Speaker 1: Hey, Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. My name
Speaker 1: is Robert Lamb.
Speaker 2: And I am Joe McCormick, and it's Saturday. We're heading
Speaker 2: on down into the Vault for an older episode of
Speaker 2: the show. This is part one of our series on
Speaker 2: the supernatural cats of Japanese myth and legend, published originally
Speaker 2: on October seventeenth, twenty twenty three. We hope you enjoy.
Speaker 3: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 1: Hey, Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. My name
Speaker 1: is Robert.
Speaker 2: Lamb and I am Joe McCormick, And the month of
Speaker 2: October continues. The Monster Ooze flows on Rob and I
Speaker 2: were out last week, and in our absence we featured
Speaker 2: a couple of Vault episodes from the previous October about
Speaker 2: the Great he Goat, in which we discussed go as animals,
Speaker 2: as biological entities, and as symbols, and got into the
Speaker 2: question of why goats have come to be associated with
Speaker 2: strange forces and demonic powers, especially in a Western Christian
Speaker 2: cultural context. Today, we wanted to begin an October themed
Speaker 2: series in that same vein looking at a different liminal beast,
Speaker 2: not the Christian imagery of the Grand Goat presiding over
Speaker 2: the witches sabbath, but Japanese stories about the ghostly eminence
Speaker 2: of altered cats.
Speaker 1: That's right, we're talking about the common house cat, the
Speaker 1: domesticated if you want to use that word cat. That
Speaker 1: plays a central role in many of our households. But yeah,
Speaker 1: instead of yeah, when it comes to Halloween, the cat
Speaker 1: has become an icon of the season, especially the black cat,
Speaker 1: and a lot of that is depending on the Western
Speaker 1: traditions and Western superstitions, which we're probably not going to
Speaker 1: get into in this series, but that's informing a lot
Speaker 1: of that imagery that we're seeing in the West.
Speaker 2: The cat as witch is familiar.
Speaker 1: Yeah, cat as which is familiar, and then just sort
Speaker 1: of generally cat hanging out looking a little bit creepy.
Speaker 1: Has a nice silhouette to use in various Halloween backgrounds. Though,
Speaker 1: of course, like the goat, the cat as an organism
Speaker 1: doesn't really care about trick or treating. It doesn't really
Speaker 1: care about seances and Satanic rites or whatever you have
Speaker 1: stirred up in your imagination. They have different needs, but
Speaker 1: they live in close proximity to us. So yeah, we're
Speaker 1: gonna be focusing on the various supernatural treatments of this
Speaker 1: animal in Japanese traditions and rob.
Speaker 2: I have to admit, before you picked this topic and
Speaker 2: I started looking into it, I was not familiar with
Speaker 2: how many Japanese monster cats there were, how many cat
Speaker 2: yo kai, and how many specifically cat oriented Japanese horror
Speaker 2: movies from the mid century there were.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's right. I mean when you stop to think
Speaker 1: of them, they start jumping out at you. I guess
Speaker 1: part of it is I think we all know that
Speaker 1: cats are popular in Japan. If you're even a casual
Speaker 1: consumer of Japanese pop culture, then you've probably seen various
Speaker 1: cute cat videos from Japan. You've seen, oh, I guess
Speaker 1: some of the major stars include Hello Kitty, There's the
Speaker 1: talking cat Gigi, and Miyazaki's nineteen eighty nine film Kiki's
Speaker 1: Delivery Service. There's that blue robot cat. I'm not actually
Speaker 1: sure how to say its name, Doriman. I believe I'm
Speaker 1: not super familiar with him. But yeah, on top of that,
Speaker 1: you have luck cats, you have just all sorts of
Speaker 1: cat imagery, and yes, you also have various horror movies
Speaker 1: and horror stories that entail the cat but prior to
Speaker 1: researching this, yeah, I think I would have maybe identified
Speaker 1: two cat based yokai or cat based Japanese traditional monsters.
Speaker 1: I didn't know that there were enough to fill a
Speaker 1: couple of episodes with.
Speaker 2: Oh wait, I also just remember the cat bus.
Speaker 1: Oh goodness, yes, the cat bus from my neighbor Totoro. Yeah,
Speaker 1: another iconic cat. And you know, even Totoro has varia.
Speaker 1: You could you could say that he has some cat
Speaker 1: like features. I don't know. He's kind of a combination
Speaker 1: of panda and bear and so many other things.
Speaker 2: If a city had cat bus based transportation, would you
Speaker 2: take it? Would you rely on that transportation?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: The kids in Toto seem to dig it. It looks
Speaker 1: soft and warm in there. You know, the whole lining
Speaker 1: is like a cat's belly, except you won't be scratched
Speaker 1: if you touch it.
Speaker 2: I guess I'd be concerned about whether it's going to
Speaker 2: take me to my destination or its own I don't know,
Speaker 2: whatever it caters to it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean the cat bus does have that kind
Speaker 1: of cheshire cat spirit to it, like what is it
Speaker 1: going to do? And this gets to the heart of
Speaker 1: like the spirit of the cat I mean, we could
Speaker 1: go on and on with just you know, personal anecdotes
Speaker 1: and also all sorts of sort of folk wisdom about
Speaker 1: the differences between the dog and the cat. What is
Speaker 1: it like living with a dog versus living with a cat?
Speaker 1: What is it like encountering an unknown dog versus encountering
Speaker 1: an unknown cat? There there are so many differences, but
Speaker 1: definitely the cat has a unique spirit that can be challenging,
Speaker 1: that can be inviting, that can be very comforting. There's
Speaker 1: a there's really a broad spectrum of attitudes one ends
Speaker 1: up having, even about the most beloved cat in your life.
Speaker 2: So you're making the point that cats have a good
Speaker 2: deal of cultural prominence in Japan, not just in their
Speaker 2: monstrous forms, right.
Speaker 1: Right, And but by exploring some of the monstrous forms,
Speaker 1: you also get some insight into how and why they
Speaker 1: were so admired and and are still admired to this day. Now,
Speaker 1: in terms of sources here, I'm going to refer to.
Speaker 1: There's an older book I have, Yokai Attack The Japanese
Speaker 1: Monster's Survival Guide by Hiroko Yoda and Matt Alt. That
Speaker 1: one's really good, but also a couple of books I
Speaker 1: picked up for this include Joshua Friedman's The Japanese Myths,
Speaker 1: A Guide to God's Heroes and Spirits, and Zach Davison's
Speaker 1: Kaidyo The Supernatural Cats of Japan.
