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. Hey, everybody. We were off last
Speaker 2: week for Thanksgiving here in the US. I spent the
Speaker 2: time traveling with my family in Wales, which was a
Speaker 2: tremendous privilege, a great experience, and it's nice to ease
Speaker 2: back into the holiday hustle here on the show with
Speaker 2: a nice listener mail episode. Now, Joe is out sick today.
Speaker 2: He was going to join me, but he had to
Speaker 2: take the day off, so wishing him quick recovery. It's
Speaker 2: just going to be me today. I've never done a
Speaker 2: solo listener mail before. The way it's worked out is
Speaker 2: that Joe will often jump in and do the solo
Speaker 2: and days when I'm still recovering from a trip or
Speaker 2: I'm sick or whatever. So this is a first, so
Speaker 2: bear with me. I can't promise that it will be
Speaker 2: as exciting as a Joe solo listener mail, but I'll
Speaker 2: try and put my own spin on it. All right, Well,
Speaker 2: let's call Carne over here and dive into the mail bag.
Speaker 2: We have a few bits of listener mail regarding our
Speaker 2: episode on euro hydrosis. This is you'll recall this is
Speaker 2: the episode where we talked about some animals that may
Speaker 2: pee and or poop on their legs as a method
Speaker 2: of cooling themselves, and that led to a number of
Speaker 2: different discussions. We've talked about evaporative cooling, and we also
Speaker 2: talked about peeing in one's wet suit. So let's jump
Speaker 2: right into it. This one comes to us from Lindsey.
Speaker 2: Lindsay writes, Joe and Robert. Out here in the desert,
Speaker 2: we have a very different relationship with humidity and evaporation
Speaker 2: than y'all in Atlanta. Look at the de point or
Speaker 2: wet bulb weather temps, and that is about best case
Speaker 2: for evaporative cooling, to the point that plenty of people
Speaker 2: out here go through our one hundred and six degree
Speaker 2: summers with a swamp cooler. Prior to common refrigeration, there
Speaker 2: was a desert water bag that was just a tight
Speaker 2: weave canvas, and in a lot of Mexican areas people
Speaker 2: kept a big unglazed pottery jug in the house. These
Speaker 2: weeped enough water to be continually cooling. My grandparents, who
Speaker 2: went through the depression then the war never threw out anything.
Speaker 2: In every pickup tractor and several barns. There was a
Speaker 2: glass jug wearing Grandma's technicolor jug jacket. This, as Lindsay adds,
Speaker 2: is apparently a quilted cover for a gallon vinegar jug.
Speaker 2: Lindsay continues, kept things cool with the occasional breakage. It
Speaker 2: kept all of the glass together, stitch together with any
Speaker 2: and all possible fabric scraps, so you didn't worry about
Speaker 2: a great loss when you did break one. And then
Speaker 2: she continues here, getting into the whole idea of peeing
Speaker 2: in your wetsuit and whether that is an effective means
Speaker 2: of warming the body short term, long term, and so forth.
Speaker 2: Robert I was told the same thing going through Rescue
Speaker 2: Swimmers Club at NAS Jacksonville, but on the Cutter Valiant.
Speaker 2: This is a coast guard ship. I believe she reversed
Speaker 2: course so quickly that I skipped the farmer John's and
Speaker 2: just grab the wetsuit jacket. When you're coming around fast,
Speaker 2: then you're in the water, preoccupied and having to override
Speaker 2: a lifetime of toilet training. I never could relax enough
Speaker 2: to just let it flow right on, y'all. Lindsey all right,
Speaker 2: all right, you know some almost kind of extreme of
Speaker 2: consciousness thoughts there. I dig it, especially some added experience
Speaker 2: when it comes to the awkwardness of peeing in the water,
Speaker 2: peeing in the ocean. I'm glad I'm not alone. I
Speaker 2: also heard from one Shadow Rat on our discord. You
Speaker 2: might be wondering, Hey, I want to get in on
Speaker 2: the stuff to Blow your mind discord. Well, hey, the
Speaker 2: way to do that is to email us, and we'll
Speaker 2: send you the link to join the discord server for
Speaker 2: Stuff to Blow your mind. So just hang on. I'll
Speaker 2: throw out that email address at the end of this episode. Anyway,
Speaker 2: Shadow Rat shares the following Haha, quoth he, I pee
Speaker 2: in my wetsuit all the time. This practice is so
Speaker 2: prevalent in the surfing and free diving communities that it's
Speaker 2: often offered up as a solution to every problem. Cold
Speaker 2: pe in your suit, animal stings, pee on it, having
Speaker 2: trouble removing your wet suit, pee in it, Want to
Speaker 2: attract marine life, pee in your suit, want to repel
Speaker 2: marine life? Pee in your suit, car trouble pee in it,
Speaker 2: and so forth. It is important to always be as
Speaker 2: stoic and straight faced as possible when advising someone to
Speaker 2: pee on it, to convey that this is indeed a
Speaker 2: proven method. While there is a warming effect, the main
Speaker 2: reason people are peeing in wetsuits is just that there
Speaker 2: is no other choice. Nobody wants to stop a dive
Speaker 2: or a surf session to go back to the facilities.
