have corrections,
Speaker 3: if you just want to let us know anything. You know,
Speaker 3: how you found out about the show, what you do
Speaker 3: when you listen, that sort of thing. Right on in
Speaker 3: contact at Stuff to Blow your Mind dot Com. All right, Rob,
Speaker 3: let's see do you mind if I kick things off
Speaker 3: with this message from Cindy offering some some pronunciation guidance
Speaker 3: in response to our episode on the Urukiara, the Lovable
Speaker 3: Wobbly Mascots of Japan. Sure let's have it, okay, Cindy says, Hi,
Speaker 3: Robert and Joe longtime listener, and I've emailed in the
Speaker 3: past as well. I still love your podcast, including Weird House.
Speaker 3: I wasn't sure if I should write in because I
Speaker 3: didn't want to come across as a pronunciation pedant, but
Speaker 3: I think it would be of interest to you as well.
Speaker 3: I recently listened back to the two part episode about
Speaker 3: Urukiara and found it fun and informative. However, I did
Speaker 3: want to let you know that the word kawwaie is
Speaker 3: not pronounced kowai as most non Japanese speaking English speakers
Speaker 3: tend to say it. You know, It's funny because years
Speaker 3: and years ago at this point, we actually did an
Speaker 3: episode addressing sort of the overlap and convergence of these
Speaker 3: two terms. I think it was about the sort of
Speaker 3: cute scary pop culture phenomenon, especially in Japan. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I know that sometimes when you do searches
Speaker 2: in English based on these concepts, you'll end up getting
Speaker 2: some overlap as well, where you'll realize, oh wait, I
Speaker 2: thought I was looking up cute and this is clearly
Speaker 2: stuff that's in the horror creepy context.
Speaker 3: So yeah, but yeah, so this is what Cindy gets
Speaker 3: into in the email, Cindy says, first of all, the
Speaker 3: word for cute isk ye, and the word for scary
Speaker 3: is co ye. For some reason, when English speakers say
Speaker 3: cow ye, it comes out sounding much closer to co ye,
Speaker 3: with a rounded a that sounds more like oh. Cute
Speaker 3: and scary describe very different qualities, so I think it's
Speaker 3: worth taking the time to pronounce them clearly. I hear
Speaker 3: a lot of people saying it like a mashup of
Speaker 3: both words. The word k ye is pronounced with an
Speaker 3: a sound, and the e is actually a long e
Speaker 3: sound co y e. Scary is pronounced k wha and
Speaker 3: then e. As an email, if you listen to a
Speaker 3: Japanese speaker saying it online, you will hear the difference.
Speaker 3: Second of all, this word has worked its way into
Speaker 3: the mainstream in America, so I thought it was important
Speaker 3: that you knew the difference, especially if you need to
Speaker 3: use it for future podcasts. Keep up the great work.
Speaker 3: Thank you for the hours of fun and informative content.
Speaker 3: I'm impressed with your vast knowledge and the creative and
Speaker 3: thoughtful ways which you make connections. Ps. I currently have
Speaker 3: a bag of rice in my cupboard with a big
Speaker 3: image of kumaman in it, kumaman air. I always liked
Speaker 3: kumaman because my last name is Kumano, which is bear
Speaker 3: plus field. Cindy, Well, thank you for the guideance, Cindy. Yeah. I,
Speaker 3: as we said, this has come up on the show before,
Speaker 3: sort of the these two words in the context of
Speaker 3: each other. And I don't know if it's especially because
Speaker 3: of my Southern American accent, or if this is just
Speaker 3: going to be a common way of speaking. But when
Speaker 3: you have the O and the A sound, between the
Speaker 3: K and the W sound, there is just a natural
Speaker 3: tendency for them to sound the same. I think that
Speaker 3: might be especially true for sort of a Tennessee American
Speaker 3: accent like mine. It's really hard for me to say
Speaker 3: it any other way. I have to like slow down
Speaker 3: and break the word apart into different syllables to say
Speaker 3: it like a Japanese speaker would.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Likewise, Southern American guy gene here. So we try and
Speaker 2: get it right. But you know, thanks, thanks for the correction.
Speaker 3: Yeah. I can't promise we always will, but you know,
Speaker 3: we're doing our.
Speaker 2: Best, all right. This next one comes to us from
Speaker 2: let's see, this is from Jim in New Jersey, and
Speaker 2: this one has to do with odds and evans. I
Speaker 2: think this is a response to the whole rule of
Speaker 2: thirds thing and composition that we were talking about. Yeah, so,
Speaker 2: Jim says Robert Joe and JJ. Steven Spielberg illustrates how
Speaker 2: he learned the rules of thirds and The Fablements, which
Speaker 2: is a semi autobiographical film of his family portrayed via
Speaker 2: the a fictional family the Fables. The main careara, Young
Speaker 2: Spielberg meets legendary film director John Ford, who is portrayed
Speaker 2: as a salty curmudgeon. Ford asks young Spielberg if he
Speaker 2: knows art. Ford points to a few paintings hanging in
Speaker 2: his office. He asks the young lad to comment on them.
Speaker 2: When young Spielberg balks and responding, Ford barks at him
Speaker 2: to point out the horizon in the first painting it's low.
Speaker 2: In the second painting it's high. Now. I want to
Speaker 2: add I've not seen the movie in question here, but
Speaker 2: I had to look it up on IMDb. And it's
Speaker 2: worth noting that David Lynch plays John Ford in this.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's an inspired bit of casting, especially how notoriously
Speaker 3: eccentric John Ford was salty and curmudgeonly by reputation, yes,
Speaker 3: but also just like a super weird guy. And I
Speaker 3: should say another thing about the scene is so he
Speaker 3: has the young Spielberg in his office and john Ford
Speaker 3: is pointing it like paintings of cowboys, and he says,
Speaker 3: describe the painting to me, and the young Spielberg at
Speaker 3: first tries to say what's happening in it. He's like, well,
Speaker 3: there are three cowboys on horses around it. And he's
Speaker 3: like no, no, no, no, no, where's the horizon? That's
Speaker 3: what he's asking him when he does it over and over. Oh.
Speaker 3: But then after this, the John Ford character played by
Speaker 3: David Lynch, he caps it by making the lesson explicit.
Speaker 2: Yes, and Jim here includes some quotes from the film,
Speaker 2: but basically it comes down to Ford telling the young
Speaker 2: Spielberg that when the horizon's at the bottom, it's interesting.
Speaker 2: When it's at the top, it's interesting, but when it's
Speaker 2: in the middle, it is boring.
Speaker 3: It is boring. As explative. Yah, I really liked this
Speaker 3: scene because you can tell the way this would have
Speaker 3: been approached in a lot of other movies. And again,
Speaker 3: I think this is based on a real episode that
Speaker 3: happened to young Steven Spielberg. So also, like what apparently
Speaker 3: or allegedly happened in real life, you would expect the
Speaker 3: young director speaking to a kid who aspires to work
Speaker 3: in the film industry to have a kind a more
Speaker 3: kind of general wisdom about the spirit of filmmaking or
Speaker 3: something like that, you know what I mean. And instead
Speaker 3: he gives them this incredibly specific practical lesson about framing
Speaker 3: shots and that's all.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, as if like this is the one rule,
Speaker 2: get this and the rest will come anyway, Jim says that, Yeah.