Speaker 2: So this is a book entirely on the altered cats.
Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, this is a really good one. You can
Speaker 1: find this wherever you get your books, and it has
Speaker 1: just so many wonderful illustrations in it and stories. We're
Speaker 1: gonna touch on some of the main points, but if
Speaker 1: you want to deeper dive into the world of Japanese
Speaker 1: supernatural cats, that's a book to pick up. Now, getting
Speaker 1: back briefly just to the general idea of cats in Japan,
Speaker 1: the domestic cat in Japan, I want to refer to
Speaker 1: a recent New York Times article titled why do Cats
Speaker 1: hold Such mythic power in Japan? By Hanya Yanagahara. The
Speaker 1: author here points out that housecats are thought to have
Speaker 1: first arrived in Japan during the sixth century CE, brought
Speaker 1: in via the Silk Road as a curiosity from India
Speaker 1: via China or possibly from Korea. I think they're just
Speaker 1: different possible routes that cats may have taken. And at
Speaker 1: that point, yanagahar points out that cats would have likely
Speaker 1: enjoyed the split value that they enjoyed everywhere else they
Speaker 1: traveled via human beings. They proved themselves an aid to
Speaker 1: agricultural pursuits, feasting on rodents, and they were amusing. They're
Speaker 1: amusing to look at, they're amusing to watch and to
Speaker 1: try and figure out, and they can become quite affectionate,
Speaker 1: especially if it serves their purposes.
Speaker 2: Right, So cute and useful as an unbeatable combination.
Speaker 1: Right, And as Zianagahara points out, Japan was both an
Speaker 1: agricultural country and a court culture country as well, so
Speaker 1: we can imagine the cat catching on at every level
Speaker 1: of society. I see that.
Speaker 2: So in the agricultural sense, the cat is useful because
Speaker 2: you can have one around your grain supplies to keep
Speaker 2: the rats out of it. But in the wealthy court setting,
Speaker 2: it might be attractive to have a cat in your
Speaker 2: lap or in your vicinity as a beautiful regal object
Speaker 2: or companion.
Speaker 1: That's right, yeah, well what the cat is here to
Speaker 1: fulfill those needs either way again, if it wants to. Now.
Speaker 1: Zach Davison in his book emphasizes a kind of court
Speaker 1: first trajectory for cats, taking hold in Japan, and we
Speaker 1: do have Heyan period descriptions of how wonderful cats were
Speaker 1: and how much the emperors of the time period loved them.
Speaker 1: But his populations grew, they were no longer confined to palaces,
Speaker 1: and as they lost their regal and exotic air, more
Speaker 1: attention was placed on their behaviors and legends than sprang
Speaker 1: up about them, both rural and urban in nature. Now,
Speaker 1: of course, I'm not sure if this is necessarily a
Speaker 1: case where, you know, I always have to acknowledge that
Speaker 1: sometimes it's those accounts from the upper parts of society
Speaker 1: that stand the test of time and it's not the
Speaker 1: lives of people lower down the socioeconomic ladder. But this
Speaker 1: sounds reasonable, right, I mean, as the cat coming in
Speaker 1: as an exotic singularity, brought into the court, enjoyed in
Speaker 1: the court. But over time, cats are going to reproduce,
Speaker 1: the population is going to swell, and there's going to
Speaker 1: be like a trickle down cat economy in a given country.
Speaker 2: Yes, there's a there's a cat sieve, and eventually the
Speaker 2: cats make their way through to every corner of the country.
Speaker 1: Now, another wrinkle in this that Davison points out is
Speaker 1: that it can be a little difficult to pin down
Speaker 1: exactly when written records are are are specifically talking about cats.
Speaker 1: And this concerns something that's come up before on the
Speaker 1: show concerning like novel animals in a given culture, and
Speaker 1: that is that when it comes to the way that
Speaker 1: animals were written about in ancient Japan, known animals had
Speaker 1: unique kanji characters. New animals did not, and it sometimes
Speaker 1: took centuries for them to get unique characters, so instead
Speaker 1: you'd use other animal characters in their place. So Davison
Speaker 1: points out that in ancient Japan, the same kanji character
Speaker 1: designated both with tanuki and cat, so it was sometimes
Speaker 1: sometimes difficult to look back at these writings and determine
Speaker 1: exactly what animal is being described.
Speaker 2: So in kind of the same way, you might imagine like,
Speaker 2: I don't know, early medieval European writings about seafaring, and
Speaker 2: like you can't tell if they're trying to describe a
Speaker 2: mythical sea monster or a real whale or some type
Speaker 2: of fish. It's just a word that means like some
Speaker 2: kind of creature that's clearly in the water, but other
Speaker 2: than that, you're not sure what it's referring to.
Speaker 1: Yeah, or how everything is a type of apple. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so you can imagine where would be confusing going back
Speaker 1: and trying to figure out all this stuff. Now, so
Speaker 1: in any rate, we can one way or another, cats
Speaker 1: eventually really catch on. They're everywhere. One important date in
Speaker 1: Japanese cat history this would be the year sixteen oh two.
Speaker 1: This is the year, according to Davidson, that during which,
Speaker 1: amidst a plague of rats destroying Japanese silkworm industry, the
Speaker 1: Japanese government issues uneeditt release all domestic cats to battle
Speaker 1: the rats, which maybe sounds a bit extreme, but they
Speaker 1: apparently did it. They made it illegal to buy or
Speaker 1: sell cats. Just release them, let them do their thing,
Speaker 1: let them fight the good fight against the rats. However,
Speaker 1: apparently it might not have actually helped much. It seems
Speaker 1: like there's some writings that kind of dispute the idea
Speaker 1: that this was really all about helpful Davidson. SHARE's a
Speaker 1: quote that I've seen featured in numerous sources talking about
Speaker 1: cats in Japan. This is from a character has come
Speaker 1: up on the show before. I believe, a German doctor
Speaker 1: visiting Japan during the period, doctor Ingelbert Kompher.
Speaker 2: That name brings a bell.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I don't remember the context what we were talking about,
Speaker 1: but I'm pretty sure he's come up before. But he
Speaker 1: wrote there is only one breed of cat that is
Speaker 1: kept in Japan. It's discussing here. It has large patches
Speaker 1: of yellow, black and white fur. Its short tail looks
Speaker 1: as if it has been bent and broken. It has
Speaker 1: no mind to hunt for rats and mice, but just
Speaker 1: wants to be carried and stroked by women, which I
Speaker 1: think this could basically be applied to many cats in
Speaker 1: our lives. This sounds a lot like my cat Mochi yellow,
Speaker 1: black and white. Yeah. Yeah, And Calico just wants to
Speaker 1: hang out generally with my wife and will occasionally hang
Speaker 1: out with me if it's cold enough in the house,
Speaker 1: and it doesn't particularly want to chase anything around except me.