Speaker 2: I think it's safe to assume that every rental wetsuit
Speaker 2: has been peed in many times. While the neoprene is permeable,
Speaker 2: it works by slowing down on how rapidly the water
Speaker 2: next to your skin is replaced by cold outside water.
Speaker 2: The water in the suit is heated by your body.
Speaker 2: The layer of heated water is what keeps you warm.
Speaker 2: Joe is correct when he states that the pea is
Speaker 2: essentially transferring heat from inside your body to outside. However,
Speaker 2: it's heat that would have been pulled from your skin
Speaker 2: by the cold water. Regardless, the strategic application of pea
Speaker 2: to the suit interior does seem to me to accelerate
Speaker 2: the rate at which the water inside the suit becomes tolerable.
Speaker 2: All right, Well, that's that's some wonderful additional information there,
Speaker 2: not only into just the urine based solutions that are common,
Speaker 2: you know among free divers and so forth, but also
Speaker 2: just you know, added experience into the awkwardness of oceanic
Speaker 2: urination among humans. And but this is a great point too,
Speaker 2: that yeah, this is this was my experience as well.
Speaker 2: You get off the boat, you're wearing the wet suit,
Speaker 2: you're snorkeling, maybe you don't have a wetsuit, you're snorkeling whatever.
Speaker 2: Now you are in the midst of it. It's not
Speaker 2: really a good time to go back to the boat.
Speaker 2: And if you do go back to the boat, there's
Speaker 2: not necessarily a bathroom there either, Like this is the
Speaker 2: place where you were going to have to pee, and
Speaker 2: you just have to make the best of it, all right,
Speaker 2: Moving along. We also had some folks write in about
Speaker 2: an October episode we did on sirens. I say October.
Speaker 2: It's possible that this was one of the late October episodes,
Speaker 2: like October thirty third or thirty fifth, once we actually
Speaker 2: got into November. A bit concerning the sirens. This one
Speaker 2: comes to us from Eric subject Odysseus and the Sirens. Hey, gentlemen,
Speaker 2: I am currently enjoying the episode about the sirens. You
Speaker 2: mentioned that presumably Odysseus had his ears unplugged out of curiosity,
Speaker 2: and I think that's probably true. But I had always
Speaker 2: understood that he did it as a sort of cirenometer
Speaker 2: for his crew. In short, when I stopped freaking out,
Speaker 2: it's safe to unplug your ear holes. If he hadn't,
Speaker 2: they might have just failed on and on, unable to
Speaker 2: talk to one another until someone finally just became frustrated
Speaker 2: and unplugged an ear potentially prematurely and thus fatally. I
Speaker 2: assume he picked himself as the cirenometer, if you will,
Speaker 2: out of curiosity. Though maybe I overanalyzed the story in
Speaker 2: my youth, but the idea is plausible. Thanks as always
Speaker 2: for excellent podcast, Eric, Eric, This is a this is
Speaker 2: a great point. Yeah, when in reading about this episode
Speaker 2: in the Odyssey, Yeah, a lot is said about curiosity
Speaker 2: and uh, and Odysseus is curiosity regarding the song of
Speaker 2: the sirens, and that does seem to be an important theme.
Speaker 2: But I, like you, I think, always grew up. But
Speaker 2: even before I was reading the story, I would see
Speaker 2: these fabulous illustrations, and you see Odysseus, you know, bound
Speaker 2: of the mass straining against them, you know, a very
Speaker 2: intentionally I think erotic image that is presented by these
Speaker 2: these painters. You know, he is he is his putting
Speaker 2: himself in the position to receive like the full temptation
Speaker 2: of the sirens. And the only thing that prevents him
Speaker 2: from giving into that temptation is not strong willpower, but
Speaker 2: just strong not tying abilities and the determination of his crew,
Speaker 2: you know, to keep those ears plugged, and you know,
Speaker 2: don't don't look over at Odysseus, don't untie him, you know,
Speaker 2: wait until the coast is clear, that sort of thing.
Speaker 2: But yeah, in looking at it, I always kind of thought, well, Okay,
Speaker 2: their ears are plugged, they're continuing to row, and they
Speaker 2: just need to keep doing that, stay plugged until Odysseus
Speaker 2: stops freaking out. So I think that that makes sense
Speaker 2: to me as well. So I don't know, I guess
Speaker 2: we can kind of take a little bit of each
Speaker 2: of these answers to stitch together the rationale for this plan.
Speaker 2: All right, here's another one. This one comes to us
Speaker 2: from Scott in response to our Grimoure of Horror episode.
Speaker 2: This is the first of these, hopefully we'll do more
Speaker 2: in the future, where for Halloween, Joe and I will
Speaker 2: each select a work of short written horror fiction and
Speaker 2: then discuss it on the show, and we said, hey,
Speaker 2: you know, let's get ahead of next year if you
Speaker 2: have suggestions right in and so we heard from Scott.
