Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 1: Hey you welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. A
Speaker 1: listener mail This is Robert Lamb and this is Joe mccormay.
Speaker 1: Can it's a Monday, the day of each week that
Speaker 1: we read back some messages from the mail bag. If
Speaker 1: you are a listener to Stuff to Blow your Mind
Speaker 1: and you have never gotten in touch with us before
Speaker 1: by email, why not give it a shot. You can
Speaker 1: write us at contact at stuff to blow your Mind
Speaker 1: dot com. All sorts of messages are fair game. Of course,
Speaker 1: feedback on existing episodes, that's always welcome. If you've got
Speaker 1: anything interesting to add to what we said, or if
Speaker 1: you've got corrections or just additional thoughts, any of that,
Speaker 1: send it our way. Also, if you want to suggest
Speaker 1: topics for future episodes, that's always welcome. If you just
Speaker 1: want to share something that you've thought of that's interesting
Speaker 1: that you think we might be interested into, that's fair
Speaker 1: game as well. Just send it all. Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: there are whole episodes in the past from a lot
Speaker 1: of listeners, and certain episodes generate a lot of comments,
Speaker 1: but they're there episodes in the vault that have never
Speaker 1: generated commentary from listeners before, so you could be the
Speaker 1: first go back, find something interesting, rite in about it. Well,
Speaker 1: we'll chat about it all right, let's see, Rob, do
Speaker 1: you want to read this next message from Josh. Sure, Well,
Speaker 1: let's see before this one a little introduction. This is
Speaker 1: related to a digression in our episodes on Fear of
Speaker 1: the Void about how some people need to apparently withdraw
Speaker 1: to a relative vacuum, to a kind of void like
Speaker 1: environment to focus on creative work. And there there are
Speaker 1: different versions of this, you know, some people might have
Speaker 1: like a featureless office with an empty desk and nothing
Speaker 1: but their typewriter or computer, or like a retreat to
Speaker 1: a place that's relatively free of distractions and so forth.
Speaker 1: And of course some people are exactly the opposite and
Speaker 1: want to surround themselves with stimulating imagery while they're while
Speaker 1: they're working. But Josh got into touch about that. Digressions
Speaker 1: as high Joe, Robert and JJ I found your reference
Speaker 1: to vacuums for art creation interesting, as I had not
Speaker 1: thought about why certain circumstances are so helpful for different
Speaker 1: types of art, especially with writing. Quiet allows my brain
Speaker 1: to fully develop an idea without interruption and for a
Speaker 1: story follow a cogent path without being pulled aside by
Speaker 1: unwanted inputs. With writing, I basically need the vacuum of silence,
Speaker 1: whereas withdrawing and sculpture, I prefer music as it interferes
Speaker 1: with my speech center, providing a different kind of vacuum.
Speaker 1: Although since I live in the Netherlands and speak less
Speaker 1: than perfect Dutch, following stranger's conversations requires effort, so I
Speaker 1: am able to tune people out. Making public transit, whether bus,
Speaker 1: metro or train a comfortable English vacuum for writing. It
Speaker 1: also helps that on public transit. The most important vacuum
Speaker 1: I experience is that since I am professionally a carpenter,
Speaker 1: I have an inability to do any work household chores,
Speaker 1: providing a guilt vacuum. Thanks for the great four partner,
Speaker 1: Josh Oh, several interesting things there, Josh, Yes, I definitely
Speaker 1: agree with you there about the I don't know if
Speaker 1: I would have used the word guilt, but yeah, what
Speaker 1: you call guilt vacuum or a responsibility vacuum. Sometimes it
Speaker 1: can be helpful to like go to a different place
Speaker 1: to get one type of work done because you are
Speaker 1: simply unable in that place to get done the other
Speaker 1: things that you currently have to get done, so it
Speaker 1: like forces you to focus. Yeah, yeah, I always I
Speaker 1: used to back in the day when I took the
Speaker 1: train every day, I always like that about the train.