Speaker 1: Sometimes sometimes she will attack my feet.
Speaker 2: By the way, I just had to look it up
Speaker 2: to see when Engelbert Campfer came up before. This was
Speaker 2: another connection from the Vegetable Lamb of Tartary episode. He
Speaker 2: had a theory apparently. I don't remember whether it was
Speaker 2: more on track or more off track. I think it
Speaker 2: was one of the off track ones.
Speaker 1: Okay, now another interesting historical cat tib that comes up
Speaker 1: in this book from Japan. In eighteen forty two, Emperor
Speaker 1: Tatakuni instituted the Tenpo Reform, which sort of reined in
Speaker 1: what could be presented in the arts, especially as a
Speaker 1: concerned kobuki and geisha imagery. However, nowhere in the law
Speaker 1: did it say you couldn't depict cats doing all of
Speaker 1: these things. So artists of the day began to illustrate
Speaker 1: drunken and cavorting cats like basically, you know, kabuki style
Speaker 1: cat soap opera, which I love because this kind of
Speaker 1: reminds me of the whole like nobody says a donkey
Speaker 1: can't play football sort of thing, and also brings to
Speaker 1: mind dogs playing poker.
Speaker 2: Yeah, airbud rules apply. I love that.
Speaker 1: Now. Friedman in his book writes the stories of cats
Speaker 1: date back to at least as far as the Hayan
Speaker 1: period seven ninety four through eleven eighty five see concerning
Speaker 1: the cats kept by the Emperor By the fourteenth century.
Speaker 1: Magical cats pop up in numerous works of art, in literature,
Speaker 1: and of course they become central parts of Japanese folklore
Speaker 1: in legend as well. In this episode, yeah, we're going
Speaker 1: to provide an overview of these range cats, these kaibio,
Speaker 1: the strange cats, supernatural cats. They have a number of
Speaker 1: things in common, but they all have distinctive flavors, and
Speaker 1: some of them are more threatening than others. Now, as
Speaker 1: Figment points out, one of the main attributes you find
Speaker 1: in various tales of strange magical cats in Japan is
Speaker 1: that is the idea that, as with tales of magical foxes,
Speaker 1: kaibyo are individual cats who have lived long enough to
Speaker 1: acquire magical abilities and also, like fox spirits, grow multiple tales.
Speaker 2: Yes, that's an interesting comparison to the way the altered
Speaker 2: foxes are treated in stories. Those commonalities. I was trying
Speaker 2: to think, what is the difference between like a monstrous
Speaker 2: altered fox and a monstrous altered cat. And in my view,
Speaker 2: you know, the fox seems like it has the potential
Speaker 2: to be more of a chaotic alignment, and so in
Speaker 2: its bad form, it's kind of chaotic evil, whereas the
Speaker 2: cat in its monstrous form. I don't know, cats can
Speaker 2: be chaotic, and I know in some of these stories
Speaker 2: they are, but it seems like more of a cold,
Speaker 2: calculating evil to me.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that's accurate. But it's also interesting to
Speaker 1: think of this as in a situation where you have
Speaker 1: superstitions concerning an animal that is native to Japan, the
Speaker 1: red fox, and then when you bring in these animals
Speaker 1: from outside, these domestic cats, something gets applied to them
Speaker 1: that was previously applied to native organisms. We do need
Speaker 1: to be clear that there is no such thing as
Speaker 1: a domestic cat with more than one tail. There are, however,
Speaker 1: two types of morphological mutations that affect the tail. There's
Speaker 1: the Manx tailless gene, which can prove lethal, and then
Speaker 1: there's the Japanese bobtail gene, in which the tail is
Speaker 1: shortened and kinked, but otherwise doesn't seem to really impact health,
Speaker 1: or at the very least, it doesn't entail skeletal issues
Speaker 1: and or involve death with certain genotypes. The Japanese bobtail
Speaker 1: gene is of course of no here, because, as the
Speaker 1: name implies, it is native to Japan. It emerged there
Speaker 1: in Japan's feline population, though it has since spread beyond
Speaker 1: the limits of Japan. Now Here is an area though
Speaker 1: that I want to stress that I wasn't able to
Speaker 1: get like one hundred percent clarity on you for my
Speaker 1: own research purposes, and that is the alleged practice of
Speaker 1: bobbing or docking cat tales in Japan. I couldn't find
Speaker 1: many solid contemporary references to this, though Friedman mentions it
Speaker 1: in passing, and there's a lot of dismissal of the
Speaker 1: idea as a myth in general. So, on one hand,
Speaker 1: the Japanese bobtail variant was at one point considered lucky,
Speaker 1: and Friedman indicates that this could have influenced a tail
Speaker 1: docking practice, some practice by which the tales of domestic
Speaker 1: cats are removed, though he also writes with uncertainty about
Speaker 1: exactly how superstition, mutilation and genetic mutation would have been
Speaker 1: intertwined here. You know, because if this was taking place
Speaker 1: to any degree, you know, you asked them. You can
Speaker 1: easily ask the question, well, is it because of superstition?
Speaker 1: Is it because of the genetic mutation that was already there?
Speaker 1: And you know, to and to what extent these things
Speaker 1: are interplaying with each other. Now, tail bobbing of different
Speaker 1: forms does seem to come up in historic foreign writings
Speaker 1: on Japan, including a nineteen oh six letter by Greek
Speaker 1: writer Lefacadio Hearn, who mentions kittens having their tails cut
Speaker 1: off so that they don't grow up to become a
Speaker 1: monster cat of one sort or the other. Of course,
Speaker 1: the obvious situation with this is you're dealing with with
Speaker 1: outsiders who are then you know, you're dealing with possible
Speaker 1: translation errors. You're dealing with them having to, you know,
Speaker 1: perhaps make sense of local lore concerning a genetic mutation
Speaker 1: that's not completely understood and so forth.
Speaker 2: Or just making assumptions about things they've observed without understanding
Speaker 2: key elements. Like you could imagine a scenario where somebody
Speaker 2: observes a place where there is a genetic mutation that
Speaker 2: creates bobtailcats, and they assume people cut off the tales.