Speaker 2: Scott writes and says the following, Hello, all, I recently
Speaker 2: enjoyed the grumoure of horror episode and I'm looking forward
Speaker 2: to more next Halloween if you can find it. A
Speaker 2: short story I read as a middle schooler would be
Speaker 2: perfect for next year. This would have been in the
Speaker 2: mid nineteen sixties, but I haven't been able to find
Speaker 2: any information about it. The gist of the story is
Speaker 2: that there is a radio star whose live weekly broadcast
Speaker 2: features him going to some haunted location and telling the
Speaker 2: listeners about what happens. He is always by himself and restrained,
Speaker 2: so he can't leave. He has a portable radio which
Speaker 2: transmits to the radio van, which along with his crew,
Speaker 2: is some distance away. Essentially, he's helpless to save himself
Speaker 2: and there is nobody nearby to aid him. The show's
Speaker 2: format is that he tells his listeners the tale of
Speaker 2: the haunting, what the ghost or creature that inhabits the
Speaker 2: haunted place is supposed to look like and do, how
Speaker 2: he fears, strange sounds approaching, and then oh no, there's
Speaker 2: the monster. Nothing can save him except the listeners, who,
Speaker 2: through their concentrated thoughts, can force the creature to leave
Speaker 2: and spare his life. The reality is, of course, that
Speaker 2: there is no monster. It's pure radio drama, except for
Speaker 2: the show, which is the subject of the story. At
Speaker 2: the end of the broadcast, while communicating with his crew,
Speaker 2: they tell him that the Knight's listening audience is the
Speaker 2: largest ever. He's happy, but ask them to hurry things
Speaker 2: up and come get him because he's been hearing some
Speaker 2: weird noises. Before they can reach him, he screams into
Speaker 2: the radio that the creature is real and that the
Speaker 2: room and it is in the room with him. Then silence.
Speaker 2: By the time they arrive, they find nothing safe for
Speaker 2: chains which held him broken and twisted by some monstrous strength.
Speaker 2: It is asserted that the combined belief in the monster
Speaker 2: by the large listening audience brought it into existence. As
Speaker 2: a youngster of this story scared the but Jesus out
Speaker 2: of me. All those people believing in the monster brought
Speaker 2: it to life. So what if me thinking about it
Speaker 2: causes the same thing? Then I try not to think
Speaker 2: about it, which of course only makes me think about
Speaker 2: it all the more. This fits in well with what
Speaker 2: you guys discussed in the follow up to the second story,
Speaker 2: when Robert mentions that there is quote this weird connection
Speaker 2: between thought and action and ideas of the supernatural, and
Speaker 2: if you put thought and action in motion, like what
Speaker 2: does that? What does that do? Of course I knew
Speaker 2: that logically there was no way I could will a
Speaker 2: monster into existence, but as Joe said, there is a
Speaker 2: difference between what you consciously believe and what kinds of
Speaker 2: things scare you in theory. Anyway, thanks for the hours
Speaker 2: of interesting content you provide during my long commutes, Scott.
Speaker 2: All right, well, Scott, this sounds like a really interesting story.
Speaker 2: Reminds me of some related works, you know, to get
Speaker 2: into similar areas describing toolpose, you know, thought emanations. I
Speaker 2: think of some of the there's a particular story, The
Speaker 2: Circular Ruins by Borges, you know, I instantly think of
Speaker 2: John Carpenter's In the Mouth of Madness. But as for
Speaker 2: this particular story, I do not know what this is.
Speaker 2: I looked around a little bit online and I'm pretty
Speaker 2: sure I found a poster on Reddit asking about this
Speaker 2: same story, but there were no satisfactory answers. So I'll
Speaker 2: bump the signal on this request here and maybe it'll
Speaker 2: ring a bell with someone out there listening. You can
Speaker 2: write in to me and then we'll share it on
Speaker 2: a future listener mail episode. But yeah, my mind instantly
Speaker 2: turns to a few different nineteen sixties horror fiction mainstays.
Speaker 2: I instantly think of somebody like Ray Bradberry. But you know,
Speaker 2: a lot of these are authors that were quite prolific,
Speaker 2: so it doesn't really narrow it down a lot for
Speaker 2: me anyway. So hey, if you know what Scott is
Speaker 2: talking about here, write in and we'll go from there.
Speaker 2: All right. This one comes to us from Matthew. This
Speaker 2: was a response to our Hogs of Hell episode. Matthew says, hey,
Speaker 2: I have a fun story about pigs eating a drunk irishman.
