Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Hey you welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. Listener mail.
Speaker 2: My name is Robert Lamb.
Speaker 3: And I am Joe McCormick. And on these episodes of
Speaker 3: Stuff to Blow Your Mind, we read back messages from
Speaker 3: the email address. If you would like to get in
Speaker 3: touch and you've never done it before, please give it
Speaker 3: a go. You can reach us at contact at stuff
Speaker 3: to Blow your Mind dot com. All types of messages
Speaker 3: are welcome, especially if you would like to add something
Speaker 3: interesting related to a topic we've talked about on the show.
Speaker 3: But also corrections are always appreciated if we make a
Speaker 3: mistake random trivia. You think we would be into suggestions
Speaker 3: for future show topics or suggestions for movies for Weird
Speaker 3: House Cinema. Any feedback to Stuff to Blow your Mind
Speaker 3: Core or Weird House Cinema, send it our way contact
Speaker 3: at stuff to Blow your Mind dot com. So today's
Speaker 3: mail bag is still heavy with a bunch of older
Speaker 3: messages we didn't have time to get to in our
Speaker 3: last round up our October thirty eighth or whatever whenever
Speaker 3: we did that, And we've got some new stuff, so
Speaker 3: we'll see what we can make it through today, Rob,
Speaker 3: do you mind if I kick things off reading this
Speaker 3: message from Anita on a number of topics.
Speaker 2: Yeah, go for it.
Speaker 3: Anita says, I am truly sorry for this clumpy compendium
Speaker 3: of communication. I've wanted to write in for a while,
Speaker 3: but have been thinking I'd put it off until I
Speaker 3: had something more to say. And then I had a
Speaker 3: lot to say. So here goes. You guys are awesome.
Speaker 3: Listening to you brings back warm memories of grad school
Speaker 3: and listening to educated folks just shoot the breeze. So
Speaker 3: many times while listening to the show, I think to myself, Yeah,
Speaker 3: but what about and then you actually bring it up.
Speaker 3: It's almost like you can hear me. You also give
Speaker 3: so many good conversation starters. Thank you so much. Well,
Speaker 3: thank you, Anita. That means a lot. But right after this,
Speaker 3: she's going to bring out the hot iron about pronunciation. So,
Speaker 3: Anita says, having gone to the University of Colorado, Boulder,
Speaker 3: I can tell you that it is see you Boulder.
Speaker 3: I know, but that's the way we do it. I
Speaker 3: think this is addressing every time we talk about somebody
Speaker 3: affiliated with University of Colorado Boulder, I'm sure I call
Speaker 3: it u CE Boulder, but yeah, U SEE tends to
Speaker 3: relate to the University of California and not University of Colorado.
Speaker 3: So I apologize for the hundreds of times I've probably
Speaker 3: said that.
Speaker 2: Wrong, igniting the you know, the fear sports rivalry between
Speaker 2: whatever these two universities teams are go big horns.
Speaker 3: I have no idea. Also, Anita says, having lived in Nevada,
Speaker 3: it is pronounced Nevada with an a, like an apple.
Speaker 3: Saying it the other way. I probably always say Nevada.
Speaker 3: Saying it the other way is like nails on a
Speaker 3: chalkboard to a Nevada. I know it's originally Spanish, but
Speaker 3: it's American naw Okay.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I feel like I mostly noticed this pronunciation when there
Speaker 3: is national news coverage relating to elections where things are
Speaker 3: happening in Nevada, and I can hear newscasters like pause
Speaker 3: before they say the name of the state and then
Speaker 3: say Nevada, as if they're having to remember to pronounce
Speaker 3: it that way. So I don't know, maybe they're like me.
Speaker 3: Maybe they said it the way I said it a
Speaker 3: bunch of times. Anyway, The next thing is Anita says,
Speaker 3: an article just came around from the Dane County Humane
Speaker 3: Society about a squirrel king that was found. I live
Speaker 3: just north of Madison, Wisconsin, in Lodi. I work in Madison,
Speaker 3: which is in Dane County. So yeah, this relates to
Speaker 3: episodes we've done in the past on the rat king phenomenon.
Speaker 3: We've addressed the extent to which this is a real
Speaker 3: thing and not just made up. There's clearly a lot
Speaker 3: of rat king mythology, but there is some bay in
Speaker 3: reality as well. So I went to this article and
Speaker 3: I pulled in some pictures and Rob, I've got at
Speaker 3: least one of the photos for you to look at
Speaker 3: in the outline here where we see several squirrels that
Speaker 3: are you see the distinct squirrel bodies like the you know,
Speaker 3: the the fan blades on a pinwheel. But then yes,
Speaker 3: their tails come together in the middle in just a
Speaker 3: mushy mass of gray brown fur leaves what looks like
Speaker 3: some kind of plant fiber. It's just a mess in
Speaker 3: the middle, and all the tails go in. So Anita
Speaker 3: attaches a link to a news article from the Dane
Speaker 3: County Humane Society by I think their director named Jackie
Speaker 3: Edmonds from October twenty eighth, twenty twenty five. I'll read
Speaker 3: from the opening to give you an idea of the story.
Speaker 3: Here quote. On September seventeenth, twenty twenty five, a group
Speaker 3: of five young Eastern gray squirrels were found with their
Speaker 3: tails all knotted together in a phenomenon known as a
Speaker 3: squirrel king. The finders, who were from Janesville, successful captured
Speaker 3: the entire scurry, which is a real term for the
Speaker 3: group scurry of squirrels, placed them in a bucket, and
Speaker 3: brought them to Dcchs's Wildlife Center for an emergency admission appointment.
Speaker 3: It was theorized that these babies snuggled together for warmth
Speaker 3: and comfort inside of their cavity nest or dray a
Speaker 3: leaf nest, and came into contact with tree sap while
Speaker 3: they were growing. As the sap spread, it thickened and hardened,
Speaker 3: and the squirrels continued to squirm around each other while
Speaker 3: they got bigger. In doing so, the knot in their
Speaker 3: tails worsened over time. So that's the beginning of the story,
Speaker 3: But then it goes on to describe lots of careful
Speaker 3: rehabilitation efforts by workers and volunteers at the center, and
Speaker 3: there are some pictures of that too, of the workers
Speaker 3: carefully trying to take care of the squirrels to get
Speaker 3: the the clumped up part removed, and finally at the
Speaker 3: end they do get all the squirrels separated. And then
Speaker 3: there's an update from November thirteenth, so just recently. The
Speaker 3: article says, great news, the five squirrels that had comprised
Speaker 3: the squirrel king were successfully rehabilitated and released on Tuesday,
Speaker 3: November eleventh, so they're all separate now, and Edmunds says
Speaker 3: quote after speaking with the finder, they were returned to
Speaker 3: their property along with a nest box. The finder has
Speaker 3: agreed to carefully supply food throughout the winter to help
Speaker 3: the squirrels since they did not have time to collect
Speaker 3: winter supplies.
Speaker 2: That's a nice ending to that little story. Two takeaways here,
Speaker 2: I think, one especially for our international listeners. Yes, in
Speaker 2: this country you do get free healthcare if you are
Speaker 2: a bundle of rodents. Humans not so much. And then
Speaker 2: on top of that, the idea that this knot of rodents,
Speaker 2: this knot of squirrels, was successfully untied and the squirrels
Speaker 2: were saved. If the rat king, or in this case,
Speaker 2: the squirrel king, is indeed a dire omen. Successfully solving
Speaker 2: it in this manner would seem to be a way
Speaker 2: to prevent disaster and prevent some sort of looming doom
Speaker 2: from occurring. So I like the metaphysical possibilities of this
Speaker 2: as well.
Speaker 3: It's like knocking on wood or throwing salt over your shoulder.
Speaker 3: You untangle the squirrel king.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a lot more complicated. We tend to throw
Speaker 2: the salt over our shoulder because it requires virtually no work,
Speaker 2: and all you have to do is turn around and
Speaker 2: make sure it lands in the sink. Right, Untangling the
Speaker 2: squirrel king clearly took a lot more skill and expertise.
