Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind Listener Mail.
Speaker 2: This is Robert Lamb and this is Joe McCormick. And
Speaker 2: it is Monday, the day of each week that we
Speaker 2: read back messages from the Stuff to Blow Your Mind
Speaker 2: email address. If you have never gotten in touch before,
Speaker 2: why not give it a try. It is contact at
Speaker 2: stuff to Blow your Mind dot com. Whatever you want
Speaker 2: to send in this fair game. Of course, we always
Speaker 2: appreciate feedback to recent episodes, especially if you have something
Speaker 2: interesting you'd like.
Speaker 3: To add to a topic we talked about. Send it
Speaker 3: on contact at stuff to Blow your Mind dot com. Oh,
Speaker 3: and also we should give you a heads up at
Speaker 3: the beginning of today's episode. This will be an all
Speaker 3: new listener Mail episode, but for the rest of this
Speaker 3: week we are going to be running some Vault episodes
Speaker 3: because Rob and I will be out, but we're hoping
Speaker 3: you'll enjoy the Vault episodes in our absence, and we'll
Speaker 3: be back with all new content once again next week.
Speaker 4: All right, what are we have in the nail bag today? Joe?
Speaker 3: Let's see. I think I'm going to kick things off
Speaker 3: with this message from Ginger responding to our series on
Speaker 3: Anomalous imagery. This was a series we did on weird
Speaker 3: looking fuzzy images. Specifically, we focused on images from deep
Speaker 3: underwater or from things created in ancient history, images that
Speaker 3: some people are quick to interpret as evidence for their
Speaker 3: highly speculative theory of choice aliens, atlantis, time travelers, etc.
Speaker 3: But a lot of what we talked about in that
Speaker 3: series was the correspondence between the objective qualities of images
Speaker 3: and patterns in how people interpret those images. So, for example,
Speaker 3: the more fuzzy and ambiguous the imagery is in the
Speaker 3: first place, probably the better for people who want to
Speaker 3: use it to support their alien riddled model of the world,
Speaker 3: because higher quality or higher resolution imagery tends to be
Speaker 3: more easily identified as whatever it actually is, and so
Speaker 3: far it has never been aliens. So moving on to
Speaker 3: this message from Ginger, Ginger says, hi, guys, and she
Speaker 3: includes a photo for us to look out of a
Speaker 3: large boulder sort of a rock out cropping situated over
Speaker 3: a freeway. Ginger says, this is a rock I have
Speaker 3: seen all my life driving on the freeway past Eagle Rock, California.
Speaker 3: It's pretty iconic.
Speaker 4: In these parts.
Speaker 3: As a kid, I was fascinated by the eagle head
Speaker 3: I saw with the eyebrow extending out and the beak
Speaker 3: carving into the hillside on the left. Folks, see, you
Speaker 3: can't see what we're looking at here, but I do
Speaker 3: see what Ginger is talking about. Look, the image she
Speaker 3: included does look like an eagle's head with a kind
Speaker 3: of curved beak coming down in the front. And yeah,
Speaker 3: and then there's a kind of recess in the rock
Speaker 3: that could be interpreted as the eagle's eye.
Speaker 4: Okay, I can see that. I can see an eagle here.
Speaker 3: But then Ginger says, a few years ago, I found
Speaker 3: out that the eagle in the rock that the Native
Speaker 3: Americans saw is actually flying toward us. The eagle is
Speaker 3: what I thought was the eye. There is no beak.
Speaker 3: My reaction to this new information was conflicted. I think
Speaker 3: I felt scammed at first. Obviously, some of the eagle
Speaker 3: has worn away over the years, and the shadows play
Speaker 3: a part in this image. I still see the eagle
Speaker 3: head mostly, but I can switch over when I want to.
Speaker 3: Thanks for all you do, Ginger. And then Rabbi attached
Speaker 3: a photo that she included at the end of her
Speaker 3: message where I think it's clearer what is supposed to
Speaker 3: be the eagle. It's this thing that she was looking
Speaker 3: at as part of the eyebrow or the recess of
Speaker 3: the eagle's eye, and it's actually I think, like the
Speaker 3: wingspan of an eagle interpreted as like swooping down to
Speaker 3: snatch up a fish or something.
Speaker 4: Ah, I see.
