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: This is Robert Lamb.
Speaker 3: And this is Joe McCormick, and today we are bringing
Speaker 3: you some messages from the Stuff to Blow Your Mind
Speaker 3: email address, Folks at home, if you like this show
Speaker 3: and you've never written in to tell us your thoughts before,
Speaker 3: now would be a great time. You know, It's weird
Speaker 3: how I feel like our email really comes in like floods,
Speaker 3: and then it dries up, and then it's a flood again.
Speaker 3: I wish we could do something, if we could prod
Speaker 3: y'all out there in some way to make the flow
Speaker 3: more steady. It's like we live. We live in a
Speaker 3: kind of Nile inundation cycle of emails, where like sometimes
Speaker 3: we're struggling to keep up to read enough of them,
Speaker 3: and other times they dry up and I don't know
Speaker 3: what to do about that.
Speaker 2: Well, I mean it get the impression that some episodes
Speaker 2: are just more relatable than others and are going to
Speaker 2: be sorts of episodes that folks feel like they have
Speaker 2: something to contribute on. Certainly we see this when we
Speaker 2: do episodes on things like dreams, oh yes, or universal experiences,
Speaker 2: and then sometimes we do deeper dives into areas that
Speaker 2: you know no one has personal experience with, like no
Speaker 2: one has actually been a warrior and an ancient army
Speaker 2: and so forth. But yeah, you know it's sometimes it's
Speaker 2: hard to predict as well.
Speaker 3: Well, whatever the reason they're folks, I just I would
Speaker 3: always encourage you. If you want to get in touch,
Speaker 3: please do. If you're thinking about it, do it. Make
Speaker 3: it real. You can write us at contact at stuff
Speaker 3: to Blow your Mind dot com. We of course always
Speaker 3: loved responses to recent episodes or series. If you have
Speaker 3: a correction if necessary, certainly send that our way. If
Speaker 3: you have something interesting you'd like to add to a
Speaker 3: topic we talked about, If you would just like to
Speaker 3: tell us something you find interesting, even unrelated to episodes
Speaker 3: we've done, that's all fair game. Contact at Stuff to
Speaker 3: Blow your Mind.
Speaker 2: If you ever find yourself thinking, boy, I wish they
Speaker 2: would do more episodes like X, well, whatever X is,
Speaker 2: write in and tell us because in all likelihood, you know,
Speaker 2: we always have any number of episodes we'd like to
Speaker 2: cover any number of topics, and it's just kind of
Speaker 2: week to week on whether we'll spring on one or not,
Speaker 2: so you know, a little prodding in one direction or
Speaker 2: the other can work wonders.
Speaker 3: That's right. We can't promise to do topics on request,
Speaker 3: but we absolutely have done that before and we'll do
Speaker 3: that at some points in the future.
Speaker 2: All right, Well, let's dig into this mailbag. What does
Speaker 2: Carnie have for us this week?
Speaker 3: Joe, Let's see, maybe we should kick things off with
Speaker 3: this response to our series on predators of the Deep Ocean.
Speaker 3: This was a series we did about predatory animals that
Speaker 3: operate in the darker parts of the sea, the lower
Speaker 3: strata away from the sunlight, including the abyssle and the
Speaker 3: hadel zones. Now, Rob, this message makes reference to a
Speaker 3: Monsters of the Deep wall poster. That's ringing a bell
Speaker 3: in my brain. But I actually don't remember the context
Speaker 3: in which that originally came up. What was the deal there?
Speaker 2: I think I was reminiscing about a possibly national geographic
Speaker 2: fold out poster of various organisms in the ocean, including
Speaker 2: deep sea organisms, and not everything was to scale, nor
Speaker 2: was it intended to be to scale, but it kind
Speaker 2: of led my young mind to assume that some of
Speaker 2: these creatures were bigger than they actually were. And as
Speaker 2: we've chatted with folks since that episode, it sounds like
Speaker 2: I wasn't the only one to have this experience.
Speaker 3: Yeah, okay, that's what it was. So this message comes
Speaker 3: from Jeff. Jeff says, Greetings, deep ones. I didn't have
Speaker 3: a Monsters of the Deep poster on my wall, but
Speaker 3: I did have access to my grandfather's Encyclopedia Britannica and
Speaker 3: spent many hours studying the illustrations of horrible deep sea
Speaker 3: creatures and earning their names. Other kids had dinosaurs. I
Speaker 3: had the spiny batfish and the gulper eel. I always
Speaker 3: highly recommend reading outdated encyclopedias and reference books any like
Speaker 3: nonfiction books of factual information about the world, especially if
Speaker 3: the selection criteria is like what would be interesting to
Speaker 3: a general reader and it's from I don't know, more
Speaker 3: than eighty years ago. That is always a gold mine,
Speaker 3: not necessarily because the information in it is still considered correct,
Speaker 3: but just because it gives you such an interesting window
Speaker 3: into the intellectual and literary landscape of the past.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, outdated reference books, you know, outdated encyclopedias. That's
Speaker 2: how some of us got the sex talk Growing up
Speaker 2: World books from the nineteen sixties.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I love stuff like that anyway. Jeff goes on
Speaker 3: to say, along the lines of pre Discovery Channel, pre Internet,
Speaker 3: re life, monster data, I highly recommend the X Do
Speaker 3: the Strangest Things series of children's books from the nineteen
Speaker 3: sixties and seventies. They include birds do the Strangest Things,
Speaker 3: Animals they mean, mammals do the strangest things, prehistoric monsters
Speaker 3: did the strangest things, and plants do amazing things. Why
Speaker 3: not strange things for plants?
Speaker 2: But you don't want to vilify plants too much.
Speaker 3: These books are filled to the brim with animals with
Speaker 3: superpowers and great backstories. Each chapter is just a few
Speaker 3: pages long, with beautiful drawings, a large, friendly serafont that
Speaker 3: encourages reading, and a solid sense of humor. Some of
Speaker 3: the humor comes from the dated writing style. Animal couples
Speaker 3: are often referred to as husband and wife. There are
Speaker 3: some errors based on lack of modern data apocryphal stories.
Speaker 3: For instance, they propagate the myth of suicidal lemmings, not
Speaker 3: to mention amusing moral judgments of animal behavior, and some
Speaker 3: classification of animals as either friends like the honeybee or
Speaker 3: enemies like the mosquito. But what always stuck with me
Speaker 3: was the fascinating animal facts and great art. The Fish
Speaker 3: Book featured an archerfish in action on the cover and
Speaker 3: was always my favorite. Creepy images of the alligator gar
Speaker 3: have haunted my nightmares my entire life, but I have
Speaker 3: rarely experienced as much pure delight as when some real
Speaker 3: life archerfish spat on me at the National Aquarium when
Speaker 3: I was allowed to feed them a cricket on a stick.