Speaker 3: Anita has a little more in her message, she says,
Speaker 3: And lastly, we have a certain metal filing cabinet here
Speaker 3: at work that sounds like Godzilla. I think of you
Speaker 3: two every time I need to get shipping labels. Sound
Speaker 3: file attached. I guess we can play it here, But
Speaker 3: warning listeners, it is squeally, so take note that it's coming.
Speaker 3: I agree, it's quite kaijusque. There is a kind of squeal,
Speaker 3: a radioactive squeal, echoing up into the stratosphere, so I
Speaker 3: hear exactly what you're saying, and I may have actually
Speaker 3: had that thought about squealing metal on metal sounds before.
Speaker 3: It really does sound kind of like a giant monster.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you just need to drop the Godzilla theme song
Speaker 2: on top of that.
Speaker 3: Dun dun dun, dun dun.
Speaker 2: Duh.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and Anita finally says, glad, I got that out
Speaker 3: of my system. Thanks for giving my brain things to
Speaker 3: chew on. Joe's gentle snickering sounds, along with Rob's mums,
Speaker 3: especially when he doesn't quite agree.
Speaker 2: I need. I'd never really until I read this one
Speaker 2: when it came in. I'd never really thought too much
Speaker 2: about what my momms might be giving away.
Speaker 3: But yeah, I don't know either. I guess I say
Speaker 3: some moms too. I have to think on that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, sometimes they just might have no particular opinion. I
Speaker 2: might be very neutral. I don't know.
Speaker 3: I'd say that's the most common time I would say,
Speaker 3: MM is when I don't feel like I have an
Speaker 3: opinion on.
Speaker 2: Something unless it's a downward and then I might Yeah,
Speaker 2: it might be Yeah, I don't know. I have to
Speaker 2: listen back and see if I can figure out this.
Speaker 2: Since I generally know where my mind probably was when
Speaker 2: I uttered a given all right, what do we have
Speaker 2: next in the bag? A number of these the listener
Speaker 2: mails seem to be a little bit sticky.
Speaker 3: That's right. So we're gonna do another episode on the
Speaker 3: licking theme from before our break last week. We're going
Speaker 3: to do another one later this week, and one listener
Speaker 3: mail message on that subject actually inspired a segment for that.
Speaker 3: So we'll talk about some listener mail in the Licking
Speaker 3: Part three episode. But we got quite a few responses,
Speaker 3: especially to the research on how many licks it takes
Speaker 3: to get to the center of a Tutsi pop. This
Speaker 3: really set people off.
Speaker 2: That's right. All right. This first one comes to us
Speaker 2: from Scott subject Tutsi Pop memories, gentlemen, I was transported
Speaker 2: back to the days of my youth during the Licking
Speaker 2: Part one episode the discussion of the Tutsi pop. I
Speaker 2: distinctly remember sitting cross legged on the living room floor,
Speaker 2: staring rapidly at the black and white television set as
Speaker 2: the Tutsi Pop commercial came on, and the feeling of
Speaker 2: amusement mixed with betrayal on behalf of the kid when
Speaker 2: that smart ass owl stole, yes, stole his candy, wise
Speaker 2: old owl, I think not Charlotte's, and I say thief
Speaker 2: swindler in the guise of an authority figure ahem. Sorry
Speaker 2: about that. Perhaps I have some unresolved childhood issues. To continue.
Speaker 2: Your observation that the phrase how many licks to get
Speaker 2: to the center of a tutsi pop may be paradoxical?
Speaker 2: May be a paradoxical riddle to prove provoke enlightenment? Is
Speaker 2: I believe accurate. There is no answer, partially because it
Speaker 2: is a trick question. You see, nobody actually licks a
Speaker 2: tutsi pop. One eats a tutsi pop by sticking the
Speaker 2: entire thing in the mouth, where it is bathed in saliva,
Speaker 2: causing it to dissolve. The act of licking involves sticking
Speaker 2: the tongue out of the mouth to make contact with
Speaker 2: the object. I've never heard of anyone doing that, aside
Speaker 2: from the comically large novelty lollipops the size of a
Speaker 2: child's head you get at circuses and county fairs.
Speaker 3: This is a really good point. I don't think I
Speaker 3: ever licked a lollipop when I was a kid. You
Speaker 3: put I put it in my mouth and just passively
Speaker 3: dissolved it. I feel like licking a lollipop is something
Speaker 3: only oodor does.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I think the only time I might have done it,
Speaker 2: or I've seen other kids doing you're probably consciously re
Speaker 2: enacting something you saw in a cartoon. Yeah, but yes,
Speaker 2: very good point. Yeah, you're generally you're putting it in
Speaker 2: your mouth and it's just swirling it around and so forth,
Speaker 2: in the same way that you don't lick any other
Speaker 2: hard candy that's not on a stick. It just goes
Speaker 2: in the mouth. Yeah. Anyway, they continue. You don't lick
Speaker 2: at Tutsi pop, you suck on it. Indeed, where I
Speaker 2: grew up in southwest Michigan, the common nay only name
Speaker 2: used for Tutsi pops and their generic brethren was sucker.
Speaker 3: Yep, I remember that too. When I was a kid,
Speaker 3: they were suckers more than they were lollipop.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we didn't really say lollies because it's suckers. I
Speaker 2: think I like the term lollies more if I was
Speaker 2: to refer to them, but that's not what we call them.
Speaker 2: Scott continues as far as the actual question of whether
Speaker 2: one should or shouldn't crunch through the candy shell to
Speaker 2: get to the center. I may be an outlier in
Speaker 2: the population of Tutsi pop eaters. As long as I
Speaker 2: can remember, I strove to avoid the crunch. My goal
Speaker 2: was always to suck on the thing until the flavor
Speaker 2: of the chocolate ciner mixed with the Erstot's fruit flavor
Speaker 2: of the shell. Only then did I give myself permission
Speaker 2: to finish it off in a few bites. Ah childhood.
Speaker 2: Thanks for dredging up the memory from the vaults, Scott, Yes,
Speaker 2: some great points here. I may have gone into this,
Speaker 2: but I think I tended to avoid the crunch as well,
Speaker 2: in part because I wasn't as crazy about the Tutsi
Speaker 2: center and would rather the orange exterior last as long
Speaker 2: as possible.
Speaker 3: Yeah, there also seemed I don't know, when I was
Speaker 3: a kid, I don't think I liked trying to crunch
Speaker 3: hard candy, like hard sugar candy. That seemed dangerous. Maybe
Speaker 3: I was a nerdy overly cautious child, but that just
Speaker 3: seemed like that could do something to your teeth.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I do want to stress though, there are
Speaker 2: plenty of people out here who loved the combination of
Speaker 2: the flavors. I just offhand. I ended up chatting with
Speaker 2: some friends reminiscing about their experiences with Tutsi pops, and
Speaker 2: more than one of them were like, oh, yeah, I
Speaker 2: love the way that the two flavors came together. So
Speaker 2: on one hand, I may be an outlier and that
Speaker 2: I didn't really like the Tutsi Pop Center as much,
Speaker 2: And or I could be misremembering it a bit. You know.
Speaker 2: It could be that I really actually loved it as
Speaker 2: a kid, and I've just kind of paved over that
Speaker 2: particular memory detail.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's funny how you think you can remember things
Speaker 3: like this, but then sometimes the more you think about them,
Speaker 3: the more you doubt at les.
Speaker 2: Yeah, or you allow your adults views on things to
Speaker 2: then the shape of your childhood memories, thinking like, oh,
Speaker 2: I don't like Tutsi roles now, surely my childhood self
Speaker 2: didn't like them either, But it's entirely possible that I did,
Speaker 2: all right.
