Speaker 1: Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. This is
Speaker 1: Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick, and today's Vault episode
Speaker 1: is going to be called Melt with Me. This one
Speaker 1: originally published November five. It's all about melting. Yeah, it's uh,
Speaker 1: you know, we get into you know, phase transition, and
Speaker 1: we talk a little bit about movies that feature people melting.
Speaker 1: Is I recall this one kind of gets There's some
Speaker 1: science in here, for sure, but it's also kind of
Speaker 1: a free form uh you know, philosophical uh, pondering of
Speaker 1: melting people and what they mean. Why do we keep
Speaker 1: coming back to this idea of melting and is it good?
Speaker 1: Is it bad? Is it both? We'll let you decide.
Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind production of My
Speaker 1: Heart Radio. Hey you welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind.
Speaker 1: Mine name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick, and
Speaker 1: Halloween Hangover Week continues. Rob today, I think you wanted
Speaker 1: to talk a little bit about melting. Yeah. So basically
Speaker 1: the reason for this episode is that we are publishing
Speaker 1: this the first week of November, but we were recording
Speaker 1: at the last week of October, so we didn't want
Speaker 1: to work on any non Halloween material the week of Halloween.
Speaker 1: Uh So Halloween on the show is lasting an extra week.
Speaker 1: Uh So we're going to get into some topics here
Speaker 1: that are a little bit horror themed in places, but
Speaker 1: also I think go beyond horror and maybe just get
Speaker 1: into a study of a very particular symbol or metaphor
Speaker 1: in the human experience and a discussion of what it means.
Speaker 1: You know, one of the first movies we talked about
Speaker 1: in October this year, I think it was the first
Speaker 1: one was was the House of Wax movie starring Vincent Price.
Speaker 1: So we did a whole episode about wax horror. And
Speaker 1: one of the things that you see time and again
Speaker 1: in these wax murder movies is there's the scene where
Speaker 1: the Palace of Wax burns down and you watch all
Speaker 1: of the wax figures melting. Uh It's got to happen
Speaker 1: in every one of these stories, and there's clearly some
Speaker 1: kind of psychological thing going on where the imagery they're
Speaker 1: is supposed to resemble human beings actually melting, and that's
Speaker 1: what the fascination is in. But another thing about it
Speaker 1: that just recently struck me as a reason to have
Speaker 1: those wax figure melting scenes is it's almost like a
Speaker 1: way of sneaking in gore extra gore around the sensors.
Speaker 1: Like if you couldn't get a melting human past you know,
Speaker 1: the m P A A or whatever, you probably can
Speaker 1: get some melting humanoid wax figures. Yeah. I wonder, like
Speaker 1: how much violence and gore involving a clear um mannequin
Speaker 1: or wax figure, you know, just a pure effigy could
Speaker 1: you get away with? Uh? I mean to a certain extent.
Speaker 1: You see that with other things, right, Like you hear
Speaker 1: about movies where they're like, oh, yeah, we decided that
Speaker 1: the monster or the villain should have green blood because
Speaker 1: then we can use as much as we want. But
Speaker 1: if it were red, we couldn't show it. That sort
Speaker 1: of thing. So but yeah, I think, you know, it
Speaker 1: kind of it ties back to a lot of the
Speaker 1: themes that we talked about in the wax episode, you know,
Speaker 1: like what happens when we watch violence involving an effigy
Speaker 1: or some sort of sacrament involving an effigy. Uh, you know,
Speaker 1: we we can't help but associate then those movements violent
Speaker 1: or otherwise with the person that it is resembling or
Speaker 1: like just a human in general. Uh. And it's it's
Speaker 1: fitting that we kicked off our Halloween season this year
Speaker 1: with Wax and we're going to close it out with
Speaker 1: the Melt. Now, there are a couple of ways you
Speaker 1: could look at this. One I think is just there
Speaker 1: is a good melting scene in a movie, such as
Speaker 1: in Raiders of the Lost Arc has a famous classic
Speaker 1: Nazi melting scene. But then on the other end of
Speaker 1: the spectrum, you can you can go, you can really
Speaker 1: embrace it to the the nth degree and go full
Speaker 1: melt movie, which is a sort of sub genre of
Speaker 1: its own, of like horror, gore, gross out films that
Speaker 1: are all just about people melting. Well. It's it's kind
Speaker 1: of the difference between a like a blockbuster like Raiders,
Speaker 1: and a smaller picture or a B picture, right like
Speaker 1: Raiders is a film that does a lot of things
Speaker 1: exceedingly well, and one of them is the use of
Speaker 1: a practical special effect to make it look like someone's melting.
Speaker 1: But a lot of times with these b with a
Speaker 1: B film, you know you're lucky if you get one
Speaker 1: thing that's done really well, and sometimes like that is
Speaker 1: the that is the push with the film, like that
Speaker 1: is the energy of the film, Like, look, we can
Speaker 1: do a really good melting scene. Let's build a movie
Speaker 1: around our ability to do this, or at least our
Speaker 1: desire to do this. You know. Well, it's kind of
Speaker 1: like how a B movie can maybe have a budget
Speaker 1: for one star, so you can just get Vincent Price
Speaker 1: or something, and then you try to build it around
Speaker 1: that star. Or maybe if you just have a budget
Speaker 1: for a really good makeup perfects artists, then you build
Speaker 1: the whole film around that. Yeah, exactly, and and in
Speaker 1: many cases that that can be enough. Um. I also
Speaker 1: think it's certainly a case, especially with some of these
Speaker 1: earlier pictures we're talking about, where they they strike a
Speaker 1: chord and they they for Like, there's something about the
Speaker 1: melting human that resonates strongly with us and makes us
Speaker 1: want to go back and re examine it. Maybe not
Speaker 1: so deeply certainly with some of these films, but we
Speaker 1: have to come back for more. There's just something intriguing
Speaker 1: about about the melting human. And I think a lot
Speaker 1: of it does go back to wax effigies and some
Speaker 1: of the things we discussed in that past episode. But
Speaker 1: in terms of just the cinnamon that we grow up
Speaker 1: on for my own part, and I feel like other
Speaker 1: people probably share this cinematic legacy as well. I think
Speaker 1: of Raiders of course from eighty one, which we just
Speaker 1: just discussed. But the other big one, of course is
Speaker 1: The Wizard of Oz, which is not the goryous scene ever,
Speaker 1: but a very memorable scene often seen at a young
Speaker 1: age for the first time, in which the wicked Witch
Speaker 1: of the West is splashed with water and melts away
Speaker 1: into like smoking nothingness. The feeling of that scene is
Speaker 1: very much defined by the fact that it's water that
Speaker 1: does it. If it had been sulfuric acid or something
Speaker 1: that supposedly melts her, that scene would be more horrific,
Speaker 1: But the fact that she's melted by water gives it
Speaker 1: a fairy tale kind of quality that actually makes it
Speaker 1: less body horrific, less gruesome, and more magical and and
Speaker 1: like something that would happen in a grim's fairy tale. Yeah, yeah, exactly,
Speaker 1: something that the purity of water is the only thing
Speaker 1: you could destroy such a like a foul creature, right though,
Speaker 1: that would be a hilarious ending to the movie where
Speaker 1: they find out the secret is you've got to throw
Speaker 1: sulfuric acid on the witch. Alright, well, we're gonna we're
Speaker 1: gonna get more into the contemplative part of this podcast
Speaker 1: in a bit, but we need to go ahead and
Speaker 1: talk about a few other melt movies before we move forward,
Speaker 1: just to establish the firm ground upon which we're going
Speaker 1: to build everything else. And I think one of the
Speaker 1: one of the big ones is all I don't know,
Speaker 1: maybe for some of you have never heard of it,
Speaker 1: but a big one for me is seven The Incredible
Speaker 1: Melting Man. Then the plot here is, uh, it was
Speaker 1: not original to this picture. There have been some There's
Speaker 1: been at least one other film, probably more before it
Speaker 1: that explored a similar contemplation, and that is, Uh, you
Speaker 1: have an astronaut goes into space, is exposed to cosmic radiation,
Speaker 1: and he brings this home. In this case, the radiation
Speaker 1: has caused him to melt, and he can slow down
Speaker 1: this melting by eating human flesh, and he also has
Speaker 1: radioactive powers. If I'm remembering correctly, Uh, seems kind of
Speaker 1: similar to the plot of Monster A Go Go, if
Speaker 1: I recall correct Yeah, And I think there's um, there's
Speaker 1: a there's a move with Frankenstein in the title that
Speaker 1: has a similar element, like like clearly meets the space monster.