Speaker 3: Below our links to the books, which you can still
Speaker 3: purchase used copies of on Amazon and eBay. Also attached
Speaker 3: are some pages from the Fish Book, including a section
Speaker 3: on the mysterious eels recently discussed in Rob's interview with
Speaker 3: the Mycologist and Rabbi. Pull in the images from Jeff's email.
Speaker 3: These are like photos of some spreads from This Fish
Speaker 3: to the Strangest Things books. So one is a spread
Speaker 3: on the anglerfish, and I'm just going to read a
Speaker 3: selection here, and so this is it's already introduced the
Speaker 3: idea of the size disparity between the kind of anglerfish
Speaker 3: they're talking about, at least the size disparity between the
Speaker 3: females and the males. And the second paragraph on the
Speaker 3: second page in the spread begins almost as soon as
Speaker 3: he is born, the male anglerfish starts looking for a wife.
Speaker 3: When he finds her, he fastens onto her side with
Speaker 3: his mouth. Soon their skin grows together. After this, they
Speaker 3: can never be parted. Now he will never lose her
Speaker 3: in the dark.
Speaker 2: Oh my god.
Speaker 3: The male angler has no fishing rod. He does not
Speaker 3: need one. His wife does the fishing for him.
Speaker 2: I mean, it implies that he wants to fish, But
Speaker 2: I mean it's like you personify these creatures at your peril,
Speaker 2: Like it's just they're not humans. They have their own
Speaker 2: thing going on, and they're pretty far removed from us.
Speaker 3: But I would not be without this stuff. I love this.
Speaker 3: It's great. I also was looking at some of the
Speaker 3: other pages. There's a page on the archer fish which
Speaker 3: has an illustration of the fish spitting above the water
Speaker 3: line at a bug to make it fall, and it
Speaker 3: describes how the fish does this, but then it says, quote,
Speaker 3: the drops of water shot from the archer's mouth hit
Speaker 3: the insect so hard it is knocked out. It falls
Speaker 3: into the river. The archer swims over and eats it up.
Speaker 3: He can hit a bug over three feet away. The
Speaker 3: little sharpshooter almost never misses. It is a wonderful way
Speaker 3: to catch an insect. But don't you try it. Spitting
Speaker 3: is only for archerfish.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's a lesson here for all of us. But yeah,
Speaker 2: I have to agree. These are These were not part
Speaker 2: of my upbringing, or at least I don't remember these books.
Speaker 2: But I do love the layout here. The illustrations are fabulous.
Speaker 2: I can basically smell these books looking at them, you.
Speaker 3: Know, Yeah, that old book smell. I love that. Yeah. Oh,
Speaker 3: and there also is By the way, Jeff includes a
Speaker 3: spread on the eels, eels making a trip to the
Speaker 3: Sargasso Sea from each side of the Atlantic, from America
Speaker 3: and from Europe, swimming down and then laying their eggs
Speaker 3: and then dying and then somehow the European eels go
Speaker 3: back to Europe and the American eels go back to America.
Speaker 3: And I think that was the one referring to the
Speaker 3: eels you talked about in the episode you did, Rob.
Speaker 2: That's right. That episode was the Queerness of Nature with
Speaker 2: Patricia Keashian. And by the way, that episode is going
Speaker 2: to rerun here in just a week or so.
Speaker 3: Oh nice? Is that to time with the publication of
Speaker 3: the book.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a special circumstance here to correspond with publication date.
Speaker 3: Nice. But anyway, yeah, oh wait, no, I was going
Speaker 3: to mention one more page that Jeff includes from the book.
Speaker 3: It's about sharks. So there's a page about how hammerhead
Speaker 3: sharks are. You know, they're dangerous, they could bite you.
Speaker 3: And then it starts talking about the whale shark. It's like,
Speaker 3: it's the biggest fish in the sea, but it doesn't
Speaker 3: want to eat people, just eats fish, tiny fish and plants.
Speaker 3: And then it says the whale shark may let people
Speaker 3: ride on him. Quote, it would not be wise to
Speaker 3: try to ride any other kind of shark. Other sharks
Speaker 3: cannot be trusted.
Speaker 2: And it's my understanding that your advice not to write
Speaker 2: on whale sharks either of these problems, like, yeah, they
Speaker 2: don't like. My understanding is that they do not really
Speaker 2: seem to care for it, and it just sort of
Speaker 2: drives them away. So it kind of gets in the
Speaker 2: way of humans getting to experience being in the water
Speaker 2: with whale sharks.
Speaker 3: Anyway, Jeff says thanks again for sharing your research and
Speaker 3: personal stories with us. Jeff, Well, thank you so much, Jeff,
Speaker 3: I really appreciate you sending in the pages from these books.
Speaker 3: They look fabulous. I would love to own these things.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they're beautiful. This next one comes to us from Andrew.
Speaker 2: Andrew says, Hello, Joe and Robert. I am still loving
Speaker 2: Stuff to Blow your mind. It's my favorite podcast and
Speaker 2: has been for a long time. I'm just finishing the
Speaker 2: second episode about Jupiter's Great Red Spot. Some of my
Speaker 2: favorite episodes were about the moons of Jupiter and sat
Speaker 2: I love how many different topics you cover and how
Speaker 2: consistently good they are. Sometimes I see the title and
Speaker 2: think I won't be interested, but I basically always enjoy
Speaker 2: the episode. I have the same experience. Sometimes I see
Speaker 2: the topic and I'm like, I'm not going to be
Speaker 2: able to get into this one, but I always am
Speaker 2: able to get into it because I've found over the
Speaker 2: years that any topic that pops up on our radar,
Speaker 2: if you dig into it a bit, you'll find those
Speaker 2: interesting angles and you'll find something to be fascinated about.
Speaker 3: I agree, it's quite rare that we commit to doing
Speaker 3: something and then I can find almost nothing actually interesting
Speaker 3: about it. I'm gonna admit it has happened, but really
Speaker 3: only like a handful of times over the years.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and usually that realization comes pretty early in the
Speaker 2: episode preparation process, Like we don't we quickly realize, oh,
Speaker 2: maybe we should pivot and do this instead.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, all.
Speaker 2: Right, Well, Andrew continues more praise. So hey, I'm going
Speaker 2: to read it. I'm gay, they say, I really enjoy
Speaker 2: weird house cinema, even though you choose rubbish movies. Now,
Speaker 2: now this I do take a little bit of issue with.
Speaker 2: In all seriousness, I find something to love in all
Speaker 2: of them. Not a rubbish film in the bunch, as
Speaker 2: far as I'm concerned. But to each their own, your
Speaker 2: mileage may vary.
