Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of
Speaker 1: My Heart Radio. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind.
Speaker 1: Listener mail. This is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick.
Speaker 1: And boy, we got a bunch of good listener mail
Speaker 1: for you today. These came in in response to our
Speaker 1: episodes on mirrors on Waiting I think on Chrono Telly
Speaker 1: the Soviet Lord of the Rings adaptation. I'm very excited, Robert,
Speaker 1: you ready to jump right in? Let's do it. Okay,
Speaker 1: maybe I'll start off doing this one from Cody about mirrors.
Speaker 1: Cody says, j plus are, oh boy, so much to
Speaker 1: say about mirrors, and I'll keep it as brief as
Speaker 1: I can. Really, you guys could have done a five
Speaker 1: part series on mirrors and it would have stayed fresh
Speaker 1: the whole time. Okay, So point number one, you guys
Speaker 1: mentioned solar de O UNI is the largest natural mirror
Speaker 1: in the world. But I thought you'd like to know
Speaker 1: that space based telescope and mapping satellites use that mirror
Speaker 1: to calibrate their instruments because they can see themselves reflected
Speaker 1: in it. I haven't fact checked this, but I believe you, Cody,
Speaker 1: and that sounds really interesting, So again as a refresher
Speaker 1: if you don't remember, this was the giant salt flat
Speaker 1: that will sometimes fill with very still water during the
Speaker 1: I think during the rainy seasons, is in South America,
Speaker 1: so it forms this giant reflective surface that is a
Speaker 1: photographer's stream, and a lot of you'll find a lot
Speaker 1: of cool pictures of people posing there and standing on
Speaker 1: what looks like an infinite mirror. But Cody goes on
Speaker 1: point number two. I was attending a conference in Rome
Speaker 1: that was held in an ancient Roman circular building with
Speaker 1: a large copper bowl recessed into the floor. Above this bowl,
Speaker 1: there was a hole in the ceiling, and someone associated
Speaker 1: with the conference said that this had something to do
Speaker 1: with letting moonlight into the room and reflecting it around.
Speaker 1: That got me thinking, though that surely someone would have
Speaker 1: looked down into this bowl while the moon was overhead
Speaker 1: would have been shocked to see the moon magnified. Or
Speaker 1: if not this bowl in particular, somebody somewhere must have
Speaker 1: accidentally built a crude telescope with a reflective copper bowl
Speaker 1: and perhaps seen the mountains on the moon long before
Speaker 1: Thomas Harriet described him in the sixteen hundreds, but no
Speaker 1: such story exists, or at least I can't find any
Speaker 1: evidence this happened. Imagine though, had very ancient people like
Speaker 1: the Greek's been aware of the worldness of the moon
Speaker 1: and how different history might have unfolded from then on.
Speaker 1: That's a really interesting thought, codye. Yeah, absolutely, all right,
Speaker 1: here's one from Nayla. Nayla writes in and says, Hi,
Speaker 1: Robert Joan Seth. First off, I'm a huge fan of
Speaker 1: the show and have been listening for years. I love
Speaker 1: how you pull from science, history, art, and mythology when
Speaker 1: considering a subject. I always look forward to seeing what
Speaker 1: you will tackle next. I just finished your third episode
Speaker 1: on mirrors, and I have to write in about my cat.
Speaker 1: We have four cats. We asked for this, by the way,
Speaker 1: in case we have four cats, Two of them show
Speaker 1: no interest in mirrors, but the third has actually learned
Speaker 1: how to use them. Yeah. I have a full length
Speaker 1: mirror leaning against a wall, and this cat, Chloe, will
Speaker 1: use the mirror to stalk another cat from behind the furniture.