Speaker 3: But I do see the point you're making. Ginger. How
Speaker 3: with like priming that you're supposed to see an eagle
Speaker 3: in this rock, you saw a completely different eagle than
Speaker 3: other people, did, you know, like and but you still
Speaker 3: we're able to see it, and I'm able to see
Speaker 3: it also with the correct priming, which is evidence of
Speaker 3: just how suggestible our minds are when we are looking
Speaker 3: to see something, especially a particular type of image in
Speaker 3: you know, basically random data in a rock face or
Speaker 3: something that's just an unrelated natural object.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And I wonder what it says about like modern
Speaker 2: appreciation and understanding of an eagle versus historic the Native
Speaker 2: American understanding of an eagle. You know, like maybe we're
Speaker 2: just used to seeing eagles close up in images, so
Speaker 2: we're more likely to see the head, whereas this would
Speaker 2: have been a culture more associated with like the sites
Speaker 2: of eagles, that it distant. I don't know I'm reaching here,
Speaker 2: but yeah, I can't help, but wonder I want to
Speaker 2: question what it is about our modern understanding of the
Speaker 2: world that might lean us in one direction that prior
Speaker 2: generations of different cultures would not have gone in.
Speaker 3: I think another thing could easily just be also the
Speaker 3: direction that you're looking at the rock from, Like if
Speaker 3: Ginger was most likely to see it from the freeway below,
Speaker 3: whereas people one hundred years ago or hundreds of years
Speaker 3: ago looking at it might have been more likely to
Speaker 3: regard it from a different vantage point.
Speaker 4: Yeah, all right, let's see what we have here next
Speaker 4: for us. Oh.
Speaker 2: In other news necromancy, This one comes to us from Jamie.
Speaker 2: Jamie says, Dear Robert and Joe. I'm enjoying the pot
Speaker 2: as ever, and the current series on necromancy is especially fun.
Speaker 2: If you're looking for examples of how gen Z is
Speaker 2: doing necromancy, I'd recommend the very recent Australian film Talk
Speaker 2: to Me spoiler alert. They don't follow the rules as
Speaker 2: a good ancient Mesopotamian would, and it does not go well.
Speaker 2: Some things never change, I suppose.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, they followed the in key do path of
Speaker 3: maybe I will throw throwing sticks at the dead in
Speaker 3: the nether world even though I wasn't supposed to. That
Speaker 3: didn't go so well.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean there aren't a lot of movies in
Speaker 2: novels about strictly successful necromancy. I mean, that's not the trope.
Speaker 3: And they followed the instructions and the tablets to a
Speaker 3: t and everything was aoka.
Speaker 4: Yeah, nothing happened.
Speaker 2: Yeah, those boring necromanci story. Ever, something's got to go wrong, right,
Speaker 2: But anyway, Jamie continues on a much schlockier note. You
Speaker 2: might also want to try Brian Lumley's Necroscope series of novels,
Speaker 2: which have it all fungal vampires from a parallel Hell dimension,
Speaker 2: embryonic mind transfer, and at the heart of it all,
Speaker 2: a battle between cold war necromancers. I think they're enormous fun,
Speaker 2: but I cannot stress enough how trash youth these books are.
Speaker 2: I was going to say he has trouble writing female characters,
Speaker 2: but to be honest, he just has trouble writing characters.
Speaker 2: I'm pretty sure Brian Lumley was the inspiration for Channel
Speaker 2: four's parody dream Weave A plus actor Garth MORANGI. Keep
Speaker 2: up the good work, Jamie.
Speaker 3: I have always wanted to read at Garth Morangi novel,
Speaker 3: So maybe this is as close as I'll get. I've
Speaker 3: got to check this out now.
Speaker 2: I recently before this email came in, I've talked about
Speaker 2: my decision fatigue, feelings of over choice when it comes
Speaker 2: to book samples, and so I'll be like up late
Speaker 2: at night and I'll think back on book covers I
Speaker 2: saw when I was a kid, and I'll go like,
Speaker 2: I should give that a go. Some people like that,
Speaker 2: some people were nostalgic for that. And I do remember
Speaker 2: seeing the Necroscope book covers, especially the one that had
Speaker 2: the really frightening, like screaming vampire skull I think, with
Speaker 2: a tongue, monster tongue coming out of it. And I
Speaker 2: remember at the time like being like a little I
Speaker 2: was like reading all these Stephen King books, which was
Speaker 2: probably quite inappropriate in junior high. But something about those
Speaker 2: Necroscope covers, I was like, this is the hard stuff.