Speaker 2: The next scene is young Spielberg on the back lot
Speaker 2: and he demonstrates that he has indeed learned the lesson
Speaker 2: of horizon placement.
Speaker 3: Okay, well, whatever the empirical research says about the universality
Speaker 3: or non universality of preferences for rule of thirds in art,
Speaker 3: john Ford is devoted to it. He's there, let's see
Speaker 3: you ready for me to do this message from Nathan.
Speaker 3: This is also about our series on odds and evens. Yes,
Speaker 3: let's do it, Nathan says, Hi, guys, I gotta say,
Speaker 3: even after twelve or so years of listening, y'all are
Speaker 3: still pumping out superior programming. I find fascinating. To call
Speaker 3: it great work is an understatement. Thank you, Nathan. That's
Speaker 3: very kind, Nathan says. When I heard the odds and
Speaker 3: evens topic, my mind went to plating immediately. I spent
Speaker 3: about two decades working in restaurants and learned that the
Speaker 3: use of even numbers on a dish was considered an
Speaker 3: amateurish faux pas. This was true regardless of the shape
Speaker 3: of the plate. I suppose it's the irregular juxtaposition of
Speaker 3: food against the symmetry of the dish that makes it
Speaker 3: appealing to the eye. Towards the end of that period,
Speaker 3: I learned desserts from a chef trained in classical French preparation,
Speaker 3: who insisted that each serving consisted of three colors, three textures,
Speaker 3: and three flavors. That's three threes naturally plated and or
Speaker 3: garnished in odds. He also demanded height and diagonal shapes
Speaker 3: for whatever that's worth. Oh yeah, you want your desserts
Speaker 3: to be tall, right, no flat deserts. I don't know
Speaker 3: how to check the veracity of this claim, but I
Speaker 3: once heard that traditional play in threes or fives came
Speaker 3: from Asian cultures. It is true, in part at least,
Speaker 3: that in both Chinese and Japanese the word for the
Speaker 3: number four is similar enough to the word for death
Speaker 3: that the number is considered unlucky and thus avoided. Why
Speaker 3: that would influence European cuisine seems hard to research. And
Speaker 3: it's not really about even numbers in this case, just
Speaker 3: the number four. Any thoughts, just human aesthetics anyway, gents,
Speaker 3: keep them coming, Rob, any chance you will reveal the
Speaker 3: origin of the name Argomandanese. I suspect some M S
Speaker 3: T three K inspiration your loyal listener, Nathan.
Speaker 2: Oh, Well, well, there's a lot of a lot of
Speaker 2: thoughts in there, I guess, starting with the subject of
Speaker 2: food and numerals and different cultures. I think the examples
Speaker 2: of threes and fives in Asian cultures like this is
Speaker 2: just in general, a good example of something we did
Speaker 2: talk about, and that is that there are so many
Speaker 2: factors influencing the way that numbers are p and you'll
Speaker 2: have things like this occur in a culture where yeah,
Speaker 2: particular number will have a lucky you know, a lucky
Speaker 2: or an unlucky connotation, and then it ripples out from there,
Speaker 2: and then that's going to influence the way those numbers
Speaker 2: are used, at least in some cases and other times not.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah. So for example, we talked in one of
Speaker 3: those episodes on Odds and Evens about research showing that,
Speaker 3: you know, maybe people view even numbers as more kind
Speaker 3: of stable and friendly and good in general, but then
Speaker 3: also especially like people perceive multiples of four as extremely even,
Speaker 3: like more even than even. But you know, these studies
Speaker 3: are mostly among like English speaking Westerners, and you wonder
Speaker 3: if the same would be true and say a culture
Speaker 3: where the number four among many people is considered unlucky
Speaker 3: because of a homophone association with the concept of death.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and again it's like, we can we can point
Speaker 2: to examples of within Western culture where you end up
Speaker 2: with with the situations that seem to contradict each other, like,
Speaker 2: for instance, thirteen, what unlucky number? Right, And you see
Speaker 2: all sorts of wacky things that are done to avoid
Speaker 2: listing thirteen, such as like skipping thirteen in a floor
Speaker 2: plan for a building in the elevator or I was
Speaker 2: noticing this the other day. I was with my family
Speaker 2: to an art opening and it was next to like
Speaker 2: a firehouse, I believe, and it was like, I guess
Speaker 2: it was like firehouse thirteen. But they're like, well, we
Speaker 2: got to put thirteen up there, but we're going to
Speaker 2: put it on a four leaf clover, so like a
Speaker 2: four leaf clover design was added, So we'll do things
Speaker 2: like that. But then we come back to the idea
Speaker 2: of the baker's dozen being like thirteen donuts or what
Speaker 2: have you. And of course the reasons for that are
Speaker 2: related to an entirely separate matter that has to do
Speaker 2: with like I think, like old baking laws, like old
Speaker 2: baking European baking laws. But you know, they contradict each
Speaker 2: other on one hand, like oh, you demand your thirteen
Speaker 2: doughnuts or biscuits or whatever it is, And on the
Speaker 2: other hand, there would seem to be an impulse to
Speaker 2: never give the customer thirteen donuts. What are you trying
Speaker 2: to do bring death upon their house? So yeah, it's
Speaker 2: just all over the place, and there are going to
Speaker 2: be examples like this, I think in any given culture.
Speaker 2: But then again, who had turned down the thirteenth donut?
Speaker 2: We talked about about how numbers of how we calculate
Speaker 2: numbers when it comes to food, Like, is anyone going
Speaker 2: to say no, please hold the thirteenth donut. I don't
Speaker 2: want it to be unlucky. You would say, why, certainly,
Speaker 2: one more donut, the more the mirror.
Speaker 3: Oh but wait, we didn't get to Nathan's ps yet,
Speaker 3: so Nathan also says, weird house ps. Y'all gotta do. Pumpkinhead.
Speaker 3: I know, like you mentioned about legend, there's something missing
Speaker 3: that's hard to pin down, and I admit nostalgia compels
Speaker 3: me to watch it each Halloween. It was Stan Winston's
Speaker 3: only feature directing credit, but the creature, the sets, the
Speaker 3: Witch's hovel alone is worth the viewing. The shantytown, the
Speaker 3: holler with the cursed pumpkin patch so gorgeous. I watched
Speaker 3: the film for years before I realized slight spoiler that
Speaker 3: each time the creature appears, he more closely resembles Lance Henrickson.
Speaker 3: Fun fact, Pumpkinhead features a pre blossom Miambi Alec, while
Speaker 3: Pumpkinhead two features a post punky Brewster SOLEI moon Fry parentheses.
Speaker 3: Don't watch the sequels though, and the dog Gypsy is
Speaker 3: played by Mushroom, the same pooch who played Barney in Grimlins.
Speaker 3: All right, wow, Unfortunately I have seen Pumpkinhead two, and
Speaker 3: I agree that Pumpkinhead is one of those movies that
Speaker 3: has a lot going for it. It has some wonderful
Speaker 3: production design, great creature effects, and yeah that you know,
Speaker 3: the sets are great, the witches, hovel, the graveyard and
Speaker 3: all that. Something I feel like is kind of lacking
Speaker 3: at the core of it in the story, but it
Speaker 3: does have a lot of great horror elements and some
Speaker 3: wonderful atmosphere. On the other hand, I unfortunately have seen
Speaker 3: at least one of the sequels. It's been a while.
Speaker 3: I recall it being not good, not good at all.