Speaker 1: The furniture blocks line of sight, so Chloe will watch
Speaker 1: the other cat in the mirror and then pounce on
Speaker 1: it in the real world. I can't tell if she
Speaker 1: recognizes herself, but she does seem to be able to
Speaker 1: accurately relate the reflection to real life. Wow. I'm almost
Speaker 1: kind of skeptical of this, but but yeah, I I
Speaker 1: believe what you say, Nayla, um that it seems. I
Speaker 1: don't know, it seems different than than the self recognition test,
Speaker 1: where they would recognize their own body in the mirror.
Speaker 1: But it does seem. Uh certainly, I don't know, harder
Speaker 1: to believe than just seeing their reflection in the mirror
Speaker 1: and regarding it as another animal. Yeah, either way, it
Speaker 1: sounds like Chloe as a clever girl. Anyway, she continues,
Speaker 1: we recently adopted a kitten, and at first she reacted
Speaker 1: to her reflection as if it was another cat. Now, though,
Speaker 1: she also seems to understand how it works. Once, when
Speaker 1: she was facing the mirror, I stood behind her and
Speaker 1: held up her favorite toy. When she saw the toy
Speaker 1: in the mirror, she turned around and ran up to me.
Speaker 1: Completely anecdotal, of course, but I do think cats are
Speaker 1: a lot smarter than people give them credit. Thanks for
Speaker 1: the many hours of learning and entertainment, uh, Nayla. Interesting
Speaker 1: that this has got my brain burning. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm not sure what to think about all this, But um,
Speaker 1: in a way, it does make sense that if a
Speaker 1: cat was to use a mirror, what would he use
Speaker 1: it for? You know, for grooming itself? Now, cats are
Speaker 1: already great at that, they don't need a mirror's help
Speaker 1: with that. Would they be able to utilize it to
Speaker 1: better hunt and to practice their hunting? Well? Maybe so?
Speaker 1: And I do agree that that cats. I think here,
Speaker 1: I think it's wrong to dismiss the cats as being
Speaker 1: you know, stupid. They can certainly do some things that
Speaker 1: that humans might be tempted to judge as stupid. But
Speaker 1: you know, they have a different social situation compared to
Speaker 1: other animals like dogs and cats, Like they just they
Speaker 1: live in in different sensory realms. They have different you know,
Speaker 1: social structures for how they regard each other, so uh
Speaker 1: and and different you know, different behaviors. So um, I
Speaker 1: think by and large, when we when we think about
Speaker 1: animals in general, we have to be careful about saying
Speaker 1: like one is, this one's smart, and this one's dumb.
Speaker 1: Like no, and generally speaking, an animal is as smart
Speaker 1: as it needs to be to do the things that
Speaker 1: it excels at. Yeah, they have different kinds of intelligence
Speaker 1: than we do. Yeah. Are you gonna say a slug
Speaker 1: isn't smart? I mean, the slug slugs are doing great.
Speaker 1: They're they're they're they're killing it out there. The new
Speaker 1: motto of our show, slugs are Smart. Um. Okay from Jesse. Hey, y'all,
Speaker 1: I've just finished listening to all three of your episodes
Speaker 1: on mirrors, and i'd like to see if you'd be
Speaker 1: interested in talking about a more recent phenomenon, mirror selfies.
Speaker 1: As more and more people have access to cameras and
Speaker 1: are able to easily publish photos of themselves, I've also
Speaker 1: noticed that taking a picture of yourself in a mirror
Speaker 1: is still very popular. Is this because it's easy to
Speaker 1: take a picture this way parentheses? Everyone has a mirror
Speaker 1: in their bathroom and you don't need a tripod? Or
Speaker 1: can it also be that taking a picture of yourself
Speaker 1: in a mirror captures a certain version of you. Thanks
Speaker 1: for listening and keep up the great work. Jesse. Uh,
Speaker 1: this is a great question, and I think both of
Speaker 1: your answers there might have something to do with it.