Speaker 1: Yeah, because, as we've we're very mentioned, apparently the bobtailed
Speaker 1: effect does kind of look like you can easily look
Speaker 1: at it and think, oh, well, something bad happened to
Speaker 1: that animal's tale, et cetera. Now, a legend that I've
Speaker 1: seen mentioned in multiple texts is that the original bobtail
Speaker 1: cat lost its tail when it caught fire, causing it
Speaker 1: to run about and catch a whole town on fire,
Speaker 1: resulting in an imperial decree cats should not have tales
Speaker 1: because they are fire hazards. This is obviously not true,
Speaker 1: but it does illustrate there's a lot of room for
Speaker 1: just so stories here. You know, some sort of story
Speaker 1: that is obviously fictional and legendary, but it is is
Speaker 1: providing some sort of an origin story for something in
Speaker 1: nature that is not completely understood. Yeah. So, yeah, there's
Speaker 1: plenty of room for translationaire foreign misinterpretation, and more. I mean,
Speaker 1: of course, on the other hand, we have to acknowledge
Speaker 1: that cosmetic utilation of dogs and cats is nothing new
Speaker 1: and can be found in various cultures. With cats, there's
Speaker 1: the example of decline, which had been widespread in the
Speaker 1: US and Canada in prior decades and generally entails more
Speaker 1: than the removal of the clock self, but like the
Speaker 1: end of the digit on each claw finger. And then
Speaker 1: tail docking and ear cropping was widespread and has now
Speaker 1: banded many countries with dogs. I mentioned all of this
Speaker 1: just for added context and the consideration of potential historic
Speaker 1: tail docking. But again, there seems plenty of evidence to
Speaker 1: consider a mutation the primary cause here.
Speaker 2: Okay, so question marks about the extent to which tail
Speaker 2: docking was a real historical practice. But one thing we
Speaker 2: know for sure is that there are lots of stories
Speaker 2: of monster cats with weird tales.
Speaker 1: That's right, yes, And so the first one we're going
Speaker 1: to talk about here is the nikomata. These are cats
Speaker 1: that are said to have lived for a hundred years.
Speaker 1: And what happens when you live to be one hundred
Speaker 1: years and you're a cat according to these traditions and superstitions,
Speaker 1: Well you get a second tale. The first tale splits
Speaker 1: in half, and now there are two tails, and other
Speaker 1: changes occur as well. Suddenly this cat has a craving
Speaker 1: for human flesh. They grow to to be the size
Speaker 1: of a large dog or a wolf. They may walk
Speaker 1: on two legs, and thus at this point they are
Speaker 1: no longer a domestic cat, a cat of the natural world.
Speaker 1: They have become a feline yokai. According to Davidson, the
Speaker 1: fourteenth century work Essays and Idleness tells the story of
Speaker 1: a man who thinks himself pursued through the night by
Speaker 1: a nikomata, but it turns out to be his own dog.
Speaker 1: The creature was written about during the Edo period, this
Speaker 1: is the golden age of yokai lore, but Davison stresses
Speaker 1: that the roots of the Nikomata go back centuries earlier. So,
Speaker 1: according to Davison, some versions of the Nikomata may date
Speaker 1: back to Chinese traditions in the short lived Sai dynasty
Speaker 1: five eighty one through six eighteen CE, and then written
Speaker 1: about in Japan at least by the Kamakura period that's
Speaker 1: eleven eighty five through thirteen thirty three. But the accounts
Speaker 1: were not really of a supernatural cat yet, but rather
Speaker 1: of a large tiger or lion like predatory animal that
Speaker 1: lived in the mountains. You know. The situation was like,
Speaker 1: don't you know, be careful if you go off into
Speaker 1: the wilderness because that is where the nikomata lives. Attacks
Speaker 1: of this creature were apparently reported as just fact. This
Speaker 1: was not something legendary. It was just something that might
Speaker 1: happen to you if you were unlucky in the wilderness. Oh.
Speaker 2: It reminds me of the dad taking his kid to
Speaker 2: see aliens, saying, no, he needs to see this because
Speaker 2: he needs to know things like this can happen in
Speaker 2: the world.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, Now. Davison writes that there are different speculations
Speaker 1: about what this could all be about. There's at least
Speaker 1: one idea that it could be evidence of a surviving,
Speaker 1: perhaps prehistoric variety of yemen eco or leopard cat, so
Speaker 1: you know, essentially like some sort of at the time
Speaker 1: surviving a large predatory cat. There Also, he also brings
Speaker 1: up the idea that well, tigers were brought in as
Speaker 1: curiosities during this time, perhaps one escaped and was living
Speaker 1: in the forest and had attacked people. I mean, it's
Speaker 1: easily one of those situations where if you just have
Speaker 1: one tiger attack occur like this, it's enough to leave
Speaker 1: an imprint in folklore. And then another idea that's perhaps
Speaker 1: more compelling is that these could be sort of enhanced
Speaker 1: accounts of rabid animal attacks. So rabies could essentially be
Speaker 1: what is it.
Speaker 2: The heart of these stories that would make sense.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So anyway, we have these stories from the wilderness
Speaker 1: of some sort of large nicomata cat, and then during
Speaker 1: the Edo period we see this legend intensified. So Davison
Speaker 1: writes that the cats get larger, they get more fierce
Speaker 1: in the stories, but then they're transformed into into not
Speaker 1: a distinct species, but is a power upgrade to just
Speaker 1: the common domestic cat. Again, it gets old enough, the
Speaker 1: tail splits, and now you have a different creature on
Speaker 1: your hands, and its appetites, its desires, it's cunning are
Speaker 1: something entirely new.
Speaker 2: At that point, this touches on something interesting because I'm
Speaker 2: I got interested in the idea of the nekomada being
Speaker 2: a thing that is created when a cat reaches a
Speaker 2: sufficient age. And so here I want to turn to
Speaker 2: notes from a book that I've referred to on the
Speaker 2: podcast before called The Book of Yokai by an Indiana
Speaker 2: University folklore scholar named Michael Dylan Foster. And there was
Speaker 2: a section of the book that I thought was really
Speaker 2: interesting because it was originally looking at it just because
Speaker 2: it had a glancing mention of yokai stories about cats,
Speaker 2: but actually it got to a broader theme about the
Speaker 2: significance of the number one hundred in Japanese spooky storytelling.
Speaker 2: So the book is talking about a historical tradition known
Speaker 2: as the hayaku monogatari, which is a Japanese tradition of
Speaker 2: gatherings where people would come together to trade stories of
Speaker 2: the weird and uncanny in the hopes of actually inducing
Speaker 2: a supernatural experience through the storytelling.