Speaker 1: It's like, oh, I can I can read on the train,
Speaker 1: but you know it's going to go underground and then
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna be able to connect on my phone
Speaker 1: and worry about anything else. Or at least that used
Speaker 1: to be the way it was. I guess now they
Speaker 1: have wireless in all the tunnels so that people can
Speaker 1: can just stress out NonStop. But time wise, when I
Speaker 1: could pull out a book and felt like, well, I
Speaker 1: have free range to just sit here and enjoy this
Speaker 1: book right now. So I think we've heard from quite
Speaker 1: a few listeners who tell us that they put us
Speaker 1: on while they're doing like a visual arts drawing or
Speaker 1: painting or sculpture. Yeah, it's true. We've heard from a
Speaker 1: lot of a lot of artists. We don't hear from
Speaker 1: a lot of writers who are like, yes, I want
Speaker 1: to hear you guys chatter while I try and write dialogue.
Speaker 1: I think that would be a problem. Yeah, maybe, unless
Speaker 1: you don't speak English. Maybe then it'd be just the thing.
Speaker 1: I guess. I don't know that our voices are that beautiful,
Speaker 1: just in and out themselves. But all right, what else
Speaker 1: do we have here? Joe? Oh, we've got one message
Speaker 1: hearkening all the way back to our series on animal
Speaker 1: throwing behavior non human animals throwing objects. This is from
Speaker 1: ian Ian, says dear Rob and Joe. In listening to
Speaker 1: your episodes on animals throwing things and the accompanying listener responses,
Speaker 1: I was struck by a pattern. Most of your examples
Speaker 1: of mammals throwing things, and all of the listener males,
Speaker 1: at least that I've heard so far, involve the mammals
Speaker 1: hiking the object backwards between their legs, rather than tossing
Speaker 1: it up, as might seem more natural to a human.
Speaker 1: The reason this stood out to me is that my
Speaker 1: grandparents had a dog that, when she wanted to play
Speaker 1: fetch and no one would accommodate her, would grab her
Speaker 1: tennis ball in her teeth by the fuzz and then
Speaker 1: toss her head up and back, causing the ball to
Speaker 1: fly up over her back and behind her. She would
Speaker 1: then proceed to chase after it, as in a normal
Speaker 1: game of fetch and repeat the procedure until she got
Speaker 1: tired or someone took pity on her and threw it
Speaker 1: for her. She had pretty good range too, the ball
Speaker 1: often traveling ten feet or so before hitting the ground,
Speaker 1: and of course it would bounce and roll farther than that.
Speaker 1: At the time, I just thought it was funny that
Speaker 1: she would play fetch with herself. I didn't realize the
Speaker 1: mechanics of her throwing method were apparently so rare among
Speaker 1: quadrupedal mammals in a similar vein. As well as similar
Speaker 1: to the listener who said their dog would drop their
Speaker 1: puzzle feeder down the stairs, my father in law had
Speaker 1: a dog who would take her tennis ball to the
Speaker 1: top of the basement stairs, use her nose to gently
Speaker 1: bump it over the edge, watch it rolled to the bottom,
Speaker 1: then run down to retrieve it so she could do
Speaker 1: it again, just like my grandparents dog. She would keep
Speaker 1: doing this until she got tired or someone started an
Speaker 1: actual game of fetch. Another thing that stood out to
Speaker 1: me is that, unlike Joe's story about his dog throwing
Speaker 1: its puzzle feeder or the listener whose dog would drop
Speaker 1: theirs down the stairs, Neither of the dogs I've encountered
Speaker 1: doing these things seem to be getting any tangible reward
Speaker 1: beyond just playing, though of course fun can be a
Speaker 1: powerful motivator. Anyway, just wanted to share those anecdotes as
Speaker 1: I thought they had both interesting similarities and differences to
Speaker 1: some of the other things you discussed. As other listeners
Speaker 1: have said, I love the way you can take something
Speaker 1: seemingly mundane and make it so interesting. Thanks for all
Speaker 1: you do in well, thank you. I uh yet that
Speaker 1: is interesting. Um. Another one of the distinctions I remember
Speaker 1: making in these episodes was that it seemed almost all
Speaker 1: of the non human throwing behavior we found, with a
Speaker 1: few exceptions, uh you know, the ones in primates who
Speaker 1: do targeted throwing, and possibly the examples and cephalopods and