Speaker 2: You know, I don't think I've ever seen one of
Speaker 2: these in full. They were just some of them were
Speaker 2: would be on like I think, kind of like a
Speaker 2: Turner channel, maybe a USA or something. So it was
Speaker 2: just part of these films were just part of like
Speaker 2: the cable background static for me when I was a kid.
Speaker 2: So at some point I should go back and watch one,
Speaker 2: if only to appreciate the visual texture of the thing.
Speaker 3: I don't know how many movies they made it to
Speaker 3: in the end, the.
Speaker 2: Four, I think four movies total.
Speaker 3: They're really going to keep working that concept, but you know,
Speaker 3: they also did make a video game.
Speaker 2: Really for what systems are?
Speaker 3: I think it was an It was a computer game,
Speaker 3: I think. Hold on, I pulled up the link here,
Speaker 3: let me click the link. Yeah, it was a first
Speaker 3: person shooter computer game that I think was for like
Speaker 3: ran On DAWs. Basically, it was a computer game. Huh.
Speaker 3: It looks absolutely atrocious. I've never played it, rob I
Speaker 3: did include a screenshot in the outline here for you
Speaker 3: to see. So you're like wandering around in a gray
Speaker 3: maze with gray walls and gray ceilings, low gray ceilings,
Speaker 3: gray floors, and then you will see scary things like ooh,
Speaker 3: here's a skeleton, and here's like a floating face without
Speaker 3: a body, and and then there's a bunch of meters
Speaker 3: and stuff. I guess that's your life and magic and stuff.
Speaker 2: It looks horrible, one of the many like Doom clones
Speaker 2: of the day.
Speaker 4: I guess.
Speaker 3: Wait wait, wait, but we have the question of where
Speaker 3: where the wizard's name comes from?
Speaker 2: Rob Oh, yeah, Argomanganese. You know, I'm not sure exactly.
Speaker 2: There may be a little mst in there. There's probably
Speaker 2: a little bit of Ozomandias in there. There's a little
Speaker 2: bit of Manganese. But the short version is that it's
Speaker 2: a wizard name I made up on the fly in
Speaker 2: a Dungeons and Dragons campaign back in like twenty sixteen.
Speaker 4: I think, Ah, all.
Speaker 2: Right, this next one comes to us from Dennis on
Speaker 2: the subject of star trek and ramming speed. Yes, there
Speaker 2: is some more great stuff in this bucket.
Speaker 3: Oh wait, I guess we should say this is in
Speaker 3: response to our episodes on the ore powered galleys of
Speaker 3: the ancient Mediterranean.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So this was basically throughout the question we were like,
Speaker 2: are there ship rammings and star trek? It seems like
Speaker 2: there would be, since so much of it is based
Speaker 2: on nautical warfare, And indeed there are multiple examples, and
Speaker 2: we keep getting new examples, which I love. So Dennis
Speaker 2: writes and says, Hello, Rob, Joe and JJ, longtime listener here.
Speaker 2: I'd again like to thank you for the many hours
Speaker 2: of enjoyment your podcast has given me over the years.
Speaker 2: I started listing with Talos the Bronze Automaton when I
Speaker 2: started working a job with a very long commute. I've
Speaker 2: been hooked since. In your recent Ores and Wine Dark
Speaker 2: Seas episodes, you made mention that star Trek must have
Speaker 2: had some ramming incidents, if not several, and it's basically
Speaker 2: naval battles in space. You'd also mentioned Warhammer forty thousand
Speaker 2: and it predilection for rammable vessels. You'll be interested to
Speaker 2: know that there's almost a crossover between the two. A
Speaker 2: Star Trek space vessel ramming scene featuring what has to
Speaker 2: be the most forty k ship ever to grace the
Speaker 2: Trek franchise, and of course it's a Klingon one. May
Speaker 2: I present the Klingon Cleave ship from Star Trek Discovery.
Speaker 3: Now, I followed the link to look this up. It's
Speaker 3: like a Star Trek Memory Alpha link. But like, the
Speaker 3: pictures don't show a very clear view of the ship.
Speaker 3: And I think that's because this is supposed to be
Speaker 3: kind of a stealth ship or one that's in deep cloaking,
Speaker 3: so it looks almost translucent.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I looked at the pictures on Memory Alpha and
Speaker 2: I didn't get a clear sense of it either. But
Speaker 2: then I looked up some other images and I think
Speaker 2: I got what they were going for. Okay, Dennis continues.
Speaker 2: The ship features in the first episode of the first season,
Speaker 2: which incidentally, this means I've actually seen this episode, but
Speaker 2: I've forgotten it was a ramming vessel, as well as
Speaker 2: the last episode of the second season, where its role
Speaker 2: is to slowly crush and do other ships while cloaked,
Speaker 2: giving its target no chance to dodge, unlike other Trek ships,
Speaker 2: but like a classical Tryrem, it's built to ram a
Speaker 2: target with a massive, heavy bladed keel that makes short
Speaker 2: work of opposing ships, crushing them slowly like the Tryrem's
Speaker 2: prowlwood rather than a high speed ramming. It hasn't been
Speaker 2: seen since, likely because it's such an odd fit and
Speaker 2: because Discovery Star Trek Discovery changed its style dramatically in
Speaker 2: succeeding seasons. But it's just so ridiculous and wondrously metal
Speaker 2: and very warhammer, standing out from typical Star Trek fair
Speaker 2: Thanks again and best wishes, Dennis.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it is interesting how the concept of having this
Speaker 3: heavy keel and slowly crushing opposing ships it kind of
Speaker 3: feels out of character for Star Trek battles. It does
Speaker 3: feel a little bit more like something from a grim
Speaker 3: dark sci fi world.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I think this kind of sums up at
Speaker 2: least that first season of Star Trek Discovery, which I
Speaker 2: haven't seen all of but and I paid attention to
Speaker 2: some of the back and forth about it when it
Speaker 2: came out, and I have watched I think the first
Speaker 2: two episodes. Because it is just visual overload. They really
Speaker 2: made an effort to like take Star Trek and not
Speaker 2: change I think the way they've described it is that
Speaker 2: they were they made the decision to, look, we're not
Speaker 2: going to mess with the lore, but we can change
Speaker 2: the way the lore is visually represented. And so like
Speaker 2: the Klingons look kind of like space orcs. Like everything
Speaker 2: they're wearing is just like just designed to the nines.
Speaker 2: It's like just a very very rich ship, interiors very
Speaker 2: dark gothic and indeed kind of grim dark. Everything feels
Speaker 2: at once like Star Trek but also like a new Beast,
Speaker 2: And I did, you know, I'm not sure I love.
Speaker 2: I ultimately loved what they were going for, but I
Speaker 2: appreciated the effort that they we're putting into it. For instance,
Speaker 2: I remember there was something about I don't know if
Speaker 2: this was all ships or just like a particular like
Speaker 2: cling on Sarcophagus ship, but they actually had like tombs
Speaker 2: on the exterior. The whole of the vessel, so they
Speaker 2: put a lot of imagination to it. I'm not sure
Speaker 2: everyone loved it, and I think they kind of backed
Speaker 2: off from it, certainly in some of the Star Trek
Speaker 2: shows that came after this, and I guess maybe in
Speaker 2: later seasons as well.
Speaker 3: Tombs on the outside of the ship.
Speaker 2: That's I like that, Yeah, why not, you know, thinking
Speaker 2: outside the loure box on that one. I like it.