Speaker 1: I mean, one thing is that like we were talking
Speaker 1: about in the very first Mirror episode. Your image that
Speaker 1: you have in your brain of yourself is probably based
Speaker 1: mostly on looking at yourself in a mirror, which is
Speaker 1: different than the way you look to most people because
Speaker 1: it's reversed along the horizontal plane. So there's definitely that,
Speaker 1: But then there's also I think, um, you ever noticed
Speaker 1: how I feel like this is true for me, but
Speaker 1: I don't know how true this is for other people.
Speaker 1: I feel like I am better at positioning my body
Speaker 1: and my face in a way that I think looks
Speaker 1: good in a mirror than I am able to do
Speaker 1: in a photo, like when I'm posing for a photograph.
Speaker 1: I guess because I can't see myself when I'm posing
Speaker 1: for a photograph, and so I guess you could maybe
Speaker 1: see yourself in the screen of a phone. That's like
Speaker 1: reversed into selfie mode. But that's a very small thing
Speaker 1: you're looking at there, when if you're just looking at
Speaker 1: your reflection in the mirror, you're getting more information and
Speaker 1: like a larger picture to base your pose on. Does
Speaker 1: that make sense? Yeah? Yeah, I mean there's a lot
Speaker 1: of real time feedback and exactly how you're posing your body. Yeah,
Speaker 1: all right. This one comes to us from Alan. Alan says,
Speaker 1: to tidbits for you to consider number one in mirrors
Speaker 1: part when you mentioned covered mirrors. In Jewish tradition, when
Speaker 1: a person dies and the family is in a period
Speaker 1: of deep mourning called shiva, mirrors are covered. On a
Speaker 1: logical level, it could be so that people don't try
Speaker 1: to spruce up their appearance, but on a mystical level,
Speaker 1: it could be an avoidance of the deceased in case
Speaker 1: they are in the mirror. I think, m um. And
Speaker 1: then Alan also writes, I treat vets with PTSD when
Speaker 1: we talk to them about their experiences undeployment and how
Speaker 1: psychotic that was. We refer to it as stepping through
Speaker 1: the looking glass, as in Alice in Wonderland, UH, where
Speaker 1: reality is topsy turvy and psychotic and the real. In
Speaker 1: their rehabilitation, we try to alleviate the effects of the
Speaker 1: combat stress and help normalize their lives. The military prepares
Speaker 1: them with battle mind, whereas we try to teach, for
Speaker 1: lack of a better way of putting it, civilian mind.
Speaker 1: Love the podcast, Alan, So we got this email before
Speaker 1: the last episode where we were talking more about mirror metaphors,
Speaker 1: but this is clearly one of the big ones, right,
Speaker 1: like the idea of stepping across the boundary of the
Speaker 1: mirror into like a reversed version of yourself off Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1: Through the looking glasses the probably the prime example of that.
Speaker 1: And I remember encountering big mirrors as a child and
Speaker 1: thinking about that, like staring into the mirror and imagining
Speaker 1: what would happen if you crawled through that mirror and
Speaker 1: you were in that world on the other side. Um.
Speaker 1: And I don't know to what extent it was because
Speaker 1: of Alice in Wonderland or illustrations of it that I
Speaker 1: had seen, but but yeah, that definitely went through my mind,
Speaker 1: And maybe that was what was going through my mind
Speaker 1: when I managed to pull a large mirror that was
Speaker 1: hanging on a wall behind a couch off of the
Speaker 1: wall and break it over my my body when I
Speaker 1: was something like I don't know two or three years what.
Speaker 1: I don't think you told me about this? Oh yeah, well,
Speaker 1: if it's it's it was long a favorite story and
Speaker 1: and in my household, I don't really remember it happening,
Speaker 1: but I remember I remember standing there on the couch
Speaker 1: with broken mirror all around me and like adults running in.
Speaker 1: But I was completely unscathed. So in a way, I
Speaker 1: did go through the looking glass. Did you think you
Speaker 1: were Do you think you were trying to get through?