Speaker 1: Is that I think it had a similar plot. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and I think there are more films because obviously you
Speaker 1: you're dealing with the this this one is perhaps the
Speaker 1: kind of an homage to the radioactive cinema of the
Speaker 1: previous decades. And like this was on everybody's mind in
Speaker 1: the post war period in the in the shadow of
Speaker 1: the Mushroom Cloud, you know, this was these were the
Speaker 1: kinds of of of myths we kept stirring up. Now,
Speaker 1: many of you probably know this film because it was
Speaker 1: featured on Mystery Science Theater three thousand back in the day.
Speaker 1: And the other thing that's really key about it is
Speaker 1: that the legendary Rick Baker did effects on it, and
Speaker 1: the effects are quite terrifying. Of these this like melting Man.
Speaker 1: It's just kind of like perpetually melting despite throughout the film.
Speaker 1: Um and uh, maybe in part because of the effectiveness
Speaker 1: of those effects. This this is what started out as
Speaker 1: an intended horror parody became a straight horror film. Like
Speaker 1: the producers apparently took comedic scenes out of the picture
Speaker 1: in order to emphasize the horror. Uh. That's something about
Speaker 1: the melting man, especially when depicted convincingly through you know,
Speaker 1: someone's worth like Rick Baker's, that you just can't ignore.
Speaker 1: Movies don't usually go that way during direction. It's much
Speaker 1: more common for them to go the other way, where
Speaker 1: you embrace comedy and add more comedy in Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: like this looks this look looks dumb. Let's have it
Speaker 1: up a little bit. Let's pretend like we meant to
Speaker 1: do this. Uh. An interesting fact about the melt effects
Speaker 1: in this film. Um, the Rick big Baker films apparently
Speaker 1: inspired uh, the effects in RoboCop. You know, there's an
Speaker 1: infamous scene in RoboCop where one of the hinchmen gets
Speaker 1: toxic waste of splattered all over them and they started melting. Yeah,
Speaker 1: a scene that really shook me when I saw it
Speaker 1: way too early in my life. Children should not watch RoboCop. No,
Speaker 1: not at all. So in these two previous examples, we
Speaker 1: mentioned the melt almost being in parody, uh, or you know,
Speaker 1: in the case of RoboCop playing into sort of an
Speaker 1: ultra violent satire of American culture. But there are more
Speaker 1: comedic examples to consider as well. One of them I
Speaker 1: believe you've seen this, and I think we've talked about
Speaker 1: this and before Joe, but Street Trash, it's been a
Speaker 1: long time since I saw but my my friend Ben
Speaker 1: showed it to me many many years ago, and it
Speaker 1: is that is a absolutely grotesque film of the highest order. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it is a it's a I guess it's supposed to
Speaker 1: be a black comedy. Uh, you know, it's filled with gallows, humor,
Speaker 1: um and just just atrocities. It's just an atrocious film
Speaker 1: you should not watch unless you were into atrocious nineteen
Speaker 1: eight cinema, even less for children than RoboCop. Yeah, it's uh,
Speaker 1: it is just wall to wall humans melting and disgusting nastiness. Yeah.
Speaker 1: But the the the key melt and it has a
Speaker 1: fabulous melt scene in It involves this this plot element
Speaker 1: where there's this cheap liquor that's going around. I think
Speaker 1: it's called like Tina fly Viper. Yeah. They find it
Speaker 1: in the basement of a liquor store and start selling
Speaker 1: it and it makes people melt. Yeah. Like there's a
Speaker 1: scene where a like a homeless individual or a hobo
Speaker 1: or or something, um it gets a bottle of this
Speaker 1: starts drinking and then starts melting whilst sitting on a
Speaker 1: like a a discarded toilet out in a junk field,
Speaker 1: and he melts into the toilet and then goes down
Speaker 1: the toilet bowl. But they do it in a way
Speaker 1: where it's like, it's not like a purely gory melt
Speaker 1: like it has. It's kind of a technicolor melt, so
Speaker 1: it's not actually as bloody or gross as I'm making
Speaker 1: it sound. It's more surreal and comic. Bookie, Well, it
Speaker 1: is gross, but as he melts into the toilet, he's
Speaker 1: turning Lisa Frank colors, so he's like blue and green
Speaker 1: and pink as he melts. Now, another movie that has, uh,
Speaker 1: if not absolute melting, something very much like melting troll
Speaker 1: To from Ah Yes where uh So, I watched troll
Speaker 1: To probably at least fifty times when I was in college.
Speaker 1: But it's weird because now it's been a while since
Speaker 1: I've seen it. We're we're about to rewatch it for
Speaker 1: Weird House Cinema. But what I recall is there's like
Speaker 1: nilbog milk in this town full of goblins, and when
Speaker 1: people drink it or eat the food they're or whatever,
Speaker 1: it is they get poisoned and then their bodies are
Speaker 1: reduced to this kind of green sap as they slowly
Speaker 1: turned into plants and green jello, and they become food
Speaker 1: for vegetarian goblins pretty much. Yeah. So if that sounds intriguing, Uh,
Speaker 1: pay attention to our feed. We'll come back and discuss
Speaker 1: it in in full. Into a little bit. Another melt movie,
Speaker 1: this one from the eighties is the Stuff. This one
Speaker 1: is by the Master Larry Cohen, starring Saturday Night Live's
Speaker 1: Garrett Morris. And this is one I haven't actually seen,
Speaker 1: but I have seen the key melting scene in it,
Speaker 1: in which Garrett Morris kind of mutate slash slash melts
Speaker 1: into a big blob of killer cool whip. If I recall,
Speaker 1: the real moral of the stuff is that you need
Speaker 1: a strong f DA with good inspection provisions and regulations
Speaker 1: on consumer goods, because I think it's like a packaged
Speaker 1: yogurt product or something like that that ends up turning
Speaker 1: people into into liquid and that Let's see, what are
Speaker 1: some other melt films that come to mind? Um, or
Speaker 1: at least scenes that have films that have good melt
Speaker 1: scenes in them. Uh, these are all played for straight horror.
Speaker 1: But there's the Devil's Rain, that's where the rain melts
Speaker 1: the Satanist. There's some melting in the Evil Dead. Obviously,
Speaker 1: the Gremlins movies have some fabulous melting. Warlock has a
Speaker 1: melt scene. As I recall, The Blob is actually a
Speaker 1: wonderful melt film, and that not only is the Blob
Speaker 1: itself very amorphous and melty, but it's it's always just
Speaker 1: any time it gets a person, it starts melting and
Speaker 1: it starts dissolving them, digesting them, uh, in real grotesque time. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the Blob, I think is a is an underrated type
Speaker 1: of horror because something you know, if we were like
Speaker 1: smaller types of animals, there could be real blob type
Speaker 1: horror to worry about in the real world. I don't
Speaker 1: think there are any major predators that would, uh, that
Speaker 1: would prey on a human sized organism by digesting it
Speaker 1: externally with enzymes. But that happens all the time to
Speaker 1: you know, smaller types of creatures in the ocean or
Speaker 1: in the like insect world. I mean basically, a lot
Speaker 1: of what a spider does to you if it catches
Speaker 1: you is it will sort of spit enzymes into you
Speaker 1: that dissolve your inner body parts, melt them and turn
Speaker 1: them into a soup that the spider can suck out
Speaker 1: of you. Do you remember the of I know the
Speaker 1: answer to this. I know you remember these guys. But
Speaker 1: the winged creatures and Beastmaster. Yes, they do a form
Speaker 1: of external digestion on the creatures they catch. They like
Speaker 1: wrap them in their big wings and then they just
Speaker 1: like turned to jelly and then presumably they eat at
Speaker 1: least some of the jelly. Nice um. Other films, let's see,
Speaker 1: take more of a weird sci fi approach to melting.