Speaker 3: Well, I think the way I would put it is,
Speaker 3: there is such a thing as the quality of a film.
Speaker 3: Most people generally know what we mean when we make
Speaker 3: reference to that, though it's quite hard to define, actually,
Speaker 3: I mean, it's generally kind of hard to define quality.
Speaker 3: So that is a thing, and as it is normally understood,
Speaker 3: a lot of the movies we cover are not high
Speaker 3: in that thing, are not high in that quality. But
Speaker 3: that doesn't mean they are without interest, and so I
Speaker 3: think you know, a lot of movies we cover, they're
Speaker 3: not going to get a lot of stars on your
Speaker 3: classic on the on the IMDb scale, but they are
Speaker 3: still fascinating artifacts, enjoyable to watch, interesting to talk about.
Speaker 3: I mean, this has just been I guess part of
Speaker 3: my personality, going back as long as I could remember,
Speaker 3: is that I could find interesting things about things that
Speaker 3: were not typically understood as good art.
Speaker 2: Oh that's fair. That's fair. Though I think some of
Speaker 2: them are pretty great art.
Speaker 3: Of course, some of them are.
Speaker 2: Yeah, all right, Well anyway, Andrew continues and says, this
Speaker 2: may seem random, but I bring it up because the
Speaker 2: first time I experienced it was listening to the episode
Speaker 2: about Rods from God. Oh that was a long time ago. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I've had the experience of a sound or other sensation
Speaker 2: incorporating itself into a dream. For example, a telephone ringing
Speaker 2: in reality will work its way into a dream, and
Speaker 2: I'll experience a telephone ring in the dream. The first
Speaker 2: time I listened to the Rods from God episode to
Speaker 2: refresh everyone, This I believe had to do with we
Speaker 2: were talking. This is a theoretical orbital bombardment technique about
Speaker 2: taking very massive objects, essentially large rods, and dropping them
Speaker 2: strategically from orbit, and they would you know, they would
Speaker 2: enter the Earth's atmosphere and do you know, devastating harm
Speaker 2: when they reach the surface. Not necessarily the sort of
Speaker 2: episode i'd do today, but it was a different time.
Speaker 2: Andrew continues and says, Yeah, the first time I listened
Speaker 2: to the Rods from God episode I fell asleep with
Speaker 2: the podcast on. I had a dream about the idea
Speaker 2: where I was in a room and someone was explaining
Speaker 2: the idea of rods from God to me. Oh and
Speaker 2: one more thing. It's just called rods from God. It
Speaker 2: has nothing to do with the divine being the one
Speaker 2: sort or another. It's just they come from up from.
Speaker 3: Where that is, right, could have called him rods from Zod.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, that would work so any Andrew says, the
Speaker 2: first time I listened to the Rods from God episode
Speaker 2: I fell asleep with a podcast on. I had a
Speaker 2: dream about the idea where I was in a room
Speaker 2: and someone was explaining the idea of rods from God
Speaker 2: to me. I was surprised that when I woke up
Speaker 2: Stuff to Blow your mind was talking about this very concept.
Speaker 2: When I put the podcast back about thirty seconds, I
Speaker 2: was very surprised that I had incorporated full sentences from
Speaker 2: the podcast into my dream with high accuracy. I'm not
Speaker 2: surprised that something like this can happen with something like
Speaker 2: a phone ringing, but I never would have thought it
Speaker 2: possible for full sentences. I often fall asleep listening to podcasts,
Speaker 2: and I've experienced this more than a few times. I
Speaker 2: remember one time distinctly being somewhere and someone told me,
Speaker 2: I know Joe McCormick, instead of just hearing I'm Joe McCormick.
Speaker 3: Andrew. Yeah, Andrew. So this is actually an interesting subject.
Speaker 3: I wonder if we could come back and do a
Speaker 3: whole series on this. I'm sure it's a familiar experience
Speaker 3: to many listeners. This is not the first time we
Speaker 3: have had an email talk about this that like we
Speaker 3: ended up in their dreams by being on the podcast
Speaker 3: they were listening to as they fell asleep. But I
Speaker 3: did briefly look up to see if there was any
Speaker 3: research on this, and yeah, there actually is a good
Speaker 3: bit of research that seems to from what I could tell,
Speaker 3: it's kind of inconsistent in its results. But I was
Speaker 3: looking at a literature review called Influencing Dreams through Sensory Stimulation,
Speaker 3: a systematic review. This was published last year in twenty
Speaker 3: twenty four in a journal called Sleep Medicine Reviews. This
Speaker 3: was by Salviason at All, and I didn't have time
Speaker 3: to get deep into this research here, but it was
Speaker 3: trying to collect all the different studies that had been
Speaker 3: done on whether sensory information from the physical environment actually
Speaker 3: gets incorporated into dream content, and then in some cases
Speaker 3: testing the fidelity of how it gets incorporated. Like you,
Speaker 3: if you play verbal information in a room, will while
Speaker 3: somebody is sleeping, will the person later say that they
Speaker 3: experienced that verbal information in the dream, And then will
Speaker 3: they actually have accurate recall of what information was transmitted?
Speaker 3: And in some cases it seems yes. Other research has
Speaker 3: had to do with nonverbal auditory stimuli and also other
Speaker 3: sensory modalities as well. But in terms of auditory stimuli,
Speaker 3: I know there's some research that began testing fire alarms
Speaker 3: because it was trying to say, like, you know, will
Speaker 3: fire alarms successfully wake people up from their sleep and
Speaker 3: get them to, you know, get out of bed and
Speaker 3: respond to an emergency. Some research in that Vein found
Speaker 3: that people often reported having dreams about alarms when the
Speaker 3: alarms were going off, and then they wake up or
Speaker 3: they at least have the impression they had dreams about that.
Speaker 3: Other things are like if you place sounds of traffic
Speaker 3: at people while they are sleeping, they will often increased
Speaker 3: reports of having dreams about like being in a street
Speaker 3: with cars going by and things like that. So apparently
Speaker 3: it's a it's a common phenomenon that somehow sensory information
Speaker 3: from the physical environment gets incorporated into the dream state
Speaker 3: this one way or another.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's interesting. I know in the past we've talked
Speaker 2: to about certainly getting into different phases of sleep and dreaming,
Speaker 2: you know, those sensitive areas where we're coming in or
Speaker 2: out of sleep where reality and dream can kind of
Speaker 2: be combined and in subtle and even disturbing ways. But yeah,
Speaker 2: I guess I tend to kind of take this personally
Speaker 2: for granted, says I don't listen to podcasts when I
Speaker 2: go to sleep, or often I don't even listen to music.