Speaker 1: I don't know. I don't know. Maybe I was just
Speaker 1: looking in it and I decided to pull on it.
Speaker 1: But it it's made me very nervous about hanging mirrors
Speaker 1: my whole life. I just hung a mirror the other day,
Speaker 1: and you know, as I was like measuring everything twice
Speaker 1: and second guessing in and warning everybody in the house, now,
Speaker 1: don't hang on this, even the adults, and you know
Speaker 1: that my wife is like, I'm not gonna hang on
Speaker 1: the mirror. You don't have to worry about that. Somehow
Speaker 1: this seems very illuminating about you. But yes, I've been
Speaker 1: through the looking glass. Okay. We got a couple of
Speaker 1: messages in response to our Vault episode about the tomato,
Speaker 1: remember those tomato episodes being being some favorites of mine.
Speaker 1: One yea very juicy one is from Arthur Apparently. I
Speaker 1: think we were talking about vegetarian substitutes for bacon and
Speaker 1: a b LT and Arthur says the best non meat
Speaker 1: substitute for bacon I found for sandwiches and salads is
Speaker 1: barbecue flavored potato chips. Scratches the bacon itch. You know that.
Speaker 1: That's a good idea, Arthur, I have to try that.
Speaker 1: I do love some some barbecue chips. I mean, I
Speaker 1: think in the episode we talked about stuff like maybe
Speaker 1: like roasted eggplant or like roasted mushrooms that can create
Speaker 1: a very nice meaty flavor. But with those you wouldn't
Speaker 1: really get a bacony texture. But with barbecue potato chips,
Speaker 1: hey that's crispy. Yeah, yeah, absolutely, And of course they
Speaker 1: keep up with the Annie on on our on our
Speaker 1: fake meat world. I mean, just a year later, we
Speaker 1: have we have some some wonderful options that have just
Speaker 1: come online. I was just trying out some new field dogs.
Speaker 1: The other did not field dogs. They were like they're
Speaker 1: supposed to be like stadium dogs are supposed to taste
Speaker 1: like a baseball hot dog, but they're baste alternative. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it tastes like baseball. They're good, they're good cool. Well,
Speaker 1: you know what, But the other way, I can't remember
Speaker 1: if we already said this in the episode. Sorry if
Speaker 1: I'm repeating myself, But the other way to go. If
Speaker 1: you don't want bacon is technically for really good sandwich,
Speaker 1: and you've got good ripe summer tomatoes, you don't even
Speaker 1: need the lettuce and bacon. You can just have a
Speaker 1: bacon sandwich just like good bread, mayonnaise and ripe summer
Speaker 1: tomatoes is exquisite. Just not just the bacon, just the tomatoes.
Speaker 1: Did I say bacon, No, just the tomatoes. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I think you might have said just the bacon at first. Anyway,
Speaker 1: I know what you mean. I knew what you mean,
Speaker 1: just the tomatoes. Tomato stands alone. But if you're really pressed,
Speaker 1: I would say, also, um, just some some some bread
Speaker 1: and mayonnaise. Also not bad. I mean it's not the worst.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, okay, squeeze little lemon on there. Okay, yeah,
Speaker 1: I got you, all right. This one comes to us
Speaker 1: from Blake. Hi, guys, I'm emailing you to share my
Speaker 1: thought regarding and potential used for tomatoes with a notable
Speaker 1: nicotine content. As a smoker who is currently trying to
Speaker 1: quit and who has tried nicotine replacement means such as
Speaker 1: vaping and nicotine gum, I think it sounds like one
Speaker 1: of the healthiest ways to stop smoking. Eating tomatoes in
Speaker 1: modern ration. Considering recent health issues around vaping and the
Speaker 1: dental issues around chewing gum, why not load up a
Speaker 1: nice juicy tomato with a bit of nick. I really
Speaker 1: like your show, respectfully, Blake. Oh my Blake, I think
Speaker 1: you're joking, but please, no one do this. I think
Speaker 1: what we were talking about was that that somebody had
Speaker 1: manager claim to have managed to have grafted tomato planned
Speaker 1: on to tobacco roots or something like that, and they
Speaker 1: grew tomatoes with substantial nicotine content which could be poisonous.