Speaker 1: A time cop which we've we've mentioned on the show before,
Speaker 1: features a great melt seat when a character comes into
Speaker 1: physical contact with their past self. Uh, they melt away
Speaker 1: into nothingness together. I'm not sure exactly c g I
Speaker 1: melt scene. Yeah, it's the c g I melt scene,
Speaker 1: which doesn't hold up as well today, but at the
Speaker 1: time was was pretty crazy. As I recall all, c
Speaker 1: G I seemed like that in the nineties. You remember
Speaker 1: when we were all saying how good the c G
Speaker 1: I and Mortal Kombat the motion picture was. What's the
Speaker 1: other films that come to mind? Toxic Avenger has some
Speaker 1: melting in it. Um Society by Brian Jasna is another
Speaker 1: sort of video nasty that has a certain amount of
Speaker 1: orgiastic melting between characters, pet characters melting into each other, etcetera.
Speaker 1: There's a really spectacular melting scene in Fright Night where
Speaker 1: the vampire is familiar in that movie. So the vampires
Speaker 1: Chris Sourrandon, but he's got this apparently human helper named Billy.
Speaker 1: Uh And this is I don't know, there's something in
Speaker 1: a lot of vampire movies have as like the vampire
Speaker 1: can't go out in the daytime, so he's got a
Speaker 1: helper who goes out and does stuff with him or
Speaker 1: does to forum during the day. For example, in Um
Speaker 1: in Salem's Lot, this is the characters straight Acre, who's
Speaker 1: played by uh oh, what's his name, James Mason. There's
Speaker 1: just wonderful in the role, you know, back Priest, back Shaman.
Speaker 1: But but in this movie, the James Mason role is
Speaker 1: I can't remember the actor's name who plays him, but
Speaker 1: the character's name is Billy. And later in the film,
Speaker 1: when the when the characters start fighting Billy, I think
Speaker 1: they shoot him with a revolver, and they discover he's
Speaker 1: not quite human at all actually, or if he is human,
Speaker 1: he's cursed in some kind of way, because after he
Speaker 1: has killed, he melts into a green puddle of bones
Speaker 1: and goo. Real quick, is it? Roddy McDowell, No, No,
Speaker 1: Roddy McDowell plays the Peter Cushing character in the movie.
Speaker 1: He plays an actor who regularly plays Van Helsing type
Speaker 1: roles in films within the film. I just looked him up.
Speaker 1: The actor's name is Jonathan Stark. Looks like he's also
Speaker 1: in house to the second story and in an episode
Speaker 1: of Tales from the Crypt. Maybe we'll have to come
Speaker 1: back to that another time. Now. Another film that some
Speaker 1: of you might be thinking of that involves like nell
Speaker 1: being external digestion, etcetera, is, of course David Cronenberg's The Fly,
Speaker 1: which we we recently did or sometime earlier this year
Speaker 1: we did an episode on particularly we we discussed the
Speaker 1: themes of the plasma pool uh in that picture, because
Speaker 1: I I think David Cronenberg's film here is worth focusing on,
Speaker 1: because certainly there's a lot of meltish body heart that's
Speaker 1: going on in that film. Characters basically rotting and falling apart, etcetera.
Speaker 1: But the Brundle character brings up this idea of the
Speaker 1: plasma pool is this thing to to dive into and
Speaker 1: be reborn out off which itself is. I think nicely
Speaker 1: represents the other side of of the coin with our
Speaker 1: idea of melting, uh, because it brings with it again
Speaker 1: the idea of rebirth. And we see a version of
Speaker 1: this in the natural world as well. It's not all
Speaker 1: just amba's digesting things. We also see um this jellification
Speaker 1: and this this melting and then rebirth in metamorphosis. So
Speaker 1: we often don't realize this, But but what a caterpillar
Speaker 1: does inside a chrystalis coccoon is essentially a full body melt.
Speaker 1: It digests itself, It releases enzymes that dissolve almost all
Speaker 1: of its tissues, reducing itself to an oozing goop. Only
Speaker 1: the imaginal discs survived this process, and these develop into
Speaker 1: the adult body parts of the mature butterfly or moth
Speaker 1: that ultimately emerges. So again, the larval form must melt
Speaker 1: before it becomes an adult. It must be granted within
Speaker 1: the protective frame of the crystalis or cocoon it must
Speaker 1: give up all of its hard exteriors, It must liquefy,
Speaker 1: undergo a self digestion, become an ouze, and then that
Speaker 1: ouze becomes the butterfly. It is weird to think about,
Speaker 1: if you focus on it for a second, that across
Speaker 1: every generation of humans, the body plan has to return
Speaker 1: to a mass of undifferentiated cells that you know, you
Speaker 1: you basically turn into a little lump of google. And then,
Speaker 1: of course, can the body can be reconstituted based on
Speaker 1: on recombined DNA from the parents. But but yeah, for
Speaker 1: a while, this line of organisms coming down the ages,
Speaker 1: ever since the beginning of life on Earth, has always
Speaker 1: been reduced back to a kind of primordial ooze with
Speaker 1: each generation, every time it changes over. Yeah, I wonder if,
Speaker 1: especially as we get more into you know that's certainly
Speaker 1: the modern age and uh more scientifically literate, um, you know, public,
Speaker 1: I wonder if that plays into our appreciation of the melt,
Speaker 1: at least on a subconscious level. This idea that we
Speaker 1: are all essentially creamy newgat and therefore to see us
Speaker 1: reduced to creamy newgat, uh, you know, fills this with
Speaker 1: a certain wonder or horror or just sort of you know,
Speaker 1: kind of spiritual um awe. Yeah, our genetic essence at
Speaker 1: least is contained in the new it, and we could
Speaker 1: be rebuilt from the newgat. By the way, on the
Speaker 1: topic of imaginal self, I once wrote an article about
Speaker 1: gremlins for How Stuff Works in which I tried to
Speaker 1: make scientific sense of the gremlins biology and the gremlin
Speaker 1: magua relationship, which is was a challenge to do, but
Speaker 1: I felt like the closest we could come to describing
Speaker 1: some of the things that happened, like the the water
Speaker 1: triggering um a sexual butting or the or specifically the
Speaker 1: idea of sunlight melting that might be linked to some
Speaker 1: sort of biological impulse to self digest within the cocoon
Speaker 1: that has then triggered outside of the cocoon. Uh. In
Speaker 1: the case of light exposed magua and gremlins, you should
Speaker 1: have been present at that scene depicted in the Key
Speaker 1: and Peel skit where they're a lot of gremlins too. Yes, yes, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's all right. We're gonna take a quick break, but
Speaker 1: we'll be right back. Thank alright, we're back. Well, So,
Speaker 1: with regard to organisms actually melting, you know sort of
Speaker 1: like turning into a liquid or a goo. Uh. There
Speaker 1: was something I briefly wanted to touch on, and it's
Speaker 1: kind of parallel to some things we've talked about on
Speaker 1: the show in the past. For example, when we did
Speaker 1: an episode I think it was last year about pressure
Speaker 1: about where we talked about and say, you know organisms
Speaker 1: that thrive under high pressure deep in the ocean. One
Speaker 1: of the things we talked about is that sometimes when
Speaker 1: fish from deep waters are brought up to the surface,
Speaker 1: they can undergo a kind of traumatic body response to
Speaker 1: the lower pressures that they're exposed to on the surface.
Speaker 1: So there are for example, types of rock fish or
Speaker 1: other fish that can uh that can suffer eversions of
Speaker 1: their digestive systems as their swim bladders expand with lower
Speaker 1: pressure when they're brought up to the surface. So it
Speaker 1: can actually actually like push their stumb out through their mouth,
Speaker 1: which is really disgusting, don't knock it. Some organisms do
Speaker 1: that as part of their they're just natural behavior. There
Speaker 1: are certain sharks that do that too, if if memory
Speaker 1: serves their sharks that that do that as a way
Speaker 1: of emptying their their stomach if need be. It's called
Speaker 1: stomach aversion. Well, for these fish. It is not part
Speaker 1: of the plan. It's not voluntary. No, it happens because
Speaker 1: like as they get as they rise up, the lower
Speaker 1: pressure makes their swim the gas in their swim bladder
Speaker 1: naturally expand. It pushes everything else out of the way,
Speaker 1: and their guts get like pushed out through their mouth,
Speaker 1: which is yeah, not good to happen to them. Uh.