Speaker 2: I came across it in an episode of the Blind
Speaker 2: Boy podcast. Link below includes a link to where you
Speaker 2: can find this on Spotify. I imagine this is one
Speaker 2: of those shows you you can find this wherever you
Speaker 2: get your podcasts. But he continues, the short version is
Speaker 2: this In eighteen eighteen, James O'Sullivan, after failing to sell
Speaker 2: his two pigs at market, got drunk at the public house,
Speaker 2: and then got into his horse drawn cart and passed
Speaker 2: out in the back with the pigs. The horse, unguided,
Speaker 2: walked the path home. What Miss Sullivan found when the
Speaker 2: cart returned was only her husband's boots remaining. The neighbors
Speaker 2: were gathered and the priest was called. He suggested that
Speaker 2: the man eating pigs be slaughtered and given a Christian perial.
Speaker 2: That was the best they could do for poor mister Sullivan.
Speaker 2: Then their stomachs. His gravestone, with a depiction of two
Speaker 2: pigs still lays in the local graveyard. Thank you for
Speaker 2: the consistent and wonderful content. It's all fantastic. Oh and
Speaker 2: don't forget about Pigsy Zubaji, the human reincarnated as a
Speaker 2: pig demon protagonist from Journey into the West. Matthew. A
Speaker 2: good point on Pigsy, Matthew. Yeah, I hadn't really thought
Speaker 2: about Pigsy so much, because I think of him not
Speaker 2: so much as a as a monster, but as you know,
Speaker 2: like you know, an important character of that particular narrative.
Speaker 2: But still we're worth mentioning in passing. Certainly, certainly one
Speaker 2: of if not the most famous pig human hybrid characters
Speaker 2: for sure. As for the story of the drunk Irishman, yeah,
Speaker 2: that's quite quite horrific. I had not heard that one before,
Speaker 2: and this detail about the gravestone also quite pantalizing. All right,
Speaker 2: let's get into a little weird house cinema. We have
Speaker 2: one here from Jeff and this is about Spirited Away.
Speaker 2: Greetings Joe and Rob. Last year, along with the usual
Speaker 2: re releases of Ghibli films, I was able to catch
Speaker 2: a showing of the live stage version of Spirited Away
Speaker 2: at the local cinema. It was amazing, stunning. It's not
Speaker 2: better than the movie and would probably make no sense
Speaker 2: whatsoever if you hadn't seen the original. But they did
Speaker 2: almost every scene, almost every shot, the close ups, flying, falling, swimming,
Speaker 2: hanging off the side of a building, in a moving train,
Speaker 2: in a car, almost everything. Despite being one of the
Speaker 2: top films that comes to mind if asked which would
Speaker 2: be the most insane to try to turn into a
Speaker 2: stage performance, the sets were simple but brilliant. They broke
Speaker 2: the movie into puzzle pieces and then put it all together.
Speaker 2: The acting was great. The original voice actor played Ubaba
Speaker 2: and many of the parts were so physical they must
Speaker 2: have been dancers or gymnasts. The audience in our movie
Speaker 2: theater actually applauded at the end when the camera pulled
Speaker 2: back and showed the full orchestra and stage. Not as
Speaker 2: emotionally engaging as the film, but a super impressive spectacle.
Speaker 2: I highly recommend checking it out if you have the opportunity. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I have not seen this myself, but I had heard
Speaker 2: that this was excellent if memory serves. There's also a
Speaker 2: Totoro stage adaptation that somebody has put together, but again
Speaker 2: I haven't seen that either. Anyway, Jeff continues on the
Speaker 2: topic of subs versus dubbs. I think the English Spirited
Speaker 2: Away dub is quite good, but you haven't actually seen
Speaker 2: Keiki's Delivery Service if you haven't seen it with the
Speaker 2: original voices Phil Hartman as Kiki's cat's sidekick. This is
Speaker 2: in the English version. Of course, the English dub is
Speaker 2: not only a completely different character, he changes the meaning
Speaker 2: of the film. Hartman's gg is like Kiki's superpower, a
Speaker 2: force of positive energy. The original GGI is a quiet
Speaker 2: little voice inside Keeeky's head telling her she's not good enough.
Speaker 2: Thus the communication breakdown between the two has a totally
Speaker 2: different meaning. Kiki is by far my favorite Ghibli film.
Speaker 2: It's an instruction manual for leading a rewarding life. I
Speaker 2: go see it every summer when they re release it.
Speaker 2: It's probably not weird enough for Weird House, but I
Speaker 2: very much encourage all your listeners to check it out
Speaker 2: if possible. In the original Japanese. Oh, this is an
Speaker 2: excellent suggestion. I have never seen Kiki's delivery service in
Speaker 2: the original Japanese, but this is one that I watched
Speaker 2: Fairmount with my son. This was for a time. This
Speaker 2: was his absolute favorite as well. It's such a sweet film,
Speaker 2: and yeah, I mean I really like Phil Hartman in it,
Speaker 2: so it would be an interesting experience to get into
Speaker 2: this other like original version of Gigi, Let's see Jeff
Speaker 2: continues here. Also, despite Michael Keaton's great performance in Porco Rosso,
Speaker 2: the original Porko is far more charming. Here's a comparison
Speaker 2: of an ex change between our hero and a group
Speaker 2: of old ladies he hasn't seen in a long time.