Speaker 3: Well, this is what we asked for. Thank you, Dennis.
Speaker 3: Another shorter email on ancient galleys and ramming. This is
Speaker 3: from Dimitri, who says, Hi, Robin Joe, well listening to
Speaker 3: the Ancient Oars Part three, I was pleasantly surprised when
Speaker 3: you mentioned the Athlete Ram as you said. It's located
Speaker 3: in the Hyphamir Time Museum, and Hypha is my hometown.
Speaker 3: I visited this museum many times a while ago when
Speaker 3: the kids were smaller, and I have to say, the
Speaker 3: ram looks really impressive in real life. Attached is my
Speaker 3: photo inside the museum of how the ram is displayed,
Speaker 3: taken back in twenty seventeen. They also have an estimated
Speaker 3: model of the trirem near the ram, and it contributes
Speaker 3: to the impression and yes, when you see it you
Speaker 3: immediately understand that these things are built to smash, not pierce.
Speaker 3: And then Dimitri attaches the picture. It says, thanks for
Speaker 3: the great content, Dmitri. And when you do see the
Speaker 3: ram up close. Yeah, so this is one of those
Speaker 3: bronze fittings that would go over the wooden part of
Speaker 3: the boat that extends out the front. And remember that
Speaker 3: it's not a sharp point because the boat doesn't want
Speaker 3: to get stuck in the boat it's ramming. Instead, it
Speaker 3: has three horizontal bronze fins that are sort of boxy
Speaker 3: and square shaped at the edge. Clearly the idea is
Speaker 3: to hit the wood of the opposing boat and try
Speaker 3: to separate the planks to make them start coming apart
Speaker 3: and taking on water.
Speaker 2: Yeah, very cool. I really appreciate the photograph here, not
Speaker 2: only the artifact, but of this very cool model. I
Speaker 2: love a great ship model a museum. All right, here's
Speaker 2: another one. This one comes to us from Ahmed. Ahmed says,
Speaker 2: Hey guys, Ahmed, here again, I loved your episode on
Speaker 2: Ores and I couldn't help but think of the Odyssey
Speaker 2: and how the ore is used as a marker of
Speaker 2: Mediterranean identity. Toward the end, Odysseus, after his long travels,
Speaker 2: is told by an oracle to take an ore from
Speaker 2: his ship and walk inland until somebody mistakes it for
Speaker 2: a winnowing fan, i e. A tool for blowing away
Speaker 2: the chaff when separating grain from husks. The oracle says
Speaker 2: this is the point when Odysseus's journey will be over
Speaker 2: for good. I thought it was so cool how in
Speaker 2: this way knowledge of what an ore even is is
Speaker 2: considered the marker of greekness and of belonging to our
Speaker 2: favorite wine dark seas. I think the pre industrial process
Speaker 2: of grains harvesting, threshing, winning, etc. Would make a good
Speaker 2: topic for episodes. It's given us lots of metaphors in
Speaker 2: everyday life, and there are lots of cultural historical tie
Speaker 2: ins given how important these staple crops were, that I
Speaker 2: feel would be great stuffed to blow your mind material.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, I think that's a great idea. Thank you, Ahmed,
Speaker 3: And I did not remember this moment from the Odyssey
Speaker 3: at all, but yes, the idea is what when you
Speaker 3: get far enough inland, they will not realize that the
Speaker 3: ore is for rowing, because it's no longer a culture
Speaker 3: of the sea. They will just think it is for
Speaker 3: blowing away the chaff from grain harvested from the fields.
Speaker 3: I guess going from the sea to the fields.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, I don't remember this detail either, but I
Speaker 2: love it.
Speaker 3: Okay. I'm going to move on to do a message
Speaker 3: in response to our Ignobel episodes. So we usually do
Speaker 3: a couple of episodes each year on studies featured in
Speaker 3: that year's Ignobel Prizes. These are satirical awards given out
Speaker 3: by a scientific humor magazine called the Annals of Improbable Research.
Speaker 3: These awards are given out for research that, in the
Speaker 3: words of the awarders, is supposed to make you laugh
Speaker 3: and then make you think. So this first email references
Speaker 3: one of the studies we talked about in part one
Speaker 3: of our Ignobel series this year, an older experiment from
Speaker 3: the nineteen forties in which a group of ag scientists
Speaker 3: were trying to figure out the impact of fear and
Speaker 3: stress on the milk yield from dairy cows. And what
Speaker 3: was funny was that an early version of this experiment
Speaker 3: involved putting a cat on a cow's back and then
Speaker 3: exploding an inflated paper bag at the cat and the cow.
Speaker 3: I think they eventually decided the cat, the cat stacking
Speaker 3: part was unnecessary. Is that right, Rob?
Speaker 2: That's correct? And you know, after we recorded this, I'm
Speaker 2: not going to name any names here, but of course
Speaker 2: the ignobels always generate some discussion on popular news and
Speaker 2: news comedy programs. But I saw some some jokes about
Speaker 2: this that didn't acknowledge that this was an experiment from
Speaker 2: the nineteen forties, you know, And so I think that
Speaker 2: is important to note here. They're like, this was not
Speaker 2: last year, This was the nineteen forties, but I think
Speaker 2: it was nineteen.
Speaker 3: Forty one, so the opposite end of the forties.
Speaker 2: So it's been a while. Yeah, but yeah, you know,
Speaker 2: the Eggnobell's always always make the headlines and people have
Speaker 2: fun with them, and you're supposed to have fun with them,
Speaker 2: so fair enough.
Speaker 3: And I think they did find that the paper bag
Speaker 3: popping made the cows give less milk, right.
Speaker 2: Right, right, they did. And there were other wrinkles to
Speaker 2: this experiment as well, but basically they just realized, oh,
Speaker 2: the cat is not necessary. The exploding paper bag is sufficient.
Speaker 3: Right. So in this context, we heard from our listener,
Speaker 3: Meg Meg writes in with subject line cows and boobs.
Speaker 3: As I was listening to your recent ignobell number one,
Speaker 3: I was struck by the similarities between cows and US
Speaker 3: human women. Many women experience issues with breastfeeding, the let down,
Speaker 3: the latching, making it all work right after birth. You
Speaker 3: are stressed and freaked out as you now have a
Speaker 3: new human to look after. Maybe you're all stitched up
Speaker 3: from a c section, and then you have to figure
Speaker 3: out how to get this little thing to latch onto
Speaker 3: your breast. What if you don't have milk, What if
Speaker 3: it doesn't work, What if you can't give the baby
Speaker 3: that ever important milk. We may not have a cat
Speaker 3: on our back and a bag exploding, but we are
Speaker 3: super stressed. The difference in stress and worry and breastfeeding
Speaker 3: between my first and second kids was night and day.
Speaker 3: I was less stressed and less worried and calm the
Speaker 3: second time, and it was much more successful. I wonder
Speaker 3: if any scientists have turned their gaze from animals to
Speaker 3: human women and the stress around breastfeeding and birth and
Speaker 3: that ever pesky let down. Thanks love you, guys, and
Speaker 3: then Meg gets in touch with the second email a PS.