Speaker 3: This next message is also about Tutsi pops. This is
Speaker 3: from ian Ian, says dear Robin Joe, you asked for
Speaker 3: personal Tutsi pop stories, I shall oblige as far as
Speaker 3: eating them normally, I didn't lick them, per se, I
Speaker 3: would suck on the whole thing in my mouth like
Speaker 3: a sucker, and only once I tasted chocolate would I
Speaker 3: bite through the very last thin layer of hard candy
Speaker 3: coating to the core. The crunch was very satisfying. I
Speaker 3: also did the licking experiment ones as I'm sure many
Speaker 3: other children did. I sat down with a Tutsi pop
Speaker 3: and a legal pad and made a tally mark every
Speaker 3: time I licked it. I can't remember my technique other
Speaker 3: than that I counted exposing any part of the chocolate
Speaker 3: core as reached out the center. When all was said
Speaker 3: and done, it took me six hundred and sixty six
Speaker 3: licks to reach the center. Really, at the time, I
Speaker 3: was unfamiliar with the satanic connotations of that number, and
Speaker 3: now I wonder what the significance of my result is.
Speaker 3: Perhaps Tootsi Pops are the candy of the devil. Thanks
Speaker 3: for the show, Keep up the good work, ian Ian.
Speaker 3: I'm going to trust you on that that you're not
Speaker 3: just making that up because it's a good story.
Speaker 2: Made up or not, I am going to assume it
Speaker 2: is the correct answer. Now, six hundred and sixty six
Speaker 2: licks seems appropriate and actually not that far off. From
Speaker 2: I mean, we talked about the wide variety of numbers
Speaker 2: that some of these actual studies resulted in, so it
Speaker 2: seems possible that you could get six hundred and sixty
Speaker 2: six totally.
Speaker 3: In fact, I think the next message from Matt addresses
Speaker 3: the question of the wide variety of results.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Matt says, Hey, guys, just wanted to jump in
Speaker 2: with my own experience that might shed some light on
Speaker 2: why that one study found a number of licks uch
Speaker 2: higher than the others. For context, I was a weird
Speaker 2: kid who had entertained himself with tedious projects like counting
Speaker 2: to a thousand. I've also tried to count to one million,
Speaker 2: but when I got to a few hundred, I realized
Speaker 2: how long it was taking to even be one two
Speaker 2: thousandth of the way to the goal, and gave up
Speaker 2: on that one. In any case, I did undertake finding
Speaker 2: the answer to how many licks does it take to
Speaker 2: get to the center of a Tutsi pop? And I
Speaker 2: got a similar number to the three thousand plus sided
Speaker 2: in the one study. I think they, like myself, defined
Speaker 2: to get to the center to me not only to
Speaker 2: drill a hole that reached the center, but to completely
Speaker 2: liberate the Tutsi roll from its hard candy prison. In
Speaker 2: my mind, we were getting to the center in the
Speaker 2: same way you were getting to a buried treasure. That is,
Speaker 2: you haven't gotten it until you have got it all
Speaker 2: the way out of the substance it's buried in.
Speaker 3: Mmmm, that makes sense.
Speaker 2: I also wondered, WHI while doing this, what kind of
Speaker 2: lick should I be doing? A dainty lick with the
Speaker 2: top of your tongue must take more licks than an
Speaker 2: aggressive lick that envelops the entire pop after all. Anyways,
Speaker 2: thought i'd share, man.
Speaker 3: I think this really emphasizes how much exercise is actually involved,
Speaker 3: Like how much work it would be to again lick
Speaker 3: the entire Tutsi pop down instead of just yeah, passively
Speaker 3: dissolving it inside your mouth. Like that's a lot of
Speaker 3: work in the tongue muscle. Yeah, okay. This next message
Speaker 3: is also a response to the licking episodes, but not
Speaker 3: about the Tutsi pop. It's about when we were talking
Speaker 3: about the licking of wounds and also about the idea
Speaker 3: of licking one's own eye. Oh, Robin, I think this
Speaker 3: was in the context of talking about lizards that can
Speaker 3: lick their own eyes.
Speaker 2: To clean, yes, particularly geckos, but.
Speaker 3: We were discussing how you know, some animals might have
Speaker 3: special adaptations for this, but in other cases, licking or
Speaker 3: spitting in the eye obviously can transfer bacteria from one
Speaker 3: place to the other, and the eye can be very
Speaker 3: sensitive to certain kinds of infections, so you know, it's
Speaker 3: something to be avoided if possible. Rachel says, Hi, guys,
Speaker 3: I just listened to the episode about licking, and it
Speaker 3: reminded me of the time one of my rabbits had
Speaker 3: an eye infection and after finishing the course of medications,
Speaker 3: the problem still persisted until I realized it was because
Speaker 3: my other rabbit wouldn't stop licking his eye. As soon
Speaker 3: as I separated them, the infection was resolved. Ugh, I
Speaker 3: feel bad because my rabbit was just trying to help
Speaker 3: the other one, but it was actually making it worse. Anyway,
Speaker 3: love the podcast. I've been a long time listener.
Speaker 2: Great detail, great story. I like it.
Speaker 3: That is interesting. But one thing that I don't think
Speaker 3: I read about rabbits in any of the research I
Speaker 3: was looking at in communal wound looking. I'm not saying
Speaker 3: they don't do it, but I don't know of any
Speaker 3: evidence other than this email that they do. So I
Speaker 3: wonder if rabbits regularly engage in group communal wound looking
Speaker 3: to help each other decontain emanate wound areas, or otherwise
Speaker 3: help each other heal, or if maybe there was just
Speaker 3: you know, this one rabbit had a kind of idiosyncratic
Speaker 3: taste for eyeball.
Speaker 2: I remember it factoring into Watership Down a lot, oh
Speaker 2: when they were treating wounds. Not enough to say that
Speaker 2: that's that it should be the primary source in order
Speaker 2: to answer this question, but that does bring back to
Speaker 2: my mind a number of scenes in which the rabbits
Speaker 2: in that story that that work of fiction are tending
Speaker 2: to each other's wounds.
Speaker 3: Oh okay, well, then I would bet that's probably based
Speaker 3: on something in reality. So yeah, I guess they probably
Speaker 3: do it all right.
Speaker 2: This next one, I don't even precisely remember the call
Speaker 2: out for this, but I still greatly appreciate the answer.
Speaker 2: Skyler sent us a message with the subject line giant
Speaker 2: pilgrim skeleton in neighbor's yard from mid November. And indeed
Speaker 2: it is one of these giant skeletons like we've seen
Speaker 2: pop up in yards in recent years. And this one
Speaker 2: has been decorated to look like a Pilgrim for Thanksgiving,
Speaker 2: for American Thanksgiving apparently, which I think is wonderful. Hey,
Speaker 2: I think these I love that these skeletons are staying
Speaker 2: up year round and are getting different seasonal costumes. And also,
Speaker 2: I mean, if you're gonna go with Pilgrim decorations nowadays,
Speaker 2: I feel like scary Pilgrim is the way to go.
Speaker 2: Scary skeletal, undead Pilgrim a plus in my book.
Speaker 3: Now there's also an update that Skylar sent us after
Speaker 3: the first message that came on November twentieth, so so this,
Speaker 3: I guess was several days later they like completed the look.
Speaker 3: So it started just giant skeleton with a Pilgrim upper
Speaker 3: body costume. They added a skeleton dog, the kind with
Speaker 3: ears and dogs don't have the bones in their ear,
Speaker 3: but you know, so that you know it's a dog.
Speaker 3: So there's skeleton dog right next to it. Okay, it's
Speaker 3: got a puppy. And then also Pilgrim hat. And also, Rob,
Speaker 3: did you notice this little detail eyeballs in the skull.
Speaker 3: I didn't see them in the first picture. Maybe they're
Speaker 3: hiding back there sort of. But doesn't look like it
Speaker 3: to me. It looks like somebody went in there and
Speaker 3: updated the skull with freaky eyeballs.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I think this is. This also nicely illustrates
Speaker 2: the realization that one steadily gets leaving Halloween and realizing
Speaker 2: that Thanksgiving is about to occur. The Pilgrim costume, the
Speaker 2: the insane eyes of the dog specter. Yeah, it all tracks.