Speaker 2: American Porko, Are you girls really still alive? Japanese Porko,
Speaker 2: The Angels haven't come for you? Yet, I mean, come on,
Speaker 2: of course, I'm basing my opinion on the Japanese subtitle
Speaker 2: translation on the DVDs, But I have seen the Disney
Speaker 2: Voice directors boasting about how hard they work to make
Speaker 2: new dialogue that syncs with the animated mouth flaps, which
Speaker 2: is the cart leading the horse if I ever heard it.
Speaker 2: Thanks for covering Spirited Away. It's always nice to get
Speaker 2: a little duckling spirit in our lives. Jeff well excellently, Jeff.
Speaker 2: I knew that we had some ghibli fans out They're
Speaker 2: out there with some strong opinions on dubbs versus subs.
Speaker 2: You know, I've heard some of it before in regard
Speaker 2: to certain films. You know, I've certainly heard it in
Speaker 2: regards to like the the mytho religious context that is
Speaker 2: present in some of these films, and how the English
Speaker 2: dub often like takes a more monotheistic approach versus versus
Speaker 2: what was originally present in the original untranslated material. So anyway,
Speaker 2: thanks for writing in about all of that. Yeah, I
Speaker 2: need to I need to cueue up a Miyazaki film
Speaker 2: and watch it in the original Japanese. It was probably
Speaker 2: gonna be I'm probably gonna turn to one of my favorites.
Speaker 2: I'm probably gonna do something like NAUSICAA, but yeah, I'll
Speaker 2: come back to that in the future. All right. This
Speaker 2: next one comes to us from Iris. This is another
Speaker 2: spirited away response. Iris says, Hi Robin Joe, hope you
Speaker 2: both are doing very well. I just came from your
Speaker 2: weird house cinema episode unspirited Away. It is my ultimate
Speaker 2: comfort film, though as a child, I too was traumatized
Speaker 2: by the foodstall scene and made my parents promise to
Speaker 2: never eat food without paying first. Throughout the years, I
Speaker 2: have rewatched the movie in different stages of life and
Speaker 2: have gained different perspectives on this film in two aspects,
Speaker 2: one the power within a name and two the Kobukicho
Speaker 2: the red light district culture, reflection on the bathouse setting,
Speaker 2: and a content warning. There are going to be some
Speaker 2: mature themes explored in the later paragraph. Okay, so mature
Speaker 2: themes warning applied. I've always loved applied linguistics, and it
Speaker 2: is an interesting exercise to learn about the character names
Speaker 2: of the key characters. Chihiro's name in kanji is Chi
Speaker 2: thousand and hero to seek to find which reflects her
Speaker 2: character's journey to be constantly seeking a way out, seeking
Speaker 2: a way to save her parents, and seeking the truth
Speaker 2: of the spirit realm. So when Ubaba takes her name,
Speaker 2: she chose to take away the verb in her name
Speaker 2: and left her with the numerical character sin also means thousand.
Speaker 2: Ubaba is minimizing Chihiro down to a money making servant
Speaker 2: and taking away her central motivation of seeking away out.
Speaker 2: Haku's real name expands into Junior master of fast winding
Speaker 2: Amber River or Niji Hayami Kohaku Nushi. The Haku or
Speaker 2: white dragon is derived from Kohaku Amber, which reflects his
Speaker 2: spiritual form. When I was younger, I question if it
Speaker 2: is really that easy to forget your name when the
Speaker 2: new name sounds so similar to the original name. But
Speaker 2: the Japanese language is a funny combination of romanticized syllables
Speaker 2: that string into meaningful kanji characters. You can see that
Speaker 2: by taking a part of one's name, the meaning changes completely.
Speaker 2: On a more lighthearted note, Ubaba and twin Zeniba have
Speaker 2: an interesting title pair. The former translates roughly to soup
Speaker 2: grandma and the later money grandma. When you put the
Speaker 2: characters of you and zen together, it makes the word tozin,
Speaker 2: which is a synonym to onsen or hot spring bath
Speaker 2: very on the nose. It's also interesting that Ubaba and
Speaker 2: Zeniba both use titles such as the Grandma of soup
Speaker 2: or money throughout the film, as opposed to a more
Speaker 2: conventional name. My guess is that by not uncovering their
Speaker 2: true name, magical creatures in the spirit realm would not
Speaker 2: have any power over them. If you were a fan
Speaker 2: of the fantasy genre, you'll know that the law of
Speaker 2: name is a common trope among large fantasy works such
Speaker 2: as Earthsea and Lord of the Rings. Folklore such as
Speaker 2: Rumpelstilskin also explores this magic behind a name and how
Speaker 2: you can control the creature if you hold their real name.
Speaker 2: The ritual of changing one's name is present and still
Speaker 2: practiced in the kabukicho culture in Japan. To Chihiro's journey
Speaker 2: in getting a job in the bath house starts with
Speaker 2: signing a work contract in a way selling her name
Speaker 2: to gain employment. The sequence is a similar journey for
Speaker 2: Chio from Memoir of a Geisha, where she was sold
Speaker 2: to the geisha house for labor and then abandons her
Speaker 2: name to sayuri. Mister Miyazaki himself has made comparisons between
Speaker 2: the bath house in Japan's Edo period red light district.