Speaker 2: I just have like, well, white noise on. And you know,
Speaker 2: if you have to dream about white noise, well that's great,
Speaker 2: but it's not necessarily going to be memorable.
Speaker 3: I had a dream that the fan was blowing. Yeah, okay, Rob,
Speaker 3: Now we've had a bunch of messages about Weird House cinema.
Speaker 3: Do you want to go ahead and jump into those.
Speaker 2: Yeah, let's go ahead and get into the Weird House mail.
Speaker 3: All right, maybe I'll do this first one from Ian.
Speaker 3: This is referring to something that came up in a
Speaker 3: previous Listener mail about Weird House. The subject is Flight
Speaker 3: of the Navigator. Dear Robin Joe, I'm currently listening to
Speaker 3: the listener mail episode from early April and just wanted
Speaker 3: to shoot a quick message to say I had the
Speaker 3: exact same reaction as Rob to Flight of the Navigator,
Speaker 3: which I watched at a friend's house as a child.
Speaker 3: At the time, I didn't have the words to describe
Speaker 3: the feeling, so I would have just said it's scared me,
Speaker 3: despite not being scary in any traditional sense. Now, as
Speaker 3: an adult, I can say it actually deeply unsettled me, and,
Speaker 3: like Rob, I have avoided rewatching it ever since. Almost
Speaker 3: all of my memories of the actual content of the
Speaker 3: movie have faded. Over the thirty years or so since
Speaker 3: I watched it, all that's left is a vague memory
Speaker 3: of a scene where the spaceship has to stop so
Speaker 3: the little boy can be But the unsettled feeling remains,
Speaker 3: and I'm still and I still inwardly recoil at the
Speaker 3: idea of watching it again. It's fascinating how things can
Speaker 3: leave such a lasting impression even when so little of
Speaker 3: the actual content of the experience sticks with us. Anyway,
Speaker 3: just wanted to share that Rob is definitely not alone.
Speaker 3: Thanks for the show, Ian, Well, thank you, Ian. This
Speaker 3: is really interesting. I would say, Rob, if I'm remembering
Speaker 3: what you said about it last time correctly, it was
Speaker 3: that even though the movie is not intended to be
Speaker 3: scary in anyway, it's presented as kind of a family
Speaker 3: friendly children's adventure, there's just something that kind of like
Speaker 3: makes your blood run cold about it.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, it's been for ever since I watched it again.
Speaker 2: For all the reasons we reference, but yeah, it has
Speaker 2: some unsettling, kind of disturbed being concepts of like time
Speaker 2: dilation and that, you know, our standard trope of science fiction.
Speaker 2: But I think for many obviously this was our first
Speaker 2: introduction to that concept, and it was, Yeah, it was
Speaker 2: it was a little unnerving.
Speaker 3: It actually makes me wonder what sorts of stories or
Speaker 3: movies would have this quality that they might be more
Speaker 3: frightening or unsettling to a child in ways that adults
Speaker 3: might not pick up on. So all the adults who
Speaker 3: are vetting this, they say, Okay, this looks family friendly,
Speaker 3: you know, give it the okay stamp. This is good
Speaker 3: for kids. But there's actually something in there that like
Speaker 3: really messes with a lot of the kids who experience it.
Speaker 3: It's sort of invisible or passes under the radar of adults,
Speaker 3: you know what I mean.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Yeah, I mean, And I guess it's just hard
Speaker 2: to really identify sometimes because we can all think of
Speaker 2: cases where there's something identifiable in the movie that clearly
Speaker 2: can stir a child, like I instantly think about a
Speaker 2: lot of people have that experience with The Dark Crystal.
Speaker 2: Dark Crystal was wonderful. I've always loved it, My child
Speaker 2: has always loved it. But there is some dark content
Speaker 2: in there, and it's in a dark and immersive world
Speaker 2: that doesn't pull any punches with some of it. Another
Speaker 2: example I've mentioned before on the show is Revenge of
Speaker 2: the Sith, which I think for many people, many for
Speaker 2: many people out there. For many kids, it was perhaps
Speaker 2: their earliest encounter with a tragic story arc, with the
Speaker 2: story of someone's downfall into darkness, and you know, even
Speaker 2: knowing like what happens in the rest of the series
Speaker 2: and how it ties in with the larger franchise like it's,
Speaker 2: it can be a pretty dark ride, especially if you
Speaker 2: have no experience with other tragedies. But to you to
Speaker 2: your point, yeah, there there's that other case of something
Speaker 2: that we wouldn't as adults, wouldn't wouldn't identify, and could
Speaker 2: easily fly under our radar, either due to our exposure
Speaker 2: to other pictures in a given genre, or just the
Speaker 2: fact that we're no longer in the mindset of a
Speaker 2: child and we're not as privy to the more pressing
Speaker 2: fears and concerns of a child.
Speaker 3: This really hits home for me right now actually because
Speaker 3: currently my daughter is about two and a half years old,
Speaker 3: and she there was recently a day where we were,
Speaker 3: you know, getting her ready for bed, and she mentioned
Speaker 3: to me something. She got kind of serious and she
Speaker 3: told me she was worried about something, and I was like, oh, no,
Speaker 3: what is it? And she kind of didn't want to say.
Speaker 3: But then she said something in my crib and I
Speaker 3: was like, oh, what's going on? And so we, you know,
Speaker 3: figured out that there was something in her bed that
Speaker 3: was bothering her. And it turns out it was this
Speaker 3: one stuffed animal that she used to love, but now
Speaker 3: it had become scary to her, and she was almost
Speaker 3: scared to say anything about it. Like it's like she
Speaker 3: there was some kind of power she was afraid of
Speaker 3: invoking by talking about the little stuffed lion, the cute
Speaker 3: stuffed lion that she previously liked. But we you know,
Speaker 3: so we took it out of the bed, like okay,
Speaker 3: it's not in there anymore. The problem was solved. Then
Speaker 3: she was fine, But I wondered. I wanted to get
Speaker 3: inside that emotion, like what had evolved inside her mind?
Speaker 3: You know, how did the cute lion that she was
Speaker 3: hugging just a few days before, how did it become scary?
Speaker 3: Something happened? And we don't know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 3: Being a parent, especially if a very young child, is
Speaker 3: often like that, like you can't get the child to
Speaker 3: put into words exactly what it is that caused a
Speaker 3: kind of emotional evolution or why they're thinking what they're thinking.