Speaker 1: so forth, most of the non human animal throwing behavior
Speaker 1: seemed designed to have an effect on the projectile itself,
Speaker 1: rather than designed to use a projectile to have an
Speaker 1: effect on the target. So, for example, the the oh, no,
Speaker 1: I forget which animal it was, there was some small
Speaker 1: mammal that would throw millipedes in order to damage their
Speaker 1: their armor plates. Was it a type of mongoose or something? Yeah,
Speaker 1: And I think the dog in your example would still
Speaker 1: fit into that category because the purpose of the throwing
Speaker 1: is to do something to the ball, in this case,
Speaker 1: to make the ball go far away so that it
Speaker 1: can be retreat for fun, rather than to hit something
Speaker 1: and cause an effect to the thing you're hitting. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And you know, we just recently finished up recording our
Speaker 1: series on gray whales and orcas. Orcas, I don't I
Speaker 1: don't remember we mentioned them at all in our episodes
Speaker 1: of the animals throwing things, but there are flots of
Speaker 1: documented behavior, particular particularly from the bigs killer whales, of
Speaker 1: throwing seals around, Yeah, which I think is fascinating behavior
Speaker 1: because it's not it's not necessary for the killing of
Speaker 1: the prey, especially with the seal, that they can make
Speaker 1: short work of it once they have it, and at
Speaker 1: times it's like gets really impressive. I've seen images where
Speaker 1: it looks like they're they're using their mouth to sort
Speaker 1: of throw the seal about. But then there's the one
Speaker 1: video on the internet with someone captured footage of one
Speaker 1: appearing to sort of like punt it a seal carcass
Speaker 1: with its with its with its tail and make it
Speaker 1: fly like something like eighty feet in the air. It's
Speaker 1: quite impressive and hard to hard to think about in
Speaker 1: terms of anything other than some sort of a play
Speaker 1: type of feature. You know. I'm to understand it. Sometimes
Speaker 1: the animals they play with they're not even necessarily things
Speaker 1: they're going to well eat in their entirety, which they
Speaker 1: often don't do. But also sometimes it's not something they're eating,
Speaker 1: it's just they're seemingly playing with it. That's very strange.
Speaker 1: I do recall when we were reading up for these
Speaker 1: episodes that marine mammals were featured. I guess we just
Speaker 1: didn't get into them in the series, but maybe we
Speaker 1: could come back to that. I wonder, yeah, why that
Speaker 1: would be. I think there's one theory about the loosening
Speaker 1: skin that may then subsequently be ripped off of the animal,
Speaker 1: but I haven't looked into it intremendous detail yet. That's grizzly.
Speaker 1: That's it's a grizzly world out there for the organ
Speaker 1: that's true. But once again, this would be something where
Speaker 1: if it's not for fun, the imagine the purpose of
Speaker 1: it is to do something to the projectile, not to
Speaker 1: like hit something with it, right right, Yeah, Yeah, they're
Speaker 1: not trying to like they're not trying to throw a
Speaker 1: seal at a whale or something to that effect. Yeah,
Speaker 1: all right, you know, turning to the world of Discord,
Speaker 1: we do have a Discord page, and if you want
Speaker 1: to access a Discord page, shoot us an email. We'll
Speaker 1: send you the link. That's the best way to join it.
Speaker 1: And it kind of keep seems to thus far keep
Speaker 1: the Discord from being flooded. You know, it's kind of
Speaker 1: a smaller community there, but we don't have just a
Speaker 1: bunch of random folks there either. We have I'm gonna
Speaker 1: just read. We'll start with let's sort of go through these.
Speaker 1: First one here comes from Fletch. Fletch says, the discussion
Speaker 1: of the Norse view of the heart. This was our
Speaker 1: Valentine's Day episode or episodes. Reminded me of the novels
Speaker 1: of Joe Ambercrombie where one character is advised, you must
Speaker 1: make of your heart a stone, and that becomes something
Speaker 1: of a mantra for her. Okay, so this is connecting
Speaker 1: to those texts from ancient nor culture or I don't
Speaker 1: know how ancient, but at least pre modern Norse culture,
Speaker 1: with the idea that like the heart sort of is
Speaker 1: the seed of kindness and positive emotion and caring and stuff.