Speaker 1: Do not eat that, seriously, we really don't want anybody
Speaker 1: to get death by nicotine poisoning, even if it is
Speaker 1: from the most delicious ripe summer tomatoes. But all that aside,
Speaker 1: good luck with quitting, Blake. Keep at it all right.
Speaker 1: I think we should wrap this up with one last message,
Speaker 1: and this comes to us about Weird House Cinema. On
Speaker 1: our episode about Soviet Lord of the Rings a k a.
Speaker 1: Chronatelli or the Keepers. This comes from Pat. Pat says, guys,
Speaker 1: thanks for giving me a chance to visit a peeve.
Speaker 1: On this episode, you repeated the oft held notion that
Speaker 1: the bomba dial episode and the Fellowship of the Ring
Speaker 1: does not advance the plot and is understandably left out
Speaker 1: of other productions. I love those productions, in particular Peter
Speaker 1: Jackson's This is one great error. Nerds like me have
Speaker 1: read everything we could. In light of all the books,
Speaker 1: particularly the Sill Marillion, one cannot deny that Tolkien placed
Speaker 1: great importance in the religion and mythos of his world.
Speaker 1: The Bomba Dill episode is important because of the stress
Speaker 1: of mythos and religion. The knives given to the Hobbits
Speaker 1: and the barrow Downs are imbued with animism. A great
Speaker 1: moment of irony is lost when Mary helps defeat the
Speaker 1: Witch King using a sword that is wound with the
Speaker 1: curses of his vanquished. The trilogy is filled with this animism,
Speaker 1: and it is left out of theatrical productions. Thanks for
Speaker 1: all the fun. You guys are the best, Pat Rob,
Speaker 1: I'm sure you have thoughts on this. Um. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I think this makes it. It's a good case. I mean,
Speaker 1: like like like Pat says, clearly, this is the kind
Speaker 1: of meat that Tolken shoot on. You know, he didn't
Speaker 1: he didn't do anything lightly regarding his use of mythology
Speaker 1: and symbolism and how he he weaved these various uh
Speaker 1: you know, mythic elements into his work. So uh yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it's not like, um like, as we're recording this,
Speaker 1: we just did a weird house cinema episode on on
Speaker 1: the Return of the blind debt. You know, in the
Speaker 1: Return of the blind Ed, you can make an argument
Speaker 1: for a well, you could probably cut this out and
Speaker 1: everything would be fine. Uh you know, but with with
Speaker 1: with Tolkien, Yeah, if you're gonna, if you're gonna surgically
Speaker 1: remove something, well maybe you didn't think that organ was
Speaker 1: doing anything, but it was probably in there because it
Speaker 1: was doing something, at least to a more you know,
Speaker 1: I guess detail oriented, refined read off the original text.
Speaker 1: I mean there's another way of thinking about whether things
Speaker 1: can be excised from the progress of a plot in
Speaker 1: a in a novel or a movie, um, which is
Speaker 1: that anything you take out will leave the final product changed.
Speaker 1: I mean, every little like moment an episode in the
Speaker 1: story changes the overall feelings and impression that the that
Speaker 1: the reader hasn't mean anything in a well written story,
Speaker 1: unless it's just something that's incredibly repetitive and similar to
Speaker 1: what came before and after. So I do think the
Speaker 1: story is changed by taking out Tom Bombadylan the Barrow Downs.
Speaker 1: I think what I could acknowledge about it, despite how
Speaker 1: much I like those those sections of the book, is
Speaker 1: that you can take those parts out and the story
Speaker 1: still feels like it makes perfect sense. A person who
Speaker 1: experiences the story without those parts does not detect that
Speaker 1: something is missing or does not feel like the story
Speaker 1: is incomplete. And yet at the same time, I think
Speaker 1: it's absolutely true that, yeah, when you take them out,
Speaker 1: something is lost, but the story can function without them.