Speaker 2: In the book Turning Point nineteen ninety seven through two
Speaker 2: thousand and eight, Chihiro is employed as a bath girl
Speaker 2: or Yunah, who cleans after customers. In the Edo period,
Speaker 2: Yunah's services offered woding include eating, drinking, playing games, and
Speaker 2: in some private cases, prostitution. You can also see this
Speaker 2: connection to Ubaba's title, which is a form of madam.
Speaker 2: She determines which yuna works for which customer. Even though
Speaker 2: there are a ton of elements in the film that
Speaker 2: reflect the kubuki cho culture of Japan, I have to
Speaker 2: applaud that mister Miyazaki chose to focus on the genuine
Speaker 2: relationship between Shihiro, rin Haiku and Kamaji that was forged
Speaker 2: in the most brutal workplace. Lastly, going back to the
Speaker 2: language of the film, the full Japanese title of the
Speaker 2: film is send to Chichiro no Kama Kanushi, which consists
Speaker 2: of the two names of our main heroine and Kama Kakushi.
Speaker 2: The word is typically translated to the disappearance, but the
Speaker 2: Kanji form of The word literally means hidden by the gods.
Speaker 2: The specific usage of this word is usually reserved for
Speaker 2: Japanese children who disappear without a trace. There are a
Speaker 2: lot of Japanese myths and traditional Shinto tales that address
Speaker 2: the disappearance of women or children, which are usually summarized
Speaker 2: to be the doing by gods or spirits who lures
Speaker 2: them into the ghost realm. I would love to hear
Speaker 2: you guys's deep dive on some famous Kama Cohee cases
Speaker 2: of Japan, perhaps the future episode. Thanks again for choosing
Speaker 2: such a classic film for this episode of Weird House Cinema.
Speaker 2: I'm forever blown away by your breadth and depth of
Speaker 2: topics and the endless passion I hear for the past
Speaker 2: six years. Thanks for being the show that I look
Speaker 2: forward to catch up on the most best. Iris Well, Iris,
Speaker 2: thanks for writing in with all of that some excellent
Speaker 2: insight into the into the world, the real world behind
Speaker 2: Spirited Away, and some of the thoughts and ideas that
Speaker 2: it went into it. I hope I was able to
Speaker 2: do an okay job at least with some of those
Speaker 2: those words. My apologies if I am any mispronunciations of
Speaker 2: the Japanese there that I inevitably inflicted. But that's yeah,
Speaker 2: that's that's absolutely fascinating, and I could see us coming
Speaker 2: back and doing episodes related to these topics in the future.
Speaker 2: We're always fascinated different folk beliefs and urban legends and
Speaker 2: so forth in varying cultures, and you know, we come
Speaker 2: back time and time again to Japanese culture as well.
Speaker 2: All Right, this next one comes to us from Skylar,
Speaker 2: and I really love the title on this particular email.
Speaker 2: It is local libraries can be your video drome. Skyler is,
Speaker 2: of course referring to Atlanta's own Video Drome video rental store.
Speaker 2: This is a wonderful place where I rent a lot
Speaker 2: of the discs that I watch for Weird House cinema,
Speaker 2: and Skyler makes a great point here that, yeah, if
Speaker 2: you don't have a videodrome in your city or something
Speaker 2: like video Drome, you might have a library that can
Speaker 2: writ me some discs. She writes, Hey, I always enjoy
Speaker 2: your weird House selection, but there is not a video
Speaker 2: rental store near me, so I have to stream it
Speaker 2: if available. I use my local library for books, but
Speaker 2: checked out the movie section, and because of the regional
Speaker 2: library system, I can request books for numerous libraries. Same
Speaker 2: goes with movies. Many of the movies you've highlighted on
Speaker 2: the podcast are available through the library system. Just another
Speaker 2: option for watching awesome, weird house movies on DVD with
Speaker 2: cool bonus features and a great opportunity to support your
Speaker 2: local library. Also, I was listening to Arnold Schwarzenager's memoir
Speaker 2: and he said that he was signed on to be
Speaker 2: in the im Legend film that starred Will Smith, but
Speaker 2: because Arnold had recently had heart surgery, the cost to
Speaker 2: ensure him was enormous. I wish that had happened, because
Speaker 2: I have a hard time imagining him in the role.
Speaker 2: Thanks for all that you do, Skyler, Well, great points, Skyler. Yeah,
Speaker 2: don't forget the excellent resources afforded to you by your
Speaker 2: local library. You know I don't. It's been a while.
Speaker 2: It's been a long time since I've rented any movies
Speaker 2: to the library, but I do continue to use the
Speaker 2: library local library for books and such, and I do
Speaker 2: have friends who more religiously use the library as their
Speaker 2: means of getting on the waiting list for various films.