Speaker 3: Another thought that occurred to me is that us. Human
Speaker 3: ladies also get hooked up to pump milk, often for
Speaker 3: various reasons, and a calm and RESTful, safe place to
Speaker 3: do that also affects the milk we produce. I recall
Speaker 3: a time I had to pump in an airport because
Speaker 3: there were no lactation rooms and there was no plug
Speaker 3: in the bathroom. I had to plug my breast pump
Speaker 3: into a cell phone charging station and pump next to
Speaker 3: people charging their phones. So that was a pretty stressful
Speaker 3: pumping environment. Again, links between cows pumping and human pumping
Speaker 3: and stress, and that's the end. Well, thank you, Meg.
Speaker 3: Fantastic couple of emails, touching on a really interesting and
Speaker 3: important topic. I'm sure that lots of parents can relate
Speaker 3: to this. I was talking to my wife Rachel about
Speaker 3: this before we recorded, and we were talking about how
Speaker 3: like it might be kind of hard to understand, like
Speaker 3: to make the comparison there with the influence of stress,
Speaker 3: just because having a newborn is almost always very stressful,
Speaker 3: you know. But it's true that even if the near
Speaker 3: universal baseline is stressed out, you can have gradations beyond that.
Speaker 3: I guess stressed out versus extremely stressed out and with
Speaker 3: those day to day variations. I guess a lot of
Speaker 3: people probably will notice what seems to be a relationship
Speaker 3: between breastfeeding outcomes and stress. So, Meg, you asked if
Speaker 3: there was empirical research on this, I checked, and yes,
Speaker 3: there is one fairly recent paper with a lot of
Speaker 3: citations that I came across is by Emily Nagel at
Speaker 3: All published in the journal Clinical Therapeutics in twenty twenty
Speaker 3: two called Maternal Psychological Distress and Lactation and Breastfeeding Outcomes,
Speaker 3: a narrative review. This is a review of the existing
Speaker 3: scientific literature on links between psychological distress, so not just stress,
Speaker 3: but this would include things like stress, anxiety, and depression,
Speaker 3: so various forms of psychological distress and people having difficulty
Speaker 3: achieving their breastfeeding goals. You can go look this paper
Speaker 3: up if you want. You can read it in depth.
Speaker 3: The full text is available on PubMed so you can
Speaker 3: read the whole thing. The results they reviewed, they say,
Speaker 3: are kind of difficult to combine because different methods and
Speaker 3: measurements have been used across different experiments. But the short
Speaker 3: summary of their findings is that yes, absolutely, there is
Speaker 3: pretty good evidence that maternal psychological distress can impair multiple
Speaker 3: breastfeeding outcomes, and this might be in part because stress
Speaker 3: or psychological distress can hold back internal production of a
Speaker 3: very important hormone called oxytocin, and oxytocin in turn plays
Speaker 3: an important role in the milk ejection reflex. So they
Speaker 3: propose that's a very likely candidate for a major explanation
Speaker 3: why stress would impair breastfeeding outcomes. But they also propose
Speaker 3: some other physiological mechanisms, and they also talk about how
Speaker 3: the effect. I think this is probably also relatable to
Speaker 3: a lot of people. The effect may be bi directional,
Speaker 3: so stress or other psychological distress gets in the way
Speaker 3: of lactation and feeding goals, which itself leads to more stress, etc.
Speaker 3: And so it's kind of a feedback loop. But ultimately
Speaker 3: the authors here say quote evidence to date suggests that
Speaker 3: maternal psychological distress may impair lactation and breastfeeding outcomes, but
Speaker 3: stronger study designs and rigorous assessment methods are needed. A
Speaker 3: better understanding of the physiological mechanisms leading to impaired lactation
Speaker 3: may assist in the development of early interventions for mothers
Speaker 3: experiencing distress. In addition, stress reducing programs and policies should
Speaker 3: be investigated for their potential to improve breastfeeding outcomes. So
Speaker 3: obviously that could be a lot of things to just
Speaker 3: generally improve people's conditions, increase comfort, increase support levels, decrease
Speaker 3: stressful stimuli while people are trying to take care of
Speaker 3: a newborn. Meg mentions one great way to help, and
Speaker 3: that would be if you're designing public places where people
Speaker 3: are going to have to spend a lot of time,
Speaker 3: like an airport or whatever, having private quiet spaces that
Speaker 3: could be used for lactation. That's a big help. That
Speaker 3: cell phone charging station story is is ish.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I do appreciate that they have those. I
Speaker 2: always think of this as kind of like telepods from
Speaker 2: the fly, Yeah, that folks can use at the airports
Speaker 2: these days.
Speaker 3: So anyway, thank you so much, Meg, great email, great connection,
Speaker 3: and great question.
Speaker 2: All right, let's get into a little weird house cinema
Speaker 2: listener mail here. This one comes to us from Joseph
Speaker 2: in response to our episode on It Conquered the World.
Speaker 2: Joseph says, you suggested a sequel where the invaders promise
Speaker 2: an end to logic, offering the ecstasy of pure sensation
Speaker 2: and emotion. I submit to you, gentlemen, that the film
Speaker 2: already exists. It is called Hell Raiser.
Speaker 3: Joseph, that's good, that's very good. I don't know if
Speaker 3: I would have said on my own that that's the
Speaker 3: goal of the Cinnabyites and Hell Raiser, but I buy it.
Speaker 3: That's a close enough fit.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean it certainly touches on some of the
Speaker 2: way that the Cinabytes are described in the original novella
Speaker 2: The Hell Bound Heart by Clive Barker, which I highly recommend.
Speaker 2: I think it's I think it stands up. It's been
Speaker 2: several years since I read it, but I remember thinking
Speaker 2: of the time that it stood up, so maybe it
Speaker 2: still stands up today. I don't know if the films
Speaker 2: ever really explore this so much. You know, they end
Speaker 2: up being a little bit more overtly evil, chaotic evil even.
Speaker 2: But yeah, in the in the original text, there is
Speaker 2: this sense that they just don't know what pleasure and
Speaker 2: pain are anymore, Like the lines have been blurred so
Speaker 2: much that they're like, you know, they think they're doing
Speaker 2: you a solid by removing all of your skin. Why
Speaker 2: would you spare yourself any of these these extreme sensations.
Speaker 2: We don't know what's what's a good extreme sensation anymore,
Speaker 2: or what is a bad extreme sensation. They're all the
Speaker 2: same to you, and we want to share those experiences
Speaker 2: with you with no malice.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And I think in some ways that is a
Speaker 3: parody or caricature of actual states that humans can reach
Speaker 3: in reality. I mean, maybe not to the extent of
Speaker 3: the cinnabytes, but you know, there are mindsets people can
Speaker 3: get into where essentially what is more important than whether
Speaker 3: an experience is good or bad is just the intensity
Speaker 3: of the experience.
Speaker 2: Yeah, kind of like watching Hell Raiser sequels, like it
Speaker 2: reaches a point where you're like, am I having a
Speaker 2: good time or is this hurting? Is there any difference anymore?
Speaker 3: What matters is sort of high activation.
Speaker 2: Yeah, was the how was the special effects makeup? Was
Speaker 2: it good?
Speaker 3: Okay?
Speaker 2: Then then I gave it was strong? Then I guess
Speaker 2: it was a worthwhile experience.
Speaker 3: All right. This next Weird House message is from Brian
Speaker 3: on our episode on Beyond the Mind's Eye. This is
Speaker 3: the one that's like all the Jon Hamer music videos
Speaker 3: with CGI that some of which came from Lawn norm Man. Yeah,
Speaker 3: Brian says, Hi, Robin Joe. Thanks so much much for
Speaker 3: covering Beyond the Mind's Eye on Weird House last week.