Speaker 3: You have these little moments like that, and it's just
Speaker 3: I don't know, like you. It's like these little changes
Speaker 3: and moments that are emotionally powerful to you because they're
Speaker 3: emotionally powerful to your child and you're connected to your child,
Speaker 3: but they're also inscrutable to you.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but this is a great example. If listeners out
Speaker 2: there have any any other accounts of this sort of
Speaker 2: thing from their own life, for the lives of children
Speaker 2: in their lives right in, we would love to hear
Speaker 2: from you. All right, This next one comes to us
Speaker 2: from Leif. Leif Wright sentence says, Hi, guys, love your
Speaker 2: show and have been listening for years. I especially enjoy
Speaker 2: the Weird House Cinema episodes. You know, I should mention
Speaker 2: now that we're talking about this. We haven't announced this
Speaker 2: everywhere yet, but Weird House Cinema can now be found
Speaker 2: as its own playlist wherever you get your podcasts. So
Speaker 2: if you want to subscribe to Just Weird House Cinema
Speaker 2: and rate Just Weird House Cinema, you can do that
Speaker 2: wherever you get your podcasts. We're checking it out see
Speaker 2: how it works.
Speaker 3: Of course, assuming you still like our Core episodes. We
Speaker 3: would love for you to subscribe to the whole feed
Speaker 3: and listen to everything. But if you want to just
Speaker 3: get yes, But if you want to just get Weird House,
Speaker 3: go for it, all right.
Speaker 2: So Leif says, Yeah, I love your show and have
Speaker 2: been listening for years, especially enjoy the Weird House Cinema episodes.
Speaker 2: But I want to posit something to you. I have
Speaker 2: never heard you do an Australian osploitation movie, and indeed
Speaker 2: I believe this is true. The closest we've come was
Speaker 2: nineteen eighty two's Next of Ken, which I think qualifies
Speaker 2: more as Australian new wave rather than osploitation.
Speaker 3: I don't know what counts as osploitation. Have I seen one?
Speaker 3: Is Mad Max osploitation?
Speaker 2: I yeah, yeah, it's sometimes discussed as such. I mean
Speaker 2: all these terms are kind of gray, right, I mean,
Speaker 2: you can make a case for something being within or
Speaker 2: outside of a particular subgenre. But you know, my loose
Speaker 2: way of interpreting it is always, does it make Australia
Speaker 2: seem scary? Does it seem to be you know, promoting
Speaker 2: and or you know, exploiting some idea of like Australia's
Speaker 2: and out of control wilderness sort of a thing, you know.
Speaker 2: So anyway, a Live says, I'd love for you guys
Speaker 2: to take a look and hear your take on some
Speaker 2: of these gems from the seventies and eighties. Really the
Speaker 2: golden era of these types of films. Like Canada during
Speaker 2: the late seventies and eighties, there was a lot of
Speaker 2: government grants and tax breaks to make movies here in Australia,
Speaker 2: and so the upshot was a lot of weird and
Speaker 2: wonderful B grade movies without their concepts that would never
Speaker 2: have been made by mainstream film companies in Australia. You
Speaker 2: kind of had to make period films or something set
Speaker 2: in the outback to get made, to get funding were made.
Speaker 2: Sorry that the sentence had a big aside in the middle,
Speaker 2: but you get the idea. Lee says, I give you
Speaker 2: a potential list of weird and wonderful OSSI films that
Speaker 2: are literally a treasure trove of bizarreness to delve into
Speaker 2: a rich sem of weirdness, or to mine if you like.
Speaker 2: One of the filmmakers who is considered at the forefront
Speaker 2: of this era of Australian cinema is the director Brian
Speaker 2: Trenchard Smith, a favorite of one Quentin Tarantino. His films
Speaker 2: to look out for are Turkey Shoot, highly recommended. It
Speaker 2: gets strange. Think Deadliest Game on drug lace steroids, Okay,
Speaker 2: death Cheaters, stunts, stunts and more, stunts, cheating on death,
Speaker 2: dead in drive In? What if a drive in was
Speaker 2: turned into a concentration camp for all the freaks and
Speaker 2: weird of society? My ex girlfriend was in this one. Oh,
Speaker 2: I've not seen this one, but I am familiar with
Speaker 2: this one by reputation.
Speaker 3: Okay, wait, so does the drive In here play movie? Still?
Speaker 2: I think so?
Speaker 3: Yeah? Okay.
Speaker 2: The Man from Hong Kong an early classic insane martial
Speaker 2: arts film Stunt Rock so weird? Is this movie about
Speaker 2: death defying stunts or a rock band? I'm still not sure?
Speaker 3: Oh no, wait a minute. This next one I have
Speaker 3: talked about on the show multiple times. So I have
Speaker 3: seen an osploitation.
Speaker 2: Movie, Yes, Razorback Russell McKay Hilander and eighties music video
Speaker 2: director Think Duran Duran. Yes, multiple Duran Duran videos, including
Speaker 2: the excellent Wild Boys, which I'll both talked about before. Yeah,
Speaker 2: great track, amazing video Bonnie Tyler's Total Eclipse of the Heart,
Speaker 2: which again is amazing, amazing, a great track, amazing video.
Speaker 2: But anyway, it points out that this was Russell's first
Speaker 2: attempt at a feature film. Hungry Like the Wolf meets
Speaker 2: a giant wild pig that terrorizes farm people in the
Speaker 2: Australian Outback.
Speaker 3: Yes, this has come up several times on the show.
Speaker 3: I think we talked about it, certainly in our episodes
Speaker 3: on Highland Er to the Quickening because same director or wait, no, dude,
Speaker 3: yeah direct, Oh he did make the second he made
Speaker 3: at least the first time he made him both. Yes, okay, yes,
Speaker 3: but yeah. I described it as like Australian Texas Chainsaw
Speaker 3: Massacre as the setting. It's like, you know, use the
Speaker 3: outback instead of Texas there, so it's like a gross, grimy, gory,
Speaker 3: redneck slaughter house sort of thing. But then it's also
Speaker 3: at the same time as that Jaws, but with a
Speaker 3: pig instead of a shark.
Speaker 2: It sounds like a winner. I'm game. But there's more
Speaker 2: on this list. Stone Aussie biker's on well if not
Speaker 2: acid something or other. Hugh keys Burn in the role
Speaker 2: that was the precursor to his role as toe Cutter
Speaker 2: in the original Mad Max or road Warrior.
Speaker 3: Wait a minute, or road Warrior. I feel like I'm
Speaker 3: getting confused here, or was the title mixed up in
Speaker 3: other versions because I thought toe Cutter was only in
Speaker 3: the original Mad Max. And then also, of course the
Speaker 3: Hugh keys Burn came back in Furry Road.
Speaker 2: To play yeah, place the main antagonist in Furry Road.
Speaker 2: You know, I don't remember. It's been so long since
Speaker 2: I've seen any of the Mel Gibson Road Warrior films.
Speaker 2: I've only seen the two new ones in recent memory.