Speaker 2: I need to stay away from this. So I never
Speaker 2: read them, and I did pick up a sample of
Speaker 2: Necroscope the first one, and yeah, I don't know. I
Speaker 2: wasn't disinterested, but it's just so hard for me to
Speaker 2: actually latch onto a book these days because then my
Speaker 2: mind's wandering, Well, what's another book that people seem to
Speaker 2: like that I never read and you know, came out
Speaker 2: back in the day.
Speaker 3: I've never read any of these books. I don't think
Speaker 3: I'm familiar with the covers really, but I just looked
Speaker 3: them up now and yes, they these covers have strong
Speaker 3: qualities of blood, blood, blood and bits of sick.
Speaker 4: Yeah, exactly. So I don't know.
Speaker 2: I mean, we're in the Halloween season. Maybe I'll pick
Speaker 2: that a sample of Necroscope up again and give it
Speaker 2: another go.
Speaker 4: Just for kicks.
Speaker 3: Oh, but also, Jamie, I want to give a big
Speaker 3: thumbs up to your recommendation of Talk to Me. This
Speaker 3: is a very recent horror film that I actually just
Speaker 3: watched with my wife a few nights ago, and we
Speaker 3: both loved it. I thought it was really strong, one
Speaker 3: of the best new horror movies I've seen in recent years.
Speaker 3: It's got a great cast. Sophie Wilde and the rest
Speaker 3: of the young cast are really excellent. The horror elements
Speaker 3: are powerfully uncanny. It has really strong, I would say.
Speaker 3: At the same time, traditional but original lore thought it
Speaker 3: was really good.
Speaker 4: I'm cool. I'll have to check it out all right.
Speaker 3: This next message is from Russell. Russell says, Hi, Robert
Speaker 3: and Joe. I was recently listening to The Necromantic Urge
Speaker 3: Part two episode and near the end you were discussing
Speaker 3: the ancient connection between sleep and death. It seems that
Speaker 3: even today we make this same connection, sometimes comforting the
Speaker 3: dying by saying that it is just like going to sleep.
Speaker 3: We're often relieved when a loved one who has been
Speaker 3: suffering is now quote at rest. While talking about this
Speaker 3: connection among ancient Greeks and Romans, one of you mentioned
Speaker 3: the fact that there are physical similarities, like being prone
Speaker 3: and not moving. This sparked a thought for me. While
Speaker 3: we don't generally move or don't move much while asleep,
Speaker 3: there is a small percentage of the population for which
Speaker 3: this isn't always true, sleep walkers. That made me wonder
Speaker 3: if there was any connection between the fact that a case,
Speaker 3: someone who was asleep i e. Half dead in the
Speaker 3: ancient world might get up and walk around and the
Speaker 3: idea that on rare occasions the dead might do the same.
Speaker 3: In other words, is there a connection between sleep walking
Speaker 3: and the idea of zombies? Love the show and look
Speaker 3: forward to each new episode. I particularly look forward to
Speaker 3: Fridays when I can hear about another weird movie to
Speaker 3: add to my watch list. You've mentioned the idea of
Speaker 3: a Frankenstein movie run a few times in the past,
Speaker 3: which I think is a great idea. If you do,
Speaker 3: you should absolutely cover Roger Corman's Frankenstein Unbound, a movie
Speaker 3: that includes accidental time travel, children having a funeral for
Speaker 3: a bike, and the incomparable Raoul Julia. Thanks for all
Speaker 3: you do. You have my permission to use my name
Speaker 3: on the podcast. Okay, thank you, Russell, sincerely Russell.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I always feel free to specify stuff like that. Yeah,
Speaker 2: but let's see. First, let's talk about the parasomnia. I
Speaker 2: think a look at parasomnia in the ancient world would
Speaker 2: be it would be pretty interesting. It's a pretty pretty
Speaker 2: good topic idea. We might have to come back to that,
Speaker 2: because you know, presumably people in the ancient world had
Speaker 2: the same sleep disorders we have now, and you know,
Speaker 2: to what extents were people of that time able to
Speaker 2: understand them and properly diagnose them or treat them, and
Speaker 2: what sorts of superstitions and lore rose up concerning I agree.
Speaker 3: I don't know what kind of evidence there would be
Speaker 3: to prove this. There might be some in literary sources,
Speaker 3: but I agree that it's intriguing to think about sleepwalking
Speaker 3: as a possible inspiration for ideas about states of undeath. Yeah,
Speaker 3: but anyway, thanks again, Wrestle.
Speaker 4: Now.