Speaker 3: It brought me back to some seminal memories of my
Speaker 3: early days using the computer. In nineteen ninety three, when
Speaker 3: I was twelve years old, my family got an IBM
Speaker 3: for eighty six computer. In no time, I began spending
Speaker 3: every day on it, learning to master MS DAWs six
Speaker 3: point two, Windows three point one, and CE Basic. At
Speaker 3: some point, one of my friends in middle school showed
Speaker 3: me a pov ray and I was absolutely blown away.
Speaker 3: I'd seen the oversized and overpriced magazines lining the shelves
Speaker 3: of my local Barnes and Noble that focused exclusively on
Speaker 3: the nascent world of computer generated imagery, but I never
Speaker 3: thought I would be able to experiment with it myself.
Speaker 3: It seemed to exist exclusively in the world of the Amiga,
Speaker 3: a computer I'd never even laid eyes on. After my
Speaker 3: friend explained to me the basics, I spent hours working
Speaker 3: on my first visualization, and after a very long weekend,
Speaker 3: I'd done it. I'd created a fl plane with three
Speaker 3: or four very reflective spheres. Some were solid, some were checkerboard.
Speaker 3: I was a new God. I remember being so proud
Speaker 3: of the image that I actually printed it out in
Speaker 3: full color. Imagine the cost to show to my parents
Speaker 3: and friends. People weren't quite as blown away as I
Speaker 3: expected them to be, but I was transfixed. As you
Speaker 3: mentioned in the episode, the language to discuss the appearance
Speaker 3: of CGI didn't even exist yet. I remember trying to
Speaker 3: explain to people what I was about to show them
Speaker 3: and finding it difficult to put into words. I would
Speaker 3: describe it as follows quote. You know when you see
Speaker 3: those images and they're like realer than real. They look real,
Speaker 3: but they're almost too real, Like it can't be the
Speaker 3: real thing because it's too perfect. That's what I'm about
Speaker 3: to show you. Five minutes later, I'd pull up my
Speaker 3: latest artscape created with an assemblage of cylinders, spheres, and planes.
Speaker 3: Speaking of planes, I think I have an answer to
Speaker 3: Joe's question about why the images were often described as
Speaker 3: trippy or psychedelic.
Speaker 4: Ah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, to refresh from the episode, that was one of
Speaker 3: the things we were sort of analyzing, Like, there's nothing
Speaker 3: inherently psychedelic or suggestive of an experience with psychedelic drugs
Speaker 3: about animation, So why was that such a common way
Speaker 3: of explaining what things like beyond the mind's eye were.
Speaker 3: Why did people compare it to drug related experiences. Brian's
Speaker 3: answer is, in my opinion, it was a result of
Speaker 3: the limitations of the platform. If one created a room
Speaker 3: with six orthogonal planes and put a camera in the
Speaker 3: center of said room with a specula or ambient light,
Speaker 3: the result was not very impressive. It looked like not
Speaker 3: very much. The creator had two options. One option was
Speaker 3: to apply a pattern to the shape. My aforementioned checkerboard
Speaker 3: sphere was a good example. This would create an interesting,
Speaker 3: yet otherworldly room whose walls were for some reason patterned
Speaker 3: like a checkerboard. The other option was to do away
Speaker 3: with five of the planes and make the base plane
Speaker 3: extend into virtual infinity. Once this was done, the user
Speaker 3: had a wide open space in which to insert floating spheres, pyramids, cylinders, and,
Speaker 3: if you were very good, something resembling a teapot. Slap
Speaker 3: a camera in the middle of a gold desert populated
Speaker 3: with floating pattern spheres, and the result is inevitably psychedelic.
Speaker 3: Thanks for the memories. I don't have any of those
Speaker 3: old print outs anymore, but I can still remember them
Speaker 3: quite well. Learning pov ray as a twelve year old
Speaker 3: was one of the greatest things I ever did on
Speaker 3: the computer.
Speaker 2: Brian, Oh wow, a lot of great technical details there.
Speaker 2: I like it.
Speaker 3: I can see what Brian's saying about the limitations of
Speaker 3: the animation tending toward a representation of infinite planes, which
Speaker 3: if you represent infinite planes with weird shapes just floating
Speaker 3: in them, that does tend to suggest a kind of
Speaker 3: visionary experience.
Speaker 2: You know. All this discussion also brought me back to
Speaker 2: the old three D Mays screensaver on what was the
Speaker 2: Windows ninety five, Yeah, which I hadn't thought about it
Speaker 2: in a while, but I ran across this quote. This
Speaker 2: is just in the wiki for it, but this is
Speaker 2: from Jacob Brogan writing for Slade, who said that it
Speaker 2: compared it to watching one's grandparents playing play Wolfenstein three D.
Speaker 2: So I think that's it's a pretty great comparison. But
Speaker 2: it was. I remember it being kind of mesmerizing and
Speaker 2: feeling like really interesting, like, Wow, where's this Mayze taking us?
Speaker 3: You know, you take that Mayze screensaver, remove all the colors,
Speaker 3: make the walls, floors and ceiling gray, and then you
Speaker 3: got the Pumpkinhead game.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean I remember just loving the Starscape where
Speaker 2: you know where it's like you're flying through space and
Speaker 2: this is just the screen saver. You know, it's amazing.
Speaker 3: It was so simple, and that one, it was one
Speaker 3: of my favorites. I love. Yeah, all those after dark
Speaker 3: screen savers were pretty cool when I was in elementary school.
Speaker 2: Though nowadays I don't even use a screensaver. It's like, well,
Speaker 2: the screen just shuts itself off. It just goes for
Speaker 2: real black. That's it great, That's very exciting. It's kind
Speaker 2: of where we are the relationship with computers these days.
Speaker 2: It's like is it off good?
Speaker 3: Well? Mine has been doing that, but now I feel
Speaker 3: like I got to go back to flying toasters. How
Speaker 3: do I find a way to download that after we're
Speaker 3: done recording?
Speaker 4: Now?
Speaker 2: Yeah, all right, let's see we have a few left
Speaker 2: here in the immediate grab bag. Let's see, we had
Speaker 2: a couple related to Labyrinth. So I want to read
Speaker 2: at least one of these. May maybe we can do
Speaker 2: more than one. But this one comes to us from Mike.
Speaker 2: Mike says, hey, guys, I just wanted to say hi
Speaker 2: and let you know how timely your Labyrinth episode was
Speaker 2: My wife and I were just amazed at how one
Speaker 2: of our friends had never seen or even heard of
Speaker 2: this movie and discussed a watch party to view it.
Speaker 2: Then I see your episode pop up for it kismet,
Speaker 2: I say, Anywaho, great episode, as always, but I felt
Speaker 2: I needed to also mention the various scenes where you
Speaker 2: can find hidden images of Bowie's face embedded in the sets.
Speaker 2: It is as though Jarif is always watching her. My
Speaker 2: favorite example is where the camera pans by some boulders,
Speaker 2: and as it does at one point, they all line
Speaker 2: up perfectly to make the silhouette of his face for
Speaker 2: a moment. It is awesome. Example below, and they include
Speaker 2: a screen grab of this. Thanks as always. PS, I'm
Speaker 2: keeping hope alive. You may one day cover Johnny Mnumonic
Speaker 2: in a weird house. It is beyond fantastic, and I
Speaker 2: promise worth your time to cover smiley face. Thanks Mike.