Speaker 3: Oh man, Well, you know, it's been a while since
Speaker 3: I've seen the older ones. But I think of Mad
Speaker 3: Max as ones where like the originals were great and
Speaker 3: had their own gritty integrity, and the new ones are
Speaker 3: amazing as well.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the second one especially was a big favorite of
Speaker 2: mine back when I was like in junior high. I think,
Speaker 2: so I need to revisit that one at some point. Anyway,
Speaker 2: they continue. There are a stack more, but these are
Speaker 2: a good starting If you want to delve deeper into
Speaker 2: the osploitation films of the seventies and eighties, you can't
Speaker 2: go past this documentary that features Quentin Tarantino. He has
Speaker 2: an abiding love of the Aussie films of this era,
Speaker 2: not quite Hollywood, the wild, untold story of osploitation. I
Speaker 2: hope you take a look at one or more of
Speaker 2: these completely insane flicks for your show. All the best
Speaker 2: and enjoy Leif.
Speaker 3: Thank you so much, Leif.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that documentary came out in two thousand and eight.
Speaker 3: By the way, all right now, I think we should
Speaker 3: shift into covering some responses to our couple of episodes
Speaker 3: on The wicker Man. These messages and our responses to
Speaker 3: them will have spoilers for the movie. So if you
Speaker 3: haven't seen The wicker Man and you want to go
Speaker 3: into it unspoiled, which I would recommend, this is the
Speaker 3: place to go watch it now, or at least consider
Speaker 3: yourself warn This first message comes from Joe, not from me,
Speaker 3: from a different Joe. Subject line pluggs and cynics. Hello, gentlemen.
Speaker 3: I have a confession. I almost never watch your weird
Speaker 3: house movies. For some reason, I quite enjoy listening to
Speaker 3: you talk about movies I haven't seen. My wife says
Speaker 3: it's odd, and perhaps it is, but being odd rarely
Speaker 3: stops me. However, taking note of your peculiar intensity. I
Speaker 3: went ahead and saw the Wickerman between the first and
Speaker 3: second parts, and it did not disappoint. I've been mulling
Speaker 3: over it all week, particularly the many, many times the
Speaker 3: Islanders gave the detective the opportunity to pull himself off
Speaker 3: the path to the Wickerman, from the first moment, where
Speaker 3: he could have subjected himself to Lord Summerle, but instead
Speaker 3: insisted he came with the power of the crown to
Speaker 3: the night. He could have given in to Willow's temptation
Speaker 3: and no longer been the virgin they needed, but instead
Speaker 3: chose his vows to choosing to wear the fool's raiment
Speaker 3: at each turn, faced with the opportunity to choose uncivilization,
Speaker 3: animal instinct, and base tribalism. I didn't watch the final cut,
Speaker 3: but your description of the scene with the slugs captured
Speaker 3: the essence of that. A core impulse of the film
Speaker 3: was this sense that civilization is a high wire act
Speaker 3: without a net, that the gravity of our animal state
Speaker 3: is hungry to reclaim us, and that there is something
Speaker 3: good and natural and above all tempting about just letting
Speaker 3: yourself fall. It reminded me of your recent discussion of
Speaker 3: Cynic philosophy. There's a through line there the nobility of
Speaker 3: giving into your base animal self. Thanks as always for
Speaker 3: the thoughtful discussion, Joe.
Speaker 2: That's a good point. I mean really, in the later
Speaker 2: portions of the film, like the townspeople embody animals, they
Speaker 2: become animals, they transform into animals to elimined but powerful
Speaker 2: extent in a way that people have throughout human history
Speaker 2: via costumes. So it's yeah, I think there's some interesting
Speaker 2: comparisons to be made to Cynic for the philosophy here.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, And Joe, I think your description of the movies
Speaker 3: ethos that that civilization and Christianity are, Yeah, there's a
Speaker 3: precariousness to them. There's something about how they're you know,
Speaker 3: they take great effort to maintain, and there's always sort
Speaker 3: of like a wobbling, wobbling wire underneath them where any
Speaker 3: moment they could they could just kind of plummet back
Speaker 3: into something else, something deeper, something older.
Speaker 2: All right, here's another wicker Man message system comes to
Speaker 2: us from Lawrence. Hey, guys, just a few remarks on
Speaker 2: or sort of related to part one of your discussion
Speaker 2: on the wicker Man. I apologoz in advance for the
Speaker 2: meandering and irrelelent quality of these remarks, but it's a sorry,
Speaker 2: not sorry sort of apology. We're talking about weird house here.
Speaker 2: True enough, I've seen a film twice, both times on
Speaker 2: broadcast television. I think both times were in the eighties,
Speaker 2: but the first might have been in the late seventies.
Speaker 2: Pretty sure. Both were late shows, so I would have
Speaker 2: been tired and watching mostly out of insomnia. Because it
Speaker 2: was broadcast TV. There was, of course no nudity, but
Speaker 2: as best I recalled, the girl was plenty sexy without it.
Speaker 2: I was less impressed than you with the documentary style
Speaker 2: camera work. I would have preferred something more cinematic than Again,
Speaker 2: I was young, and I wasn't put off by Howie's
Speaker 2: abrasive nature so much as you were. I figured he's
Speaker 2: a cop and these people were hiding something, and I
Speaker 2: missed a lot a lot of the same clues that
Speaker 2: he did. I only caught them on my second viewing,
Speaker 2: when I already knew the film's ending. I was struck
Speaker 2: when you mentioned Charlton Heston in The Crucifer of Blood.
Speaker 2: I was not aware that this had been adapted to film,
Speaker 2: but I saw the world premiere production of the play
Speaker 2: with my father back in the seventies in Buffalo before
Speaker 2: the production went to Broadway. I remember that when the
Speaker 2: Studio Arena Theater first announced the season, the working title
Speaker 2: was The Blood Triangle. By the time the play opened,
Speaker 2: they had changed it to The Crucifer of Blood Sherlock
Speaker 2: was played by Paxton Whitehead in that production, and Glenn
Speaker 2: Close played the character based on Mary Morston in The
Speaker 2: Sign of Four, from which the play was freely adapted.
Speaker 2: They changed her name in the play. No idea who
Speaker 2: played Watson. I was impressed with Whitehead's performance, but when
Speaker 2: I told my dad this, he muttered, He's no Basil Rathbone,
Speaker 2: just as Jeremy Brett will always be Sherlock for you.