Speaker 2: So it's an excellent idea. I'm glad you brought it up.
Speaker 2: I need to touch on that more when we're bringing
Speaker 2: up ways to watch these various films. As for Arnold
Speaker 2: and will Smith, yeah, obviously I've loved both of them
Speaker 2: in different projects. Though I'm hard pressed to imagine a
Speaker 2: version of two thousand and sevens I am legend that
Speaker 2: I would personally be fond of. But then again, I
Speaker 2: know a lot of people like this film. Ebert gave
Speaker 2: it like three out of four stars, so maybe I
Speaker 2: need to revisit it. I don't know. Maybe time has
Speaker 2: been kind to it, and I'm just remembering the CGI
Speaker 2: Monsters and I don't know. It didn't hit. It didn't
Speaker 2: land properly for me back then, but maybe if I
Speaker 2: re experienced it would be different. All right. I haven't
Speaker 2: completely depleted the mail bag here, but there are a
Speaker 2: couple here that I wanted to save because I knew
Speaker 2: that Joe would really want to get into them. So
Speaker 2: I want to upset a few aside, and we'll come
Speaker 2: back to them later on. In all likelihood, we'll do
Speaker 2: another list or mail towards the end of December or
Speaker 2: the beginning of January. Obviously, there's going to be a
Speaker 2: lot of disruption and so forth due to the holidays.
Speaker 2: But let's see as I begin to close this out.
Speaker 2: You know, I said at the top of the episode
Speaker 2: that I traveled with my family to Wales last week.
Speaker 2: So perhaps some of you are wondering, if you've listened
Speaker 2: to me long enough, well, what films did I watch
Speaker 2: on the plane? Because watching movies on a plane, along
Speaker 2: with listening to Steve Roach albums and napping, this is
Speaker 2: the main way way I cope with flights. I don't
Speaker 2: really like flying, no matter what my seating situation happens
Speaker 2: to be. So I ended up exerting control where I
Speaker 2: can exert control, download a bunch of movies, and then
Speaker 2: pick out ones mid flight to watch. So yeah, I'll
Speaker 2: go ahead and share this with anyone who's curious. And
Speaker 2: if you're not curious, you know, I guess just you know,
Speaker 2: you can close up the episode. But I'm just going
Speaker 2: to talk about movies. Though watched on the plane here
Speaker 2: for a minute or two. So I watched both nineteen
Speaker 2: eighties Showgun Assassin and nineteen seventy two's Lone Wolf and
Speaker 2: Cub sort of Vengeance. I watched these for an upcoming
Speaker 2: weird how Cinema episode we're going to do on Showgun Assassin.
Speaker 2: Showgun Assassin is a Western picture that takes the first
Speaker 2: two Lone Wolf and Cub movies and cuts them into
Speaker 2: one picture with a new soundtrack and narration. It is
Speaker 2: a grindhouse classic. It's tremendous fun. I had a great
Speaker 2: time watching it on the plane and then watching the
Speaker 2: first of the two movies that went into it, and
Speaker 2: I think I'm going to watch that second one as well.
Speaker 2: Before Joe and I discussed Showgun Assassin. I love watching
Speaker 2: a film where I can just really zone out on
Speaker 2: the colors, and that's why another film that I watched
Speaker 2: this was a rewatch for me. I hadn't seen it
Speaker 2: in a while, perhaps since it came out, but I
Speaker 2: watched twenty sixteen's The Love Witch. Just a perfect film
Speaker 2: that knows exactly what it wants to accomplish and does
Speaker 2: so with such loving technicolor style. Though this is one
Speaker 2: that as I'm watching it, you know there are, of
Speaker 2: course here on a plane, other people can see what
Speaker 2: you're watching, and sometimes I feel like I need to
Speaker 2: like turn around and explain to them that I'm watching
Speaker 2: a very art film with some very serious minded ideas
Speaker 2: behind it. But yeah, love The Love Witch. This is
Speaker 2: one that I could see. I could see an episode
Speaker 2: of Weird House Cinema devoted to this episode. I know
Speaker 2: Joe's really fond of it. I think Annie Reese is
Speaker 2: a big fan of this film as well, if I'm
Speaker 2: remembering correctly, so, I don't know, one way or another
Speaker 2: might come back to The Love Witch. I also rewatched
Speaker 2: twenty seventeen's Alien Covenant, which I had previously rewatched on
Speaker 2: a long flight just earlier this year. Some people don't
Speaker 2: like this film, but this one remains one of my
Speaker 2: personal favorites. I realize that no one understands the lonely
Speaker 2: perfection of my dreams, but hey, this time around, I
Speaker 2: really focused on Billy Crudup's performance here. Such a terrific actor,
Speaker 2: even if he's in something that I'm not really you know,
Speaker 2: super into. You know, there's no speculative element, it's not weird.
Speaker 2: It's like, he's still such a captivating performer. And I
Speaker 2: think part of my attraction to his acting is that
Speaker 2: I got to see him on stage back in I
Speaker 2: think this was two thousand and five in New York.