Speaker 1: Oh that's wise.
Speaker 2: I agree. I think, yeah, that's a great plan. I
Speaker 2: would love to go to one of these.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So it works like this. People would gather by night
Speaker 2: in a room or maybe in like a he says,
Speaker 2: in like a semi public place, a room, a gathering place,
Speaker 2: a temple, maybe in a place lit by candles or lanterns,
Speaker 2: and the people gathered would take turns recounting tales of
Speaker 2: ghosts or yokai. And after each story was finished, I
Speaker 2: think the stories would be fairly short. After each story
Speaker 2: was over, one of the lanterns or candles would be
Speaker 2: snuffed out until you keep getting fewer and fewer lights.
Speaker 2: And then after the final tale ends and the final
Speaker 2: flame is extinguished, that would leave their room completely dark,
Speaker 2: at which point the people in attendance might get to
Speaker 2: see a real yokai in the darkness.
Speaker 1: Ooh, I like it. I mean, and again, this is wise,
Speaker 1: because if you want to prime yourself for having a
Speaker 1: supernatural encounter, there's no better way than to lower the
Speaker 1: lights and start recounting strange tales.
Speaker 2: If you build it, they will come.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So the book quotes a late seventeenth century Buddhist priest
Speaker 2: and author named Assai Rioi, who writes quote it is
Speaker 2: said that when you collect and tell one hundred stories
Speaker 2: of scary or strange things that have been passed down
Speaker 2: since long ago, some scary or strange is certain to occur,
Speaker 2: so tell one hundred stories about it. Make it happen
Speaker 2: for real.
Speaker 1: Oh I like this, and Foster.
Speaker 2: Says this was probably not always understood as a literal
Speaker 2: threshold of exactly one hundred stories, even though that is
Speaker 2: literally what Hayaku monogatari means. But in practice it probably
Speaker 2: just means a lot of stories. And you can tell
Speaker 2: this because some of the Hayaku monogatari collections have fewer
Speaker 2: than one hundred stories in them, so you know, this
Speaker 2: probably doesn't actually need to be literally one hundred. On
Speaker 2: the other hand, he relates this to other Japanese tales
Speaker 2: of the magical and uncanny, in which the number one
Speaker 2: hundred has special properties. For example, a subject that we
Speaker 2: have done an episode about on stuff to blow your
Speaker 2: mind before the sukumogami, which are these inanimate household objects,
Speaker 2: you know, hammers, dinnerwares, brooms, objects from the house that
Speaker 2: transform into magical, animate sentient beings when they turn The
Speaker 2: Age of one hundred.
Speaker 1: I remember this, yeh seeing up with like a parade
Speaker 1: of bewitched old.
Speaker 2: Things exactly, And I remember we talked about one famous
Speaker 2: story where I think they all get converted to a
Speaker 2: specific branch of Buddhism at the end.
Speaker 1: Oh yes, yes.
Speaker 2: But as another example of the transformative power of the
Speaker 2: number one hundred in some Japanese stories, Foster writes that
Speaker 2: it was sometimes said that an ordinary animal that had
Speaker 2: reached the age of one hundred would undergo a magical
Speaker 2: metamorphosis and become a yokai. And these animals could include foxes,
Speaker 2: could include tanuki, and yes, also cats. And so coming
Speaker 2: back to your comment earlier, Rob, that cats that reach
Speaker 2: a sufficient age could transform into some type of altered
Speaker 2: cat or supernatural cat yokai like a nekomata. You apparently
Speaker 2: have to watch out for those ninety nine year old cats.
Speaker 2: They are just biding their time until the birthday and
Speaker 2: then they have the power.
Speaker 1: That's right, that's right up until ninety nine decent, you know,
Speaker 1: probably household cat, but one hundred years old. Watch out now,
Speaker 1: they're a menace. Now.
Speaker 2: I think there are also stories where cats reach a
Speaker 2: certain age and become transformed or dangerous in some way,
Speaker 2: and the number is not exactly one hundred. But I
Speaker 2: do think it's interesting that there is a recurring theme
Speaker 2: about the number one hundred across these different stories. You know,
Speaker 2: for some reason, this is the number after which things
Speaker 2: get weird. Now, I just want to mention what Foster
Speaker 2: says directly about the nekomata as a yokai type. He
Speaker 2: says that many written accounts of nekomata describe them as
Speaker 2: monstrously large cats living in the wilderness, in mountains and forests,
Speaker 2: but sometimes also found in human settlements. But the idea
Speaker 2: of locating the mountain the mountains and forests that kind
Speaker 2: of goes along with what you were saying about, the
Speaker 2: idea that these could go back to stories of like
Speaker 2: a wild animal that is occupying a place and is dangerous.
Speaker 1: That's right. And I should also mention that Davidson a
Speaker 1: belief stresses that the sort of rural version of the
Speaker 1: nkamata as this wild large mountain cat that isn't necessarily
Speaker 1: connected to domestic cats that still remained a folk belief
Speaker 1: out in the wilds or on the borders of the wild.
Speaker 1: But then you get this new version of the nkomata
Speaker 1: that is more urban and based more on the domestic
Speaker 1: house cat.
Speaker 2: This might actually be going back to the same source
Speaker 2: referenced in the book you were talking about, but at
Speaker 2: least Foster talks about an early story of the nakamata
Speaker 2: appearing in the literature from twelve thirty three, and it
Speaker 2: is described in this source as a creature with the
Speaker 2: eyes of a cat but the body of a huge dog.
Speaker 2: And I think that that's a striking combination that kind
Speaker 2: of sets the mind racing, not only because it has
Speaker 2: this classic recipe of monster creation, which is combining different
Speaker 2: attributes of different animals, you know, using sort of the
Speaker 2: the mixing and matching power of the human mind to
Speaker 2: kind of, you know, potato head up different different predator features.
Speaker 2: But I think it's interesting that you're taking the eyes
Speaker 2: of a cat and the body of a dog, so
Speaker 2: the physical power of a big dog, and as scary
Speaker 2: as cats can be sometimes if you're talking about domestic animals,
Speaker 2: it's you know, you can understand why you might be
Speaker 2: more physically intimidated by a big dog than by a
Speaker 2: house cat, but without the dog's sweet and subservient nature,
Speaker 2: you instead bring in the eyes. And of course with
Speaker 2: the eyes, we equate eyes to minds. And so if
Speaker 2: you're putting the mind of a cat in the body
Speaker 2: of a big, powerful dog, it's like the uncontrollable and
Speaker 2: a moral will to power of a cat in the
Speaker 2: body of a dog that could really harm you. Yes, yes,
Speaker 2: And as you mentioned, Robin, these early stories, and in
Speaker 2: this one, the nekomata eats seven or eight people in
Speaker 2: a single night.