Speaker 2: For him, it would always be Rathbone. He did, however,
Speaker 2: like Brett in the role of Holmes on television, but
Speaker 2: that was some time after we saw the play. I
Speaker 2: think I was still living at home when we saw
Speaker 2: the first season of Brett's Sherlock Holmes broadcast on the
Speaker 2: CBC out of Toronto. You could view Toronto stations in
Speaker 2: Buffalo with somewhat fuzzy reception. Later we would occasionally get
Speaker 2: together to watch subsequent seasons on PPS. Your mention of
Speaker 2: Heston as Holmes gave me what I think may be
Speaker 2: the answer to a question you post. Is there another
Speaker 2: example of a non comical detective who is sympathetic, unsympathetic, intelligent, obtuse, abrasive,
Speaker 2: but likable, and who keeps missing clues and doesn't find
Speaker 2: the solution until it is tragically thrust down his throat.
Speaker 2: It's Heston as George Taylor in the nineteen sixty eight
Speaker 2: film adaptation of Planet of the Apes.
Speaker 3: Wow. I would not have made that connection, but Lawrence,
Speaker 3: this is good. I feel like there are some strong
Speaker 3: similarities between the Wickerman and Planet of the Apes.
Speaker 2: Ooh goodness, Yes, yes there is. I mean right down
Speaker 2: to some of the ooh I kind of want to
Speaker 2: compare the final sequences in both films.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean a lot of differences too, though, because
Speaker 3: like the locals in Planet of the Apes are the
Speaker 3: apes on Planet of the Apes do not embody a
Speaker 3: kind of retreat into paganism, and they are representing more
Speaker 3: the witch hunting civilizational authority. But in the main character
Speaker 3: as the isolated investigator who's not himself all that you know,
Speaker 3: powerful as an investigator in the structure of a lot
Speaker 3: of the revelations, there are some major similarities that are
Speaker 3: quite interesting. I like this observation.
Speaker 2: All right, Lawrence continues and says, Okay, Taylor is an astronaut,
Speaker 2: not a detective. But he's an astronaut solving a mystery,
Speaker 2: which makes him a kind of detective, and I think
Speaker 2: he fits the bill. There may be other candidates for
Speaker 2: this category, but none come to mind at this moment.
Speaker 2: That's all I have for now. I look forward to
Speaker 2: hearing part two of your conversation. Thanks guys, Lawrence.
Speaker 3: I'm gonna have to keep thinking about this Planet of
Speaker 3: the Apes Wickerman comparison, especially in that both films involve
Speaker 3: a twist, like a horrifying twist ending with the revelation
Speaker 3: of a giant Let's just say not to spoil anything
Speaker 3: about the Planet of the Apes if you actually haven't
Speaker 3: seen it and don't know the ending from The Simpsons
Speaker 3: or something. A giant anthropoid kind of structure.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, this one is often spoiled by popular culture.
Speaker 2: I think somehow or another, I managed to see it
Speaker 2: as a kid without knowing the twist, which was pretty
Speaker 2: magical me too.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I saw it actually at the beach. A relative
Speaker 3: of mine rented it from Blockbuster when we were staying
Speaker 3: at the beach time. Yeah, and I don't know why,
Speaker 3: but I thought it was good anyway. This next message
Speaker 3: is from Matt. Matt says, my name is Matt. Longtime listener,
Speaker 3: first time writing. And of course this is also about
Speaker 3: the Wickerman, the scene where Willow and her father were
Speaker 3: using the hand of Glory. You said it didn't work.
Speaker 3: My impression was that they were saying, gee, I hope
Speaker 3: he's not lying awake in there listening to us. Conspired
Speaker 3: to make him sleep with this macabre artifact. Wink wink.
Speaker 3: I sure hope he doesn't leave the pub and try
Speaker 3: to interfere with the Mayday festival. Wink wink.
Speaker 2: That's a good point. That was a good point.
Speaker 3: It seemed like it was part of the ruse to
Speaker 3: provoke Howie to do that very thing, although I'm not
Speaker 3: sure the innkeeper planned on getting hit in the head
Speaker 3: and tied up on a lighter yet still dark note.
Speaker 3: I found myself wanting to compare Sergeant Howie to Simon
Speaker 3: Pegg's Sergeant Angel from the film Hot Fuzz. Sergeant Angel
Speaker 3: is a London police officer who is reassigned to a
Speaker 3: small rural village because he's such an overachiever he makes
Speaker 3: everyone else look bad. Is it possible that Sergeant Howie's
Speaker 3: colleagues and superiors, and possibly his fiance, whom I don't
Speaker 3: remember seeing in the version I watched, dislike Sergeant Howie
Speaker 3: so much that they set him up to be sent
Speaker 3: off to be sacrificed by an island full of pagans.
Speaker 3: What a horrible thought. Love the show best wishes.
Speaker 2: Well, that's a good point. You know, I haven't seen
Speaker 2: Hot Fuzz in a number of years that Edward Woodward
Speaker 2: was of course in Hot Fuzz, so this comparison, potential
Speaker 2: comparison might have very much been on their mind.
Speaker 3: Yeah, a big city police officer goes to a rural
Speaker 3: village and encounter as a conspiracy there. There's a similarity,
Speaker 3: though the nature of the conspiracy and Hot Fuzz is
Speaker 3: quite different. But yeah, yeah, I recall It's been a while,
Speaker 3: but I recall quite liking Hot Fuzz.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, I remember enjoying it. Oh Man,
Speaker 2: every time I think about the Wickerman that I keep
Speaker 2: coming back to this idea that entered my mind that
Speaker 2: what if Howie, what if they couldn't send Howe, what
Speaker 2: if they had to send another detective? And it was,
Speaker 2: in fact a detective played by Oliver Reed, who you
Speaker 2: know has been like divorced three times and like immediately
Speaker 2: gets drunk in the pub, immediately sleeps with Willow and
Speaker 2: then like gives them nothing to get. Like, we can't
Speaker 2: sacrifice this guy. We can't put him in the wicker Man.
Speaker 2: What are we gonna do? They try to make him
Speaker 2: leave the island, and he's just like in bed smoking.
Speaker 3: Yeah, no.
Speaker 2: To do Yeah, all right, here we go. We have
Speaker 2: another one from a different Matt. Matt writes in it says,
Speaker 2: good day, Felons. I've written to you about agricultural subjects
Speaker 2: a few times in the past, and this is another
Speaker 2: such message. Loved The wicker Man revisit seems I enjoy
Speaker 2: the film more each time I watch it. Something I
Speaker 2: never caught before was Sergeant Howie, right prior to being
Speaker 2: locked into the Wickerman's chest cavity, saying something to the
Speaker 2: effect of it was your cultivars that failed you, implying
Speaker 2: to a degree a lack of resilience in the particular
Speaker 2: varieties of fruits in part apples in this case to
Speaker 2: inclement conditions. This got me thinking, is there actually a
Speaker 2: Summer Ale, or possibly even a witcher Man apple cultivar?