Speaker 3: Big old buckle on the hat. What's that buckle for?
Speaker 3: I guess it holds the hat together.
Speaker 2: It's like it keeps the brain chaste, right, because that's
Speaker 2: the reason.
Speaker 3: It's a chastity belt for the crown of the skull.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, for the mind. Yeah, your thoughts only.
Speaker 3: Okay, Rob, let's see what do you think about digging
Speaker 3: into some of the messages left over from the previous
Speaker 3: episode's mailbag. Some of these older ones from September. We
Speaker 3: have a bunch of responses to our episodes from Star
Speaker 3: Trek week.
Speaker 2: Yeah, engage all right.
Speaker 3: This message comes from Ian. It is about our episode
Speaker 3: on transporters in Star Trek and teleportation paradoxes. Ian says,
Speaker 3: just finished your episode on Star Trek Transporters and wanted
Speaker 3: to write in with a few thoughts that you might
Speaker 3: find interesting. Your discussion about transporter accidents had me thinking
Speaker 3: about ian Embank's Culture civilization and how its approach differs
Speaker 3: drastically from the Federation. Where the Federation is roughly a
Speaker 3: Kardashev level one point five civilization, the culture is more
Speaker 3: around a two point five, and though they do have
Speaker 3: transporter technology in the ultra safe culture civilization, the one
Speaker 3: in several billion chants of a teleportation accident is considered
Speaker 3: far too dangerous to use unconscious being, so it is
Speaker 3: restricted purely for cargo transport outside of extreme situations such
Speaker 3: as emergencies or military operations. I found this to be
Speaker 3: an interesting and subtle extension of the way our own
Speaker 3: society's perception of acceptable risks changes as we're able to
Speaker 3: mitigate more and more dangers that in the past would
Speaker 3: have been considered just an everyday part of life.
Speaker 2: This is a great point and something I've either I
Speaker 2: forgot about it from the culture books that I've read,
Speaker 2: or maybe it wasn't stressed as much in the particular
Speaker 2: culture novels that I have read in the past. But
Speaker 2: a great point and very much on, very much in
Speaker 2: keeping with the culture. The culture. If anyone out there
Speaker 2: isn't aware, or you haven't read Ian in Banks, or
Speaker 2: you haven't heard me talk about it on the show
Speaker 2: in a while, Scottish Authory and in Banks, the late
Speaker 2: great In Banks envisioned this far future vision of humanity
Speaker 2: and various alien species in which the culture is a
Speaker 2: post scarcity anarchist utopia, and so it's it's such an interesting,
Speaker 2: thought provoking and I think ultimately, you know, optimistic vision
Speaker 2: of the future in the same way that Star Trek is,
Speaker 2: but with its own distinctive flavors. You know, certainly getting
Speaker 2: into some difficult problems, you know, philosophically, politically and so forth,
Speaker 2: but at the root, you know, having this vision of
Speaker 2: a far future society in which human beings enjoy a
Speaker 2: great deal of freedom and equality. So if you find
Speaker 2: yourself needing a vision like that in the year twenty
Speaker 2: twenty five, or certainly in twenty twenty six, yeah, there's
Speaker 2: never a better time to pick up one of Ian M.
Speaker 2: Banks culture novels.
Speaker 3: In my opinion, I have not read these books, but
Speaker 3: from what I remember, they have a very positive vision
Speaker 3: of the ultimate sort of integration of artificial intelligence into
Speaker 3: into human biological life.
Speaker 2: Yeah. But at the same time there, I mean, there's
Speaker 2: there's one novel in particular that gets into like the
Speaker 2: dangers of artificial intelligence and self replicating machines and so forth,
Speaker 2: So you know, it's it's not one hundred percent you know,
Speaker 2: techno optimist in that regard. Again, very very thought provoking
Speaker 2: works that take these various problems and potential problems seriously,
Speaker 2: from from self replicating machines to you know, theologies of
Speaker 2: hell and virtual realms and so forth.
Speaker 3: One of these days I'll have to get around to
Speaker 3: reading them. And You've been talking about them for years
Speaker 3: and I've been meaning to. I know, Ian and Banks
Speaker 3: is greatly revered by many people whose taste I share.
Speaker 3: I think.
Speaker 2: So.
Speaker 3: But getting back to Ian, I guess coincidence the name
Speaker 3: here different spilm yes Ian's email. Ian says when discussing
Speaker 3: the episode Star Trek episode Second Chances, in which Reiker
Speaker 3: is duplicated, you briefly discuss the idea of meeting another
Speaker 3: version of yourself who has had different experiences, and how
Speaker 3: you may or may not even like that person. That
Speaker 3: idea is explored quite in depth in a recent video game,
Speaker 3: The Altars though not involving teleportation. The Altars involves a
Speaker 3: loan technician stranded on a hostile alien planet who uses
Speaker 3: a quantum scanning device to create alternate versions of himself
Speaker 3: to help man the ship and escape the planet. The
Speaker 3: device allows him to see all of the different critical
Speaker 3: moments in his life that send him down different paths
Speaker 3: and generate a version of himself who made the other choice.
Speaker 3: So the ship's reactors broken, quantum duplicate the version of
Speaker 3: yourself who became an engineer. Someone have an injury, simply
Speaker 3: summon the version of yourself who went to medical school.
Speaker 3: Each version has a different personality, outlook on life, etc.
Speaker 3: Many don't like each other, and managing the interactions between
Speaker 3: them is critical to surviving. It's a really interesting game
Speaker 3: that does sound interesting.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I wasn't this one flu under my radar. I
Speaker 2: had to look it up and it sounds fascinating from
Speaker 2: the developers, I believe of frost Punk, which I was
Speaker 2: familiar with by reputation.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I never played it. Ian says, finally, my last
Speaker 3: thought is actually related to Star Trek. At the end
Speaker 3: of the episode, Joe was musing about different ways the
Speaker 3: transporter could be used for medical treatment since it can
Speaker 3: filter out problematic infectious agents and the like. Uh yeah,
Speaker 3: The question was like, if it turns you into information
Speaker 3: and then decodes you back into matter, could you basically
Speaker 3: turn medical problems into information debugging problems? You know, you
Speaker 3: just like edit the code basically and then spit out
Speaker 3: the healthy version. Ian says, as I recall, there are
Speaker 3: several episodes of the various Trek series where the crew
Speaker 3: does things like that, but the one that immediately sprang
Speaker 3: to mind was an episode of Voyager, which begins with
Speaker 3: the doctor assisting a woman in labor when things begin
Speaker 3: to go wrong, and then he says, we're going to
Speaker 3: have to perform an emergency C section, then walks purposefully
Speaker 3: across the room to a computer console, where he proceeds
Speaker 3: to beam the baby out of the mother's body and
Speaker 3: directly into an incubator a few feet away, saving the day.
Speaker 3: It's an amusingly anti climactic ending to a scene that
Speaker 3: up to that point had been presented as if part
Speaker 3: of a tense medical drama. Anyway, I know I've run long,
Speaker 3: so I promise I won't be offended if you edit
Speaker 3: any of this out. Well, we did not, I guess
Speaker 3: apart from a few line edits. Please keep up the
Speaker 3: good work, look forward to each episode. Ian, Thank you.
Speaker 2: Ian. Yeah, yeah, great point. I have not really seen
Speaker 2: any Voyager and this episode did not come up in
Speaker 2: my research for that episode. So that's a great one
Speaker 2: to share, all right. This next one comes to us
Speaker 2: from Scott. Scott says, Hi, Joe and Rob. I am
Speaker 2: a philosopher who also loves Star Trek and hence have
Speaker 2: much familiarity with the philosophical debates around personal identity and transporters.