Speaker 1: And there are similar things that can happen, though not
Speaker 1: not quite as stomach aversion, a little bit more melty
Speaker 1: that happened to other organisms. The example I was looking
Speaker 1: at was a type of fish that is known as
Speaker 1: the snail fish, and there are a number of different
Speaker 1: types of snail fish. This is a it's it's a
Speaker 1: genus known as the liparidy and liparity often dwell in
Speaker 1: very deep, very cold waters, especially in ocean trenches. And
Speaker 1: so I was reading a New York Times article about
Speaker 1: a discovery of several new types of snail fish in uh.
Speaker 1: The article is by verynic Greenwood, and it was about
Speaker 1: discoveries of three new types of snail fish of the
Speaker 1: Atacama Trench, which is off the coast of Chile in
Speaker 1: the southeastern Pacific Ocean. And this trench gets very deep.
Speaker 1: It's almost five miles deep and down in the dark.
Speaker 1: There some researchers, I think some of them more associated
Speaker 1: with Newcastle University, they discovered these three new varieties of
Speaker 1: snail fish. But they were describing the difficulty in bringing
Speaker 1: these fish up to the surface because the fish are
Speaker 1: adapted to these extremely deep waters. And so they were
Speaker 1: speaking with a researcher named Thomas Linley who's with Newcastle University,
Speaker 1: who says that their tissue is almost entirely gel quote.
Speaker 1: They are really supported by the water around them, so
Speaker 1: they do have some hard body parts. They have teeth,
Speaker 1: I've read most species of snail fish have these kind
Speaker 1: of blunt, little, uh cuppy kind of teeth, and then
Speaker 1: they've got tiny bones, according to this article, especially in
Speaker 1: the inner ear, and these are really the main hard
Speaker 1: parts of their bodies. So if you grab some of
Speaker 1: these snail fish and then you try to bring them
Speaker 1: up to the surface to examine them, uh, it all
Speaker 1: just goes to hell because when they're no longer confined
Speaker 1: by the hydrostatic pressure of the deep water and the
Speaker 1: extremely low temperatures of this deep ocean trench, they essentially
Speaker 1: just melt when they get to the surface, quoting Thomas Linley,
Speaker 1: they fall apart at like the molecular level. It's like
Speaker 1: a ghost thing that's disappearing in front of your eyes.
Speaker 1: And you might think, well, why why would a fish
Speaker 1: be that fragile, you know, wouldn't need to have a
Speaker 1: little bit more structural integrity to survive. But no, it's
Speaker 1: because it's adapted to these extreme conditions that are present
Speaker 1: only in this deep ocean trench where it lives. Uh,
Speaker 1: Greenwood writes, quote this may be because shallow water snailfish
Speaker 1: gain adaptations that let them thrive in the deepest ocean
Speaker 1: where they have plenty of prey, so there's less competition
Speaker 1: down there because less stuff can survive there quote. But
Speaker 1: then because of these physiological changes, they find themselves unable
Speaker 1: to rise to higher levels to leave and thus are
Speaker 1: never seen by humans. So at the deepest parts of
Speaker 1: the ocean and these trenches, you get these islands of
Speaker 1: adapted organisms, including these types of snail fish, that have
Speaker 1: to make major changes to their bodies through evolution in
Speaker 1: order to survive down there. But then once they make
Speaker 1: those changes, they're kind of stuck right there, not going
Speaker 1: to migrate out of these deep water trenches once they're there,
Speaker 1: because now they have bodies that can't survive at the
Speaker 1: lower pressures and higher temperatures of more shallow water. It's
Speaker 1: like becoming a professional podcaster, you realize sound goodness. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't know if I can handle um, different depths. Um,
Speaker 1: I'm may be stuck down here. Yeah, you're in the
Speaker 1: like the challenger deep of career paths where you're I
Speaker 1: specialize in talking about science and horror movies. Yeah. People,
Speaker 1: it's a really useful skill, you know. It's this is
Speaker 1: actually ties in with a lot of stuff we're talking about,
Speaker 1: because even in this we're joking about the fear of
Speaker 1: change and and perhaps clinging to stability um and and
Speaker 1: in the case of this, this creature, this is a
Speaker 1: creature that thrives in this this this narrow environment that
Speaker 1: is pretty stable, but it cannot handle change at all.
Speaker 1: Uh and melting in our fear of melting, our desire
Speaker 1: to melt, etcetera. A lot of this does does seem
Speaker 1: to center around how we deal with change. And I
Speaker 1: think one thing to keep in mind is that melting.
Speaker 1: We've certainly touched on a lot of horrifying examples. But
Speaker 1: melting doesn't have to be bad. Just look to our language, um,
Speaker 1: you know, because we have we have some really positive
Speaker 1: ideas and metaphors that relate to melting at time, like
Speaker 1: the idea of melting with joy or seeing something or
Speaker 1: experiencing something that quote just makes you melt. Um, there's uh,
Speaker 1: I'm sure, especially if you if you were someone you
Speaker 1: know uh enjoys like metal or dub step music or
Speaker 1: some other kind of genre that has kind of a
Speaker 1: I don't know, an atmosphere of intensity to it. Sometimes
Speaker 1: you'll say loudness, love of loudness. You'll hear about how
Speaker 1: it is it is face melting right, Uh, And and
Speaker 1: that and that is largely depicted as being a positive thing. Yeah.
Speaker 1: One of my favorite musicians is Neil Young, and I
Speaker 1: remember an interview many years ago where Conan O'Brien was
Speaker 1: interviewing him and he he told him, I watched you
Speaker 1: at some concert play a rendition of rocking in the
Speaker 1: free world that made my eyes melt. It's clearly a compliment.
Speaker 1: Did he mean crying? Was he crying? No? No, I
Speaker 1: think he just meant like it was so powerful it
Speaker 1: like destroyed my body, but he meant it as a compliment. Okay,
Speaker 1: because yeah, because I think sometimes crying plays into how
Speaker 1: we're loosely thinking about melting. But it doesn't seem to
Speaker 1: be a case where we're using it as like a
Speaker 1: euphemism for for crying, you know, or trying to sort
Speaker 1: of cover up the fact that we're crying, like trying
Speaker 1: to be like hyper masculine about crying. That doesn't seem
Speaker 1: to be the way that people use melt. No, But
Speaker 1: I think there's a very interesting thing that if you
Speaker 1: look at movie scenes where characters are very first beginning
Speaker 1: to melt, so the melt scene is happening very often,
Speaker 1: a place for it to start is with some kind
Speaker 1: of piece, like a drop of liquid rolling down the face,
Speaker 1: almost like a tear drop does. Is interesting. I guess
Speaker 1: it does kind of look like, like, you know, just
Speaker 1: water going down the face. You could sort of interpret
Speaker 1: it as like flesh or the surface of flesh melting.
Speaker 1: But that's a good point. So I was looking around
Speaker 1: to see if anybody, you know, done any you know,
Speaker 1: serious contemplation on this idea of of of melting, of
Speaker 1: you know, there being a fear of melting or desire
Speaker 1: to melt um because, as we've discussed on the show before,
Speaker 1: you do see psychological delusions such as that of feeling
Speaker 1: that your body as is as brittle as glass and
Speaker 1: may shatter, So why not melting as well? Yeah, there
Speaker 1: are all kinds of uh, psychological conditions that can disrupt
Speaker 1: various features of the body schema, or can disrupt types
Speaker 1: of appropriate reception where you since, where your body is,
Speaker 1: what it feels like, what's happening to it. Yeah, So
Speaker 1: I did not find anything. If anyone out there has
Speaker 1: run across it, I am happy to be corrected, but
Speaker 1: I'm also I'm not I'm not gonna say I'm disappointed
Speaker 1: that people are not dealing with a psychological delusion that
Speaker 1: their bodies are melting, like I'm I'm happy that people
Speaker 1: are spared that at least. Uh. But I did come
Speaker 1: across studies in Nondeterministic Psychology by James L. Fausage. Uh.