Speaker 1: That's too many. You know that that nikomata is just
Speaker 1: going to barf up most of those people, and then
Speaker 1: someone's gonna have to clean it up.
Speaker 2: He's gonna barf up six of those people in your shoes.
Speaker 1: Right, and then it's going to look at me like, hey,
Speaker 1: I'm still hungry. I don't know why I'm hungry. I
Speaker 1: need help.
Speaker 2: And then finally, I just wanted to quote from part
Speaker 2: of a paragraph Foster has here because he's writing about
Speaker 2: a Japanese source that has illustrations of nekomata. So Foster writes, quote,
Speaker 2: Toriyama Sekian illustrates a nekamata in his first catalog. It
Speaker 2: stands on two legs on the outer veranda of a
Speaker 2: house with a small towel on its head. Another cat,
Speaker 2: presumably not a yokai, sits on the ground below it,
Speaker 2: while a third seems to be looking out from inside
Speaker 2: the house. Although Sekian does not explain anything here, the
Speaker 2: nekamata is portrayed as betwixt and between the human and
Speaker 2: natural worlds. It is wild, but wears a towel on
Speaker 2: its head, stands on two legs like a person, and
Speaker 2: is perched literally on the outer edge of a human habitation,
Speaker 2: with one cat outside, possibly feral, behind it, and another inside,
Speaker 2: possibly domestic, in front of it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a good point. I mean again, like all
Speaker 1: of these these examples are looking at you know, they're
Speaker 1: touching on the superstition and the you know, the mythic
Speaker 1: and folkloric world, but they're also commenting on like a
Speaker 1: lot of time spent with cats trying to figure them out,
Speaker 1: you know, how they're they're domesticated, but they're still wild,
Speaker 1: like they are suspended between worlds.
Speaker 2: I think that's exactly right. I don't know the mind
Speaker 2: of the illustrator here, but this seems like it could
Speaker 2: be providing some rather nuanced analysis. But with this kind
Speaker 2: of drawing, like commenting on the nature of the cat
Speaker 2: as a pet or as a domestic animal, that it's
Speaker 2: only partly part of our world. And also, I like
Speaker 2: the implied threat of the nearness of the known, normal,
Speaker 2: mundane cats to this monstrous cat that you know what
Speaker 2: I mean, like kind of like placing them beside one
Speaker 2: another is almost like, you know, watch out for the
Speaker 2: nature of the cat.
Speaker 1: You think, you know, yeah, because the just normal housecat
Speaker 1: knows that they are a nikamata out there and just
Speaker 1: doesn't care. It's like, yeah, this is just how it
Speaker 1: is now, I do. Really, I'm glad you brought up
Speaker 1: the towel on the head because that is important when
Speaker 1: considering the next example we're going to talk about here,
Speaker 1: and that is the back and echo the shape shifting cat.
Speaker 1: So in this case you get even more advanced age
Speaker 1: numerous tales, and it grants them the ability to change
Speaker 1: their form and interfere directly in human affairs. So not
Speaker 1: just scratches, you know, not just messing up furniture, attacking
Speaker 1: feet and so forth, not just merely eating people after
Speaker 1: you turn into a giant cat, a giant monster cat,
Speaker 1: but actually taking on a human form and directly interfering
Speaker 1: in the human world, sometimes helping humans, sometimes hunting them
Speaker 1: for sport. Again, they're just like the domestic cat in spirit.
Speaker 1: They're completely immoral. They may be helpful, they may be sweet.
Speaker 1: It depends on what they want now Davison and discussing
Speaker 1: the becan Nico writes that they were said to, in
Speaker 1: their cat form, dance on their hind legs and wear
Speaker 1: towels on their heads. This account, he says, apparently spawned
Speaker 1: from a story about a soy sauce merchant who kept
Speaker 1: finding his towels in disarray and then hid one night
Speaker 1: to see what was happening. What's happening to my towels
Speaker 1: at night, and what was happening while cats were coming
Speaker 1: in wearing the towels on their head and dancing around
Speaker 1: on their hind legs, you know, And he was horrified.
Speaker 1: I don't remember, perhaps eaten at the end. But apparently
Speaker 1: this is a magical trope in Japanese folklore, an animal
Speaker 1: puts something on its head, like with the tanuki. The
Speaker 1: tanuki will put leaves on its head and this helps
Speaker 1: activate magical powers. He also adds here that some traditions
Speaker 1: describe bacanniko's as humans who can turn into cats and toms.
Speaker 1: Sometimes the story is that if a cat drinks the
Speaker 1: blood of a murder victim, they will transform into a
Speaker 1: bacca niko, taking the shape of the victim in order
Speaker 1: to seek vengeance.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, this appears to be a major plot point
Speaker 2: in a movie I was looking at because Foster mentions
Speaker 2: it in his right up on the Bakan Echo. But
Speaker 2: there is a movie from nineteen sixty nine directed by
Speaker 2: Tanaka Tokuzo called The Haunted Castle, and it has exactly
Speaker 2: this plot. I think there is an evil landlord and
Speaker 2: woman who is wronged by this evil landlord and she
Speaker 2: ends up I believe, killing herself or somehow and letting
Speaker 2: a cat drink her bloo blood, and this transforms the
Speaker 2: cat into a into a creature, a monster of vengeance
Speaker 2: that goes and attacks the man who is oppressing her.
Speaker 1: Nice nice. I was looking. I noticed there's a nineteen
Speaker 1: sixty eight film called Becky Nko a Vengeful Spirit, which
Speaker 1: looks like it maybe has a similar plot and will come.
Speaker 1: You know, there's there's an interesting area where we're already
Speaker 1: touching on here, this connection between living domestic cats and
Speaker 1: deceased human beings. Essentially, we're getting into the realm of
Speaker 1: post mortem predation, in which an animal in this case
Speaker 1: a cat, a pet animal will drink the blood or
Speaker 1: consume some of the flesh of someone who has died.