Speaker 2: They actually led me to wonder if the history of
Speaker 2: these debates would have been different if Gene Roddenberry had
Speaker 2: explained the transporter differently as simply moving bodies intact through
Speaker 2: some kind of temporary wormhole or tunnel. Actually, the idea
Speaker 2: of scrambling and reassembling doesn't make much sense, as it
Speaker 2: requires extra work on top of the assumption that we
Speaker 2: can transmit some matter or energy instantaneously, and it seems
Speaker 2: especially strange that this can be done without any mechanism
Speaker 2: at the remote end. I compare this to the mantra
Speaker 2: often given by cognitive scientists that quote, the best model
Speaker 2: of the world is the world itself, explaining why we
Speaker 2: don't have perfect memories of everything in the world, but
Speaker 2: often rely on imperfect ones, which then allow continual updating
Speaker 2: from the world itself so we can navigate it. Likewise,
Speaker 2: the best model of the complex arrangements of the atoms
Speaker 2: in our body is the body itself. Why not just
Speaker 2: transmit this as a piece. Perhaps the idea was that,
Speaker 2: given current physics, could we can transmit energy faster than matter.
Speaker 2: But since the whole premise of Star Trek assumes a
Speaker 2: warp drive which can move matter faster than light, going
Speaker 2: well beyond current physics, I don't see why an instantaneous
Speaker 2: conduit for matter over shorter distances couldn't have seemed just
Speaker 2: as plausible. Indeed, the idea of reassembling atoms is so
Speaker 2: implausible that I wonder if it would have ever occurred
Speaker 2: to someone as a philosophical problem about whether the reassembled
Speaker 2: person was identical to the dismantled one, if it hadn't
Speaker 2: already been introduced as a possibly unnecessary science fiction plot device.
Speaker 3: Scott, that's a good question. Would you even have people
Speaker 3: in philosophy departments proposing, you know, questions about the swamp
Speaker 3: man type scenario if there had never been a science
Speaker 3: fiction idea of teleportation by these sorts of means.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I mean it's interesting if you think of
Speaker 2: it as a potential flaw. Maybe not a plot hole,
Speaker 2: but maybe some sort of a flaw. It's been such
Speaker 2: a thought provoking flaw, you know. Sometimes it is the
Speaker 2: it's the wrinkles, it's the imperfections in a work that
Speaker 2: fascinate us the most. Not that I'm saying that I
Speaker 2: think this model of teleportation is a flaw in the
Speaker 2: Star Trek franchise. Again, I think it's something that keeps
Speaker 2: my mind tumbling over and over.
Speaker 3: Okay. This next message comes from Eric. It has the
Speaker 3: subject line Transporters and Consciousness. Hi, Robin Joe, thank you
Speaker 3: for your fun and lighthearted exploration of teleportation from Star Trek.
Speaker 3: As a moderate Trek fan, I enjoyed your coverage of
Speaker 3: the topic. You mentioned the Next Generation episode Rascals from
Speaker 3: season six. I don't remember what we said about that,
Speaker 3: rob Wait, is that the one where they're like the
Speaker 3: transporter turns them into children?
Speaker 2: Yes? Okay, And if I remember, we kind of just
Speaker 2: mention it in passing and I made I think I
Speaker 2: made a comment where I didn't necessarily recognize who all
Speaker 2: the characters were that had been transformed into children.
Speaker 3: Okay, okay, so Eric says. A minor clarification is that
Speaker 3: the fourth character who was childified was Kiko O'Brien. Am
Speaker 3: I saying that right? I think so Okay played by
Speaker 3: Rosalind Chow, the wife of Chief Miles O'Brien played by
Speaker 3: Cole Meanie. They are frequent guest characters in the Next Generation,
Speaker 3: and Miles in particular is a regular character on Deep
Speaker 3: Space nine. Miles, as a working class petty officer, often
Speaker 3: acts as a good foil for the more staid and
Speaker 3: intellectual officers of the Enterprise, and this episode is a
Speaker 3: good example. He has a very difficult time processing the
Speaker 3: fact that this little girl is actually his wife and
Speaker 3: keeps trying to take care of her like a child.
Speaker 3: He's well intentioned, but emotionally clumsy. The O'Brien's aren't really
Speaker 3: thinking about the philosophical implications or even the long term
Speaker 3: ramifications the other crew members are. They're just trying to
Speaker 3: get through the day as a family. While I wouldn't
Speaker 3: hold the episode up as a Next Generation must see,
Speaker 3: I think this subplot is very endearing and relatable. Thanks
Speaker 3: again for a great episode and for a fun week
Speaker 3: in tribute to Trek. Eric. Thanks Eric. Yeah, that's a
Speaker 3: whole other philosophical question, like how do you deal with
Speaker 3: an adult who suddenly transformed into a child.
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 3: I wouldn't want to imagine what would be needed to
Speaker 3: take care of me if I were suddenly five again.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, this is a yeah. I appreciate getting more
Speaker 2: info on this episode, which is probably one that I
Speaker 2: only watched once back in the day in syndication. You know,
Speaker 2: of course, watching these shows in syndication, you didn't really
Speaker 2: have the liberty of picking out the best episodes or
Speaker 2: or knowing what are the strong episodes and overarching episodes
Speaker 2: that I need to watch. In my Star Trek the
Speaker 2: Next Generation Journey, now, it was just whatever was on
Speaker 2: at like nine pm. That was the Star Trek you
Speaker 2: were watching.
Speaker 3: I'm actually sitting here getting like ashamed and mortified, thinking
Speaker 3: like if I were suddenly transformed into my daughter's age,
Speaker 3: would I play nicely with her? Or would I not
Speaker 3: be sharing my toys? What if I was a really
Speaker 3: rotten little toddler and I was like not sharing and
Speaker 3: being mean, it's horrifying me.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean it's a thought provoking question too, because
Speaker 2: we've seen shows like this where the adult brain, the
Speaker 2: adult is transformed into a child, but they retain the
Speaker 2: mind of an adult. But would that be the case?
Speaker 2: Like how much of childhood? I mean, how do you
Speaker 2: separate the tube? You know, would you? And then what
Speaker 2: would it be like to then be a child with
Speaker 2: a child's brain, but with perhaps the memories of an adult, Like,
Speaker 2: I don't know, it's very complicate. It's kind of the
Speaker 2: Tutsi pop scenario. Yeah, Like there's a simple version of
Speaker 2: imagining it, but the more questions you ask about it,
Speaker 2: the more complicated it becomes.
Speaker 3: Fortunately, transporter incidents of this kind are very rare, so
Speaker 3: we don't have to worry about this for the most part.
Speaker 2: Though it is again it's just the things I love
Speaker 2: about the transporters in Star Trek is like this. The
Speaker 2: list of potential side effects are just wild. You might
Speaker 2: be turned into a child, you might end up with
Speaker 2: an evil doppelganger. There's just so much that can happen.
Speaker 2: It probably won't, but there's a non zero chance.
Speaker 3: Do you remember the transporter incident from spaceballs where Melbrook's
Speaker 3: top half gets put on backwards so his butt is
Speaker 3: in the front.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Oh yeah, that's a good one. I'd forgot we
Speaker 2: should have mentioned that in the episode.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's a good one, actually, one of I mean,
Speaker 3: not great, but one of the less horrifying outcomes.
Speaker 2: I can't remember. Did they fix it or was it
Speaker 2: just stuck that way? Yeah?
Speaker 3: I think they've beam him back and fix it. Okay,
Speaker 3: but briefly he's looking down at his own butt and
Speaker 3: that would be a strange experience.
Speaker 2: All right. This next one comes to us from a
Speaker 2: listen Joe. Joe says, huge fan of Wookie, so I
Speaker 2: love Star Trek week. Kidding, kidding. There is a wearable
Speaker 2: headset designed to help folks with limited vision called the Jordie.