Speaker 1: This is the National Institute of Psychotherapies in ninety and
Speaker 1: in it, the author discusses psychotherapy approaches that make use
Speaker 1: of transformative melting metaphors during the waking state of consciousness,
Speaker 1: which I found quite interesting. So this is not. You know,
Speaker 1: this is very much about like using various mental images
Speaker 1: as a way of connecting with the patient and psychotherapy,
Speaker 1: but it touches on some of the things we're talking
Speaker 1: about here. So in this paper, Fassage Minsent mentions the
Speaker 1: melting of a shield with one's warmth. So that's like
Speaker 1: there's a shield between you and another person or another thing,
Speaker 1: and your warmth can be the thing that melts the shield,
Speaker 1: so you're like a an instrument of melting. And then
Speaker 1: there's quote the fear of melting, of letting go and
Speaker 1: becoming vulnerable without adequate defenses, which I think is is
Speaker 1: very key. And then there's the fear of melting completely
Speaker 1: and there being nothing left of oneself, this kind of
Speaker 1: I guess, going back to the candle metaphor, but also
Speaker 1: reminding me a bit of the wicked Witch of the
Speaker 1: West as well, you know, because she basically melts awaited nothing.
Speaker 1: It's just left. All this left is just the clothing
Speaker 1: that she was wearing. I'd say, in psychological terms, the
Speaker 1: one that I here emerged most naturally from people is
Speaker 1: the middle one about the melting of defenses. The idea
Speaker 1: that people bring up metaphors of melting when they're talking
Speaker 1: about people becoming more open and vulnerable with each other. Yeah, which,
Speaker 1: on one hand, you might say, well, that's clearly not
Speaker 1: what the Incredible Melting Man is about, that's clearly not
Speaker 1: what RoboCop is about, etcetera. But I'm not quite convinced.
Speaker 1: I think I think these may, on a subconscious level,
Speaker 1: be be about the the fear of of what happens
Speaker 1: if we open ourselves up to the world too much,
Speaker 1: you know, like because it's let me look at RoboCop,
Speaker 1: you know it's or straight trash. These are films in
Speaker 1: which the world around us is depicted as being a
Speaker 1: horrible place, and you know you want to I guess
Speaker 1: from your exterior to remain is is hard and impregnant,
Speaker 1: impregnatble is possible right in those cases, like you don't
Speaker 1: want to melt into that world. That world would melt you, though,
Speaker 1: I would say one of the main themes of RoboCop
Speaker 1: is the attempt to hang on to pieces of humanity
Speaker 1: in an in in an inhuman or inhumane world, and
Speaker 1: a world that is ruled by by cruelty and corporations
Speaker 1: and machines and and transactional relationships trying to hang onto
Speaker 1: something that's pure and good and human. And you see
Speaker 1: that emphasized in several of the scenes between Alex Murphy
Speaker 1: or RoboCop and Lewis played by Nancy Allen, his partner.
Speaker 1: They've got these these little moments where you can remember
Speaker 1: that you're human even when he's mostly machine. That's a
Speaker 1: that's a very good point. Yeah, and again just more reasonable, like, no,
Speaker 1: don't just dismiss RoboCop. Is this ultra violent, you know,
Speaker 1: piece of trash or something like, There's there's a lot
Speaker 1: going on there. It's so I don't think it's for
Speaker 1: for all tastes, but it's it's definitely a film that
Speaker 1: intends to say something. Yeah, it's a movie. It's a
Speaker 1: movie that's relatable to anyone who's trying to remain a
Speaker 1: human at the same time that a corporation is extracting
Speaker 1: maximum value from what's left of your body. Yeah. So yeah, again,
Speaker 1: this is a world where that you do not want
Speaker 1: to melt into. You don't want to let go and
Speaker 1: become vulnerable, because you want to hang on to that
Speaker 1: part of you that's still human that hasn't been crushed
Speaker 1: by the machine yet. So I think it's also interesting
Speaker 1: in all of this, you know what we're talking about,
Speaker 1: this idea of like the metaphorical body uh melting away
Speaker 1: and uh and all, and then how this is reflected
Speaker 1: in these horrific images of the body melting. But while
Speaker 1: a wax effigy of a human definitely melts, our bodies
Speaker 1: don't really melt even in the even when extreme things
Speaker 1: happen to them. Um, generally, what's going on with us
Speaker 1: is not quite the phase change that we see occurring
Speaker 1: when say ice melts, or even when when when wax
Speaker 1: is melt thing away. Um, it's not quite what it is.
Speaker 1: It's similar to in our episode about freezing, about how
Speaker 1: our bodies don't exactly freeze solid and shatter in the
Speaker 1: way that pure water can correct. But I think we
Speaker 1: concluded in that episode that if you get a body
Speaker 1: cold enough, like you know, down to liquid nitrogen temperatures,
Speaker 1: and use enough force, you can achieve some shattering like
Speaker 1: the kinds of things. And I think something similar is
Speaker 1: true with melting, that the human body doesn't melt the
Speaker 1: way Nazis do in the movies, but elements of the
Speaker 1: human body will kind of melt. I mean the body
Speaker 1: is made of different types of tissues and materials, and
Speaker 1: some of them will sort of melt, yeah, some some
Speaker 1: some parts of our flesh liquefy a little more easily,
Speaker 1: and in rare cases, human fat in the body has
Speaker 1: been observed to behave something like the wick of a candle.
Speaker 1: This is called the wick effect. And uh, if you've
Speaker 1: if you've ever read anything about the various theories involving
Speaker 1: um uh spontaneous combust they are the wik effect often
Speaker 1: plays into this. So so coming back to some of the
Speaker 1: the faustages explorations about melting um, I want to come
Speaker 1: back to the idea of of losing oneself through melting,
Speaker 1: and in this I think melting serves as a strong
Speaker 1: metaphor for gradual decay, for aging, for the you know,
Speaker 1: the gradual work of a debilitating disease. Uh. These effects
Speaker 1: coupled with the totality of death, you know, because death
Speaker 1: robs us of everything that we are, and in the
Speaker 1: in its wake, there can be an almost candle like experience.
Speaker 1: Right again, think back to what we talked about in
Speaker 1: the Wax episodes about how the candle often had magical
Speaker 1: um uh connotations in various cultures because it was this thing,
Speaker 1: this physical thing that burned away completely are almost completely,
Speaker 1: you know. And at the end you might ask, was
Speaker 1: the candle even real? Did it exist? Where did it go?
Speaker 1: And he's certainly in the face of actual human death,
Speaker 1: not movie human death, but but actual personal loss. You
Speaker 1: can feel that as well totally. Now the idea of
Speaker 1: melting as phase transfer by which we become more vulnerable
Speaker 1: without adequate defenses, you know, of letting go. Um. You know,
Speaker 1: I think that's extremely apt as well. It certainly ties
Speaker 1: into our uses of melting, as in melting with joy um. Again,
Speaker 1: perhaps tears add an additional context to a certain degree, Um,
Speaker 1: But for the most part, it's it's about becoming more
Speaker 1: malleable to the world around you, both in positive and
Speaker 1: in negative ways, connecting with other people, connecting with the environment,
Speaker 1: but also perhaps opening yourself to the dangers of other
Speaker 1: people and of society, etcetera. It reminds me a lot
Speaker 1: of what we discussed in our psychedelic episodes, you know,
Speaker 1: about the breaking down of boundaries between ourselves and others,
Speaker 1: between ourselves and the natural world. Not only melting, but
Speaker 1: merging into some larger totality. Uh. In fact, I look back.