Speaker 2: I checked, and unfortunately, no, there doesn't appear to be one.
Speaker 2: I'd love to hear I'm wrong from another listener, though.
Speaker 2: Still that means a new cultivar could be named in
Speaker 2: this fashion, something any apple breeders out there might want
Speaker 2: to consider.
Speaker 3: I would buy so many of these apples. I would
Speaker 3: get them every time at the store.
Speaker 2: I mean, I love a good apple. It would depend
Speaker 2: on it being tasty. I don't know how you're gonna
Speaker 2: beat fuji. Fuji is the best apple for me. For me,
Speaker 2: I love various various apples, but the fuji is might
Speaker 2: go too.
Speaker 3: I love every kind of apple except red delicious. I
Speaker 3: don't understand how people eat red delicious apples.
Speaker 2: Well, you know they had. They felt like they had
Speaker 2: to put delicious in the title to sell it. They
Speaker 2: don't call it the fuji delicious, Like everybody knows the
Speaker 2: fuji is delicious, and you're not trying to force it
Speaker 2: on anyone with some sort of a snappy title. Anyway,
Speaker 2: they continue. I did speculate that historic Scottish apple varieties
Speaker 2: could have conceivably grown well in a western Heberdeene Island,
Speaker 2: presumably somewhere near Isle of Sky, as some of the
Speaker 2: as seen from plain footage I believe features the sky landscape.
Speaker 2: I should add here that if memories serves, some of
Speaker 2: the aerial photography early on in the picture is actually
Speaker 2: South Africa as well.
Speaker 3: Yeah, there's some I think that is in Scotland or
Speaker 3: the Hebridese, but there is some from South Africa.
Speaker 2: You're right, they continue. Apparently there's one called the Bloody Plowman, which,
Speaker 2: while not from the Hebridese, was developed from another highly
Speaker 2: productive agricultural region in Scotland around eighteen hundred. Wikipedia sources
Speaker 2: the following as a rather chilling source for the apple's name.
Speaker 3: Quote.
Speaker 2: It is reputed two have got its name after a
Speaker 2: gamekeeper shot dead of plowman caught stealing apples from the
Speaker 2: and I may be saying this wrong mcginch estate. When
Speaker 2: his body was returned to his wife, she found stolen
Speaker 2: apples in his pockets and threw them onto the rubbish heap.
Speaker 2: One of the resulting seedlings bore apples of a deep
Speaker 2: blood red. This tree gave rise to the cultivar that
Speaker 2: was named after the unfortunate plowman.
Speaker 3: That's funny, I have Okay, even if this story is
Speaker 3: literally true, I really have doubts that the blood running
Speaker 3: into the apples there would affect the colors of the
Speaker 3: fruits produced.
Speaker 2: They continued. There's also Galloway, developed some time in the
Speaker 2: mid Victorian period, so seemingly around the original summer Lord
Speaker 2: Somerle's efforts, and presumably near the west coast of the
Speaker 2: Scottish mainland, but its name isn't as intriguing. And lastly,
Speaker 2: if Summerle cultivars are indeed failing, one has to wonder why,
Speaker 2: assuming it's not just Bread's or another farming deities wrath.
Speaker 2: Is it the result of intermittent cl slimactic shifts eg
Speaker 2: slight changes in c currents, a shifting frost free date,
Speaker 2: the time of year when frosts become exceedingly unlikely, and
Speaker 2: such like. If so, in the existing cultivars might for example,
Speaker 2: experience bloom periods that don't line up with weather pattern changes.
Speaker 2: Those islanders are in a bad way. They better get
Speaker 2: apple breeding because doing so without the use of modern
Speaker 2: tools like gene editing, means the process takes a very
Speaker 2: long time. Trees don't grow overnight. Of course, if it's
Speaker 2: not just weather patterns changing, perhaps there are new pests
Speaker 2: in the area, even invasive ones. Maybe some new insects
Speaker 2: arriving on the wind eight all the lady birds, thus
Speaker 2: allowing aphid populations to explode. That's just a hypothetical example,
Speaker 2: but new or otherwise crafty insect pests is a continual
Speaker 2: challenge for farmers around the world. Adding to the problem
Speaker 2: might be an ineffective use or lack of use altogether
Speaker 2: of crop protection products like fungicides or insecticides. Even in
Speaker 2: modern organic farming, there are some tools available in this
Speaker 2: regard to help protect crops from disease and harmful insects,
Speaker 2: which again could conceivably be getting worse from weather pattern alterations.
Speaker 2: Perhaps the strong nature focus of Summer Islanders means they
Speaker 2: have traditionally exkewed such tools for fear of offending the
Speaker 2: old gods. Regardless, methinks the years following the Wickerman's filming,
Speaker 2: were it real, would have a lot of burning going on.
Speaker 2: Probably not somewhere a guy would want to be on
Speaker 2: May Day, inviting though the local pubs. Certainly, it's a
Speaker 2: great pair of episodes.
Speaker 3: Matt, Well, thank you so much, Matt. That is fantastic.
Speaker 3: Matt has many times in the past written great emails,
Speaker 3: often about farming and agricultural technology, and my experience of
Speaker 3: the Wickerman is so much richer now for having read this.
Speaker 3: Thank you.
Speaker 2: Yeah, these are a lot of points that I just
Speaker 2: kind of took for granted focusing on other aspects of
Speaker 2: the story. But yeah, the agricultural skeleton of the piece
Speaker 2: is also pretty fascinating. And Matt goes on to recommend
Speaker 2: that we do a futurepisode of following a crop from
Speaker 2: its historical origin to its modern cultivation, and I think
Speaker 2: this is a solid, solid idea. This, of course, has
Speaker 2: been done particularly well in the past by the likes
Speaker 2: of Michael Pollen, So if anyone out there hasn't read
Speaker 2: or listened to the excellent audiobooks of Michael Polland's work,
Speaker 2: he has several different books that get into this with
Speaker 2: particular crops. All right, we're going to go ahead and
Speaker 2: close this episode here, but we'd love to hear from
Speaker 2: everybody right in with your listener mails to the email
Speaker 2: address we're going to provide here in a minute, again
Speaker 2: just about anything as fair game content related to past episodes,
Speaker 2: future episodes, present episodes, you name it, just to remind
Speaker 2: us of the Stuff to Blow Your Mind is primarily
Speaker 2: a science and culture of podcast, with core episodes on
Speaker 2: Tuesdays and Thursdays, short form episode on Wednesdays and on Fridays.
Speaker 2: We set aside most concerns to just talk about a
Speaker 2: weird film on Weird House Cinema.
Speaker 3: Huge things, 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 at stuff to blow
Speaker 3: your Mind dot com.
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