Speaker 1: I think what we need to see, though, is that
Speaker 1: if Peter Jackson can three films out of The Hobbit,
Speaker 1: he needs to make one film out of the Barrow
Speaker 1: Whites and Tom Bomba Dill section stand alone with the Fellowship. Yeah,
Speaker 1: stand alone. I'm not sure what else he could draw on,
Speaker 1: but oh, it's gotta be possible. It's gotta be possible.
Speaker 1: All the songs. You need to have all the songs. Obviously, Um,
Speaker 1: did we talk about casting for Bombadill yet? No. I
Speaker 1: was thinking a little bit of the other day the
Speaker 1: other day, though, I'm not sure how you do it.
Speaker 1: How do you who could you possibly cast as Bomba dough.
Speaker 1: You'd probably have to really draw from like musical theater.
Speaker 1: I guess, uh, somebody with a strong like singing, uh
Speaker 1: sort of um presence, I don't know, but they also
Speaker 1: need to be peaceful and not menacing like um, I'm
Speaker 1: thinking of like older actors, like maybe maybe Brian Blessed
Speaker 1: could could have played this role. But um, I almost
Speaker 1: said Brian Cox, just because I love Brian Cox, But
Speaker 1: that's totally wrong. Brian Cox is far too severe for Tom. Yeah,
Speaker 1: because you don't want him to be menacing either, right,
Speaker 1: I mean, it's it's a particular energy that Tom Bomba
Speaker 1: Dill has to have, and he's also he's got to
Speaker 1: have some some lungs, he's got to be able to
Speaker 1: to really built those numbers like basically Acapella mid Forest.
Speaker 1: So I'm not sure who you would cast. What about
Speaker 1: Stephen McKinley Henderson, who's playing through Fier Hawat in the
Speaker 1: upcoming Dune movie. I feel like he he maybe has
Speaker 1: the right kind of of sort of supernatural benign presence
Speaker 1: that you need for Tom Bomba Dill. Yeah. Yeah, maybe
Speaker 1: so you do kind of I feel like there's some
Speaker 1: crossover with actors who have effectively played Santa Claus. If
Speaker 1: you have an effective Santa maybe Bomba Dill. I was
Speaker 1: I did think I was thinking about I think you
Speaker 1: should leave, and I was thinking about the skits in
Speaker 1: season two with the where Santa Claus becomes an actor.
Speaker 1: I think Detective crash More. Yeah, I think Santa Claus,
Speaker 1: the actor from from those skits could potentially play Bomba Dill. Uh.
Speaker 1: But yeah, I don't know. It's a It's a tough one, Okay.
Speaker 1: I think we need to wrap it up there. All right, Well,
Speaker 1: we're gonna go and close the mail bag here for
Speaker 1: this episode of Listener Mail, but we'll be back next Monday,
Speaker 1: so keep them coming. If you have thoughts about current episodes,
Speaker 1: recent episodes, future episodes of stuff to blow your mind,
Speaker 1: or the artifact or weird al cinema responses to other
Speaker 1: listeners emails, all that is a fair game, so right in.
Speaker 1: We'd love to hear from you. Huge thanks as always
Speaker 1: to our excellent audio producer Seth Nicholas Johnson. If you
Speaker 1: would look to get in touch with us with feedback
Speaker 1: on this episode or any other, to suggest a topic
Speaker 1: for the future, or just to say hello, you can
Speaker 1: email us at contact at stuff to Blow your Mind
Speaker 1: dot com. Stuff to Blow Your Mind is a production
Speaker 1: of I heart Radio. For more podcasts my heart Radio,
Speaker 1: visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
Speaker 1: you listen to your favorite shows.