Speaker 2: You can probably guess what it looks like before you
Speaker 2: google it. As a geek and fan of your show,
Speaker 2: I enjoyed the myriad episode topics on the various episodes
Speaker 2: this week. I don't know why, but it compelled me
Speaker 2: to suggest a potential topic for the future. The Jordi
Speaker 2: wearables were inspired by fiction, but now they are clearly
Speaker 2: or could clearly become brigenitor tech to an actual visor
Speaker 2: that works like Jordie's visor in Star Trek. For those
Speaker 2: of you who aren't aware, this is Jeordie LaForge played
Speaker 2: by the great LeVar Burton. He was visually impaired and
Speaker 2: had to wear this visor device that I think had
Speaker 2: some sort of a neural link system as well that
Speaker 2: enabled him to see any right, Joe continues, have y'all
Speaker 2: covered this topic before or do you see any meat
Speaker 2: on the bone for an episode that inspires science, which
Speaker 2: inspires fiction into this perpetual cycle of innovation and then
Speaker 2: is a complete Aside myself and a fellow blind buddy,
Speaker 2: we're straining our brains the other day trying to make
Speaker 2: a list of seminal Jordy centric episodes. Do any come
Speaker 2: to mind? Do you happen to have a Jordy episode
Speaker 2: or moment you particularly are fond of? Anyway, as ever,
Speaker 2: thanks for the work y'all put in each episode and
Speaker 2: the fun informative content it creates all the best.
Speaker 3: Well, thank you, Joe. Now, I don't have a lot
Speaker 3: of memory because the only Next Generation I watched, and
Speaker 3: it's been a while on this was like the first
Speaker 3: season or so, so I have less exposure than Rob,
Speaker 3: does Rob, do you have a Jordy moment?
Speaker 2: Oh? Well, man, I wish I had better answer here,
Speaker 2: And I think I would if I'd watched all these
Speaker 2: episodes more recently, and I could tell you. Okay, I
Speaker 2: think this is the episode where Jordie's character is presented
Speaker 2: in the strongest fashion and developed, and it has a
Speaker 2: lot to do plot wise. But I guess the main
Speaker 2: one that comes to mind is an episode titled The
Speaker 2: Next Phase that I think we even referenced in our
Speaker 2: teleportation episodes. This is one where Jordie and in Sign
Speaker 2: Row are lost in a teleporter accident and become like
Speaker 2: transporter ghosts on the ship. So my memory of this episode,
Speaker 2: which could be highly flawed, is that is that these
Speaker 2: two characters are front and center, and you know, therefore
Speaker 2: have a lot of agency and are directly involved in
Speaker 2: the threat and the problem of the episode, and therefore
Speaker 2: that one stands out. And then I have a lot
Speaker 2: of vague memories of different episodes where, of course Jordi
Speaker 2: is an instrumental member of the team in solving a
Speaker 2: particular crisis.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I wish I could remember more about the show
Speaker 3: other than I remember somebody getting eaten by mud puddle.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that was the key early episode. Yeah, that was
Speaker 2: pretty terrifying. But getting back to this idea of this
Speaker 2: sort of cyclical loop of science fiction and science yeah,
Speaker 2: I think there might be something there, maybe some sort
Speaker 2: of an invention catch all episode or series. It looks
Speaker 2: for possible inventions that line up with this. I feel
Speaker 2: like there's I'd have to think about it, but I
Speaker 2: think we've covered one or two things like this in
Speaker 2: the past. But yeah, I'll I'll have to give it
Speaker 2: some thought.
Speaker 3: All right. This next message is still about Star Trek,
Speaker 3: comes from Ken. Ken says, I'm way behind on episodes,
Speaker 3: but wanted to comment on your Star Trek transporter episode.
Speaker 3: I've heard this debate on if you die every time
Speaker 3: you're transported, but in Star Trek, it's clearly established that
Speaker 3: your consciousness stays with you the entire process. The idea
Speaker 3: that you are in one place then suddenly another as
Speaker 3: your atoms are put back together isn't canon in the show.
Speaker 3: There are multiple episodes where you see how the place
Speaker 3: you're at slowly fades to gray in the new place
Speaker 3: slowly materializes. That would not be possible if you weren't conscious.
Speaker 3: Until being realigned. There's an episode of the Next Generation
Speaker 3: titled Realm of Fear where Lieutenant Barkley sees something in
Speaker 3: the transporter stream in between one place and the destination
Speaker 3: and later grabs one of the creatures to pull it
Speaker 3: out of the stream. Clearly Barkley's consciousness travels unbroken the
Speaker 3: entire transport just some food for thought, Ken, Well, thank you, Ken.
Speaker 3: So on one hand, I don't want to argue with
Speaker 3: stuff that's just axiomatically part of the show. So if
Speaker 3: it's axiomatically part of the Star Trek universe that your
Speaker 3: consciousness is the same and survives the whole process, I
Speaker 3: can't really argue with that. But even though what you
Speaker 3: say intuitively makes sense that you know, being conscious through
Speaker 3: a kind of fading in and out process would eliminate
Speaker 3: the worries about, you know, the person going in dying,
Speaker 3: I don't think that actually does solve that problem, because
Speaker 3: how could you ever verify that the experience was continuous
Speaker 3: for the person that went in this This is a
Speaker 3: sort of restating the original problem again. But if the
Speaker 3: person that comes out has the memories of the person
Speaker 3: that went in, it will seem always to have been
Speaker 3: continuous for them. But is there any way the output
Speaker 3: Spock could tell the difference between existing continuously the entire
Speaker 3: time is one person versus being a newly created Spock
Speaker 3: with all of input Spock's memories and input Spock is
Speaker 3: now dead. I think technically there's just no way to
Speaker 3: verify that, And in fact, there's no way to verify
Speaker 3: that this doesn't happen every single second of our lives.
Speaker 3: That you know, there's some you that died and is
Speaker 3: gone now and you're just a new you with the
Speaker 3: memories of that old you. But I think the reason
Speaker 3: we don't assume that about every single second of our
Speaker 3: lives is that we don't have any reason to believe
Speaker 3: that's the case. Molecular disassembly and then reassembly of the
Speaker 3: brain especially does give you a reason to wonder that. So,
Speaker 3: in my opinion, that would hold true whether the experience
Speaker 3: was an instantaneous copy paste into a new place or
Speaker 3: kind of gradual fading in and out. At some point
Speaker 3: during the fade, you would have to wonder did the
Speaker 3: old Spock cease to exist? And the new Spok wouldn't
Speaker 3: have any way to figure that out. It would feel
Speaker 3: continuous to the newspak either way.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and especially since that an individual in this scenario
Speaker 2: would still be narratively defining and understanding the human experience
Speaker 2: and telling stories about who we were in r and
Speaker 2: how these two are connected or more than two, how
Speaker 2: every little person in this chain of being are connected,
Speaker 2: and not seeing them as distinct others that have like
Speaker 2: a tiny death standing between each one. Yeah, but why
Speaker 2: not you could easily put that forward. I don't know
Speaker 2: how compelling that would be, you know, if you were
Speaker 2: to try and force that on a civilization or I
Speaker 2: don't know, you know, to get into sort of like
Speaker 2: world building and sci fi, like what kind of a
Speaker 2: civilization would have that kind of worldview for themselves and
Speaker 2: what it would accomplish. But it's interesting to think.
Speaker 3: About would it have any effect on reality other you know,
Speaker 3: like would that actually change anything?
Speaker 2: I mean, I mean one way that comes to mind
Speaker 2: is like criminal justice, right, I mean, if you have
Speaker 2: a world in which there's more of an intrinsic understanding
Speaker 2: that we are not the person we used to be,
Speaker 2: that that person is like many deaths removed from who
Speaker 2: we are now and just shares certain memories and so forth,
Speaker 2: maybe there's a stronger inclination to believe than change in
Speaker 2: an individual, and the ability to move on from past transgression.