Speaker 1: Just just out of curiosity, I did some quick uh
Speaker 1: word searches in a in a few texts uh to
Speaker 1: see who is using melting, and I noticed, for instance
Speaker 1: that that Huxley did not use melt or melting at
Speaker 1: all in the Doors of Perception, but for instance far
Speaker 1: more recent work UM in How to Change Your Mind
Speaker 1: by Michael Pollen, he uses melt or melting multiple times
Speaker 1: in the book. You know, it seems like a pretty
Speaker 1: handy contemporary um uh mental image to draw upon to
Speaker 1: make sense of what's happening with the psychedelic experience. Well, yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, in fact, I would say melting becomes an
Speaker 1: interesting way of thinking about psychedelic psychedelic compounds effects on
Speaker 1: our perception because it even comes through and just the
Speaker 1: sheer mechanics of um how imagery transitions under the effects
Speaker 1: of many psychedelics, where there are these things that people
Speaker 1: talk about like using terms like tracers and things like that,
Speaker 1: where mental imagery and even visual imagery is perceived normal
Speaker 1: only doesn't transition as quickly from one state to another,
Speaker 1: but there seemed to be sort of drag effects in
Speaker 1: between images, you know what I'm talking about, uh, And
Speaker 1: that this simulates a kind of liquidity of mental content
Speaker 1: that I think is quite aptly described by metaphors of melting.
Speaker 1: Often on psychedelics people describe some version of instead of
Speaker 1: just thinking about image A and then thinking about image B,
Speaker 1: image A melts into image B. Yeah. I don't know
Speaker 1: if that was entirely clear, but just the psychedelics really
Speaker 1: encourage these sort of like dragging transition states. No, I
Speaker 1: absolutely agree, And it's interesting to think that, like, since
Speaker 1: that kind of thing is so common phenomenologically, it would
Speaker 1: almost suggest there is something about these compounds that that
Speaker 1: consistently encourage that at a chemical level in the brain. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, and some of them maybe even comes down
Speaker 1: to like how we're how we're we're taking in sense data, right,
Speaker 1: is it are we taking in abstract facts about the
Speaker 1: reality around us? Or is it a more fluid observation
Speaker 1: of reality in terms of of of making note of changes. Oh,
Speaker 1: that's very interesting. So like instead of that, maybe you
Speaker 1: could more easily, in a normal frame of mind, look
Speaker 1: at one thing and then look at another thing because
Speaker 1: you've got cognitive filtering that you're applying to your visual
Speaker 1: sense data. You know that that's sort of like excluding
Speaker 1: the transition, the transitional middle period of what your eyes
Speaker 1: are doing. But on the psychedelic you're processing things in
Speaker 1: a raw or way that h does not filter out
Speaker 1: the transitional period as efficiently. Yeah, like instead of saying, oh,
Speaker 1: that's my face in the mirror, it's more it's a
Speaker 1: continual updating of it. Uh. They can create kind of
Speaker 1: a melting effect without it actually looking like your face
Speaker 1: is straight up melting. So I I would never attempt
Speaker 1: to argue that something like, um, you know that to say,
Speaker 1: the psychedelic experience and humanities istory, the psychedelic experience is
Speaker 1: certainly in the like the twenty a century would have
Speaker 1: been like the the soul uh influence on all this
Speaker 1: melting um fixation in cinema. But but I can't help
Speaker 1: but wonder if that's part of it. But clearly you
Speaker 1: still have other things. You have just the cinematic influence
Speaker 1: and tradition that's going on. When you know, people watch
Speaker 1: a witch melt in one film and then create a
Speaker 1: melting effect in another film later on. Obviously that's part
Speaker 1: of it. Um. And I think also material the materials
Speaker 1: in our surrounding culture are a big part of it.
Speaker 1: As well. I mean we see that again with wax.
Speaker 1: Observations of wax, and then what happens when you create
Speaker 1: a human of wax? Also, what happens when you have
Speaker 1: you know, a wax culture that becomes eventually an iron culture,
Speaker 1: and then you have all of this melting and smelting
Speaker 1: uh mixed up in um in in your understanding the world.
Speaker 1: And then what happens when you go from an iron
Speaker 1: culture eventually to a plastic culture. You know, it brings
Speaker 1: on new connotations of what melting is, how things melt,
Speaker 1: and how we might imagine our bodies in reference to
Speaker 1: that material. Oh yeah, I was just thinking about the
Speaker 1: metaphors we live by here. So so the metal metaphor
Speaker 1: is one in which it takes a tremendous amount of
Speaker 1: work to change one's shape. The plastic metaphor is pretty
Speaker 1: much just shaped at the factory. You're not gonna melt
Speaker 1: it and reshape it. That would kind of destroy it.
Speaker 1: So it's it's, you know, the plastic age. You're just stuck.
Speaker 1: All right, We're gonna take a quick break, but we'll
Speaker 1: be right back. Thank you, thank you, thank and we're back.
Speaker 1: And you know this this ultimately leads us to the
Speaker 1: next topic we're going to discuss here, and this will
Speaker 1: be I guess that's sort of the final topic of
Speaker 1: discussion in this episode, and that is another major melting
Speaker 1: symbol or metaphor that comes up that a lot of
Speaker 1: you are probably thinking about already, and that is the
Speaker 1: American melting pot. Now quick note again, we're recording this
Speaker 1: episode the week of Halloween, though it won't publish till
Speaker 1: after election day, So just throwing that out there for
Speaker 1: timing should it be essential. So this is another area
Speaker 1: where I think when we're talking about melting, everything we've
Speaker 1: discussed so far is still very much in play, uh melting,
Speaker 1: and even you know, the fear of melting, but also
Speaker 1: the potential joy of melting, the transformative nature of melting.
Speaker 1: It's all reflected in this strange concept of the American
Speaker 1: melting pot, something that I've heard my whole life, and
Speaker 1: and I have to say, I think early on I
Speaker 1: always interpreted it's kind of a stewpot. Maybe I was
Speaker 1: confused by the franchise of Fondue restaurants called the melting pot.
Speaker 1: I'm not exactly sure, because I mean, clearly it is
Speaker 1: referring to a you know, a metallurgical comparison. Here, it
Speaker 1: is an idea of metals melting together in in a pot,
Speaker 1: you combine different metals to form a stronger alloy that
Speaker 1: has the great properties of each. Yeah. On some level, though,
Speaker 1: I did recognize that it seemed to be about different
Speaker 1: cultures and backgrounds, so that was only coming together in
Speaker 1: this pot that is America and becoming something new. Now
Speaker 1: it's this is a broad and h and at times
Speaker 1: very uh, you know, non specific symbol to engage with,
Speaker 1: because it ultimately raises a lot of questions like is
Speaker 1: this is this an accurate, accurate depiction depiction of what
Speaker 1: American culture is? Is it more of an ideal of
Speaker 1: what it could be? Is it a misunderstanding of culture?
Speaker 1: Is it actually a misunderstanding of melting. Is it a
Speaker 1: helpful concept? Is it a hurtful concept? Uh? And certainly,
Speaker 1: at least to some extent. It depends on how it's
Speaker 1: being used and who's using it during what period of
Speaker 1: of of you know, the last century or so of
Speaker 1: American history. You know, is it something to support the
Speaker 1: idea of a monoculture and often a particular monoculture, or
Speaker 1: is it anti multiculturalism. So I decided to look into
Speaker 1: this a little bit and say, and just learn from myself, like,
Speaker 1: what what are the origins of this term? I? I
Speaker 1: honestly didn't have any idea. Uh. So I read a
Speaker 1: paper this is from nineteen sixty four by historian Philip Gleason,
Speaker 1: uh and it's titled the Melting Pot Symbol of Fusion
Speaker 1: or Confusion in American Quarterly. That's a great title, um
Speaker 1: Infusion or Confusion and American Quarterly, by the way, as
Speaker 1: an academic journal and the official publication of the American
Speaker 1: Studies Association. So I want to roll through some of
Speaker 1: the points that Gleason makes. I am not attempting to
Speaker 1: summarize the entire uh right up here, I recommend seeking
Speaker 1: this out if you want the full story. It's a
Speaker 1: it's it's a it's a wonderful read, and it's invable
Speaker 1: available in full in full on J Starr. So, first
Speaker 1: of all, he ties this this idea back to the
Speaker 1: myth of medals in Plato's The Republic. Uh. This is
Speaker 1: also known as the Noble lie. And here's how Malcolm's
Speaker 1: Scofield summarized it in the Cambridge Companion to Plato's republic
Speaker 1: quote The Noble Lie is to serve as charter myth
Speaker 1: for Plato's Good City, a myth of national or civic identity,
Speaker 1: or rather two related myths, one grounding that identity in
Speaker 1: the natural brotherhood of the entire indigenous population. They're all
Speaker 1: auto cathanis literally born from the earth. The other making
Speaker 1: the city's differentiated class structure a matter of divine dispensation.