Speaker 2: As for Frankenstein Unbound, I've never actually watched this, but
Speaker 2: it has long intrigued me because, oh I can't remember
Speaker 2: off the top of my head if this was Roger
Speaker 2: Korman's last directorial effort or among his last. It may
Speaker 2: have been his last. And it also has an interesting cast,
Speaker 2: I mean role Julia, always, always great, always interesting. John
Speaker 2: Hurd is in it, and it's based on a novel
Speaker 2: by Brian Aldis of an English writer who also pinned
Speaker 2: the short story super Toys Last All Summer Long that
Speaker 2: became AI artificial intelligence, and if memory serves, he also
Speaker 2: wrote a very early Warhammer forty thousand novelization.
Speaker 3: Oh, okay, I know nothing of any of this. Well,
Speaker 3: I mean, I know AI, but yeah, I'm not familiar
Speaker 3: with the author.
Speaker 2: As for the movie, I don't know. I've always kind
Speaker 2: of circled it suspicious interested, turned off occasionally by some
Speaker 2: aspects of it that, you know, some of the aesthetics
Speaker 2: that maybe I'm like, I don't know if Frankenstein's the
Speaker 2: look of the Frankenstein's Monster and a given Frankenstein movie
Speaker 2: can really move you in either direction, you know, like,
Speaker 2: I'll see this Frankenstein on the on the stills, and
Speaker 2: I'm a little suspicious. Meanwhile, I see like the monster
Speaker 2: from what Frankenstein and the Monster from Hell, the Old
Speaker 2: Hammer film. I'm like, yes, this is an amazing Frankenstein's Monster.
Speaker 2: I want to know more.
Speaker 3: Oh, I just looked up the creature from this movie
Speaker 3: looks kind of like a cross between like a Ferangi
Speaker 3: and raw Head Wrecks.
Speaker 2: Actually, yeah, it's a strange design. But again, I haven't
Speaker 2: watched it enough of this to see the monster. And
Speaker 2: maybe the performance is great. A great performance can can
Speaker 2: do a lot for strange design choices in the character.
Speaker 2: It had a great poster or VHS art, I guess
Speaker 2: I remember from back in the day. It's like an
Speaker 2: eyeball and it's like the eye the eye has been
Speaker 2: stitched together, so he's like to see the Frankenstein stitch
Speaker 2: work going across the eye.
Speaker 3: Like a needle went into the eyeball.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so it has a lot of things going for it.
Speaker 2: All right, here's one from Marcus Marcus's high Joe and Robert.
Speaker 2: I have now been listening to your podcast for several years,
Speaker 2: and while I do not listen to every episode, I
Speaker 2: usually listen to at least one episode per week. Your
Speaker 2: recent episodes about Future Shock reminded me of the late
Speaker 2: seventies sci fi novel The Shockwave Rider by John Brunner.
Speaker 2: This book was one of the factors influencing me to
Speaker 2: pursue a career in computing, and also, in my opinion,
Speaker 2: quite nicely predicted some trends and developments. Quickly revisiting it,
Speaker 2: I found out that one of the inspirations of the
Speaker 2: novel is indeed the book Future Shock. I do not
Speaker 2: remember you mentioning the novel, so if you have, my
Speaker 2: apologies for an unnecessary email. No, no, we did not
Speaker 2: mention it, so this was a necessary email. And then
Speaker 2: Marcus ends this by saying, thanks for your great work.
Speaker 2: Your podcast got me into reading all the culture novels
Speaker 2: and reading a lot more interesting stuff.
Speaker 3: I just looked up this book and there is a
Speaker 3: classic cover of it that has like a hume. It
Speaker 3: has like a kind of green man with his brain exposed,
Speaker 3: and then there is a tongue like pink arrow going
Speaker 3: into his mouth. It's odd.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that looks interesting. I don't think I've read anything
Speaker 2: by this author, but yeah, the book cover looks cool.
Speaker 2: Sounds like it covers some interesting topics as well. And
Speaker 2: of course, yeah, as for the culture novels, they speak
Speaker 2: for themselves.
Speaker 4: They're pretty great.
Speaker 3: Apparently it introduces the concept of a worm in the
Speaker 3: malware sense.
Speaker 4: Hmmm, all right.
Speaker 3: This last message is from Lee regarding Stickiness and Weird
Speaker 3: House Cinema. Lee says, hello again, Rob, Joe, and JJ.
Speaker 3: Hope this email finds you all.