Speaker 1: If someone in the house has died, even a you know,
Speaker 1: an owner who loved that animal in life. Well, still
Speaker 1: your pet is an animal, and they may have a
Speaker 1: little to eat. It's just how it goes. It's a
Speaker 1: known fact, a known reality of having pets. But it
Speaker 1: also up leading to various supernatural interpretations, this connection between
Speaker 1: in this case the cat and the dead. So again,
Speaker 1: more on that later, but in terms of just sort
Speaker 1: of like a general possible origin story for this idea
Speaker 1: of cats taking on human form, Davidson shares shares this idea. Okay,
Speaker 1: you have oil lamps at the time that are being
Speaker 1: used to illuminate homes in the dark. Fish oil is
Speaker 1: used in these lamps. Cats want some of that fish oil,
Speaker 1: and so they will stand on their hind legs and
Speaker 1: try to access the fish oil in the lamps, which
Speaker 1: in turn casts strange shadows on the wall. And this
Speaker 1: you can combine, this can combine this with other sort
Speaker 1: of uncanny aspects of the cat. You know, their vocalizations
Speaker 1: that certainly can sometimes sound almost human, almost like a
Speaker 1: baby or something, or like they're trying to intone something,
Speaker 1: as well as just all the other you know, very
Speaker 1: suspect things that cats are doing on just a regular
Speaker 1: daily basis. I mean, just generally speaking, I will say
Speaker 1: that you know, when you see, just anecdotally, when you
Speaker 1: see a cat standing on its hind legs, yeah, which
Speaker 1: they can do. They can't rear up if they want to,
Speaker 1: if they need to see over something, et cetera. It
Speaker 1: is a little weird because suddenly they're bipedal. Suddenly they are.
Speaker 1: It's like they're taking on a different form. And cats
Speaker 1: can move their bodies in so many different ways that yeah,
Speaker 1: they like we've discussed in the show before, they can
Speaker 1: almost seem fluid. They can it can feel like they
Speaker 1: are changing their shape in a way that is not
Speaker 1: tethered to some skeletal or muscular form, or at least
Speaker 1: not one like we're used to considering with a human
Speaker 1: being or even like a dog.
Speaker 2: Now, regarding bipedal imagery of monster cats from Japan, I
Speaker 2: hate to bring the Internet into this, but I found
Speaker 2: what struck me as a substantial meme incursion onto my
Speaker 2: processing of antique Japanese. All right, there's a picture that
Speaker 2: is up on the wiki for this creature. For the
Speaker 2: Buckan echo comes from an eighteenth century imachi or picture
Speaker 2: scroll by the Japanese painter and poet Yosa Busan. This
Speaker 2: painting is called the Bacan Echo of the Sasakibara family,
Speaker 2: and it depicts a monster cat in a bizarre bipedal
Speaker 2: posture with four legs spread out kind of like shrugging
Speaker 2: arms like what do you want from me? Of course,
Speaker 2: a towel on the cat's head, sort of a napkin
Speaker 2: hanging off the back of the cat's head behind the ears,
Speaker 2: and a facial expression that is equal parts menace and
Speaker 2: goof sole. And as soon as I saw it, I thought,
Speaker 2: oh my god, it's the cat from the woman yelling
Speaker 2: at cat meme, just a chaotic, confused goblin spirit in
Speaker 2: the most fundamentally feline way possible.
Speaker 1: No, this is solid, yes, And in fact, after you
Speaker 1: mentioned this, I was like, I wonder, I wonder if
Speaker 1: anyone has transformed this, given the popularity of that meme,
Speaker 1: And sure enough I found somebody on Etsy who has
Speaker 1: created like a like a traditional looking Japanese two panel image,
Speaker 1: all of the encounter where you have where you have
Speaker 1: the there's the there're the two women, one is yelling,
Speaker 1: and then there is the cat seated at a table
Speaker 1: behind this plate with some vegetables on it. And you know,
Speaker 1: I think it is almost impossible to consider many of
Speaker 1: these classic Japanese cat illustrations without comparing them to cat memes,
Speaker 1: in large part because the images are so good at
Speaker 1: capturing the essence of the cat. Yeah, I mean that
Speaker 1: the memes do. I mean, one of the reasons that
Speaker 1: meme has has has resonated so strongly is that, yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean that the cat part of it feels very
Speaker 1: on brand. And you see this in some of the
Speaker 1: older illustrations of cats in Japan as well. There's a
Speaker 1: great nineteenth century illustration of cats in various positions by
Speaker 1: Utagawa Kunayoshi, and this one is worth looking up because
Speaker 1: it features I found, mostly naturalistic depictions of cats, and
Speaker 1: they're like, you know, at least a few dozen of these,
Speaker 1: but then there are also some unnatural or even supernatural
Speaker 1: ones as well, Like if you look around closely at
Speaker 1: this Joe included it for you. You'll see one one cat
Speaker 1: with a towel on its head with kind of like
Speaker 1: zombie arms up. There are some other cats that are
Speaker 1: doing things of that nature. And then also cats just
Speaker 1: doing normal cat things.
Speaker 2: Yep, just like snoozing in a basket, sleeping, chewing on
Speaker 2: a dead squid. Is that what I'm looking at?
Speaker 1: Yeah, dragging a big dead squid. That one, Like, the
Speaker 1: squid is so big there, it makes me me wonder.
Speaker 1: But yeah, and then other you just see cats interacting
Speaker 1: with each other. And of course cats as a loaf
Speaker 1: with their their legs tucked in underneath them, curled up
Speaker 1: in a circle, you know, all the various forms of
Speaker 1: the cat that we're accustomed to. You know, we're novel then,
Speaker 1: just as their novel. Now, all right, I have one
Speaker 1: more area concerning the back of EKO. I want to
Speaker 1: touch on here though, just in the event that you're
Speaker 1: listening with small children, maybe maybe skip this part and
Speaker 1: come back later, just just because it is maybe a
Speaker 1: little more mature in themes compared to what we've discussed
Speaker 1: so far. So fair warning. Okay, now that you've had
Speaker 1: a chance to leave, I want to just add a
Speaker 1: word here about back and Niko prostitutes. So during the
Speaker 1: this is this is covered in Davison. During the Edo period,
Speaker 1: kiboshi or yellow books spring up as a kind of
Speaker 1: he describes as kind of like a penny dreadful literary
Speaker 1: genre of the day. You know, this is literature that
Speaker 1: is just appealing to to very base interests. And they
Speaker 1: included these guide books to the pleasure districts. In these
Speaker 1: guide books included mentions of actual places, actual people, but
Speaker 1: also in human entities one might encounter, namely back in
Speaker 1: eco prostitutes. They would otherwise just look like a normal
Speaker 1: human prostitute, but their shadow would eventually give them away
Speaker 1: as a shape shifting cat. Coming back to perhaps to
Speaker 1: that idea of the strange cat reaching up towards the lamplight.