Speaker 1: And for that reason, your heart must be shriveled and
Speaker 1: small to allow you the appropriate level of cruelty needed
Speaker 1: to be an effective warrior. Yeah, it's a very grim
Speaker 1: dark warrior ethos, So it makes sense that it might
Speaker 1: be in a Joe Ambercrombie novel. I've not read any
Speaker 1: Joe Ambercrombie, but I've read authors that are sort of
Speaker 1: Joe Ambercrombie adjacent. I know nothing of Joe Abercrombie. It's
Speaker 1: it's like dark fantasy or grim dark fantasy, depending on
Speaker 1: how you want to describe it. I guess that's what
Speaker 1: I've always heard. All right, let's see I should read
Speaker 1: something from Discord here. Well, we got one message from
Speaker 1: is this dricks? I guess this way? I read it
Speaker 1: in my head? Okay, Drix says. In terms of helping
Speaker 1: the show, it was mentioned a few times to download
Speaker 1: the latest episodes even if you don't listen right away.
Speaker 1: I never actually download episodes, but stream them the same
Speaker 1: day or next Should I also be downloading them? Okay?
Speaker 1: I apologize if we created any confusion on this. Okay,
Speaker 1: So here's what we were told by our people here.
Speaker 1: I can't speak to this directly. This is how it
Speaker 1: was explained to us. There are some platforms. Apple Podcasts
Speaker 1: specifically was mentioned where some people had it set to
Speaker 1: download all our new episodes automatically, so they're subscribed to us,
Speaker 1: they think they're supposed to be getting our new stuff.
Speaker 1: But Apple was automatically deactivating these downloads for some people,
Speaker 1: and the reason might have been if you had not
Speaker 1: listened to the five most recent of our episodes to publish.
Speaker 1: This seemed especially to affect us because, as we constantly
Speaker 1: hear from listeners, a lot of people like to save
Speaker 1: us up for a week or two and then binge
Speaker 1: all our episodes in a day or a day or two.
Speaker 1: And you know, if you want to listen that way,
Speaker 1: that's fine, But a downside of that is that apparently
Speaker 1: that will sometimes for some reason make you stop getting
Speaker 1: new episodes in your feed. Apple might interpret that as you, oh,
Speaker 1: you don't listen to us anymore, and just stop giving
Speaker 1: you our show. So, if you want to be helpful
Speaker 1: to our shows numbers in a business sense or andy,
Speaker 1: you just want to make sure that you're always getting
Speaker 1: all our new stuff. Apparently, one way around this is
Speaker 1: to try to always make sure you have listened to
Speaker 1: at least one of the five most recent episodes to publish.
Speaker 1: That being said, I mean, we're super grateful for any
Speaker 1: of our listeners out there, So if you're taking any
Speaker 1: step to listen to our show, we're grateful for it.
Speaker 1: So yeah, don't don't stress out about it too much. Exactly,
Speaker 1: listen to us however you want to listen. Whatever you
Speaker 1: prefer is fine. Just be aware that some weird stuff
Speaker 1: is going on with some of these platforms, and if
Speaker 1: if you want to take an extra step just to
Speaker 1: make sure you are helping us out, that would be
Speaker 1: one way to do it, all right. Dipping back into
Speaker 1: the discord here, a lot of people share on discord
Speaker 1: various weird house cinema suggestions. One of the users that
Speaker 1: does this allotted, Eric Eric says, coming in hot with
Speaker 1: another recommendation because he was following up some of the
Speaker 1: recommendations he had made any of the entries in the
Speaker 1: original Yokai Monsters trilogy from the sixties, but particularly I'll
Speaker 1: recommend one hundred Monsters. The creepy atmosphere mixed in with
Speaker 1: some silliness makes these movies especially charming. The practical effects
Speaker 1: and use of makeup and puppetry is absolutely delightful. They're
Speaker 1: all currently on Shutter and AMC plus two. I'm gonna
Speaker 1: say I've got these movies on the short list for me. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1: One hundred Monsters was one we were talking about selecting
Speaker 1: for the hundredth Weird House Cinema because it seemed like
Speaker 1: that would that would make sense, but we went in
Speaker 1: a slightly different direction. But it's still on the radar.