Speaker 1: The god who molds them puts different metals in their souls.
Speaker 1: If people can be made to believe it, they will
Speaker 1: be strongly motivated to care for the city and for
Speaker 1: each other if they can be made to believe it. So,
Speaker 1: I mean, at least in Plato's vision, there's got to
Speaker 1: be a certain amount of just like getting people on
Speaker 1: board with a certain way of thinking about things. Yeah. Now,
Speaker 1: Gleason writes that the American myth of the metals here
Speaker 1: is is ultimately a rejection of the platonic Um and
Speaker 1: this is the melting pot quote. Unlike Plato's, it was
Speaker 1: not deliberately contrived to provide a supernatural sanction for the
Speaker 1: existing social order. But is it that it is intimately
Speaker 1: related to the origins and nature of American society. Okay,
Speaker 1: so it's not a supernatural myth that you would tell people,
Speaker 1: like a story that you make up to unify them.
Speaker 1: But in the case of American society, it's supposed to
Speaker 1: be a fact that is literally just like descriptive and
Speaker 1: self evident. Yeah. The interesting thing that Gleason drives someone
Speaker 1: about the melting pot, and I hadn't really thought about
Speaker 1: this as well, is that it's it's a curious thing
Speaker 1: to be so entrenched in the national mindset, because on
Speaker 1: one hand, it is not an actual thing you can
Speaker 1: point to, Like you can't go to Boston or Washington,
Speaker 1: d c. And be like, hey, should we Hey, family,
Speaker 1: should we go see the melting pot? There it is.
Speaker 1: We've heard all about the American melting pot. Yeah, behold, No,
Speaker 1: it's not a thing. And on the other hand, it's
Speaker 1: not a proper symbol either. You can't say, oh, let
Speaker 1: me let me fish some dollar bills out of my wallet. Oh, yes,
Speaker 1: here's the melting pot right here. You couldn't you if
Speaker 1: you were asked to draw the melting pot, what would
Speaker 1: you draw? You know, It's it's not a concrete symbol
Speaker 1: per se, to the extent that it's a symbol, it's
Speaker 1: only a linguistic one, like the piece is a symbol,
Speaker 1: but it's never depicted. Yeah. So Gleason says that it
Speaker 1: might be more fair to consider it a concept or theory.
Speaker 1: But but he also discusses it just in terms, loosely
Speaker 1: as a symbol throughout the paper. Uh. He points out
Speaker 1: that it's used in many ways as a similar America
Speaker 1: is is like a melting pot. Sometimes it's a metaphor
Speaker 1: America is a melting pot, and sometimes it's a symbol.
Speaker 1: They traveled across the sea to be part of the
Speaker 1: melting pot. So the use of the melting pot is
Speaker 1: a symbol, he says, you know, for the process of
Speaker 1: immigration into American society. This was popularized basically as recently
Speaker 1: as nineteen o eight with Israel zang Wells play that
Speaker 1: was titled The Melting Pot. Uh. So, it's it's another
Speaker 1: interesting thing about it. It's not really that old of
Speaker 1: an idea, and not that the United States is that
Speaker 1: old of an idea either, But the idea itself does
Speaker 1: date back a good bit before u dating back to
Speaker 1: the eighteenth century contemplations of the New American Man, and
Speaker 1: particularly it goes back to the French American writer ja
Speaker 1: Hector St. John de Crevicur, who lived seventeen thirty five
Speaker 1: through eighteen thirteen. Crevicur wrote pro American writings during the Revolution.
Speaker 1: He also opposed slavery, and he touched on the melting
Speaker 1: pot concept in Letters from an American Farmer in seventeen two,
Speaker 1: in which he quote developed or implied all of the
Speaker 1: themes unquote involved in the idea that a new American
Speaker 1: man would be the product of cross cultural fertilization. Right,
Speaker 1: So that would be the sort of what was considered
Speaker 1: a revolutionary idea at the time, that you could build
Speaker 1: a civic culture, you could build a polity on the
Speaker 1: basis of shared ideals rather than shared ethnicity. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: Like he was very much it's at least for for
Speaker 1: a time here in a lot of these writings, was
Speaker 1: very gung ho about what America could be. This idea
Speaker 1: like it's going to be a new thing where we're
Speaker 1: building a new country here and uh and and the
Speaker 1: people that occupied are going to be a new creation
Speaker 1: in a sense, they're going to be created out of
Speaker 1: out of these pre existing elements. And he did use
Speaker 1: the word melt to describe the process quote individuals of
Speaker 1: all nations are melted into a new race of men unquote,
Speaker 1: which at least in some ways sounds futuristic and positive.
Speaker 1: You know, it sounds very plasma pool in his wake,
Speaker 1: though you see other people occasionally use it in a
Speaker 1: different fashion. For instance, DeWitt Clinton, described by Gleason as
Speaker 1: a nativistic congressman, used it in the eighteen forties as
Speaker 1: a criticism of immigrants who did not melt into American
Speaker 1: culture and kept aspects of their own culture. So again,
Speaker 1: already we see melt the idea of the melting pope
Speaker 1: be used positively, like like, hey, everybody, let's melt together
Speaker 1: and become something new. And then here's this other guy
Speaker 1: using it and saying, why aren't people melting? I want
Speaker 1: to see more melting. You're not melting enough. You're not
Speaker 1: melting enough me. Well, no, I'm not melted. I'm I'm
Speaker 1: I'm not in I'm melting, but you you need to
Speaker 1: do some melting. But still it doesn't quite inner general
Speaker 1: usage just yet. Again, not until that play comes around,
Speaker 1: which we'll get to in a second. Um. Ralph Waldo Emerson, however,
Speaker 1: who lived eighteen o three through eighteen eighty two, he
Speaker 1: came close and discussing how Americans America would quote construct
Speaker 1: a new race and new religion, a new state, and
Speaker 1: new literature, and that it would be as as vigorous,
Speaker 1: quote as the new Europe which came out of the
Speaker 1: smelting pot of the Dark Ages. So Gleason points to
Speaker 1: a few different examples there. But the melting Pot again
Speaker 1: doesn't really take off in in in in the in
Speaker 1: in our language until the early twentieth century. In that
Speaker 1: period between the dawn of the twentieth century and the
Speaker 1: start of World War one, UH this, Gleason says, is
Speaker 1: a time when one million immigrants roughly entered the United
Speaker 1: States of America, most of them were from southern and
Speaker 1: Eastern Europe, and the resulting communities in major city these
Speaker 1: were considered by some to be to constitute an immigration problem,
Speaker 1: thus the notion of the melting pot. There was a fear,
Speaker 1: of an express fear of what non assimilating immigrants meant
Speaker 1: for the country. Now. The play itself was a big hit,
Speaker 1: at least with with audiences, apparently not so much with
Speaker 1: the with the theater critics of the day, but The
Speaker 1: plot concerned a Russian Jewish immigrant family and the main
Speaker 1: characters desire to melt into a new future devoid of
Speaker 1: ethnic division and hatred, and it also also concerns the
Speaker 1: plight of the Jewish people in this period of history.