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, I guess that if that were the if
Speaker 3: you were to apply it in that way, that would
Speaker 3: sort of apply to every single thing in life. You
Speaker 3: would sort of not ever believe any person had any
Speaker 3: connection to anything they had already done.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you could just write on your coattails because those
Speaker 2: aren't your coatails or someone else's. But that's always the
Speaker 2: case too, right, So yeah, there's a there's a lot
Speaker 2: of interesting room for thought here. If listeners, if you
Speaker 2: know of a work of fiction, science fiction, speculative work
Speaker 2: out there that has entertained any of these ideas right in,
Speaker 2: we'd love to hear from you. All right, we'll skip
Speaker 2: ahead to some weird house send them a listener mail
Speaker 2: here as we begin to close out this episode, Let's
Speaker 2: see what we have in the old mail bag here.
Speaker 2: Let's see this is an older one. This one was
Speaker 2: I think pre Halloween, so it was responding to a
Speaker 2: call out for Halloween episode suggestions. But it's always there's
Speaker 2: always another Halloween on the way, and we will presumably
Speaker 2: be around for that Halloween. So I would say, yeah,
Speaker 2: keep him coming. This one comes to us from Carry.
Speaker 2: Carrie says, Dear Robin Joe. Here are my three Vincent
Speaker 2: Price movies that you haven't covered on Weird House that
Speaker 2: might fit in. Only one has horror vibes, but they
Speaker 2: all have Price in different roles. Okay, let's hear it first.
Speaker 2: Up His Kind of Woman nineteen fifty one. Other stars
Speaker 2: are Robert Mitcham, Jane Russell, and Raymond Burr, who portrays
Speaker 2: a menacing mob boss. Price is a rich dilettante who
Speaker 2: steps up when the situation requires it. It's set on
Speaker 2: a tourist island in the Caribbean. I have not seen this,
Speaker 2: never seen this one. Like the cast list, love Robert Mitcham. Yeah,
Speaker 2: and I do probably need to see more Vincent Price
Speaker 2: films where he's not where he's not just a horror
Speaker 2: figure and you know some sort of a either haunted
Speaker 2: or haunting individual because you know he's a great actor.
Speaker 2: Let's see the next one. Dan Juris Mission nineteen fifty four.
Speaker 2: Other star stars are Piper Laurie, who plays a woman
Speaker 2: fleeing from assassination after witnessing a mob killing, and Victor
Speaker 2: Mature who plays an undercover an undercover cop trying to
Speaker 2: prevent the mob from getting Laurie Price plays the assassin
Speaker 2: sent to kill her. It's set in Glacier National Park.
Speaker 3: Oh beautiful. Victor Mature came up on Weird House several
Speaker 3: years back when I did an episode with with Seth
Speaker 3: Nicholas Johnson about the Monkey's movie head. There's a recurring
Speaker 3: joke in that movie where they they're like, now we're
Speaker 3: going to address the darkest thing in the universe, Victor
Speaker 3: Mature's hair.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean it's pretty. It's a pretty dark head
Speaker 2: of hair, as I can see see from some of
Speaker 2: these photos.
Speaker 3: Luxurious, tremendous hair.
Speaker 2: Yes, all right. And then the third film recommended by
Speaker 2: Carrie Here is The Comedy of Terrors nineteen sixty three.
Speaker 2: Other stars are Boris Karloff, Peter Lourie, and Basil Rathbone.
Speaker 2: Prize plays an evil man with a scheme involving an
Speaker 2: inheritance and his sister or niece, I don't remember which.
Speaker 2: The whole thing is played for laughs. If you're not
Speaker 2: already familiar with the three movies, I think you would
Speaker 2: enjoy them, And if they make the cut for Weird
Speaker 2: house all the better. Keep up the good work. Care
Speaker 2: Thanks for the suggestions. Yeah, I would watch all three. Yeah,
Speaker 2: of the three, the only one I was really familiar
Speaker 2: with this comedy of terrors. I mean, how can you
Speaker 2: not be given the stars involved here? All right? Uh?
Speaker 3: You cool? If I do this message from Lawrence, Yeah,
Speaker 3: let's do it. Lawrence says, Hey, guys, shooting you a
Speaker 3: note to comment on your rewind of Deep Blue Sea.
Speaker 3: I missed it the first time around. Let me start
Speaker 3: by saying I've only listened to the first half hour
Speaker 3: or so. I stopped at the spoiler warning. I've requested
Speaker 3: the DVD through an inter library loan extept to pick
Speaker 3: it up at my local branch in five days or so.
Speaker 3: After I've seen it. I'll listen to the rest and
Speaker 3: maybe I'll have more to say then. But there are
Speaker 3: a couple of things I'd like to comment on from
Speaker 3: what I've heard. Beautiful, oh man, getting Deep Blue Sea
Speaker 3: at the library from between libraries. This is interlibrary commerce.
Speaker 2: Yeah, take advantage of it. You know, we've We've heard
Speaker 2: from other listeners out there, and I have family members
Speaker 2: who do this as have done this as well. You know,
Speaker 2: getting movies through their local library. Yeah, the resources there.
Speaker 2: Take advantage of it, oh man, though I do have
Speaker 2: to confess something. Just reading or hearing the phrase interlibrary
Speaker 2: loan triggers like cringing of guilt in me because of
Speaker 2: a time in grad school when I was working on
Speaker 2: a research project and I was getting a lot of old,
Speaker 2: rare books interlibrary loan, and there was one that I
Speaker 2: had out way too long.
Speaker 3: It took me. I was late getting it back, like
Speaker 3: severely late, and I've felt guilty ever since.
Speaker 2: Did are you sure you returned it?
Speaker 3: I did finally, it was like months late, and I
Speaker 3: felt horrible.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, I think we all have we a lot
Speaker 2: similar memories. Right, there's a little bit of nervousness. Will
Speaker 2: we return it on time? But again, definitely take advantage
Speaker 2: of these. This is I'm comfortable with my tax dollars
Speaker 2: being used to move copies of Deep Flucy around the
Speaker 2: Tri County area.
Speaker 3: Presumably this is not like a rare book that you
Speaker 3: will be severely missed, but still you should return it
Speaker 3: on time of course. Anyway, Lawrence goes on, probably others
Speaker 3: have pointed this out from the first podcasting, but I
Speaker 3: balked at your assertion that there have been eighteen point
Speaker 3: six billion shark movies made in the US. I don't
Speaker 3: remember saying that, but this sounds about right, Lawrence says.
Speaker 3: I had to pause, rewind, and listen again to make
Speaker 3: sure I heard you right. I'm pretty sure there haven't
Speaker 3: been that many movies made in the history of cinema worldwide,
Speaker 3: never mind shark movies. Now. I didn't do real research,
Speaker 3: but I did a little quick googling. When I asked
Speaker 3: Google how many shark movies had been made, the number
Speaker 3: it gave me was one hundred and eighty psh. Definitely
Speaker 3: more than that. When I googled how many movies have
Speaker 3: been made in the history of cinema, it's at estimates
Speaker 3: range from hundreds of thousands to perhaps more than a million.
Speaker 3: Google isn't the be all and end all, but those
Speaker 3: numbers sound reasonable. For there to be eighteen point six
Speaker 3: billion shark movies made in the US, there would need
Speaker 3: to be about fifty four for each person living there
Speaker 3: who made all these shark movies. I didn't make my
Speaker 3: fifty four shark movies. On a more serious note, I
Speaker 3: can't agree with your gushing praise of Jaws to be fair,
Speaker 3: it may fall into the category of films I might
Speaker 3: have liked had I not read the book first. The
Speaker 3: film isn't as good as the novel, and the novel
Speaker 3: isn't exactly a masterpiece. It's been a long time since
Speaker 3: I've read it, But as memory serves, the novel offered
Speaker 3: credible characters behaving in ways I found consistent with each character,
Speaker 3: and a good balance between subplots and the main storyline.