Speaker 1: But speaking of weird House Cinema, maybe we'll finish this
Speaker 1: off with a weird house email. This one comes from Tom. Tom,
Speaker 1: says high Robin Joe. This is Tom from Canada. Robot
Speaker 1: Monster is indeed an enigma. As an aside, if you
Speaker 1: haven't listened to this episode yet or see in the movie,
Speaker 1: this is a movie from the early fifties that Rob
Speaker 1: and I covered where Earth is invaded by aliens or
Speaker 1: maybe just invaded by an alien, which is a guy
Speaker 1: in a gorilla suit with a skull mask wearing a
Speaker 1: like a astronaut helmet. Yeah, yep, that's it, and he's
Speaker 1: called Roman. It's it's a very silly very entertaining movie.
Speaker 1: I would say almost at the levels of Edwood, like
Speaker 1: it is that level of schlock royalty. Oh but a
Speaker 1: piece of background for Tom's email here is we were
Speaker 1: incredibly perplexed as to whether the movie is supposed to
Speaker 1: be a dream or not, because as one of those
Speaker 1: double fake out endings where it was all a dream
Speaker 1: or was it? Because then the Roman from the thing
Speaker 1: you know, it's supposed to be like the whole alien
Speaker 1: invasion was a dream, and then Roman walks out of
Speaker 1: the cave again. So it's like, what's going on? Yeah,
Speaker 1: very confusing, So Tom says Robot Monster is indeed an enigma.
Speaker 1: A part of the movie which might serve to cast
Speaker 1: some clarity, though, is to know exactly when the Child's
Speaker 1: dream starts. It has two potential starting points. Either when
Speaker 1: young Johnny falls asleep in the desert with the others.
Speaker 1: You remember they're out picnicking on a blanket surrounded by
Speaker 1: rocks and they'll just like lay down on the desert
Speaker 1: sand and fall asleep. So that could be one point,
Speaker 1: but Tom goes on which would make all the following
Speaker 1: a dream escape, including the arrival of Roman and the
Speaker 1: shift in the roles of the adults, or the dream
Speaker 1: starts at the cave, which makes the arrival of the
Speaker 1: Roman reel, but the story itself just a dream. The
Speaker 1: ending plays with both versions, as the story goes back
Speaker 1: to reality following Johnny waking up, yet still entertaining the
Speaker 1: idea that Roman did arrive all the best, Tom, Tom,
Speaker 1: I think you've solved it. Maybe that's the second So
Speaker 1: maybe it's it's a triple fake out. It's faking you out,
Speaker 1: making you think that the whole movie was just a dream.
Speaker 1: But then the reveal reveals that only part of the
Speaker 1: movie was a dream. The part where the humans are
Speaker 1: able to defeat Roman is the dream. It sounds to
Speaker 1: me like the movies in superposition. That's that's how we
Speaker 1: should approach it. I think that's that's a good way
Speaker 1: of putting it. Yes, all right, well we're gonna go
Speaker 1: ahead and close it out on that note here, But
Speaker 1: we'd love to hear from everyone again, right in with
Speaker 1: your thoughts on current episodes of Stuff to Blow Your Mind,
Speaker 1: Weird House Cinema Listener mail or the Artifact or Monster
Speaker 1: Fact episodes, or writing on past episodes of these or
Speaker 1: future episodes episodes you'd like to see in the future,
Speaker 1: topic you wish that we would revisit that sort of thing.
Speaker 1: Everything is fair game, that's all right. So before we
Speaker 1: close out, big thanks to our audio producer JJ Pauseway.
Speaker 1: And if you do want to get in touch for
Speaker 1: any of those reasons we listed before, you can email
Speaker 1: us at contact at stuff to Blow your Mind dot com.
Speaker 1: Stuff to Blow Your Mind is a production of iHeartRadio.
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