Speaker 4: Well.
Speaker 3: Do to something in the way the settings in my
Speaker 3: new podcast s app work, or in this case don't.
Speaker 3: I just finished the third episode of Stickiness. Well that's okay, Lee,
Speaker 3: I realize by now I'm late to the party. But
Speaker 3: the first sticky monster coming to mind is The Blob
Speaker 3: nineteen fifty eight, especially the arrival and the Old Man.
Speaker 3: I just recently rewatched this classic film, which I believe
Speaker 3: you mentioned in a recent episode as well. I would
Speaker 3: vote recoverage of the nineteen seventy two Gargoyles movie. I
Speaker 3: saw it on TV. Then I guess I need an
Speaker 3: excuse to rewatch. Do you do you?
Speaker 4: Lee?
Speaker 3: Do you need an excuse? From what I do? Remember?
Speaker 3: It would be a fun episode as always looking forward
Speaker 3: to the next episode. Love the work you do, sincerely, Lee.
Speaker 2: Well let's see. First of all, yeah, I'm a big
Speaker 2: fan of The Blob, both the fifty eight original and
Speaker 2: the eighty eight remake. I think as a kid we
Speaker 2: had a VHS someone had taped off the original The Blob,
Speaker 2: so I watched it many many times, and yeah, it's
Speaker 2: tons of fun, has a great, great theme song, one
Speaker 2: of the best horror movie theme songs out there.
Speaker 3: I feel like the original Blob is a lot sillier
Speaker 3: and then people might expect, because it's like one of
Speaker 3: these like fifties classics, you might expect it to be
Speaker 3: more like Invasion of the Body Snatchers or something, but no,
Speaker 3: it is like quite silly.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean it has some suspenseful moments, but with
Speaker 2: the caveat being I don't think I've ever watched it
Speaker 2: as an adult. I'm only going on my memories of
Speaker 2: watching it over and over again as a kid, and
Speaker 2: so some of the some of the humor might have
Speaker 2: been lost on me, and I was more, you know,
Speaker 2: and and it terrified me more. Certainly, the scene with
Speaker 2: the old man finding the blob and he like gets
Speaker 2: it on a stick and holds it up and then
Speaker 2: it like crawls down the stick onto his hand. That
Speaker 2: was pretty scary stuff. And I suspect that scene probably
Speaker 2: holds up pretty well. And I believe the eighty eight
Speaker 2: version updated it and did a version of that as well.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think you're right about that. There are some
Speaker 3: quite scary scenes with the blob, but I think mainly
Speaker 3: the silly stuff is like in the characterization, they're they're
Speaker 3: these sort of I don't know, kids who are into
Speaker 3: racing their cars, and the way they talk. I just
Speaker 3: remember being quite funny.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, As for gargoyles, all right, another vote for gargoyles.
Speaker 2: Maybe we will have to check it out. And oh
Speaker 2: and then Lee mentions an excuse to rewatch if anyone
Speaker 2: out there literally needs like an excuse, like a typed excuse.
Speaker 2: I can't handwrite one, but I can type one. You
Speaker 2: can email us and I will type you an excuse
Speaker 2: that you can hand over to whatever authorities or loved
Speaker 2: ones need to know that you are excused and you
Speaker 2: are authorized to watch whatever weird movie happens to be.
Speaker 3: With an illegible signature from doctor Jessop.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we'll see if we can get him to sign it.
Speaker 2: All right, Well, on that note, we're going to go
Speaker 2: ahead and close out, but we'll be back again. The
Speaker 2: rest of this week is going to be some rerun episodes,
Speaker 2: but some hand selected ones, and then next week we'll
Speaker 2: be back with some all new Halloween content. We got
Speaker 2: some exciting stuff lined up. Just remember that our core
Speaker 2: episodes are on Tuesdays and Thursdays, Monday's Listener Mail, Wednesday's
Speaker 2: is Artifactor Monster Fact, and on Fridays we set aside
Speaker 2: most serious concerns to just talk about a weird film
Speaker 2: on weird Ouse Cinema.
Speaker 3: Huge thanks to our excellent audio producer JJ Posway. If
Speaker 3: you would like to get in touch with us with
Speaker 3: feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest a
Speaker 3: topic for the future, or just to say hello, you
Speaker 3: can email us at contact at stuff to Blow your
Speaker 3: Mind dot com.
Speaker 1: Stuff to Blow your Mind is production of iHeartRadio. For
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