Speaker 2: He was in a production of The Pillow Man opposite
Speaker 2: Jeff Goldblum. This is one where it just kind of
Speaker 2: grab tickets last minute, you know what can we see
Speaker 2: tonight in the Big City. We got tickets to see
Speaker 2: The Pillow Man and it was really captivating. I had
Speaker 2: never heard of Billy before, but he was tremendous in that,
Speaker 2: and I think he's just really great in anything I
Speaker 2: see him in, and he's great. An Alien Covenant, a
Speaker 2: great cast all around there. And then finally, I'll mention
Speaker 2: a film that has come up a lot on Weird
Speaker 2: House Cinema and I wasn't sure if it would be
Speaker 2: like a Weird House Cinema selection. I was like, I
Speaker 2: need to watch it in full by myself before I
Speaker 2: make up my mind. I sat down and watched. Well,
Speaker 2: of course it was setting down iceeded for like ten hours,
Speaker 2: but I watched The Eyes of Laura Mars from nineteen
Speaker 2: seventy eight. Some of you had written in about this
Speaker 2: one in the past. I think, so this is a
Speaker 2: film that has a great cast based on a spec
Speaker 2: script from John Carpenter, really cool seventies like late seventies
Speaker 2: New York disco feel. It's essentially a jallo film. You know,
Speaker 2: it's some sort of strange murders going on. Highest high
Speaker 2: fashion photographer is getting glimpses, psychic glimpses of the murders.
Speaker 2: You know, all the pieces seem tremendous, but it doesn't
Speaker 2: quite come together the way you want it to. So
Speaker 2: I don't think it's right for weird House. But it
Speaker 2: is an interesting film curio. You know, you're looking at
Speaker 2: a film that it doesn't quite land, but man, all
Speaker 2: the pieces are there. It's weird that it doesn't. But
Speaker 2: I don't know. I'm sure it has its fans. If
Speaker 2: you're a fan of the Eyes of Laura Mars right in,
Speaker 2: well we can chat about it certainly has some great
Speaker 2: pieces to it and some great little performances sprinkled throughout.
Speaker 2: All Right, Well, if anyone's still with me here, I'm
Speaker 2: gonna go ahead and close out this rare solo Robert
Speaker 2: Lamb episode of Listener Mail. Let's see what kind of
Speaker 2: notes do I need to share here as we close out?
Speaker 2: And I guess just the regular stuff that's stuff to
Speaker 2: blow your mind. Is primarily a science and culture podcast,
Speaker 2: with core episodes on Tuesdays and Thursdays, but on Fridays
Speaker 2: we set aside most serious concerns and we just talk
Speaker 2: about a weird film on Weird House Cinema on Wednesdays,
Speaker 2: a little short form episode, sometimes a monster. I think
Speaker 2: there's a particular Welsh monster. I'm going to come back
Speaker 2: to either either this week or following week. We'll see
Speaker 2: how it all lands. And if you're on Instagram, look
Speaker 2: us up. We're stb ym podcast. Great way to follow us.
Speaker 2: What else let's see, Oh, wherever you get the podcast,
Speaker 2: make sure you're subscribed, make sure you're getting downloads, and
Speaker 2: if you haven't already, you know, give us a nice rating.
Speaker 2: We always forget to beg for stars and ask for
Speaker 2: ratings and all, and it's easy to not put our
Speaker 2: you know, do not wrap our minds around all of
Speaker 2: that and just focus on the content and the listeners.
Speaker 2: But you know, it does help if there are nice
Speaker 2: reviews for the show, you know, as is often the case,
Speaker 2: you know, the folks who chime in with reviews are
Speaker 2: often those that that really don't like us or really
Speaker 2: like us, you know, you get those extremes of opinion,
Speaker 2: and so you know, sometimes I think it's a good
Speaker 2: idea to just remind everyone in the middle. You know, hey,
Speaker 2: why don't you pop on and you know, go ahead
Speaker 2: and bump those stars up, stars up to five. You know,
Speaker 2: I realize you probably are thinking more like the four arrange,
Speaker 2: but go ahead and give it a five. Five helps more.
Speaker 2: Let's see anything else? Oh yeah, if you want to
Speaker 2: follow the Weird House Cinema selections, we're on a letterbox.
Speaker 2: We're as weird House. That's our user name. Follow us
Speaker 2: there and I believe that's pretty much it. We're gonna
Speaker 2: go ahead and close the episode out. But thanks us
Speaker 2: always to the excellent JJ Possway for producing the show,
Speaker 2: stishing everything together, making it sound as good as it does.
Speaker 2: And if you would like to reach out to any
Speaker 2: of us here at stuff to Blow Your Mind, if
Speaker 2: you would like to get that link to the discord server,
Speaker 2: or just share ideas for the future, ideas and thoughts
Speaker 2: on past episodes, Weird House Cinema, you name it, ride
Speaker 2: in to us at contact at stuffd Blow your Mind
Speaker 2: dot com.
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