Speaker 1: But in in criticizing the average American of the day,
Speaker 1: it also, you know, proposed that it put forth this
Speaker 1: idea that the melting pot is not something that either
Speaker 1: that has been done or is done, is not part
Speaker 1: of a process that we see completed in any person
Speaker 1: around us, but rather it is an ongoing process that
Speaker 1: we're all going to be reborn out off. If that
Speaker 1: makes sense. So it's not it's so if I, if
Speaker 1: I understand the play correctly, The concept of the melting
Speaker 1: plot employed here is not one of hey, immigrants, go
Speaker 1: get into the melting pot and then come out and
Speaker 1: then you can be with me. It's more like we
Speaker 1: are all in the melting pot. We are all melting
Speaker 1: into something better and and new. Right, Not an exhortation
Speaker 1: of like you're not melting properly, but just saying like
Speaker 1: it's descriptive. The melting pot is what happens. Yes, it
Speaker 1: is an ongoing thing that is had it is the
Speaker 1: the ongoing transformation of what it means to be an
Speaker 1: American now. Gleason points out that Theodore Roosevelt loved it,
Speaker 1: but he didn't like the lines in there about Americans
Speaker 1: being lax on divorce or public corruption. So the playwright
Speaker 1: took it out. He's like, okay, fair enough to happy yeah, um,
Speaker 1: but you know, it's it also seems like the play
Speaker 1: carried with it assert you know, divisive interpretations depending on
Speaker 1: who was thinking about the play and was all so
Speaker 1: then thinking about immigration, you know, is it preaching too
Speaker 1: much conformity on the part of the immigrant or too
Speaker 1: much transformation on the part of the nation. And I
Speaker 1: I guess in that respect, it sounds like the play
Speaker 1: did what what good art should do, right. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's it's maybe pissing off everybody to a certain extent
Speaker 1: or making everybody think about, like, what what's going on
Speaker 1: in the country. Well, if I'm understanding correctly, I mean
Speaker 1: it maybe sort of assuming something that sounds kind of
Speaker 1: ahead of its time, which is that the cultural assimilation
Speaker 1: of immigrant communities into into a new country is not
Speaker 1: necessarily what what the you know, the nativist that the
Speaker 1: angry finger waggers are saying that you're not assimilating good enough,
Speaker 1: that like that they need to become like the nativist
Speaker 1: finger waggers. Instead, it's the nativist finger waggers and the
Speaker 1: new immigrants are all going to in the future assimilate
Speaker 1: into this this common thing that is yet to come. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think so. Yeah, the idea that it's it's it's
Speaker 1: something that is happening and will happen. Uh Yeah, as
Speaker 1: opposed to this this thing that has supposed to have
Speaker 1: already occurred. But but it it does get back to
Speaker 1: a lot of what we discussed already about like how
Speaker 1: we think about melting, both in its positive and negative connotations.
Speaker 1: You know, if I'm melting, am I gonna lose myself?
Speaker 1: Will I be hurt when I become soft and malleable?
Speaker 1: I am? Am I ready for change? You know? Uh?
Speaker 1: And and as Gleason points out, you know there's a
Speaker 1: lot of variety and how the melting pot is presented,
Speaker 1: and and there are a lot of questions and all
Speaker 1: the time about what exactly you're trying to say, like
Speaker 1: it are we talking about a biological blending? Like is
Speaker 1: it about you know, different ethnicities becoming one. Uh is
Speaker 1: it a cultural blending that we're talking about. Is it
Speaker 1: is it all of the culture or just like aspects
Speaker 1: of the culture. I mean again, it depends on who's
Speaker 1: who's trotting it out really, Uh, you know, is it
Speaker 1: describing something that used to take place, something that is
Speaker 1: taking place, something that needs to take place, or is
Speaker 1: taking place with with a few, with the future in mind,
Speaker 1: and etcetera. Uh So I found it all very very um,
Speaker 1: very intriguing to think about. It makes me even less
Speaker 1: likely to use the term melting pot in my own
Speaker 1: conversations unless i'm you know, uh talking with somebody about
Speaker 1: the concept itself. Like it seems it seems like it's
Speaker 1: just too um it's too vague and too open to
Speaker 1: interpretation and also uh too too easy to misuse. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you could look at it that way. And I gotta say,
Speaker 1: I don't know if I've ever really been somebody who
Speaker 1: used this image myself. But on the other hand, as
Speaker 1: as somebody who you know, believes in the project of
Speaker 1: multiculturalism and uh and believes like immigration is good for
Speaker 1: a nation, um, I I do think it's also useful
Speaker 1: to have imagery, like having symbols and imagery really does
Speaker 1: help an idea take root. It's it's possible that this
Speaker 1: similar imagery is not the best symbol or imagery. I
Speaker 1: don't know, because it's certainly right that it has like
Speaker 1: ton of ambiguous meanings. But when you're talking about a
Speaker 1: trend as big as uh, you know, trying to form
Speaker 1: a multicultural polity, I guess there probably is going to
Speaker 1: be a lot of ambiguity in in whatever imagery you use. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean it's it's it's asking a lot I guess
Speaker 1: of a of a symbol or metaphor to really sum
Speaker 1: up um some of what this this uh, this symbol
Speaker 1: or metaphor has called on to do. But again I
Speaker 1: found it interesting, especially again just in terms of thinking
Speaker 1: once more about melting as this thing that has positive
Speaker 1: and negative connotations that ultimately is about how we think
Speaker 1: about change in our lives, uh, in in the world, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, political change, societal change, cultural change, biological change.
Speaker 1: I gotta say, when you proposed a Melt movie episode,
Speaker 1: this is not the direction I expected it to go.
Speaker 1: But this has been really interesting. Yeah, I I enjoyed
Speaker 1: it as well. I don't think I ended. I thought
Speaker 1: that we'd end up talking about the you know, the
Speaker 1: substance of America uh so much. Um. That was not
Speaker 1: the intent then active the attempt, if it was any intent,
Speaker 1: it was to not talk about anything political or or
Speaker 1: or America centrics. So but here we are, we have
Speaker 1: melted into it, and I'll proudly melt up next to
Speaker 1: you and melt hers still today are there songs about
Speaker 1: melting um in the Sopranos. There is a metal band,
Speaker 1: uh that has a song called melt. I know, there's
Speaker 1: there's a there's a Calm Truise album called Galactic Melt,
Speaker 1: which I think is nice because his his sound has
Speaker 1: a very like that that I think it sums up
Speaker 1: with something about it sound like something galactic, something that
Speaker 1: is like spacey and specific. But the melting aspect of
Speaker 1: it has implies a kind of you know, biological uh
Speaker 1: you know, a morphous quality that's there as well, sort
Speaker 1: of like it's it's biology and technology fused together into
Speaker 1: one sound. Shoegaze type music has some good sonic melting
Speaker 1: qualities I would I would consider like my Bloody Valentine
Speaker 1: and a very melty band. Yeah, I guess a vapor
Speaker 1: wave in it in its own way. Like just the
Speaker 1: word vapor wave implies phase transition as well, but different,
Speaker 1: not a different one, not melting, but sublimation. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: I don't know that that's something we really explore that
Speaker 1: much in our our horror movies. So I don't know
Speaker 1: what happens when the mall turns not from a solid
Speaker 1: into a liquid, but a solid directly into a gas.
Speaker 1: Then you get an eternal loop of the chorus from
Speaker 1: Take These Broken Wings So real quick? Is that? You know?
Speaker 1: Is that what happens in um the Avengers movies, the
Speaker 1: whole fingersnap thing a are are people turning into vapor
Speaker 1: or they just turning into ash? And that I don't know.
Speaker 1: I haven't seen those movies. I watched the first one.
Speaker 1: The listeners will have to that and being exposed for
Speaker 1: the millionth time is somebody who I don't. I'm not
Speaker 1: in the marble thing. I don't really. Well, you'll come
Speaker 1: back for the next Blade film, I hope. Oh, I
Speaker 1: guess you know what. I still haven't seen Blade three,
Speaker 1: so uh, well, it has one good line in it,
Speaker 1: but I can send you a clip of that and
Speaker 1: then you're good to go. Okay, alright, Well, We're gonna
Speaker 1: go ahead and close it out here. This was this
Speaker 1: was melting. This says the episode is going to close
Speaker 1: out this year's Halloween festivities. But don't worry. We're you know,
Speaker 1: we're coming back next week and it's gonna be new topics. Uh,
Speaker 1: perhaps a little less halloweeny, but just as h as
Speaker 1: exciting and contemplated in theory. Anyway, Well, we'll see where
Speaker 1: it goes. We're just gonna see where the rest of
Speaker 1: the year Texas. In the meantime, if you want to
Speaker 1: check out other episodes of Stuff to Blow your Mind,
Speaker 1: you can find us wherever you get your podcast and
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Speaker 1: to do so, just rate, review and subscribe. You can
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Speaker 1: learn to live so free. Yes, all right, uh huge,
Speaker 1: Thanks as always to our excellent audio producer Seth Nicholas Johnson.
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