Speaker 3: I don't remember what part of the movie this was.
Speaker 2: This occurs. I think I think it's possible Sarah and
Speaker 2: Hoggle move through here, and then there's another scene where
Speaker 2: Hoggle and Jareff have like a powwoll near it. But
Speaker 2: I've been interpreted different ways over the years, like is
Speaker 2: it a sign is it a sign of his power
Speaker 2: in his megalomania? You know, like he is like the
Speaker 2: dictator of the Goblin realm here, so you know, his
Speaker 2: face would be everywhere, and it is a place of
Speaker 2: confusion and riddle and hidden meaning. So yes, of course
Speaker 2: it would take this kind of form. But you could
Speaker 2: also interpret it as sort of signifying his own sort
Speaker 2: of imprisonment here. You know, like he here, he is
Speaker 2: trapped in stone, and he is in a sense like
Speaker 2: trapped here at the top of the Goblin world and
Speaker 2: desperately wants maybe not escape. I don't not think escape.
Speaker 2: Escape is possible for him or conceivable for him, but
Speaker 2: he wants something different, and you know that is kind
Speaker 2: of like his struggle in Labyrinth.
Speaker 3: Interesting, all right, you want to do one more about Labyrinth?
Speaker 3: This one from Lauren.
Speaker 2: Sure.
Speaker 3: This is from Lauren, who says, Hi, Joe and Rob.
Speaker 3: This male is in response to your recent episode on
Speaker 3: nineteen eighty six is the labyrin I wanted to share
Speaker 3: some of my experiences and thoughts. I first want to
Speaker 3: talk about my initial encounters with this film in the
Speaker 3: early nineties at the end of every school year, without fail,
Speaker 3: the weird foreign art teacher at my elementary school in
Speaker 3: Rhode Island would show the film and then have us
Speaker 3: all make puppets afterwards. That sounds awesome to me. He
Speaker 3: was an odd but seemingly harmless middle aged man with
Speaker 3: a dark and dangly, villainous mustache. He used to tweeze
Speaker 3: his nosehair as during class, propping up a little mirror
Speaker 3: in front of him on his desk. I tried to
Speaker 3: search him up on the Internet, but I have no
Speaker 3: idea how to spell his Eastern European sounding last name. Anyways,
Speaker 3: even as an elementary schooler, I remember thinking it was
Speaker 3: odd that the school let him show this film to
Speaker 3: a bunch of little kids every year, partially on account
Speaker 3: of the mild horrors woven throughout the fantasy, but primarily
Speaker 3: on account of the scandalousness of David Bowie's very tight
Speaker 3: fitting pants. There were many hushed giggles about it. Anyways,
Speaker 3: the yearly experience formed an interesting multi generational link between
Speaker 3: all of the kids in town. During college. Once I
Speaker 3: was camping with my older brother and his friends, I
Speaker 3: was adjusting the rocks around the campfire and absent mindedly
Speaker 3: said Ludo friends. One of my brother's friends from high
Speaker 3: school heard me and perked up in the most enthusiastic
Speaker 3: and childlike manner of all the shared experiences for people
Speaker 3: to bond over. A side note, my older brother was
Speaker 3: not part of this elementary school experience. My final comment
Speaker 3: is about the riddle of the Four Nights. I always
Speaker 3: got the sense that Sarah Jennifer Connelly's character was correct
Speaker 3: in her puzzling out of the paradox, but it didn't
Speaker 3: matter because she didn't consider the possibility that neither of
Speaker 3: them actually knew, which door led to certain doom, that
Speaker 3: they were just creatures of chaos and absurdity, like the
Speaker 3: majority of the other critters in the labyrinth. Thanks as
Speaker 3: always for the awesome content, Lauren.
Speaker 2: Well, that's possible. We talked about the underlying thought experience.
Speaker 2: They're the underlying paradox, and like one of the keys
Speaker 2: to the solution working is that truth cannot be lies.
Speaker 2: If truth can be lies, then the whole thing falls apart.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and I guess the other way that could be
Speaker 3: the case is if like neither of them are actually
Speaker 3: bound to say true or falser. It's the whole thing's
Speaker 3: just made up. They're just messing with her.
Speaker 2: I can't accept that. Though I've not too much about
Speaker 2: this over time, they it has to be legit. But then,
Speaker 2: of course it ends up apparently not mattering all that
Speaker 2: much because she gets cocky and she says that the
Speaker 2: labyrinth is a piece of cake, and then it's down
Speaker 2: the hole. She goes into the opliat.
Speaker 3: You've got a sunk costs bias on this because you've
Speaker 3: already put the work in on figuring out the riddle,
Speaker 3: and like, if you've put that work in, you've got
Speaker 3: to believe it means something.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Wait, I feel like we need to do this one
Speaker 3: Immortal Kombat. What do you think?
Speaker 2: Sure, let's do it. Let's flow through it. We go
Speaker 2: one more and yeah, we've got a bunch of like
Speaker 2: Halloween weird houses coming up, and I think that's going
Speaker 2: to probably get a lot of listener feedback. So we
Speaker 2: need to fit in the Mortal Kombat before we hit
Speaker 2: all that. All right, This one's from CEB. CEB says, hi,
Speaker 2: CB here loved your deep analysis of the Mortal Kombat movie.
Speaker 2: It's corny, has a sense of fun to it and
Speaker 2: makes you want to run a half marathon after listening
Speaker 2: to the soundtrack. Anyway, you were confused about Johnny Cage's
Speaker 2: photo in the movie. The photo is a nod to
Speaker 2: the hardcore Mortal Kombat gamers out there when the movie
Speaker 2: came out, Mortal Kombat two had been out for a while.
Speaker 2: In that game, for Johnny Cage's friendship move, friendships were
Speaker 2: an alternative to hitting your fatality, where something happy happens,
Speaker 2: like I think, like Sheng Sung makes a rainbow appear
Speaker 2: between his poems.
Speaker 3: You give your opponent a teddy bear.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that sort of thing. He signs a photo for
Speaker 2: his enemy in the movie. By itself, it doesn't make
Speaker 2: utter sense, but I guess they wanted to throw something
Speaker 2: fun into the mix. As for bad DVD menus, there
Speaker 2: are two DVD menus that I remember cursing at. One
Speaker 2: of them was Memento and the other one was the
Speaker 2: nineteen eighty five Transformers animated movie. The DVD menu for
Speaker 2: Memento was designed like the Doctor's Notes. You had to
Speaker 2: search for the playtab amongst post its and illegible doctor's
Speaker 2: handwriting and Transformers. The movie had you going back and
Speaker 2: forth in the menu trying to find the special features.
Speaker 3: Did this come up because we were talking about the
Speaker 3: menu on the Free Jack DVD that was like a
Speaker 3: classic nineteen ninety nine style DVD menu that had pages
Speaker 3: like visit our website and it would just show you
Speaker 3: a URL.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, I mean, they don't make DVDs, and they
Speaker 2: don't make special editions quite like they did with some
Speaker 2: of those early DVD special editions, Like I had the
Speaker 2: one for Big Trouble in Little China, and it just
Speaker 2: had so many pages of extras. It had like little
Speaker 2: hidden Easter eggs.