Speaker 3: The film discards most of the subplot, probably to save
Speaker 3: on length, and focuses on the main plot, which I
Speaker 3: find less engaging. And in the film, I don't find
Speaker 3: the shark hunt credible at all. Richard Dreyfus knows a
Speaker 3: good deal about sharks, but he can't tie a knot,
Speaker 3: let alone sail a boat. Roy Scheider is terrified of
Speaker 3: the water, never mind a shark, and Robert Shaw is
Speaker 3: constantly drunk. These guys don't need a shark to kill them.
Speaker 3: They're bound to capsize the boat and drown. I'm hoping
Speaker 3: I'll like Deep Lucy better find out in five days
Speaker 3: or so. Thanks for bringing it to my attention, Lawrence, Well, Lawrence,
Speaker 3: I don't know what I think. I could not possibly
Speaker 3: disagree with you more about Jaws the novel and Jaws
Speaker 3: the movie, but I respect your opinion, you know, respectfully disagree.
Speaker 3: I think I've read the novel and seen the movie.
Speaker 3: I think the movie is marvelous, and I almost hated
Speaker 3: the novel.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I never read the original novel. I did read
Speaker 2: his giant squid novel Beast, Yeah, which had a big
Speaker 2: squid arm on the front and it was textured so
Speaker 2: you could you could rub your fingers over it and
Speaker 2: kind of like read the suckers on it.
Speaker 3: Oh man, I want to feel that right now.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, I think they actually made a film version
Speaker 2: of that, But I haven't seen the film adaptation, so,
Speaker 2: but I have seen Jaws. I do love Jaws. But
Speaker 2: Jaws is one of those films that was is such
Speaker 2: an important film in the history of American cinema, especially
Speaker 2: blockbuster American cinema. You can't discount it's it's importance and
Speaker 2: its impact. But on the other hand, you know, we
Speaker 2: don't know all have to like every movie, so I
Speaker 2: can understand people maybe not digging it as much, or
Speaker 2: maybe finding certain aspects of it a little bit dated
Speaker 2: in light of everything that has come in its wake,
Speaker 2: you know, playing off of and in some cases, I'm
Speaker 2: sure improving on some of the concepts and ideas. As
Speaker 2: for Deep Blue c I don't know. I hope by
Speaker 2: the time you listen to this, you've you've man, You've
Speaker 2: gone into the film, and you've gotten to watch it
Speaker 2: for yourself. It's a it's a it's it's a fun
Speaker 2: time and it has it has a couple of great
Speaker 2: twists in it. Is it better than Jaws? Well, intelligent
Speaker 2: intelligent folks can disagree. I think the book of Deep
Speaker 2: Blue cy was better. There may be and there may
Speaker 2: have been a no I had no idea.
Speaker 3: I just assumed there wasn't Maybe there was a novelization.
Speaker 2: A quick search would indicate that there was not a
Speaker 2: novelization of Deep Blue Sea. Though you know, I'm very
Speaker 2: mention in favor of film novelizations, so I wish that
Speaker 2: it was not the case. All Right, We're going to
Speaker 2: do one last weird House Cinema listener mail. This one's
Speaker 2: from David and it contains major spoilers for Dark City.
Speaker 2: This is a response to our episode, our two part
Speaker 2: look at the movie Dark City. So if you haven't
Speaker 2: seen Dark City and you would like to avoid those spoilers,
Speaker 2: and maybe this is a good time to go ahead
Speaker 2: and end your listening of this episode, But for those
Speaker 2: of you who are on boards or spoilers will continue.
Speaker 2: David says, hey, guys, it was great to hear you
Speaker 2: discuss Dark City on the two part Weird House Cinema.
Speaker 2: I remember first seeing this back in the nineties and
Speaker 2: have rewatched it earlier this year. There is definitely a
Speaker 2: post matrix and other CGI movie lens that make some
Speaker 2: of the effects seem a little pedestrian. One thing that
Speaker 2: I never thought of until listening to the part two
Speaker 2: episode was the food situation. Your discussion of the automat
Speaker 2: and not being touched by human hands really sparked this.
Speaker 2: In the end, John defeats the aliens and gives everyone
Speaker 2: a beach, but is he now responsible for feeding all
Speaker 2: of them? How did the aliens create the food? There
Speaker 2: are no farms, crops, or even livestock unless they are
Speaker 2: elsewhere housed on the ship. I presume that the aliens
Speaker 2: had to prepare all the food for the human's survival,
Speaker 2: or did they maybe use another methods such as injected nutrition.
Speaker 2: Either way, it's now John's responsibility to ensure this population
Speaker 2: does not starve. It's all well and good to give
Speaker 2: them hope of the beach, but I just don't know
Speaker 2: how he can manage the nutritional infrastructure. There are also
Speaker 2: other things that go into functioning city that the aliens
Speaker 2: were taking care of. I can just imagine the massive
Speaker 2: amount of work that John just gave himself and wonder
Speaker 2: if he would have been better off the other way.
Speaker 2: The sequel to Dark City should be subtitled Getting Tired
Speaker 2: of This anyway. Thanks for the episode and the podcast. David,
Speaker 2: very good question.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's almost like you you go into a zoo
Speaker 3: and set all the animals free, and it's like you're great,
Speaker 3: now go live. But it's like, how are they gonna
Speaker 3: get food?
Speaker 2: Yeah, Like we see those those great scenes where the
Speaker 2: strangers are meticulously like an assembly line preparing the pocket
Speaker 2: contents for everyone in the city. I can easily imagine
Speaker 2: they're also making sandwiches for the automad and so forth,
Speaker 2: you know, engaging in all of this work. And who's
Speaker 2: going to do that work? Now?
Speaker 3: Yeah? No, I guess it's it's actually worse than the
Speaker 3: zoo example, because then you could imagine at least animals
Speaker 3: can forage, there'd be some chance, like this is a
Speaker 3: thing floating in space. Where does any of the food
Speaker 3: come from?
Speaker 2: Yeah, unless unless on the other side, where presumably the
Speaker 2: sun or the sunlike energy so has been hanging out
Speaker 2: the whole time. Maybe they're vast crops and gardens and
Speaker 2: farms there. But yeah, we just don't know.
Speaker 3: I guess one question is do we ever see what
Speaker 3: is the full extent of the tuning power that the
Speaker 3: aliens and John Murdock possess. Is it like the Star
Speaker 3: Trek Replicator. Can they just imagine objects into full existence
Speaker 3: out of bear atoms or do they do they? Is
Speaker 3: it more just kind of a telekinesis kind of shaping
Speaker 3: and moving power.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we never see him tune a sandwich into existence.
Speaker 2: That would have answered a lot of questions.
Speaker 3: Or the green jello from the automatic Yeah, make me
Speaker 3: green yellow.
Speaker 2: Now it's the greenest food they know of in Dark City.
Speaker 3: No one in Dark City has ever had a salad.
Speaker 2: It's gonna blow their mind. Yeah, it's a.
Speaker 3: City of just fried eggs and green jello. All right,
Speaker 3: does that do it for this episode?
Speaker 2: I think that does it for this episode? But hey,
Speaker 2: we still had a list of males that we didn't
Speaker 2: get to for this episode, and you should certainly keep
Speaker 2: sending them in because we read everything that comes in.
Speaker 2: We don't get to read everything on the show, but
Speaker 2: if you send it, we will read it, at least
Speaker 2: to ourselves. And as we continue our journey through the holidays,
Speaker 2: we're going to do more listener mails. We try to
Speaker 2: do one every month or so anyway, but there may
Speaker 2: be an opportunity to fit in an extra one as
Speaker 2: we proceed. In the meantime, we'll just remind everyone out
Speaker 2: there that's Stuff to Blow Your Mind is a science
Speaker 2: and culture podcast with core episodes on two season Thursdays
Speaker 2: and on Fridays. We set aside most serious concerns to
Speaker 2: just talk about a weird film on Weird House Cinema.
Speaker 3: Huge thanks as always to our excellent audio producer JJ Posway.
Speaker 3: If you would like to get in touch with us
Speaker 3: with feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest
Speaker 3: a topic for the future, or just to say hello,
Speaker 3: you can email us at contact 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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