Speaker 1: Now a major inspiration for this idea, he writes, was
Speaker 1: an Edo period tale of such a being working in
Speaker 1: a particular district, and it's soon caught on in written.
Speaker 1: In visual storytelling, and eventually you have various embellishments that
Speaker 1: are made either for telling a good story or for
Speaker 1: creating a compelling image. One of these is that there
Speaker 1: may be discarded fish around the bedroom, or even a
Speaker 1: discarded human arm because again, it is not a human being.
Speaker 1: It is a cat monster that is consuming human victims. Now,
Speaker 1: initially this is just a tale of horror, you know,
Speaker 1: kind of a watch out for the monsters in disguise
Speaker 1: out there in the shadowy world at night. But Davison
Speaker 1: rise that it eventually becomes this kind of fun visual fad.
Speaker 1: There's an eighteenth century illustration that he shares in the
Speaker 1: book of a samurai walking hand in hand with one
Speaker 1: of these back in Niko. But it has a cat's head.
Speaker 1: It just looks like it's like a full furry in
Speaker 1: this illustration, and they're just kind of like, okay, we're
Speaker 1: out in the open with this. Now I have a
Speaker 1: relationship with a catwoman, and it's a okay. He also
Speaker 1: writes that this idea was even eventually embraced by women
Speaker 1: working in the pleasure district, so accentuating their names or
Speaker 1: and or keeping a cat in order to play up
Speaker 1: the idea that they might be something other than human.
Speaker 2: Oh so like playing with these cat themes for fun,
Speaker 2: or that there was some kind of power in it.
Speaker 1: Man, I'm guessing both, you know. It sounds like it
Speaker 1: could be both. On one hand, Yeah, like superstition becoming
Speaker 1: fetish after a while. But also yeah, there is this
Speaker 1: idea of the the Bakan echo woman. Is this vengeful thing,
Speaker 1: this thing that will you know, to destroy these these men,
Speaker 1: and so you could see it being embraced on that
Speaker 1: level as well. Now Davison doesn't go into that so much,
Speaker 1: but mentions that some commentators have tried to establish a
Speaker 1: connection here between the folk tale and a general prohibition
Speaker 1: at the time against courtisans eating in the print in
Speaker 1: the presence of men eating in the presence of their clients,
Speaker 1: in this case forcing them to sneak snacks in a
Speaker 1: hunched over cat like posture. I'm I don't know, maybe
Speaker 1: this is true. I don't know. I have a hard
Speaker 1: time sort of buying into this in my own mind.
Speaker 1: But but he mentions it, so I think a number
Speaker 1: of commentators have made this connection, and then a broader connection,
Speaker 1: he says, you can looking in the other direction, moving
Speaker 1: forward towards modern times, there's like a general catgirl trope
Speaker 1: in Japanese pop culture of today that is, you know,
Speaker 1: not directly related to these examples, but like you just
Speaker 1: see like this idea of the cat human hybrid the
Speaker 1: female cat person as being this this motif that is
Speaker 1: echoed throughout throughout the decades and throughout different forms of media,
Speaker 1: and for that matter, one that we find throughout the
Speaker 1: world as well. I mean, like, as far as I know,
Speaker 1: Catwoman from the Batman franchise is not directly connected to
Speaker 1: any motifs from say, Japanese culture. There is perhaps just
Speaker 1: some connection to be made between I don't know, stereotypical
Speaker 1: images of the feminine form and the cat I don't
Speaker 1: know there. I'm sure there's someone has written extensively on
Speaker 1: this from a larger global perspective.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, well in a Western context. I mean, I
Speaker 2: think the classic nineteen forty two American horror movie Cat People,
Speaker 2: which has a it has a catwoman in it and
Speaker 2: is used to great spooky effect.
Speaker 1: I didn't see that one. I think. I think when
Speaker 1: the movie man came around, the movie man said, hey,
Speaker 1: would you like to see cat People or would you
Speaker 1: like to see Sleepwalkers from nineteen ninety two from the
Speaker 1: mind of Stephen King, And I said, oh, I like
Speaker 1: Stephen King, Let's watch Sleepwalkers, which has cats in it.
Speaker 1: I don't remember if the monster people are also cat people.
Speaker 2: In that they're sort of cat people. It is a
Speaker 2: movie about I think, sort of incestuous mother son monster
Speaker 2: couple who can sort of morph into cats and have
Speaker 2: cat powers and can I think, turn invisible and have
Speaker 2: super strength. And they go around, I don't know, like
Speaker 2: drinking young women's souls or something, and the only way
Speaker 2: they can be defeated is by house cats. Like cats
Speaker 2: chase them around and if they get if the cats
Speaker 2: get to them, the cats can defeat them, but nothing
Speaker 2: else can.
Speaker 1: Yep. That's about how I remember it. Yeah, I haven't
Speaker 1: seen it in forever though it has a great cast,
Speaker 1: solid director too.
Speaker 2: Somebody in it gets murdered with a corn cob. I
Speaker 2: think maybe Ron Pearlman gets stabbed with a corn cob.
Speaker 1: Oh man, I do not remember that part.
Speaker 2: Maybe it's a different guy who gets corn cobbed. I
Speaker 2: don't know.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I just did a search for Ron Pearlman corn
Speaker 1: cob death scene and nothing came up. So maybe it
Speaker 1: just hasn't been embraced online.
Speaker 2: And I know somebody gets killed with the corn cob.
Speaker 2: I'm not making that up. Listeners who have seen Sleepwalkers
Speaker 2: recently right in improved me Right.
Speaker 1: All right? And as we close out this episode, it's
Speaker 1: in general right in. If you have insight and additions
Speaker 1: on anything we've discussed here, we would love to hear from.
Speaker 2: You, but we will be back with more in part two.
Speaker 1: That's right now. Before we close out here, I do
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Speaker 1: where were these photos taken? Well, Joe and I visited
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Speaker 1: whole host of visual illusions, including illusion rooms you can
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Speaker 1: went into where depending on where you stood, we could
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Speaker 2: Oh yeah, it's a great place to play. I'm the
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Speaker 2: to corner. And yeah, this place is a lot of fun.
Speaker 2: They've got They've got a ton of great illusions to showcase.
Speaker 2: I'm really excited about taking the baby.
Speaker 1: That's right. Fun for all ages. And you can learn
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