Speaker 3: It was a whole experience essentially games in the DVD menus.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, so I missed that. I mean there's still,
Speaker 2: as we often just go in Weird House, there's some
Speaker 2: excellent special editions coming out these days and still coming out,
Speaker 2: and they're reusing a lot of that older uh, that
Speaker 2: older content. For instance, there's like a new revamped Blu
Speaker 2: ray of Chronicles of Ridding coming out that looks really good.
Speaker 2: But anyway, that's all beside the point.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I feel at least like the new ones that
Speaker 3: are putting a lot of stuff in there. It's it's
Speaker 3: pretty logically organized and it's easy to get to what
Speaker 3: you want, instead of these older DVDs where it was
Speaker 3: like the the navigation functionality on its own was like
Speaker 3: a game, you know.
Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, Yeah, they've gotten so much better about just
Speaker 2: the accessibility the presentation, especially with like these little like
Speaker 2: the little menu that will pop up at the bottom
Speaker 2: you can bring up while you're watching the film. Yeah,
Speaker 2: these older DVDs were a lot clunkier, and yeah, sometimes
Speaker 2: the menus were just clearly not designed with the viewer
Speaker 2: experience in mind. Anyway, CB continues here speaking of the
Speaker 2: DVDs and an affinity for Dungeons and Dragons. The Collector's
Speaker 2: Edition for the Dungeons and Dragons animated show was great.
Speaker 2: Not only was it loaded with special features, but it
Speaker 2: came with a mini adventure supplement, four point five edition
Speaker 2: character sheets for all the characters, and it all came
Speaker 2: in a nice first edition red box. Before I go,
Speaker 2: I want you to do a weird house cartoon series,
Speaker 2: or at least deep dive on the series. The cartoon
Speaker 2: series is called Liberty's Kids. It's by Diic Productions, which
Speaker 2: should say a lot, but also adds to the mystery
Speaker 2: of getting the voice actors the show is set during
Speaker 2: the Revolutionary War and follows two kids as they help
Speaker 2: out Ben Franklin with missions and his paper. Now. Ben
Speaker 2: Franklin's voice is done by Walter Cronkite, Jefferson is voiced
Speaker 2: by Dustin Hoffman, and one of the generals is supplied
Speaker 2: by Arnold himself. I want to know WTF anyway, I've
Speaker 2: written a lot have fun cep what.
Speaker 3: I did not know anything about Liberty's Kids. I did
Speaker 3: not remember this at all, so I had to look
Speaker 3: it up. It looks like it ran on PBS from
Speaker 3: about two thousand and two to two thousand and three.
Speaker 3: The animation style looks like a combination of Captain Planet
Speaker 3: and The Magic School Bus if you can picture that.
Speaker 3: But the voice cast is unbelievable for something I had
Speaker 3: never heard of. So yeah, it's got cronkeyed is Ben Franklin,
Speaker 3: Sylvester Stallone as Paul Revere, Ben Stiller as Thomas Jefferson.
Speaker 3: The wiki says that I know in the email, CB
Speaker 3: says that Dustin Hoffman was Jefferson, but the wikie says
Speaker 3: Hoffman is Benedict Arnold, not Jefferson, and Ben Stiller is Jefferson.
Speaker 3: Billy Crystal as John Adams by the way, obnoxious and unliked,
Speaker 3: as they say, and At Benning as Abigail Adams, Michael
Speaker 3: Douglas as Patrick Henry, and then Arnold Schwarzenegger as Baron
Speaker 3: von Steuben, who was a Prussian officer who was crucial
Speaker 3: in bringing like training an organization to the what he
Speaker 3: thought was poorly organized and and untrained Continental Army. Also,
Speaker 3: it had Whoopy Goldberg as Deborah Sampson, who famously disguised
Speaker 3: herself as a man so she could fight in the
Speaker 3: Continental Army. Had Liam Neeson bringing a particular set of
Speaker 3: skills to the portrayal of John Paul Jones. And it
Speaker 3: had Michael Yorke as Admiral Howe stacked cast. Can't believe
Speaker 3: I've never heard of this.
Speaker 2: I'll also throw in that this also features the voice
Speaker 2: the vocal talents of Jason Connery. So there you go,
Speaker 2: Sean Connery's son.
Speaker 3: Wait, wait, does he play a spy? Did he play Hale?
Speaker 2: I'm pulling it up on IMDb here and I'm not
Speaker 2: seeing the character name reference, but maybe that is the case.
Speaker 2: It looks like he was in Let's see five different
Speaker 2: episodes that.
Speaker 3: Would be a hilarious nod. I would cast him as
Speaker 3: a spy because Sean Connery's do we say Sean Connery's brother,
Speaker 3: If we did, that was his son, his son's I'm sorry,
Speaker 3: Neil Connery. This is Jason, not Operation Kid Brother, Operation Son. Yes, okay, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 3: this one is new to me. I had never heard
Speaker 3: of this. I love when you find out about these
Speaker 3: like I guess more often it's movies that I like.
Speaker 3: How is it this star studded and I've never heard
Speaker 3: of it before? But this is somehow even funnier because
Speaker 3: it's a cartoon kids show about the Revolutionary War. Yeah, okay.
Speaker 3: One last message this comes. It's also about Weird House.
Speaker 3: Comes from our listener Milan. Subject line Weird House, free
Speaker 3: Jack ending. Milan says, Hi, guys, longtime listener, first time emailer.
Speaker 3: If this has been addressed in listener mail, just take
Speaker 3: this as a fan who is desperate to have something
Speaker 3: to message you about. I just had a small note
Speaker 3: on your coverage of free Jack, specifically the ending. This
Speaker 3: one is a real guilty pleasure since childhood, and I
Speaker 3: think the ending made more sense than you gave it.
Speaker 3: Credit for Mick Jagger's character let's furlong get away with
Speaker 3: not knowing the identification number, perhaps part out of respect,
Speaker 3: but mostly because if the transfer did not complete, he
Speaker 3: would not get paid. Not to mention the black mark
Speaker 3: and his reputation. Most of the movie is pretty ridiculous,
Speaker 3: but it makes sense why Mick Jagger doesn't really care
Speaker 3: who's in that body. Love what you guys do, So
Speaker 3: thanks again for doing it, Milan. Now, Milan, I wanted
Speaker 3: to feature this email for a couple of reasons. Number one,
Speaker 3: I wanted to honor your effort in explaining this ending
Speaker 3: that apparently went over our heads. But also I thought
Speaker 3: it was funny because this episode was so long ago,
Speaker 3: I have no idea what you're talking about.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there are a number of sensations and moments and
Speaker 2: lines that stick with one from free Jack, but I
Speaker 2: do vaguely remember this standoff of the end.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but anyway, I thought it was it was only
Speaker 3: fair to let you make your case, So thank you, Milan.
Speaker 2: All right, Well, on that note, we're gonna go ahead
Speaker 2: and send Carney back into the depths. We're going to
Speaker 2: close up the mail bag, but we'll be back probably
Speaker 2: sometime next month, sometime in October. We'll probably be back
Speaker 2: with another listener mail episode, so keep it coming, and
Speaker 2: certainly as we start rolling out our Halloween episodes, write
Speaker 2: in with all of your thoughts, your comments, your observations,
Speaker 2: and so forth. We'd love to hear from you.
Speaker 3: Huge thanks as always to our excellent audio producer JJ Posway.
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.
Speaker 1: Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production of iHeartRadio. For
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